Brainless Steele.

I can't understand why so many talk shows still invite Michael Steele as a guest. During his stint as chairman of the RNC, he proved himself a clown who misspeaks and lacks any kind of true intellect. Though generally good humored and affable, when he was on Real Time with Bill Maher he got into a shouting match with Ed Schultz, who took exception to one of Steele's unfair and snarky attacks on President Obama. Steele has lots of opinions and every one of them is about as fair and balanced as Fox News. So I guess these liberal talk show hosts like him or consider him amusingly vapid. Well let him have fun. After all he had his day in the sun starting on January 30, 2009, when he won the chairmanship of the RNC. Even then he saw himself as the Republican Party's first African American chief, which he was. But the always bigoted GOP only selected him as a token black in the aftermath of President Obama's election. They soon regretted their choice when he started to make inane remarks, misspeaks, and gaffes that nobody understood. So the GOP's flirtation with Michael ended with the 2011 Republican National Committee (RNC) chairmanship election on January 14, 2011 when they dumped Steele and elected Reince Priebus.

Not Flintstone, the other Fred.

This commercial delights me every time I see it. It gives me great joy to see this arrogant windbag doing a commercial for reverse mortgages when just a few years ago he was convinced he could be President of the United States. What a fool to believe that because he played political figures in films and on TV and that he was an arch conservative, he was qualified for the world's most important office. If you recall he began to fall apart almost immediately and soon bowed out of the running, despite all the faith other idiotic Republicans had placed in him. So now he's back to being a bit player on TV series and doing commercials for reverse mortgages. I would say, "How the mighty have fallen" except that Fred Thompson was never mighty other than mighty foolish.

Feeling much, much better.

A while back I complained about the Johnson & Johnson commercial that featured an insipid song about nurses. Now I am a huge fan of their new series of "Nurses Heal" commercials which mercifully did away with that awful song. I find this spot incredibly moving and can't imagine that it won't make lots of young men and woman consider nursing as a profession.

"Please hold for the next available liar."

YOU ARE NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET. That's the message on my computer when Comcast is unable to connect me to the Internet. They apparently prefer to phrase the problem in a way that suggests I am responsible for not being connected. That's not surprising these days when the average person cannot admit when they're wrong, so why would a company? I had an even clearer example of that today. Early this morning when I tried to place my first call of the day on my T-Mobile phone, it read "No Network Coverage." Since I have called from this area a thousand times, I knew there was network coverage. So what T-Mobile meant was "We are unable to provide coverage." If they had sent that message, I would have been mollified. But instead I was infuriated every time I tried to make a call and up popped the lie, No Network Coverage." Eventually I called my initial provider: the Coral Gables T-Mobile store. A sympathetic girl suggested I call the 800 number. The 800 robots were very warm until they discovered I am a prepaid customer, then they immediately switched me to the vast unknown of T-Mobile. Twenty minutes later I found myself in India speaking with a young man who was very sympathetic until I could not provide him with a pin number, because I had never been given one. He insisted I had and was unwilling to indulge me any further. I hung up and called the Gables store again. Now they were willing to admit the phone was faulty and encouraged me to come in. I said it was too far to travel and they gave me the number of a store nearer. When I called, a zonked out guy answered. He was unable, at first, to answer my question:"Is this a T-Mobile store?" He eventually admitted that it was but I was speaking on his personal phone. I decided to go to Coral Gables tomorrow.All this makes me wonder how many people die every year of strokes and heart attacks after or during dealings with any large company. I am sure if one were connected to a blood pressure monitor, you could see the numbers climb with each, "Your call is important to us. Someone will be with you shortly."


Note: At 7 pm, my phone was once again functional confirming my initial suspicion that there was something wrong with their network. So all those phone calls were wasted and if I had gone in to the store, it would have been still more wasted time and effort.So you see the technology gets smarter and smarter and the people who supply it, well, you know.

"Our customers are jerks."

The message of this and other Doritos commercials seems to be, "Our customers are low-brow idiots and this is how to reach them." This commercial is offensive on all kinds of levels. Not offensive but curious is why one of the men is so short. Is there a hidden message there? Anyway, the offenses. It's amusing to commit vandalism, ergo breaking the vending machine is hilarious. It's amusing to hit somebody in the crotch, since life-long injuries from such tomfoolery never occur. It's amusing to think that somebody who wants a promotion will never get it. At least all these things are amusing to sophomoric morons. These commercials are for Doritos, a product that is used by the whole family. Yet their commercials seem to be more suited to an off-brand, low-priced beer. Who are the advertising agency goons who come up with this stuff and who are the idiots at Doritos that approve it?

Note: When will we get over the idea that hitting a man in the crotch (a standard on home video shows) is comical. If you're a man, you know it's painful, debilitating and, in my cases, causes nausea, if not permanent damage. Imagine if you used the same
"comic" bit with a woman. Would anyone find that funny?

Guaranteed

Paul Ryan is talking. Ergo: Paul Ryan is lying. This commercial is nothing but bullshit, the Republicans trying to convince the American public that giving up Medicare is in their best interest, when it's the worst idea ever. Protects seniors? Just the opposite.
Ten years from now seniors would find themselves holding a pathetic voucher which doesn't begin to cover their medical expenses. In the meantime, thanks to Republicans, the wealthy will have become even wealthier and while you're sitting for hours in some dingy clinic miles from where you live, they'll be immediately ushered into their costly specialists or country-club hospital private room.

The cat days of summer.

My three outdoor cats hate this brutal heat. They are laconic, cranky and completely without appetite. I tried putting an electric fan outdoors near where they sleep, but they were spooked by the whirring. Then it occurred to me that since we prefer cold salads in hot weather, they might prefer to have their food chilled as well. As an experiment I put their wet salmon food in the freezer for
fifteen minutes, then stirred it up and fed it to them. After a brief period of "What the hell is this?" they ate it with more gusto than they have had for room temperature meals. I don't know if this will keep up, but it's encouraging.

Note: While this cat looks a lot like Herman, it isn't. Herman is not that fat yet.

This song is not ok,not ok, not ok, not ok, not ok, not ok, not

The visual for this Travelers' commercial is every bit as adorable as the first one, but this repetiive, tuneless song is incredibly irritating. Sorry, pup, but I'm going to have to switch channels or lower the volume every time I see your adorable face.

Motorola XPRT Angry Birds Commercial

Sprint seems to spend a lot of its ad money based on Angry Birds. I have no problem admitting that I have no idea what that means.

Note: Now that someone has explained it to me and I know what it means, I find this commercial more offensive than ever. Angry Birds, it seems is a popular video game many people play on their phone. While entertaining, it's mindless and, unfortunately, addictive. So for a company to suggest that it's important for its customers to rush through the work they are being paid for so they can get back to wasting their time and talents on meaningless and addictive video game is shameful. It's amazing to me how many companies today through their commercials openly admit they have absolutely no respect for the intelligence of their potential customers.

I don't understand Broadway any more.

This year, I am told, Broadway made record box office sales. This surprises me because there is very little on Broadway, other than a few plays, that I would want to see and even the dramas that interest me are not worth $100 or more for two hours. After watching the Tony's I am even more surprised at Broadway's success, which is probably due mostly to musicals. Especially surprising was the insipid love song from "Spider-Man, Turn of the Dark" the most expensive show on the Great White Way (Is Broadway still called that?). "Spider-Man" is playing at the boringly re-re-renamed Foxwoods Theater, which has almost 2,000 seats. I can't imagine how they can fill that many seats nine times a week at prices as high as $234.00. Do that many people feel it's worth $65.00 and up to see a modern-day version of Peter Pan with rock music? And how comfortable can one be sitting below two fighting—and likely sweating—actors on cables—cables that have already proven dangerously problematic? This doesn't seem to me like a sure cash cow. And it isn't like they'll sell the show to the movies: Hollywood already has enough Spider Men. And is this the new Broadway? Like the movies will Broadway shows become more special effects than great music and superior writing? And even worse, will most of the new musicals be reimagined movies like "Catch Me if You Can," "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert," "The Full Monty," "Billy Liar," etc.? If that's the case, I sure as hell wouldn't pay $250 to hear the kind of songs one can expect from "The King's Speech, the Musical."

The Sixth District Simpleton.

As a culture aren't we supposed to get smarter and smarter? Then what's gone wrong? How is it possible that we have a woman (positive) seeking the office of president of the United States who thinks we should teach creationism (negative, very negative). How can we have a potential candidate for the most important office on earth who is an evangelical, paranoid, homophobic, and amazingly uninformed? This past year, Bachmann told a group of New Hampshire Republicans, "You're the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord." I'm sure there were 10-year-olds in the crowd who knew that Lexington and Concord are in Massachusetts. She told Chris Matthews that the members of Congress should be investigated for their loyalty to the United States. I suspect she meant Democrats only. And when Obama went to India. Bachmann complained it would cost the taxpayers 200 million dollars a day, an insanely exaggerated figure. This is a woman who warned us that the Cenus could lead to internment camps, and bragged that she had visited all 57 states. Even if she weren't so frequently in error she is a bigoted fundamentalist Christian married to a very questionable "straight" man who makes his living treating homosexuals for their sinful lifestyles. She brags that she and Marcus have fostered 26 chidlren, but seems reluctant to tell us how much time they have spent with each and how much cash they collected for their altruism. She is obviously unfit to run for any high office, but—once again—the lazy media is unwiling to do any in-depth investigating and accepts her as a perfectly legitimate potential candidate.

Note:The Minnesota Department of Human Services reports that Bachmann's foster care license allowed her to care for at most three children at any one time; she had the license for 7 1/2 years. Bachmann did not answer a reporter's question about how long the children spent with her. "We've never gotten into specifics about the children because we've always wanted to observe their privacy and that of their families," she said. "As I'm sure you can appreciate."

You must have been dreaming.

I used to keep a dream diary. For some reason I stopped, which I think was a mistake because when I look back at past dreams they are fascinating. In many cases themes were repeated. Lots of shipboard dreams: being lost in a futuristic city; flying under one's own power; meeting someone you actually miss upon waking. Last night I dreamed I was on a cruise ship going I don't know where. The ship was a marvel of design with city streets, a huge beer garden, all kinds of restaurants and public rooms. The only drawback was I was supposed to participate in a play aboard this ship and could not remember a single line of the script. Fortunately I woke before I had to perform. When I did wake, I felt like I had been on a sea vacation and was quite smug about the imagery. That is until I talked to my partner, Peter. It seems he had dreamed that we went to the island of Haiti, which was greatly changed and called Bombex. It was a city of temples, great wealth, continual pageantry, apes. horses, and bazaars. The myriad details were so clear that he recalls the elaborate chariots in the parade and the fact that the driver made his horses face away from the crowd at each turn as that apparently frightened them. Another detail was a round arena completely enclosed by a high glass wall through which the audience could watch the action inside. Having a front-row seat, Peter was surprised that a woman inside the arena came to the wall and seemed to be yelling at him. He soon realized she was trying to explain the arena events. Some people tell me they don't dream, which I don't believe. If so, it's unfortunate because one's dream life can be rich and revealing. I have written several stories based on dreams and even changed a negative feeling about someone after having a positive experience with them in a dream.The greatest mystery to me is seeing places and things in great detail,detail you can't imagine you could imagine. Yet there it is. Faces you don't recognize; artistry you are not capable of producing; aerial views of countryside with each house below having its own pool, barn or other property feature; vistas that are not from any movie or painting. Living in Miami during these hot days is, frankly, a bit of a bore. But fortunately one can easily get away. Last night I went on a dream cruise aboard a spectacular ship and my partner, Peter, had an incredible adventure in Bombex.

What have you learned today?

Let's see now. There's are still terrible conflicts in Yemen, Libya and about dozen other countries throughout the globe. There have been some recent breakthroughs in cancer treatment. Those Styrofoam cups we've all been drinking from for decades just may contain carcinogens. The unemployment rate is high. People are being thrown out of their homes whether justly or unjustly, which means that a lot of children are going to bed both hungry and fearful. In short, the world has a lot of serious problems. But what are the major news stories? Sarah Palin's e-mails and Anthony Weiner's penis. Huffpost has no fewer than six Sarah Palin articles today. It's the topic du jour on all the major talk shows, followed up, of course, by whether Weiner should be shot at dawn. And we all watch without being outraged that we are being fed Twinkies and Ding Dongs when we need all the major food groups. Which is why we are becoming weaker and weaker and far less astute than we were decades ago. Yes, it's true that the networks throw in an ounce of protein every now and then, but not enough to make us strong again.

The whole cloth media.

Recent Howard Dean made the following statement, “Any time you have a contest — particularly when unemployment is as high as it is — nobody gets a walkover,” Dean added, “Whoever the Republicans nominate, including people like Sarah Palin, whom the inside-the-Beltway crowd dismisses — my view is if you get the nomination of a major party, you can win the presidency, I don’t care what people write about you inside the Beltway,” In short, he feels that in a bad economy you can't take anything for granted and even someone as inexperienced as Sarah Palin—if god forbid, she got the nomination—could win. That's what he said. But what the news is reporting is this: Howard Dean feels Sarah Palin can win. Dean thinks Palin could beat Obama. This kind of shoddy news reporting is rampant today. There is no longer any attempt to report facts. I personally don't think Sarah Palin could win even in the most dire economy as whatever is wrong with this country, she could easily make it worse. But Dean is entitled to his opinion. Pity the media doesn't report his opinion but something else of their own creation.

The King of all the bores.

There are many people whose fame I don't understand. But there is one who is the most mystifying of all. Why? Because as far as I can see this person has no talent, no charm, no appeal, no deep intelligence and no reason to have been successful for decades. As you can see from the photo I am referring to Larry King. Every time I watched his show because I was interested in the interviewee, it was obvious to me that King had done no research and had no in-depth knowledge or appreciation for the guest. If it was a songwriter, he credited him with the wrong songs or confused music and lyrics. If it was an actor, he had the wrong film title, the wrong year of release, the wrong co-star. He never asked a truly interesting question or came up with a trenchant observation. What made this gnome so successful. He wasn't attractive, he dressed like a clown, and other than his serial marriages (eight at last count) nothing about him was unique. Judging from past firings and an arrest for grand larceny, He wasn't even that likeable. Several Miami friends on mine, who worked with him during his early radio days here said he left town owing many people money which he never repaid. Last night when I saw he was on Real Time with Bill Maher, I was curious to see him out of the interviewer's seat. He was—no surprise—boring, intrusive, a master of the obvious and his usual dull self. He was also whiny right out of the gate, complaining to Bill Maher that the set was too cold. I guess it would have been too difficult for him to endure it for one hour or put a jacket on to hide that hideous red white, suspenders and tie. I am sure many people will tell me why he was so popular, but somehow I don't expect to have that conversation.

"Don't look at me. I'm hideous."

Since we showed an unattractive photo of an attractive person below, I think we should show an unattractive photo of an unattractive person. This individual can either look like a martian, turtle, Gollum from "Lord of the Rings" or, as a good friend pointed out, Nosferatu. But the irony is that there is a certain mysticism involved in that this person is not inherently unattractive. It is his evil innards, his lack of humanity, his greed and deception, his criminal nature that makes him so difficult to look at. Floridians already have buyers' remorse for having elected this reptilian profiteer with his new mandatory drug tests that are sure to bring him added wealth while trampling on the Constitution. He has already achieved a reputaton as the most unpopular governor. I am loathe to mention his name as I am certain it would release some kind of computer virus.

Madame President

This is rather a meaningless quickie, but I found it fascinating. The photo to the right is of Arianna Huffington. Since she usually looks soigne and glamorous, I find this pinched face photo peculiarly unattractive and rare. What I found even more peculiar is that this photo was on her own blog, The Huffington Post. This either means that Ms. Huffington lacks the vanity of most powerful women, or somebody is going to lose their job. I wonder which.

Filth, nothing but filth!

The world has gone insane and the press is leading the way. I am astonished at the amount of coverage this Weiner incident is getting. All because a photo of a man's grey (white?) undershorts displaying a bulge. The press calls this a lewd photo. A lewd photo! We are looking at cotton beneath which is a semi-indistinguishable lump. Yet members of the news media are displaying a sense of offended outrage. They are vilifying Anthony Weiner (before anything is even proven) as a pervert and stalker of young girls. Is America even more neurotically prudish than I thought? Can a man now go to jail by showing a girl a underwear ad from Sears? Will the new pornography be girls in Hanes and men in Calvin Kleins? Naturally Chris Matthews, ever the Roman Catholic prig was irate that such an offense would be perpetrated by Weiner, whom he was sure was guilty despite a complete lack of proof, Is the media really horrified at this display of fulsome fabric or is it just another opportunity to avoid real reporting and twiddle their time away with trivialities?