Freddogg Off The Chain

Three friends riding in a gray 1963 V.W. Beetle with a sunroof, gas was 30 cents a gallon, each was packing a five dollar bill and sleeping bag heading to the Jersey Shore from suburban tract housing Philadelphia. We were migratory creatures riding in economy class but didn’t have the social awareness to realize it. We slept in marshes and on the beach under rescue boats, never owned a cooler but always seemed to be around free food and beer.
We swam in the warm ocean at night, loved the taste of salt water and did the slop and the pony to the music on the A.M car radio. The girls we encountered on the boardwalk were freckled and tanned and copper-toned of hard muscle and always surly to any invitation to a party. “Get a job, creep” was a little harsh for us boys from the way back outback but we expected it and, in fact, the nastier the putdown the more likely the girl matriculated at a Catholic girls’ school.
Forty-five years later with regular gas at $3.75 a gallon and families driving Expeditions, Escalades, Suburbans and Sequoias, resort towns on Delmarva are worried that the wandering squadrons of squanderers of disposable income will spend their leisure funds on backyard tents, gas grills, and hamburger and hotdogs purchased from Sam’s Club at bulk prices kicked by plenty of beer and chilled Schnapps plucked from the Rubbermaid fish cooler. There are no travel costs and no driver designees; home is just a Fosbury Flop away.
The fun-for-its-own-sake summer family vacation has become cost prohibitive for the unimaginative sub prime marauders of the market place with rental properties charging through the roof prices and camping has become just too Coleman stove gay with all the accessories and pup tents and teeny hibachis and little TVs and campsites booking weeks in advance.
The only foolproof hedge fund to guard against cost prohibitive family vacations was understood by our low rolling, rear engine propelled, sun drenched and mosquito drilled five dollar friends a half century ago. Move to the Coast; find a job in a place where you can see the ocean every day. Live somewhere that is environmentally sensitive to migratory water fowl. Make friends with watermen, know the various hunting seasons, buy an expensive shotgun you will never fire and join a club that ends with the word “unlimited.”
Liberal Arts graduates and charter members of Parrot Head Clubs understood the endless summer of our youth before it was too late. We understood that young people tan and old people weather but where is the transition zone? Perhaps Dylan understood: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” You can feel the salt air absorbed by your pores as it drenches your soul changing your “attitude and latitude” as Jimmy Buffet sang.
The vacation and the party and the careless spending on entertainment come to locals every summer like tides running under a floating dock. The vacationers are a monetary necessity for resort town economies but only if you are in the service industry. Teachers and lawyers are immune from dire economic indicators unlike those who traffic in tourists.
The greatest gift passed down to the children and grandchildren from those who moved to no horse beach towns that rolled up the sidewalks after Labor Day 40 years ago is the gift of being “Born at the Beach,” which should be on a tee shirt.
Kids who don’t know how lucky they are--isn’t that what we want for our children? They grow up among loving adults who have never grown up. The party always comes to them; they never have to travel.
Beach kids have a certain ingrained look of hospitality etched into their faces. They enjoy entertaining their landlocked cousins and shrugging their shoulders when asked “Is the tide coming in or going out?”
The Cummings Turbo Diesel free market economy of America has turned in on itself, swallowing careless spenders like gulls on garbage, terns on trash and otters in the outflow pipe.
The Beetle Bug is returning to the beach but it is a lark not a necessity. Sleep in a bag back by the bay with five dollars in your pocket and a can of warm beer and Homeland Security will be on you like greenheads on an oiled fat back.
You can’t go home again but the smart ones moved to the beach a long time ago.

I was wondering if a person not unlike myself could be charged with sexually harassing a computer generated female voice?
Today it was information and the city and state question. I knew she was leading me into trouble because where I live 645 is a Lewes exchange but if the place is actually in Rehoboth the computer voice may go Lewes or Rehoboth there is just no way to know.
I chose “Bidness” for my category and then said slowly “Kim’s Hair Creations” and the voice said “Prudential Gallo Realty, is that right”? I screamed “No Bitch! I don’t want some split commission slut cutting my hair.”
Please hold and I’ll get my supervisor.
“Yes may I help you? “
“Sure what are you wearing?”
“What listing do you want?”
“Kim’s Hair Creations because I’m gay”
“I have a Kim’s Hair Creations in Lewes and ‘Because I’m Gay’ in Rehoboth which number do you want?”
“I’ll take the one without caller I.D.”I said.
“Hello Because I’m Gay”
“Goodbye, because I’m not!”
I still need a haircut.

Freddogg

I was driving east on Route 9 heading towards Lewes around 5 p.m.a week ago when I spotted a big old dark skinned black man construction worker walking west and carrying a thermos. I stopped at the light power dived my window and yelled, “Yo Pluck! Then I diagrammed a triangle with two hands and closed by saying “Last call long jump!”
Pluck about 45 years old still had the aerodynamic head with piercing eyeballs sitting atop a 6’4” body of about 290 pounds. He gave a hint a recognition the way a dog does when you asked it “you wanna go for a ride?”
Back in 1983 I had recruited this senior athlete to a very good Cape track team in the middle of the season because we needed depth. And of course his first meet he long jumped 21 feet talking off two feet behind the board but I made the mistake of running him second in the 4 by 200 meter relay emphasizing “take a safe pass inside the triangles.”
We ran the race and were disqualified by an earnest and honest judge with sons on the team.
“I couldn’t help it coach,”he said. “Orlando was way out of the zone.”
“By Orlando I assume you mean Pluck?”
Pluck who was a gentle soul, thank the lord, came over to me looking contrite and confused. I put my hand on his shoulder seizing the “teachable moment.”
Pluck what happened? I told you to take a safe pass inside the triangles.”
Pluck had a revelation moment, drew a triangle in midair saying “Hey coach, are they them things shaped like this?”
“That would be them Pluck. That would be them.”
Pluck did crazy stuff like three scratches at the Dover relays thereby eliminating his partner but the most bizarre was when I was waiting for the West Rehoboth three- hub non-tagged express on a Saturday morning so the team bus could disembark for the Conference Championships and when they got out there was no Pluck.
I asked Sweet Baby James who was not the brother’s keeper,” James tell me a story. Where is Pluck?”
“Coach he was out there waiting for this here ride with the rest of us when some white dude rolled up and asked ‘did any of us want to work? Pluck just got in the car.’”
Twenty five years later I find him walking down the road carrying a thermos. That is one long work day.

Triangle Man Triangle Man Out There Doing The Best he Can.

Uncle Joe spent time in a military prison for “shooting up” a camp of displaced persons somewhere in the European theater during World War Two. Later Joe would return home and drive a Philadelphia trolley car and get implicated in stealing tokens and selling them on the black market or to black people I never got the straight story. Joe was my favorite Uncle and later worked the graveyard shift at an all night diner on the Jersey White Horse Pike or could have been the Black Horse Pike. Joe became a custodian at a small catholic school and when he died at the age of 70 the gym was named after him because Joe Kelly had the force of a charismatic personality.
My uncle Cholly floated around the Pacific Ocean during World War 2 on a boat without weapons. Every morning he would watch the kamikaze show and hope a Japanese Zero wouldn’t decide to die for a soft target. Cholly Rodgers was the greatest and most gentle guy ever and used to make boats inside bottles.
My father spent the war in the army stationed in Seattle and then Portland. He was stricken with MS and so became a disabled veteran but if some shit had jumped off in Seattle he would have been there.
His best friend was Wooden Legged Charlie who lost both legs when his jeep rode over a landmine. Charlie talked kids out of quarters and allowed them to put them inside his legs. He earned at least minimum wage which hovered under two dollars for the longest time.
Another favorite guy of mine up the street was the big rascal who drove around town in a Chrysler Imperial with three lights on tasteful fins and smoked a big cigar. This guy had survived the Bataan Death March so when he got home he just drove around and never worked.
I have age contemporary friends who grunted around Vietnam and rode shotgun on helicopters.
I salute these guys and all the souls who didn’t make it back on this Memorial Day-we should all know a person from every conflict this country ever fought- which unfortunately has become a carnivorous three day drunk in America but at least our young people don’t know anything about history.
My uncles and dad and his friends enjoyed this weekend eating and drinking in a way only those who have earned it can appreciate.

freddogg

I was leaning over a fence last Thursday night, the thugged-out grandfather in sunglasses and ski hat and black turtle neck, watching high school lacrosse, which is preppy and yuppy, attracting fathers who wear yellow sweaters and worse and belong to Parrot Head clubs and just go crazy when they hear Jerry Jeff Walker sing,”Up against the wall Red Neck Mothers.”

People looked at me “you can’t take the Philly out of the boy” but what good is a baseball hat in a stiff wind. I enjoy being buttoned down but not sear suckered so sue me.

This Quaker co-ed home from Freshman year in college was holding court inside my personal hearing zone, rattling on about every amusing, so she thought, story from her first year at college and I overheard her say,”And this boy who is Catholic lied about it and pledged this Jewish fraternity and now he’s this Major Jew Poser.

Now that was funny which bought her more time but not an infinity of inane stories and I looked at the boys who just were all about respect and politeness and the entire scene was perfect for the time tested joke drop “show us your tits.” And I say that in all due respect and if you need that joke explained you are a Parrot Head.

I want a tee shirt “Nobody Cares!” just to wear to parties that I don’t attend. My new motto for that is “Better Slighted than Invited.” That way you don’t have to go but you can make someone feel guilty about it.

I am so out.

Perhaps I’ll return with a Memorial Day Weekend story of my youth. Fill me up buttercup.

freddogg

Teddy Kennedy wants his wife to retain his senate seat after he dies which begs the statement ‘Ted this may sound harsh but you will be the dead guy so don’t worry about it.”

The worse thing of all the bad things that happened in this rich guy’s life, worse than having two older brothers assassinated and his nephew John plunge a plane into the drink, is that 1969 Chappaquiddick incident which is so well known it is in my spell checker.

I have had nightmares where I caused the death of an innocent person and I think that would just be the worse. There was a national Lampoon Cover that had a picture of a Volkswagen beetle and head line “If Ted Kennedy had been driving one of these he’d be president today.”

Here is the skinny from Wikipedia which ironically is not in the spell checker.

In 1969, Edward Kennedy drove a car off a bridge into the channel between Chappaquiddick Island and Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy managed to escape, but his passenger, campaign worker Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned in the submerged car. Kennedy left the scene of the accident and did not call authorities until the following day. Kennedy pled guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and received a suspended sentence of two months in jail.

If a suspended sentence is one you don’t have to serve unless you drive another car off a bridge and leave another young girl at the bottom of a pond than why not make the suspended sentence longer being as it’s only symbolic anyway?

I figure Teddy got 40 years more than poor Mary Jo and no matter how famous once the news is out there do we need two days and countless head tumor specials? How many specials were there of helicopter pilots in New Orleans saying “Put Fats Domino in my bucket and hoist him up here? How you lost your entire dam mind?”

I wish Teddy all the best I actually saw him on the back of the train on that trip to Washington after John died. A handsome young lad he was. I wonder why he never hired a personal trainer.

fredman

The absence of diplomacy is war and the failure of trash talk is fisticuffs or if you have a weapon like a bat or rock use that and as an impulsive alternative you can shoot the person closest and most annoying or an innocent bystander if that will satisfy your emotional lust to quiet hurtful insults hurled and hitting home at your expense.

Spontaneous stupidity and violence happens everyday in urban America-AND HIGH SCHOOLS- and cops and FBI agents will tell you that on a crowded street the “bad guys” don’t really care who gets hurt as long as someone bites the pavement and that includes children. Say it ain’t so but I trash talk the truth.

Last Sunday a YMCA Flag Football championship game that I promoted for a million dollar turf field almost made it to the end but with two minutes left on the clock with a team leading by 20 the talk was getting hurtful “I’d say nice game but I’d be lying” and a full bodied tackle cleared the benches and brought nasty talking women to the sidelines, bitches with those voices that cut through your sensibilities like a blow torch through a steel door.

The game was called short of completion and then it was discovered that someone stole the football off the championship trophy and when the league commissioner exclaimed “who took the football” he was greeted with “why you looking at us mother fucker? Ain’t nobody over here need to steal your cinchy assed Dollar Store trophy.”

The three games leading up to the sociopathic meltdown were awesome with great athletes not past prime making circus catches and enjoying a Sunday morning of competition.

The good news is that the frustrated losers of society (which were a random handful in this story) are on 24 hour every day lock down with themselves. I’m not sure what it’s all about except it ain’t about anything good but about spoiling every thing good placed in front of them.

An Activist Afro like the Reverend Al Sharpton should at least have a natural cut and not look like a 1957 James Brown out of shape.

The comedian Slappy White back in the 70’s said, ”I went into a barber shop and asked for an Afro. I fell asleep in the chair and when I woke up I had a bone in my nose.”

Johnny Carson laughed but said nothing, that was back in a time period when more different kinds of people laughed at themselves and when comedians turn serious like Bill Cosby they lose something and the word I’m looking for is funny.

Damon Wayans was a guest on the View and he commented that all the Rutgers raucous over the Don Imus comment pertaining to their women’s basketball team as ‘Nappy Headed Hos” was funny because “they do look like Nappy Headed Hos.”

Wayans is smart and lives on the edge of satire where it meets censorship and sees all this “Hang Em High” for what they said backlash as being dangerous in a free society.


I find Al Sharpton entertaining and politically street smart but because he sees himself as the helium balloon of civil rights untethered riding currents of righteous indignation high above the game the rest of us must play everyday somebody needs to poke a hole in his fat ass.
I guess it's politically incorrect to throw a civil rights leader under the bus that vehicle being a sensitive American symbol even today as unlettered buses painted weather beater blue head out to pick crops to say nothing of short buses in fact there is a tee shirt "I ride the short bus" and I wanted to buy one but they don't come in double X.

And now the IRS is about to make and rake him over not as some sort of government retaliation for his positioning on social issues but because Al owes millions of dollars in back taxes. You can go to the internet and read all about non profit monies and personal monies and taxes at the federal and state levels but trust me it falls between haphazard and willful deviousness and an ordinary citizen would already be in white collar jail.

“Drop off your high energy biscuits and get out! We will accept whatever aid you wish to deliver but none of your goody two shoes altruistic CIA operatives will be allowed to win over the hearts of minds of our starving masses with your dumb puffin-muffins and water bottles.”
Myanmar is such a dumb name and anytime you hear the word junta you know it represents lots of dumb people.
”I’m in the junta and it is all good!”
However some would argue there are no such things as humanitarian efforts it’s all about influence peddling or paddle boat peddling and geo political positioning.

The Director of the World Food Program pleaded with the government “"Please, this food is going to people who need it very much. You and I, we have the same interests," Banbury said. "Those victims — those 1 million or more people — who need this assistance are not part of a political dialog. They need this humanitarian assistance. Please release it.”

The United States also sent 20 thousand body bags and I know what you’re thinking,” we have a body bag depot somewhere in the event of such a catastrophe? Who has that government contract and was it a sealed bid?

And so a paranoid government would rather allow its people to starve and die of disease than allow Western governments to come in and fix things which they know how to do.

The USA is so good at mobilizing relief efforts it does make all Americans reflect back on Katrina and wonder why the entire Bush administration wasn’t air dropped into the delta region of Myanmar two years ago.

Has any country ever gone to war for strictly humanitarian reasons? “We’re saving your people and if you don’t get out of our way we will flame your asses out!”

A tricky concept and we don’t do it because just like Iraq there is no end game for such a policy.

Let me dive back into my think tank and jump right in and we can think and sink together.

The intellectual doggy paddler

Freddogg

Which is the state flower of West Virginia and can you correctly spell either without your word processor underlining it in red?


I looked at a big old lazy boy flunking student a few years back and said,” Let me give you three reasons for your poor performance one worse than the next

1. You are clinically depressed and need to better balance your medications.

2. You are a burnout druggie stoner boy.

3. You really are that fucking stupid!

I see where West Virginia is a state that Hilary Clinton is a cinch to dominate. That does not speak well for the demographic of the Mountaineer State. What it means is lots of old white people and lots of uneducated white people many without high school diplomas. That is her base, her metric, to use the current buzz word.

Obama has robbed the Clinton’s of the black vote not because he has soul or can pass the brother hand shake test but rather even half a brother evokes allegiances when the Clinton’s start bringing their lame assed Bubba game.

Yesterday I saw a thirty something black woman in a number 20 Eagles jersey I said "Oh yea a Brian Dawkins fan and Andre Waters, Lem Barney, Billy Simms, Barry Sanders and Wes Hopkins-no wait he was 48-then I couldn’t remember Dawkins anymore and she looked at me like I was daffy but not daffy duck because he is black because Disney has always been racist which is why the black duck is a loony Tune

And what is wrong with Bill Clinton besides the fact that he is angry and bitter and I like seeing unhappy multi millionaires who don’t get what they want I mean how cool is that?

Freddoggy

The Med Page is kicking my butt this morning with many strange assertions backed by scientific research. Look for this stuff later today on mainstream cable delivered by news bunnies.

1. The shorter your arms the more likely you are to develop dementia later in life. However on the plus side the more likely you are to win a bench press contest or pass for a Bulgarian.
2. Bipolar patients who are obese are less like to respond to lithium therapy. “Ronnie you may be bipolar but at least you’re really fat!” When a fat person shakes pills from a vile and asked,” How many of these should I take? You know it’s a trick question and so you should answer “what is normal dosage then multiply it by how many standard deviations you are from ideal on the Metropolitan Body Mass Index.”
3. Breastfeeding has been associated with smarter kids in the first grade BUT when the kid can unbutton the shirt it is time to graduate to a juice box.
4. Parents of autistic children are twice as likely to have mental disorders themselves because over time everyone drives every one else nuts. I’ve been around staff members who work with autistic children and they drive me nuts with their little Velcro reinforcement stickers.
5. How about clinical depression in middle aged patients with Type 2 diabetes? Yea, how about them? Sometimes depression is like sinking into a big stuffed chair. Just let me wallow I am fine!

There is more stuff out there which doesn’t lend itself to comedy like close to 10 servicemen killed in Iraq because of being electrocuted while taking hot showers the wiring job done by Halliburton. Or the number of GI’s who return after Iraq and commit suicide. And what about 15 thousand people killed or missing after a cyclone in Burma? If poor people are allowed to live in water front properties there is a reason because whitey is all about the weather channel.

It’s your world and eventually we all get swallowed back up.

Freddogg

I don’t like dogs trained with clickers and biscuits and graduate credits from obedience schools. I look at the animal and wonder “where is the dog?” It has been replaced with a stimulus response mammal whose dog life mission is to serve and service an adult who can’t play fetch. The training of these dogs can cost 30 thousand dollars.
I knew a nice man, blinded in late life that never missed a happy hour his yellow lab resting across his insteps. Once the man said to me “Don’t pet the dog” and I of course responded “It’s dark in here, I don’t have to tell you, and if you’re so blind how did you see me sneak in a harmless head pat and don’t give that “I can sense the vibrations bullshit. Come to think of it, how many free beers does this blind routine get for you and don’t you tell your wife every afternoon you’re taking the dog for a walk and then you come back blind drunk so to speak.”
“Excuse me sir but what is that Chocolate therapy lab doing in your hospital bed and tell me I didn’t just see what I thought I saw?”
“Hey this is the psychiatric pooch wing of the hospital. How am I supposed to know what you saw or what is reality or an illusion? Come back up here Bosco!”

Go Fetch

Freddogg

Photo Photo one is Bruce in Barcelona. Phto Two is Albert in Prism.

Valid points that don’t need to be made, that’s one of my specialties. I call it going Hannibal Lecture and turning listeners into the tongue swallowing Miggs from the movie ‘Silence of the Lambs.”
Yesterday it was a mid thirties former all state football and wrestling guy thanking me for mentioning his past in the newspaper and how hundreds of people had come up and said,”we didn’t know that about you, that’s really cool.”
I told him the people were incredulous thinking you just showed up on the planet as the guy you are now which doesn’t resemble in their minds the guy you were then.”
I could see him rolling his tongue. “And the ironic thing about the sports world is no matter how storied your past, defined as yesterday back to minor league baseball or leagues that include the word midget, you have a maximum of three minutes before listeners move on because no one wants to hear anyone else’s bullshit.
The double back irony of all this in my mind is the proliferation of Halls of Fame for any reason imaginable from music and sports to just being from New Jersey.
The inaugural class of the New Jersey Hall of Fame includes Yogi Berra, Tommy Edison, Alberto Einstein and Toni Morrison, the inaugural class includes Frankie Sinatra, Bruce Springsteen, Meryl Streep, astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and Vinnie Lombardi.
I took the liberty of going Jersey on some first names.
Imagine sitting on the boardwalk with The Boss on one side and Einstein on the other. The only constant that would matter to me would be “when is it my time to talk?”

Freddogg Rejected and Neglected By Better than Most

‘I finally broke into the prison I found my place in the chains. Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows.” Leonard Cohen

The Cool Hand Luke caper went a rye. Three young men broke into a pound to free one of their dogs. Word!
Actually the dog of a deceased friend who died dog less and it’s all so fenceless. The word was the dog was scheduled for decompression therapy and being as Luke wasn’t a deep sea diver who had surfaced too quickly in all likelihood he would soon be roaming free in doggy heaven where everybody is in heat all day long and the food is always canned not unlike a Mormon compound.
These three guys-Three Dog Night- cut the lights and bolts to the compound and when walking out carrying Luke in their arms were intersected by authorities and one boy who could think on his feet while Luke was off his cleverly responded, ”What?”
They claimed they found Luke sitting in front of the compound and that he had promised to attend his owner’s funeral and that afterwards perhaps he could return for execution or euthanasia or go Gator in the swamp like an old Burt Reynolds movie. "WE'RE COMING TO GET YOU GATOR."
This story of course has a happy ending if you don’t count the dead guy in the beginning.

Note: There are good people who work at these places but in some towns they will kill a dog even through the know the owner just because they are tired seeing the dog roam around a town like he owns it hanging at the hardware store and begging for ice cream outside the drug store that used to sell ice cream before prescription medication became so profitable on the black market.

Freddogg off the Chain and out of the yard!

What is funnier than a baby dropped 50 feet from a bridge onto a trampoline? How about two babies dropped 70 feet or six babies dropped 100 feet?
I know it doesn’t sound funny until you see footage of the ritual live from India and you scream “Holy Cow” get it- that is what has Americans outraged and appalled? Then why am I laughing because I like babies as much as the next person.
This is a cultural custom done for good luck and the babies, actually dropped onto a sheet held by his relatives; don’t know from being dropped, they just kind of accelerate in free fall, no flailing and no panic, and very little bounce back on impact.
‘Gentleman, start your babies”. I can see this catching on at NASCAR tailgates sort of drop baby from the Winnebago to wish Junior Good luck and it will elevate and gravitate to those big topless slap happy red neck women and just be careful because somebody could lose an eye.
Beware Buda babies those big bitches will go through the center of a cheap sheet which I guess means a year of bad luck.
And actually babies dropped from bridges or hurled 35 meters across a swimming pool grow up with a deeper sense or trust because babies dig flying and flopping it’s the parents who transfer a nervous reaction about it all.
Ever see a baby pounding on a high chair trey face all beechnut nut carrot funky and suddenly the trey fails and that baby comes roaring out of there and does a face plant onto the linoleum? It is hard not to laugh if you not related to the baby and hard not to panic if you are related. The baby will take you lead and I guarantee you if you slip on a wet floor that startled baby will pause before laughing it’s little ass off.

FREDDOGG