Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Running Out of Gas

I abashedly admit that I ran my car out of gas 10 times over a period of two three or four years. I have not done so in the last couple years. That's a good thing. I don't wait as long to fill the tank as I used to do -- I didn't fill the tank before, come to think of it -- that is, I don't wait until the low fuel light has been flashing for two days; I've actually been filling the tank when it's half full -- or half empty, according to your world view.

So, it would seem that I'm okay with the gas thing; and just when I'm starting to be okay with the gas thing, we'll all be switching to electric cars. I want mine with solar cells on the roof to re-charge the batteries. I won't ever have to worry about a fill-up again.

Of course, electric cars, like flying cars, probably won't be happening for many, many, many years, especially with our representatives in the seat of government cow-towing to the oil interests under the guise, of course, of drilling off-shore to reduce prices at the pump.

I know that everyone with but a modicum of gray matter is saying that permitting new off-shore drilling won't do anything to gasoline prices now; but let's see, I seem to recall that there was absolutely no evidence of WMD in Iraq before this stupid, stupid war for oil, but Cheney, Bush, and McCain kept up with the chant that Saddam was a bad man and all bad men have WMD until most of the populace believed the lies. I'm of the opinion that they'll say we need to open up new areas for off-shore drilling loud enough and long enough so as to convince the people in this country that it must be true -- convince the people just like Hitler, Goebbels, and Goehring and Cheney, Bush, and McCain, lest we forget.

I have to apologize because I hadn't intended to go down that off-shore oil drilling path. Oil companies are not drilling off-shore in many areas under the licenses the government has granted them already; so, why expand off-shore drilling into new places or in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, where they can't drill, if there are places they can drill and don't drill?

Ask Bush; ask Cheney; ask McCain; ask Palin (not Michael -- he'd tell you the truth).

As I said, I hadn't intended to go down that off-shore oil drilling path. I'm sitting in Starbucks. I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the Jackal. I'm waiting for the Jackal to bring me the extra set of keys for the fucking car. I locked my set of keys in the car. Second time in six months.

It's not my fault. Really. It's not my fault. Really. If I say it loud enough and long enough, you'll believe it. But there is a reason I left the keys in the car.

It's the car wash. Really. It's the car wash. Really.

You see, the last time I locked the keys in the car, I was washing the car at the self-serve car wash.

This time, I was thinking about going to the self-serve car wash. See? It's not my fault. Really. It's the car wash.

BACK TO REAL WORLD

yeah, yeah, so what -- i'm afraid of heights. and some bridges. and some other stuff. oh well.

but. can you spell hyperbole, billy? and, you're right, dan. kelli DID tell us about that road. we had thought she was talking about another place to avoid. we'll listen much, MUCH more carefully in the future.

however. san francisco and sonoma were awesome! if i had been born there, i don't know that i'd ever want to live elsewhere. but not having been born there, i'm not insensitive to the thrills and chills of the hills. [poetry unintended, but not unappreciated.]

and for some reason that i can't quite put my finger on, i took no photographs outside san francisco except for the couple pictures taken at lunch with kimberly and maria. wine country is beautiful. acres and acres of meticulously-groomed vineyards. they look quite different from the much-wilder-looking vineyards of northern ohio (yes, we have some up here). amazing. and then you'd go over a hill, and there would be acres and acres of sunflowers. i'll never forget it. i'll always regret not having taken photographs.

this weekend, cleveland is crazy-wonderful-busy. indians baseball, patriot bowl football game, taste of cleveland festival, and, my favorite, the cleveland national air show. it is so cool living downtown where the jets fly seemingly (and sometimes literally) right past our windows. go here to check out the pictures i took earlier today.

we're having friends over sunday and monday to have a bite to eat and head up to the roof deck (with bill!) to watch the blue angels. it's quite an experience to look up to see one so close! the noise is deafening.

hope your weekend's nice and a fitting cap off to summer for you all.

My New Scanner

I bought a high-speed scanner as a part of my own Paperwork Reduction Act.

While loading the software, I decided to actually read the preliminary stuff, which everyone ordinarily ignores before clicking the "Agree" button.

I think it would have been pretty important to tell me before buying the damn scanner that:

It is NOT designed, developed and manufactured for use in environments bearing extremely high risk potentials like fatal risks or dangers, which require extremely high safety measures, and which could otherwise lead to death, personal injury, severe physical damage or other similar losses (hereinafter referred to as Use in High Safety Environments. Such environments include without limitations, use in:
- nuclear power facility control,
- airplane control,
- air traffic control,
- mass transport operation control,
- life support, and
- weapon launching control.

I'm just not imaginative enough to figure out how to control a nuclear power facility with my new scanner. It would probably take more than one, however.

But I think that I should try to figure out how I could use my new scanner in life support. If there's a breach of the containment vessel at a nuclear power facility, resulting in a disaster, because some moron tried to control the facility with but one scanner, I should be prepared to provide emergency life support with my new scanner.

And according to John McCain, the threats by Iran ... Iraq ... Lichtenstein ... or whatever that country is ... are so like bound to come true that the United States, at least, the eastern half of the U.S.A. ... or the western half, whatever ... will come under inter-continental ballistic missile attack; I should be ready to use my new scanner as a weapon launching control -- no, that won't work because I'm not the one launching the weapons.

But the instructions don't say anything about the scanner being dangerous if I wanted to make an anti-ballistic missile shield. Yeah, that's the ticket! I could use my new scanner to control an anti-ballistic missile shield and prevent all those Iranian or Iraqi or Albanian missiles from ever reaching the U.S.A. That would totally work out, I think.

San Francisco, Part II

Muir Woods.

Innocuous sounding. Somehow comforting. Walk among redwood trees, some 800 to 1,000 years old. Nature, at her finest. What could be better than that?

Must see. Amazing. Awe-inspiring. Unbelievably beautiful.

Aaaaahhhh, yes. That all may be true. I don't know.

Have all of the do-gooders who suggested this "oh-you-have-to-see-this-before-you-die" place, obviously overwhelmed by the magnificent beauty and majesty of one of the natural wonders, forgotten how they got there? Do all of the do-gooders who suggested this "oh-you-have-to-see-this-before-you-die" place, obviously overwhelmed by the magnificent beauty and majesty of one of the natural wonders, understand that I don't want to see this immediately before I die?

And haven't even one of the do-gooders who suggested this "oh-you-have-to-see-this-before-you-die" place, obviously overwhelmed by the magnificent beauty and majesty of one of the natural wonders, read this blog before telling me, "Oh, you have to see this before you die?"

So, after the relaxing three-day visit to a spa in Sonoma, massage, body rub, facial, you know, things like that, which were oh-so-relaxing -- I never did anything like that -- friends, so-called friends, who, in real life, are actually ... demons, members of Satan's minions, had urged us to visit "oh-you-have-to-see-this-before-you-die" Muir Woods, which is "just off" 101 before we reached the Golden Gate Bridge. Uhhh, yeah ... ri-i-i-i-ight. "Just off." You gotta be fucking kidding me!!

Of course, why the fuck didn't you just tell me to drop Stacey off at the 7-11 before the climb up the "Panoramic Highway?" Panoramic Highway of Fucking Horror. You think that the Going-to-the-Fucking Sun Road was worse than anything? Having a talking GPS thing on the fucking road to and from Muir Woods, telling Stacey, "Re -- calculating ... Turn right in 1.3 miles; re -- calculating ... Turn left in 300 feet," just as we are reaching the edge of a fucking cliff with a horror-filled view of San Francisco below, the last thing she will ever see in her life ... if she was looking, which she wasn't. She was looking down, holding onto the dashboard, waiting to die.

"Please, please, PLEASE, God, Let me PASS OUT!!! Make me pass out before we go over the edge!" she cried.

The GPS voice, a women -- go figure -- with a British accent, Staffordshire, perhaps, again added to the tension, as she continued, "Re-calculating ... one foot from the edge of the cliff," or something like that. I couldn't understand her because of the whimpering, crying, and praying coming from the woman in the passenger seat.

Finally, I had to stop the car to save my sanity and pulled off the road behind two abandoned SUV's onto a gravel area about the width of the car, a dirt path leading down the cliff, a path no man in his right mind would attempt to navigate. A man pulling over, driven to sheer lunacy by his woman passenger, might turn to such an extreme to escape, however, or push his passenger out of the car and abandon her, leaving her to fend for herself, or taking her with him down that path, which was obviously the case of the drivers and passengers of the abandoned SUV's.

I, however, steeled by the torture called the Going-to-the-Fucking-Sun Road, alighted from the car and took a few photos, luxuriating in the solitude, insulated from the whimpering and crying of my passenger.

I looked down the path and into the brush on the cliffside below, but could not see any bodies that were still alive; and I was not going to risk life and limb to check farther down the cliff for survivors from the two empty SUV's.

The respite on the roadside must have had a catatonicizing effect upon my passenger because she was unusually calm, looking unblinkingly straight ahead, any whimpering, crying, and praying having ceased. I returned to the asphalt road, crumbling at its edges, winding this way and that, coiling back upon itself innumerable times, heading down, toward the maws of Cerberus.

It was only when we reached 101, when I asked if we should stop in Sausalito, that she looked over at me, eyes reddened from the crying, voice hoarse from the labored breathing, "Get me to the hotel. I need to throw up for a while," the Golden Gate Bridge looming just around the bend.

But something must have struck her, or maybe she was anesthetized, because she grabbed the camera -- on second thought, she figured I would careen off the Golden Gate Bridge ... it could happen, you know ... if I was taking pictures.

San Francisco

The San Francisco Gray Line tour guide/driver did not show us pictures of himself riding camels, unlike his compadre in New York City. And he did not insult any of the passengers, Stacey, in particular, unlike his compadre in New York City. The guy did a great job showing us around the City by the Bay, pointing out that one person plunges to his or her death every 2 1/2 weeks from the Golden Gate Bridge.

Far more significant than that experience, however, was breakfast with the Right Honorable Chuck L. Hut and the Hut family. Sunday morning brunch at Q Restaurant on Clement Street was very good.

But the company was superb. After having checked identification of those in attendance, pursuant to the requirements of the Pribilof Islands Transition Act, I can confirm the existence of the elusive Kel and precocious Zach; however, I wish to point out that neither have been adequately described by the esteemed scrivener, Mr. Hut, because no mere mortal wordsmith could ever do so. I can only say that the time spent with the Hut family was far too short, but of infinite value.

As for San Francisco, it is a very interesting place; I understand why residents do not voluntarily leave the City by the Bay, with its eclectic mix of peoples and cultures, its intimate neighborhoods, its weather, its sights, sounds, and seafood (Seafood isn't on my list of favorites, but others say it is good).

We hooked up with pseudo-son, Mark the Ferretless, and his wife, Sarah, Saturday, for espresso at Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store and Cafe across the street from Washington Square Park, where the Fiesta Coloniale Italiana, celebrating the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Italian-American Brotherhood in San Francisco, was in full swing. Mark and Sarah's friend, Patrick, joined us and showed us around the waterfront on a misty late afternoon, before late dinner at the Top of the Mark Restaurant, which is located in the Inter Continental Mark Hopkins Hotel, where Stacey and I stayed.

I have one criticism of the hotel. We woke up at quarter to five in the morning, Eastern Time, and flew to Las Vegas on Southwest Airlines, where we had a two-hour layover, then caught the flight to SFO, where we walked 17 miles to get our rental car, finally get on 101 to the city. It was 3 o'clock, Pacific Time (6 p.m. EDT), when we drove up California Street toward, on the left, the Mark Hopkins Hotel. Here's the criticism: The parking garage is not well-marked. The front driveway is not well-marked -- not for someone, who has been up since 4:45 a.m., Eastern Time, and has never been to San Francisco. Oh, yes, I admit that I have seen all of the Dirty Harry movies on television and watched Streets of San Francisco, when Michael Douglas was not an older man; so, I have seen San Francisco; but those fleeting images, you must realize, were simple two-dimensional constructs of a highly-textured, three-dimensional world cathode-rayed onto a 13-inch on-the-diagonal phosphorescent screen.

As I was saying, the driveway to the magnificent front entrance of the Inter Continental Mark Hopkins Hotel is directly on the corner of California and Mason Streets, where the curb ramps for the disabled are usually located. How was I supposed to know that?

So, I turned left from California onto what was supposed to be Mason Street. "Street" means something in English, but what do I know? What I mean was that I was expecting to turn onto a street, and not drive over a fucking cliff that made a strong-willed women whimper, then scream, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING??? STOP, STOP, STOP!!! SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN ... NO, NO, NO, NO ... YOU'RE GOING TO SMASH INTO THAT STREET!!!!!! JESUSFUCKINGCHRISTWHERETHEFUCKAREYOUGOING??? OH, NO-O-O-O-O-O, NOT ANOTHER ONE!!!! FUCKFUCKFUCK, SLOW DOWN, SLOW DOWN, WHAT THE FUCK ... YOU FUCKING IDIOT, WE'RE GONNA DIE!!!!!"

As I reflect upon this experience, it was not quite as bad as driving on Going-to-the-Sun Road; but it was at that very moment that I realized -- and you hear stories about this kind of cathartic moment, a moment of clarity, whatever you may want to call it -- that there is a God. And my life is His sit-com. Sparks flying as I turned, realizing the fucking traffic signals are on the sides of the road among the signs for the corner market and DO NOT ENTER and people's faces blurring by; so, what the fuck am I supposed to do?

Why, enjoy the ride, of course!

E-mail to RealLegal, LLC

Here's my e-mail to a company with proprietary software used by court stenographers, who e-mail transcripts of hearings to lawyers, who, in turn, download software from the company to open the files and view the transcripts.

Gentlemen --

I am again reminded by those around me that this is actually the 21st Century; however, a visit to your website to see if you, by some chance, have updated your software so that it is compatible with Mac OSX leads me to believe that you are still operating in the last century. I donated my Apple IIe to a school a decade and a half ago; so, I don't have an archaic operating system to handle the download of your program for Mac users.

I bought a PC just so I could use your software. I didn't understand why I had to change the font size to download the program, though. I asked my son, who will be awarded a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from Ohio State University after the fall term, about this -- he started laughing. You stumped him! Or maybe it was that he thought somebody didn't know what they were doing. And then I got him again when I told him about the Mac situation. Boy, did he have another good laugh.

It's frustrating when you offer a service -- a FREE download for attorneys -- that does not work smoothly. And it has been costly in not only time but in materials trying to figure out how to handle YOUR problem. And don't give me any song-and-dance about the .rtf format you provide because it would be a bit difficult to cross-examine someone when the judge says, "Counselor, what page? What line?" as they are wont to do in front of a jury, the members of which then think, "Who is this knucklehead lawyer?"

How about it? Spend a couple bucks.

Bill

I notice the company is headquartered in San Francisco. Maybe, I will drop in.

Olympic Swimming

I'm watching Olympic swimming. When the backstroke was being swum, I thought, "I could do that" because when we had a pool, I could do the backstroke across the pool.

Then I was figuring out how far that was in our pool because we didn't have a standard Olympic-size pool. When the pool guy, who eventually got the job, was measuring and talking with the city engineer, they decided there was a small problem with an easement running through our property and that the pool would have to be at an angle to the house and parallel to the creek running through the backyard.

So, the 50-meter pool with the sculpted rock formations and waterfalls one pool contractor had envisioned and drawn wasn't going to fit.

So, the pool was 24 feet by 15 feet -- a not-even-8-meter pool. Geez, I could do the backstroke for 8 fucking meters. Okay, so I would drown if I had to go 50 meters.

But I could still look pretty good hanging onto the side of the pool deck, looking up at the scoreboard, after the race. I could do that. You know, rip the goggles off, toss them onto the pool deck, and look up at the scoreboard. I could do that.

Except how deep is it at the edge there? That could be a problem -- not being able to touch the bottom -- definitely a drowning possibility there.

Speaking of the pool, I recall that the neighbor girls were in the pool when the big '03 blackout happened. Yeah, that was shortly after I tried to plug the heating element into the electric stove; and I managed to dodge a big blue lightning bolt that flew out of the stove top and over my left shoulder. I'm pretty sure that was the cause of it.

On Literacy

The National Assessment of Adult Literacy that was published in December, 2005, found that only one in four college graduates scored high enough to be deemed “proficient” from a literacy standpoint, which is defined as “using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” I wonder how many of those 75% that were not proficient teach our children.

Literacy is defined as "an individual's ability to read, write, speak in English, compute, and solve problems necessary to function on the job, in the family, and in society."

There are three categories of literacy. Prose literacy is the ability to understand newspaper articles and brochures that come with new household appliances; document literacy is the ability to understand and use documents to perform tasks, such as reading a prescription label; and quantitative literacy is the reading and comprehension skills necessary to balance a checkbook, determine the interest on a loan in an advertisement, or the like.

Thirty million Americans are classified -- yes, classified [sue me for "classifying"] -- as "below basic," which means that they could perform only rudimentary literacy tasks. Understand the long paragraphs or pages of print they are signing for a hospital admission? No. Understand what the prescription label means? No. Read and understand the personnel manual at work? No.

International Literacy Day is September 8.

While reading is but one component of literacy, it is a start. Reading resources for parents and others can be found at, believe it or not, the U.S. Department of Education.

The Federal Reserve System has information on financial literacy for teachers and parents and for you.

You're reading this; that's a pretty neat thing. You are connected to the Internet; you know more than you think. You have skills -- really, you do.

Volunteer to tutor. Take the training course offered in your community to tutor reading and take on a student. Help out with GED education conducted by your local school system. It's an hour a week, maybe two.

Improve your small part of the world.

WHAT. EVER.

been a while, dudes and dudettes. you know i'm thinking about you, though. along with a million other things. attended a high school class "get-together" a couple weeks ago. i don't THINK i pissed anybody off (i'm not positive -- bob the lawyer might not have been real pleased with me when i told him that another lawyer made a big deal to billy about his knowing bob -- not a regular "i know him," but a kind of "aren't you impressed i know him cuz i'm sure as hell impressed that YOU know him" thing. i told bob that i thought i might be missing something -- that i didn't get why i was supposed to be impressed. he laughed, but i'm not sure if he was, well, aMUsed. ah well.

caught up with a couple other old buds -- that was fun. i'm kind of a tough audience at these things. it's not exactly that i hold grudges. it's that the judgments i made in high school that certain people were cruel or mean kind of stick with me. cruel and mean don't change with maturity, imho. if you can be cruel/mean when you're 15, you're not just immature in my book -- you've got a serious character flaw. so those couple guys that i remember as being the real assholes, i kind of look right past them when it's eye-contact time. not interested.

at least it goes both ways with me. i remember kindness and sweetness from some people that makes me think very highly of some people. and i don't give that up easy either. so i spend my time checking in with the good ones and ignoring the bad ones.

i spent quite a bit of time talking with an old buddy, tim, who's had quite a rough time of it in the last 30-some years. it was hard to hear but good to catch up.

i didn't go with my dear friend , betty. she's recovering from surgery and fighting cancer right now. she's on my mind quite a bit right now. things are looking totally positive, but it sucks.

we're planning another trip -- this one is like a big-people/grownup vacation. the first in forever. we're heading to san francisco. for a week! staying two nights on nob hill, then heading to a spa in sonoma for one or two or three nights. we'll meet up with chucklehut dan and his wife and son in san francisco. we'll see moonandsun in sacramento. we'll see mark and sarah either in san jose or sonoma. we'll probably see bill's sister, suzy, who lives in santa rosa while we're out there.

bill's been so crazy busy with work this summer -- i have not been on the scooter ONCE. cuz i won't ride 1) without bill, 2) if it's rained or threatening rain, or 3) outside of my comfort zone road/distance-wise. so HE'S been on his scooter. oh yeah. he's taken many longer-distance, busier-road rides this summer. i think he's doing it on purpose. i thought tomorrow i might be able to ride, but, oh no, he's GOLFING. pffft.

freddie-the-wonder-frog died. over 8 years old.

i'm so fucking irritated with my man, obama, that he's given in to the "stupids" over the off-shore drilling thing. god damn it, people. we use 25% of the world's oil production; and at best, we have the resources to produce 3 fucking percent of the world's oil. WE HAVE TO CONSERVE AND LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SOURCES. drilling up more oil fields in the ocean to add such a paltry amount of oil into the scheme is a ridiculous and irresponsible action. ESPECIALLY WHEN THAT OIL WON'T BE AVAILABLE FOR OVER 10 YEARS! what are you thinking people? this is not the answer! we have a BIG problem here, and the cost of gas is the least of it!

and if one more fucking republican opens his mouth about edwards to me, i'm gonna fucking lose it. first of all, i'm not thrilled about him right now either. and i'd be pissed as hell if he were the democratic presumptive nominee. but he's not. so i can just be pissed at him in general. but more important, are you republicans RETARDED to bring this up to me? or to anybody? if you support mccain, you're supporting a man who had at least SEVERAL extra-marital affairs while married to a woman who became disabled after a terrible accident. cindy mccain SUPPOSEDLY the last. but you people think your candidate always holds the moral high ground, because people like me say "fuck" and "shit" and "fuckin shit" and support homosexual rights and point out the REAL problems and make some people's head's hurt because they have to THINK to understand what we're saying (the republican definition of "arrogance"). it's soooo much fucking easier to be ignorant. and you know what? every time i hear someone call obama arrogant, i hear a 6-year-old say "you think you're soooo smart, don't you?"

get your heads out of your asses people, it's gonna take some serious brains to help us out of this fucking mess we're in. quit asking the politicians to get lobotomies so they fit in with all us regular folks. you elected the stupid guy twice; let's try something else. and ask him to do it the right way.

The War in Georgia

The Georgia-Russia conflict has given the U.S. presidential candidates a chance to put their foreign policy credentials to the test. John McCain, campaigning in Pennsylvania, has been aggressively condemning Russia's actions. -- CNN.com, 8/11/08.

As he should be, John McCain is very upset that Russia has retaliated against Georgia with heavy armor and artillery and that Russia has bombed not only the capital of Georgia, but also one of its cities to the west.

McCain's strong suit is not geography, however. You will recall that he thought that Iraq and Afghanistan shared a common border, which is not true. He has mistaken Somalia for the Sudan, apparently thinking that Darfur is in Somalia. He is worried about the situation on the "Iraq/Pakistan border," when those countries are not close to each other. And he still thinks that Czechoslovakia is a country, when the Czech Republic and Slovakia became independent nations in 1993. And contrary to what McCain thinks, Vladamir Putin is not the President of Germany.

McCain has reportedly put in a call to Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, urging them to help fight the Russians, since they have hands-on experience against the Russian army.

And McCain is calling for an all-out counterattack by the 187th Alabama Air National Guard, in which his good buddy, George W. Bush, claimed he served; and McCain is urging the East Tennessee Militia to join in the fray to save Atlanta.

The Writing on the Wall

I was extremely excited in gut-wrenching anticipation about three weeks ago. Well, maybe that's over-stating the feelings I had at time -- let's say, I was excited in gut-wrenching anticipation; no, I was excited about three weeks ago when I saw .... I haven't really described my state of mind, and that bothers me.

Let me start, again. My curiosity was aroused when I I was mildly interested noticed while bending over and picking up Bella's shit one morning three weeks ago a new signature, in white paint, on a steel grate (Neenah Foundry Co. model R-8704-A) around a tree, of a new graffiti artist: BIGVERBS.

Interesting moniker. Well, I've been disappointed. It's been about three weeks. I visited many of the graffiti artists' favorite canvases on my walks around town -- no big verbs. No fucking verbs at all. BIGVERBS, it turns out, is a pretender, a prevaricating provocateur.

Early this morning, before heading to the golf course, the dogs took me past the steel grate (Neenah Foundry Co. model R-8704-A) around the same tree where we first discovered BIGVERBS -- BIGVERBS was covered with four wide X's, now a non-entity in the local graffiti sub-culture, BIGVERBS' sole attempt to become immortal obliterated.

Death, Be Not Proud

Freddie is dead. He was found this afternoon, at the bottom of his tank, belly up. Foul play is not suspected.

The beagle has barricaded herself in the guest room, obviously grief stricken by the loss of her life-long friend and confidante.

Freddie lived approximately 9 1/2 times longer than the normal Aqua-babies frog, a wonder of biologists everywhere, who have long wanted to discover the secret of Freddie's longevity.

Funeral services have not yet been announced by Freddie's human companion of 8 1/2 years.

Balls!

Have you noticed that more and more males, apparently forgetting that they have them, hold their balls when they are standing around outside, talking, waiting for the bus, whatever. Maybe it's because they have nothing else to do with their hands.

I'm thinking that the phenomenon was started by the then-controversial Michael Jackson music video, the name of which I can't recall; but I'm sure that those in the habit of crotch-grabbing or balls-holding or dick-checking would not want to be compared to the ever-morphing King of Pop.