US soccer defeated Jamaica to win the Gold Cup. This is the first sports story to use the words Jamaica and Gold that did not involve Ricky Williams smoking pot.

Donald Trump is the first president in 130 years without a dog in the White House. If you don’t count the Schnauzer he wears on his head.

During the Chicago Cubs win 4-2 over the Milwaukee Brewers, Chris Christie got in the face of a Cubs fan who heckled him. Christie was furious someone tried to upset him on National Cheesecake Day. 



When O.J. Simpson is released from prison in October, he will not be welcome at USC’s football practices. USC has a strict policy against allowing double murderers who no longer have any money to contribute to their program.



Since you asked:

Just read the “Reader’s Digest” 7 signs of a pending heart attack. 1, Fatigue. 2, Soreness in the arm or back. 3, Upset stomach, 4, Feeling of dread, 5, Writing corny jokes, 6, Wait, is 5 right? 7, Goodbye everyone. 


One of the least surprising things I have read in a long time is that Donald Trump is not a dog person. (If you don't count Kellyanne Conway was a vicious lapdog) 




Just saw "The Keepers" on Netflex. (Spoiler alerts) Like with most cases, too many coincidences mean no coincidences. Hey, Baltimore Archdiocese, are there any other pedophile rapists you're covering up?

This documentary showed me a world of which I was totally unfamiliar.

In watching this, I was dumbfounded how so many people in Baltimore in the ’60's were devout Catholics who got married young, worked their asses off in a factory, barely scraped by so they could live in a row house, tend their postage-stamp lawn and raise a ton of kids. 

They sacrificed like this to go to church every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night in the fervent hope their daughters will someday grow up to wear a communion veil. 

Nothing about this does not strike me as depressing as all hell.

But then there is another level beyond that of the people who endure physical and mental discipline taken to the level of torture to become nuns and priests. 

And despite all of that incredible and admirable devotion to religion and hard work and family, a human monster, like Father Maskell, could exist in that world. Let alone a thousand of them as exposed in Boston in “Spotlight.” 

It was shocking to witness the Catholic Church's lawyers fighting to get Maskell - and the church - off of his 50 to 100 pedophile charges under an old statute of limitations law. And doing so by saying, hey, it's a bad law, but that is the law. Sorry. And then turn around and fight the repeal of that same law. 

The victims lost some credibility suing for $50 mil. For saying it was not about money, that is a lot of money. 

(That smug D.A. Sharon May should be in prison. Not having evidence and not using evidence is not the same thing. As I am not a conspiracy theory fan, I do not think she was in bed with the Archdiocese, she was just criminally inept and covering her ass) 

Shameless. 

That is like getting your client off murder on an obscure law that allows someone to serve someone a poisoned drink. And then fighting the removal of the poisoned drink law by arguing, “People should be allowed their freedom, even if that freedom consists of poisoning other people.”

Baseball statistics need to take game tieing or leading hits and RBI's and multiply them by three. They need to take game winning hits and RBI's and multiply them by five. That rightfully waters down the kind of players like A-Rod who only got home runs when they were winning 5-0. 


And here I thought I understood neediness until a saw a youngest child comedian discover Facebook live.


The same annoying person who gets into your way when you go to the store? They will get in your way again before you leave. 

One of my super powers is the ability to have one of the last 10,000 people in the country who have no idea how to use a grocery store check-out pad and have them appear in front of me in line.

The same annoying person who gets in your way when you go to the store? They will get in your way again before you leave. 

Anthony Scaramucci calls Reince Priebus a schizophrenic. Priebus says, "No am not and neither am I."

Donald Trump barring transsexuals in the military is surprising when you consider Melania Trump looks like a younger Catilyn Jenner. 

Baltimore Raven and genius MIT math Ph.D. candidate, John Urschel, has retired from the NFL after three seasons. Urschel did the math and he has decided he can make more money searching for other NFL player’s lost diamond earrings. 

Which leads to,

Atlanta Falcon, Julio Jones, claims he lost a $100,000 diamond earring while jet skiing on a lake in Georgia. Julio was instructed to call 1-800 You Fool. 


Chicago is going through a baby-boom nine months after the Cubs’ World Series win. The reverse of this explains why high schools are vacant in Cleveland. 


This week, President Trump spoke to the Boy Scout Jamboree. As a result, all 40,000 Boy Scouts got their “Comb-over” Merit Badge.


The Carolina Panthers released Michael Oher, the subject of the movie “The Blind Side,” after Oher assaulted an Uber driver. Oher claims he was angry because the driver was not checking his blind side.

Pissing With The Big Dogs

Anthony Scaramucci reminds me exactly of another megalomaniac Italian-American who made it from a modest background to impressive financial success. Also with a serious case of short-man’s disease. 

His name was Joe Plumeri. (Like Scaramucci, Plumeri was barely 5-7) 

As Seth Meyers so deadly accurately described Anthony Scaramucci, Joe Plumeri was also a human pinky-ring. 

Joe Plumeri was the manager of all the managers at Shearson Lehman Brothers when I started working for Shearson in La Jolla in 1986.  That year in the spring, Joe graced us with his presence and a speech for the annual Shearson Lehman Andy Williams Golf Tournament at Torrey Pines. 

From the moment he arrived, Joe threw his weight around like he was Mussolini. La Jolla is an incredibly beautiful and wealthy town, but it was way too small for Joe Plumeri's ego. He cut quite a wake as he had a 24-hour giant limo at his beck and call and a driver who doubled as his huge and scary body guard. 

Don Joe Plumeri comes to La Jolla to give his speech.

It has always been a joy for me to watch people do what they truly love. That is why I can listen to any hockey game as long as it is being announced by the great Mike “Doc” Emrick. You can hear the love of hockey with every play he describes. 

Joe Plumeri was the same way, only the love he felt was from listening to the sound of his own voice. He seemed to veritably bathe in his own docent tones as he blissfully described how, despite growing up in hardscrabble Trenton, he became wildly successful and yet amazingly modest as well. His message repeatedly stressed what a down-to-earth guy he was despite his incredible, incredible success. 

Success and modesty. Modesty and success. That was Joe Plumeri according to Joe Plumeri. 


(To capture Joe Plumeri’s character, you need to look no further than the pomposity of the Black Hand, in “Godfather II,” Don Fanucci. The man who just wants to wet his beak. Obviously, you can't paint all Italians with this arrogant brush, but those who are like this are really like this. And Mooch is like this)

The next day at the golf tournament, I made the mistake of actually believing that Joe Plumeri was the modest guy he pontificated he was in his speech and I almost got fired. Fired from a job I had had for four days. Fired from a job I had traveled across the country for and survived two months of Los Angeles training.  

Fired in four freaking days. 

Shearson Lehman’s training program was valued in 1986 at $75,000. It was tough to get hired for in the first place and then it weeded out 25% right off the bat by canning anyone who did not pass the brokerage Series 7 exam on the first try. No easy task, but one I accomplished. Despite my lifelong trepidation over math.  

The subsequent training program in Century City then weeded out another 25% over two months of pretty rigorous trials and tests. 

50% of the people hired for Shearson were cut. 

My La Jolla Shearson manager, Jack Frager was a former Korean war jet fighter pilot and a larger than life honorary Mayor of La Jolla. (Picture a much louder Matthew McConoughey at age 55) Jack was a fantastic guy and he was exceedingly proud of me when I graduated from training. Jack was like my father-away-from-home. 

So when the tournament started the same week I got back from my training in LA, it was party time. And party we did. 

The Shearson tent by the 18th hole of the North course was stocked with the best food and drink. All of it free and plentiful.

It is hard to describe the joy I felt after moving from Wall Street and my tiny Manhattan studio apartment to wining and dining in this luxurious tent overlooking the Torrey Pines golf course and the Pacific ocean. 

Make no mistake, I had arrived. 

We started celebrating at 2:00 PM, one hour after the market closed, this being Thursday, my fourth day on the job. 

By about 8 O’Clock we were all doing pretty damn well, thank you. That was when Joe Plumeri graced the tent with his - and his giant body guard’s - presence. Joe seemed a tad stiff and not at all happy to see a bunch of happy-go-lucky brokers enjoying themselves.

Screw him, I thought. Who cares what he thinks? I need to go piss. 

So off I went to the fancy urinal and toilet trailer they had behind the tent. Standing at the urinal, some might describe what I was doing as weaving, but I was merely adjusting my stance, like a golfer, from my left foot to my right. Comfort was important because I had not peed in six hours of, um, celebrating. 

Just then I heard the familiar New York sound of a guy spitting into the urinal as he unzips his pants. (Spitting before peeing is apparently a law of any guy growing up in the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut)

Guess who it was? You got it, ol’ modest, down-to-earth Joe Plumeri himself. He had his dark and expensive-looking top coat draped over his shoulders like a cape. His tailor-made two-tone shirt had huge diamond cufflinks. 

And yes, he had a diamond pinky ring.

Feeling generous, I gave Don Joe the benefit of the doubt as a man of his modest word, and being fueled by quite a few vodka and tonics, I turned to Joe and happily, and loudly proclaimed, 

“Shearson is amazing. Here I have only been here for four days and already I’m pissing with the big dogs.”

The look Joe returned was as dead as the eyes of a shark. He slowly stared me up and down with genuine disgust. Then, without a word, he did the Staten Island post-pee shake, zipped up his $10,000 pin-striped suit fly, flushed the urinal and walked away.

Again, all without saying a word. (And without washing his hands) 

‘I’m toast,” is all I could mutter. “Four days on the job, and I am toast,” I repeated as I trundled down the ramp of the fancy motor home of urinals.

Back in the tent, when I told my buddies what happened - after laughing their asses off at me - they hustled me out of there and we drove back into downtown La Jolla, because what we really needed to do was hit a bar.

Sure enough, the next Monday at work, I had heard Joe Plumeri demanded a talk with my manager Jack after emerging from the head. No doubt to fire my sorry ass. But for the first of many times, my manager, Fighter Pilot Jack had my tail. 

Also my friend, Louie Lund, was drunker than me and, later that same night, took a swing at Joe’s massive bodyguard/driver.  

Apparently, Shearson has a rule of only firing one drunk broker a day.

Make no mistake about it, Anthony Scaramucci is Joe Plumeri. Donald Trump can enjoy the down-to-earth, jovial, modest, loyal guy Mooch seems like now.

But the second Trump screws Anthony, the way he did Sean Spicer? The way Trump screws everybody?

Marone. Do me a favor. Forget about it. 

Paul Simon - Mother and Child Reunion (Audio)

Ten Years From Today.

Ten-year-old twin boys on their tenth birthday;

“Father, tell us again the story of how we were named.”

Cubs-fan Dad:

“Well sure, sons. Nine months before your birthday, the Cubs won the World Series. And like many people, your mother and I were so happy, we celebrated because we love the Cubs and we love each other. 

"So, nine months later, many babies were also born on or around your birthday, like your friends Wrigley, Addison, Maddon, Hayward, Bryant and Rizzo.

"Why do ask, Old Style and Mets Suck?” 


****

In the Chicago Cubs’ 7-2 win over crosstown rivals, White Sox, Javier Baez struck out five times swinging. Optimistic Cubs fans applauded Baez’s noble attempts to combat global warming. 

Four strikeouts is called a golden sombrero. Five strikeouts? That's called a Phillies hat. 

****
It is the one-year anniversary of Starbucks allowing their baristas to wear fedoras. So now they have a job title and a hat they cannot spell. 

****
There is a baby boom in Chicago because the Cubs won the World Series nine months ago. Ironically this is normally the time of year when Cubs fans are screwed.

****
This week, President Trump spoke to the Boy Scout Jamboree. As a result, all 40,000 Boy Scouts got their Covfefe merit badges.

****
Rumor is Justin Bieber canceled his remaining 14 tour dates to rededicate his life to Jesus Christ. “Yeah, that’s it, Jesus Christ,” said Satan laughing with delight. 


Since you asked:

Almost forgot how much I hate listening to Hawk Harrelson who announced the Sox-Cubs game yesterday. He is the anti-Harry Carey: A grumpy old cornball. No lie, I can feel my blood pressure spike every time a Cub strikes out and he spews "He gone."

But what makes enduring Harrelson's hackneyed pontificating egomania bearable is the badly hidden rage he feels when the Cubs beat the misspelled Sox. It almost makes listening to the cranky coot worthwhile.  

Almost.

Got a big ol' fern plant in my office and my comedy writing is taking a hit. Everything starts with;

"Something told me that dame was trouble the second she came into my office. Her legs went from here to there and back again, see?" 



Have told the story about how we knew our house in Winnetka was inhabited by nee Roy Fitzgerald, Rock Hudson and his mother, nee Katherine Wood, also renamed Fitzgerald for her second husband. By all accounts, two nicer people than Rock and his mom, Katherine, never existed. 

One day my parents were home watching a documentary on Rock Hudson and he came back to Winnetka to reminisce and walked up to our house and rang the doorbell to get a tour. Sadly, nobody was home.

So I just heard a story that took place about two blocks south of the “Home Alone” house in my beloved Winnetka on Lincoln Street. Home of my good friends, Jeff Lipe, Charles Packer and others. 

On Facebook, a former resident of the house closest to the “business district” on Lincoln said the house was unusual as it had many small hotel-like rooms upstairs and a huge living room downstairs. In the backyard,  they were constantly digging up old buried booze bottles. 

Turns out the house was the go-to brothel for the soldiers serving at nearby-North Great Lakes Naval Station and Fort Sheridan. It was close to the train station and soldiers and sailors were seen visiting for an hour or two and then taking the train back North. 


The brothel was demolished in the early sixties and turned into a one-story medical building where my orthodontist, Dr. Bill Ford, resided. 

When Winnetka people, like my parents, were done paying for their brat’s braces, more people got screwed on that spot by Ford than when it was a whore house.

Winnetka could qualify was one of the snootiest towns in history. The famous song, "Big Noise From Winnetka," was about a difficult socialite mom who hired the band. The town has been dry since prohibition. In Winnetka, if you slice your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches diagonally you're considered "fancy."

Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I am fascinated by the fact that my beloved hometown, this idyllic and image obsessed Chicago suburb Winnetka, in the late Fifties, had a brothel on one side of town, and on the lake, an ex-resort turned mental hospital that rivaled anything in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.” 

And that hospital probably had an escaped patient that slaughtered a senator’s daughter, Valerie Percy, in a Manson-like fashion in 1966. (Never ruled out it was an escaped patient from the just up-the-beach hospital. The step-mother described being passed in the hall by a man in a checkered shirt, easily mistaken in the dark pre-dawn for the striped shirts to identify violent patients at the hospital)

This tragedy was nobody's fault but the uncaught murderer. But it seemed so much worse being committed on such a seemingly perfect family in such a seemingly perfect community. 

Proving once again, there is no more costly error than putting on airs. 

Renamed North Shore Hospital

The story is Justin Bieber cancelled his remaining 14 tour dates because he is rededicating his life to Christ. Upon hearing this, Christ said, “Thanks, but I’m good.”  

A woman who claims she contracted herpes from Usher is suing him for $20 mil. And people have the nerve to say the entertainment business is greedy and sleazy.

Is it just me, or does Anthony Scaramucci look like a guy who has about 30 nicknames for his oft-grabbed testicles? “My babbalukes itch like hell.” 

Donald Trump has to be the most duplicitous and obfuscating person who has absolutely no idea what duplicitous and obfuscating mean. 

A woman who claims she contracted herpes from Usher is suing him for $20 mil. She must be really itching to sue him.

Press Sec., Sean Spicer, is leaving the White House. He wants to spend more time hiding in the bushes from his family.

Is it just me or does Anthony Scaramucci look like a guy who starts every sentence with, “Can I be honest with you?” 

After two years of restoration, the oldest ship, the USS Constitution, returned to Boston. The ship had so much work done, its nickname changed from “Old Ironsides” to Caitlyn Jenner. 




Some guy accused me of using big words to sound smart, but he underestimated my inherent ability to lugubrious. 

 The Super Dog Afraid of His Own Bark

We have a neighborhood mean dog. Two doors down, this 65-pound, tall, brindle Doberman/Greyhound/German Shepard mutt growls and barks incessantly like a chained rabid junkyard watch dog from behind their fence. (It gives you a measure of the dog’s unfriendliness that I do not know - or care to know - his name) 

One day the beast got out.  So I walked out my front door to be neighborly let it back inside its gate. (Sort of fancy myself a bit of a dog whisperer, I do) 

Cesar Millan my ass. The dog started growling at me and slowly started stalking towards me like I was prey on the Serengeti. 

Not going to lie to you, the hairs on my neck stood up and I slinked back inside the safety of my house a little unnerved by this crazy animal’s naked aggression. 

Mental note: we have a mad dog two doors down. 

From the safety of my upstairs office, I observed the dog sniffing around his front lawn. Two lady power-walkers came up our Cul-de-sac and the dog chased them off with loud growling barks. The ladies scurried off dialing their cell phones with alarm to, I assume, alert authorities. 

So it was with no small amount of concern I answered my door this morning after it was manically rung repeatedly by our tall neighbor. He looked shaken and pointed to the very escaped neighborhood Cujo wandering unleashed in our street.

When he asked whose dog it was, I then pointed at the second house down while blocking my partially open door with my body so Wally would not get out and get viciously torn apart. 

Just then, Wally bolted from between my legs almost knocking me over and took off after Cujo. Instinctively I started screaming, 

“No, Wally, no. Get back here now.” 

Like the time Kasey was about to be crushed in the street by an oblivious woman in her Mercedes, I could not watch the inevitable carnage, but yet I had to. (Somehow Kasey managed to have the car drive right over her without a scratch)

It is stupefying how the brain goes into hyperdrive during a panic, like a volcano spewing images, and I could, in less than a tenth of a second, envision sweet, big Wally getting his throat ripped out by this feral hell-hound of the Baskervilles. 

What happened next had me doubting my eyes, like Kasey being missed by that car. 

Cujo turned tail and took off like somebody lit a fire under him. 

Wally chased him back into his open garage and Cujo disappeared inside the house, tail between his legs. Wally stood there in their garage taunting Cujo as if to say, 

“And stay there.”

In a victorious prance reminiscent of the white Lipizzaner horses, Wally strutted back into our house with a genuine look of smugness on his face. As he strode past me still at the door frozen in my state of shock, Wally looked up at me and appeared to say, 

"See?" 

Cujo was not the Cujo I thought he was. He was as much or more of the chicken I thought Wally was. Wally apparently read the room better than I did and knew a bully/imposter when he saw one. 

There is no living with Wally right now. And, candidly, he deserves to be putting on airs after bravely defending us the way he did. 

After gloating today, I am sure Wally will go back to running between my legs after he scares himself at the front window with his bark.

But for today, Wally is the Sir Walter, King of the Corbett Cul-de-Sac. 

British Open winner, Jordan Spieth, took 30 minutes to make a shot on the 13th hole. It was so slow, Major League Baseball offered suggestions to speed up play.

  

British Open winner, Jordan Spieth, took 30 minutes to make a shot on the 13th hole. That is the slowest thing in sports since, Thunder Snow, the horse I bet on in the Kentucky Derby. 

British Open winner, Jordan Spieth, hit his tee shot 100 yards to the right on the 13th tee. It went so far to the right it had to be covered by “Fox News.” 

British Open winner, Jordan Spieth, took 30 minutes to make a shot on the 13th hole. 30 minutes. Tiger Woods could have met, dated and broke up with a Hooters waitress in that time.

British Open winner, Jordan Spieth, hit his 13th tee shot 100 yards to the right. Initial reports said the ball landed in an alley of old sheds. This turned out to be fake mews.

British Open winner, Jordan Spieth, took 30 minutes to make a shot on the 13th hole. It was like watching a golf tournament and a baseball game broke out. 

British Open winner, Jordan Spieth, took 30 minutes to make a shot on the 13th hole. During that time on “Game of Thrones,” Theon Greyjoy grew his penis back. 

British Open winner, Jordan Spieth, took 30 minutes to make a shot on the 13th hole. I’ve actually seen Cleveland Brown running backs move faster than Spieth.

Two thangs gonna happen: One, Imma kick they ass, two, they gonna get they ass kicked, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

China has banned Justin Bieber for bad behavior. And we wonder why China is kicking our ass? 

Warner Bros. has announced a sequel to “Wonder Woman.” In equally shocking news, Warner Bros. announced they like making lots and lots of money.

During “Shark Week,” Olympic swimmer, pot-loving, Michael Phelps, is going to race a great white shark. For the shark, this could make this a pot luck dinner. 




The Kung Fu Panda, Pablo Sandoval, has signed with the San Francisco Giants. San Francisco immediately suffers Kung Pao Chicken shortage. 


Since you asked:

“The San Diego Union Tribune” has officially Boyce Garrison’d itself into oblivion. 


Like most of our San Diego friends, we stopped getting “The San Diego Union Tribune” a long time ago. Just took in the Sunday edition for vacationing neighbors. 

It is officially 80% advertising.

To cut costs, they had to fire the good writers and keep the old, tenured writers, so the quality of the writing sucks. Because the quality sucks and nobody is reading it, they have to sell more advertising. 

People are paying to have paper garbage thrown on their front lawn. 

“The San Diego Union Tribune” has officially Boyce Garrison’d itself into oblivion. 


With that big rat, Spicer, jumping ship, and the Mueller investigation so quiet, I just have a strong feeling this is the week that the fit really hits the shan for Trumpies. 


You want to know what’s wrong with soccer? I’ll tell you what’s wrong with soccer. It’s too Europeanie-weenie. (And don’t even start with its called Football crap) 

Soccer is too much a guy named Ian in knickers and bumper standing in a queue having a go. 

Let’s forget for now all the man-buns, and single funky names and the PMS-inspired flopping. “This last whimpy flop has been brought to you by Midol.”

Teams are named after towns or clubs or odd combinations of both. Real Madrid? But do they have their team name on their jersey? (Don’t start with kit) No, they have a name of a sponsor.

Teams move up, teams move down. The Cleveland Browns may suck, but they are always in the NFL. What happened to loyalty? 

Each country has two or three league championships. There is nothing close to the Super Bowl. Except in the Olympics and World Cup, but then they are playing for their countries, not their teams. 

And then there are “Friendlies.” WT Crusty F? Can you imagine the Packers and the Bears playing a, eww, eww, eww, Friendly? Ehhhhhhhhhhh. 

And players get borrowed? 

“Yeah, uh, hello, Packers? Bears here. We have a Friendly against the Raiders. Can we borrow Aaron Rodgers? We'll give him back. Thanks.”

And the hand-holding with kids before the game is cute and all, but . . . no.

Rest in peace beautiful Pudsey