Addendum

On the evening of Sunday January 25th, local Palm Beach teens, outraged upon finding out that their trust funds had disappeared into thin air, T.P'ed Madoff's Florida home. The teen vandals then called and informed the Palm Beach Post of what they had done, explaining that it was an act of retaliation. Then they put a woman on the phone -- I'm presuming it was their mother, or maybe an older sister who had also lost her trust fund but was just too mature to participate in the vandalism -- who corroborated the story but would not provide any names. The housekeeper of Madoff's estate -- a two-story, five-bedroom, seven-bath home featuring a boat dock, a spa and an in-ground pool -- refused to press charges on the vandals. I am unable to get the picture uploaded, but you can see it here:

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2009/01/26/0126tpmadoff.html?imw=Y

This reminds me of the nightmarish day that I too found out that I did not have a trust fund. I thought about reacting in the same way, but since no one had defrauded me of my money (it just simply didn't exist), I realized that toilet-papering my parents' houses would not be an effective retaliation as I would likely be caught in the act due to my amateurish vandalism skills, and then I'd be forced to clean it up.

Oh, and Kyra Sedgwick is in "The Closer," a cable television show that I believe has won awards. And she has been married to Kevin Bacon for something like 20 years. Since the Bacon-Sedgwick household appears to really have taken a beating by Madoff, I am going to go out on a limb and say that IF Madoff's housekeeper had pressed charges, and IF the Palm Beach PD needed to begin an investigation, the first place would be to start would be Kevin and Kyra's homestead.

My Friend's Dad

I received a call from a friend on Sunday morning. He was calling to let me know his dad had passed. It wasn't a shock to me, nor was it a shock to the family, as Stan had been fighting a losing battle for quite some time. The news of the sad event came with a couple of stories, and it stirred a few memories. The son and I have known each other over forty years, since we were 11 years old, so we have some stories to tell.

Stan was a physically small guy, apparently on the quiet side, with not so good eyesight and an unassuming demeanor. That was the apparent Stan. I learned, over the years, that Stan played a little golf, knew his way around a poker table, enjoyed a cocktail, and had a pretty sharp sense of humor. When you're a kid, other kids' dads are just guys, and you don't get to know much about them, unless the relationships last, and 99% don't.

We lived in on 82nd Place in Chicago, and when it was time for high school, my friend and I both went to a Catholic high school in the suburbs. That was an opportunity to get to know one side of Stan, as he would drop us off at school on his way to work. Stan worked in the administrative offices at Polk Brothers in Melrose Park. For the younger readers, Polk Brothers was a forerunner to Best Buy, though I think they sold a lot furniture, too. TV sets and couches, that was Polk Bros.

The trips to school were not unusual, unless you have a lot of intervening years to colorize them, and I do. Stan's car, for about a hundred years, was a faded beige four door Buick LeSabre, a large, boxy, frumpy sedan that was always parked in front of his house like big steel sand dune. It had a complementary, equally bland interior of beige cloth with the shiny pattern that I think is referred to as brocade by people who know that kind of stuff. Being in the Buick was kind of like invading a black and white TV show: everything around was devoid of color. On school days, Stan would come out and start the car about ten minutes before lift off and fire up a highly unsavory cigar, turn on the AM-only radio that was permanently tuned to station WAIT, a bland-as-the-Buick broadcasting outlet that played elevator music, and Stan would sit and wait for the car to warm up. Even when we were not heading for school, Stan would sit and warm up the car and light his stogie and listen to his elevator music before heading off to work. I didn't realize how rigid was the process until my friend pointed out to me the dark brown spot on the beige headliner above the driver's seat. A lot of cigar smoke from a lot of rides.

The warming up the car part was a ritual in name only, because, as I recall, the Buick offered little heat in the winter. The car had its own karma, but no air conditioning, so we got even on the heat part when winter ended.

At some point in our high school years, Stan replaced the Buick, upgrading to Oldsmobile Delta 88, gold on the outside with a black vinyl top and a black interior. The Delta 88 was one step from the top of the Oldsmobile line, a very nice car in its day. This one had air conditioning, it had an FM radio and the cigars were discontinued, at the behest, I assume, of Stan's wife. With no cigars, the warm up time was substantially reduced. Stan drove the 88 the same way as the Buick, kind of like a bus driver, very methodical, though he would occasionally punch the accelerator and zoom and cackle quietly in enjoyment.

The FM radio, by the way, was now tuned to WAIT-FM, same crappy music but now in static-free monoraul FM. We were so sad when we learned that WAIT came in FM...

My friend and I eventually got cars and didn't ride with Stan anymore, and life took its course, and eventually Stan and his wife of many years sold the old house on 82nd Place and bought a condo in the 'burbs and retired. When his son told me on Sunday of Stan's passing, he told me also about something Stan did in his last few days.

Stan told his son to ask Stan's best friend, with whom he'd been friends with 68 years, to come and see him. in the hospital. When the friend arrived, he and Stan spent a little time together, Stan and his friend of 68 years. Stan bade him good bye and gave him a gift.

Stan gave to his friend, in the words of his son, "the Holy Grail of 85 year old men".

Stan gave his friend his 1996 Oldsmobile 98, top of the line.

The friendships that last, they can be pretty amazing. Top of the line.

Brain Itch Songs

I just found a blurb about Brain Itch Songs and the top 10 of all time. Brain Itch songs are those that you hear and find them stuck in your head, and there they play, over and over , until you find yourself trying to force the song out. That usually embeds them deeper. They go away, and then can pop up again at random.

The Top 10 in the article is led by Beyonce's If You Like It Put a Ring On It. My radio time is pretty limited and in a stuck pattern, so I heard this for the first time just last week, and I admit that I immediately wanted to hear it again. It's like candy, or circle cakes, just gimme one more.


The other songs on the Brain Itch list were YMCA, Who Let the Dogs Out, I'm Too Sexy, Mambo #5, Tub Thumping, Mmm Bop, Don't Worry Be Happy, We Will Rock You, and 867-5309 Jenny.

Each of those songs has some measure of Brain Itch for me, but I have some others that make my list. The BIS (Brain Itch Syndrome) is, I find, OK when it's a song that you like and it's with you, not so good when someone with whom you spend a lot of time is experiencing BIS and sharing, and downright maddening when you get a BIS song in your head that you don't like. Dogs Out, Too Sexy and Jenny are all in that last category for me. I absolutely couldn't stand 'em then and I still can't.

The list represents a pretty narrow music diet, too. I would guess that most everyone has some songs on their personal list that are going to be way outside the mainstream. The BIS'ers come and go, too, and sometimes I don't even know their proper name. An old Paul Simon song from the Rhythm of the Saints album comes to mind. It starts with a tribal drum corps, I don't know the song's name, and when the song came out I found myself pounding out the drum solo (and aggravating everyone) at will.

Bette Midler's Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy afflicted me for a while. Crosby Stills etc.'s Judy Blue Eyes was a long time affliction. The opening riff from Purple Haze was a BIS for over a decade. Who among us has not been BIS'd by New York, New York? Or how about Friends in Low Places and, for me (and my son) the recently unearthed Start Wearing Purple?

Other music genres and obscure songs make my list, too. Bolero (the song from "10") was a BIS'er for years. There's some old country songs I found that stayed for awhile, like the Statler Brothers Do You Remember These and Susan When She Tried.

The family can all disappear into Black Velvet Band, the traditional Irish song, with a little suggestion. There's that song from Music Man in there ("...starts with a P and that rhymes with pool!"), a clump of ABBA songs (these are particulary addictive, be careful), a couple of Dean Martin's, and I'm not even going to begin telling you about the polka music that rattles in my brain.

Only two songs come to mind as BIS'ers that aggravate me: Whole Lotta Shakin' and Rock Around the Clock. Aaaarghhh....

So share some of your musical afflictions, it's cathartic, and yes, I liked Mmm Bop. There, I'm outed.

PS, Different Topic: Roddy boy was on Letterman last night. This is the first of his TV show appearances that I have witnessed, and it ain't pretty. Rod strolled out on stage confidently, giving a wave of acknowledgement to Paul Schaefer as the band played My Way. Rod was just plain weird, throwing a few factoids about the Ed Sullivan theatre (where Letterman's show is staged) at the host, grinning when Dave lampooned him and then using the familiar technique of avoiding the question when Letterman became serious. Rod reminded Dave -twice- that he has two daughters who need to know that their father didn't do anything wrong. As I watched, I felt clearly that Rod lives in multiple realities. I'm serious. This guy is behaving as if he has already had the big nervous breakdown and flitting from world to world, like changing channels. Rod behaves like a self-crowned celebrity, a fawning sychophant, a wronged champion of the people, a crook caught in the act and like he's running a stay-out-of-jail campaign, sometimes all within a couple of minutes.

Maybe he's only a little nuts. All those roles, except one, look like the real thing.

Amen, and Stay Tuned

Rod's been put out, and he was put out about it. Last Thursday, the Illini tribal council voted him off the island, 59-0.

I watched the spectacle of Rod addressing the assembly live on an internet feed. Then I read the transcript of the address. While the transcript showed the speech to be weak, unfocused and inarticulate, the written word was only a fraction as bad as the live version. This lad should have had someone speak for him, or at least worked from an outline or notes.

Watching Rod bumble and stumble for the better part of an hour was reminiscent of watching a kid who has only skimmed Cliff's Notes give a book report. I had to remind myself that the guy is a crook in order to keep from feeling sorry for his ineptitude as he pled his case.

Citizen Rod's address to the lawmakers was nothing short of amazing. He first attempted to reach out and lock in on some imagined common bond between his miscreant actions and the ways of his jury, creating a situation akin to an accused bank robber trying to connect with the judge by suggesting they both had jobs to do.

Fish ain't bitin', pal.

Rod circled back into pointless redundancy several times, as if reintroducing his argument, then launched into story telling mode, apparently with the intention of drawing the whole scenario into clarity. Unfortunately, there was no punchline, and Ol' Roddy drifted back to an approach that was a verbal rendering of wink 'n nod, slap my hands but then hug me 'cause I had good intentions.

A recurring phrase was " twice elected by the people". I am proud to point out that the thievin' SOB did not ever receive a vote from anyone in my household.

In the end, Rod did what Rod does: he ripped us off just a little more. He ran out of blather and then he grabbed the state airplane to go back to Chicago before he was fired and would have to travel on his own dime and not on a private airplane. Living the high life to the very last, Rod was, as We the People picked up the tab, as always.

The magnitude of Rod's misdeeds and runaway ego is still to revealed. The price will be staggering. Just taking the creep's name off the Illinois Tollway signs--and why is his name up there in the first place?-- is going to run nearly $500,000, and that is the tip of the tip of the iceberg. The state of the state is pretty dismal, fiscally speaking, with debts somewhere in the $5 million to $6 million range. Guess who's going to be ponying up for that tab?

The price Rod will pay is likewise yet to be revealed. There is still a list of federal charges that must be answered. That trial will provide more courthouse excitement than we've had since OJ. Here is where the irony will be incredibly sweet, should events go as expected.

You see, former Illinois Chief Crook George Ryan was probably going to get sprung from the big house by his pals, Dick Durbin and Jim Thompson, until Roddy boy stepped in the big pile of crapola. When Pat Fitz pulled the plug on Roddy's yard sale of the Senate seat, the nation focused a glaring spotlight on Illinois, home of it's newly minted and hope inspiring president, and Illinois, in turn, focused on Springfield and the whole rat pack. You can't cut loose the old crook when the new crook has doubled down on the size of the crimes. The incumbent governor's flagrant abuse of the public trust derailed the Poor Old George Movement, as Illinois rallied to win the Most Corrupt Government Outside the Third World championship. Rod's rap killed Ryan's chance to get out.

So, if the trial goes quickly and as expected, Rod's future prison roommate could be his predecessor in office, and won't that be a most amazing twist on the tale of the grifters of Illinois.

Oh, yes, Governor Pat Quinn, please don't make a bigger mess of things before Governor Madigan arrives.

PS: Rod takes the BS Tour to the Letterman show tonite. Ugh!

Groundhog Day

It says on http://www.groundhog.org/ that today will be the 123rd trek to Gobbler's Knob for Phil's Official Prognostication. The website is all encompassing: there's a map of Punxsutawney (it is about a hundred miles northeast of Pittsburgh), the schedule of events (Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Groundhogs is at 10:00 a.m) and, of course, that the gates open at 3:00 a.m. This may be directed toward the tailgate crowd. I am unsure as I have never been to Groundhog World, or whatever is inside the gates that open at 3:00. a.m.



Groundhog Day evolved from Candlemas Day. In the interest of harmony on the planet, it is in my best interest to say little about Candlemas Day. Inquiring minds want to know? Go to http://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterepiphany3.html and read as much as you can handle.

As small town festivals go, Groundhog Day has a lot of legs. There will be TV coverage across the universe, the talking heads will giggle as they try to remember if the groundhog seeing his shadow means six more weeks of winter, six less weeks of winter, six weeks until the bacchanal of St. Patrick's Day, or six weeks to the apocalypse.

John Madden will appear and sample deep fried gopher, roasted gopher, broasted gopher, toasted gopher and sasquatch gopher jerky. In keeping with the economic pall that is upon us, the National Zoo will rename their critter Gopher Broke. TNT will show 24 consecutive hours of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

Now, what you've all been waiting for, Quiz Time!
The groundhog is also known as
a. the woodchuck
b. the land beaver
c. the whistlepig
d. all of the above.

The correct answer appears at the end of today's post.

"D", as in "D end".