Palmolive...

...contains neither palm nor olive. Discuss.

Naturally

Was there ever a more appropriately named baseball executive than Yankees GM Brian Cashman?

Hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair, hair. Flow it, show it

For me, the 70s didn't end until Pat Simmons cut his hair.

Too late, Joe!

I bet Joe Lieberman's thinking "Why couldn't Scotland Yard have revealed this new terrorist plot on Monday?"

You Still Got It!

Happy Birthday, Donny Most!

Try the veal!

I'd like to thank the World Dryer Corporation for giving me my start in comedy. Yes, I was the first to deface the instructions on a hand dryer in a public restroom* to read "Push button. Rub hands gently under warm air."

I can't take credit for "Stops automatically." I'm a stickler for spelling.

*At a rest stop on I-35, just north of Dallas, in 1969, if you must know.

Who knew?

Turns out Killing Me Softly is about Don McLean. Speaking of which, I highly recommend About A Boy. Very charming.

Aphorism

"Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."

John Kenneth Galbraith, via Paul Graham. Something tells me that those two have (or had, in the case of JKG) different ideas of what's unpalatable.

Baby names

If I ever have twins, I'm going to name them Brangelina and Bennifer.

Brainless news

Both Wednesday and Thursday I suffered through air-headed "news" stories on Tom Cruise's baby on "The Early Show" on CBS. I was stuck on a treadmill, and somebody else had the remote control, otherwise I'd have changed the channel. NBC, ABC, CNN, and Fox probably were running the same story.

But anyway, this morning I had a dream about Mr. Cruise. I blame CBS. I was in the tiny back seat of his BMW Z4 (which in reality doesn't have a back seat). He was admonishing me to never, EVER ding the paint if I ever drove it, and anyway, I would never, EVER drive it. Meanwhile, he was trying to park it next to his Porsche, and he scraped the two together with a satisfying crunch.

Phobia

I take a massage now and again, and I'm working through the yellow pages to find the best practitioner. The other day I called a new number and asked to make an appointment. The fellow said "I'll just transfer you to Seth."

Seth!

Seth?

No, no! Transfer me to Betty! Sandi! Crystal! Anybody but Seth!

So Seth gets on the line, I panicked, and now in one hour I go to see him.

I just hope "it" doesn't move, and I'm definitely not eating Mango for lunch.

Kirby Puckett memories

David Halberstam tells a story about Joe DiMaggio in his book about the Yankees & Red Sox, "Summer of '49." I forget which season it was -- '50 or '51, I think. DiMaggio was old, and his body wasn't holding up. The Yankees had already won the pennant that year, and yet he was out there busting his ass, running out every play. Somebody asked him why he was trying so hard in what was essentially a meaningless game. He replied "There might be somebody out there that has never seen me play."

Kirby Puckett played that same way. There were no meaningless games for him. He always gave it everything. What a joy he was to watch. In later years, it was revealed that he wasn't what we thought he was (in a way, a little like DiMaggio's public image vs. his private life). But what he did on the field is what I choose to remember today.

Everybody writing today about Puckett will, of course, mention Game 6 in 1991. He carried the team, the city, the state, the region, the legions of Twins fans, seemingly everybody outside of Atlanta, on his back into game 7 and the Series title the next day.

I remember the day Puckett signed baseball's first $3 million-a-year contract -- a number that seems positively quaint now. My mother called me to tell me the news. She doesn't call me to tell me news about my own brothers & sisters!

Before the All Star game one year, I saw a little feature on TV. They asked numerous players "If you could be one other player here, who would it be?" Everybody -- about a dozen, I think -- answered "Roger Clemens." So naturally they asked Clemens the same question, and he said "Kirby Puckett."

In 1996 I was passing through the Twin Cities when Puckett announced his retirement. There I sat in the airport, reading the Strib and the Pioneer Press, fighting back tears.

Like I am today.

Bobsleigh?

I turned on the TV last night, expecting to see bobsled from Turin, but all they had was bobsleigh from Torino.

That, and the sad sight of all of those limp Norwegian flags at the finish of the 4x10km cross-country relay.

Compulsion

I don't have OCD or anything, but if I ever got to work and all of the red hangers were taken and I had to use a yellow one for my coat, I'm not sure what I'd do.

Nostalgia

One of my wife's friends has only just now discovered email. As a result, our inbox is jammed with jokes, cartoons, fake sob stories, and hoaxes.

It's just like 1998.

Snappy Comeback

My new dentist is Dr. Sherlock. Each time I go to see her, I hope she says something self-evident, so I can come back with "Thank you, Captain Obvious!"

Chipotle

I learned yesterday that chipotles are just smoked jalapeños.

I can honestly say, though, that this new knowledge hasn't brought me happiness.

The Tracterz

Anybody remember the early 80s band The Tracterz? Jambo's blogging about them.

Words

You know how when you can't figure out the words of a song? And you try, and try, and try, for days, weeks, or even months? And when you finally figure them out, you can't get that song out of your head for days?

No? It's just me? OK.

Anyway, here's the current example:

For she'd her apron wrapped about her
And he took her for a swan.
Woe and alas, it was she, Polly Vaughn.

I laughed. I cried.

I saw "Walk the Line" yesterday, and it's a terrific film. This is not a review, just a few thoughts on a few scenes.

But before that, I'll get the usual business out of the way. Joaquin Phoenix is absolutely fantastic in the role of Johnny Cash. Despite what Roger Ebert says, no, you can't close your eyes and believe it's really Cash singing. But it's a very good facsimile, and certainly good enough for suspension of disbelief.

Reese Witherspoon is also excellent as June Carter. I would have liked to have seen a little more about her life away from Cash. She's portrayed as really having it together, as being just about the only real adult performer on tour. But what about her two failed marriages? I don't know anything about that, or whether it would have made for a better film, but it does leave me curious.

There are a lot of very good scenes, but I was especially moved by one sequence near the end of the movie. Cash had sunk a tractor in the mud near his house, and mainly to try to please his tyrant father, he's gunning the tractor back and forth, trying to free it. Mother Maybelle Carter tells June "Go down there!" June replies "I'm not going down there!" Her mother says "You're already down there."

We haven't seen very much of the Carter matriarch, but here she is, telling her daughter to save this ornery man, a man who has caused her daughter nothing but pain and trouble. She knows what June hasn't admitted to herself; that despite Johnny's erratic behavior, his drug addiction, the failed marriages, and all of the other obstacles, the two of them belong together. Metaphorically, June was down in the mud with Johnny, and the two of them needed to get out, together.

Later, as Cash is locked up in his own house, going through detox, Maybelle & Ezra Carter chase off Johnny's drug dealer at gunpoint. I was laughing and crying at the same time.