BY PLANET VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY OCT. 26, 2016) — The element of surprise can be a delight. THE PLANET had to be in Pittsfield yesterday, and on one our various stops some canvassers met us.

“Are you registered to vote?”

“Yes.”

“Do you care about public education.”

(RED FLAGS UP) “Yes,” THE PLANET replied.

Then came the spiel, these moonbats explaining why voting “no” on Question 2 was “necessary” to prevent a”funding disaster” for Pittsfield public schools. Playing dumb, I asked “why” and got an over-rehearsed, droning speech that had as its key point The Big Lie. They said a YES vote would allow more charter schools and “charter schools are not public schools.”

We then asked a question of our own: “Are you employed by the Pittsfield Public Schools.” Answer: Yes, one as a teacher the other as a “paraprofessional,” whatever then heck that meant.

THE PLANET remained civil — then proceeded to mercilessly, surgically eviscerate their argument, point by point, with verse and chapter to back it up. After the slaughter was over, the women near tears at the irrefutability of our logic, we introduced ourselves. At “Dan Valenti,” you would have thought Prof. Van Helsing had shared a mirror and garland garlic with Vlad Drac himself.  The ladies were stunned, and then we told them we would share our little encounter on THE PLANET. If their response could be translated into a song title, we would choose: “A Lighter Shade of Pale.” We left, and the ladies retreated back to their fairy-tale world of fiction and la-de-da.

Ladies and gentlemen: Vote YES on Q2.

The Airport Stare

On the road again … with full focus (PHOTO by Steiglitz)

Most people dread waiting in airports. THE PLANET loves it, especially if were traveling on business, because that comes with “expenses included.”

That means we get paid to sit around in airport lounges and read. Recently, an intrepid photographer in our retinue snapped this picture.

As you can see, we wear the rapt attention of utter seriousness with a focus worthy of an M-Cat defusing a roadside bomb. And what tome elicited such an intense demeanor?

We were reading a book by film director Mel Brooks on the making of his classic film Young Frankenstein.

Hey, at least it wasn’t a book on The Three Stooges, which we purused on an earlier layover that same day.

In truth flying has lost its glamour it and the security precautions are both draconian and underwhelming, but it’s still rapturous to view the play village 40,000 feet up makes of the world.

Fingers in the Mix — and Just Because

Finally, for something completely different as Monty Python used to say, we present this picture, culled from the archives of our stint as a baseball writer. Do you recognize this man?

He’s Rollie Fingers, Hall of Fame relief pitcher with the A’s, Padres, and Brewers. How many remember that for three June days in the centennial year of 1976, Fingers was a member of the Boston Red Sox? Charlie Finley sold Fingers and outfielder Joe Rudi to the Sox, plus pitcher Vida Blue to the New York Yankees, for the then-astounding sum of $1 million apiece. The cash deals, however, were voided by the mud-stick commissioner at the time, Bowie Kuhn, a man not to be confused with David Bowie or Roger Kahn.

We love the crispness of this photo, the immaculateness of the red-gray-and-blue uniform, the slanting late-afternoon sun, the mustache. And can’t you practically smell the oiled leather of Fingers’ pack-fresh glove?

In 1976, baseball was unraveling because of the players’ newly won free agency. These 40 years later, the sport has become an afterthought — a lucrative one, surely, but with little more meaning to the American zeitgeist a than an overpriced amusement park or teen action movie.

It’s nice to remember: It Was Once a Game.

Ah friends, it may be ovah for these good  united states of America, but getting there was a ride and a half.

We leave you with a picture of Don Buddin. Why? Because we can.

DON BUDDIN, Scottsdale, Arizona, March 1961.

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“To keep a person ignorant is to place them in a cage.” — Julian Assange

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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