Thoughts for Independence Day 2006

Happy Independence Day Everybody… I hope everybody is enjoying the long weekend!

For some reason MTV has been running marathons of its dating show “Next”… a program that I consider a train wreck.. You don’t want to watch it.. But you just can't keep your eyes off it. I think they actually stole the concept from me.. For years I have told "stressed out with relationship problems" single friends to adopt my famous mantra… “As the slumlord would say.. Time to move on to the next project” I think MTV stole the concept and just shortened the name.. Nonetheless… it makes for some fascinating background noise while writing this blog, following out of town baseball games online, and getting acquainted with my new cell phone which will be addressed later this week in Technology Shmecknology Part II.

The show has one person going on dates with 5 different people who sit in a trailer and have the most bizarre small talk conversations while the fifth person is on the date. They win a buck for every minute they survive, but if the person doesn’t like them,… they bellow out “NEXT” and the next person comes out for a date.. If the person likes one of these poor suckers they have a choice for a 2nd date or a dollar for every minute the date lasted. I’m sure many people wouldn’t mind a dollar for every minute they endured on a “date from hell”.

A few things stood out about the weekend marathon…. Aside from the incredible shallowness of the show’s participants. One woman who was white did NOT want a white guy… Guy #1 emerges from the trailer with flowers which she calls sappy and immediately hollered ‘NEXT”… Out came Guy #2 who was white, and when this woman saw him… not only did she NEXT him the second she saw him….. but she threw the flowers at the poor guy too!! There was also a girl who said she had lost 100 pounds and was on her first date ever, and you just prayed that she wouldn’t take the rejection too personally and start chowing down again.. But luckily the guy who NEXTed her was a mensch about it and she took it quite well. Finally, one guy was being teased for having man-boobs.. So at the end, the 4 rejected bimbettes chanted out… “Good luck with your man-boobs….” and one remarked off the cuff… “And your man-gina too” I never heard the word man-gina.. But I find it very amusing.. And somewhat fun to say!



I am very proud to be an American.. And July 4th is a very special day for me! It's also a wake up call that its been more than a month since Memorial Day, and there is only 2 months left till Labor Day, so there is still time to live it up! It's also meaningful since I am the son of an immmigrant who learned English and assimilated into American culture as soon as he was off the boat. This might be an odd concept since there are too many immigrants who don't care to learn English, and the illegal ones are now making a big deal that they deserve immunity!

Usually July 4th is a relatively quiet day news-wise except for the Bicentennial in 1976 which was also the same day as the Rescue from Entebbe. Tim McCarver also hit a grand slam on Bicentennial Day but passed a teammate on the bases and was stuck with a a single. The Mets also once played a game in Atlanta that had rain delays and went 19 innings and ended at 4 AM at which point they launched the annual fireworks show and scared the living daylights out of the local residents who thought the city was getting bombed. However it was a big day in 1826....

I wonder what it would have been like if CNN had been on the air back in 1826. July 4th was a huge news day!! Our 2nd President John Adams and 3rd President Thomas Jefferson both died on the very same day! I can only imagine the mid day coverage on CNN…. Lets say one of the back ups was anchoring… say Rick Sanchez.. Who knows… maybe Daryn Kagan has to take a day off because boyfriend Rush Limbaugh is in the news again. Good thing hes not NBA player Eddie Griffin who crashed his car last week for DWM.. Driving While Masturbating.

Here is a possible transcript from July 4th 1826.…180 years ago!!

RICK SANCHEZ; Welcome to CNN… Daryn Kagan is out today… In the news, much is being bandied about Rush Limbaughs horse and buggy being detained because he had some illegal medication geared towards his inability to get his shmeckle to perform. Lack of performance by the shmeckle is a growing problem.. Its apparently rampant in the frontier states.. And here to talk about why shmeckles can’t get the job done is CNN Health Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta…

GUPTA: Thank you Rick.. Shmeckles come in all shapes and sizes, whether excited or not excited. Unfortunately the Rush Shmeckle is like a deer frozen when confronted by a lantern of a frontiersman's horse. This is odd since he is dating my hottest co-worker although some could argue that Suzanne Malveaux is better looking. But what causes the shmeckle to fail as miserably as Rush Limbaugh’s and what can be done about it?

SANCHEZ; Sorry, Dr. Gupta, we have to interrupt for some breaking news.. Wolf Blitzer is standing by…

BLITZER: Yes, Rick, we here in the Situation Room are just getting word in right now that Former President John Adams… is dead! He died just a little while ago and we are expected to get an update soon from the Adams Family concerning the tragic death of our former President. I will be speaking with family spokesman Lurch later.. Apparently his last words were (and this is really true) “Jefferson still lives”…. a reference to his feud with fellow Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. Back to you Rick.

SANCHEZ; How sad.. To have a president die on the 4th of July… Its absolutely tragic… and a programming note… Tonight on Larry King Live.. a special looking back at the life and times of Former President John Adams… Larry will have a round table panel with the survivors who signed The Declaration of Independence 50 years ago today, and they will be discussing the former President and his life and times.. Again.. Former President Adams.. Has died. We will go to the weather in a moment but as we break for commercial and show you our new graphic and sad musical bed about the death of President Adams.. Wait a second.. Im just hearing we will be going back again to Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes Rick,… I am just getting word in my ear piece that former President Thomas Jefferson …. Is dead! The announcement has been confirmed at his estate by family spokeswoman and slave Weezie Jefferson.

SANCHEZ; Oh this is so tragic.. Both Jefferson and Adams are now.. Gone!! A programming note on this the 50th anniversary of the The Declaration of Independence, Larry King will host a 2 hour round table discussion about the deaths of these 2 founding fathers, and later tonight on Anderson Cooper 360, he will scold the surviving signers for lauding themselves, instead of getting medical attention for Adams and Jefferson!

Meanwhile MSNBC would be rerunning a taped Matt Lauer piece about the history of The View while the website would have some ass kicking coverage of the tragic events of July 4th 1826.

I also liked Benjamin Franklin… he was quite the genius… and thanks to a recent Star Ledger column for this nugget… apparently a reference to the multitudes of beans he ingested during the 1st 50 July 4th Barbecues! Besides discovering electricity with his discovery of the lightning rod.. He also created bifocal glasses.. The Franklin Stove and the odometer. I wish I knew this next bit of info when I was a kid when I had to write a paper about him… he also wrote an essay called…”Fart Proudly”… and this is a quote… “(I want) to discover some drug wholesome and not disagreeable to be mixed with our common food or sauces that shall render the natural discharges of wind from our bodies not only inoffensive but agreeable as perfumes.”

Way to go Benajmin Franklin! And... that might explain while some of the other signers looked kind of queasy when they posed for that infamous pic!

Happy 4th of July everybody!!