You Can Still Catch Up!

You may have missed the start, but you still have plenty of time to partake. 

Unless you're like me and leave your Shark Week decorations up all year 'round (I learned my lesson. I almost fell off the ladder a couple of years back trying to take them down), this may have slipped by you.

It's SHARK WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   

And no, I have no idea why we don't have a Dirty Jobs Week, or a PBS Masterpiece Week (too soon?).

But here you go, and best wishes to those who observe, safely on shore.
-bill kenny

On This Date

"I sail to the moon

I spoke too soon

And how much did it cost

I was dropped from

The moonbeam
And sailed on shooting stars." 

"Maybe you'll

Be president

But know right from wrong

Or in the flood

You'll build an Ark."

"And sail us to the moon

Sail us to the moon

Sail us to the moon

Sail us to the moon."

Fifty-six years ago today.

-bill kenny

Everyone (Except Us, of course)

Crossing the street the other day, I passed two people deep in conversation with one another (to the exclusion of the rest of us) who were walking in the opposite direction and heard one of them say to the other, 'and all of them are either midgets or morons.'

I confess to NOT looking around to see if the circus was in town (is Congress back in session? That's all I could think of) as I instinctively knew the speaker was offering some pejorative characterizations of people with whom he disagreed, and was exercising his vocabulary skills to characterize them.

Still, reducing the world to two sorts is a sweeping statement. Everyone (else) is whatever we dislike. Not you and me, mind you-those other folks, whoever they are. 

What John Kennedy Toole called "A Confederacy of Dunces". And yeah, you can probably download it to a Kindle and enjoy it this summer as a beach book, but please don't because it's a serious book and you should have to have socks on while you enjoy it (other clothes as well, of course, but spare me the sandals).

And maybe it captures a bit too perfectly who we are as a species among all the others on this planet. Heck, for all we know, maybe every life form looks at every other life form as a midget or a moron and behaves accordingly (cats come to mind immediately). 

All of our lives are alliances of one kind or another, some more fleeting than others. In the primary grades, we had a partner for the bus #2 to go home. In high school, we had lab partners, in college, perhaps, study buddies, at work, a mentor or someone we regard as one, and in our private lives, someone we come home to.

And in each of those situations, we create egoisme a deux, which is how we make our way, forming and breaking bonds every day until the day the clown car comes to a screeching halt in front of someone we thought we really knew and then how surprised we are as we step out of the back seat to see the look in their eyes and realize we are, sadly, a little too tall to be the former.

-bill kenny

Praise We Great Mice

I'm a day late and a dollar short with this (apology implied). 

The original Disneyland opened 70 years ago yesterday, July 17, 1955. To mark the occasion — which the theme park is celebrating for a full year — Disney CEO Bob Iger rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell from Anaheim on Thursday morning.  

Disney also opened a new attraction yesterday featuring an audio-animatronic version of Walt Disney in his office. Okay, that's only a little creepy but an improvement over the alternative. 

Ice, Ice, Disney

Who wouldn't want to be a member of the Church of Disney?
Mouse ears sold separately.

-bill kenny

The Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. 

Honoring John Lewis

This afternoon, Chelsea Parade, from five to seven P.M. 

-bill kenny

Honoring Last Night's All-Star Game

When my parents were MUCH younger and only had two children, they would summer in a bungalow somewhere in The Highlands. Grandma and Grampy, Mom's folks, rented a bungalow just up the row from where we were. 

Summers were magical. Dad would take us fishing off one of the piers after stopping to buy a cardboard box of bait, basically flash-frozen killies. My (perhaps false) memory is that my sister was focused on fishing, fearless, and had no trouble using the killies as bait. Her wimpy older brother, not so much.  

Our bungalow community had its own beach (they all did in Fifties) and we would dig for hours, encouraged by Grampy, to reach China. He would even help us dig and we worked fervishly to see a real Chinaman and were never discouraged that it didn't happen. 

A highlight every summer was going to the softball fields just below the Twin Lights for an always amazing exhibition by genuine New York Yankees baseball players (!) My memory says they were Bill ("Moose") Skrowon, who played first base, and long-time catcher and full-time character, Yogi Berra. However, the pair did not merely play baseball with whatever adult team was out there; they played Donkey Baseball.  

In today's world, where business is sports and sports is art, no one running a professional team in any sport would allow any of their stars to ride on the back of burro. But this was the Fifties and we had a Cold War going on and Eisenhower in the White House. What can I say? We were easily amused. 

If you summered farther North than the Jersey Shore, you rooted for the hated Boston Red Sox, and if farther South, your heart beat for the Philadelphia Phillies. We were smack dab in the middle of Yankee Country (the New York Metropolitans did not yet exist, and both Brooklyn's Dodgers and the New York Giants had exited the Empire State for California), and getting to see any of our idols was a thrill nearly beyond words. Yankees players were gods. And this was their ambrosia.

It's taken me my whole life, until now, to appreciate the marvel of Yoo-Hoo. And to be honest, even after that, I still don't get it.
-bill kenny

AMA

Not as I thought for years, Against Medical Advice, but rather, Ask Me Anything. 

Mahatma Gandhi

Could that be our one, true superpower? Asking for a friend.
-bill kenny

 

Brian or Jeffrey?

One gave us The Beatles. 

Mutt and Jeff

The other gave us Schroedinger's Files.
-bill kenny 

Time Flies

Do you know where Butler, Pennsylvania, is?  This time a year ago, we were all finding out. And truth to tell, what I DON'T know about what went on a year ago in Butler could fill a book. 

Speculation persists on whether the assassination attempt was staged. I can't decide if people engaged in such pursuits are heartless, paranoid or cynical. I have noticed there's no hole or scar on Trump's right ear. It appears that the ear has grown back, which is some sort of medical miracle (and I imagine Evander Holyfield would have appreciated that). 

A year on and we're no wiser than we were on the day.
-bill kenny

Target Acquired

"I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of SoHo in the rain.
He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fook's
Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein." 

"Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the queen
Doing the werewolves of London.
I saw Lon Chaney, Jr. walking with the queen, uh
Doing the werewolves of London.
I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's
And his hair was perfect.
Na!"

-bill kenny

The Future Is a/k/a Perhaps

I am an unabashed child of the novelty. I have memories of sitting on a coffee table in my parents' living room in the apartment in Elechester that we lived in when I was still an only child, watching the Dinah Shore Show on a teeny-tiny black and white television. "See the USA in your Chevrolet." Dad had a two-tone Plymouth two-door coupe, but I still sang the song. 

Seventy years later, and I'm surprised by the wizened visage I encounter in the mirror every morning. Strange days indeed. So little of what I grew up with has survived, except the memories. 

Now, we're a culture, nearly worldwide, who, because we have all these television and cable channels and means of communication, feel compelled to fill them with something. There was a time, when our kids were very young, when the idea of a 24/7 news operation was novel. 

Many of us wondered what would go on a channel like that at all hours of the day and night. At some point, as convergence began to close the distances between one form and another, news devolved into noise, not that we really noticed. 

Now, there's not a lot of nutrition in any of what we watch-just empty calories. When the President of the United States speaks and it takes longer than one commercial break (three and a half minutes), we start to twitch. We surf until we find something somewhere, even if we've seen it already, rather than attempt to stretch our attention span and focus. We have so much freedom of choice for information, we yearn for freedom from choice. 

Later this month, we'll mark the 56th anniversary of the First Man to Walk on the Moon. However, by the time we reach that milestone, it will be competing for our attention with the upcoming (in August) anniversary of Woodstock. 

Which one was history? Which one wasn't? How do you decide what is history? And what can a poor boy do, except to sing for a rock'n'roll band 'cos in this sleepy London Town there's just no place for a street fighting man.  

Sorry-I was channeling Mick Jagger, but I digress. I wondered eons ago if the news coverage of OJ and AC's speeding Ford Bronco was the end of an error. Now I know it was the lead car in the circus caravan, and I'm forced to acknowledge "This ain't no technological breakdown, Oh no, this is the road to hell." Makes me wonder what happened to that long-ago coffee table.
-bill kenny

You Knew I'd Remember

Richie was eighty-five this past Monday. That is to say, Richard Starkey, Ringo Starr, was eighty-five earlier this week. On the face of it, that's completely nuts, because it would mean that I Want to Hold Your Hand, the song that was their first #1 in the USA, would be sixty-plus years old....WTFO? Nearly everyone I encounter daily wasn't even alive yet when that happened. How is this possible?

I'm trying and failing to imagine popular music without The Beatles--and the drummer in the band who created a significant piece of the soundtrack to my growing up years, the guy who was talking 'bout Boys (hey hey, bop shuop, m'bop, bop shuop) and who had a matchbox holding his clothes is E-I-G-H-T-Y_F-I-V-E. Is nothing sacred?

I rewatched A Hard Day's Night not that long ago-and, yeah, my age is showing; it was brilliant. It is a postcard from another time when we all were a lot less complicated in a world that disappeared and was replaced by one with sharpened elbows and a kick drum mixed with static. And while I'm aware of what we've lost through the years, I'm less sure of what we've gained.

Ringo saw two of his former bandmates die-one murdered by a crazed fan and the other by cancer from a lifetime of cigarettes. He snagged a Bond Girl and watched as Cirque du Soleil introduced another generation to the Magical Mystery Tour that was The Beatles.

Those who listened then are now older than our fathers who growled at us to 'turn that crap down' when the Beatles/Stones/Dave Clark Five/Byrds/and ten thousand other long haired bands came blasting out of the three inch speaker in that transistor radio we each had. 

We thought those days would last forever. Ringo Starr is eighty-five, and on behalf of all of us, no longer twelve-year-olds from back then, here's to many more.

-bill kenny

Thoughts, Spoken Aloud, Haunt My Waking Moments

I find myself alone with what passes for thoughts at odd hours, almost always in my car, which is funny because life and times for my generation go full circle. 

When I was coming of age, the driver's license and the open road (and all they promised, if not always delivered) was a rite of passage. And here I am, very much as I started, a long way from home on a dark highway, lost but making great time.

It was an era of Springsteen's chromed invaders-GTOs, Malibu SSs, Olds 442s, Buick Wildcats, Mustangs, 'Cudas, and Chargers at the top of the list. Gas lines the size of garden hoses and all of us, the dweebs included (present!) knew the cubic displacement and the brake horsepower. MPG at a time when gasoline was thirty-five cents a gallon was a nonsense concept and was never explored.

We traveled in packs but were often alone. Our music was transitioning from AM radio to FM and we struggled to move from converters to tape decks, almost always eight-track, with FM receivers. I remember taking the back seat out of a car to make room for ludicrously sized speakers that were very important to me but I can't remember why. Because, I suspect; just because.

Driving a car was only slightly more important than having one of your own. Growing up in the sixties, we were all psychedelic capitalists who believed dope got you through times of no money better than money got you through times of no dope. 

A lifetime later, we invented the Real Estate Collapse and Stock Market Meltdown (all caps for a reason) and were absolutely stunned when it happened (now I know why we called it dope).

I watched older neighborhood boys sent off by my parents' generation thousands of miles away to places I couldn't say for causes I accepted as good and true because my government told me it was so. Now, it's my generation sending our children and grandchildren to other wars that are eerily familiar, and I know just how good we've gotten at lying, but I don't know who we're fooling.

I don't calculate the cost or the worth of those transactions, since those may be numbers that are too unhappy at any hour, but especially in the early ones. I think I prefer to drive in the dawning and the gloaming--when you don't know (or care) where you're going, any road will get you there. 

Those with whom I travel always seem as lost as I and the roads lead everywhere and nowhere. Keep the windows rolled up, crank the climate control, and turn the tunes up. It remains what it has always been from the start until now, a dark ride.
-bill kenny

Not that Song Again!!!

I wrote this a really long time ago, before our son got married (He and Jena's anniversary was last Friday). I've not done very much very well in this life (at least so far), but marrying my wife and being the father to our two children were excellent moves on my part. At the time, I called it: 

Memo to My Son

Today is the birthday of our son, Patrick Michael. If we've not met, count your blessings. I am NOT likable. Take my word on that, and rest assured, I could provide you a list of folks who could attest to this fact, and the list would resemble the census in size and scope. 

Me and Patrick at Yankee Stadium Go Yankees!

Being not likable makes it a difficult stretch to be lovable, and yet, my wife, an otherwise sane and logical person, could not possibly be married to me for nearly five decades, but has. She not only raised two children, but she also transformed a self-absorbed obliviot into an Approximate Dad. 

Sigrid went into labor in the middle of the morning, and we drove across town to the Offenbach Stadtkrankenhaus. German physicians in the early Eighties were an unknown species to me (Sigrid's frauenarzt was cool enough-I still have the black and white Polaroids of Patrick in the womb), and I was to them as well. 

As Sigrid's labor continued and the contractions shortened and the delivery preparation's tempo quickened, I was asked where I would be during her stay in the geburtsaal, and I assured the doctors, 'right there with her', which surprised them. 

I attempted to explain that I had placed the order and had every intention of taking delivery. Maybe my German wasn't that good-it was like playing to an oil painting, no smile, no nothing, gar nichts.

Rocking Suspenders

The midwife placed Patrick Michael on Sigrid's chest for mother and child bonding, and my disappointment knew almost no words. At that moment, I was so jealous of the woman I loved. 

I asked as politely as I could if, after she had 'had enough of holding him', if I could, and she picked him up and fixing me with a stare that bordered on a glare handed Patrick to me, saying 'I've carried him for nine months, it's your turn now.' 

From the moment I held him, Patrick Michael was, and is, my deal with God. I know your children are beautiful, smart, talented, and handsome, and I'm sorry-they're not my children, and my son and my daughter are the absolute best, not only in the world but in the history of the world.

My always favorite photo. Always.

I walked him around that delivery room for the next two hours or so, singing I've Been Working on the Railroad and really working those Fie-Fi-Fiddly-I-Os, making up in volume what I lacked in pitch. 

He and his sister have overcome the handicap of being my children, mostly because they've had the good fortune to have the love and devotion of my wife as their Mom. And, yeah, he's made me crazy, angry, frightened, delighted, and every emotion in between--because that's what children do.

I know we told you we lost this picture. We lied.

And as long as you remember to make sure they always know that sometimes they will do things you will not like, but that you will always love them, they will be able to do anything, even leave you when they grow up to be adults of their own. And your eyes will fill with tears as you watch them end the chapter of their childhood and begin to write their own novel as the life you always wanted for them finally begins. 

And maybe the keyboard blurs as I type this because it's really warm and my eyes are perspiring-yeah, that's what it is, I'm sure. And I also get to say a few words to the newest Mrs. Kenny on the planet (to my knowledge), Patrick's bride, Jena: Sigrid and I have no words to express our joy that Patrick has found someone who loves him as much as we do. 

Patrick & Jena Kenny

Happy Birthday, Patrick! Love, Dad.

This Concludes this Test of the Emergency Broadcast System......

 

If you are NOT outraged at what is happening, you are NOT paying attention.
-bill kenny

Biding My Time

I haven't been alive for ALL of them, but I truly believe this is the saddest Independence Day holiday of my life.  

Hopefully, for next year's 250th, things will be better.
-bill kenny

Approved by Bobby McFerrin

I had an email from the Social Security administration yesterday advising me that, thanks to the passage of Trump's Big, Beautiful Bill, I won't have federal income tax taken out of my Social Security monthly stipend anymore.

The note forgot to tell me that Ronald Reagan was the one who slapped the income tax on my Social Security stipend in the first place.

We ain't just whistling Dixie either.
-bill kenny  

Not Feeling So Blessed Now

I cannot be the only one who is angry all the time at what a clusterfeck my country has become. In the battle between the Greedies and the Needies, it looks like the Greedheads won out. Let's face it, the Billionaires and Tech Brothers have decided that people with nothing have too much. 

Aerial of Norwich, CT 2019 Harbor fireworks

And don't look to Congress to stop the most awful, evil, talentless piece of skin in my lifetime to occupy the Oval Office, as they are busy helping themselves (that's why they have two hands to take it all and two pockets to put it in) and are as craven and spineless as the nine nitwits on the Supreme Court, who, instead of being impartial and adjudicating cases based on the facts, check to see if you're a woman or an immigrant or gave one or more of them a yacht ride before rendering a decision. 

You know it's bad when pond scum like Elon Musk threatens to form his own politial party to put the two monopoly parties on notice and you think that's a good idea except Musk is a horrible human being so how can you agree with him on anything?  

Norwich, CT Veterans Memorial Garden

I wrote this fifteen years ago when I was feeling far more optimistic about myself and my nation. I called it: 

The Gift of Quiet

Here's what I"m thinking, since we're now hip-deep in the holiday weekend, maybe all the bobbing talking heads on the 24/7 Noise channels can follow Piers Morgan's lead, if for only 72 hours, and not bring me their version of the Ghosts of Independence Day Past, Present and Future. 

Drone photo by Brian Swope of Norwich, CT fireworks 2021

On a good day, downhill with a strong breeze at their backs, most of these folks can't diagram a sentence much less construct a coherent argument that doesn't involve the use of 'Democrat' or 'Republican' as an epithet.

A lot of people had to sacrifice everything, and far more sacrificed a great deal (from space you can't tell us apart, trust me on this one) for us to choose to barbecue, watch fireworks, go to the beach/the mountains, do whatever, for "America's Birthday" that I'd just like us, just for today to NOT have to pick a side, unless it's either Cole Slaw or potato salad, if you follow my drift.

Television is everywhere we go, and in some places, though none that I frequent, that includes public bathrooms and newborn nurseries (like a six-hour-old infant can tell Hannity from Watters). We can't know everything, but we seem to be hellbent on trying.

The chatter channels make sure we never have to be alone-and if you and I are distressed by the vicious belittling of those who don't share a studio host's views, we may be the only people who grasp that two diatribes don't make a dialogue. 

I'm not sure that's a good thing for us, especially this holiday weekend, as we'll get stomped from both sides for lacking the purity of faith that their ideology, mislabeled as patriotism, demands.

So maybe later, instead of turning up the big screen so you can hear it better over the charcoal in the grill, you can hope for a lull in the battle that has become Life in these United States, where the sides are no longer clearly defined and the tradition of Right and Wrong hasn't been "improved" by situational ethics. 

We're not the first Americans to have seared our souls searching for a better life, but if we can't find or create a common ground to continue to do so real soon, there may not be that many more after us. God Bless America, a once-fine idea that was hollowed out by selfish bastards.

-bill kenny