The Pinetar Three (Thanks for the Shirts, McBean)

In these times of Photoshop, where a skilled operator could easily put Dr. Zaius’ head on my body and make is seamless, you never know if you are looking at a real photo or a doctored one. I assure the readers that this photo is real. We really have the Pinetar shirts, his/hers/baby. They are compliments of a very silly man down in Atlanta, Georgia who likes to go by the name McBean. I don’t know what I like better, the gags or the 2nd row, behind-the-plate seats to the Red Sox (or Dodgers this year?). He’s a true old friend. In high school, we worked many jobs together; cleaning toilets, painting etc. Scarily, he can recite the lines to “Battle of the Planet of the Apes” almost verbatim and while doing it, he’ll crack himself up at the same time, perhaps out of embarrassment? One of the last times I was down at his house in Atlanta, we made deep fried twinkies. I have proof:

And yes, that’s a Norman (Chubby) Chainey t-shirt I’m wearing. Another of his creations. If you are goint to eat like Chainey, you need to honor him. Chubby would have like the twinkies.

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Bonds game on: Already I have heard Charles Barkley on the radio being interviewed re Bonds and already he has played the race card FOR Barry Bonds. Has anyone heard of Martha Stewart? (Would it matter if they had?).

My initial thoughts on this were that if the feds take 4 years aim at you, you have nowhere to hide (cue the Barretta theme song), but now I think that Bonds and his attorneys will remain defiant and sling mud at MLB and the US DOJ, playing the race card and any other card they can play. The facts, as I understand them are this: Bonds took roids. He admitted to taking the roids. He DIDN’T admit to KNOWING they were roids. To prove perjury, they have to get inside his head and prove that a reasonable person would have KNOWN that they were taking roids all along and that to say he didn’t know would be a lie. As we have seen in the OJ case, even facts that cry out for common sense can be obfuscated to dopey jurors with racial agendas, pretty easily by lawyers. If they got the right people on the jury, they might be able to convince them that a priest doesn’t know what he’s doing when he’s consecrating the host in The Mass. In other words, it ain’t all about common sense. Put your political G-Suit on and get ready for all-Barry, all the time, particularly if it is a slow news day.

I would venture that within about 6 months, you’ll “know” more than you ever dreamed about Barry Lamar Bonds. Question is, “who will play Kato?”.

***

Babe Ruth statue goes on despite a wicked cold and sore throat I’ve picked up after having a flu shot at work. I’m never getting the flu shot again. I don’t think they do a damn thing and in this case, I think they pushed me over the edge into this thing I have now. Now I have to spend hours with my stuffy face in a mask that’s uncomfortable at best on a good day.

The statue is coming along and I’m excited about it. I just had a nice talk with the buyer and we are on track to get this thing installed when the Gaylord opens in January.

Cash Plays LaMaze

Mrs. Pinetar and I finished the LaMaze classes last night.  Near the end, the teacher spoke of when the baby’s head is crowning and stuff is stretching and she said that, “Midwives, might call this ‘the ring of fire’ but that’s not a medical term…”

And that was it.  For the rest of the night, all I could hear were the Spanish trumpets: pah-pah, pah, pah-pah-pah–paaah …..puh-puh, puh, puh-puh-puh–puuuuh…

And then Johnny Cash of course: “I fell in to a burning ring of fire….I went down,down,down….and the flames went higher.
And it burns,burns,burns…the ring of fire….the ring of fire.”

All night.

No exceptions.

And on the way home.

I don’t believe any song ever written can get into your head and STAY there, like the Ring of Fire.  And now you’re all hearing it.  Hearing the trumpets.  And  humming it.  Good luck.  –fog

Getting the Belly

Mrs. Pinetar is afraid of McGonnigle, the cat. Not really afraid but she thinks he doesn’t like her and is wary of him. He has nipped at her hand in the past, apparently.

 

Today, I showed her that when he is nice and sleepy, he will be good and he purred for her and he even rolled over and “gave the belly”, or, felt comfortable enough to roll on his back for belly scratches.

 

She said, “yea, he gave the belly for YOU! He wouldn’t do that for me”

 

I said, “…you have to do it right. You have to approach slowly and let him smell your hand for a while, because that’s how he identifies you and assesses threat level. Then, you start with safe scratchies that he likes and keep doing that until he trusts you more and more and then slowly work the scratchies under him and he’ll just flip over and stretch and give you the belly.”

 

She said, “yea, sure, that works for you…”

 

–fog

AP picks up story from The Pinetar Rag

The Pinetar Rag has shaken the world media industry. Ok, here’s how it went: My wife’s cousin, married a guy who happens to be Japanese. They moved to Japan after living in the USA for over 10 years. My wife’s cousin works for the AP in Japan. Recently, I became fascinated by this new Pepsi Cucumber softdrink. I asked Mrs. Pinetar to ask her cousin if they had it in the stores in Japan where it is being marketed. Here is that section of my wife’s email to her couz: “[Foggy] saw Pepsi iced Cucumber soda on the internet but it is only available in Japan. He wanted to know if you ever had any and what did it taste like? Is it big there? Don’t worry if you don’t know, I just needed to ask.“

So today, she gets the reply:

Hello,

I’m glad to hear you’re feeling good. I thought you’d get a kick out of this- I was telling my co-workers about the cumber pepsi and our writing staff decided to do a small story on it. I’ve attached a copy of our picture that went with it:

 
TOKYO (AP) _ Japanese are staying cool as a cucumber this summer with “Pepsi Ice Cucumber” _ a new soda based on the crisp green gourd.
¶ The soft drink, which hit stores here on Tuesday, doesn’t actually have any cucumber in it _ but has been artificially flavored to resemble “the refreshing taste of a fresh cucumber,” said Aya Takemoto, spokeswoman of Japan’s Pepsi distributor, Suntory Ltd.
¶ “We wanted a flavor that makes people think of keeping cool in the summer heat,” Takemoto said. “We thought the cucumber was just perfect.”
¶ The mint-colored soda is on sale just for the summer and only in Japan, Takemoto said. She said initial sales were brisk, and Suntory aims to sell 200,000 cases over the next three months.
¶ Pepsi trails behind industry leaders Coca Cola (Japan) Company, with about 15 percent of the Japanese cola market, and also faces stiff competition from non-fizzy bottled drinks like green tea and coffee, which are popular here.
¶ Suntory said it sold 20.5 million cases of Pepsi brand drinks in 2006, including its popular Pepsi NEX zero-calorie soda.

 

So you can tell [Foggy] he officially led to the tip on our story. Things are good on this end. I’m gonig to bring a ton of pictures on stuff we’ve done since we’ve been here so you’ll get to see all our crazy wedding pics and some cute ones of Mimi also.

I can’t wait to see everyone

**********

We are movers and shakers here at The PineTar Rag. Cutting edge.

***

In other news, this morning in Franklin Lakes, NJ, my parents were awakened to a Bear in their garden. The bear was rooting through dad’s strawberries. He got tangled in the net and got freaked out and walked away. My dad said the bear was limping. And as always, there was obligitory: “…well, you could aways gut-shoot him, and he would go off and die somewhere else…”

***

Pool with Ciro saw my first ever “defeat” in Rotation. It’s in quotes. First of all, I was completely exhausted and my knee was killing me. But that was ok. Then, in game one, I got 60 and Ciro made the last ball and also made 60, so he won on the 2nd-guy-to-60-rule-in-Rotation. Phooey. I thought that 60 to 60 ties were rare but apparently not. Maybe I should buy lotto tickets.

In the second game, Ciro cheated. He had a shot where the 1 ball was partially eclipsed by a pocket-hanging 3 ball. I went over and stood over it and said, “…I’m reffing this one, you better hit the 1 first…”, to discourage him from doing what I knew he would do–pocket the 3 and claim that the 1 was first contact. He did exactly as I expected and 4 balls total fell on that shot. I objected, saying that he hit the 3 first (he did) and he was not going to admit to it. It wasn’t an accident. I take it as a compliment and figure if he wants to beat me that bad, then fine.

I also use these little events to galvanize my concentration and try to spank him. And it usually works great only this time, I guess I was tired and the balls were not falling, so he won. I was quiet after that shot for the rest of the night and left early so I think he “gets” it but that doesn’t stop him. All will be forgotten but I owe him one baaaad night on the table. I’m laying in the tall weeds for him. Next time. And I guess the softball game was part of it. And I guess my taunting him all night about the softball and looking out the window and saying, “…isn’t that your wife?” every couple minutes didn’t help.

***
Yankee fans are all out of breath that they wooped up on the Pirates. I think ARod and Giambi combined make more than the Pirates whole squad. Oh boy.

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On one of my favorite blogs (deadspin? thebiglead?) they had a great story of the one year anniversary of Ben Rothilsberger’s motorcycle accident. Did you know that Steeler fans actually COOKED OUT outside the hospital when he was having his operation? My goodness, only in America. –fog

Farewell, Billion-Plex, Paramus, NJ

Things that never changed are now changing.  Getting old, I guess.  I drove Rt 4 through Paramus and saw that they are tearing down the Bergen Mall.  And wait, it gets better.  They are closing the billion-plex movie theatres!  There’s a sign on the marquee saying something like, “1967-2007, Thanks for the memories” or something close to that.

And there are a lot of memories there for any Bergen county-ite of the last 2 or even 3 generations.  After all, who hadn’t waited in line for the movies there?  Seen Star Wars or Indiana Jones or what have you?  Drank illicit, snuck-in bevies there?  Made amorous advances in the seats perhaps?

I recall it was the first theatre to continually (it seemed) split into smaller and smaller rooms so that there were more and more theatres until my friends and I (and maybe others?)  referred to it as the “billion-plex”. 

Will it be closed?  Re-opened?  Will I babble to my kid(s) about it like my mom telling me she went to Patterson on a bus to see double features and guys like Tommy Dorsey would play the intermission?  Actually, come to think of it, my mom’s story isn’t so bad.  It was another time.   –fog

June 6, 1944 D-Day

Click here to watch an actual high school video project on D-Day (who said video games are a waste of time?)

Today was the day that a lot of people got all shot up so that others could be free.  Amazingly, as time goes on, many young people today do not know much about it.  Is that an indictment of our current education system?  Perhaps.  

The guys who did this are the guys from my dad’s generation.  Every one of my uncles and my dad’s friends, it seemed, were in this fight.  Some Europe, either France or Italy.  Some the Pacific.  Some in India in the CBI theatre.  But they were all in it.  This generation is rapidly passing into history every day now and we owe it to them not to forget these deeds.

Oh, and the rumor is not true that CNN has demanded a posthumous apology from Dwight D. Eisenhower and an admission that, “mistakes were made” on D-Day.

To quote a popular song of 1944: “Praise the Lord and pass the amunition and we’ll all stay free…”

–fog 

Joe Morgan is a great entertainer

I have changed my tune on Joe Morgan. I no longer Mute him and curse the set out. Now, I view him as entertainment and I listen for just the sheer, breathtaking stupidity that has now really made the Sunday night game special for me.

And it’s apparently not only me. Check out this excerpt re Josh Hamilton. This kind of rockheadedness still exists out there in the wild.

From the Yahoo fantasy column By Jeff Erickson and Christopher Liss:

Both Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips talked about how Hamilton “needs to pay his dues” and “earn” the major league spot at the minor league level, and not leapfrog other guys who might not have the same talent but have put in their time. Putting aside the ignorance of the Rule 5 proviso (especially on Morgan’s part), this is unseemly from a couple of other angles. They’re suggesting that building baseball teams shouldn’t be a meritocracy, but rather like the tenure system, where one is promoted on the basis of time put in. I can’t imagine making a decision on a dumber basis. The other side is that while both pay lip service to wanting Hamilton to get his life together, they don’t “really” want that – they want Hamilton to be punished above and beyond the suspensions he already served.

***

Addendum: 

In the interest of journalistic integrity (unlike Rather), below is a photo of the man who managed the Boston Red Sox AND went by the name of “Joe Morgan” (Left).

If I recall correctly, his catchphrase was, “Six Two and Even…[blah, blah, blah]“

I always (well, not always) wondered just where in the heck that phrase came from.  I mean it was just so durned goofy.  I had never heard of it.  Not even from my parents, who’s speech is peppered with Depression-Era expressions.  Then one day I rented either “The Maltese Falcon” or “The Big Sleep” with Humphrey Bogart, and in it, Bogey says something like, “Six Two and Even they shoot this mug”… or something of that nature.  But that was it.  It came from that era, or from that film perhaps.  BTW, both of those films must be seen.  Amazing Film Noir.  Mega-classics.  I defy anyone to watch “The Big Sleep” all the way through with no stops or rewinds and explain the twists.  You can’t do it.  And there are some hilariously, over-the-top moments in them as well.  Pulling out the whiskey bottle to drink with the shopkeep in the bookstore is among the most silly scenes in any movie.

This Joe Morgan was a nice and guy and I suppose that our currently vexing Joe Morgan is too, but he won’t take a breath and let me find that out.  One game my wife and I play with Morgan is to pick up the “catchphrase” of the minute with him and then hold up fingers for each repetition of it in succession.  If you do it deftly, you can rack up 4 or even 5 fingers very quickly.  That’s like a Masters Degree in Joe Morgan. –fog 

Dooood…

Goofy Tatoos, anyone?

There’s 2 kinds of people in this world…

Oscar scam: 50 Million Dollar Legs

I have always marvelled at the Oscars.  What is the figure?  1.5 Billion people will tune the show in?  Take a step back.  What is really happening here?