If you read me, you know that I hate censorship of any kind. I sympathize with what parents have to deal with raising kids in today’s environment but I don’t want that to encroach on good and ok even bad art. But here is where I draw the line:

What in the world is That 70′s Show doing on the ABC Family Channel? Shouldn’t Full House be edgy for that station? Show whatever you want, but don’t label it the Family Channel – pick a side and stay on it.

Perhaps some money hungry executive at Disney figured that since it has a family in it that it is appropriate for their demographic.

I love the show, but on the Family Channel?

I just watched a random episode and here are things that might seem objectionable to family groups.

Tommy Chong

Ashton Kutcher

Numerous scenes of marijuana use.

Numerous scenes of alcohol use.

Sexual innuendo.

Gay sexual innuendo.

Numerous uses of the word “ass”

Half of me thinks that this is sort of funny – the other half thinks that if they made enough money by doing it that the Family Channel would show hard core pornography.

That’s the problem with the FCC – they shouldn’t be going after profanity on adult radio shows. They should be going after the blatant mislabeling of products. But then again ABC/ESPN//Disney is a huge conglomerate and as we know the FCC loves those – despite the fact that part of it’s purpose should be the prevention of said domination of the media by huge entities.

It’s like we’re in Bizarro World here.

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Every time I’m in the bathroom – 10 times a day at least – I have to run water for Blue to drink. She doesn’t even get this excited about food. In general the cats here aren’t nearly as excited about wet food as Bailey was. The second I opened a can Bailey would be bolting into the kitchen – was it the noise or the smell? probably both.

Blue actually prefers to have the water run into her paw before lapping it up. It’s a drag that cats and dogs can’t gulp down their water like we do when we are really thirsty.

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My newly 28 ex-little league charge Nick Figone wrote me back. I was almost expecting him to write – don’t you have a life? I haven’t seen you in 17 years, but he wrote me the nicest note which I’ll except. It’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever sent me.

Brad! I’ve never been blogged about– this is the best birthday gift I received! Should I respond like Nick Elliot’s mom?? I’m speechless!

Nick “You’re still young in my eyes” Figone

I especially love that he still has the copy of the book, which is way way out of print. It was by Howard Liss and was called The Zaniest Baseball Stars. Probably the one book I’ve gotten more enjoyment from in my life than any other. It profiles all the nutballs in baseball history and all the pranks they pulled – Rabbit Maranville, Casey Stengal, Satchel Paige, Rube Waddell, Dizzy Dean and the Gas House Gang. There is probably a ton of alcohol between it’s lines but it’s full of hilarious stories that leave you with an infinite nostalgia for the game’s golden era – achieves in 150 pages what Ken Burns could only dream of after ten innings of quality work.

To whomever has the power – Please get this book back into print!

Thanks Nick.

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I had a wonderful Algebra II teacher named Louis Gmeindl. He was the Dr. Gregory House of West Geauga High School. People were terrified of his class. Me, I thought everything he ever did was hilarious. Then again he rarely picked on me.

Perhaps the only time I sort of felt the brunt of his sarcastic and venomous wit was the first day I met him. The period before his class I had Latin all the way across the building. We couldn’t hear the bell so I wound up being 3 or 4 minutes late to my first class with the terror of math department. When we showed up he had all the students lined up on a wall as if he was about to lay a firing squad into them. When we showed up, he immediately singled me out.

“Laidman, I’ve heard of you.”

[Read more →]

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Not only am I older than both Elvis and John Lennon when they died, but today is the 28th birthday of one of my first and favorite little league kids, Nick Figone.

In this photo, I am more than likely, regaling my team with something that had little to do with baseball. “You guys don’t watch the Flintstones? I need to talk to your parents.”

Before the days of coin machines, Nick and his sister once rolled my loose change from like 4 years of working in San Francisco. There must have been like 500 dollars worth and I gave them ten percent. I hate change – and somehow I always wind up with like a dollar fifty in my pockets which I would dump into a cup and never think of again. I’m not sure if they enjoyed it, but they rolled all of it – hopefully not under the duress of their wonderful mother.

Nick was maybe the only kid that I had for all four years and lived just a few doors down from me. Happy Birthday Nick.

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