I'm having second thoughts about what qualifies as news and I know Italy will be very disappointing, but let's share some punchlines first. If you don't know all the jokes, just buy me lunch or dinner, or maybe a Porsche, and I'll catch you up on them.

• You can call me Ray. I wrote a few weeks ago about going to a friend’s funeral and learning that everyone called him David, while I called him Dave. Later on, I realized that at least half of my long-time friends call me Mike, not Michael. I should probably object, but I’m grateful anyone talks to me at all.
• Suffering for their art. The people who own the movie theaters started putting in reclining seats with giant cushions to compete with the comfort levels we all experience while streaming at home, but the live theater owners haven’t caught on yet. Tiny seats, tiny cushions, zero leg room and,  even worse, no popcorn.
• A timely question. We always think we sound smart when we say a stopped clock is right twice a day. Problem is, we can never know when those two moments are going to come along. It’s like saying we should only buy lottery tickets on the day our number is coming up. Almost a tautology, but stupid, nonetheless.
• Batteries not included. Actually, that thing about stopped clocks makes even less sense than I thought  before, since most clocks are digital and they're never right when they're stopped. Glad I could clear that up for you. Next week, we debunk the idea that a penny saved is a penny earned.
• Smells like teen dispirit. I took a picture of my granddaughter making funny faces and posted it online and she thought it was absolutely great. A few years from now, she’ll be a teen and think it’s 200% mortifying. Humor is a constant, but audience tastes evolve.
• Duke! Get away from that man. Every so often, I think I should share some humor on this blog, but most of my favorite jokes involve long stories that lead to TL:DR replies. I’m solving the problem today, though, by just sharing the punchlines. IYKYK.
  • Now that’s how you wave a towel.
  • I’ll take the soup.
  • Ours is prettier.
  • So, tell me, Johnny, did you do it?
  • He had a hat!
  • Some people just don’t know how to tell a joke.
  • Yes, sir, but your wife has been here for two weeks.
  • You idiot! I sent you a truck and a canoe and a helicopter…
  • You’re really not in this for the hunting, are you?
  • (Seven punch lines too scatological to include in a family blog), and, of course…
  • The Aristocrats!!
• Old Standard. I stopped in at an ethnic restaurant the other day and concluded that the food was not really authentic because it didn’t taste like the first place I’d gone for that cuisine. After Olive Garden, I know Italy could only be a disappointment.
• Let it go. Not every comment or joke requires a defense. It’s okay to laugh when someone points out how your side goofed up without an “oh yeah?” or a whatabout.
  

Next up, we'll be comparing beggars and entrepreneurs, because the lines can blur quite a bit on the mean streets of Chicago. Subscribe now so you won't miss it.

I owe Al Capone a big apology, and I should stop mocking that woman at the slot machine, too, as I consider all my misguided actions this week...

Man, over Bourdain. It’s time to retire the Anthony Bourdain memes where he’s telling us how we should live more fully. There’s just something about life advice from a guy who took his own life that is more than misguided. It’s cruel, almost like the people posting his quotes are mocking him for not taking his own counsel.

Invest in hubris! The problem with humanity is that we are smart enough to know we’re smart, but we’re not smart enough to know how stupid we still are. Archimedes figured out pi roughly 2,000 years ago, without a calculator, and the people who built the observatory at Stonehenge started work 5,000 years ago without a backhoe. If anything, we’ve just gotten dumber over time, while our hubris has exploded.

Never saw it coming. Speaking of which, I spotted a dead turtle on the road during a recent bike ride and I realized it had began its day like pretty much every human. It woke up and started its daily activities with no idea that it would no longer be among the survivors that night. And homo sapiens are smarter, how?

Pushing the buttons. The woman at the slot machine next to me is explaining that I’m losing money because I’m pushing the buttons wrong. Then she demonstrates how she massages them and where she pushes on each button before taking her next dollar for a spin. I’d mock her for her superstitious delusions, but she’s winning too much to listen.

Big props to Al Capone. Chicago hosted a big NASCAR event over Independence Day and I read a report about how much the 2023 races added to the city’s fortunes. Surprisingly, the promoters claimed $24 million of “media value,” based on all the mentions and awareness of the city generated by news reports and such. I guess we should give more thanks to all the other people creating “media value,” including gangbangers, Al Capone, and Mrs. O’Leary’s cow.

Honey trap. Do waitresses get a special license to call everyone ‘honey’??? I’m not complaining about it, because I crave the kindness, but this one seems to be unique to this very special group. Nurses, plumbers, cab drivers, cops…nobody else in the world ever calls me ‘honey,’ but waitresses seem to think it’s my first name.

Just one more tweak. Every time someone comes up with a good idea, the next guy in line decides to ruin it. We need more STEM in schools—science, tech, engineering, and math—but then they made it STEAM by adding arts into the mix. And too much “arts” is the reason we needed more STEM in the first place.

Acts shunned. I’m a big fan of the First Amendment—in fact, I am using it right now!!—so I don’t think anyone should lose an employment opportunity because they spoke out against the treatment of civilians in Gaza. I do think, though, that people who demonstrate bad judgment make poor employees and that many, many protestors showed abysmal judgment over this spring. Whether it was the public intimidation of Jewish students, disrupting the education of others, illegal entry, or simply demonstrating a profound lack of common sense…I’m fine with consequences for that.
 
 

I wrote a few weeks ago about all the fun I had at a friend’s funeral and I said just about everything there is to say about the big sendoff. But wait, there’s more!

• A funeral home is like a cruise ship. We all gather for an event, think it’s very important and meaningful, and then we have to exit quickly because they need to get ready for the three o’clock departure.                 
• When you sign the guest book, they ask for an email address. Maybe it’s for the mourners and maybe I’m about to get a BOGO from Everlasting Acres.
• Everyone you see at a funeral looks familiar, which seems odd at first but ultimately makes sense. These are all the same old people I’ve been seeing at religious events and funerals since I wasn’t a member of their cohort.
• Whenever I’m listening to a eulogy, I start making a checklist of all the things I need to get done so they can add those items to mine. They’re always really cool things like swimming across the Atlantic or endowing a hospital and everyone will know it’s a lie, but I’ll be impervious to embarrassment by then.
• With so many newspapers and theater companies going out of business, there’s definitely a market for critics who want to try their hand at funerals. The scenes are both predictable and surprising, the scripts vary from tragedy to comedy, and there’s a reality-show vibe that can present itself at any moment. This is a no-fail concept, soon to be followed by reviews of weddings, Quinceaneras, and ritual circumcisions.
• I scheduled my funeral at the cemetery, so nobody has to deal with one of those long funeral processions that eats into your yoga time. You can all thank me now for my consideration, because it will be too late when you’re really appreciating the gesture.
• Zoom is a crime against humanity, and even more so when it comes to funerals. Mourners are in a fog and they won’t remember all the details, but they will remember the isolation of being alone in the room, and no list of remote participants makes up for that.
  
• Speaking of crimes against humanity, how long will it be before we have AI funerals with botscribed eulogies, welcomes from a VR guest of honor, and virtual processions to the cemetery? Yeah, it sounds pretty crazy and stupid, but that’s what they said about swallowing Tide Pods.
  
• And…how long do you wait before you take someone’s name off your contact list? I still have people on my contact list who haven’t been available for contact in several years. Every time I come across one of them, I think about deleting the entry, but it’s like killing them all over again. (I wrote that wrong. I didn’t really kill them the first time. Well, one or two, but not all of them.)
  

So, they always tell you to write what you know, and that explains why I end up writing more about funerals than world travel, mountain climbing or orgies. Gee, it’s so much fun getting old.

Next week, we’ll catch up with a bagpiper on Lake Michigan as we race toward my most depressing day of the year. Only subscribers will make the connection between the two, so click here to become a subscriber.

Dad would have been 100 today, so we’re having a birthday party in his honor. He can’t attend in person, but he’ll definitely be there, because we’ve incorporated his example into our lives. Now, it’s time for us to share his legacy with a generation that will never get the opportunity to meet him.

Dad was nothing special and a big deal at the same time. He was born in the Depression, enlisted in the Army in World War II, started a business after the war, failed in business more often than he succeeded, raised a family, played some golf, and left the world a better place for his having been here. When he died after years of decline, the funeral home was standing room only, simply because people liked him. A lot.

Maybe people liked him so much because he was more likely to offer help than to make demands. Maybe it was because he was more concerned about other people than he was worried about himself. Definitely, it was tied to his willingness to listen more than he spoke, and to offer actual wisdom worth sharing, including:

Never make light of the way someone puts food on the table.  Whatever job someone has, show some respect, because that job is how they are feeding their family.

Nobody knows what happens behind closed doors. No matter how well you know people, you don’t know enough to make too many judgments about them. Whether it’s another couple or a close friend, there’s a part of their lives you’ll never see and realities you’ll never know.

If everyone threw their problems on the table, they would see what the others were dealing with, pick up their own problems and walk away just a bit happier. This one flows from the same recognition about closed doors, but it’s also a reminder that we only think our problems are the worst because they’re OUR problems.

One thing at a time. He never heard of multitasking, but he would have recognized it as BS. No matter how many times you try to shift gears, you can only do one thing at a time, so focus on the thing you’re doing and get it done right before moving on to the next item.

Learn from my mistakes. I loved this one, because he was willing to open up about his errors in the interest of clearing my path. Luckily, I’ve been able to come up with millions of new mistakes since then, but I’ve only made those mistakes so my own daughters can learn a lesson. You’re welcome, girls.

Right or wrong, I’m always on your side. Whether he agreed with us or not, whether we recognized it or not, he was always focused on our success.

You don’t have to like it, but you have to try it. He was big on us trying new foods or activities, with the promise he wouldn’t insist we do it twice. This one backfired big time when he resisted an offer of escargot, but he finally gave in and tried it. Once.  

Nobody owes you anything. He included himself in this one, which seemed unusual for a parent. He said you have to be grateful for anything someone does for you, because nobody has any obligation to do it. Over years of illness, his gratitude for others’ kindness was one way he maintained his dignity.

You’re not doing it for them; you’re doing it for you. I’ve written about this one before, the lesson he learned when he volunteered to help wounded veterans at the VA hospital after the war. Whenever we do something for someone else, we’re also doing it for ourselves. None of us is completely selfless, and that’s okay, but we should recognize our own self-interest in our so-called “selfless” actions.

The greatest gift is time. I thought I came up with this one, but it turns out I got it from Dad. It’s absolutely true, because time is the ultimate scarce resource and we should share it as if it’s both precious and irreplaceable. Because it is.

I don’t care if the car goes over a cliff as long as you’re okay. I told my kids, “I’ll never cry over a car,” but I thought I came up with that by myself, too. Turns out I’m a helluva plagiarist.
 
Don’t force it. Whenever we’re trying to fix something and we hit a snag, our standard response is to push harder, but that’s also how we end up breaking things. This one started out as advice about physical repairs, but it applies to relationships, too.
 
Don’t run with your hands in your pockets. Autobiographical, since he lost half of his tonsils while running with a pea shooter in his mouth.
 
When you take something apart, line up the pieces in order so you know how to get them back together again. This was one of the first life hacks and we didn’t even have the internet yet.
 
I’ve probably forgotten a few of Dad’s lessons here, but the family will remind me when we get together for his birthday party today. We’ll have the opportunity to honor someone who added to our lives, pass along the wisdom that he shared with us, and give each other the greatest gift: time.

Next week, I debate black holes with a cosmologist from Amsterdam. Really. You’ll want to subscribe so you don’t miss my brilliant insights into dark matter and scientific progress.
 

There’s a defibrillator just outside the door to the funeral home chapel and I'm thinking, “If Dave was here, he’d point at it and say, ‘Too late.’” Dave’s the guest of honor, though, and our opportunity to sit in the back row and crack each other up is gone for good.

So, I had no one to share with after a mourner thanked me for coming and I said, “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” like it was my kid’s wedding or something. I couldn’t nudge someone and tell them to make a note when there was a part of the eulogy they could also use for me. After overpaying to pre-plan my own going-away party, I couldn’t berate Dave for choosing the simplest of pine boxes and making me look like a show-off. I don’t know how this sounds online, but we’d have been laughing hard enough to get thrown out of the service if it had been Dave and I in the back row.

Actually, I should call him David, since that’s what everyone else was calling him in their eulogies. I don’t think I ever called him anything but Dave over the 30+ years we were friends, but I didn’t know him as well as I thought. That’s a constant, though. No matter how long you’ve known someone, you find out a million things about them at their funeral that make you wonder whether you’re in the wrong room.

He liked one of my favorite books, Confederacy of Dunces, apparently, but that never came up in a conversation. Apparently, we also skipped the details of his early years or some of his major challenges in life. Maybe that’s because they weren’t funny, and Dave was big on funny.

Or, maybe it’s because we all live in multiple worlds that only collide at our funerals and that wasn’t the part of Dave’s world that I inhabited. The two of us lived in the world of shtick, one-upping each other on old stories where he always had a crazier tale to tell. We even wrote and produced a play, which was such a smash hit that three people have heard of it. Yes, two are spouses, but that third guy is really influential.

Dave is the latest in a long line of people I knew well and didn’t. Alan and I were friends for 60 years, transitioning from grade school through high school and college, marriage, children and careers. After all that time, all those years, people I met after he died introduced me to a dozen facets I’d never seen. Jeff and I shared way too many drinks on the deck, traded old jokes, commiserated about life and took turns being the biggest loser at our monthly poker games, but I had to wait until his funeral to learn new details about my friend and neighbor. And on it goes.

Each of us inhabits separate worlds for family, for work, for hobbies, for people we knew in grade school or high school or college, and down the line until we’re all interplanetary travelers with multiple lives that we cannot share in total. Still, there is a world that we did share and, when a longtime friend passes on, a piece of that world disappears. Old friends are witnesses to our lives, testifying to the reality of our existence. Without their confirmation, we’re just a bunch of old guys in the park, rambling about stuff that might or might not be real.

I guess I could try to learn more about people I’ll meet in the future, but it’s already too late for me to start up any 30-year relationships. Maybe I should pay more attention to the ones I have already, before somebody is staring at the defibrillator outside the chapel and thinking, “Too late.” Again.

Next week, we'll focus on a different guest of honor as we share a few lessons from my dad's life on his 100th birthday. We'll all learn something, but only if we subscribe.

Somebody's about to take it all away, but we don't know who they are, and millions of women are getting pasta next week. It's all coming true, and you heard it here first...

Only MILFs need apply. Mothers’ Day is coming up and I checked out the ads to see what’s trending this year. So, based on the promotions I’m seeing, you’re in luck if you’re a mom who is 32 or younger, ridiculously hot, and have a four-year-old blond child who can afford to buy you a diamond pendant. For the rest of the moms, it’s macaroni art at best.

Finished already? I really don’t understand all the fuss about the Kentucky Derby. All those people prepping for months, showing up in fancy clothes, competing for the best cuisine, and then the main event is over in two minutes. Reminds me of my honeymoon.

Stop that…who? I know a bunch of successful guys who have this fear that is almost never front and center, but often buzzing in the background: Somehow, somebody is going to take it away. It’s almost never a specific somebody, but there is a sense of unease about success, that it is unearned or arbitrary and that it can disappear much more quickly than it arrived. I suspect I know even more people who are not as successful and have the same insecurity. That’s why it resonates when they’re told there are evil forces plotting to take away everything they have. If my successful friends can host that fear, how much more so for people who are less financially/socially/culturally secure?

Smarter than Alfred. When you really think about it, Einstein’s most famous formula is actually pretty stupid, or at least as basic as it gets. We can measure mass and we can measure the speed of light, so E is just whatever MCC is. That’s no smarter than my special formula: Happiness = Beer times pizza.

Are they commute-worthy? Speaking of formulas, we need a new calculation for declining an invitation when the time spent in transit is greater than the time spent at the actual event. I’m thinking one-to-one: two hours of transit for a two-hour movie or play or baseball game or summer festival; four hours for a wedding, bar mitzvah or any dinner with a really good cocktail hour. We’ll call it the commuter quotient and every host must accept it as a completely legitimate reason for rejection.

Pre-forgiving the bad debt. Two of the biggest tsunamis on my social feeds last month were from people arguing about taxpayer subsidies for a new stadium for the Chicago Bears and student loan forgiveness. Shockingly, and by “shocking,” I mean “right on cue,” many people in favor of throwing taxpayer dollars at billionaire club owners are violently opposed to writing off debts for graduates who will never know the luxury of two-ply tissue. Taxpayers have been screwed over and over by sports teams and large corporations that promise huge financial returns that never materialize from “taxpayer investments,” but it’s a lesson we’ll learn at about the same time Charlie Brown stops flailing at the football. 

Intentionally idle. Quite often, the hardest thing to do is nothing, to wait it out, to refrain from getting in the middle and adding new complications. Some problems have no solution, some situations simply require time for resolution, and sometimes, just maybe, all our help just makes things worse. Also, “forbearance” sounds much more selfless than “laziness.”

Pointed critique. I came back from a trip recently and I noticed that a quarter of my photos included people pointing at something. Mostly, it was the guides on our visit and I wanted the pictures to be a bit more dramatic, so I waited until they were gesturing before I took the shot. Someday, an archaeologist is going to look at my pictures and think we walked around all day pointing at things. It’s a lot like the selfies that will convince them we were always looking up and smiling, even though we appear to have had only one arm.

You really think somebody likes me! Secretly, I love it when they tell us to silence our cell phones at the start of the movie. It feels so good to be included among those who might actually receive a phone call one of these days.

We'll be visiting college graduation next week and you won't want to miss it, so be sure to click here to subscribe.