Brando's Pet Raccoon and Baseball Hijinks
On this day in 1934, John Dillinger was shot down by the newly formed FBI in an alley behind Chicago's Biograph Theater. He committed no federal crime but J. Edgar Hoover needed to make a name for himself. He had just watched Manhattan Melodrama, which was loosely based on his own life. Ladies dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood for souvenirs.
"All my life I wanted to be a bank robber. Carry a gun and wear a mask. Now that it's happened I guess I'm just about the best bank robber they ever had. And I sure am happy."
Seneca- "What I advise you to do is not to be unhappy before the crisis comes."
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Hahaha, this guy! Still stewing late into the night last night. I guess we'll just have to take him at his word that he's a "stable genius." Here's a good rule of thumb for everyone- if you ever find yourself bragging about being stable, you might not be stable!
July 23, 2024
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From The Onion story, Report: Sharks To Only Kill 10 People This Year But One Of Them Will Be You
“Taken as a whole, the number of people killed by sharks annually has remained fairly low, which is great news for surfers, sailors, divers, and ocean swimmers, but not for you—one of the unlucky 10 who will be implacably hunted by the most perfect predator nature has ever devised, dragged beneath the waves so quickly you will be unable to draw a last breath, and torn limb from limb with a savagery that will terrify dolphins 10 miles away."
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Meme- Nobody talks about forgiving trade school debt because they learned a skill and can pay their own way.
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10 Short Rules For a Better Life, From the Stoics
5. Seek out challenges
"What would have become of Hercules do you think if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar - and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and gone back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he never would have developed into the mighty Hercules. And even if he had, what good would it have done him? What would have been the use of those arms, that physique, and that noble soul, without crises or conditions to stir into him action?" -Epictetus
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I've been watching the 2000s on CNN the past few Sundays. I've watched all of their previous decade reviews, always love them. The one tonight reminded me something I had totally forgotten... the push for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Just over ten years ago, not so far removed from us.
July 22, 2018
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Did you hear about England's insane entitlement program??? I bet I know one person not excited for the new baby to be the king one day- his dad.
July 22, 2013
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You're so vain. You probably think this post is about you.
July 22, 2012
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Every once in a while all four cats end up on the couch.
Sam, Moe, Bazo, and Razzles up top.
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Pretty Strange Pretty Math
x = .999(repeating)
100x = 99.999(repeating)
by multiplying both sides by 100
100x - x = 99.999(repeating) - x
by subtracting both sides by x
99x = 99.999(repeating) - x
subtraction of variables
99x = 99.999(repeating) - .999(repeating) substitution, because we defined x = .999(repeating)
99x = 99
subtraction
x=1
by dividing both sides by 99
.999(repeating)=1
by substitution
So we start with x=.999(repeating) and by using all legal algebra steps we end up with .999(repeating) = 1
How can that be??? Pretty strange.
July 22, 2011
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A nihilist believes in nothing- or in other words, nothing is the one thing a nihilist believes in.
July 22, 2011
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I guarantee Stanley Kubrick had a hand in picking out the hallway carpet of this hotel.
July 22, 2011
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Total cell phone liberation for the first time in nearly a year and a half! (Although I'm still hearing phantom old-timey rings and R2-D2 text notifications.)
July 22, 2011
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People who really like Fugazi must love the sound of clowns and monkeys fighting with kitchen utensils while pulling cat tails.
July 22, 2011
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Wondering how many sharks I'll fly directly over on my flight to Rwanda...
July 22, 2011
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On this day in 1933, aviator Wiley Post returned to Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, completing the first solo flight around the world in seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes. He would let her be killed in a plane crash with Will Rogers.
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On this day in 1937, the Senate voted down President Franklin D. Roosevelt's proposal to add more justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
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Relief pitcher Sparky Lyle was born on this day in 1944. He helped the Phillies get to the 1980 World Series, the first they would ever win. He was well known for his clubhouse pranks.
How about this for a prank- he used to sit his bare ass on people's birthday cakes. Once a teammate, Ron Swoboda, took a crap on a cake and sent it to him! Tables turned.
He used to put goldfish in the team water cooler and send pizzas to the visiting team's bullpen.
Once he put liniment in Yogi Berra's toothpaste causing smoke to come billowing out of his mouth when he used it.
Sometimes when teammates were talking to the press he would give them a "hotfoot." He'd put a match or two in their shoe and when they got burnt they would let out a startled scream in the middle of a serious conversation, all on camera.
Sounds like a great guy!
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A prank of pranks! This guy's wife thinks she's going to be run over by a tractor trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Prv0Sam_828
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Paul Schrader was born on this day in 1946.
"There's the generation that made the rules, the generation that codified them. The generation that broke them - that's mine. The generation that laughed at them - that's Tarantino's. And now there's a generation that doesn't know that there were any."
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Albert Brooks joined us in 1947. Carl Reiner met him when he was still a teenager and said that he was the funniest person alive.
"Art and resistance are great together. That's what art's made for. Look at Vincent van Gogh: He didn't cut off his ear because he was selling well."
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S. E. Hinton was born on this day in 1948. She wrote The Outsiders when she was 15 years old. I don't quite see how that was possible. Probably an extra wrinkle in her brain.
"It seemed funny to me that the sunset she saw from her patio and the one I saw from the back steps was the same one. Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset."
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David Spade was born on this day in 1964. I love the guy, but isn't it isn't it strange that whoever he is with is better than him?
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Hallelujah, Rufus Wainwright was born on this day in 1973.
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Other notable birthdays- Edward Hopper (1882), James Whale (1889), Alex Trebek (1940), Bobby Sherman (1943), Willem Dafoe (1955)
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Carl Sandburg died on this day in 1967.
"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."
PUKE!
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Estelle Getty left us on this day in 2008.
Sophia- "She happens to like girls instead of guys. Some people like cats instead of dogs. Frankly, I'd rather live with a lesbian than a cat. Unless the lesbian sheds, then I don't know."
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We lost Ozzy Osbourne on this day in 2025. Paranoid is a perfect song in my book. Goodbye to Ozzy, a true original who once said, "I got rabies shots for biting the head off a bat but that's OK - the bat had to get Ozzy shots."
https://youtu.be/0qanF-91aJo
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A great question- with children's playground equipment, where should we draw the line between keeping children safe and challenging them?
July 22, 2011
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Gretel was excited to see a bus. (Memories of Catbus.)
July 22, 2015
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I must have read this 20 years ago... always stuck with me. "Right on target." Just perfect. I love that a page and a half of his autobiography is about a raccoon.
Marlon Brando, on his pet raccoon, from his autobiography, Songs My Mother Taught Me:
After this experience I decided to buy a chimp, but before I did, my mother gave me Russell, the young raccoon. My mother had a great imagination that went along with her marvelous sense of humor. To make a pet out of a raccoon, you have to start when they are young; as with most animals, it is best to feed a raccoon by hand and handle it until it becomes trusting and familiar with your touch. Raccoons don't see well, but they have a keen sense of smell and unquenchable curiosity, and their tactile sense is unequaled in the world of animals. When Russell was awake, he never stopped moving, feeling and exploring every crack he could find; once he completely took apart a wristwatch, springs and all. Sometimes he slept down by my feet in my bed, and when he woke up he would stick his paws between my toes and tickle me. He was a sleep wrecker, so I didn't let him get in bed with me often. We would chase each other around the apartment and play fight and tickle, which he loved. Russell also loved water and played for hours in the bathtub, which I would fill with stones and any objects that it would be fun to feel. He also enjoyed sitting on my bathroom windowsill and looking at the street five floors below. He was a hit at parties and liked to sit on my shoulders and watch the guests. He would play with my hair or stick his fingers in my ears, then reach around and try to get his paw into my nose or mouth. He was always unpredictable. It is generally believed that raccoons wash their food, but that's a misinterpretation; they do this simply because they love water. During their waking hours, they move ceaselessly, putting their paws into cracks and recesses looking for grubs, crayfish or worms. When I had people over to the apartment or had to leave it, I usually put him in the bathroom. He also slept there because he would tear any other room apart. In the winter the bathroom was cold; I remember going in there one morning, and because I was still sleepy I sat down to piss. Russell was wide awake. He came over and stood on his hind feet and put his freezing cold front paws on the edge of the toilet seat. Then he went around to the back of the John. I had my elbows on my knees and my chin in my hands, trying to stay as close to sleep as possible. The next instant, I found myself shrieking and two feet off the floor. Russell had found the space between my ass and the toilet seat and had put the coldest paw in North America under my behind, giving me the goose of a lifetime, right on target. Russell spent a great deal of time sitting on the ledge of the bathroom window. During lunch hour more than once he stopped traffic on Fifty-seventh Street and Sixth Avenue. Crowds would gather below the apartment and wonder what they were looking at; to collect a crowd in New York, all you have to do is look up and point. One day I was reading, and the doorbell rang. Usually I never answer the door if I don't know who it is; my friends always use code knocks. But this time someone was thumping on the door with his fist, so I opened the door. I found myself staring at a belt buckle; then, as my eyes floated upward, I saw a badge and a face. It was one of New York's finest bulls, and he asked me, "Do you own a wild animal?" I answered, "I, ahh...well, he's an animal, but he's not wild." The cop said, "Do you know where he is?" I said, "He's in the bathroom." "No, he isn't. He's in your neighbor's neighbor's bathroom." I replied, "What? What's he doing in there?" "I don't know, buddy, but you'll have to get him out of there. Does he bite?" "Oh, my goodness, no, he wouldn't even bite a cookie," I replied, lying as fast as my brain would work. (Russell nipped almost everybody who didn't know how to handle him on the back of their necks.) I went over to my neighbor's apartment. The woman was Standing with her hands between her breasts, her mouth open, and she looked at me with Eddie Cantor eyes; she was stunned. "Where is he?" I asked, but she couldn't speak; she raised her entire arm and pointed toward her bathroom. I went in, and there was Russell playing in the toilet. When I called him and his head popped up, I said, "What the hell are you doing?" and he twittered some raccoon reply. He was soaking wet. I gave him my palm, he put his paws in it and I gripped him. I always carried him around this way. As I left the woman's apartment, I said, "I'm terribly sorry about this. I don't know how it could have happened." While I was apologizing, Russell's tail was dripping toilet water all over her beige rug. She was still aghast, bewildered and silent. As I passed the giant policeman, I said, "I'm awfully sorry, officer, it will never happen again." I entered my apartment still mumbling apologies, closed the door and waited for that ham-fisted policeman to knock on it with a ticket, but nothing happened. To this day, I cannot understand how Russell got into Mrs. Goldman's bathroom because both bathroom window ledges were only two inches wide and were separated by a one-foot gap five stories up. One of the fondest memories I have of Russell was when my mother was showing him off to a couple of snooty ladies. He was sitting on her shoulder, playing with her beads and sticking a paw in each ear, which provoked a titter from the ladies, as well as a proud "Ain't he cute" smirk from my mother. Then he reached around and was feeling the crevice of her smile when she made the fatal error of opening her mouth slightly to say, "No, dear." That's all he needed. He shot his paw into her mouth and out came her false teeth. She grabbed them and tried to put them back in her mouth, but Russell was sure he had a good thing and wanted to keep them out of her mouth just as much as she wanted to keep them in. Her hat went one way and her dignity went the other. Finally she was able to outwrestle him and recovered her dentures, if not her poise. I had a seizure and had to hold on to the kitchen door to remain erect. It was one of the silliest scenes I have ever witnessed. Eventually as Russell matured, he became uncontrollable. He had thrown all the books out of the bookcase, had peed on every record I owned, and the apartment looked as though it had been through a drug raid. It was time to let Russell go. I took him back to the family farm in Illinois in early winter, when his semihibernating instincts would take over. I carried him out to the barn, made him a nest of some hay and left some food there for him. Every couple of hours I would tiptoe through the snow and peek through a crack in the wall to see him all curled up in a ball. I wanted so much to play with him, but I knew I couldn't. I had a lump in my throat when I turned away. When spring came and the sap began to run in the trees, Russell had left the security of the barn for whatever destiny promises a raccoon. He returned every once in a while in hopes of finding a treat in his bowl, but later in the spring his sap was running, too. He must have found some irresistible lady raccoon and begun to raise his family, and I never saw him again. I miss him.
July 22, 2017
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Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting- "Living is being happy: seeing, hearing, touching, drinking, eating, urinating, defecating, diving into the water and gazing at the sky, laughing and crying.
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S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders- "I am a greaser. I am a JD and a hood. I blacken the name of our fair city. I beat up people. I rob gas stations. I am a menace to society. Man do I have fun!"
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Dillinger again- "They're not going to get me."
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Addendum
From Peter Klein in Sports Cards Nonsense:
A nonsense story I wanted to share:
When I was in second grade, the most important baseball card in Milwaukee was a Gary Sheffield rookie card.
One night I went with my mother to a pharmacy to fill a prescription. The store stocked Topps Cello packs, I saw a bit of a Brewers logo and a face, and I knew I'd found a Gary Sheffield rookie.
I had no money. My allowance day was the next day. My mother, doing her best to teach me discipline, refused to give me an advance and told me we could come back the next day and get the pack.
The next morning at school, I told my second grade teacher about what I had found and my plan to go and get it after school.
When we arrived at the pharmacy, he was already there and he had bought the pack ! He had taken my information and out hustled an 7 year old child.
Hilariously, being 7, I had misidentified the player, and the card was Mike Fielder, not Gary Sheffield. He snaked me for the wrong card.
I did end up getting the card, while also learning that you can't trust anyone, not even teachers !!
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