Last night, we had our farewell dinner with Swiss, who volunteered to help me with boxing up the immense sound-producing monoliths that I love and SP hates. Fortunately for me and unfortunately for her, the process went more or less smoothly. But most important, Wonder Dog got to see her fren and he brought… PIZZA FOR WONDER DOG! Cue Lipizzaner dance and joy of the sort that humans can only dream about. And I got us some deep dish Chicago casserole, no pineapple, and started reducing the amount of wine we have to move. Three people should be able to drain a magnum of a 40 year old Bordeaux, right? We did, so I opened another magnum, this time a 30 year old Santa Barbara Pinot Noir. Damn, what happened to that, it was full a minute ago? Well, shit, better open a 25 year old Rhone Syrah. Fuck, it seems to have evaporated. I guess we’ll have to finish off this limoncello…

So if I fuck things up here, you’ll understand why.

There are quite a few interesting people born on this day, starting with “a dumb son of a bitch” Douglas MacArthur; “a smart son of a bitch” Frank Costello, who rose to power because of government interference with free commerce; pioneering aviatrix Bessie Coleman, whom I only knew because of the street named after her, but sure lead an interesting (if short) life; one of my favorite character actors, Charles Lane (who was born to play bank examiners); Maria von Trapp, who was far less hot than Julie Andrews; iconic jazz fiddler Stephane Grappelli; the pride of Cleveland, Polycarp Kusch; strongman and wine collector Nicolae Ceausescu;  my mother’s fantasy, Paul Newman; amazing writer Philip Jose Farmer; Jew-hater and pride of Team Blue, Angela Davis; and Most Boring Talk Show Host Ellen DeGeneres (whose standup back in the day was pretty funny).

On to the news.


What would we do without intellectuals?

 

Speaking of intellectuals, The Los Angeles Times beclowns itself once again by running one of the most dishonest and (frankly) evil pieces I’ve ever seen. And this guy got a Pulitzer Prize, which is comparable to Obama and Arafat winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He manages to avoid using the word “kulak,” which is quite an achievement.

 

When you lose Nixon, you know you’re fucked.

 

Dershowitz thinks there’s a method in the show being put on to turn process crimes into essentially capital offenses.

 

Commie Pope remains an embarrassment to the Catholic church. Maybe a tour of the former site of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem and consideration of the terrorism decline in Israel after the barrier was built might be eye opening. Well, probably not. (Disclaimer: the Trump border wall is a ridiculous idea, but not for any sort of reason that this dumb fuck dribbles out)

 

Vegetables can kill. And WaPo being WaPo, it’s Trump’s fault.

 

Richard Ojeda drops out of the 2020 Team Blue presidential race. The nation is aghast!

 

“We’re looking at this very holistically and then empowering the store managers to make great decisions around customers.” Advice: short Starbucks.

 

Just as I thought. And next week will be worse. The day we’re rolling out in our caravan, the wind chill is supposed to be -60. I’m also certain that this will be cited as evidence of global warming.

 

One more reason that I will never move back to California.

 

A plea for more First Amendment restrictions. Fuck off, slaver.

 


Old Guy Music time! Today is also the birthday of brilliant composer Jimmy Van Heusen, whose output of jazz standards rivals Billy Strayhorn’s. Here’s a sweet and delightful version of one of his classics, Darn That Dream, with some superb Sarah Vaughan vocals with perfect backing by the Count.