Your Annual Reminder from Mr. T
Happy Mother’s Day!
Valley Heat – the hottest podcast in the world!
I’m late to the game on this podcast (sorry, I lead a sheltered life), but Valley Heat is the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
It’s like A Confederacy of Dunces meets Arrested Development meets Fernwood 2 Night…. Doug’s deadpan delivery, a wacky cast of characters, fun music references, the bogus promo spots, and great theater-of-the-mind audio all combine to create a perfect storm of humor. Every element is note-perfect!
It’s a bit tough to explain because the folks responsible for the podcast have created a whole wacky world within a Burbank, California neighborhood. The protagonist, Doug, ostensibly is trying to crack the case of who is using his garbage can as a drug drop. But really that’s just a doorway to all sorts of shenanigans involving an accident-prone attorney, a house that’s also a nightclub/arcade/pizza parlor/car wash, a mean father-in-law (who also runs a muffler empire), a DEA agent who does stakeouts with his mom, legendary frisbee golf players, mean foosball players, Jan that Movie (listen to learn), and a weaselly optometrist. Speaking of which, here’s Doug talking about his teenage son, who was prescribed transition lenses:
The Patreon offers bonus episodes, which are equally entertaining. Here’s an excerpt about a new product that sounds perfect… other than the fire hazard:
Or my buddy Howard:
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have some Jannie Cakes for breakfast…
Mission Unaccomplished
Here’s my horoscope from a couple of Sundays ago:
I’m pretty sure I’m the reigning champ of the world… nay, the universe… at goofing off. I’ve been practicing for decades. My job during the summer after my freshman year of college was lifeguard.
Sure, we had to make sure the pool patrons didn’t drown (it’s bad for repeat business), but 99.9% of the time I was sitting on my butt…. or using tortilla chips to skim the crusty layer off the nacho “cheese” (using that term very loosely) in the snack bar.
The following summer I took the same gig .(I’m mean, who wouldn’t double down on the free nachos?).
I shifted gears slightly the next summer – I was a summer camp counselor. Actually, check that, I was a summer day camp counselor. So I spent my days playing “Capture the Flag” with a bunch of rugrats (and got a free lunch) but then I could go home to a bed instead of roughing it in a tent or cabin.
None of those jobs involved night shifts. The pool was closed on Sunday. While the money wasn’t great, the jobs were decidedly “cush gigs.”
Once I graduated, my jobs were:
- Marketing at a horse racing track
- radio station
- another radio station
- travel agent
- radio yet again
- still more radio
- writer at an ad agency
- writer at a marketing firm
These dainty hands of mine have never known calluses. (Although there was that one time when the hot nacho cheese dripped on a knuckle… )
Writing takes up the lion’s share of my workday now. And with all due respect to the late great sportswriter Red Smith, who said:
Writing is easy. You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.”
The type of writing I do (employee communications) isn’t exactly War and Peace. And the first part of writing is coming up with ideas, which is really glorified daydreaming. So I get paid to stare out the window. (I’m really really good at it… probably my 2nd best skill behind “nacho eating.”)
I do believe I’ve fulfilled my horoscope destiny. (It’s not being lazy if it’s written in the stars!)
However, I don’t want to take any chances. To increase my goofing off capacity, I need to make sure my well-honed do-nothing muscles don’t atrophy. Practice makes perfect, right? So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be the one napping on the couch, with a streak of nacho “cheese” trailing down my cheek.
Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, who’s the best at Pickleball?
It’s me! I’m the best at pickleball!
OK, I’d better pump the brakes on that superlative. In all honesty and modesty, Cary and I are the best. Oh sure, we were in the 3.0 bracket at the local pickleball tournament this weekend….and that’s the lowest possible level. But that makes us the best of the worst, right? Besides, we tried to get into the higher 3.5 bracket, but it was full. So we weren’t really sandbagging too much… more like sand-pouching.
We were rookies – it was our first tourney. But it’s kinda hard to call us “rookies” when we have a combined 132 years of living under our (Sansa)belts. We’re a mirror image team: I’m 57 and Cary’s 75.
There were 12 teams in our bracket, split into two six-team pools for round-robin play. The top two teams from each pool advanced to the “medal round.” Cary and I won our first five matches before losing to two young whippersnappers 15-9. But our record was good enough to get us to the next round, where we knocked off the #1 team from the other pool, then had a rematch against the whippersnappers… and WE won, 15-9!
I’m such an anti-competitive dude that my first thought was that the whippersnappers got screwed.. (Actually, that was my second thought – my first thought was “holy schnikes, I can’t believe we won!”) We both had the same record, and we split our head-to-head matches by identical scores. But we won when all money was on the line (the whopping $30 gift certificate!).
This isn’t really a pickleball story, though. Cary’s originally from Cadiz, Ohio, a coal-mining town in Eastern Ohio (near scenic Steubenville!). His dad worked for the coal company, and Cary’s first job was at the mines. But he was a pretty good baseball player. In high school, he played against future major league star Thurman Munson, future NFL receiver Danny Abramowicz, and longtime MLB coach Rich Donnelly. Cary got a baseball scholarship to Bowling Green State University, in western Ohio, and, in his own words, “it changed my life.”
Cary was able to escape the inexorable future of most of his classmates — a life of back-breaking, unforgiving labor in the coal mines — and get a college degree. He wound up working with “big data” and teaching statistics classes – 20 years at Bowling Green and 20 more at the University of Cincinnati. He met his wife in his first year of working for BGSU, when she was a student there and working as a waitress. They have a son and daughter-in-law and two grandsons who live in Indy. Cary volunteers at a local YMCA, teaching pickleball to beginners.
The Harvards and Stanfords get all the prestige of higher education. But let’s not discount the role of the “mid-major” state schools that offer scholarships and semi-affordable tuition to first-generation college students. They are changing life trajectories… and therefore changing the world.
I’ve learned quite a bit about Cary, and if it weren’t for pickleball, he’d be just another face in the crowd…. some random old dude. Yes, I’ve heard all the “pickleball is for old people” jokes. But the older folks I’ve met through the sport are great people, with interesting stories to tell. Maybe you should try pickleball. Or maybe you can just spend a bit more time with some seniors, and get to know their stories. You just might learn something.
Cary’s a good dude who also happens to be a pretty darn good pickleball player. If I’m lucky enough to reach the age of 75, I hope folks say the same thing about me.
Print’s not Dead
But Betty White is. Before she turned 100.
To be fair, People Magazine isn’t the only one left holding the Betty bag. A movie called Betty White: 100 Years Young — A Birthday Celebration was slated to be shown at more than 900 theaters on January 17th (which would have been Betty’s 100th birthday). It was originally going to show live footage of Betty’s actual BD party. In true show biz fashion, the show will go on.
“We will go forward with our plans to show the film on January 17 in hopes our film will provide a way for all who loved her to celebrate her life—and experience what made her such a national treasure.”
Film producers Steve Boettcher and Mike Trinklein
You can cancel that order for a birthday cake. Especially if Sue Ann Nivens was going to bake it.
Just wiser, that’s all
I don’t have any Ojibwa blood in me, but today I feel a bit Ojibwa…
The Ojibwa people called old people “wisdom keepers.” They are treasures. They’re also the funniest people in the community. Elders have the freedom to tease anybody.
author Louise Erdrich
“Wisdom keepers”…. yeah, that’s the ticket! Not over-the-hill, or outdated, or just an old fart. I’m a “treasure.” And I can tease you all I want.
The quote above (uh, the Ojibwa one, not the nanny nanny boo boo one) came from the November AARP Bulletin… which showed up in MY mailbox for some inexplicable reason. Oh wait, I know the reason… it’s because I’m OLD full of wisdom!
But that beats the intro from a Golden Palominos song:
Now if only I could find a receptive audience for all the wisdom I’ve accumulated.
You done said…