2052 Stop!!

It has become impossible to do anything without interruption.  There's always something that comes along when you're in the middle of something else, demands your attention and distracts you from the task at hand.  This must be stopped.

Think about it.  You're sitting at the computer deeply engrossed in your work (of course it would be totally unlike you to be doing personal stuff during office hours and on the company's machine, right?)  First thing you know, there's a "live update" or some such that wants you to drop what you're doing and restart the computer.

(Is there such a thing as a "dead update" or maybe a pre-recorded update?  Probably not.)

You're getting dinner ready.  A kid comes in with a scraped knee.

You're sitting down to dinner and the phone rings and it's a telemarketer who hasn't read the latest "Do Not Call" list that you thought you were on.

You get to the best part of the TV movie and at just that moment, three fire trucks, a police car and an ambulance, sirens screaming, and the One Train pass your window simultaneously.  Or the power goes out.

Three ancient drivers are driving 30 in a 65 zone, blocking all the lanes.  Don't bother honking.  They can't hear you, anyway.

Everything is interrupted.   One nut case of a boss thought he had a system figured out.  He put a traffic light over his office door.  Green meant he wasn't doing anything -- or wasn't pretending to do anything, and you could walk in.  Orange meant he was occupied but not with anything important, so knock and come in, but "it better be for a good reason."  And red meant stay out.

Did it work?  No way to tell.  Probably he had fewer interruptions in his day than you do in yours.

We were all kind of hoping he'd put an electrified fence around his office and on leaving for the day, forget to turn it off when he returned the next morning.  No such luck.

That was decades ago, and the idea seems not to have caught on.  But the office traffic light points out that this is not a new problem, just one that's escalating.  Or maybe it's not an escalation, just a "surge."

Shrapnel:

--The Oscar shows often run overtime because of long boring speeches of long-boring people, so the Academy of Movies wants to cut some “minor awards” from the live broadcast.  This has sparked a revolt by “above the line” bigwig millionaire stars and directors who want the below the line awards to be seen.  It’s a smart director who sticks up for “the help,” like editors and hair and makeup types because they can make or break a film.

--Bezos to Queens: Drop Dead.  If you don’t knuckle under to Amazon, we’ll take our mitt and bat and go home. Queens to Bezos: don’t let the door slap your butt on the way out.

Grapeshot:

-Jeffy, when it comes to girlfriends, think Spitzer, not Wiener.

I'm Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own, but you're welcome to them.®

Correspondence to wesrichards@gmail.com

©WJR 2019

2051 So What Else is New?

A woman recently was sworn into her job as a member of the House of Representatives. Then she tweeted criticism of the lobby AIPAC, The American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, an outfit with dirty hands aplenty.  

That would have been fine, but Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) chose to lace her tweet with what are being called “antisemitic tropes.”  This raised a storm of cow chips from both sides of the aisle, and she later issued a counter-tweet of profound apology, saying -- in not so many words -- that she was ignorant and meant no malice toward American Jews.

Around here we call that the Helen Thomas Syndrome. Thomas was a cranky, beloved, brilliant writer and later columnist of Lebanese extraction caught on mic saying the Jews of Israel should “... get the hell out of Palestine.”  That ended her career and the part about beloved and brilliant.  Thomas was in her 90s at the time of that cliff-jump.  Omar is in her 30s, so has many working years left. There’s a lot of potential in her.  As soon as the wound from the bullet she fired into her foot heals.

The apology was pretty thin, contrived and sounds like the work of second rate political handlers:

Um, apologize, then divert.  “Sorry. I didn’t know the gun was loaded. But the guy I shot deserved to die anyway.”

Well, at least we have a sane democratic Congresswoman from Michigan, Rashida Tlaib.  She’s also newly elected, and at 42 is at a calmer stage of life than the younger Omar.  She talks about car insurance, reining in the credit scoring agencies and famously called trump a Motherf***er. Oh, wait. She’s also troping about the boycott Israel movement.

No worries. We all know that Jewish people control the banks, all of the American politicians, the media and that Jews, being all in lockstep and united in every way possible all blindly follow their leaders. Not.

Be good to have diversity in Congress.  Be good to have more women. More Muslims like these two. Let’s not condemn a whole subculture for the supposed stumbles of a couple of pioneers some of whose best friends are Jewish.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Correspondence towesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 5779

2050 Industrial Doughnuts

If it doesn’t have a hole, is it still a doughnut?

A few local doughnut shops are closing after making cameo appearances in their neighborhoods.  Alas! Now there are only 150 places per square mile to buy these things.

Dunkin’ has been opening stores around here at a furious pace.  Like other fast food franchises, you patronize those over the independents because you know just how much sugar shock you’re going to get with every bite.

This does not bode well for anyone who thinks there’s a market for “hand crafted” doughnuts. How do you “hand craft” something like that?  How about the purveyors of “gourmet doughnuts?” Can there be such a thing? And are we in the pre-dawn hours of Hand-Crafted Gourmet doughnuts?”  

That would be a tiny pastry served on a big, stark-white plate with a small cup of “dipping sauce” made from melted M&Ms.  Candles or small oil lamps on the tables. String Muzak on the loudspeakers and formally dressed waiters forbidden from saying “no problem” or “perfect” when taking an order or “Let me get this out of your way” before clearing the table.

People open businesses for a lot of reasons.  Among them: making a living.  Providing a service that’s otherwise lacking. Bossing around minimum wage, benefit-free part-timers who should “be glad they have a job in the first place” and fighting against any proposed increase in the minimum wage.

We’re all smitten with one of life’s great lies: “If you can dream it, you can do it.  All you have to do is work hard.” Wrong and wronger.

Open a doughnut shop in a relatively convenient location. Put announcement flyers in the police precincts.  The customers and the money will be arriving practically overnight?

Also wrong.  Around here, the cops go on doughnut runs but only in unmarked cars.  They don’t want you to see what they’re doing. No more “Lights and Sirens” to Dunkin.  Some rogue officers have gone so far as to eat “RingDings” or “Sno Balls,” or “Little Debbie’s (individual) Lemon Pies.”  

These men and women should be brought before the Civilian Review Board for conduct unbecoming a police officer.  There really is no excuse.  It’s worse than getting caught sleeping on the job.  RingDings, Indeed!

It’s also worse than snacking on carrots or celery stalks.  That’s WAY beyond normal.

The Wessays (™) research and review department had surveyed the wares of the shops which closed or are about to.  They were OK. Nothing special.  Plus it was tough to park and expensive.  That may have contributed to their early expiration.  

You want to compete in this market? You have to be better than the convenience store, the grocery store, Dunkin’, and the guy with the pushcart on the corner.

Better, faster and cheaper.  And the coffee has to be at least two notches above cleaning fluid.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Comments towesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019

2049 Israel Young (1928-2019)

Izzy Young died the other day. He was 90. If you don’t know the name, you’re probably too young or too distracted or uncaring about what’s come to be known as the New York Folk Scare.

It happened in the 1950s and the 1960s.  Young owned and more or less operated a store at 110 Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village. The Folklore Center, he called it.  Records, tapes, a few musical instruments. Magazines. Books.  And Izzy who was the main attraction and didn’t cost you for a consultation. About … um… whatever.

He was gaunt.  He wore thick lensed and thick rimmed glasses that made his eyes look like a frog’s.  He had a lot to say about a lot of things.

Izzy and his shop were the center of that Folk Scare.  It was more than a hangout than a business.  And how he stayed in business remains one of the great mysteries of the era.

Well… he did produce concerts. Dylan, other people like that. He wrote. Mostly for free. “Sing Out!” Magazine didn’t pay much if anything.  He had a radio program on WBAI, a non-commercial station that has been described as chaotic and beleaguered for all 60-ish years of its existence.  But he was influential, just by showing up and turning the key in the door in the mists of the pre-noon hours. Nothing opens early in The Village.

Once open for the day, the store was always crowded.  That’s because it was so small that seven people made it look like New Year’s Eve in Times Square.  Minus the tourists.  And the confetti. And Ryan Seacrest. Also unlike Times Square, there was a working bathroom.

A visitor, a regular, joined the Scare there.  He walked in one day with a waitress from Figaro’s down the street on Bleecker who said she could sing. She was semi-shy. The visitor told her to sing for Izzy.  She sang for Izzy.  She was called Mary Travers.  You remember her, right?

Instant stardom followed.  Some context: Instant stardom in those days meant getting booked for a paying gig on a weeknight at Cafe Wha’ or The Gaslight, where applause wasn’t permitted -- it disturbed the neighbors -- but you could snap your fingers to show appreciation.

Some of the “paying” meant the coffee chef let you borrow his hat to pass around. Coffee chef?  Yeah. Al, the guy who ran the espresso machine on the days it would still run.

Once Izzy brought his parents to work. Immigrants from the Pogrom fields of Poland.  They looked confused.

When the city prohibited the Sunday singing gatherings in Washington Square Park, Izzy formed a committee to oppose the new rule.  He brought in clergymen. The visitor brought in newly minted lawyer Ed Koch who won the case and thus put himself on the legal map.  He’d been trying to put himself on the folk singing map.  Two problems:  carrying a tune was not part of his skill set.  Neither was guitar playing.

Decades later, Koch said he still had that piece-of-junk guitar.  That may have been a fib.

Izzy got tangled up in the fight against racism and lost.  So he moved to Sweden which at the time -- 1973 -- had a higher tolerance for people of color than even the socialist capital of America, New York.

He opened a store there. He took phone calls. But in that era, overseas phone calls were pretty expensive.  So he rarely made them and people who knew him and called would get their New York Tel bills and thereafter wrote letters.

We’ve missed you all these years, Izzy. Hope the end came easy.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Comments: wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019

2048 The Halls of Fame Hall of Fame

There are so many halls of fame, we need a hall of fame for them, too.  So, we’re on a search, much like Amazon’s hunt for HQ2 but on a smaller scale.  Oh, and we want to draw tourists to otherwise insignificant minor cities.  One city, really.

Like who would visit Cooperstown if the Baseball Hall of Fame weren’t there? Or Canton OH if the football hall of fame weren’t there? How about Rochester?  Now that both Kodak and Xerox are skeletonized, count on the National Toy Hall of Fame to bring in those tourist dollars.

 Cleveland has two halls of fame, Rock n Roll and Polka. So does Nashville.  The Country Music and Grammy Award halls. It doesn’t seem fair.

Then there are the ones you never seem to hear about.

--The Before Their Time Big Box and Department Store Hall of Fame. Members include B. Altman’s Orbach’s Gimbles, Bonwitt Teller, Abraham and Straus, John Wannamaker, Mays, Stern’s and Bamberger’s.  

Also: Klein’s, Korvette’s, Pergament, Times Square Stores, Toys R Us, and probably the biggest of them all, Marshal Field. The Lord and Taylor pavilion is under construction and they’re building a new wing for Sears and Kmart.

But you don’t have to go out of business to be in the smaller halls. Fast food and chain restaurants have their hall, too. Included: McDonald’s, Burger King, Applebee’s, TGI Friday, Chili’s, Cracker Barrel, Wendy’s, Mr. Donut, Dunkin’, KFC, Denny’s, Jahn’s, Schrafft’s, Child’s, Mr. Softee, Carvel, Howard Johnson’s, Starbucks. And there’s a special exhibit of New York City coffee carts and a full-scale reconstruction of a soda fountain transported piece by piece from Rexall's in Sutton NH.

Men’s clothing fans are building their own hall. They’re going to call it Robert Hall Hall. But there’ll be room aplenty for Howard, Crawford, Sym’s, and the later and still-open entries, Men’s Wearhouse, Jos. A. Banks, Kohl’s, and Johnny Cupcake’s.

And let’s not forget the Great Evangelists’ Hall in Big Sandy TX. There, you can learn all about Herbert W. and Garner Ted Armstrong, Billy Graham, Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Mary Baker Eddy and Madalyn Murray O’Hare.

The point here is to bring exhibits from these halls to a central location.  We’re thinking Covington KY.  Good airport. And why else would anyone visit Covington?

Other plans include an annual red carpet award.  There are so many award ceremonies these days there should be an award ceremony for the best award ceremony.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them.  

Correspondence: wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019

2047 The Name Game for Drugs

2047 The Name Game for Drugs

Where do they get those drug names?  You know the ones. They sound familiar but with additions, subtractions and alternative letters. They sound like something Irwin Corey or Al Kelly would use in a standup routine.

The drug industry spends millions promoting stuff with funny names. Make that billions.  They’re on television. They’re in Magazines.  They’re on the internet.

Here are some favorites:

Abilify.  That’s for treating psychological problems. It’s “Ability,” but misspelled.

Humira. Treats arthritis. Its root is “human.”

Lyrica. For muscle pain. Based on “Lyric.”

Latuda. For bipolar. Based on Latitude.

Chantix. Stop smoking. Based on “chant” and “tics.”

Crestor. Treats high cholesterol. Sounds like a crescent shaped space monster.  “Run for your lives. It’s…”

Eliquis. An anti-coagulant. Eloquent revisited and revised.

Xelganz. Arthritis. Pronounced ZEL’ janz. Jello? Jealous?

Celebrex. Pain relief. Celebrate. Competitors are Acatvix and Mylan.

Cosentyx. Help with addiction. Consent. Tics.

Warfarin. Blood thinner. War or warfare.

Raptiva. Psoriasis.  Raptor. 

Tiva. An anesthetic. Let’s play Tivial Pursuit.

Neurontin. Seizures. Neuro-something.

...to name a few.

The ads and the companies are heavily criticized. The response: more ads.

Here’s what the manufacturers want you to do:  Ask your doctor of Knockitoff is right for you.  The doc will answer yes, no or maybe depending on your needs.  If it’s yes or maybe, chances are you’ll try it.  Also, chances are it’s not on your health insurance’s list of discount drugs.

When you get the bill you’ll probably need a strong dose of Revivemenow.

The ads are required to list some side effects.  For this, the companies don’t play word games. Some of the most common words are “death,” “fatal,” “sleep walking,” “weight loss,” “weight gain,” “headache,” “blurred vision,” “indigestion,” “skin irritation,” “internal bleeding,” “brain infection,” “swelling,” “dizzy,” “drowsy,” “memory loss,” “reduced immuno-efficiency,” “decreased mental acuity” and “cancer.”

This is good.  But while they’re telling you that a side effect may cause death, what they show you on screen is happy people doing happy people things.

Then they want you to have more information.  So they tell you to “see our ad in ‘Tractor Pull Digest’” or some other magazine you’ve never heard of and can’t find either at the newsstand or on line. Or whose circulation is so low you have to write to the publisher and pay for back issues… the most recent of which was March-April, 2002.

If you should happen to find that tractor pull magazine at the supermarket checkout, and buy it -- you’ll get a page of gobbledygook in a type font so small you need an electron microscope to read it.

Most of us don’t have electron microscopes.  But even if you have one lying around from your days of eating in restaurants that require help to see the tiny portion of food, you won’t want to read it and if you do, you won’t understand it.

Probably you’re better off ignorant.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019

2046 Wall Street

The more radical types who keep on about Wall Street Democrats are wrong.  They don’t hold the party hostage. At least not directly. They’ve um… outsourced the job.

The problem isn’t Wall Street or the banks.  It’s the lobbyists and so-called think tanks on their payrolls. The Street can’t find its way out of a steam bath without a traffic cop and they don’t like regulations -- not even by a traffic cop.

The current object of the info-war is convincing the public that the party’s progressive wing is too radical left. And so far, they’re doing a fairly effective job.  But there’s recently appeared a new catch: Hillary Clinton, probably the second most hated politician in America today, and with some justification.  She’s closing the door to yet another presidential run.

She’s Wall Street’s sweetheart.  She is to the investment banks what trump is to the white supremacists: a prom date.  And that’s not a partisan issue.  No one likes Mrs. Clinton except the paid staff and a few of the volunteers -- many of whom back her for the same reason people gawk at a highway crash or the pumping out of a cesspool.

It’s actually pretty unlikely that she’ll run. Train-left-station syndrome sets in fast when you’re an unpersonable, robotic candidate.

The present Democratic field is about the size of a Publisher’s Clearing House mailing list and about as diverse.  But only one of them will get to run.

And then there’s the Starbucks guy threatening to become Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and Pat Buchannan rolled into one “Independent” who wants to make “a statement,” which is that it takes only one moron to screw up a whole electoral process.

Sarah Huckabee evidently thinks she has a direct line to God. How else would she “know” that trump was His personal preference in the election?  Nice to have someone so well grounded as the conduit of information from both heaven and the White House.

She’s further evidence that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  She’s as loopy as her father.  And I don’t mean her heavenly father.

It’s a given that the finance industry holds the Republicans hostage. They’re in the bag. They’re never going to see beyond their noses and the next page of the calendar.  But this country needs to go back to the shop for an oil change.  Make it synthetic oil. It lasts longer and it’s cheaper in the long run.

In sum, the left wants all your money and to give you an allowance. The right just wants all your money.

“President” trump promised to drain the swamp. So far, he’s done that by filling it with quicksand. Those who don’t realize it and step in discover that quicksand stinks just like the swamp did.  Only you can’t walk out of it and towel yourself off.

I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®

Comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2019