Rant #4,010: When I Was Young

Yes, I did go to the skin doctor to get rid of that pre-cancer on my head.

Supposedly, I don't have to worry about it anymore.

But I did ask the doctor why I keep getting these things, and he told me the same thing I already knew.

It might have come from the sun against my scalp from 50 years ago or even more than that, or it could be hereditary.

It could also be because of age, and that is what we are leaning to.

I was never a sun worshiper, and if you knew me way back when in Rochdale Village, you know that I always had a baseball cap on my head, and that baseball cap stayed on my head when we moved to Long Island.

Did I go to the beach and/or to the swimming pool during those years?

Sure I did!

We went all the time, especially when I was in Rochdale Village Day Camp, but I always wore a cap on my head ...

But you never know.

Maybe one day I didn't, and more than 50 years later, these lesions are the result.

When you get older, things get you that you would have never dreamed of when you were younger, and I think that is what is happening to my body now.

All of these things that my body was able to fight off when I was younger are coming out now, and again, you never know what is going on in your body, even when you feel fine, like I do.

Tomorrow, I have to go for an ultrasound test to see if I have any further kidney stones to take care of, and I sure hope that I don't.

I have to drink 24 ounces of water about two hours before I get the test--I am getting the test at 7:30 a.m., so I have to do this at 5 a.m. or thereabouts--and I cannot pee during the period when I do the drinking and I have the test.

That should be so much fun!

I also have to get allergy shots that day, and at least with those, I have known I have bad allergies my entire life, so there are really no surprises with that type of health care ...

Or at least I don't think there are, but again, who really knows?

At this point, I am prepared for just about anything ...

Just about.

And again, I don't want any surprises.

Surprises are supposed to be fun, but as I get older, my surprises are just the opposite.

And all of these things are hitting me all at once, which makes the whole thing even worse.

Those carefree days of youth are definitely done.

But why do my later years have to be so difficult?

Rant #4,009: The Time It Is Today

Look, in the grand scheme of things, what I am going to relate to you is pretty inconsequential, but even with all the other major problems I have that I have described to you over the previous weeks and months, what I am going to tell you now is annoying at least, and frustrating beyond all understanding.

As you know, my son is into professional wrestling. It is his thing--we all have our own things--and he just loves to watch these shows on TV and in person.

AEW is the new kid on the block in pro wrestling, but they have made great leaps and bounds during their few years of existence. They are not WWE, but they are as close as you probably can get.

Anyway, as we customarily do, when a new pay-per-view (PPV) event comes up, my son and I order the event through our television.

It usually takes less than a minute to do, and when it is done, we get ourselves ready to watch that show.

No muss, no fuss.

Two weeks ago, AEW All In from England was the next PPV event on the list, so as we always do, we went into the PPV section of our service and tried to order it.

For the very first time, we had a problem.

Each time we tried to order it--for $49.99, for a six or seven hour show--we came up with a screen saying that there "was not enough credit" on our account to make the purchase.

First of all, I had no idea what they were referring to by "credit," and secondly, there should not have been a problem with "credit" or anything else, because we pay our monthly bill the day that we receive it, and have been doing that with our service since day one during the past 19 years we have used this particular service as our TV/phone/Internet provider.

The service is Verizon.

So after repeated tries to purchase the PPV, I called Verizon's customer service, which at one time was excellent, but now has fallen into the garbage pail of customer service, as I have had a lot of problems with them since moving to our current digs.

Anyway, I was passed back and forth from one department to another, and was told that they would have to call me back during business hours, because this was a billing department malfunction.

So last Monday, they did call me back, and the operator told me that not only would the problem be fixed, but that he was manually going to add the PPV into our account, so we wouldn't have to try to order it again.

Everything was supposedly hunky dory.

On Sunday morning, my son and I turned on the living room TV and were preparing to watch the show.

Just so you know, AEW's "All In" is what "Wrestlemania" is to WWE. It is AEW's biggest show of the year, an international event that takes place at England's famed Wembley Stadium.

So we maneuvered to the channel it was supposed to be on, and lo and behold, it wasn't on.

I tried to order it again, but the same thing came up, about our credit.

I called Verizon again, and I might as well have been speaking to Moe, Larry and Curly when trying to get this thing fixed, as once again, those I spoke to--including a supervisor--had absolutely no clue what the problem was, and once again, they told me that I would have to wait until the next business day to get this thing resolved.

So with it not being resolved, we could not watch the PPV through Verizon.

On Monday morning, for some reason, I slept through until 8 a.m., when I was awakened by a call from Verizon's customer service.

Trying to address this problem, I was put on hold several times while the operator tried to process my request, but then she told me that the office she was trying to contact was not open yet, and that she would have to call me back--

Which elevated my blood pressure even further, as I was on the phone for about 20 minutes to hear that once, again, my request had been passed onto another department.

I do not appreciate lip service, and I let them know very clearly that I was perturbed, and that their customer service was terrible.

They told me that they would call me back at 9 a.m.--

Which they did, but at 9:05 a.m., and for the next hour, I was on the phone, trying to get this thing resolved.

I was passed on to another operator, who had absolutely no idea what she was doing, once again trying to contact yet another department without resolving the problem, and then she told me that a work ticket was going to be put out, and this would be dealt with in a few days--

When I heard this, my boiling point had reached its limit, and I asked to speak to a supervisor.

I finally spoke to the supervisor, who basically reiterated what the operator said, and I told her that that was not good enough.

I wanted action now, right now, but she explained to me that it would take longer to fix the problem, and I had no choice but to wait a few days for the problem to be resolved.

I again told her that that was not good enough.

She explained to me that the "credit" situation has to do with clients generally with younger children who don't want their kids constantly ordering PPV events without their knowledge, so they put a credit cap on their system so the kids cannot order anything without the parents knowing about it until they get their bill.

However, they admitted that I had no such credit cap on my account, and that the credit cap can be as high as $1,000, so even with a $49.99 PPV, it should not have impacted my ability to get the PPV--

So once again, they had absolutely no idea why I was getting this message about "credit," and that I would have to wait a few days for it to get fixed.

As you can imagine, my blood was boiling at this point.

I told the supervisor that I have been a Verizon customer for 19 years, and that unless this thing was resolved, I would not make 20 years with them, as I will find another provider for these services.

"I have been working here longer than you have been with us," was her very cavalier reply.

She told me that I would have to wait, but that she would call me back on Monday to tell me how they were progressing with the problem.

Since she copped an attitude with me, I told her that if this thing was not resolved, I would go to the next level, with her the target, which I don't think I have to spell out to you--

She said she understood, and that I would get a call from her later that day.

And that was that.

After spending about 90 minutes of my two hours up after sleep on the phone with Verizon, nothing--

And I mean nothing--

Had been resolved.

What a complete and total waste of time.

It made the very busy week that I described to you yesterday even more frustrating.

I do not like being lip-serviced to death, and that is what has been happening to me for the past two weeks about this problem.

I have been around the block ...

I know incompetency when I see it.

And here it is on grand display.

Then late in the afternoon, I got the first of two calls from Verizon, one trying to assure me that they situation had been resolved--

But not being able to see it put into action, and I had/have my doubts.

The person on the phone told me to order any PPV event, and when it went through, he would immediately wipe it out.

The problem was that there were no PPV events to order, so that was for naught.

I told him that I will click on a sporting event, and see if it worked, and after clicking on it, it took me right to the channel, so I did not have to go through any payment levels, which makes me even more suspicious about whether this thing was fixed or not.

The person told me he would wipe out that event and the AEW event on the bill--I had been told previously that the AEW event has already been removed--and that was that with him.

I received another phone call an hour later, and to make a long story short, I reiterated the entire thing to this woman on the other end, and she said that she would actually call me on September 23, or right before the next AEW PPV event, to make sure everything was copacetic.

And then I got a message from my dermatologist for today's procedure I have to have done early this morning, and I don't want to get into that, because their artificial Intelligence-generated phone system is equally as incompetent as Verizon's customer service system is ...

And yes, never getting the information I needed from them because there was a glitch in their system, I let them have it too ...

In my usual polite, but very ticked-off, manner.

And yes, I spoke to the business manager in the office, and she agreed with everything I said about their phone system.

Big deal

And here I sit, with nothing to show for my efforts.

What a waste of time.

If I have said it once, I will say it a thousand times--

This is NOT the world I was born into.

No way, no how.

Rant #4,008: Surprise, Surprise, Surprise

To quote Gomer Pyle again ...

"Surprise, Surprise, Surprise."

My dermatologist found another lesion that is pre-cancerous, so I have to have that removed--and hopefully taken care of for good--on Tuesday morning.

If it is not one thing, it is another.

But unlike Gomer's other famous saying--

"He gonna kill me, he gonna kill me, he gonna kill me dead"--

This thing isn't going to do that to me, as I am sure it will be removed and over and done with.

I hope I don't have to go through what I did a few months ago, where my scalp had to be opened up, staples put into it, and I had to go to a plastic surgeon to fully heal the wound.

No, this time, it has to be removed in full on Tuesday, and that will be that ...

I certainly hope so.

Thus far this year, I have had three major operations, and it is actually four if you count the cancerous lesion I had removed earlier.

And I face another one when my eye gets operated on in September--

On September 21 ...

On Yom Kippur yet!

I just can't win this year, and that is why I simply can't wait for this year to end.

I need to put 2026 in the rear view mirror, and simply put it behind me.

By the way, I have another test this week related to my kidney stone surgeries, and then next month, I have to have another procedure done to ensure that I am OK somewhere else.

Makes we want to screech and scream with joy at all of these medical things.

But I guess I am not alone.

We have since heard that Dolly Parton had numerous health ills leading up to her passing, including kidney stones.

So these things can hit anyone and everyone, regardless of who you are, how much money you have, have much fame you have, etc.

If it teaches me--and all of us--one thing, it is that we are all human beings.

No one is better than anyone else, and we are all in the same boat.

I guess I should take comfort in that, but I have to tell you that I really don't.

Why is all of this happening to me, seemingly at the same time, one on top of the other?

Don't I get a break?

Doesn't my family get a break?

I guess the "breaks" I am talking about are the fact that these things are getting taken care of before they get worse, or even worse, untreatable.

So I have to take solace in that.

But it is still perplexing, and bewildering, that 2026--a year that I really thought would be a good one--has turned out to be the worst year of my life and my family's lives.

That is why I want it to end so, so much.

But today is only the last day of August.

We have September, October, November and December to get through.

Will any more negativity happen to me during this four-month span?

Only the Shadow knows.

And as for Gomer ...

I don't need "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise" ...

I need peace of mind, which is much more important at this stage of the game.

Rant #4,007: Elected

This post was actually completed earlier this week, but had to be postponed due to all of the celebrity passings I wrote about.

Finally, now is the time for this post to see the light of day.

I have absolutely no problem with sending in my ballot for November elections.

I think it is safe, it is trustworthy, and it is something I have participated in for the past few years, ever since I hurt my leg, which made it difficult to get to the polls.

But a lot of people don't trust it, claim that it is open to widespread fraud, and are trying to obliterate it, or at the very least, lessen its use.

One of those people is President Trump, who has been against mail-in voting since ...

Well, the times that he has used it himself.

The Supreme Court on Monday lifted an injunction that had blocked parts of Trump’s March executive order that sought to tighten federal oversight of mail-in voting, granting Trump a legal victory.

Again, I have no problem with voting by mail.

Perhaps I had a problem when it was first instituted for those other than service members and Americans living overseas, but I don't have a problem now.

Look, the cat is out of the bag, and it isn't going back in that bag.

Not every American can get to the polling place to do their voting, and this makes it easy to vote, allowing all Americans to participate.

And I admit, the reason I, and my family, continues to decide to vote this way is that it is simply more convenient for us.

Period.

There is no other reason.

I do understand the President's hesitancy in all of this.

There is definite voter fraud each Election Day, including ballots made out by non-citizens.

But I believe there has always been voter fraud, even in the days when there was only one choice in the way one could vote, and that was at the polling place.

However, I don't believe it is as rampant as the President says it is, and I don't think it was a factor in his losing the Presidential election a few years back.

One way to ensure that elections are 1,000-percent valid is proof of citizenship--whether at the polling place or via mail--and why this is even an issue is beyond me.

You have to show your identification at so many different places now--everywhere from the pharmacy to the doctor to Walmart--that I see no problem with showing my ID at the polling place, or furnishing it to officials via the mail.

Why some of us don't feel this is necessary--and an abridgment of our rights--is beyond my comprehension--

Although it really isn't.

Every vote counted is cherished by some people in our country, but some people are now cherishing votes made illegally, and that is just plain wrong.

Look, illegal votes are going to get through, no matter what precautions are placed on voting.

I told you some time back of a situation where I literally could have voted twice for President, but I decided not to break the law and held back from doing something illegal and against everything I believe in.

But going back to mail-in ballots, my family and I will do it again, if it is still made available to us as a way to vote.

My mother, in her last months of life, made it to the polling place, and I feel that most Americans can do the same.

But I will continue to vote by mail, because it is simply easier for me to do.

You can call me lazy if you like, and perhaps I am, but I have no doubt in the system, in the process, and once you vote by mail, you won't go back to the other way of voting, if you can help it.

You can cast my vote for mail-in voting, this November and every time in the future.

Have a great weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.

Rant #4,006: I Do the Rock

This has been a particularly hard week for notable people from the entertainment field who have passed away.

Shelley Fabares ... Dolly Parton ... I am sure I am missing someone ...

But now we have two other notables.

Actor/Singer Tim Curry left us the other day.

He is best known for his work in "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and "Clue" films, but he also had a very short-term singing career.

The one song of his that I fondly remember is "I Do the Rock, which made the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart in 1979 at its lower rungs, and that was pretty much that for him as a singer.

I always liked that song, and his deadpan vocals made the song memorable.

He had been in ill health for quite a long time.

And then we have Jaye P. Morgan.

Let me focus on her.

It is very difficult to describe Jaye P. Morgan to anyone who doesn't recognize the name, but she really had several different careers all rolled up into one.

During the early 1950s to the early 1960s, Morgan placed 20 singles on Billboard's Top Singles Chart, or whatever it was called back then.

She was basically a Big Band singer in the era when that phenomenon had already died out, but she was still pretty successful as a vocalist during the early rock and roll era, with "That's All I Want From You" hitting #3 in 1954.

She had a couple of other pretty big hits, but by 1960s, that was pretty much that.

Morgan--born Mary Margaret Morgan in 1931--kind of faded from view, but she continued to record and act during the entirety of the 1960s and early 1970s, and appeared on many of the variety shows and game shows of the era.

One memorable appearance that I remember was her guest starring role on "My Three Sons" where she played a washed-up singer (!!!) who wanted to resurrect her career.

Yes, life imitating art!

Don Grady played Robbie Douglas on the show, and not only was he an actor, he was an actual musician with singles out under his own name and with a band called The Yellow Balloon--which had a hit with a song with that same name.

Anyway, Morgan's character saw Robbie's fictional band perform, "Good Man To Have Around the House"--which Grady, in real life, actually released under his own name and that of the "Windupwatchband" during that period--and her character decided that if you can't beat them, join them, and ended the show with the rocking "Gonna Getcha" and she found a new audience with the kids.

But nothing really happened after that.

She continued to appear on a lot of TV shows, but her career kind of stalled ...

Until "The Gong Show" became a brief phenomenon on the airwaves.

Starting out as a somewhat legitimate talent showcase but morphing into something very, very different from that, Morgan was one of the judges, and she was as wild as the show's creator and host Chuck Barris--

Even more so.

On the show featuring Gene, Gene the Dancing Machine and acts where sexual innuendo was their stock in trade, Morgan went with that flow, and there was one episode where she got so into what was going on that she stripped off her blouse--network censors were onto the show as it grew in popularity, and the scene was censored--

And she was suspended from the show for a short period.

She became a very hot commodity again, and while her singing career was still in limbo, she once again became a name and a guest on every variety show of the era.

When "The Gong Show" went off the air, she kind of faded from view, too, and honestly, I did not even know that she was still with us until the announcement of her passing on Wednesday.

Yes, both Curry and Morgan are not in the same class as Dolly Parton was--they are somewhere in the same neighborhood as Shelley Fabares--but they each made their indelible marks on our consciousness--

And their performances live on on YouTube and the like.

Yes, this has been a tough week for celebrity passings, but all of their legacies are stoked in cement for all to enjoy.

Rant #4,005: A Coat of Many Colors

First we lost Shelley Fabares.

Now, Dolly Parton has followed her to the Pearly Gates.

Parton was 80, and she really lived life in those 80 years.

I am not comparing the two ...

Fabares was a teen idol, something of a singer, and she was an excellent actress.

Parton was in another class altogether.

When it was announced that she had passed, it felt like a piece of America--really Americana--left us here on earth with her death.

From nearly dirt poor to as rich as can be, she earned her status as probably one of the most popular entertainers in the world.

Her fake glam--yes, in that area, she finally confessed--enamored her to so many, made her literally stand out, and then the talent took over, and nobody noticed the other stuff anymore, or at least it really wasn't that important once she got you.

I have to tell you, I was not a fan of hers.

I don't like country music, and all the glam and glitz that she proudly showed off was really not my cup of tea.

I didn't really like her music, I didn't like her movies, and her phony look kind of trickled out to me, and kind of turned me off.

But I simply cannot look the other way at her talent.

Starting off as a "project" with Porter Waggoner, she soon eclipsed her mentor by a long shot, and the rest really is history.

She prided herself most as a songwriter, and she wrote many, many tunes, including "I Will Always Love You," which she had a hit on her own, but which skyrocketed into the nation's consciousness via its version by Whitney Houston.

She was so popular that her very existence was made fun of--and admired--and yes, there is a country novelty song called "Dolly Parton's xxxx" that is out there (I think I might even have it somewhere in my collection).

She owned "Dollywood," she gave to many philanthropic organizations, and she even started her own such endeavor, related to reading and literacy, in honor of her father, who never learned to read or write.

Parton came from a big family, and most of her siblings also went into the music industry, with various degrees of success.

Parton was married to Carl Dean for 60 or so years, and he completely kept in the background as his wife became one of the world's most famous people. 

He died a few years back, and from what I have read, Parton never really got over it.

Although she and Dean had no children of their own, she was the godmother to one of the current queens of excess, Miley Cyrus, but she said she never wanted to exert any influence on Cyrus or anyone else.

But she directly or indirectly influenced millions of people, and that will be her legacy now that she has left this earth.

Parton had been battling some health problems in later years, but seemed to have overcome them. As I write this, there was no cause of death reported, but I am sure something will come out in the days to come.

President Trump has ordered that flags be lowered throughout the country for the next week in her memory.

Very fitting.

This was a big loss, and even if you weren't a fan of hers like me, you feel her loss just the same.

"I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life. I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world." - Dolly Parton

Rant #4,004: Johnny Angel

Shelley Fabares finally met up with "Johnny Angel" the other day.

Fabares, the quintessential TV actress who started her career as a teen pop star, died over the weekend at age 82.

I briefly spoke about her yesterday, as the news came in of her passing, but there is more I want to say about her.

The niece of fellow actress Nanette Fabray, Fabares acted in several TV productions as a young child, but she became a huge star in her early teens, as her portrayal of the very prissy "Mary Stone" on the ultra-popular "The Donna Reed Show" (1958-1963) made her a teen idol for the ages, a teen idol for a much more innocent time.

She became every young boys' fantasy girl--even if us boys weren't at the point in our lives where we could know or understand just why--and her every move was chronicled by the teen mags, just a few years prior to these magazines' pivot to the Beatles.

She was so popular that the fledgling Colpix record label--Columbia-Screen Gems' record label--decided that they could market her popularity into a singing career, and her rendition of "Johnny Angel" hit the top spot in the singles chart in March 1962.

Like Ricky Nelson with his hits, she performed "Johnny Angel" on the sitcom, and it propelled sales of the tune into the millions.

Even though she wasn't much of a singer, Fabares was one of those teen pop star TV actors that was groomed for records--Paul Petersen, James Darren were others--and the success of this way of creating pop stars certainly laid the groundwork for the later Monkees project, with Colpix morphing into Colgems, and everything that followed.

She had a couple of other mild hits during the next year or so--the followup "Johnny Loves Me" hit #21 three months later--but that was pretty much it. 

Fabares remained as a regular on "The Donna Reed Show" through 1963, as the storyline moved her to college ..,

But the real reason for her departure was that she was gradually moving into a big screen career, and Fabares appeared in several movies of the time, including three films with Elvis Presley, "Girl Happy," "Spinout," and "Calmbake," and one with Herman's Hermits, "Hold On!," with these films establishing her as the female lead and pairing this female pop idol with two male pop idols, Elvis and Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits.

During this period, she remained faithful to the show that launched her, making a couple of return appearances to "The Donna Reed Show" during its three remaining seasons on the air.

Teen idols have notoriously short runs of popularity, and the same thing happened to Fabares, as movie roles dried up, so she went back to television, and guest starred on numerous TV shows during the early 1970s.

And she found fame again from the mid-to-late 1970s into the late 1990s with regular roles on "One Day At a Time" and especially on "Coach," two of most popular sitcoms of the era.

Fabares continued to act into the early 2000s, both in movies and on television, but she pretty much retired in the early 2000s, a period during which she had a liver transplant.

She was married to actor Mike Farrell of "M*A*S*H" fame.

Fabares did many things in her extraordinary career, but I think even with her later successes, I believe that her role as "Mary Stone" on "The Donna Reed Show" will always stand out from the rest.

She was the perfect, prissy antagonist versus Paul Petersen's less "perfect" "Jeff Stone" character, and even with Oscar winner Donna Reed at the helm, it made the show a never-miss sitcom of the time, especially for younger viewers.

And her "Johnny Angel" just floats into your consciousness every time you hear it.

Funny, I had only recently stumbled onto a podcast where Fabares was interviewed, and she seemed to be quite a humble person, astonished to this day about her success.

R.I.P. Shelley Fabares. You left quite a legacy to us all on film, TV and records.