"Silly Name" Winner Doesn't Float my Boat - Bote Boats? BOO!

One reward for getting past the idiocy of "March Madness," is the April insanity of the "Silly Name" contest.

Instead of ruminating on the Elite Eight or Final Four among glandular college freaks running around in their underwear dribbling a ball, people choose a selection of people with bizarre names.

The voting was close in many cases...

Ultimately, the boring and redundant BOTE BOATS of South Africa won.

He has yet to respond to the contest by declaring his delight, or answering charges that his real first name isn't BOTE.

The contest organizers do confess that the choice hasn't met with universal glee:

"Did Botes Boats really deserve to cruise past Eliza Fox Teats, Bird Lovegod, Aphrodite Bodycomb, Quindarious Monday, and Andy Brandy Casagrande IV? Was YourMajesty Lumpkins the right pick over Tutz Honeychurch, Guy Hands, H. King Buttermore III, Kobe Buffalmeat, and Marmaduke Trebilcock? In many of those cases, much of the High Committee would agree the answer is no."

Collecting funny names has long been a hobby for some people, and you could probably go back many decades to read articles listing "unusual but true" lists of monickers. I clipped an article about an eccentric collector, circa the 60's, and the header was "It all began with Olney Nicewonger." The guy clipped that name and began to assemble a 3x5 card collection.

John Train assembled a few cute little books loaded with names, along with fanciful illustrations of what the people might look like. I was rather proud to give that author a bit of trivia he didn't know about: that "John Train" was the name that Phil Ochs once used, in creating a new identity for himself.

If YOU want to join the hobbyists, the Internet does make it pretty easy. You can go to phone book databases and type in odd words and see if somebody has a name to go with it. But beware, some people deliberately register their phone under a weird name just to get around the high cost of an unlisted number. A more authentic way of amassing names is to go to a social security death index.

There you'll find that Cordelia Mae Dust bit the dust, Ima Smelly is now rotting, Arthur Gravy is in his grave, and Violet Boner is now bones.

ESPN "BLOODBATH" LAYOFFS? Let's Hear it, Internet: "SO? PUT ON YOUR BIG GIRL PANTIES..."

Anybody crying about 100 people laid off at ESPN?

On the Internet, nobody hears you cry. Sees you cry. Or cares if you cry.

The trolls can leave their wisecracks:

"Awww, boo hoo!" "Put on your big girl panties and get REAL jobs!" "I get my news instantly with Google! Mmmmmm! FREEE!"

Don't expect anything better from the NPR crowd. The New York Times writers. Those types.

"Well, the trope is that the zeitgeist has led to a new paradigm." Ah. There you are.

BEBE, a store with 100's of outlets, went under last week. Coca-Cola laid off 1,000 employees who thought nobody would ever stop guzzling sugary drinks. Book and magazine publishers shiver at night.

You never hear of problems at Amazon, though. Google is doing just fine, thanks. And Ebay, where book piracy is an every day glimpse at auction headers with "ebook" or "PDF" or "KINDLE" in the title, continues to laugh all the way to the bank. Their phone support may be in Guam or Pakistan, but that's not because they laid off Americans. They never hired them.

What can you say?

Since I'm not paid by the word, or paid at all here, I won't say much.

All I can say is that the Internet has changed the way we ignore or cheat each other. Until there's some bizarre bandwidth meltdown, or companies stop thinking that anyone looks at banner ads, this nightmare will not end.

ESPN? Are you KIDDING? Who the hell watches ESPN for NEWS anymore?

The Internet has every Decider, Insider, Gawker, Newser and freelancer stealing the news for their own site, and Google and Yahoo happily offering a news page with every possible headline on it, why stick with ESPN, or any other TV news site?

As for columnists, who needs 'em? Whatever your favorite subject, from boxing to baseball, there are FORUMS, where EVERYONE has an opinion, and you can add your own.

ESPN is mainly axing news reporters, and only keeping the loudest balloons. If you are opinionated and have a big "love 'em or hate 'em" following, you might be safe. ESPN needs to cut costs, but Stephen A. Smith is untouched, and he keeps his three million dollars a year.

Surprising? No, there are radio stations where news reporters and anchors are let go, and maybe cheap interns take their place, while a Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh continues to thrive. "News" is no longer valued, and actual reporters are no longer needed. All you need are people capturing things on their cell phones and tossing them on the Internet. The epidemic of fake news, or bloggers being quoted, or reaction on Twitter being quoted in news pieces, show how devalued and cheapened radio and TV news and newspapers are.

Sports highlights? Why bother with ESPN for that? First off, they might not HAVE the highlight you want. Most any major PPV sporting event is bootlegged onto YouTube the moment it's been aired, and quite often ESPN, being responsible journalists, won't show you the highlights because they they know they can't claim "fair use" or simply say, as they do on eBay, "I either own the rights, or have licensed them, or I am allowed to do this under Constant Commons rules and the Putin theory that Copyright is Copy Wrong."

Let's remember, ESPN has scuttled ON-AIR talent, and NOT their Internet website staff. No, it's easier to keep cheap writers on the Net, and ones who work just to have a byline so they can see sports events free. It's no great trick to replace an Internet writer at any time, if that writer has the nerve to demand health insurance or a pension plan, or a raise.

People were predicting the bloodbath at E.S.P.N. - Extra Sensory Perception? NO.

It was inevitable.

And how did most people discover whether their favorite talking heads and opinionated jocks were fired? TWITTER!

We have the Internet, little people at the TV headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. WE DON'T NEED YOU ANYMORE.

Brother Theodore in the "David Letterman Last Giant of Late Night" Book

I think the photo says it all, doesn't it?

My late friend, Theodore Gottlieb, used to say on stage, "Ladies and Gentlemen, it is MY fault, I should have known better..." and that applies to my photo of him.

It's all over the Internet with NO credit to ME, because I didn't know better. I didn't realize the Internet respects no copyright, "shares" everything, and that I was too naive back then to "watermark" the photo with some big ugly letters saying "DO NOT COPY" or "photo by RONALD L. SMITH."

Anyway...

When I heard that some New York Times guy used his connections to get a deal, take time off with the advance money, and wander around interviewing key players (he got to Rich Hall, but not David's first wife), I wondered whether Theodore would figure in the book.

After all, Theodore was one of the eccentrics who David needed when he was just the hipster's "Joe Franklin Show," and couldn't rely on famous names. Theodore was playing the small 13th Street Theater Saturday nights, and unlike oddball Larry "Bud" Melman, was not coddled by having people write for him. When Theodore did the show, he had to prepare his own material, keyed to questions he supplied to Dave.

Sadly, the New York Times guy, who uses words like TROPE (I'm waiting for zeitgeist, underpinning, informed (as in, "his comedy was informed by influences such as...") and the ever-popular paradigm) reduced my legendary friend to ONE paragraph.

In true New York Times and NPR style, the paragraph is freeze-dried by college words (locution, philosophic, cultural) and presented with an impotent and anemic (there you go, more college words) lack of true insight or appreciation.

"Late Night pursued guests who were more on the cultural margins. Brother Theodore, a singular German monologist who delivered enraged rants off_Broadway, regularly brought the energy of performance art to Late Night. Dressed in black and wearing stern expression, he came off as a parody of an intellectual saying very important things. His laments about the culture were epic. The locution of his philosophic tirades echoed that of old Hitler speeches, making him seem the model of the dangers of believing things too deeply."

Uh, yeah. Sure.

This description reminds me of a Bob and Ray bit, in which a politician's speech is analyzed:

"His jeremiad, this threnody, call it what you will, can only be described as an atrabilious amphigory."

It's a little painful to find the Times' expert on comedy mentioning Hitler in reference to a Jewish comedian well known to have survived Dachau while losing the rest of his family to the Holocaust.

Theodore was not a political or topical comedy. His self-defeating comedy ("I am the bride at every funeral...") and his most famous gloomy one liners ("The best thing is not to be born, but who is as lucky as that?") had nothing to do with old Hitler speeches.

But despite the author's insistence that he became a big Dave fan while in college, the publicity surrounding this book is basically, "Hey, Letterman's not a nice guy." The advance publicity hinges on a few fired staffers getting even by offering anecdotes about their difficult boss. I've only gotten up to page 84 (the Theodore page), but who knows, in a while maybe there will be a juicy ex-staffer description of how Dave's tirades echoed that of old Himmler speeches, or Rommel, or Mengele, or given that he's an American, maybe Manson.

(Update: still reading the book, I hit page 119 and the author used ZEITGEIST. I waited for it; I got it. Then on page 137, up came "context informs the meaning of comedy." Verbosity and banality ARE predictable)

(Second update: up to page 161, where the author once again uses TROPE, this time referring to "visual tropes." The book is coming off more and more like a college lecture from somebody determined to make every minor point possible, using every major cliche of vocabulary.)

The "favorite" record store of John Lennon and David Bowie? RECORD STORE DAY?

Here we go again.

RECORD STORE DAY.

It's the one day in the year anybody cares about "Mom and Pop" stores.

And what have the surviving ones become? Effete boutiques. They aren't run by "Mom and Pop," but usually some obese, smelly over-charging goon.

The way these stores survive now is by either insisting they've got "collectors item" rare pressings (ooh, "Rubber Soul" on Venezuelan vinyl!) or they appeal to Millennial twits and Beats-loving bozos. In those cases it's, "Hey, don't bother getting Roger the Nazi's "The Wall" on CD, get it on 180 gram vinyl and impress your hipster-hat-wearing pals. Or..."Yo, brutha, scratch DIS thang! Da new copy of "Haters Gotta Hate" on 12 inch, wid two remixes on da flip side, yo. Put DIS on and plug in yo Dr. Dre's and do watcha gotta do wit yo synthetic drug of choice!"

Here's a ridiculous, pandering NY Post headline that pretends that Bowie and Lennon were denizens of a notorious tourist trap record store.

HUH? You're not saying "House of Oldies" was THE record store Bowie and Lennon LOVED, are you?

Is the DNA from their kisses still on the window somewhere? Even if the owner had somebody take some photos, that doesn't mean it was THE record store, or that anyone LOVED the place.

At best, it was convenient to any star living in the trendy Village at the time. If John was hanging around with the late David Peel, sure, he could stop in there and know that he'd very likely be able to get any 45 rpm he wanted. FOR A PRICE.

But John, living at The Dakota, could easily have gone to record stores that, at the time, were all over the West Side. A quick cab ride and he could get to Colony and Broadway, which was THE tourist trap record store for out of print vinyl, quite a rival to House of Oldies.

Back then, there were huge, authoritative record stores for anything new, including Sam Goody and King Karol. The East Village was loaded with used book and record stores. Dayton's on 12th was a mecca for budget-minded vinyl lovers like me. IF I'M BEING HONEST, I never bought anything at House of Oldies. Nice guy running it, but the prices were (and are) outrageous.

If I desperately needed that 45 rpm of "Homburg/Wee Small Hours of Sixpence" that wasn't on a Procol Harum album at the time, there were record stores with mammoth cubby holes on the wall, and in less than a minute, the single was on the counter for me. There were record stores in the subways, even! I can't even remember the names of all of them.

When I was editing ROCKET magazine and when I was the music editor of OUI, record stores were still in good health. I could make a weekly jaunt down from Dayton's through either the East or West Village, or both, and come back lugging a LOT of vinyl. Sometimes Dayton's had bargain bins full of 2 for a dollar or even 3 for a dollar goodies. Max Becker's "Hall Place Book and Records" was a favorite destination. I was such a regular customer, he'd bring stuff out from the back for me, things he figured I'd be interested in. "You go for this?" he'd say, putting a stack on a table that might include Phil Ochs or Mort Sahl.

Now? Now there's a feeble "Record Store Day," and who really supports them? It sure isn't the RIAA, who allow pirate bloggers to celebrate 14 years of brazenly giving away a half-dozen albums a day right out in the open. It's not the record labels, who never pressured politicians to update idiotic DMCA rules that allow anyone to upload anything, and place insane hoops in the way of rights owners doing takedowns.

A record store owner can't contact Google (owner of Blogspot) and say, "Hey, I sell David Bowie and John Lennon, and I have a good faith belief Hansy Wormhole doesn't have the right to give them away on his blog." Nope, a record store owner can go out of business (as Colony did a few years ago) or, if he has a good landlord or an obscure location in Brooklyn, thrive on a very narrow clientele of maniacs who don't trust eBay dealers to send them vinyl that actually is VG+ or "Mint."

Yes, in most major cities, there are still a few good record stores, but not many. When I was writing the "Goldmine Comedy Record Price Guide," I sampled what was available in key cities around the country, from Boston to Chicago to Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Odds were good, at the time, for getting used vinyl for $2 and not $20. Only truly nasty stores would slap a $20 tag on a Bill Dana or Pearl Willams record, and only truly naive owners would think they could get it. Colony fit the latter two categories, by the way, charging idiot tourists $20 or even $30 for "The First Family," which was in every thrift shop for a buck. A million copies were printed, and after JFK died, a million were tossed away by people who didn't find that record funny anymore.

The article mentions, in quite a misleading manner, that vinyl sales are UP. Yeah? For WHAT? For hipster-idiot 180 gram vinyl on "Abbey Road?" For disco junk? You can be sure that the dwindling number of people out there buying the new Ray Davies or Procol Harum that "dropped" the other day, will get it either by iTunes or Amazon download, or CD via Deep Discount or eBay. More likely, they'll get a bootleg off a torrent or blog or hidden "forum," OR, not buy it at all and be content to stream it on Spotify. Or maybe Google's bootleg-friendly YouTube will have people posting every song.

Yes, I've been to Williamsburg, and I've NOT seen the future. I've seen one or two old fashioned record stores turn up in converted garages, and offer for $4 or $5 the same tired out of print vinyl that eBay sellers can hardly unload for $2 and the $4 media mail postage. Anyone out there really collecting the Good Rats or Genesis anymore? Catching up on the back catalog of Billy Joel or Barbra Streisand on vinyl?? More often, people leave "nice comments" to uploaders: "Thanks, glad to find this. I no longer have a turntable so even if I bought it on eBay I couldn't play it!" Besides, vinyl buckles your shelves.

Happy Record Store day to whoever can point to David Peel albums, say, "These are rare, $40..." and GETS $40. Happy Record Store day to a dealer who can unload Alice Cooper's "Schools Out," with the paper panties in like-new condition, for $50. And Happy Record Store day to the thousands of people who once owned stores, once brought their boxes of vinyl to memorabilia conventions, and are now working 9 to 5 at Amazon stuffing Dr. Dre headphones and cans of Hormel Chili into shipping boxes, and remembering which is which.

Fetishists Sniffing ELI MANNING's laundry? And not being HAPPY?

One of the most laughable "scandals" of the day, is that "game used" and "game worn" items from Eli Manning weren't "authentic." This is a big deal, in a memorabilia world where half the autographs are forged or secretarial?

Somehow, in the 21st Century, we have become more superstitious and fetishistic than jungle savages and desert dimwits. Every day people spend a fortune on amulets, potions and "natural" cures. Despite all the logic of medical science, millions not only believe that there's a God in a cloud looking down on them (out of BILLIONS of people) but that this God needs them to KILL for him. Or her.

And so we have poor Eli Manning, a millionaire many times over, being accused of, what, cynically handing memorabilia dealers "unworn" jockstraps and socks? A helmet that doesn't have traces of his DNA or his brand of hair tonic in it?

Nice of the NY Post to OK the term "PISSED" in covering this tempissed in a teapot.

Desperately grabbing for a souvenir should be something only ridiculous teenagers do. We've all heard about bobby soxers frantic to grab a strand of Sinatra's hair, or Elvis's hair, or a Beatle's hair. Beatlemania saw cynical dealers cutting up squares of fabric from The Fab Four's pillow cases and selling them.

It's only gotten worse. Some of my celebrity friends have remarked on getting phone calls from dealers anxious for a "worn" item that could be cut into squares and put on trading cards. "Worn" as in, what, some item that no longer fits, that's been dry cleaned and hanging in a closet? What's the big deal? Why do people pay for this junk?

And yet, on EBAY, you get a good idea of what celebrity "worn" items can fetch, with or without a "Certificate of Authenticity." Like:

There are EBAY sellers who routinely post celebrity bras, and who is going to call them on it? The indignant celebrity? Not likely. The attitude is "let the buyer beware, ha ha ha."

The sports world is loaded with inane homoerotic fetishists who want to cradle the laundry of jocks. Again, recent sales:

Companies develop good businesses in putting a "swatch" on a card. Somebody says "Oh yes, Ali had this shirt in his closet..." or "I owned a robe Ali wore into the ring, go ahead, cut it up and sell it by the square inch..."

Fact is, you don't even have to be FAMOUS to sell your laundry on EBAY. EBAY, the site of hypocrisy, insists a woman can't sell her used undies on the site. But her used socks? Used pantyhose? Oh, that's OK. EBAY, if you ask one of the drones who answers the phone, will tell you that it's a "health hazard" to sell used undies. But not used socks? Let's see a few random sales:

It can be argued that SMELLY items have some value to certain people with SMELLY tastes, but what about these square patches of "used" clothing stuck behind a laminated card? What about a baseball bat some player swung a few times till it got a crack in it? What, if you get down to it, is so meaningful about owning an autograph page with a signature of some celebrity on it? YOU didn't meet the person, and the celebrity may not even have TOUCHED the page but just put a pen on it. What is the primitive fascination with "collectibles?" Why collect autopen signatures by Ronald Reagan? There used to be a guy on eBay who covered up his ineptitude at forging by selling signed golf balls. Oh, the autograph isn't that accurate because of all the little holes in the balls. His ads always said "Forensics!" Like, somehow, if you hired somebody to conduct DNA tests, you'd find a trace of the celebrity...IF you also had the celebrity's DNA to compare it with.

A lot of stars routinely used secretaries to sign stuff. The author of the new bio of David Letterman said he attended a taping when he was a 20-something, and asked a staffer if he could get Dave's signature. The staffer said, "Sure, if you get a can of Spam. He'll sign a can of Spam." The guy raced around to local stores, hoping not to miss the taping. Finally he found a bodega that had a can. He brought it to the staffer. After the show, he got the can back, signed. And years later, he related the story to Dave, and Dave apologized: "I never signed that."

I can tell you similar stories. One celebrity friend I know once casually mentioned that she'd hand stacks of fan mail to her mother, and her mother would sign the photos. The fans almost never know the difference, and suspend all disbelief. Until they see a story like this one on Eli Manning. Then, momentarily, they're shaken. But not stirred. They'll easily believe that somebody on eBay, somebody at Comic Con, somebody at a shop specializing in memorabilia, absolutely has THE REAL DEAL.

The sad truth is that even experts can't tell half the time. Or, they don't look too closely. Guys like Manning are not only laughing all the way to the bank, they're controlling supply and demand for their own egos. You can imagine the celebrity pride in seeing how high your autographed photo is selling for, or a "game worn" ball or jersey. Some stars almost never sign anything for free, or control how many "worn" items are out there, to keep them in the "sought after" Top 10.

In the memorabilia world, "WORN" never gets old.

The Networking Zombies of Facebook

My problem with "NO PROBLEM"

"Thanks for holding the door for me."

"NO PROBLEM!"

Well, no, it shouldn't be a PROBLEM to hold onto a door. It's not rocket science, either.

"Wow, there was a sale on bananas, five for a dollar...and you bought five extra for me? Thanks, here's the dollar."

"NO PROBLEM!"

I know there's NO PROBLEM. What if I said, "Get me five apples for a dollar? THEN we'd have a problem.

Here's a typical idiotic Facebook post.

Among the ten or twenty thousand Laurel & Hardy fan groups on Facebook...

Somebody in the group takes a moment to do the bare minimum...post a YOUTUBE video that anybody could find if they really cared.

Out of courtesy, the moderator thanks the poster. And what does the poster do?

"NO PROBS!"

That's the kewl way of saying..."No Problem."

Whatever happened to shutting the hell up?

Whatever happened to answering "Thank you" with "Your welcome?"

Why say "NO PROBLEM" about something that IS NO PROBLEM?

Come to think of it, why say "No Problem" when it IS?

All you're doing is acting smug, as if what's a problem for someone else is NO PROBLEM for a genius such as yourself?

Look, if you want to use idioms and cliches, at least spread 'em around, ok?

"Thanks for taking out the garbage."

"A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse!"

"An Altoid? Don't mind if I do, thanks."

"Bob's your uncle!"

And, sad but true, "NO PROBLEM" is usually said by somebody who really isn't doing anything helpful, remarkable or even useful, and is not putting himself out one bit.

"Can you roll off some toilet paper for me, and slip it under the door? There's none in this stall."

"You've got a problem."

Fernand Tardy

Fernand Tardy has died, at the age of 97.

He was born in Versailles, and served in the French Senate from 1980 to 1998. He also wrote a well known book:

It hasn't been translated, but if you speak French, you'll probably enjoy this tome from the late Mr. Tardy.

I know it's a dumb joke, but that's really all I have to say, re Tardy.

Note to Linda Stasi - Your Daily News Bosses LOVE Kardashians So much that...

How embarrassing.

Linda Stasi write a column on how boring and annoying the useless Kardashian/Jenner idiots are...and the DAILY NEWS runs KARDASHIAN NEWS alongside it!

Linda starts gnashing her teeth...

AND THE DAILY NEWS OFFERS KARDASHIAN KRAPOLA ALONGSIDE HER KOPY.

Linda finishes with her strong plea to end the national nightmare. Too bad her own newspaper isn't listening to her.

Viewers have tired of Puppy Jimmy Fallon - COLBERT RULES

Here's the big headline of the day:

The obvious reason is TRUMP. Or is it?

Isn't Colbert doing well because people want to hear tired jokes about Trump? Because at 11:35 at night, people have nothing better to do than be reminded Trump is president and he's a dangerous clown? Nitey nite everyone, Colbert told some Trump jokes. Her har.

Perhaps the reason is simply that children get tired of the puppy. "Isn't he CUTE" gives way to "this is getting boring. What do you mean, walk the dog, feed the dog, listen to the dog yip and yap and whine?"

Jimmy Fallon is a puppy.

He's never grown up. He refuses to grow up. He remains Dennis the Menace while his scowling Mr. Wilson announcer stands around regarding him with doleful scorn. His hip band tolerates him in an uncomfortable way that suggests the hired help indulging a brat.

When Fallon took over "The Tonight Show" because Jay Leno was old (#1 but old), nobody bitched and moaned about ageism. Nobody said that Fallon had pushed Leno out of the job by doing exactly what Conan O'Brien did: insinuate that he'd bolt to another network and become the competition.

People said, "HOORAY! We just LOVE the idea of a guy doing lip sync routines. We just LOVE the idea of a guy pulling shit off Twitter every week and reading HASHTAGS of stuff amateurs have submitted. We just LOVE the idea that since air headed Millennials have nothing to say, Fallon will play stupid games with them instead, turning "The Tonight Show" into a sick combo of "Password" and "Beat the Clock."

What else? We just LOVE that Jimmy can do an impression of Neil Young (as if a million other people can't do that) and he can put on a bad wig and do Donald Trump (as if a million other people can't do that). He can also imitate an irritatingly inarticulate Valley Girl-type (nobody really wants to do that, although James Corden probably does it when the wife is out of town and the show tunes are blasting).

Like every other talk show host, Fallon "borrowed" from his competition. Letterman used to show bad album covers and play tracks from bad records. Fallon does that, too. Conan had the masturbating bear, and Fallon has some annoying jerk in a panda suit who dances around a lot. Har har.

Isn't it possible that the decline in Fallon's ratings is not simply because people want more Trump jokes? Could it be that they are simply tired of Fallon's non-jokes?

It hasn't taken Fallon too long to fall into the "I'm sick of this shit myself" attitude that Letterman, Craig Ferguson and Conan O'Brien all have. Letterman indulged in sadistic repetition, as did Ferguson. Conan simply insists on touching his nipple every night, doing the "string dance," and daring his loyal followers to tell him he's being an utter asshole. Fallon? He'll seize on a word he thinks is funny, and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it, in a variety of gooey, idiotic nasal voices. His owlish Mr. Wilson keeper, Steve, will join in and repeat it over and over again as well.

NOBODY else is laughing, but that's not the point. It's a "network time killer" (to use a Letterman phrase) and it's been part of Fallon's bragging rights: I can do ANYTHING and people will watch.

That's no longer the case.

This by no means an endorsement of Colbert. I don't watch Colbert. If I feel like watching something at 11:35 it's Kimmel.

The solution? It's time for the puppy to GROW UP. Start interviewing people. Stop with the frat-boy bullshit. Anybody can go on Twitter and start reading wisecracks. Anybody can go into a bar and play stupid games. Some nights, the alternative to Fallon would be going into a local bodega and scratching off Lotto cards. If you're a loyal customer, the dubious Latino behind the counter will be like Steve or The Roots and laugh encouragement as long as you're paying.

PILOMATRICOMA? HAKUNA MATATA!

You know what's almost as bad as climate change?

Immune deficiency.

We ignore insane fluctuations in heat and cold (often within the same month) as well as hurricanes and other disasters. And we also ignore the cold that lingers for a month, somebody dying of cancer at a young age, and all the interesting ailments that nobody heard of ten or twenty years ago and that are now so prevalent: Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Crohn's, etc.

Doctors (when you can see them) shrug and say, "Oh, it's an IMMUNE DEFICIENCY. Nobody knows where it comes from. Nobody knows when it will return." All they know is that "taking herbal remedies probably won't work, but there's no scientific studies and there never WILL BE, so go ahead and take it, but you better come running back to the Big Pharma stuff that will give you side effects worse than your ailment."

At best, you can say HAKUNA MATATA.

You know that phrase. Now that Africans are the minority du jour and Jews are old news, you say HAKUNA MATATA, not ISH KABIBBLE. Essentially, Blacks and Jews are united in shrugging, "Not to Worry." Or "Why Worry."

PILOMATRICOMA takes many shapes and forms. It's the Colorforms of cysts. See your doctor to be sure it IS a PILOMATRICOMA. It could be a wart, a pimple, or a tattoo of Herve Villechaize.

The best you can hope for, is you get something caused by immune deficiency, or "some kind of virus," or "we don't know what causes it," and it's BENIGN.

The doctor might happily tell the good and bad news: "It won't kill you, and it will go away in time." Like: "Oh, you've got vertigo...labyrinthitis...uh, it's cause by...we don't know...a virus, an inflammation, an immune deficiency...." Just lie down for a day, a week or a month and gradually you'll get better. There's no medication for it.

PILOMATRICOMA? Hakuna Matata! Don't worry. It's usually benign, and ugly is only skin deep. It can be layered off. Or dug into with a grapefruit spoon and chucked to the other side of Olive Garden, landing in somebody's all-you-can-eat platter of macaroni and cheese.

Daily News ROCKS the words ROCKS and ROCKING because...

...because Millennials don't have much vocabulary?

The dumbed down DAILY NEWS website not only had two very pointless photo features on their "front page," they couldn't even come up with adjectives to explain a bikini or a hairstyle.

Any surviving writers over there must be rocking a pair of aspirin. Linda Stasi? Gersh Kuntzman? They wouldn't use a boring adjective would they? Even to rock a paycheck? Even if meant they could be rocking a front page byline instead of being buried deep on the rocking website?

There was a time when the FRONT PAGE of a newspaper featured important news. An ex-first lady's hairstyle is important? A middle aged model no longer part of the lipstick vogue? They ROCK?

Maybe they do, if their publicists need to be rocked. That's part of the game. You coddle certain powerful PR companies so that when it comes to giving you face time to Gigi Haddiddly or one of the Kardashians, you can say, "Did you read where I claimed your clients "ROCKED" ordinary looking hairstyles and swimsuits??"

The important thing with the Michelle Obama splash is to LOOK AT THE VIDEO. You've noticed that Millennials have no attention span, so when a website page opens, a video instantly plays. OR, that's ALL you get. A VIDEO.

. The important thing with the Cindy Crawford picture is that the rocks a bikini (actually, she's wearing it, she isn't cradling it in her arms) so let's forget that without makeup she looks 60.

Duuuuuuuude, as any 20-soething at the London Daily Fail (er, Mail) could tell you, when a babe "rocks" an outfit, that's so much easier to, uh, pronounce. She doesn't dazzle, surprise, delight or entrance anyone. Those words are old, and have more than one syllable.

The Statue of Liberty SPOKE ENGLISH

If you visit The Statue of Liberty, you might notice something. SHE SPEAKS ENGLISH.

This gift from France has ENGLISH WRITING on her pedestal.

It may not be the best English in the world, but it IS English.

How about this line:

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she with silent lips.

See for yourself.

Later on, there's the infamous bargain-basement yap, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me."

You want to take this literally, from somebody who can't spell "tossed?"

Is it so surprising that the anti-immigrant bunch (xenophobes, to use a DICTIONARY word) also take this thing literally? They ask why America wants to import human garbage. Worthless human garbage. THat's what "wretched refuse" means, doesn't it?"

Nowhere does it say:

"Bring me people who WON'T SPEAK ENGLISH."

Hell, the broad isn't even saying "Bring me people who CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH."

I have no idea if Grandfather spoke much English when he arrived in America, or if he could even say "The Statue of Liberty" when he saw it in the harbor. But, he learned fast. So have immigrants of every race and nationality — UP TILL NOW.

Back then, the punishment for not learning the language was that you didn't get food stamps and welfare and free lodging. You remained one of the huddled masses in a tenement. If you were lucky, somebody in the family could translate for you, and you got by with your limited English. In a factory all you needed to know were a few key words.

Mostly, immigrants were grateful to be in America, the land of opportunity. Mostly, immigrants came not out of greed, but because their beloved homeland was experiencing a famine, or some bunch of fanatics had taken over the government and were killing certain ethnics. And so the Jews came. And the Irish came. And everybody came.

The funny ways of immigrants were greeted with laughter, but it was generally gentle. People laughed at "Cohen on the Telephone" and the 78rpm antics of Irish, Scottish, German, "Negro," and even hillbilly dialect comedians (such as Uncle Josh). Often the immigrants laughed the loudest. At worst, they assimilated a bit quicker, and lost the accents.

At best, they made their accents part of their charm. You might remember some charming Irish girl singing in her brogue, "Sure we're Irish, and proud of it too!"

What united everyone was a pride in the United States, and a love of the English language, the language of Shakespeare.

What compares to English? Almost NOTHING.

French is the language of love. Italian is the language of opera. Greek is the venerable language of some of our earliest poets and playwrights. Funny, all over the world, people choose English as a second language. Go to any country, and you'll have no trouble finding somebody who speaks English, maybe even better than you do.

In America? Not so much.

This was brought home to me, yet again, not by picking up the phone and being told to "press one to continue in English or numero dos para Espanol," but by seeing several useless wastes of paper letting me know that the government is more than willing to have a translator help me out if I can't read my health document, my voting document, my ANYTHING document:

Yes, quite a few trees were destroyed just because a whole bunch of people DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH.

What's the excuse? In the old days, some people had a very real one: they were going to be killed if they didn't get as far away from the Nazis or the Pogroms as possible.

They were sensible and smart: they began to learn English as soon as they learned of a train to a boat to take them to America. They certainly knew that to be in a country and NOT know the language is a sign of ingratitude.

Can you imagine sitting your ass on a plane for South Korea, China, Germany or Brazil, and expecting your new home to provide you with documents in English, translations for any and all documents, and other amenities?

Xenophobes will tell you America is FULL. We have NO MORE ROOM. This is true. It's full of morons. It's full of over-breeding obnoxious Americans, many of whom can't speak English too darn good, know what I'm saying?

Xenophobes simply do not like foreigners. Most seem to find the excuse that their ancestors came from England. If not, well, there were "good" immigrants back then, and today, ones that will blow up the Boston Marathon.

My point of view is you're welcome here if you speak ENGLISH and can fend for yourself. If your situation is truly dire, ok, there IS such a thing as charity. But how long should I wait before you've got a job and YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?

Why am I getting documents such as the above, bending over backwards for every lazy, arrogant, self-entitled greed-head who wants a piece of the apple pie? And some are going to be clannish and never speak the language? Or a tad rude, and start shooting ten, or fifty in California or Florida because they'd rather the country was only full of people just like THEM?

It's expensive and ridiculous for the government to automatically send ME several extra pages of documents in foreign languages. It's insulting that voting booklets about the candidates are automatically DOUBLE in size because a huge amount of Latinos in this country won't speak English. WON'T. Not CAN'T. They WON'T. They don't have to. They can even tune into sporting events and get simultaneous translations on the SAP channel. The country is almost bilingual now, and that's MUY LOCO.

Ever been to Montreal? It's charming for a day or two, then a damn headache. Everywhere you go, on the bus, on the train, in the store...everything is repeated in both French and English. The excuse is there's almost always been a lot of French speakers and English speakers. That's not the excuse in America, where the Spanish speakers simply grew to a majority big enough to get their own way.

What next? Signs everywhere in Arabic? In Russian, perhaps? There comes a point where you say, in English, RESPECT ME. No translation.

FACEBOOK....are we having FUN YET?

AH.

FACEBOOK.

You want everyone to know ALL about you.

And who your friends are.

And all your personal photos.

What could go wrong?

Oh yes.

Join and get pestered by a psycho ex-girlfriend.

Discover what your favorite D-list actress is up to. (Begging everyone to pay attention to her.)

Watch FACEBOOK make a fortune by shoving ads in your face.

Buy bootleg knockoff sunglasses!

Discover your identity got stolen.

Best of all, join GROUPS.