And we’re HOT! Florida, in June, is no place for the weak of heart. Or the weak of air-conditioning. In June, the blacksmith shows up at 7:30 in the morning and is done by 9:00. The fans are on in the horse stalls to provide refuge. Outdoor sports are mostly finished up or played at night. Everybody who can goes to the beach. Whereas earlier thunderstorms usually cooled things off, the storms in June deposit their precipitation, depart and leave us to watch the steam emanating from the ground. If you live in Florida, late June is a good time to go on vacation—like, maybe, to Maine. July or August is even better. Stifling as it is, June is only a warmup for July and August. In July and August, smoke comes out your ears. Everybody just lays around eating watermelon. This year, our vacation is to Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, where the temperatures are civilized. We’re going August 3-11. And don’t think you can just sneak in here and steal our microscopes—Siobhan’s brother, Stuart, will be trailbossing the operation and he’s mean. Well, he’s mean if he doesn’t get his full complement of coffee and we’re cutting him back. And then, there’s Lila. If any illegals show up with Lila on the job, they’ll promptly be licked to death.
Of course, Florida is not the worst place in the country for heat. In Las Vegas, often well over 100 degrees almost every day, the casinos turn their misters on so bypassers will not collapse and die before losing all their money inside. In St. George, Utah, the outdoor theater does the same thing between acts. And in Death Valley, aptly named, the temperatures sometimes reach the 130s. It was 123 last time we were there. Death Valley makes Florida feel like Fairbanks, Alaska. The horses who live there during the other three seasons have to clear out in the Summer. If you were to park your naked butt on a rock for any small period of time, you would burn a hole in your ass. THAT’s hot!
So, it could be worse. And I guess, after all these years, we’re sort of used to it. Besides, it’s a lot better to be hot than not so hot. Like the lady below.
When You’re Not, You’re Not
Consider for a moment the plight of poor old Paula Deen, once your grandmother’s favorite culinary expert. Paula’s been having a mess of problems recently. Not long ago, she announced that she had been diagnosed with diabetes three years prior, something which might have given pause about her sugar, salt and fat-laden recipes. She got barbecued by the critics over that but made a nice save, picking up the role of spokesman for the diabetes drug Victoza. This week, it was worse. Paula and her brother, “Bubba” (what else?), were sued by a former employee of a restaurant they co-own. One Lisa T. Jackson alleges that during the five years she worked at the place, she witnessed numerous acts of violence, discrimination and racism. Paula denies most of it but does admit that she might have used the word “nigger” on more than one occasion. In her circles, who didn’t? She alleges that she is not a bigot, however, and has donated carloads of money to black charities, a claim backed up in television interviews by African-American representatives of those charities. This did not stop The Food Network from…um, canning Paula, which might appear noble until one considers that her ratings were slipping substantially. I mean, who wants to subscribe to diabetes-inducing recipes? Other allies have also jumped ship and it looks like Paula might soon have to give up the fois gras for beans and rice.
Now, you know me, a person of the liberal persuasion in most matters but not lunatically so. I am a descendant of Irishmen but I was never offended to be called a “harp”. And I think all those complaining Indians are downright silly for insisting the Washington Redskins change their name to the “Congressmen,” a true slur (to the Redskins). What about all these rappers who consistently refer to their black brethren as, well—“niggers”? Maybe Paula is just an old unreconstructed rapper, who knows? It seems like a tempest in a teapot to me. I mean, after all, what did the poor woman do? She just called a spade a spade.
Are we off the air yet?
It’s Time For Summer, It’s Time For Summer Sports (bet you don’t remember that song. Oh, alright, Marty, except for you.)
Okay, it’s Summer. That’s bad enough. But now there are no sports to watch around here. Football is gone. Basketball is gone. Volleyball is gone. Softball is gone. Even Lacrosse is gone, if anybody cares. The University of Florida athletics department has gone into hibernation, leaving us with meager TV offerings. The NBA playoffs are over, as are those of the National Hockey League, where my Boston Bruins managed to blow the final game after leading by a goal with 1:17 seconds left. How does that happen? Anyway, all we’re left with is soccer. I don’t care if every country in the world thinks soccer is the greatest thing since powdered milk, I don’t get it. And I’ve tried, believe me. I have gone over to UF—where I will watch virtually any sport—to take in a couple of games with my 87-year-old pal, Allen Morgan, who is not a big fan but will try anything once. The first time we went, Allen sat there silent for twenty minutes, then looked at me and said. “Nothing is happening. I’m bored. When can we go to the ice-cream store? You said there’d be ice-cream.”
“Well, Allen, we have to give it a chance.”
“All they do is run up the field and back. They get all the way down to the goal and miss a pass, then the other team takes it all the way back and knocks it out of bounds. Nobody ever scores. It’s too frustrating.”
He’s right, you know. It’s a lot like hockey, which is basically the same game, except that hockey is played on a smaller surface, is much faster, and often leads to fisticuffs, whence the old line, “I went to a fight once and a hockey game broke out”. Also, hockey doesn’t have “floppers”. If you tried flopping in a hockey game, the players would sneer at you and people would throw baby octopi at you from the ringside seats. In soccer, even the most phony of floppers often generate penalties against their imagined attackers. The only interesting things that ever happen at soccer games is sometimes the stands collapse in third world countries or some crazed South American loony shoots one of his countrymen/athletes for losing the game with an own-goal. (And here I will have to admit that were I on the scene and armed, I would probably have shot a few Red Sox relief pitchers, myself.)
Of course, soccer does have its “hooligans,” those wild and crazy guys who wreck half the town and tear up the trolley tracks whenever the home town team loses, or maybe even when they win. These guys are serious troublemakers. The worst ones, in England and Holland, are even surveilled by the police who will not let them on trains to out-of-town games. That wouldn’t work in this country.
“Okay, you LSU fans, you can’t bring that shrimp broiler on the plane, let alone the cudgels!” They’ll just drive. If they have a ticket, you gotta let ‘em in, right?
The closest thing we have to hooligans is New York Yankee fans. As the nuns used to say, woe betide you if you go to a Yankees game in the Bronx wearing your Red Sox colors. Yankee fans spit. And use…well…unkind words. You don’t even have to be a fan of the opposition. One time, I saw a bunch of them verbally assault a booth containing a trio of meek Moonies. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. After a few minutes, the Moonies decided it would be a good idea to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Not a wise decision. The Yankee fans went into overdrive and the cops had to rescue the poor Moonies. I don’t think they went back next night. I sure didn’t. Even so, I didn’t see any police cars overturned. The soccer hooligans signature move is turning over a police car or two, which, I have to admit, is a lot easier when the police drive around in those little Fiats and Renaults and stuff.
We do have tennis, if you like that. And it’s Wimbledon time, that’s a big deal. I don’t know if it’s bad scheduling or it just rains all the time in London, but it seems like every year they have to postpone tons of tennis matches at Wimbledon. The guys who run Wimbledon should think about picking up and moving to San Diego or at least Cannes, more people would come and they’d save a fortune on umbrellas. It would be tough on the queen, though. Sometimes, the queen likes to show up for the finals, even though she doesn’t give a flying dip for tennis, just to amuse the locals and practice her queenery. Queens have to practice, too. The current queen is getting a little long in the tooth but she’s hanging in there. Siobhan thinks she’ll drop over dead before she hands the throne to Prince Charles, but I think she just likes being queen. If you give it all up, why then you’re just the dotty old Queen Mother and nobody pays any attention to you and if they do it’s usually with a forefinger making little circles to the side of their heads.
We do have a bit of football-related news, though. One of our ex-Gators, Aaron Hernandez, always a surly type, seems to have gone off and shot one of his buddies, irked that the poor slob was making friends he didn’t approve of. That’s what having guns all over the place will do for you. Instead of smacking somebody upside the head, the gun-owner prefers to drag the intended victim out to the car, drive around the block and pump a few bullets into his cranial area. See, this is a little hard for us to understand. Aaron Hernandez just got a $40,000,000 contract to play football for the New England Patriots. As in “FORTY MILLION DOLLARS!” If I had forty million dollars, I would be big friends with, well—EVERYBODY! It would be VERY hard to piss me off no matter what you did—unless it involved messing with my forty million dollars. What’s to get mad about? One day, you live in a nice mansion with a pretty girlfriend and a kid, next day you’re breaking rocks in the hot sun. You fought the law and the law won. I don’t get it. I guess Aaron’s teammate, Tim Tebow, didn’t get his message across this time. I guess in this country the hooligans are ON the teams.
That’s all, folks….
Of course, Florida is not the worst place in the country for heat. In Las Vegas, often well over 100 degrees almost every day, the casinos turn their misters on so bypassers will not collapse and die before losing all their money inside. In St. George, Utah, the outdoor theater does the same thing between acts. And in Death Valley, aptly named, the temperatures sometimes reach the 130s. It was 123 last time we were there. Death Valley makes Florida feel like Fairbanks, Alaska. The horses who live there during the other three seasons have to clear out in the Summer. If you were to park your naked butt on a rock for any small period of time, you would burn a hole in your ass. THAT’s hot!
So, it could be worse. And I guess, after all these years, we’re sort of used to it. Besides, it’s a lot better to be hot than not so hot. Like the lady below.
When You’re Not, You’re Not
Consider for a moment the plight of poor old Paula Deen, once your grandmother’s favorite culinary expert. Paula’s been having a mess of problems recently. Not long ago, she announced that she had been diagnosed with diabetes three years prior, something which might have given pause about her sugar, salt and fat-laden recipes. She got barbecued by the critics over that but made a nice save, picking up the role of spokesman for the diabetes drug Victoza. This week, it was worse. Paula and her brother, “Bubba” (what else?), were sued by a former employee of a restaurant they co-own. One Lisa T. Jackson alleges that during the five years she worked at the place, she witnessed numerous acts of violence, discrimination and racism. Paula denies most of it but does admit that she might have used the word “nigger” on more than one occasion. In her circles, who didn’t? She alleges that she is not a bigot, however, and has donated carloads of money to black charities, a claim backed up in television interviews by African-American representatives of those charities. This did not stop The Food Network from…um, canning Paula, which might appear noble until one considers that her ratings were slipping substantially. I mean, who wants to subscribe to diabetes-inducing recipes? Other allies have also jumped ship and it looks like Paula might soon have to give up the fois gras for beans and rice.
Now, you know me, a person of the liberal persuasion in most matters but not lunatically so. I am a descendant of Irishmen but I was never offended to be called a “harp”. And I think all those complaining Indians are downright silly for insisting the Washington Redskins change their name to the “Congressmen,” a true slur (to the Redskins). What about all these rappers who consistently refer to their black brethren as, well—“niggers”? Maybe Paula is just an old unreconstructed rapper, who knows? It seems like a tempest in a teapot to me. I mean, after all, what did the poor woman do? She just called a spade a spade.
Are we off the air yet?
It’s Time For Summer, It’s Time For Summer Sports (bet you don’t remember that song. Oh, alright, Marty, except for you.)
Okay, it’s Summer. That’s bad enough. But now there are no sports to watch around here. Football is gone. Basketball is gone. Volleyball is gone. Softball is gone. Even Lacrosse is gone, if anybody cares. The University of Florida athletics department has gone into hibernation, leaving us with meager TV offerings. The NBA playoffs are over, as are those of the National Hockey League, where my Boston Bruins managed to blow the final game after leading by a goal with 1:17 seconds left. How does that happen? Anyway, all we’re left with is soccer. I don’t care if every country in the world thinks soccer is the greatest thing since powdered milk, I don’t get it. And I’ve tried, believe me. I have gone over to UF—where I will watch virtually any sport—to take in a couple of games with my 87-year-old pal, Allen Morgan, who is not a big fan but will try anything once. The first time we went, Allen sat there silent for twenty minutes, then looked at me and said. “Nothing is happening. I’m bored. When can we go to the ice-cream store? You said there’d be ice-cream.”
“Well, Allen, we have to give it a chance.”
“All they do is run up the field and back. They get all the way down to the goal and miss a pass, then the other team takes it all the way back and knocks it out of bounds. Nobody ever scores. It’s too frustrating.”
He’s right, you know. It’s a lot like hockey, which is basically the same game, except that hockey is played on a smaller surface, is much faster, and often leads to fisticuffs, whence the old line, “I went to a fight once and a hockey game broke out”. Also, hockey doesn’t have “floppers”. If you tried flopping in a hockey game, the players would sneer at you and people would throw baby octopi at you from the ringside seats. In soccer, even the most phony of floppers often generate penalties against their imagined attackers. The only interesting things that ever happen at soccer games is sometimes the stands collapse in third world countries or some crazed South American loony shoots one of his countrymen/athletes for losing the game with an own-goal. (And here I will have to admit that were I on the scene and armed, I would probably have shot a few Red Sox relief pitchers, myself.)
Of course, soccer does have its “hooligans,” those wild and crazy guys who wreck half the town and tear up the trolley tracks whenever the home town team loses, or maybe even when they win. These guys are serious troublemakers. The worst ones, in England and Holland, are even surveilled by the police who will not let them on trains to out-of-town games. That wouldn’t work in this country.
“Okay, you LSU fans, you can’t bring that shrimp broiler on the plane, let alone the cudgels!” They’ll just drive. If they have a ticket, you gotta let ‘em in, right?
The closest thing we have to hooligans is New York Yankee fans. As the nuns used to say, woe betide you if you go to a Yankees game in the Bronx wearing your Red Sox colors. Yankee fans spit. And use…well…unkind words. You don’t even have to be a fan of the opposition. One time, I saw a bunch of them verbally assault a booth containing a trio of meek Moonies. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. After a few minutes, the Moonies decided it would be a good idea to sing the Star Spangled Banner. Not a wise decision. The Yankee fans went into overdrive and the cops had to rescue the poor Moonies. I don’t think they went back next night. I sure didn’t. Even so, I didn’t see any police cars overturned. The soccer hooligans signature move is turning over a police car or two, which, I have to admit, is a lot easier when the police drive around in those little Fiats and Renaults and stuff.
We do have tennis, if you like that. And it’s Wimbledon time, that’s a big deal. I don’t know if it’s bad scheduling or it just rains all the time in London, but it seems like every year they have to postpone tons of tennis matches at Wimbledon. The guys who run Wimbledon should think about picking up and moving to San Diego or at least Cannes, more people would come and they’d save a fortune on umbrellas. It would be tough on the queen, though. Sometimes, the queen likes to show up for the finals, even though she doesn’t give a flying dip for tennis, just to amuse the locals and practice her queenery. Queens have to practice, too. The current queen is getting a little long in the tooth but she’s hanging in there. Siobhan thinks she’ll drop over dead before she hands the throne to Prince Charles, but I think she just likes being queen. If you give it all up, why then you’re just the dotty old Queen Mother and nobody pays any attention to you and if they do it’s usually with a forefinger making little circles to the side of their heads.
We do have a bit of football-related news, though. One of our ex-Gators, Aaron Hernandez, always a surly type, seems to have gone off and shot one of his buddies, irked that the poor slob was making friends he didn’t approve of. That’s what having guns all over the place will do for you. Instead of smacking somebody upside the head, the gun-owner prefers to drag the intended victim out to the car, drive around the block and pump a few bullets into his cranial area. See, this is a little hard for us to understand. Aaron Hernandez just got a $40,000,000 contract to play football for the New England Patriots. As in “FORTY MILLION DOLLARS!” If I had forty million dollars, I would be big friends with, well—EVERYBODY! It would be VERY hard to piss me off no matter what you did—unless it involved messing with my forty million dollars. What’s to get mad about? One day, you live in a nice mansion with a pretty girlfriend and a kid, next day you’re breaking rocks in the hot sun. You fought the law and the law won. I don’t get it. I guess Aaron’s teammate, Tim Tebow, didn’t get his message across this time. I guess in this country the hooligans are ON the teams.
That’s all, folks….
