Tirade - Visitors

Finally it seems as if our annual holiday "rush hour" is over.  It's now possible to go into town without a line of flatland visitors gawking and generally driving slowly and badly.  I know it's not fair to criticize people who are unfamiliar with new surroundings, but believe me it gets old really soon.
But as of this Monday, most of them seem to have returned to their work, welfare lines (Oh sorry, we don't have those any longer) and schools (Ones hopefully staffed by gun toting teachers and guards!)  Now all we have to deal with is the waste left behind by humans and dogs.
Now for those of you who don't understand this, waste, does not evaporate at an elevation of 6,750 feet above sea level.  It has to be removed by others.  Come on People!

Right Track - Deficit

Hooray!  We've fixed the budget problem in the USA.  No more looming fiscal cliff.  We've finally soaked those wily rich people and just like our President promised on the campaign trail we're going to fix the deficit.  It's easy, just make the evil rich people pay more.  They've been getting away with not paying their fair share for decades now.  And of course, all this time it's been a revenue problem - it's not the spending, is it!
Of course all those zeros and 'illions we keep on hearing about are just so confusing.  So here is a little picture of how well our leaders have done in fixing the problem.
The deficit is the red bit on the right, and the solution of taking from the rich is the green part on the left.  See, we fixed it.  Problem solved!  We can get back to normal now and carry on borrowing $.46 of every $1.00..

Music Track - Chanson de Matiin

I think it was on a Sunday, just after the war, that the BBC used to put on a radio play.  (That's WWII, if you're wondering!)  The theme tune was this, Elgar's Chanson de Matin.  It was a great favorite of my mother's, and we had to listen quietly until it ended.  It's quite short - about 4 minutes.  It is a lovely melody from a different time.  See if you like it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s50XAbh7ro

Raider Fans

Firstly my thanks to Victor Vaszquez for the season tickets to the Raiders game recently.  It was on my bucket list and Victor read about my desire to go.  It was a lot of fun, but not like going to a baseball game at all, with which I have some experience.  My visit to the game was the subject of last Sunday's column.
Firstly, it seemed that many of the fans at the Oakland Colliseum suffered from glaucoma, as they were using a lot of marijuana to control the symptoms.
Most of the females were very fat.  One young lady near us arrived at the kick off, her mouth already half filled with a large ham and cheese sandwich.  She had bought a flask of margarita from the consession stand and started on that pretty early.  A note here to the organisers:  Do you really think it's avisable to serve hard liquor to an already over excited people, who are likely to become even more excited?  Just a thought!
The same young lady soon switched her beverage to two large beers, together with a couple of  hot dogs.  There was more activity going on with her than on the field, where they spent a lot of time waiting for the TV ads to finish.  So that's what they do while we're sitting at home watching beer commercials - hang around.
After the hot dogs, she went back to the beers and in the second half a couple of chorros - those Mexican type doughnuts.  Then no doubt feeling replenished she finished off the afternoon with a joint.  This she shared with her father - now that's what I call responsible parenting!
Two gentlemen arrived wearing San Francisco Forty-niner uniforms.  This upset many of the crowd who offered up five dollar bills - the toll - to get back over the F*ck*ng Bridge!
A gentle shy retiring group all round.  But as the late great Al Davis was fond of saying "Just win, baby!"  Sadly on this occasion they didn't.

Theater

We have a very good theater in Big Bear, in fact we have two although I've not been in the other one.  The Performing Arts Center put on an interesting play the other day.  It was "It's a Wonderful Life," the classic shown many times on the screen with James Stewart.
This play however was set in a 1940's New York radio station and we were the audience there.
It had quite a big cast and they all had a turn at the various mikes located around the stage/set.
Perhaps the most fascinating was the sound effects team.  The head of that often changed his shoes to bright red female ones to walk around a floor mounted microphone before the door was banged, telling of a woman's departure from the scene. 
Once again I was amazed at the sheer professionalism of these local actors.  It was a most interesting experience.

Homo Slackass-erectus

I'm grateful to my friend Don for sending me this amazing discovery of a new genetic mutation of the human species - wonderful.

These are referred to as “homo slackass-erectus” created by natural genetic downward evolution through constant spineless posturing, and spasmatic upper limb gestures, which new research has shown to cause shorter legs and an inability to ambulate other than in an awkward shuffling gait. The "drag-crotch" shape also seems to affect brain function. Expect no eye contact or intelligent verbal communication. History shows that this species mostly votes left while receiving food stamps and full government care. Unfortunately most are highly fertile.

Video - Accents

I was sent this a long time ago by my friend Jim, in Pasadena.  I kept it in the archives as I think it's really funny.  Coincidentally it has an amazing array of British accents.  This prompted me to think about the subject of accents and I'll be doing a couple of posts on this in the following week.  In the meantime enjoy these voice overs - it takes 4:43 minutes. http://www.wimp.com/animalvoiceovers/

Sunday's Column - Raiders

This Sunday's attempt to win a Pulitzer prize was about my trip to Oakland to see the Raiders game.  It was a very interesting experience and I intend to go next year and this time take S.W.M.B.O., who can be quite vocal with sports. 

Plenty of insignia on the entrance to the ground

It's too bad that LA doesn't as yet have a football team as taking an airplane to a game is quite an imposition.  You can read the entire column at http://www.sbsun.com/trevorstravels/ci_22315594/catching-football-game-is-american-thing-do

Right Track - Guns

I find it fascinating that many of the very people who are promoting gun regulations, send their children to Sidwell Friends School in Georgetown, who have 11 armed guards to protect their charges.  These people include and have included the Clinton's, Obama, David Gregory, Al Gore and Joe Biden.  When I researched this the following comment was on a site...

...So if sitting in an office building protected by armed guards, employing armed bodyguards, and sending your kids to a school with armed guards is OK for the elite, why are they trying to attempt to limit the ability of the masses to defend themselves... 

Always remember Animal Farm and the wall in the barn where the controlling pigs rewrote the rules:  "All animals are equal," but then added, "but some are more equal then others."  It is ever thus!  If the argument that these privileged children are higher targets than others, then you must also accept that these same children therefore have a higher worth than ours.  Arm and train the teachers!

Tirade - Twelfth Night

Today is the 12th day of Christmas and that means all the Christmas decorations MUST COME DOWN!!!!  Otherwise it's very bad luck, I was told as a child.  Naturally I hated the decorations coming down but then I was very young.  Perhaps it's time this year to remove the decorations that have been hanging high up on a fir tree locally for THREE YEARS!!!!  But somehow I doubt it.  I know you like to see the pretty stuff around but please Come on People!

Music Track - Beach Baby

I'm not much of a party person - I don't really like them.  However, I used to love going to ones that a friend in Surrey used to hold about three times a year.  It was back in 1974, and this was played all the time at those parties.  I'm surprised to learn that it was an English band, although there's nothing English about the video portion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RWVe2EcQ7Q

Seniority

I'm not quite sure when I became old.  Obviously it's happened.  Perhaps during one night I turned from being just me to being an old man.  I climbed on board a bus the other day and the charge was $3, but only $1 for seniors.  The driver immediately said to me: "You're senior!"  I was with my son and we started putting money in the slot, and once again he reminded us: "You're senior; you're not!"  As if to cement the brand on both of us.
It is an odd thing that we old men can get away with lower prices, as being at the further end of the road, we usually have more money that those only halfway along.  But society has deemed it necessary to charge us less.  Perhaps as our appetites have diminished some, our weight is less so we don't use up as much fuel to run the vehicle.
I appreciate the fact that we are treated this way, but I can't help feeling that it would be nicer not to be so readily obvious to a bus driver or anyone else for that matter.  Ah me!

Model Planes

About three years ago I wrote a column on local model plane makers up here in Big Bear.  We have a miniature landing strip at the end of Baldwin Lake and on wind free mornings they gather and fly these exquisite models, many of them now powered by electric motors with rechargeable long lasting batteries.

My friend Stan in England sent me an article about a man called Maynard Hill who died back in June.  He was 85 and was perhaps the ultimate model plane maker.  You can read all about his amazing career in this article http://www.modelairplanenews.com/blog/2011/06/10/model-airplane-history-maker-maynard-hill-dies-at-85/
Perhaps the highlight of his long interest in models was the first and only attempt to fly a model plane across the Atlantic.  It took him a long time to finally achieve his goal with over 20 different planes failing in the attempt, before he had success.

As one observer said.  "It was the equivalent of landing Armstrong on the moon."

Happy New Year - and an Anniversary

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL

Today is a quite important anniversary for She Who Must BE Obeyed (S.W.M.B.O.) and I.  It is 30 years since we gave up smoking.

Yes, it was 30 years ago yesterday that we stubbed out our last "fags" into the ashtray.  It wasn't easy as we'd both smoked on and off since we were teenagers.  But coming out to California, where the lifestyle was so much healthier we decided it was time to pack it in.  A few years later pressure all around made it difficult to smoke anywhere it seemed, but we were already off the weed, by then.  So 30 years ago we became two of the non-smokers around.  It was the best day's work we ever did.