They Zombie Wannabees, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Antartica reported its highest temperature ever with 64 degrees. It was so warm, the penguins changed into their “Springs out, Wings Out” tank tops.


(not ashamed to say I love this joke. Yes, it is stupid, but I love it) 

Antartica reported its highest temperature ever with 64 degrees and their was a snow storm watch in Hawaii. But some things haven’t changed. It still sucked to be in Trenton, NJ.

The good news for Justin Bieber is, for his 23rd birthday, Justin Bieber has been named an honorary mayor of a town in France. The bad news? It is the town of Anus, France.

In LA, a customer threw a glass and hit a comedian who made a Donald Trump penis joke about the Washington Monument. “Don’t throw a glass, I love that joke,” said Trump.

Casey Affleck’s Best Actor Oscar has renewed attention to Affleck’s sexual harassment charges. It has also postponed Affleck’s documentary, “Free Bill Cosby.” 

London is holding a penis conference. Actually, they are not. I just wanted to write a joke with the words “Holding a penis” in it. 

Baltimore Ravens lineman, John Urschel, received four A’s in the PHD program at MIT. While many NFL players were getting DUI’s in SUV’s. 






Since you asked:

Under the theory you gotta get your ying to get your yang, or go low when they go high, I think it is a good exercise to try and write a really awful, awful joke. Here is today’s.

Retired Chicago Cub catcher, David Ross, is on “Dancing With The Stars.” Not to say Grandpa Rossy is getting up there, but when he came into the league, “Dancing With the Stars” was just “Dancing With The Interstellar Gas Before It Condenses To Stars.” 

Nothing about that “joke” makes sense on any level. Not that making sense is all that important for a good joke, but this has the added bonus of not making a lick of sense and being horribly unfunny. 


What this is asking you to believe is that David Ross came into the league when the show, “Dancing With The Stars,” which did not exist then, not only did exist, but predated the forming of stars in our universe. And then they named  the show, before the earth was formed, after those unformed stars. 


Forget it. The epic stupidity of this premise and the punchline goes beyond the possibility of explaining it.  

Let's put it this way:

If sipping champagne and having sex with Olivia Munn on India cotton sheets overlooking the ocean on a moonlit night in Tahiti is a good joke, then this joke is getting kicked in the nuts by Rosie O’Donnell in a crack house in Gary, Indiana. 

Olivia

Tahiti

Rosie

Gary

The difference between movies and reality in a nutshell:

This is Kate, Doc Holliday's girlfriend in "Tombstone."

This is the real "Big Nose" Kate

Lex's Analysis Of Late Night Talk Shows

The ratings are in and it is official. It is the late night talk show triumvirate forever: Fallon, Colbert, Kimmel.

Jimmy Kimmel was a distant third, but he really helped his brand with a dead-solid hosting of a crazy Oscars. 

Jimmy Fallon is everyone’s favorite, but he seems to be coasting since his finger injury over a year ago got him off his guitar. And his pandering of Trump and tousling his combover was downright humiliating to watch. He lost cred on that. 

David Letterman was spinning in his Barcalounger. 

Stephen Colbert has really stepped up with his taking Trump on so strongly and his live shows. Colbert has become the leading Trump critic/authority. And his rising ratings show it.

Did not like Jimmy Kimmel for a long time. Although he graciously credits Letterman as his idol, Kimmel came up the route of the Howard Stern-wannabe shock jock, not through stand up. As a result, he seemed like the snarky little mean a-hole gossip in high school. Do not like his making kids cry over stealing their Halloween candy and “Mean Tweets” that he probably wrote himself. 

And the way Kimmel does faux/rip-off “Jay Walking” by misleading the victims with trick questions seems unfair and downright nasty. 

But after Kimmel’s great job during the Academy Awards and the fact that so many nice Hollywood types really like him. Plus he loves to grill, well, Jimmy has shot up in my book like he has in everyone else’s. 

But after the big three starting pitchers (yes, I know there are normally four) there is an awesome late night relief pitcher in Seth Meyers. Myers often has the best monologue. (Fallon's mono writers seem a little weak)  And Meyer's “Closer Look” is wicked insightful, as they say in his home state of New Hampshire. 

Fallon is so gifted. But Seth Meyers is probably my favorite due to his all around abilities. Jimmy Fallon is talented as he can be, but he fawns too much on his guests. (If you made a drinking game out of every time Fallon called his guests the best or said he loved them, you would be enrolled in Passages Malibu by the weekend) 

But the best bit in all of late night - besides James Corden’s “Carpool Karaoke" - is “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell.” (Other than the amazing "CK," Corden seems like a snobby phony to me. Maybe it is the accent)

Love "Jokes Seth Can't Tell." Seth’s stable of writers is outstanding, but my two favorites, Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel, knock it out of the park on "JSCT" giving punchlines to black and lesbian jokes respectively with set-ups lobbed by non-female, non-black and non-gay Meyers. Jenny is whip-smart, but Amber will and should be a star. 

After that it is Trevor Noah and Samantha Bee providing damn good solid political sound bites. (Samantha kinda creeps me with the way she seems to intensely lean forward and is coming at you)

And somehow, almost like Milton in “Office Space,” the network bosses just forgot about Carson Daly and left him on the air. 

You Just Never Know

Facebook can be interesting because you witness first-hand people figuring it out as they go. 

In many ways, I feel like I had a good head start because I was on AOL and active in political chat rooms in the 90’s and I witnessed decency and comportment get shoved out by rude selfish entitlement. 

"You suck."

"No, you suck."

And I had a blog, so I learned to refine what I published the hard way. By hearing from people who did not like what I posted or were downright offended. 

For example, just learning that sarcasm does not translate into social media posts takes time. 

Duh.  

But, despite the obvious advertising and other annoyances, Facebook has put me back in touch with cherished childhood friends. And in one case, a great childhood friend, Big Lew. We were able to renew our friendship for two years before he passed suddenly. Facebook has a lot of faults, but I was always be grateful to it for that. (Miss you, you big lug, Big Lew) 

There is a tricky gap between being candid and honest in posts and shameless Facebook bragging. One of the most  psychotically competitive families in the world were shameless Facebook braggers. You had to wonder how much good fortune could befall one family. Tahoe. Mammoth. Paris. Children winning trophies. Sunsets in Maui. When did they win the lottery? 

Until they stopped posting for a few months and you found out they were going through an especially ugly divorce. 

You just never know. 

Nobody wants to see posts about how hard it is to get a stain out of their toilet. (pictures included) But also nobody wants to hear about how hard it is to decide between a margarita or a daiquiri on a beach in Tahiti. 

Don Henley of the Eagles once wrote in “After The Thrill Is Gone,”

“What do you do when your dreams come true and they’re not quite like you planned?”

What do you do? You have the decency to keep it to your damn self. And off of Facebook.

One guy from high school  - whom I follow on Facebook - was at our 35 year high school reunion five years ago. He is a stocky guy with a booming voice. After I shook hands with him at a party - and he tried in vain to crush my hand -  I heard him bellow, 

“Wow. Alex Kaseberg has really changed since high school.”

Not what you want to hear. 

But yes, although I still have my hair, and (knock on wood) it hasn’t gone grey yet, it is shorter than high school. And I do have a barbecue and wine-related gut.  And somehow my face has a gut too. And I wear glasses if I don’t want to be living in an impressionist painting. And there is a trying-to-be-cool-goatee turning gray. And too much sun-drenched decathlon/windsurfing/stand-up paddle boarding has more than taken its toll on my alabaster complexion. Lost track of the skin cancer procedures. None melanoma, so, again, knock on wood.

Did I mention the love of wine? So yes, I have earned my weathered mileage visage and am fairly proud of it. But I would love to lose the gut and the face-gut. 

The guy who was booming out how much I have changed? He had gone bald, he had a gray beard and he had a huge-ass beer belly. 

So eff that a-wad right in the beester. 

One woman I knew a little bit in high school, but not well, yet I remembered her as a nice girl, was friends of my friends so we became Facebook friends. 

She wasn’t a shameless Facebook bragger, but she had moved to central-coast CA with her boyfriend from Chicago and they were a fun/artistic couple who took advantage and appreciated the move from Illinois to California.  They went to wine tastings. They went to restaurant openings. They picked avocados. They did stand up paddle boarding, bless their hearts. They went to art gallery openings. Brunch was huge. They saw awesome folks in concert like Bonnie Raitt, John Hiatt, Emmy Lou Harris, James Taylor, John Prine, Jackson Browne.

Their pictures looked good but they looked their age. Maybe even older. They were slim, bless their hearts, but also slightly stooped and gray. 

The other day she posted on Facebook:

“Good news. The blood work is back and I can get the bone marrow transplant and Dave - (her boyfriend) - can get his kidney transplant.”

The moral? You just never know what people are going through. So be kind. 

Now, I mentioned the passing of Big Lew. This became really hard on another mutual friend Rich the Temms. Between the loss of Lew and the political squabbles, he left Facebook for a few years. He just came back and he posted a picture of himself with a beautiful old black lab named Biskit. 

Sadly, Biskit has just passed, but this was not a surprise to Temms. He and his lovely wife adopt senior and dying dogs and spoil them rotten before they go. Biskit had heart disease. Isn’t it amazing they do that? 

Well, it turns out another old high school friend, Carrie the D. not only adopts old dogs too, but she then takes the dogs to the hospital she’s in charge of that specializes in dementia and Alzheimers. 

She brought her 16-year-old dog to a patient, an old woman who has only muttered gibberish for two years. 

The old woman started talking in full sentences to her dog. 

You just never know. 





Speaking of the Eagles.

Was walking Wally for a 30 minute power walk tonight and some young punk came driving by blasting music and speeding.

“Why that freaging shazzerssham,” I muttered. “If I could I would flammers glinks him right in the wagger stocky.”

He then pulled up to the stop sign and I could clearly hear the loud music:

“I gotta know if your sweet love is gonna saaaaave meeeeee. Ewww ew. Ewwwww  ew.”


The last lines of “Take It Easy.”


(Sniff) There is hope, folks. There is hope.