Rant #2,907: Lazy Day (Sort Of)

How was your Memorial Day weekend and holiday?
 
Mine was pretty good, pretty relaxing, but now, it is time to get back to work, even for this semi-retired old fogey.
 
Yesterday, my family pretty much did nothing, which was fine with me.
 
We had a nice Saturday involving a lot of driving, so yesterday, I just petered out.
 
But I am getting ahead of myself …
 
After a kind of blasé Saturday, on Sunday, we drove out east on Long Island to Peconic—right before the northern end, Greenport—to go to a brewery my wife enjoys and hang out with one of her brothers and his wife.
 
It was a pretty long drive, but it was a nice day, and we spent a few hours there taking in the sun and the sights.
 
Then we drove to my wife’s other brother’s home, and we had a barbecue, so it was a nice, complete day.
 
By the time we got home, I had driven about 150 miles or so during the day, and I personally was pooped.
 
But we had one more thing to do when we got home, or at least my son and I had one more thing to do—
 
And that was watch an All Elite Wrestling pay per view live wrestling show called “Double or Nothing” from Las Vegas.
 
We weren’t able to watch the show until we came home at about 8:30 p.m., but with the pre-show, this spectacle began at 7 p.m.
 
I fell asleep twice during the show, but honestly, every time I thought it was over, another match came on, and the whole thing lasted until about 1 a.m., which means except for the two naps, I had been up and about since 6 a.m. in the morning, and let me admit to you that this 65-year-old body has a tough time doing things like that anymore.
 
I guess 19-hour days are not part of my chemistry anymore …when I was younger, there were days that I literally did not sleep at all, and I was fresh as a daisy—
 
Not anymore.
 
So yesterday, my family and I did nothing, or at least my wife and I did nothing.
 
I took my son to see his friend, a few towns over from us, and before that, I brought in all of our empty recyclable bottles to get my 5 cents for each one. I also went to the supermarket with my wife, so it’s not like I sat on the bed and watched TV all day—
 
Which I also did, watching a movie I had never heard of called “Cop Out,” a British film from 1967 starring James Mason and (get this!) Bobby Darin!
 
You can’t make this up, Mason and Darin together in one movie!
 
It was a sort of hip (for 1967) drama about a drunken lawyer (Mason) who tries to find out the real killer of a nasty drifter (Darin) who riles up a bunch of young adults (including Geraldine Chaplin) to do things they probably wouldn’t normally do, including murder.
 
It kept me going, Mason actually was quite good, and it killed 90 minutes—that to me made it at least a decent film, one that I discovered on YouTube.
 
In between it all, I found the holiday weekend and day a good time to pick up on the digitizing of my records, and for me, the past four days have been Tommy James, all day and all night.
 
The whole thing was precipitated by what my family and I did two Saturdays ago, which was to see James perform live at Westbury, a show that had been postponed four or five times during the past three years due to COVID and some other things.

 
It finally came to be that Saturday evening, and James put on his usual stellar show, pretty much the same show he has put on for years, playing as many hits as he can get into this time on stage, talking about the book about him being made into a movie (when?), and hobnobbing with the crowd.
 
He looked and sounded good, and after you hear him play live nearly two dozen songs that were all hits big and small back in the day, some of which later became hits for other people, it almost makes you re-examine what you have in your own collection, which is what it made me do.
 
I also realized that of the many records I have of his, I had not digitized a thing, less a few singles, so I took it upon myself to do just that over the past four days.
 
I have a few LPs to go, and after digitizing all of this, I have one question to ask: Why isn’t this guy in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
 
I will get the full measure of all of this when I get to listen to his music in my car, but the question remains.
 
And yes, through it all, I did think of those who perished in fighting for what this country stands for, and also, all who have served who have been lucky enough to come home.
 
I thought of my father, the old Marine, who, in his later years, would salute every flag displayed in front of houses and businesses as we passed them in the car.
 
He never went directly to war, but he served the Marines proudly, and once a Marine, always a Marine.
 
For him, and my father in law—another old Marine who has passed—and for one of my brothers in law—who served in the Navy—we all saluted you during this Memorial Day weekend and holiday, and we salute you every day for allowing us to live the American way, which remains the best way mankind knows.
 
Salute!