Classic Rant #294 (July 8, 2010): Ringo, Ringo, Ringo

Richard Starkey turned 70 yesterday.

You ask, "Who is Richard Starkey?"

And then you say to me, "On a day when Lindsay Lohan is dealt a terrible blow to her career, and what with the Lebron James saga, who the heck is Richard Starkey and why should I care about him?"

Well, the answer is simple: Richard Starkey is the most famous drummer in the world, and was a member of the most popular band in the world.

Richard Starkey, with a little help from my friends, is Ringo Starr.

I am sure that when Paul McCartney wrote "When I'm 64" he had no idea that he and Ringo would actually get several years beyond that number to 70.

And now Ringo has!

Ringo was not the original drummer in the band, Pete Best was. But for whatever reason or reasons--and there were evidently plenty, including Pete's good looks and his ineptitude as a drummer--Ringo came into the game a little later than Paul, George and John, but his impact was felt immediately.

Well, probably not immediately. Ringo wasn't the greatest drummer then, either, and had to be helped out on "Love Me Do" by a session drummer.

But he was what the Beatles needed. He was a decent musician at the time, smart, had a good personality, and wouldn't clash looks-wise with John, Paul or George.

But he became the true personality of the band. Just one look at him during the early days, and you knew that although these guys were serious musicians, they had a bit of fun in them.

And Ringo was it.

In fact, during their heyday, Ringo probably could be called the true heart of the band. No, he didn't write a lot of the tunes, no, he didn't sing too many either, but that backbeat lifted the Beatles to heights never before achieved, and probably never achievable again.

His turns as singer were memorable. Who could argue that "Yellow Submarine" and "Octopus' Garden" are among the most fun songs the Fab Four ever recorded?

He had an early, quite impressive solo career too. Although not much of a singer or songwriter, he was able to craft songs that fit both his limitations and strengths, and he had many, many hit records away from his mates--among them "Photograph," "You're Sixteen," and "The No No No Song," the latter one of my favorites.

And now he is 70.

He hasn't let up a bit. He releases an album just about every other year or so, and even though current pop radio won't play anything by anybody over 35 years old, the albums are pretty good.

He tours with his All-Star band, and celebrated his birthday with a concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall.

He has grown into his looks, and it's funny, but he looks much better than Paul does these days.

And he remains married to Barbara Bach, who in her day, was quite a looker, and still is one.

So, happy birthday Ringo. Here's to at least 70 more years of making us feel good with your music and your panache.

Rant #1,645: Not What It Appears To Be

It is not easy writing a five-day-a week column.

I am certainly not spurred on by the money I make from this, which is nothing, since I am not affiliated with anyone or anything here, so that is not a motivation.

My main motivation here is to write about things that I am interested in, something different from what I do that puts bread on my table, and I think I have accomplished that over the past six years.

Oftentimes my viewing public doesn't agree, and shuns my articles like they are trying to avoid the Zika virus, but somehow, people do come here and read.

As with any regular column, people become enthralled with what the writer is writing about on each particular day, and that is no different here.

But what to write about on a nearly daily basis?

The secret of a successful blog is that you have to keep making it new and different each day, and I think I have accomplished that.

So again, what do I write about, let's say today?

Sometimes I scan the news of the day, looking for something that piques my fancy and that I can write about here.

Well, I found that "something" today.

Evidently, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has found his latest cause to alert the public about.

Schumer is New York's senior senator, and it seems that every weekend, he finds a cause, rails against it, and all the local media outlets cover what he has to say, because quite frankly, the news is slower on the weekend, and there is often little else to talk about or cover.

Sometimes I agree with his weekend crusades, other times I don't.

This time around, I found it quite interesting what he was talking about.

Evidently, someone is out there looking to patent their phone gun, yes, a gun, a working and active firearm, that looks like your average, everyday cellphone.

It is easy to conceal, easy to carry on your person, but when you open it up, it is a gun.

There have been things designed like this before--one that I can think of is a cane that shoots bullets or has a knife stuck in its bottom--but this might be the first instance where modern technology is being melded with such ingenuity to create something that really is potentially frightening.

Since it looks like a cell phone on the outside, it can easily pass through any detectors used at gates, such as at airports and arenas, because it will be detected as a cell phone, not as a gun.

Thus, people can be concealing this weapon, and in the wrong hands, it could cause havoc.

That is what Schumer is railing against, the possibility that such a weapon could be used for harm, and yes, he is right about that.

He is looking for it to be banned, and in terms of protection and security, he is correct, it should be banned.

We don't need things that are one thing masquerading as others, and you just know that a product like this will wind up in the wrong hands, even if the designer's objective to such a creation is a valid one, for personal protection.

Things just don't work out that way when we are talking about items such as this, and with security still a paramount concern, this type of thing would just add fuel to that fire.

This has nothing to do with our right to bear arms; it has to do with matters of civility and protection, and this product would not provide either, and would make things harder for the general public to feel safe.

Again, this is not a major news item, but it is kind of interesting in its own way. The news media has picked up on this, and so have I.

Years from now, we might look back on this and say, "What was all the fuss about?" But today, when security is our top concern, I do think it is something to be concerned about, making it easier for people who are looking to harm and maim people to do just that.

What is next--eyeglasses that shoot mini missiles?

I don't know, but in the past, multi-purpose items, real or imaginary, were interesting. Think of the shoe phone on "Get Smart."

But today, they are potentially dangerous, and does anybody really need a gun that looks like a cell phone?

Classic Rant #293 (July 7, 2010): Hooray For Lindsay, She’s Going Down

Actress Lindsay Lohan inherited some of the best traits of her parents.

She got her hair, her figure and her body from her mom.

She got her facial features from her dad.

Unfortunately for her, she also inherited their brains.

And in soccer language, what she got was NIL!

I am sure that you heard that Ms. Lohan received a 90-day sentence from a judge in a Los Angeles courtroom yesterday. It seems she violated her parole stemming back to a 2007 driving under the influence conviction that she had.

She cried in the court yesterday, "I have to work ... and my schedule is very different" from the one most people have.

Was she talking about her work schedule or her party schedule?

Let's focus on Lindsay's foibles.

She wore an ankle monitor to alert officials about her alcohol consumption, and it went off a number of times while she was partying on the other side of the globe.

She was instructed to attend a certain number of alcohol education classes, but attended many less than she was supposed to.

She was supposed to appear back in the U.S. weeks ago, but claimed that she did not have her passport; it was missing, and she even accused her dad of the theft.

The judge didn't buy any of this, and that's a good thing, even if Ms. Lohan doesn't know it yet.

Ms. Lohan comes from real "white trash with money" stock. Her mother, Dina, a former hoofer, recently had an altercation with a Carvel ice cream shop worker over a free ice cream cake that she thought she was supposed to get. However, Carvel's promotion gave her daughter the right to have a free cake, not the mother.

Her father, Michael. also has substance abuse issues, and he constantly claims that he is broke. However, he has plans for an elaborate second wedding, buys expensive cars, and still claims that he has no money.

Yes, the dysfunctional Lohan clan, Long Islanders like I am, have not learned to live in the world as we know it. They constantly think they are better than all of us, can constantly flaunt the law, and do as they please.

And they have pretty much gotten away with this behavior, until now.

With all their fame, fortune, and notoriety, the Lohans don't have something that most of us have: personal pride. They constantly blame others for their foibles, and not themselves.

The last straw appeared to be at yesterday's trial, and the judge--who also handed Ms. Lohan a 90-day sentence for alcohol rehab to run after her prison sentence--acted accordingly in the doling out of punishment to Lindsay.

Maybe now it will dawn on her, and her parents and family, that they are no better than anyone else.

She will be a prison inmate for 90 days, have a number, and be no better or worse than other incarcerated women in California.

It appears that their string of lies has finally ended.

The string has snapped, and afterward, maybe Lindsay and her family will understand that their lifestyle can't continue as it has played out over the past several years.

It would be a shame for a young person like Lindsay to fall down before she has a chance to really stand up for herself as someone in full possession of all her faculties, and maybe this time out of the spotlight will teach her that you have to fall all the way down before you can stand up.

Let's hope she, and her parents, get that part of this thing.

Rant #1,644: Engulf and Devour

Once again, I am going to talk about sports here, so if you aren't into this, now is the time to leave and come back tomorrow for talk about some other topic.

But today it is sports, because this past weekend, my household was engulfed in sports ... or at least my son and I were engulfed in sports.

My wife was engulfed in "The Walking Dead."

That is another story for another time.

My son and I are not engulfed in zombiedum ( I would say zombie-dumb, but I do not want to incur the wrath of those who swear by "The Walking Dead," including my wife, who claims that I interrupt her while watching the show when I fall asleep and snore, as she can't hear the dialogue through my noise).

Yes, engulfed is the word of the day.

My son and I were engulfed in sports this weekend.

On Friday, as you all know, we went to the Knicks game, and although our seats were lousy--we could only see a part of the scoreboard as we were positioned behind one of the baskets all the way up in the back rows--we, at least, got to see the Knicks actually win a game, beating the equally lowly and much worse Brooklyn Nets.

It seems that you must now pay over $100 a seat to have the privilege of seeing the entire scoreboard, as those seats are further down and you can see everything.

Where we were, you were lucky to see part of the scoreboard, which meant that I had to crane my neck back a row to keep up with the score, as a row back, they did have a monitor which duplicated what was on the scoreboard. So, the entire night, that is what I did, and my neck, back and right arm hurt after that, and still do.

And sitting in the hinterlands also prevents us from fully hearing all of the announcements. It is a vacuum where our seats were, and really, you are at the game but aren't at the game when you have seats like this.

And most of the fans there, as we saw, were more interested than eating and talking about personal affairs than watching the game, so such a seating situation almost fosters this non-caring-about-the-game attitude.

There is next season, and as much as some players are now playing for next season, we as fans are too. Maybe next year, we will actually sit in seats where you can see everything, not just part of everything.

Saturday, my son went back to his bowling league, which he enjoys. His team is in second place, and they are within earshot of first.

My son basically held his own on the lanes that day--he pretty much hit his average--and the team won its two games and everything else that day, so they are still strong with about two months in the season to go.

Maybe we will have a first place team in our future. We will see.

Then on Sunday night, while my wife was pining for all those zombies, my son was hopped up for pro wrestling, as the WWE had its annual Wrestlemania extravaganza, this year held in the AT&T Center in Dallas, Texas--and each and every one of the more than 100,000 seats there were filled with fans.

The WWE shows its mega bash on its own WWE Network, and yesterday, with an influx of people around the world watching this show, the network was, well, engulfed, and many people had trouble signing onto the show, including us.

We continually got errors, but finally, we got onto the show.

At one point, it was going in and out, we tried to reset it, and lost the show again.

We managed to pick it up, and the rest of the evening was fine, but it was very frustrating otherwise.

You cannot understand how many people are into this thing, and Wrestlemania brings out even the most casual fans.

There were more than 100,000 in the seats in Dallas, and there were many, many times that amount watching from the comfort of their homes. I am willing to bet that not only an attendance record was set in Dallas for this event, but probably a Internet home viewing record, too.

As for the action, honestly, the first half of the show was absolutely terrible, with the matches not up to par with previous Wrestlemanias, but it did pick up.

The Shane McMahon-Undertaker bash was one of the best steel cage matches I have ever seen, highlighted by McMahon jumping off the top of the 25 feet off the ground steel cage onto the press table where the Undertaking was laying after getting beat up by McMahon.

He missed the Undertaker, but he put the press table in ruins, and so was McMahon, who ended up losing the match and nearly losing some other things, as he was carted away by the EMTs.

I won't go into the back story of the match--it is actually too complicated if you aren't really into this--but I will say that the match was quite good.

The other later matches weren't as good as this one, but they were good, so all in all, I would give the entire show a B-, not good for a Wrestlemania, but good considering the first couple of matches were Ds, as far as I am concerned.

So all in all, a great sports weekend ended when I went to sleep, and reality set in this morning that myself, my wife and my son have to go to work today.

Woe is us. Something else to get engulfed in.

But wait, there is hope for us.

Baseball's 2016 season began this weekend, and the Yankees begin their season this afternoon, so all hope is not lost.

Yes, there is really something else to get engulfed by ... .

Classic Rant #292 (July 6, 2010): Hot, Hot, Hot

Yes, it has been hot in the Northeast recently.

We just went through another day of 90-100 degree heat, and another one is expected today, with yet another one tomorrow. Forecasters say that perhaps on Friday we might get a break, into the weekend, as all this heat will eventually produce some rain.

But boy, it was a hot July 4 weekend!

We had a few barbecues, actually used the backyard, above-ground pool, and even took in a movie to escape the heat.

I know, if you are reading this in a hot weather climate, you are probably laughing at me, saying that you are used to the hot weather because you get it all the time.

Well, we don't, so we are grinning and baring it now.

People are sweltering. I remember as a kid, I lived in one of those areas where they used to open up the fire hydrants--both legally and illegally--to douse the heat. We used to run through the water in the middle of the street. It was fun, but as a kid, I didn't know how dangerous it was, nor did I care.

We also had a fountain nearby that would shoot cascading water all the time. Every once in a while, when there was a breeze, you could barely feel the water if you were playing ball several yards away. It was temporary, but it felt good.

And that brings me to the next topic. My reunion barbecue is slated for this Saturday, and rain is in the forecast. I hope it can hold out for just five measly hours--from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.--so I can pull this off.

If not, then Sunday is the day, but rain is also in the forecast for this day, too.

What am I going to do if both days are rained out?

I don't know. I really don't know.

I just wish it would rain already. I am at work the rest of the week, so for me, it doesn't really matter.

The weekend does, so let me hope that everything holds out for just those five measly hours on Saturday.

It can't rain on my parade, can it?

Rant #1,643: April Fools!

I guess you can call me an "April Fool" because I was born on the 28th day of this month, but today, April 1, just happens to be April Fools' Day.

Last year, I said that I was giving up this column, and a lot of people called me on it, saying I was pulling their leg.

And all of these posts later, they were right.

I was just "funning" them.

I am here to stay.

What to do this year?

Well, today I am leaving work early, and going to a New York Knicks game held this evening at Madison Square Garden, which I will be attending with my son.

Yes, you can call me a real "April Fool," because actually paying money to see this team play is like taking my dead presidents and throwing them out the window.

Somebody catches those pieces of paper and benefits from them, but me, if they play like they have been playing this season, I will be out the money and kicking myself for spending it like this.

So just let's say I am asking you to pray for me, and if not for me, pray for my son.

He needs to see the Knicks win a game in person.

And yes, we are basically sitting in the last seat in the last row to see this, because that is all I could afford right now, but we will be there, and hopefully, see a good game.

So maybe I won't be an "April Fool" after all, although I probably am, anyway, for spending good, hard earned cash on this team.

But I do like to go to games in person, and honestly, I do it for my son--just like my own father did it for me way back when.

If my son had his way, we would have season tickets to the Knicks, and the Yankees, and go every day to see a game.

But the reality is that it is so expensive that even if we had the money, I doubt we would do it.

That kind of "April Fool" I am not, penniless or rich or somewhere in between.

So this year, I am not going to tell you that I won't be writing this column again, because I pulled that ruse last year.

I won't tell you that I found out, from "sources," of course, that a new candidate has emerged in the presidential race, and that person is ... how about me?

No, I won't tell you that, because it isn't true and I don't think you would fall for that, although it is true that a couple of times in the past, I did vote for myself for president (check the records, if there are any, of write-in votes through the years).

I won't tell you that I have, doing extensive research, found the cure for the common cold, because even if I did do this, it probably would not work on me, because I have allergies and I am immune to any man-made remedy for this affliction.

Nor would I tell you that I was abandoning contact lenses for glasses, because I have worn glasses since the age of four, and the prospect of sticking things in my eye makes me nauseous.

So, I told you the truth this year, that I was taking off early from work to go to a Knicks game with my son, and I hope that you believe me.

It is true. I swear to it. What did we used to say, "cross my heart and hope to die."

And that comes from this nice Jewish boy, so it has to be true.

Speak to you on Monday.

And to steal one from Lily Tomlin, "And that's the truth ... BLEHH!"

Classic Rant #291 (July 5, 2010): Happy Day Off!

I actually have the day off today, as a result of July 4 being on a Sunday this year.

Hip hip hooray!

Anyway, I am going to make this entry a short one.

I hope everyone had a good July 4--lots of swimming, barbecues, ballgames and firecrackers (I hope you let the professionals do the firecrackers) for everyone!

We were lucky. It was hot yesterday where were were--in the mid-90s--and the Yankees won their game. We swam, had a barbecue, and then watched fireworks not only on the TV, but through our living room window, where they were shooting them off a few miles away. So we got our fireworks in stereo, I guess.

Anyway, more fun today, I hope, before going back to the salt mine, as Lumpy's dad used to say on the "Leave It To Beaver" show--which, by the way, is finally fully out on DVD!

Anyway, have a good holiday. If you have to work, I pay my condolences to you. And you will get back at me--I have to labor on Labor Day!