Big and Little Irritations

My wife the Beautiful AP hates when I get on a soap box and start preaching but sometimes you’ve got to let some of your irritations go, even if they are only little ones. These are mostly little with a few big ones. I’m not going to pontificate on them (too much); I’m just going to state them. I am not, however, going to let my wife read this even though she is my first and most trusted editor because if she disagrees with something I write then I erase the damn thing because she is almost always right, damnit. (A major problem I have is a smart and beautiful wife. It can be so annoying.)

1. First the Yankees. Mr. Cashman, save your money and go all out to get Mike Trout in two years. Then the Yankees go down with three of the four best centerfielders of all time: Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Mike Trout. Of course, New York Giants’ Willie Mays cannot be left off that list so I’ll pretend he was a Yankee. When Joe DiMaggio had his 56 game hitting streak he struck out about 13 times that season! (Derek Jeter averaged over 100 and Judge will be over 200 this year!) DiMaggio had to hit balls to left center in Yankee stadium which was (hold your breath) 460 feet away! Imagine the number of homers he would have hit today with fields that are all far shorter than they used to be?
2. Empire Casino: I hate the commercials for the Empire Casino because they are out-and-out subterfuges accompanied by upbeat music. One is an idiot doing idiot things and winning and the commercial makes it look as if this is why he wins. A person could blow his nose and then win at a game; the two things are not related. The other commercial has five people simultaneously winning the biggest jackpots on their machines – each sitting next to each other. Never saw even two people win the monster jackpots sitting next to each other at the same time. I’ve written an entire article on this stuff for the 888 website for the fall season.
3. Anti-semitism? Are you kidding? College campuses are rife with it. There is no dialogue about Israel or Jews. A pro-Israel student has to wear armor to open his or her mouth.
4. No holocaust? On my block in Brooklyn my father’s friend Kaplan the Butcher had this crummy tattoo in his arm. Why would he put that crap on his arm? Navy guys had better tattoos. And then a group of women and men opened a supermarket three doors down from my father’s store. They all had those shitty tattoos. I asked my father about them and he said I had to be older to understand. I was a kid then; I’m older now and now I know what really happened to these people.
5. Cable News: I have basically stopped watching news shows. I used to watch three of them; MSNBC, CNN and FOX (never network shows). I’ve jettisoned them from my life. I am now so cynical I can’t listen to any politician, no matter what persuasion, without realizing they are all (I do hope it is not all) crooks and phonies. I used to like New York State assemblyman Dean Skelos, he seemed very committed to the community – he’s on his way to prison! I now watch the major league baseball channel.
6. DC Movies: People who say the movies about DC characters are all bad are not right. Some DC movies are excellent. Marvel is top dog with just about all of its movies but do not discount DC. I’ll have some articles on this in the future. (By the way, I wrote for Marvel when I was a college kid. Marvel was not the billion-dollar enterprise it is today. Maybe I gave that job up too soon?)
7. New Cars: There is no such thing as a real price for a new car; just check out the commercials. Every month there is a new “sale” or “event” that saves everybody loads of cash. Are they kidding? Do these companies ever have a month that is billed as “no sale” or “no event”? The car companies have developed a message that is a subterfuge just as have some of the casino companies. (The Tru Network has a show titled Adam Ruins Everything that really looks into this car stuff.)
8. Eating Well: I love eating at gourmet restaurants and at almost-gourmet restaurants, perhaps that’s why I am somewhat overweight (about 100 pounds) but I have avoided fast food and franchises. But my lovely wife the Beautiful AP and I were in a suburb in Austin, Texas a couple of months ago (she was in a violin sharing) and we didn’t feel like making the trek into Austin proper so we ate at – oh, my God! – Olive Garden and you know what? It was quite good. Not gourmet but the food was decent and the wait service was excellent. I wouldn’t hesitate to eat there again. Although I am not planning on going to Austin anytime soon.
9. UFOs: I do not like UFOs, especially if they are alien space crafts, because – let’s face it folks – their technology is not much better than what we have. I also think if they are so advanced why do they have to shove stuff up the butts of the people they kidnap? And why can’t they just clone themselves or do some other fancy genetic something to save their race if they are dying out as abduction advocates advocate? Arthur C. Clarke said that advanced alien technology would seem like magic to us – well, there’s no magic in the UFOs, that’s for sure.
10. Ghosts: They annoy the hell (or heaven) out of me too. These “spirits” go up and down hallways, time after time, and they do this, that or the other thing time after time. They are all idiots! There is no intelligence exhibited by any of them. What is Einstein’s ghost doing right now, cutting the hairs in his nose? And Stephen Hawking’s ghost? Is he just racing his wheelchair up and down a hall and jabbering idiotically? Leads me to conclude the shows – done in “night vision” for some idiotic reason – are just as idiotic as the ghosts that they pretend exist.

Thank you!

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