Rant #2,455: New Year's Day

This coming Sunday, at sundown, begins the holiest period on the Jewish calendar, and the New Year begins with Rosh Hashanah.

It is the holiest time, time for reflection, time for looking back and pretty much rating how you did during the past year and then allowing God to really look at your year's work, and decide whether you can. or even should, carry on for another year.

Rosh Hashanah leads into Yom Kippur, a little more than a week away, which is absolutely the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, where one fasts to show God that he or she is worthy and up to the challenge that He puts before him or her.

That is pretty much simplifying everything, but it is a roughly 10-day period of solemnity, of getting in touch with your soul, and really looking into yourself and trying to make yourself better for the coming year.

Here is what I wrote about Rosh Hashanah in Rant #1,035 (September 4, 2013), in edited form:

"Sunday night, at sundown, begins the holiest period for Jews around the world.

It is the beginning of the Jewish New Year, and unlike other New Year celebrations, this is a very solemn one.

Jews take basically about a week and a half, bookended by two major holidays, to review themselves and where they are, and atone for any sins they may have committed during the year.

This holy period also includes Yom Kippur.

As I reflect on the past year, I have not been perfect.

There are many things I would like to change, and now is my time to reflect on them, and do something about them so they do not happen again.

Most Jews go to synagogue to pray during this holy period, but others do it away from a house of worship, which is all fine and good.

I remember going with my father to our temple, and spending long and hard days there praying for forgiveness.

I do not go anymore--since my son was bar mitzvahed, we do not belong to a temple anymore, and that is a story in itself which I am not going to go into here--but it is still a day of reflection.

On Sunday, we will have the traditional meal, and most of my immediate family will be there, including my sister and her boys and my parents.

Then we go right into it on Monday.

Rosh Hashanah is actually two days, but I will take off from work on Monday and go back on Tuesday.

This all leads up to the most holy day on the calendar, Yom Kippur, where you demonstrate your belief in God by fasting and praying for forgiveness.

To my Jewish friends, I hope you have a nice New Year and that the holiday goes well.

L'Shanah Tovah!"

This pretty much still holds true today.

Nobody is perfect, and I certainly wasn't during the year, and I am already trying to improve myself, a few weeks into my self-imposed diet.

There are other things I hope to do to make my life a better one, and that of my family, and we will see if things do get better in the coming months.

We, as a family, have a lot to be thankful for during the past year, and we hope that God sees just how thankful we really are. 

So there you have it. 

I wish L'Shanah Tovah to all my Jewish friends, and to those who aren't Jewish, I wish good health and a lot of happiness over the next year.

I will next be back at the helm of the Blog on Tuesday. Have a great weekend and I will speak to you again then.

Classic Rant #1,102 (December 12, 2013): Everybody Is a Star

And yes, that is so true, isn't it, in this day and age of Facebook and Twitter and all the social media we have around today.

And today, I am a star, well, sort of.

I am the star of a very short form video that is on the Newsday newspaper website, which was taken during the Reunion my old community, Rochdale Village, had on October 5 of this year.

The Reunion had gone on for a few hours by the time that this video was taken. I was bushed, and I look very, very tired.

It was actually taken twice, because the sound level was not good on the first one that was shot.

The photographer took me into a corner of the room we were in, and he basically asked me questions about why we had the Reunion and why Rochdale was so important, even nearly 50 years after we moved into the place.

What he shot was longer than what made it to the video that was posted, but basically I said that Rochdale was a different type of community, a community where integration was embraced, something that was revolutionary for its time.

Funny thing, as I talked about this concept, they showed people who attended the Reunion dancing, talking to each other, and socializing at the Reunion.

Not one person that they showed was one of color.

Believe me, they were there. We reached out to everybody who grew up in the development during its early years, 1964 to the mid 1970s, and we did get a diverse mix of people, and yes, we did get people of color there.

How none showed up in the video is beyond me, but anyway, my message was clear.

Rochdale was a great experiment, but all good things have to come to an end.

And Rochdale did, for me in 1971 when my family moved to the suburbs.

For others, it ended at different times, but essentially, it ended for just about all of us as we entered the 1970s.

It wasn't the same neighborhood we moved into by then, and just about all of us moved onto what we thought was something better.

To those who don't know what this neighborhood was, just think of it as an urban Mayberry, where seemingly everybody knew everybody.

We lived in nice apartments, and when you live basically on top of each other like we did, you learn a lot about socialization.

I made many friends there, but as the years went on, the friendships waned and we all moved on.

The Reunion celebrated the 50th anniversary of our old neighborhood, and also celebrated the fact that Rochdale lives within all of us, even to this day.

I wish I could post the video here, but it is one of those that you can't "lift" of the site.

Here is the address: http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/rochdale-village-celebrates-50th-anniversary-1.6586092?p=608637

And by the way, the title of this entry is appropriate, because it was the title of a song by Sly and the Family Stone.

Sly's girlfriend at the time--I cannot remember her name--lived in Rochdale.

Yes, the same community I lived in.

It was an incredible place to grow up, and when Newsday actually prints the story about our old neighborhood and the Reunion we had, I will let you know about.

Even if you did not live there, it is a story about urban living that definitely needs to be told.

Rant #2,454: Don't Breathe a Word

Today is Thursday, September 26. which holds no significance to me, personally, other than it is exactly three months before my sister turns 60 years of age.

She is taking the whole thing pretty low key, but the fact of the matter is that she is not one to like birthdays, to begin with, and the big 6-0 is an occasion that is not to her liking.

I am so different with my sister in many things, and one of them is the celebration of birthdays. I just love to celebrate my birthday, because to me, it is a fun day, a day to honor, a day that signifies that you have made it through another year.

For my sister's birthday, we are certainly going to go out with her, her husband, maybe one or two of her kids, and our parents. It will be a restaurant of her choosing, and that is how we are going to celebrate the big day on December 26, which is also Boxing Day and the day that begins the observance of Kwaanza.

But you see, as my sister's big brother, I hae other plans for the day, which I have spoken about at not too great length at this blog. I plan on making the day a memorable one beyond what it already is, and to me, the theme of the day is "You Past Is Your Present," and quite frankly, that is the only thing my sister knows about how we are going to celebrate after we go out to eat.

My sister is not a computer person at all, and she does not go onto Facebook, so if I wanted to, I could freely discuss the things I have assembled to make her day so memorable, but I won't do that just yet.

But what I will talk about here is the music I have assembled to put the day into full swing.

Music is a major part of the celebration, because it has to be. So many of my memories, one way or the other, revolves around music, so it has to be a major part of the celebration.

My sister and I shared our bedroom from the time she came home from the hospital after her birth in late December 1959 to July 28, 1971, or thereabouts, when we moved to Long Island and for the first time, had our own bedrooms. We lived in two places during the period we shared a room, in Kew Gardens Hills and Rochdale Village, Queens.

It is one thing to share a bedroom when you are the same gender, but when you share your bedroom with someone of the opposite sex, there is a wholly different dynamic there. And to share it at such an interesting time in our history--from the very late 1950s through the entirety of the 1960s to the early 1970s--made it even more special.

Our room, split in half. must have resembled our own East and West Germany when one walked into the room, with my stuff hitting you as you walked into the room and her stuff on the other side, with our wall--a wall of blinds right in the middle of the room--seemingly nailed shut, never to be opened, serving as a dividing structure.

But often times, we did use the room together.

Sometimes we played games together--mostly her girl-oriented games like "Mystery Date"--and sometimes we played with her Barbie Dolls, and sometimes we read her teen magazines together.

I did it because that is what a big brother is supposed to do, and believe me, at times I couldn't tolerate it, but I did it just because.

Anyway, one of the most fun things we used to do is to listen to the family's Hi Fi--not a stereo--together. It was in our apartment's foyer, and we would wheel it in and listen to the latest 45s we bought and singles that we already had in our collection.

I think it was one of the few instances where I actually enjoyed "playing" with my sister, as we spun those records and often laughed at what we were playing, or talked over the music and got to know each other a little better.

So as you can see, music has to be part of the mix when I present my sister with my own personal celebration of her big day in three months.

What did we listen to? We listened to everything from the then new releases from such acts as Lulu and the Cyrkle and Question Mark and the Mysterians to James and Bobby Purify and Len Barry and the Monkees (once the Partridge Family and David Cassidy came on the scene, these listening dates were no more, as all my sister wanted to listen to was anything with David Cassidy, and by that time, I had had enough, anyway).

So what I did is that I assembled much of that music and put these great tunes on a thumb drive that my sister can listen to in the car. Much of the stuff I still have in my collection, and it has been digitized previously, so all I had to do was pick and choose what I needed, and it took no time to transfer the stuff over to the thumb drive.

I also put many, may other things on this drive, including seemingly complete inventories I have of the Partridge Family, David Cassidy and the Supremes, the latter of which was also a personal fave of hers. If she listens to the entire drive from the first song to the last, it will take her probably at least six months to do this--I left no stone, or song, unturned.

I entitled the folder that I put everything in as "Singles We Used to Listen To When We Were Kids," and I think she will love those songs, in addition to the songs I put in the other folders on the drive from the Partridge Family, the Supremes and ... Danny Bonaduce (don't ask).

I still have some things to put in that folder, including songs from Jackie Wilson and Bobbi Martin and Ricky Nelson (pictured), as well as from the 1910 Fruitgum Co. and the Cowsills, but I still have three months to worry about that.

So everything is shaping up. I will discuss some of the other things I got for my sister as we approach the big day, but I won't spill the beans yet.

And if any of my nephews--I have four, three from my sister--read this blog entry and tell their mom about this, I promise that I will pop them in the head.

So, this is OUR little secret, OK? And let's keep it that way.

I don't want to ruin such a big day in my sister's life.

Classic Rant #1,101 (December 11, 2013): Opportunity Knocks

Well, we didn't get that much snow in my neck of the woods.

Good.

Now to move on to something more important ...

Opportunists are entities that take advantage of a current situation and run with it.

In our culture, big corporations are often accused of being opportunists, taking advantage of the little guy to make money.

We often point at the oil companies as opportunists, because it seems that every little situation leads them to raising fuel prices.

But the little guy can also be an opportunist, taking advantage of a situation to make a point, make money, or both.

I am sure we all read about the military veteran waitress who claimed that a family stiffed her of a tip because they did not approve of her lesbian lifestyle, and wrote a note on their restaurant receipt to explain this to her.

Of course, in this day and age, you just don't bring this to the attention of your manager, you take a picture of the receipt and its handwritten message, go to the Internet, post it, and see what happens.

Well, that is exactly what she did, and thousands of dollars reportedly poured into her in sympathy for her plight.

She said that she would donate all the money to a wounded warriors foundation, for servicemembers who have been horribly injured while away at war.

People even drove miles and miles just to eat at her restaurant, and they gave her hefty tips, again in sympathy of her plight.

This story became an Internet sensation, and it was almost a feel-good story in these times where we, as a society, are becoming more accepting of gays and people with alternate lifestyles.

Well, guess what?

The whole thing was a hoax, and what isn't making the Internet rounds is that the waitress has been fired for her actions.

What happened is that the family in question, the family that supposedly stiffed this imbecile for a tip because of her lifestyle, came out of the closet themselves, in a way, stating that they had the credit card receipt to prove that not only had they left a tip, but they left a pretty hefty one.

And they didn't write anything about her lifestyle, their only use of a pen being to sign the receipt.

With the waitress' back into the corner, management of the restaurant made a full investigation, saying that they were seeing if perhaps another waiter at the restaurant wrote the message, or that there was some other wrongdoing that got their waitress ensnared in this situation.

What they found is that the waitress was simply an opportunist, taking advantage of the sympathy of the public to see her scheme played out.

Now, I would say she should get a lawyer, because not only was she fired, but she could face charges of embezzlement and who knows what else if anyone wants to pursue it.

I don't know if any of the money has been turned over to a wounded warriors group, either.

So here, you see that the little guy, in this case an average, everyday waitress who just happens to be a lesbian, tried to take advantage of the prevailing over-sympathy we are now giving out as a society to those whose lifestyles are not of the usual kind.

Shame on her, and shame on all of the fools that fell for this ruse.

But it just goes to prove that when opportunity knocks, the door will be answered, whether we are talking about a multi-national corporation or your average Joe ... or Jane.

Whatever the case, and whoever perpetrates these falsehoods, it is shameful behavior, and I hope that in this case, she gets the book thrown at her.

And I would love to open that door to have that book thrown at her, I really would, and I am sure that I would have to stand in line ... those that contributed to her fairy tale would probably get first ups.

And lastly, why isn't the Internet covering this part of the story as vigorously as they did the "feel good" part?

Are those that covered the first part afraid that they will offend a segment of the population if they did?

Frankly, I don't think the waitress is the only one who should be ashamed of themselves here.

Rant #2,453: Cheeseburgers In Paradise

I am back, and although I am not wimpy, I want to talk about hamburgers.

No, not the cheeseburgers in the title, but what goes for hamburgers nowadays.

I got an immediate education in what is, and what really isn't a hamburger the other day, and I want to share it with you.

I am on something of a slight diet, and I am trying to stay away from red meat as much as possible.

I have tried some of the "faux meat" products, and some of them are good, some of them are so-so, and some of them are absolutely terrible.

And I do eat fast food a few times a week due to my schedule, and I must admit that I have been taken by Burger King's Impossible Burger Whopper meal.

As we spoke about in a Rant from several days ago (Rant #2,425, August 9, 2019), the Impossible Burger is a plant-based non-meat burger that the fast food giant is offering customers right now. It is higher priced than a regular burger, of course, but at least when you eat it, you aren't eating a meat-based product, so it is perfect for vegans or for people who just want to stay away from the red meat, like me.

And no, do not believe what you read, it does not taste like a regular Whopper, no way, no how. It has something in it that makes it kind of taste like a regular hamburger, but since it isn't a regular hamburger, it doesn't taste like one.

But at least it is highly edible, and it does replicate eating a regular Whopper if that is what you want to eat.

Anyway, on this past Saturday, my son wanted Burger King for dinner, so off I went to the local BK to get him his usual meal, which is about 20 chicken nuggets, fries and a drink.

So while ordering his meal, I decided that it was going to be the Impossible Burger Whopper meal for me, with onion rings instead of fries, so that is what I ordered,

But I ended up ordering two of the Impossible Burgers, one with the meal and one just on its own, so I would have something to eat on Tuesday, one of my late days during the week.

My son goes to his therapist on Tuesday evening, and I take him there after I am done with my workday. We often do not get home until after 7 p.m., which means that I often eat dinner on Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. or later, and I need something a bit heavier during my lunch that day so I am not totally starved.

Thus, sometimes i get some extra fast food on the weekend that I hold over and that I eat on Tuesdays at lunch. It has worked out well for me, and the other plus is that at least once a workweek, my wife doesn't have to prepare lunch for me, since it is already there.

So I ordered the Impossible Whopper for me to eat yesterday. I brought it home, put it in the refrigerator, and forgot about it for a few days until I needed it. On Tuesday morning, I packed it away in my lunch bag, and I had it for lunch on Tuesday.

Well, let me tell you that the Impossible Burger became truly impossible on Tuesday during lunch. Whatever attributes it had fresh on Saturday were completely lost by Tuesday, and what I ended up eating was a hockey puck with lettuce and pickle atop it.

It was difficult to get through, but somehow I did.

Having it refrigerated for a few days robbed the patty of whatever taste they put into it to make it palatable, and while you can get away with this with a regular Whopper--believe me, I have done this on more than one occasiou--you cannot do this with an Impossible Whopper.

Perhaps if I froze it I would have had better results, but who knew? And I am not going to try to freeze it, because I am not going to buy an extra Impossible Whopper in the foreseeable future.

Hockey pucks are for hockey, not for my stomach.

Perhaps I will try it when they create a burger that does not contain meat and that you don't have to eat immediately, but the Impossible Burger truly is impossible when not eating it right off the grill, or however they cook it.

Take it from me, it was a lesson learned, and I won't do it again.

Even Whimpy would have turned away such a burger after the first bite.

Classic Rant #1,100 (December 10, 2013): A Snowy Milestone

This site reaches 1,100 entries as of today.

I think that is pretty good, don't you?

So many similar sites go down for the count pretty early, but this one keeps rolling along.

I know I don't have as many followers as, say, Perez Hilton, but hey, the ones that I have are very, very loyal.

I thank you for coming back to this site each and every day, or at least five days a week.

Thanks again.

Now onto the news of the day in this neck of the woods ...

Snow.

It looks like we aren't going to be spared this time.

We haven't gotten much of anything. I know the rest of the country has gotten walloped several times already, and it isn't even officially winter yet.

But our time appears to be here.

We did get a little bit on the weekend, just for good measure, but today, we are supposed to get something.

It won't be what other areas have received, maybe from 2 to 6 inches I have heard.

But we are going to get it. It appears the meteorologists on TV and all the others are going to be correct this time.

The snow is supposed to come during the height of rush hour, about 8 a.m. The good thing for me is that I am already at work at that hour, so I won't have to worry much about my commute. My wife is also pretty much ensconced in work at that hour, and my son is already at school, so there are no worries there.

Of course, my parents will be stranded today. My father hasn't gone into work and is taking the day off in anticipation of this mess.

It is funny how your perception changes as you get older. And snow is where your perception changes the most.

As a kid, you love the white stuff. It really makes your environment into a winter wonderland.

As an adult, you absolutely hate it. You hate driving in it, cleaning it up, or experiencing it when it is really bad and you lose power.

I don't look forward to it, but it evidently is coming.

So on the day where this blog reaches its 1,100th post, all I can say is snow, at whatever rate, is coming, and I just can't wait to clean off my car and come home from work in this mess.

I hate it, I really do.

Rant #2,452: The Star Spangled Banner

Good morning, happy September 23, and happy autumn, or fall, if you prefer.

It has been fall for about the past hour or so, jumping over from summer sometime after 3 a.m.

Although I do not normally wake up that early during the week, it's funny, I do think I woke up briefly when we changed over to fall, and then went back to sleep.

I guess I wanted to be up at the dawn of autumn, or fall, if you prefer.

I am actually never one to look forward to autumn, as I am allergic to the entire season.

Yes, that is correct, the season--what with its falling leaves and changing colors--makes my allergies go haywire, and officially, I am allergic to the entire season.

And to prove my point, I am all stuffed up this morning, my eyes are watery, and my nose is running like an open faucet.

But that being said, each morning that I wake up on time, I turn on the television to the local news, and i like what I hear before the news rolls out on the screen.

For about the last month, the flagship station of the CBS network, WCBS-TV in New York, has shown about a minute clip of a young girl singing "The Star Spangled Banner."

This came without any fanfare, and without any warning, but it has come on the screen consistently during the past month, and it is nice to hear right before the coming of the local news.

Of course, closing the broadcast day used to end with the playing of the Star Spangled Banner for most TV stations, which then lead to the test pattern coming on the screen.

Those days are long, long gone, since most TV stations now broadcast 24 hours a day, but the tradition has now been brought back at the beginning of the day, in the current twist on honoring our country on television.

I could find little on the Internet about who sings this song or what prompted the inclusion of the song in WCBS-TV's broadcast day, but I did find that the station's broadcast of this song might be following a national trend.

Nexstar stations around the country have also taken up the torch of the song, also broadcasting it at the beginning of the day, so I don't know if WCBS-TV's effort is part of that, or the station's effort to copy that move.

Whatever it is, and whatever reason that it is being broadcast, really is immaterial. It is nice to hear the song again on a regular basis on TV, and it goes against the current PC grain of the song, where who sings it is as important as the song itself.

If you remember, earlier this year, the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Flyers both caved into PC pressure and removed the playing of the song by Kate Smith from their games, because she had the audacity nearly 100 years ago to sing slave songs on her movie and radio broadcasts.

Heck, the Flyers even took down her statue from their environs.

She didn't write the songs, she just sung them, which was conventional for the time, but looking through it all with 2019 eyes, she was thought to have done a racist thing, and thus, her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner was banned from public consumption by these two sports teams.

As much as I love the Yankees, their response was absolutely ridiculous, a knee jerk reaction to a problem that never really existed, except in the minds of people who get upset at just about everything.

So that being said, it was really nice to hear to Star Spangled Banner come on the screen about a month ago, and while it is not being sung by Kate Smith, at least we can hear the song now without the fear that the PC Police will get this rendition of the song like they got the Kate Smith rendtion and will stop its being played.

Nope, I don't think they are going to find anything on this young girl singing the WCBS-TV version.

So test patterns be damned; we now have the song being played on the TV at the beginning of the broadcast day.

What a relief from the commercials touting crepey skin relief and under eye bag creams.

"Oh say can you see" for sure!

(I have some personal business to perform tomorrow, and I will have to skip Tuesday's Rant. I will be back to this column in Wednesday, so speak to you again then.)

Classic Rant #1,099 (December 7, 2013): Hoop It Up

My son and I hooped it up yesterday afternoon.

We really, really did.

We went to Madison Square Garden on our annual excursion to see a Knicks game, and boy, did we hoop up this one.

I am sure that you know that the Knicks played perhaps their worst game ever yesterday, losing to their arch-rival Celtics by 41 points, 114-73.

And at least I can say that my son and I were there to witness this fiasco.

But there is much more of a back story on this one than just the game.

I have been going to Knicks games since I was about eight years old. My father took me to my first game at the old Garden, a loss to the Lakers, in 1965.

Even though the Knicks lost, I loved every minute of my time there.

I loved how close the fans were to the action, and in those days, the place was half empty, so the ushers didn't mind if you moved down, and my father and I did, so the players really looked larger than life to this eight year old kid.

Anyway, flash forward to the current time, and I am a father now, and I take my own son to games.

But the situation is oh so different.

The Garden basically prints money. No matter how bad the Knicks are, they sell out the place, and sell it out at the top prices in the league.

It is very, very difficult for a working person to attend any games, because tickets are pretty much near $100 for a single ticket, on up, of course, to tickets that are thousands of dollars.

For one, single game.

This year, I scoured the schedule, and once again, tickets were ridiculously priced.

But this year, rather than keep silent, I made a move.

I called both the Knicks office and the NBA office to complain.

I did it in a constructive way, not accusing them or pointing fingers, but simply saying that I wanted to continue our family tradition of going to games, and I was being stymied by the fact that it was costing Broadway show prices to attend.

My pleas fell on deaf ears until about a month later, when a representative from the Knicks contacted me.

She said they would set something up where I could attend a game at a more affordable price.

And while I didn't get the tickets for free, I did get them at like 25 percent off, which I guess was good enough. They were still pricey, but not as pricey as they would have been if I bought them directly at the regular price.

(Yes, you would have thought they would have given them to me for free, and I wrestled with that point for a while, but after a while, I figured that I would take the discount.)

So we went to the game yesterday, and in a very classy move, the Knicks sent a representative to our seat, and gave us a fan pack for our trouble.

Very classy indeed.

That the Knicks got blown out--their third worst home loss in history--was kind of secondary to the back story.

I continued the tradition of going to Knicks games with my son--this is our ninth game together over the past seven or so years--and I was satisfied that the Knicks, and the NBA office, both have a conscience.

What that will translate to in the future is anyone's guess, but look, I have been hooked on the NBA for nearly a half century--why stop now?

Rant #2,451: Flying

As we are ready to enter the fall season, a new report suggests that North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970, which included a significant drop off in certain bird species that were once considered to be plentiful.

Overall, the findings from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and American Bird Conservancy found that bird populations in the U.S. and Canada have declined 29 percent during the past 50 years, which the report states is a sign of a widespread ecological crisis.

Of the birds lost, most belonged to 12 bird families, including sparrows; warblers; finches and swallows.

The study said that the reasons for the drop include habitat loss; the inability to find food, partly due to the decline of the insect population; deaths due to other animals, including free-roaming cats; collisions with glass; and the use of toxic pesticides.

There was no mention of pigeons in the study, which, even though I am not an ornithologist, I have a feeling that this population has increased over the years.

Why do I believe this?

Just check out my car.

My poor, white 2014 Kia Optima has been the victim of numerous pigeon drops, and seemingly, no matter where I park my car, the pigeons find it.

Admittedly, I park under trees at both home and work, and that increases the possibility that the car is going to get creamed, but even when driving the car, I have gotten splattered.

Just the other day, while driving home from work, and on the parkway, without a tree even near me, I got hit from above.

If the bird was dropping a bomb, I would have been toast, but even with the bomb it dropped, it was bad enough, getting all over my window.

I kind of wish pigeons were on that list, but alas, they aren't, and they always seem to find my car, so you can see how upsetting this can be.

My cars have never been immune to this type of air drops. Not only have all my cars been hit by these drops, but I had one car that really got hit, but by what, I can only assume what it was.

A number of years ago, I was on a popular road by me on a Saturday afternoon with my family in the car. We were driving east on this road, and all of a sudden, a large amount of gump from the sky literally encased the car as we were waiting by a traffic light.

I put on my windshield wipers, and saw that the car in front of me also got bombed, but only in the back. I could not see the car behind me because the gump covered the back windshield.

When we got out of the car after reaching our destination, we saw that there was some type of foul smelling gump literally all over the car, and later, I seem to remember that I did bring the car to the car wash--I hate car washes, and have rarely ventured into one after a few incidents where my car was damaged by them--but the damage had been done.

Whatever came from the sky, it literally burned off the paint on the car. The paint began to flake, and you literally could peal the paint off with your fingers.

I used to say that I had the only car with paint that blew in the wind.

I think what the gump was was industrial waste from a plane--yes, human waste that somehow got dropped off on my car, but I have no proof of that, never checked up on that, and yes, it is conjecture.

But whatever it was, while it may not have been pigeon-generated, it literally burnt the paint right off the car, and burned me up in the process.

So when any car of mine gets dumped on, I feel that I, myself, am being dumped on, and I don't like it.

I try to rationalize it by stating to myself that it is a "mitzvah" when it happens, a sign of good luck, but it really isn't.

So, you now know why I am upset that pigeons are not on that list of birds dying out.

I never had a situation with a finch or a swallow, but pigeons ... they are the bane of my existence.

That might be hard to swallow for some, but for me, it simply isn't.

I guess the bird isn't the word when you are talking about pigeons.

So with that, I say have a good weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Classic Rant #1,098 (December 6, 2013): Look What I Found

Don't you just wish that one day, you would find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?

Well, I do believe that someone has he potential to do just that, and it wasn't a pot of gold, it was a blunt of pot.

At a Wendy's in Lovejoy, Ga., a customer called 911 after finding a half-smoked joint inside her burger.

The woman who was given the burger became sick, the employee who said she misplaced her pot inside the burger was fired and was arrested for marijuana possession, and Wendy's reportedly offered to pay the ill woman's medical bills, and also gave her a $50 gift certificate.

Sorry, in this lawsuit-happy world, the person who was victimized by the out of joint joint should find a lawyer and sue for millions. Heck, all she wanted was a Wendy's hamburger, and she got much more than she bargained for.

This might be the situation she was waiting for her entire life.

She could tell a judge and jury that she was poisoned by the pot, and that she deserved the money because she was victimized.

Fast food places are traditionally a courthouse's best friend.

Remember all the lawsuits launched against these restaurants for one thing or another, such as their menu items making their kids fat?

How about the lawsuits that stemmed from people dumping hot coffee on themselves?

Better yet, how about the litigation that ensued when somebody found a sawed-off finger in one of their sandwiches?

These have all happened, and while most of the suits seemingly have been thrown out of court, you have to say that they have, at the very least, kept courtrooms busy.

Here, we have a true victim, someone who experienced food poisoning-like symptoms after devouring at least some of this burger/blunt hybrid, so maybe she has a case.

Others with less of a reason to sue went ahead with it, and at least tried to get extra money out of the fast food companies, and somehow, I don't think a gift certificate is going to placate this woman.

Yes, a pot of gold might be waiting for this person, or maybe, at the very least, a lifetime supply of hamburgers, or maybe even hair dye to make her hair as red as the Wendy's girl in the commercial.

Ah, I guess it was a pipe dream ...

Rant #2,450: Black and White

Yes, I overslept once again.

Maybe not as bad as the other day(s), but bad enough.

I have never used an alarm clock to get up in my entire life--my inner body clock has done the trick for decades--but maybe the time has come for me to use such a clock to get me going.

Lately, with the arrival of the cooler weather, I am having lots of trouble getting out of bed in the morning.

My allergies are certainly not helping things, as they have been pretty much haywire this year, and even more so right now.

But I try to laugh about it, laugh it off, laugh at myself for not being able to do the things that I was able to do even five years ago without some pushback from my own body.

But I have found that as a world, as a society, we have generally forgotten how to laugh at ourselves, laugh at our foibles that come from being human beings.

And when we are actually apologizing for things that we did decades after the fact, I really have to question why we are atoning for our supposed "sins" so many years after the fact.

Here is the perfect example of that type of what I consider as idiotic behavior, being used literally, in this case, to save face.

Reports are that way back in 2001, Justin Trudeau, today Canada's prime minister, wore brown face makeup to a party at the private school where he was teaching.

The party was Arabian Nights-themed, and Trudeau, then just the 29 year old son of his dad, the country's former prime minister who was a mainstay of the tabloids during his reign for his sexual proclivities, was captured in a photo wearing brown face to salute the character Aladdin.

The photo was in the school's yearbook, and was obtained by Time Magazine by someone who was not at the party, discovered the photo recently, and put it on himself to make it news, because he felt it must be revealed what an absolutely heinous act the younger Trudeau did some 18 years ago, when no one thought anything bad about brown face, black face, white face, or even purple face.

Now, in 2019, of course, the prime minister has gone into 100 percent complete damage control. He said, "I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better and I didn't. I am sorry."

When asked if the photo was racist, Trudeau declared, "Yes, it was. I didn't consider it racist at the time, but now, we know better."

Do we really? I take issue with that.

Black face, brown face, white face has been around for generations, and it is only in the past few years--when people get all upset and hot and bothered over everything, and I do mean everything--when brown face and black face have been derided as being racist.

Of course, I have heard absolutely nothing about white face, which, if the others are so horrid, well, then white face has to be in the same category.

These "faces" were used for generations in things like minstrel shows, where white performers dressed up in black face to emulate black citizens, with all the stereotypes applied.

I never heard one iota of anger about black face until the past few years, and yes, it probably was racist, but mixed in with some reverence too. It was perhaps bad, but it wasn't all bad.

But today, we look at the practice as highly racist, and perhaps that is correct.

However, to dump on someone because they did it in an era where this was not looked down upon is, well, racist in itself.

And I seriously doubt that Trudeau was making a racist statement about those of Arab descent by wearing brown face.

And I don't think that he should be raked over the coals for applying such makeup when it was done in an era where there was not a peep from anyone about it.

Obviously, someone has it out for Trudeau, so this came up 18 years after the fact.

It should not besmirch Trudeau at all, and no apology from him was needed as far as I am concerned, although in today's world, we seem to apologize for everything.

Let me see ... back in 1965, I portrayed a farmer in a school play at P.S. 30, Rochdale Village, Queens, actually I played the Farmer in the Dell. I wore dungarees, a plaid shirt, a straw hat, and I had the audacity to wear some scruffy makeup to make me look like I had worked in the fields all day.

It was all over my face, I admit it.

I apologize to all the farmers in the world, a group I was clearly honoring by my costume ... I really do.

"I shouldn't have done that. I should have known better and I didn't. I am sorry. ... Yes, my costume was anti-farmer. I didn't consider it anti-farmer at the time, but now, we know better."

Again, I ask, do we really?

Classic Rant #1,097 (December 5, 2013): The Last Candle Has Been Lit

For Jews around the world, Hanukkah 2013 has come to an end.

This most interesting of Hanukkahs--with it falling pretty much in line with Thanksgiving--made this a memorable occasion, one that we won't soon forget.

But now the holiday is over.

Amidst the weeks and days leading up to Christmas, Jews around the world can pretty much sit back and watch a good part of the universe get ready for the celebration of their holiday.

Usually, Hanukkah and Christmas are pretty much aligned, by the calendar only.

The two holidays have nothing to do with each other at all, although many people like to lump Hanukkah in with Christmas, as the Jewish Christmas, which is as wrong as saying Christmas is the non-Jewish Hanukkah.

But that being said, Jews often are on the outside looking in when it comes to Christmas.

There are so few Jews in the world relative to the overall population that Jews are, in fact, outsiders to this holiday.

No matter how homogenous Jews have become in this world, Christmas is just another day to us.

Jews revel in our non-Jewish friends' enjoyment of the holiday, and Jews often participate in the holiday as if it were their holiday too, but it isn't, no matter what many of them do and say.

I think being on the outside looking in is a unique position to be in during this time of year.

It allows us to view Christmas for what it is, what it means to our friends, and what it means to most of the world's population.

Jews such as Irving Berlin and Mel Torme have been able to put this viewpoint into song, and have written maybe the greatest Christmas songs ever, "White Christmas" and "The Christmas Song," two of not only the greatest Christmas songs ever written, but probably two of the greatest songs ever written, period.

Being part of our culture, Jews are bombarded, just like everyone else is, by commercials, TV shows, movies and music that reflects that this is Christmastime.

We have gotten used to it, as everyone has, but I still remember my kids asking me, "Why are there not Hanukkah TV shows?"

Things have gotten better in that regard since they were kids, and today, the entertainment business is finally starting to acknowledge that not everyone celebrates Christmas, that we are a true mosaic of lots of different religions and cultures.

But frankly, it took them a long time to acknowledge this.

I still remember that as a kid, my mother would have to look far and wide for Hanukkah cards to send to friends and relatives.

And this was in 1965, not 1865, so change has come, but it has been very, very slow in coming.

To all my non-Jewish friends, have a great Christmas season.

To all my Jewish friends, I hope this year's Hanukkah was a good one.

Let's all sit back, relax, and if you are Jewish, you know the Christmas routine ...

What movie will you be seeing on that day, and what Chinese food place are you going to be ordering dinner from?

Rant #2,449: Some Guys Have All the Luck

Yes, some do, and some don't.

Right now, I do, but New York Yankees pitcher Dellin Betances does not.

Let me explain.

Yesterday, I finally found out what was ailing me a few weeks ago went I went in for various tests related to discomfort I was having in the nether regions of my body.

I got a great report, actually,

The doctor told me that my inner workings are good, meaning that my liver, kidney and other things in my body are doing pretty well, and there is no need for worry.

But what caused my bodily distress?

I had a stone, and the reason I know that I had one is that it came out of me on Monday morning.

I had no pain from this situation, none at all. I had some discomfort early on, an annoyance that came and went over the past three weeks or a month since this thing started.

Last week, there was one day that the discomfort became a complete annoyance, and I remember taking two aspirin to see if it would dull things, and it kind of did.

Then on Sunday, while my family was home just relaxing and not doing much of anything, I was going to the bathroom with an increased number of episodes. I probably went to the bathroom--No. 1--about a dozen times over a relatively short period of time, and I thought that that was kind of odd, in particular since I wasn't drinking anything very much at all.

Then on Monday morning, I went to the bathroom again, and it is difficult to describe the feeling, but let's just say that I knew something else came out of me while doing my thing.

I actually retrieved the pellet--no bigger than the size of a caraway seed--put it in a baggie, and prepared for my doctor's appointment on Tuesday.

And lo and behold, I was right. The pellet was the thing that was giving me all the discomfort over a period of several weeks.

So now, that episode is closed, but I have vowed to change my diet to less red meat, no eating in between meals, and maybe even a little exercise. If I can lose some weight, I will be better off, and I started by eating a non-meat version of beef for dinner last night, which was terrible but did fill me up.

Let's see how good I do with this; I don't have to give up everything, but I have to tone it down a bit.

Now we come to Yankees' pitcher Betances, the flame throwing reliever who has to feel that he is the unluckiest person on the face of the earth this morning.

Betances has been out the entire season with a variety of injuries, and while he is an integral part of the Yankees' relief corps, the Bronx Bombers have managed fine without him, winning their 99th game last night with an assortment of regular players and guys who have produced beyond belief this year when given a chance due to a record spate of injuries the team has experienced this season.

Anyway, Betances finally got well, and he made his debut during the team's Sunday game with the Toronto Blue Jays, the game I was watching when I was going through my bathroom escapades that I described earlier.

He came into the game and looked as sharp as ever, striking out the two batters he faced with just a few pitches.

After the second strikeout, he jumped off the mound as if he had recorded the third out of the inning, but it was only the second out.

When he realized what had happened, he had a good laugh, and the Yankees bench was in stitches, too.

But it ended up that the only person who is probably going to be in stitches over the next few months is Betances.

He bounced off the mound in such an awkward way that he woke up on Monday with pain in his left foot, and when examined, it was ruled that he has a partial tear in his Achilles tendon.

The team is going to look at his rehab conservatively, but they have not ruled out surgery for Betances. If he goes under the knife, he will be out of action for at least five to six months.

It is funny how jubilation goes to unhappiness in one fell swoop, but that is what Betances is dealing with now.

So yes, I consider myself quite lucky now, certainly as compared to Betances, who can't win for losing. He is also a free agent at the end of this season, which compounds matters even more for him, because nobody is going to give a pitcher rehabbing such an injury any more money than he is currently making, probably keeping him a Yankee for at least the next season or so.

And at 31 years old, right in his prime as an athlete, that is not good for him, although I am sure you won't see him apply for food stamps any time soon.

So there you have it. Me, I am lucky; Betances, he is not.

I got rid of a stone; Betances needs a Blarney Stone for good luck.

Let's go Larry; let's go Yankees.

Classic Rant #1,096 (December 4, 2013): Week of Woe Continues

My week of woe continues.

Yesterday, I told you about an exploding toilet, today I will tell you about something more of a disappointment than anything else.

My family and I had planned to go to see a Broadway show this holiday season, but our plans were thrown out the window.

During its original run on Broadway, we had wanted to see "The Rascals: Once Upon a Dream," which featured the reunion of the four original (Young) Rascals on stage, but we never had the money to do so.

When the show started to tour, and it came to Long Island at Jones Beach, money was still an issue, so we did not go.

Finally, we had the money, and we decided to go and see the show as it returned to Broadway during holiday time.

Well, evidently, that is not going to happen, because of the recent announcement that the latest run has been lock, stock and barrel canceled.

Evidently, musical director and creator Steve Van Zandt, yes, the same guy who was on "The Sopranos" and is in the E Street Band, has a busy schedule, and there were conflicts, so they decided to close the whole several week run down.

Baloney.

I would say that ticket sales were probably pretty bad, and that is the reason that they closed down. You don't just close a show down--especially during holiday season--because your musical director has too many fingers in various pots.

I heard from someone that ticket prices for this run were way above what they were during the original run, and it probably turned a lot of people off seeing the show again--which is the magic of the success of "The Jersey Boys," the Four Seasons show--or for the first time.

And to add insult to injury, I heard about the cancellation through Facebook.

Ticketmaster did not send out a cancellation notice themselves, which I thought it was incumbent for them to do if you order tickets through them and an event is canceled.

I called Ticketmaster, and they said we would get a full refund within a few days. I did not question them about why they did not send out a notice.

My family is disappointed. I saw the Rascals in concert about 25 years ago, during another reunion, and they were quite good. I even interviewed them, had dinner with them in some East Village Chinese restaurant, and they are nice guys.

But I guess the money wasn't there, so they aren't going to be, either.

Anyway, at least I can live with my memories of the band. My son was just getting into their music, and now we have nothing, less our refund.

But again, I do have my memories, and they are contained on the many Rascals records that I own.

Yes, I am bummed out, and I don't expect the show to return to Broadway any time soon.

So I will just have to spin those records, and think of what could have been ...

And also think about what will befall me next in this week of woe.

Rant #2,448: Just What I Needed

Yes, I overslept today, and I overslept really badly, waking up a full hour later than I normally do.

I had a bad night, what can I tell you.

I went to bed at the normal time, but I was up and down the entire evening, as I had a massive headache that I could not get rid of.

I don't often get migraines, but this is what I must have had.

Four aspirins later--at sometime after midnight--I finally got to sleep, and when I got to sleep, evidently there was no turning back.

The next thing I know, it was nearly 5 a.m., and I haven't gotten out of the bed.

I rushed out, shaved--I absolutely hate to shave, but on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings I do take that facial hair right off--took a shower, and got dressed quickly, because my wife was ready to get up and needed the bathroom.

She woke up as I was putting on my shoes, so I made it out right on time.

But, of course, getting up late has fouled up my breakfast and my writing here, so that is why this is such a short column.

I would like to comment on the death of Ric Ocasek, leader of the Cars, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers who were ubiquitous on my list of musical favorites when I was in college, 1975 to 1979 or so.

They became popular at a time when punk and new wave were packing a punch against disco, but they weren't the atypical punk or new wave band.

Ocasek and his mates--one of whom, Elliot Eisen, went to my high school in his earlier life as Elliot Steinberg--were older, had been around the block a few times by the time they finally hit it big, and their music was highly crafted, versus the punks and new wavers, who often sounded like they just got together and were playing for the first time (this had its uniqueness, too, by the way).

"Just What I Needed," "My Best Friend's Girl," "You Might Think," and "Drive" were three of the Cars' biggest hits, and while they constantly scored on the singles charts, their albums were where they made their mark, putting out some of the best LPs of that generation.

Ocasek was the frontman and leader, and while he didn't look like he was 20 years old--and probably at 20 didn't look like that age, either--he had this Roy Orbison-type look that was kind of freaky back then, perfect as the leader of this band.

He was either 70 or 75 when he died of natural causes the other day, but he leaves a large body of work that needs to be re-examined when all of us have the chance.

Well, we have lost Eddie Money and Ric Ocasek in just the past few days; if these things go in threes like it is said they are supposed to, who is next?

We heard in the past few days the Rod Stewart had a major prostate scare, the rockers of old aren't getting any younger, and life goes on.

All I know is that I am still tired, still in need of some sleep, but I will have to make it up tonight, because there is no looking back now.

Speak to you tomorrow, hopefully at the right time.

Classic Rant #1,095 (December 3, 2013): What the Crap?

Literally.

I had one of those glorious days at work yesterday, one of those days that you don't forget so quickly.

All I ask for is some understanding ... pee and sympathy if you will.

Let me explain.

I drive into work, I get there, and I am the one who opens the building that I work in, so I go about my business just like I have on Mondays for the past nearly two decades at my place of business.

I do what I have to do to get ready for the workday, and then, I feel like I have to go to the bathroom.

So I walk into the bathroom, and to me, the toilet water looks discolored.

I then flush the toilet--and all hell breaks loose.

A funnel of water oozes up the toilet and all over the floor.

Discolored water--and probably other things--cascades all over the floor as I am standing there.

I grab the plunger, and stick it in the toilet, trying to get everything to go down so there won't be any more water explosions.

I am successful in my quest, but there is about an inch of water on the floor around the toilet.

So yes, in my shirt and tie and nice pants and shoes, I grab paper towels and try to sop up the stuff.

I takes about 15 minutes, and the floor is reasonably dry.

But I still have to go to the bathroom.

So I go downstairs, where we have another bathroom, and I literally do my duty there.

I flush the toilet, and there is a problem here too.

The toilet will not flush correctly.

Yes, the particulars went down the toilet, but it didn't flush correctly.

I try several times, and nothing.

I get a blank piece of paper and tape, and write out a sign saying: "Do not use. Does not flush correctly."

I am exasperated, but at least I did my duty, if you will. I will tell my supervisor when he comes in, and it will all be taken care of.

I then have to go back downstairs to fax something out, and I meet up with one of my co-workers, who had just come in after me.

I tell him my plight, and then he discovers something.

"Larry, there is water all over the floor by my desk!" he yells, and lo and behold, the water that I sopped up from upstairs has made its way downstairs, went through the wall, and flopped right down on the floor below.

Well, guess what I did?

In my shirt and tie and nice pants and shoes, I got down on my hands and knees once again and sopped the stuff up.

And the real work day had not even started yet ...

I must have washed my hands 50 times yesterday, and I hope I didn't smell like crap during the day.

I will tell you that no one thanked me for doing what I did, but again, I did my duty.

The P.S. to the story is that we have a guy who comes in to do random jobs, and he looked at both toilets and surmised that a certain part was negligent in both, and that is what caused the problem.

So, all's well that ends well.

But if you told me you had a crappy day at work yesterday, I would tell you that that might be true, but I had even a crappier day.

Literally.

Rant #2,447: Stupid Cupid

We are now in the dog days of September.

That's right, September, right before we move into the fall this coming weekend.

The "dog days" are usually relegated to August, but I am going to extend them to September, because if no news is good news, we are in that cycle now, where non-newsworthy stories are getting covered as if they are stories that will rock the world off its axis.

Beyond the latest ego-driven female celebrities to expose themselves in social media--Gwyneth Paltrow and Elizabeth Hurley (repeat offender) are the latest to go this route and have their bare necessities covered as if they were doing this as heads of state--we have the latest story, which got full coverage on the national news and local news shows ... why? I don't know. Third base.

(Sorry, Abbott and Costello, but it just fit.)

Anyway, a San Diego woman went to sleep the other night with her engagement ring on her finger, but when she woke up, it was not on her finger anymore.

Well, where was it?

Evidently, the woman had an extremely vivid dream which included her fiancee. In it, the dynamic duo were facing some really bad guys on a runaway train. Her fiancee told her that in lieu of the circumstances, to protect her valuables, she should swallow the ring.

And swallow the ring she did.

And evidently, she swallowed the ring ... yes, in her sleep, she took the ring off and actually swallowed it.

When she woke up and looked for her ring on her finger, it wasn't there, but she knew exactly where it was.

The woman told her fiancee, they rushed to the nearest walk-in medical facility--why they didn't go directly to the hospital is beyond me--and x-rays were taken, and lo and behold, the ring was in her stomach.

She ended up having an emergency oncological procedure--some outlets said she had it in the walk-in facility, but I don't think they do such things there, or do they?--and the ring was retrieved.

The woman swears that she will never wear the ring again when she goes asleep, and will take it off when she goes off to dreamland.

And she explained the situation with such glee, basking in her own glow about her new-found 15 minutes of fame.

Heck, maybe she should of done her explanation in a bikini or in the altogether like Paltrow or Hurley ... I doubt anyone would have batted an eye at this display.

This story, as it is, is bizarre, weird, and I don't know if I believe the whole thing, but evidently it happened, and in lieu of covering wars, weather disasters and the like, the major news outlets gave this story maximum coverage.

This used to be called a human interest story, but in the current world where bikini snapshots are considered to be major news items, a story like this is News with a capital N.

Yes, things are weird in California--some people say they wish an earthquake would detach it from the mainland U.S. so it could become its own country with its own rules--and this story just lends credence to that belief.

And on a very slow news weekend, this story got more coverage than it ever deserved.

The weekend actually began with a real news item, and a sad one, as singer Eddie Money died. He was really living on borrowed time anyway, having survived a major drug overdose and various bouts with drugs and alcohol abuse, but guys like this seem to have a determination to keep on going, and he certainly did.

But he finally checked out, taking his "Two Tickets to Paradise" with him.

I was a fan of his, having several of his LPs and singles in my collection. He was the atypical late 1970s-early 1980s rocker, was from Long Island and had that look.

And he was mighty successful, one of the final singles-driven artists that made it big when we still bought vinyl records at our local record stores.

His MTV videos were among the best that the channel aired during that time period, actually making some of his songs better than they really were.

But he seemed like a nice guy, who just got all rolled up into things that were beyond his grasp.

His music will "Baby, Hold On" way beyond his 70 years of life.

Now that was a news story for all to cover.

Money and a misplaced diamond ring.

Now that was a good pairing, wasn't it?

Classic Rant #1,094 (December 2, 2013): Just About Over

Well, I'm back ...

I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. I did.

And if you are Jewish, I hope that your Hanukkah has been a good one. Mine has been good, and incredibly, it is five nights into it, with just three more to go.

And if you are my father, I hope you had a nice 82nd birthday. I think you did, and I hope that you have at least another 82 more.

It was a hectic time in our household, with so much going on, but we ate our turkey, just about all of our gifts are exchanged, my dad is now 82 plus a couple of days, and we are now into December, as hard as that is to believe.

There were some negative things that happened during the past couple of days. It wasn't all fun and hilarity for me.

First off, right before the holiday, my eye doctor died. He was just 44 and reportedly had cancer.

This was the guy that saved my left eye a few years ago. Along with the diagnosis of my regular eye doctor, this guy did the procedure that saved the vision in my eye, and actually made it better.

I was eternally grateful for his ability and skill in doing what he did, and I was shocked by his passing, especially at such an early age.

Next, just prior to the holiday, my friend's father passed away. He was in his 90s and had been in poor health for years.

Nonetheless, it was a shock that he died. He seemed to have some inner resolve that kept him hanging on for years past his due date, so to speak.

He was a nice guy, always treated me with respect, and was a good dad to my friend and his sister. I hadn't seen him in a few years, but I am sure he is in a better place now.

And not to liken this situation to theirs other than the use of a similar word of description, the Knicks are dead. Dead as can be.

They have now lost nine straight, show little or no signs of getting back to respectability, and are the biggest disappointment in the NBA right now.

They have gone from contenders to pretenders in the span of a month, and that is something that is very difficult to do, but they have done it.

Other than those instances, it was a good holiday, good to get away from work, good to be home with my family.

And no, my wife's side of the family has not sent us a Hanukkah card. We will probably get the same "Season's Greetings" card that we always get from them, which, if course, is a veiled Christmas card, and since both Hanukkah and Christmas are separated by so many days this year, the "Season's Greetings" card means absolutely nothing to myself and my family.

But what else is new? It's that way each and every year, and it evidently is going to be the same way this year.

Not much changes from year to year anyway, does it?.

Now, it is back to work, back to the same old same old until later this month, when Christmas dawns.

I am looking forward to that day, simply because I get another two days off at that time, and it will be time for this Jew and his family to do what Jews and their families do on that holiday: go the the movies and have Chinese food.

Sometimes it is nice being on the outside looking in after all.

Rant #2,446: Scream

Good morning, you superstitious people among us.

Today is Friday the 13th.

Are you scared to walk out the door?

Are you scared to see a black cat come your way?

Will you avoid ladders completely today, so you don't have to walk under any?

This is one of those strange yearly things that I have never gotten, never really fully understood.

Bad things are supposed to happen today, and the only thing bad that I can remember happening on a Friday the 13th in the past is that my current place of work had two separate purges in two separate years on this day, firing several employees.

Yeah, that made me a bit scared, but here I am, my place of business is somehow still open, and I am still there after more than 23 years.

Go figure.

And on the opposite side of the spectrum, Friday the 13th has been quite good for the movie producers who created that film franchise, which over several releases, have taken in billions of dollars.

So Friday the 13th isn't really that bad after all, is it?

And this particular Friday the 13th we are celebrating today is so close to the mother of all scary holidays--next month's Halloween--that it kind of mutes the horror that we all face on that very-special-but-getting-less-special kids holiday, which has seemingly morphed from a children's holiday to an adult one in the span of a generation.

And the very title of this Rant, "Scream," comes from a Michael Jackson song. And sorry to say, he was a real life horror story, no matter how many ways you cut it (and with his bent for plastic surgery, he sure did).

So, what is big deal about Friday the 13th anyway?

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th), Friday the 13th is considered to be an unlucky day in Western superstition, and it happens at least once every year but can occur up to three times in the same year. There will be two Friday the 13ths every year until 2020, and the years 2021 and 2022 will have only one Friday the 13th each.

And, a Friday the 13th occurs any month that begins on a Sunday.

So there you have it. Bet you didn't realize that last fact. I know that I didn't.

I am hoping today is a lucky day for me. That would mean that work moves swiftly, the day is over before I can blink, and the great thing about Friday the 13th is that it leads right into the weekend.

For someone who works for the weekend, how can I be afraid on Friday the 13th if it leads into Saturday the 14th and Sunday the 15th?

The only bad thing, then, at least to me, about Friday the 13th is that I have to get through it.

And at a little after 5 a.m. in the morning as I type this, I have more than 12 hours left before, for all intents and purposes, my weekend begins, so I am basically on third base looking at home plate right now.

Friday the 13th? As they say, a mere bag of shells.

Speak to you again on Monday. Have a great weekend.