Learning to love my spam

What’s this? My “junk mail” file? I don’t usually look at it.

Hey, why does Yahoo label all of this junk? Who is Yahoo to separate the good mail from the bad? Freedom of speech, Censorship. Let me take a look at what is being withheld from me.

The first one is from Cheech & Chong. I remember them from the movies. Weren’t they into drugs? Well, look at this promotion to sell their gummy bears: “Join the legendary duo on a flight to relaxation and good vibes.”

 

Isn’t that sweet! They have gotten off drugs and are selling candy now. Bless them! And stop calling me naïve!

 

And here is another. It is from McAfee, the antivirus company. They have just charged me $268 on my credit card, it says, for a one-year subscription. I don’t remember doing that, but how nice of them to take care of me that way. That will keep the bad guys out. It says, “If you have questions, call this number for service.” Well, I’ll have to do that and thank them!

 

Oh, and here is a message from someone named Cecelia Lambert. “I have no heirs and want to transfer $7.5 million into your account for humanitarian work. Send me your details now. I await your reply.”

 

Well, how thoughtful! I don’t even know Cecelia. Her English isn’t very good—maybe she is a foreigner. But she sounded so polite.  I will call her to help her save humanity. I could make some money off this too!

 

Here’s a good one:  “My name is Adele. You'll meet  your perfect girl  to be with when you match with me on the dating website. I would be glad to be  conversing with you there.”

 

But Adele, I’m married! Why are you sending me this? Do you know something I don’t?

 

OMG! Look at this. It is from a friend who died a year ago. How can that be? An email? Speaking from the grave?

 

This person lived a good life, but you never know: She might be influenced here by the devil. I wonder if I should take her advice.

 

Oh, all it says is: “Look at these great pictures.” Well, sure. They must have been taken at that last party where I saw her.  Click. Crash.

 

Yes, the devil! My computer’s dead. I’d better call those nice people from McAfee!

Yes, there is room at the inn!

 

As a child in the California suburbs, I certainly never dreamed of helping to operate a bed & breakfast in Southside Virginia.

But things just happen. When I was living in Washington, D.C., I met this great woman, Pickett Craddock, who had a farmhouse with 400 acres in in Cluster Springs. She had no intention of ever moving to California.

I first visited the place in summer, 1981. I was itching from bugs all the time. An engineering friend told us the old building was a “bottomless pit” of future repairs.

But slowly, over time, she found the right people to help her fix it up, including Joe, a former preschool student, now in his 50s.

She had always wanted to open a B&B but was dissuaded on our honeymoon in 1985, when she saw how much work was involved at the Mainstay B&B in Cape May, N.J.

But she persisted and opened a summer-only B&B, Oak Grove Plantation Bed & Breakfast, in 1988. She even took the  Mainstay’s recipe for California Egg Puff and made it into her signature dish, Cluster Springs Egg Puff. The B&B was open year-around (without the plantation name) when we moved to Cluster Springs permanently in 2021.

When I travel, I am more prone to stay at a Marriott or a Motel 6, but I went along with the idea and have found numerous benefits.

We don’t have to travel as much: people come here instead. Some of them were great news sources for articles. I savored talking to a guy who rode his bike across Virginia, stopping at inns along the way. There was an emergency room doctor, a race car driver, a musician who jammed with me as I played piano.

There have been a few bad experiences along the way. We warned a couple not to go into the attic, but of course they went anyway. It used to be a children’s school over 100 years ago, and it had weird drawings on the wall. Terrified, the couple fled during the night, figuring the house was haunted. They even demanded a refund.

One woman had very stricct dietary guidelines in a two-page sheet of paper. Any Parmesan cheese had to be from either Italy or France. When Pickett was gone for a few days, I met this lady’s requirements for breakfast, but her sister didn’t like this food and wanted something different. So I made her French toast, which was awful. And I spilled a glass of water on her friend. We got a terrible review. “Fried bread” is what she called my dish. I have not been asked to cook breakfast since.

Apart from such disasters, there are heartwarming moments when you feel good about hosting guests. Two in the last week, in fact!

A couple driving a Hyundai electric car from South Carolina called on Saturday night asking to use our Tesla destination charger. The wife, in tears, said the Christmas parade blocked the route to the Microsoft charger, and they had trouble using the Tesla supercharger at Sheetz.  They were going to miss their grandson’s concert in Farmville. “We have called a tow truck. Can we charge at your B&B and spend the night?”

We were busy with a big event the next day at our house. Normally we have a two-night minimum, but hey…this is the Christmas season!

So we had a nice conversation with them later about the benefits and drawbacks of electric cars. People we never would have met.

Then, just yesterday, a lady called and said she was having trouble finding a room because of the opening of the casino Danville. Pickett scrambled to clean a room, and the lady is sleeping upstairs.

We don’t have a manger, but yes, there was room at the inn!

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Reasons for the visits vary all over the map: Weddings, funerals, reunions, genealogy searches, house hunting, car racing. Pickett does all of the cooking but she has someone help clean once a week and others to mow the yard. Me? Well, I help clean up after  breakfast but can’t do much besides write press releases.

Pickett likes to talk endlessly with the guests, but I have much less patience. Usually I will clear the table once they have stopped eating and begin washing dishes and then leave. If I stay and chat, take that as a real compliment.

Business is better now that we are operating year around, with a lot of guests in the spring and fall (but not winter.)

What happens when we are too old to run this place? Your guess is as good as ours.

Remorse over missed chances

  

“Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again too few to mention.”—from the song “My Way.”

Admit it. We all have regrets. Things we wish we had done or not done. What are some of my biggest regrets? A failed romance? A terrible investment? Someone I have badly wronged?

No. Right now I regret failing to write an article after interviewing the Grateful Dead. A friend told me I should write a column about it.

In 1971, a photographer for The Associated Press saw my car in downtown San Francisco blaring loud rock music full blast on the radio. Probably Crosby Stills & Nash.

“Hey, you should write something about the rock groups around here. This is the big time,” said Richard Drew,

The city was turning out great pop music from the likes of Santana, Neil Young, the Jefferson Airplaneand the Grateful Dead.

So I got ahold of the Grateful Dead’s manager and was granted an interview. At the time, the Dead was in decline after a few hits before it became a legend with enormous following.

I arrived at the Dead’s house and headquarters in San Rafael and sat down with Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir. I think the two must have been feuding. I would ask Garcia a question and he would complain how dumb it was and Weir would respond back with an intelligent answer.

Garcia was quite unfriendly to me. Weir was uplifting and complimentary. “Good interview,” he said as it ended.

I wasn’t sure what kind of a story I had and frankly I don’t remember. I no longer have my notes. I went to see one of their concerts at the huge Winterland Arena. Despite my experience covering entertainment in Las Vegas, I had never thought to ask the Dead for tickets. When I got there, it was sold out, and I could not talk my way in.

I still had a story, but in the meantime, I had just been transferred to Washington. The Vietnam War, the Pentagon Papers, political scandals. Who has time for failing rock groups?

My boss gave me a lot of other assignments before I left for the nation’s capital. “I know you will finish the Grateful Dead story,” he said. Ha! I’ll fix him. I won’t write it! I never did. Take that, Mr. Boss!
Well, as the Dead grew in stature and fame, I  had nagging doubts about my omission. They say it isn’t what you do that you regret. It is what you don’t do.

But let’s face it: I just wasn’t a fan. They did give me a record album, which they probably signed but I no longer have. (Sigh.) If their music really grabbed me, I would have rushed to put out a story, like I did after interviews with Hoagy Carmichael, Little Richard and Dionne Warwick.

So I was proved wrong. I mean, they even named an ice cream flavor after one of the people I interviewed.

About 30 years later, I was having lunch with Austin Kiplinger, my boss, the kind, dignified, stately gentleman whose family ran the Kiplinger Letter for generations.

Somehow our conversation turned to the Grateful Dead. “Why were they so popular?” He asked.

“Drugs, I think” was all I said. There was a long pause and he changed the subject to the Gross National Product, the federal funds rate  or something more boring.

Note to Mike: If a spiked story is one of your biggest regrets, you must have had a pretty easy life.

2nd Note to Mike: You know, maybe I’m glad I didn’t write the article. I have since learned that the Dead’s  strength wasn’t their music, it was the experience of the live shows. Since I never saw one, I would have been left with a bunch of meaningless quotes.

Dumb questions for smart dead people

A Polish radio station recently fired its announcer and replaced him with AI-generated content. The station drew protests when it used AI to interview famous dead people.

Well, what’s the matter with that? AI could probably find great historical quotes from these figures to turn into good listening.

So I have decided to try it. However, my first efforts turned into boring pronouncements about life. To make it more interesting, I asked Chat GPT for snarky, irreverent questions that you would never dare to ask when the subject was alive. I even asked fictional subjects questions. Here are some, but I and some friends ended up making most of them oursevles.

Marie Antoinette: Did you really say, “Let them eat cake?” Answer: “Not my fault. My uncle, a baker, put me up to it.”

Ludwig van Beethoven: What is the secret to writing a great symphony? Answer: “What?”

Elvis Presley: Why did you become so fat and use so many drugs? “C,mon, man, don’t be cruel.”

Smokey the Bear: In this dense forest, I really miss my cigarettes. What can I do? “Here, let me give you a light. Whoops! Oh, no!”

Richard Nixon: Why didn’t you just destroy the tapes? “Technology wasn’t my strong suit. I can’t even find the delete button.”

Jerry Garcia: Are you gratefully dead? “No, there is no cannabis where I am now.”

Wolfgang Mozart: What will be your legacy after you are gone? “Well, I’ll de-compose.”

Santa Claus: How can you deliver so many presents in one night? “I give my elves a lifetime supply of cookies—but I keep the milk for myself.”

Michelangelo: Why would you paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? “I was tired of painting walls.”

Jack the Ripper: Did you ever consider therapy? “Why bother? I had a handy knife to work through my issues.”

Cleopatra: What was it with all of those snakes? “You don’t care. You are just including a woman to make this column seem inclusive.”

Albert Einstein: Why did you do poorly in school? “I was figuring out how to increase the speed of light. Why worry about a stupid spelling test?”

Superman: Were you having an affair with Lois Lane?  “I couldn’t help it. She threatened me with kryptonite if I ignored her.”

Dorothy (Wizard of Oz): Why didn’t you and Toto go to a tornado shelter? “If I did, you wouldn’t have seen that great movie.”

Luke Skywalker (Star Wars): Why did you go on such space adventures? “if your father was Darth Vader, you would want to leave town too.”

William Shakespeare: Did you really write all of those plays? “No, smart guy, I stole them off the Internet!”

Lucy (Peanuts): Why do you keep pulling the football away when Charlie Brown tries to kick it? “I will keep doing that until women are admitted to the NFL.”

Carole King (who is alive): When can we see the show “Beautiful?” “It’s too late, baby, it’s too late.”

You’ve heard this one before:

Abraham Lincoln: Before the unfortunate  incident at Ford’s Theater, how was the play? “The worst thing was missing the second act.”

Mike (Who is Alive): Why are you writing these stupid quotes? “I am tired of writing real ones.”

All of the world’s information in your pocket

Having trouble keeping up with the latest technology? Just look back at the changes in computers over the years.

—Grand monstrosities:  My first introduction to computers came in college when an engineering friend took me to a huge building that housed an enormous mainframe computer. I’ll bet my phone has more power today than that contraption.

—IBM Cards: As a reservist trainee in an Army supply terminal, I worked with a big machine sorting the paper into slots for some very simple application like listing names alphabetically.

—Desktop computers. In the 1980s. I remember a K-Pro in which you had to type a full command at the bottom of the screen just to insert a word. In one job we were allowed to take a baseball bat to our clunky Q-office-powered computers when they were replaced by personal computers.

Computer networks:  When I worked at The Associated Press in Washington, our computers often crashed when there was a power failure in New York.

—Dial-up online services. America Online, Prodigy and CompuServe allowed you to connect on the Internet. But they were terribly s-l-o-w! You tied up the family’s phone line for hours.

—Search engines. Yahoo classified everything by category but soon it learned: People don’t all think alike. Google seemed like the kind, simple service to help the world until it became a greedy monopoly.

—Smart phones: Who would have thought you could take a photo or see a movie  with a phone you could put in your pocket?

—Social media:  You can stay friends forever with people you left behind years ago. You can also fight with them over politics and live to regret what you said.

—Artificial Intelligence: All of the world’s information is at your fingertips. How tall is the Eiffel tower? Who won the 1933 World Series? That is, when it’s not wrong.

   What’s next? Brains interconnected over thousands of miles?  Computers that can repair themselves? How about one you don’t have to plug in? Wait and see!

 

 

“Beautiful: Carole King’s Music Lives

 When I went-to a James Taylor concert in 1971, I was blown away by the opening act. I had never heard of Carole King, but I felt that she had stolen the show.

The next day I went to the record store in Oakland and bought her album, “Tapestry.” The lady standing in line behind me bought the same record. “Going to be a hit,” I thought. I was right.

I bought a piano score of the music and struggled over 4 sharps and 3 flats, but I persisted. I loved the music Twenty years later, I saw her again in Washington, a big star with a large cast on stage.

I thought I saw Carole King again on Sunday at the fantastic show, “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” put on by the Halifax County Little Theatre.

I figured it would be impossible to find someone to play this wonderful singer in a small town like this.

But HCLT did, with Jessica Camp, who sang beautifully in a cast of 28 at The Prizery in South Boston. The mother of three is a licensed professional counselor, but you would think she was a professional singer and actress as well.

 The show brought back memories

of the terrific Prizery Summer Theater shows in the 2010s, in which I appeared six times. They attracted great paid talent from all over the Southeast, brilliant sets and costumes. It all happened again on stage in “Beautiful,” but this time all of the singers were local, and there was an 11-piece live orchestra to boot—no pre-recorded tapes to sing off of.

Well, the show had to be good. Director Victoria Thomasson has been drilling the cast since May, an enormous time commitment. The detailed work also showed in the singing, the costumes, the sets and choreography. The dancing and singing of the Drifters, Shirelles and Chiffons ensembles were marvelous.

Along with Camp, the leading players are Rich Galowitch as Gerry Goffin, Kirk Compton as Barry Mann and Jessica Rose as Cynthia Weil. I give special compliments to Ernelle Bellamy’s sound system because I could understand about every word sung or spoken.

The timing of this play was excellent as The Prizery changes management at the end of the year. It showed that great theater can be performed in a region loaded with hidden talent.

One thing I like especially about Prizery performances: When you are inside, you are in New York. When you walk outside, you get South Boston traffic.

The show continues until Nov. 17.  Check out https://hclt.org/.

 

 

 

What happened to my team? Oh, here irt is!

 As an East Coast resident, I have mercifully been spared the tragic disappointments of over half a century of University of California football. The last time the Golden Bears had been to the Rose Bowl was in 1959, the year I became a student. TV executives wisely spared us the pain of watching a a perpetually losing West Coast team.

 

But there I was Friday night watching Cal play a conference game against Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C., nowhere near California.

 

 That’s because Cal is now in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and I am surrounded by four teams just over the Virginia border in North Carolina and two others in Virginia. Their games are even on the ACC TV network, which I get. How crazy to dump the  traditional Cal-UCLA rivalry to play the likes of Pittsburgh and North Carolina State. But the Pac 12 folded, and Cal had to find new competitors.

 

I decided to take advantage of this anomaly when my friend, David Glass, suggested that we see one of these games. David, also a Cal alum, drove down from Washington,D.C.,  picked me up in South Boston (VA)  and took me to the Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium in Winston-Salem, two hours from my home.

 

Was I blown away by this place! Since its renovation in 2005, the arena fits in well with the new money-grubbing professionalism of today’s college sports.

 

Would they sell alcohol when most of the students were under drinking age? Silly question! Right at the entrance there was a rum vendor. Beer everywhere! Food? Anything you want. What’s next? A betting window?

 

I had only been to two two college football games in 63 years, one in the Ivy League (that should not really count) and one when Cal played North Carolina in Chapel Hill 10 years ago. But it was nothing like this.

 

The big-screen TV could have been in a pro stadium. But then, it is a pro stadium now, I guess.  There were close-ups of fans, contests, fireworks, ear-splitting music, everything.

 

The stadium, which holds 31,000, was only about half full, but there were an amazing number of Cal fans in our section for a school so far away. Hey, why would anybody want to leave California? Oh, I’d better not answer that.

 

Gee, this would have been a better column if Cal lost, especially after the team frittered away a 15-point lead. But the Bears’ quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, passed for 385 yards,  including an awesome 40 passes in the first half. The Bears won 46-36. And amazingly, kicker Ryan Coe made two 54-yard field goals, redeeming himself after missed short kicks forced Cal to lose two recent games.

 

So there is hope, and I might as well enjoy college football’s greed and lopsided geography that are here to stay.