From the Desk of…
You know, I was thinking of just blowing off the newsletter this week. Hell, I still have half a mind to. I haven’t been able to get my head right since the eclipse. I had a little worry in the back of my skull, after my plaintive pleading with you last week to get out to totality and watch that it would be underwhelming. I mean, more realistically, whelming, but like something on the order of “hey, ain’t that neat!” while thinking “I drove for this?”
Folks, I didn’t sell it hard enough. I mean, I didn’t know. This might shock you, but I generally don’t look at the sun. But, there I was, out in the hinterlands, in the cornfields where I grew up, surrounded by people I’d not seen in years… it was a beautiful day, against all odds. Some cirrus clouds up there, but nothing to impede viewing. Highs in the 70s. The exact kind of day I don’t expect to have in Ohio in April. As one does, our little viewing party had timed out Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon such that the album’s final lyric — “but the sun is eclipsed by the moon,” for anyone who doesn’t know the final line of a fifty-year old record off the dome — hit just when we entered totality. With our proximity to the center, we got about three and a half minutes of… I mean, there are no words. I can tell you directly what I saw, the moon blocking the sun such that the corona and some flaring was visible, but those words lack the intensity of the moment. I’m loathe to be one of those “you had to be there” storytellers, but… I just didn’t understand it. We’ve all seen photos, and those photos are worth a thousand words, but the actual thing was just truly incredible. I… yeah. I only regret underselling it to folks. It’s pretty much the only thing I’ve been able to think about since then, and I don’t know how long it’s going to effectively occupy my brain.
The news, however, marches on. Biden, who on Monday took another swing at student loan debt forgiveness, may not be on the November ballot in Ohio! That’s right, folks. Due to wrinkles in the ever-exciting fields of election law, the nominating convention is scheduled after Ohio law dictates the ballot must be certified. As such… I don’t think the Democratic Party is going to move its convention, and I also don’t think that the Ohio Legislature is going to jump through hoops to get Biden on the ballot. Ain’t politics fun?
Speaking of fun, Tyler Buchanan, who should message me when he reads this so I can check my stopwatch, knocked together a little piece showing how expensive paying out police misconduct cases can be for Columbus! It’s fun to know which crimes your tax dollars pay for. They’re really stretching the dollar these days!
But, despite my ideas of blowing this off, because it was mostly going to be the deranged ramblings of a sun-addled Meow, despite of all my best intentions of maybe taking a break… well, those subscribers who have been hanging around for a minute know that I have no great love of Sam Randazzo, former PUCO chair. Sam’s alleged criminal activity relating to House Bill 6 and his time as an energy regulator for the state have caused me to spill ounces and ounces of digital ink, as new readers can see in the 12/07/2023 and 02/14/2024 dispatches. Well, it’s been two months, and I suppose that means it’s time for an update.
Ex-PUCO chairman dies by suicide while facing state, federal trials for bribery charges
Well, the headline really says it all, doesn’t it? Now, I try not to be conspiratorial about things. It just, as rule, behooves me not to try to string things together on the corkboard. It’s healthier for everyone involved, even me.
…but I just think it’s funny, you know, when you have a case like this being federally investigated for alleged crimes like racketeering, bribery, and, at the least, abuse of the public trust in some of the highest offices in the state, when you have former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for crimes relating to this investigation, when you have that investigation continuing as we roll towards an election, when you have lobbyist Neil Clark also dying by suicide while under this investigation (wearing, one must note, a “DeWine for Governor” t-shirt), when you have the revelation that FirstEnergy secretly donated a million dollars to current Lieutenant Governor and next gubernatorial front-runner Jon Husted’s campaign in 2017, when you have such a confluence of factors, it really starts to beggar belief that there’s not some connection here. As I was saying to someone earlier, I would never go so far as to presume guilt when someone kills themself while under federal investigation for many crimes, but it sure as hell doesn’t make you look innocent. And House Bill 6 is still state law! They’re still getting away with it!
Anyway… at some point, this corkboarding take over the brain and relegate the eclipse to memory. Joy of joys.
The Brain Dump
someone in this meeting just used "freeballing" instead of "freewheeling"
plugging a roku into an old tube television and getting warped into roku city
LL Cool Bean
google search nearest ziggurat
unironically me during totality this afternoon
At the Movies
Yeah, I was watching other things. Sorry not sorry.
Death Race 2000 (1975), dir. Paul Bartel ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ❤️
It's Mad Max, Casablanca, Videodrome. It's today, tomorrow, yesterday. It's a movie with many superiors but no equals. Accept no substitutes.
Lust in the Dust (1984), dir. Paul Bartel ⭐⭐
Way... way less than the sum of its parts. Like, I should be right in the target demo for this and... nope. Does, I think, exactly what it sets out to do, but it just isn't... funny? That's its greatest sin. I think it elicited maybe a few sensible chuckles.
Hairspray (1988), dir. John Waters ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ❤️
See, now that's how you make a John Waters movie. Well... a toned-down John Waters movie. Better than Grease!
One Picture
Happy birthday to film star Jackie Chan (70)!
In closing,
“You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.” Ricky Nelson — well, Rick, he was a grown man then — wrote that into “Garden Party” after he was booed during a show at Madison Square Garden. Too often in life do we let perfect be the enemy of good, keeping our prospects minimized by narrowing our choices. Everyone’s entitled to having standards, but they’ve got to be your standards. You’ll drive yourself up the wall trying to meet everyone else’s standards. When I got into the village on Monday, I was greeted with a crockpot of chili that was just finishing up (by the way, more people should greet me like this). The cook quickly and somewhat apologetically explained that the chili wasn’t very spicy but that there was hot sauce available. She knew that it wouldn’t be possible to meet everyone’s desired spice levels, so she did her best — and that was what mattered. Rarely in life do we find the perfect solution that covers all wants and needs without compromise. More often, we just have to find something that’s good (or at least good enough), something that pleases ourselves. After all, how happy do you think everyone around will be if you’re miserable?
Until next time, don’t let your thinking become too uptight.
Just shy of two hours, thanks Tyler!