"Tough luck, Ralphie boy!"

I have a confession to make. I am a somewhat committed fan of NASCAR. I follow Jeff Gordon as my chosen driver. I say somewhat committed because I am no purist and typically I will switch the channel if the race is really boring, or, and this will hurt my reputation, my guy wrecks and gets put out of the race early on. That's likely a slap at those who watch every lap, no matter what, but I do check in from time to time even after having checked out using that wonderful RCD (Remote Control Device), so that I can keep up with the sport and be able to discuss it with others with whom I swap information. I typically watch the news at 9 p.m. but this past Monday night there was this special on PBS about the life of Queen Victoria and I started watching it, got hooked, and missed the entire newscast. Please don't tell Mia and the others at Channel 39 because they might send me a letter or something. It is Wednesday, July 14, 2010, and as you can tell I am weebly wobbling all over the place. Speaking of PBS, the Masterpiece series have brought back David Suchet playing Agatha Christie's great detective Hercule Poirot. I know the BBC is tax payer funded and I am not in favor of government run television but my how I wish we could capture in our programming the quality found in these episodes. It reflects, in my opinion, television at its best and I highly recommend that you take the time to sample one because it could easily get you hooked.

Perhaps it's not that surprising that I follow NASCAR, watch historical documentaries, and enjoy the Masterpiece Theater series. The other day my son was with me in the car and when I turned on the radio an opera was playing on NPR. He was taken aback and wanted to know what that was all about. I told him I liked to listen occasionally, especially if they are singing in English. He just shook his head so I switched the station to the AM dial to our local car doctor program where a fellow who goes by the name of Skeeter does an excellent job diagnosing and giving callers solutions to their car questions. There are some folks who just knock your socks off and Skeeter is one of them. His range and reach in all things automotive makes listening to his show a pleasurable experience, and you don't have to imagine very large men and women singing stratospheric notes on a stage somewhere. Recently I found an all black Gospel music station and listened to it while out on the road. Hearing these songs in the style in which they were presented made me aware that by the end of each song you will get a message and it will be clear, I mean it like this: you will get a message and it will be clear. It's amazing how some of these artists can play their voices like an instrument.

I tried watching some of the home run derby the other evening but it was mostly lame and long. Why in heaven's name would they have the finals still going on at 9:30 p.m.? That's 10:30 p.m. on the east coast and I'm sure many of the little leaguers who love that kind of stuff should have been in bed, even if school is out. I think maybe it's time for Chris Berman to retire his patented back-back-back-back because hearing it over and over again for over two hours can really grate on your nerves. And, I only heard it a few times. Now if you take all of this together, bundle it up, and try to make sense out of it, here's what you will find. We are all different. We like different things. And, typically our preferences, critiques, and analysis doesn't, in the big scheme of things, amount to a hill of beans. But think about the variety and the choices we have. As the Russian comic who became a US citizen used to say, "Is this a great country or what?" If my wife is watching something I'm not interested in I can pull up a completely different program on the laptop and watch it while sitting in the same room. Sometimes watching a few clips from the classic Honeymooners series on You Tube is all it takes to make a day seem a little less stressful. I can't resist Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) telling his wife Alice, "Ooh, Alice, one of these days, bang zoom, straight to the moon!" And now it's bang zoom straight to the work for me, and may God bless us all even as we each do our weebly wobbling around! Amen. ........More later.