Can you please spell Gabbana?

The devil wears Prada...but this weekend he, and his mistress, wore Dolce and Gabbana...Bezos and Sanchez...the wedding of the minute...we all know Venice is sinking...this past weekend should have sent it into the Venetian Lagoon...the weight of all those plastic boobs...I was thrilled to see the less than happy response from the local Venetians...the ludicrous amount of money...and media attention to what passes for A-listers these days...but we are all in on the joke...the grotesque joke...about the man that is worth roughly 237 billion dollars...whose workers need to pee into water bottles to make quota...did the guests pee into water bottles at the wedding?...me thinks not...I wonder how much all the seamstresses were paid for the 900 hours it took them to make Sanchez's gown, which at least was an upgrade from her high-end hooker outfit for this past January's inauguration...or were they merely given Amazon gift cards?...this criticism might seem mean-spirited...but here's the thing...I already lived through the accepted excess of the 80's...with breaks for the mea culpa of celebrity social conscience...We Are the World, anyone?...and guess what?...there are still many starving children...and people dying of preventable diseases...but there was Bezos...all 237 billion of him...having a second wedding that cost between 45 and 56 million...with gondolas flooding poor Venice...Venice is sinking...last weekend it was stinking...

good vibrations...

last week saw the deaths of two musical legends...Sly Stone and Brian Wilson...both 82...both responsible for pushing music into new and exciting stratospheres...and for me, both behind the quintessential sounds of summer...the Beach Boys are summer...light, breezy...then soul-searching and ethereal...sitting in traffic in the sixties...if one of their songs came on the radio...you were transported to a little convertible car...speeding the coastline in the sun...or the heartache in the lyrics could stop you in your tracks...Sly and the Family Stone...ground-breaking...and when I hear "Hot Fun in the Summertime"...well, I am back on the beaches of Brooklyn...sun beating on the sand...eating a cold plum or fudgsicle, chocolate dripping down my sunburnt neck...the transistor radios are blasting...moms are yelling not to wade in too deep...I don't have a care in the world...a world that is burning and changing and aching...but Sly is bringing the funk...slyly...we don't even realize it...both men didn't have an easy time of it...such is the true nature of creative genius...but as we celebrate the summer solstice today...take in the last crumbs of daylight tonight...I will think of Brian and Sly...and the gift of music that keeps giving eternally...if only in our memories...

Good luck, and good night...

I don't sleep well...I suppose doctors would blame it on my newly minted Medicare card...this happens at "your age"...our medical community is flooded with specialists, each playing their "instrument" with aplomb...but we have no maestros, we slip through the cracks...and count sheep...healthcare 2025...I could blame it on my knee or back...or mattress...but last night it was the look in George Clooney's eyes on the close-up shot at the end of CNN's live broadcast of Broadway's "Good Night, and Good Luck" that haunted me...did he know that the National Guard had hit the ground in California while on stage?...was he thinking, like Murrow or Friendly would have, about the magnitude of this breaking story?...a page out of Project 2025...could it be reported fairly?...without AI interference...without administrative interference...oh, the irony...CBS...was Clooney crying in character?...and do I even care what he thinks?...I toss and turn...and try and count sheep...but JD Vance has shot them all with his forward in the sequel to Project 2025...good night...and good luck...