James Rising

ED NOTE: From 2006

I know that progress is inevitable. And that you can’t expect everyone to survive. But the news last week the news that the Tudor book shop in Clarks summit would soon shutter its doors was not good.

Now I have never, to my knowledge, stepped foot in the place. I have however shopped often in the location in Kingston and it’s a great small bookstore and coffee shop, so I bet the one in Clarks Summit was too. The owners blame the big bookstores and the ever encroaching internet for their decision. In a world where bigger is supposed to be better I don’t see how in this case we have gained anything. I was in the big bookstore that ate the little bookstore over the weekend. It was so busy and so big that I got dizzy and had to leave. Sometimes small is better.

This big fish swallows the small fish is becoming pervasive in our world. There used to be four pretty good hardware stores within a ten minute drive from my doorstep. Now there is but one. I could count on the little guys to help me find the right small screw or cotter pin I wanted. Ever tried that at a big box store? They want to sell you a full set of kitchen cabinets, not a 2 cent screw.

I guess part of it is the resistance to change that seems to be growing stronger in me with every passing day. I like the old comfortable routines best. Some changes are inevitable but that doesn’t mean I have to love them.

Aren’t baseball players supposed to be examples for our kids? How you gonna tell Johnny to clean up his room after seeing this, hmmm?

Having attended many St. Patrick’s day parades in Scranton in my day, I have seen my fair share of the inexplicable behavior that results from the consumption of too much alcohol. Hell I’ve seen that sort of behavior at office Christmas parties and backyard barbeques for that matter. There is nothing like a shot or two of Ye Olde Stumpblower to set the inhibitions aside and get to the real feelings inside.

A songwriter name of James McMurty said it quite nicely in a song called Too long in the wasteland. “Whiskey don’t make liars, it just makes fools.”

Of course history has long chronicled the rich, powerful and successful who had a close and personal association with John Barleycorn. Winston Churchill (his friends called him “Winny.” No wonder he drank) has been chronicled as being pickled from the moment he got up in the morning until he staggered into bed. But he never shamed the British Empire by trying to blow a dead opossum.

There is a school yard insult about having oral sex with a dead dog but in polite society one never does that sort of thing.

Opossum are generally disgusting even while living. I trapped one once in an effort to catch a squirrel that was trying to make his home in our home, something which infuriated the long suffering wife. The havahart® live trap snared the critter instead, which smelled like it was dead, made hissing noises at me with bared teeth when I tried to free it and was not a happy experience overall for either of us.

So knowing how unpleasant contact of any kind with a living opossum while sober is, I have to just admire the level of intoxication that Donald Wolfe displayed when he allegedly tried to resuscitate a dead opossum with the breath of life.
The story, which was widely reported, had Donny being observed giving mouth-to-mouth to a long dead opossum which was road killed on the side of a highway in Punxsutawney Pa. Witnesses including a State Trooper saw him conducting a “séance” with the dead critter and the law enforcement officer is quoted as saying “He did have his mouth in the area of the animal’s mouth…I guess.” I think it was a noble attempt on the part of the trooper to save a shred of dignity for Don that he “guessed.”

It may be just coincidence that this occurred in the home of the most famous groundhog in the world. Sure. That’s it. Coincidence.

“Phill….is dat youse, buddy. Oh Phillll…what de hell happened to you? Oh my gawd. Phillll! C’mere little buddy. I’ll (hic) save youse. Phil!. Breath for me pal!!”

ED NOTE: This is from 2009.

It was sort of almost anti-American. The very thought of it smacks of the days when missiles were pointed at us from just across the ocean in Cuba, when Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the table at the UN and shouted “we will bury you.” When we lived in fear of the big one and were taught to hug our knees under our desks in the event the Russians put the hammer down. Except in this case we have done it to ourselves. Or more importantly we haven’t done it. But let me explain what has me all lathered up this week.

Last year at this time on the Fourth of July a good friend took me and the long-suffering wife out to PNC field to see the Yankees of local repute play and lose and then the oh and aw of the fireworks show. We had a great time on a perfect warm summer’s night. Entertainment that wasn’t overly stimulating but still pleasant. Food in quantities sufficient to stuff a Palomino. A feeling that we were part of something that was clean and wholesome and fun. As American as apple pie, hot dogs and baseball.

We didn’t go this year. And I am pretty sure we would have, if we could. The day was perfect. Not a cloud in the sky on the fourth of July when the corn was as high as an elephant’s eye. But no one two three strikes and you’re out for us at the old ball game. Mighty PNC field had struck out.

It seems that when the Yankees came to town they wanted, no demanded, to play America’s pastime on blades of real grass, not some plastic compound cooked up in a scientists laboratory. And sort of like the homeowner who opts for the new roof over the old shingles they got grass, planted, so I understand, on top of the plastic turf. And this year the athletic cup overflowed and turned the outfield into a swamp but with poorer drainage. Waterfront property on the first base line.

And so the long string of great Fourth of July celebrations with baseball and fireworks at the once named Lackawanna County Multi-Purpose Stadium came to end, not with a bang or even a fizzle but with dead silence. And I have to wonder if we will ever see one again. For now that all the cracks and leaks and soggy outfields of the 20 year old facility have come to light, it won’t surprise me if the Yanks, yank out like the Phillies fled before them and leave us with a decaying field of dreams. And not much more

The Beaver 2011 PG-13 91 minutes

No one does crazy better than Mel Gibson. Maybe it takes one to play one but he inhabits insanity so totally in this film that it’s hard to know where Gibson leaves off and the character he plays, depressed businessman Walter Black, begins.

This not the feel good film of the year. It’s dark, nearly as depressing as Walter is and it has one very understated but well done gruesome scene.

Jodie Foster (Home for the Holidays 1991, Little Man Tate 1988, Tales from the Darkside (TV series) – Do Not Open This Box (1988) ) directs as well as playing Blacks long-suffering wife, Meridith. The film is workmanlike and easy to watch but is nothing special in the director department.

It won’t win any awards and it’s not box office catnip but it does explore some interesting themes and even though I personally find the ending to be a cop out, it is overall a good waste of 90 minutes.

It would have been better if the voice of the beaver was done by Sir Michael Caine. Just my opinion. Gibson did it, in case you were wondering.

Look closely at #14. See I told you so.

This is the 1631 “Wicked Bible” — a version of the King James, in which the unfortunate printer Robert Barker and his associate, Martin Lucas, left a “not” out of the commandment against committing adultery; both were fined. Barker was later put into debtors’ prison, where he ultimately died. Wonder if he got any?

More

Watching local TV has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. I guess it began when I was a young sprout growing up in the granite fields of Vermont when television was something of a novelty. Our first set was a converted oscilloscope that had a green circular screen the size of a tea cup saucer. I may be exaggerating. I think it was smaller.

The first TV newscast I saw originated from Poland Springs Maine. You may have enjoyed the water. Channel 8 WMTW got the “MTW” because at the time they had their transmitter site on top of Mount Washington where one of the highest winds on earth ever was measured. The guys who ran the gear lived on the mountain for most of the winter as the way up or down was pretty much impassable.

One of them gave a weather forecast from the mountain. Wore a bow tie, a white shirt with a pocket protector full of pens and pencils. He looked into the one black and white camera and with a strong down east accent talked about the wind and snow on the mountain. Thinking about it today it makes backyard weather forecasting seem pale by comparison.

It was crude at best but it was innovative for the time. Now we have Doppler this and weather map that but I miss the geeky engineer from on top of the mountain. He is, I am sure long gone to the engineers home in the sky and a few years ago WMTW’s transmitter site burned to the ground and they moved to a less inhospitable place.

Like all media, local TV is being pummeled by the World Wide Web. ABC news recently announced cutbacks of 1,400 and the ones left will not only report the news but will be camera operators (think flip video cams) sound-men, editors and producers. The local TV news operations will no doubt follow suit.

When a good percentage of video is being shot by ordinary people (how much skill does it take to point the phone cam at a house fire?) the days of a three person crew doing it are numbered. I hope it doesn’t stop them from showing “local color.”

The best thing about a live shot on the news is the people waving and grinning like ninnies at the camera. The stand-up reporter could be talking about a bus wreck that killed 40 and idiots in the background will be waving at Ma. Second best thing: the eyewitless interview. Where do they find these people? With both eyes on one side of their head and occasional teeth they are clearly not of this earth.

Sunday Wrap

That's a wrap

Juiced

RIP Sylvia Producer of “Rappers Delight” dies

Monday 9/26/11

Rant D’Jour At least I still have hair

Blog Post Who Ya Gonna Call?

Tuesday 9/27/11

Rant D’Jour Hard Of HEARING????

Blog Post Tuesday Review – Mr. Saturday Night

Wednesday 9/28/11

Rant D’Jour A trip to the DMV

Blog Post Not Weekender – No fair!

Thursday 9/29/11

Rant D’Jour Was it my best buy? IDK

Blog Post Radio DaZe: WHYN….zzzzz

Friday 9/30/11

Rant D’Jour Check Please

Blog Post If you’re going to San Francisco…

Saturday 10/1/11

Rant D’Jour Saturday Aggregate: Or stuff too short to fit in a full post

Blog Post The conspiracy theories are all true.

Saturday Morning Aggregate

It’s starting to get colder. Ran the furnace the other day for a while. I am NOT ready for winter.
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Altering our Thanksgiving plans. Instead of us all gathering at my Sisters in Vt. We will descend upon my Daughter in Ct. and then continue on on our way to usual in Maine. Big change, small change.
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We have followed the same routine for our two vacations for a decade or more. A visit to Vt then on to Maine in the summer and the fall. I am ready for a sort of break. Long-suffering Wife retires in the Spring. We will see how that alters the dynamic.
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Radio is so over. All hail Pandora. WiFi in cars. Radio is done. HD Radio? Radio is toast….:/
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I love Pandora, for the most part. I am trying to fine tune a Mark Knopfler station. It plays WAY too much Pink Floyd and Led Zep. The other day it played “You Spin Me Around” by Dead or Alove. I couldn’t hti thumbs down fast enough.
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Computer repair shop on the Memorial highway has a changeable letter sign out front. It has read for at least a year “Teh Computer Repair shop”, which I thought was charming. They just changed it to “the”. Wonder why?
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Working on my FIFTH revision for a client on a very complex project. He’s already paid me. I think it is done.
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A very long three days loom. At least 12 hours today, and nine or so the next two. Hey, it’s not digging holes for telephone poles, but it is draining.
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When I start to bitch about work it’s over. Thanks for reading. There seem to be more of you on a regular basis but take on offense – unlike self serving comments from Rock Stars on stage, YOU are not the reason for this exercise in deathless prose. If I didn’t spew this shit out somewhere it would fester inside of me until I rot, more than I am.
Pretty good safety valve, this.

Wrote This in 2005-Never saw anything else about it.

The conspiracy theories are all true.

Cars that run on water. Magic pills that cure disease. Diets that let you eat all you want of everything and lose weight.
Area 51 is crawling with aliens. The pyramids were built by aliens. Aliens are running the world.
It’s all true. All of it. All of the so called crackpot theories all of the paranoid fantasies that we all thought were just a bunch of crack pots are all true. All of them.

Why do I say that? Because I just found out that the powers that be have been keeping us from a safer cigarette.
This much I know to be true. And I know this why? Because I read it in the New York Times.

Seems there is this new filter that was developed by scientists that will do what a filter was supposed to do all along-get rid of the cancer causing stuff in butts and let only the nicotine through. The smokes supposedly taste the same, give you nicotine buzz like others but cut down on harmful stuff to a degree that might save bunches of lives.
Still not safe, but safer.

The problem. The moral dilemma for the scientists is if they advertise this breakthrough will people smoke more? Will people who quit start again? Will people who never smoked start cuz it’s safer?
One solution they have considered is to offer the filter free of charge to all cigarette makers…as long as they don’t advertise the fact.

But here is the kicker- this technology was first developed in 1971. How many lives could have been saved? Who Knows? We never will.

See how convoluted and crazy this becomes? You might start to see tons of controversy about this, pro or con. I say might because the whole deal may just be swept under the rug. Along with the water engine, the magic diet pills and the aliens.