Rant #2,601: One Bad Apple

Times are rough today!
 
We are going through a pandemic, our elected officials are continuing to be exposed as skirt chasers—of you want to believe everything you read—and the world just seems to be upside down.
 
Sure, we haven’t had a pandemic in 100 years, but even that pandemic could not possibly have been as poorly handled as the one we are going through now, one which has become a political football that never ends.
 
And if you think the sexual peccadilloes of our elected officials is anything new, let me tell you that it isn’t. Heck, nearly 50 years ago, there was a most major such scandal that we were reminded of this week when infamous stripper Fanne Fox passed away. She had a dalliance with Arkansas legislator Wilbur Mills that makes the current allegations against our elected officials look like nothing.
 
Not only could she take off her clothes, but she could swim really well, and because of this, mills might have been ruined as a legislator, but at least he didn’t have his own Chappaquiddick on this sordid resume.
 
But at least 50 years ago, we had music to calm our soul, not like today where music is nothing but sound bytes and MP3 files.
 
Let’s look back on what were the top songs that we were listening to back in February 1971, nearly 50 years to the day on the Billboard Hot 100 chart that came out on February 27.
 
At number 10 was Janis Joplin’s farewell single after her death from a drug overdose, “Me and Bobby McGee.” The song was written by Kris Kristofferson, and would eventually reach the top spot on the chart in a few weeks; time.
 
At number nine was “Mr. Bojangles” by the NItty Gritty Dirt Band. This was the biggest hit of the long career of these country folk rockers.
 
Country crossover was big in 1971, and Jerry Reed had one of the biggest hits of that genre with “Amos Moses,” which hit at number eight this week. Reed was a very popular actor during this period, too, appearing in a number of Burt Reynolds’ films.
 
Wadsworth Mansion had their only hit with “Sweet Mary,” which was at number seven on the Hot 100 this week. People bought this single because it was not only a good song, but its drug leanings were pretty obvious.
 
British rocker Dave Edmunds was pretty much introduced to America with his cover of the rock classic “I Hear You Knocking,” which came in at number six this week. Later a major player in the new wave genre, Edmunds had been around for years in his native England in a popular band called Love Sculpture.
 
“If You Cou8ld Read My Mind” by Gordon Lightfoot was at number five for the week. Lightfoot became a major hitmaker during the 1970s, culminating with “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
 
Another major country crossover held down the fourth spot on the chart. Lynn Anderson’s “Rose Garden” signified that country crossovers were not just a male exercise.
 
Bubblegum was still hot back in 1971, and the top three singles on the charts all kind of added life into that genre. At number three on the chart was “Knock Three Times” by Dawn. This song had topped the chart for three weeks earlier in the year.
 
At number two was “Mama’s Pear” by the Jackson 5. While the song never hit the top spot, it stands as one of the family act’s best songs.
 
And at number one for the week, a song that would hold onto that spot for five weeks—
 
“One Bad Apple” by the Osmonds, a song that was reportedly rejected by the Jackson 5 and which fell into their laps as the biggest song of their career.
 
The highest debuting single was a true classic, “What Is Life” by George Harrison, which came on the chart at number 66 and would steadily rise to the number 10 spot in a few weeks’ time.
 
The biggest mover—the song that moved up the most places on the Hot 100 from one week to another—was “You’re All I Need To Get By” by Aretha Franklin, which moved up to number 46 on the chart from the previous week, when it was number 91. The song rose to number 19 on the chart.
 
So that is it. Bubblegum was still king on the Hot 100 back then, giving us all a lot to chew on as things unfolded 50 years ago.
 
Maybe we need some bubblegum today to let us chew, and think, at the same time.
 
Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #2,600: Words

2,600.
 
Yes, this is the 2,600th Rant that has been featured at this site since its inception on May 4, 2009.
 
There have been disruptions to that number—I posted a few things without any numbers, and there was a mistake in the numbering system somewhere down the line which I subsequently fixed—but all told, we have come to #2,600, a chronicle of nearly 12 years of blogging.
 
And you have all been a part of it by reading my Rants every day whether here or on Facebook/
 
I decided to look up exactly what the number “2,600” means in the world we live in, and I was surprised to see that it means so many different things, including as a number.
 
According to Wikipedia:
 
2600 hertz, the audio tone used in phreaking to gain control of telephone networks
2600: The Hacker Quarterly, a magazine named after the aforementioned 2,600 Hz tone
Atari 2600 video game console
ATI's Radeon R600 Radeon HD 2xxx series graphics card
ARP 2600 analog synthesizer
Alfa Romeo 2600, a car
Nokia 2600, a mobile phone
The last year of the 26th century
The number 2600
 
I never knew that “2,600” had so many meanings.
 
But to me, the number means consistency, being here, through thick and thin, to deliver content most weekdays during the past nearly dozen years.
 
We have spoken about things that impact everyone, like the coronavirus, things that have affected me personally, like my unemployment and retirement, and things in general, like the latest celebrity death or things that impacted the Baby Boomer generation.
 
We have spoken about good things on one end, and bad things on the parallel opposite of the good things.
 
For instance, on the good side of things, I spoke about how my family and I emerged from a horrific auto accident with just a few cuts and bruises. Yesterday, I spoke about another auto accident, one with a major celebrity in the car, and accident where Tiger Woods was injured so badly that the road to recovery might be arduous at the very best.
 
And the best thing about this blog and its 2,600 posts is that I have written each and every post from the heart, without any shackles on what I wrote … except one time I enraged a family member so much that I decided to take the original post down.
 
But otherwise, I can write about what I want to write about here, and whoever reads it, reads it, whether it is just 10 people or 100 people or 1,000 people.
 
And I get extra traction from putting the daily Rant up on Facebook, so I know that plenty of people are reading my work on a daily basis, whether they admit to it or not.
 
But that is OK. This blog has helped me keep my sanity during very difficult times, and ultimately, I write for myself, and allow everyone else to come into my world … which is what every writer does to a certain extent, again, whether they want to admit it or not.
 
Making my life’s work as a writer has paid me great dividends if not great salary. I know that my work as a writer has gone to places I will never visit in my lifetime, although since I did visit South Korea a few years ago as a contest winner, I know never to say never about anything.
 
I know that what I have written has generated a lot of emotion from a lot of people, smiles and laughs and a lot of negative feelings too.
 
And that is what a writer does, and I have done it for decades, so this blog has just been an extension of my career as a writer.
 
As former WWE wrestler Mark Henry used to say, “It’s what I do.”
 
And having made my career from it, I think at this point I do it pretty well.
 
I am not perfect, and even like a batter that hits .300, I always look for improvement in what I do.
 
But I am satisfied at what I do, what I generate, and what I contribute, even though I don’t have a mass following.
 
That is not the reason I started this blog, and I know it is a cliché, but if one person reads this, and it gets that person to think, then I am very, very satisfied.
 
So thanks for coming here and reading my stuff, or thanks for reading what I write on Facebook.
 
We will probably hit blog entry number 2,700 sometime in August or early September, and by that time, the world should be changed, a little more on the straight and narrow, as the coronavirus vaccine should be available to most anybody that wants it by that time … I hope.
 
Things are beginning to already get back to something more resembling normal, but we still have a long way to go, and I still believe that it won’t be until at least 2022 until we can put this behind us, if even then.
 
And I have been saying that for months, but if you read this blog on a daily basis, you already know that.
 
So let’s strive for a return to normalcy. Let’s do whatever we can do to get there.
 
I know we can do it. 

Rant #2,599: Crash and Burn

 

Been there, done that.
 
Tiger Woods really is lucky to be alive after his horrific car accident.
 
What went on at about 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning on a notoriously treacherous road in California is still under investigation, but the golfer really is quite lucky that he escaped this with just some major injuries to his legs.
 
He could have very well have been killed, so although his injuries are major, he still has a heartbeat.
 
Witnesses state that he was speeding on this road near Rancho Palos Verdes, and that he lost control of his car, and it rolled over off the road, nearly crushing him inside.
 
Police needed the jaws of life to get him out of the car, but he was conscious when they got him out of his vehicle.
 
He was rushed to the hospital had surgery, and hopefully will make a full recovery.
 
And based on his past history, you just hope that alcohol was not involved, and it simply was a speeding accident.
 
When I heard about what had happened, I immediately flashed back to nearly seven years ago, the fateful day that my family and I were involved in our own rollover accident.
 
Unlike Woods’ accident, the situation we were in on May 10, 2014 was caused by the negligence of another driver, but again, it was caused by speed.
 
The other driver, a kid who was hell bent to get onto the road during a dark and rainy day, never saw us, went through a stop sign, and hit us with such force that we rolled over and ended up upside down on the side of the road.
 
Here is my account of what happened, which I reported back in Rant #1,205, dated May 10, 2014. The Rant was called “Happy To Be Alive,” and let me tell you, we thanked our lucky stars that we got out of this thing in one piece, and Woods, even though he is much more banged up than we were, should also be thankful that he still has a heartbeat.
 
Anyway, here is what I flashbacked to yesterday when I heard the news about Woods’ accident:
 
“My family and I were driving along a major thoroughfare in our town on Saturday afternoon, going north on this main street, which is mainly residential where we were driving.
 
It was raining, and I had my lights and wipers on.
 
We were driving so that my son could fill out a job application at one of the local hardware stores. We got a tip that the place was hiring, so we were en route there.
 
Driving along, I hear my wife scream out, "Watch out!"
 
A car coming from one of the connecting side streets hit our car flush on the driver's side. The other car was going so fast, and the impact was so great, that it tumbled my car over on its roof, and we skidded to a halt on the side of the road.
 
Somehow, my wife got out of the car amidst the car turned upside down with glass all over the place. An ambulance and police came almost immediately, and they helped my son out of the car. He was hysterical and shouting, his adrenaline at full tilt, to the point where a fireman literally had to take him down.
 
But I was still in the car, upside down, still attached to the car in my seat by my seat belt. The EMTs, police and firemen tried to get me out of the car, but when I got my bearings, I was able to free myself from the seat. I moved over to the passenger door, and they put me on a stretcher and immobilized my head and body.
 
Evidently what happened is that the person in the other car, a kid of 24 or so, came right from the connecting street, never stopping at the stop sign on the street, and barreled into us, never seeing us until he hit us.
 
My family and I were taken to the local medical center, and except for some bruises, cuts and scrapes, we are OK. My wife's hand is pretty ripped up, but no broken bones. My son is OK, and I came through it pretty well. My neck hurts, and I have a bump on my forehead.”
 
Yes, pretty horrific indeed.
 
The aftermath was pretty bad, too, as I had a slight case of PTSD on top of the fact that I needed to pay for a new car to replace the one that was totaled in the accident.
 
I was also presented with 15 percent responsibility for the accident, even thought the accident was not caused by me at all; insurance said that since I was there, at that very moment, that I had to have some accountability for the crash happening.
 
That is how insurance companies work, and that is another story for another time.
 
But whatever happened, we healed pretty quickly, I bought a new car, and I put the accident behind me as quickly as I could.
 
Tiger Woods must do the same thing, but whether he can play golf again or not is another story, what with major injuries to his legs that required surgery.
 
Cars are a wonderful thing to have, but thousands of people each year get into accidents because of negligence behind the wheel.
 
This is not a toy that you are piloting, it is a vehicle that can get you where you have to go, and it can also kill or maim when it is not used properly.
 
Woods’ career as a golfer is secondary to the rest of his life, and happily, he will live to tell all of us what happened yesterday morning if he so chooses.
 
He will come out of this bruised and maybe a little broken, but he will come out of this whole.
 
Some people are not so lucky.
 
I remember another great athlete, Roy Campanella, the catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers, who was in his own horrific car accident in 1958 on an icy road in Glen Cove, Long Island, and while he lived many years after the accident, not only was his career over, but most importantly, the accident left him paralyzed, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
 
The Hall of Famer, who had broken his neck in the accident, lived a productive life afterward, but the last 35 years of his life was spent in a wheelchair.
 
Let’s all hope that Woods’ fate is better than that, that he gets out of this and is not only whole, but is able to golf again.
 
Like I said, been there, done that.

Rant #2,598: Every Day I Write the Book

We can all look back on our lives and take pride at what we have done to survive, to make money, and to put food on the table.
 
I write, I write, and I write some more.
 
That is what I do here, that is what I do for my remote job, and that is what I have done seemingly my entire life.
 
During one of my few recent dull moments, I though about how much I have written over the years, not just during my time when writing has been my profession, but even before that, when I was a kid.
 
I think the first thing I had published was in the literary magazine put out by P.S. 30, the very first school I ever went to, in Flushing, Queens, New York.
 
I went to kindergarten and first grade at the school, and the first thing I had published was a short piece about voting.
 
It read something like “You vote. I vote. We all vote.” And that was that, but it put me on the road to what would later be my profession.
 
I continued to write as a kid. I used to write letter upon letter to my favorite comic books, and every once in a while, I would get my letter published.
 
I remember that when we moved to Rochdale Village, South Jamaica, Queens, New York, there was a point that I mailed out about 50 letters to various titles that I used to read, including “Superman” and “Batman” and “Lois Lane.”
 
I distinctly recall that I bought a comic book at one of the stores that sold them at the retail part of the development—It was a Jimmy Olsen”—and lo and behold, my letter was published!
 
I got all wild and crazy about it, and everyone within earshot knew that my letter was published.
 
Writing was my salvation, I guess, and it helped me express myself in ways that I simply couldn’t verbally.
 
Later on, when we moved to Long Island, when I was in high school, I had a teacher who became enamored of my writing, brining up things that I supposedly said in my writing that I didn’t even know I had said.
 
I took a television writing class with her, and in this oft told story, I wrote a teleplay for the then popular TV show “Sanford and Son” starring Redd Foxx.
 
She thought that it was so good that I should send it to Hollywood, so I did just that. I don’t remember where I found the address of the show, but I found it, and sent it directly there.
 
The story I wrote was about Fred Sanford competing for a World Record, reaching that goal, and everything he had to do to get to that point.
 
The teleplay had all the standard “Sanford and Son” schtick, and yes, I also thought it was pretty good.
 
So I send the thing out to Hollywood, but being as naïve as I could be, I don’t send it registered mail or anything like that, I simply sent it out in the standard mail. And I did not make a copy of the teleplay, either.
 
I did not hear from the producers of the show, and I kind of forgot about it.
 
Then in the next season’s shows, I turned on the TV on a particular Friday night, when the show was on NBC, and lo and behold, the had a show about Fred Sanford breaking a World Record! They used a lot of the schtick that I used in my teleplay, but my name was not to be found in the credits.
 
So no, I got no credit, I got no money, I got no fame or fortune, but if you ever see the episode in reruns, that was my story, my idea, and it was stolen from me because I was an ignorant kid.
 
Later on, I wrote for a variety of publications on the side as I pursued my graduate and undergraduate degrees, wrote for the college newspaper for four years, and would occasionally have a letter published in popular periodicals like People Magazine and even Newsday, the Long Island newspaper.
 
Later on, I decided to put out my own publication, what was called a “fanzine” back in those times, which was a self-published fan magazine directed at a certain audience and a certain subject.
 
“Hear Again” lasted a few years, and I actually had subscribers all over the world when I gave it up right after my daughter was born.
 
It was a labor of love for me, and it also allowed me to write on a larger-scale basis for something called “The Island Ear,” a local music publication where I wrote the “Hear Again” column for more than 11 years with that free publication.
 
Through that time, I was not only freelancing for several other publications, but I was writing on a full-time basis about real estate, then security, as a full-time job, with my writing going out to thousands of subscribers to the publications that I wrote for.
 
One thing led to another, and I ended up writing full-time about military stores just as my son was born, commissaries and exchanges, and that is where I am today, still writing about them with a respite of a few months when the company I worked for for nearly a quarter century went belly up.
 
My stories have gone international, and I know for a fact that a few stores around the country and around the world have my story about their particular store on the wall of their establishment in a picture frame, so even though I have never been to places like Germany and Turkey and Japan, my stories have taken me to these places.
 
And then there is this blog, which has been going on for quite a bit longer than a decade, a blog that I do for fun, not for fame or money.
 
So when you add it all up, I have written thousands and thousands and thousands of stories during my life. I still remember learning to actually write out letters for the first time. I tried to copy the letters off of flash cards, and while my writing is still pretty bad, not only did I learn those letters at a very young age—maybe two years old—by learning the letters, I was able to teach myself to read, which I know I was able to do at three years of age.
 
So long ago, but I still have those memories.
 
And of course I probably started writing in crayon, moved over the pencils, then pens, later I typed things out—I remember typing out a college paper on toilet paper, literally—and then like all of us, I moved over to the new world of computers, and that is how I write my stories today and probably into the foreseeable future.
 
I have no idea why all of this came up, but it is a valid history.
 
I was put on this earth to write, write and write some more, and while I will never be a best-selling author—I wrote a novel while out of work that still sits here without being officially published—I have made a decent living because I know how to write, probably better than I know how to speak.
 
Everyone seems to think they can write, but it is a skill, much like playing a musical instrument.
 
Everyone can pick up a pen and write things on paper, but there is a real skill to writing, and getting out precisely what you want to say.
 
I am happy that you have been around for at least part of my writing journey, and as long as I can get to a computer keyboard, I will continue to ply my craft.
 
In fact, last night at 12 midnight, I was writing something for my remote job … it was something that I started and could not stop—I was energized, had my thoughts together, so why should I stop and go to bed without it being completed?
 
Yes, every day I write the book, and I might be semi-retired, but I stilt think I have the “write” stuff, so why stop?