4549 A Letter from Hell

Larry Page and Sergey Brin were smarter than they knew. They’ve given you a window to the Great Beyond.  But what kind of supergeeks wear TIES?

Gmail has recently introduced a new feature, “Schedule Send.” You can write an email to someone and then decide when in the future to send it. This opens a whole new view of the Next Life.

Here’s how:  You are 80 years old. Send a message to someone on your contact list.  But first, press “schedule send,” and date it 20 years in the future when more than likely you’ll have passed to the Great Beyond.  Scare hell out of them.

Dear Someone,

I want you to know that they have e-mail in Hell.  Here’s proof.  You know I’ve been dead for 10 years and yet, I’m writing to you now.  I’d like to let you know that it’s not as bad as its advanced billing.  Yes, it’s warm down here. But we have air conditioning two hours a day and the food is no worse than McDonald’s.  Plus eating all that greasy stuff doesn’t matter because you can’t get diabetes or a stroke if you’re already dead.

Dear Other Someone,

Greetings from Gmail in Heaven.  I want to tell you a few things about yourself now that I’m dead and you can’t reach me. First of all, my harp lessons are going swimmingly.  Let me tell you that King David is just a regular guy.  Really good teacher and good company. But he keeps wanting me to learn “Stardust” and “Maria” from West Side Story and I don’t like either of the tunes.

But there are a few things I want to get off my chest.  First and most important, I have always squelched my urge to tell you what a pompous moron I think you are.

Second, I think your politics are stupid and counterproductive. And I think you were an over permissive parent who let his children run wild and I’m glad they landed in prison where they belonged.

And here’s an added bonus: You can write to historical figures who have only had their Google Mail accounts since the new feature started.  So if you have something to say to Joseph McCarthy or Plato or anyone else you know for sure had lived, you’re on.

Got something to say to Hitler or Romulus or Pius XII?  How about James Joyce or Mozart? Charles Manson? Ricky Nelson? St. Paul? The guy who chased your dog off his lawn?  Go for it.

And thanks, Larry and Sergey. I couldn’t have done all this without you. Oh, and what ever happened to “do no harm?”

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020 

4548 The Suspect

Stay tuned for the Evening News with Correspondent Harris “Googoo” Joaquanstaller, age two.

Okay, fellow newsies, let’s face the fact: they’re out there in the Staten Island landfill, digging graves for dead newspapers. Oh, sure, the mighty will survive: The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe. Maybe (and this is iffy,) the Chicago Tribune.  But in general, it’s a good day for freelance gravediggers in landfills.

The current power generation of Americans and its immediate predecessor, generation-something, has no use for print.  And the printers of newspapers, once astonished, are trying now to make peace with their own deaths.

This presents a number of problems, first among which is “Who among us will keep the politicians, the business people, the other mobsters at bay?”

Answers: The internet. Radio, television. Aw c’mon. Are you kidding?  Some kid in his bar mitzvah suit sitting at an anchor desk at Channel 952 in Snafu, Arkansas reading a story about a ham pot pie fest?

How about “none of the above?”

Years ago, my own pet medium, radio, mostly gave up trying to do news.  Instead, it uses automated hosts who pre-record dopy factoids about celebrities and spout meaningless promotional liners.  Sometimes there’s a “newscast,” but it’s usually yesterday’s news tomorrow. The remaining radio networks are shadows of their pasts, except NPR which is audio Sominex. 

There are, though, steps we can take during the death spiral here at the Media Hospice.  It won’t cure what ails us. But it may make passing into the next life more palatable.  And no pharmaceuticals or adult beverages need be involved, though they certainly would be welcome.

The first thing we have to do is define “suspect.”  A suspect is someone who looks like he may have committed a crime.

Now we’re going to all stylebookish. 

A stop sign goes missing, It was there yesterday. It’s not there now.  How do you know that? Because a cop stops you for passing a stop sign without noticing it’s gone.

Now comes the hunt for suspects.  It’s probably going to be an adolescent or pre-adolescent boy or group of boys.  Males of that age are more likely to commit public crimes than females, although there’s at least some shoplifting among girls and “borrowing” from mom and dad’s gin bottle.

At some point, the sign thief or thieves will start bragging about their catch of the day.  And eventually, the cops will get wind of it.  The Weekly paper will have reported the theft. Or some officer’s son will mention at dinner that it happened.

And a suspect will be identified.

They’ll raid little Jimmy’s garage.  They’ll find the sign. It will have his fingerprints.  He’ll confess.  But in the news, he’ll still be identified as a “suspect.”  OK. Innocent until proven guilty.  But after the case is closed, they’ll still call little Jimmy a “suspect.”  He isn’t. He is a convicted thief.

A bank gets robbed. Police are looking for a suspect.  Well, yeah, they are. But they’re really looking for a robber. And when he’s caught, convicted and jailed, they’ll still call him a suspect. Not true. He’s a convicted bank robber.

I  um… will suspect nothing will change.  But one can hope.

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

Comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4547 The Grannie Government

It doesn’t matter whether she’s white, black, Latina Native American (A real one,) big, small, kind or the Great Dictator. You fail to listen to this woman at your peril. We will take no baloney before its time. Or during. Or after. 

Would you cross your grandmother?  Of course not! You wouldn’t dare.  Are you white? Are you black? Are you Hispanic? Asian? Native American? Native Alaskan, Hawaiian or Martian? It doesn’t matter. Grandma rules.  You know that.

And this is why this space has long advocated that the world be governed by a committee of grandmothers over 70 with all their faculties facule-ting.  Why? Because they’re all alike. And they don’t take crap from anyone. Certainly not from you or me.

Who overfeeds you?  Who comforts you in your time of woe? Who believes in you? Who calls your BS when you’re posturing?  It’s grandma, that’s who.

Who has common sense even if without an education? Who sees life for what it is and for what it can be? It doesn’t matter where they’re from.  The Old Country. The Confederacy. The east or west coast. From England or Ireland or Zimbabwe, or Bombay or Buenos Aires. From Poland or Denmark or the moon.  At a certain age, they coalesce into the Great Universal Grandmother.

The World Council of Grandmothers will not allow you to make a fool of yourself.  It will not allow you to start a Ponzi scheme or a race riot. It will not allow your water to be poisoned or your air unfit to breathe or your oil pipeline to undermine a burial ground.  It will not allow scoundrels to steal your hard-earned money. It will not allow you to do stupid stunts that come back to hit you in the ass.

Why women and not men?  C’mon guys, you know why. They’ve seen all the Stupid Male Tricks and been hurt by them. And they’ve all worked around the arrogant and self-important men in their lives … and yours.

Grannies come in many forms.  Some are haughty, some are kindly. Some are fire-breathing liberals, some are smug conservatives.  But all that is window dressing.  They are grannies first.  They love you and want what’s best for you. But even more important, they love you and they know what’s best for you.

Oh, yeah. Old people are … well … old fashioned. But guess what? The value of values doesn’t change just because you have access to Cortana or Alexa or “Okay Google” and they don’t or don’t know about it or care about it.

The World Council of Grandmas is the answer to what’s wrong. Fail to listen at your peril.  And remember this: You haven’t evolved as a critter for the past 10-thousand years.  You only think you have.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

This column is dedicated to the memories of Julia Satlien (1865-1964) and Anna Rotholz 18??-1937.) And no, I don’t use real names when the Internet asks for “mother’s maiden name.”)

© WJR 2020

4546 Pillow Talk at the White House

The third most visible face on TV, after Progressive Insurance’s Flo and Mike Bloomberg. 

Slovenia:  You don’t have to do this, my moz.  I read een constitution that there doesn’t have to be a state of the unions except for this, this “periodically,” whatever that means.

President Teufel: Oh, but Schatze, I want to.  I am obligated to tell the American people what a great job I’ve done for them and how it’s going to get even better in the next four years.  

Plus those communists and socialists and atheists are trying to turn America into a bunch of enslaved robots.

Slovenia: Darling, they already are.

There’s a knock at the bedroom door.  It’s the White House Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, come to clean the carpet.

From China with love. And maybe Coronavirus. 

Slovenia:  Can’t you get that thing to clean during regular business hours?

Teufel: It’s 3:30 in the morning when I usually get up to start tweeting. It knows my habits.  You spend so much time in the Teufel Tower on Fifth Avenue that you don’t know what goes on here.

Slovenia:  I have to be there for little what’s-his-name to make sure he’s ready for school.  Plus there are no decent designer dress shops on Pennsylvania Avenue.  What IS his name? Some English royalty, Earl, or Prince. Or something. What were you thinking when you named him for a “rank? And there’s this jeweler with a shop in the tower and he’s really nice to me. Maybe he wants something. I can’t think what. 

The phone rings.

Slovenia:  Let it go to voicemail.

Voicemail: You have reached the White House residence. Your call is somewhat important to us. Please leave a message and someone will get back to you unless you’re one of the losers who keep bothering me with trivia like climate change, Ukraine, Putin, McConnell or any of my other great and good friends.  Beeeeep.

Teufel: At least I am the first president to win both the Republican and Democrat caucuses in Iowa.

Slovenia: Both?

Teufel: Yeah, well, no one opposed me in the Republican.  And the Democrats were such a mess, with that software screwup that no one there will vote for any of them.

Slovenia: You already have the disaffected white male vote and that’s all you need. Just fire them up like you always do, Moz. Now, about that state of the union speech…

Teufel: I really don’t have to give it. Everyone knows how I’ve made America Great Again.

There’s another knock on the door.  This time it’s night-shift third assistant acting chief of staff Schicklegruber.

Schick: Sir, that phone call before was from Ambassador Bolton. He wants to talk to you about his press conference tonight at 7, you know, a couple of hours before your speech?

Teufel: Call him back, Adolf, and tell him I don’t talk to people who are trying to undermine me. And by the way, my taster, Margaret, is off today so would you mind sampling my McDonald’s Big Breakfast before I eat it?

Schick: Clicks heels, salutes, makes a military parade turn and leaves.

Slovenia: Was that a yes or a no?

Teufel: Maybe I’ll skip breakfast this morning.  Now, where’s my iPhone. It’s time for some tweets.

WR: I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ® I’ll be writing about what else I learned from here, under the president’s bed later in the week.  It wasn’t pretty. And she faked it.

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4545 No Witnesses

Was anyone actually wearing one of these during the trump trial?

It’s an old trick, making sure there are no witnesses at trial time. What self-respecting underworld overlord would not resort to having a critical witness disappear before the trial even began.

Boss trump is even slicker. He doesn’t have to resort to things like kidnapping and murder.  He has the prosecution on his side.  Oh, and that’s another gangland trick.  Make sure the prosecution is inept. Which in this case, we don’t really know because no one understood a word that came out of its mouths.

Bad prosecutor and no witnesses? Perfect combination for either a hung jury or a “not guilty” verdict.  Oh, and a crooked judge doesn’t hurt, either.

Is John Roberts a crooked Chief Justice?  No. But he’s a wimp.  And a political party callboy. Can you imagine Earl Warren sitting there on the Senate bench while dim bulbs like McConnell fixed the case?  No. He’d roar from the podium something like “No witnesses?  Are you Crazy!?”  Had he reached the top job, what would Scalia have said? 

 

This is the kind of trial they stage in dictatorships all the time. But usually, they don’t broadcast them live.  Brian Williams didn’t get to narrate the secret proceedings in the trial of Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu.  That was as fixed as trumps… except it was fixed to guarantee a verdict of guilty followed by a not-too-secret death by a not-undercover firing squad.

But the McConnell Court opens all kinds of new avenues in law. Let’s say a chain of discount shoe stores owned by a private equity fund is charged with fraud.  Witnesses?  Of course not. In McConnellaw, you won’t even get a body into the courtroom -- dead or alive. 

Traffic Court Charge: Driving the wrong way down a one-way street. The cops see the car make a turn they deduce had to have been made by such a car.  But who witnessed it?  Well, maybe the homeless guy sleeping in the doorway of a closed Starbucks.  But can they call him to the stand? Not if they can’t find him.  But they’ll convict the driver anyway.

The de-legitimizing foolishness of the trump trial sets a precedent. You know how judges and lawyers love precedents, right?  

And one final thought:  The senate republicans reverted to form despite some public waffling: lockstep behind the leadership. Follow orders.  It always goes that way in the pinch. Or the grope.

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4544 Again, Bolton

Bolton, right, appears to be thinking “What the Hell have I gotten myself in to?”

Surprise, surprise!  All of a sudden, ousted National Security Adviser John Bolton has drafted a book that supposedly reveals state secrets and threatens the security of the US.  

But trump’s handlers didn’t name them.  If they did, they’d be guilty of the same charge. Only worse. Bolton’s book hasn’t been published.  At last a show of caution from the white house.  But the strategy is older than time. Block the book, save trump’s skin.

It’s possible the charge and its sub-headline are true.  But it’s not likely.  Bolton respects precedent and the institutions of government. Saying anything nice about the nation’s most infamous war-hawk isn’t easy.

This issue is going to duck-waddle through the courts for a while. Look for a Mueller Report-like redactions.  But ultimately, the book will be published.

Our leading bad guy has become an impeachment crowd rock star. And he should be.  Unlike the fluttering of the president, Bolton is a Very Stable Evil thinker.  

The trump lawyer Dershowitz continues on the long downward spiral that started when he began representing the worst of our high level lowlifes… people like OJ, Von Bulow, Mike Tyson and Jeffrey Epstein. Dersh says with a straight face that accusations against trump are not impeachable offenses.  This is open to interpretation.

Stately plump trump lawyer Kenneth Starr needs no further introduction to those who followed his prissy preening porno performance as prosecutor of Bill Clinton.  Now, he’s the deputy defender-in-chief. 

Well, Starr WAS dean of a law school, Pepperdine, the right wing college that seems more like Ace Technical School than, say, Yale. Unable to do sufficient damage in California, he became president of Baylor where he was “close to” a student who was “accused of” sexual misconduct.  

This two-legged stool provokes a question.  Where’s Rudy?

SHRAPNEL:

-- New York radio DJ Harry Harrison has died from a combined bunch of health issues at 89-ish.  He was a pleasure to listen to and a pleasure to work with.  But before meeting him and working with him, I was told not to mention that “I listened to you as a kid,” which I did. So I didn’t say it.

--Harry was on WMCA, the locally owned, family owned full service A.M. teapot. Then he made it to the real big time, WABC which at the time was to radio as Ford and Chevy were to cars… and Formica was to furniture. But it was later at CBS/FM that he solidified his role as New York’s “Morning Mayor.

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

Comments?  Send ‘em here: wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020

4543 National Kazoo Day

Flash mob or a real kazoo chorus. Oh where is Toscanini when you need him?

It was yesterday, January 28th.  I bet you missed it. Maybe you never even heard of it.  But admit it: You have one stashed away in a drawer somewhere, or once did.

Maybe you stashed it away because it’s just a childhood toy.  Or maybe you’re intimidated by some of the Great Masters like… um… well, surely there have been some. And surely they were better at it than you or I.

No excuses!  

--Gee I had one years ago but some rat stole it off the piano in the bar while I was refreshing my drink.

--Gee, I feel stupid when the neighbors call and demand I stop running my leaf blower after 10 PM.  It’s not a leaf blower, it’s a respectable musical instrument.  It only sounds like a leaf blower.

--Gee the kids will think I’m an imbecile.

--And they’ll laugh at me.

Had big plans for the day.  Going to stand on a street corner. There was to be a collection hat at my feet.  I was going to take requests.  (Like “get off my corner” or “go back to the nuthouse you escaped from” or actual Kazoo-friendly songs.

The Flight of the Bumble Bee, the Minute Waltz, the first movement of Beethoven’s fifth, Take Me Out to the Ballgame, The National Anthem, Nola, Foggy Mountain Breakdown, the Salem Cigarette jingle, the Theme from M*A*S*H, the Teddybears’ Picnic.  All of them are great Kazoo songs.

I’ve been working on Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy” for a long time and it’s finally stage-ready. Well… streetcorner ready.

Seriously, people… the first kazoo was patented in the 1880s, but there’s strong geological evidence that it had already been around 40 years earlier.  So, this is no passing fad.

The first mass produced metal kazoos appeared in upstate New York in the early 1900s.  The factory remains in Eden NY which as a little southeast of Lake Erie where other tiny towns with names you probably never heard of exist in bucolic beauty and splendid isolation.  

They have a museum and what probably is the world’s largest retail store devoted entirely to kazoos.  But you can buy them on line for a couple of bucks. 

Or you can make your own, using a pocket comb and tissue paper. 

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

Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com

© WJR 2020