Jim Flanigan Looks at the World
Turning the Mundane into Fundane Since 2015
All summer long I was waiting for it. I would approach with anticipation, inspect it carefully, and walk away dejected. My broccoli was just not broccoling. It was certainly growing into a strong, tall plant. There was simply no edible head of broccoli growing anywhere on the plant.
Finally, now that the 2018 calendar has summer in its rear view mirror, my broccoli has decided to develop an edible head.
Mmmm, looks delicious, except here’s the problem …
Has it really been 17 years since September 11, 2017? Wow, time flies.
While not quite as dramatic as Lazarus being raised from the dead, my 2018 summer concert experience twitched imperceptibly and showed a faint pulse this past weekend after I left it for dead in this blog post. Why did I end the post with a tease like I did? Did I know that Rare Earth defibrillator paddles would jolt my 2018 summer concert experience back from the dead?
By Rare Earth, I am not referring to a rare earth element like the 15 lanthanides, or even perhaps scandium or yttrium. I am referring to this Rare Earth …
However, I think the really hairy dude in the center is named Joe Scandium. Regardless, I am talking about the band Rare Earth that opened up the California Jam music festival in 1974 in front of 300,000 people …
Continue reading “I Just Want to Celebrate a Rare Earth Occurrence”
The NFL season has begun. That means my fantasy football season has begun. That means my fantasy feuding with my Trump-loving relatives in my family’s fantasy football league has begun. Say that 3 times fast.
I explained in a prior post about my plan to tweak the Trumpkin relatives in my family’s fantasy football league with Trump-baiting team names. I entered our online draft as the DC United Patriots with this team logo.
That elicited nary a comment. Who can complain about someone with a patriotic team name and logo? So for week 1, I decided to turn up the tweaking a bit. Here’s my week 1 team logo …
Wow. The title alone should make this post go viral. Here’s some background on what promises to be a scintillating blog post.
We moved to our current home 5+ years ago. I just recently opened a box from the move and found all my “lost” caps. Mental note to self: Edit those last 2 sentences into a short story for Reader’s Digest called “My Crazy Move.”
The bottom line is that I unearthed a lot of caps. Why do I own a lot of caps? Because I also own a lot of hair loss. But I am fond of some for their aesthetics and message more than their functionality. For example, here’s kind of a pretty one …
I think one of the many Little League baseball teams I coached over the course of raising two sons was called the Orioles, hence ownership of a Baltimore Orioles cap.
But I have 5 favorites that I am happy to share with you and perhaps lend to you should you ever need sun blockage or baldness covering, or sun blockage because of baldness.
It’s hard to see the whole message of positivity in just one pic. That’s right, Podiatry Management. You can’t tell me you didn’t like the article from the August edition entitled “The Bunion’s Vendetta Against Your Big Toe.”
Yesterday, my wife calmly pointed out a bee/wasp/hornet on her pillow. Like one of Pavlov’s conditioned dogs, I reached for a tissue, gathered the creature in its folds, and took it outside to set it free. I guess technically it was free inside our house, and I was the one who imprisoned it in a tissue, so is that really setting it free? It’s kind of like when Donald Trump signs a heinous Executive Order, chaos ensues, and then he “fixes” the problem by revoking the order, most likely because some circuit court judge ordered him to do so.
Anyway, my wife’s pillow was bee/wasp/hornet-free when she was ready for bed last night. We both slept soundly, with my sounds being mostly snores. That was until I felt a sharp pain in my arm, like a deranged acupuncturist was loose in our bedroom. I groggily reached for the area, grabbed something, threw it on my nightstand, and went back to a fitful sleep. I dreamed I had a stinging pain in my arm the rest of the night. Meanwhile, my wife dreamed she was married to a pain in the neck for the rest of her life.
In the morning, I awoke to this …
Donald Trump cares. He knows we don’t have as much time as he does to watch television and tweet about what he just saw on Fox and Friends. He is always trying to help us through Twitter. He just helped us again. He knows we may not be able to keep up with all the times he obstructed justice during interviews, press conferences, rallies, statements, and tweets. Just in case we forgot that he has obstructed justice, we are grateful that he dropped this tweet on us …
There is no discussion about whether my 2018 summer concert experience sucked or not. It did. I could see it coming for a variety of reasons that I don’t have the time, space, or desire to explain here. My 2018 summer music experience consisted of 3 consecutive nights of music detailed in this blog post and this one. Pretty sad since I live close enough to Chicago to attend the Lollapalooza and Pitchfork music festivals, and Summerfest in Milwaukee is just a couple hour drive away.
But that was where my 2018 concert experience was at when we got an invite from neighbors to see Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Cheap Trick over the Labor Day weekend at Naperville’s Last Fling Festival. The invitation came as a complete surprise since most people make it a point to spend less time rather than more time with me. I had always wanted to see Cheap Trick, so I didn’t mention their invitation error as we accepted and made plans.
By the day of the concert, our Chicago area weather had turned from warm, still days of summer to the unpredictability of fall. Hot and sunny one minute. Cool and wet the next. The day of the concert was just such a day. Storms were predicted that hot and muggy night after the concert should be over, but it was already sprinkling as we backed out of the driveway on our way to the show. Sigh! But on we went. I regretted not accepting our neighbor’s offer to buy the tickets for us just in case it got rained out. I was in an Eeyore mood and just not looking forward to parking a half mile away, sitting on a blanket in a wet, grassy area and getting drenched.
After parking, we walked towards the music, and I asked one of the festival people in a courtesy cart for the most direct way to an entrance. We were invited to hop aboard for a ride over. I asked her if we looked so old that we needed a ride. She politely didn’t really answer my question, but she told me that if I wanted to see old, just wait until we see Cheap Trick.
And speaking of looking old, as I waited in line with my ID in hand to get a wristband so I could buy overpriced beer, I noticed that IDs were being carefully checked. I extended my hand holding my ID, and a band was immediately attached to my wrist, ID unchecked. After that, I knew I was ready to give Cheap Trick a run for their money when it came to looking old.
As we waited for Cheap Trick, we sat through an opening act called Lucky Boys Confusion. I took a pic of them onstage for this blog post because the dark storm clouds were rapidly heading our way.
I figured if I posted a blurry pic, I could pass them off as Cheap Trick in this blog in case of a rainout. But I didn’t need to engage in any blog trickery. Before we knew it, Lucky Boys Confusion had finished their entertaining set, and the stage was being readied for Cheap Trick. But before that, we were treated to a show by an artist known to some as The Trash Panda. Pics follow.
In a desperate attempt to stay uneaten, the remaining lemon square in the pan stealthily cloaked itself with an amorphous shape to avoid detection.
I had dinner the other night with great friends that are more like brothers to me than my real brothers, which is actually quite easy since I am an only child. These guys are not the kind of brother that drinks or spits in your beer while you are out taking a leak, but the kind of brother that forgives you for forgetting his birthday. Oops, that’s exactly what happened. It was more coincidence than plan that we got together for dinner on the forgotten brother’s birthday. Just in case the forgotten birthday brother was mad, I made sure I didn’t go to the bathroom with my beer unguarded. I don’t think he was mad, but in a gesture of extreme generosity, we bought him a birthday dinner. We’re hoping he can be bought. I know I can.
The dinner was excellent, but one thing stuck in my craw, and I hate having a sticky craw. The forgotten birthday brother ordered an appetizer of deviled eggs which were delicious. The presentation looked something like this …
Is it just me, or can you also see the problem with those eggs?
Yesterday, we all decided that I was well-suited to forge a new career as a spy. But for what country or group? ISIS would be easy. They’ll recruit any nutjob like me. Well, I certainly am NOT going to be doing any spying for ISIS for one very important reason.
Donald Trump’s meeting with the President of Kenya caught my eye today.
What caught my eye is that the President of Kenya has the last name of Kenyatta. That almost sounds like one of the dopes in the Trump administration set up a phony meeting with a phony foreign world leader to make it look like Trump is actually doing work. They couldn’t think to research the actual Kenyan president’s name, so they just used a derivative of the word Kenya. Kind of like President Usanski of the USA. But I did some exhaustive research (10 seconds of Googling), and sure enough, the President of Kenya is named Uhuru Kenyatta. Uhuru is a Swahili word meaning freedom, so it is actually kind of a cool name. The only way it would be a better first name if it was Swahili for “I don’t know what nonsense that idiot Trump is trying to sell me, but I’m not buying it.”
I was indoctrinated to the world of spying and international espionage at a very young age through shows like I Spy.
Bill Cosby? Yes, that Bill Cosby! Maybe he first learned about roofies when doing his research about spying for the show.
I received this pen as a gift last summer.
Maybe I should clarify. This pen was given to me at a summer party last year because the owner threw up in his mouth every time he looked at it. I gladly grabbed it. The 8 sayings are listed on the back …
In 1980, a young Billy Joel sang, “But sometimes a fantasy is all you need.”
I needed some sort of fantasy back in the 1980’s after my hometown football team, the Chicago Bears, won only one Super Bowl rather than the two or three we were expecting out of that talented team. I got hooked on the one thing that could make me feel okay about the lack of Super Bowl rings for the Bears.
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 