...and you're not the only one on the road (planet).

It happened again last night while driving westbound on “I Street” in downtown DC on the way home from the office after a long day at about 8:40pm. Traffic was slogging along…even at that hour, and while still moving the cab driver ahead of me flipped on his hazard lights. Though as a product of Los Angeles this whole hazard lights for anything other than a roadside emergency issue was a genuine phenomenon when I moved to the East Coast about 10 years ago, I now know what this maneuver meant. It was the cabdriver’s way of letting me know that there was no immediate place to pull over, so instead he’d be stopping his car in the middle of one of the only two moving lanes, and sitting there until his A-Hole passenger sluggishly paid, made some small talk, and then slowly exited the vehicle as if every single fellow human being stuck behind him was some lower life form with leprosy that somehow didn’t matter as much as their need to be dropped off directly in front of the latest Sushi hot spot.

In LA, you might turn on your hazards if your Lexus stalls on the Freeway and you’ve drifted over to the right shoulder (so your fellow citizens can pass) or to alert folks behind you if you’ve pulled over (so your fellow brothers and sisters can pass) while you change a flat tire on your Mercedes SUV. Here in the east, or at least in the District of Columbia, it’s as if at least some people have been led to believe that the vehicle manufactures somehow included the hazard feature as some sort of low-voltage direct current “Screw You and Everybody Behind You” tool they can use to block the only service lane in Cleveland Park so they can run in a pick up their dry cleaning while you and the rest of society waits on them.

I remember sitting in my uncle’s American made Lincoln sometime in the late 1980s and listening to the radio to kill some time one Sunday before the mid-morning 10am service at the Evangelical Free Church in Wolverton, MN. There was a report on the news about a second random freeway shooting in my hometown of Los Angeles (where I lived at the time) due to what they believed was no other reason than road rage. Apparently, people were becoming so fed up with poor driving they would lose their cool and actually fire shots into the offending driver’s vehicle. I remember laughing at the time, and my uncle being perplexed at my lighthearted response. “You just watch” I told him… “this is going to catch on.” I was right.

Well…there are a lot of things I hated about living in LA, but one of few things I liked is that people are just naturally better drivers (the shootings helped). And while there’s no shortage of egotistical A-holes with credit scores suggesting they should be driving a Datsun instead of their 72-month fully financed low-end BMW, people are generally more courteous when they drive…or at least when they think about blocking an entire lane of traffic during rush hour. While some folks in the City of the Angeles may be self-absorbed narcissists that believe you are what you drive, nobody fool (other than a transplant from DC) would knowingly flip on their hazards in a moving lane so they could run into the market to pick up a loaf of bread. If they did, they know they’d run the risk of some Crip, or Blood, or Dentist or Attorney or Nun or Noble Peace Prize winner popping a cap in their ass to teach them some freaking driving etiquette.

Now…I know what you’re thinking, and yes, there are exceptions to blocking a lane of traffic. If you’re headed up 16^th Street in rush hour and you notice some environmental jackass leisurely peddling their bicycle in the middle of the lane slowing every single commuter behind them, it’s OK to stop. But please, don’t give them a heads up by signaling with your hazard lights. Instead slow a bit until they're right on your tail and then slam on your breaks so they careen directly into your rear end. It may not seem like it for a couple of decades, but after you're released from prison, you’ll realize you were doing the world a favor.

What’s the point of all this? Well…it might be that I need a vacation or to recalibrate my medication, but one other lesson could be to think a bit the next time you’re tempted to flip on your hazard lights. You’ve got a duty to your fellow commuter, so the next time the urge strikes, pull your head out of your rectum long enough to look around at the rest of the world. There are other people here too...and we’re all trying to get home after a long day just like you.

It’s Friday, and after a week of hellacious commutes, it’s time to kick back and spend some time with the people and pets that you love. If you can, stay off the road. But if you must drive…be kind to your fellow citizens…and listen to a little music while you roll down the road.

 

Leroy says hello...

 

BTW...sorry about that bad song link for email subscribers last week. I need to take some computer classes.

...and I'd love to push the button to turn on the lights just one more time...

For a kid that grew up in a few miles from the Pacific Ocean about 10 miles directly west of the manic metropolitan Los Angeles Civic Center, traveling back each summer to the tranquility and stability of my mother’s hometown in Abercrombie, ND was a genuine treat. During a period from about 1985 until 1998, I would venture back at least once a year…sometimes twice…and the journey and the time spent there was without question among the most enjoyable times of the year. As a matter-of-fact, the weeks I would spend in North Dakota became so coveted that I would maximize my time and actually drive solo non-stop straight through and was able to make the roughly 1,900 mile road trip in about 31 or 32 hours (I’d usually nap for about an hour somewhere in eastern Wyoming).

There were a lot of things I loved about going to that small rural Midwestern hamlet of about 300 residents nestled by the Red River which bordered the Minnesota line…but one of the best and most comforting was the feel of my Grandpa’s old house. The two-story home with a dirt-floor cellar sat on the north side of the main drag Broadway…just about three blocks in from “old” highway 81, which served as the main north/south eastern North Dakota thoroughfare before the completion of Interstate 29 several miles west bypassed the town in the 1970s.

The house was classic…at least in my mind, and featured three bedrooms up stairs, an attic directly above the kitchen, one bedroom on the first level along with a living room, kitchen and parlor just of the living room. You rarely ventured into the parlor unless it was to play old hymns on the badly out-of-tune ancient upright piano. There was always a bunch of stuff stacked in there…and I remember it seeming kind of dusty and dark.

There was also a dirt floor cellar just below the kitchen with a single porcelain keyless light that you had to illuminate by pulling a chain once you descended the crewed wooden stairs. My grandma (who passed away in the late 1970s) used to keep fruit-and-such which she canned down there…but as a kid I was always afraid to even open the cellar door fearing that Boo Radley would be lurking in the dark…just at the base of the stairs.  

The most amazing thing about this big house was that it really had only one real bathroom…and small upstairs room contained only a commode, a tub and a sink. If you wanted to take a “shower” you had to kneel down in the porcelain tub and use an old leaky rubber sprayer-hose that you’d have to force on over the tub faucet. It would usually slipped off multiple times during even a short shower…but that just seemed to be part of the place’s charm.

There was a screened in porch on the front of the house which faced out onto the main thoroughfare, and while I don’t recall there ever really being much in the way of furniture out there, I used to sit there as a kid in one of my grandmother’s old wheelchairs. I remember going out there one afternoon and sitting in one of those chairs and putting my head back before dozing off. I’m sure I took naps as an infant and youngster, but that is my first conscious memory of being relaxed enough that I dozed off and took an extended nap in the middle of the day.

If I was visiting my grandfather by myself…I’d usually sleep in the first bedroom at the top of the stairs. There were a couple of pushbutton brass-platted 3-way light switches to turn on the stairwell lights at the bottom and top of the bending wooden staircase, and though I rarely worried about Boo getting out of his preferred digs in the cellar, I was always grateful to be able to illuminate the stairs before ascending the stairs to go up to bed on a dark Midwestern night. The wallpaper was peeling off the walls in the bedroom, and the only light in there was another porcelain keyless light bulb that you had to turn on by pulling a chain. In later years, my uncle Donald (my mom’s older brother) had tied a couple of old neckties from the brass bed headboard up to the light chain so that anyone sleeping in the old bed could simply reach up and grab the neckties to pull the chain and turn on the light. Growing up in the depression with the added misery of the dust bowl years could make a guy pretty inventive (and for that matter industrious)…and my uncle Donald was a great example of that rewarding combination.

The brass bed (with the necktie light switch feature) in that room was the same bed where my mother had been delivered when the old house served at the area “hospital” in the late 1800s and well into the 1900s. My grandparents purchased the house in the late 1960s to move off the farm and have the comforts of town…and I guess some of the furniture must have conveyed. That polished and fully restored bed still sits in my cousin Annie’s beautiful home in Fargo, which has more bathrooms than the old Abercrombie house had bedrooms. I think my grandparents paid about $5,000 for that house in the 1960s…which is a little less than I paid for just one Leroy Neiman painting which sits in my DC home right now. Though I could be wrong, I don’t believe we sold it for much more than about 30K after my grandfather passed away in 1991.

What’s the point of all this? If you know…please use the comment tool and let me know too. I just kept with the first real rule of this useless blog…which is to put to paper whatever happens to come to mind at 4am on a Friday. As I get older and life seems to get more complicated and hectic (and much, much shorter), I’m sure I romanticize what I at least fondly recall as a simpler time. You think a lot more about the way you lived your life when you get my age, and though I’ve been blessed to spend a fair amount of time in the Midwest, I wish I’d spent even more time in North Dakota.

The writing in this blog is subpar at best, but hopefully the music is usually pretty decent. The best part of this whole exercise is it’s Friday (even if subscribers sometime don’t get the email until Saturday), so please enjoy the beautiful Fall weekend and make some time for the people and pets that matter to you the most. If you can, visit somebody you care about…or maybe take your kids to see their grandpa. As you get older, you will find yourself reflecting much more about people and the value of relationships, than you ever will about work.

 

BTW...I seldom have the time to proof these each week...and even if I did, I'm an electrician not a writer so there will always be some mistakes in the prose. So, I'm sorry for all the misspellings, pour grammar, lousy punctuation and bad vocabulary. Actually...in all honesty...I'm really not all that sorry. Maybe it's a stubborn wannabe Midwestern thing.

I'd really love to dance across the kitchen floor

...and I've still got a long way to go

The office I work in is made up entirely of women…and me. There are only five of us total…but everyone but me is female including my immediate boss. Some days, actually most days maybe, there is even some speculation about my real gender. The funny thing is it’s been that way for a long time…and I cannot tell you the number of times people have said something to me like “are you sure you’re not a woman?” Actually…that question has been posed to me for many years…but we’ll get back to that later.

It’s not always easy being the only guy in the office, but the experience has taught me a lot about the bias involved in the way people the often perceive power and gender. Sadly though, even with the benefit of such insight, I still routinely commit the same types of sins…and managed to do so yet again this week…which is why it’s the subject of today’s blog.

As a 52 year-old male, most of the time I’m amazed as how far this country has come. With at least the possibility of the first woman President a reality, I’m often baffled at the continued clamoring about sexism that still exists today. Sure, like a lot of people I still see glimpses of it, but to hear ongoing claims of prejudice, especially with respect to women, often seems exaggerated. But then something happens like happened to me this week…and I’m reminded there is some genuine fire behind that smoke.

My first exposure to an understated way this can manifest itself occurred while dining out some female colleagues some time ago. We were sitting in a popular restaurant we used to go to frequently enjoying lunch when the maître ‘d stopped by as he always to verify that everything was all good. I loved the fact that he always checked in on us, but as I looked up I noticed my two female dinning partners exchanging a glance and rolling their eyes in disgust.

“What…you don’t like that guy?” I asked.

“I just find that unbelievable” responded one of them.

“Why…you think it’s weird that he always checks on us…what’s wrong with that?” I countered.

“There wouldn’t be if he was checking on us…but the only one he’s really checking on is you” she shot back.

“What are you talking about?” I asked completely baffled.”

“Oh common” the other female diner said… “like you don’t know.”

“I have completely zero idea what the hell you’re both talking about” I shot back.

“Have you ever noticed that every time that guy comes over to our table…he only looks at and addresses only you?”

“No” I responded. “But even if that’s true…maybe it’s because I’m so handsome.”

“No…trust us…that’s not the reason. It’s because you’re a guy, he just presumes you’re in charge and you’re buying.”

“Maybe he’s just perceptive and I give off that kind of confident vibe of a leader” I countered.

“Dream on” one of them responded… “don’t flatter yourself”

Just as a side note…I think that could still be it.

Since that incident I’ve seen it play out over and over, often in subtle ways…but very real nonetheless. I’ve often been introduced to complete strangers along with a woman that out ranks me, only to have the person I’ve just been introduced to unknowingly direct a disproportionate amount of their attention toward me…or some other male, as if they somehow presume it’s the guy that must really have the power.

Several weeks ago while out west I was in a meeting with a couple of folks I didn’t know at all. There were a few of us in the room, including a man and a woman from an outside organization. The fellow sat at the head of the table and his female colleague adjacent to him on his left. I should have looked at their organization chart more closely, but I recklessly proceeded to address the group giving a very disproportionate amount of attention to the male presuming he was in charge.

 

A certified moron would have figured this out long before me, but after the woman responded to almost all of the initial questions, it dawned on me (probably long after the rest of my colleagues) that the woman out ranked the guy. Sadly…I recognized that I’d just presumed he was in charge…and to be honest…I can’t imagine how idiotic I must have looked to the two of them. It was yet another painful lesson that despite my recent office gender experience, I haven’t evolved near as much as I’d like to think.

There’s yet another weird thing I’ve learned while working around all these women…and it’s about the way they handle conflict…or at least difficult relational situations. As a rough-n-tumble guy (or at least that’s the way I like to see myself), I’ve sat in many a meeting with male colleagues where we’re sort of advocating “screwing” some organization or individual over to our way of thinking. It’s sort of tantamount to marching folks to the altar with a shotgun to their respective head…but come hell or high-water, we’re going to get something accomplished our way on our terms. But most of the women I’ve worked with take a more indirect, less in-your-face approach…trying instead to woo folks to their way of thinking by initially genuinely listening to the concerns and needs of those their dealing with. Come to think of it, several of the most effective male leaders I've had the privilege of observing over the years have done it the same way.

I was having a conversation about 10 years ago in California with a very high-ranking woman about developing a strategy designed to heal a longstanding rift with an outside organization. I was lamenting all of the conversations I’d had on the subject where the discussion seemed to be focusing on somehow leveraging our power and bringing the outside group to their knees thus coercing them back into the relationship. I was complaining about the fact that I thought it would be so much smarter to let the group save face and invest time into wooing them back. Then, as I talked, the accomplished woman leader suddenly stopped…smiled, and astonishingly responded to me by saying “oh my god…maybe it’s true what they say about you…you might actually be a woman.”

What’s the point of all this? Hell if I know…I’m guessing there isn’t really much of one. Could be I’m trying to curry favor with my office colleagues…but I have a feeling it’s more about being haunted by behaving like a fool in the meeting referenced above…especially knowing what I should know by virtue of my work environment.  Could be too that this is all I could come up with at 4am on a Friday…which might be yet more evidence to consider if you ever think you want to take on the obligation of writing a weekly blog. If you’re ever tempted…keep this post and use it as a rationale to fight that urge.

Have a great weekend…and if you’re inclined to spend too much of it working at the expense of your family and friends…fight that urge too.

 

The prettiest place on earth is Baltimore at night...

...and after a 52-year shutout, somebody finally randomly picked up the tab

So I wrote  this blog on an early Friday morning roughly two years ago, and for all the reasons that follow, I’m hopeful you’ll agree that it’s appropriate to revisited the subject again today. The post which originally appeared on Friday, December 7^th, 2012 (hmmm…seems like that date should matter for a different reason), highlighted a friend’s remarkable ability to consistently get free drinks and meals provided to her by total strangers…usually on Fridays.

In summary, she had this uncanny knack for having random people or bartenders pick up her drinks…and even entire meals when she would dine out alone on Fridays. She was so successful in her quest to get free drinks and meals on the last work day of the week, that we came to referring to the phenomenon as “free Fridays.” Much of the old post expressed my frustration over the fact that I’d NEVER had such luck (despite the reality that I habitually and anonymously pick up other tabs), and that at the time of the writing (I was 51), I’d never once had anyone randomly buy me either a drink or a meal. Never.

To be clear, I’ve certainly had a friend or colleague buy me lunch…but I’d never once had that silver-screen experience of a waiter whispering that the check was picked up by a grateful restaurant owner, or an appreciative business associate at an adjacent table or the mysterious blonde at the end of the bar. Not a single freakin’ time in 51 years. 

As the original post reveals, it bothered me so much that I even talked about my drought with my “free Friday” friend. We explored possible reasons for her success at obtaining gratis drinks and meals, and even examined possible explanations for my lifetime of being denied that same pleasure. At one point, she even confidently offered up the likely explanation that my misfortune was due the strong  possibility that I was simply “just an As#hole.”

Well…I’m not always the greatest listener, but for some reason I took an interest in her hypothesis and started to experiment a bit on my longstanding shutout. As alluded to in the 2012 piece…I actually enjoy my alone time…so much so that I routinely lie about my lunch plans (especially on Fridays) just so I can slip away and take a solitary spot at a local watering hole. As an only child, I just enjoy the solitude…and there’s something about sitting alone with a Cabernet I.V. and having the opportunity to th(dr)ink that I’ve always found therapeutic.

About a week after the old blog I ventured out for lunch on a Friday decided to go to a new place. I took my preferred spot at the end of the unfamiliar bar (so nobody could sit on at least one side of me) and rather than coldly placing my order and minding my own business as usual, I decided to try to up my personality game and returned the barmaid’s upbeat banter with my own pleasant responses.  The girl tending bar that Friday appeared to be less than half my age…and though I typically don’t notice these things, she was clearly way better looking than me (I know…low bar) and certainly more attractive than the average bartender (or for that matter average anything).

Given her appearance and the fact that she was serving drinks, I unfairly presumed she didn’t have a whole lot going on upstairs (Lord knows what she likely initially thought of me…but I’m guessing she presumed I was some sort of cross between a leading man, thoracic heart surgeon and Olympic athlete/astronaut/medal of honor recipient). At some point early on in the conversation, she made the observation that I “must be an only child.”

“How’d you come to that conclusion?” I asked somewhat puzzled that she’d luckily nailed it in a very short amount of time.

“Well…you’re in here alone and you seem pretty confident and able to enjoy your own company” she matter-of-factly responded.

OK…so I misread the airhead assessment (and forgot about the fact that she works for tips)…this gal is obviously very astute and a good judge of people. She went on to tell me that she was studying to get her Masters…and it was pretty clear pretty quickly that she was markedly smarter than me (I know...another low bar). We went on to have an animated conversation about how patrons treat people in the service industry (like her), and it was obvious she’d made the most of her time behind the bar and was wise way beyond her years.

Then…without any warning or fanfare…it happened. Without asking, she turned around, picked up the bottle of BV Cabernet and refilled my wine glass while noting “this one is on me.”

Boom…the 51-year drought was over in an instant. It was like Christmas, the Fourth of July and my birthday all rolled into one. Unfortunately the euphoria didn’t last long before I started to dwell on my free Friday friend’s hypothesis regarding my five decades of being skunked. It suddenly dawned on me that her “A-hole” theory was dead on. Until this day I’d never had anyone randomly buy me anything…but as I thought about it more I realized I’d probably been coming off like a closed off as#hole.

Amazingly, I now get free drinks fairly frequently (just as a side note...it doesn’t hurt to be decent tipper) but some time ago I hit the big time. Roughly six months ago I was dinning with a friend at a local upscale restaurant I frequent when the waiter came over and said… “this one is on John” (the maître d). Last Tuesday…while eating at the same high-class joint with a work colleague and dear friend, the waiter surprised me by letting us know our entire lunch had been picked up by some diners inside. The best part was I don’t have much of a business relationship with the pair that made the generous gesture…they just did it consistent with the great culture of their successful company…because it was a nice thing to do. No agenda…just being cool.    

What’s the point of all this? Normally I don’t know either…but this one seems pretty clear. Don’t be like me…or more succinctly…don’t be an A-hole…especially if you want some free drinks and a complimentary lunch every 51 years. The bigger lesson though seems to be one we often learn in kindergarten, but that I somehow so frequently seem to forget. Don’t judge a book by its cover. I still do it every day…and as someone that routinely laments the fact that my professional opinion is consistently ignored because I’m thought of as “just a construction worker,” I’m particularly sensitive to it when it’s repeatedly done to me. Hey...I wonder if that's happening because I'm acting like an as#hole?

My first free drink experience also reminded me once again why most people should spend some time working in the service industry, whether it’s waiting tables, delivery newspapers, mixing Manhattans, working retail or even cutting in ground fault interrupter receptacles above granite kitchen counter tops. There’s something about such real life duty that trumps (or at least compliments) anything you can learn at Harvard Business School...and if you make the most of it, such early life lessons will serve you very well later in the game. 

Have a great weekend and if you can, do something you enjoy with the people that matter the most to you. You can get caught up too much with work…but when they tally up the score at the end of regulation…it’s the people and friendships and how you treated and nurtured them that will dwarf anything you have going on at the office.

...in this bar on Fairfax

...and you still don't need to waste any money on Insanity

So I've been writing a Friday story most weeks for about 10 years now, and using this blog format for about the last three. Though the content performed fairly well initially, the analytics function of this blog tool indicates that growth in readership has been stagnant at best. Actually...a deeper look is not that flattering.

 

One of the most interesting things about writing each week is that you never know what is going to be a hit. The post below first appeared about two and a half years ago...and with respect to page views, it stands alone at the top receiving almost triple the visits of any other offering. I'm not really sure why, but on a morning where the well is again dry, it seemed apropos (or at least much easier) to dig up something that performed well the first time out. 

 

So...here is the most popular blog ever (on this site)... 

 

Friday, March 9, 2012

...and you don't need to waste money on Insanity

Well normally I wouldn’t return to a subject like this so quickly, but I was flipping through the channels early yesterday when I spotted evangelist Dr. Todd Coontz on BET.  This time he was in a talk show setting, and he was encouraging folks to build their faith by sowing a $273 (seemed like an odd amount) “recovery seed” and then he quoted several books of the bible including Deuteronomy and Mathew. It was pretty dramatic, and God even asked Todd (I couldn’t hear God but Todd could) to stop the program and “pray over seven.” He wasn’t sure why, but I suspect when God asks you to stop the TV show and pray…you do it. He noted that God was about to bestow “favor” on 1,000 callers as long as they were willing to obey God’s (via Todd) seed sowing instructions. I know a lot of people would have been skeptical, but Todd is so good he appears on several programs including Inspiration Camp Ministries and Rockwealth.org. You see, the seed you sow determines your eventual windfall harvest…so even if you can’t be one of the “breakthrough” 1,000 initial callers, call the prayer center when you can and “come into a covenant” with god. You get three things if you do this…recovery, restoration…and he was talking so fast I didn’t catch the third. I was a little cynical, but then Todd quoted Oral Roberts. Not sure about you, but when the guy that spotted (and spoke to) the 900 foot Jesus signs on…I start dialing (Oral raps with the very big Jesus). You can call about your seed planting at 1-866-304-30304 or charge it on the web at www.YourBreakthroughHour.com.  Sow your $273 see and expect a miracle in your health, your family and your Finances.

On WDCAHD, Joyce Meyer was talking about prosperity through faith too.  You can reach her at 1-800-727-9673 or via  www.joycemeyer.org  too.  You can get a CD on enjoying relationships for “$25 or more.” If you’ve sowing any breakthrough seeds…you may as well live large and pay Joyce more than the $50 for the CD (I suspect she needs the money too…most not know about $273 seeds). She’s also selling a book called “Love Out Loud.”  I didn’t catch how much the book cost…but if you’ve been doing enough planting…do you honestly think it matters?

On another channel Bishop Harry Jackson was offering a Hope Connection that was the equivalent of a spiritual renovation. Bishop Harry had is wife of 35 years on the show and they were talking about “red flags” for relationships that are in trouble. Apparently, if you have a lot of disagreements with no resolution…you shouldn’t get married. And they claim you can’t learn anything from infomercials…I soooo didn’t know that.  You see, relationships are like a “four-legged chair.” You need to be able to 1) communicate,  2) have financial stability 3) feel sexual attraction 4) have a shared philosophy on parenting and 5) have a strong faith. You have to have at least three of those four legs to survive. Thankfully, the ability to count doesn’t seem to be a requirement to marital bliss, as both pastor Harry and his wife Michele seemed unsure about just how many ingredients you need to be successful.   You can catch Harry at the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville or on the web at www.thehopeconnection.com.

Up a couple of channels Dr. Todd Coontz was on another program called Financial Solutions with Dr. Todd Coontz. Once again, Dr. Coontz was making the connection between your ability to follow instructions to send money to him, and inevitable prosperity. Essentially, you have the choice to live a life of fear or a life of faith. Miraculously, Todd was again stopped by God to pray over “7” who were watching the program. Don’t know about you, but this is the second time this morning that Todd has talked about the number 7. Not sure what you need for a sign, but I’m dialing 1-888-400-7625 right now. You can plant a $273 seed (see above) at this phone number too. If you don’t believe me, you can read about why you do this in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 27 verse 3. Uh…anybody else notice the miraculous connection here…$273 dollars and it’s validated in the King James Bible in Chapter 27 verse 3? 1-888-400-7625. If you do this, three things will happen. One, all losses will stop. Two, Satan (Boo…I hate her) will return everything he has taken from you. And three, you will experience full restoration (that was the third).

If you’ve been so busy praying and farming for your financial health that you’ve ignored all the blemishes on your face, you can pick up the Proactiv Solution Skin Care on QVC for 2 easy paymens of $25.92. There were two people on the show (one was a doctor) and they were using really big words to convey how Proactive could get rid of the bacteria that causes acne. This was an actual 3-prong system (a little less than the five-legged chair…but nonetheless impressive), and it was markedly more scientific than my “squeeze and apply tea tree oil” approach. As  I watched, I noticed you actually receive four things (including a refining mask) so if you’re sporting a crop of zits this morning, call 1-800-345-1515. You have to use code A-223051 and you get “auto-delivery.” You may also be able to pick it up on www.QVC.com.

You can save time and money one channel up by learning about products available on www.Who.KnewBooks.com or by calling 800-589-4019. There are two books available for $29.95 where the author shows you literally millions of things you didn’t know. If you don’t want pets to jump on the furniture, you can cover it with tin foil and it will repel the animal (This was a bit bogus, because it took me literally two hours to get my cat wrapped in the aluminum foil). You can keep your razors from rusting by storing them in olive oil (BTW…this has another remarkable unintended payoff…remind me to invite you over for pasta). You can keep your red wine by storing in plastic bottles (or just finish the bottle when you open it like I do), and you can get gum off the carpet with beer.  If you put syrup on cardboard, you can get rid of wasps. Amonia gets rid of itching and pain if you get stung by bugs. If you put a fabric softener sheet in the air filter in your central AC system, it will make your entire home smell like Bounce.

At www.Ninja1100.com (or 1-800-420-1978) you can get a turbo-charged 1100 watt Ninja Kitchen System. It’s a combo blender, juicer, ice-cream maker, and food processor. No other appliance applies the three features of 1100 watt power, a technological sensing system and their patented five-blade blending system.  The Ninja actually has a side benefit, in that it makes entertaining easy. As you might imagine,  you could pay over $1500 for the four machines it would take to do what the 1100 NKS can do. If you’re among the first 500 callers, you get a free cookbook and free shipping. They’ll also double the warranty to two years, and you’re guaranteed to be satisfied for 60 days.  Perhaps most amazingly, you get all this for 5…no make it 4…easy payments of $39.95. If you sowed a $273 break-through seed, forty bucks is literally the equivalent of a pre-seed nickel.

Automotive expert Chris Jacobs, the star of the Learning channel’s hit automotive show (you’ve heard of it…you just don’t remember), is doing an infomercial for Car MD. This is an amazing system that will literally save you thousands. If you’ve ever been ripped off by a mechanic, the 16-pin device can be plugged into your vehicle’s onboard computer, and it will immediately diagnose what is wrong with your ailing sled. You run the diagnostic (even using the word diagnostic makes me feel better) on your car and then plug it into any computer and it immediately prints out what is wrong with your car! In essence, you will never be ripped off again. According to Chris, it’s like you have thousands of the country’s best mechanics at your disposal telling you instantly what is wrong with your car. Admittedly I was a bit skeptical, but this show was packed with teary-eyed testimonials from incredibly sincere people that have saved thousands. You can get this amazing product at www.carMD.com or by calling 1-800-320-4116. Call now…it’s like a personal doctor for your car that easily connects to any car on the road (made after 1996). You’ll never have to worry about getting stuck with a lemon again. They didn’t really explain this, but I’m guessing you can use it on the car lot and it will spit out some code that equates to lemon. It’s a “world class, awarding winning device.” You get over $150 in free accessories if you order now… for three easy payments of $39.95. It’s like getting it for free…and here you were laughing at my $273 restoration seeds.

If you’ve ever wasted any time exercising, you can order the amazing Flex Belt at www.flexbelt.com. This may sound like a scam, but you can use the flex belt to give you washboard-like abs while you sit if your office. There was an actress named Lisa that used to be on Melrose Place. They never really showed her abs, but she certainly could have been a credible spokesperson for botox as she looked as though she’s used the belt on her lips. The belt provides 150 flex contractions in each ½ hour session. This will take your strength and toning program to a whole new level. It also comes with some new gel pads (not sure what they do). If you use the product for 60 days and are unpleased, you can return it risk-free and receive every penny of your money back. Once again, I was a bit skeptical that I could get a surfer’s stomach while eating M&Ms and watching infomercials…but thanks to my break through seeds, I have a windfall coming so what the hell. By the way…not that you needed additional reasons to call…but the flex belt is the first product of its kind ever approved by the FDA. It comes with an on-board computer that provides 10 ab programs.

If you’d rather sweat and piss away time doing old-school exercises, Chuck Norris and Christy Brinkley are pitching the total gym for $14.95. Unless you’re feeling flush from your looming  $273 faith seed windfall, I’m not sure why you’d waste money on a gym when you could just wear the flex belt. But if you’re interested…you can pick it up at www.totalgym.com.

If you’re really a glutton for punishment and resistant to flex belt cutting-edge technology, you can literally kill yourself with Inanity’s 60-day program. The program’s host Shaun T must have a flex belt because he is ripped. If you think about it though, there’s no sense wearing the belt and eating bon bons  when you can order these CDs for 10 times the price and workout 45-minutes a day using “max-interval-training.” This is a workout where you are “drenched with sweat” and all the people on the show talked a lot about perspiration. If you order Insanity…you are going to see insane results. Shaun T will take you from good to great. There’s also a huge side benefit…because once you’ve done Insanity…every other workout will seem easy…even the flex belt workout. Take the Insanity challenge at www.beachbody.com.

You can get four training tools from the Brazilian Butt Lift that will also fix your ab problem. Like the others, it will also transform your butt in 60 days for four easy payments of $19.95. If you call in the next 20 minutes, you get $20 off. This product seemed to be somewhere between the Flex belt and Insanity. For one thing, the folks didn’t seem to be working near as hard as Shaun T’s crowd…they more or less danced a lot. More importantly…I just like saying Brazilian Butt Lift. There were a bunch of supermodels that were touting the benefits of the butt lift. I was thinking it was a sham, but then they had testimonials from folks with sagging butts…and the before-and-after pictures clearly showed lifted, perkier butts. You can work out with the show’s guru “Leandro” by calling 1-800-672-0723. Why wait…start your total booty transformation now. You’ll lose 6 pounds and 6 inches in six days. Won’t work for me though…they didn’t claim they could do anything for guys with no butts.

Now…here’s the deal. If you’re really thinking this through, you really don’t need to waste your time or money on any on this stuff because God has used Peter Popoff throughout his entire life (Peter’s…not Gods) to rid people of problems and propel them into prosperity. Peter started his show with his “precious” wife Elizabeth by noting they have traveled the world anointing “hundreds of thousands” of people. Within two seconds, Peter was pitching his miracle spring water (MSW). Peter explained that God has anointed him to heal the blind. The audience was filled with people holding their hands over their heads…many of them were crying. When Peter would say “amen,” the crowd would respond with an enthusiastic “amen.”  Peter announced that the “shackles would come off and the chains would be broken.” This was going to be the year of “supernatural divine debt cancellation.” Peter had emotional tesimonials from people cured of cocaine addiciton, paralysis, pain from five car accidents, stiffness and swelling (Peter even tossed one lady’s cane up on the stage…and the once cane-dependent woman started to dance). Several folks testified to experiences where miracle spring water was used to bring people back to life. Then, peter interviewed a woman that used miricale spring water to erase $96,000 in IRS debt.

Now…let’s just stop there. To some of you skeptics…this is going to sound stupid. I mean seriously, I suspect we can all see using the miracle spring water to heal blindness (use it like eye drops), to cure paralysis, and to bring people back to life, but the IRS?. To be honest, I don’t doubt that a couple of slugs of water cure your addition to alcohol or even bring you back from the dead. But seriously…the IRS?

Well, I don’t know what to tell you…but the stuff works. I sprinkled a little MSW on my 1040 long form, and my accountant still hasn’t called. I poured a little on the MasterCard bill I received for the $1,000 faith seeds I purchased from Todd Coontz several months ago…and yep…I still haven’t paid him (Mastercard still seems confused but my debt to Todd was divinely canceled). I poured a little MSW on my 1988 Hamilton Beach Blender and you guessed it, I now have a the equivalent of a Ninja 1100. I put a dab on each of my 10 Insanity CDs, and they turned into a flex belt. Because this is a family blog, I won’t even tell you what happened when I doused my butt in MSW…but just call me J-Lo.

I know what you’re thinking...so here it is…1-800-925-7785 or  www.peterpopoff.org.

Have a great week.  

The song

...and if you go to Las Vegas, stay indoors between 3 and 4am

Growing up in Los Angeles, I used to love going to Las Vegas. I remember my first trip with my parents as a kid. It was in 1969…as part of a summer driving trip from Los Angeles to visit my grandparents in North Dakota. My father, a WWII E Division Navy veteran and IBEW construction electrician, loved to see what he considered architectural marvels. He had heard about a new high-rise hotel in Las Vegas called the International that was supposed to be the new jewel of the desert…and he was eager to see if this budding palace matched up to its description and his expectation.

I still remember the instant we opened the door to the room. First of all, the interior seemed abnormally dark. Almost the entire space, including the velour bedding and full-length curtains that hung to the floor, were a deep ruby-red color.  It looked like a late nineteenth century Deadwood bordello, or at least the that’s the way I’ve heard them described since in Louis L’amour novels or Robert Parker books that describe the travails of gunslingers Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch.  

As an 8 year-old I’d never been in accommodations this plush…or for that matter…this high off the ground. I believe we were on the 27^th floor…with a view looking over the famed Las Vegas Strip. It was still early afternoon when we checked into that room and I remember being almost blinded when I peeled back the curtains to see the view. I also remember the cost of the room being $42.00 (my mother was horrified by the amount), which was unheard of at a time when most of the other motels we would stay at on that trip would cost something between $6 and $9 per night (and sometimes you got free color TV).

My parents took me to a show the first night we were there too, starring John Davidson and Phyllis Diller.  I remember standing in a long line that wrapped through the casino as we were waiting to get in. My father was dressed in all black and was smoking a filter-less cigarette (he rarely smoked) he’d gotten for free while playing black jack. He looked like Tyrone Power or some other 40’s leading man from the silver screen.

I recall him taking a silver dollar, putting into a slot machine and pulling the handle only to have $25.00 in silver dollars drop out. I can still vividly remember the sound of those big heavy coins hitting the metal tray…and the noise made by my dad scooping them all into a plastic bucket. I thought that must happen every time you put a dollar into a machine, and couldn’t understand why my dad just stopped after one.

“You have to know when to walk away” my dad said as he backed away from the machine and headed over to the cage while my mom and I held the place in line. “Let that be a lesson to you.”

On the return trip back from North Dakota we stopped in Las Vegas again. This time, we stayed at what was then the southern-most end of the Strip, and actually for most of Las Vegas really, at the Tropicana.

It was really more of a two-story motel at the time, long before they had built any glitzy towers. The place had this great old-school classy desert ambience…and if you sat at the peaceful pool area you half-way expected to see Dean Martin stroll by in a white terry cloth shirt with a chilled Manhattan and a Lucky Strike dangling from his mouth.

My mom and dad took me to another show the night we stayed at the Tropicana too. We were seated in a nice elevated booth toward the back of the house when entered the ballroom, but I saw my father hand the guy wearing a tux that had seated us some money…and he promptly escorted us down to a front-row table that lined up with the center stage. I remember wondering how my father knew all this stuff…and even at that age, I remember feeling as though I was hanging out with Al Capone.

Over the years the allure of Las Vegas pretty much wore off on me. My wife and I used to go to the Las Vegas Hilton when we were younger (the old International described above), but as the charming old hotels like the Dunes and the Desert Inn were imploded and replaced by monstrosities that I can’t even really describe, somehow the charm just seemed to fade.

I only go to southern Nevada for business these days, and most of the time when I do I end up going for daily morning runs sometime between 3am and 4am (I’m on east coast time and get up early). You see a lot of weird crap when you go running east of the Strip at 3am, and most of it isn’t good. Come to think of it, I don’t really recall seeing anything that I could characterize as good.

On my last trip two weeks ago I stayed at Caesar’s Palace. I was always almost afraid to go into that joint when I was younger…always felt like it was over my head. The original structure is barely noticeable anymore, literally dwarfed by the massive towers of sleeping rooms just west of the old building on the north and south sides of the property. The old outdoor boxing area is gone too…replaced by conference space and an expanded pool area that must be 20 football fields in total area.

I was able to steal about an hour after the meetings late one afternoon so I went down to the pool to chill for a while. Actually…there were about six pools in the outdoor area if I counted correctly, and while I can’t really describe the atmosphere, I had zero expectation that Dino or any of his modern-day equivalents would come strolling by. Oh wait…there are no present-day equivalents…not in saloon style singers or old-school hotels on the Strip.

The pool was packed though, mostly by frolicking younger generations gyrating to unrecognizable pulsating music that don’t long for (or even know about) what I so fondly long for. Like a lot of things…I miss the old Las Vegas…and the saddest thing of all is I know for certain that it’s never coming back.  The encouraging thing for folks charged with filling the sleeping rooms in Las Vegas though is that I’m a dying breed…and the lust for whatever was happening at the pool that afternoon seems to be trending in only one direction…directly away from me.  

It’s Friday, and if you can, try to do something you enjoy with the people you love. There will always be work to do…but see if you can steal away more than a few hours to create some memories that really will matter when it’s all tallied up at the end.

 

The room was completely black...

...and I'm going to start eating more meals at home

Just about ten months ago, a new restaurant opened up about three blocks from our house in DC. Though the place was being built in what had been a failed run-of-the-mill Chili’s style chain, the construction seemed to take forever. Given the area’s dearth of upscale eateries, my wife and I were looking forward to having a decent walkable restaurant less than a ten minute stroll away.

In a neighborhood that has an overabundance of low-end Walmart-like noisy fast-food establishments where you stand in line to order in a cattle-call style that would make Southwest Airlines proud,  a new upscale, sit down restaurant complete with an old-school bar, tasteful music and a wait staff that takes your order at your table like you’re over twenty five years old should have been a welcome addition to the community. Believing we had a duty to support the new local business, my wife and I immediately began to patronize the place.   

Like most fledgling places, the joint struggled from the start…especially with respect to service. The food from our perspective was fantastic, and though neighborhood folks yearning for yet another kid-friendly Chuck e Cheeses type place complained about the stodgy  atmosphere and inflated prices, we reveled in the quiet booths that were conducive to a relaxing conversation over a bottle of wine after a hectic week. Over time the initial service challenges got better, and at least for me, the place represented a throwback slice of heaven.

My wife and I liked it so much that we’d gotten in the habit of walking up there on most Friday evenings. We dug the vibe a lot, and we even strolled up the bar occasionally on a Saturday afternoon just to have a couple of glasses of wine and chill. It was the restaurant’s inviting atmosphere that encouraged us to do that…as it’s something we almost never do. We even watched the last U.S. World Cup game (and I don’t even like soccer) with the some friends in the bar amidst a setting that was both festive, yet remarkably civilized.

I remember sitting in a both by the window one quiet Friday evening sharing a bottle of Malbec and enjoying  a scrumptious roasted chicken dinner. The background music courtesy of Pandora had been playing a magical set of Bobby Darin, Nat King Cole, Julie London and Francis Albert Sinatra. My wife glanced across the table at me and said with a smile...

“Look at you…you’re in heaven…you absolutely love this place.”

“I do” I responded in a melancholy way as I glanced out the window at a new restaurant across the street. “But there’s one big problem.  This joint is completely deserted and that new noisy Mc Donald’s style Portuguese chicken hell-hole across the way is absolutely packed. It’s like a moron convention over there.” [This is why my wife needs a couple of glasses of wine when she dines with me].

Though it survived much longer than I predicted, inevitably my throwback piece of heaven went out of business. It was actually more dramatic than that…and the owners were evicted and the contents of the restaurant were emptied out in the light of day onto the western sidewalk along Wisconsin Ave. According to the story in the paper, some well-to-do neighborhood folks actually helped themselves to some of the valuable cooking equipment while the cops simply watched. I’m guessing many of these same fine citizens celebrated by waiting in line to order dinner somewhere.

What’s the point of all this? I tend to think that it means the world is coming to end, or at the very least that most of what I romanticize is clearly dying. It could mean that if you’re looking for a decent place to eat north of the 3800 block of Wisconsin where you don’t have to stand in line to order, you may have to drive to Pennsylvania border (or at least to Friendship Heights).  One thing is clear…dimly lit restaurants with candles on the table, soft romantic background music and attentive wait staff are a dying breed. Cookie cutter fast food restaurants and standing in line to pay inflated prices at what were once roach coaches are all the rage.

What I wouldn’t give for one night back at Chasen’s…or even just one more meal at the Fire Lake Grill.

Have a great weekend. Whatever you’re doing, try to spend at least some time with the people and pets that you care about doing the things you love. If you decide to dine out…even at a place where you have to order like you’re in a chow line at a mess hall, try to pick a place where you can have a nice conversation after you’ve ordered at the counter.

 

If you're my age...you probably hate this song. That said, you still smile every time you hear it...and the worst part is...you know every single lyric. Here's a catchy newer version.

 

At a bar called Scrappy Malloy's