Get Ready To Face The Truth!
One of the topics trending this morning is Donald Trump telling Larry King his breath stinks. This was 10 years ago and probably true. I put together an audio piece of not only Trump telling King to chew on a mint but celebrities who have passed gas on the air. Just click below to listen to my audio blog.
Sixteen years ago today my phone rang in Cleveland and I looked at the caller ID. It was the neighbor of my father. I knew what this was about before I even answered…..my father had died at the age of 57. There is no way to prepare anyone for the feelings you will have when losing a parent. It’s almost like you become a member of “The Club” where you and the others don’t even have to speak your feelings to know what the other has gone through.
After getting the news I remember looking out the window and thinking: “Why are there cars on the road, why are the banks open, why are people grocery shopping and why are people at work?” It was a big glass of reality for me. The time we have here on this planet is undetermined and people suffer the loss of loved ones every day but as far as the planet it’s “business as usual.”
I was thirteen and in the basement with Dad when he gave me the greatest advice ever. He said “Just remember, no matter what, your parents will be the best friends you ever have.” Of course being thirteen I knew it all and it didn’t really sink in. Over the years I have truly found not only those words to ring true but also words that have become more relevant and accurate as the days go by.
I really miss the opportunity to grab the phone in my times of trouble or confusion. I knew that a helpless situation would be put into proper perspective with a five minute conversation with my father. Now I’m left to figuring it out by myself and I’m not very good at it.
Dad taught me what it was like to be a man. A man isn’t someone that lifts a lot of weight, can chop down a tree with four swings of an ax, or someone who has to tell anyone “ I’m a man!” A true man is one that thinks of others instead of himself, gives of his time without expecting anything in return and isn’t afraid to cry from time to time. I’m still working on so many things he taught me and I hope to have those lessons learned by the time we meet again. I love you Dad…and look forward to when we meet again…..I got a lot to tell ya!
This is our first audio blog. Basically Danny focuses on a current news story and instead of offering his opinion in the written word he opens his big pie hole and breaks the situation down how it really is and not how the mainstream media wants you to believe. Just click media player below.
Here we go again. Every time a nutball goes on a shooting spree taking innocent lives people pop up all over the place clamoring for the need of gun control. Obviously I think this makes as much sense as giving an entertainment system to an Amish family. Follow me on this. Think the war on drugs is a success story? Look out…here comes the clue bus: “Not a chance.” Those that want/need their drugs have no problem getting them at any time. The same thing will happen if the government tries to control guns. Those that want them will easily be able to access them through illegal means. How about approaching these horrific crimes in a manner that will actually benefit and protect those of us that are law-abiding citizens?
If a citizen is able to legally obtain a fire arm they should be allowed to go through proper training to obtain their right to carry and conceal a firearm. Get rid of “Gun free zones” and let those that have taken the measure to properly educate and train themselves for protection purposes legally carry their fire arm. If this were the case in these senseless mass shootings there would have been far less deaths/injuries as someone would have been able to pull out their legally concealed firearm and end the massacre.
One thing I have learned living in Florida is you can’t rely on protection from the police. They are the LAST people you want solving your problem. Before it’s all over they may leave a kilo of coke in your refrigerator and a submachine gun on your hat rack. Anti-gun people will say “We don’t need people running around our streets with guns.” In a perfect world I couldn’t agree more but let me just pour you a reality cocktail. Very bad people have guns. These very bad people are carrying these guns with them as they go to the mall, fast food restaurant, or ride around your town. What are ya gonna do if, heaven forbid, one of these thugs pulls a firearm on you or a loved one? Pull out your smart phone and show him the highest level you completed on candy crush?
Look…..I don’t like anything in my pockets….drives me nuts, however, when we are talking about the possibility of life or death then my snub nose .38 slides into my pocket with the greatest of ease.
Let me begin by saying I don’t like the New England Patriots. Nothing against the people of the city or the city in general I’m just tired of them winning. Their quarterback may be the best of all time and he’s married to a super model. I’m a die-hard Cleveland Browns fan so perhaps I’m just naturally bitter but the country is consumed with the footballs they used in this past weekend’s AFC Championship Game.
ESPN is reporting that eleven of the twelve balls that the Patriots supplied for the game were under inflated. This is a big deal because only the Patriots use the balls that they supplied for the game, it was raining, and under inflated balls are easier to catch. If you weren’t aware of the final score it was Patriots 45 Colts 7. If the final score was 45-41 I might see the cause for concern but let’s not lose focus of “the rules.” IF New England is guilty of under inflating their balls then they deserve to be reprimanded regardless of the fact the Colts were blown out like a mobile home during a tornado.
What really concerns me about this story is the media. This deserves to be a big story for ESPN and other sports programs but this was the second story this morning on network news after the President’s State of the Union Address. The fourth story was another showing of the video of that policeman lip-synching to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” I’m surprised there wasn’t a live shot of Bruce Jenner shaving his legs.
The bottom line with network news is winning the ratings war. If these stories mirror what is on the meter of interest of the average American then we really have become a tabloid society and that’s scary to me. In the meantime I will continue to educate myself by surfing the internet and exposing myself to a variety of sources and opinions while I chuckle like a fifth grader listening to network anchors saying “deflated balls.”
The Oscar nominations were announced this morning. I have OCD so I don’t watch a lot of movies because I can’t sit still so it really wasn’t a big deal to me until the media started fanning the flames of racism. For only the second time in nearly two decades, the 20 Academy Awards acting nominations went to a group made up entirely of white actors and actresses. Why even report that?
Here’s how I see it. There are two types of people in this world: good and bad. There are different types of religions for you to choose to follow and what you choose to believe does not really matter….it’s what you DO that makes you either good or bad.
What if the roles were reversed and all the acting nominees were black? I couldn’t care less. To me that would mean that those were the best acting performances of the year. Why does color have to come into it? We will never get past racism until we look beyond the color of someone’s skin yet the media continues to fan the flames of the difference in color.
Let me illustrate the absurd by being absurd. Take Affirmative Action for instance. If I own a company and have ten openings I am going to hire the ten best people for the job. I don’t care about color, I don’t care if ya show up to work with a parrot on your shoulder or if you come to work on a pogo stick. Can you do the job? End of story. Imagine if Affirmative Action was enforced in the NBA. Do you think a team would ever score fifty points in a game?
Why do we continue to try to make ourselves the same? Difference is good. It makes us examine a pattern of thinking that we may not have considered and in some cases we actually end up learning something. Heaven forbid we actually do something like that.
I may have done or will do some crazy things in life but I can promise you I will never be involved in a protest. I just don’t understand the purpose because a bunch of people shouting the same thing and parading around with a bunch of signs aren’t gonna change a law. It seems to me like a wasted effort….sorta like pissing up a drape.
In order to have what is deemed a “successful” protest you need large groups of people otherwise you won’t attract the attention of the media (and that’s the main purpose of a protest). If I am standing in line at the grocery store and the machine runs out of register tape I’ll start to have a panic attack so crowds are not my thing.
Protestors like to shout the same things over and over again to make their point. Isn’t repetition with lack of a lot of content the premise that Sesame Street is built upon. Talking to a giant yellow bird and someone in a bad mood that lives in a garbage can is also not my idea of a mondo jovial type tundra.
All successful protests also involve signs. I have made one sign in my life. I was eight years old and I was selling blackberries that I picked in the woods behind my house. To this day I am confused by those that stand outside the Today Show studios for hours and hold their home-made signs in front of random cameras while jumping up and down as if they had just won the Showcase Showdown on The Price Is Right.
I believe that people should follow their passion. If they believe in protesting then I think they should do it peacefully and lawfully just know that it more than likely is not going to do it. That made me wonder why anyone would put forth what seems to be a futile effort. Tonight I ran across a news story that makes it a bit more clear to me. Three Occupy Wall Street protestors received $142K from the NYPD for being attacked. Please excuse me now…..I’m off to Home Depot. I have some signs to make.
I have stated in the past at how disappointed I am in the world today. No one is nice anymore. No one says “please” or “thank you” or holds the door open for the other person. Something happened today that has stayed with me all day and hopefully will for quite some time.
I had a minor accident on the Harley over the weekend and there was some minor damage done to my pride and joy. I only take my bike to one place, Nicky D’s, so I rode it there and dropped it off this morning. Since the shop is six miles from my house I needed to arrange for a ride home so the plan was Mom would drive to get me on her lunch break from work. To make it easy on mom I told her to meet me at the CVS nearby but this entailed that I walk from Nicky D’s to CVS. The distance was maybe a quarter of a mile but I was wearing long pants and it was about eighty-two degrees so by the time I got to CVS I looked like a contestant on “The Biggest Loser.”
I found a bench in front of the store, sat down and called mom. As usual I was early and she told me she would leave work in about a half hour which translates into me sitting in the direct sun for about another forty-five minutes.
I could feel the sunlight hit me directly and make me sweat like Johnny Manziel at last call. I knew that if a producer for “The Bachelor” walked by I would not be invited to be on the show. I started to smell like someone who should be behind the wheel of a Yellow Cab. Then a very strange thing happened that left me stunned and speechless.
An elderly woman, probably early eighties, stopped in front of me and said “Would you like an iced tea I just bought?” I respectfully declined but was stunned by her offer as it was something I had not seen in such a long time: unselfishness and kindness. She didn’t know me. She didn’t know what I was about yet she put that all aside and was willing to make a sacrifice for someone she didn’t even know. Isn’t that the way we are supposed to live life on a daily basis?
I may have declined her kind offer of a drink today but what she gave me meant so much more than just a quench of thirst. She restored my faith in mankind.
North Korea is responsible for the cyber attack on Sony Pictures and we respond by pulling the movie “The Interview” on Christmas Day. Really? When Home Depot let the identities of millions of its customers get hacked did we stop mowing the lawn? What does this show North Korea? Simple…..the next time they don’t like something in this country all they have to do is hack TMZ.com and no more updates on why Jennifer Anniston doesn’t wanna have kids.
This country has turned into the marching band geek in high school that takes the long way to their next class because he doesn’t wanna get a wedgie in the bathroom from a classmate that smokes. Where were these North Korean computer hacks when “Dumb and Dumber Too” came out? I haven’t been to the movies in about six years but my mother and I were planning on going Christmas Day to see “The Interview” NOT because we wanted to see the movie, we were gonna go just because a bunch or nerds with bad skin and no girlfriends dared us to.
We, as a nation, blew this big time. We sent a message to potential hackers that if you mess with our X-Box then we are gonna stay home. For a long time I have said that the next terrorist attack against us will be either poisoning our food supply or taking down power grids. We have shown that we are not the land of the free and the brave but the home of the wimps and the wussies. What an insult to any American that has served his or her country. Terrorists win when you let fear take over.
So what would I have done? I’d make sure “The Interview” was the ONLY picture playing in theatres on Christmas Day. I’d wanna see lines outside the movies nationwide. I’d like to show the world that we ARE leaders and those that lead don’t get into the crawl space in the attic when the bully walks down the neighborhood sidewalk. We keep saying that we have learned from 9-11 but nothing could be further from the truth. We are a paranoid nation…..and that paranoia stems from “potential” terrorism. When do we stop the retreat and return to marching forward? From what I have been seeing…that opportunity has passed.
DANNYLAND!!!!!! 