Friday, July 31, 2020

Advising Trump on Delaying the Presidential Election....



Newsflash: Dateline, Harwich, Cape Cod, U.S.A.

Trump Asks Noted Cape Cod Slubberdegullion Knotso Clanky, for advice on delaying the scheduled November Presidential Election....


Knotso Clanky is Bill Russo's occasional commenter on everything from the state of the world to the state of the cornflakes that have been on a shelf in his pantry for several months, and everything in between.  Knotso makes infrequent appearances in Adventures in Type and Space and on YouTube and Facebook.  

Bill Russo, best known for his appearance on Monsters and Mysteries in America on Destination America, and in the Bridgewater Triangle Documentary; is the author of more than four dozen books and shorts stories, available on all major bookselling sites such as Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble and more.  Much of his work is FREE on Smashwords.  
He also is the producer, writer, and director of the FREE podcast, Short Story Theater.  Season One, with dramatizations of 39 of his short tales, is now playing on all Audio/Video sites.  

Saturday, July 25, 2020

Own Your Own Island off the Coast of Cape Cod







Own Your Own Cape Cod Island


Take possession of your very own New England island off the coast of the big island called Cape Cod.

Imagine your personal island, with a few dozen sandy beaches and a long pier extending into the Atlantic with space to alongside to dock your own Cabin Cruiser.

Sorry. It ain't happening! Not unless you are one of the dozen or so billionaires who actually do own a Cape Cod Island.

The ones that are not privately owned, like Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard are pretty much open only to millionaires, Kennedy types, and high-heeled vacationers.

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

As of July 25, 2020 you can actually visit a nifty little island off Pleasant Bay, shared by the towns of Harwich, Orleans and Chatham on Lower Cape Cod.

Sipson island, first stolen from the Native Americans in 1711 has now left the hands of the billionaires and has been put in public trust. It's open and you can paddle to it by canoe or kayak, from any of the three Bay towns.

Come on down!

But since this is the year of the Cerveza Virus, you may only come if you are coming from an 'approved American state', which as of right now includes the New England States of Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, and New Hampshire.....

plus the New Yorkish States, of New Jersey, New York, and New Connecticut.

If you are coming here from anywhere else.....no soup for you! Okay, you can have soup if you quarantine for 14 days.

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Bill Russo, best known for his appearance on Monsters and Mysteries in America on Destination America, and in the Bridgewater Triangle Documentary; is the author of more than four dozen books and shorts stories, available on all major bookselling sites such as Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble and more.  Much of his work is FREE on Smashwords.  

He also is the producer, writer, and director of the FREE podcast, Short Story Theater.  Season One, with dramatizations of 39 of his short tales, is now playing on all Audio/Video sites.  

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Sunday, July 19, 2020

NO NEW CASES OF CORONA IN THE U.S.




NO NEW CASES OF CORONA IN THE UNITED STATES
BY Bill Russo, Amazon and Smashwords Author, and Producer of Short Story Theater
available for free on ALL Podcasts sites. (Home Network - Spreaker)





The website of the Sun, Moon, and Uranus News & Pretzel Company, discorpolated: has reliably reported that there are no new cases of Corona in the U.S. or in its home country of Mexico either.

It's not because of Donald Trump's dislike of immigrants, it is the fault of the Mexican government.

Breweries have been deemed non-essential and are being temporarily shut down....so there will be no new cases of Corona imported into the U.S. and......

EVEN WORSE news is that there will be no new cases of TECATE beer, which is the preferred beer of many Americans who sneak across the border to get to Agua Prieta or
Mexico City to drink what many say is Mexico's best beer, 'Tecate'.

Tecate Cerveza
para aquellos que saben Cerveza -
for those who know beer

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Bill Russo, best known for his appearance on Monsters and Mysteries in America on Destination America, and in the Bridgewater Triangle Documentary; is the author of more than four dozen books and shorts stories, available on all major bookselling sites such as Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble and more.  Much of his work is FREE on Smashwords.  

He also is the producer, writer, and director of the FREE podcast, Short Story Theater.  Season One, with dramatizations of 39 of his short tales, is now playing on all Audio/Video sites.  

Where do you see yourself in ten years?


by Bill Russo
Amazon and Smashwords Author, and Producer of Short Story Theater
available for free on ALL Podcasts sites. (Home Network - Spreaker)

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?  That's a question most often asked in interviews by recruiters or HR people, or management officials.  Most people in the work force don't know what answer they should give.

What response could a retired, old person give to this query?  Would you pose this question to your sweet granny or dear old 'Papa'? 

My ancient buddy, 77 year old Knotso Clanky, was recently quizzed similarly and here's how he responded......

Drawing by Bill Russo (C) 2020



 "In a jar on my daughter's mantle."

That was the first thought that popped into Knotso's shiny head...but he didn't say it.

....on second thought he told them,

"In Florida, on Lake Worth Beach on a blanket with a hot 85 year old cutie from the Old People's Home!"

Don't bet against my grizzled pal. He just might make it!

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Bill Russo, best known for his appearance on Monsters and Mysteries in America on Destination America, and in the Bridgewater Triangle Documentary; is the author of more than four dozen books and shorts stories, available on all major bookselling sites such as Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble and more.  Much of his work is FREE on Smashwords.  

He also is the producer, writer, and director of the FREE podcast, Short Story Theater.  Season One, with dramatizations of 39 of his short tales, is now playing on all Audio/Video sites.  

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Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Karma and the Kennedy Curse



When Karma Strikes......

Barely six months after the murder of his brother President John Kennedy, Teddy Kennedy, a longtime Massachusetts politician, was badly injured in a plane crash. He was saved from a grisly death when Senator Birch Bayh pulled him from the wreckage.




Sadly, some years later, Kennedy was not able to duplicate the courage of Mr. Bayh and save his female 'companion' after his drunken car crash on a private road on a private Cape Cod island, after leaving a private party.

He abandoned the lady in a submerged vehicle where she drowned after he got out without a scratch, walked home, and fell asleep - sans the human decency to call the police.

He was lightly slapped on the wrist for his crime, and never served even 5 minutes in jail. (It has been told to me by reliable sources, that on Cape Cod, for many years, the police were told to never arrest a Kennedy, no matter what they do. The cops were told to simply and quietly drive them home - regardless of their transgressions.)

There are those who claim that Teddy's evil deed did bring punishment, if not on him, then on his family. They claim that his act, which they term cowardly and heartless, resulted in a deepening of a curse that has plagued the Kennedy clan for generations.

Karma's assault on the K clan appears to have started with Teddy Kennedy's father, old Joe Kennedy. He was a criminal during the days of prohibition, and built a vast fortune in the illegal manufacture and distribution of whiskey and beer. Many people were prosecuted and sent to jail for decades for similar crimes, but old Joe Kennedy was not one of them.

Among the actions which people question is the harsh, horrendous punishment Old Joseph forced on his daughter Rosemary. He directed a team of 'doctors' to bang an icepick through her eye-socket and into her brain. This discredited procedure was termed a 'lobotomy' which for a time was thought to be beneficial to some patients. It appears as though Rosemary's problem was chiefly that she liked boys too much - although the clan never minded when the Kennedy boys liked girls too much.

It is said, and apparently from reliable sources, that the Kennedy brothers, John who became President, and brother Bobby, used to share 'girls' in the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue in the district of Columbia. It is said that Marilyn Monroe was among the group of 'fillies' with whom the Brothers Kennedy philandered.

After her gruesome ice-pick lobotomy, young Rosemary Kennedy became a vegetable and existed in a marginal state of awareness for decades in an asylum.

For these and various other reasons, Karma may have taken a dislike to the K clan. Over the last 80 years or so the family has been engulfed in a number of murders, strange deaths, lawsuits, fatal plane crashes and much, much more. It's called Karma's 'Kennedy Curse' and the story continues......

you could look it up.

Here's a brief glance at some of Karma's work on the Kennedy family, some time ago, highly regarded as American Political Royalty...

The pride of the family, young Joe Jr. died on August 12, 1944 during the second world war. The plane he was piloting as a member of the United States Armed Forces exploded in mid flight.  The cause of the blast is unknown and was termed accidental. 

Four years later, Kathleen Kennedy perished in a plane crash in France.

In 1943 Lt. John Kennedy was in command of a PT boat which was destroyed in a collision with an enemy ship.  Kennedy showed courage after the crash and helped saved the lives of his crewmen.  He was left with injuries which caused him pain for the remainder of his life.  

On August 9, 1963, the 20th anniversary of the sinking of his P T boat, John, who rose to become President of the U.S., lost his infant son Patrick at the age of two days.  The boy succumbed to a respiratory illness. 

A few months later, in November, John was ambushed and killed by rifle fire as he rode in an open Limmo through the streets of Dallas. His alleged killer, L. H. Oswald was ambushed and killed two days later by a strip club owner in the basement of the Dallas P.D.

In 1968 Bobby Kennedy was trying to become the second member of the clan to be elected President. He was shot on the very night that he won the Democratic Primary on the Left Coast in California.  He died the next morning. 

About 16 years later, one of Bobby's kids, 28 year old David Kennedy was vacationing in South Florida, when he died of a drug overdose in a rented hotel room in Palm Beach.

Another of Bobby's kids, Michael Kennedy died just after Christmas in 1997 in a skiing accident in Aspen Colorado on the Left Coast.

In July of 1999 John Kennedy Junior accidentally killed himself and two other people when he tried to fly a plane from New Jersey to one of the Cape Cod islands in bad weather. 

There are dozens more examples, including a number of murders, of Karma's Kennedy Curse.  There are enough to fill a book. 

In fact, there are several that already have been written, including a pretty good one by the James Patterson book-making factory.  Patterson's writing crew squeezed out 432 pages on demand from their chief, and the result was published in 2020.  It's called 'The Kennedy Curse'.  

 Keep reading and keep watching....with the K Clan, there's always more to come.

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Monday, July 6, 2020

How John Farrell Destroyed the Greatest Knuckleball Prospect




How John Farrell 



Destroyed the Greatest Knuckleball Prospect 

by Bill Russo


Make no mistake about it. Stephen Wright in 2016 was on his way to one of the best seasons ever pitched by a Knuckleballer.  And that’s saying something because the iconic ‘Flutter-by’ pitch delivered 318 wins for Phil Niekro, 260 for Ted Lyons, 221 for Phil’s brother Joe, 216 for Charlie Hough and 200 for Tim Wakefield.  

Will the figures please stand up and shout out the proof of Wright’s potential?


On May 8, 2016, Wright baffled the New York Yankees with his ‘flutter-by’ pitch for nine full innings allowing just three hits in his first complete game win, a 5-1 victory.  The only run mustered by the Bronx club came with two outs in the ninth inning – a sacks empty shot by Brett Gardner. Wright struck out seven. 

As the All-Star game approached, the fans and MLB took note, placing him on the American League roster, with his glittering ERA which was the lowest of any starting pitcher in the league.  His record going into the break was 9-5 for a Red Sox team that featured a very young Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, and a superbly aging Big Papi, David Oritz.  





By mid August the 31 year old right-hander racked up 13 plusses with only six losses.  He also showcased his endurance by hurling four complete games. Only Chris Sale and Johnny Cueto, with 6 and 5 respectively had more; and they had a whole season to accumulate their stats.  Stephen Wright did not…thanks to Red Sox 'Manager' John Farrell.


Flashback to Sunday, August 7, 2016. The Red Sox were playing the Dodgers in Los Angeles on their way to a 93 win season and a division title.  The Dodgers had a 6-3 lead going into the sixth but the Fenway gang closed the gap to 6-5.  David Ortiz walked and went to second base on an RBI single by Mookie.  Farrell suddenly decided to pinch run for Big Papi, although he didn’t make the move when the slugger was on first base. 


Pinch running for Ortiz may have made some sense, but taking the greatest clutch hitter in baseball out of a game where he might get another at bat is pretty dumb.  Next, Farrell became Dumb and Dumber when he chose his best pitcher Stephen Wright to be the pinch runner.  

Wright was scheduled to start against the suddenly hot Yankees in just three days, but Farrell sent him in anyway even though he had Sandy Leon or another position player available. Wright hadn’t run bases since his college career ten years prior. 


Like a good soldier, Wright took second base.  Trying to grab a lead off the bag, he was forced back when the pitcher tried to pick him off.  The worst-case scenario played out as he jammed his shoulder, was forced to leave the game, and went on the disabled list.  


He missed almost the entire 2017 and 18 seasons.  In the 2018 season he pitched just enough to show that he still had the potential to be one of the greatest of all times.  He was 3 and one with a miserly 2.68 ERA.  Only Chris Sale and late pick-up Ryan Brasier had better numbers.


To be fair, the foolhardy Farrell decision resulted in a shoulder problem while the more recent injuries have been knee problems.  As of 2020 he’s slated for Tommy John Surgery. 


Wright may have had various injuries, but they all trace back to the Farrell Flub because….. the shoulder bone is connected to the back bone and the back bone is connected to the knee bone and the knee bone is … oh ‘Dem Bones’.  They are all connected and the whole thing is Farrell’s fault.


I think it’s safe to say that Stephen Wright, who became the last Knuckleballer in Baseball when R A Dickey retired; is all washed up.  His career is over, kaput, finis.

Except for one thing.  He throws a ‘flutter-by’ pitch, the Knuckleball.  Knuckleball pitchers often don’t get started until they are past 30.
  
Cases in point: Hoyt Wilhelm who won 143 games and had 227 saves, pitched in the major leagues until 16 days before he turned 50!  Phil Niekro was not far behind retiring at age 48.  Charlie Hough hung up his spikes at 45.  R A Dickey was 42 and didn’t start to get good until he hit 37, when he won 20 games for the first time as well as the Cy Young Award.  Tim Wakefield pitched until he got his 200th victory at the age of 44.


At this writing (in the year 2020) Stephen Wright is 35 years old.  He can take a year or two off and come back at 38 and still wind up as one of the greatest Knuckleball throwers of all time. 


I hope so, because he is the last of a dying breed and it’s always a fun adventure to watch a knuckleballer flirt with both disaster and greatness in the same game.

Good luck to you Mr. Wright. I will be wishin’ and hopin’ to see you on the mound sooner than later.



Most Wins by Knuckleball pitchers:
318 – Phil Niekro
260  – Ted Lyons
221 – Joe Niekro
216 –Charlie Hough
210 – Jessie Haines
208 – Eddie Cicotti
200 – Tim Wakefield


As of July 2020, Stephen Wright has just 24 wins – Thanks a lot Farrell, you bum!



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