Helplessly Hoping - SYA

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers "Angel Dream"

 This is the song I sing, in my mind, to my daughter. 

Nat King Cole - O Holy Night

All the little pretties raise their hands, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers




Alabama confirmed Doug Jones’s Senate win over Roy Moore. It was a bad week for Moore. Today Moore’s horse, Sassy, charged him with sexual harassment.

A trending topic on Twitter is QuestionsForAProstitute. Just when poor Kellyanne Conway thought she had 2017 behind her.

Reports are morale at ISIS is at an all-time low. Even their daily scheduled 3:00 PM “Death to America” dance break is not helping.

Reports are morale at ISIS is at an all-time low. Sounds like somebody could use a hug and an ice cream cart. 

Much of the country is in an arctic cold snap, but the weather in Los Angeles is 71 and hazy. Just like Donald Trump. 

(Old Letterman bit updated) 

Much of the country will be blasted by arctic air. People are shaking like Hollywood actors seeing Gloria Allred.  

A psychiatrist warns kissing your children on the lips is too sexual and will confuse them. To which Donald Trump asked, “So tongue with Ivanka is out?” 

Reports claim morale in ISIS is at an all-time low. As a result, ISIS announced they will have Taco Tuesdays. Anyone not attending will be beheaded.

Roy Moore has charged fraud against the Alabama Senate election. It has been 16 days since the election and Moore does not like anything over 16. 

Roy Moore has charged fraud against the Alabama Senate election. Roy and Kayla Moore are sure there is election fraud because their accountant who did the re-count is a Jew.

There is a cold snap across the US. People are shaking like Roy Moore trying to get into the mall to return Christmas presents.

 Much of the country will be blasted by arctic air. It will be so cold in Cleveland, the Browns’ will be shaking before they see film of their next opponent.

Scientists claim waiting tables is more stressful than brain surgery. Being a waiter is especially stressful if you’re the waiter who has to explain to the Kardashians there is no horse in the horse radish.

Tiffany and Ivanka Trump posed in their bikinis in Mar-a-Lago for a Christmas video. And Eric Trump took a dick-pic and labeled it “Santa’s North Pole.” 

Hillary Clinton supporters are calling for people to cancel their subscription to “Vanity Fair” magazine for suggesting Hillary take up knitting. Asked Millennials, “Quick question. What is a magazine?” 

Donald Trump attacked Anna Wintour on Twitter mistaking the “Vogue” editor for the editor of “Vanity Fair.” If only our president had access to some kind of search engine that could prevent a humiliating mistake like that.

Since you asked:

There were four guys I knew in college at UCSB - circa 1980 - who are now leaders of their divergent professions. One owns his own corporate real estate construction company, one is a top real estate corporate attorney, one is a top executive in the food service industry, who owns several restaurants, and one was an executive at an energy corporation. 

While we were not close friends, we, all five of us, went to the same parties, we knew many of the same people and even dated some of the same sorority members. 

All four of them were from comfortable-to-wealthy California families, three from the Newport Beach/Irvine/Orange County area, one from Marin County in Northern California. 

All four were good athletes, good-looking, smart, charismatic and popular-as-hell beach volleyball or surfer-type All American, tan handsome white guys. They were the kind of guys UCSB wanted on their brochures. 

All four had one other thing in common: they were drug dealers. 

Not only were they well-known college-level drug dealers, (granted, demand at UCSB in the early 80's was high) they were equally well-known as disreputable, lying and cheating drug dealers. 

All four made big money knowingly ripping off their friends and fellow students by selling them defective and or over-priced drugs. Two of them infuriated their suppliers, real drug-dealing criminals, to the point of having a gun pointed at their respective heads. They were both lucky not to be shot. They both bragged about it.

And yet all four have become wealthy with families - although all four had affairs, got divorced and remarried younger women - and all four are considered pillars of their respective tony beach communities. 

All four regularly appear in the country club charity ball photograph sections of their wealthy Southern California area local newspapers. (Granted, one did go bald -which is fine, nothing wrong with going bald - but he chose to wear what can only be described as a rodent pelt toupee on his head to hide it) 

One can only assume they used their experience of intentionally stealing from their friends and fellow students and applied those experiences to the corporate world. 

And the fit was perfect. 

(One of them was named a Swedish name similar to Bjorn who claimed he descended from Viking royalty. He was in a business communications class with me that did a project on trust. If everyone trusted each other, we would all get the highest grade possible. But if someone lied and went on their own, they would get a good grade, but the people he betrayed, who trusted him, would get nothing. Bjorn lied to our faces four tests/projects in a row. He was an amazingly accomplished liar. He is now the richest by far, although he was also from the richest family)

Make no mistake, most people I knew at UCSB in and around 1980 were and are great people. And many of them have gone on do great, great things.  Two of my fraternity brothers have risen to the top in California corporate real estate. A friend is a renowned artist. Another good friend and fraternity brother wrote software the State Department requires to function each day.  

But one of my favorite UCSB people, of the many kind, sweet-natured, honest,  big-hearted and likable people, one guy I knew at UCSB in 1980, I will call Dale, not his real name, Dale was one of the most memorable. Impossible not to like. Kind. Constant smile. Well, Dale died homeless two years ago in the bushes of an off-ramp of the Interstate 5 Freeway in Mission Viejo.   

The moral of the story? You tell me. 


Sorry, that got a little dark. Speaking of dark...

One of the things I think we're learning the hard way is the image of famous people is not what we think. Boy are we learning this. Boy, am I learning this. 

Quick, what do you think of when you think of the famous Boston Kennedy family? 

If you're a Kennedy-loving nut, like me and my mom, you think toothy, Irish good looks, athletic, touch-football-playing, funny and charming. Big, fun-loving family. Sailing. Chowder. Brooks Brothers suits. JFK made us all proud to not ask -excuse the split infinitive - our country what it could do for us.

But the truth was different, as we know. And not because of JFK's many sordid affairs. 

JFK's father, Joe P. Kennedy, had his own daughter, Rosemary, a slightly learning-challenged, but sweet, lovable girl, but with a high libido, Joe had her lobotomized and institutionalized because she was too sexually active as a youth. Joe was afraid she would bring scandal to the family. 

In his defense, Joe swears the doctors lied to him about the result of the operation. But common sense tells us there is no way a guy, who was as successful and clever and thorough as Joe had been in business, would not have researched a major brain operation on his own daughter. He had to know a lobotomy would make Rosemary a walking vegetable. 

Many doctors said JFK would not have lived past 50 due to his back pain, addiction to pain killers, alcohol and amphetamines and advanced Addison's disease. (Yes, alcohol, that surprised me too. But in JFK's day, like FDR's paralysis, afflictions were well hidden)  

And how does a PT 109 boat commander get his boat rammed into two parts without being utterly negligent? PT boats were four times faster than destroyers. (Rumors of JFK's excessive drinking started then) And yet, JFK came out of it with the Navy Cross after Joe stepped in.

Nobody has said Jack and his crew were passed out drunk when the boat got rammed. But they did go out at night on occasions and get drunk. One anonymous PT commander said Jack's boat driving skills were horrible. And for Jack's sake, he hoped he was drunk, otherwise there is no excuse for what happened.


JFK's father, Joe P., was a bootlegger. After prohibition, Joe turned his illegal booze company legit into Cutty Sark. (Bootleggers were the precursor to cocaine dealers)

It would not have been possible to run a huge liquor company during prohibition without having scores of people killed, like Joe's often-business partner, and fellow bootlegger, Al Capone. 

When Joe became a Hollywood studio owner, Joe had the owner of movie theaters he wanted to buy, the great, Alexander Pantages, falsely accused of rape and, thus, ruined so he had to sell his theaters to Kennedy at half price. 

The horse head in "The Godfather"? That was rumored to have been Joe Kennedy's prank. The threatening of a producer to get Frank Sinatra into "From Here to Eternity" had nothing to do with a horse head. Separate myths melted into one for a movie. 

Joe had an affair with movie star, Gloria Swanson. When she threatened to expose the affair, Joe had her career destroyed and she went broke, alcoholic and homeless.

Joe Kennedy was Harvey Weinstein in the 1930's. People who got in Joe's way were ruined by the hundreds. 

Joe Kennedy was the ambassador to England, named by President Roosevelt due to Kennedy's financial contributions to FDR, and was fired because Joe was a staunch supporter of Adolf Hitler. (Joe Kennedy was famously anti-Semitic. One of the reasons Joe got into the movie business, besides the hot women, was allegedly to destroy rich Jewish immigrants who dominated Hollywood then) 

Joe Kennedy used tips from his Nazi pals to short (profit from their decline) the municipal bonds of the countries of Belgium, France and Poland. 

How could a human stomach from profiting from so much killing and misery? Joe Kennedy bragged about it. 

Prior to the depression, Joe Kennedy would short a company's stock (make money when it went down)  and then have that company ruined, ala Pantages. There are many economists who credit - or more accurately blame - Joe Kennedy for the stock market crash of '29. Although it clearly took more than one person.

Joe Kennedy allegedly beat his children, including JFK, if they did not win sailboat races. The story they floated had Joe sending them to their rooms without dinner. Others said they were struck. (The Kennedy kids said they loved boarding school because they did not get hit while there. People thought they were joking) 

If he lost a baseball game or a boxing match, Joe Jr. would get a beating - the friendlier term at the time was "an ear boxing"  -  from his father and then turn around and beat-up his younger brother, JFK. JFK used the euphemism pugilistic to describe his violent like-father-like-son brother, Joe ) 

Joe Kennedy openly encouraged fist-fighting among his children. He said it was good for them. 

While funny and wildly popular, unlike his father, JFK also confirmed the theory that the richest people are also the cheapest.  Close friends who grew up with JFK, like Lem Billings, honestly say they do not have one example of JFK ever paying for anything - a drink, a cab, a movie ticket, a dinner, a hotel room - in his life. 

Even after he was elected president, there are stories of JFK going to his father for money. His dad would hand Jack a thick envelope filled with hundreds and Jack would say, "Thanks, dad, I'll pay you back." And Joe would laugh out loud at the absurdity of that statement. 

Joe Kennedy would, what we now call, sexually assault the girlfriends of his sons, Joe, Jack and Bobby, when they came to visit Hyannis Port. JFK used to tell his girlfriends, "Lock your door. The ambassador likes to roam at night." 

When told her husband, Joe, was disable by a stroke, his own wife, Rose, reportedly commented. "Oh well. Life goes on." Or something to that effect and left to go play golf. 

The sadistic glee of Rose exacting revenge on Joe when he was in his wheel chair made even the biggest Joe Kennedy haters cringe. So god only knows what he had done to her prior. (Many say it was the lobotomy of Rosemary that was the final straw for Rose) 

Joe Kennedy was supposedly as bad as a person could get, sexually, violently, ethically, morally, financially. Joe was an outspoken racist. An alleged wife, child and girlfriend beater. An open Nazi lover and supporter. 

(They say the major business and pubic relations difference between Joe Kennedy and Al Capone was Al's ownership of brothels. Joe, because of political ambitions, had no brothels. When I grew up outside of Chicago, stories about Capone were still circulating and one of them was Al never killed anyone who did not deserve it. 

In the end, it was not the murders, not bashing in corrupt mob bosses'  heads with a baseball bat, but Capone's whores that upset the wives of Chicago judges and politicians and led to Capone's conviction for tax fraud. And his death from syphilis)

And yet, to this day, mostly thanks to the classy, funny and handsome JFK and Jackie, when people hear the name Kennedy, they think of "Camelot."  

We like to paint our bad guys as monsters and our good guys as Kings. But the truth lies a lot more in the middle. 



P.S. When I was a kid, I scored an invitation to spend a week at a rich friend's swanky Wisconsin private resort. They called their house on the lake a cabin. It was a mansion. It had maids. Plural. 

The resort had a fancy dining hall. Tennis courts. A huge pool. Sailboats. Shooting range. Stables filled with horses. A trout-stocked lake. Servants waiting on your every whim. 

Cheeseburgers and milk shakes would just magically appear at the pool as did the Old Fashioned whisky drinks and fillet Mignon steak sandwiches for the adults. 

My friend's father told the story of how Al Capone wanted be a member of the swanky resort, but his Uncle, one of the founders, turned Capone down. My friend's father joked about his Uncle not starting his car for a year. 

But the truth was his Uncle, a wildly successful banker, was wildly impressed with Capone and thought he would have been a fun guy to have around. 

But the wives did not like Capone's owning brothels. 

Do not bazinga on my gazooba, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers 

Much of the country will be blasted by arctic air. People are shaking like Hollywood actors seeing Gloria Allred.  

A psychiatrist warns kissing your children on the lips is too sexual and will confuse them. To which Donald Trump asked, “So tongue with Ivanka is out?” 

Reports claim morale in ISIS is at an all-time low. As a result, ISIS announced they will have Taco Tuesdays. Anyone not attending will be beheaded.

Roy Moore has charged fraud against the Alabama Senate election. It has been 16 days since the election and Moore does not like anything over 16. 

Roy Moore has charged fraud against the Alabama Senate election. Roy and Kayla Moore are sure there is election fraud because their accountant who did the re-count is a Jew.

There is a cold snap across the US. People are shaking like Roy Moore trying to get into the mall to return Christmas presents.

 Much of the country will be blasted by arctic air. It will be so cold in Cleveland, the Browns’ will be shaking before they see film of their next opponent.

Scientists claim waiting tables is more stressful than brain surgery. Being a waiter is especially stressful if you’re the waiter who has to explain to the Kardashians there is no horse in the horseradish.

Tiffany and Ivanka Trump posed in their bikinis in Mar-a-Lago for a Christmas video. And Eric Trump took a dick-pic and labeled it “Santa’s North Pole.” 

Hillary Clinton supporters are calling for people to cancel their subscription to “Vanity Fair” magazine for suggesting Hillary take up knitting. Asked Millennials, “Quick question. What is a magazine?” 

Donald Trump attacked Anna Wintour on Twitter mistaking the “Vogue” editor for the editor of “Vanity Fair.” If only our president had access to some kind of search engine that could prevent a humiliating mistake like that.

Southern California was treated to a Friday night light show from a satellite launched near Santa Barbara. “Beautiful,” said Olivia Munn. “Impressive,” said Steve Martin. “Oh, good, you guys see that too,” said Snoop Dog.


Donald Trump tweeted out praise for a student group a day after their director sent a racist tweet. If only the president of the United States had access to resources that can prevent something like this. 


An incredibly creepy asteroid that looks just like a human skull will come close to earth next year. NASA scientists are calling it the Keith Richards Effect. 



Papa John founder, John Schnatter, is stepping down following his remarks blaming NFL anthem protests for sagging sales. Maybe Papa John should have blamed bad sales on a pizza that tastes strikingly similar to the box it comes in.



The NFL has scolded referees not to use an index card to measure first downs like during the Raiders-Cowboys game. Because, when it comes to measuring first downs, the NFL insists on using only precision tools: two sticks and a chain.