Try This Some Time

When someone says “Put your money where your mouth is,” pull out your wallet and stuff your every dollar into your mouth. I do this and you should see the looks I get!

BILL

Hopping Mad

When we were little, my brother Smedley and I would ride in the back of Uncle Nestor’s Chevy. These were innocent times, of course, when drinking and driving was not the maligned pastime it is today. Anyway, Uncle Nestor would, yes, drink and drive, rolling down his window and heave-ho-ing his numerous empties into the ditch while the car was still in motion. We would get so angry whenever we saw this and, one day, Smedley mustered up the courage I so lacked and shouted: “Hey! We like beer, too, you know!”

BILL

A Fun Drinking Game

When watching the SAG Awards, down a shot whenever you see an actor seated in front of a plate of food where you can plainly see that he or she has eaten everything on the plate. My AA pals and I do this every year and not one of us has fallen off the wagon.

BILL

PS – This also hands you a laugh whenever you hear any of them bemoaning world hunger.

Man of Style

So I’m at my usual coffee shop, when I get in the annoyingly long line for the bathroom. When finally my turn, I glance to those behind me and say, “I’ll only be a moment. Need to change into my Superman outfit.” Their lame, polite smiles – ranging from “I get it but it’s still not funny” to “idiot” – vanished seconds later when I emerged in full Superman regalia, my former glasses nowhere to be seen.

BILL

But Seriously Folks...

It’s not all fun and games. Here’s some info and a link re a novel I wrote:

City of Seven Rivers is historical fiction set in 1995 about a Marin County junior high student who suspects that Myron Hunter, the 74-year-old recluse next door is in fact Arden Hennessey, former bombardier on the Enola Gay. The boy’s suspicions counter the widely held belief that Hennessey, whose postwar success as a painter would nearly be undone by unrelenting guilt over the death and destruction he himself unleashed upon Hiroshima, leaped off the Golden Gate Bridge on the 10-year anniversary of the bombing.

http://www.cityofsevenrivers.com/

BILL

PS – And if you dig it, spread the word… Thanks!

Working Payphone You Ask? Dial “F” For “Frustration”

Per my minimalist leanings, I do not own a smartphone. Nor have I ever owned a cell phone. Key among the reasons for this is I have yet to come across a mobile phone capable of providing the same consistently high quality reception I get from the dinosaur contraption that is my home phone landline. Call me quaint, old-fashioned or curmudgeonly, but I refuse to lower my lifelong standard of having my every telephone conversation be – per the ads from yesteryear – “the next best thing to being there.” On the rare occasions when I use someone else’s cell phone – or when calling a cell phone - I invariably become annoyed by the patience-fraying intrusion of delays, overlapping dialogue and blips in transmission so garbled they rival Neil Armstrong’s first words from the lunar surface.

OK, I’ll admit it; I’m cheap, too. One phone is enough, I say.

But where does this leave me when having to place a call while away from home? For decades the trusty payphone proved ever reliable, the coin-fed apparatus a dependable tool at a reasonable price.

I believe the days of the conveniently located payphone are numbered, however, for with each passing year I inch closer to finally joining the ranks of the smartphone generation, bidding farewell to the payphone days of yore. Why? Because they are going the way of the buggy whip.

For quite some time I have become increasingly frustrated by the dwindling number of payphones. They are, in fact, becoming all but extinct, their slow and steady decline relegating cell phone holdouts like myself to occasionally having to rely upon friends or the kindness of strangers for use of their cell phones.

Desiring to bolster the aforementioned with firsthand statistics, I recently walked a four-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard from Doheny Drive to Vine Street. My initial plan to stroll east on one side of the boulevard, then west along the other was rendered unnecessary by the sheer dearth of payphones, their pitifully small number prompting me to simply cross over to the other side of the street upon spotting another payphone.

With notebook and pen I recorded the location and condition of each and every payphone along my route, the twofold results of which were equally disappointing, albeit hardly surprising. On what might well be the most famous thoroughfare in all of Los Angeles, I came upon only ten functioning payphones, a few of which nevertheless refused to relinquish coins to which they were not mathematically entitled. As for the others, their purposeless existence was mirrored by their abject physical state. Many of the receivers had been vandalized to the point of being smashed in half or ripped out entirely, leaving behind a tangle of multicolored wires soldiering on to communicate one last, desperate message: Upkeep is not high on the list of priorities of “the phone company.” From Highland Avenue to Vine Street – in the very heart of Hollywood - there was not a single payphone to be had. Nor did any of the service stations I passed along the way have a payphone, one that might sorely be needed by a customer whose car has just been towed onto the lot yet who does not possess a cell phone. As best I can tell, this leaves only two remaining places where one can reasonably count on finding a working payphone: hospitals and airports. To those clinging to the belief that a cell phone is more luxury than necessity, I say this: It’s not looking good.

I’m not so naïve as to anticipate a resurgence of payphones in the years ahead. Like most anyone, I predict the opposite, i.e. their inevitable demise. Perhaps in a few years I’ll trek along Sunset once again to conduct a second survey. I’m fairly certain, however, that by then the tally of working payphones will have slipped from its lofty perch of double figures. I realize the clock is ticking and not at all in my favor, so I suppose I should begin preparing for the day looming large before me when, at long last, I will utter those dreaded words: “Can you hear me now?”

BILL

Call Me Crazy But...

… I’m pretty sure one could gain access into a nuclear missile silo simply by hiding outside the door, waiting for someone to leave, then tapping out “Shave and a Haircut” on the door ten seconds later.

BILL

I'm Cancer Free, Everybody! I'm Cancer Free!!

Not that I was in remission or anything; I’m just thrilled not to have cancer.

BILL

Table My Booth

Janusz Kaminski had to be talked into being cinematographer for Steven Spielberg’s latest film, his hesitancy stemming from the belief that he would henceforth be known as the man who shot Lincoln.

BILL

Oscar Major Whine

I’m the first to admit the inherent difficulty in playing the Oscar “snub” game, forcing one to ask as it does: “OK, who gets pulled from the list of five nominees?” With the directorial exclusion of previous Oscar winner Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty,” the last thirty minutes of which are so mesmerizingly tense you practically have to peel yourself from your seat at film’s conclusion, here is my reply: “Anyone. That includes you, Mr. Spielberg….”

BILL

I Miss Working at NASA

Unlike my present place of employment, they spared no expense when it came to quality toilet brushes.

BILL

"Keep In a Cool, Dry Place"

Basically, this applies to any place in which I am located when not drinking.

BILL

Rush to Judgment? I Think Not!

I’m not saying Notre Dame got their ass kicked last night but the Fighting Irish’s “dangerously mobile” quarterback Everett Golson averaged one less rushing yard per attempt than I did.

BILL

It's The Next Best Thing To Being There!

NEWS ITEM WASHINGTON — In the days since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, a shell-shocked nation has looked for reasons. The list of culprits include easy access to guns, a strained mental-health system and the "culture of violence" — the entertainment industry's embrace of violence in movies, TV and, perhaps most telling, ungodly realistic, ultra-violent video games.

(I do think there is something inherently “off” in someone who derives his jollies by coming as close as he can to the “fun and pleasure” of blowing people’s brains out, a vicarious experience rendered all the more special by capturing just the perfect array of blood splatter, all the while knowing he need never face the noisome inconvenience of being gang-raped in prison later on.)

BILL

No Wonder Their Teeth Are So Sharp!

It’s not just that my cats go after the dental floss I momentarily dangle just before curling it around two fingers to begin flossing, the weird part is that, on the few occasions they manage to snatch it away from me, they actually begin to floss!

BILL

This Will Come As No Shock Whatsoever:

But my nieces and nephews consider the phrase “crazy uncle” to be redundant.

BILL

Sure Fire Laugh at Most Any Massage Parlor

Utter the following:

“I’m (insert your name here) and I approve of this massage.”


BILL