Prop Bets For The Debate

 

 

A post about Prop Bets from a Baptist may sound a bit odd—almost as odd as "Baptist Sipping Whiskey" or a calendar featuring "The Sexy Women of The WMU".

First, I need to define a Prop Bet. A Prop Bet is a bet which "may or may not have a direct bearing on the final score."  It happens all the time in the betting world, especially for a big game like the Super Bowl, where people bet who wins the coin toss and/or how many times Taylor Swift is mentioned in the broadcast. (In the last Super Bowl, if you bet Taylor Swift was mentioned 480 times in the broadcast,  you won.)

There will be a Presidential debate between President Magoo and ex-President Current Felon Orange, the apparent nominees of the major parties.

This is highly unusual because 1) It is in the middle of the summer, and 2) the parties still need to nominate them officially. 

I think this is because, deep down, both Democrats and Republicans want this election to be over as quickly as possible. Plus, both parties hate us.

This debate, down the street from me in Atlanta, has the political world in a tizzy because the political world thinks debates help decide elections, except when they don't help decide elections

I'm not sure how many people will watch this debate. There's always baseball, and Netflix has a seven-part documentary on The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Of course, I would never watch a documentary on beautiful young women hopping around in hot pants when I could watch two 80-year-men yell at each other.

But I have listed several prop bets if you want to make a little scratch on the side. Remember, this is for simple entertainment purposes only and if you have a gambling problem please seek immediate attention before College Football season starts and you lose a lot of dough.

How many times will Trump say "rigged"?

How many minutes into the debate before Biden wanders off stage?

How many times does Trump keep talking after they turn his microphone off?

How many times does Biden use the word "Democracy"?

How many times will the CNN panel of Jake Tapper and Dan Bash fact-check Donald Trump?  "No, Mr.Trump, this sky is not the most amazing blue you've ever seen in your life."

How many times will Trump mention the border?

How many times will Biden refer to Trump as a felon?

How many times will the CNN panel of Jake Tapper and Dana Bash fact-check Joe Biden.  I already know this one. The answer is ZERO. Even if Biden starts in on one of his patented tall tales like he was once the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers and/or that he co-wrote Dr Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.

How many times will Trump say something that is rude, crude, and socially unacceptable?

How many times will Biden claim the economy is "not really that bad"?

How many times will Trump say "Drill, Baby, Drill"?

How many times in the debate will Biden challenge Trump to a wrestling match?

How many times will Trump refer to illegal immigrants as vermin and how many times will Biden refer to them as "friends we haven't met yet"?

How many questions from the CNN panel of  Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will be about the growing budget deficit and debt?  (Answer: Zero)

Will both men be asked about Catlin Clark and the WNBA?

How many times will Trump refer to the rioters of January 6th as patriots, "including the guy who pooped on the floor" and promises to pardon them, but he hasn't decided on the guy who pooped on the floor because, "even I would say that was kind of gross". 

How will both men answer the question "the person they most admire"?  (Trump: "Me".  Biden: "My dad because he would always say, 'Joey, don't worry about people who dress up in animal costumes and make out. That's another subgroup that you can exploit for your own electoral  advantage'. He was always saying things like that back in the days when they had bumble bees on quarters and you could take a dollar and tell the guy at the cash registrar that you wanted 'four bees, please' because I was a cool guy back then and all the chicks loved me.  Then I would tell that guy to look out for Corn Pop because he was a bad dude."

Fatherhood

It may sound amazing (or not), but I've been writing this blog since 2009, and I haven't written much about being a father. 

 

This is interesting because Father's Day comes around once a year, and you would think I could come up with some Dad jokes.

 

(This would be an excellent time to remind you that I wrote the forward to Greg Marshall's book Attack Of The Killer Dad Jokes. I probably should win some sort of award for it. You should buy the book and tell people you know who wrote the forward.)

I'm in the time of my life where I am watching my son be a dad to his son, Rowan. Rowan is fortunate because my son is a ten times better Dad than me. Most of it was because my son didn't sleep at all for the first year of his life.

 

My son was born in 1991 and that year is a blur to me. There was something called "The Gulf War".  1992 is a blur to me, too. 

 

I woke up in 1993 to somebody from Arkansas running the country and something called "Garth Brooks" on the radio. My advice for all would-be dads is to get as much sleep as you possibly can before the baby is born. 

 

Being a father is one of the most rewarding things you can do. It is also the most frustrating because, let's face it, most of us have no clue how to be a father and have to rely on how our fathers raised us, which can be tricky.

 

Some of our fathers were Ward Cleaver, but some of my friends' fathers were just a mess. Some drank too much, cheated on their wives, or were just plain mean.

But they didn't have classes to teach them how to be fathers, so they had to rely on how their fathers raised them. This is probably the reason they drank too much.

 

When I was growing up, Dads wanted to be something other than your best friend. They wanted to be the King Of The Castle, where every word was treated like some kind of Holy Writ.

They didn't particularly care if you had an opinion. They didn't care if they called your opinion stupid (which it probably was) and it hurt your pumpkin little feelings.  Deal with it. The Germans didn't care about his feelings when they were shooting at him at Guadalcanal.

 

Maybe they were not the most emphatic, but most dads taught you by example. Some of them were bad, but still it was an example nonetheless.

Before the pandemic, a group of our friends from the church we grew up in, had a little reunion. All, except for one, were married to the same person. 

 

 It wasn't that we were holier or better than other people. It was just that we saw our parents, and our parents stuck together. Buying a ticket to Splitsville wasn't in our emotional DNA when things got rough.

All our fathers did one thing: they got up in the morning and went to work.  They made a living to support their families. They didn't gamble their money away and didn't chase skirts. 

When my son came along, our church had something called "The RA Racers." It was a pine box derby race in which the kids "made" their cars and would race them to see who won. 

Another bit of  advice for any dad is to avoid living in an area that has a pine box derby and a large aerospace manufacturer that employs a boat load of engineers.

I have never been handy, crafty, or particularly smart, so my son was at a complete disadvantage when it came to his RA Racer car.

I was hands-off of the RA Racer car, but one year, his car came in second place for "design."  He was really proud of his second place. That's as close as he got to winning anything in the five years we did the RA Racers.

But he learned that he wouldn't win an award every time he showed up somewhere and would have to figure out how to make a fast race car.

Long story short,  he didn't grow up and work for General Motors.

But he did grow up and marry a girl. They saved their money and bought a house.  They had a baby.  

That's what he learned from me.
 

I did teach him how to tell a joke. Greg Marshall had a little to do with that, too.

 

 

About The Other Day

 

Look, I have never claimed to be Nostradamus.

But, I wasn't surprised about a Manhattan court convicting former President Trump of thirty-four felonies, especially when they came back so quickly after the start of deliberations.

You hate to say the fix was in, but the fix was in.

Anytime something doesn't go Trump's way, he'll squawk that the system was rigged so he couldn't get a fair shake. In the past this has included, but was not limited to, The Emmy Awards and buying a NFL football team. 

A broken watch is right twice a day, and a blind pig can find an acorn.  It is one of the few times you could watch one of Trump's screeds and think, "Well, he's got a point."

The judge has given money (not a tremendous amount, but still) to the Biden campaign, and his daughter is a consultant for the Biden campaign.

If Alito is supposed to recuse himself because his wife flew a flag upside down, then we should at least concede that Judge Juan Merchan should have done the same.

Jonah Goldberg made a good point about the recent Trump mess.

"Donald Trump had sex with an adult film actress while his third wife was nursing their newborn child. He had an affair with a former Playboy model. He denies this, but as far as I can tell no one else does. Even Trump’s staunchest defenders don’t try—at least not very hard—to do so. He falsely recorded his effort to pay off to Stormy Daniels as legal expenses. He spent his entire professional life abusing the legal system, stiffing contractors out of their fees by threatening to bankrupt them in frivolous legal actions. As a landlord, he violated fair housing laws. As a presidential candidate, he promised to put his business interests in a blind trust, but once elected he didn’t and monetized the presidency for his own benefit. Also as a presidential candidate, he led chants of “Lock her up!” about his political opponent. He invited Russia to release information about her.  He was impeached (the first time) for abusing his power in an attempt to intimidate a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden for corruption. When he tried to steal the 2020 election, he pressured his own Justice Department to allege crimes to buttress his false claims that the election was illegitimate. This was also around the time he encouraged a mob that visited riotous violence upon the Capitol in an effort to intimidate Congress out of fulfilling its constitutional duties. He’s promised to pardon people who beat up cops on his behalf. He defended the mob that chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” He’s argued—through lawyers in court—and in his own words that he should be immune to any criminal charges that stem from actions he took as president, and to a certain extent, as ex-president. He’s vowed that when he’s president again he reserves the right to do what he’s outraged is being done to him. I could go on, but you get the picture. Now, I want to be clear: Except for the misdemeanor of false records, none of these things are proven crimes and some of them are not crimes at all."

 

I'm not an attorney, and I've only spent two nights in a Holiday Inn Express, but I don't understand how any of this case was "against the law," much less a felony. Maybe it was, and I'm just too dumb down here in Jawja to understand it.

But please spare me from all the "rule of law" nonsense.

I spent a good bit of my life listening to people call Edward Kennedy a "lion of the Senate" even after he left a girl at the bottom of a pond to drown. He didn't get one minute in a courtroom for a trial because he was a famous Democrat in a state run by Democrats.

In contrast, Trump, at worst, mislabeled an account on purpose.

As far as I'm concerned, Trump was convicted thirty-four times of being Trump

Everybody got what they want. Democrats get to refer to Trump as a  "convicted felon," which he is, and the Republicans get to refer to it as a show trial, which it was.

The problem for the Democrats is they are like the dog that caught the car.  It is a feather in their cap for "finally" getting Donald Trump, who they laughed and golfed with less than twenty years ago.

Despite the conviction, Trump has a better-than-average chance of returning to The White House

Look, Trump is a lout and total jerk. But even fat orange crybabies deserve a fair trial and if they are convicted of a felony for the felony to actually be a crime.

 

 

 

Biden-Trump 2: Electric Boogaloo

 

 

Whether we like it or not, the Presidential election is coming. It is the exciting Biden versus Trump Redux because the first time didn't give us a big enough headache.

This is the first repeat election since 1956. That was Eisenhower versus Stevenson. How anyone could look at Adlai Stevenson and think "Now that's a President!" is beyond me but we've had worst.

Eisenhower stomped Stevenson in 1952, giving the GOP the White House for the first time since 1932. The Democrats nominated Stevenson again in 1956 because they figured America would vote for a man whose head looked like an egg.  They were wrong.

The last time we've had two Presidents running against each other was 1892 with Harrison versus Cleveland. Cleveland won The White House in 1884. He lost it in 1888. Then he won it again in 1892.

Cleveland has a few things in common with Trump. He was from New York. He was a workaholic. He was a jelly belly. He had outkicked his coverage and was married to a much younger woman.  Other than that, not much else. I will add the economy at the time got worse in Cleveland 2.0.

Things will get nasty. Soon

There are many reasons for this.

One, Trump is a nasty person. That's the way he is wired.

You will hear from some Trumpsters that everybody likes Trump except for his "mean Tweets." Implying that you have to accept Trump's craziness if you want to buy a family bag of potato chips under six dollars. If you like the dog, you have to put up with its barking.

Two, Biden is nasty, too. Just in a different way.

Biden is the guy who said Mitt Romney wanted to put African Americans "back in chains."  Only Joe Biden would try to make Mitt Romney out to be another Lester Maddox.

Biden was supposed to be the grown-up in the room. He hasn't been.

Back in 2020, I wrote this: "It was nice to hear a Democrat say, 'Let this grim era of demonization in America begin to end here and now....forgive me for being cynical, but I'll believe this dawning of the Age of Aquarius when I see it."

And it hasn't been an Age of Aquarius. While I agree the January 6th riot was awful, bad, and stupid, I'm not sure tying up your political opponent with weak court cases isn't awful, bad, and stupid, too.  

Three, everybody already has an opinion on both of them.

I remember hearing about Joe Biden when I was in the eighth grade. Trump has constantly been in the news since the eighties.

Nothing is new with these guys. Biden obviously has some sort of diminished capacity while Trump is just nuts, Andy.

There's going to be a debate in June between these two guys. Why?

Really. Why have a debate? Everyone knows what the two guys will say and what they stand for.

My working theory is that it gives the Democrats time for one last push to get Biden out of the race and put one of their fresher faces in the top spot if Biden shows up at the debate wearing a bathrobe and beanie with a propeller on his head.

If Vice President Harris were more popular, the Democrats would have already pushed Biden out. But she isn't, and they have to take a chance, which is now 50/50 at best, that Biden-Harris can defeat Trump.

If Biden is re-elected, Vice President Harris will become President Harris before the '26 mid-terms. Biden will be a lame duck as soon as he is re-elected, and I think the Democratic party leadership will walk up the hill, give Biden a gold watch, and ask him to resign due to his "health."

Trump will be an instant lame duck, too, if he is elected. He's not good at building coalitions, and the country will tire of his dog and pony show, again.

You may remember I coined an election law called "The Inez Rule," named after my sainted mother, Inez.  

I asked Mom who she would vote for President. She said, "I'm going to hold my nose and vote for Nixon."

Most people don't have to feel a tingle up their leg to vote for a Presidential candidate. They will vote for whoever comes closest to whatever political opinion they have no matter if he is a tubby New York narcissist or an old man who gets older by the minute.

They just want one that can act like they have some sense, which is a problem this year.

 

 

 

To The Class Of '24

 

 

What I would say if I gave a commencement address at a college graduation. 

 

Let me be among those who congratulate you on finishing your studies and moving on from here to life.

Before I begin, let me first acknowledge the people who made this possible: your parents. Just in case you haven't heard, without them you wouldn't be here. Literally. All those years ago, there was magic in the air and they decided, as the scientists say, to get busy. Nine months later, you arrived. It was then they began to dream. It was the dream to have enough money to send you to college so you can get a good job and move out of the house.

Secondly, I want to acknowledge the American taxpayer. They threw in some dimes for your education, too.

There's a lot of clap back from your generation to mine about college education. My college education was indeed about five dollars a year for tuition. However, I graduated with college debt, which was significant for me because I graduated with a liberal arts degree, which was a mistake.  

Because, believe it or not, there was not a lot of employers lining up to hire a history major from a small (at that time) college in Georgia. The nerve of some people.

Eventually, I was hired by a large insurance company to put my history degree to work. I drove a History Truck. It was alright, and I made a lot more money than those with a degree in English who were driving an English truck. 

So it all worked out. When you get close to the end of the road like me, you'll be amazed how many times you will use that phrase: "So it all worked out."

I will give you some pointers to help make it work out.

First, when you get your job, SHOW UP.

I know you are not supposed to quote Woody Allen in this environment, but he said "Eighty percent of success is showing up."

In 2002, the large insurance company decided to lay me off. Don't worry; it's not a matter of IF you'll ever be laid off, it's a matter of WHEN.

I took a contract job at another smaller insurance company. One morning, my boss came up to me and said, "We would like to hire you full time because you show up."

As Hans and Franz said, "Hear me now and believe me later." While you are important to the people who love you, you are not important to your employers, no matter what their human resources website says. And if things get tight at the office due to losing business or the economy, they will tell you they can pick up another employee like you at the bus stop.

So show up and work and make it hard for them to get rid of you.

Secondly, accept the fact that things will change.

When I entered the workforce, cigarette smokers could smoke at their desks. Now, cigarette smokers have to smoke on the loading dock or in an isolated corner of the globe.

When I entered the workforce, men had to wear dress pants, a shirt, and a tie, at least to the office. Now,  I work remotely, which means I can wear the same T-shirt five days a week. 

You have to be open to change simply because your work computer will force you to change your passwords every thirty days.

Don't like a boss? Don't fret; you'll get a new one sooner or later. Don't like a co-worker? Despite what the company website says, you are not paid to be their friend or to be a member of their family. You are paid to act like you have some sense and treat everyone respectfully. 

My last bit of advice is to have a sense of humor.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but many people's humor glands have just shut down. If they went to the emergency room, the doctor would say, "Three Stooges, STAT"

So laugh. Laugh at politicians. It is funny that the youngest candidate in this year's presidential election, which in the past has always been about the future, is seventy years old.

Laugh at popular culture. Our most popular musician is a young woman who writes songs about her old boyfriends and yet....she still gets new boyfriends. 

Laugh at yourself. You are pretty funny in your own way. 

So, let's get these diplomas handed out so we can go and get something to eat. 

 

Like It Or Lump It: A Man In Full

 

It is time for "Like It Or Lump It," where I review shows on the various streaming services (Netflix, Amazon, Disney Plus, Hulu, Peacock, and the one that says you are a couch potato) and tell you if they are any good.

Up this week: "A Man In Full" (Netflix)

"A Man In Full"  reminds me of the great Monty Python bit called "Australian Table Wines," in which Eric Idle reviews various wines from Australia. 

Specifically, "A Man In Full" reminds me of the sparkling wine "Perth Pink." Idle says "This is a bottle with a message and the message is “Beware!” This is not a wine for drinking. This is a wine for laying down and avoiding."

 Like Perth Pink, "A Man In Full" is a show with a message, and the message is "Beware". This show is so many levels of bad.  It is a show for laying down and avoiding.

Where do I start?

Easy. "A Man In Full" is based on a book by the great Tom Wolfe. Tom Wolfe wrote "The Right Stuff", which is probably one of the best books I've ever read. He also wrote "The Bonfire of The Vanities", which is almost as good as "The Right Stuff.

When I heard "A Man In Full" was set in Atlanta, I had to get it. While it wasn't as good as "The Right Stuff" and "Bonfire," it was still Tom Wolfe, which meant it was better than most of the stuff on the market.

Fast-forward from 1999 to 2024. That sound you heard was Tom Wolfe rolling over in his grave. This show, based on his book, is awful. 

There are reasons for its awfulness, and the reasons are legion.

First of all, the show is nothing like the book. Sure, the characters' names are the same, but that's about it. 

In the book, the protagonist, Charles Croker, is an Atlanta real estate tycoon who goes bankrupt and becomes an evangelist for Stoicism. (That's right, the ancient Greek philosophy.) In the streaming show, Croker is an Atlanta real estate tycoon who goes bankrupt and kills the twerp that bankrupts him.

This leads us to the biggest problem with "A Man In Full": The Biggest Star.

Jeff Daniels, a fine and talented actor, plays Charles Croker. He plays Charles Croker as a Southern-fried Donald Trump with the worst Southern accent you have ever heard since the original Shake-N-Bake commercial. 

Daniels seems to have based his accent on Buck Strickland, the owner of Strickland Propane of Arlen, Texas. If they ever make a live-action "King Of The Hill," Daniels is a shoo-in for the part of Buck Strickland. I kept waiting for him to say, "Aw, Hank."

The rest of the cast is okay. The pretty Diane Lane is Croker's first wife and her accent comes and goes. Ami Armeen plays Croker's superstar in-house counsel, Roger White. One of the few positively portrayed men in the movie, White does some legal hocus-pocus to save Croker's admin's husband from going to the Fulton County jail. However, he only does this after he listens to his wife.

This leads us to another reason for the awfulness of this show: the writing.  

This show was written by David Kelley, the television writer who created "Ally McBeal," "The Practice," "The Lincoln Lawyer," and "Boston Legal." 

All of the male characters are either total jerks, stupid, or a combination of the two. 

Kelley has a subplot with Roger White working with the mayor of Atlanta, played by William Jackson Harper (who was in "The Good Place"). Harper is good as the two-face weasel mayor. The only problem is that the mayor is running for re-election against a Trump-like white populist, which is rich considering Atlanta has had a mayor of color since I was in 10th grade.*

Kelley's Atlanta has no Varsity, Peachtree Street, Lenox Square, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Publix Grocery stores, or Georgia State University.

In Kelley's Atlanta, people have to parallel park when they go to the grocery store and are booted and towed away when they are just a little bit over the line into the no-parking zone.

There is Buckhead because that's where Charlie and them live. There's also Georgia Tech because Charlie was once a big-time football player at Tech.

Charlie is in what bankers call "Super Duper Debt" because he owes the bank over a Trillion Dollars, and they have the nerve to want their money back.

Most of the series is about the bankers and Charlie cussing at each other about the debt. Charlie tries to figure out a way to pay off some of the debt, and this involves having some rich Yankee liberals watch horses mate. 

The bank has the gall to repossess Charlie's plane in front of the rich Yankees who thought equine husbandry was horse rape.**

The twerp banker begins to date Charlie's ex-wife. One thing leads to another, and the Twerp and ex-wife do the South Carolina lovey-dovey.

Charlie busts in on the lovin' and threatens the life of the Twerp. Now the Twerp has taken not one but two Viagra pills, and he opens his robe and shows he is a man in full, too.

Charlie begins to choke the Twerp, and since Charlie has arthritis (huh?), he can't let go of the Twerp's throat. The Twerp dies, and Charlie has a heart attack and dies too.

None of that happened in the book.

The stats on "A Man In Full"

Violence: A little.

Language: There is lots of cussing, and nobody goes to church except except one of those dancing and hollering churches where people jump the pews. Glory!

Sex: A little at the end after the Twerp takes two Viagra pills.

Nudity: Full frontal Twerp nudity. Diane Lane's rear end, maybe, because she is a pretty big star and she's getting up there in age so they could have used a stunt butt.

Verdict: Lump It, if you haven't guessed already.

*I'm turning 65 in August in case you want to save up and get me a birthday present. 

** I'm not sure how bringing these Yankees to watch Dad horse and Mom horse make a Baby horse was suppose to make the Yankees buy Charlie's companies. I'm also not sure how the Yankees thought baby horses were made.

 

Another Millennial Problem

 

You have to hand it to the Millennials. 

They have been given the shaft in so many areas. As they were leaving school, the economy went into the toilet and stayed there. 

They had to move home and live with their parents who did icky things like going to church and mowing the yard

Then they found out that they would have to pay back their student loans, which can range up to $1 billion, if they got their master's degree in their "passion," like Medieval Russian Art. 

Now, the poor babies are having a hard time in the housing market.

The problem is that too many millennials want houses like their parents but can't afford them because they are too expensive.

On top of that, people like Mom and Dad (and me) have the nerve to hold on to their houses instead of selling them for a reduced rate to millennials because millennials have now decided to grow up and own something.

If you want to read something funny, read Reddit because there are some really funny things (and by funny, I mean stupid) written by people like "Cannabis Breeder" and "The BigDill" on the important topic of "Millennials Not Buying Homes".

The people on this thread point out that the problem is simple to understand: everything costs too much and it should not. 

They also note that "mega corporations" and "mega-investors" buy up all the inventory. They buy houses, fix them up and sell them simply to make money. The heathens shouldn't do that. The nerve of some "mega corporations" and "mega-investors"!

One poster said, "Our parents and them < bad word >boomers that can't seem to go away are responsible."  What I like about this post is its laser beam analysis. The problem is caused by our parents and their buddies for staying alive and not giving us what we want.  Also, we want to prove that we are tough by using bad words.

Despite all the whining, and boy can they whine, Millennials have a point.  

Compared with the previous generations, The Boomers and Generation X (as Rodney Dangerfield would say, Generation X was no bargain either), Millennials have more debt (mainly college loans) and a lower net worth.

Part of the debt problem is that people should have taken the time to explain to Millennials that loans are debts that you (are you sitting down?) have to pay back.

In addition, the cost of college has increased exponentially since I was in school, when tuition was forty bucks.

That's just ha-ha funny man stuff, but in 1986, the total cost of going to Harvard for a year was $14,100.00.  In 2023, tuition alone was $57,261.00.

Every college takes its cues from the Ivy League, and the cost of going to school everywhere else has gone up, too. Not to mention, joining a Greek house adds costs because they always have formals and they have to buy booze.

Of course, politicians have been quick to recognize the problem of high college debt by coming up with a solution that any kid that got suckered in by the Obama "we are the change we are looking for" would love: forget it, kid.    

Uncle Joe says don't worry about your loan; we have you covered. He only asks that you go to the polls and vote for Uncle Joe.

However, it is more than the high debt that some millennials carry around. Home Builders are building fewer homes than they did a few years ago.

Then you have the mortgage rates on a thirty-year note, which, as of 4/19/24, are 7.946%. In 2019, the mortgage rate on a thirty-year note was 4.13%.

If you think that's bad, the mortgage rate on a thirty-year note in 1989 was 10%, the year we bought our first home.  We dreamed of a 7.946%. We ran to have our mortgage refinanced when it did hit 7%.

Millennials will just have to wait it out until mortgage rates come down and a bunch of us Boomers go and see Jesus.