Well gosh, that was a fast weekend. A nice one, though, with lots of sun. And an Irishman won the US Open, so that’s cool (a Northern Irishman, but what the hell, we’ll take it). Too bad it’s back to work today, but at least it’s an early day for me, so that’s cool. Oh, and don’t forget, at 8:00 tonight, it’s the return of Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Current TV.

It was sad to hear that Clarence Clemons passed away. Not unexpected, I guess. He was quite tall, and, as we all know, once you get over about 5’9″ (which is the optimum height for a man, from what I’ve read) or so, the blood has a hard time getting to your brain (this is greatly exacerbated by being forced to wear a tie). With many guys, it makes them stupid, but there are those rare times when you get somebody smart and talented, and then they just don’t seem to live long enough. I’m glad the Big Man didn’t just linger on and shrivel up like a giant zucchini in some long-term care facility, though. Better to go out when the light is still bright, I think.

I only saw Clarence live one time (with Springsteen and The E Street Band), back in something like 1981 or so, I guess. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day (either late fall or early spring, can’t recall which). I hadn’t gotten around to dropping out of school at Oswego at the time, and we made a road trip over to Rochester to see the show, with four of us crammed into my ’76 ‘vette. That would be Che not Cor, of course, so it’s always a wonder we made it there in the first place. Especially since the first order of business was to hit happy hour at “The Wheel” for a couple of hours (spin the wheel for free and/or cheap drinks).

Once properly prepared, we hit the road (with a beer ball on ice, and a double-chamber US II armed with a Gatling bowl – more of a six-shooter, really; the slide ones worked better). Not easy to drive a car (standard transmission, even) while holding a beer and doing a bong, but by golly we did these things not because they were easy, but because they were the right things to do. Or we were really stupid young kids – I forget which.

Just kidding – never did any of that. Don’t drink and drive, kids.

Anyhow, I remember the show (somewhat vaguely – I mean, it’s been like 30 years), so I guess we got there and got parked and all that. As I recall, Bruce had sprained his ankle jumping off an amplifier or something on a previous night, so he was somewhat (but only somewhat) subdued during the 4+ hour show. Little did I know that guy playing guitar would turn out to be Silvio Dante.

I don’t know how the band managed it, because I clearly recall being exhausted just watching these guys play. Now that I think about it, I guess this was in December of 1980, because it was the tour in support of “The River” and we were hoping they’d do “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town,” which of course featured Clarence.

It was snowing a bit as we left the show (naturally we were all in t-shirts, because, as I said, it had started out sunny and warm), and it got worse the farther east we got. In fact, it got so bad they closed the Thruway and made us get off at a rest area, where we spent the night with a few hundred other wasted Springsteen fans (I certainly hope there were no “regular” people stuck in there with us), and trying to flirt with the girls in a drunken, stupid, crashed and hung-over twenty-year-old kinda way.

We managed to live to tell the tale (though I have no idea where the three other guys I was with are today), and didn’t even have to go to jail, though, it’s coming back to me now, I think I had a final the next morning, which I barely managed to get back in time to take.

Ah, those were the days.

So long, Big Man, and thanks for the music.

Oh, almost forgot: Happy Father’s Day (as Jim Gaffigan tweeted yesterday, “thanks, Father’s Day, for reminding me that my dad’s dead”). I was reminded by the aircraft filling the sky over my house, flying in for the annual Father/Son Pancake Breakfast at the local airport. It’s kinda like Dresden in ’45, except without the bombs.

I’m sitting here with a bug zapper shaped like a tennis racket, waiting. Now that I’ve finally put batteries in the goddamn thing, all the flies seem to have up and disappeared. Cowardly ittle bastards. I’m hoping this zapper thing will actually work – especially since I damn near destroyed everything in the bathroom the other day (if you’re an Elmer Fudd fan – and who isn’t? – you may recall the one where he goes after a mosquito with increasingly deadly force until he’s blown his house to bits with a double-barrel shotgun; it was a lot like that). But now the little assholes refuse to cooperate. Oh well, I’ll try it out on the deer flies later – there’s never a shortage of them lately. And if this thing intimidates them into hiding, all the better.

No progress on gay marriage here in NY. Supposedly, Republicans are concerned that religious groups will be forced to perform marriages for same sex couples and want “protections.” Sounds like bullshit to me. I mean, churches are free to discriminate all they want. It’s not like Catholics have ever been forced to marry Jews or something. In fact, they routinely make people jump through all kinds of hoops to prove themselves “worthy” of a church marriage. I think it’s more likely they want to put a loophole in that would keep a religious group from providing benefits to same sex couples (like, say, a Catholic hospital refusing to provide health insurance to Joe and Harry Smith or something).

And of course other Republicans are concerned about protecting caterers, florists, photographers, and venues from having to provide services for a gay marriage. More bullshit. For every caterer that doesn’t want to take somebody’s money, I’m sure there are 10 that will be happy to do it.

So, we shall see what happens, I guess.

Speaking of gay marriage:

In an interview conducted in front of an audience at the Netroots Nation blogger conference early Friday in Minneapolis, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer claimed a 1996 questionnaire favoring gay marriage, which bears Barack Obama’s signature, was “actually filled out by someone else.”

“If you actually go back and look, that questionnaire was actually filled out by someone else, not the President.
[…]
The questionnaire…, originally published in the gay periodical Outlines, is marked by Obama’s now-famous signature, and the handwriting appears strikingly similar to other, more recent examples.

In it, he claims that he “favor[s] legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages,” a position that he has pointedly avoided in recent years.

As time goes on, I become more and more uplifted by the bold courageousness of the Obama Administration, and its ability to take a stand against not taking a stand for or against any issue (except for taking a stand). Oh, and for bombing other countries without Congressional approval, which reminds me of another President whose name escapes me at the moment.

Ah, but he’s better than the Republicans, so go suck it.

Oh well, time to go find some goddamn flies.

OK, can we stop hearing about Anthony Weiner already? Yeah, yeah, it was funny for a couple of days, but it’s stopped being funny now, and he’s gone (hoist by his own petard, so to speak. OK, that was the last one), so enough already. As Josh Marshall wrote yesterday (and as echoed by 92-yr old “Esther” who said “[p]eople get away with worse…. Everybody has hangups”):

I get that it’s icky and makes people cringe. But c’mon. I’ve been following congressional scandals for 15 years. And my God in the grand scheme of things this is pretty silly compared to the levels of wrongdoing, thievery and vicious behavior we’ve all seen. And that disconnect — the most insistent and open demands for resignation ever compared to one of the silliest scandals ever — just doesn’t sit right with me. Especially when, last time we checked at least, his constituents did not want him to resign.

So, anyway, enough already.

Father’s Day is coming up this weekend. Unlike Mother’s Day, this is a Hallmark Holiday whose importance ranks about even with Columbus Day. However, should you be inclined to celebrate, I have it on good authority that Dad wants a backhoe for his tractor this year. Actually, he wants a mini-excavator, but he understands that, while he scrimped and saved and deprived himself so you could have the very best, you’re an ungrateful little wretch who probably won’t even bother to call, let alone get him something that isn’t useless (if you get him anything at all).

One kid who won’t have to worry about Father’s Day is Michael Gallow, who yesterday plead guilty yesterday to shooting his father “between the eyes” back in March.

All things considered, I guess a tie wouldn’t be so bad after all.

But before you ignore your poor old man (or you poor old men out there get ignored yourselves), we have to get through today. And if today is like the rest of this week, it’s gonna suck.

Oh, and back on this date in 1967, “Respect” was the #1 song.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. This hat sure looks dumb on me….

I thought Canadians were more enlightened than we philistines down here in the States, but, judging by the rioting in Vancouver last night following the Canucks loss to the Bruins, maybe not. At least they have health care to take care of any injuries. The important thing is that hockey season is finally over. Now we just have to wallow through the next two-and-a-half sports-less months until football starts up again. Not that I’m in any hurry for summer to be over (seeing as it hasn’t technically begun just yet; the thought of the nights starting to get longer again soon is pretty sad). Whether I’m just getting old or still have a winter hangover I’m not sure, but I have no desire to see snow again anytime soon.

The votes are in, and al-Qaeda has elected its new leader (or however it is they do it). What’s old is new again, and the AQ boys have apparently bucked the trend to try some new blood, and gone with that old guy, whose name I don’t feel like looking up to get the spelling right. It’s kind of like the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination all over again, where they went with the crazy old guy, instead of a crazy young guy. No doubt al- Zawahiri (OK, I looked it up) will pick some young ditzy moron to be his #2 (but you can be certain in won’t be a woman).

No movement on Gay Marriage in NYS, except that the Assembly passed their version of the bill yesterday (which was no surprise). Republicans in the Senate have yet to get over themselves, but speculation is that they may be holding out to make a deal to pass this in exchange for something that screws people in some other way.

I’m also sad to report that fellow SU alum (assuming he graduated; I’ll have to check that out – maybe we have a loophole here) and one-time NY Giant hero (for his “helmet catch” in the Super Bowl, which is pretty much all he did in his rather brief career) thinks that legalizing gay marriage would be the first step on the road to anarchy.

“You can’t teach something that you don’t have … so two men will never be able to show a woman how to be a woman.”
[…]
“How can marriage be marriage for thousands of years and now all the sudden because a minority, an influential minority, has a push or agenda … and totally reshapes something that was not founded in our country.”

Um…. Not real sure on that first sentence. So, does that mean that my wife should be teaching me how to be a woman? ‘Cuz she’s not doing a very good job (and I really have no desire to teach her how to be a man, though I wish she’d at least try to watch football with me).

As for that second part, I should point out that Tyree is a black dude (and was apparently not a History – let alone African American Studies – major at SU), and as the TMZ article points out…

FYI — Tyree’s statement comes almost 44 years to the day after interracial marriage was legalized in the United States … thanks, in part, to the agenda of an influential minority.

Oh well. As I’ve mentioned before, most of these jock types aren’t really people I’d care to hang out with. Oh, they’re free to go ahead and beat the crap out of each other for my amusement, but I really hold no emotional attachment to them once the game’s over.

Speaking of getting the crap beaten out of you, Roberto Duran turns 60 years old today. When asked how he felt about having another birthday, he reportedly said that this one was OK, but “no mas.”

Which is pretty much how I feel about work.

So, it looks like NYS is now one vote away from legalizing Gay Marriage. The bad news is that one vote needs to be a Republican, and you can’t really count on them to do the right thing. But the public very much supports this, so maybe it’ll pass after all. I certainly hope so. I’d like to see NY do the right thing for a change. Of course, I still fail to understand why it has to “legalized” in the first place, since there seems to be a law allowing two humans to enter into a marriage contract which confers certain rights and responsibilities (like, “you inherit everything if your spouse croaks,” and “you really should refrain from knocking up your maid” – by the way, no offense to anybody but, geez, Arnold, really? Governor, movie star, rich bastard, and that’s what you throw you marriage away for?) already on the books, and I don’t see how you can exclude people from that based on gender. But hey, I’m no legal scholar, so what do I know?

Now that the NBA has finally had the decency for its season to end, the NHL will be over with tonight, one way or another as either Vancouver or Boston will take home the Stanley Cup. Mid June is just too damn late for hockey. I mean, crap, it’s bad enough that winter will be here before you know it. I’m not a huge hockey fan (used to follow the Sabres a bit when I lived in Buffalo, and enjoyed going to the minor league games here when I was a kid – lots of fights), but I’ll have to go with Vancouver because I’m really sick and tired of everything Boston. And I hate rotaries.

Chromebooks go on sale today, and I would love to try one out. But not for $500 (If I had $500 to throw away, I’d get an Android tablet). They’ll need to come down in price before I’ll consider one (and probably not even then – at least as long as I have a functioning laptop of one variety or another kicking around). Since coming to the realization that a computer is pretty much worthless without an Internet connection, I’ve decided a dearth of storage space (16 or 32 gigs seems “tiny” these days) isn’t really a problem. Especially when you have a USB port and SD card slots.

Oh well, no new toys for me, I guess.

Crap, it seems like it ought to be more than Tuesday. Mondays suck, but yesterday was an especially tough one. My knees are killing me, I had a headache all day, work sucked – everything sucked. And it’s too cold to use the pool (beginning to rethink my whole stance against using the pool heater). We dragged the solar cover on, so I guess we’ll see if that does any good. Assuming the sun shines. Not a lot of sun or warmth in the forecast today, but it’s supposed to get better tomorrow. I hope so.

There’s a glimmer of sunlight in the race for the Republican nomination for President, though, as everybody’s favorite True American Patriot – Michelle Bachmann – has officially thrown her, um, whatever it is she has to throw; I was gonna say hat, but I’ve never seen her wear a hat, and she seems more likely to throw her feces. Anyhow, she’s now in it to win it. I foresee a Romney/Bachmann ticket in our future. They make a cute couple, you gotta admit.

Though I also think a Palin/Bachmann lesbian porn flick would be quite the money maker. It would also have the added benefit of wiping out a lot of the old white Republican male voters, ‘cuz I don’t think their hearts could take it.

So, in a fit of weakness, I pre-ordered ‘Child of Eden’ for the XBox, with a guaranteed release-date delivery. And today is the release date. It just looks really cool, and is probably the closest I’ll get to tripping now that I’m old. Of course, the big problem is that I’m not only old, but stupid, and will probably never be able to figure the damn thing out.

Maybe I should take a few days off from work to try and figure it out.

First off, “Party at Art’s house!” Next, congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks. I’m not a huge NBA fan (or a fan of things involving Dallas, mostly due to the Cowboys), but it was nice to see them beat Miami’s bunch of mercenaries. Plus, what is Jason Kidd, like 60? I mean, hey, sure, he beats his wife, but you still gotta pull for the old guys.

Best wishes to The Big Man, Clarence Clemmons, who has apparently suffered a stroke, and reportedly a serious one (though I don’t think there are too many funny ones).

In addition to all the festival-type activity over the weekend (which wasn’t totally crappy, weather-wise, but could have been a lot better), we also had the International Boxing Hall of Fame induction ceremonies in Canastota (which you probably never heard of, but it’s where the IBHOF is located. Why? Because that’s where Carmen Basilio and his nephew, Billy Backus – both Welterweight champs – are from, I guess, and the people in Canastota figured if they built it, people would come).

Anyhow, among the inductees were Iron Mike Tyson (who was, by all accounts, quite emotional and didn’t bite anybody’s ear off), and – for some reason – Sylvester Stallone, who at least admitted that he wasn’t actually a boxer.

The NY Times published the first of its articles involving the leaked “Pentagon Papers” 40 years ago today, and to “celebrate” the National Archives is releasing the full 7,000 pages.

I’d spend the day reading them, but, sadly, I have to go to work. That sucks.

I’ve really increased my following on Twitter. Not my followers. I’ve just added to the people I’m following, which of course makes it pretty much impossible to actually pay attention to any of it – except for randomly. That’s OK, ‘cuz one of the reasons I decided to bail on Facebook was because people I knew from my “real” life – particularly from work – were starting to look at my stuff (my Facebook stuff, that is; not my “Weiner” type stuff).

Not that I had a whole lot to look at (again, in terms of Facebook – no comment on the other stuff), but it very much made me censor myself. I mean, you definitely don’t wanna write “I hate my job” or “all I did was play LBreakout2 and shop on Amazon today” when there’s a chance your boss is paying attention. Hopefully nobody’s smart enough to ever come and look at this shit, or I’m really screwed (fortunately, people actually coming here no longer seems to be a problem).

So I can blissfully go about my life with (as Roger Waters once put it) the bravery of being out of range. Or (as the Car Talk guys might say) unencumbered by the thought process. After all, if you just sit in your room and talk to yourself, nobody knows you’re nuts. But if you stand out on the street corner and do it, people will cross the street to avoid you and you get labeled a schizophrenic.

Did the ancient Egyptians caulk their boats with linen and beeswax? So it would seem. If you guessed that I’m taking advantage of the rainy start of the day to catch up on my recorded Novas, you would be correct. They’ve been showing “classic” ones lately, which is OK, because now that I’m old and feeble-minded, what’s old is new to me. Currently showing, ‘Secrets of the Parthenon.’ The Supreme Court building is based on the Parthenon, but the SCOTUS building really isn’t all that impressive (from the outside, anyway) in person. Frankly, it looks like a bank. When I saw it as a younger fella, it seemed much more August (even though it was July). Maybe the fact that I know it’s currently ruled by the likes of John Roberts, who makes up a majority that includes the likes of ‘Fat Tony’ Scalia and Clarence “Coke Can” Thomas makes it seem less impressive to me. Referring to the Republican Mafia in control as “Justices” makes me wanna puke. Oh well, the rain seems to be over (for now), so I suppose I ought to find something to do.