Let’s make this a quick one today. I’m tired and need some light lifting. But I don’t want to let another day pass without showing you who stopped by Jeff TMM’s back yard a few days back:

I count eight points on that bad boy, how about you? A trophy on any hunter’s wall. But I’m rooting for him to make it through another season.

The other day I showed up for my Monday boxing class, and was the only one there. No biggie, it just means a private session with the trainer, always a good thing. Traffic was light on the way to work, at a time slot where it’s never light. And even Alan came home early on Monday, reporting that news didn’t happen because the auto plants were closed and everyone was on light duty. Why? Gun season opened over the weekend.

It’s a big deal in Michigan. In West Virginia, it’s a school holiday, or so I’m told.

What is there to report?

Charlie Sheen has HIV, and has spent millions, he says, keeping it quiet over the last four years. I guess it was to preserve his reputation, because it’s so sterling.

Ben Carson is hung out to dry by an advisor, quoted by name, in the New York Times. And what an advisor to choose in the first place. Later, doc.

Paris isn’t over, and now it’s Germany. Ai-yi-yi.

With that, let’s drag ourselves through hump day together.

Monday was the birthday twins’ special day, so Kate came home over the weekend to eat cake with her father. We drove her back on Sunday and ate at a fairly awful Chinese restaurant in Ann Arbor before dropping her at her dorm. But! It was a worthwhile experience, because we sat next to a table of athlete/frat bros, and eavesdropped shamelessly on their conversation, which ended up being about women, of course.

What women are 10s? they discussed. The main point of contention seemed to be whether Victoria’s Secret models were 10s by default, having been admitted to the most exalted realm of female pulchritude, or whether there were gradations of heat within the Victoria’s Secret pantheon.

“They’re, like, the primo examples of humanity,” one protested. Another was pickier. Heidi Klum, well past her VS years, was a permanent 10, a hall-of-fame 10, but the rest of them? They would have to apply one by one.

The Derringers sat with ears cocked like cocker spaniels, listening to this. The best entertainment is our fellow human beings.

Which is why today’s bloggage kicks off with examples of humanity at its most confounding, including a man who paid $718,000 to a series of psychics, because he was lonely:

He knew none of it made sense: He was a successful and well-traveled professional, with close to seven figures in the bank, and plans for much more. And then he gave it all away, more than $718,000, in chunks at a time, to two Manhattan psychics.

They vowed to reunite him with the woman he loved. Even after it was discovered that she was dead. There was the 80-mile bridge made of gold, the reincarnation portal.

“I just got sucked in,” the man, Niall Rice, said in a telephone interview last week from Los Angeles. “That’s what people don’t understand. ‘How can you fall for it?’”

This, on the other hand, is a scary-as-hell story about how life and law enforcement works in the Deep Souf’, and how it led to the death of a little boy in the proverbial hail of gunfire.

And with a shift, we pivot to a topic near and dear to my heart: The meeeeedia. Which, it would seem, is getting tired of being a punching bag. In three pieces:

One:

There absolutely is room for debate about the proportionality of coverage of an incident like this compared to something like the Paris attacks that happened on Friday, but to say that the media don’t cover terrorism attacks outside of Europe is a lie.

They do.

But as anyone working in the news will tell you, if you look at your analytics, people don’t read them very much.

Two:

We live in a world now where no one wants to pay for news. Newspapers are struggling, and foreign bureaus have been shuttering for years. Many of the buzzy new media sites don’t have foreign bureaus or even much original reporting from overseas (with a handful of notable exceptions, and good on them). Publications are increasingly dependent on freelancers abroad, who do their work for low pay, with virtually no institutional resources behind them, often at significant personal risk. To suggest that “no one” is reporting on Beirut, on Garissa, on Baghdad is an affront and an insult to the great many professionals who put their lives in jeopardy to do just that.

We complain that we don’t see the reporting we want. But aside from an outraged Facebook status, many of us in the U.S. don’t actually seem to want the kind of reporting we claim to value — we’re overwhelmingly not paying to subscribe to the outlets that do good, in-depth reporting about places around the world. Aside from when tragedy strikes, we’re not sharing articles on Beirut or a city we’ve never heard of in Kenya nearly as often as many of us are sharing pieces about Paris, or even 10 Halloween Costumes for Feminist Cats.

And three:

Since college students are free to vent what they feel about the media, it’s only fair that the media return the favor.

So allow me, based, not on biases absorbed from my parents along with my Maypo, but on actual experience, teaching college courses, including one at Loyola.

College kids don’t know shit. The average college student couldn’t find his ass with both hands and a map. I once taught a journalism course for the State University of New York’s Maritime College. At the end of the final exam, I prefaced the extra credit questions with, “A journalist should have a rough idea of what is going on in the world.” One question was: “With the collapse of the Soviet Union, one Communist super power remains. What is it?” Some students guessed “Cuba.” Others, “Iraq.” Some didn’t even hazard an attempt.

That should give you enough to chew over for a Tuesday. Me, I’m back at work.

I knew bringing up Missouri would put everybody in a testy mood, so instead, today, for Blessed Friday, let’s go in a different direction, and mourn Carol Doda, the now-departed former centerpiece of the Condor club in San Francisco. Tom Wolfe wrote an essay about her; she’s said to have invented the topless-entertainment dynamic. And now she has gone the way of all flesh, even flesh that’s had silicone directly injected into its breasts. (Shudder.)

It so happens Alan and I were just discussing her the other day; a local burlesque dancer I follow on Instagram was dancing at the Condor. The local dancer is Roxi D’lite, and she posts excellent cheesecake pictures every day or three, although she’s been a little scant this week. She was at the top of my feed when I opened it once, during a break in a staff meeting a few months ago. I think it was to this one:

I like spankings. 👏😉 Image by @d2thearcy & Roxi D'Lite Photography. #pinup #fishnets #booty #junkinthetrunk #roxidlite #roxidlitephotography

A photo posted by Roxi D'Lite (@roxi_dlite) on Apr 2, 2015 at 11:06am PDT

One of my bosses was sitting next to me. Awk-ward.

So, with cheesecake, let’s go to some quick bloggage:

Neil Steinberg covers a speech by Caitlyn Jenner.

The poop swastika. It does exist.

And I’m outta gas. Don’t spend too much time with Roxi! See you after the weekend.

Every time I go north of the border — or, as Detroiters inevitably point out, south, at least if you’re headed to Windsor — I’m impressed by something new. Like your plastic money:

“Why can’t we have plastic money?” I mused at one point. We decided the tea party wouldn’t allow it, because Obama. They’ve also done away with pennies. If you buy something that rings up at $1.82, you pay $1.80. Is this a great country, or what?

It was Halloween weekend, and we did Halloweeny things. Besides the “Frankenstein” play, we spent a few hours on Oct. 31 at a screening of “Nosferatu,” the 1921 version, with Radiohead’s “Kid A” as the soundtrack. You could watch it here if you like, but the guy who screened it in Toronto said it was his idea and he did it first. He was a real original. He shows movies in his living room. Six people were at this screening, and we were two of them.

But it’s a cool idea, and the music fit the action very well.

In between was a lot of walking and talking and shopping and eating and just looking around. Alan and I have our own way of doing cities. It works for us.

And now we have houseguests, unexpected ones — J.C and Sammy are passing through en route to Atlanta from the U.P. Of course, we took some pictures of the supermodel in the house:

That rug really pulls the room together.

There’s more to the weekend, but I’m so whipped now, and full of tapas and wine and impending sleep. Did you read this Mark Fisher piece on Trump over the weekend? You should:

For some supporters, especially those in the second half of life, Trump’s slogan is a tribute to a simpler time. “He could have said, ‘Make America what it was before’ and I would have voted for him,” said Jane Cimbal, 69, who lives in Winchester and signed up to collect signatures to get Trump on the Virginia ballot. “The last time we had good jobs and respect for the military and law enforcement was, oh, probably during Eisenhower.”

Cimbal doesn’t view Trump as an optimist of the Reagan stripe, but she’s okay with voting for a harsh critic. “He speaks his mind,” she said. “So many of the others are wishy-washy. Mr. Trump isn’t a provocateur to annoy people but to get them thinking.”

These people.

OK, toddling off to bed. Thinking about Canada, writing more later.

Friends, I’d hoped to update the blog on the way back from Toronto, but the wifi on Via Rail was on the fritz. I ask you! Where is my free flying carpet of information, Canadian rail system? How is a civilized human being supposed to endure in this sort of primitive state?

We didn’t get home until after 11, so I was pretty zonked to do it then. In the meantime, accept this photograph:

Because this is what I have to do now: Get to work. See you tomorrow.

Day one report, or Travel is Very Broadening, Even Little Trips, or Two Things I Learned Yesterday:

Thing one: A staged reading of “Frankenstein” taught me that if you think this story is abput laBORatories and EEgore and torches and pitchforks, you don’t know “Frankenstein.” It’s really a story about gods and creations and fathers and sons and, of course, heartbroken women. (I also saw a side idea about schizophrenia and psychotic breaks, but the monster was real, after all.) More on this later, when I have a real keyboard.

Thing two: If you get a chance to eat in an Iranian restaurant, take it.

OK, one more thing: It’s hard tomtype on an iPad.

Later, folks!

A photo posted by nderringer (@nderringer) on Oct 29, 2015 at 4:34pm PDT

What is up with this week? Everything is breaking my way. Not in a winning-lottery-ticket sense (alas), but calls are getting returned, people are saying yes when there’s a strong possibility of a no, and I woke up today not with a cold, but feeling pretty good after 6.5 solid hours of unconsciousness. So maybe I should buy a lottery ticket. Or brace for the inevitable crash.

It was another nice day, so I took Wendy to the dog park for her afternoon constitutional. This is the one in Detroit, which differs from the one in Grosse Pointe Woods in that it doesn’t require a license, shot records and a $20 pass (predicated on the license and shot records AND proof of $100,000 in personal liability insurance). It just requires you show up with your dog, so that’s what we did. She played with at least five others pups, and they all enjoyed sniffing each others’ butts and precious bodily fluids:

Now she’s asleep next to me on the couch. Dreaming of that huge Bouvier des Flandres, I’m sure.

So a quick pass through the bloggage:

Benghazi-Benghazi-Beetlejuice! Hillary held her own. More than held her own. Which means what? The hearings will continue. The GOP is so hungry for blood they’re eating their own legs. Here’s a human-element piece about the emails; you’ll like it.

I loved Jan Hooks on Saturday Night Live — she and Phil Hartman were some of my favorite performers of that era. Grantland looks at her unconventional career, a year after her death at 57.

You know those raunchy banners frats hang during back-to-school week? They’re not so bad. Found myself liking this more than I expected.

Oh, weekend. Where have you been?

I went home from work early today, feeling like crap. Might be the early warnings of a cold, might just be a lack of sleep. In the meantime, here’s another flower picture:

A 20-minute nap helped a little. I took Wendy out for her evening walk just at twilight, a freakishly warm one. Here’s another tweaked picture, but the original didn’t quite capture what it was like to come across this yellow beauty gathering all the fading light for itself. So I helped it a little:

Now I’m going to swallow some melatonin and hope for six or seven solid hours. Enjoy yourselves today.

The Flower House has me looking at plants differently. Like, oh, this head of romenesco I snagged at the market on Saturday:

Granted, that’s an Instagram filter kicking the color up a bit, but the shape is all mother nature’s. Or rather, mother nature plus some selective botanical fiddling. Isn’t it pretty?

Monday and Tuesday were good days, in the sense that things generally went my way and the weather was nice and I didn’t blow out my calorie allotment and there were no traffic jams and life was good. This is why, when people whine that there is no “good news” in the paper and why can’t Hollywood make a movie about good people doing good things, they are talking out their ass. Because who would see such a film? We had an editor who used to handle the no-good-news-in-the-paper calls, and he would always point out that there was a good-news story in the paper today, and yesterday, and the day before that, etc. He would tell them what they were, specifically. They never even noticed them. Because most good-news stories are boring, and bad-news stories at least offer the sick thrill of learning that there are people in the world who savagely attack EMTs.

So sorry, not much to report or even comment on. There was this:

MARION, Ala. — Judge Marvin Wiggins’s courtroom was packed on a September morning. The docket listed hundreds of offenders who owed fines or fees for a wide variety of crimes — hunting after dark, assault, drug possession and passing bad checks among them.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” began Judge Wiggins, a circuit judge here in rural Alabama since 1999. “For your consideration, there’s a blood drive outside,” he continued, according to a recording of the hearing. “If you don’t have any money, go out there and give blood and bring in a receipt indicating you gave blood.”

For those who had no money or did not want to give blood, the judge concluded: “The sheriff has enough handcuffs.”

Yes, it’s come to this.

More NYT, in a long but readable story illustrating why, exactly, it’s dumb to sleep with your co-workers.

And with that, bedtime calls me.

Contrary to my fears, Patti Smith wasn’t bad at all. A little reading, a little Q&A, two songs, a signing that was probably hours long (we didn’t wait in the line). The ticket price included a book:

She read from a chapter about life in St. Clair Shores, which absolutely nobody spells “Saint Clair Shores,” except for Patti in her new memoir-ish book, “M Train.” There are a couple of chapters about her life there, but the one she read from was about how they lived in a house on a canal and bought an old Chris-Craft Constellation, which they parked in the yard and poked around at restoring. (She doesn’t hyphenate Chris-Craft, either. IT IS HYPHENATED, DAMMIT.) Anyway, it took a while and Fred, her husband, would sit on board on summer nights and listen to the Tigers “on shortwave radio,” another weird touch, as a plain old transistor AM model would do. She read a line that rang a distant bell in my brain, but it took my smart husband, reading it in the book later, to point out:

“It turned out that our wooden boat had a broken axle…”

The boat came to a bad end before they got it fixed up, and that was probably for the best, because I don’t think they would have been safe out there on the water, even if they had fixed that axle.

I was most relieved by the fact she seemed as put off by stupid questions as I have been by their inclusion in every story about her for the past million years. Where should artists go to create? That sort of thing. She had a puppet in her pocket; she explained she’s a grandmother now, and she answered that one in the puppet voice.

So all in all, a successful evening. It was a beautiful night, and that helped:

Now I’m watching the Democratic debate, so to speak, although I have little patience for this bullshit of late. I hate everything about it, so I’m going to turn it off very soon. It’s only a matter of time before these events start to include actual dogs and ponies. Let’s skip to the bloggage:

Would you like to be depressed about mass shootings? Read Malcolm Gladwell on the subject:

In the day of Eric Harris, we could try to console ourselves with the thought that there was nothing we could do, that no law or intervention or restrictions on guns could make a difference in the face of someone so evil. But the riot has now engulfed the boys who were once content to play with chemistry sets in the basement. The problem is not that there is an endless supply of deeply disturbed young men who are willing to contemplate horrific acts. It’s worse. It’s that young men no longer need to be deeply disturbed to contemplate horrific acts.

That’s the final paragraph. The previous zillion are no more heartening.

And if you grew up reading the funnies, as I imagine a lot of us did, you might enjoy this piece on the evolution of “Peanuts,” which was simply enormous as a pop-cultural force when I was a kid, but slid into irrelevancy and by the end of Charles Schulz’ life, a pastel shadow if its former self. Of course it’s still running in hundreds of papers, as reruns. Ai-yi-yi.