people to tell us?
crazy, or funny, absurd
ironic, tragic

Let’s get this straight right off the bat.

I like watching, listening to Fran Leibowitz.

I enjoy her pithy comments very much.

Consider this recent comment on travel.

“As far as wanting to go places, I can’t believe people do it for fun. When I’m in airports, and I see people going on vacations, I think, ‘How horrible could your life be? How bad is your regular life, that you think, you know what would be fun? Let’s get the kids, go to the airport, with thousands of pieces of luggage, stand in these lines, be yelled at by a bunch of morons, leave late, be squished all together – and this is better than our actual life.‘”

Ms. Leibowitz recently made a six part 2021 Netflix docuseries Pretend It’s a City where she gets to complain about everything and its fun.

It was created and directed by Martin Scorsese.

Wikipedia says that Mr. Scorsese is “One of the major figures of the New Hollywood era, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential directors in film history.”

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I have to say I do not have the background to comment on that comment but if I am making a comment just for myself, I would say well, maybe, not so much.

I mean he is not John Huston is he?

As for influence on film, I mean I see a mobster flic and say ‘oh yes, that Martin feller.’

But I see deep focus shots, low angle shots, tracking shots, I say, “Oh Yes, Gregg Toland!”

But then Mr. Toland was a cinematographer so maybe I am mixing apples and oranges.

Back in the early 90’s there was a TV show called Northern Exposure.

While it was supposed to be about the life a New York City type trying to exist in Alaska it was really a vehicle for the two creators, Joshua Brand and John Falsey, to comment on le monde informatique.

One of the many re-occurring themes was a character in the show who wanted to make movies.

In expanding this theme it was hinted that Woody Allen’s Grand Mother lived in the town and spent her days watching Avant Garde films (Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 film The Seventh Seal) in the local movie house.

In one episode movie making wannabe character, Ed was his name, approached the lady and said, “Grandma Woody how does Woody do it? What is his secret to success?”

Grandma Woody responds, “Woody? My Woody? He gets an idea, he writes it down, and he films it – again… and again and again.”

Grandma Woody’s only other reported quote is, “All we are, basically, are monkeys with car keys.”

But that comment, “Again and again and again” pretty summed up Mr. Allen’s career for me.

If you look at the list of Martin Scorsese movies its almost the same thing.

Mr. Scorsese got his man alone idea, he wrote it down, and he films it – again and again and again.

But that is neither here nor there.

What is here and there and that I was reading this morning an article about the making of that 2021 Netflix docuseries Pretend It’s a City and the writer quoted Mr. Scorsese.

The writer quoted Mr. Scorsese on Fran Lebowitz.

Full disclosure, Lebowitz and Scorsese are great friends, just ask them, they well tell you.

You bet, they will tell you.

Mr. Scorsese said, or was quoted as saying, “I admire her clarity and unequivocal stances.”

Mr. Scorsese went on, “We need people to tell us: this is crazy, this is absurd, this is ironic, this is funny, this is tragic.“

My brain stopped.

My brain stopped as sure as if it were a freight train hitting a concrete barrier.

Not the stopped of a runaway truck turning onto a runaway truck ramp and slowing to stop in soft sand.

Stopped dead stopped.

And like parts of that train hitting the barrier, little bits and pieces of something dribbled out of my ears.

Again Mr. Scorsese said, “We need people to tell us: this is crazy, this is absurd, this is ironic, this is funny, this is tragic.”

We need people to tell us.

This is crazy.

This is absurd.

This is ironic.

This is funny.

This is tragic.

We need people to tell us?

Now that is crazy.

That is absurd.

That is ironic.

That is also funny.

That is also very much tragic.

BOY! Howdy!

We are in worse shape than I ever imagined.

free faded pages
with hope that mainly you will
enjoy reading them

Doing the Google for a short snippet of text that I wanted to use, I came across the website, Fadedpage.com.

I found what I was looking for and downloaded the text file of the material I want and didn’t think much else about at the time.

At first glance, fadedpage.com looked to be another website of free e books that was tossed out online without much more thought than that to be online was enough.

Nothing against the Gutenberg Project and I have been aware of their efforts for over 25 years (a lifetime online), but it does get a little annoying when free ebooks don’t look quite right on your reader.

OCR or Optical character recognition is a wonderful, if flawed program but it is getting better and more and more books are coming online everyday.

Sometimes it is great just to have the book on your reader regardless of the quality of the text.

But I have to say that gets old quick.

I had some reason to find that file I had downloaded and reopen it and I noticed something.

The text was clean and easy to read.

Incredibly so.

I looked over the file and found the website and felt like the feller who fell down a hole and found a gold mine.

First off the site is Canadian.

Them there Canadains are throwing digital tons of great content online.

Recent the entire 50,000 pages of the diary Mackenzie King.

King was Prime Minister of Canada from 1921–1926, 1926–1930 and 1935–1948.

Also John D. Rockefeller Jr. hired him at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City, as its new Department of Industrial Research as one of the earliest expert practitioners in the emerging field of industrial relations.

Mr. King met and knew just about everybody who was anybody in the world including FDR, Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler.

After a day dealing with these folks, Mr. King would come home and dictate his thoughts for HOURS.

This archive of incite is just now beginning to be understood and delved into.

The fact that Mr. King also communed with spirits, using seances with paid mediums and claimed to have communicated with Leonardo da Vinci, Wilfrid Laurier, his dead mother, his grandfather, and several of his dead dogs, as well as the spirit of the late President Roosevelt should not lesson the historical importance of this archive.

And those Canadian’s put it all online, for free!

Back to fadedpage.

It must be something in Canada.

As the website states: Faded Page is an archive of eBooks that are provided completely free to everyone. The books are produced by volunteers all over the world, and we believe they are amongst the highest quality eBooks anywhere. Every one has been scanned, run through OCR software, proofed, formatted and assembled extremely carefully, using hundreds of volunteer hours.

They do warn that no CANDADIAN COPYRIGHT laws have been violated but maybe you should check the rules in your country.

Then the website states, “You are free to do whatever you like with these books, but we hope that mainly…you will enjoy reading them.”

Brings tears to me eyes.

At this time there are about 6500 books, magazines and journals available at your finger tips.

I have logged into the website and already added any number of books to my e readers.

Many of the books and journals are pretty odd.

A six volume HISTORY OF THE GREAT WAR for CHILDREN caught my eye.

But it also brought to mind an odd little note posted in my brain.

I remember being in the World’s Greatest Bookstore in Toronto and wandering through the history section.

I was struct by the size and extent of the section on World War 1.

It reemphasized for me that the United States more or less visited that war.

While the Canadians were fully vested member countries in that World War.

Thinking of that trip also reminded me how I visited several used bookstores in Toronto.

I was struck by that fact that so many of the books had London imprints.

I asked one of the store owners about it.

He was happy to tell that it was cheaper for bookstores in Canada to order books from British publishers than from the United States.

I guess it has always been hard for me to accept that Canada was really a foreign country.

If you grew up like I did in Michigan, Canada was just over there across the river.

I continue to browse the library at fadedpage.com and I came across one other oddity of online legalese and world markets and copyrights.

I noticed that some of my favorite books, The Horatio Hornblower Series, all 11 volumes are listed.

And I checked the text for Commodore Hornblower and I am happy to say that the complete text is there, not like the current version floating around the pirate download sites.

I had to wonder.

Why in the United States do I need to pirate ebook versions of Hornblower when they were all available online for free Canada.

Then I noticed something really goofy.

We all know that CS Forester wrote the Hornblower books don’t we?

For some reason, all the books on fadedpage.com were written by someone named Cecil Louis Troughton Smith.

Huh what?

Then I checked the download page.

It states, Smith, Cecil Louis Troughton Writing under the pseudonym: Forester, C. S. (Cecil Scott).

Then the penny dropped.

Most like the family or agent for CS Forester had kept up the copyright for that name.

But somehow neglected to re-register Cecil Louis Troughton Smith.

Goofy but we all win.

Not only are all the Hornblower books available but every written by Smith, Cecil Louis Troughton Writing under the pseudonym: Forester, C. S. (Cecil Scott).

Books that have been long out of print.

Books that I have searched used bookstores for years to find.

Books I have ordered and actually paid for when all else failed.

There is a lot of George Orwell in here.

There is a lot of CS Lewis in here.

There is a lot in here.

I may disappear for the rest of the summer.

But I will at some point toast these good people, these wonderful Canadians.

People who write, “You are free to do whatever you like with these books, but we hope that mainly…you will enjoy reading them.”

How far that little candle throws his beams!

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

click bait and eye balls
how dumb do they think we are
I clicked on it

It was Monica Lewinsky who once said (I am not kidding) that no editor ever assigned a story that wouldn’t get eyeballs.

Back in the day, we used to joke about headline writing and the weather.

“Warm enough for Miley Cyrus and Lindsey Lohan to mud wrestle in bikinis, click here for our weather forecast,” was thought to be a winner!

One time a TV station I worked with in Tampa had a real story that landed in their lap with the headline, “Two NFL Cheerleaders arrested after fight in Men’s Room at local bar.”

Oh did we fight over that story.

The station in question didn’t mind other stations posting the story SO LONG as the headline linked to their website.

I like to think I can spot the click bait versus a real story.

But, as is said, the proof is in the pudding.

Actually what was said was more like the proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof.

I once quoted this saying in a corporate web update email that went out to the entire company.

I then said, So eat your meat. How are getting any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?”

A few hours after that email went out this feller came into my office and got down on his hands and knees and literally bowed his head to the ground.

He got up and said he had to bow down to anyone who could slip a Pink Floyd reference into a corporate report and get away with it.

Back to today, I saw the headline, These 20 Baseball Players with the most hits who are NOT in the Hall of Fame.

I thought it was legit and I thought it might just have the type of odd little factoids I like to start my day.

Instead I found myself reading one of those assigned-on-demand-to-create traffic web stories.

Not only was the writing less than good.

The list started off with Pete Rose.

Sure he has more hits than anyone but HE IS RIGHTLY BANNED FROM THE HALL OF FAME.

The next 4 or 5 players on the list were also not eligible due to use of Performance Enhancing Drugs or just drugs or maybe gambling.

Notice that drug abuse and alcohol abuse are not in the same chapter when it comes to baseball careers.

As Bill Veeck said of Hack Wilson and his STILL RECORD 191 RBIs in a single season, “If anyone breaks that record and does it sober, they get an asterisk”.

Veeck also said that Hack Wilson, who played for the Cubs, was once called into to see Commissioner K. M. Landis and was told, “DO NOT HAVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN WITH AL CAPONE WHEN CAPONE COMES TO CUBS GAMES!”

Wilson is supposed to have said, “But Capone shows me such a good time when I visit his place.”

The next 3 were not eligible BECAUSE THEY WERE STILL PLAYING.

Oh come on.

Finally we get to a player with a lot of hits and not in the Hall of Fame.

Steve Garvey.

It made me stop.

Steve Garvey isn’t in the Hall of Fame.

Garvey played for about 47 years with the exact same LA Dodgers infield of Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Ron Cey & Bill Russell.

Growing up you could count on the sun rising in the east, Michigan winning football games and that the Dodger infield was set and would play flawless fundamental defensive baseball on a level exceeded only by Taiwan little leaguers.

Garvey went on to play for the San Diego Padres.

From there I figured he just marked time until he showed up in Cooperstown.

After a quick hit on the google, you learn that Steve Garvey was a 10-time All-Star, a Most Valuable Player, a four-time Gold Glove winner, a two-time All-Star Game MVP and a two-time MVP of the National League Championship Series.

He went to the World Series four times with the Dodgers (winning in 1981) and once with the Padres. At one time he held the NLCS record for home runs and RBIs. He hit .356 in 90 NLCS at-bats, .319 in 113 World Series at-bats and .393 in 28 All-Star Game at-bats. His postseason OPS was .910. He was an ironman: 19 Major League seasons including the NL record streak of playing in 1,207 consecutive games.

The way the google works now is that it tries to reduce your search to a quick answer and it will post that answer about the search result.

Is this case the answer to the question, “why isn’t steve garvey in the hall of fame” is “The reason Steve Garvey isn’t in the Hall of Fame has little to do with baseball. It’s because he couldn’t live up to the “perfect” status we assigned him.“

I get that.

Garvey was the perfect little 1st baseman who rarely showed emotion.

Mr. Spock playing first base comes to mind.

But to not recognize his talents?

That seems a little low, even for me.

I don’t know.

Maybe.

Maybe it was because he had the glamour girl wife who dumped him for Marvin Hamlisch.

So I had my factoid after all.

Who I am to blame for click bait.

I clicked on it.

I will point out that they used to say they wrap fish in yesterday’s newspapers.

Can’t do that with online news no matter how much it deserves it.