Jay to the World October 2019

Ok, before we get too deep into things, let’s quickly discuss a couple of things happening in the world of current events:

The Whistleblower: First and foremost, am I the only person who had to Google the definition of Quid Pro Quo last week?? I didn’t skip that many classes in college for crying out loud. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the whole deal: There is an election in a year – if voters feel that it’s inappropriate for the President of the United States to ask a foreign country for help in winning an election, then the American public will vote accordingly. If voters think that it’s perfectly ok to make that call, then they need to vote their conscience. We have the greatest democracy on the planet – let the voters decide. And yes, you probably know where I stand on the whole thing…

Carson King: Man, this story has taken so many turns it’s hard to keep up. Just to refresh: a 24-year-old man holds up a sign asking for beer money at the Iowa/Iowa State game; donations pour in; the young man donates the money to the Children’s Hospital in Iowa City; Anheuser-Busch jumps on board, boosting total donations to over $1 million and signing Mr. King to a marketing deal; a reporter from the Des Moines Register looks into the young man’s past social media postings and finds a couple questionable posts from 8 years ago; Anheuser-Busch says ‘This Bud’s not for you’ and jumps ship; irate readers do some digging and find racist posts from the reporter’s past; the Des Moines Register fires the reporter. Does that about cover it?? Listen, Carson King APPEARS to be a very nice young man who made a couple big mistakes when he was 16. I thank the Lord above that social media didn’t exist when I was 16 – who knows where I would be today. I think the Register used very poor judgement in taking what many believe to be the feel-good story of the year and dragging it down to the level of Jerry Springer. I think I’m most upset because this story exemplified everything that the State of Iowa is all about. It wasn’t just a feel-good story…it was our feel-good story.

On the music scene, the month of September was a really bad one as we lost two iconic rock figures, Eddie Money and Ric Ocasek (lead singer of The Cars). I saw Eddie Money in concert back in 1982 at the old Civic Auditorium when he was the warm-up act for April Wine, and I saw The Cars in the late 1980’s when I was living in Columbia, MO. I know many of you, like me, fell in love with music during the 1970’s and 1980’s when rock bands ruled the world and unfortunately we are now headed into that period of our lives when our rock heroes are going to be leaving us, if they haven’t already (Springsteen just turned 70!). This is why reunion tours and farewell tours and classic rock radio stations are so popular right now. It isn’t just the bands who are trying to hang on to a little longer…but all of us fans are also trying to cling to that last little sliver of a period in our lives where every memory had a song attached to it and our parents had no way of knowing where we were. Man, life was good back then…

In early September, Cleveland Brown WR Odell Beckham, Jr. played a game while wearing a $190k watch. Things got a little weird when his coach yelled ‘Time!’ and OBJ yelled back 2:37!!

I remember sending my dad a birthday card when he turned 55, basically making fun of the fact that his age was, at that time, the posted highway speed limit. Yeah, I turn 55 this month. It’s not so funny anymore….

The Miriam Webster dictionary has come out with an updated version that includes over 500 new words, including “dad joke” Now for all of you who aren’t familiar with the term “dad joke”, it is defined as ‘an unoriginal or unfunny joke of a type supposedly told by middle-aged or older men’. For example (and yes, this came from an actual Omaha World-Herald headline): Did you read that Omaha police recently were called to investigate an assault with a banana?? I’m sure it was just a bunch of people monkeying around. I know, not my best work…

Two Amish men in Pennsylvania recently escaped policy custody after they were pulled over for operating their horse and buggy while under the influence. Now I’m no Hollywood producer, but somebody needs to contact Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis because I think we just came up with the storyline for “Witness 2”.

President Trump recently stated that he doesn’t like energy-efficient lights because they are way too expensive and because they make him appear to be orange. Come on, that’s kind of like me saying that I don’t like the security camera monitor at Casey’s because it makes it appear that I don’t have any hair on the back of my head. Uh Mr. President, it’s not the lighting that makes you look orange, and I don’t have any hair on the back of my head. It’s ok to admit it.

This month’s award for best window sticker in a muscle car: (saw this on the driver-side passenger window of a really cool looking Mustang last week) “Let me guess, license and registration”. Not sure if a policeman is going to find that funny, but I sure do….

This month’s Steely Dan reference: I was taking Beau to soccer practice a couple weeks ago and he asked me the name of his coach and I said “Ricky”…to which he replied “that’s a unique name”. Sensing an opportunity for a quick music lesson, I then said “I sure hope that if soccer practice gets cancelled, Ricky doesn’t lose my number.” Total silence.

To keep up with the changing times, there is a new Monopoly game out called Ms. Monopoly, where women get $240 for passing go instead of the standard $200 that men receive. I think it’s awesome that a game with such a large following like Monopoly finally recognizes the disparity in pay that women have faced forever in this country. Although I have to say, I was a little surprised to find out that before a man can use his ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, he first has to prove that his child support is paid up.

For those of you who have ever wondered what happens if you leave the gas grill on all night because you changed your dinner plans after turning it on and then didn’t realize what you had done until 4:00 am…yeah, it’s no big deal. As always, you’re welcome.

October 31st is National “Knock Knock Joke” Day: Knock Knock. Who’s there?? Little old lady?? Little old lady who?? I had no idea you could yodel.

And finally, did you hear that Lebron James is trying to trademark the phrase “Taco Tuesday”?. This is not to be confused with Tuesdays here at the bank, when Cindy brings us all kinds of breakfast and snack-time goodies. We refer to it as “Triglyceride Tuesday”.

Until Next time…can I change my Husker prediction?? Holy cow….
Jay