What to start with today, humor or not? Let’s go with humor. Guess what our old friend Mitch Albom is up to? Musical comedy, that’s what:
In regard to bestselling author/journalist Mitch Albom’s new musical comedy stage farce, Hockey: The Musical, the puck will drop mid-May.
…But what will the show be about – beyond, you know, hockey? “In a nutshell, it’s about what happens when the universe, or God, decides there are too many sports in the world, so one has to go,” Albom said. “Hockey has been chosen to be eliminated from the world, but a fan comes forth and begs and says, ‘No, not hockey! Please, please not hockey!’ The deal is, if he can find 5 pure souls to explain why hockey shouldn’t be eliminated, heaven will relent and choose another sport.”
This is almost too wonderful for words. I’m amused by the fact, after I posted this on my Facebook page yesterday, that many people simply assumed it was a parody. After all, it merely tumbles around the usual Albom tropes — five people, a God who worries about inexplicable things like how many sports there are in the world, a Heaven that’s as accessible and ordinary as the conference room down the hall, the whole bit. (You wonder why anyone would strive to get to a heaven that sounds like it’s decorated with posters of kittens hanging from tree branches, and small talk about which sports to abolish.)
Tickets go on sale in two days, if you’d like me to snag you a pair. My heart goes out to the poor Free Press saps who will be roped into promoting this crap.
So, another Wednesday. The governor gave his budget presentation today. You could hear the protestors clamoring outside the hearing room, and he looked rattled by it. Keep in mind this is a guy who was famous for never using a prompter or even notes when he made speeches; he just knew what he was going to say, and said it, up to and including lengthy addresses like the state of the state. Today was a different kettle of fish.
Flint has changed the balance in a rather big way. Interesting times.
How about a little more levity, then?
Mardi Gras in the Upper Peninsula:
Unzip your parka and show us your tits, honeys! Soon it’ll be the weekend.
Dexter said on February 11, 2016 at 2:07 am
“Sure we’ll do it…’Saints’ costs ya $40.”
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David C. said on February 11, 2016 at 6:36 am
At this point, it seems like Snyder has no choice but to resign. He appears to be sticking around to manage the release of information in a way that will make him look better. It isn’t going to work and it will all come out anyway. He might as well leave and let the Lite-Gov try to get on with it. He’ll be a pariah within government, but in the corporate world, he still has what they are looking for. He should take the fat paycheck and go away.
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basset said on February 11, 2016 at 6:45 am
And when they get down to the last layer it’ll look like they’re smuggling raisins…
Been cleaning out the attic, lots of stuff up there we’d forgotten about including some more or less random accumulations of dishes and glassware. Some of it’s pretty old, nicer than the usual run of stuff you’d take to Goodwill (and we’ve done a lot of that already), but we don’t need it. Any ideas about what to do with this stuff other than just put it all in a pile and post a picture on Craigslist?
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David C. said on February 11, 2016 at 7:06 am
The feds arrested the head of Y’all Qaeda. I hope they throw the book, the bench, and the whole damned courthouse at him.
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/02/nevada_rancher_cliven_bundy_de.html
We used to donate our stuff too nice for Goodwill to the local women’s shelter, but now they contract with Goodwill and give a voucher to their clients to shop there for what they need. So now we just go ahead and give it to Goodwill. I’ve never found selling anything on Craigslist to be worth the effort. At least half of the e-mails we got are of the will you take way less than the posted price for whatever variety. The stuff on Craigslist is generally way overpriced, at least the things I know something about are, so maybe there is a perception that every price is padded. I’m not much of a negotiator, so I don’t buy or sell there.
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Alan Stamm said on February 11, 2016 at 7:21 am
Five pure souls? Heck, I’d settle for one pure sportswriter.
Bar too high?
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Julie Robinson said on February 11, 2016 at 7:22 am
Hockey: The Musical is no Hamilton.
Basset, are you on Facebook? FB resale groups are flourishing around here–vintage, upscale, repurposed, etc. You don’t want just a garage sale group; I’d look for vintage. Take a look at ebay completed sales for an idea of what to ask.
Forget unzipping the parkas, playing a brass instrument when it’s that cold requires true commitment. There’s no way you’re coming back with as much skin on your lips as when you went outside.
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basset said on February 11, 2016 at 7:25 am
DavidC, I haven’t had a whole lot of success with Craigslist either. lots of flakes and no-responders. Julie, didn’t think of using FB. I’m not on there except for work but Mrs. B is.
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alex said on February 11, 2016 at 7:32 am
Basset, if it’s really nice stuff you might also donate it to any local nonprofit group that hosts an annual rummage sale as a fundraiser. Also, I don’t know if you have a Habitat for Humanity ReStore in your community, but that’s where we’ve been donating our old appliances and home furnishings lately.
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Jolene said on February 11, 2016 at 7:51 am
basset, another possibility would be to sell your things through an eBay reseller. They’ll do everything–take photos, post listings, and ship goods–for a percentage of the sales. Googling “eBay reseller” should yield some possibilities in your area.
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Suzanne said on February 11, 2016 at 7:52 am
I’ve some success on Craig’s List. Mostly small stuff and nothing I charged much for. It was all stuff I just wanted outta my house, so I didn’t really care about the price.
I’ve bought things off the local Facebook swap n shop, but haven’t had any luck selling.
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Andrea said on February 11, 2016 at 8:04 am
We tried selling our kids’ bunk bed frame on Craigslist and just got a lot of scammers in response. Ended up donating it. It wasn’t worth the hassle of figuring out who is legit or not. Never thought about the eBay resellers though. That sounds like a good idea.
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Deborah said on February 11, 2016 at 8:22 am
Basset, or you could hang on to it until summer along with other stuff you want to get rid of and have a yard sale. In Santa Fe around the third weekend in June must be yard sale day, there seem to be thousands of them all over town. We’re thinking of having one that weekend this summer, maybe inviting some of our neighbors to join us if they have stuff too.
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Icarus said on February 11, 2016 at 8:44 am
@Basset, there are some apps that let you sell from your smart phone. There are also virtual garage sales on Facebook which let you do what’s called Porch Pick-up: someone agrees to buy your stuff, you message them your address. They come and you exchange, or you leave it on your porch and they drop the payment in your mail slot. Some risk of course, but the trade off is not sitting at your own yard sale all afternoon.
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David C. said on February 11, 2016 at 8:52 am
I don’t know how common this is, but here we have a couple who run estate sales and recently opened a store. They sell things on consignment along with the estate sale items. It’s a pretty nice place.
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Sue said on February 11, 2016 at 8:53 am
Basset, if any of it’s family related don’t forget to offer it to family members first. Someone might want Grandma’s ‘good’ set of dishes, the ones where everyone pitched in and shopped at the A&P during the two-month promotion to get for her.
We have my husband’s grandmother’s Currier and Ives set, bought just that way. We used it last Thanksgiving. And a few pieces of my grandmother’s set, same arrangement, which didn’t hold up as well. I can’t tell you how much those dishes mean to me.
I’ve been shopping on Ebay for the last couple of months for Indiana Glass pineapple and floral pattern, trying to complete a set from… ?? … I can’t remember which relative. I love the pattern and finally decided to treat myself.
Not like I need any more dishes. But they’re my weakness, and when I go into St. Vinnie’s (our version of Goodwill), the kitchen section is the first (and usually only) place I go.
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David C. said on February 11, 2016 at 9:01 am
My great-grandmother ordered us to not sell any of her stuff after she died. She said give it to family and burn the rest. She didn’t wan’t other people to make up stories of how her things were in their families for generations.
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Joe K said on February 11, 2016 at 9:24 am
Bassett,
Doesn’t the American picker guys have a store in Nashville?
Try there.
Pilot Joe
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Peter said on February 11, 2016 at 9:27 am
That Instagram made my week. Say Ya to Da Yoopee!!!!
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Joe K said on February 11, 2016 at 9:54 am
Actually had a pasti for supper last night.
Found a place on line that will fed ex them to you frozen from the U.P.
Got 6 for $55 shipping included, a little expensive but well worth it.
Ufta,
Pilot Joe
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beb said on February 11, 2016 at 10:04 am
Hubris finally got to Cliven Bundy. He thought he was too big for the FBI to arrest him, decided to fly to Oregon to see his sons, which decision isolated him from his supporters and so they roped him in. And like DavidC said up above, I hope they throw the whole damn courthouse at him.
Adding Insult to injury, the city of Cleveland has placed a lien on Tamar Rice’s estate for unpaid EMS expenses after the city’s police force murdered him i under ten seconds.
I don’t see Gov. Snyder resigning. He’s at heart a CEO and CEO’s are not quitters (even when they should). Maybe later, when he realizes just just how much of a pariah he’s become he’ll resign. But not now, not this year….
Detroit Schools are so bad that Hollywood celebrities are stepping in to help. Ellen Degeneris has organized a half-million gift from Lowes lumber and hardware to improve conditions for one school. Also a GoFundMe site with a $5 million goal. Whatwe need is an “adopt-a-school” plan for local businesses like GM and Ford.
Mitch Albom. Whyn would God want to abolish Hockey when Football is the worst sport to
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basset said on February 11, 2016 at 10:19 am
Joe, there is indeed a Pickers store here, our stuff’s not quite that interesting. we take out of town visitors there, it’s on the tourist shuttle bus route & you have to line up & wait to get in. Mrs B keeps hoping she’ll see Mike the taller picker in there, no luck yet although he does have a house out in a horsy suburb not too far away.
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Connie said on February 11, 2016 at 10:32 am
Coming to you courtesy of the wifi at the Flint Public Library. The coffee at this workshop is clearly labelled as being made with Absopure water.
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Bitter Scribe said on February 11, 2016 at 10:55 am
the city of Cleveland has placed a lien on Tamar Rice’s estate for unpaid EMS expenses
Come on. That was just a bad Internet hoax, right?
[checks Google news feed]
I have now officially lost my last shred of faith in humanity.
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Jolene said on February 11, 2016 at 11:59 am
In honor of the anniversary of the Beatles’s appearance on Ed Sullivan, Steven Colbert’s bandleader, Jon Batiste, a product of New Orleans and Juilliard, gave this lovely performance a couple nights ago. Beautifully staged too. Worth a few minutes of your time.
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Sherri said on February 11, 2016 at 12:31 pm
Beb, don’t be so quick in letting hockey off the hook. There’s a lawsuit against the NHL over concussions as well, it’s just not as far along as the NFL one, and for all it’s other flaws, the NFL doesn’t have players whose sole purpose for being on the roster is to try and give other players concussions.
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Julie Robinson said on February 11, 2016 at 12:41 pm
Thank you Jolene; he’s a real talent, isn’t he? How lovely to choose such a quiet piece, and how unusual for network TV.
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Jolene said on February 11, 2016 at 1:16 pm
Yes, he’s very impressive. Lots of talent and also lots of sophisticated musical education. Prior to this performance, they showed a video of Colbert visiting New Orleans with Batiste where they met with his high school music teacher. I couldn’t find that excerpt, but it’s in the show from Tuesday night (2/9).. The video was, of course, meant to be amusing, but also revealed that Batiste had been a serious student for a long time.
Colbert has been using his show to feature all sorts of interesting people and performances. One of my favorites was a bit featuring the League of Kitchens, which allowed Stepen to misbehave in entertaining ways while concocting lovely Indian food.
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Judybusy said on February 11, 2016 at 1:26 pm
Bitter, that’s awful!
I don’t think I will sell anything on CL again. There was a recent situation locally where two guys showed up to buy a tablet. They brought a BB gun to the party and said, “Give us everything you’ve got.” And yes, one of those guys is now my client.
Joe K, from a real Minnesotan, that’s uffda, not ufta. You can also make pasties if you don’t mind puttering in the kitchen.
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Connie said on February 11, 2016 at 1:45 pm
My raised in the UP mother in law and her Flint suburban church group make 2,000 pasties once a month. They serve around half hot that day (church is tight next door to GM Partsheadquarters), and sell the rest frozen at $3.75 each.
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Dexter said on February 11, 2016 at 1:52 pm
No mentions of HRC, Bernie, The Donald, the new Joe McCarthy (you know who) …we’re getting better. How refreshing.
And now from a frozen left field, an observation from a retiree who is seldom really pressed for time.
In December, 2014, I got my first Keurig. Easy to set up, gifted also were a few boxes of K-Cups; I was ready to go. I used it exclusively for a few weeks, then one day I brewed a pot of coffee in the way I have for years, the drip style, electric machine. Today I used the Keurig because it had been a week since I used it and I wanted to clean it and make sure it was not clogged. Keurig has been denounced by its inventor as “the cigarette of the coffee scene”. Too easy, top habit forming, and a colossal waste of money. Also, much flak around about the mountains of one-use K-Cups. For the first year I used the refillable K-Cups , but they are a pain in the ass to clean, as I don’t like all the grounds in the garbage disposal, and I’d meticulously take a chopstick and scrape the grounds into the trash.
I do like having the Keurig around for when I truly am rushed, but it is really an extravagance I could do without. I shall keep it, but I still am not board 100%. My next pot is going to be from using my old enamel camp coffee pot from the old days. I make a pot stove-top using that thing once a year just to keep myself humble. I am keen and focussed when t comes to coffee and tea, especially since I no longer spend time studying brands of beer, vintages of wine, or how great bourbons are stored in charred-oak barrels, or how Scots Whiskys are made to achieve degrees of smokiness…now I just try all different kinds of coffees and teas. Now , for me, it’s Twining’s Earl Grey tea and many different brands and styles of coffee beans which I grind three times a week.
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basset said on February 11, 2016 at 2:42 pm
ignorant question of the day… can I forward that Marquette link without having a Pinterest account?
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jcburns said on February 11, 2016 at 3:06 pm
It’s an Instagram link, and it’s here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BBlF4bOwD1E
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Deborah said on February 11, 2016 at 4:10 pm
What’s a pastie? And I don’t mean the ones that strippers wear, so spare me.
Never had a Keurig cup of coffee until right after Christmas when we went to Arizona to visit my husband’s uncle. They only use that machine and I found it a pain because I like 2 or 3 cups in the morning (decaf) and every time I wanted a cup I had to set it up and make one instead of just pouring it out of a pot.
I had a celeb siting in Santa Fe this morning, and darned if I have any idea who he is. He was at the hat place where my husband’s hat was being cleaned and was supposed to be ready but was not. My husband bought his hat there about 20 years ago and about every 6 or 7 years he takes it in and gets it cleaned and spruced up. The celeb was talking to the owner of the place, I totally recognized him and so did little bird but we have no idea what his name is. He’s someone we have seen in a lot of movies and TV but he’s never the leading man, always a sidekick. I am trying to remember something I’ve seen him in but can’t. I finally figured out who one of my celeb sitings I had in NYC was when I finally saw her in something since then, it was the woman who played Piper Chapman’s mom in Orange is the New Black. I still have no recollection of what her name is but at least that mystery is solved.
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jcburns said on February 11, 2016 at 4:22 pm
A pastie is a baked pie created as a warm lunch/hand warmer for coal miners in Cornwall. Traditionally it has a smattering of beef, maybe some potatoes, and rutabagas or other root vegetables. The Cornwallites..uh..Cornish brought this to the US and it caught on, specifically in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It has a pot pie kind of taste, can be filled with pretty much anything savory, and is one of those Things People Offer Tourists up there (although you can get some yummy ones in grocery stores and heat em up yourself.)
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Connie said on February 11, 2016 at 4:38 pm
And the real pasty question: catsup or gravy?
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Jolene said on February 11, 2016 at 5:24 pm
Deborah, Piper Chapman’s mother on OITNB is played by Deborah Rush. I found her name on IMDb.
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Bitter Scribe said on February 11, 2016 at 5:27 pm
I used to edit a magazine for coffeehouse owners. For a column, I did the math and found that on a per-ounce basis, Keurig coffee cost more than the most expensive single-sourced exotic brew in the fanciest coffeehouse.
I titled the column “Invasion of the Coffee Snatchers.” Pods, get it? If you don’t, congratulations on having a life.
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Jolene said on February 11, 2016 at 5:30 pm
Did any of you listen to any of the live stream of the people at Malheur Refuge negotiating their surrender last night and this AM? A link to it came up on Twitter last night, and I listened for a bit. Man, those are some seriously f’d up people. I’m glad they are out of there without more bloodshed and hope that their ineffectual protest reduces the likelihood that there’ll be more such events.
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Bitter Scribe said on February 11, 2016 at 6:13 pm
What I like most about the peaceful resolution is that instead of being martyrs, these “patriots” are being revealed as loons who babble about UFOs and government chemical castration.
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Joe K said on February 11, 2016 at 6:23 pm
Connie @35,
Gravey of course.
Think the wife and I are going to make our own some time soon.
Pilot Joe
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Deborah said on February 11, 2016 at 7:19 pm
Sorry to be so smug, the next week or so in Santa Fe the temps will be in the upper 50s-low 60s. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=Mqyvl_EtlHk
Meanwhile the Midwest is freezing. I’ll be there in about a week and a half, so I’m probably in for it.
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Little Bird said on February 11, 2016 at 7:59 pm
I am so sorry about that “it is cold” video…..
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Jolene said on February 11, 2016 at 8:36 pm
Reminder: Another debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on PBS at 9 PM EST tonight.
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Joe K said on February 11, 2016 at 8:51 pm
Another one, the last debate sounded like a fight at a old peoples home.
Pilot Joe
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susan said on February 11, 2016 at 8:55 pm
Jolene @38 – Yeah, I posted a link to the live stream at the dead-end of the previous post (“Another Snap”). And I listened to some of it. My dog, those people are in another realm. Paranoid god-botherers. Screaming angry child-like ignorant nut-cases with an arsenal. I wondered how many there are like that in this country, and it began to scare me.
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basset said on February 11, 2016 at 9:52 pm
Not gonna post the link here, but there’s a coffee house in St. Louis which has a bunch of pastie photos on its webpage…specifically, close-ups of those little oval “I Voted” stickers used as pasties, no root vegetables involved.
I have had about all I can stand of debates and the Malheur occupiers so far. Looks like The Nuge has finally put his foot in it too far to pull out, though: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/10/gun-rights-advocates-urge-nra-to-remove-ted-nugent-from-board-over-anti-semitic-outburst/
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Jill said on February 11, 2016 at 10:46 pm
Re: pasties. I discovered them when we started going to the U.P. and love them. There’s a small outfit in Kalamazoo that sells them at a farmers’ market I go to in SW Michigan and I stock up for the winter. Besides the beef and Yooper varieties they do delicious spinach and feta ones. Curried chicken, too. They’re a simple meal. In answer to the question upthread, gravy. Ketchup never even occurred to me for them.
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alex said on February 11, 2016 at 11:12 pm
Looks like the Nuge is just doubling down a la Trump and plans to ride it out until the media narrative changes to “Wow, lookee there, he’s got balls!”
I just watched the debate and it reminds me of 2008, when Hillary played fast and loose against Obama and it cost her my respect. She disingenuously faulted Bernie for criticizing Obama and made more of it than what it was. I thought he did a great job of reminding her that she assassinated Obama’s character worse than he ever did.
But unfortunately he still comes across as Johnny One-Note, and although I agree with what he has to say, I’m not sure he has the temperament to be president. I’m not all that sure that she does either. But I wouldn’t vote for any of the Republicans even if you put a gun to my head.
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Brandon said on February 11, 2016 at 11:31 pm
Have you considered the Greens?
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beb said on February 12, 2016 at 12:31 am
A vote for the Green Party is one less vote against the Republican Apocalypse. Third party votes only help the GOP.
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