Here is a picture of an emaciated Johnny Manziel at a Las Vegas pool party. Manziel’s muscles are so deflated, the NFL is questioning Tom Brady.

The NRA has endorsed Donald Trump. Not only that, but the NRA asked gunmakers to manufacture a pistol that will fit in Donald Trump’s tiny hands.

Kobe Bryant has a production company and wants to make a movie. It’s not going well. No matter how bad the script, Kobe cannot pass on it. 

An “LA Times” article claims we could cut cancer in half if we did four things: quit smoking, lost some weight, exercised two-and-a-half hours a week and cut down on drinking. In other words, we’re not going to cut down on cancer.

So my cheeseburgers/ margaritas/Netflix/cigar marathon sessions are not the answer?  

Our country has a surplus of cheese that works out to three pounds of cheese per person. Or as Chris Christie calls three pounds of cheese: lunch. 

A “Washington Post” poll reveals 90% of the Native Americans do not find the name Washington Redskins offensive. They do find the name of Redskin’s owner, Dan Snyder, offensive.

Since you asked:

Another gem from Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style.”

“To achieve style, begin by affecting none.” 

This is good for many reasons. One of which is it helps those of us who have a problem distinguishing between affecting and effecting. 

Hummus is for people who have the ability to lie to themselves they would not rather be eating guacamole. 

Saw the “60 Minutes” “A Reporter’s Life” special on Morley Safer released just days before he died. One thing that became clear that we all suspected: Morley Safer was a great guy. Mike Wallace was an insufferable pr*ck. 

Also saw a commercial that featured AC-DC’s “Rock And Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution” played to a shot of a big stainless steel grill fueled by oak wood sizzling a giant rib-eye steak. Heaven, right? No. It was an Applebee’s commercial. Why don’t you just kick me in the nuts, world? 

To reiterate, because I think this breaks new ground in lying, when Donald Trump recently denied he faked being his phony publicist named John Miller in 1991, he lied about when he was lying about who and what he was in order to lie about financial and sexual conquests that were also lies.

Recipes I am looking forward to making in the near future:

Buttermilk marinated fried chicken, pre-baked, ala advice from Bobby Flay. Served with sesame green beans and good family bakery-bought cornbread. 

Mussels from the Fish Market in Del Mar made in a garlic, butter and wine sauce with shallots and with the Fish Market’s freshly baked bread for dipping.

Perfect ground chuck cheeseburgers with the muenster cheese melted over golden brown sautéed onions. Pickles, tomato, butter lettuce and red onion on a toasted brioche bun.

Olive oil marinated swordfish dusted with Old Bay, oak wood grilled pineapple kabobs served on a mushroom and truffle risotto. 

On-the-Weber with oak wood - grilled in the paella pan - chicken thighs, Spanish sausage and shrimp paella with peas and carrots. 

Wine marinated rib-eyes grilled  on oak wood and served with red wine and mushroom reduction sauce and cubed yukon gold potatoes baked with parmesan cheese and rosemary. 

Woman Happy to Wear Chewbacca Mask

It really puts things in perspective when I write my ass off to make jokes and a sweet, funny woman in a Chewbacca mask done up and kicks my ass. This is so great. If you don't laugh you need to get your wiring checked. 

New York Mets pitcher, Bartolo Colon, who has been married 21 years with four kids, is being sued by a woman for child support claiming she has two children with him. Wow, the double play isn’t always the pitcher’s friend.

Bartolo is a Spanish word that means Antonio Cromartie. 

Dire Straits - Romeo and Juliet HD

One of the many songs that reminds me of Santa Barbara

Kim Kardashian at Disneyland going full Buble on her churro

Kristen Stewart to stylist: "Give me the meth addict with pink-eye look"

Catch the stoke that will get you woke to the joke, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers





The first openly gay Army Secretary, Eric Fanning, was sworn in. His first move will be to change the Army slogan from Army Strong to Army Fierce. 

It has not been easy for the Boston medical team that transplanted a man’s penis. They constantly have to say, “No, we can’t replace the penis you have because its too small. And that’s final, Mr. Trump.”

It has not been easy for the Boston medical team that transplanted a man’s penis. Father’s Day is coming up and they’re getting a lot of requests from wives for upgrades. 

A “Washington Post” poll reveals 90% of the Native Americans do not find the name Washington Redskins offensive. Actually, they do not find the name Redskins offensive, they do find the name Washington offensive as all hell. 

A “Washington Post” poll reveals 90% of the Native Americans do not find the name Washington Redskins offensive. As long as the Redskin’s owner, Dan Snyder, agrees to change his name to Chief Little Weasel. 

A 28-year-old Texas middle school teacher was arrested for sending nude photos on Snapchat to her 14-year-old male student. For the student's part, he really put the snap in Snapchat. 

Rumor has is Caitlyn Jenner is seriously considering transitioning back to being a man. If so, they will have to change the name of his show from “I Am Cait” to “I Am Putting Transgenders Back 20 Years.” 

Hillary Clinton said Donald Trump is not qualified to be president. When asked why, Hillary said, “Because his name does not rhyme with Schmillary Schminton.”

Since you asked:

In Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style,” chapter V, “An Approach to Style.”

8: Avoid the use of qualifiers. 

Rather, very, little, pretty — these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood out of words.


How totally gnarly awesome is like that cool sentence? 

Hagar Ben-Ari. One lean, mean monkey woman bass player machine

Right now, Seth Meyer's monologue is 25% better than all the other talk show monologues. Would love to write for them.

(Whistling while looking at watch and waiting for "Late Night With Seth Meyers" to call) 

The Boathouse Bar

Seriously homesick for my beloved Santa Barbara. 

Hoping for some kind of cosmic break that will give me a chance to sneak up there for a quick stand-up paddle surf getaway. Something about that heady aroma of thick ocean fog mixed with eucalyptus and a hint of tar from the beach that scrapes the barnacles off the hull of my soul.

Oh to sit at the Boathouse bar in the late afternoon carnival light eating crab cakes and sipping a tasty red ale while watching the dolphins frolic for the attention of the dogs playing in the surf at Hendry beach.  

Santa Barbara has such a soft spot in my heart for so many reasons not the least of which is it is so wonderful. Take the best of old school California ranchers and the spirituality of soul surfers and mix it with the indomitable spirit of the Sam Adams decathletes and heptathletes I know and love and therein, for me, lies the town’s personality. 

Part of the magic Santa Barbara holds for me exists because of all the firsts I experienced there. First time happy with the college I was attending. First time in years feeling like I was exactly where I wanted to be doing exactly what I wanted to do in school, track and relationships. 

A lot of little firsts like first Denver omelet. First  chicken flauta (a fried burrito) first Santa Maria-style cook out, first sushi. And bigger firsts like first live-in girlfriend, first real job, first car, first time windsurfing, first roommates. Medium firsts like first mustache. First stiff drink at Joe’s. First pair of button-fly jeans. First real pair of beach sandals.  First time catching a wave on a board.

First time out in the mean real world apart from school. It sure helped cushion the blow of the mean world living in the kind-hearted Santa Barbara. 

Going back to Santa Barbara is both a pathetic attempt to capture lost youth as well as a hard lesson in how much things have changed. But it is also a wonderful life-affirming lesson on how the good stuff lasts.

Santa Barbara is the good stuff. 

In sad news, the great journalist, Morley Safer, died at 84. 

Morley smoked and enjoyed wine and other alcoholic beverages, but all were done in moderation. Morley was a hard worker who, although he traveled extensively due to his job, he was extremely careful and cautious.

Morley's younger brother, Lesley, a ne’er-do-well roust-about, passed far earlier at age 57 because of a reckless lifestyle. He drank, gambled and smoked all to excess and was incautious in all manor of ways including driving too fast, sleeping with wild women and consuming a wildly unhealthy sauce-rich diet.

The moral of the story? It is better to be Morley Safer than Lesley Safer.

(polite applause) 

In case you were having a bad day . . . 

Busted flat in Baton Rouge, get woke to the joke,  Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Donald Trump claims he had $500 million in income in 2015, or his name isn’t John Miller. 

Donald Trump released his list of 11 possible Supreme Court replacements. Not sure about this list. It includes Bruce Wayne, Alexander Hamilton, Keyzer Soze and of course, John Miller. 

A study claims the average person spends 117 days of their life having sex. Unless you’re a New York Knicks fan, then you’re screwed for life. 

The Hyperloop has been successfully tested sending passengers in pods on tracks traveling at 700-miles-per-hour. If Amtrak uses this technology, they will be able to get to their crash sites ten times faster. 

Oddly, Hyperloop was also Bernie Sanders nickname growing up.

Once again, Washington DC ranks as the fittest city in the US. It’s from all that running to the bank with a heavy bag to deposit lobbyist’s bribe money.

Singer, Alanis Morissette, is suing her former business manager, Jonathon Schwartz, for ripping her off for millions of dollars. Gosh, I hope this doesn’t make Alanis bitter towards men. 

Donald Trump claimed he was his publicist named John Miller. The announcer for the San Francisco Giants is named Jon Miller. Or is he really Donald Trump pretending to be the Giants’ announcer? 

In his first public appearance playing golf in many months, Tiger Woods hit three shots in the water. This is what happens when you train with Michael Phelps. 

Since you asked:

More gems from Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style.”

“Omit needless words.”

“When a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus, brevity is a by-product of vigor.” 

Blah blah yada blah blah yada blah blah. Sheesh. 

Was a big fan of “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.”  Now it is more like the unwatchable Kimmy Schmidt.

Starting to notice a criticism of a lot of shows starts with “It is just a soap opera with (blank).” “The Twilight Saga” is just a soap opera with vampires. “The Walking Dead” is just a soap opera with zombies. “Game of Thrones” is just a soap opera with dragons and swords. 

Guess what? Just about every TV show or movie is a soap opera. It is the “with (blank)” that makes them special. “The Godfather” was a soap opera with the mafia. Don’t you want to know who is the leader? Who is the bad guy? Who loves who? Who is plotting what? Who betrays who? 

Just saw “The Godfather” and I was struck by how bad a move it was for Sollozo “The Turk” to try and whack the Don. Yes, it turns out Sollozo had the backing of not only the Tattaglias, but, as it turns out, Barzini. But why kill Vito? Just because the Corleones did not want to deal drugs? They, Sollozo, the Tattaglias and Barzini would have gotten so much stronger and richer with the Corleones outside of the drug business, they could have cleaned them out effortlessly later. 

My go-to questions to rich and famous people:

How much cash do they have with them? (Usually little or none)

What would it be like to get a drink with them in a great neighborhood bar sans press, sans fans? What would they want to talk about? 

If they're a musician, what song would they wave a wand and make theirs? Same thing with a role of they're an actor. Painting if they're a painter. 

If they knew they were going to die that day, what shoes would they wear*?

*Not to get morbid, but whenever I see a picture of dead people in the news, I am drawn to their shoes. Did they have any idea, when they got up that morning, these would be the last shoes they would ever wear? 

They say there is a lot of power in giving up the fear of death. But there is also a lot of power in remembering death is, that day, a distinct possibility. 

When you put on your shoes in the morning, think about that.





How do we live in a world where the producers of a documentary on the greatest screenwriter, William Goldman, titled “Nobody Knows Anything” (Except William Goldman), need $50,000 from Kickstarter to get made, and Donald Trump earned $500 million last year? 

Right now Kentucky could be a tie between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Or, as they call a tie: kissing your sister. Or as they call kissing your sister in Kentucky: kissing.

Boston man receives the first successful US penis transplant. In a related story, millions of US men are ripping up their organ donor cards. 

A man in Boston received a penis transplant. Speaking of attaching a penis to someone, Donald Trump could pick Chris Christie as his running mate. 

Dr. Ben Carson his helping Donald Trump’s pick running mates. Carson was going to take a stab at being the running mate, but he hit the belt buckle my mistake. 




A man in Boston received the first fully successful penis transplant. For “Game of Thrones” fans this is known as a reverse Theon. 


His wife can’t wait to have sex with him and cheat on him at the same time. 

In the early ’90’s, Donald Trump impersonated a fake publicist, John Miller, in order to brag about financial and sexual conquests that never happened. In other words, Trump lied about who and what he was in order to lie about his lies. Even Bernie Madoff said, “Wow, that is some serious lying.” 

Since you asked:

Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style” quote of the day. Chapter III:


Nouns used as verb. Many nouns have been pressed into service lately as verbs. Not all are bad, but all are suspect.

When I think of  nouns used as a verb it reminds me of a buddy - whom I don’t see anymore - who, although was a good guy, he had a tendency to put on airs. Whenever he so much as made dinner for his girlfriend, he would announce he was “Hosting a dinner party.” 



You can tell a great deal about a person by asking them who their favorite Beatle is. It is proper to say there is no wrong answer. But there are answers that are better than others. 

The best answer is to say you can’t name a favorite Beatle. It would be like naming which child or parent you loved better.

The worst answer is to say, “I don’t like the Beatles.” Those people can be dismissed out of hand. Primarily because there is a good chance they’re serial killers. There are not many absolutes in the world, but anyone who does not like the Beatles is an absolute jerk.

(The other possible awful answer is, "I don't know who the Beatles are," which is also a factor as to why our world is doomed) 

For me the answer of favorite Beatle is George. And I mean it. His early solo work was the best. “All Things Must Pass” was one of my first album purchases. “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” was my favorite Beatles song right with “Yesterday,” "Let It Be" and “Hey Jude.”  

Paul is the easiest answer for favorite Beatle because he was was the cutest and he sang many of their best songs. He was my favorite before George became my favorite right during the movie "Concert For Bangladesh)

John is the answer for people who think they’re deep and intellectual. Whether they are deep and intellectual is another matter entirely. The main fact is they think they’re deep and intellectual. 

To be candid, I was never a fan of John. Granted I started being aware of him when he was really going out of his way to be strange. Those round granny glasses I did not like at all.  And he was so whipped by that creepy and disturbing psycho, Yoko. All of that was off-putting. 

Although “Imagine” was beyond great and absolved John of his many "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" sins. 

There was a side of John that was angry and mean. His outward contempt and mocking of Paul’s “Ram” album was cruel and unnecessary.   

Ringo, as wonderful as he is, is the answer of favorite Beatle for pain-in-the-ass contrarians. Ringo is beyond lovable, but he is nobody’s favorite Beatle. Unless you’re a drummer.  Ringo was underrated as a drummer. 

And the Beatles are not my favorite band. 

There is no denying the Beatles' seismic impact on not only music, but the world. No other band will ever come close to duplicating it. There are no other great rock bands without the Beatles. Period. 

But my favorite bands are, in order, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, whatever band Eric Clapton is in and the Eagles. The fact is I just missed loving the Beatles by a few years. They were my older brother’s peer’s band. (Not my brother’s band. His band was Gilbert and Sullivan, but that is another story) 

By the time I became a big music fan at around ten, the Beatles had stopped touring and were on their way out. And I thought all of that LSD “Yellow Submarine” crap was self-indulgent.


Like Elvis and Frank Sinatra, I have come to appreciate the Beatles much more over time. But either you were in love with a band as a youth or you weren’t.  

Just because I was not in love with the Beatles does not mean I did not love them. (“I love you, I am not in love with you,” was the lame-ass line I got in high school from the first girl who ever dumped me. Spoiled brat) 

The Beatles, even though they weren't my favorite band, were one of the greatest things that ever happened in our lives. Their unfailingly brilliant message of peace and love came at a time when our world was desperately lacking both.  

But George was the best one. 

Former UFC champ, Ronda Rousey, said she would beat up Kim Kardashian. Can you imagine? Ronda Rousey beating Kim Kardashian? Huh? Sorry. I got lost in thought. What were we talking about? 

A woman in Florida was admitted to a hospital with a two-foot shark attached to her arm. And you don’t even want to know where on a poor guy a blow fish attached itself. 

Wally does the stanky-leg when he pees, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers


A woman in Florida was admitted to a hospital with a two-foot shark biting her arm. When the doctor asked what happened, the shark said, “Can you believe I thought she was a seal?”  

Jayson Day won the Players Championship. Day will now join the list of players, including Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Rickie Fowler and Rory McIlroy, to be called the next Tiger Woods and then will not be.

The movie “Top Gun” is 30 years old. Now when they sing about someone losing that loving feeling, they have Viagra. 

Texas Ranger, Rougned Odor, was suspended a game for punching Toronto’s Jose Batista. Not sure I can put my finger on it, but there is something about Odor that stinks. 

(They don't all have to be gems . . . )

Donald Trump referred to Mass. Senator, Elizabeth Warren, as Pocahontas. Warren then referred to Trump as Chief Weasel On His Head. 

One of the top candidates for Donald Trump’s runningmate is Sarah Palin. This is the comedy writer equivelent of how someone feels who picked the first four Powerball numbers and is waiting for the fifth ball to come up. 

The Arizona Coyotes made John Chayka, 26, the youngest GM in NHL history. That is absolutely shocking. Arizona has an NHL hockey team? Since when? 

Seriously, I thought the only ice in Arizona was in their ice tea. And margaritas. 

Chayka wasted no time and traded for a third-round draft dude with a righteous broheim-to-be-named-later. 

A recent survey reveals Donald Trump is less reverred than the band Nickelback and head lice. And he is way less  reverred than Nickeback’s song about head lice. 

Is it just me, or does Eric Trump look like the frat boy in the douche fraternity in "Animal House" Omega Theta Pi, who is way too excited about paddling the pledge's butts? 

P.S. Those with a sharp eye will note that is none other than Kevin Bacon taking one for the team

Happy 41st birthday to former Ravens linebacker, Ray Lewis. No word on if they are going to let Ray cut his own cake or not.

Lamar Odom has received an all-expenses-paid invitation back to the Nevada brothel, where he lapsed into a cocaine-coma, as long as he does not bring drugs. That sounds like an offer he cannot refute.

The device that caused the Manchester United game to be postponed turned out to be a fake bomb accidentally left by bomb-sniffing dog trainers. They found that out when they brought in the stupidity-sniffing dogs. 

Lamar Odom has received an all-expenses-paid invitation back to the Nevada brothel, where he lapsed into a cocaine-coma, as long as he does not bring drugs. No comment from Lamar, but they have received a yes response from a Schlamar Schlodom. 

In 1991, Donald Trump faked being his own publicist under the name John Miller. He picked John Miller because the name Douchey McDoucheface would have attracted too much suspicion. 

The movie “Top Gun” is 30-years-old. Now, instead of feeling the need, the need for speed, the characters feel the need, the need to . .  oh, shoot, I forgot. 

Donald Trump’s former butler is a racist who posts on Facebook he wants President Obama lynched. When asked to comment, Trump’s current butler said, “I had no idea the former butler was a racist or my name isn’t Chris Christie.”