A Fool and His Money Are Soon Partied

Today has the makings of being an interesting day. Because today is when the Jarlsberg home will be visited by filmmaking strangers (wearing masks, thank you) to shoot me for that semi-mysterious documentary I've mentioned here a few times. 

By pure chance, today is ALSO the 30th anniversary of an event that is the core of the documentary - an event in which I played a major role. So I told the documentary folks that we could share a toast to the occasion (an old friend once told me "caring means sharing"), and I'll be damned if I'm pouring Inver House, "The Scotch The Clan MacGregor Scrapes Off Its Shoe," for people who've flown hundreds of miles for my convenience (and charming personality and propensity for making libelous remarks).

No, it seemed like a 30-year old Scotch was called for. And let me tell you, friends, Scotch that old gets expensive really fast.  You can pick up a nice bottle of Glenfiddich for $900, a tasty Balvenie for $2000, or a lip-smacking Macallan Fine Oak 30 for a trifling $7,600.

Obviously, I didn't buy any of those things. Rather, I found the cheapest 30-year old Scotch within driving distance and, after watching an assessment on the Youtube "Half-Assed Scotch Review" channel that declared it really tasty, I bought a bottle to share with the documentarians.

At about $200, I guess it's a steal - though it's a bit painful to think about the fact that the same money could have kept me in Clan MacGregor for a year or more. Still, 30th anniversaries only come around so often, and if the cameras happen to be rolling I can look like a big spender.

Which would technically be a big media lie, but hardly the first one.

It's Random Wednesday!

Okay, there's really no such thing as "Random Wednesday" but I felt like visiting with you and have only random things to talk about. For instance...

• Will Smith is in the news, which allows me to tell my only Will Smith story. Years ago here in the Dallas area, I was just wrapping up a recording session for the Chuck E. Cheese singing/joking robots and hauling my stuff out of the studio control room when Will Smith and his entourage came in to record some damn thing. And I don't want to say he found me physically intimidating but he sure as hell didn't try to bitch slap me. (Hey, I didn't say it was a great Will Smith story.)

• Several weeks ago, Kathy tasked me with planting some flowers and bulbs in a little garden area we'd recently put in, but I was clueless about where to start (although she was quite specific about what she wanted to be done). I kept asking a neighbor questions and, perhaps because she got sick of my blithering ignorance, a little group of neighbors is coming over on Friday to do all the planting (and provide the necessary plants and supplies) to make a nice little memorial garden that everyone can enjoy seeing when they pass by our house...

Granted, it's a pretty narrow bed (just the area between the windows, which was perhaps more suitable for burying a python) so the neighbors probably won't be adding any life-sized statues of angels blowing trumpets or Wizard of Oz-style columns of fire. I'll have to add those later.

• On an unrelated note, some time ago I mentioned that I might be appearing in an upcoming documentary scheduled for national broadcast later this year. When things turned crazy here, it didn't seem like I'd be able to participate, but now the documentary makers are planning on making a special trip here to interview me in a week or so. 

If I say so myself, I'm one of the world's foremost authorities on the cultural phenomenon the documentary is about. And no, I'm not saying what that is just yet, but I hope you'll eventually be surprised if not flat out flabbergasted. I'm looking forward to finally getting a chance to share my perspective and memories. And also glad that I'll have a strict deadline for cleaning my house and office so I don't look like a complete mental case with a hoarding disorder on national TV.

• I still don't know what the heck I'm going to be blogging about here in the future (it has to be FUNNY, dammit, and suggestions are welcome) but I think I'll officially start posting to Johnny Optimism again starting Monday. Which should come as great news to the 25 people who actually read it.

The Trudge Report

As you can tell from the cartoon above, I don't really have anything new and worthwhile to share and my wobbling sense of humor seems like it's going to require training wheels for a while. Mostly I cobbled the cartoon together as an excuse to post and say that Daughter J and I are doing okay all considered and taking things one day at a time. 

Little nothing-sized chores are surprisingly tiring; a trip to the grocery store before noon leaves me drained for the rest of the day. Of course, my mood wasn't helped when I then stopped at the liquor store and found that they were out of Clan MacGregor.  I had to buy Inver House, which is even cheaper and nastier scotch than Clan MacG.

Oh sure, there were good and expensive brands of scotch sitting right there on the shelves, but I'm pretty sure that coughing up more money for the same quantity of scotch just adds to inflation - and I love this country too much to be a party to that. 

I'm still not paying attention to the news, though unavoidably see bits and pieces. Like a Supreme Court nominee who can't say what a "woman" is, even though it was part of the criteria that Biden insisted on for his nomination. And of course, I hear hyperbolic stories about a potential nuclear war breaking out at any moment because Putin has gone nuts, but I'm dealing with that by remembering the wise words of the Serenity Prayer:  "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know if a first strike on Moscow would settle Putin's f*cking hash once and for all. Amen."

Yesterday I went to the hearing aid store/audiologist for the first time since Covid hit and it seems that my already poor hearing has further eroded. Even more troubling was the news that, after taking a test using an odd device that would strain the credulity of a freshly-minted Scientologist, I have significant cognitive decline and memory issues caused by my brain trying to compensate for hearing aids that aren't expensive enough.

However, my brain still worked well enough to tell them that I'd stick with my existing hearing aids for now, but the moment I want new ones I'll definitely want to speak to them and the horse they rode in on.

And From The Vault...