Category: Sardonic Side

Everyone will be trying to read the auto tea leaves over the next months and years to determine if this country’s car industry has, indeed, turned the corner of viability. Some of the signs will be familiar: from bankruptcy strategies to mergers to union concessions.

But here’s one that will be right on the money: when we finally see assembly lines churning out truly “smart” electric cars. Those that feature impressive mileage, quick acceleration, infrequent charging, reasonable cost – and aren’t butt ugly.

What to make of the last-minute personnel changes for Super Bowl week’s “Lingerie Bowl”? A dispute over pay and, notably enough, venue — having to stage it at Land O’ Lakes’ Caliente Spa and Resort, a nudist community – apparently caused some of the players to quit.

You have to draw the line somewhere. A nudist resort is no place for lingerie exhibitionists.

            If Tampa Bay officials had their choice, it wouldn’t be the Arizona Cardinals coming in for the Super Bowl to oppose the Pittsburgh Steelers. A bigger, colder market team, such as Philadelphia or New York, would have been.

            But there is an upside to the Philadelphia Eagles having been knocked off by Arizona. At least we won’t have Philly fans in our midst still braying about the World Series.   

The other day Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten penned a piece on pet peeves. He had a couple dozen, solicited from friends and colleagues, including “news anchors who blame or credit the meteorologist for the weather” and customer service reps who “do not solve your problem, then ask if there is any other way they can be of service today.”

Well, here’s an addendum, in no particular order:

*Christmas cards with just a signature. The sentiments, I gather, are really Hallmark’s.

*Annual family-and-friends Christmas letters. The other variation on a one-size-fits-all theme. Only this one is boring. Especially the really unfunny parts. If you were really close, and any of this stuff were really important, you would already know it.

* Network TV cameras at football games that persist in lingering on those clowns manifesting the most boorish, look-at-me antics after a play.

*Neighbors who leave their dogs, typically high-strung, yappy breeds, outside for long periods of time. (Yes, this is personal.)

*Awaiting in vain for a response from someone you just spoke to or otherwise communicated with only to determine that they were on Planet iPod or Blue Tooth.

*Those – media and politicians – who have to tritely affix “gate” to any public flap or “scandal,” no matter how trivial. It has been neither clever nor fair, including “Troopergate” and “Rhinogate,” since G. Gordon Liddy and the lads.

*Unimportant people who are self-important. Typically those preening, suck-up, organization types obsessed with the next rung in the corporate ladder.

*Cliché-trafficking – in any way, shape or form.

*Free-lancing, Gasparilla Day “trespissers” who use the parade-adjoining neighborhood landscaping — including mine — as ad hoc port-a-lets.

*Meteorologists in suspenders. It oozes “show biz.” You know killer teases, hype and drama await. Especially during hurricane season.

*Sharing really loud, really awful music with anyone within a half mile of your industrial-sized car stereo.

Who would have guessed? The Bucs’ season is imploding as their defense collapses. A legacy now includes an asterisk. The Monte Kiffin Era* actually ended before Kiffin left.

             First the good news.

            One of those seemingly vulnerable store owners thwarted two masked, armed thugs the other night by pulling out his own gun – and firing it at them as they fled.

            The bad news.

            The owner of Jack’s Variety in St. Petersburg missed.

Two sure signs that Congress and the White House are really, really serious about helping the Big Three automakers:

First, they will throw lots of money at the problem. In this case, at least $15 billion.

Second, a car “czar” will be appointed. Nothing says kick-ass-and-take-names priority like a “czar.”

When someone is asked to dinner at the White House, it is normally an image-enhancing sign of status. Tampa Bay Rays’ successful and classy manager Joe Maddon and his wife Jaye Sousoures will find out the reality on Jan 4, after taking part – with five other couples – in a dinner hosted by George and Laura Bush.

Given, well, the usual givens, it might be the president who will do much of the basking in reflected glory.

             Some of you, I know, can empathize. The rest of you – just enjoy it a while longer.

You get to a certain age, and you have more birthdays behind you than in front of you.

And those remaining birthdays come increasingly with fewer birthday cards.

Your parents, who never forgot, are deceased. Same with that favorite aunt or uncle. Your siblings have their own kids — and maybe grandkids — who keep having these rite-of-passage birthdays.

And buddies don’t send each other birthday cards; it’s not a guy thing.

But your wife and child remember. Which, candidly, is plenty at this point.

You’re a year closer to your actuarial denouement. How celebratory do you want to get?

 But into the B-Day breach: a birthday e-mail greeting from my health club, as well as a “Happy Birthday, Joseph” greeting at the check-in counter. Then there was that personal birthday telephone call from my dentist. And another e-mail birthday acknowledgement from a friendly political maven.

Of course, this is part of modern marketing. But just the same, thanks Lifestyle Family Fitness; John Redd, DDS; and Bob Buckhorn, South Tampa neighbor. They count.

Among those trying to hit up President George W. Bush for a pardon is notorious American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh.

Although the odds are long, Lindh reportedly does have a shot at a pardon. Right after Sirhan Sirhan, Charles Manson and John Hinckley get theirs.