Dips and drips.

As long as there have been people and language, there have been ways to call people losers. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it. 

English has a very impressive list of synonyms for losers. For starters, Merriam-Webster gives us disaster, failure, catastrophe, disappointment, bust, flop, washout, bomb, fiasco, has-been, mess, lemon, miss, dud, shipwreck, debacle, clunker, turkey, débâcle, bummer, fizzle, clinker, frost, also-ran, dog, hash, shambles, botch, near miss, nonevent, nonstarter, muddle. That doesn't include others like never-was, failure to launch, useless, trainwreck, wet match, doofus, wet lettuce, dip, and drip. Also, fill in your own favorite. To the connoisseur they have their differences; a turkey is more annoying than an also-ran, a bomb more of a spectacular loser than a near miss. Whether they tried and failed or failed from lack of trying, or even (like the has-been) have enjoyed past success, they have this in common right now: failure. 

Still, there is a lot of overlap between failures and other kinds of problem people. A doofus and a goof might have a lot in common, but it seems that while both are dopey, the goof may be lovable and even stumble into luck. A jerk is often not a loser, but like a bomb, is dangerous in proximity. 

It's funny to me that Merriam-Webster has many words for loser that imply spectacular failure, like catastrophe and shipwreck. Usually we see loserdom as a chronic rather than acute condition. A fiasco may pull things together for another try, but a loser can never win. We may avoid them in real life, but we like them and kind of root for them in the funny pages. Charlie Brown is the best example, but since 1965 the Born Loser has been sharing his hopeless case with the reading public.  

I thought about adding Joe Btfsplk of Li'l Abner to this list, but he's not a just a loser, he's a jinx -- a man whose loserdom is so bad that it extends to those around him. 

Always have some sympathy in real life for the losers you may meet. Sure, some do nothing but loaf, smoke weed, or krex and moan, but others keep plugging even though it's hopeless. Tenacity is a virtue. Besides, the most loveable loser many of us know is staring back out from the mirror, brushing his teeth (and doubtless finding a new cavity). I have read recently that from 1947 to 1950, Jackson Pollock painted in his “drip period.” My drip period has lasted from approximately nursery school to the present day.

Music City.

Not too long ago I applied for a job in the greater Nashville area. I know you think of me as a dazzling cosmopolitan New Yorker, and indeed for most of my life I was loyal to New York, and would have preferred to stay in the Empire State, despite the lousy winters and swampy summers and awful crowds and a government run by socialist morons (but I repeat myself) for whom I would never vote. Alas, New York has surpassed stupid and proceeded to brain-dead, so like most of us who are not brain-dead, we want to escape. 

But where to settle? Well, I had a line on a good job in Tennessee. I figured it had to be an improvement. My initial application was greeted warmly, and I had an online call to move the process on.

What was my fatal mistake, the flaw that led to the latest in my long string of failures? Ah, me. It may have been an error to demonstrate my enthusiasm for a possible move with this:

This is a souvenir plate I bought when I visited the great city of Nashville with my family years ago. It's one of three tourist-trap items I purchased on that trip. Another was a Music City coffee mug, long busted. 

We had a great time on that trip, even though most of us were not fans of country music. We did the touristy stuff -- show at the Opry and a look through the amazing Opryland Hotel, and yes, I was almost within touching distance of Elvis's gold 1960 Cadillac. I was completely sincere when I told the interviewer that we enjoyed the town. 

But this plate? Well, I didn't mention that I bought it as a gag gift for my then-girlfriend (now wife) who had asked me to buy her the cheesiest, hokiest, tackiest country-type souvenir I could find. She thought I'd exceeded the request. When we got married I got the plate back, and it hangs proudly on the wall of the cellar in what I laughingly call my workshop. 

The interviewer may have sensed that the plate, while a memory of a great trip, was not a sincere purchase made for the quality of the item.

I meant no harm by showing this off. I have cheesy souvenirs of New York City, and I lived and worked there most of my life. But I wouldn't be surprised if the plate sank my employment chances. I can find a way to sabotage pretty much anything in some new and unexpected manner. Everyone has a special gift, I guess, and that seems to be mine. 

Still, I suppose it could have gone even worse -- if I'd shown him my third souvenir, the bolo tie:

Made lovingly with the fine Nashville craftsmanship one finds in... Taiwan. 

Urbi et orbi.

Suppose my church decided to enforce a twenty-percent tithe on all members. Ten percent is the usual request, based on the old temple requirements -- the word tithe means ten. But poor people would be exempt, and in fact would be given money from the church treasury. Indeed, it soon turned out that so much money was given to them that the church went into serious debt. 

Then the church decided that people could live in the building rent-free, even those who were not members, nor believers, nor even respectful. Food was provided. Some people who came in were in desperate need. Others, however, were not. It was obvious that most were addicts or insane or both. Despite the clear rules, they wouldn't go outside to smoke; they drank alcohol, did drugs, had sex; they ate and left garbage in the sanctuary. They stole the sacramental wine; they even peed in the baptismal font although there was a bathroom available. They got into fights. They ripped up carpet, broke chairs, shredded Bibles and missalettes, stole anything that was not bolted down. People were brought in to watch over them at the church's expense, but they continued these antics. Rules were never enforced; in fact, the watchers brought in were specially instructed not to interfere in any way. 

Meanwhile, the parish elementary school no longer bothered to teach the children math or science or even religion. The claim was made that learning leads to inequality, so there must be no learning. It became nothing more than a filthy, feral daycare center for children up to ten years old. But tuition doubled, then tripled.

Then the church demanded thirty, then forty percent of our income to cover all the new expenses. Still, there was never enough money for basic upkeep. The place looked terrible; parishioners feared it would burn down one night. When they went on Sunday it was a revolting experience. Maybe worst of all, the priest never even talked about God's Word anymore. All he said was what a great place the church was and what a privilege it was for us to be members. If we objected to the people ruining the building and interrupting the church's traditional duties, we were wicked and cruel. Meanwhile, there were rumors that the priest and his pals were raiding what they could from the treasury and having a wonderful time with it. 

My friends among the nonbelievers and non-adherents said I was insane to keep going to this church. And they were 100% right. And yet, when I looked around, I saw that every other parish had become exactly the same: mismanaged, broke, useless, filthy, and dangerous. 

Does this fictional example differ from the way American cities are treating their citizens?

The two things really have a lot in common. 

Let's assume cities and churches both have a duty to help the poor. Both have or ought to have a sense of purpose. But like the church in my illustration, the cities have completely given up on the idea of their proper duty toward the citizens -- safety and streets and sanitation. The citizens are just suckers, paying more and ever more to live in places that are dirtier and more dangerous by the day. 

I have written before that our beloved former pastor wanted to use the old chapel as a warming station in the winter, allowing the minuscule homeless population of the town to stay there in the winter. What happened was similar to the disaster described, as many of us expected, right up to the peeing in the baptismal font. Our pastor, probably somewhat chastened by the experience, had to close the doors to them. Groups that used the chapel for legitimate purposes were asked to check the sanctuary to make sure no bums slipped in while we were there, because for a couple of years after the failed experiment they kept thinking of it as their home -- and bathroom. Our pastor had learned a lesson. But at no time had he ever lost sight of the primary mission of the church -- to bring God's Word to the people. 

Cities aren't like that. Many adherents to the church of Leftism aren't like that, either. They get their stuff stolen, cars taken at gunpoint. Their streets are covered in garbage and feces. The schools are rattraps and kids come out dumber than they went in. Poor neighborhoods are shot up; old properties become a different type of shooting gallery. Expensive civic projects come and go, and the only thing that gets larger is the debt. And yet the Leftists continue to vote for the same kinds of imbeciles, grifters, and creeps who are making their lives miserable. Worse, if they move to some other town out of terror, they start voting for the same kinds of imbeciles, grifters, and creeps that ruined the place from which they came. They seem to cling to their faith more strongly than Catholics do to theirs, and much more than your average Methodist or Presbyterian. A Catholic who gets mugged may forgive his mugger, knowing that if the crook believed as he did, the poor soul would reform. The Leftist who gets mugged knows that the mugger believes the same things about life that he does, so there's nothing to do but accept it, or lash out at inappropriate targets. If it weren't for those rich people, no one would mug anyone! 

When a church fails in its duties, it is held up as an example. When a government does, it is considered par for the course. I do not understand why so very many people can cling so hard to something that fails them over and over again. 

Fail safe?

 

Tough call.

Man, what a week. It put me in mind of one of Percival Sweetwater's greatest gags. 

I have to tell you, it's been a rough time, and I'm not even discussing concerns about the country or the stupid state of New York. In addition to being quite stressful with work, I've also in withdrawal from the duloxetine that the doctor recommended for neuropathic pain almost three years ago. I never found it helpful with depression, but I certainly have found withdrawing from it to be helpful for depression -- four weeks in and it's depressing as hell. I know it's biting me harder than usual, because seasonal affective disorder doesn't usually set in for me until the dead of winter, and this year it's starting way early. 

Plus, I can't stop missing my dog Tralfaz. He was such a good boy, and the first dog that ever loved me, and you just can't let that go easily. But this is ridiculous -- my wife had The Polar Express on last weekend and it almost brought me to tears just passing through the room. 

I mean, A Charlie Brown Christmas, maybe, but The Polar Express? I'd sooner be caught weeping at Die Hard. 

And here's where I get to the Rodney Dangerfield joke above. Our veterinarian has an admirable service -- for three months after losing a pet, they'll pay for phone grief counseling. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I appreciated the thought when he gave me the card. But I didn't have more than a few bad days after we lost Nipper last year, so I didn't expect losing Fazzy to be tougher. It has been.

So after much contemplation, I dialed the number.

They hung up on me!

Seriously, there was a rattle on their end and the phone went dead. 

What the---?

Okay, so it's not like a got a counselor who was recommending suicide, but still. It took me days to get over my typically manly reserve (well, a little manly) and dial that number, and bang! Sorry, no time for you, Freddy Boy. I guess you could say the moment had passed, and I didn't try again.

Anyway, thanks to Rodney Dangerfield, I did get a good laugh from it. In related jokes, he told of the time he complained to his doctor (Dr. Vinnie Boombatz, of course) that he wanted to stop aging, so Vinnie gave him a gun. In his song "Rappin' Rodney" he sang (well, a little singingish) a version of the other joke: 

I can't take it no more! I'm getting too old!
I called suicide prevention--they put me on hold!

So if I can't fight off this mood or get help for it, maybe I can at least laugh through it. High five to Rodney, the Patron Schlemiel of Perpetual Woe.

Elf-help books.

Every now and then I'm asked to proof or copyedit a self-help book. Usually these are written by someone who has achieved notable success and, through the goodness of his or her heart, wants to pass on the life lessons learned to others. And they usually bring forth a great deal of interest from me. They inspire me so much I want to hang myself. And I find myself hoping the author will be run over by a garbage truck. 

Unfortunately there's never a garbage truck around when you need one. 

I especially love it when the book is written by someone younger than I am. Hi, Mr. Successful Kid! I am cleaning up your poorly written book for a pittance! You're welcome! 

Here's a fictional but seasonal example of what makes me crazy, excerpted from the book Elf Improvement: How to Achieve the Success You Deserve in Ten Jolly Steps, by Jingle Merryman.

The Author

I didn't have it easy as a child elf. I grew up in a hardscrabble home with only a piece of coal as my best friend. But through hard work, vision, and my blood relation to Santa Claus, I managed to achieve my dreams. 

I'm not saying that all you need is ambition, drive, and connections to get ahead. Good looks helps too. And if you aren't a success by the time you're thirty, you need to take a hard gaze in the mirror and say these inspirational words: "I am a shiftless, no-good, lazy bum, and I deserve everything bad that happens to me."

I'll never forget that day by the hot spring when Mr. Chuckles took me aside and said, "I want to say one word to you, Jingle. Just one word." "Yes sir?" I said. "Are you listening?" "Yes I am." "Peppermint."

I've heard people say that graduating from the right college is the only thing that matters, and it surely helps. My years at Innovation Geopolitical Learning University, good ol' IGL-U, are some of my fondest, and I met so many great people there, even some who didn't come from money. And yet there are many people who have had brilliant careers at the North Pole who never went to university at all! At least, I've been told that. 

Clothes are useful to success, and I recommend as sharp a wardrobe as your budget allows. Just remember, fat guys always look like slobs, so don't even bother if you're a fat guy. Well, except for Santa, but he's a special case. And a close personal friend as well as a beloved relative.

Whatever happens in your career, you must remember never to hang around with lowlifes. Sure, they seem like fun, but you know what they say -- lay down with the reindeer, wake up with the fleas. 

Not everyone is born with a nose for opportunity. You have to have an eye for the main chance. An eye and a nose, then. Oddly enough, the elf who got me in on the ground floor of Gingerbread Real Estate Development was named Chance Maine. We made an absolute killing.

I remember once when President Clinton called me to the White House on an urgent mission. As soon as I got out of the limo he ran out of the building to meet me. "Jingle, thank God you're here," he said, patting his brow with a monogrammed hankie (W.J.C.). "'Sup, dawg?" I said. "Jingle, you're a genius at giving gifts," he said. "Ah, diplomatic issue?" I said. "Kinda," he said, "Need something for a young intern but I'm stumped." "Billy," I said, "I recommend a copy of Whitman's Leaves of Grass." "Is that the dude from the Whitman's Sampler?" asked Clinton -- always the food with that guy. "No, the poet," I said. "Jingle, you may have saved the day," he said. "I always am available to help with diplomatic relations," I told him. "Carnal, too," he muttered. And the rest is history.

Humility is crucial. I got the best money could buy. 

It's crucial to give back to your community when you make it to the top. That's why I founded the Elf Help and Elf Care Course to help underclass elves educate themselves and stop being layabouts with nonpointy shoes. For just $150 a month they get my personalized recordings and books that will motivate them to get their elfie asses moving. Just my way of saying, "We're all in this together."

Wonders!

I had this CD of one-hit wonders of the eighties. It was a freebie I got while working at a magazine a little over a decade ago. My wife, who loves eighties music, said with disgust that she only liked three of the songs, and one she had on the actual album, and shouldn't count because the artist had demonstrably more than one hit. So there you go.

But I got to thinking about that beloved and benighted decade of the eighties, and wondering if, as I had in the past, that decade had more one-hit wonders than the sixties did. The sixties was notorious at the time for hustling acts off and on the stage. A 1965 episode of The Flintstones ("The Masquerade Party") lampooned the phenomenon (and Orson Welles's War of the Worlds hysteria) when a band called the Beasties with a hot hit is thrown out of the record office to make way for the new band, the Way-Outs. And of course Tom Hanks's musical masterpiece of 1996, That Thing You Do!, is all about one-hit wonders, set in the year 1964. The film's band is even named the Wonders.

But to answer my question: Which decade had the most artists or groups with just one solid American hit? I have no recourse but to turn to Mr. Wikipedia, which of course has compiled a list of said wonders dating from the late fifties, located at this link.

So which decade comes out on top? It's a tough brawl. For every Standells ("Dirty Water") there's a Godley & Creme ("Cry"); for every ? and the Mysterians ("96 Tears") there's an Eddy Grant ("Electric Avenue"); for every Youngbloods ("Get Together") there's a Cutting Crew ("(I Just) Died in Your Arms"). The list represents enough musicians to populate a city.

And now, for your listening pleasure,
"Der Kommissar" by After the Fire.

The Wiki page didn't number the lists, and I don't have the patience to count them, so I pasted it into an Excel document -- my most productive use for Excel so far this year -- and it did the count. And the winner is....

It's not even close. The eighties had 105 one-hit wonders; the sixties, with 42, didn't even beat the seventies and the nineties, which each had 54. The eighties was an extraordinary decade for chewin' 'em up and spittin' 'em out, and also for non-musicians to elbow their way into a hit (Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Patrick Swayze, even Rodney Dangerfield). It also mattered that the eighties seemed to be a huge jumble of emerging and departing pop music styles, an era where rap and punk crashed into disco and New Wave and rock, which fed the endless need for bands, while the sixties had hits from longstanding solo artists that your grandma loved who could still knock the Beatles off the #1 spot. When Sinatra and Como are still topping the charts, it leaves less room for the Surfaris of the week.

Of course, I have objections. XTC, for example, is listed as a one-hit wonder for the tiresome 1986 moan "Dear God" (#37), but the much superior 1989 "Mayor of Simpleton" was a hit that same decade (#15), and yet they never broke the top ten in the American Billboard chart. God knows how many other such errors are on this list.

Still, even allowing for such miscues, the sheer number of eighties one-and-done artists has to make it the top decade for the type.

It may seem sad to contemplate the fate of the one-hit wonder, the act that thought it had finally broken out of the pack and reached the big time only to plummet straight back into obscurity. But keep in mind that, as sad as it may seem to have only one hit, that's one more hit than most other bands ever get.

Lament of the minor leaguer.

Follow your dreams and the money will follow.

This September Sunday the promise is hollow

Hernandez from Ecuador put out our light

Before a small crowd on a drizzly night

To finish the game, the season, the year

The hopes and the dreams of my baseball career.

Eight years of riding from hamlet to town

On an old Greyhound bus always set to break down.

Don’t want to go home, be constantly nailed

As the great high school slugger who went forth and failed

The hours of drills, the endless repeats

Of the coaches’ instructions and cleaning of cleats

A game made of numbers, run black on white page

My number is up now -- because it’s my age.

I guess I can tell them I went out to try

Arrived at this parking lot, watched my dream die.

Oh, pick up the bat bag and get on the bus.

Somebody won today, but it wasn’t us.

Geek no more.

Bad news on the dork step: ThinkGeek is closing down.

Parent company GameStop is shutting down the online store, your #1 stop for geek shopping for the last twenty years. Cruel fate! Where will people who need Star Wars, Star Trek, or Dr. Who merch go now? Or fans of anime, computer and console games, RPGs, cosplay, SF and fantasy, comic books and cartoons? Not to mention those seeking all kinds of weird gizmos, science toys, and whatnot? Especially the whatnot.

This will be tough on my own personal Santa Claus, the lovely and thoughtful Mrs. Key. She's gotten me quite a few presents over the years from ThinkGeek, some of which I've profiled here, like:

World's smallest operational Pac-Man Arcade Game!

Justice League paper clips!

Pac-Man ghost PJ pants that I didn't know glowed
in the dark until I got up in the night to use the
can and almost had a heart attack!

20-sided-die mug!

20-sided-die snack bowl! (Comes apart into two bowls;
one for dip, one for chips)

Medieval weapon pushpins! (Gonna buy a corkboard
just to use them)

Complimentary Timmy the Monkey stickers!

Lawful Good T-shirt!

BATPANTS!!!!!!!

And that doesn't include the 20-sided fuzzy dice for the car, the vanishing fireplace mug, the reusable hand-warmer that eventually could no longer be reused, and other things I couldn't find. All these were great gifts, often stocking stuffers, and all are the kind of gifts that will be harder to find now.

GameStop says they'll have "some" merchandise on the company site, which I assume will be only merchandise related to video games. Okay, I guess they know their business. But I'm no gamer. I'll miss getting ThinkGeek loot.

I sure hope this doesn't mean I have to grow up now. 😱

A lesson for Mary Sue.

Although the term has been corrupted terribly, the basic concept of the Mary Sue is the character who is good and loving who wins out in the story by her goodness and overall wonderfulness (and is clearly an imaginary stand-in for the author). Everyone loves and admires her except for the bad people, who must be defeated.

Readers who think that this character type only exists in fan fiction need to read more novels directed at their teenage daughters.

Well, I thought about the real-life Mary Sues, people with invincible belief in their own goodness who often find that the world is much more resistant to their charms and their fantastic ideas than they had expected. I can think of several politicians who fit this mold. They don't always work in government, but they seem to gravitate toward it.

Let's take them at their word for the nonce, or even two nonces, that they really do intend good, that it's not just a cover for their egotism and thirst for power.

Over the weekend I had cause to consider the case of a literal saint, a beloved figure whose life is an object lesson to anyone who thinks goodness alone suffices.

On May 19, the Catholic church celebrates the feast of Pope St. Celestine V, a figure of towering goodness in his devotion to God and his love for others. As someone of true humility, he never wanted to become the pope. He was chosen largely for political reasons. But he was so beloved, a crowd of some 200,000 people helped usher him into office.

He was also the first pope to ever abdicate. He only sat in the Seat of St. Peter for five months in the year 1294. "It is wonderful how many serious mistakes the simple old man crowded into five short months," according to New Advent. "We have no full register of them, because his official acts were annulled by his successor." His errors were often caused by an excess of generosity, as when he awarded the same position to several different supplicants. He was completely helpless against the machinations of European monarchs and political actors in the Church. Worse, "On the 18th of September he created twelve new cardinals, seven of whom were French, and the rest, with one possible exception, Neapolitans, thus paving the road to Avignon and the Great Schism." In such a brief period Celestine managed to set the Church on a course that nearly brought it to complete ruin, all out of the goodness of his heart.

But that goodness was legendary and deeply spiritual, and that's why the Church recognizes him as a saint.

And that's my lesson for today, for you bright young faces out there: You can be amazingly good -- a literal saint -- and deeply beloved, and still be so disastrously incompetent that people will roll their eyes 725 years later when they think of you. Goodness of heart does not guarantee competence.

Failed rap artists.

Li'l Wayne Gacy

Velvet Teen Rabbitt

Onk-O Logie

Vesperz

Suburban Wannabe

Mia Li'l Ponee

Aced Geo Metry

Mr. Woofypants

x

Z Weelz on Z Bus

Donny Osmond

Pimp Chalice from Da Palace Has Da Brew Dat Is True

Diggy Diggy Hole

D.J. Brady Bunche

Sriracha Khan

Sixty-Three Dollah an Siddy Cent

Rutherford B. Hayes

Up wit Peeplez

The Choo-Z Muthuhs

The writing was on the wall.

Funny how promotional items often outlast the thing they are promoting.

I have no idea where this came from. I was cleaning out the desk -- okay, I was just looking for something, not actually cleaning -- and I found this Blockbuster pen buried in a drawer. I don't remember getting it, but probably they were giving them away in our local store (which is now a restaurant). Or maybe they were giving them away when we lived in the city in the local store there (which is now a gym). Like everybody freaking else in America, I was a Blockbuster member, until I wasn't anymore. And now no one is. (Well, almost no one.) The last time I saw the Blockbuster name in use, it was in a drug store in Westchester that had a Redbox-like box with the Blockbuster name -- the brand's Hail Mary -- which failed in the US but can be found in Australia. Those Blockbuster Express kiosks were owned in the US by NCR, which then sold them to... Redbox.

Also dissolving in 2010 was Saturn, General Motors' attempt to do something different in the automotive field. GM cleared away all the detritus that hung around their other car lines and set up Saturn like a new company -- dedicated dealers, casual showrooms, very few models, well-built but not flashy products, and square dealing (the "no-dicker sticker" was a revolutionary idea). Moreover, they were into the whole fellowship stuff back when Subaru was a manly Paul Hogan-advertised brand instead of the soggy love stuff brand it is now. This pen comes from a 1997 Saturn-hosted event at Shea Stadium.

It turns out Americans expect to haggle over car prices, for one thing -- remember that the next time you go car shopping, because no matter how much the dealer may seem to sweat, they've built the haggle into the price. Perhaps we feel like if there's no haggling that we're getting ripped off. Over time Saturn abandoned the pricing policy, the family events, and even started to bring in new Saturn-branded cars like SUVs and the very cool Sky, but it was too late. Even though Penske made an offer for the line, GM decided to pack it in.

I owned two Saturns; one we traded in for something that could handle winter in the country, the other kissed a guardrail to death on a rainy morning. All I have left is the pen.

These pens represent broken dreams for franchisees, memories of jobs for others that once felt purposeful or fun. Those are the breaks, or perhaps in Saturn's case, the brakes. The fact is, even creative destruction has destruction in it.

The Blockbuster pen does not work anymore. The Saturn pen does. I don't know if that means anything, but I think it's interesting.

This time I have to leave.

Well, all good things must come to an end, and so do things like this blog. I thought about what I should give up for Lent, and I decided: Everything! Dust thou art and all that.

In some regards, the blog has done what I'd hoped, in that it kept me busy every day, made me write something every day. In other regards, it has been a disappointment, or rather, I have been a disappointment.

I'm grateful for every one of you who stopped by to spend a few minutes with my words and pictures. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your visit.

For now, the books are available from iBooks, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Google.

Good-bye and God bless,

Fred.

Five-ring circus.

In 2014, the last time the Winter Olympics were starting, my wife and I had just taken a huge puppy named Tralfaz into our home. So, as much as we like the Games -- and we actually do -- we hardly got to see a moment of them. Because we were either getting the puppy outside to evacuate  his little bowels (and it was cold as hell that month) or we were training him or we were trying to keep him from hurting himself or anything valuable. By strange coincidence, we got our second dog, Nipper, right before the Summer Olympics in Rio began. So ditto all of the above.

I do have some memories of the Sochi Olympics. Okay, not really. I pretty much saw nothing beyond the opening ceremony. But what an opening ceremony it was! 

Well, I don't remember much of that either, and I was sacked out by the time of the famous ring failure:

But I do remember two things quite clearly, probably because I blogged about them on the old, defunct blog shortly thereafter. The first was the prison garb worn by the Irish team -- I even saved this shot:

Take away the flag and they'd look like a handful of army prisoners, wouldn't they? Happy army prisoners, maybe because they're getting time in the yard. I suspect they decided on those uniforms because the Irish had never won a medal in the Winter Games, and sure enough, they didn't in Russia, either.

The other thing I kept a picture of was an example of what someone thought would look great as the escort's uniforms during the opening ceremony:

Apparently they thought that the Games were being held on a planet in the Power Rangers universe.

I have hopes for better things at today's opener in PyeongChang. Seoul has become a very important fashion and cosmetics center, so we can hope that everyone will look a little better this time. The Norks are participating, so there's a slightly better chance that no horrible acts of warfare will take place.

And I don't have a new dog hanging around today. So we got a shot at seeing something. Maybe some of that cool curling action.

He's not alone.

Thijs was very disappointed that, before the new year was even a month old, his resolution had failed. 

Another fine Mets.

It's that time of year again -- the All-Star Break, when we all pretty much ignore the All-Star Game and watch the Mets sink into the morass of hopelessness once again. 

The only reason the Mets' record isn't much worse than 39-47 is that the National League East is so weak. The NL East's collective record is 203-232 as of this morning. It's why Washington trumpets into the postseason and then gets hammered  -- they've been getting fat on bad teams.

The injury bug has not just bitten the Mets this year, it's sucked them dry. To give you an idea how bad it is, there is only one member of the Mets going to the All-Star Game, Michael Conforto -- and he just came off the DL, so we may not see him play. And if he does, maybe he'll get hurt again!

All those hotshot Mets pitchers, the most feared lineup in baseball? Syndergaard, Harvey, Wheeler, deGrom, Gsellman, Matz? All hurt or just back from being hurt. Other guys who have been brutalized this season already include Lagares, Walker, Smoker, Nimmo, Flores, Duda, Lugo, d'Arnaud, Milone, Cabrera, closer Jeurys Familia, star Yoenis Cespedes, and fan fave David Wright (yet to get one at-bat this year, who played just 75 games...in all of 2015 and 2016 combined).

I've seen seasons where the team has had a lot of injuries, but this is insane. Maybe if it were the 1347 Yorke Mettes, and the lineup was devastated by the bubonic plague, it would be understandable.

It makes me wonder if we should trade for a new training staff. Seriously, what are these trainers and coaches doing, rubbing dirt on everything?

"His bone's sticking out of his forearm." 

"Have him go another couple innings; the bullpen's exhausted."

This is not the first time the Mets medical staff has been questioned. When first baseman Ike Davis suffered a rolled ankle in a collision in 2011, that was it for the season -- he's never been quite the same since. The Cubs' Kris Bryant had a similar injury a few weeks ago and he's day-to-day now, not laid up until 2018. Was Ike hurt worse or did his medical care consist of leeches and mustard plasters?

When riding subways or driving around the New York Metro area, you often see posters for hospitals and special care centers. They might feature a picture of a well-known member of a team, with a tag like, "When the New York Bagelchompers need the finest healthcare to keep their players in top condition, they go to the Manhattan Mormon Medical Center." If I were the hospital that looks after the Mets, I would rip the posters down, fast.

Lousy Lent.

I'm not gonna lie: So far Lent has sucked.

I tend to see Lent as a spiritual journey, and indeed it is often described that way in homily and song. But I never got off on a good foot this year. I had no directions, no ideas, no inspiration. Definitely no road map.

This actually would have been an improvement.

I feel like that first step dropped me into the Slough of Despond, and there I wallow.

Oh, sure, I had some plans, the usual giving up of this and intending to do that. Usually I make it a point to do some appropriate reading in Lent as well as Advent -- the Gospels, Acts, the Epistles, some of the more crucial prophets, books about the faith, as well as books by great Christian authors like Lewis and Belloc, have all been in my reading list at these times of year. This year it's been a failure. I decided to read G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man, which I probably last read close to twenty years ago. I got a couple of chapters in and I got stuck. It's not Chesterton's writing, which I love, or his arguments or anything else. I just would appear to be having some kind of revolt against books.

You probably know about these novels I've written; you may know that the bulk of my freelance work comes from editing books. I've been devoted to the written word since childhood. Now I want to start my own little book burning in the backyard. (With all my books it would rival the Texas A&M Aggie bonfire.)

It's true; the last book I finished with no one paying me to do it was John Delaney's A Woman Clothed with the Sun, my Advent reading. It's not a fun read. Yet somehow a handful of months ago I was able to get through that, and now I can't make myself read a book I love.

I fear I may be dealing with a case of depression. I've been diagnosed with major depression in the past, and submitted to counseling and medication for a while, but it has not reared up at me in a few years. Back then I was still able to read, although unable to write. Maybe because I was working in magazines at the time rather than books.

Even worse, I've come to a place where I can no longer trust my hunches or instincts at all. "Go with your gut" is pretty good advice -- but no longer for me. Nowadays if I have a strong conviction or inspiration, I guarantee you I will be proved wrong. If there is a bundle of primordial nerves that give us good direction when our higher brains fail, or if there is a guardian angel seeking to lead each of us to good decision and good action, I'm telling you I cannot get proper messages from either of them.

I'll grant you there's a lot of things going on right now, some of them frustrating or depressing, but whose life does not have challenges and even dangers? If my faith isn't helping me deal with these things, then there's something wrong with it or there's something wrong with me. Experience tells me to suspect first that the problem is sitting in my chair, typing on my laptop, right this second.

ELOser.

Punch Jeff Lynne in the mouth
Punch Jeff Lynne in the mouth
When you see your ship go sailing
When you know again you're failing
Punch Jeff Lynne in the mouth

It was Jeff, wrote this song
Said to schlep on and on
When your life's a glob of spit
You didn't know when to quit
Punch Jeff Lynne in the mouth

When you get so down 'cause your life is done
And you've heard this crap since '81
When you're so downhearted and it's just no use
And you're tying the end of your rope in a noose

A frappé Lynne dans la bouche
A frappé Lynne dans la bouche
Vous avez acheté un canard
Maintenant ta vie est une merde
A frappé Lynne dans la bouche

When you get so down that you need to cry
And you want to punch ELO in the eye
When you're so downhearted and feeling sore
And you're sixty and stocking the shelves at the store

Punch Jeff Lynne in the mouth
Punch Jeff Lynne in the mouth

When you've nothing but a scream

Threw your life away on a dream
Punch Jeff Lynne in the mouth

Punch Jeff Lynne in the mouth
Punch Jeff Lyyyyyyyyyyyynne... in the mouth!

The Christmas loser.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, so I can't deny it anymore: Christmas is upon us.

In fact, the guys on either side of me have already got up their Christmas decorations. So does a guy around the corner. So does a guy up the block. I still have my Thanksgiving stuff up.

You know what that makes me?

The Christmas loser.

"You're the Christmas loser, Fred!"

It would be nice if I could get the Advent wreath out, but that would involve, you know, getting the Advent wreath out. This would require the usual 9-step process of: 1) Finding the Advent wreath; 2) Findings the candles, which were packed separately, 3) Discovering that the candles broke somehow while in storage; 4) Driving to at least three stores to find new purple and pink candles (because all the non-Christmas loser people bought them already); 5) Bringing up the wreath and the new candles to the living room coffee table; 6) Realizing that the coffee table is dusty since we never do any living in the living room; 7) Cleaning the table; 8) Placing the wreath; 9) Forgetting to light the first candle for the first Sunday in Advent until the first Tuesday in Advent.

As you can tell, I've honed the process with years of practice.

I'll never get caught up. Maybe I should convert to something else. Hanukkah doesn't start until December 24. That would buy me some time.