Donald Trump = Zaphod Beeblebrox

I was reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the other day. As it introduced Zaphod Beeblebrox, I started drawing parallels with Donald Trump

Zaphod has 2 heads. The added one is considered less attractive than the original. Trump only has one head, but his hair is weird and is brought up in derisive ways by people slamming Trump.

Zaphod became Galactic President as a scam. Trump doesn't really want to be president. Not really. It's an ego driven scam being played out on America.

Zaphod was elected by low information voters. Trump's base of support is a bunch of low information supporters. Tell them the truth about the man or his businesses and business practices, and they deny it. Say  it's not true.

Zaphod as president is an infuriating and fascinating character. Trump is too.

Zaphod didn't use the prepared remarks before he stole the Heart of Gold spaceship. And the media loved it. Trump doesn't use prepared remarks. He speaks extemporaneously and goes off on tangents as the audience reacts to his speech.

Zaphod is described in the book as a "good-timer, (Crook? Quite possibly.), manic self publicist, terrible at personal relationships, often thought to be completely out to lunch.
An internet search of adjectives for Trump: Maniac, narcissist, self-promoter, arrogant, blowhard, idiot, clown, egomaniac, pompous, showman, bombastic.

So.
There you go.
Donald Trump is Zaphod Beeblebrox.
Without the good parts.

Feral Cat Mojo

                                             The cat under my building circa 2011.

The little black cat came to the short chain link fence around 5 o'clock. I'd spent the day hiding from the early September heat in my apartment. I saw him look from the neighbor's yard into the yard of my apartment. I hadn't put out any food for a couple days because of work and my schedule being weird.

Earlier in August I saw the cat in the front yard of my apartment and thought about him. Because of the drought very few people were watering like they used to, so what was he drinking? There have been 2 bowls sitting in the yard, from when someone was leaving food, I'm guessing for him, for a very long time. Since temps were over 100 for a few weeks I left the cat water. And one day I felt bad for him so I left a can of tuna out from my pantry.

This cat has been wild in my neighborhood for over 5 years. I've not thought much about him (I don't know it's gender so I'm calling it  "him.") ever, really. He's never been with people that I can tell. His manner is very  wary and careful, always looking around; ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. He passes like a shadow in the night. He used to be under my building 5 years ago, though no one knew how he gained access. I don't know where he sleeps now.

I had picked up cans of cat food and been putting it out on a semi-regular basis in the metal bowl, usually at night. I don't know where he gets his food; birds, rats, mice, bugs? It's got to be a tough life, so I thought I'd help out and give him a free meal every once in a while. Extra calories to keep living. But I've never put out the food at a certain time. Being a wild cat, he doesn't have a schedule or place or time. He just is.

When he came to the fence today I thought about it. Usually he disappears when I go out my kitchen door and doesn't return. I got a pitcher and filled it with a bit of water. I opened up  the tin of cat food I had in the pantry. It was a pate style. A big clump of wet brown something with what looked like egg? I unlocked the security door and prepared myself. Out in the rocky front lawn there are fleas. I don't know if there are a lot, but in previous excursions to the front yard, some have jumped on me and hitched a ride into my apartment. A steam cleaning of the rug and flea bombs seemed to remedied the matter, however.

I rushed out, slopped the water into the bowl and dumped the clump of cat food in the other bowl. I retreated back to my door and inspected my legs. I was quick, under 15 seconds, and no fleas had found me.

I stood at my kitchen window and watched. The cat came to the other side of the fence and looked around. I lost it behind a tree as it moved away. Then it appeared at the end of the fence in my front yard. It slowly padded toward the food scanning the area carefully. It sniffed as it got near the food bowl. The food must have been okay because it started eating immediately and looked around in between bites. He was ready to flee at the first sign of trouble. I was thinking it would throw up from eating so fast. Cats and food can be a bit weird.

Something spooked him and he ran out of view. When the coast was clear he came back and continued to eat. It finished off the whole can of food. I have put out food before, but usually after dark so I didn't know if the cat was eating it or maybe a squirrel or rat. This time I had proof the intended animal ate the food. After he finished he had a quick drink. The he walked toward my window, sat down, and groomed himself a bit. He was watching me. Did he know I was his benefactor? Did he care? Was I just some sucker to feel sorry for this hungry little cat?

I figure I'm never going to pet him. He doesn't get close enough to anything to be touched or handled. There's no collar on him so he's a wild cat. I watched him a little bit and the animal lover (sucker) in me wondered if it were possible to fix his situation. He'd been doing okay for over 5 years without me. He probably wouldn't do well if he were captured and adopted. I don't want a cat. I don't have a living situation that is conducive to pet ownership. But I like that I can help out this one cat just a bit.

Though I do wonder if I give this cat food on a semi-regular basis, is it going to fuck up his feral cat mojo? Will he become dependent on me to give him food?

What the fuck?

A guy in South Carolina shot and killed 9 people in a church. After sitting there in bible study with them! For an hour.

What an evil fucker this guy was. He also let some people live and told them to tell people about what he had done. So basically this guy will be revealed to be a loner and racist and evil and felt deeply invisible. So what  does he do to get noticed? Kills a bunch of people in a church. Because instead of doing something great, being talented, this fucker decides that killing people is the way to be noticed in this 24/7 news cycle. The news will now have this LOSER'S name in the news for 3-5 days.

I'm not going to say his name here, but you big pussy, you want to get noticed but you didn't go out in a big cinematic gunfight with the police. Now we have to watch as you sit in court and go to jail for the rest of your life.

Donald Trump, Candidate for School Yard Bully

After 4 flirtations with running for President, Donald Trump has thrown his hat into the ring for President.

It's rare to see a candidate for anything call the others running, LOSERS. Just flat out calling them losers. There is mud slinging in politics, granted. It comes with the territory. But to call someone a loser and make fun of them, it cheapens politics.

Trump is a showman. He's a huckster. Starting with his announcement, he said he sold a Chinese guy an apartment for ten (then he changed it mid thought) fifteen million dollars. On Morning Joe he said the same statement about the apartment, but the selling price had gone up to $55 million. I guess he thought $15 million didn't sound impressive enough.

His general thought is that money is the end all and be all of everything. The more money you have the more important you are. If you have no money you're a LOSER. By this definition 99% of the people in the USA are LOSERS.

Everything he does is HUGE. Or as he pronounces it, UGE. He forgets the H.

The problem with his candidacy is he will get on the debate stage and call Jeb Bush a LOSER. And what happens then? Does the network admonish him? He's already said it. Does JEB! fight back? How does that look?

You're a LOSER Jeb.

No, I'm not! That's the reply of a third grader on the playground.

There's really no good way to respond to that kind of attack on stage.
Humor? "Well, with 4 bankruptcies in your business life you seem to be the biggest loser on the stage. Are you switching to The Biggest Loser once you get out of this race?"
Attack? "You going to talk to Iran like that? Right you have a secret plan to defeat both Iran and ISIS. Elaborate on that"

Well. It might not be that hard to fight him on a debate stage. But then he would just throw bigger bombs and security would have to come in and wrestle him away.

Everything about Trump is he's the best, he's the biggest and when I hear people talk like that, constantly bragging and putting other people down,  I think they are compensating for deep insecurities and a small...

Titles in Politics

It's a bit odd, but if you are a politician, after you are out of the office, your title follows you. Such as, Senator So and So. You could be out of office decades but the title is what people use instead of Mr. or Mrs.  when announcing the person.

And if, say, you had a number of jobs in politics, senator and congressman, the one with higher value is the title used. Or if the titles are about the same value, the latest title is used.  So for Hillary Clinton there are 3 titles; First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State.

It's a bit weird in the real world to have your job title follow you around. I'm not introduced as Rigger Brad. Or there's not IT Larry. Or Walmart Greeter Bud. But in politics the title is everything. Also in politics, once you are out you sort of stay in. There's lobbying and public speaking to do. Which pays much better than working at Walmart.

Vegas

I was working in Las Vegas for a week. It was a business conference. I was staying at a hotel about an 8th of a mile away from the hotel the conference was at. As I would walk back to my hotel from the conference I would see all sorts of people. Las Vegas gets visitors from all over the world. And all over the USA. Because it was in May and the weather had started getting hotter, I saw women in bikinis with sheer wraps or shirts over the tiniest of bikinis. It was actually a little strange and weird. Nowhere else would you see a bikini as evening wear. And I know it was evening wear because of the "fuck me pumps" high heels they were wearing. You don't see people dressed like that in Paris.

There were lots of people out in Vegas looking to have a good time. Drinking and loud carousing. It was not unusual. The dress of the women was generally an impossibly small dress and incredibly high heels. After a night of drinking the heels were a problem and I saw a number of women crash and burn as they drunkenly staggered down the strip.

Also, all over the streets were performers of some kind. Musicians playing drums, a really good guitarist who played it flat on his lap with all parts of the strings used to make music. And for the tourists, people in costumes who were dressed as the Avengers or showgirls or minions or the snowman from Frozen. then there was one night there were the 2 women above. She and her friend were getting pictures taken with people or passing out flyers for a strip club. I don't know. I was merely passing by and took this picture because, well, boobs. She had gaffers tape over her nipples and in silver sharpie was written "Censored." It was kind of funny.
 

In the early mornings I would walk to work. I'm talking around 5:30 am. By this time all the revelry and fun for the night are over and you see the seedy side of the town. People staggering by on their way to whatever lodging they had. I interacted with hookers almost every day I was headed to work. One looked at me as we were passing each other on an escalator, thought of hitting me up to be one last trick for the night, then she noticed I was in a suit. At 5:30 am. "You going to work?" She asked. "Yes, I am." I said as I passed her, reached the top, and headed on my way.

You saw homeless people in the crowds on the strip, but in that sea of humanity you didn't really notice them. They were just slower and shabbily dressed. In the morning on the way to work I would pass a grating which emanated heated air from some underground machinery. There were always people asleep on the grate. I always kind of wondered about their stories. They had to come from somewhere and somehow ended up sleeping on a grate to keep warm. The people, including me, just walked by. Or jogged. I did see people jogging at that time of day. Training never stops for some people.

One of these days I will go to Vegas with friends to partake of the drunken shenanigans. The week I was there I was never up past 10 pm. I was tired and needed rest...

99 Thoughts About Los Angeles Theatre.

Okay. It's not really going to be 99 thoughts, but it made for a good title.

When I moved to LA after doing regional theatre in San Diego, I looked closely at AEA, the stage actors union. Should I join? After asking around to fellow actors I was doing shows with in the 99 seat waiver theatres, I decided not to join. Why? In LA there were only about 3 full on big equity houses in the area I was willing to drive. Ahmanson, Pantages, and the Geffen. If you were not acting in them, there was no reason to join Equity. So I didn't.

The union had always hated the 99 seat plan. They thought it was nothing important and the work there was not valuable because the actors were not under an equity contract. (For the rest of this blog I will not capitalize "equity." To show the same disdain they have shown their members.)

I have worked at a number of small theatres that were under the 99 seat plan. At no time did I feel like I was doing lesser work than I had at larger theatres. In fact at the smaller theatres I had the opportunity to do large challenging parts. "Woe is me, I'm not getting paid." No, but I played Mercutio, Fluellen, Dogberry, Don Pedro, Moon in The Real Inspector Hound, Dick in Play It Again, Sam, Theseus, Schmendiman, to name a few. I also helped out and did some understudy roles.

I got to play some great classic roles. Some great contemporary roles. Was the experience diminished because I was not making $9 an hour? Not at all. I had a blast on stage. I love to act. To play those roles is a delight. I understood the financial situations at the theatres I was working at and would never insist to get paid $9 an hour if paying me or the rest the cast would put the theatre out of business.But every actor has to come up with their own benchmark. Get paid in the last production a theatre ever  does, or not get paid.

equity wanted to destroy the plan. So they came up with a plan to destroy small theatres in LA. They put it to a vote for the membership in LA; a non-binding vote. equity didn't have to do what the vote said. The votes cast for the election were 44% of the people they sent ballots to in LA. The votes were 2 to 1 against the plan. You might think 44% is not even 50% of equity actors in LA. But the national equity elections for the president and board members, councilors etc. get a turn out of 10%. 10%. Seriously, 4 times the number of actors voted in the referendum than vote for who runs the union. Tells you they hit a nerve.

This advisory vote was completely ignored by the union and they decided to nuke small theatres in LA. Thing is, if I was running a small theatre I would make it a non union house. No equity actors allowed. You think non union actors suck? Nonsense. In LA they just don't see much use for an impotent rather useless entity which works against the wishes of their members.

One of the small theatres in LA was run by someone who might be considered crazy. I don't know if it ever turned a profit. It might have broken even but it never made a profit on a month to month, year to year basis. It was kept alive by the sheer will and money from the producer. He was selling real estate to create art. I'm not saying he was a real estate agent, he was selling pieces of property he owned to keep the doors open. He is an extreme example. But other theatres are funded more out of pocket than from any box office the plays bring in.

There are no angels or billionaires that fund small theatres. If you look at the business of it, it seems a stupid idea. You are almost guaranteed  to lose money. If a patron funds a theatre, it's a 2000 seat house and their name goes on the building.

In the big equtiy houses in LA you get 2 out of 3 filled with touring shows. Musicals out of NYC. Lion King, Book Of Mormon, things like that which are cast out of NYC. In the smaller theatres you get challenging theatre. Plays with guts that make you think and ones that may offend. It's not safe. But because it's not safe there's no certain audience. There's no name recognition to pull in an audience.

Should actors get paid? Yes. But there's no money to pay them. The producers are going to extraordinary lengths just to keep the  doors open and lights on. Should theatre be able to support actors with a living wage? Yes. In LA is it likely to happen? Probably not. This isn't NYC. There is no tourism related to going to theatre. Tourists go to Disneyland and to the beach. The economics of running a venue are almost prohibitive. Rents are high, there's very little audience, ticket prices would not directly keep a theatre open. If it did, they would be the cost of a Broadway show.

equity seems to want to only have to deal with 12 theatres instead of hundreds of small ones. equity makes no money off small theatres. So they wish them dead. I don't really understand their hatred. Leave them alone. Actors want to act. And if they are okay with not getting paid for it, what's the problem? You want to get paid for theatre? Go to New York City. No one comes to LA to be a theatre actor. They do it for love of the craft and as a way to keep sharp for when they have auditions. Doing plays is more challenging than going to a class. It takes dedication and perseverance. And the results can sometimes be better than sex.

Writers just need a Starbucks, artists need whatever medium they work in.

Actors need theatres.

Presidential Crazy Talk

It's that time of the year again, The presidential election is just around the corner. Oh wait, it's 19 months away. And it's going to be a long one. Most people don't pay attention to politics until they really need to. That's usually about 2-4 months before the election.

The GOP field is full of wannabe presidential contenders. There's the possibility of 19 who may strive for the nomination. That's nuts. And with the creation of super PACS some will be able to stay in the race long past their "Best By" date. All it takes is money.

The thing that makes me a little crazy is when an egotistical politician says the line, "I'm going to see what God wants me to do." Are you shitting me? You think god talks to you personally? You are schizophrenic if you are hearing voices. And mentally ill people should not be elected to high office.

Those politicians who wrap themselves in the bible are just bullshitting the gullible voters. They are  voters who want the person they vote for to believe what they believe. But when you have that as metric for giving up your vote, you allow yourself to be lied to by people who are just going to tell you what you want to hear.

So far the GOP field has one unified message. Hillary Clinton is bad. Their reasoning is the stuff of a right wing radio program. If they mention another thing in a campaign speech, it's Barack Obama is bad. All the reasons are the same ones they have used to fuck the president for the past 6 years.

Great. They hate Hillary and the president. Got it.

What do they want to do? What is their vision for the country. If all you have to say for 19 months is Hillary is bad, no one but your base will vote for you. You have to have more than hatred. And if that hatred includes bombing the shot out of Iran, get off the stage.

Negative campaigns don't really work. They make moderate people think you are an asshole. And if you are an asshole, no one votes for you.

I got to stop watching political shows...

Sarcastic Dog

I was looking after these 2 dogs for about 9 days. They are giant Schnauzers. The one on the couch is about a year old, the one on the floor is about 8 years old.

The puppy was a bundle of energy, and while it made me crazy at times dealing with it, the older dog was done,  just done. The older dog dealt day in and day out with this puppy energy in his face, literally. The puppy would jump around the older dog and nip at his face and beard. The older dog would stand immobile and take it, but you could tell that he hated it, and if he could he would have fought back. The older dog would look at me with this attitude of, "You see what I have to put up with? Fuck."

That was the  look I called Sarcastic Dog. It was an almost human thing. Shoulders slumped, thinking, Fuck me. And fuck this stupid annoying dog."

It was a really hard time dealing with the dog. Sarcastic dog was easy. The puppy was a handful to control. Which I really didn't. When I meet animals like that I wonder how the owners endure having such an animal. I was at my rope's end at least once a day.

But I had an ally. Sarcastic dog understood my troubles.

The Flag

This image circulated around the internet this past week.

It was viewed with a number of different reactions. There was outrage that the flage was used in this way which is not in the US Flag Code. Or it was viewed as a picture of a precious baby held in the flag by the parent that served and sacrificed for her country to protect her child.

Then over the weekend was the LA Marathon. and I took this picture off of the TV at the end of the run.

This image is also not what the Flag Code condones, but at the end of the marathon they were given a flag as a celebration of the American winners. But did any of the people who were pissed off about the baby get pissed off about the flag/towel use for these 2 people.

If you read the Flag Code, it seems very concerned about how the flag is treated. Does anyone get pissed off when the flag or an image of the flag is turned into handbags or patches or flags that flap on the car windows as people drive? I've seen some of the car flags that are so tattered and torn that if it had been a flagpole flag, they would have retired it. But since it was on a Honda, continue. I wonder if other countries have regulations for how their flag is handled.

Seems to me that people like to get pissed off. I don't see anything wrong with either image.

Jury Duty

I failed at the Russian Roulette of call in jury duty last week. On the last day to call in I was picked to go into the court and do a day or a trial. That's the way it works here in LA.

They said they were only needing 2 juries that day. There were over 100 people there in the waiting room. The most exciting thing that happened in the waiting room was when the woman explaining the whole thing saw a cockroach moving on the brown carpet. I had seen it earlier. But since it wasn't bothering me I didn't see a reason to kill it. The woman at the mic stopped orientation and said she didn't do well with cockroaches. A female juror jumped up, pulled off her sandal, and went after the roach. He was mightily resilient but in the end he was squished.

I got called to go to a court room with 59 others. The judge sat us down and explained the civil case. A guy admitted to molesting a 15 year old girl. Immediately my heart turned to stone. It was civil suit where she was suing for damages and pain and suffering. I'm not going to be impartial. My first thought was, "Why is he not in jail?" Maybe he had been and he was now out and being sued. I don't know or care. I sat listening as the judge questioned the panel. I was not put in a chair but I can hosetly say I would not be impartial. There are some things you can suspend your prejudices, but for me that is not one of them.

The crazy thing is he was representing himself. That made me think of the old lawyer saying. Whoever represents himself has a fool for a client.

Hope the girl wins a lot of money.

Mr. Spock Saved Me

You might say I have two totems. They are diametrically opposite of each other. Both represent me at my most extreme.

One is the Incredible Hulk. He is the rage that burns inside me. All the anger that has no outlet in a civilized world.

The other is Mr. Spock who was masterfully portrayed by Leonard Nimoy. He died this last Friday. When certain actors pass away I'm hurt because of what they meant to me. I may have loved their work or a particular character. It depends.

Mr. Spock is someone I identified with. He was among them but not part of them. He was always the outsider to some degree. It was his alien DNA and his alien upbringing which set him apart from his crewmates.

I was born in December and that always makes for a difficult choice. Do you put the child in school at 4 1/2 or 5 1/2? I got put in kindergarten at 4 1/2. So compared to everyone else, I was younger, smaller, and less emotionally mature than most of my classmates. This made me a target for bullies. Pick on me. Make me cry. It must have been a fun game for the mean kids. Apparently society figured out that bullying is bad and it is not the problem it used to be. But when I was a kid, I ended up getting picked on. I was constantly in the principal's office as a victim.

Mr. Spock was salvation for me. Since I was like him, among them but not of them, I decided to emulate him. I became logical and unfeeling. Or not unfeeling, but I damped down my feelings and didn't let the bullies see they bothered me. I didn't cry anymore. It made them leave me alone. If they got no reaction, they lost interest.

I remember one Halloween I dressed as Mr. Spock. The kid up the street was Kirk. My blond hair was dyed black with shoe polish and styled like his. Then when it dried, it became a helmet of black. It took many shampooings to make that learning experience go down the drain.

In some ways I'm still a bit like Spock. I keep my feelings pretty close to the vest. But, Oh, the things that boil inside me.

Fighting for Their Life

In the news you constantly hear about gravely hurt people in the hospital "fighting for their life." The turn of phrase I find a bit odd. Most of the people hurt enough to be fighting for their life at the hospital are simply laying in a bed unconscious.

But when it comes to news, it gives the person reporting the story something to say. Laying in a bed unconscious isn't very heroic of an activity. For all of medicine and the recuperative power that a body has, a body is going to do what it's going to do. That is, either repair itself or expire. Everyone will shuffle off this mortal coil, and some passings are tragic and too soon. But no person in a coma, hooked to machines to stop the body from naturally failing, is really fighting for their life.


Bodies fail. Whether it's quick or protracted, it comes down to death and taxes.

Oil

In the news I'm hearing a lot about the oil markets. How low prices are great fro drivers but bad for the economy and countries like Russia who have basically one export. Oil. The price of a barrel dropped by half in the last few months.

This made me wonder about the wisdom of the market. Did they really expect a commodity to remain a fixed price? Never to go down? So stable in fact that all economic models for the future are based upon that one fixed point. This seems to me to be naive and ridiculous. The market goes up and down. Every commodity has fluctuations due to supply and demand and other ancillary reasons.

The news makes it sound like there is no profit to be made if the price of oil is at $50 a barrel. What was the price of a barrel a couple decades ago? About $30. In the 70's during the oil shortage what was the price I wonder? I'm sure there was a spike but nothing like the craziness of the 2000's. Are they trying to tell me that billions weren't made by the oil producers in the middle east during the 70's, 80's and 90's? that's just bullshit at best and disingenuous at worst.

There is a finite amount of oil on the planet. At some point it will be gone. Then what will the oil producers do? They have set up their entire business model without really thinking of the future. Stop bemoaning that you're only making half the billions you were.

Scoped

There was a chair in the examination room. High backed like in an optometrist's office. But there was no eye chart to read. This was not your normal exam room with an examination table covered in thin easily changed paper.

The door was open. I could see the doctor across the hall at his desk. He was 55-60, tall, thin, curly dark hair. He didn't look up from his desk and acknowledge me. It was weird but would be awkward to wave at him.

I wasn't in a rush. In fact I sat there thinking this was unnecessary. The reason I was there, a sore throat which lasted over 2 months had lessened in severity in the last 3-4 days. Like when you take your car to the mechanic because it's making a sound, but when you get there the sound no longer manifests itself. My throat was not 100% back to normal but it was 1/3 the pain it had been. And a hot spot of pain on one side remained. So I figured I'd go and get it looked at. They might be able to tell me what it was.

The nurse came in with a piece of equipment. A long black thin thing. Flexible. small enough to go up a nostril to take a look around. It had an eyepiece at one end and there was a cable on the side of the eyepiece which plugged into a light source. Flexible fiber optics would light the darkness. She took the scope and put it in a clear tube of liquid attached to the wall. Some sterile fluid I imagine.

The doctor came in and shut the door. He asked me about my issue and I explained what had been going on. What the symptoms were. How long. Etc... He looked in my ears, looked in my mouth with a tongue depressor (I guess "flat stick" is not impressive sounding enough.). He explained the scope, had me look thru it to see how it worked. The end of the scope was prehensile and could curve like a finger to look at the nasal passages and the throat all the while shining a light where it pointed.

The doctor looked up my nose and said the right nostril would work best for the scoping. He sprayed a numbing agent up my nose and said it would take 5 minutes to be ready. He went back to his office and in five minutes returned. He shut the door and told me to hold my head still but I didn't need to incline it. The scope did all the work. He put what I assume was Scope Lube on the end and  began.

I didn't feel it really. I was aware of something going up my nostril and then heading south but it didn't make me jump. I could sort of sense what the scope was doing when in my nostril. When it went down I could tell where it was because I could feel the heat of the light on the sides of my throat. It kind of freaked me out. I got a little panicky in the back of my brain. I was concerned I might get the interior of my throat burned if the scope stayed in any one place too long.

He had me make an EEEEE sound to engage the vocal chords. I did that 2 times. After what might have been a minute or 2 but seemed longer he withdrew the scope.

I felt the need to spit. Pull up a ball of phlegm from deep within my soul and spit it out. That I figure came from the anesthetic being dragged by the probe into my throat. I sat back down and the doctor said he didn't see anything. There was no inflammation; nothing out of the ordinary. He said sometimes there's a weird thing going on with your body for no reason and it goes away for no reason too. No a very satisfying diagnosis, but better than hearing throat cancer or some such.

He gave me a card with his personal office number. If it gets worse call him. If it goes away call him.

As I left and for about the next half hour I was trying to extract the weirdness in my throat by spitting. I wasn't successful and it eventually cleared up on it's own but it was unpleasant and it made me look uncouth.

So an interesting day...

Gates

With the scandal of deflated balls for a play off game we get another suffix of "Gate."

The first Gate was Watergate so named because of the hotel involved in the break in that eventually brought down Nixon. And I do wonder if the hotel had been a Holiday Inn or Embassy Suites or something like Sheffield, would all the Gates of the last 40 years be Inns or Suites or Fields.

So to rename some of the recent scandals using this supposed system...

Benghazi Inn, Benghazi Suites, Benghazi Field
Ball Inn, Ball Suites, Ball Field
Deflate Inn, Deflate Suites, Deflate Field.
Climate Inn, Climate Suites, Climate Field
Hacker Inn , Hacker Suites, Hacker Field.
Bridge Inn, Bridge, Suites, Bridge Field

To see a full list of "gates" look on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix

The thing I'd like to see is to stop naming everything a fucking Gate. Seriously, just because you think something is a scandal you should stop using the suffix, GATE. It has become a lazy way to tell people that something is a SCANDAL. And many of these Gates no one has ever heard of or remembers as being as scandalous as they thought it was at the time. Few of them actually rise to the seriousness of a thing which made a president resign.

Ball Gate. Fucking really?