WORDS AND PHRASES

           “Citywide”

 

         If you are a drinker who has spent any time in dive bars or taprooms, you are familiar with the term Boilermaker, which is a drink consisting of a shot of whiskey with a glass of beer.  Back in 1900, guys didn’t drink Cosmopolitans or Margaritas or Screaming Orgasms or Moscow Mules.  They drank beer, or wine, or maybe whiskey, or maybe all three, but drinking was not the sophisticated and complicated activity it is today.  There were no “mixologists.”

 

         Then came the Boilermaker, which was probably a precursor to the mixed drink or cocktail.  Typically, you would throw back the shot and “chase” it with the beer, but there was no obligation to do so.  You could sip them both.  You could pour the whiskey into the beer.  You could even drop the shot glass of whiskey into the (larger) glass of beer.  This was called a Depth Charge, though it’s hard to see the point of it.

 

         In Philadelphia, however, problems arose.  As I have pointed out before, we are a thoughtful, philosophical, and somewhat argumentative people.  This is where the Constitution was written, with its Bill of Rights and its Electoral College and the-three-fifths-of-a-person rule and all the other stuff that piss people off even today.  We need to talk about these things.  We need to call up talk radio shows about them.

 

         And regarding the shot-and-a-beer Boilermaker, there were obvious problems.  To wit, what was the whiskey?  And what was the beer?  Does the patron get to choose them or does the bartender?  It appears that these issues were discussed in Philadelphia taverns for approximately one hundred years, from the birth of the Boilermaker in the late 19^th Century to the uniform adoption of the “Citywide” in 1994 at Bob and Barbara’s Lounge on South Street.

 

         There, as the story goes, an employee named Rick Dobrowski decreed that henceforth, a boilermaker would consist (exactly), of a shot of Jim Beam and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.  Other bars and drinkers in the City of Brotherly Love instantly fell in line behind this sensible resolution of the problem, and the Beam/PBR combo became known as the Citywide.

 

         This did not mean that variation on the Citywide ended, but it meant that variation from the Beam/PBR standard now required an explanation.

 

“We’re out of Beam so you’re getting a shot of Evan Williams (a mid-range bourbon), and we never carry Pabst, so we give you a Miller on tap.  OK?”

 

“OK by me, brother, but can you make it a Yuengling?”

 

The term Citywide is not used outside the Philadelphia area.

 

 

Wellness Modalities

 

You’ve probably heard of chiropractic medicine and Pilates and Tai Chi, and maybe even reflexology and tantric yoga and dance therapy, but have you ever heard of the Feldenkrais Method or Qigong or Tuina?

 

Well, all these things and about a thousand more therapies and belief systems and healing philosophies and quasi-religious health-related disciplines are all referred to as “wellness modalities,” a term I first ran into about a week ago.  You probably can’t find them all in Fargo, but if you reside in a heavily-populated area, you can google any of them and find a practitioner who will treat you or teach you or lay hands on you in exchange for some of your money.  There are even gatherings that take place in convention centers and the sorts of places where, on a different weekend, a gun show might be held.  For an admission fee of ten bucks, you can go in and learn all about them from all their various practitioners and gurus and scientists and quacks.

 

Some are hands-on, like Bowen Therapy, where the Bowenist massages your fascia (the soft connective tissue) in your body so you can move better.  There are a lot of “movement” regimens where somebody moves you around or just tells you how to move around, but all of them make you happier or reduce your pain or improve your posture or something.  And a lot of them are named after the person who came up with the thing.  The Feldenkrais Method, for example, was invented by a guy name Feldenkrais.  Another one is the Alexander Technique, which was developed by Frederick Matthias Alexander.  (I always thought Frederick Matthias Alexander was the guy who shot President McKinley, but I guess he wasn’t.  Still, with a triple-barreled name like Frederick Matthias Alexander, it’s an understandable mistake.)

 

My favorites are the modalities that seem absurdly labor-intensive, and perhaps arose out a desire to give 9-year-olds something to do in summer camp that might occupy them while the counselors snuck behind a cabin for a smoke.  These often have a deep spiritual or philosophical underpinning to explain the purpose of them, with lots of talk about energy reflections and emanations and penumbras and crap like that.

 

“Flower Essence Extraction” is one such.  Flower essences, you see, are believed to “contain the vibrational energy of flowers that can improve negative thoughts and emotions” and “assist in soul development and mind-body health.” 

 

“The fresh, dew-filled blossoms are gathered in the early morning of a clear, sunny day.  Floating on the surface of a bowl of water, they are irradiated by the warmth and light of the sun for several hours.  This process creates an energetic imprint of the etheric energy pattern of the flower in the water, embodying the healing archetype of that plant.  This mother essence is preserved with organic grape alcohol and then further diluted and potentized to form the stock which is sold in stores and to practitioners.”

 

The human subject then (orally), takes four drops from an eyedropper four times a day.

 

Seems harmless enough.

 

 

 

Porta-Potties

 

For some reason which I have now forgotten, I thought there would be a lot of porta-potty companies around the country and the world and that some of them would have very amusing names.  So I looked them up.

 

I was somewhat disappointed.  Yes, there were a few funny ones but most were simple poop and pee jokes with little ingenuity to them, and they didn’t make me laugh out loud.

 

To save you the trouble of doing the same research I did, here are the best of the lot:

 

Crappuccino

 

Johnny-On-The-Spot

 

John’s Johns

 

Luxury Loos

 

Piddle Palace

 

Poop Deck

 

Poop Parlor

 

Poopatorium

 

Porcelain Palace

 

Porta-Poo

 

Royal Flush

 

Slop Shack

 

Sweet Pea Toilets

 

Swirly Sanctuary

 

Throne Room

 

Urinal Express

 

And here are a few that I (and friends), came up with:

 

         Dump This!

 

         Oh Pooh!

 

         Sir Craps-A-Lot

 

         The House At Poo Corner

 

         Two Pees in a Pod

 

         Urine the Right Place

Copyright2024MichaelKubacki

NOTES FROM THE ELECTION

     These are four real names of people who signed in to vote at our polling station on Tuesday:

 

Alexander Calder

Sara Lee

Love Lady Belle Young

Zaw Oo

 

*

 

         Ratings for network TV coverage of election results plummeted this year.  Here’s the reason: it’s terrible.  Since 2016, it has been apparent that a bizarre set of protocols are in place that prevent them from reporting the truth about presidential elections. 

 

         You may recall that in 2016, it was obvious to everyone that Trump had won at about midnight on election night, yet no network reported the news until dawn.  This year, I knew at 10:15 on election night Trump had won, but the first network to “call” the presidential race was CNN at 5:30 AM, more than seven hours later.

 

         (One of the more laughable episodes can still be found online.  On CNN very serious-looking people in suits and ties and dresses and $300 haircuts are reporting Georgia results, specifically that Trump was holding a lead of 120,000 votes with only 100,000 votes yet to count in the state.  But instead of reporting, “Trump has taken Georgia,” they cut to Suzie or Sally or somebody, and she spent the next two minutes reporting on where those all-important uncounted votes would be coming from.)      

 

         I don’t have a good theory on why they do this.  Do they simply want viewers to stay tuned in as long as possible?  I understand it must be painful for some of them to say the words, “Trump has won,” but that doesn’t explain why Fox News wouldn’t call the election either.

 

         By the way, the best source for “who won” on a presidential election night is Pinnacle.com, the offshore international betting site that gives odds on thousands of sporting events and a few political races.  If you want to bet a million bucks on a soccer game in Pakistan, Pinnacle is where you go.  And if you want to bet on a U.S. election, Pinnacle (or a similar outfit), is where you must go because sports books in the U.S. cannot legally take such bets.

 

         Odds on the Trump-Harris race changed daily leading up to the election, and the final odds as the polls opened on Tuesday had Trump around a 3–2 favorite.  They continued to post odds all day. When the polls closed, the odds started changing as results came in.

 

         Then, about 10:15 PM, the odds on Kamala Harris winning shot up to 20-1.  Shortly thereafter, it was 50-1 for a few minutes, and then the odds board shut down.  At that point, Trump had won.  If Pinnacle was willing to take a $100 bet on Kamala winning, and pay you $2000 (or later, $5000), if she won, then Kamala no longer had a shot.  The race was over.

 

         This is why sports books like Pinnacle are so reliable.  A pundit or a polltaker who predicts a winner pays no price if they are wrong.  A sports book is putting millions on the line.

 

                                                      *

 

         For me, probably the most important reason I hoped Trump would win was to ensure the continued existence of Israel.  Second on my list, however, was the hope that rights of free speech in America would be restored, and that the new administration would try to protect them in the future.

 

         However, I will believe in the rescue of the First Amendment when I see it.

 

RFK Jr. definitely cares about this issue because he was silenced and his presidential campaign was destroyed by government censorship and de-platforming, with the help of social media moguls like Zuckerberg.  Musk, however, while he talks a good game, has a mixed record on the issue.  Yes, Twitter is not the outpost for the thought police it was before he took over, but content censorship has not disappeared from the platform.

 

As for Trump---well, free speech was never a major concern of his in the past, and he has never shown me that he understood the importance of it or of its role in our Constitutional system, so I’ll be watching what happens.  Today he gave a speech on his plan to dismantle the government censorship apparatus, and that’s encouraging.

 

                                             *

 

I worked the polls on Tuesday, something I had never done before, and it changed my perspective on the process somewhat.  It was a long day, from 6:30 AM to 8:30 PM, so I was glad when it was over, but it was a pleasure to pitch in with five strangers, all from different walks of life, all with different tasks, and get a job done.  It made me feel like a part of “the community” rather than a crank, which is what I am.

 

The polling station for the 38^th District, 13^th Precinct is in the Mifflin School in the East Falls neighborhood of Philadelphia.  There are five precincts voting in the school so there were about thirty poll workers and maybe 2000 voters.  It’s a heavily Democratic area, as is most of Philadelphia.  Our precinct recorded 336 votes for Harris and 73 for Trump, and the other precincts reported similar numbers.

 

 As the only Republican in our crew of six (my title was Minority Inspector), I was well-treated by the rest of the gang and I was grateful for that, and also for the fact that no issue of a partisan nature ever came up.  Over the course of our fourteen hours together, the one topic that was NOT discussed was politics.

 

Since the election was so fraught with tension, and since there is no shortage of loonies in the City of Brotherly Love, I was expecting (hoping?) there would be some sort of excitement or disruption or shouting, but there was nothing until about 7 PM when most of the voting was over and the crowds were pretty much gone.  A young guy in an Eagles shirt had just voted, and as he was leaving, he stopped in the middle of the voting operation and screamed “TRUMP!  TRUMP! TRUMP!” as loud as he could, then stood there for a few moments awaiting a response.  The boss of our little crew (the Judge of Elections), a woman about 5’2” who was 7 ½ months pregnant and wearing an N-95 mask, immediately got up and walked toward the guy shouting, “There’s no electioneering allowed in here!”  He was already headed for the door, however.

 

Shortly thereafter, we heard a car horn honking repeatedly outside and then an engine revving for ten or fifteen seconds.  Then, I think he left.

 

The next fifteen minutes were spent with election workers walking around sharing their outrage and expressing how frightened they were and how dangerous the guy was, and getting up their nerve to call the police.  (Remember---this incident occurred in Philadelphia, where most actual felonies are politely overlooked.)

 

Somebody did call the police and a cop arrived about an hour later, heard the story, took the list of witnesses that had been compiled for him, and departed.

 

 

                                             *

 

I wrote several articles in the lead-up to this election, and there are three things about which I was completely wrong.

 

First, Obama may not be the evil Svengali I thought he was, or perhaps he simply took his eye off the ball for a minute, but because he was in complete control of the Biden White House, I assumed he would be able to orchestrate the  transition, dump Joe cleanly, and replace him with a sentient being willing to serve as Barack’s figurehead from 2025 to 2029.  But events overtook him.  Kamala Harris was never the plan and Obama didn’t want her, but somehow she became the candidate.  Perhaps she was simply Joe’s revenge.  When Biden was finally forced to issue his resignation letter, there was no endorsement of anyone.  It was only a half hour later that he released his second bombshell of the day anointing her as his successor.

 

Next, I consistently criticized the Republican efforts to ensure a fair and honest contest.  They were taken so completely by surprise in allowing 2020 to be stolen that I had zero confidence in their ability or desire to clamp down on the cheating this time.  But they did.  The story of how that battle was fought and won is yet to be fully told, but they did it, and they deserve all the credit they have earned.

 

And finally, I was wrong about the senate race in Pennsylvania, where Republican Dave McCormick unseated Democrat Bob Casey Jr.  This result was much more surprising than Trump beating Harris in the state.  The name Casey (father and son) has been on the ballot for over forty years in Pennsylvania without a stain on their good names, and it never occurred to me a Casey could lose an election unless a massive corruption and bribery case suddenly appeared, or perhaps a Diddy-level sex scandal, and the chance of either of those happening was basically zero.

 

McCormick won because of Trump’s coattails, and because Casey is a very standard-brand Democrat in a year where that was not a good thing to be.  

 

                                             *

 

While working the polls at the Mifflin School, I was permitted to use the bathroom in the Teacher’s Lounge, and the experience shook me to my core.

 

If you are like me and 300 million other kids, you went to a school with a Teacher’s Lounge you were never permitted to enter, and to which the door was always closed.  Since I never saw the inside, and since I was a child, and since teachers were mysterious creatures, all I could do was fantasize about what the inside of a Teacher’s Lounge looked like, and over the course of the next sixty years of my life, these fantasies calcified themselves in my brain and became reality.

 

I was certain there were soft couches, a wet bar, a massage table so they could rub each other, a big TV, a pool table and a pinball machine or two, in addition to a luxurious washroom with perfumes and powders and beauty products.

 

Certain.  I was certain of all this. Then on Tuesday, I finally saw one.

 

It was a misshapen room, perhaps a hundred square feet, of obviously left-over space that couldn’t be used for much else.  There was nothing on the walls, a linoleum floor with a single throw rug, one frosted window looking out onto a dark interior courtyard with a couple trash cans in it, and two stuffed chairs with the stuffing coming out.  I have been interrogated by police in nicer rooms.

 

The tiny bathroom had an ancient toilet, a sink, a tiny mirror, paper towels and toilet paper.  The best I can say of it is that it was functional, and the sort of bathroom you would be pleased to find in a bus station because you would be expecting worse.

 

I am still processing this revelation and wondering about other mistaken fantasies I retain from my childhood.

 

                                             *

 

Usually, in presidential elections, there are a few swing states where both parties focus most of their time and money.  On election day, however, there are often a couple of surprises---states nobody thought was a “swing state” because everyone assumed Mr. X would win and Ms. Y had no shot.

 

There were no such surprises this time.  From 2020, there were seven swing states---Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona.  Trump took Georgia then and Biden took the other six.

 

This time, Trump won all seven, but neither he nor Harris were able to flip any other states.  The seven swing states in 2020 were the only ones in play in 2024.  

 

                                             *

 

Of all the what-if questions about this election, one of the more intriguing is what if Harris had chosen Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate.

 

No one can say whether it would have changed the outcome, of course, but I believe it would have improved the Democrats’ chances, for several reasons.

 

First, Tim Walz added nothing to the ticket, and no one can point to a place where he helped push the Dems over the top.  The results in Minnesota are revealing.

 

In 2020, Biden beat Trump by 233,012 votes, 52.4% to 45.3 %.  This time, Trump still lost, but he cut the margin to 138,145 votes, with 51.1% for Harris and 46.9% for Trump, even though Walz was, and is, the sitting governor in the state.

 

More importantly, dropping Shapiro from consideration because he is a Jew turned out to be not only embarrassing but ineffective.  It hurt Harris among Jewish voters of course, but it also did nothing to bring American Muslims to the Dems.  Dearborn, Michigan is the most Muslim town in the U.S., and it is represented in Congress by the radical Jew-hater Rashida Tlaib, (D., Hamas).  Yet Harris lost Dearborn.  Trump won there with 42%, Jill Stein took 18%, and Harris came in with only 36%.

 

Finally (and this is purely subjective), Josh Shapiro is an articulate, good-looking young guy who is generally well-liked in Pennsylvania while Tim Walz came across as a folksy doofus.  I can’t believe Shapiro would have done worse than Walz, and he could have done a lot better.

 

Copyright2024MichaelKubacki