Life from the porch

 The thing about Long Island is you have to be near the water. It’s what makes it worth living there. I mean I every place has something. Wisconsin has cheese. Minnesota has looting. Carolina has a live and let live attitude about sex with your first cousin. Florida has….well… Florida man. Long Island has the water.

People from the city make the trek to the giant state park Jones Beach that was built by Robert Moses. There are other great beaches like Long Beach, East Atlantic beach, the Rockaways and Lido Beach. It is the beaches out at the Hamptons that are really special.

Our friends house is in the Moriches which is Hamptons adjacent. The house is on an inlet with a dock where they keep their boat. The bought it three years ago for around 700 and refurbished it. She is an interior decorator and the place is a showplace. I am a big clumsy oaf so I have to mince around carefully so I don’t break anything. Now they sold it for 1.2 so they can go on to the next one. But right now it is set up perfectly.

We extended our stay a couple of days since this is the last of Sheila. The wife went antiquing with her friend and I am drinking coffee on the porch and relaxing.

It don’t get much better than that.

Summer time and living is easy!

 We decided to take a few days off for in the heat of the summer. Seatuck the bed and breakfast we used to go to had been closed for about five years now. The owner turned it into a private house.Luckily we had an alternative.

One of Lisa’s friends from grammar school has a beautiful house on the water near the Hamptons. She invited us several times but we never had a chance. However now she has sold it so it is now or never. So we packed up like we were invading Normandy and went for two days. 

I have spending my time cooking and writing. Making some old and some new favorites. Lisa and her friend are sitting near the dock relaxing with some wine and I am on the porch.

It’s a pretty sweet deal. There is a sea breeze cooling me down and I am sipping iced tea and writing while I have a pot full of ropa vieja simmering on the stove.

Life is good. You have to be in the moment.

You never know what you are going to learn when you go on a walk

So we had to take the mother-in-law to a doctors appointment on Sunrise Highway which is a main drag in Long Island. They only allow one person at a time to accompany the patient so the wife went with her and I was at loose ends. Normally that is great. I would wander off to a pizzeria or diner or hamburger stand and have something to eat without the wife bitching at me that there was too much salt. So Trooper was happy. Not so fast loser.

I starting walking which nobody does in the burbs. I figure there must be a food joint close by. I mean what the fuck we are always passing them when we drive down Sunrise Highway! Well for four blocks in either direction there is nothing. No Burger King. No McDonalds. No diner. No Dunkin Donuts. No IHOP. No pizzeria! No shit!

All there was were home stores. A kitchen cabinet place. A window treatment place. A store totally devoted to shower doors. What the fuck… shower doors! I mean I could go in and order a shower door with extra cheese! Hey put more Mayo on those Levelor blinds. What a fucking letdown!

That is not even the worst part. As I was walking by cursing and talking to myself I saw my reflection in the window.  I said to myself “Self I recognize that guy. But who is it?”

Then I realized it! I look like the silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock!

I am one fat fuck!

WLEM FM

Chrissie Hynde claims that she wrote this song for/and about a lonely fan, but I think she's fibbing; she wrote this for Ray Davies of The Kinks. Whatever, it's beautiful song and I'm glad that she gets credit for songwriting. I never saw the original Pretenders before half of them died, but I did see the second incarnation, The Pretenders, and the treat was that she was playing her hometown of Akron, Ohio. Some co-workers and I drove over from Cleveland to see them in 1984. To me, the song is about letting go of a special someone you can't have today, but maybe tomorrow or someday. 

 _____________________ 

Added: The electric version with the original band members from the good old MTV days:

 

The Song Is Ended

 . . . but the body parts linger on. A box turtle and a cicada wing:

I'm guessing the turtle has eaten the rest of the cicada. I have to say, I miss the Brood X Wall of Sound.

WKRLEM: Stick to your own kind

And learn to swim bitch.

Sign of the times

New York Post June 24, 2021:

 The father of a Texas woman who vanished from a house party said Thursday he’s “terrified” to find out what happened to her — and believes that her boyfriend, former NFL player Kevin Ware, knows “something” about her mysterious disappearance.

The family filed a missing person’s report on May 10 but are still searching for answers in her disappearance.

Harris County Sheriff's Office

“If he’s not responsible, he has to know something,”  Stephen Pomaski said of the disappearance of his daughter, Taylor Pomaski, 29, news station KTRK reported.

Taylor was last seen at a party on April 25 at a home that she shared with Ware, a former tight end for the San Francisco 49ers, authorities said.

Marilyn’s Diary

My Aunt Lily was very sad when my Uncle Herman left us to run away with Carol Herman. She couldn't understand why he would give up on their marriage when they had been happy for 257 years. But the heart wants what it wants.

I couldn't understand why he would leave my firm young nubile teenage body. But he did. For a senile old bat who was obsessed with some guy named Ricky Branch. 

Aunt Lily went a little crazy for a while. Wild parties. Sex. Drugs. Rock and Roll. But finally she got very depressed. She would just sit in her rocking chair with her cat. Rocking back and forth. Petting her pussy.

There are worst ways to live.

We still missed my Uncle Herman.

Trooper York’s Word of the Day

pander

[ˈpandər]

VERB

(pander to)

1. gratify or indulge (an immoral or distasteful desire, need, or habit or a person with such a desire, etc.).

   "newspapers are pandering to people's baser instincts"

   synonyms:

   indulge · gratify · satisfy · cater to · give in to · fulfill · yield to · bow to · humor · please · accommodate · comply with · go along with
2.  to wear a mask to satisfy the karens of the world.

NOUN

1. dated

   a pimp.

   synonyms:

   procurer · procuress · go-between · brothel-keeper · madam · souteneur · ponce · hoon · panderess · mack · bawd · a  fouchi 

 

Smell your finger Little Joe

 "You know it felt so good when you put your hand up my gingham. I had to touch myself too."

"It sure was fun Ellie Mae. Say do you want to do it again?"

"Why surely I do Little Joe. Say why do they call you Little Joe? I hope it's not what I think it is?"

"You know it's not Ellie Mae. Say I know what this smells like."

"What?"

"That parmesan cheese they have in then new Eyetalian restuarant."

"You are a strange man cowboy."

Time for Pasta salad!

 It’s time for a simple summer pasta salad!

Take a pound of gluten free fussili cook it up and drain and run under cold water. Pour on a generous amount of olive oil. Cut up six ripe plum tomatoes and add to a mix. Toss. Then cut up a block of ricotta salada cheese. Actually I crumble it add to the mix making sure it integrates with the olive oil and the tomatoes. Add some fresh basil for flavor. Serve cold with maybe a dash of pecorino Romano cheese that you grate over it.

Great with a chilled glass of Sangiovese.

Finally… Something to listen to!

 We have finally started our own podcast. We have been threatening to do it for along time and now we have finally started it. It is on Spotify but we are going to go on YouTube soon enough once we figure out the video bullshit. I think this link will work:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/459DWmAwjp1nj6LUTCc5th?si=FkQ7KfM6Qh2lN1Qaf5R6GQ&dl_branch=1p

It is going to be a general life style podcast where we talk about stuff that interests us. The current one tells some stories about the TV show and when  Lisa met the Long Island Medium and all the bullshit that ensued.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Harmony and Understanding?

Music is very important to me. I am not much for quiet. I like to be listening to something while I am doing something else. Cooking. Reading. Scratching my balls. I like to multitask.

I have talked about Pandora before. It is the music service that lets you set up a "Station" that plays songs from a genre or type of band if you mention a singer or a group or specific song. It will play that song and a bunch of other songs of the same genre or style or period. So if Sixty wants to hear "Baby Got Bach" or Nick wants to hear "The Theme from Barnaby Jones" a whole station springs up.

I was teasing Lisa and I said "the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter has aligned with Mars" and she said what the fuck are you talking about. So I put the song on and it was hilarious. Then I set up a Pandora channel with the Fifth Dimension and it was great. All  the great cheesy songs from the sixties and seventies were on it. You know the songs that they performed on the Sonny and Cher hour or the Glenn Campbell Holiday special. The Carpenters. Tom Jones. The Captain and Tennille. Mac Davis. Tony Orlando and Dawn. Diane Warwick singing the early hits of Burt Bacharach. Classic cheese.

A good time was had by all. 

If you don't like it you can have the Moon align with Uranus.

Read The Instructions!

 

From the Language Log blog.

WKRLEM : I watched the Comancheros last night

Wait a cotton picking minute!

This ain't it!

She ain't Lee Marvin. She ain't even Stuart Whitman!

WTF?

This is Lem's Levity

 

The name of this blog is of course Lem's Levity. But we haven't seen Lem in a while. He posts occasionally in the new beef joint but he doen't hang out with his old friends.

It's like he cut us or something. Just sayn'

Blue Jay Day Deux

 

I went into my back yard and there was a Blue Jay laying on the ground flapping around and generally helpless.

It turned out to be David Wells. He had fallen out of an Uber when he was reaching for another beer and landed on my lawn. 

I managed to get him on his feet. He circled around and then moved off down the street. He was scheduled to sign autographs in a Comic book store on Merrick Road.

My good deed for the day.

Blue Jay Day

I went out Tuesday to get the leaf pictures I promised Sixty Grit. Right in the middle of the street was what I'm pretty sure was a baby blue jay, flopping around and squawking. I couldn't tell whether he had an injured leg or wing, or just couldn't fly yet. I picked him up and put him in the undergrowth below one of our trees.

When I turned around I saw that he had a sibling who had been sitting on a recycling bin and watching us the whole time. This one could fly, though reluctantly and clumsily. He was still there when I came back from my walk in the little park.

I went out later to check up, and found one perched on a low branch of that same tree.

I hope it was the one I found in the street, as that might mean both of them are OK. I wonder why the parents weren't around; I should have been getting divebombed, or at least screamed at. Maybe they figured it was time the little nuisances got a job and a place to live, and kicked them out.

WKRLEM: Yoga Pants

Yes this is his dumbest song.

Trooper York's word of the day

onanism

[ˈōnəˌnizəm]

NOUN

formal

1. masturbation.
2. coitus interruptus.
3.   CNN contributor

Ropa Vieja time again!

Yesterday I made Ropa Vieja which is one of my favorite Cuban dishes. The wife went out to Hobby Lobby with her girlfriend so I could spend some quality time with my stove. You see Ropa Vieja is basically a Cuban Pot Roast and takes about five hours to make. So I was able to put it on the stove to stew while I wrote in the next room.

Here are the basic ingredients:

20 cloves of garlic

3   large sweet onions

1   bag baby carrots

5   stalks of celery

5   pounds of chuck steak

1   jar of Spanish olives with pimentos

1   jar of roasted red pepper

1   jar of tomato sauce

2   cartons of chicken stock

Salt

Pepper

Cumin

Chile flakes 

Cayenne pepper

Rosemary

Thyme

Other herbs in those gay Simon and Garfunkel songs

Oregano for the guineas

First you mince the garlic in your food chopper in put it in sizzling Olive Oil you put in the bottom of the Stew Pot. (By the way Popeye thought Olive had a sizzling bottom...it was flat but she was into butt stuff so she was popular around the seaport).

Fry up the garlic and then add the thinly sliced onions and fry until translucent. Sort of like Johnny Winters dick which you can ask Stevie Nicks about but more about that latter.

Then you put the meat in and fry it on both sides until it gets brownish. Not Yaphet Kotto brown...more a Harry Belafonte tone. like this:

Yeah I know it is not brown yet but just give it a few minutes. Take your time. Like a brother on his way to work. Or Joe Biden going to a press conference.

Once it is browned put in the chicken stock, tomato sauce and enough water to fill up the stew pot. Add the carrots and the celery that youse have cut up like little u's.  Add in all the spices. I usually use a teaspoon of each except for the oregano which I put in a shitpot full. Turn it up to bring it to a boil and then turn it down and let it simmer. For four hours.

In the fifth hour add the olives that you have cut in half. Add the red roasted peppers.  

Stew another half hour.

Take out the meat and put it in a bowl. Break it apart with a fork. It should open up like Lindsey Lohan legs on a Friday night. Pour in some of the sauce and make sure you get the goodies. The olives. Peppers. Carrots. Celery. Serve over rice.

Serves six people or Trooper and his wife if he is hungry.

I made it last night and everyone cleared their plate. Twice. It was great.

Gluten free and delicious.

WKRLEM: For all you parents out there.

It's time to celebrate .....and create!

Overheard at Lem's Levity:

 "Shouting Thomas said...

Have you noticed that Althouse’s “curated, artisanal” comments invariably kiss her ass?

I mean, I understand why she shut comments down. The censors and cancellation mobs were coming for her. She was also obviously fed up with the many personal feuds, and with being told she’s full of shit (and she really is in a lot of ways).

Althouse’s talent was framing an issue for discussion. Her obsession with identify politics is just plain stupid, since it’s based on her lifelong lying that American women are subordinated and persecuted. She never got Trump because she really is a neurasthenic pedant. She never got that he was what was holding the censors at bay. He was too rough and hetero for her fag hag tastes.

Without the comments, her blog is now irrelevant and boring. Rather than turn it into a marathon of ass kissing, she might as well shut it down."

This has all happened before as I am sure if you are reading here you are already aware. The big dust up that brought about the genesis of this blog has been swept under the rug. I believe many of the posts and comments that went into the explosion have been deleted. Even on this blog by Lem. I recently went back in time and noticed a lot of stuff missing. Of course that was then and this is now. We don't delete troublesome posts here anymore. If you say just know it will go on your permeant record. 

I hope Shouting Thomas and other refugees who want a place to express themselves will join us here in this experiment of free speech and angry old man get off of my lawn speechifying. 

Gentleman .....start your ire.

Just Another Walk In The Burbs

 

Rusty Old Fence With Day Lilies. I like day lilies because they stay in bloom so long. None of that twee, Japanese-cherry-blossom beauty-is-fleeting-and-gone-oh-so-soon crap. We're gonna be here all summer.

A Little Free Library. Nice to see Beatrix Potter there, and not Harry Potter.

And a nice, uncarved beech tree for Sixty Grit.

Mr. Ed Apologizes

Check this out on Chirbit

WKRLEM: Things ed can not say to the blonde.

Not if he knows what's good for him.

Show me your papers

So the liberals and the Biden administration is continuing to press for vaccine passports. They want to demand that everyone hand over personal medical information if they want to get avocados at Trader Joe's. Luckily in some parts of the Real America the politicians are getting it right. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has banned the practice. He also banned the cruise ships from demanding them if they are based in Florida.

Now I have shipped out on a cruise from Florida several times. It is a big business. The ship terminal is huge and it is an important part of the tourism industry. Plus the vaccine is in fact bullshit. One ship had a crew and guests who were all fully vaccinated and two people got COVID. So all the vaccine bullshit was for nothing. These poor mooks were segregated and quarantined. Their papers didn't save them.

We have to fight this with all of our power. Once this gets started it will never end. They will add additional requirements that you will have to meet to be able to shop or go to a game or do anything we used to do in a free America. You will have to be certified as non racist. That you are not against transgenders bringing their dicks to the little girls room. It is all coming to a Gestapo near you.

WKRLEM: All of Sixty’s favorite rockers are getting old

Hey you

Get offa my lawn

Blue Blazes

 

Single blue blaze = side trail, go straight. I remember seeing these on the Appalachian Trail; it's kind of amusing to find them in our little neighborhood park. (There are no white blazes there. Zen koan: can there be a side trail, when there is no main trail?)

Well, it's good to know that, if I keep my wits about me and follow the signs, I won't die of exposure, lost and alone, and be eaten by the crows and feral cats, a hundred yards or more from the nearest road.

Score One For Flag H8red On My Watch

 I'm reposting the same text that I posted about ten years ago which recalled events ten years earlier. A "score" is 20 years right?

Back in 2000 I announced to some former coworkers that my wife and I and our two toddlers were planning to buy a house up in Oceanside. The La Jolla chemistry lab where I had worked was mainly staffed by foreign students and postdocs, but the US students and post docs who were there were mostly the products of elite American universities. One of them looked at me and in all earnestness said: "You know they fly flags up there don't you?"*

Now this was all pre-9/11, but it did typify the mentality at elite universities--even among hard science students who people think are apolitical.  Link

Flag Day is just around the corner (June 14th). We all know that God hates flags, but this isn't a religious holiday. There have always been those who express visceral negative reaction towards the flag. There are probably far more who keep it to themselves. Do they feel the same way at Arlington? Do they feel the same way on July 4th?  If so, it's important to know which way the numbers are changing, demographically. Are there more flag h8ters today than there were 20 years ago?  

_______________________________

*If you know San Diego County geography and history, you know why this is so.

The End Of Wokeness

Yet another disgusting smear from her. https://t.co/qioOygG4fT

— Megyn Kelly (@megynkelly) June 7, 2021

My point is that if you piss-off Megyn Kelly -- no fan of Trump -- you've lost a lot of women. 

This is the End

Trooper York's Word of the Day

=

 

 wallow

[ˈwälō]

VERB

1. (chiefly of large mammals) roll about or lie relaxed in mud or water, especially to keep cool, avoid biting insects, or spread scent.

   "watering places where buffalo liked to wallow"

   synonyms:

   loll about/around · lie about/around · tumble about/around · splash about/around · slosh · wade · paddle · slop · squelch · welter · splosh
2. (wallow in)

   (of a person) indulge in an unrestrained way in (something that creates a pleasurable sensation).

   "I was wallowing in the luxury of the hotel" · 

   [more]

   synonyms:

   luxuriate · bask · take pleasure · take satisfaction · indulge (oneself) · delight · 

   [more]

NOUN

1. an act of wallowing.

   "a wallow in nostalgia"
2. an area of mud or shallow water where mammals go to wallow, typically developing into a depression in the ground over long use.

   "a buffalo wallow"

This is what I have been watching....no arguments or fights. Just cake.

The only thing I can say about it that is bad is that they didn't do any pies.

I love pie. 

Apple Pie. Pecan Pie. Blueberry Pie. Peach Pie. Pumpkin Pie. All kinds of pie.

Why can't we live a life of Pie?

It is getting tougher and tougher to find things to read.

 

And another thing! I am not through complaining yet!

It is getting harder and harder to read political blogs anymore. It is always the same shit. I started tuning it out at the end of the Trump administration. It was getting all too predictable. The Liberals. The Maga people. The Never Trumpers. Same shit different day.

I have a few blogs I always go too on a daily basis. Red State. Ace of Spades. Hot Air. Daily Wire. American Greatness. Instapundit. Vox Day. But all of them seem to have something lacking these days. I guess my feeling of connection has been lost. I am getting really weary of the same augments by the same bad actors. 

The political shows have also really lost their appeal for me. The Five and Tucker and Hannity are all running together in my mind. I have stopped listening to them as they have just become noise to me.

The only thing I seem to enjoy is arguing about TV shows on Previously TV which is a blog which details every show on TV and has a post about many episodes. So you can go on and argue about what went on. I have been banned four times and am on my fifth identity. I don't know how long I can last since I always post pro Trump and pro conservative ideas in a liberal cesspool. Once the moderators catch up I will be a cooked goose. But for now it lets me get my two cents in while I still can.

I don't comment much on blogs anymore since so many of them have disqus or some other monitoring method. It is just not worth the trouble to get certified and then be banned two weeks later. 

Oh well. I guess I have to go back to my Kindle. 

Da Bears!

 

I know I have said that I have stopped following the National Felons League. Which I have. I have not seen a game in the last four years. Not even highlights. So I have no idea what is going on except from some websites that I enjoy. One site that has become a go too place for me is "Outkick the Coverage." 

One of the recent posts tells me that the Halas family is thinking about selling Da Bears. One of the cornerstone family owned franchises like the Steelers or the Giants they were the only ballast the league had to keep it in line from the new woke ownership that has destroyed the league. 

Now Halas's daughter who is about 98 doesn't want to sell and her idiot family wants to dump the team. You know who one of the main competitors for buying this gem? Jeff Bezos of Amazon. Imagine that.

Monopoly Amazon controlling a storied NFL franchise. I don't know how the salary cap works but I bet you can just pay a fine like the Yankees do in baseball. Can he buy a championship with the dough I give him by having an Alexa in every room? That would suck.

The old families and the old ways are passing from the scene. I guess everyone used to say the same thing when they get old. I remember how sad everyone got when Albert Anastasia retired so to speak. Now it is all woke all the time. 

Thank God that I don't follow the league anymore along with millions of other conservatives. I hope the rating decline continues and the league loses its big TV contracts. Although with Bezos they might just go to Amazon and we might be forced to watch it if we want to order books for our kindle or tampons or whatever.

It's sick out there and getting sicker.

You can't escape it no matter where you go.

 

Watching TV has become more and more of a problem for us. I am not one of those phony shitheads like the Nutty Professor who claim they never watch TV. I love TV. I watch it all the time. After a long day it should be relaxing and enjoyable. It is not anymore.

I remember when I was a kid and we all enjoyed six channels. There was CBS, NBC and ABC. Two independent channels WPIX and Fox. Plus PBS if you were gay. So America was basically forced to come together and watch the same things. In the sixties we watched the sitcoms like Gilligan and the Brady Bunch and I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched. Or dramas like Gunsmoke and Bonanza. The Wonderful World of Disney. Lawrence Welk. Batman. Basically all the shit I write about. But even the seventies and the eighties had cultural benchmarks for all of us. Friends. Seinfeld. The Love Boat. NYPD Blue. All in the Family. The Jeffersons. Mary Tyler Moore. The country was brought together by the same shows we were all watching.

Now there are a hundred channels and there is nothing on. You have streaming services and cable packages. The audience is diverse and fragmented. Only a tiny portion of the old audience is available to any niche part of television viewership. The problem is the powers that be play to only one niche. The woke.

WLEM TV

 A young Sixty Grit (Delta Blues affciando) casually dismisses up and coming band Led Zeppelin and blows his chances with a hot redhead:

Chip Off The Old Chip

 

I wanted to make a wish-you-were-here post for Chip Ahoy, but I don't know a damn thing about hieroglyphics, or pop-up books, or food, or et cetera. But Chip would periodically post a list of unusual words he had encountered, along with definitions. I can do that.

One of my favorite time-wasters is doing London Times Cryptic Crosswords. Any sort of cryptic crossword is difficult. The Times Cryptics are both very difficult, and very British, which makes them real beasts for Americans to solve. These days I can successfully complete maybe two out of three, but almost never without heavy use of the internet -- particularly the indispensable Crossword Solver.

Every single puzzle has answers that are words and names and phrases I've never seen before. Plants, animals, minerals, names of British and European places and people. Terms from soccer and cricket, of course. And Indian food: apparently Times readers are presumed to know all about Indian food. Also phrases. Most Americans would recognize "Oi, mate!" or "Pull the other one!" But how about "Yah boo sucks" or "Tace is latin for candle"? Both of those showed up as answers in Times cryptics.

I'm currently halfway through a book of 50 Jumbo (23x23) Times cryptics, and I've already found several dozen new-to-me words as answers. I'll exercise self-control, and list only seven of them (all from the same puzzle!):

goldcrest: a small bird

teapoy: a three-legged table, sometimes with a tea-chest

Wee Free: slang for the Free Church of Scotland (as opposed to the much larger United Free Church)

leaf curl: a plant disease

raita: a yogurt-based Indian dish

pay and display: a ticket-vending machine used in parking lots -- sorry, in car parks

ragged staff: a symbol used in heraldry -- a staff with knobs, or a tree-trunk with stumps of branches

Books of Times cryptics can be found only sporadically on US sites; the best place to buy them is the excellent English online bookseller Wordery.

WLEM FM

Overheard at Lem's:

Blogger Amartel said...

I do love the 70s, when men could wear tiny sequined matador jackets, or whatever that is, and still be men.

Remember when Robert Plant wore blouses?

The video is great of example of how tightly drummer Bonzo and guitarist Page fed off each other. Some have said that was the key to the Zeppelin sound. 

WKRLEM: The New Pig is not having it!

Everybody loves John Prine.

The Return of the King

 

The God Emperor has already closed down his blog.

As reported by the New York Post the God Emperor of the Cherry Blossom Throne will be closing down the blog and website that he had just opened to communicate with his supporters. This is a precursor to returning to another social media platform which I presume to mean Twitter. Or perhaps he will go on "Gab" or another of Twitter's competitors. I just bet that it will be Twitter. They want the buzz and the activity that  his Tweets bring. Just as CNN's ratings have gone through the floor so has Twitter usage once the God Emperor was banned. So they are bringing him back.

Soon the country will as well.

We just have to wait until we pay $10 a gallon for gasoline.

WKRLEM: Take It To The Limit

One more time.

Trooper York's Word of the Day

 

pedophile

[ˈpedəˌfīl]

NOUN

paedophile (noun)

a person who is sexually attracted to children.