Not much on mind to write about today but that doesn't stop a true blogger. I'm a world class windbag and I'm going to have my say, even if I have nothing to say! I'm told by unreliable sources that this is what bloggers do, slap up a new blog every day no matter what. Well, looking back on my output, I realize I haven't been writing one every single day. What's wrong with me? Am I not windy enough? Not enough time on my hands? Am I not adept enough at sounding like an expert about things I know nothing about? Woe is me….

Maybe I should practice the art of starting a discussion based on a questionable premise and proceed as if that idiotic idea is actually a fact. I stole that one from Will O'Really, an obscure blogger I ran across on the internet. He does a little prelude about how, for example, only sane, good and patriotic people believe the things he talks about, then starts talking about some real mean-spirited crap in very logical terms, all the while ignoring the fact that he's discussing a steaming pile of horseshit that violates every tenet of every religion or moral code you can think of. Not a lot of live and let live or excessive traces of humanity in Will's blogs. But hey, it works for him, suits him quite well.

Then as a finale he trashes all sorts of people who, unlike himself, possess actual credentials, knowledge, experience and expertise but for some unfathomable reason don't believe in his mouthful of bile. He questions their man or womanhood, their sanity, their intelligence, their morals and their loyalty while never once mentioning anything remotely true that any of these people believe or things that they've done. Doesn't he know about Wikipedia,? Newspapers? Newsweek or Time Magazine? Meet The Press? Friends who are smart and remember important stuff? By the end I suppose you're supposed to be convinced that Will O'Really is the smartest, most virtuous and patriotic man anywhere, a clear thinking man not afraid to stand up for his beliefs.

At least that's where I think he was going with all that blather. But then I realized he was just filling the daily page with no particular idea one way or the next and stuck to his style, creating an irrational fear here or a nonexistent crisis there and then bellowing that only craven traitors disagree with him about these non-issues. Or when he's really out of ideas he might just defend the worst tendencies and stupidest policies of the worst (and stupidest) administration within living memory as sort of a volunteer Minister of Propaganda, and then as always he singles out people smarter than himself for a good lambasting.

Maybe I could learn from this O'Really guy, he seems to be able to crank out page after page of complete nonsense with the greatest of ease. The only problem is that I'm not naturally that angry of a guy but then again I figure neither is he. I mean, who could be? He's got to be faking it. If you're never anything but angry then your anger means nothing and no one will ever know what's really important to you or take your anger seriously. It's like smiling all day long. I figure a guy who smiles all day long is either on LSD or a lunatic. And even acid heads and lunatics are better company than anger addicts. So maybe I'll leave the O'Reallys of this world to their indignation and their delusions and go my own way.

And if going my own way means not blogging every single day then, so be it. I know I run the risk of disappointing my vast readership who hang on my every word, but an artist must be true to himself, and myself is a bit lazy. I just can't muster the high dudgeon required to be a master political charlatan or social commentator. My problem is that I like people too damned much and figure most of what they do is their own damned business and none of my own, even though a lot of those things we do fascinate me. I also can't claim with a straight face that I have THE ANSWER. What I have mostly is questions, lots of 'em.

Sometimes it's all too much. You try to live your life as well you can, conduct yourself with some modicum of decorum and civility, be earnest about doing the things you enjoy and try your very best to be good to others. You know, all the good stuff our mothers taught us in Life 101 Class. And as we grow and get on with it, we remember these lessons and try to conduct ourselves accordingly. But every one of us forgets from time to time the warnings Mom gave us about DAYS LIKE THIS.

Oh yeah, we were warned, make no mistake about it. We were told life would be difficult and there would be many trying times in store for each and every one of us, including times of extreme embarrassment. Circumstances great or small would rob us of our dignity from time to time, facts of life most of us choose to ignore until it's too late and we're all of a sudden playing the fool. But don't blame Mom, she tried to warn you. You just chose to ignore that particular caveat, figuring life would make an exception in your case. I know I sure did more times than I care to admit.

Like the time I decided that a Tom Jones shirt and huge bellbottom trousers would be just the look for a photo of my band when we we about 15. Now, in the mid-1960's we wore some pretty ridiculous clothes, but Tom Jones shirts had to be the worst fashion idea ever, looking patently ridiculous within 3 months of their first becoming popular. Add an outbreak of acne on my forehead and you've got a real beaut of a photo. The rest of the guys in the band were similarly dressed and I wasn't the only one sporting some world-class zits for the camera. In spite of this we posed quite seriously for the photographer, emphasis on pose.

One look a the proofs convinced us these were not the stuff of classic rock & roll legend, and we were out about 60 bucks plus whatever the dumb clothes cost us and that was a lot of dough in 1967. We sort of forgot about making posters real quick and decided to wear stage clothes a little less reminiscent of the court of Louis XVI, and also to lose the worldly, smug sneers that looked really stupid on kids who still had to be driven to their band gigs by our parents. How can one not be humble in the face of photographic evidence of your foolishness? I for one decided right then and there that the most important thing about being in a band was the music you made, something you would think would be pretty obvious. It's those simple and transparent truths that trip us up every time, always looking for something deeper and more complex than the situation demands.

Or how about the time I decided to impress a girl with my prowess at climbing a tree? How was I to know that girls don't care all that much about tree-climbing? Luckily, this particular girl cared a lot about first aid when I fell out of the tree onto the sidewalk at her feet. I didn't break any bones or require stitches but had my pants ripped pretty much off of me and had some pretty impressive raspberries on my thighs where the skin was peeled off in my slide down the tree. Like they say, nothing hurt but the old dignity. I don't know, but at that particular moment I think I'd have preferred stitches to a crushed ego. Walking around was pretty painful for a couple of weeks while my thighs healed and I never did make any headway with that girl. Oh well, live and don't learn…

Who hasn't committed a incredible faux-pax or had an embarrassing wake up call? Did you ever break out laughing uncontrollably at a funeral? You have? You insensitive bastard! I would never do anything like that! Well, maybe I would. Ever stepped in a dog's business in your best suede shoes unawares and entered somebody's home? Well, you got aware pretty swiftly then, no? Or how about getting that knowing look and a come-on wave from an incredibly attractive member of the opposite sex only be asked to introduce them to your "hot friend?" Talk about your ego balloon deflating real quick…

And then there's the universal dignity stripper, trips to the doctor or the hospital. Nothing like being injured and half-naked in one of those skimpy gowns and left in a hallway for hours because you're not not injured badly enough to be given immediate attention. So as punishment for not being grievously maimed you're put on display for everyone wandering around the hospital. Can I get a blanket here? A least a sedative so I can sleep through this mortifying experience? Oh, sorry, I'll just lay here in pain, naked and shivering for everyone's amusement and resolve to be really mangled next time I show up at the emergency room. And what the hell do you care what was my mother's maiden name?

Of course one can't forget that whole growing older deal. Your body creaks, your hair and teeth want to jump ship, your arms get too short to read the newspaper so you have to get glasses, your hearing isn't all that sharp (especially for aging rock and rollers like myself after having spent a lifetime in front of giant speakers) and your muscle tone leaves a whole lot to be desired. Old injuries hurt you more now than they did at the time they occurred. Pretty girls look at you as safe company, and that's a real drag. Younger guys lift up stuff they figure is too heavy for the old guy (not really a bad thing when you think about it).

And there's a whole lot more doctor visiting to do when you get older. They shove cameras up your butt and down your throat, x-ray and scan and probe and puncture every square inch of your body and tell you to stop doing the things you enjoy and start doing the things you don't. They test your reflexes and tell you they aren't what they used to. I could have told them that myself. There's a reason why older people don't drive their cars like younger people and it usually takes an accident or two to figure this out. I know I sure found that out the hard way, and also that you don't heal all that quick from the banging around you get crashing your car.

So dignity is an elusive state. That's why Rodney Dangerfield's signature line was speaking for all of us when he said "I don't get any respect." There are times when nobody gets any respect and life is a fool's game. Nothing to be done about it either. Sometimes it's just your turn. You can be the coolest cat or kitty walking but sometimes you're strutting your stuff trailing toilet paper from your shoe. Life goes on…

Well, they did it again, The Boston Red Sox won the World Series. When it happened three years ago I thought maybe that was some sort of anomaly and life would go on as before but now it's clear that's not the case. I started to suspect dire changes in the world several years ago when blue M&M's were introduced. Something just wasn't right. There are certain things you learn to rely on in this uncertain life, beacons of stability in a tumultous world. The Red Sox not winning the World Series was one of those things.

Oh, congratulatipons, I suppose, to the Red Sox and their fans, I'm not grudging anybody anything and the Sox won both their World Championships convincingly; A four game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004 and now another sweep of the Colorado Rockies. Heck, the team I root for won 26 Word Series so I don't want to sound like one of those whining Yankee fans who think it's their birthright to win the Series every year. And I never did believe in that curse of the Bambino nonsense about them trading away Babe Ruth in 1918 and paying the price ever since. That's just voo-doo jive. That's just the way it is, the Boston Red Sox don't win championships. Or was, I should say.

The blue M&Ms should have thrown up a red flag, but I let that go, not for a second thinking they were a harbinger of life as we know it disappearing. Then that whole global warming deal hit and I'm getting uneasy. I never did like going to Florida all that much and now they're telling me Florida's going to come to me. Great. Now what? If I move north of the state where I live to get some decent seasonal weather changes I'm in Canada. No thanks, but I'll pass on that imitation U.S. north of our border. I'll know, I know, Canada's a foreign nation and all that, but I've been there, and it didn't feel foreign at all except that they say aboot instead of about. It's just like America only a lot duller. Sorry, Canada.

So anyway, there were a lot of changes in the wind this past decade. A presidential election had to be decided by the Supreme Court and they picked the dumb one. An obscure Arab attacked the United States and won a huge victory by devastating my hometown and the Pentagon and then ran and hid in caves and the dumb one decided that was unfair and so he gave up on that guy and attacked an innocent country that had no caves, figuring he's got to defeat somebody or he'll look like a fool. Why do fools always worry about that? This stuff really happened and it's not a Peter Sellers movie I have to keep reminding myself.

Then Law and Order became a franchise, not content with being one of the most successful TV shows ever. Of course none of the new ones were any good but they wound up having the same head District Attorney in all of them and now he's running for president. I'm guessing he's running on a law and order platform. Also a new and horrible infestation started on television: Reality Shows that are anything but real except for the fact that the non-actors that star in them are real annoying and completely talent-free, for some reason the selling point of these shows. And even more so than Law and Order they have proliferated so that not a night goes by that there's not another dumb show that viewers can participate in by voting for or against the biggest moron on the show. I'm not making this up, this stuff has really happened.

Luckily, the major networks continue to provide at least some semblance of stability by continuing to churn out year after year terrible situation comedies, completely unwatchable shows made by morons for morons, so that's at least one anchor to life as we know it upon which we can still depend. But something odd has happened to our news broadcasts. It seems every one of them now has as a feature reporter a Chinese-American guy and a light-skinned black woman, or a Chinese-American woman and a light-skinned black man and at least a Hispanic or two.

It's apparently a very enlightened policy since none of these people display any talent for journalism at all but win a lot of points for joking around with each other and smiling nonstop, even while they're talking. Maybe the networks figure they'll learn on the job.The anchor chairs, of course, are still manned by blonde Caucasian men and women with even less talent than their Rainbow Coalition tokens. Which is just as well, I suppose, since they report very little actual news anymore, concentrating instead on unimportant minutia. As far as the ever-grwing 24-7 cable news, that's just a wasteland of self-righteous right wing blowhard commentators praising the dumb one and his incompetent stooges.

So with all this stuff going on, the blue M&Ms, the politics of insanity, the global warming and bad television, there was always baseball to keep things anchored, that timeless game played out over a long season. There were good teams, bad teams, dynasties that would rise and fall, perennial losers who once in a wile grabbed the brass ring and win it all. And then there was the Red Sox, who were in their own special category, a good team who never won anything. Came close every few decades, but always lost in the championship round. So now I know life will never be the same. The Red Sox are winners and it's no fluke. Now if Canada starts acting like a foreign country we're in real trouble.

Guess who visited the offices of bobcrespo.com the other day? If you read the title then you know it was Bonny Prince Charles himself, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne of the United Kingdom, Britain's next king just as soon as his beloved mother Queen Eliazabeth II drops dead, he tells me. He was in New York on the Q.T., not wanting to attract a lot of attention. It seems he was here to consult with some plastic surgeons about some cosmetic work he wants done before his coronation which he hopes is real soon.

I asked him if it was the Dumbo ears, the turkey jowls or the mule teeth he was thinking about fixing, but he just gave me an icy stare, then said it was for the installation of an actual chin. Sorry, Prince. Probably a good idea, I assured His Majesty, that'll give you something to stroke thoughtfully while you're sitting on your king throne making momentous decisions. Or at least pretend to do so since British kings and queens haven't wielded any power at all for over 100 years. They're more like ceremonial window dressing these days, kind of like a baseball team's mascot in the bird suit with the giant head and having just about as much influence over the outcome of the game as that guy.

But still, he will be the king, new chin and all. Of course he'll still be uglier than Keith Richards and Mr. Potatohead combined but that's the way it has always been for English kings, the uglier the better. Throw in the fact that European Royalty has been inbreeding longer than Ozark Hillbillies and you've got a prime example in good old Prince Charles of the Banjo Kid from the movie "Deliverance" in a Saville Row suit, minus the talent on the banjo. He does the royals proud with his dim bulb bewilderment and transparent longing for the death of his mother. Good for you, Chuck. That's what kings are made of!

He surprised me by showing up at my door with a couple of those Beefeater Guards in their red pantaloons and Don King fright wig hats, one of them blowing a long trumpet and the other rolling out a threadbare red carpet. This kind of startled me and I really had no time to prepare any penetrating questions for the Prince. Looking into his eyes, though, I figured maybe this is a good thing. His Royal Highness seemed a bit disoriented, looking around my house like he didn't know where he was. Well, I figured, it's not every day a future king drops in on you with two guys in Middle Ages outfits so I might as well start the interview.

BC: "So, Your Highness, you feeling okay? You look a little green around the gills if you don't mind me saying so."

"PC: "We do mind you saying so."

BC: "We?"

PC: "We're practicing to be king, you see. One always refers to oneself in the plural or the third person when one is a monarch."

BC: "Ooo-kaaay, Prince, whatever you say…"

PC: "Bloody well right, bobcrespo.com! I'm The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesy, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Great Master and First and Principal Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Member of The Order of Merit, Knight of the Order of Australia, Companion of the Queen's Service Order, Honorary Member of the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, Chief Grand Commander of the Order of Logohu, Member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Counsel, Aide-de-camp to Her Majesty! That's bloody well who I am!

BC: "And you're telling me this… why?

PC: "Just to let you know our respective positions."

BC: "Our positions? I'm sitting here and you're sitting there. That's our positions in this country, two equals talking."

PC: "Equals? You and I? Surely you can't believe that!"

BC: "Actually, now that I met you… no, not really."

PC: "Just as I thought, you see. You Colonials can disparage royalty all you like, Bobcrespo.com, but upon meeting the real thing you simply cannot deny the majesty and splendor of a prince and future king. Rather impressive, is it not?"

BC: "Well, Prince… you are leaving an impression, I'll give you that much…"

PC: "Just as I thought!"

BC: "Well, never mind that, sir. Are all those titles really yours? That's quite the mouthful. How long did it take you to memorize that?"

PC: "Of course they are my titles! I'm The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall.

BC: "Alright , I got it already Prince…"

PC: "..Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order …"

"BC: "Prince! Hey Prince, I've got a tape recorder, we got if the first time!"

PC: "…of The Garter, Knight of the Most Noble order of The Thistle…"

BC: " You can stop now Chuck! (At this point I turned to one of the Beefeater guys and he just shrugged and whispered to me that once the Prince starts his list of titles there's no stopping him. It's better to let him finish or he might just start over again. Not willing to risk that, I just shut up and let him finish.)

PC: … and Aide deCamp to Her Majesty!"

BC: ""Well, Chuck, what do I say now, Long Live the Queen?"

"PC: "Mercy no… I mean, that is, yes, of course! You're getting the hang of being a Royal Subject, old boy."

BC: "Hang? Sounds good to me…"

PC: "But enough of this, bobcrespo.com. Tell me, why did you wish to interview our presence?"

BC: Beats me if I even remember now…"

PC: "Get a hold of yourself, man! One need not fear one's Prince, eh wot? Out with it, serf!"

BC: "Okay, Chuck, you asked for it. Here goes: Prince Charles, how does it feel to be the world's biggest jackass, living for the day when your own mother dies so you can occupy a throne that means jack-all just so you can ride around in a horse-drawn carriage every so often in a ridiculous costume and wave to people you have no authority over? What's that like?"

PC: "Why, the bloody cheek! Do you know who I am?"

BC: "Don't start that friggin' roll call again, pal, just answer the question."

"PC: "We do not deign to respond to such impertinence! Oh for for days of dungeons and the Tower of London ! Why, when I'm king…."

BC: "You'll what? I'll tell you what you'll do, Princey boy, you'll open flower shows, give medals to Girl Guides, wave from a balcony, make speeches about nothing and play polo, just like you do now."

PC: "Put this vermin in chains!" (He was addressing one of his Beefeater Guards, who leans over and reminds the Prince that he has no such powers, doesn't even carry any handcuffs and besides, we were in America at the moment, at which point Prince Charles starts shaking and turning red and foaming at the mouth. I'd had plenty enough of him by now.)

BC: "Well, Charlie old boy, I think you've answered well enough for my readers. Interview's over. You guys wanna roll out that red carpet and usher this guy out of here before he blows a gasket? My wife will be real pissed off if he breaks something. And skip the trumpet, Beefie, I don't want to freak out my neighbors."

PC: "You've not heard the last of me, Bobcrespo.com! This means War! I'll call out the Navy, buy jove,you'll be hearing from the Royal Marines! I'm The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George…"

His voice trailed off as the 2 Beefeaters stuffed him into the back seat of his limousine, and all the while he's shaking and contorting his body and foaming at the mouth while still reciting his list of titles. Talk about strange people. No wonder Queen Elizabeth is trying her damnest to outlive him. I guess she figures one of his and Diana's kids, who are also pretty stupid but at least good looking, would be somewhat less of an embarrassment for the king job than this>/i> joker. I never did get to ask him about his ugly wife or half-wit sons or exactly how he justifies the big dough that England pays him to prance around the world being silly. I'll just have to leave those questions to another King. Let Larry King do the dirty work.

So, the Red planet may have once held life, even if it was only moss and lichen. That seems to be the consensus of scientists studying the latest information sent back by NASA probes of the planet. There's also raging scientific arguments on how much water is on the planet next in line from the sun from us. Were there oceans there? Did they dry up and why? They wonder if this formation or that one over there shows evidence of canals on Mars, waterways not occurring in nature but created, thus indicating the presence at least at one time of intelligent life.

There's all sorts of debates on the exact nature of our neighbor. Why don't they just send some guys up there and find out? If one of these robotic probes, as marvelous as they are in the technical marvel department, landed in the Great Salt Desert, or in New Jersey, don't you think the reports of life on Earth would be pretty limited? Wouldn't you want to send some eye-witnesses to this planet to see which of those two wastelands was really representative of Earth?

We started sending astronauts to the moon in 1969 and everybody figured that by now we'd have some kind of base up there and a launching platform from which to blast off to check out the other nearby planets. For some reason we just stopped in our moon tracks. The most exciting and daring enterprise ever taken up by mankind was pretty much abandoned before it really got started. Why? Have we been doing such wonderful and exciting stuff down here that it made the Space Program look tame? As far as I can tell it's been business as usual down here for the past forty years; wars, famine, plagues, genocide and bad sit-coms.

Maybe the government figured they'd let Captain Kirk handle that stuff, he's got that cool warp-drive Enterprise and all those neat toys. Well, we've got a lot of neat toys we didn't have forty years ago, like cell phones and computers and CD's and i-pods and DVD players and the like. Guess where the lion's share of the technology that makes these cool things possible was developed. If you guessed the Space Program, go to the head of the class, young Skywalker.

But to go to Mars people would have to spend a couple of years of their lives going back an forth, a real sacrifice. Well, they send our soldiers to Iraq for a couple of years of their lives, and they don't even have a choice in the matter. I'll bet any number of them would rather be sent to the surface of the Sun than to be sent back there for another tour of duty. If NASA is serious about exploring our Solar System you can bet dollars to doughnuts there would be no shortage of eager volunteers to fly in space ships to some distant destination. You'd have to beat them away.

It would be quite expensive, but not as costly as a war, and in an endeavor of this sort there's the possibility that we can learn a lot of neat things. We've never learned a damned things from all of our wars since we keep doing them over and over like some race of compulsive autistics. Does anybody think there's any valuable knowledge to be gained by doing the same thing over and over with the same negative results? That's one of the textbook definitions of insanity, by the way. Or do we keep fighting wars in the hope that someday we'll get it right? That's also pretty crazy.

Odds are that some people are never going to like certain other people on this planet all that much but we've proven beyond any doubt that going to war with these people doesn't change any of that even a little bit. We humans have been pretty thorough in exploring that aspect of our personalities and that's just the way it is, so just maybe we can figure out a better way to co-exist with people who are not our cup of tea. Can't we just not invite them to our weddings or something? Or stop trying to convince them to change?

So what if they are different from us? If you're convinced that your way is the right way you don't need the approval of anybody to live as you see fit, especially some group of people you don't even like in the first place. At least adults don't. Who cares what that guy down the block thinks? He's an asshole anyway. But he's got just as much right to be an asshole as you have to be the person you want to be. There's nothing worse you can do to him than to leave him alone to be the jerk he'll be for the rest of his life while you pursue your own interests. War is just a temporary nightmare that solves nothing, instead almost always makes a bad situation worse, what with all the dead bodies an blown up cities and whatnot.

But if we want to blow stuff up, if that's really ingrained in our nature, let's blow some rockets into outer space and see what we can find out there. Mars should only be the start of our journey. There's other planets in the Solar System and beyond that, the Galaxy and the rest of the Universe. We could plant our flags and claim it all in the name of Spain and subdue and slaughter any life we encounter! No… wait a minute, that's what got us into such a mess down here.

Anyway, why don't we all e-mail NASA and our Congress people, (forget the President, he's an asshole) to get he ball rolling on the Space Program once again. We could put our own life on Mars, human life, thus ending that debate pretty quick. We could establish human outposts on the Moon, Venus and some of the planet-sized moons of Saturn and Jupiter too. And we could mine the asteroids for precious metals or even find some new and useful materials that don't currently exist on earth, maybe even discover a source of energy that doesn't choke us and corrode our statues faster than pigeon crap. We could construct stations in outer space quite easily in the zero-gravity environment, with one guy holding up an entire building while the other guy fumbles around for his screwdriver.

There's all kinds of human benefits that have already been derived from the fruits of the Space Program, the microchips, the fiber optics, the tasty and nutritious Tang in a tube and a lot of other neat stuff. Of course it would take the solving of a lot of physical problems to make long space flights possible and comfortable for the human body, but we've solved huge problems before. And exploring the Universe would give us something new to do beside hate and kill one another, something we've really got to work on here, people. Let's put our smartest people to work on designing something other that advanced weapons systems, a monumental waste of talent if ever there was one and a pretty redundant exercise. One thing we humans don't need is any more help in killing each other. We're good with that, thanks, got it down pat pretty good.

There's a lot of people that tell us that humanity is forever earth-bound, we'll never adapt to extreme environments. Tell that to Eskimos and Zulu. The naysayers point out that we'll never reach the stars because it's impossible to travel faster than light. There are other scientists, however, that say there just might be a way around that speed limit, something to do with artificial worm holes and warping space and other stuff I don't understand. But there are people in this world who do understand such concepts and would jump at the chance to be gainfully employed in a coordinated crusade to push the limits of their intellects and mankind's horizons. It's a dream job for a lot of scientists who would gladly make it their life's work and produce a lot of astounding benefits for the rest of us in the course of this project. Some ideas that may not solve the speed of light speed limit may have incredible benefits and practical applications for the rest of us.

Good thing Christopher Columbus didn't heed the Flat-Earth Society's dire warnings and stay in Europe or fall off the edge of the Earth. Good thing the curious Nomads that were Early Man didn't confine themselves to the African continent and set out on foot into a world full of predators the size of mini-vans armed only with spears and their wits and wound up populating and dominating every corner of this planet. One great thing about humans: tell us we can't do something an we'll prove you wrong every time. Oh, yeeeaaah? You just watch me!

It may take a long time or require a huge investment of intellect, money and energy but we've shown time and again throughout history we're a pretty obstinate and persistent bunch when we're trying to reach a goal together. We built pyramids with levers, the Coliseum with treadmill wooden cranes, dug out the Suez and Panama canals, crossed the snowy Alps on tropics-bred elephants, sent a man to the moon and cameras to the deepest ocean floors. Look at Manhattan, Paris, Rome, Prague, St. Petersburg, London, Venice, Rio, Agra, Singapore, Hong Kong and all the great cities we built from nothing.

Was building those places easy or even considered feasible at the time? Hell, no. So let's not send out an S.O.S. to Columbus to turn around and head back to the serenity of the safe and the known. Besides, what's known down here isn't really all that safe. Civilization is quite a jungle sometimes. Maybe we're killing each other at such a quick clip because there really isn't any Great Unknown to chase after any more and our restless energies are being taken out on each other.

Only one way to find out. Try something completely different and aim for the stars. Since humanity already started this whole Space Age stuff into he first place, it's inevitable that at some point we'll follow it up. Once Columbus sailed, a thousand ships followed and even the most remote corners of the world became known to us. Do we want history to remember us as the generations who shied away from our destiny or the ones who started the great adventure of spreading our wings into the Universe? Or we could always go back to our bad sit-coms and bloody wars.

So, one of my predictions came true. Several years back the mayor of New York City, one Michael Bloomberg, a multi-billionaire, decided that police officers in this town were overpaid, when in fact anyone with the slightest familiarity with the situation knew the opposite to be true. Now Mayor Mike, as this patrician corporate prince likes to be called so people will think he's a regular guy (he's not), well he went ahead anyway and started the new police cadet class at a starting salary of $25,000 a year, and in five years on the job able to reach the top salary of only around $50,000 when our neighboring counties Nassau and Suffolk pay their police twice that much for a smaller workload, crimewise.

Twenty five thousand a year is a ridiculously low salary for any job in New York City, never mind that of a police officer, a dangerous and demanding career you ideally want to fill with the best possible candidates. Well, naturally the best possible candidates passed this less than generous offer by and the New York City Police Department lost a lot of potential talent to other police departments or jobs in the private sector. New York is an expensive place to live, mostly because it;'s worth it, mind you, but just the same the reality is that 25K won't get you decent housing or food for your family. Indeed, a married person with a kid or two on that salary qualifies for public assistance, food stamps, welfare, the whole nine.

So my prediction was that our newest police officers would be corrupt. Now, anybody can be corrupt, I'm not singling anybody out here, we're all merely human. A police officer, however, has a whole lot more opportunities to make his or her corruption a pretty lucrative enterprise. In no other profession do you rub elbows with so many criminals, criminals being by definition corrupt individuals. Many of these people would like a break from law enforcement types and are willing to pay handsomely for a laizze-faire atmosphere in their particular sphere of criminal enterprise, be it chopping cars, selling drugs, stealing or prostitution. Do the math and tell me what you think will happen to a fair percentage of young cops resentful of their low pay. And they carry guns and the weight of the NYPD with them wherever they go.

So now the headlines hit about the huge spike in crime by police officers. It actually happened a lot sooner that I thought it would, at least the getting caught part. That's what happens when the third or fourth best candidates for the job are in the starting line-up. Not only are they committing the predictable cop crimes of protecting drug dealers and organized crime figures and extorting sex from prostitutes, these enterprising young men and women are committing armed robbery, stealing from their fellow police officers and also identifying undercover officers to the bad guys, practically signing their death warrants. You happy now, Mayor Mike?

I know a some cops, guys and gals who have been doing it for a while and are actually making decent salaries and are dedicated to a job they love. When this whole fiasco of the new contract came out they agreed with my initial assessment that this was a disaster waiting to happen. As time went on and these new recruits joined the force, the older cops began to fear and distrust their new colleagues and with good reason. They were hesitant to call them for backup in dangerous situations, not really knowing whose side they were on. When partnered with a young cop they were very tense when on the course of their shift they were put into a situation where the temptation factor was very high, for example responding to a robbery in a jewelry store. Again, do the math here.

What is it with these billionaires who think only they are qualified to run the government? What they are eminently qualified for, obviously, is running the business that made them all that dough to begin with and the talent for one thing doesn't always translate into a talent for the other. They rarely do. These super-rich guys assume everybody in the world has the same goal, to make a billion dollars when in fact that's the stated goal of almost nobody, so his field of competition is not as broad as he thinks it is. It's actually kind of narrow.

The fact that they made the billion and almost nobody else in this world made a similar mount makes them think that they are supermen, blessed with abilities far superior to that of ordinary men in any field of endeavor you care to name(Think Donald trump here for the picture I'm trying to paint.). In reality, it's really a race between themselves and a relative handful of like-minded individuals for all the gold they can gather. They only think they have the ability to do whatever they wish to do better than the next guy who's already an expert at it.

The fact is that's not true at all. I can't think of any billionaire who could crack the starting line-up of a major league baseball team's pitching rotation or one who can write a decent book (And don't even go there about the identical and horrible "How I Made My Billion Bucks And So Can You" books they all write) or perform a delicate surgery on a sick child. And governing a city the size of new York is certainly not the same as running a corporation where the only vote that counts is yours and the loudest voice in every room belongs to you. Life isn't like that and governing a thee-ring circus like New York takes guts, savvy and a whole world of experience with people and real situations not available in corporate boardrooms, private jets or secure vacation palaces in the Caribbean.

This guy makes a big deal about his being a billionaire of the people and often riding the subway to work. Yeah that ought to do the trick, ride the subway surrounded by bodyguards, that'll make the strap-hangers love you, Mayor Mike. If any of them had even 1 percent of your wealth they'd never set foot on the IRT again. Why wouldn't a man of the people like yourself know that?

Mayor Mike ran for his first term as the Education Mayor, vowing not to run for re-election if he did not make a difference in New York City public schools. Well, he made quite a difference, just not in the classroom. Bloomberg abolished the Board of Education, closed their headquarters in Brooklyn and located them right under his thumb across from City Hall in the old Tweed Courthouse, fittingly in New York's monument to government corruption. Renamed the Department of Education in a mock corporate shakeup move, the new education establishment was now directly answerable to the mayor instead of being the semi-autonomous branch of government it had always been. So what did Mayor Mike do with this authority over the classrooms that he said would be the main thrust of his administration?

If you guessed low-balling new teachers in the salary department you'd be right. So once again he failed to attract the very best candidates for a critical job. The education standards have nor risen dramatically as he promised and a lot of the glaring problems that existed for students under the Board of Education are still there under the Department of Education. And these low salaries he offers only promise to continue to attract less talented teachers so the problems this Mayor Mike creates are sure to affect New York for years after he's gone unless immediate steps are taken to correct the situation.

It's not like he doesn't have good people around him. He made sure the top officials running the city with him got hefty raises and in some cases bonuses for a job well done. See, that's the real problem, that corporate mentality of rewarding the top executives while nickel-and-diming the regular workers whose labors make those corporate suites and mega-bonuses possible. City government is not a business in competition with other other governments. It's an organization to run society in the best possible way for the benefit of all the people in that society. At least that's the theory, anyway.

Not that I minded Mayor Mike giving the big officials raises. Some of those jobs were also too poorly paid to attract top talent. But what this Ivory Tower Everyman fails to realize is that a single talented and dedicated teacher or cop can have a greater positive impact on society than a dozen highway commissioners. And conversely, hundreds of poorly paid new recruits in the ranks of police and teaching posts can do infinite damage to society for long periods of time before it gets discovered and corrected and all as a direct result of your policies. So stop being a cheapskate with the troops, General. They'll turn on you and let the world see exactly how small of a leader you are.

And this is the guys who's flirting with an independent run at the White House. He was once a Democrat, turned Republican to get elected mayor and then quit the Republican party recently. He won't have to worry about raising funds since he's got plenty of his own to spend. He spent his own dough getting elected mayor and is probably one of the few people in the nation who could pay for a national campaign to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and not let it put a crimp in his wallet or his lifestyle.

Doesn't mean he'dxbe any better of a president than he is a mayor. He seems like the kind of big ego type that ramrods his policies through over the objections of his more experienced advisors, again figuring that his great success in business qualifies him as an expert in all matters great and small. Bad enough what he did to New York City. Don't let this bozo any closer to the big seat than Rudy (Mr. Leadership) Giuliani, another failed New York City Mayor parading around the country selling himself as something he's not.

What is it about City Hall that makes fairly capable men into raging megalomaniacs completely out of touch with reality and unable to forecast the obvious and logical results of their policies? I think we ought to have the place inspected for toxic mold or a gas leak or something. Provided of course, the mayor Mike didn't cut the salaries of our building inspectors down the bone and now he's got Moe, Larry and Curly doing that job. Go back to Wall Street, Mayor Mike. You can suck all the air out of the rooms in the corporate suites and you can stick in your thumb and pull out a plum and your underlings will tell you over and over again what a smart boy you are. Just don't make any more genius policy decisions before you go and by all means don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. Just go away.

Why is that everybody knows exactly where the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters is? It's a big building in Langley, Virginia with a sign with the big letters CIA right there in the parking lot announcing to the world that this is where our spies hang out. Am I missing something here?

Who's idea was it to build all those mansions in California in places alternately ravaged by wild fires and and swept away by mudslides. These things seem to happen once or twice a year and everybody on the newscasts always seem shocked that such an extraordinary thing could happen. Aren't rich people supposed to be smart? And shouldn't news reporters have even a little bit of short term memory? I mean, they have these things on videotape from last year so they could look it up if their memories are on the blink. Maybe even save some money and not send any camera crews to the scene and roll the old tapes. I mean, who would know? I'm just saying…

Why do all these new bands you hear lately seem to all sound alike, look alike and have pretty much the same things to say? I think we've got the alienated, pussy-whipped slacker schtick with the jangly guitars and the crybaby lyrics and the identity crisis down pat. Anybody else out there have anything else to say, anything at all? Anybody with a guitar know who the hell they are and aren't afraid of their own shadow? Step into the batters box and take a few swings, junior. Rock & Roll desperately needs another shot of in-your-face-motherfucker-take-me-as-I-am or-get-fucking-lost attitude, you know, the Elvis and Little Richard kind, that sneering confidence and cockiness that made the music so exciting and alive in the first place. Is Kid Rock the only guy out there with a pair of balls? And as far as the women rockers, only Amy Winehouse among the new crop of female rock stars seems to not give a crap what you think of her, she just wants to rock her own way, all 60's
Ronette hair and makeup with a wicked band swinging behind her. I'm not hearing a whole lot of original voices out there. And the government does nothing about it…

Are people not caring enough about our fake invented American Idols? Are we not sufficiently shocked about the obvious, such as the fact that Clay Aikens is, shall we say, a "flamboyant sort," Ruben Studdard has sold maybe seventy five albums and Taylor Hicks is a hack lounge singer? Are we not hating that cruel prissy English weenie enough? Or maybe not making enough fun of Paula Abdul (my personal favorite and a real funny comic) with her pills and booze and boytoy seducing antics? I worry about these things…

So these three guys were working at Pay Pal a couple of years ago. They have an idea for a web site, just like a shitload of us out here in etherland. Only thing is, their web site was called YouTube.com. They opened for business in October 2005 and in November 2006 Google bought their company for 1.65 billion dollars. Not too shabby of a profit for 13 months work, eh? Of course they had to split it three ways, so each partner had to make do with a paltry $550 million apiece. Horatio Alger lives! So just let me say to you megabuck investors out there that bobcrespo.com will entertain serious offers for acquisition, opening bids to start at say… hmm… I don't know…. how about half a million? I'm not greedy, or rather, at least not all that greedy. My flesh is as weak as the next guy, and all the guys next to me seem especially prone to temptation. What are you gonna do? My friends are my friends and I love them just they way they are.

I figure a hundred million bucks would pretty much ruin my life. I would definitely never do another lick of work after that, and my lovely wife Louise recently revealed to me the secret to life: Stay occupied. So half a mil would pay off my house but still leave me needing to work. Who knew the secret of life was so friggin' simple? To think of all the years I wasted trying to figure out that bad boy! Of course if somebody did offer me stupid crazy mad huge mega whacky money and insisted I take it I suppose they could twist my arm to hand over the keys to bobcrespo.com for some of those hundreds and hundreds of millions. Just an educated guess, of course, like I'm guessing now that water is fairly wet.

I wonder why people are shocked when celebrities do stupid things. Now a lot of these poor kids that the media has so much fun with are addicts of one sort or another, meaning they have a disease that's tough to control and so I won't mention them, just hope they can get the help they need before they die young like too many people already have. It's all the rest of those bozos who abuse underlings, crash their cars, make stupid statements, chase each other's spouses and get themselves arrested. Why would that shock anybody? Non-celebrities do these things all the time. But generally celebrities are fairly wealthy and live pampered lives with a bunch of assistants and handlers shielding them from reality and doing their dirty work. Life is a smorgasbord of privilege and pleasure for a lot of these people and so they don't really grow up. Why all the hand-wringing and concern?

If you let a kid loose in the candy store, what do you think is going to happen? He's going to eat all the candy he can force down his little gullet and puke all over the place, that's what. Same with celebrities. Why is it news when they do as they please when they please and never think of the consequences? Let's get over our indignation already and start enjoying their little foibles. They are entertainers, after all, and some of their shenanigans are actually pretty funny, like Three Stooges funny. They have the dough to hire big shot lawyers to get them out of whatever trouble they cause, so let them do their dumb-ass, out-of-control comedy acts for us and we can laugh and laugh at these wild and whacky stars. There's not near enough slapstick pie-in-the-face comedy anymore so let's take what we can get here and have ourselves a good belly laugh. Just a thought…

Is there any possibility that someday the internet will have too much information loaded on to it and get full? Seems like there's more information on the web today than actually exists. I get the feeling people are just making stuff up and posting it. I know I do when I run out of ideas for my blog, things like conducting interviews with cartoon characters and the like. When I write about real stuff I do research and find out the facts before shooting off my mouth, but doing a blog every day sometimes brings you to some odd places inside your skull so you invent stuff just to fill a page. And I'm sure I'm not the only one doing it.

I just hope the good people who write Wikipedia don't do that or I'm screwed when it comes time for me to look up The Republic of Chad or the history of the hot dog or something. They could be lying to me about either of those and I'd never know. I suppose some things you just have to take on blind faith. I'm also told that once something is posted out there in webland it never goes away, floating around for an eternity in the virtual ether that is the internet (and that includes all your ill-considered e-mails too), waiting to be plucked back to a computer screen and paid attention to by somebody, anybody.

Must be awfully lonely out there for an e-file with nobody to Google it and make it feel good about itself. But if nothing ever goes away and millions and millions of new things are posted every day, at what point does the whole thing either shut down or start spitting out reams and reams of information all over the floor like that puking kid in the candy store? I can just picture the mess, all that information all disjointed and running together, and all the Kings horses and all the King's men will never be able to put it together again! Can this happen? Does anybody know? Am I part of the problem here? Do you I think I've had too much coffee today? Could be, could be…

That's a mouthful of a title for you. The New York City Marathon is being run on Sunday, November 4th. For the 14th straight year The Tash Brothers Band will give the 35,000 runners a shot of rock & blues adrenaline right at the beginning of the race course, on 4th Avenue and 88th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, right in front of the Bay Ridge Honda car dealership. We draw quite a crowd, more every year, people who would ordinarily never dream of rising early on a Sunday morning in November to watch thousands of people in speedos and tank tops running 26 miles through the streets of New York City, rain or shine.

Now they enjoy the Marathon and get to catch a very exciting live music show too. I don't know if many people outside of true long-distance running fans know or care about the world class runners who compete for the big dough awarded for winning the Marathon. They root for the everyday Joes and Janes who train for months and months in their spare time to get in marathon shape. Their only goal is to finish the thing, maybe beat their previous best time but not necessarily. It's a huge personal achievement just to make it to the finish line, and these people challenge their bodies and minds to to the utmost in order to conquer this extreme ordeal.

Well, all I can say is, bless their hearts and better them than me. I know for sure I wouldn't want to do it, so instead I volunteer to help them along with the music. Hundreds of others also volunteer, doing stuff like handing the runners cups of water as they go by, working in the many medical stations along the way and who-knows-what else. One year my brother John was visiting from Florida and he got so caught up in the civic minded spirit of the whole thing he offered cigarettes and shots of bourbon to runners. Not exactly what a marathon runner needs but his heart was in the right place, figuring that's what he would want when in distress.

This year once again the NYC marathon has as it's sponsor ING. It's some giant insurance, investment and banking corporation that doesn't make a dime's worth of difference in the Marathon experience. All I know is that when they sponsor the event, as they have several times in the past, they send me some corporate weenie letter instructing us how to behave and to always refer to this year's Marathon as "The ING New York City Marathon." They pay us nothing for our expenses, provide no support or services for the musicians involved and refuse to even consider giving us any publicity for our efforts. So that's the last time you'll hear me refer to them and I've never once announced the title like they instructed me to nor will I. As far as I'm concerned it's The New York City Marathon starring 35,000 regular people runners and The Tash Brother's Band.

We're old hands at New York City Main Events. When the Brooklyn Bridge turned 100 years old back in 1983, the city threw a huge party on the 4th of july for the oldest and still most beautiful suspension bridge in the world. There was to be a huge flotilla of water craft in New York Harbor and a spectacular fireworks show by the Grucci Brothers. Back then we had some friends in the Coast Guard who invited us to a VIP dinner party aboard a Coast Guard Cutter. We had to turn them down because of a previous booking for the day, but a few of our girlfriends and parents got to attend that white glove affair with some government and military luminaries.

Instead, The Tash Brothers Band was booked on a party boat out of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn that day. They loaded a whole bunch of people on board in the late afternoon and proceeded to New York Harbor with the band right on the top deck, a pretty precarious position as our drummer found out when one of his expensive cymbals tipped over into the drink when the seas got a little frisky once we hit open water. I told him to lash the stuff down but he figured the boat would be riding as smooth as it was in the dock when we set up our equipment. Live and learn.

Well, it took a couple of hours to get there with all the water craft out and about that day. There were lots of Navy and Coast Guard ships all decked out in full regalia, other sizable party boats like ours, a bunch of those great New York Harbor tug boats, big old rich guy yachts and thousands of other pleasure craft of every size and description, even a few canoes and kayaks. But our mighty overloaded dreadnought was the only one sporting a live band perched precariously on the prow blaring out some real loud rock and blues.

And let me tell you, sound really carries on the water. We were entertaining a whole lot of people out there under the Brooklyn Bridge, and since there wasn't a hell of a lot to do while waiting for it to get dark and the fireworks to start, hundreds of boats decided to get closer to the music boat. We thought that was pretty cool, what with us being musicians and not seafaring types. Tony B, Bobby D. and I, the three guitarists and singers, figured we'll just turn it up and let everybody out there on the water have a good time.

We had a pretty big band on the prow of that boat that day, with Big Dave on drums, Mike Ice Cream on saxophone, Norman Succotash on harmonica, T.J. on bass and Eddy Fiddle on violin to go along with our three guitars so we made quite a big sound. We were hot that day and got in a good groove in spite of the swaying of the boat in the choppy water. All kinds of boats and small ships made a bee-line for our boat to get in on the party. We were loving it. But as loud as we were, we were no match for the super-loud fog horns that ships blow when a collision is imminent.

Boy, there sure were a lot of those bad boys blowing all of a sudden. A huge Coast Guard cutter pulled up alongside of us, almost capsizing us with the big wake they made and ordered us to cease and desist while they sorted out all the near-collisions at sea we were causing. "We are causing?" Tony answered over the PA system, kind of throwing the Coast Guard guy off his game. He was obviously used to having the loudest voice out there on the waters with his radio amplified rig but it was no match for a rock & roll PA system cranked up to 11.

The captain of our ship was freaking out as boat after boat almost crashed into his bread and butter. He negotiated with the Coast Guard Commander who wanted the music stopped but the amplified conversations drew a lot of boos from the many boats in the vicinity when canceling the show was mentioned. A compromise was reached. We could play but two small coast Guard gunboats would be stationed on either side of us to repel any other craft who got too close, maybe figuring those deck-mounted machine guns and cannons would dissuade further incursions on our water space. We were told that several small boats had already capsized and sunk in the mad dash to get next to the music boat and that some people had to be rescued. A further warning was issued to our boat and many others nearby about the sweet smell of marijuana wafting across the harbor. "Repel all boarders!" joked our captain in his best Pirate Aaarggh, now reassured that his boat would not be visiting Davy Jones' locker,
at least not that night anyway.

"Well, screw that," said Bobby D. as he lit up a joint, "they got their hands pretty full just directing traffic and keeping us afloat." With that we cranked out some more music for a couple of more hours, receiving all kinds of cheers and whistles from the people on hundreds of boats, even the young Coast Guard sailors running interference for us on either side of our boat. By the time it got dark we were sweating and all hoarse. We had just done one of our best shows, and on a dangerously swaying boat in the middle of New York Harbor with boats almost crashing into us every few minutes. When we were done we got a great ovation. Applause and cheers carry pretty well over the water too and we were feeling pretty good about ourselves when we settled in with some food and stiff beverages to watch the fireworks.

Well, as luck would have it, and we seemed to be having ourselves a day to remember, our party boat was floating pretty much in the front row seats to the fireworks show. Now, the Gruccis are world famous for their spectacular fireworks shows all over the world, most notably the Fourth of July shows they do every year along the Hudson River between Brooklyn and Manhattan. That particular year the focus was on The Brooklyn Bridge and we were ringside.

They more than lived up to their reputation that night, doing the old bridge proud with all kinds of state-of-the-art pyrotechnics: beautiful, dramatic and superbly paced for over an hour of real thrills. And we were practically inside this show. We smelled the powder and heard the rocket debris hit the water with a sizzle and we felt as well as heard the full roar of blast after blast. We gave our share of oohs and aahs as they unveiled one gorgeous display after another. Then they built to an incredibly thunderous finale and it was over, the whole world seemingly going dark and whisper quiet in the blink of an eye.

Well Mikey Ice cream, who would become my brother-in-law ten years later when I married one of his kid sisters, the lovely Louise, he was thinking fast that day. He grabbed his sax and stepped up to microphone while it was still so quiet you could hear your own eyes blink. And like it was part of the show, and indeed that's what it was, Mike played Happy Birthday to the Brooklyn Bridge in a slow, sinuous jazzy groove, caressing each note as only a good sax man can, sweet and sad and happy all at once and to this day my favorite rendition of that tune ever. The sound carried forever over the water and nobody made a peep until he faded it out real sweet and soft. Another couple of beats passed in complete silence and then the whole harbor exploded in thunderous applause for The Brooklyn Bridge, the Grucci fireworks, for the birthday of America and for the lone anonymous sax man somewhere out there in the dark who put a poignant period on a day nobody there would ever forget.

It was one of those moments you could never plan for and never top and wouldn't trade for your weight in gold. The applause went on for like ten or fifteen minutes before the harbor started slowly emptying of the thousands of boats who came to the party. It took quite a while and those Coast Guard boys really started to earn their pay in the dark waters, herding the amateur boatmen and professional sailors alike into some orderly semblance as they guided us all out of the harbor. They did a great job that day and no lives were lost and no other boats were sunk or capsized after the first headlong rush on our party boat.

That was just one Tash Brothers gig among thousands we've played over the past 30 years. Not all of them are as dramatic and eventful as that one or our annual NYC Marathon appearances but our shows are definitely not your run-of-the-mill music shows. You never know which songs we're going to pull out of our hat on any given night and something unusual seems to happen wherever we go. So why not join us on the streets of Brooklyn on Sunday morning, November 4th, around 9:30 in the A.M. You won't be lonely since there will be 35,000 screaming maniacs running by and grooving to The Tash Brothers music. Be there. It's free, it's a hell of a lot of fun and it's a very New York thing to do.

Is there a sadder sight than a middle-aged drunk in a cheap ill-fitting wig trying to light a cigarette with shaky hands with not so much success while trying mightily not to look drunk?

Here's another sad sight: A once proud snowman melting away, his carrot nose and button eyes pinned between his scarf and hat, his smile melting into a desperate silent cry for help. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Is there a sadder creature on this earth than a three-legged dog, or a more admirable example of maintaining one's dignity in the face of cruel fate? More power to you, magnificent mutt. Hobble on!

Is there a gladder sound in this world than hearing the ice cream man's bell ringing for the first time of the season? I don't care how old you are or how cynical and jaded this world has turned your heart, at that moment you are once again a little child filled with unbridled joy.

Is there a sadder sight than a long line of flag-draped coffins on an airport runway?

Are there any sadder eyes than those of a small child watching the circus leave town?

Is there any gladder sight than the eyes of that same child when the circus pulls back into town the next year and starts setting up their tents?

Is there a sadder sight than a sixty-year old bleached blonde with grotesque cosmetic surgery and wearing fishnet stockings and a mini-skirt? Or a more welcome sight than twenty-five year old blonde in the same outfit?

Is there a sadder sight than the look on the face of an Amazon Indian in a loin cloth watching a giant bulldozer destroy what he thought was the only world? Sort of like what I imagine our faces would look like if giant spaceships suddenly appeared and started harvesting the Rocky Mountains and siphoning our oceans dry.

Is there a more magnificent sight than the the Manhattan skyline as seen from the Staten Island Ferry at night, all lit up and beautiful, Lady Liberty off to one side bathed in her own soft lights looking on like a proud mama? Take that ride one day with your special somebody or your children and you'll be glad you did. None of you will ever forget that sight if you live to be a thousand. And oh, by the way, it's a free ride.

Is there a sadder sight than a Christian Crusader for Moral Turpitude and Righteous Rectitude on the part of the rest of us standing in front of a microphone trying to explain to a room full of reporters exactly why he or she was caught in some tawdry scandal involving one form or another of sex or the theft of a sizable amount of money? And infinitely sadder still when they don't come clean and apologize but instead attempt to blame their accusers or claim it was all an unfortunate misunderstanding. Ah, the emperor's new clothes…

Is there a more welcome sight than a public figure sticking to their beliefs and what they know and believe to be right and refusing to bow down to the special interest groups in order to gain approval? Let me know when you see such a thing…

Most people don't remember cigarette commercials on television. President Ronald Reagan used to do them in the 1950's for Lucky Strikes, a non filter short brand known even by heavy smokers as Lung Busters. Luckies, as they were called, had some catchy slogans. One was L.S./M.F.T., which meant Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco. On the pack itself it said "It's toasted." I like this one: "So round… so firm… so fully packed… so free and easy on the draw." Very few people I knew smoked Luckies, mostly my friends' Dads, gruff types with deep coughs and lined faces. Honest, tough, no-nonsense guys who like a good laugh and harsh smoke

Lucky Strikes' direct competitor was Camel cigarettes, also short non-filters. They were pretty popular with men, not so much with the ladies, and they had their slogans too, like "I'd Walk A Mile For A Camel." This was years before they finally introduced Camel Filters and their cartoon spokesman Joe Camel that got people so upset because the ads were targeting youngsters. Well, no shit! If I was Dr. Watson I'd be praising their astounding sleuthing techniques. I never met anybody who started smoking when they were 47.

The king of cigarette commercials was The Marlboro Man, a real rugged looking Handsome Dan riding his horse over the Rocky Mountains in the snow while puffing away on a Marlboro or herding cattle in a World War II vintage open-top jeep on the Western plains. Marlboro was and still is the most popular cigarette on the planet but I doubt if it's because of the Marlboro Man, who by the way died of lung cancer. It's just a good cigarette, basically and also quite popular in China, where the Marlboro man doesn't invoke any national or cultural mystique for the Chinese. They just like to smoke and don't give a rat's ass what anybody thinks about it.

I liked the menthol cigarette commercials from the 1960's. They'd have a bunch of very hip looking young couples gathered in some swanky apartment in a skyscraper with a great view from it's giant terrace. There would be some guy playing stand-up bass in the corner maybe, plucking out some slinky jazz. A handsome man would offer a beautiful woman a cigarette and assure her it's cool and soothing, much better than her brand. She'd take a puff and then look at the guy like they were definitely going to do the wild thing tonight, then turn to the camera and say that this brand of smokes really is soothing and satisfying.

You never ever in real life met people like you saw in cigarette commercials, not the Marlboro man or the breezy hipsters in the million dollar apartments with their own personal jazz musician in the corner. As a matter of fact, the young rich hipsters weren't even invented until recent years with the rash of young internet millionaires, but those people generally don't smoke cigarettes. As for the likes of the Marlboro man, I expect he's not all that unique. America has lots of rugged outdooorsy types who ride horses, live on ranches and smoke cigarettes, although they are not quite the Madison Avenue-designed stereotype that Mr. Marlboro was.

After all, cigarette commercials, like any other TV ads, are not realistic and everybody knows that, including young people in their formative years. Does anybody really think that the glamorous booze advertisements reflect reality? Years ago hard liquor was banned from the airwaves, but not anymore. How about all those beer ads? They were always around and always targeted new drinkers. No sense preaching to the choir. Lots of kids drink, but not because of any new beer ad prepared for the Super Bowl or the cool Tanqueray Gin guy, but because they're kids and they do stuff like that. Some become alcoholics, most don't.

And some of them smoke, even though Joe Camel now sleeps with the fishes. Of course as always there's no shortage of teenagers having sex, a nasty habit that started back in the Bronze Age and shows no signs of slowing down, what with all those raging hormones and the powerful magnetic attraction between the sexes, two pesky mistakes made by Mother nature that no amount of regulation or self-righteous condemnation will ever stamp out. It just feels too good and feels so damned right. So who are we kidding here?

Kids find their Ecstasy pills and reefer and crack cocaine and heroin and metamphetamine pretty easy without the benefit of a single print or media ad. State lotteries have all kinds of commercials telling people they're going to get rich when any gangster who used to run these games before the states muscled in on their action will tell you it's a sucker's game. So you've got the booze, the beer and the gambling out there on TV impressing impressionable minds, so why the hypocrisy of banning cigarette commercials? They were quite surreal and kind of entertaining and not nearly as misleading as some of the prescription drug ads that are so popular these days.

These drug commercials would have you believe that Peace of Mind and Nirvana are only a dose away and they can cure diseases that nobody ever even heard of before these drugs were invented, probably conditions dreamed up in the offices of pharmaceutical conglomerates. I understand that some bozo doctors, no doubt for a hefty feel, decided that kids who shake one leg in class have some sort of syndrome that ought to be drugged away. Yeah, I know that syndrome, it's called being eight years old and bored out of your daydreaming skull in some stuffy classroom while some uninspiring underpaid drone of a teacher prattles on about adverbs. If that was really a condition then half of my own third grade class escaped diagnosis of this dread disease. Somehow we made it out of childhood. Cigarettes are really just one more drug, nicotine, and millions and millions of people use it daily, just like Paxil or Viagra or Lipator.

I'm not the only one who feels this way. My friend Ace from Arizona tells me they should bring back cigarette machines so a kid can still go buy a pack of smokes for the old man when he goes to buy him the newspaper. He doesn't smoke, by the way, he just doesn't like a lot of government-mandated behavior modification, figuring he'll decide how to raise his own damned kids by his own damned self, thank you very much. With the government making the most money off tobacco sales, many billions of dollars more than any tobacco company, he figures they're trying to pull another scam on us, the old tell us one thing and do another routine.

Ace is a bit of a contrary son of a bitch, which is probably why I like him so much. Hell, America was founded by a bunch of contrary sons of bitches.They asked a lot of uncomfortable questions and also figured that governments in general were too far up people's butts for their liking. Their thinking on governments was was basically this: I'll pay your taxes, fine, but don't search or seize my stuff illegally or tell me what I'm allowed to say or how to pray or what I can read or do in the privacy of my own home or try to prevent me from consorting with anybody I choose to consort with as long as I do so peaceably and don't arrest me without due process of law. You guys raise the army and navy, pave the roads and establish courts of law and we'll live our lives as we see fit.

And it worked out okay. All kinds of people doing what they want to do built one of the great societies on earth, even if some of us smoked, drank martinis or wagered a buck or two on the ponies. Look around this nifty place called America. Pretty impressive, no? It used to be even more majestic before we started trying to command the tides. I think success went to our heads and we developed a class of morons in this country who want to tell everybody else how to live, and I'm not talking about basic laws like the prohibitions on murder and theft and the like.

I'm talking about regulating industry right out of the country and trying to regulate morality to some nebulous norm, sort of like the old guy on the block who tells you you don't measure up but never exactly defines what measuring up means. This way he's always got room to criticize you no matter how much you improve. If you ever did "measure up" he'd have no purpose in life anymore and would dry up and blow away like an autumn leaf. I learned young in life not to pay the slightest attention to people like this since there's no pleasing them, not ever. Okay by me, I figure, I'm not here to try to please them in the first place. Life gives you plenty enough to worry about just as it is without having to factor in all the scold, killjoys and busybodies in the neighborhood. Nobody lives that long.

We used to make things here, real quality goods made by skilled, dedicated and well-paid craftsmen. Lots of these people smoked and if you questioned their right to do so they'd have laughed at you and lit up another one before turning back to their productive labors, much like today's Chinese people who now supply the bulk of manufactured goods to America. Coincidence? I think not. There was a time when newscasters and talk show hosts and their guests smoked, cigars or pipes on TV and no one commented one way or the next about it. Presidents openly smoked, and his cigarette holder was one of Franklin Roosevelt's trademarks, one of our greatest presidents.

Hell, everybody smoked everywhere and nobody cried like little girls about it, they just went about their own business instead of minding yours. The morality police have paralyzed a lot of things in this country, putting warning labels on everything from buckets(!) to hammers. If you need a warning label for a bucket or a hammer odds are you're not all that well-equipped to live outside of a carefully supervised environment. Maybe that's the morality police's goal, to make America into one vast cocoon where the full-time killjoys and finger-waggers can point out our every shortcoming and smugly correct us like we were petulant children. Where did that impulse come from in a country that won a World War in less than four years, put a man on the moon and and became the most productive industrial nation on the face of the earth? What's with all this cry baby bullshit?

You want to be safe from cradle to grave? Oh, don't put that factory near my house, it's noisy and ugly! Let's pass laws to chase them away so we can be safe and warm! Well that friggin' factory isn't near your house anymore, Pollyanna, it's in friggin' Shanghai! Feeling safer now? Is it far enough away from your house now? Well, I should hope so because those Chinese guys doing our old jobs all smoke! Well, if the Chinese ever get pissed off at America you'll have something else to complain about; the shortage of manufactured goods. And you won't be so safe and warm in the meantime while we rebuild our factories and retrain our workforce to actually make things again. So keep making little rules and passing laws to regulate every aspect of commerce and personal life and see what happens to our Grand Experiment of governing ourselves. The original mandate was to rule people's lives as little as possible and let our citizens run their lives as they see fit, each to
his own light.

But now smoking cigarettes is sort of a minor crime, so I guess the laugh is on our Civil Liberties. What about all the death they cause, you ask? Well, again I say, brilliant deduction there, Sherlock! You astound me! Next time you ask a stranger if he knows smoking is dangerous to his health ask yourself how stupid you really sound. Maybe you should apply for a job at the Department Of Pointing Out The Obvious, you'd be a natural. Why is it when you approach a perfect stranger you don't first say hello or how are you doing? That's what you do when you're asking about someone's welfare or trying to make an acquaintance. Ah, but that's not your aim here, is it? You don't give a crap about this stranger or making new fiends, you just want to give him a mouthful of horse shit and feel smug. If you can make that person think less of himself, well, that's a job well done, by God! Just be thankful that smokers in general are tolerant people and don''t bust your lip
for your intolerable rudeness.

How about cars? They cause a lot of death. I don't see many car-free zones around here or labels printed in the side of every car warning of the potential for crushing yourself like a bug and maybe taking a couple of people with you while you're at it. Or wars? You'd think all these morality police personnel might have something to say about the dangers of shooting guns and missiles at each other and blowing up a lot of perfectly good houses with perfectly good people inside them, wouldn't you? But I'm thinking they're hesitant to chide people with weapons. Smokers are easier targets, I suppose, most of us armed with nothing more lethal than a satisfied smile and a Zippo lighter.

At least give us back our cigarette commercials so we can pretend that we're still citizens of equal standing with heavy drinkers and gamblers. We're a little tired of the only mention we get on TV being another new drug to help us quit smoking. Not a one of those commercials has a catchy jingle like "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should." Or maybe these people want to pass more rules about gum chewing or crossing the street while speaking on your cell phone. Believe it or not, there is legislation pending on those two dastardly crimes in this country we still call America, even if only for sentimental reasons.}