The Demon of the Dunes Attacks Cape Cod

From out of the dunes and on to Commercial Street in Provincetown, comes The Black Flash, also known as The Demon of the Dunes. It's free to watch! For a quick chill, click the link.. https://youtu.be/i_P18M20OyA

This video is based on stories claimed to be true and which were published in the well respected newspaper, the Provincetown Advocate. 

it's here.....The Demon of the Dunes, AKA "The Black Flash"

Humanity's Last Chance - flash fiction film

What Lies Beyond? A Short Fish Tale

Hundreds of Ancient Skeletons Found in Tiny Lake

Hundreds of corpses have been discovered in a tiny lake in the Himalaya Mountains.  The skeletons were thought to belong to Japanese soldiers who perished during World War Two.  It turns out they are older, much older.

Discover the secrets of Skeleton Lake in the brief YouTube Video

"Who's Stealing the Skeletons from the Lake?"

Click the link to view

https://studio.youtube.com/video/_wdEsnitDlY

12 Across the Border

In Madawaska, Maine, at the Northernmost border crossing in the 48 adjacent states, 12 eerie people walk across the international bridge from Canada in 40 below zero weather.  The border agents sense that the odd dozen have uncanny powers that could alter the very fabric of our nation.  Do they allow them entry?  Find out in '12 Across the Border', the second installment of my series "New Classic Tales."  It's a 12 minute flight in fantasy on digital film. The first chapter, Midnight Madness, is also on YouTube as well as on this blog.  

Just released: The video of my latest eerie short tale, Midnight Madness

Use 'Analogy' in a Sentence

from the "Knotso Clanky" series 

by Bill Russo

Amazon Author

Read Swamp Tales

 for Free on Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/Swamp-Tales-Horrors-Hockomock-Marshes-ebook/dp/B00PJK6KXC

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There's No Secret to Success - it is an Ore

by Bill Russo

Amazon Author of Jimmy Catfish, the Creature From the Bridgewater Triangle, 

Ghosts of Cape Cod, Swamp Tales and more. https://www.amazon.com/Ghosts-Cape-Cod-Bill-Russo-ebook/dp/B01BL1TP7U

I'm pretty sure that we've all had at least one great idea in our lifetime. Many years ago when I had an interest in a pizza shop as well as a video store - I had the idea to deliver pizzas and movies.

I talked about the idea with my business partner, my wife, and many of the customers.  I talked about it and talked about it and never took action.

A few years later an upstart company called Domino's Pizza began delivering pizzas and my little video store was being crushed by a carnivorous chain called 'Blockbuster Video'. 

If I had stopped talking about my idea and put it into operation,  you might be having Russo's Pizza tonight instead of Domino's.

I got to thinking about it this morning and realized that inspiration, or an idea, is the easy part.  

I summed up my thoughts in the picture below.  

Most people have one or the other. Those who have used both, have names like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, 

Warren Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg.

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Will Belichick Dump Tom Brady?

Will Belichick Dump Tom Brady?

by Bill Russo

retired editor of several 

Newspapers in New England

Not every football fan in the United States will agree that Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback in NFL history, but even his most severe critics do not think that he’s only the 43^rd best player in the league.

And yet, that’s how the New England Patriots value the man who has been their starting quarterback for 17 years, and who led them to nine Super Bowls, with six victories.

There are almost four dozen NFL players (as of the 2018 season) who make more money than Number 12, and I’ll bet you five bucks you’ve never even heard of some of them.

Tom Brady made 20 million dollars in 2018.  His base salary was 15 million dollars the rest of the money came from bonuses.

According to SB Nation, there were more than 40 players making more than Brady’s base figure and 16 that made more than 20 million.  Some of these guys are hardly household names.

How well do you know Khalil Mack (41 million) or Aaron Donald (40 million) or Alex Smith (40 million)?

  

How about Jimmy Garappolo,  the young phenom the Patriots chose not to keep?  He made over 27 million last season!

Here are a few more players who make far more money than Brady the B-O-A-T: the Best Of All Time – Aaron Rodgers (33.5 mil), Matt Ryan (30 mil), Kirk Cousins (28 Mil), and Matt Stafford (27 Mil).

The NFL considers itself the premiere sport of the United States, yet even the regional sport of Hockey pays its top star more than Tom makes.  Somebody named Connor McDavid makes 19 million.  John Tavares is paid 17 million and Sidney Crosby’s salary is over 16 million – and this from a sport that didn’t even have a national television contract until the 1980s.

In baseball the 24^th highest salary of 24 million dollars goes to J.D. Martinez of the Boston Red Sox.  His paycheck is dwarfed by team-mate, David Price who gets 31 million as well as by Chris Sale who will make 30 million for the 2020 season, even if he doesn’t pitch a single inning!  Baseball pays its top earner, Stephen Straussberg, 38 million a year.

Basketball is even more extravagant.  A check of the NBA reveals that its 43^rd highest paid player, Giannis Antetokounmpo at 27.5 mil makes almost twice as much his NFL counterpart, Tom Brady.

Twenty NBA players, many of whom you have never heard of , make between 30 and 40 mil a year!  Almost three dozen more make between 20 and 29.9 mil per season!  

The 43^rd highest paid pro baskeball ball athlete is Marc Gasol of Toronto and he makes six million more than Tom Brady. 

To match up Tom’s paycheck to a basketball player’s, you’ll have to dive down to the 53^rd highest paid player in the NBA.  A guy named Malcom Brogdon draws 20 mil from the Indiana Pacers.

Only soccer, which has some 24 teams in the MLS, pays its stars less than Tom Brady.  The top players of the American soccer league, which has yet to really catch hold in the states, make between 7 and 8 million a year – about equal to a fair to middling relief pitcher in baseball. 

Worldwide however, Soccer (called  Football or ‘Futbol’ in in most of the world) pays its top tier competitors very well, with Ronaldo Messi the highest compensated player.  He makes a whopping 93 million a year!

Should the fans of New England start a Go Fund Me for Tom Brady? 

I think that the answer to that question lies in Tom’s team mentality.  He’s taken a slew of pay reductions designed to allow the team to stay competitive.  It’s very obvious that money has never been his top consideration.

Tom has been more than willing to assist the team over the years – but you have to wonder how much that will mean to Coach Belichick.  The wiley ol’ sourpuss has unceremoniously dumped a number of stars from the team when he felt they were on the downslide.
  

What about Tom?  Will we soon see Brady in a Colts uniform with another Belichick cast-off - Adam Vinatieri, the 46 year old place kicking hero of three Patriot Super Bowls? 

Time will tell, but Belichick won't and neither will the B.O.A.T.

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by Bill Russo

author of the Ghosts of Cape Cod, Jimmy Catfish,

the Creature from the Bridgewater Triangle and other books

available from all on-line retailers.

The Red Sox Fired the Wrong Guy!

The Red Sox Fired the Wrong Guy!

Why Alex Cora Should have been Fired and not Dave Dombrowski

by Bill Russo 

Eddie Rodriguez has won 16 games this season.  All the rest of the Red Sox starters put together in one large trash heap, have not even been able to double up on the big lefty’s wins.  

Porcello, Price, and Sale are a combined 25-27 (as of early September) and one less than half of those wins were gifts to a very shaky Porcello.  During one horrible stretch of five games in late July, Porcello gave up more than five runs in each contest, yet won them all because the ballclub scored ten or more runs in each of his five terrible starts!

"Steady Eddie" Rodriguez the Ace of the Red Sox

So the easy answer here is, the Red Sox will miss the playoffs this year because of failed starting pitching.

WRONG!

The Red Sox will fail to see October because of failed managing.  Alex Cora has proven himself to be totally ineffective in handing the pitching staff. Case in point, the game of August 3, 2019 at Fenway Park against the Minnesota Twins:  

Rick Porcello gave up a run in the first inning and two more in the third inning, by which time he should have been given a bar of soap and been told to take a shower and clean himself off!  

But since Cora doesn’t seem to be able to lift a starter until total meltdown, Porcello was left in for a disastrous fifth inning in which he gave up three more runs.
  

Oh by the way the Red Sox scored four runs in the bottom of the inning and would have been leading 4-3 but for Cora’s obtuseness!  The bullpen slammed the barn door after the fifth and did not allow a run the rest of the way.  This has been happening far too often lately.  You could look it up.

An old time newspaperman named Dan Shaughnessy who writes for Boston Herald or the Boston Globe reportedly  wrote a column recently that General Manager Dave Dombrowski will take the hit for this disappointing season.  The inference was that the writer had inside information from the Sox front office that Dombrowski will be fired. 

I read the Cape Cod Times and not the Herald or the Globe so I did not see the column and in fact I didn’t even know Shaughnessy was still working, or in Boston....but I do know this.  Dave Dombrowski assembled the team that won 108 games.

Old fossil or not, Shaughnessy was right on this.  A week after the original version of' this post......Dave Dombrowski was sick of hearing that he would not be back next season.  He shot it out with management and lost!  

Dave, according to published reports, said he wanted an extension of his contract.  The owners said 'no deal'! Things got heated and Dave quit.  An hour or so later the Red Sox 'Fired' the man who had just resigned! 

Dombrowski leaves the team after leading them to the post season three years in a row, and after delivering the best team in the entire 118 year history of the ball club - the 108 win 2018 season in which the Sox won the World Series for the fourth time in the new century.

Now back to Cora...……….
  

Cora mismanaged the team last year, but whatever he did worked out.  Cora almost singlehandedly lost the 2018 World Series by allowing the washed up Vulture, Craig Kimbrell  to pitch despite his ERA of almost 12 runs per nine inning in the ALDS.  

It was obvious to everyone except Cora that the ‘Vulture’, so named for the birdlike stance he adopts before serving up his pitches, was all done.  

Further proof of Kimbrell’s loss of ability is his 2019 ERA of 5.55 for the Chicago Cubs, who are giving him 16 million a year for three years!  Dave Dombrowski dumped Kimbrell because he knew the one time great was at the end of the road.

Same with Joe Kelly.  Fight Club Kelly is a loveable guy and fans really took to him, but he had a 100 mile an hour heater that had about as much guidance as a kindergarten class taught by Groucho Marx and his brothers.  

The one, the only.....Groucho!

Kelly threw more heat than Ol' Scratch himself, but nobody, including Kelly, had any idea where that ball was headed.  Under the principle of adding to your bullpen by subtraction, Kelly was let go by the Red Sox. For the Cubs in 2019 so far, Joe has an ERA of over 4.55 and a salary of almost 30 million over three years.

Shades of the Great Bill Lee, Fight Club Kelly

beating up on Yankees to the delight of the Fenway Flock.

Dave Dombrowski was criticized for giving Chris Sale a long term deal.  Chris performed exceedingly and went 29 and 12 his first two seasons with the Red Sox.  His ERA was far South of 300. He was a giant factor in the 2018 success.  Chris’ salary is about the same as Kelly and Kimbrell put together.  I think that based on what he’s done in the past, he’s worth the gamble, although his future may be as a closer, not a starter.

Well that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  FIRE CORA. FIRE HIS PITCHING COACH.  

I’ll leave you with one suggestion for a former player who would make a great Red Sox manager.

Dustin Pedroia.

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Full Disclosure.  I never worked for the Boston Globe. I wasn't good enough.  I also never worked for the Boston Herald.  I did work for some small newspapers and though I had some minor success, I should never have the temerity to criticize by betters, meaning Dan Shaughnessy - but I do!

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I A'int Black and You A'int White

I never performed in 'Blackface' but being a child of the 1940s I attended minstrel shows. I also watched Al Jolson movies and saw him perform 'Mammy' in 'Blackface'. When I watched these things all I saw was entertainment and humor. Though I was only nine or ten years old the first time I went to a minstrel show, I knew the difference between humor and hatred, between racism and tolerance.  

I knew that the characters depicted did not represent an entire race of dark skinned people any more than 'Snuffy Smiff'  represented an entire race of light skinned people.

Before you judge somebody 'convicted' of such performances you need to understand the culture of the times.... also you should know that "I Ain't Black and You Ain't White"...

 I've made it a free read on Smashwords...click to read the true life story of how I found out I'm not black and you are not white. 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/720718

The Best Way to Kill Time

From my "Knotso Clanky" series

here's a few observations and comments

from a guy who may not be every-man

but he's like many men

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Knotso's Talent

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Knotso and the Mrs. Playing Word Games

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More Word Play 

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The Night Knotso Tended Bar

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And finally, here's one that does not feature Knotso.  This is 

an illustration of one of my many inventions.  I'm sure you'll be seeing this soon on late night TV.  Buy one for just $29.95 -

but wait there's more.  Order now and we'll send you another one absolutely free, just pay another $29.95 shipping charge......

That's Not All Folks

but That's All for Now!

All drawings copyright 2019 by Bill Russo.  For usage contact Billrrrrr@yahoo.com 

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Barry McGuire - Thriving After the Eve of Destruction

Barry McGuire

Thriving After the Eve of Destruction

by Bill Russo

In a single take, Barry McGuire recorded the anthemic folk song “Eve of Destruction” which became a world- wide smash. Reaching number one in the U.S. in the final week of September, 1965, it managed to slow down the ‘British Invasion’ by dropping the Beatles song  “Help” to the number two spot on the Billboard and Cashbox music charts.

Selling more than a million records almost overnight, the tune cast such a large shadow that Barry’s other great songs were overlooked or forgotten.  This situation resulted in some misinformed writers to pin the “One Hit Wonder” tag on a singer who has had major success over some five decades in the music business.

After seeing Barry McGuire’s name recently at the very top of such a list in the Microsoft News feed, I felt the need to set the record straight. 

Barry McGuire was a big star both before THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION and after THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION.

I’ll prove that statement in the next few sentences. Let’s start with 1963, two years before his ‘overnight success’ with Eve of Destruction.  During this period he joined the New Christy Minstrels.  In point of fact, he was the lead singer of the popular group which was the star attraction of the Andy William show on NBC-TV. 

Barry co-wrote and sang the lead on the global hit, “Green Green”.  The Minstrels with Barry in front toured the world and sold many millions of copies of both the 45 rpm single of the tune as well as the album in which it was included. 

In 1965 Barry left the minstrels and had incredible success with his monster hit as well as other tunes that made the charts.  We don’t know how many more folk and folk rock hits Barry might have had, because something happened to alter his musical style forever. 

In 1971 Barry became a Born Again Christian and concentrated on Christian music.  In this increasingly popular genre, he has released several albums and singles over the last 50 years including ‘Cosmic Cowboy’ which went to Number One on the Contemporary Christian Music Charts and stayed there for 35 weeks. 

After seeing Microsoft’s list of One Hit Wonders I searched out Barry’s website and reached out to him, explaining that I felt a bit of anger at the ‘B S’ of him being called a one hit wonder.  

Check out Barry’s website (www.barrymcguire.com) to view some great information his career, pictures, inside stories and how he managed to survive and thrive through a half-century in the music business.  

Barry's other website is also worth checking out.  It's called Trippin' the 60s... 

(http://trippinthesixties.com/)

Shortly after I sent a message to him, I received an e-mail from 

Barry and his wife of 36 years, Mari.  I’d like to share some of the 

contents with you.

“First of all, I’ve always loved what I’ve done.  Through my teenage years I followed my heart, working as a commercial fisherman, lying about my age at 16 years old and joining the Navy.  

They found out I was too young to be in the Navy, said they appreciated my patriotism, and told me I should go home and grow up.

 Once again I followed my heart into the construction industry working as a pipe fitter for six years, loving every minute of it, the men, the jobs, the locations.  Then at 25 years old I heard a folk singer in a little club in Laguna Beach.  I fell in love with the genre and the following week I bought a guitar. Within a month I was offered a job singing at a little club in Santa Monica. 

 I’ve never auditioned for a part.  People would see me and say, “Hey, can you come and sing in my club?"  Randy Sparks caught my show one night and invited me to become a part of his new group, The New Christy Minstrels.  

In 1963 Randy and I wrote Green Green, the NCM’s biggest hit.  I left the Minstrels in 1965, was dancing one night while the Byrds were on stage singing their new hit, Tamborine Man.  

A record producer, Lou Adler, saw me dancing, called me over to his table, introduced me to P.F. Sloan and two weeks later we recorded Eve of Destruction in one take.  Then I got a call from New York to come play the male lead in the Broadway musical, Hair.”  

Just 12 months after his star turn on Broadway, Barry’s life changed forever.  It was all due to a little paperback book.  Barry explains….

“The book was called “Good News for Modern Man.” I read it through and found the teachings of Jesus Christ to answer all of my Eve of Destruction questions.  It wasn’t religion, it wasn’t Christianity, it wasn’t “the church”, it was Christ within me.  I found my karmic debt had been resolved, (and believe me, it was quite a debt.)  

Continuing to follow my heart, which I discovered was where the voice of Christ whispered to me, I left LA to talk with Eddie Siroonian, my Armenian uncle who knew Christ.  

In 1972 I met a New Zealand girl who was on a similar path in Christ.  In 1973 we were married, and 46 years later, she’s typing these words as I speak them.

 So I guess the answer to your question, “How have I managed to do so well for so long?” is to be found in your own heart.  It’s The Christ within us who holds all the answers.  It’s just a case of surrender into the reality of each moment as they unfold around us.”

And so ends the comments from Mr. Barry McGuire – the MULTI-HIT WONDER.  
I deeply appreciate Barry taking the time to respond to me and Mrs. McGuire (Mari) for all the typing help.  

Be sure to visit Barry’s website to view the photos, read his stories, and view his store where he has made available a dozen different CDs new and old, and all autographed at no extra charge.

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The Wild West is Back!

Though the weight of pain from all the mass shootings, makes me think everybody in Texas should have a Colt 45 snugged into a holster affixed to a full cartridge belt wrapped tightly around the waist - I wonder if somehow we are only attempting to put out fire with fire.

Part of me really likes the idea of an armed citizen depositing 
a few slugs in the lunatic brain of a mass murderer.  But the other side of my brain suggests that the crazies who kill multiple people they don't even know, have no fear of being killed.  Perhaps, they wish to be killed.


What do you think?

My Facebook friend Chip DePew had the following thoughts which seem to me to be spot on...….

"This is the ultimate catch situation. Firearms should be legal until they are used for illegal things, in which case it's to late to act preemptively.

Statistically, the more firearms, the more instances of accidents, legal and illegal use.

Banning (expressly semi-automatic firearms) would deprive only those who would use them legally of their right, not privilege to own or use them. Those who use firearms illegally will enjoy easier targets. The police will have the joy of confronting both types of people daily and the dangers of the job just doubled.

Sometimes the easy, immediate "solution" is the worst option. There are plenty of other completely rational actions that can be taken yet extremists won't consider the data for what it is, not what they want it to be."

Feel free to add your comments - either in this space or by sending me an email, Billrrrrr@yahoo.com