This will be the first restaurant I sit down inside of following my coronavirus restaurant hiatus. You have not lived until you’ve sat at the counter of a Waffle House at one in the morning and taken in the whole experience.
In the spring of 2017… I somehow found myself at the Waffle House on Memorial and Western at one in the morning after the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight.
I was the only non-black person in the building as the place was packed with people just like me who had watched the fight. I was lucky enough to get to sit right at the counter as two white cooks started talking a little bit about the fight.
Calm was restored and the food orders were finally cooked, but it was epic.
That’s the whole thing about the Waffle House beyond the food…it’s about taking in the human experience.
You haven’t lived until you’ve done the five course breakfast starting off with a pecan waffle.
The show itself was pre-empted this morning for a Sesame Street Special with kids from all over the U.S. asking questions in relation to the coronavirus.
I’ll go ahead and sub for Michael Smerconish today with a question which was sent to me on my private line by a reader on this blog.
Kara from San Jose asks, ” Do you think this president has the ability to put this economy back together like a real president?”
My answer:
“No. Because he operates on the emotional level of an average third grader and is a pathological liar at every turn. Plus, he cares nothing about any other human being and operates with a complete lack of empathy for pretty much everyone except for his beloved Ivanka.
We’d have a better chance with a blind-folded chimpanzee throwing darts at a dartboard. I hope that wasn’t vague or ambiguous.
Beyond that he doesn’t possess the business chops to pull this off because in his life he’s never shown himself to be a successful business person. He’s a brand personality who inherited $420 million from his father and in reality didn’t do all that much with what was given to him by his father.
This will be a very complex and integrated puzzle to put back together as in certain segments like the restaurant, sports, and airline industries this is going to be very, very tricky as how to reboot human consumption of these services.
This would be right in Michael Bloomberg’s wheelhouse. You may not like his debate stage personality, but this isn’t a time for having an inept fool making decisions and running the country.
Plus, in many states their budgets have literally been eviscerated by the two previous months of business inactivity in their states.
Michael Bloomberg or a real problem solver would be a much better choice.”
If you’re there in the Trump base…please just don’t do this. He’s lost it even more than before somewhat and it’s not a good idea to inject yourself with cleaning disinfectant products to fight the coronavirus.
I had a wonderful day. Oklahoma City seems alive again although the traffic is a bit of a downer. That was the one thing I actually liked about all of this…no traffic. It was like owning the roadways of your own somewhat major city (27th). It was so nice with me not screaming at drivers in Edmond. Especially the women in the friggin’ SUVS who drive them like battleships.
Edmond, Oklahoma has to have the worst drivers in the United States of America bar none. Two-thirds of these people cannot negotiate a simple right turn in less than five minutes. It is truly stunning to witness.
But I guess you have to deal with traffic if you want to get to the business of rebuilding our economy after it was cratered by Donald Trump’s inability to trend to anything beyond a mid-range reality television novelty.
Maybe at some point the GOP will have Bernie Madoff or Charlie Sheen as their standard bearer…who would know at this point.
Anyway, to me, this song is the greatest rock song ever composed in the Confederacy. This song is to southern rock as to what the Mona Lisa is to art.
‘Free Bird’ was released in 1975 by the group Lynyrd Skynrd. The year I graduated from high school…BTW.
I can’t think of a better way to start the week-end.
This isn’t an official karaoke selection, but this song came on my truck radio yesterday while I was driving around Lake Hefner in Oklahoma City during my work day.
It was an amazing thing as this song was on the radio for the first time since the pandemic pretty much closed down Oklahoma City….there were people and dogs on the walking paths and bike trails with their better other, or by their lonesome, or with their dog. People were fishing the shorelines as well.
I asked one young man with a mask if he was having any luck and he told me just several minutes before I got there he caught a nice crappie.
Maybe half of the people were wearing protective masks. But all were spaced I observed. You could tell that despite it being in the hub of what I thought were the non-gravity Trump knucklehead believers—they believe Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx on this one…not the Christian Evangelical Pussy Grabber with the orange hair who cratered Obama’s recovery.
Good for them. And of course this is in the heart of the 5th Congressional District where Dem Kendra Horn stunned the free world as we know it by winning a Congressional seat which hadn’t gone to a non-gravity believing Republican since I became old enough to drive.
I now have a mask I wear in certain situations. I’m very careful about spacing. I haven’t gone into a restaurant to eat in over seven weeks and for a person who lives to eat this should tell you how serious I’ve taken this.
As much I miss sports—I think I actually miss pretending to be Anthony Bourdain going into restaurants and being with people even more. I’ve come to realize I miss that more than the sports. It’s talking about the sports and eating and drinking with others which I miss the most.
First restaurant I go into will be the Waffle House and I’ll be ordering the Five Course Anthony Bourdain Special.
My wife even has me watching this cooking show called Cook Country County Cooking or some bullshit like that and we’re going to make blueberry cornbread this Sunday. I might even attempt to cook my first ever pepper steak with potatoes lanaise. Go figure. Call me your Renaissance Man. Move over, Pioneer Woman.
I might even go a step further like Kramer and Newman did when they ran their version of the Merv Griffin Show from Kramer’s apartment by running my version of the Anthony Bourdain Show from my sports viewing room and soon to be sport bar/restaurant.
So yesterday was kind of a turning point day for me as I search for my own new normal as I travel down the path of life its own-self.
Sometime probably next late week the U.S. death mark from the coronavirus will go over the 56,000 benchmark. Which at that point means more Americans will have died on their own soil from this virus than were killed in Vietnam.
Of course, Trump never served because he had blisters on his feet and his father probably bribed his local politician to keep his son safe from the war. Medal of Honor winner Rush Limbaugh never served as well since his grandfather was a U.S. Federal Circuit Judge. Those are great jobs BTW. Real plums.
Bush 41 served and was a hero. John McCain served and was a hero. Donald Trump the coward hid behind his big daddy’s purse strings and stayed home like the coward he truly is.
So sometime next week more people will have died from the fake news coronavirus than died in the Vietnam War. While more jobs have been lost than Obama created in two terms, plus the jobs created these past three years with the stock buy back capers and the 14% corporate tax cut.
BTW…the average marginal corporate tax rate since Trump’s giveaway is at 11% so why does any well run company need a bridge of cash for two months from the American taxpayer?
What a complete group of f–king idiots.
Rant over.
It’s gonna take some big time karaoke tonight for certain.
Bobby Knight won three national championships with the Indiana Hoosiers during his time in Bloomington. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest college coaches of all-time. Coach Knight coached Michael Jordan on the 1984 U.S Olympics Team… in which of course the U.S. easily won the Gold Medal.
I actually have an autographed copy of his second book Bob Knight: His Own Man by Joan Mellon in my book collection. He wouldn’t sign my copy of Season on the Brink by John Feinstein. That’s whole other story.
I thought his take on Michael would be interesting given Parts 3 & 4 of The Last Dance air this Sunday evening on ESPN.
So I have this story to tell in places like Oklahoma, Alabama, Louisiana and other SEC locales. Please close your eyes as I tell this story.
There’s this young guy from Illinois named Barack Hussein Obama who got himself elected to the U.S. Senate from the state of Illinois.
Completely self-made dude. He didn’t really have a father in his life. Didn’t inherit the Bush family wealth like 43 and Low Energy. Smarter than Dan Quayle or Jack Kemp ever prayed they could be. Didn’t get $420 million from his father in a trust. Didn’t cheat on his wife like Bill Clinton. This dude is pristine political cocaine is what he is.
He not only went and graduated from Harvard Law School, but became president of their Law Review. Imagine that.
He gave this speech at the DNC in 2004 which put him on his party’s radar screen. Then in 2008 when the country Bush 43 was running completely into the ground imploded like a dumpster fire he kind of became a thing. So this young guy somehow goes out and beats Hillary Clinton for his party’s nomination of all things. Go figure.
He then beats John McCain for the presidency at a time in our country’s history almost as low as the Great Depression with double digit unemployment and frozen credit markets seized by the fall of Lehman Brothers. Add to the fact Bush 43 has him in two wars in the Middle East.
But he doesn’t flinch. He graciously reaches out to John McCain in his acceptance speech. He reaches out to Republicans across the board. Heck…in the end he even becomes friends with John Boehner of Ohio and Tom Coburn from Muskogee, Oklahoma of all places.
He keeps Bob Gates as his Sec Def. He reaches out to work with Republican Fed Chair Ben Beranke and they create TARP to the tune of $787 billion dollars to bailout the country from in essence the banking industry so ordinary people don’t get wiped out across the economic spectrum. They even save the U.S. auto industry despite opposition from the Republicans.
The banks repay their loans with interest with Elizabeth Warren all over their asses which is totally believable after seeing her debate Michael Bloomberg.
And it works. For 84 straight months thru the conclusion of his second term the U.S. economy creates around 200,000 new jobs a month. The Dow rebounds from 43’s low mark of 6,500 to 19,300 in eight years. The U.S. is still perceived as the leader in the democratic free world and Leon Panetta even helps him get Bin Laden.
Shit…outside of the SEC and Oklahoma that’ll get a guy a 95% approval rating in states where people can actually read and aren’t emotionally tied with Joe Exotic and his husbands.
Now open your eyes and imagine Barack Obama is white.
In fact, the backlash from the older white generations in this country might have become worse after Barack Obama became president for eight years.
Initially… I thought the opposite would happen, but for certain in the South from Oklahoma moving east I would have to say I don’t think really much has changed.
Sadly…we didn’t cross the bridge and stay there.
Race is still a big deal. People might not use the word ‘nigger’ openly, but it’s still there in some people’s minds and inner core beliefs as to how they view the world. Oh, it’s there for sure.
In places like Oklahoma and Alabama it’s okay for your quarterback or your point guard to be black, but not your president, not your governor, or not your U.S. Senator with Tim Scott from South Carolina being an exception.
The world around us has changed rapidly at a dizzying pace, but in the Solid South…not so much.
The scene above is made from the iconic movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? The story revolves around a black man and a white woman who fall in love and want to get married in the year 1967. Just after LBJ passed all of Kennedy’s civil rights legislation.
Just so we’re clear, that’s when the Solid South became Republican and has stayed there ever since.
To me…this particular scene is one of the truly great movie scenes of all-time. It’s puts a lump in my throat every time I play it for some inner inspiration.
I’m basically brown and always have been. I don’t think of myself as white. I attended a high school which was half and half racially. I played baseball, football, and basketball with black guys. Skin color was never a deal with me.
That’s truly one of the great things about sports in that it crosses racial barriers because whether black or white you want to win.
Everybody is equal in that regard, unless you want to become a president, a governor, or a U.S. Senator in the South.
That’s apparently when winning in the South with certain white people takes a backseat.
Oklahoma City’s regular season should have ended on the road in Dallas on April 15th with the Thunder fighting for seeding position. But instead, the Thunder’s season ended at 40-24 at home when Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus.
Who would have known or thought little sleepy red neck racist make believe evangelical Oklahoma City of all places would be the genesis for the shutdown of sports as we knew it. This in itself tells me God did this for a reason in Oklahoma City.
Maybe it’s God’s way of saying to all these over the top white Trump bible thumpers…”Are you serious? Do you really think is what the New Testament is ostensibly all about?” Golden Rule? Good Samaritan? Any of that ring a bell? Psalms, Corinthians?””
I also think God clearly has a hand in negative West Texas Crude in regards to the behavior of these Trump knuckleheads who don’t believe in anything in the universe minus a Donald Trump or Dan Scavino tweet. Google Dan Scavino if you don’t know what I’m writing about on here. Are you people serious…do you want to be taken seriously within the spiritual realm of the conscious universe?
So God for the time being ended sports as we knew it in Oklahoma City with a sense of biblical justness that none of these white churches in Edmond seem to be able to come to grips with in an open manner.
Truth be known, if I were the Trump surrogate governor of Oklahoma… I’d close every white church in Oklahoma for a year. I would. I’d make them attend black, Hispanic, and Muslim places of worship for a year.
Brave men and women thru the course of our country’s history gave their lives for you to have the right to vote and you thought so little of these brave people you voted for Dan Scavino to become POTUS.
Read some books and soak your heads for another six months.
Sometimes God has to do what he or she has to do.
Enough of that lecture.
My NBA regular season awards:
MVP — LeBron with Giannis a close second
Player I Loved to Watch Most This Season — Pascal Siakam
Rookie of the Year — Ja Morant with Zion second
Coach of the Year — Nick Nurse with Billy Donovan second
NBA Exec of the Year — Sam Presti with no one being a close second
Player Who Won My Heart — Chris Paul..the same guy who almost rented the house across the street from me a decade a ago after Katrina.
Favorite National NBA Commentators — A tie with Doris Burke and Jeff van Gundy
Favorite local OKC Thunder scribe — Berry Tramel
I’ll do a formal Thunder wrap sometime after I see what God does with the NBA post season tournament.