Greetings. Frank from Beach Walk Reflections here. Thank you, Marc for accepting this post.
Today is MLK Day – the commemorating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr – the day to celebrate and reflect upon civil rights – the day that I unfortunately also ponder racism. A news story made me think today, then I wrote.
I think about growing up during the 1960s – spending my youth in a small town in rural southeastern Ohio that is considered as a part of Appalachia. Growing up in a place never knowing why many Blacks lived in another section of town – a dirt road up a hill – seemingly out of the way.
After consolidating with other small schools in our area, I came to know and respect a classmate. What a great guy – and I still think highly of him! Not long ago, he told something important. I never knew his father took him to get a haircut in a town 15 miles away. More importantly, I never knew why. He just thought it was the way it was. He gave me more examples as we talked, and I shook my head at the societal shame.
I think back at seeing the news of the race riots in the late 1960s, but not understanding. I think back to the March on Washington and Dr. King’s famous I Have a Dream speech, but not understand. I sadly proclaim my ignorance. But today, I am also thinking about people I know. People that are close to me in some way.
People who refer to Blacks as goons. People who think wearing a black face is funny. People who in discussions include an unnecessary fact of someone is Black.
People who believe Martin Luther King, Jr. was a communist. People who say they celebrate the day gathered around a Kingmus Tree. People who say their town doesn’t need to celebrate the day because no Blacks live in their town.
People who fear and hate people named Obama. People who fail to see racial injustice. People who hang their hats on Critical Race Theory while not knowing what it is. People who don’t even try to understand the events such as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others.
Three people fail to reflect. Three people who resist learning. Three people who are unwilling to admit that they were wrong then and still wrong now. Three people in my circle who I consider to be the most racist people I know. Three people who cause me to hang my head in shame. Three people who show me what not to say – what not to do. And how many more people are like these three? I still have faults, but at least I’m trying.
This is the video essay sparking my thoughts …
… and a song for the day. If you prefer Alicia Keys, click here.
A tsunami advisory was issued for the west coast this weekend after an underwater volcano eruption on the island of Tonga, Because the west coast doesn’t already have enough shit to deal with . . from earthquakes to mud slides to really ugly basketball. Officials were quick to point out that an advisory is not a message of impending doom. It’s more like Sheriff Brody telling everyone to get out of the water until further notice. Instead of a great white shark sighting, this warning concerns strong currents and waves that are way scarier than any fish.
Let’s get to the rest of the week . . .
Before I knew anything about tennis, I knew Chris Evert. It was as if the girl next door just so happened to be one of the best tennis players in the world. For more than three decades, Evert was the headliner in tournaments around the world. From her on-again, off-again love match with Jimmy Connors to her epic rivalry with Martina Navratilova, she ushered in the new age of tennis; she was a television celebrity while collecting eighteen grand slam titles along the way.
But it was her grace in victory and defeat that separated her from all the tennis brats. And so, when the news came down this week that Evert has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, it became one of those moments that makes you want to scream at the unfairness of it all.
Instead, Imma hope and pray that the girl next door has one more big win left in her.
The Georgia Bulldogs made good on my prediction by winning the national title over those CFP regular attendees from Alabama 33-18 on Monday night. Okay, so I predicted the Dawgs would win it all last season, but I ain’t about to get stuck on the details in the afterglow of the school’s first football crown since Jimmy Carter was still in office.
It’s been a sports year to remember in the Peach State, with the Hawks making it all the way to last season’s Eastern Conference Finals, the Braves winning the World Series and Kirby Smart’s bunch vanquishing Emperor Palpatine and the Crimson Death Star.
And now the Falcons will try and . . . oh, never mind . . .
When a fast food joint not named Popeye’s introduces a spicy sandwich to the menu, you best dial up your gastroenterologist so they can talk you off the toilet. Since I don’t feel like contributing to my doctor’s Aruba trip this year, I’m giving the Diablo Dare sammie from Arby’s a hard no. For those of you fool enough to try it out, you’ll get a free milk shake for your trouble.
Worst last meal ever.
The White House announced that we will soon be able to test ourselves for the Coronavirus in the privacy of our own homes. If you’ve got health insurance, you’re entitled to eight free COVID at-home tests. Now, millions of Americans will be sticking foot long swabs up their noses and I gotta ask.
What’s the worst that could happen?
It looks like Putin is up to his dirty tricks once again as Russia prepares to wage a “false flag operation” in Eastern Ukraine. Basically, it means that Russia will stage an attack and then blame it on Ukraine, after which they’ll invade under the pretense of stabilizing the region. And if you’re wondering why I pasted an image of Nate and Brenda from Six Feet Under?
Because it fits.
One minute, Dusti Talavera was chilling in her crib watching TV and the next, she was risking her life in what will no doubt be a Lone Star 911 episode at some future point in time.
As three kids played outside of her Denver apartment complex, Ms. Talavera kept watch to make sure they didn’t do anything crazy. But seeing as how the kids were 4, 6 and 11 years of age, and they were busy digging into a winter wonderland, what were the chances they were concerned with playing it safe?
So when they ventured out onto a man-made pond that promptly collapsed them into the icy waters below, Talavera got to stepping. She said it was pure instinct that guided her and that before she even realized it, she was standing on the middle of the pond, because “They were babies, and they needed help,”
That’s what happens when your best self answers the bell. You don’t flinch when faced with impossible odds, you don’t back down when summoned into harm’s way, you don’t wait for a hero to show up. You become one. And so she ran outside and navigated the tenuous sheet of ice, pulling two of the kids to safety before the ice broke once again and delivered her into the pond.
Unable to pull herself out, she kept the unconscious six-year old girl’s head above water while her teenage cousin found a rope that she used to retrieve them. After which deputies from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office arrived on the scene and began performing CPR until she was resuscitated.
All three kids are going to be alright, thanks to Dusti and a brave sixteen-year old boy. Three young lives get to stay crazy and wonderful, and okay, maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea if they kept more to the latter than the former until everyone catches their breath. There’ll be plenty of time to merge crazy with wonderful, now.
I did a little simple math and when you really think about it, hundreds of years were saved on that pond. If these kids live a full life, replete with kids and grandkids, that’s hundreds and hundreds of years worth of history that didn’t get lost to the depths. Hundreds of years and thousands of places and millions of moments.
The Rundown has been preempted so that I can bring you an unfiltered, unfitted and unfettered mess of thoughts that have been squatting in my cerebrum. I was afraid this might happen if I ran out of Cinderella 99, so I’ll chalk this unexpected voyage up to living and learning. You can catch this week’s episode of The Rundown on Sunday.
Until then, here’s something less thought provoking . . .
Mario Lopez seems like a very nice person, but I can’t take him seriously when he uses words like “Cute”, “OMG” and “Yay!” in any sentence, much less the same fucking one. Listen, I ain’t down with the bullshit Hemingway methodology of machismo, but . . . if you got any testosterone in the tank, you can’t be riffing like Doc McStuffins.
They had to make another Joe Millionaire? Really? You know what the twist is in this show? That they made another Joe Millionaire.
AOC goes mask-less in Florida, Warren Davidson compares vaccine protocols in the nation’s capitol to Nazi Germany and the investigation concerning Matt Gaetz’s alleged sex trafficking is heating up. As if the Founding Fathers weren’t dead enough.
For the last time, Circus Peanuts are not fit for human consumption. If you disagree, you best get help for your blue pill addiction.
How the hell does Rob Lowe still have hair like that? I mean, without having to scalp somebody?
I think we can all agree that adjectives can be used for good or evil. So if you call someone ‘fantastic’ or ‘zealous’, congratulations on being a righteous human being. But if you refer to someone as a ‘national treasure’ and her name ain’t Betty White? Be assured, you are on my watch list.
Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross cycles through head coaches the way Kim Kardashian cycles through love tonics. He fired Brian Flores this week, never minding the fact this dude coached the hell out of an incredibly flawed team. Never minding the fact Flores didn’t lose his team when it sank to 1-7. Never minding that Flores was 4-2 against the great Belichick as Miami boss. That’s a shit ton of never minding, but it’s what Ross does. And now he goes looking for his seventh head coach since buying the team in 2008. Ross blathered on about how Flores was difficult to work with. You know who else is difficult to work with? Bill Belichick.
Renn Hawkey won Love Powerball, but I betcha he wouldn’t know Jane Austen from Steve Austin. A very trusted source provided me with this information . . .
Applebee’s stole the Cheers theme song now? Oh. Hell. Nope. (Psssst! That’s called foreshadowing).
MLB owners and the player’s union got together yesterday, and the only peeps happy about this fact are the caterers. The owners are intent on keeping their payrolls young and cheap for as long as possible while the players argue the suits are manipulating their service time. You’d never know the MLB pulled in more than 3.5 billion last year, but it happened. To quote Nino Brown, money talks and bullshit runs a marathon.
When someone begins with “Nobody asked me . . .”, shut any further nonsense down by finishing the thought with ” . . . and we are all the better because of it”.
I have a sneaking suspicion Power of the Dog is gonna roll this year’s Oscars. And good for everyone involved, really. But I saw it and I’m still waiting on a time refund from Stephen Hawking.
Welp, that’s a wrap for this magical mystery tour. If you made it all the way to the end, please let me know what you were drinking, smoking or ingesting in the comment section below. Remember, to err is human but to annoy is unforgivable.
75% of Trump voters believe the election was rigged and stolen
12% of Trump voters believe Republicans should cooperate with the Congressional investigation about the events of January 6th
10% of Trump voters say the next election will be free and fair
23% of Trump voters justify the January 6th events
26% of Trump voters say the former president himself is the best/most truthful source of information about January 6th
First of all, the extraordinary reality that there’s this research that shows that something like at least 8%, and maybe as many as 12%, of the American people, now say that Joe Biden was illegitimate and that violence is an appropriate tool to removing him and restoring Donald Trump. That’s somewhere between 20 million and 30 million people. That’s a mass movement in America in favor of political violence, which is a new thing. (John Heilman on Meet the Press, 12 December 2021)
The data above and the quote frighten me. What have we become? Why? For the record, and in accordance with Ohio law, I’m a registered Independent, therefore I do not vote in primary elections for either party. I also have a history of being a registered Republican.
I look at Republican leadership – those officials elected to national, state, and local offices. Not all of them, but I am confident in saying most.
Republicans are the ones sowing the seeds of discontent. Republicans are the ones promoting the big lie.
Republicans are the ones using echo chambers of their biased media outlets to spread falsehoods.
Republicans are the ones promoting widespread voter fraud, which does not exist.
Republicans are the ones suppressing voters under the disguise of election security. They started this after the nation elected Barack Obama, and continued after Joe Biden’s election.
Republicans are the ones who intentionally blocked a Supreme Court nomination because they wanted the count favoring their view of America. They are the ones who don’t believe the judicial system is for all Americans.
Republicans are the ones promoting themselves as the defenders of the US Constitution. Yet, not only are they the ones who want to amend it, they would like to rewrite the Constitution in their view by calling for a Constitutional Convention.
Republicans, your silence is deafening. Your deflection is ill-guided. Your loyalty is misplaced. Your judgment is selfish. Your denial is absolute. You are the suppressors. You are the greatest threat to democracy. You are the tyrants. You are the promoters of tyranny.
Jack Frost got his lazy ass out of bed this week, bringing actual snow to the east coast! Apologies to commuters and homeowners for that exclamation point, but I think winter needs to start behaving more like a mortician with dandruff; as in cold and flaky but nothing too wild.
The week began with winter storms meandering their way from New Jersey down to the Carolinas and stretching as far west as the Gulf of Texas. It delivered up a sequel with a “bomb cyclone” that slammed Buffalo and is working its way down the eastern seaboard. And okay . . I had to find a dramatically appropriate way in which to plant a favorite word of mine into the opening: Meander . . . it’s one of those very perfect words.
I’m shameless.
The lovely Dale gets the game winning goal for this next story . . .
Nadia Popovici is a big fan of the Seattle Kraken hockey club, and that’s not great. But every single other thing about this young woman just so happens to be.
While attending a game in Seattle between her team and the Vancouver Canucks, Popovici spotted a mole on the back of Brian Hamilton’s neck that alarmed her. Hamilton is the assistant equipment manager for the Canucks whose life was about to be saved by a med student who needed to warn him about it. Which is what Nadia did by pressing her phone against the plexiglass with a message about the possibly cancerous mole. She urged him to see his doctor, ASAP.
Well, Hamilton followed this future doctor’s orders and as it turned out, she was right. A cancerous mole with type-2 malignant melanoma was removed from Hamilton’s neck; if he would have let it go another few years Hamilton says ” . . I wouldn’t be here,”
When the team reached out to Popovici to thank her for the life saving gesture, she was sleeping after having worked overnight as a crisis intervention specialist at a suicide prevention hotline. (I told you every single other thing about her was great). And so she was treated to a game, gifted $10,000 from both teams and Brian Hamilton will serve as her official Uber driver in perpetuity. I made that last part up. But he would do it.
Frank Capra probably wishes he was around to write this one up.
I wanted to love The Matrix Resurrections. Okay, maybe not love it but like it very much? Yes, I really did. But alas, I really didn’t love it or like it or need to have spent two and a half hours watching it. The only reason I did was because if Keanu Reeves ran for President, I’d vote for him. Yeah, I know he wasn’t born here, but seeing as how we’ll let anyone in the Oval Office, I think it’s time we started ordering out.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me four times with each instance being dumber than the last? You must be the NFL. Because Antonio Brown has found his getaway driver in Roger Goodell’s league. How else to explain the myriad chances he’s torched in the past three seasons, from Pittsburgh to Oakland, New England to Tampa.
In addition to all that nonsense, Brown has been involved in civil as well as criminal charges, ranging from burglary to assault and rape. Oh yeah, and he faked a vaccination card, which happens to be a federal crime. So while I empathize with anyone who suffers from mental illness, I do not suffer nor sympathize with opportunists who are given every chance, afforded every benefit of the many doubts and spoon fed a lifeline, numerous times.
Brown and his agent are busy drafting a narrative to explain his Tragic Mike act, in which he quit on his team in the middle of a game last Sunday. They’re claiming he was injured and his coach was trying to force him back in the game. Even if true, it doesn’t excuse this asshole’s many splintered adventures. At all. If Boss Goodell wants to start earning some of that $40 million birthday cake he’s taking home, it’s time he tells Brown and his peeps to hit the bricks for good. Sure, the NFLPA is going to push hard against that kind of decision, and they’ll win that fight. Just so long as they go on record as having let AB back in again.
That way, when AB ends up killing himself or someone else, we’ll know who to thank.
Tuesday marked the end of an era as the BlackBerry now sleeps with the fishes, officially. Its legacy software was decommissioned on January 4th, rendering the former champion to paperweight status. In 2010, it was lording over market share as the top smartphone platform, but that all changed by 2013 when boom went bust. Because in the world of tech, a year is akin to a road trip through Westeros.
The BlackBerry joins the Walkman, phone books, carpet sweepers, toasting forks, pay-phones, VCR’s, answering machines, car lighters, alarm clocks, movie rental stores and the Cleveland Browns as stuff that is no longer relevant.
For health care workers, the last couple years have been akin to a jaunt through Cormac McCarthy’s tool box. But they keep on swinging away, challenging all the wicked curveballs humanity throws at them. Because while it’s the job that pays the bills, it’s the calling that steadies their steps into the unknown. These peeps are as well acquainted with the truth of our times as any group: The night is dark and full of terrors.
Jennifer Smith is a nurse at Grand Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Rome, New York, and she’s batting cleanup in God’s lineup. John Burley is one of her patients, and he can attest to this. Last month, he put in a frantic phone call to Smith, telling her that his dog Boomer had been taken to the pound.
When Burley moved from Arkansas to upstate New York, he had no support system, having left behind all his family and friends. So when he was hospitalized with pneumonia and lung problems, Boomer was removed from the apartment. John immediately dialed up his favorite nurse in a panic and she went into action, scouring the area until she was able to locate the pooch at the Rome Humane Society
Dog and Daddy were re-united, with Boomer coming in to visit his old man in the rehabilitation wing of the center on the regular. He spends the rest of his time at Smith’s place until Burley is discharged.
“There are just so many worries in the world right now. If I can take one worry away from John, that’s the least I can do,” Smith said. “I can’t cure diseases. I’m not a miracle worker . . . I made a promise to John to take care of Boomer. I will take care of him as long as he needs me to. John knows that. Right now the focus is on John getting better and taking it one day at a time.”
The night doesn’t stand a chance with people like her on our side.
You can’t look back at 2021 without noticing the hump it was toting around, with that big fat trouble making asshole called 2020 screaming in its ear. So if you came here looking for me to romance the stoned ages of this twin-bill that keeps on taking, I ain’t got T.S. Eliot to compare notes with. But . . . (Editor’s Note: I love big buts and I cannot lie), there was plenty of good feeling to buoy our swim to the shore.
Okay, maybe not plenty, but enough . . definitely enough. Should I shush up and get down to bi’ness? N’kay . . .
Imma start with the lovely Monika over at Tails Around the Ranch, who put the biscuit in the basket like the great Joe Sakic by leading things off with this one. Yes, I choose to copy and paste it, because I can’t do better than this and that’s okay.
Elected in 2020, 39 year old David Ortiz made history as Colorado’s first bisexual as well as disabled legislator to serve in the Colorado General Assembly, handily defeating his opponent 55-44%. In 2012, Ortiz survived a helicopter crash in Afghanistan while serving as a pilot in the U.S. Army. The accident left him paralyzed from the waist down. Following his recovery at Craig Hospital (a neuro-rehab and research hospital specializing in spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries, Ortiz worked as a lobbyist for veterans and behavioral health issues through the United Veterans Committee. Representing the communities of Littleton and parts of the city of Centennial (in the Denver metro area), Ortiz was the prime sponsor of 24 bills during the 2021 legislative calendar, offering more than any other freshman House representative. Among his sponsored bills is HB21-1110, which adopted the public accessibility standards established in the American with Disabilities Act into Colorado state law despite being unable to speak from the podium because of the assembly’s architectural design and his need for a wheelchair. While a beautiful capitol building, it had never been fully assessable to the handicapped with its many stairs/levels. Various updates to accommodate Ortiz were made earlier in the year to the 130 year building but he was still unable to address the body from the speakers podium. It’s nice to see that progress is being made to permit full access for all Colorado citizens…be they constituents or legislators.
See kids? When you open your hearts and minds to what is possible and stop dwelling on the business that ain’t your business . . . great things will happen.
We said goodbye to legends in every field in 2021. From Hank Aaron to Colin Powell, Larry King to Stephen Sondheim, Bob Dole, Olympia Dukakis and Cicely Tyson. So many luminaries whose contributions were always going to live well beyond their mortal years, even if they made us believe otherwise. And then in the last breaths of the year, we lost John Madden and Betty White to the blanket of stars above us, and it makes me think that the term legend might be too impersonal of a word to use for these people. Because they were so much more than big names on a marquee. They were passionate teachers and earnest souls who made the world that much better while they were here. And I’ll tell you something else I believe. They didn’t leave the room.
They simply changed seats.
And speaking of legends, Nomadland took home Best Picture honors at the Oscars, with the great Frances McDormand leading the way. So, you’re probably wondering why Carey Mulligan’s pretty mug is staring at you and I’ll get to that in un momento.
Saying Frances McDormand isn’t deserving of an Oscar is like saying Ted Williams didn’t earn his batting titles. And it’s not by accident that she has three of these statuettes now, which is one shy of Katharine Hepburn, and I’m pretty sure Frances has her own (well deserved) parking space outside the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. But Carey Mulligan pitched a perfect game in her turn as Cassandra Thomas in Promising Young Woman and last I looked you can’t do better than that.
That is all.
In sports, 2021 was more Groundhog Day than Heaven Can Wait.
Nothing against Tom Brady, but I’d sooner give myself a Siracha enema than be subjected to another episode of King Pretty Boy claiming football’s Iron Throne. And then the Lightning match his royal flush by hoisting a Stanley Cup and turning Tampa into “Title Town”? Yeah, fuck that. And Ho met Hum when Nick Saban’s Crimson Tide ended their two-year long national championship ‘drought’ by beating Ohio State last January. In basketball, the Milwaukee Bucks won it all. I’m not gonna lie. I watched them win and I still had to look it up when I wrote this, because I’d already forgotten.
Which makes the Atlanta Braves my favorite sports champions of the 2021 seasons. By default. Which, you guessed it, still counts.
2021 didn’t promise us a rose garden. Nonetheless, there was plenty of bloom to go along with all the gloom and doom scenarios. Like for instance, Britney was finally freed . . and no, I’m not being sarcastic about this. It’s a good thing because she’s a good person and I really believe that.
And not for nothing, but science keeps leaping and bounding into the later rounds of the coronavirus. The world’s biggest brains are harnessing their powers in order to make better tomorrows for everyone. There are constant studies being conducted as more and more vaccinations are administered which means, yes, there is a way back.
With the historic landing of NASA’s Perseverance on Mars, humankind has moved that much closer to realizing the dreams of Mulder and Scully and every single person who ever lived out of an RV in the desert. And I have a question. Will Mitch and his GOPeeps be as hostile towards space aliens as they are with human beings?
In 2021, we learned that not all of God’s creatures have been lost in the vortex of human progress. Blue Whales and Bald Eagles join Peregrine Falcons, Galapagos Giant Tortoises, American Bisons, California Condors, Giant Pandas and Steller Sea Lions in a comeback for the ages. In the box-score that matters most of all.
You notice how we treat a brand new year with such reverence? We pile all of our hopes and dreams into this sweet new ride and then we drive it out of the showroom . . . and proceed to devalue the shit out of it over the next twelve months. But I think we’re missing something if we were to let our story end right then and there. I think we lose the essence of who we are when we believe ourselves prisoners to some lost horizon that never existed in the first place. We, are more than that.
Last year, there were a million moments of inspiration that helped to create things that will provide thrust to a million future dreams. And there were first teeth and first steps and first words and first ideas and first loves and first journeys . . . and another million such places that help steel the soul against all the many bitter losses. Because the firsts are what feeds our advance into the future. It shows us that here, right here and now, is where the ride begins.
For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice
-T.S. Eliot Four Quartets
The Rundown will be posting this Sunday, but for today, here’s wishing you a very happy and healthy new year. May 2022 go down much more pleasantly than the last couple of years, and may the language be kinder.
Jack Frost got his lazy ass out of bed this week, bringing actual snow to the east coast! Apologies to commuters and homeowners for that exclamation point, but I think winter needs to start behaving more like a mortician with dandruff; as in cold and flaky but nothing too wild.
Be Sorry . . . Less 