I’m cleaning.
Now that my mom’s moved out, XX is practically living with her boyfriend, and XY has moved to Springfield to take advantage of that full-ride scholarship he got after he royally fucked up his life but not really, it’s time to work over my kitchen and pantry.
So, to avoid doing that, I decided to clean up my blog instead.
I did the pages first, posted excerpts after @OMWC bitched about my static page designed to look good on a phone but looked hideous on a PC, wrote some new CSS, fought with my theme (I’m losing) and the theme designer and the photo gallery plugin, tidied up some formatting, and then installed a broken-link checker plugin. In checking broken links (I’m not done yet) and making liberal use of the Wayback Machine I started to realize I said a lot of stupid shit. So I’m following up. It’s probably stupid, too.
• • •
If I recall correctly, which may not be correct because I’ve had several hard knocks on the noggin in my life and it occurred to me this morning while I was on the throne that I may have had a few untreated concussions (although, can you really treat a concussion?), the most famous person I ever met was Jimmy Osmond.
Now that social media is a thing, I’ve gotten to chatting with a few people who seem famous because they talk a lot and make a lot of money doing artsy things. They are not friends. I have not met them. I occasionally swap tweets with them.
Then there is this one wannabe-famous dude (who is, in fact, reasonably known in his niche, which is very nichey), Angel Ferreira, Afro-Cuban band leader, and has had a couple of brushes with fame. I kinda fell into a texting/phone pal relationship with. We text, oh, every 2-3 years. I like his work and have used it to produce quite a few thousand good words.
I kinda feel sorry for him. I don’t hustle or market, so okay, my work goes unnoticed in the noise, but I’m not out there busting my ass and spending money like I have any, either. He hustles and … still can’t crack in. He got burned with two record deals by the same kind of freaky shit I got burned with when I was actively submitting book proposals.
As MikeS asked me once, “Why aren’t you famous?” I kinda have to wonder about Angel, too. Then again, there are a shit-ton of artists, inventors, makers, writers, musicians, filmmakers, cartoonists, illustrators, designers who are better than 78.32% of what’s out there and ought to be famous and … are not. Too much talent, not enough eyeballs.
As I was writing this, he called me and we had a very depressing chat about age and art fading into obscurity.
• • •
Had to move Dude’s office from the mancave to the bedroom my mother vacated, but before I could do that, I had to clean my garage. You know how that is. I found out my miter saw no longer works and somebody *koffXYkoff* lost my cheap little plastic miter box. I’d be more upset about my saw if I hadn’t paid $50 for it 15 years ago, and haven’t used it in the last 4 years. It took me all day to sort out washers, screws, nails, and other little bullshit XY had strewn all over the place. Yes, he is a tornado, but he’s also very helpful, eager to please, and of all the people I could trust to take care of me in my old age, it’d be him.
Well, I mean, a good third of it is just Mt. Boxmore, but still.
(No, that is not my garage and not me. I’d rather die than have a garage that looked like the “before.”)
My modern Cinderella story both adheres to and subverts the whole scullery maid bit.
• • •
Just a little announcement:
This is my last Thursday WordPress Can Go Die In A Fire links post,
so I’m going to go back to slumming on Friday nights.
It was a hell of a run.
“This is my last Thursday WordPress Can Go Die In A Fire links post…”
I’ve been slacking off long enough, and am taking over this time slot again starting Aug 7. Big thanks to Mojeaux and Raven Nation for filling in.
Your absence has been un-bearable.
As Bill Engvall might put it (if he lisped) “here’s ursine”.
That pun was grizzly, I was looking for something the polar opposite.
You should hibernate over that for a while.
Can’t relate. Every word I’ve ever written on the internet still holds up. Reading old posts doesn’t at all make me want to curl up in a fetal position and die.
I’ve made the mistake of hunting down some old usenet posts.
Man… I was an idiot back then.
Thanks for stepping up, Mo.
The least famous Osmond.
Didn’t even perform with Osmond Turner Overdrive.
It’s interesting inasmuch as this is a relatively modern social/cultural phenomenon. Before mass media, it wasn’t all that terribly unusual for an artist to be known only in a particular locale or region, but now if you don’t have a huge national presence it’s seen as some type of failure.
If you make something you enjoy, you have succeeded.
That’s true, but for those who enjoy performing, an audience is a necessity as well. The idea that the only audience that matters is a national one is the part that’s relatively new. Before broadcasting, playing to 50 people at a coffee house, or 200 people at a club, or a packed house at a community theater, for example, wouldn’t have been seen as failing to achieve one’s potential in the same way as it is now.
Writing is a bit different, of course.
Who let you out of your room?
It’s something that’s come to my mind quite a bit, as I’m sitting here with CDs that appear to have never been released in a “digital” format. Some local, some regional, some that were nationwide but niche. Similar things when trying to hunt down print copies of old genre fiction as well.
“I knew that guy before…”
I had a friend in Junior High whose older brother saw Van Halen perform at a big HS party in Pasadena. He would tell everyone he met after their first album caught fire.
Trent Reznor was a regular in the club scene here back in the 90s. My friends have stories… many, many stories…
Now, do Cake or The Deftones and Sacramento. Or Pavement in Stockton. Same thing.
Also, there was a smoking hot jazz trumpeter down in Fresno, better than 90% of what is pushed as jazz these days. Never got a chance outside the ‘No. Gilberto Castellanos.
The proliferation of arts offerings over the world is a product of prosperity. Those of yore were either really good artists AND hustlers, or had a patron, but almost NO ONE could make a living in the arts.
Court jesters sure did.
As I’ve said before, the barrier to entry to write a story is low. You must know a language, have a piece of paper, and have a pen. Now, whether you have a story or not, well, that’s not my problem.
Sir William of Cosby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbLAmDxaA2k
Judson Scott is the most famous person I’ve had a conversation with.
Mike Ditka is the most famous person I’ve met.
Both were on the same flight.
James Comey is the most famous asshole I’ve been in the same room with.
Once at a White Sox game I was in an elevator with the Reverend Jesse Jackson and two very large bodyguards. My brother-in-law was with us, he’s not a fan, and I could see him clenching his teeth.
Imagine being trapped in the elevator.
Bachelor party. Strip club. Urinal. Next to me Charles Barkley.
First thought, “he’s not that big”.
Tall, I mean tall.
I ran into a murderer at the airport once.
He looked like 10 lbs of shit in a 5 lb. bag; like he’d been drinking all night.
Actual interactions with famous people involve mostly general officers.
I used to buy cigarettes from Scott Petersen.
I hope you didn’t try to stop OJ from getting to his rental car.
I met Matlock once.
Unfortunately, it was only Jack Matlock, former US ambassador to the Soviet Union.
Jerry Orbach on the subway.
I’m awful on NYC sightings. Coworkers always go did you just see X? And I always say nope.
I fucking love Orbach. No Law & Order is worth watching if he ain’t in it. In the flesh in NYC? Manhattan? How was he dressed? The Briscoe-look’d be visible from Boston.
Fascinating personal history, he has. Broadway song-n-dance man in the 60s, with legit showtime connections to the Mafia (including a hitman), to Beauty and the Beast and L&O? Man was good at his job.
Debbie Harry at an industrial/goth club one night. She was fucking royalty.
Pretty much. He would spin in his grave if he saw how mediocre the franchise became.
Prince Andrew?
GT, nice.
Evan, winter time. Jeans and black jacket.
That’s an interesting thing to ponder.
Outside the areas of competitive shooting and libertarian/sci-fi fandom, I haven’t really met any famous people. Lots of interesting people, but none that anyone would know outside their fields.
I was once at a party with Mark Warner. Talk about your missed opportunities.
That is a good line, I am stealing it.
“Have you met any famous people?”
“No, just interesting ones.”
Once, while working at a bookstore, I rang up Steven Spielberg.
I dated the grand daughter of a famous actor when I was in my 20s, and went to high school with one of the Jackass’s.
I’m not sure the biggest celeb I’ve met or observed. Was in Willie Nelson’s tour bus, though only an interaction with his house bassist; plenty of baseball signatures, but only through Dad’s mailing connections as a newsman; I was physically at and covered (now)-convicted murderer Richard Allen’s sentence hearing in Peru, IN; .. and I’m not sure what else. Nothing immediately comes to mind, certainly. This may be part of my long-held desire to be innocuous, an invisible rogue through the cracks.
I actually wonder what Dad’s answer would be. (May be able to find out.)
He did sell a joke or two to Joan Rivers.
I need to give my office a thorough cleaning, and book reorganization. It rebukes me as I sit at this computer.
Sadly, my mind is more occupied with the pending loss of a dog. She isn’t going to make her 8th birthday; degenerative neurological issue. Today she’s barely able to get her hindquarters under her – the stairs are flat OUT. This was the dog we adopted from the older lesbian couple who weren’t sure how she would react to me. Well she bonded to me like no other dog I’ve ever had and this one is going to hurt like no other.
Sorry. Sometimes you get hold of a particular animal that you just connect with for whatever reason, and it hits a lot harder.
Sorry, Juris.
It sounds like you gave her a good life. Take comfort in that
I’m sorry JI. Thank you for giving her a good place to grow old. It’s never easy.
They always do. Sorry to read that.
That’s exactly who my avatar is. That big fucking dummy has been gone for almost 17 years and I still get melancholy when I think about him.
Pat is right. And sorry.
Very sorry to hear, JI. Release from suffering is sometimes the best gift we can give them. It’s always the hardest.
Oh, I’m really sorry, JI. That bites.
Sorry. It’s rough to see that happen, and know that time is coming.
I am sorry to hear that JI.
Sorry, dude. It’s losing a family member.
In my church kid days I met a few CCM musicians who went on to become fairly successful within that niche… that is until two of them got drummed out for sex scandals.
What? Musicians…..sex scandals? Nonsense. I dont believe that for a minute.
Thankfully I always posted my
wisdomhorse droppings under a “nom de plume”.Sounds promising
The Prelude is almost ready to hit the streets, and Honda engineers have a few surprises in store for fans of the coupe. While it was already known to share its platform with the Civic, Honda has now confirmed it will also adopt the Civic Type R’s chassis setup. That means sharper handling and deeper driver engagement, combined with a hybrid powertrain and simulated gear shifts.
Never mind.
Plus vroom vroom sounds piped in!
Fortunately they still make the Si and Integra S. I’m not sure how much longer however.
Girl’s car.
Maybe a Supra?
https://motorillustrated.com/the-next-toyota-supra-will-not-be-built-in-collaboration-with-bmw/158126/
Oh, sorry.
Wow. 2 whole liters. That’s like, 4 pints and change.
Go find one of the last 2024 Nissan Versa S models with manual transmission. My 2017 is fun little sedan with plenty of pep and quite agile.
Nissan killed the Versa this year. They are no more.
The very best answer in that class of cars was the first gen Honda Fit with the manual.
There is a standing rule in Schloss Zwak that if I Dutch oven the wife, she will divorce me. Another standing rule is that if she attempts any cleaning in my shop or garage, I will shoot her.
That seems perfectly fair.
Fame is transient ;-\
I corresponded (briefly) with Eddie Rickenbacker and became friendly with Willy Coppens, Belgium’s premier ace in WW1. He stayed a few days with my family when he visited the US and my parents visited him during their first trip to Europe. Very nice gentleman.
Maybe not so “burst proof”.
Millions of HydroTech hoses recalled after hundreds burst, leaving at least 29 people injured
resulting in at least 29 injuries, including reports of temporarily impaired hearing.
Looking for a payout are we? Go for “lack of consortium” instead hearing.
I quit buying the expandable hoses. Good idea but none of them hold up. As for loud pops I am suspicious.
Remember those vacuum storage bags with the vacuum cleaner attatchemtn? Fantastic idea, then a suit with an MBA got hold of it and the product was shit. What a shame. “Let’s use cheaper plastic and have them made in China! We can save millions!” <— They were right.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/us/california-ammunition-background-check-appeal.html
Appeals Court Blocks California’s Background Checks for Ammunition Buyers
The law violates the Second Amendment, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision.
So, has it? No? So can we string Newsom up by his balls, with a sign reading, “LIAR” stapled to his forehead?
Only if he’s being dangled over a woodchipper running full speed.
Meeting famous people? When Michael puts you on the scale that wont mean anything for you or for them.
I have met a few. I mostly wasn’t impressed. It turns out they are just people and rarely the ones portrayed in their public persona. Some good, some bad. A lot of them have pent up frustration or anger because everyone they meet is trying to get something out of them *coughJohnIrvingcough*
I will only drop one name…for his sake, not mine. David Bowie is on the list of the top five most considerate and polite people I have ever met. The guy was solid gold.
As for cleaning garages, I wont comment on that.
Don King was super nice and gave his time to anyone who wanted to chat at a small airport.
But would he clean and organize your garage?
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/jeff-charles/2025/07/24/christian-bookstore-sues-state-for-forcing-it-to-adhere-to-gender-ideology-n2660848
Seems legit. Isnt Polis the self-proclaimed most Libertarian person ever?
Libertarian means adhering to current year social trends.
/Chase Dipshit & that magazine
I can already hear his twisted view.
“Well the cities can enact it! They are free to do so!”
Businesses can for sure, but the government, regardless of level, should stay out of the fucking way except the courts to hear claims of actual harm
Compelled speech.
“We should welcome our California immigrants they said. It will be great they said. More population, more revenue, what could go wrong?”
Fuckin commies.This is a state to state case of what they were trying to do to the country with open borders.
I’ve been wrong twice before so it’s not unheard of, but my money says that this law doesn’t do what the hand wringers are saying it does. Outrage porn for the Maga crowd. My guess is it’s for how the businesses treat employees, not customers, which is still BS but BS we’ve been dealing with for decades.
Would seem not. Since we know public accommodation has been applied to basically everything, not towards employees, but all users of such services.
As I said I’ve been wrong before (rarely) but my money is on no business getting hauled before a court within the next two years* for not calling some questionable or fugly dude-ette “Ma’am.” Ten…no Twenty bucks . I’ll send it to Glibs or what ever charity you want or hand it to you next time I’m in shitty chili country.
* I’m not setting the time limit because I think that after two years it may happen but any open ended bet based on what might happen is basically void, anything always might happen so one needs to put a time limit on these kinds of wagers.
It is compelled speech and they know very well that is what it is.
I forgot, I DID live with Laraine Day’s daughter for a while. She was one of the kindest, patient, most Christlike and lovely people I’ve ever met. Also, very gorgeous. I was 20. Her dad produced things and so she gave me free tickets to shows. She was the first person to ever look at me and say, “You’re really pretty.”
The only thing I know about her mom is that she called ME at 6 every fucking morning looking for Gigi.
The very best answer in that class of cars was the first gen Honda Fit with the manual.
I might be seriously tempted, if one fell out of the sky.
As a kid growing up in Cali, you met all sorts of ‘celebrities’. Jessica Alba before she was hot? Yep, best friend’s mom and her mom were friends and we’d hit the beach at 15. Some girl that pretend dated Brad on Home Improvement? Hung out with her too. Topanga’s cousin went to our school.
Hung our with Tony Hawk and a few other skaters back in the day. I actually snaked a run at Baldy Pipeline (well my older bro told me, aged 6, to do it) from Tony.
They just are people and some are cool and act like normal people
Jessica Alba! We share the same birthday. That’s my In with her. Sin City-her, with ~14yo Ev, have many memories.
(Diff memories with Leno and Sadam Hussein.)
Seems legit. Isnt Polis the self-proclaimed most Libertarian person ever?
Wasn’t he just in the news recently for pushing one of his totally libertarian projects? Some sort of gun control, maybe.
I was outside chopping down weeds. It’s actually pretty darn nice out there, if you weren’t staggering around on extremely rough lumpy terrain wrestling a mower. I swear it gets worse every time.
First Ozzy, and now Hulk Hogan.
Has anyone seen JD Vance’s schedule for this week?
Theo Hux already took one for the team
Feels SO Good
I believe I’ve mentioned that one of the local channels played that during station breaks. (Our hometown.)
Chuck Mangione.
That’s 4 in a week. We got 2 more to go.
Oh. George Kooymans.
Five down, 1 to go.
Connie Francis too.
Homeless people are picturesque urban wildlife, like geese and squirrels
Critics said the sweeping action does nothing to solve homelessness, and could make it worse.
“This executive order is forcing people to choose between compassionate data driven approaches like housing, or treating it like a crime to have a mental illness or be homeless,” said Jesse Rabinowitz with the National Homelessness Law Center.
“Institutionalizing people with mental illness, including those experiencing homelessness, is not a dignified, safe, or evidence-based way to serve people’s needs,” Ann Oliva with the National Alliance to End Homelessness said in a statement.
I have reached the point where I want to stab anybody who uses the expression “evidence based” or “data driven” in the eye with a mechanical pencil. And then beat them viciously with a sock filled with nickels.
A house isn’t data, it is a building.
Fucking “critics” are the same people who have been encouraging the homeless to stay in places like Portland. Grifters who are pissed that somebody is calling them out.
Obligatory, and I mean that, read it and howl.
And, of course, PapayaSF is in the comments.
lol I just took a look via Maps and you can see at every major intersection all the doughnuts where friendly young people party all night in their cars.
I mean just look at all the one-Party Democrat towns who have solved homelessness.
One more. Sigh, getting old.
https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/golden-earring-founder-george-kooymans-dies-77-124031605
Just catching up on the posts.
The most famous person I’ve met? Elle McPherson. Most famous person I know personally is a lead guitar player for a 2000’s “Numetal band.
I also watched Platoon in the same dirty theater as Martin Sheen.
The Acura Integra S is a blast to drive and my wife loves it. A stick is a must.
Addiction experts consider harm reduction, including programs that provide clean needles and other paraphernalia, to be an essential part of helping people survive addiction. Trump’s order repeats the claim that such programs encourage drug use, an argument disproven by years of research, including by federal scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s a sort of steady state equilibrium of degenerate self destruction. It’s the very essence of compassion, when you think about it.
I am sure their experts have scienced the shit out of this. Don’t believe your lying eyes.
How is almost Friday again??
Man I hate working again but it does make the time pass by really fast.
I’ll take the occasional boredom. And the fact it’s already the end of July is mind boggling.
This has thus far been the longest 7 months of my life. I’m sitting her thinking Tday is next week.
I need badly to find a job. Life has gotten tremendously expensive in the last 5 years, it ain’t getting cheaper. My oldest is college bound. My youngest is only getting older and more expensive. My problem is that I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for the last 16 years since I finished graduate school. I worked a shitty $12/hour job (that I really enjoyed) the last couple of years, but mostly because it was super convenient and was really flexible, even if I got jerked around a bit. My wife travels a bunch for her job, so I need loads of flexibility. But not ever having really had a career, and being nearly 50 at this point, I don’t have any career aspirations. I just want a half steady paycheck where I can make a couple grand a month to help out with bills and help pass the time.
I’m rather proud I got to work on time and had a cromulently productive day after maybe three-hours sleep.
There are several women I work with who wear a hijab, but today was the first full-burqa sighting from a shopper. (No amputees or Downs-kids being led around with assistance, today.)
I’m eager to introduce y’all to our mascot, Leonard from Lawn & Garden with my next submission, the definition of A Character. (Hey, I attract talent.)
Re: Famous people I’ve met,
I had some uncommon opportunities — but the biggest one was this organization I’ve never heard of took promising young people and put them in a hotel for a week with established successful people.
Oprah is a biotch.
Susan Butcher is easily offended.
Colin Powel is chill.
Hershel Walker has a very easy charisma.
Gene Siskel is forgettable.
As were the Nobel prize winners.
George Lucas is so freaking shy he barely talks.
Ronald Reagan didn’t actually speak directly to me so he doesn’t count.
Michael Jordan handled mobs of fanbois with a grace that was amazing to experience.