Now hear this

Had my annual physical earlier this week. And I'm happy to say the EKG technician did not yank out all my chest hair. I won't bore you with the results of the test. Mostly because my precious bodily fluid is still being examined at the lab, all twelve vials of it. But I did have an exceptionally revelatory conversation with my doctor.

As he was parting the excessive thick hair in my ear canal with that odd looking funnel thing, aka the Otoscope, he asked me if I'd been experiencing any hearing loss. 

I said, "I wish. If anything my hearing has improved and I hear everything. Dogs barking, the ambient freeway noise, or my Meth Head neighbor running the table saw at 3 in the morning while listening to Zach Bryan at full blast."

This is when my doctor stepped back. And looked into my soul. And then it got interesting.

"Rich, your mind is on high alert. You are detecting threats, real and mostly not real, coming at you from all directions. It's your fight of flight response running on the red line. On steroids."

"What?" I replied.

"When you lost your wife you suffered a huge trauma. And you've done a great job turning that into positive change. Your resting heart rate is in the 40's. You're incredibly active. But just as you've reshaped your body you need to work on your brain. And calming it down."

"Doc, I can't do that, I'm from New York City," and added, "Can you write me a prescription?"

"It's not going to be that simple."

At this point my doctor, who happens to be Asian and who I like immensely because he spends time talking with me is genuinely concerned with my health, went all Eastern on me.

"You have to develop a Zen attitude and let the small annoyances, setbacks and perceived threats, just roll off your back, like water in the pool. You can try meditation. Do some more yoga. Or even read up on Budha."

After I paid my $15 parking fee, left the tony medical offices in Century City and started driving home, I replayed his sage advice in my all-too-sensitive ears. It was making sense to me. I lightened up my grip on the steering wheel. Waved a woman through, at one of the many four way stops in Cheviot Hills. And came to the conclusion that my doctor was absolutely right.

If I wanted to lose the stress and add years to my life, I had some serious work to do.

Fuck Donald Trump.

Oh the Irany

As I write this, the clusterfuck in the Middle East seems to be winding down. 

According to the White House -- emphasis on White -- the Straits of Hormuz has been opened. The blockade is off. And there is a new regime in Tehran that is smarter, more reasonable and easier to deal with than the last bunch of hard line mullahs. 

Of course, one must consider the source. 

All this comes from a man who said Mexico would pay for the Wall. Put us through more than 200 weeks of fruitless Infrastructure Weeks. And told us that he'd be introducing a new healthcare plan for Americans that included free insulin and affordable heroin, in just two weeks. 

And then again in two weeks.

In two weeks.

In two weeks.

In two weeks.

In short, the narrative of the Straits has been anything but straight. It's changed more often than the lead did in that Syracuse vs. Connecticut 6 Overtime Classic at Madison Square Garden back in 2009, during the Obama years when we could go to sleep at night relatively sure that our President could identify a tiger, A rhino and a giraffe. 

Oh and because nothing good can currently be said about the Syracuse Orange Basketball team, it should be noted they won what could arguably be called the greatest college basketball game ever staged on the hardwood floors.

According to news reports, negotiations with the Persians (I think I can say that) include a stipulation that $20 billion in frozen assets must be put on a C -130 cargo plane and flown to Tehran. Moreover, like the last time we reached an agreement, the money must come in the form of cash, because our two warring nations have no official banking ties. And because despite all our digital tendencies, Cash is still king.

For those of you who don't follow the pathetic political tribulations of the day as attentively as I do, way back in 2015, President negotiated an agreement with Iran -- the JCPOA. In return for halting their nuclear aspirations, the US returned $1.7 billion to Iran. This was not US taxpayer money, these were frozen assets that belonged to the uncooperative Iranians. According to the International Atomic Commission and our own military brass, the JCPOA agreement had been working and in effect for years, until President I-Can-Do-Better-Than-The-Black-Guy came along.

Not only did he tear the agreement up, he endlessly shit on it and mocked Obama for giving them such a huge sum of money. HUUUUGE!!!

I know, Tucker Carlson knows, and hopefully you know, that Grandpa Ramblemouth is hardly a whiz at math. Let's not forget he claimed that condos at his fleabag tower on Fifth Ave were 30,000 square feet in size when in actuality they were, and are, only about 11,000 square feet. Or that Mara Hoggo was worth somewhere in the vicinity of 1.2 billion dollars. 

Nothing in Florida is worth $1.2 billion dollars. It's FLORIDA. 

But the best way to explain the hypocrisy here is the tiny infographic at the bottom of the chart above. What Obama returned to Iran weighed as much as 3 elephants. What President Shitgibbon is prepared to ship back weighs as much as 33 elephants.

Maybe Diaper Donny needs to take yet another Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test.

*Title credit for this post belongs to Ms. Muse. I was told I should mention that.

** The temporary agreement as of last Sunday is now off and the Straits are now being controlled by the Iranians. Ww need a scorecard to keep up with the mishigas.

My Mea Gulpa

As many of you know, I'm not a fan of Donald Trump. That might qualify as the understatement of 17 years worth of RoundSeventeen. 

In addition to the written words aimed at Captain Ouchie Foot, there have been hundreds of memes, like the one pictured above. Not all of them have been great. Or even good. Many, as I look back through my files have been awful. But then, who remembers Beethoven's 10th? 

Last week I was publicly called on the carpet by one of my old bosses. This is not the first time. Thankfully I have warm feelings for both these exes. Who are entitled to their opinions and shall remain unnamed. Because as readers of this blog know I am not incapable of defending my POV. With prejudice, if I may quote Harrison Ford from Apocalypse Now.

And while many came to my spirited defense, thank you, I feel compelled to speak on my behalf and my compulsion. 

You see even if I wanted to stop slinging mud and throwing jabs at the neo-Nazis who have and continue to take a sledgehammer to our democracy, I couldn't. I'm wired for this. Hardwired. 

When I hear the President of the United States of America, a man who has the fate of humanity at his tiny fingertips say, according to Dr. Oz, another charlatan, that he believes "cancer cells can be killed by Diet Sodas, the same way you can kill crab weed in your yards with few well placed sprays of Dr. Pepper," well, I cannot remain silent.

Nor can I look the other way at the 77 million astoundingly clueless voters put this slumping, schlubby octogenarian behind the Resolute Desk.  

Despite my early correspondence with Anne Beats at Saturday Night Live and my brief intermittent phone calls with Larry Charles (of Borat and Seinfeld fame) I never had the dreamed of opportunity to write satire for a living. 

The upside is that advertising paid much better. 

But now I have free time. I don't have a boss or a client looking over my shoulder, though as a recidivist offender of social media community standards who has spent considerable time in jail, I am acutely aware of the consequences. I have AI as my art director and is refreshingly fast. And furthermore, not whiny about mocking my ideas, though like any art director, with many misspellings.

And I have an obscenely target rich GOP administration that comically and dangerously stumbles and fumbles with the regularity of the atomic clock. 

How could I NOT do what I'm doing?

What's on Rich's Phone?

It's time for the Thursday Photo Funnies. 

I know it's Wednesday but as many readers know I got lazy and cut my posting down to three days a week. And I just like the way Thursday Photo Funnies rolls off the tongue. In my twisted mind, it's incrementally funnier. In the same way Cucumber is slightly funnier than Carrot. And exponentially funnier than Carrot Top.

But then, what isn't?

The photo above was snapped on a recent run to Costco with Ms. Muse. We love our trips to Costco, traffic, parking and the non-stop violation of our personal space by other bargain hunters who are perhaps not familiar with the oversized shopping cart etiquette, notwithstanding. 

I noticed this man on the box of depends, displayed prominently at the aisle cap and pondered the excitement this ambitious model/actor/entertainer must have experienced when his agent texted him, "You got the gig!" 

Only to discover at a later point time that he had inadvertently become the face of 100% Leak-Free, Breathable Protection for Male Incontinence. I probably shouldn't make jokes about that. As of this writing my bladder is in fine working condition, but at my age that could change any day. Or minute.

Let's get to the pictures I found on my phone.

I have a thing about signs. Particularly overly didactic signs that

serve to indicate the stupidity that has infected this nation.

That raging stupidity is mostly attributable to this assclown.

Speaking of assclowns, every time I go to the supermarket,

I push this coffee from NeoFascist Black Rifle 

to the back of the shelf where it can't be seen. Or purchased.

Here are some more signs that appeal to my dark sense of humor.

Here's another that makes my blood boil. 

You can take issue with the Israeli response to 

Hamas and the attacks of 10/7, as I do,

but you don't get to vent your ugly antisemitism.

Other than my expensive diploma, this old timey beer mug is

the only thing of value I have from Syracuse University.

It's almost 50 years old. And I'm happy to say it still works.

Finally there's this shot, 

taken from the new CV Link Bike Path in Palm Springs.

I didn't adjust the saturation, the contrast, the black point, 

the shadows or the vignetting. I didn't have to.

 

The clothes make the man

This is my great grandfather, Abraham Siegel. At least that's what I was told by late uncle Ronnie, who had a stash of very old photos tucked away, amongst the countless extension chords, drill bits and reams of unused copy paper, in his massive garage.

Abe, I don't think he'd mind the familiarity, was a stern looking Germanic man. And "lived" in what was known as The Pale of Settlement. If I'm going by 23andme, my best guess is he was from region near Poland and Belarus. 

When asked what he did for a living before emigrating to the states, I'm told he was a tailor. 

And judging from above, the one and only picture I have of him, he does appear to be quite a snappy dresser and no stranger to a fine Teutonic haberdashery. Which is quite unusual given that my grandfather was, well let's be kind and say, "not so snappy." Nor did he have to be, to drive a taxi, er, I'm sorry...cab, in New York City. That was his particular skill. Oh and he also had the ability to pick a losing horse with inordinate consistency at Belmont Park.

"Crackers and soup for dinner again?"

Now, I'm no fashionista. People generally don't approach me for sartorial advice. Though the man at the gas station did say he liked my shirt while filling up my propane tanks ( I have the video to prove it.) Nor should they since I am the owner of ONE multi purpose suit. Being hauled out of mothballs as we speak for an upcoming nuptual.

But I know what I know. And this, if I may quote a real estate agent I was talking to, is, "Wrong in all the wrong places."

With the non-stop insanity spewing from his pie hole and the rapid decay of cognition, no one -- save for Hannibal Lecter and Frederick Douglas -- seems to be talking about his god awful, shitty looking suits. 

You would think that the billionaire -- life is so unfair -- that sits in a chair while stylists carefully sculpt the 38 white hairs on his dome into something resembling the deck of an aircraft carrier, would take more than 10 minutes with a skilled tailor. 

Maybe he does. And therein lies the tell.

Because if he won't listen to a someone who knows a thing or two about suits, like my great grandfather, "we need to take in the waist, shorten the pants, and get you a new tie", what are the chances he'd listen to advisors and four star generals telling him not to bomb Iran and purposelessly kill 175 schoolgirls.

Fuck Trump. 

Every which way til Wednesday.

"turn it on"

At some point we crossed the political rubicon. 

We once lived in an era when yelling into a microphone with unbridled zeal, I'm looking at you Howard Dean, undid all your presidential bonafides. To an era when solid evidence of sex trafficking, palling around with the world's most notorious pedophile and actual accusations of rape, are shrugged off by an illiterate mass of Kool aid drinking Red Hats and comatose journalists.

In 2018, James Comey, the indicted and then unindicted former FBI director wrote that President Trump told him, "I'm not into Golden Showers." For those unfamiliar with the term, or its cousin the Cleveland Steamer or the Cincinatti Bowtie, a Golden Shower according to the Urban Dictionary...

This was widely reported by CNN. But before any doubters start shouting Fake News, here's a video clip of the President of the United States of America, a country that has produced some of the world's most iconic presidential orators ("Four score and seven years ago" and "Ask not what your country can do for you") telling the adoring crowds that he is not into women peeing on him (Skip to 1:45)

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=375229315412394

You might be wondering why we're talking about Golden Showers. I was wondering the same thing when I stumbled across a folder on my 'highly organized' computer desktop this morning. And then I discovered this treasure trove of memes I did in 2018. 

For those who are counting, that was EIGHT years ago.

Considering the torrent of embarrassing shit this insufferable d-bag foists upon the American people, and the world, including a recent video of him piloting a plane and dumping fecal matter on the American people, or posting an image of himself as the Pope, or obscenely racist imagery of a real President, -- which he never apologized for -- it's increasingly difficult to recall or even fathom the depth of this man's dementia.

In fact, at least for me, the only way to deal with it is mockery. 

And so, because there is nothing else positive about this brain dead monster, I invite you to enjoy.

Cash for laughs

I'm such a sucker for social media ads. You'd think after a lifetime creating advertising I'd be more alert to to click bait and the precipitous drop into the sales funnel. But, with it's Matrix-like ability to read my mind, the Internet has trapped me once again.

Last week while doom scrolling, I came across an ad for a company that lures homeowners with all cash offers in exchange for my house. I'm currently debating renting out the house, a 4 BR remodeled home that sits in walking distance of snazzy downtown Culver City. Or, selling it, thus funding my ability to put a serious a dent in my bucket list. 

If I had a bucket list. 

The ad promised an instant online, no strings attached cash offer. Taking the house off my tired hands in As-Is condition. 

Meaning I wouldn't have to fix the slow toilet in the downstairs bathroom. Or replace the outrageously expensive Wolf Oven whose igniters never stop clicking and clacking or even lighting a burner. Or divulge the annoying proximity I have to a neighbor I call Meth Head, whose constantly barking Malinois (Bad Noise) has now been surpassed by the blaring TV that is permanently set on Fox news. Figures.

But, as you probably figured out, the cash offering cartel does not work that way. Once I signed up, the jackals circled my digital mailbox. I have ignored and unsubscribed to all of these equity robbing weasels and their low ball numbers.

With one exception, Luisa Enriquez. Not because she and her company held out huge bags of US currency for the taking. Rather it was her persistence and her pugilistic Trumpian style that got my attention. 

To wit...

That my friends is follow up. And must be admired, though I suspect from the my short time in the digital ad business it's all preprogrammed and does not spring from the personal keyboard of Luisa.

You're probably, or not, wondering how her sales pitch went. Well, I'm glad you asked. As you guessed I have the receipts.

Nothing stalkerish about that. She does use the word 'forever' lightly.

This was followed up with...

Maybe you can't take a hint Luisa, as I have not replied to any of you e-mails. And won't, because frankly, I like your style and to milk this for all it's worth.

And finally, there's this.

Actually there might be one more email she sent, but I have forwarded it on to the FBI and was told not to worry.

Cheater, cheater bacon-stuffed crust pizza eater

Life can be awfully unfair at times. 

Look, I know won the lottery in that I'm a white male, born in America, and given a bounty of opportunities to succeed (some of which I thankfully jumped on). So yes, I've been lucky beyond all measure. Almost. It's like I hit 5 of the 6 necessary numbers. And by that I mean I've lived with a lifelong struggle with weight.

I came into this world at a whopping 10 lbs. My parents would joke that when my mother was pregnant, they were strolling around the Bronx Zoo. When they passed by the elephant section, her water broke.

No trauma there, right?

When my brother joined the ranks, my father often referred to me as, "the Big One." As in, "Isabel (my mother) tell the big one to get off his fat ass and mow the lawn ." (All 3/4 of acre of it)

I know parenting has gone through seismic changes, but 50-60 years ago that's how it was done in New York and the greater Tri-State area. It was all part of helping a kid develop a thick skin. In my case that thick skin also covered excessive layers of subcutaneous fat.

So wouldn't you know it, after so many years trying the Atkins, Weight Watchers, Lemonade enemas and countless reps with Tony Horton and P90X, the brainiacs at Pfizer or J&J or Merck produce a weight loss injection that actually works. 

Furthermore, as if the shedding of pounds wasn't easy enough with this new drug, they're making it available in pill form. It just feels wrong. In the same way it feels wrong to be on my Cannondale Super Six Evo, straining the bike chain to the max as I huff and puff up a particularly steep section of Flintridge, only to see some couch potato gliding up the hill with his $5000 E-assist bike.

There's something unsavory about that. It's like running the last mile of the marathon and then hanging a medal around your neck.

"Cheater, Cheater, Bacon-Stuffed Crust Pizza eater."

I don't want disparage anyone, including friends and family, who are taking the drugs, because better than most, I understand the struggle.

It only took me 68 years, but my battle with the bathroom scale is over. Fingers crossed. There's a certain amount of pride knowing I did it the hard way, my preferred route for just about everything. And I owe a great deal of thanks to this guy...

I did the math and I eat roughly twice my body weight in salmon over the course of a calendar year. I'll probably die of mercury poisoning. And of course, the scienticians who have put Jenny Craig on the streets, will have produced an antidote for that, the day after I'm called hope to rest.

Oh, and the day after that, they'll find a cure for male pattern baldness. 

 

Tale of Two Toilet Paper Rolls

See anything unusual here? Besides the abnormality in the lower right hand corner, which I assure you is a result of marble's natural veining or pitting or surface imperfections brought on by etch marks. And not a splotch of toothbrushing spit that landed on the corner when I inadvertently sneezed. I don't know much about photography but I do know how important it is clean up around my house before publishing glimpses of my somewhat sloppy bachelor life.

Focus instead on the two rolls of toilet paper. Notice how the light and my careful composition captures the rather significant height difference? Ms. Muse pointed this out while I was at her beautiful mountain adjacent abode in Sierra Madre. 

Turns out this week, after an other outrageously expensive trip to the Grocery Store where they place "Groceries" (not a word you hear too often these days) in bags to take home,I noticed the same phenomena.

As I was placing my new TP, brought to you by the fine people at Signature Select, the generic house brand from Pavilion, a division of Safeway, on the toilet paper roller thigamajig, I had the nagging feeling that I had been shortchanged. 

And I had. By close to an inch.

This is not the Pentagon Papers or the Mueller Report. It's hardly news that Big Food or Big Grocery as it were, has been screwing over the American consumer for years. One pound packages of coffee are now 12 ounce packages of coffee. Jars of spaghetti sauce are the same size but they have less of that delicious machine made spaghetti sauce just like the one IBC Mega Masher 9000 used to make.

The IBC Mega Masher 9000 in action.

It's called Shrinkflation. As I quickly discovered it's omnipresent.

These microscopic examples of flim-flammery may not bother you that much. Or even at all. But know that a penny saved here and Triscuit shaved there, add up quite quickly. And voluminously. It's why CEOs are actively shopping for their 3rd or 4th yacht. And it's why the investor class hammers away at companies to cut costs and increase profitably.

In other words, it's why the rich get richer. 

And the poor, using poorly made toilet paper, get shit on their fingers.

Sweetflower is in the air

This is a picture of the inside of my dispensary, which is literally 2 tenths of a mile from my house. I probably shouldn't call it my dispensary lest you get the idea that I'm some kind of old-aged stoner, who doesn't get out of bed until taking a big long draw on a fancy bong made of jade and blown glass. It's not like I go in there everyday. 

Well, actually I do go in there just about everyday, because my dog Lucy loves the free treats (THC-free) and the attention she garners from the crunchy woo-woo "Florists."

You heard me right. Just as the folks who make coffee st Starbucks are barristas, the kids (anyone under 50) who peddle the indicas and sativas in every ingestible shape or ignitable format, have elevated themselves to Florists.

I, myself, will make a purchase every two weeks or so. My vice are the low dosage Petra Moroccan Mints,  that help ease the anxiety during these tumultuous times. They don't make me high, per se, unless I forget when I've taken one and an hour later accidentally popped another minty breath/mind refresher in my mouth. But I do love eavesdropping on the pretentious Florists as they go about selling their wares and the various strains.

"This one is called Super Boof, it's got hints of blueberry and will produce a relaxed, sleepy high."

"OK Kush, this could make you giggly and will definitely produce the munchies and make you a Door Dash Frequent Diner."

"Leafly named this one their Strain of the year, it tastes earthy and funky and it has caryophyllene so it's gonna burn with a sweet aroma. Many of my clients say it's their favorite."

All this high falutin danky talk makes me laugh. Not the giggly high induced by THC. But real laughter brought on by such contrasting irony. 

Way back when, we got our weed from Skinny Dave, a high school burnout who also used to work with me at the Spring Valley Jack in the Box. He was a Jeff Spiccoli look alike and sound alike, only he weighed half as much. He'd wear a size 26 waist and was always pulling his pants up. 

"I don't need any belts, I'd rather spend my money on Jamaica Gold, dude."

And in college our weed was brought to us by Barry, a Syracuse high school substitute math teacher, who when he wasn't explaining quadratic equations, would roam the floors of Sadler Hall dispensing the worst imaginable marijuana on the planet. Pretty sure it was grown in DeWitt.

Don't know why I chose to write a whole blog post about the weed store up the block from my house. I had another topic in mind. A really funny one. But I can't remember what it was.

That happens.

A lot.

I have no f*cking clue why he is our president

Went to my fourth Anti Trump protest this weekend. I think it was the fourth. I'm suffering from CRS (Can't Remember Shit Syndrome) and seem to recall there have been two No Kings protests and two Hands Off.

The other reason I can't remember is there have been no discernible achievements of any of these protests. Which may or may not have something to do with the lamo naming of these events. Trump and his murder of treacherous men spend more time naming their shit than they do authoring it. 

If they had been in charge the protests, it would have been called Raiding the Castle or Deposing Our Braindead dictator.

On the other hand I've been told by the ever intelligent Ms. Muse that sociologists contend real protests don't move the needle unless the participation rate is higher than 3.5%. I'll spare you the math, but that equates to 11.5 million people. The rough estimate from journalists and people who count crowds for a living suggest that Sunday's many extravaganzas produced a little over 8 million American patriots. 

To me those are 8 million people who love America and want to follow its better angels. 

Red Hats, or close to 77 million LOSERS, say they love America but prefer some perverted notion of Christianity lead by an ignorant, adulterous, greedy pedophile. 😵 (This marks the first time in RoundSeventeen history that I have inserted an emoji into the text. Again, that is if I'm remembering correctly.

I don't know if these protests will actually change anything. Or sway anyone's mind. 

If the previous ten years of his malignant regime, with all its incumbent greed, corruption, and mendacity hasn't convinced you to take a good hard look in the mirror, not sure a 34 count felony conviction, an appearance or maybe a million appearances in the Epstein File and now the deaths of American soldiers (suckers and losers) in an illegal war, ever will.

It doesn't make sense. Like one of the signs that showed up at Sunday Rallies noted. Nothing, or very little does make sense in this Black Hole of Stupidity that he, and he alone, has sucked us all into.

Maybe that's why we keep showing up. And we keep making our signs. Hoping that 3.5 million more Americans will devote a Saturday or a Sunday to raise our voices in search of our better angels. Or if nothing else, to be in company of like-minded people who are incredibly funny and fun to be with.