Alas Poor Penny, I Knew You Well

It is official. The U.S. Mint is going to stop producing pennies as of this year. No more. The shiny copper piece is worth 1¢ but costs 3.69¢ to produce. This is known as losing money. But hey, the government subsidizes a great many things, but has finally given up on subsidizing the lowly penny. The time has finally come.  

It doesn't seem like anyone is going to come to the penny's rescue with a Horatio Alger story of how they saved their pennies and are now a billionaire. The Lincoln penny was introduced in 1909 to replace the Indian Head penny. 1909 was the centennial of Lincoln's birth and the penny was a commemorative coin for him.

The Indian Head penny could never be produced today. The expression, now unheard of, "I wouldn't give you a red cent" referred to the Indian Head penny. I once had a coin collection and a roll of Indian Head pennies. My collection was stolen by of all people my father, who was always desperate for money.

To help fill out my collection of coins I would go to the bank and claim that as a business, the family flower shop, we needed rolls of coins to make change. This was a lie. With the rolls of coins I sorted through them to fill out the collection. I was proud that I completed a full set of Washington quarters through this tactic. I never found the 1909-S VDB penny.

The Indian Head was produced from 1859 to 1909. The Lincoln penny that is a 1909-S VDB was the Holy Grail for collectors. I never had one.

There were three mints that produced coins back in the day and the mint was designated by a mint mart; S for San Francisco; D for Denver. No mint mark meant the coin was produced in Philadelphia. Thus, any one year could have produced coins from three different mints. This always added to the collector's pursuit to complete their collection.

The 1909-S VDB mint mark referred to the engraver of Lincoln's image, Victor David Brenner. His initials were on the reverse of the coin, the so-called Wheat Back.  

In 1959 the Lincoln Memorial in Washington was depicted on the reverse of the penny. This was done to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Lincoln's birth. This lasted through 2008 when in 2009, to commemorate the bicentennial, 200th anniversary of Lincoln's birth, four scenes from Lincoln's life were depicted: log cabin, rail splitting, Illinois State Capitol, U.S. Capitol for the presidency.

I have to admit I don't think I've ever had a 2009 penny with any of the four scenes. The collectors must have gobbled them up.

The Union Shield was placed on the back in 2010 to commemorate the 150th anniversary (sesquicentennial) of the election of Lincoln in 1860 and has remained on the reverse. 

It's almost a shame to take a coin out of circulation that has been used to impart so many parts of American history through Lincoln's life. But that 3.69¢ to produce something worth 1¢ is Trumping everything.

My own history of the penny aside from collecting the various years and mint marks, was to place some on the railroad tracks of the LIRR Port Washington line that ran through the back of our property in Flushing.

We lived just east of the Murray Hill station, and as an adventurous lad in the 1950s I climbed down the embankment, knowing the train schedules so I wouldn't have to flee or get killed, and placed pennies on the tracks and then tried to find them after the train flattened them. I remember one came out in almost the shape of a heart that I gave to a girl in grammar school. I don't have any of these flattened pennies. But the girl's name was Olga.

The NYT carries a story that has been expected for a long time. The U.S. mint will stop ordering the blanks on which to make the pennies and will end production when the current supply runs out. So long penny. Sales will be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel. Or so it is hoped.

Nickels are endangered as well. They cost 13.75¢ to produce to put a coin worth 5¢ into circulation. Will there be a trend to eliminate more coins?

There are other countries that still produce what is the equivalent of a penny, but not many. Other countries have eliminated what would be the equivalent of a one-cent piece. Canada has long eliminated paper one and two-dollar bills and replaced them with coins: One loon on the back for a dollar; two loons on the back for $2. Loonies and toonies. Coins last longer than paper.

Prior to 1859 the one-cent piece was a cartwheel depicting various poses of Lady Liberty. A penny had value, basically up to WW II. Consider the scene in the Depression movie The Grapes of Wrath where the Oakie brother and sister kids eye the candy counter at the diner. They have one cent between, and the lady lies and tells them the candy is two-for-a-penny. Kris Kristofferson wrote a song about the scene.

And in case you weren't lucky enough to have a Large Cent in your pocket, you might have a half-cent, a coin produced from 1793-1857. They were phased out because with inflation (there is always inflation). They were impractical. So, I guess in 1857 there might have been nostalgia for the discontinued half-cent and what was the world coming to when you couldn't buy something with a half-cent? 

And so it goes. What can you buy with a penny? Even a lot of pennies, say 1,000 of them, (20! rolls of 50! pennies in each roll) which is worth $10. What can you buy with $10? A Starbucks frappuccino with a caramel script on top with your name on the cup?

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The MUTE Button

The MUTE button on my TV's remote has been touched so many times that at this point it only spells "TE." The first two letters have been worn off. Like marble stairs whose middle has been worn down by so many people climbing up and down on them, the "MU" is gone. I suspect the "TE" might not make it through the current election cycle.

In fact, I don't visually reach for the button anymore. My left and right thumbs have enough muscle memory in them that they find the little guy whenever I want to refrain from hearing political ads. Even in a darkened room.

Political adds? It's May. Yeah, you haven't heard about the New Jersey gubernatorial primaries, or New York City mayoral primaries, all Democrats looking to knock each other out and oppose who knows who?

I don't have a dog in either jurisdiction. But because Nassau County borders New York City boroughs, and New Jersey is not outside the F.C.C. broadcast range, I am subjected to all the political ads the world can create for all the money in the world.

After the November 2024 election cycle I thought we'd receive a respite from political ads. Nope. Primaries.

There's a guy running up an endless outdoor flight of stairs to tell us he's on nobody's side but ours. He's Steve Fulop, and he's running for New Jersey governor. Let me tell you, it's some flight of steel stairs. And since I'm not familiar with all things New Jersey, I don't know where it starts or ends. Heaven? The Palisades? All I can say about Steve is that he must be in very good shape. Or there's very clever editing and he has a body double doing double time up the stairs.

There is a woman who has flown helicopters for the U.S. Navy, who is now going to, "stand up to Trump." She's Mikie Sherrill, carrying her flight helmet past a fighter plane. I love the name Mikie. It's stitched on her flight suit.

In fact, candidates in New Jersey all tell us they are going to "stand up to Trump" and sometimes "Elon Musk." In what venue this showdown is going to occur is not clear, but they are going to "stand up." They are going to take on the "bosses" and end corruption.

The candidate Josh Gottheimer gets his fighting message across visually with his head superimposed on a boxer's body trading punches with The Donald, who's wearing a suit, in a boxing ring. AI generated?

Standing up to Trump might resonate with some voters, but it might also prove to be empty words. The Donald has survived more bad publicity, lawsuits, and assassination attempts than anyone. He's Rasputin. You can't kill him. It's possible if he were Catholic and celibate (highly unlikely) he could have been elected pope. There has been a recent opening.

New York City, not to be outdone by New Jersey, has at least 11 candidates running for the Democratic nomination for mayor. There are so many that ranked voting will take place soon. This is where the voters indicate their preference by ranking the candidates. The order presented on ballot was made through random selection. It looks like a baseball lineup card.

When the votes are tallied, those that didn't make the cut will be dropped from future ballots (this is like a golf tournament) and the process will be repeated with fewer candidates. The process will likely take longer than the Stanley Cup playoffs and surely guarantee to push the ads on TV and radio deep into summer. Can we take this?

The most recognizable candidate is Andrew Cuomo, the former governor of New York, New York Attorney General and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), cabinet member under President Clinton and the son of a three-term governor of New York, Mario Cuomo. He's got name recognition, but lots of baggage over stuffing Covid patients into nursing homes and allegedly infecting the facilities, leading to more deaths. This is heavy baggage. But he dead don't vote (usually), and their mourning relatives might not even be New York registered voters.

Andrew Cuomo is deftly hedging his bets on winning the Democratic nomination in the upcoming ranked ballot voting. Regardless of that outcome, he will appear on a newly created party line, the Fight and Deliver party. It seems with enough paperwork and signatures you can create a party so that you get your name on the ballot with that party. It is somewhat like Noman Lear spinning off show after show from the characters who appeared on one show. Hey, it worked for Norman.

The incumbent mayor Eric Adams has already eschewed trying to run as a Democrat and will run as an Independent. The incumbent mayor John Lindsay did this in 1969 and in a stunner got re-elected, in my opinion because the Mets won the 1969 World Series in October and the city's population was still too euphoric to care who was going to be the mayor when November rolled around. The epic snowstorm in February 1969 and lack of snow removal in Queens was forgotten. Just a thought.

There are lots of seemingly fringe candidates who would seem to have limited appeal. There is Scott Stringer, who tells us we have to "keep that schmuck out of Washington." He means Trump, who he tells us we should "stick it" to. This is tough Yiddish talk, which may not be recognizable by the current ethnic mix in New York City.

There is someone named Zohran Mamdani, whose first name is not to be confused with that Upper West Side food emporium Zabar's. Or maybe he is confused with that food emporium and it will work to his advantage.

There is another candidate whose first name starts with Z, Zellnor Myrie, who tells us he grew up in public housing. Hey, everybody's got to be someplace. What were the chances that two candidates names would start with Z?

There is someone named Paperboy Love Prince, a performance artist. There might be doubts this is his real name.

Brad Lander, the current NYC Comptroller is at a junkyard operating a forklift and overseeing a car being crushed that's been graffitied with the word CORRUPTION on it, with a picture of Andrew Cuomo in the upper left. The message is clear. Brad's going to stamp out corruption.

Brad is easily the first candidate ever to be seen operating a forklift. The video was shot at the Willets Point junkyards in Flushing Queens, hard by Citi Field. Brad has taken flak for being on the property on what is considered a mob run business. Yeah, so is pizza.

My riff here on the mute button was touched off by an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal titled: Ask Your Doctor About the Mute Button by Joseph Epstein. The piece was tucked away in the lower left and corner in yesterday's paper where many of the more light-hearted pieces of this nature appear now and then. They can be refreshing.

Joseph Epstein is a writer who was editor of the magazine The American Scholar from 1975 to 1997. I think I've seen his name before on pieces like his on the MUTE button, that has an out quote, "It's the only effective treatment I've found for TV advertitis."

Pharmaceutical advertising is what sends Mr. Epstein to the MUTE button. I can empathize with his frustration with drug ads. They are everywhere.

Mr. Epstein admits to being in his 80s (he's actually 88) and certainly seems to have all his faculties intact. He lists all the drugs ads he can, giving us a top 10 list.

•Rinvoq (for rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and more.)
•RectiCare (hemorrhoids)
•Calquence (leukemia)
•Qunol Turmeric (joint troubles)
•Uquoro (urination problems)
•Kardia Mobile (heart)
•Jardiance (kidneys, diabetes)
•Rexulti (depression)
•Otezla (plaque psoriasis)
•Visiting angels (care givers)

He tells us he could easily name 10 more. Oddly to me, he's left off Wegovy and Ozempic, weight loss drugs in his top 10. He doesn't describe the ads, probably because he hits the button as soon as he realizes what's coming up next.

I don't reach for the MUTE button for drug ads. I find the ads almost funny. I think it's the Wegovy ad where what seems like an entire town stops what they're doing and joins in a march down Main Street telling us they're keeping the weight off. See photo above.

They look  like a Broadway produced musical, maybe The Music Man, where an entire town of all sizes and races is a sea of happy, healthy, smiling people. It is inspiring; if you like inspiring.

I think it's the Ozempic ad that tells us through a choreographed dance number, that it helps lower the dancers' A1-C. I don't really know what A1-C stands for. It's some sort of diabetic measurement I assume, that if it's high, you're in trouble. Not this bunch of limber dancers. They all got their number below 7.

With this avalanche of drug ads it is easy to believe that market research has concluded that the only people tunning into TV these days are those people who are older and most likely to be suffering from what these ads say they will treat you for. Or, they are people who need an SUV to drive through an inch of mud and water, splashing happily in the middle of nowhere.

At 88, I suspect Mr. Epstein takes something for something, but doesn't need to imagine he's got something else and needs to ask his doctor about restless leg syndrome. At 76, I take a few things, but I feel like a pharmaceutical outcast because what I take is not heavily advertised. Hell, it's not even advertised at all. There must be something else wrong with me.

I should ask my doctor.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Swan Song Rehearsal

The sun shined bright on my old South Queens Home, Aqueduct, site of many a Saturday's adventures, and sometimes a mid-week hooky from work.

Aqueduct's days are numbered. No one is saying what the number is, but they're numbered. Five years from now the place will likely no longer exist. Aqueduct housing might.

The Assembled met on Saturday May 10th, a little later in the calendar than usual. First time taking in Aqueduct for what is called the Belmont at Aqueduct Meet: BAQ in the past performances if you're interested.

Now that all of us are on Medicare, Johnny D. made the crack that if we show our Medicare cards at the gate, we get in for free. Bobby G. looked at him and said, "everyone gets in free at Aqueduct." Johnny D. replied: "See, It works."

We hadn't seen each other at the track since last April. It was a bell weather day, with no wind. The turf courses were lush and green. However, because of Friday's downpour, two of the 4 races carded for the turf were run on the main track. the two stakes turf races  remained on the green, as expected. The track was fast. It was a good card. There were 5 stakes race of the 11 run on the day.

Everyone made it there before the first race, with Bobby G getting here just a little before the first race, but still in time to bet. Bobby G. once again was complaining about the parking, which is worth complaining about. There are acres of space not used, blocked off with barriers. At least this time Bob wasn't parked next to the ambulance, which is far better than better than being in the ambulance.

Updates were shared about how many grandkids there are now and what they're up to. Bobby G., as the oldest,  has the oldest grandkids with a granddaughter who is an Ob-Gyn resident at Bellevue, continuing in the family medical profession. Personal medical updates were shared, with no life-threatening ailments disclosed. 

Bobby G will be 89 in August, and of course 90 in 2026. It was pointed out to him that he was going to be 90! and Belmont still wasn't going to be opened yet, not reopening till October 2026. That's a lot to live for, and a lot of time left to live until it happens. Hopefully there won't be any of us wearing memorial T-shirts for a departed member. 

Of the two downstate tracks, Aqueduct and Belmont, Aqueduct always had the best sight lines for watching a race. Unfortunately, the place itself is a sight. The track is great. The infrastructure and clientele not so much.

Basically, only the first and second floors are open, and only a few sections of the seats. Everyone is herded into a few remaining open sections outside, with those inside accommodated as if they're in an OTB. The place looks a bit like it's inhabited from a welfare or unemployment office, with maybe a homeless person or two living out of a hefty bag.

Lots of simulcasting, and Game #3 of the Knicks/Celtics was on in the afternoon, with the Knicks getting blown out. There is no smoking indoors, and shouldn't be outdoors, but no one enforces it. As such, there are piles of cigarette butts accumulating by the door leading to the outside. The fellow who sweeps just picks up discard tickets into his scooper: the butts are left behind. Quite a place. Of course even before entering the smell of marijuana is evident. In the seats, a contact high might be possible. Thanks Governor.

There is pretty much no labor overhead in running the place. There are only live cashiers on the first floor. Bobby G bets on his phone. Johnny D. bought a $60 voucher from one of  the voucher terminals, and cashed on the first floor for $58. Not a bad day, but just didn't get over the top. José doesn't like to use the machines, so he goes down to the first floor to make bets with one of the few tellers. 

But, despite the complete lack of ambience, betting is the objective, and a decent card of  11 races was on tap, with 5 stake races.

Johnny D. always arrives with a downloaded Daily Racing Form traditional pps secured on a clipboard. Say this about the Daily Racing Form, they are in the 21st century. An online, downloaded card cost $4.25, which compares favorably to the at least $7 you would need to spend to get a watered down, Equibase set of pps which do not carry the Beyer Speed Ratings. 

Bobby G. doesn't do any advance study of the card, and just arrives buying a set of pps at the track. Unfortunately he wasn't aware there are basically three varieties to choose from: Equibase, $7; $10; for the short number of tracks Daily Racing Form traditional pps, or $11 for a more complete booklet of tracks being run. Downloading, if you have a home printer, is always best if you are only going to bet one track.

There are no creature comforts at Aqueduct, and only one place in the entire track from which you can buy something to eat. Johnny D. gets nothing, José brought a banana, but Bobby G. needs more sustenance, so he always sets off in search of the clam chowder.

And since he was fighting with his inadequate version of the pps he was able to upgrade at the track newsstand to a better set of pps. He also got his clam chowder, which is always worth having.

Someone must have gotten the Harry M. Stevens recipe for Manhattan clam chowder, because that was historically the only good thing about Harry M. Stevens, the longtime holder of the concession rights at NYRA and New York ballparks, whose help never went to charm school, the most embittered bunch of employees you could ever come across. They never had any good days, and pretty much did their best to ruin yours.

With all the annoyances absorbed, betting is the thing. Numerologists would have had a winning day if they liked the #4, since the 4-horse won 5 of the 11 races; three in a row at one point.

Linda Rice, maybe the most successful female trainer, who has won meet training titles at Saratoga and downstate, took two races. Michelle Giangiulio took another with the #4 horse in the 4th race, Quick to Accuse, for her first win at the meet, and only her third win this year in 37 starts.

Years ago there was no such thing as a female trainer. Despite Michelle's apparent anemic record, she attracted Irad Jose Jr., always a leading rider. There were other female trainers on the card as well.

Joel Rosario, always a threat when riding turf, won the two turf races. A horse he was riding in the 7th race went down, but he was unhurt because he was back riding the next race.

Johnny D's homework and numbers, which can take a few hours to put together on an 11 race card, were paying dividends, Unfortunately, the prices were low, so it was tough to win out over the $60 voucher. One $1 exacta paid $3.65; another was more decent at $19.

Bobby G. hit a few races, with low returns; José hit a decent $1 exacta. The last race was the so-called Peter Pan, a race that has emerged as a major New York prep race for the Belmont Stakes at 1½ miles. But, with Belmont being rebuilt. the Belmont has been run, and will be run two more times at Saratoga at 1¼. Saratoga cannot have a 1½ mile dirt race with a start that doesn't begin on a turn.

How a race came to be named after an elfin boy in green tights played on the stage by a woman, Mary Martin, who flies and doesn't want to grow up, is beyond me, but Peter Pan it is. Actually, the race is named after the horse Peter Pan who won the Belmont Stakes in 1907, which no one on earth is now alive who might have seen him run. The race is run strictly for 3-year-olds at a mile and a eighth, and as such attracts horses who are being auditioned for the Belmont Stakes. How a horse came to be named Peter Pan is not known. (I have very distant Greek cousins who operate a diner named Peter Pan in Bayshore, Long Island, opened in the 1950s.)

So, with all that went on on Saturday, did Chad Brown and Flavian Prat win a race? You betcha. The Peter Pan was won easily by Hill Road, the second morning line choice at 5/2, who won easily at 2-1. I missed having an obvious choice.

Hill Road was one of 7 of the 9 horses in the race nominated for the Triple Crown. Expect to see more of the $350,000 yearling purchase from $150,000 Quality Road stud fee to a Lemon Drop Kid mare, Exotic Notion. Lemon Drop Kid won the 1999 Belmont. There is distance in Hill Road's breeding. Hill Road went the distance in a very credible 1:491/5. 

What's next? The hope is that we all make it to the re-opening of Belmont in October 2026. No one wants to go to Aqueduct anymore, and it is doubtful we'll be back for it in 2026.

And since my first day at the races was at what was then in 1968 the re-opening of the new Belmont, and Bobby G's memory of going to Jamaica Race Track (yes Virginia, there was a Jamaica Racetrack in Jamaica, Queens) we should get in for free, even without our Medicare cards.

Note: The story goes that Sid Luft, one of Judy Garland's husbands, said to Judy that they were going to go to Jamaica in the afternoon.  Judy got excited and went out shopping for tropical wear, thinking they were going to fly to the island of Jamaica. Sid took her to the track and the Daily Double, where Judy had to be the best dressed patron there, if not the most surprised.

Jamaica Race Track opened in 1903, and closed in 1959 and was reached by the Locust Manor stop on the LIRR. Aqueduct can be reached by taking the subway A Train to Aqueduct. One of the races on Saturday's card was named Take the A Train.

Half a century ago I was in Toronto and took in a day at Greenwood Racetrack, now no longer there. It was said then it was the last track in North America to be reached by a trolley. 

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Boiling Mad

It is no secret The New York Times has outsourced its sports writing to The Athletic, an in-house, separate entity that sparingly reports of sports in the paper. No beat coverage of local teams, no standings, no schedule of upcoming games. The Times thinks they are a newspaper Sports Illustrated. 

To a long-time reader of The NYT it is annoying development, but I should write and thank them. Because of their misguided opinion of what passes for sports writing, I've taken to buying the New York Post. I still get the print edition of The Times, so they didn't lose a subscriber, but I get through the paper much faster these days. 

Alan King once joked that if you want to read about love and marriage you need to buy two books. If you want to read about news and sports in New York you need to buy two newspapers. Simple as that.

Years ago in a Saratoga book store, Northshire, the racing reporter for The NYT, Joe Drape, was giving a talk promoting his book American Pharoah: The Untold Story of the Triple Crown Winner's Legendary Rise. [At birth, the owner misspelled pharaoh.]

Mr. Drape is a true racetrack denizen. He's wagered on races on several continents, bet on camels, and would fit right in with racetrack attire with an untucked shirt, a program sticking out of his back pocket, while holding a marked up Racing Form. If anyone actually went to the racetrack these days on anything other a Triple Crown event, you might spot a few people like this. But they're not young, and not many.

At the talk he made a strange comment that I didn't understand the significance of at the time. It was 2016 and he said he was going to be the last racing reporter for The NYT. Huh?

When he signed my book we talked quickly, and he told me he read back over all the prior racing reporters—and there have been many over the decades—and told me he liked Steve Cady, now deceased, the best. I agreed that I loved reading Cady as well, and I loved reading about racing in The NYT.

I grew up with a good friend, Dave Piermont, who when he got out of college with a degree in journalism from Kentucky Wesleyan College went to work for Eddie and Richard Bomze at Sports Reporter and Racing Star Weekly, publications about horse racing and betting on college and professional football.

In Kentucky, Dave made the rounds of any track that was open: Miles Park, Keeneland, Churchill Downs and Turfway Park. This was the late 60s and early 70s and Keeneland didn't even have a race caller. Imagine that. Dave was a race track denizen, and passed away in 2021.

Richard Bomze owned thoroughbreds, usually New York breds. He bred a lot of horses to his sire Compliance, and as such got to name the offspring. He named a lot of his horses with a nod to the people who worked for him. When Broadway Joan gave birth to a horse from Compliance, Bomze chose the name Fourstardave, a nod to his employee, and my friend, recognizing that Dave never gave out four betting stars on any of his football picks. Thus, Fourstardave started his career as one of the most successful New York bred horses and the winner of 8 races at Saratoga, the Sultan of Saratoga.

Fourstardave was a gelding, so he didn't get to create any offspring. When he passed away they named a street by Siro's restaurant outside Saratoga, Fourstardave Way, and buried the horse on the backstretch at Clare Court. There is a graded turf race named The Fourstardave held annually at Saratoga.

When Saratoga did some renovations years ago and ditched the dilapidated area called the Carousel where they held prerace handicapping talks, they held a contest to solicit names for the new sports bar area they were going to create. The fans voted for the sports bar to be called Fourstardave.

I've written about the origin of the Fourstardave name before. A few years ago I met Joe Drape in the Fourstardave area and we talked a bit. Toward the end of the card Dave was getting excited because he had three legs of a pick-four. I lost track of him, and never found out if he hit.

The complete irony of Dave and the Fourstardave sports bar is that the person, Dave Piermont, never went to Saratoga. He had been brainwashed by a co-worker, Howard Rowe, another turf writer, when working for the Bomzes that the place was a tourist trap. I could never get him interested in going, and I've gone since 1975, and for decades of consecutive Augusts.

Dave was prickly when someone in the media got something wrong about horse racing. He loved to listen to Mike Francesa on Sports Radio, and even though Francesa owns thoroughbreds over the years he apparently would say some dumb things about racing. Dave would get incensed, and the phone would ring and I'd have to listen to what Mike got wrong—again.

As I mentioned, Dave is no longer with us so I can't call him incensed at what an Athletic reporter wrote on Monday in The New York Times about Bill Mott. 

Friday and Saturday The NYT had expansive piece about horse racing. There was a piece about Bob Baffert and his return to Churchill Downs after his three year suspension, by Dana O'Neil, a new Athletic byline that I had never seen writing about thoroughbred racing. Dana also had a big piece on Mike McCarthy, the trainer of the morning line favorite Journalism and how he was personally affected by the California wildfires. There was a piece about the struggles of making a living running a stable in the era of  billionaire owners. Joe Drape had a byline about Joe Greene and DJ stable. I was chuffed.

The NYT  true to its policy of yesterday's news tomorrow, didn't even have a Derby story in Sunday's paper. Thus, no result, no chart, no payouts. Nada. No surprise.

The surprise was yesterday, Monday when there was a expansive bylined piece by Dana O'Neil on Bill Mott, the trainer of the winner Sovereignty. There are no wholesale inaccuracies in the piece, other than at the end when Ms. O'Neil tells us Michael Banahan owns the horse. No, Godolphin owns the horse. Michael is a farm manager for Godolphin, as Bill Mott is one of their longstanding trainers.

The owner of Godolphin is the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum. The Arabs have been trying to win the Derby for decades. They bid extravagant sums for yearlings every year, breeding the best and hoping for the best.

Yet the entire piece makes it sound like Bill Mott has finally won a significant race, finally winning the Derby outright after his horse Country House was moved from first to second after the stewards disqualified Maximum Security for interference coming into the stretch in 2019. The ruling dragged on for 23 minutes back in 2019 as the stewards viewed film from all angles.  It was first ever Derby DQ, and as often as I saw it I didn't think anything significant had happened. History.

Reading Ms. O'Neil's story I wonder if she was even there in the winner's circle. Her quotes are verbatim from the TV. She'd have had to be pretty close enough to hear Kenny Rice interview Bill Mott. I wonder. 

Bill Mott is not suddenly fortunate. He trained Cigar to 16 straight victories. He's won the Belmont; he's won Breeders' Cup races; he's been an eminent trainer for decades, routinely winning at a 20-24% clip;  he's trained for Godolphin for decades.

Nice recognition of Bill, but missing the parts. A lot of parts. Big parts. He's a HALL OF FAME trainer, words not found in Ms. O'Neil's piece.

Ms. O'Neil's bio on Google tells us she's covered many sports, car racing and college events. She's an assistant Athletic Director at Villanova University. She's not a turf writer, and the Bill Mott piece shows us that. She doesn't have a program sticking out of her purse, or a marked up Racing Form handy.

The NYT and The Athletic feel they can parachute any writer into an event and turn out a piece. It can work for some things. It didn't work writing about Bill Mott.

http://www.onofframp.blogpost.com

The Uptown Girl

Uptown girl, she's been living in her uptown world,
I bet she never had a backstreet guy,
I bet her momma never told her why.
I'm gonna try for an uptown girl,
She's been living in her white bread world...

And so go the lyrics to one of Billy Joel's biggest hits, "Uptown Girl," a song germinating Billy's head as he thought about a fantasy girl and was dating Elle Macpherson another supermodel, in 1983. The song's lyrics further morphed into being as his relationship with Christie Brinkley commenced, who he married in 1985. The music video is a classic.

I keep bumping into Christie Brinkley. Well, not literally, but she's everywhere these days hawking her memoir, "Uptown Girl." 

Last week I saw her on the Fox Network morning news show "Good Day New York" being interviewed by Rosanna Scotto and Curt Menefee. Christie was flashing her megawatt smile, decked out in a yellow top with a black miniskirt that effectively showed off legs that no 71-year-old woman should be expected to have.

Any interview on that news show is never lengthy. The interview of course discussed the book. Most of the banter was about Billy Joel, Christie's second, and probably most famous husband of her four.  Christie's got a track record for marriages. She and Billy divorced in 1994 over Billy's out-of-control drinking. 

Many, many years ago I was riding the LIRR to work when the guy next to be was reading that Christie was divorcing her third husband Richard Taubman, a real estate developer, and whom she was with when the ski helicopter they were crashed in Telluride, Colorado in 1994. Both were injured, Richard more so. She and Richard married afterward in 1995. 

When the fellow next to me read that now Richard was going out of the picture with Christie, I could hear him say to himself, "who's next, Ross Perot?" (He wasn't.)

The Sports Illustrated swimsuit appearance in 1975 further vaulted Christie into the supermodel stratosphere. She was already appearing on numerous magazine covers, and the tally is said to have topped out at 500 covers. She was on S.I.'s cover three consecutive years: 1979, 1980, and 1981.

I remember the 1975 S.I. issue because I was getting a subscription at the time. I remember the photo of Christie in it. The swimsuit edition was becoming an eagerly awaited issue. I remember the mailman (Okay, letter carrier) crossing our lawn delivering the mail while flipping through the pages. For years I saved that edition. 

After Christie's appearance on Good Day New York I next bumped into a back page story of her in the Wall Street Journal's Mansion edition on May 2, 2025. When you're as famous and as photogenic as Christie, media attention is guaranteed.

The Mansion section's back page features a celebrity and a short bio of their upbringing and a description of the homes where they lived and are now living.

She grew up in Monroe, Michigan with an abusive father who whipped her butt with a belt, who the mother divorced when she was 8. When she was 5 months old the family moved from Michigan to Canoga Park in Los Angeles. The move is described as necessary for a transfer for father Herb Hudson, who was a milkman. (This part seems odd that a milkman was transferred halfway across the country, but that's what is the paper.)

The mother met a TV writer Don Brinkley, who adopted Christie and her brother Greg. Christie studied art and went to Paris in 1975 to study further and worked for an illustrator at Air France. Her first husband was Jean-Francois Allaux who she was married to from 1973-1981.

When Jean-Francois was drafted by the French Army she got her a dog to keep her company. In Paris, with no phone in the apartment she was using a pay phone to contact the dog's vet. It was during one of those phone calls that she was approached by a fashion photographer who said she should be a model. And so she did.

At the end of the WSJ's Mansion piece they always close with a little bio sketch of the subject's age and what they're up to these days,

Christie is estimated to be worth $100 million. The bio sketch describers her as "71, an actress, an entrepreneur and model...She owns TWRHLL clothing line." They left out she is a major Hampton's house flipper who always sells something for way more than she paid for it after redecorating it.

In an Extra interview she admits that there's no one romantically in her life right now, but who knows, she's still out there.

I'd love to really bump into her.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com

Musical Sounds

Johnny Cash used to tell anyone who listened that he "knew 1,000 songs." Samson is said to have killed 1,000 men with a donkey's jawbone, making donkeys out of them. Okay, but did Samson ever make any music with a donkey's jawbone or was he too busy counting corpses?

The Samson question is not answered in a recent WSJ A-Hed piece, but the A-Hed piece informs us that Macario Martinez is making music from a donkey's jawbone and is headed for a music contract with Sony, after blowing up the internet with a music video on Tik Tok, singing and riding on the back of a garbage truck, and becoming famous enough that he quit his street sweeper's job in Mexico City to pursue his musical calling full-time. The things you can do with a jawbone. And a guitar.

Mankind has always been making sounds from banging on something, be that bones or cow bells. Apparently hitting a donkey's jawbone rattles the teeth and produces desirable music. I have to say, the jawbone is a lot bigger than I would have thought. It's a common instrument in Latin American countries.

I like to read the credits in the liner notes on every CD I buy. (Yes, I still buy CDs.) On a recent purchase of a double CD of Melody Gardot's music, I noticed someone credited with playing the glockenspiel on the La Vie En Rose track, a signature song of Edith Piaf's. I don't think I ever saw anyone credited with playing a glockenspiel before. On a Billy Joel album from a long time ago I noticed he was credited with the "finger snaps."

Macario's breakout number is titled "Sueña Lido Corazón" (Beautiful Dream My Love).  It's a pleasant ditty, much better than what passes for music these days in the States, which I think has no melody and is basically diarrhea of the mouth.

Macario put the video out on Tik Tok like many of his previous efforts which usually clock in with 1,000 hits. When he woke up and checked his tally he found he had scored 100,000 hits. Like a lot of musicians who've been at it a while, and found success, his was overnight.

Macario is only 24, so he either has a long career ahead of him, or he'll be like the Baha Men who let the dogs out, and were pretty much never heard from again.

http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com