The Return

After a heart attack and the emergency insertion of two stents in the right coronary artery, followed by the planned insertion of one stent in the left coronary artery three weeks later, it is nice to return to the rhythm of repetition.

And nowhere can you find that repetition more on display than at the racetrack. After all these decades—near centuries—they still run counter-clockwise in North America, on dirt and grass, various distances on a nine or ten race card, for an assortment of thoroughbreds meeting a wide-range of eligibility conditions. The new normal is pretty much the old normal.

Sure, they're running in front of empty grandstands, with those few allowed at the track having to wear surgical masks because of the coronavirus pandemic—even the jockeys while competing in the race—but there is still an order of finish, payouts of wide variance, and happy and broke gamblers whose wagers have been electronically submitted through a wide array of betting platforms, who will acquire amnesia with a good night's sleep, and be ready to hope for the best with the next days' racing and betting opportunities.

The four days of telecasts called America's Best Racing are hosted by an all-star broadcast crew of Greg Wolfe, former jockey Richard Migliore, with racing analysts Maggie Wolfendale, Acacia Courtney, acerbic Andy Serling, and handicapping champion Jonathon Kinchen, whose choice of shirts are bright enough to wake the dead. Never have so many talked so much to so few in live attendance.

But with the paucity of televised sports due to the pandemic, racing is offering live action to those who wouldn't otherwise seek it out from racing. Will new fans be generated? There will be some, but probably not enough to move the needle to have racing compete with other sports once they return to normal.

Given my recent series of health events it is just nice to sit back and listen to Maggie and Acacia go on and on about how so and so in the paddock has lost weight, gained wight, is "on the muscle" and has hind quarters that spell sprinter, even if this is a route race. No one has nothing to say.

And then thee's Andy Serling, whose been doing his version of the "The Price is Never Right" for decades now. Even his comments are welcome. His memory recall is phenomenal when he pulls out that so and so won this race 10 years ago. As is Greg Wolfe's memory.

Jonathon Kinchen's handicapping of Pick-5 tickets is abysmal. And there are two Pick-5s on the card. You can pretty much count on your ticket being blown out of the water by the completion of the second leg in the sequence. I can't imagine JK's return on investment crossing into the plus side at any point. If you play his Pick-5 selections you should pretty well be wiped out by now and sleeping at your in-laws on a couch in the garage.

And who makes the telecast possible? The sponsors, who happen to be Claiborne Farm hawking shares of Run Happy so vigorously that I'm sure to crack one day and look into seeing what I'm sure I can't afford.

How many people are lead to buy breeding shares of Run Happy based on Claiborne's commercials has to be has to be no more than how many are allowed to ride in an elevator these days. The professional breeders and owners already know all about Run Happy, so any commercial hawking his sperm can only be just more background noise.

But it's welcome background noise, because it allows the telecasts to run. The owner of Run Happy, Jim McIngvale, "Mattress Mack," down in Houston is doing more than his share of promoting racing. Jim has made a fortune manufacturing mattresses and selling furniture. He has given away nearly as much as he has sold.

And if you can't afford a breeding share of Run Happy, or already have one or more, then you might support Petaluma Creamery, another major sponsor of the telecasts by buying their Spring Hill organic Jersey cheddar cheese. Why go hungry if you're winning or losing money?

How nice it is to tune in and already know what I'm going to hear. I've already had enough surprises.

http://onofframp.blogspot.com

A Billion Here, A Billion There

It is getting outright difficult to understand some of the dialogue in Billions. Sunday's episode opens with a sushi meal attended by Axe's inner circle, which now includes the artist Tanner as well as Maria Sharapova.

The scripted words bounce back and forth like those between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in 'My Gal Friday.' Quick, snappy dialogue that has you wanting close captioned replays, something I do now and then when I feel I'm not able to process all the quips.

Maria, along with the others, are delicately popping squares of sushi into their mouths from the tines of chopsticks. No one drops a morsel. My guess is, if you can't get through a meal with chopsticks, Axe wouldn't have you at the table.

The discussion swings, or seems to swing, around art, and who is genuine, and who is not. When is an abstract piece of art finished? Potty-mouthed Wendy gets in a few "fucks" and makes Axe noticeably jealous by rubbing the artist Tanner's upper arm.

We get a dilemma at Mase Carbon over tin sourced by dictator African regimes. This is not good, and leads to a convoluted agreement with Mike Prince that Taylor, et al. are going to do the right thing and take a long-term loss on the metal, but will emerge on the other side of it extremely well off.

Fast forward to later in the episode when Axe hears of this and explodes to Taylor that no matter what Taylor and Wendy think, Mike Prince has maneuvered Taylor into doing exactly what Mike Prince wants, and that is to put a stain on Axe's balance sheet that won't go away for about a year.

Meanwhile, Chuck is plotting to get the Treasury Secretary to display a conscience and remove himself from office, thereby, scuttling the plans that were being laid by Axe to get a bank charter, No Krakow in office, no charter being greased. Score one for Chuck, as he and Axe resemble the rivalry in 'Cheers' between Gary's Old Towne Bar and Sam's Cheers bar over who's better at softball.

Chuck is also trying to get a kidney for his ailing father, or at least get him high enough on the list so that he gets eligible for a transplant before it's too late. Chuck even sponsors a blood drive at work in the hopes of identifying possible kidney matches for Dad.

I think the upshot of all the under-the-table dealing gets Chuck's dad high enough on the list to be able to wait for a kidney before shuffling off. This of course has meant dealing with a "doctor" who is the guy someone can get for Chuck who can make all things medical happen for his father. Lumps of cash are handed over, and it seems Dad will soon be out of the woods.

Axe, never one to lose at love, exposes the artist's Tanner phony altruistic streak by steering a wealthy, still attractive divorcée Tanner's way who is set to woo him with pots of cash and lots of sex. Wendy who?

The prior episode had its share of quick banter when Chuck has a meeting with the Manhattan D.A.  Madame D.A. is of course settling down to gourmet dumplings in some Manhattan restaurant with a formidable culinary reputation. It seems nothing of note is ever accomplished without sushi or tumblers of expensive scotch being consumed.

Through what seems incomprehensible dialogue with the Manhattan D.A., Chuck gets his way and gets her to give him the Bobby Axelrod tax evasion fraud case, and then fumbles the ball badly when the police detail guarding access to Bobby's apartment gets easily distracted by vandals ripping off windshield wipers and allows the original pieces of art to get swapped out for the copies with a helicopter landing on the building's roof. It's straight out of James Bond and the heist of the Vermeer and Rembrandts from the Isabella Gardner Museum.

Bobby avoids the tax evasion charges by having the originals placed in the domain of his suddenly created art foundation. He doesn't even join Conrad Prebys and Debbie Turner and get listed as a donor to your PBS station. Axe is slick. Things move fast when you're rich.

Wendy and the artist Tanner do what everyone thought they would do: hookup and have sex. Once again, the producers missed a musical moment big time when they failed to have Toni Tennille sing 'Do That to Me One More Time' when Wendy coos to have Tanner come back in bed with her as he sits there sketching her as she wakes from her angelic sleep under the sheets.

Chuck's dad is searching for a kidney donor for himself. He even dips into his secret Christmas card list of out-of-wedlock children looking for a donor. No luck.

Before Chuck deals with Madame Manhattan D.A., he seeks Katherine (Cat) Brant's advice on how to pitch the appearance that his approach for the care of sex workers is better than Madame D.A.'s concern, thus getting her to give up her pursuit of the tax evasion case against Bobby Axelrod.

Her advice works, and Chuck succeeds, without actually having to have a better program for the care of sex workers that usurps the Manhattan D.A.'s. Katherine is proud of him and rewards him (and probably herself) with a highly attractive, fetching piece of female eye candy in billowing lingerie that we're lead to believe Cat Brant has secured for Chuck's sexual pleasure, and we're to guess her own.

Since the show is not a porno, we cut to the next scene.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Sweden

Nineteen eighty-six is not so long ago, especially when you've crested the hill and are almost two years into being a septuagenarian. Many things happened in 1986, one of which was the assassination of the Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme, as he and his wife left a movie theater in Stockholm one cold, February evening.

Someone came up behind him, shot him, and left him for dead on the sidewalk. The assassination of any head of state is big news, no matter what country it was in. Apparently in Sweden—at least at he time—there was no attending Secret Service-like detail that accompanied the prime minister.

The shooter was never really caught. He has however been identified, and is believed to be Stig Engstrom, a 52-year-old man at the time who disliked the prime minister and his policies, and who himself committed suicide in 2000 at 66.

You don't need the assassination of a head of state to hatch conspiracy theories, and in Sweden they grew as each year passed with no suspect identified and caught.

A reporter, Thomas Pettersson, spent 13 years investigating the death, and eventually traced the gun that was used to a weapons collector, who himself was not a suspect. The reporter in turn concentrated on a suspect he identified as Mr. Engstrom who worked in a building near the assassination, was a gun club member, had political and private motives for killing the prime minister, fit the profile of a man who would likely be an assassin, and who in general, was a frustrated man who was not happy with this lot in life.

If an old rule in typesetting was to mind your p's and q's, when you read a story filled with Swedish surnames you need to mind your t's and s's

Mr. Pettersson, the reporter, turned his exhaustive findings over to a prosecutor, Krister Petersson  (one t) who set off on his own inquiry and who agreed with Mr. Pettersson's findings and concluded that Mr. Stig Engstrom was the assassin, but that only a court could formally come to that conclusion. And since Mr. Engstrom was now dead, there would be no trial. Thus, they were not going to try a dead guy, even if the dead guy did it. The unassailable Swedes.

For his part, Olof Palme certainly had his admirers as well plenty of detractors who were offended by his socialist idealism that lead him to fight against injustice around the world. Mr. Palme was a staunch foe of apartheid in South Africa and was against the Vietnam War. You can't hold the office he held and not make enemies.

The mystery of his assassination went through six investigations and three commissions. And even now, after 34 years, there is only "reasonable evidence" that points to Stig Engstrom as the killer.

The conspiracy theorists are still out there I'm sure. After all, what's more fun to believe, that the assassination was linked to a shadowy arms deal with India; an Italian Masonic lodge and Chilean fascists who sought revenge for his stance against General Augusto Pinochet's government; or best of all, that because of Sweden's longtime stance against apartheid and their financial support for the foes of apartheid that a "white former security officer, Col. Eugene de Kock alleged that an agent of the apartheid government murdered Mr. Palme."

And as if to tell us that all the convoluted conspiracy theories go somewhere to die, the NYT journalists who put the story together, Thomas Erdbrink and Christina Anderson, report that in the end the Swedish judiciary says "it was all the work of one man, Mr. Engstrom." The investigative journalist Mr. Pettersson says it plainly: "His motive? He wanted attention."

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

We Want to be A Bank

The most recent episode of Billions was far better than the prior one. In that one Axe and Mike Prince, and to some extent Chuck's dad, are all vying for the development rights to a project in Yonkers, the city where Bobby was born.

It's a so-called O.Z. Opportunity Zone, a depressed area slated for renewal with a combination of public and private money. And money of course attracts Bobby, and Mike.

Each candidate postures before a community committee, spewing all the good they will do.  Since Bobby grew up in Yonkers, from a lower class, poor upbringing, he pitches the Horatio Alger/favorite son card. The home he lived is now occupied by a black family. Bobby shoots hoops with the black kid in the same driveway he did as a kid. Bobby spins the snow shoveling story on how he created a network of youthful shovelers who cornered the market for snow removal.

Bobby wins the rights to develop by virtue his nostalgic charm. He promises to eat a meal in his old house, with his chef bringing all the food. But when the photo-op comes, be disappears, telling us he's got to get away from "this dipshit town."

The  recent episodes gives us some insight to this. Bobby is fearful of even going in his old house because of the memories it brings back of, I guess, his drunken, abusive father. When the bailed meal is reveled to an eager reporter, Bobby goes through hoops to suppress the story.

He succeeds, but not without buying the people out, and getting them nicer digs in Scarsdale. They keep quiet about the missed repast.

Wendy, the ever-on-call psychiatrist and life coach, comforts Bobby as he sits in his old room and relives the parts of his childhood that he hates, which is pretty much all of it, and all of it directed toward his dad. To say Bobby has issues with dad, is to put it mildly.

But the absolute best part of the episode revolves around Axe and company wanting to get a state bank charter. They meet with who I will assume is the state banking superintendent (again in New York, not Albany), a woman, Leah Calder, who so reminds you of Lauren Bacall you might forget Lauren has passed away. But not before Chuck and Kate Sacker get there to pitch their desire to road block Axe.

The casting is pitch perfect. She's a well coiffed, expensively, smartly dressed woman in her Turnbull and Asser blouse, just unbuttoned enough to revel a fetching neck with an elegant gold necklace and sensible, dangling  earrings, that she cuts an image of style, power, and no nonsense.

Ms. Calder, played so well by Wendy Malick, gets Chuck's horse-trading vibe when she lets on that Axe's application seems okay. Chuck offers the power of the Attorney General's office to right all wrongs, which Ms. Calder describes as her son's fiancé's refusal to return the engagement ring, a family heirloom smuggled out of Europe in the lining of a coat during WW II.

How the writers avoided telling us the ring was her mother's, smuggled out during the Holocaust is something I can't understand. Whatever.

Leah would like the ring back. Chuck proposes legal action against the never-to-be-daughter-in-law that will make her head spin. Leah subtly agrees to throw road blocks at Bobby's application.

A meeting of the legal minds of Chuck, Kate Sacker, and the chief-fixer Karl, convinces them that a court case doesn't have to result in the return of the ring, even if they win. The devious light bulb goes off in Chuck's head.

We already know Chuck is devious, but outright planning a safe cracking job does seem to go beyond the pale of what an Attorney General of New York State would do. But then after all, Chuck is never in Albany, so it can't count.

Chuck and Kate Sacker enlist Brian Connerty's safe-cracking brother, the one who broke into Chuck's father's safe last season and made off with documents that Chuck planted that landed Brian in jail. We do get to see Brian a bit in this episode because Jackie Connerty insists that he'll do the job if Chuck himself will meet with Brian in prison.

Chuck has dangled a better prison location for Brian, Otisville vs. Coxsackie, if Jackie will break into the never-to-be-daughter-in-law's East Side safe, pluck the ring from its safekeeping, and deliver it to Kate and Chuck.

Chuck visits Brian in prison. Brian looks a little heavier. Chuck instructs the guard to remove Brian's cuffs, whereupon Brian sucker punches Chuck clean on the left eye, and waits to be ushered out by the guards. It was a setup, and Chuck accepted that he probably deserved it. After all, he's into pain.

Jackie delivers the ring to Kate at her apartment. Kate tells Jackie there's one more thing he has to do, since he set Chuck up to be punched. He has to gain access to Leah's safe and place the ring in it.

Kate, with a few tumblers of scotch in her, through Italian banter and body language, in no uncertain terms signals to Jackie that she's interested in an evening of sex with him. She must like the bad boys, and Jackie is certainly one of the bad boys.

She glides onto her bed, visible from the foyer, and crosses her legs like Sharon Stone in 'Basic Instinct', while starting to unbutton her blouse.  No need to know more.

Jackie completes the job, and Chuck shows off by making Leah open her safe and seeing, through unspoken magic, the ring has been returned. Chuck is glowing.

Meanwhile, Axe has not taken the news lightly that his banking application is not being considered because there is a community bank already in place, Vark, that his given as the reason by Leah that bobby's bank is not needed.

Axe arranged for several of his trader commandos to pose as potential lenders, all while being secretly recorded by Spiros as they pose an an international, just married gay couple, who are not U.S. citizens to average white guy. Loans rates offered vary greatly to 8.75% for the gay couple, to 2.5% for the white. working man. Thus, the captured video shows predatory loan practices and systemic xenophobia, homophobia and racism. Axe is ready to pounce.

The advantage to splitting Chuck and Wendy up is that it puts two horny people back in circulation. Wendy has hots for the Axe's artist, and Chuck is attracted to the brains and body of Catherine 'Cat' Brant, a feminist author, played by Julianna Margulies, who lectures at Yale, just like Chuck.

They have each other in their lectures and the body language starts to ignite. Brant knows Chuck is a submissive, since who doesn't, after he fully well admitted it while running for Attorney General. She just plain asks Chuck, "do you like penetrative sex?" As a scholar. Chuck says yes.

Well, they finally do get together, in a very traditional missionary position, but wait, is Chuck have performance issues? Paul Giamatti jumping someone's bones is not great television, and thankfully it is dark. It looks a bit like his eager mounting of Abigail Adams after he, John Adams gets back from a lengthy European trip. Way too many petticoats there.

It's not clear, but the next episode may reveal something about Chuck that surprises him. Maybe he's not turned on unless he's being submissive. Oh boy, Wait till Brant uses this in her next piece of research.

Banking Superintendent Leah Calder is so over-the-top at getting the ring back, she formally turns Axe down, even after he's exposed his competition as an unfair lender.

We get a quick appearance by Taylor Mason and his quest to partner with Wendy in an "impact" fund, a fund designed to make money while also moving the wold to green, renewable sources of energy. Wendy is very much a player in this venture, and has been given a hefty percentage of the equity—if there will be any. Taylor Mason Carbon sits inside the whole suite of Axe Capital products. If this were a publishing house, this would be an imprint.

As if the episode doesn't have enough going on, we get a scene of Chuck Roades Sr. playing with his newborn as he imitates Marlon Brando in the tomato patch chasing his grandchild, stuffing his mouth with plastic to appear as a monster and paddling around on all fours pretending to scare her.

Well, he gets the scare, and so do we, because the expected happens: down goes Senior. Only, unlike Brando's fate, Senior survives, and is shown in a hospital bed with the news he needs a kidney, but is not likely to get one, since he doesn't practice a healthy lifestyle.

Big deal. If Mickey Mantle can get a liver transplant after years of ruining his health, Chuck Sr. is going to get a kidney. Mark my words.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

A Visual

I never really thought I'd ever see evidence of what the Italian shoe manufacturer did years and years ago, before containerized cargo, in an attempt to prevent the longshoremen from helping themselves to the cargo.

The circumstances are not pleasant, but he above photo is taken by someone and shows a dropped pair of shoes—unmatched—that were looted from a New York City SoHo store during the looting that's been occurring to protest the death of George Floyd while being arrested by Minneapolis police last week.

The photo clearly shows, unmatched, one left, and then another left shoe.

If you've ever watched the 1954 movie 'On the Waterfront', you can get a sense of what it was like on the docks unloading a ship. Gangs of men descended into a ship's hold, stacked the merchandise on pallets that were hoisted out of the hold and onto the pier, where they were again loaded onto trucks.

The amount of human intervention in this process lead to a great deal of 'shrinkage' (read theft) when something of high resale value was being unloaded. Stolen good that were resold were usually said to have "fallen off  the back of a truck" when it was questioned if the items were legally obtained.

Having last spent my working life detecting health insurance fraud, I often found myself recounting the tale I read of the Italian shoe manufacturer who was so fed up with seeing his shipments shrink in quantity on finally getting to the intended recipient, that he created a shipment of left shoes only and shipped them. Two weeks later he shipped the right ones to be matched up and sold, hopefully achieving the intended shipped quantity.

Different circumstances, but somewhere, someone has got the left shoes of what look like a designer style, and someone else has the right shoes. Perhaps wherever looters meet, they'll create two pairs of designer shoes.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

The Presidential Fringe

I promised myself I would get to Mark Stein's Presidential Fringe, Questing and Jesting for the Oval Office. I started it a while ago, but I'm slow to complete a book, sometimes keeping three by the night table in progress. Getting through the short piece on the author's choice for the first fringe candidate, John Donkey, a cartoon created by the editors of The John-Donkey, an American satiric magazine in the spirit of the British Punch—Saturday Night Live long before the inception of the cathode ray tube—I decided that I was going to compile the nuggets I come across as I found them.

The John-Donkey came out of Ann Arbor Michigan and had a pair of founding editors, George G. Foster and Thomas Dunn English, described "as oddball a publishing partnership as John Donkey was a candidate."

The John-Donkey was created in 1848 in time for the presidential election of that year when Zachary Taylor beat two humans, a former president Martin Van Buren (1837-1841) and Lewis Cass. In 1848 you might not have expected to read an obituary in the NYT that was a well-worded, left-handed backhand for George Foster when he passed away. But someone was up to it when they described Mr Foster as a "remarkable example of a brilliant talent unguided by moral purpose or a decent regard for the conventions and proprieties of civilized society." Who needs friends?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

One might not think that someone who literally starts a religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints— Mormons—would be someone who would want to run for president. But Joseph Smith, credited with finding the golden plates in western New York did try and run for president in the 1844 election and qualifies for inclusion in Mark Stein's book.

Even a cursory glance back at history reveals that there can be little new under the sun. Think it's only because there's television, social media and money that creates so many candidates for the Oval Office? No, it's been going on for a long time.

There were numerous candidates vying for the nomination for president in 1844. Henry Clay for the Whig party was a given, but the Democrats were sporting former president Martin Van Buren, Lewis Cass, John C. Calhoun and James Buchanan.

Smith saw his chance to walk into the divided party after asking for, and not getting, commitments of protection from the candidates for the Mormon communities that were facing violence from non-Mormons. Mormons were not popular, and they were gaining strength in numbers. People were afraid they would start to become the majority. Non-Mormons did not like polygamy.

The Democrats eventually agreed to put James K. Polk up for president on the proviso he not run again. He won, and didn't run again. Think Joe Biden's pledge not to seek a second term if elected. Whew!

Joseph Smith was running, believe it or not, on a platform of religious freedom. However he kept getting arrested and thrown in jail, where he met death when a mob stormed the jail and killed him.

To show you how much, and for how long, Mormons were looked askance upon, consider the affidavit my grandfather signed in 1926 for his application for citizenship. Consider what he had to swear to:

"...it is my bona fide intention to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, and particularly to (filled in) The Present Government of Greece of whom I am now a subject...I arrived at the port of New York...

"I am not an anarchist; I am not a polygamist nor a believer in the practice of polygamy; and it is my intention in good faith to become a citizen of the United States of America and to permanently reside therein: SO HELP ME GOD."

The Mormon practice of polygamy was outlawed in 1890 in exchange for Utah being recognized as a state. Despite this, it obviously was still worried about in 1926.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a few more candidates in this Part 1, Fringe Candidates in the Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Century, but to me they just don't grab my attention as being "fringe" in themselves. We do have a woman, Victoria Woodhull, in 1872, the first woman to run for president, despite not being able to vote herself. There is the first black candidate, George Edwin Taylor, in 1904, and an Anti-Masonic candidate, James B. Walker, in 1876 for the National Christian Association.

In Part 2, Mr. Stein takes us to those candidates he's lumped in Running onto the New Field of Radio and Television. Will Rogers and his Anti-Bunk party is the first one up.

As a kid I was interested enough in the life of  Will Rogers that I bought a young adult biography of him, written by Shannon Garst. I suspect the book is somewhere.

You might define Will Rogers as an early Bob Hope, a humorist who skewered politicians and the government. He appeared in vaudeville shows and was on the radio, as well as writing a syndicated column. Rogers pretty much predicted the celebrity/comedian who would announce campaigns for the presidency. Following Rogers would be Gracie Allen, Pat Paulsen, Roseanne Barr and Steve Colbert. Tongues were being firmly planted in cheeks.

There was a Will Rogers Follies revue that was later re-staged as a Broadway musical that featured Marla Maples in the chorus, who soon became Donald Trump's second wife and is mother to Tiffany Trump. So, in a way, Donald Trump is connected to a man who ran on the Anti-Bunk party. There is irony everywhere.

As famous as Will Rogers was on radio, it apparently was Life magazine that propelled his candidacy in 1928, when Al Smith was running against Herbert Hoover.

I never knew Life started as a satiric magazine in 1883, and was somewhat like England's Punch magazine. Life magazine as most of us of a certain age remember it, was a photojournalism magazine, started in 1936 when Henry Luce bought the name and re-directed the magazine to become one of the most popular magazines of all time. There wasn't a home or a waiting room that didn't sport a copy.

Al Smith was a Catholic, and there was considerable push back on having a Catholic running for president. There were those who believed he would take directions from the pope and that Rome would rule Washington. This sentiment was still around in 1960 when John F. Kennedy ran for president, but the strength of the worry was considerably weaker. Kennedy of course was elected; Smith was not.

Will Rogers announced a platform that was Anti-Religion. He also appealed to all the dry tipplers in the country who couldn't legally buy liquor. "Wine for the rich, beer for the poor, and moonshine for the Prohibitionist."

Rogers presented an "aw chucks" cowboy demeanor when he appeared in chaps, western hat, and bandanna, twirling a lariat as he fed the audience his one-liners that went:

• If elected, he would be the first president in 62 years who was funny intentionally.
• About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer, and closes with an investigation.
• It's a good thing we don't get all the government we pay for.

The poet Ogden Nash would write:

With gum and grin and lariat,

He entertained the proletariat.

This was a take on what Rogers said of himself:

I worked with gum and grin and lariat

To entertain the proletariat,

And with my Oklahomey wit

I brightened up the earth a bit.

Rogers was a big fan of the fast-growing aviation industry. It would cause his death when he rode in a plane with Wiley Post, an aviator, that disappeared in Alaska in 1935.

His son, Will Rogers Jr. like his father, appeared in movies, playing his father in the The Story of Will Rogers. He served nearly a full term in Congress while being on active duty during WW II. Painfully, he committed suicide at 81.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Even before Mr. Stein put together his book Presidential Fringe I was in love with Gracie Allen; even before learning through a WSJ column by Cynthia Crossen umpteen years ago that Gracie formed The Surprise Party and "ran" again FDR in 1940.

Gracie has been an endearing favorite of mine ever since I used to watch her and George at the end of their TV show in the '50s and '60s go on a dizzying path of Gracie's relatives. I don't think even the best genealogist could have graphed how one of Gracie's relatives was related to another one of her relatives based on Gracie's description.

After reading the WSJ book review of Mr. Stein's book Presidential Fringe, I once again wrote about Gracie Allen's run for the higher office. And now that I've bought the book and have come across her chapter she remains my favorite fringe candidate.

She had the best slogans. She had the best name for her party: who doesn't like a surprise party? During her 34 whistle stopovers on the train ride from Los Angeles, California to Omaha, where she would be nominated, Gracie would ask the best rhetorical questions: "Anybody knows that a woman is much better than a man when it comes to introducing bills into the house."

The Union Pacific railroad after creating a celebration of the completion of the transcontinental railroad got the idea to put Gracie and George on a train that would make its way on their right-of-way to Nebraska.

Mr. Stein tells us—tongue in cheek I take it—that the "Golden Spike" celebration took place in Middleofnowhere, Utah. Is there really is a place named Middleofnowhere?

Well, not quite. The ever-used Google search reveals there is a place that gets designated as the "middleofnowhere" by a criteria that finds a place in the United States that has people, but is so sufficiently removed from any towns nearby that it is the Middleofnowhere. It's sort of like the place that is declared to be the geographic middle of the continental United States.

Right now the search tells us Glasgow, Montana fills in the blanks of where the middle of all the nowheres is. It may be where I get my next haircut during the coronavirus lockdown.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Another fringe candidate in Part 2 is Homer Tomlinson, a Bishop from the Church of God, Jamaica, Queens.  Homer was apparently a perennial candidate for president starting in 1952, and continuing to 1968.

I'm a bit surprised I never heard of Tomlinson. I grew up in Flushing, New York and was working full-time by 1968. And I've always read a daily newspaper. Often several.

I wasn't born in 1940 when at the New York World's Fair he performed a "parachute" wedding on a couple from the Bronx. As much as you might think the three jumped out of a plane and exchanged vows while plummeting to earth and timing the rip cord pull, the parachute was at the edge of the parachute jump at the Fair.

The three sat in parachutes, suspended in mid-air, witnessed by two other people who sat in another parachute. The ceremony was witnessed by 3,000 spectators. The groom certainly swept the bride off her feet.

Such was Mr. Tomlinson, a public relations man who worked in advertising in the 1920s, creating attention grabbing events. And nothing was more attention grabbing than when he sat in a beach chair holding a globe and wearing a crown when he announced he wanted he be "King of the World."

Obviously Mr. Tomlinson didn't make it onto a ballot, which is why I probably never heard of him. Interesting to note that in the 1952 presidential campaign there were the two major party candidates, General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson, and 17 other candidates for the office. What is it about the number seventeen? There were 17 candidates for the Republican nomination in 2016.

I don't remember the exact year—it was wasn't a presidential year—but the family flower shop at 206 Third Avenue became a polling place in for the general election. For years and years, the rival florist Sakas brothers at Third Avenue and 21st Street was the district polling place.

I don't know how my father managed to wrestle the venue away from Sakas Brothers, but he did for one year. I never really knew my father's political affiliation. My guess was that he was a Republican, liking Ike, since my father was a WW II vet. That I knew, my father never voted, probably wanting to stay clear of jury duty. In those days the jury pools were selected from registered voters. So, if you never registers, and certainly didn't vote, you couldn't be called for jury duty. Nowadays the jury pools are selected from DMV records, voter records and probably census records.

Given that, I suspect he was friendly with Vincent Albano from the East Side Republican club on Second Avenue, near where he grew up. Vincent Albano was a district leader and close protégé of Governor Nelson Rockefeller. We did the flowers for an Albano daughter. It was probably this influence that turned the store into a polling place.

I was in high school at the time, and of course in that era everyone got Election Day off. I hung out in the store with my great-uncle Pete and watched the traffic come in and vote.

It never seemed busy, and there was never a line. There was one voting booth. I think there was a ballot box for paper ballots for anyone who was selecting what then would be a candidate from other than the Republican, Democrat, or Liberal lines. Typically, these were the candidates for the Socialist Party, or even the Communist Party.

In high school we made fun of these fringe candidates by pretending to be them and announcing to our friends that we were so-and-so and were running for office.

These parties had their perennial candidates. I loved seeing the names of these parties on the ballot. Gus Hall was a four-time candidate for president for the Socialist Party.

At the time I didn't know it, but Alger Hiss lived in the building where the flower shop was. The residential part of the building was 157 East 18th Street. My father would recognize Hiss when he walked by. Hiss was the accused Communist spy in the famous Alger Hiss-Whittaker Chambers trail. Of course Hiss was not the name on the bell. I don't know what name he was using.

I do know the building has gone co-op and certainly someone is perhaps unwittingly living in Alger Hiss's old apartment.

My father wasn't in the shop the day it became a polling place. I've often wondered if Hiss came in and voted for a Socialist/Communist candidate. He probably didn't vote. When Hiss passed away in 1996, it was noted that he lived in the area and that he had become a stationery salesman.

My father thought getting to be the polling place would raise the shop's profile in the neighborhood, despite the fact the business had been at its location for probably 30 years by then, and went back even further when it was a block away and served as the cover for Pete's Tavern on Irving Place and 18th Street during Prohibition. The upshot was we didn't make a single sale that day, so in effect it killed business, at least for Election Day.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As we go through the book chapter by chapter, Mr. Stein makes it clear who is a "fringe" candidate and who might be a Third Part candidate. There is a vast difference.

Ralph Nader of the Green Part would be a Third Party Candidate. Ross Perot, who ran as an independent in 1992 and ran as a member of the Reform Party in 1996, was not a fringe candidate. Perot's first run in 1992 was the most visible, as his presence at the debates and use of graphs is now the stuff of legend.

The chronological order of the book leaves us with the impression that it's not just the Internet and social media that creates a fringe candidate. They've been plying for votes for centuries.

But as we get to the last section, Part 4: Clowns and Quixotes Stampede the Internet and Cable  TV, this is where the real fun begins, as we are reminded of, or hear of of those for the first time, those who might have lead esteemed positions in academia, but who for some reason ran as a "time traveler," telling the electorate that he knows he already won. (Jesus, I could use this guy tat the track. The Pick Six would be my daily hit.)

Andrew Basiago ran on what would charitably be called an Interplanetary platform, in as much as he claimed to have already commuted between Earth and Mars. He was a Time Travel candidate claiming that he, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson has participated in the CIA's Mars visitation program. How in 2008 and 2012 Barack Obama failed to mention this to any of us strikes me as a major résumé omission. He lied to the American public by the sin of omission.

I'm always interested in seeing if any of the wing nuts mentioned in Mr. Stein book got a tribute obituary treatment on their demise. Mr. Basiago  is still with us, and has registered to run in 2020, just in case you're interested in his platform.

I looked up Homer Tomlinson, correctly figuring he's now no longer with us, at least in an earthy fashion, When he passed  away in 1968 it wasn't the fashion to recognize those who lived an eccentric life. Therefore, I found no obituary from a major publication on Mr. Tomlinson. In death, he remained out there on the fringe.

Louis Abolafia, the World Love Party candidate in 1968, who ran nearly naked with a hat strategically placed over his groin—"What Have I Got to Hide?"—passed away in 2005. He did receive some newspaper mention on his passing due to a drug overdose in 2005.

The Naked Cowboy, Robert Burck, is still with us. He wasn't really naked, but he did ply a median pedestrian strip in Times Square wearing only Speedo briefs and strumming a guitar. I think he made an appearance at Trump Tower when Donald Trump was running in 2016.

One of my favorite pictures that was in my daughter Susan's bedroom was when she and her friend Donna posed with the Naked Cowboy, each facing the camera and he, displaying his best side, his rear end with the words NAKED COWBOY. Despite the coronavirus pandemic and New York City being a bit of a ghost town, I am heartened to read that Mr. Burck is fully committed to still appearing in Times Square.

Mr. Stein's book has sharpened my senses for looking out who might emerge from the fringes in 2020 and tell us how they can make things better, if only they are elected.

How much worse can things be?

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com