Before pc bleached English of many piquant usages, New York City coppers, particularly those whose beats comprised predominantly Puerto Rican blocks, used a term for “nooners” with compliant boricuas along their patrols. Spanish Coffee. Continue reading Spanish Coffee
Little Incivilities
Living in Las Vegas, a k a, “The Big Mayberry,” has disabused me of any nonsense that small burg residents conduct themselves kindlier than big city dwellers. In New York, we weren’t rude but as befitting a hustling cosmopolitan metropolis, just in a hurry.
See, there was always more to do and less time to do it. Continue reading Little Incivilities
A Fan Comments
A lot of football fans may suppose the New England Patriots are the New York Jets’ fiercest rivals. Nothing could be further from the truth. Continue reading A Fan Comments
The Aspiring Pack
Our inability to remain circumspect certainly has complicated modern life. What don’t we confess these days?
Haven’t the words “secret” and “confidential” lost much, if not all, meaning? Continue reading The Aspiring Pack
Ghost Warranty
A stalled car starts this 2018.
My wheels must’ve been equipped with artificial intelligence of the devious kind. An ’02 Mercury that has under 64,000 miles on its odometer, my car’s prime directive is planned obsolescence. Continue reading Ghost Warranty
Christmas Prisms
One aspect of our society we should hope never succumbs to speed, convenience or economy is the habit of exchanging Christmas cards. The real paper ones sealed inside envelopes, bearing stamps, and dropped in mailboxes.
Unlike the rotary phone, black & white televisions, and phonographs, inventions that became consumer goods which progress raced by and rendered obsolete, printed cards delivered via surface mail, bearing stamps, contained in covers carrying the sometimes nearly indecipherable scrawls of well-meaning senders who held the recipients in worthy esteem, are worthwhile remnants of our less instantaneous time.
They reflected humanity. Ours. Continue reading Christmas Prisms
Magnificent Arrogance
Were Time magazine founding publisher Henry Luce still alive, the man who’d coined the 20th century “the American Century” would today declare any extension of it dead.
Our epoch of true world influence stretched from the Jazz Age until Bolshevism collapsed under capitalist superiority. Although our Levant fiasco significantly diminished the nation’s prestige while emboldening adversaries, much of the global community still accepted the United States as the planet’s cock of the walk.
After wrong-footing throughout 2017, the only standing America retains is being musclebound and brainless. Continue reading Magnificent Arrogance
Donna Erupts
Alas Poor Bryce. His prick led him astray.
He failed heeding warnings. He let his little man override advice from older, less susceptible men.
Bryce succumbed to Donna’s cajoleries. Pleasurable as he found their screwing, what happened afterwards severely screwed him. Continue reading Donna Erupts
The Willies
Schlockmeisters believing themselves quality horror purveyors need to set up campfires that burn holes into patches of the darkest nighttime woods extant. Amid this pitch black setting, using remedial storytelling lessons, they should huddle around the flames and rediscover what truly jolts audiences.
They can start by reciting “The Monkey’s Paw” then diagram why the story still tingles. Continue reading The Willies
An Idol, Not a Hero
Yeah. O.J. Simpson was at his ex-wife’s house the night she and her boyfriend were slaughtered. He didn’t kill them. The Juice arrived late. How long after the fact? Who knows?
Does the pro football hall of famer, former actor, ex-pitchman know who killed Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman? No. He only has suspicions. These are best for setting investigators off on the wrong trails, having them hound those at the end of inevitable lines if logic.
Just because it’s logical doesn’t mean it’s right. Left to enough people, a syllogism would’ve sufficed to have convicted O.J. Simpson of murder. Continue reading An Idol, Not a Hero