Singles and Doubles Vol 5
Yes, It's Time for This Again
1st INNING
Mark Knopfler’s fourth solo album, Shangri-La, was released in September 2004, and is a wonderful collection of songs that showcase Mark’s unmatched storytelling ability. Plus his guitar work is impeccable, as usual. Sixteen songs and not a clunker among them. Highlights include: “5:15 AM”, “Postcards From Paraguay”, “Boom, Like That”, “Song For Sonny Liston”, and “Our Shangri-La”. While Mark perhaps achieved more commercial success with Dire Straits, Shangri-La is just as good, if not better, than anything he ever did with them.
2nd INNING
I have never seen a Star Wars movie. If there are any Star Trek movies out there, I haven’t seen them, either. I know who Taylor Swift is, from her commercials and “news” stories, but it wasn’t until recently, and by accident, that I heard even a snippet of her singing. I know she is a highly popular entertainer of some repute, but I haven’t the slightest bit of interest in her. And, I never understood the popularity of Madonna or Prince or Michael Jackson in their heydays.
I do not say these things out of some kind of elitist snobbery, as if I’m above paying attention to pop culture and whatever the lowest common denominators are. My denominator can get pretty low, too. For example, I have watched every episode of “Trailer Park Boys”. Multiple times.
It’s simply a matter of not caring what is trendy or popular. I know what I like and what I don’t. Have I missed out on enjoyable experiences because of this? Maybe. But, as Sally Brown says,
3rd INNING
Instead of watching shows or movies or sports on TV, we often watch live webcams on YouTube, specifically the webcams featuring trains, and boats, and wildlife.
The live streaming railcams we like are provided by a company called Virtual Railfan. YouTube has many free VR live streaming sites, and, if one subscribes to VR, many more cams become available. Viewers can connect with a live chat which, like anything on the internet, can provide a trainload of valuable information or a lot of worthless blather.
Duluth, Minnesota is a hot spot for ship-watching, especially the monstrous, slow-moving, 1000 foot, Great Lakes freighters. There must be close to a dozen webcams set up all around the harbor of Duluth and neighboring Superior, Wisconsin. One can almost follow a freighter from the dock to the open waters of Lake Superior by switching from cam to cam. Port Huron, Michigan at the very southern tip of Lake Huron is another good one for the big boats. San Diego Harbor has an excellent multi-cam set up, as well.
I would guess that viewership of these webcams skew toward an older demographic and people with time on their hands. Which is right up my alley.
4th INNING
We bought an 81 Corvette in 2019. I’ve always enjoyed having a hot car in which to tool around. We knew this Corvette needed some work to make it really nice, and I thought we could treat it as an investment. We could have fun with it while fixing it up, and, when the time was right, we could sell it for at least what we put into it, plus, maybe we could collect a small profit, as well. Two things worked against this plan. One - I underestimated how much fixing up this car would need. And, two - I overestimated the resale market on old Corvettes.
We now know that we have long since passed the point where we’ll be able to recoup all of what we have invested, and it still has expensive work that needs to be done, if we want it to be great.
Our dilemma is this - Do we keep putting money into this car to make it a beautiful, head-turning, eye-catching, hot rod, knowing that we will never sell it for what we put into it, but at least we’ll have a cool car to drive around? Or, do we sell it now to cut our losses and be done with it?
One last question: Does anyone out there want to buy a Corvette?
5th INNING
I admit to a certain lack of sophistication. For example, when I eat Chinese food, I do not use chopsticks. I believe that forks and spoons are superior tools for shoveling food down my gullet. If that makes me uncouth or uncool, well, whatever.
I’ve been noticing lately that when TV or movie characters have Chinese food, they almost always use chopsticks. In my world, that rarely happens. I’m sure I must know people who are perfectly capable of using chopsticks and I’ve just not been around to see. In TV land, everyone uses them as if they’ve been doing it their entire lives. Even lowlife criminal types are suave and cultured enough to use chopsticks. Oh well, to each their own, I guess.
By the way, this is not a criticism of chopstick users, it is simply an observation. It’s the kind of thing that causes my wife to refer to me as '‘Mr Detail”.
6th INNING
Yes, Joe Biden is old. Maybe too old. But, the loser of the 2020 election is only three years younger. Which makes him old, too. In a recent unhinged speech, he said the “Bush” he defeated in the primaries of 2016 (it was Jeb), was the same “Bush” who got us into a war in the Middle East (that was George W, not Jeb). In another speech, he said he defeated Obama in 2016 (nope, as those of us who have all our marbles know, it was Hillary), and then went on to say that if he didn’t get elected in 2024, we would soon thereafter enter World War II. (Wrong again, bud. That war ended the year before you were born.)
Then there’s this from a September speech as quoted by Huffpost:
The former president raged during a campaign speech in South Carolina that windmills are driving whales crazy.
“Windmills are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before. Nobody does anything about that,” he declared.
“They’re driving the whales, I think, a little batty,” he said.
What?? Unsurprisingly, there is no scientific evidence of this.
Another time, he claimed people have to show ID to purchase bread. ??? And, he says Biden is “cognitively impaired”?
These examples are different than his usual lies we’re all used to and have come to expect. His grasp on reality has always seemed suspect, and it’s getting worse. MAGAs use Biden’s goofs and gaffes as evidence of his decline mentally. Maybe they’re right, who knows? To them I would say, “What do you call it when your guy messes up? C’mon, use the same standards to judge, don’t be a goddamn hypocrite.”
7th INNING
I would bet that everyone has a closet that is kind of a mess. I know our closets haven’t been cleaned out in a while. Because it is an awful, thankless job that no one wants to do. And, a thorough closet cleaning forces everyone to part with stuff they are not ready to throw away.
Plus, you know, there is something weird about closets. Last time I cleaned out a closet, I sorted everything into piles, threw some stuff away, and prepared a box for Goodwill. When I put what was left back in the closet, not only did I fill it up again, I had things left over. How does that happen? I swear I got rid of some stuff. I really did. And yet, it was full again. See? It’s weird, I tell you. (Cue the supernatural music.)
8th INNING
I like pie. I am a pie guy. My favorite pie used to be my mother’s coconut cream pie. Today, I still like the coconut cream, but I really like cream pies topped with blueberries or cherries or strawberries. My wife recently hit on a recipe for a cream pie made with pudding that is fantastic. She already makes the world’s greatest cookies. She is an excellent baker, however I don’t think she enjoys baking all that much. But, man, she is good at it.
9th INNING
Sometimes I feel as if my functioning brain cells are dwindling to a precious few. And, I waste my remaining brain power on the most useless of thoughts. Here’s an example: Why don’t these words sound the same - blood, brood, food, flood, good, hood, mood, stood, wood?
See what I mean? Even if I could use what brainage I have left to answer that question, what could I possibly do with such pointless information? And why do such things matter to me?
When my brain is messing with me like this, I have discovered a way of dealing with it that really helps. I lie down and take a nap with a warm kitty nearby. I’ve found that to be a miracle cure for most of my brain fevers.
Well done, Norm.