I've been thinking about this theory that Trump won the election because someone — presumably, someone Russian — hacked the vote counts in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. As I said, I doubt there's anything to it.
But this thought keeps popping into my mind: For eight years in this country, we had to put up with accusations that Barack Obama wasn't really president because he wasn't born in the United States. And there was no more actual evidence of that than there is that Trump didn't really win the election because of hackers. Maybe those of us who aren't happy that Trump won should give the hacker story at least as much life as the birth certificate one. I mean, we can make up all sorts of phony evidence just like Trump and others did.
We don't have to believe it. I don't believe that everyone spreading the "Obama was born in Kenya" story really believed it. They just thought it was a good way to weaken a politician they didn't like and to whip up the really stupid people against him. You know…like the Clinton Body Count did.
We could do that. We could…
Oh, wait. I forgot. Someone has to have some integrity. Forget I said anything.
We're taking the day off here at newsfromme — the afternoon, at least. Don't eat too much. Since I had my gastric bypass, I can't…but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try.
Having recently done a big "Bah, Humbug!" to Halloween, we now turn our attention to Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is no great deal to me, and really hasn't been since about the time I got out of school and it no longer yielded a four-day weekend. When you're self-employed, you're like the atheist who is dismayed at the lack of holidays in his life. We work when we have to work and taking four days off just puts us four days behind. Then there is this matter of parades. Once upon a time, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade was a joy carried on both CBS and NBC.
One year, one channel was almost exactly a half-hour ahead of the other so if I saw a float I liked on NBC at 8:42 AM, I'd make a note and switch over to see it again on CBS at 9:12. The parade was festive and colorful and if it was freezing in New York, as it usually seemed to be on Thanksgiving Day, I could sit in sunny Los Angeles and watch other people shiver and exhale visible breath. But the last few times I tuned in to the Macy's festivities, they were only on one channel, they were truncated down to supposed highlights, and what was there was pretty much a marching infomercial for upcoming movies and TV shows, toy promotions and videogames. I suppose there was always some of that but it had gotten too prevalent and pushy for me to enjoy.
So what's left to love about Thanksgiving? Well, big family gatherings to eat turkey were fun in their way, but most of my family has passed away and when what's left gathers, it only reminds us of lost loved ones. Plus, eating turkey is no big deal. Since I cut way back on red meat, I dine on turkey two or three times a week, and I'm not the only one. Year-round turkey consumption in America is way up. Lately in the market, you find it in all sorts of forms — burgers and filets and ground turkey and turkey meatballs. Someone has even brought out a turkey-and-gravy soda. If they could figure out a way to get a potato and some carrots in there, they'd have almost everything I eat in one bottle. And everything I like about Thanksgiving.
Here in America, we're the world champions at throwing away food. In a world where so many people are starving, you won't believe how much turkey meat winds up in the garbage.
I've linked you to a lot of real goofy songs on this blog, including a few that were not "Up the Ladder to the Roof." I just decided it was time I linked you to a real good one…in fact, this may be my favorite short piece of music in the world. This is "Rondo Alla Turca," aka "Turkish Rondo" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart…
Currently making the rounds is a theory that Donald Trump won the White House via hacking and fraud, especially in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. I tend to be very skeptical of conspiracy theories, especially those whose proponents seem to believe the conspiracy is obvious and no evidence anywhere will ever convince them otherwise. This, so far, is not one of those conspiracies but I still kinda doubt it. I could give some of my reasons but Josh Marshall has a better summary of why it ain't necessarily so.
There are some reports out today that Donald Trump — who said he wants to bring back waterboarding "and worse" — has changed his mind about this. Fred Kaplan says no, Trump hasn't changed his mind.
What Trump did was to acknowledge that a respected (by Trump and others) retired Marine Corps general said that torture is not a great way to extract information from enemy combatants. And that sure seems to be a consensus of military leaders who are actually charged with interrogation. But that doesn't seem to matter to a certain kind of person we have around today who just plain likes the idea of America torturing anyone who may qualify as "the enemy," whether it's going to get us useful information or not.
In Arnie Kogen's fine piece on the legendary comedy writer Pat McCormick, much was made of the time Pat "streaked" The Tonight Show during one of Johnny Carson's monologue. A video clip was also included. This led to this question from Andy Rose…
Do you have any idea if that was planned? Johnny seemed genuinely surprised, and you can see a cop hovering behind Ed afterward. On the other hand, both the cameraman and the spotlight operator seemed prepared for it.
Utterly, absolutely planned. First off, earlier in that monologue, Johnny said something like, "There's a rumor that we're going to be streaked this evening." Now, how would such a rumor have been floating around unless it was planned? Real streakers don't announce their intentions in advance and put Security on alert. And why would Johnny mention it if it wasn't sure to happen?
Secondly, to get in and into a position where you could do that on that stage was just about impossible unless the staff arranged it. And getting outta there was even more difficult.
Thirdly, if an unwelcome stranger had done that, NBC Security would have tackled the guy, had him arrested and cut the whole thing from the tape. They would have done that even if he hadn't been naked because they wouldn't want to give anyone else the idea of disrupting a taping. (Carson, who didn't like surprises, would probably have had the entire Security Squad there fired.)
And finally, Johnny didn't like surprises.
The interesting thing about this, of course, is that it was Pat. Streaking was big at the time, mostly because it was something titillating that the news broadcasts found they could get away with airing. They could claim it was news. So it was kind of natural that someone at the Tonight Show said, "Hey, we should have someone streak during Johnny's monologue" and of course, Johnny okayed it. He was doing streaking jokes every night so it seemed a natural.
Then they had to decide who to have streak, and I'll bet someone's first idea was to get some lovely college-age kids — both male and female. Then, I'm guessing, someone got worried that that would seem exploitative and more like porn than humor…and maybe Standards and Practices got into it and said, "If you block the naughty parts out on the screen, okay but only one streaker." That meant a guy since that was less sexy than a woman…and also, the most publicized streakers were male.
So someone says, "Okay, we need a male streaker who's not too sexy. Who can we get?" And Pat happens to be walking by at that moment.
That was one of the things Pat's friends loved about the guy: He would do anything. Around this time, I was writing a variety show for Dick Clark that taped at NBC, so we often saw Pat in the halls. He was appearing on a lot of sleazy cable shows and for some reason, our writing staff had a little contest amongst ourselves. It was to "invent a mythical cable show that Pat McCormick would refuse to be on for reasons of questionable taste."
We thought of dozens of entries and I wish I could remember the names of any of them…but I recall that we never had a winner. Every time we saw Pat, someone would run to him with the current list and read it to him and Pat would say, "I'd do that show…Sure, I'd do that one…yes, I'd be on that…yes, of course…Oh, I taped that one last week…" He was one of a kind.
I'm posting this from my iPhone just to let you know that my main computer ain't working and I took lotsa cables and connections off my backup computer in a (so far) futile attempt to get my main computer working.
Until I get at least one of them whole and operational, you won't be hearing a lot out of me.
I'm not sure what's wrong here but I'm betting it's Trump-related.
Actual x-ray of my actual knee. As you can see, the camera loves me.
September 28 of last year, I had my right knee replaced. It went well at first but the day after Halloween, I had to go into the Emergency Room for urgent repairs on it. I had gotten a new knee but I'd also gotten a ghastly infection — at no extra charge. They started me on antibiotics and then went back in and redid parts of the operation. So it was like I had two knee replacements but only got one new knee out of the deal.
Since then, everyone asks me, "How's the new knee, Mark?" so I figured I might as well post an update here. It's doing quite well, thank you. It doesn't feel quite like the old knee in its prime but some days, it's close. I don't have quite as much flexibility as I once had in it…but then I don't have quite as much flexibility as I once had in most parts of my body. I have enough though that now I'm back to driving, though I still take Lyft and Uber if it's a long distance or rush hour or sometimes if I'm lazy.
They also ask, "Are you glad you had it done?" as if I'm likely to reply, "No, I think it would be far better to be in constant pain and unable to walk." It's not like I had a lot of other alternatives. Before the surgery, the knee got worse and worse. Since the surgery — apart from that little problem with the infection — it has gotten better and better. How is that not a good thing?
Say, did I mention that they never figured out what the infection was? Some of the fluid that was in my knee was stuck in a petri dish which was then stuck in an incubator. The specialist told me that if it grew, that would be a good thing because then they could identify what it was and be certain that the antibiotics I was receiving were the right ones. Well, it didn't grow and finally, he told me that was a good thing because that meant that it probably wouldn't grow again inside me.
So it's good…and oddly enough, the other knee's doing fine. I could have postponed doing the right one for a few more months but I figured, "Let's get it over with," plus there was the fact that the left knee was getting kinda shaky/achey, too. It made sense to get the right one done before the left one became a problem…but the left one has not become a problem. So far.
One last thing before I close this off. I don't think I ever told you about the doctor visit in which I agreed to have my right knee replaced. I was peppering the surgeon with questions and one of them was about what kind of scar I'd wind up with. Instead of telling me, he showed me. He pulled up his trouser leg and showed me a most acceptable scar.
He said, "I had it done six years ago and it went very well. Very little pain, very little time off work, very little problem." I said okay, fine, sign me up. He said, "All right…I usually do my surgeries on Mondays."
I said, "Oh, I don't want you to do it. I want the guy who did yours."
Months later when I went in for my 50,000 mile checkup, he asked me how I was doing. I said I was doing great. He said, "So…still wish you'd had the guy who did mine?"
Last Saturday night, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver sat down on the stage at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center and discussed the election through which we all just lived. Here's a report on it and if you see a video online anywhere, lemme know.
