Day 10: It's Time to Kick Bill Cosby Out of the Buckeye Family

I remember buying Bill Cosby's records when I was in junior high school and playing them over and over, never failing to laugh. 'I Started Out as a Child.' 'Why is There Air?' 'It's True, It's True.' I could recite them line for line.

There was a bit called 'Spanish Fly' that turned out to be a portent of this past year for Cosby. It's about the quest for a mythical aphrodisiac, and as a burgeoning hormonal teen the idea was, shall I say, intriguing. But when the allegations first hit, my mind went immediately back to that bit, and the creepiness factor that didn't exist in 1969, because of my immaturity and the social mores of the time, hit me right in the conscious.

Ever since, I've felt guilty having enjoyed that bit, even though there is no way I could have been expected to understand  the sinister, oppressive, criminal undertones that the allegations cast on it. Still, I never pass on a chance to beat myself up. 

All of this brings me to the news in the Ohio State University newspaper, The Lantern, that the university is considering whether to strip Cosby of his honorary degree. OSU is not the only school considering similar action. 

I know they have to make it not look like they're acting rashly, but this one is a no brainier. The evidence it too overwhelming. The guy is a first rate sleaze and a criminal. Do it. Do it now. Do it without apology. 

It's not like he earned a regular degree. Graduates are forever Buckeyes, no matter what path their lives take. But Cosby's degree was a rescindable bestowment. You have to deserve it and you have to keep deserving it. 

I don't mind them pausing to make extra sure taking it away is the right thing to do. As long as they decide taking it away is the right thing to do. 

Day 9: Word Fussiness Part 1

Many things people say bother me, from an English usage standpoint. Many things also bother me from a dumbness standpoint, but that's for another post.

One of those things is illustrated perfectly in this cartoon from the consistently excellent XKCD.

Another one is 'insure' and 'ensure.' I've looked them up and while technically it's okay to use 'insure' instead of 'ensure,' I don't like it. To my mind 'insure' should relate strictly to the insurance industry To insure some's safety should mean that you've paid money to your State Farm agent in case something happens to them. [Cool side note. I just installed Grammarly on my browser, which checks my spelling and grammar as I go. It's questioning my use of the word 'insure in the previous sentence. So Grammarly agrees with me.]

My last example today is 'on accident.' The correct term is 'by accident.' My kids picked this phrasing up in school and it took me years to break them of it, including, but not limited to washing their mouths out with soap, and shock therapy, which consisted of them being shocked that I actually gave a crap about it.

I'll post more when I think of them.

Day 9: Adios, Marcelita's

When we first moved to Northeast Ohio one of the first places we were told to eat was a Mexican restaurant called Marcelita's in Hudson. The food was good, the prices were very reasonable and for many, many years we enjoyed going there. It was super popular and on a Friday or Saturday you had to wait to get a table. We most often went there for lunch when the seating was a little sparser.

Over the course of the years, my wife got to know the owner by taking care of her dog, and whenever we visited, Jeannie would stop by the table to chat. I'm not going to lie, our service was never better than after a chat with the owner.

A few years ago they decided to sell. The new people kept it up for a while and we were never disappointed, but we hadn't been there in many months because there is a terrific Mexican place very close to home. I recently heard the quality had gone down. A couple of weeks ago I heard it closed. Today I drove by and the sign out front said, "Thank you and farewell."

I never like to see a business fail. I know how hard it is to make a go of it and I'm sure these people put a lot of energy and money into trying to make it work. I don't know the whys and wherefores of it all but it still makes me sad. I also think about how sad Jeannie must be to see the labor of love she nurtured for years and years go away.

Every time I have a chimichanga I will remember Marcelita's.

Day 7: Digging in the Archives: a Poem

I have a bunch of poems and stories on my hard drive that I've decided are not really publishable but there are some that I like enough to share (and especially enough to help fill 30 days of blogging).

This one is from, maybe, 2008.

On Napping

I have heard

it's good to nap.

Twenty minutes they say

energizes, but twenty minutes

just makes me want

twenty minutes more.

I remember when

my grandfather's naps

got longer and

longer then he died,

which makes me think

twenty minutes is enough

Day 6: My New Favorite Businesses

I just saw a list of retail establishments that will NOT be open Thanksgiving Day. I don't have a lot to say about it except, GOOD FOR THEM!. I would love it if more businesses would join in. People should be able to stay home with their families. These are businesses I will reward with my patronage whenever I can. Except Hobby Lobby. Hobby Lobby can bite me.

Day 5: Where I review 'Urgent' by Foreigner

Yesterday as I was running errands, I started the car and the radio turned on. The first thing I heard was the opening notes to Foreigner's 'Urgent.' 'Urgent' is probably my least favorite hit from a band I do not really like all that much, but don't hate. My favorite Foreigner song is 'Jukebox Hero.'

So after the 20 seconds it took for me to realize I didn't want to hear 'Urgent' I flipped to another station, where they were playing the exact same song, starting in the exact same spot, right at the beginning.  

Now I could have angrily switched to another station but I was almost afraid to. What if the next station played 'Urgent' from the exact same spot, then another station and another? I wasn't prepared for the possibility of a sudden appearance by Rod Sterling in my passenger seat. Instead I listened to the entire song to determine whether the universe was trying to tell me something. It was not.

So I'm going to make good use of the time spent listening to 'Urgent.' My quickie (urgent?) review:

Lyrics: It's a sex song. Nothing wrong with sex songs but it's not even sexy. It's trite in places, a little disjointed in it's narrative, and it feels like the lyrics are merely a means to get to the hook. The lyrics are a marshmallow of a meal. 

Drums: Competent but not interesting. Forgettable. In fact, I usually focus on the drums when I listen to music and with this song I can't even begin to tell you anything more about the drumming.

Sax: Nice sax solo. So nice that I had to look who did it. Motown great, Junior Walker. I think that every time I listen to that song I will do it only for the sax solo.  

Vocals: Lou Gramm can sing. Really, the whole song is a means to get Lou Gramm to sing the hook over and over and over. "Urgent, urgent, urgent, urgent ... emer--gency." That's the song. 

And it made them a lot of money. 

Day 4: Where I Remind You About an Often Overlooked Pop Album.

Every time I hear one of the few Journey songs that weren't sung by Steve Perry I shake my head and say aloud, "What were they thinking?" I mean, that voice! But the same doesn't apply to Hall and Oates, even though Daryl Hall had a significantly better voice. In later years Oates was pretty much relegated to backup status, but for a while he was given a lot to sing, and his voice is perfect for the blue eyed soul style of the early years. And that's one of the things that makes 'Abandoned Luncheonette' such a good album. It's truly a collaboration. And while Hall sounds great and the harmonies are beautiful, some of the real gems are with John Oates on lead. 'I'm Just a Kid" is a terrific song. But this is one you'll probably remember.

But there's solid songwriting and singing throughout the album. It's an under appreciated piece of work, I think.

You can listen to the entire album here




Or check it out on Spotify. It's a great pop album.

Blogapalooza Day 3: Where I tell you how I intend to vote on the weed issues

So Ohio has two issues on the ballot, Issue 2 and Issue 3, which relate to marijuana legalization and commerce. It's been hard to find quality articles on the issues but The New York Times has an excellent piece,

I had to really break this down into its component pieces:
1. I'm ok with legalization of marijuana.
2. I'm not in favor of the oligarchy that will control it.
3. I don't think the Ohio Constitution is the place to stick in a law whose only purpose is to counteract Issue 3.
4. Anyone who thinks Buddie is a good idea is begging me not to vote for them.

So 'no' to both.

I say, let them come up with a better initiative. Get back with me in 2016.

Blogapalooza Day 2: May as Well Get This Over With

The Browns.

Yes, I'm going there. This will probably be my only Browns post and now is as a good a time as any, coming off a terrible loss yesterday to Arizona. (I was going to link something there about the game but it's all so pathetic that I'll let you look on your own should you need a reason to get really bummed).

I didn't grow up a Browns fan. I was raised in Toledo and though I was a Detroit Tiger fan, I never took to the Lions. My dad was a Browns fan but for some reason I liked the Vikings. I think it happened because one year they were on TV two or three times (back then there were only one or two games on TV on a given Sunday) and they had the Purple People Eaters defense. I thought that was cool.

But upon moving to Cleveland I gradually shifted to being a Browns fan, which was easy enough because in the '80's they were watchable, Even when they broke your heart they did it with style.

Maybe when they left town we shouldn't have wanted so badly for them to come back. Maybe we should have let the NFL give us a make-up franchise a few years later and name it something else, like the Rockers or the Perch. The Cleveland Perch. I like the sound of that.

Since Cleveland fans love misery only slightly less than they do their Browns, one fan/blogger did something amazing and a little masochistic. He ranked every Browns loss since 1999, the year they gave us back the Browns.

As you might expect, blow-out losses to teams who were very good, like the 2007 Patriots, ranked very low on the list. Last second losses and losses teams they really should have beaten rank higher. The top ten is littered with losses in ways that were unimagined by the inventors of the game, ways that only the Browns could accomplish.

You know, I can't even say I recommend the list, because it's sad. Just sad. But I think maybe it's something that needs to be experienced, passed on, like an oral history of an indigenous people.

Okay, so I've done my obligatory Browns post for NaBloPoMo. Unless, of course, they manage to out-do themselves in some way, which is probably even odds.

Hello NaBloPoMo; Curse You, NaBloPoMo!

So here we are again. November. National Blog Posting Month. Time to come up with 30 ideas and then turn each into a blog post that is entertaining or informative or both or neither. This post will be the latter.

As a refresher, November is when thousands of novelists-to-be try to crank out a book in 30 days, in an exercise called NaNoWRiMo (National Novel Writing Month). April is NaPoWriMo (poetry) and I guess the blogosphere felt left out so they made NaBloPoMo. I can't be certain why they chose the same month as NaNoWriMo but it may have been started by someone who wanted an excuse to not write a novel ("No I can't do the novel thing, dammit, I'm blogging").

Things I plan on covering this month:

• The marijuana ballot issues in Ohio
• Dogs
• How thankful I am for something or other. 

That's it so far. I haven't really thought this through. November 1st always sneaks up on me, despite it coming reliably after October 31st every year I've been alive. 

So thanks in advance for reading. Feel free to comment, especially if you want to say nice things.

Hell Year

Today is the one year anniversary of my "little incident." I am speaking of course of my slippage on a tiny patch of ice and the tearing of my quadriceps tendon. My dogs played a big role but I don't harbor any malice, except that I've renamed them Extra Stupid and Beyond Extra Stupid. They each answer to both, which is due in large part to me feeding them cookies when I say it.

When I asked my surgeon, the terrific Damien Billow from the Cleveland Clinic, when I would be normal again, he resisted the obvious joke and said it would be a year from the surgery, which was actually in May. I was pretty pissed at him for being so pessimistic. Did he not realize I'm an exceptional healer? Did he not know I needed it to be faster than that?

It turns out he was right and probably undershot it a tad. I won't be 100% by May 1, and that's partly due to me being a bigger than the average person and the leg having even further to go to be able to do its job. I'd say it may be more than 90%, which a few months ago seemed unreachable.

I missed a lot of stuff. My daughter's engagement party, an entire season of concerts in 3 bands, our community garden, and the ability to go just about anywhere. But the one thing I did was work hard enough to be able to walk my daughter down the aisle in Toronto and dance with her at the reception. I had to skip the hora but I'll get over it.

I've had to make a career change, which is still in progress,

I've learned to depend on others. And to be patient with people who have trouble walking. And that all handicap access is not created equal.

And I've learned that the love and support of the people I love is pretty much everything.

Tomorrow begins the year after Hell Year. We'll call it Great Year. The fun starts right now.

Colonel Mustard in the hotel room with a ...

At the Blackwell hotel in Columbus, which is terrific by the way, our room had the following:

1 set of fireplace tools
0 fireplaces

There is only one use for fireplace tools if there is no fireplace.

A word about housing and Millenials.

It turns out that millennials are not that into buying houses. For reasons that range from desired freedom of mobility to not trusting the "system" that created the financial crises we saw in the late 2000's, millenials are choosing to rent.

Which has led to inflated rental rates which are getting more and more out of whack, making it harder to build wealth.

I can't address the mobility issue, except to say that unless you're going to move in fewer than five years you should look at the numbers. Market trends are solid if not spectacular and buying may be smart.

Recent changes in the lending system have brought low down payment loans back into the picture, but now they're safer. Check out FHA and USDA loans.They key thing to remember is that our homes are not ATM's. The money that goes in needs to stay in. This is where people got in so much trouble in 2008.

I read someplace that if you want to retire a millionaire you need to start buying real estate in your 30's. With the interest rates at 3.5% this is a golden opportunity. The people who take advantage of it today will be the ones who in ten years will be glad they did.

Some really interesting maps

My mom sends me stuff and sometimes it's very interesting. This is one of those times.

The email contained many such maps. Here are three.

This map shows the world divided into 7 sections (each with a distinct color) and with each section containing 1 billion people

On a similar theme--

And here are all the world's internet connections in 1969

Music Break

I DVR Conan  every night for the sole purpose of fast forwarding past the starlets, and shenanigans and straight to the musical guest, in hopes of discovering someone I've never seen. That's how I discovered Florence and the Machine among others.

This week it's Mariachi El Bronx with 'Wildfires.'

On National Championships and Cell Phones

1942, 1954, 1957, 1961, 1968, 1970, 2002, 2014

These are the years that Ohio State can lay claim to a National Championship. Savvy fans know that 1961 and 1970 were not consensus years and some do not count them. I don't think my dad did.

Every championship until last night happened during his lifetime.

In 1942 as a ten year old I'm not sure he was very much into it, what with WWII and surviving the Depression and all. And college football was a minor diversion. In 1942 sports was baseball, and everything else was something to do until baseball season.

Dad was a student at OSU in 1954 and 1957. There is probably nothing like being a student during a national championship year. I got close to seeing that first hand in 1979 but we lost in the Rose Bowl.

In 2002 we were 1200 miles apart but spent a lot of time on the phone and the IM (remember instant messaging?). He never saw another football game.

He would have been so damned happy this year, beating Alabama then winning it all. The only thing that would have made him happier was if we could have beaten Notre Dame to win it.

Several years ago I wrote a piece following a win over Michigan. It was during the Cooper years when a win over Michigan was a precious thing. If you don't feel like clicking over, I'll say that it featured an attempt by me to call my dad from the game, because he couldn't be there. It was a chance to be together for a special moment, and while we couldn't really hear each other due to the noise, we were connected.

I thought about this last night as Urban Meyer raged at an official near the end of the game when he couldn't understand why the clock had stopped. He reminded me of Woody, and Woody reminded me of my dad. My dad would take that as a compliment. In some version of things he and Woody were watching the game together and my dad couldn't wait to tell me about it.

My cell service doesn't go that far so I guess it'll have to wait.  Meanwhile, let's see how many more times we can make him and Woody happy.

TBDBITL

The Best Damn Band In The Land

Has an album called , 'Time and Change' and you can find it on Spotify right here.

Lots of nice Buckeye stuff on the day of the big game. Also some great standards and show tunes and video game songs. Oh! And the Time Warp!

Real Estate Numbers in 60 seconds

Some of you all like to keep track of the housing market to varying degrees. Here is a one minute run down of a few basic numbers FYI

Farewell to a Favorite

(This is a few days late)

One of our longstanding Christmas Eve traditions has been to drive around and look at decorations. We would make it a contest between neighborhoods and try to seek out the very best in lighting magnificence. Our two favorite places turned out to be very different. One had every sort of inflatable, lightable, animatronic, cutesy, gaudy, cheesy, decoration imaginable, to the point where it was just plain fun. They had a horseshoe driveway and you drove in, circled around and drove out. There was a place to stop and put in a donation for electricity. We would often make two or three trips around.

The other place was the polar opposite. It was just lights, very tastefully strung on every single corner of the house, on every shrub, and up every main and secondary branch of every tree. Then it was set to music and controlled by computer. We would sit in front of the house and watch the show. It was jaw dropping.

The second house went on the market this year and I drove past a couple of week ago to see if they were still doing the lights. There was a large cherry-picker in the yard to take the lights off the trees and presumably the house.

Alas, another thing we love falls by the wayside.

Today's 'Why I Hate Facebook' Moment

There are perhaps 13-19 legitimate reasons to hate Facebook, and most of them involve privacy. I have read them and I have essentially decided to ignore them with the vague hope they won't come 'round to bite me in the ass somewhere down the road.

One of the other reasons is the way Facebook chooses to populate our feeds. What I want is for every post from every friend to appear in strict chronological order, giving me the option to tell Facebook to stop showing me posts by people who annoy me but not to the point of unfriending them. How hard is that?

I've noticed that lately it seems to be dredging up old posts more than it used to. How that manifested itself today is I saw a post by a friend announcing that her dog died.

"Aww," I commented, "he was a good dog."

It turns out that this dog died weeks ago. Now why, Facebook, would you facilitate the opening of old wounds? And why would you so readily assist me is making such a gaffe? What monetary gains are there to be made by allowing random, past posts to bubble to the top as though they are new?

Let me join my voice with the millions who share my anger about this. Stop it, Facebook. Just stop it.