Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Photoshopping 101

Following up on a few recent blog posts, my personal trainer has been out scouting locations for his next torture test and preparing for me:

The President produced his actual birth certificate, which has caused a major change in the thinking of all of the racists who fancy themselves as being intelligent -- the birth certificate was photoshopped and forensic examination is necessary.

This group -- 25% of those who claim to be Republicans by some estimates and 45% of all those whack-jobs claiming to be part of the "Tea Party," whatever that is -- is so fucking crazy that they can't see the forest for the trees.

I get text messages from the President from time to time. And from Mrs. Obama, too. I'm one of "them." And I will let you in on the secret. This birth certificate thing is just a smokescreen that we have created.

It is a subterfuge of the extreme left -- you know who they are. People like me. We like to fuck with you. We like to see how you react to "things."

Yes, the smokescreen. What is it hiding? Because that's what smokescreens do. If you don't understand, I'll step down to your level -- you will recall that James Bond used smokescreens from time-to-time in the movies to confuse those villains chasing him. I liked the things that came out of the hubcaps and sliced up the tires of Pussy Galore's car -- now, that was cool stuff. Did you notice how James Bond pronounced Miss Galore's first name -- listen for it next time you watch "Goldfinger."

Smokescreen -- yes. President Obama isn't Black. He's photoshopped. President Obama isn't even real. He is a product of the imaginative and creative people in a special wing of Industrial Light & Magic. If you look at videos of Obama, you can see the slight differences in his appearance which reveal this secret, this grand conspiracy. And if you compare other videos, he actually looks the same. It's just the same picture we use over and over again.

There you go. Secret revealed. It's just that we have come so far with technology since that first time -- you know, the man on the moon thing.

You are all so gullible.

Donald Trump Was Not Born in the United States, Part II

You read it here first. Donald Trump was, in fact, born in Scotland.

We found the original "Certificate of Live Birth" from Scotland, which had been missing. The official seal is right on the document.

He hasn't denied it. It must be true.

E-Z Rider

I got an e-mail from Giant Eagle, the Pittsburgh-based food store chain that took over a Cleveland chain of supermarkets a few years back. Here is one of the ads:

I haven't eaten shrimp for a long time -- maybe, I'm being silly about the bottom feeders ingesting heavy metals like mercury and poisoning me, but that's what I'm feeling about shrimp -- but the last time I bought shrimp, for a party, I think, because guests immensely enjoy being poisoned in such a manner, I recall it was a lot more pricey than $5.99 a pound.

And one of the problems I had with shrimp was wrestling to get the tail and the shell, if that is, indeed, what they wear, off their fleshy interior. But, apparently, the shrimp have evolved into E-Z Peel Shrimp.

I checked -- no such thing as E-Z Peel Shrimp.

There is this kind:

And this kind:

I stopped there. Couldn't stand looking at the things. I wonder now why I even tried to eat something like this.

Big Guy

So, I've been doing this work-out thing, with the personal trainer and all; and I've been like, you know, trying to eat better. And well, as for smoking, that's pretty tough to quit -- I'm glad I don't smoke. And substance abuse. Do you think if I were drinking and doing drugs, I'd call it "substance abuse?" Yeah, right.

I've lost a little weight, and my clothes are a little big. That's a good thing, I know. You'd think that there's no downside to that, but there is. Deep down inside, I feel smaller.

Then, today, as I walked toward Starbucks, I saw the guy, a homeless guy, in the doorway of the building next door, who said to me, "Hey, Big Guy, can you spare any change?" Big Guy. I told him I didn't. But he called me "Big Guy," and I should have given him some money. He was gone when I came out of Starbucks.

Just a few minutes ago, I was walking the dogs up near the House of Blues; and, there he was, the homeless guy, the one I had seen before outside Starbucks. He stood, leaning against the building, probably so as not to smudge the windows. I thought he was that way, you know, considerate.

Walking ahead of me was an homuncular man, somewhat older than me, and as he approached the homeless guy, he could not help but hear, "Hey Big Guy! Can you spare any change?" The diminutive man swerved away from the homeless guy, shaken, shaking his head vigorously.

Oh, well.

Human Experimentation

As you may be aware, I have a personal trainer coming to the building three times a week. I'll call him Adam -- I could call him other very nasty names, but I'm past all that -- because that's his name. Adam is a LeBron James fan, which is ... well, if you look over at the left side of this blog -- that's a LeBron James bobblehead. Well, Adam found out early on that LeBron wasn't going to be invited to any parties at our place.

So, this has been a complicating factor in my work-outs to the extreme, in my opinion. I did not cause it; but I am, let's say, the victim of irony.

Now, having never been in any kind of a work-out program, let alone a program designed and supervised by a personal trainer, I thought work-outs would consist of lifting a couple free weights, doing that lifting thing on the hamstring machine, maybe a couple push-ups and sit-ups -- just tone up in general so I don't keel over from a heart attack and maybe be able to hit a golf ball farther .

I did not realize that Adam -- and I think this LeBron conflict, with which I have nothing to do, started my new venture down this path -- is a mad scientist among personal trainers. He is dabbling in human experimentation, and his lab specimen is me. His attitude has changed; Monday morning at 7 a.m., he stood there, planning the torture he wanted to inflict. An evil little grin creased his face as he fingered the 25 pound dumbbells, hands floating to and caressing the 30, 35, the 40 pounders. If he had a handlebar mustache, he would have been twirling the ends between his thumbs and forefingers, contemplating his next evil move.

I can't remember much of what happened in the next hour. It's like that. In order to survive this brutal human experimentation by this mad man, I seclude my conscious self, to the extent that I can do so, in a private corner behind one of the filing cabinets in my brain. I remember, at some point, a rather hideous form, casting the file cabinet aside, discovering me and rousting me into conscious awareness, Adam, evil bile running from the corner of his mouth, almost orgasmic, exclaiming, "Good, good, good! None of the twenty-somethings I train can do this at 7 in the morning!" Then there was an evil laugh, and his pupils were bright red, as if ruby laser light would shoot from them any second.

It is a blank after that. I regained consciousness, laying on an exercise mat, face down. "Nobody does a hundred push-ups this time of morning. Excellent, excellent workout," he said. "I can't wait until Friday!"

He will not break me, though.

Adam's concerned about the weather, wants it to stop raining, wants it to warm up. He has plans to use the sidewalk next to the building on the street where many cars burn out clutches and squeal tires climbing the hill from the river into the Warehouse District -- to inflict even more torture, attempting to determine the limits of human endurance.

He has tangled with the wrong person. The incessant rain. The 40 degree temperature. Sometimes, the human mind can tap into powers that are not possible to comprehend. No workout today ... no rain, sunny and mild. Adam will be here tomorrow morning. It will rain.

Donald Trump Was Not Born in United States

Donald Trump wants to run for President. I cannot find any evidence that Donald Trump was born in Queens or anywhere in the state of New York or the United States. I checked a number of records.

Stuffy Sternweiss started at 2nd base for the New York Yankees on June 14, 1946; but there is no Donald Trump birth announcement that I could find.

His mother, you know, was born in Scotland, not the United States of America. She came to the United States for a visit, according to Wikipedia, and ended up getting pregnant. I have relatives I claim are from Scotland. One of them knew a woman named Mary Anne McLeod; and he or she (I can't recall which relative I claim is from Scotland is the one who told me this fact) thought that Mary Anne McLeod gave birth to a son right after the war. It turns out that Mary Anne McLeod is Donald Trump's mother's name.

And Donald Trump has visited Scotland. In fact, he's building a freaking golf course there. What more proof does anyone need to understand that the man was not born in the United States, but in Scotland?

So, there you have it. Donald Trump was not born in the U.S.A.

He cannot be President of the United States -- William Wallace would roll over in his graves.

And it would be to my benefit if he were to be elected President because, in the interest of making full disclosure of the facts, I am, truth be told, actually related to Donald Trump.

His mother and my mother are both mothers.

Thank You, Mr. President

"So, like I said, if you’re getting eight miles a gallon you may want to think about a trade-in."

April 4, 1968

Today is anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968.

Lawyers Talk Too Much

It is truly wonderful that a big law firm coughed up money to sponsor a movie at the Cleveland International Film Festival. He stood before the sold out theater, wearing a suit, and introduced himself as a "trial attorney" with the large law firm proud to be sponsoring the movie.

Now, I didn't mind the guy from the ACLU talking about the application of the tenets of the Nuremberg trials to the legal entanglements this country finds itself in because of the deprivation of civil rights and open trials of the prisoners in Guantanamo.

But I did mind the "trial attorney" droning on and on and on about how his large law firm was the one to call, especially for business needs. And as he went on and on and on in a monotone, I concluded that a jury would lose interest quickly and would not like the guy, just like me. He obviously never learned about voice modulation and pauses for effect or about cooking a hot dog with a nail stuck in each end hooked up to 110 volt current to maintain interest.

Thanks for sponsoring the movie -- better to trust that people will think you're cool for just doing that and hire you. Now, they won't.

Opening Day

Apparently, fishing season is upon us. I don't fish. I don't recall ever catching a fish when I did go fishing, once on a boat on Lake Erie, once at a stream somewhere, and once in Lake Erie from the Rocky River pier. It would have been memorable, you would think. Fishermen everywhere are cheering the release of trout today.

I guess sitting around waiting for a nibble is something to write home about for some people, but it seems pretty boring to me. I do recall that I was worried about falling overboard when fishing from the boat. It may have been more interesting if I was fishing from the railing instead of the middle of the boat. Everyone else was catching fish, endangering their lives by leaning over the railing and scooping up their prizes with nets. Of course, they never encountered the sea creatures that I did in my reading. And I suppose they lived by the adage, "What you don't know won't hurt you."

Yeah, right. I stuck to playing baseball. There was no danger of drowning for me, at least.

When amateur baseball was a big deal in Cleveland, I played in games at Edgewater Park, where the premier baseball diamond was bordered by Lake Erie down the left field foul line. When our team was ahead in the late innings, when we were hitting, we would try to drive long foul balls into the lake. The balls would be fished out of the water and re-used in the game, since each team supplied only two game balls. Waterlogged balls don't go very far when they are hit; so, part of the strategy was to waterlog the balls to safeguard the lead and solidify our chances for victory. We won the championship that year. The next year, I played on a different team. They thought I was nuts when I mentioned that strategy.

And that brings us to Opening Day of the Cleveland Indians' season. It was always exciting to ditch school and go to the game at the frigid old Municipal Stadium.

Since the Indians moved to The Jake, now known as Progressive Field, I have not been to an Opening Day game. The first week in April is not the time for major league baseball in Cleveland. It's more likely to snow than rain. Today, the temperature might get up to 45 at the airport. But because Lake Erie's temperature is 34, the temperature will never reach 40 degrees downtown.

I trust those going to the game will bring winter clothes along.