Old Man Wrong

You CAN Teach Old Man Wrong New Tricks!

Good Clean Fun /

Buzzed Boomer Senior Contributor Old Man Wrong is back describing a new-found skill with his usual wit and… wisdom.

Sew What

Ever try a sewing machine? A 13 yr-old of mine begged for one so went to Joann’s, went for it (cheap!), watched a couple chippie YouTube videos and…that was kinda it. She can thread needles like a champ but the actual sewing involved an actual machine, parts, tools, maybe stapling your pinkie to a metal plate. Not really her bag right now, so the machine went into storage.

I have hand-sewed a little over the years, buttons mainly. Not that hard: You get somebody to thread your needle – ok there’s a little threader thing, which works – and poke through the little holes in the button and go around and around 192 times (stabbing your finger 7), tie it off, snip snip, wahlah. Button on.

My mom did not teach her sons how to sew, whose did? Now and then you’d find her in front of the black Singer with the gold lettering, heavy as an anvil, gas pedal under the table. She worked out of a black fold-top box filled with mysterious old-world items like thimbles, needles and pins, pin-cushions, scissors of various lengths and blade types (I dug the zigzaggers aka pinking shears – maybe from the Pinking Shears Corp.? https://www.waltergrutchfield.net/pinking.htm), even the machine itself was stored inside. It smelled like 1898 in there. She mended clothes sometimes, I assume for amusement. I know she sewed a dress or two from ‘patterns’ for my sister, who pretty much hated them. It was the early 70’s and tasteful dresses were decidedly out. I never paid much attention to any of it.

~50 yrs on and the shower curtain is too long. Essential books can be banned, Russia can re-Sovietize, baseball can have a clock but the shower – that sanctum of peace and refuge – is sacred space. Respect it. Unlike phone chargers, shower curtain sizes are standard. All 2 of ‘em. One size for wide/bath, one size for stall. Same length. If your curtain’s too long it sits in the wet tub/tile post-la douche, and stuff grows under there. No good. How to shorten it? You can’t run a shower curtain through a table saw and even if you could, table saws don’t hem (yes, the curtain’s gotta be cloth; a cloth liner is also nice). Cut and sew is the only way. Hand sewing would take 18-24 months. But The Machine! Alright, feeling like maybe learning something new for once this decade, I set up the machine. 

It’s a Singer but it weighs less than the cat. A lot of plastic on the outside. But the works are stainless steel. Everything fits. I’m thinking the inner parts have been the same for a very long time, pre-Boom even. I’ll cut to it: with machine sewing, the thing either sews, or you get a pile of gnarled thread and everything is stuck. I swore in the presence of my children, rethreading the +&*X<>#$ thing for the 10th time. I used the wrong scissors. But I got a taste of what golfers say they get when they hit one right. Tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a-tack-a. A seam. 

Here’s some evidence of the project. But I can’t show you the beautiful curtain hanging so comfortably now, right above the tiles – it’s sacred.

-Old Man Wrong

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How Old is old man wrong?

2 Comments / Fitness /

After a well-earned sabbatical, Buzzed Boomer Chief California Correspondent Old Man Wrong updates us on his fitness journey. Here is his report.

Coming to ‘fitness’ relatively late in life, I figured I had several advantages. Smoking heavily (very) early on had made my lungs ripe for saving. Decades of running, barely upright, and rarely running full-bore, saved the cartilage and so on.  I’m only slightly used.  I was set for a wonderful September Surprise.

But live and, wait around long enough, the world will catch up. For me, it was the Fitness Watch. Later in life, I‘d run and run (and RUN) and also swum.  And swum some more.  And walked and walked.  And climbed. Toughed out numerous events (~$85/pop, dang it). And finally along comes the semi-affordable Measuring Device, to track you and revel with you in your triumphs and pick you up in your failures. All packaged as a Dick Tracey 2-Way Wrist TV.

How far? Where? How fast (slow)?  How many steps? What cadence? VO2 max? 

But now also the dreaded section of your the many-screened Suunto V fitness watch:  Fitness Level. 

Like I said, age 0-30 was not the healthiest time in my life. But I soldiered on, and holy sugar, here I am, 60. And trying.  Pretty hard!

Here’s what it is: My latest Fitness Watch measures the usual things. Where, when, how far, how fast, etc. But also how much heart rate. And how hard trying.  Then sums up fitness level and fitness age.

And the verdict?

Not at all good. Fitness level “Very Poor”. Fitness age: [can’t print]. The company is Suunto which must be Scandinavian, which must mean we’re going on their scale of what’s fit in super-healthy Nordic land. 

But I am not 79!

– OMW

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Come In WBAL

Good Clean Fun /

Ahh Christmastime and its misty memories…dads and us kids singing carols in harmony, door-to-door…hustling to Grants to get <$5 sumpum for first gf…brothers coming home from college with very long hair, and so on. But xmas 1954 (seriously pre-dating OMW) brought something truly wonderful and enduring to the world – the first consumer-orientated transistor radio.

Bell Labs (big surprise) came up with the transistor in 1947. Before that it was tubes…there were a few portable tube radios meaning portable by weightlifters. But Texas Instruments (it of the early calculator w/the weird red numbers…(held upside down, you could spell ‘hell(o)’) came out with the TR-1 in ’54, in time for the Holidays. 

AM-only. But with modern additions, we’re still at it with the pocket radio, er, well I am. From early ‘70s Orioles games late at night to NOAA weather helping us gauge the surf to the backbreaking Niners-Packers this fall walking in Tilden Park, I’ve always had one nearby. Still a little frustrating with the reception but still a solid companion. All Hail!!

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Louie Louie

Music /

Lou Reed will be gone 8 years on the 27th. Not technically a Boomer (b. 1942) but he blew away a few zillion of us. We’ll be feeling his reverberations a long long time. 

Apple TV has just released a documentary of his band The Velvet Underground. As a city-dweller like Lou was I got to see it on the big screen. Well worth the sticky armrests and risk of illness.

The Velvets music sold poorly but influenced majorly. Formed in 1965 New York as an avant-garde project managed by Andy Warhol, in the early days they turned out Lou’s dark and edgy yet hummable tunes, boogie woogie hopped up on feedback, not exactly peace and love, sweet stuff. They wore black!! Girl drummer!! Welsh artist (John Cale) playing viola or droning organ!!! It’s been said they sold only a few thousand copies of their first album, but everybody who bought one formed a band. 

Lou wanted to be a rock star though, so he split with Andy and Cale and all of a sudden we got Sweet Jane. Dang!

All four VU albums are on RS’s top 500…not too bad. A lot of music from The Era hasn’t aged well (I’m talking to you, The Doors) but the Velvets keep exploding, giving and giving.

In the 80’s, a punker friend with ripped stockings (and according to her) the Best Legs in Baltimore turned me on to post-Velvets Lou, a whole other rock ‘n roll world. He later married Laurie (Oh Superman) Anderson, and went all mellow and Tai Chi. Gone too soon, RIP Lou.

Check out the VU rockumentary BB’ers…a brave artist was in our midst!

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Photo: Billboard.com

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History of the iPhone

Good Clean Fun, Music /

On August 31st, 1897, Thomas Edison was granted a patent for his Kintograph… the first movie camera.  He also developed the first phonograph using a wax cylinder to play back recorded music.  What most people don’t know is that he also invented the iPhone which combined a movie camera and music playback capabilities, and a bright light (he called it a light bulb)  but he told no one fearing that citizens would be bombarded with stupid ads over and over and over.  Ultimately, his invention was discovered after his death and others received the credit.

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‘Cause Every Girl Crazy ‘Bout A Sharp-Dressed Man!

Fashion /


I’m at home at 2:35 pm, in slippers. Even before The Rona, I saw cutoffs at steakhouses and T-shirts in courtrooms. How did we get here and are we ok? By bits and miles and yeah, mostly. 
Those Greatest Gen’ers got through the Depression and won the War – Thanks!! – but in 1945, the culture had a long way to go, baby. My dad ran into a little unexpected dough right after Coming Home and what did he blow it on? A nice pair of cordovans (google it, kids). Clothes made the wo/man back then. Hats and suits and below-the-knee dresses were what respectable people wore. 
First day of second grade, 1969, this Late Boomer had on long ‘slacks’ with no holes and brown leather shoes that even then were on the way out, forever. After Brown v Board, the Civil Rights Act, on and on, my brother’s Senior HS yearbook picture that year showed an earnest, clean-cut young man in a blue blazer and striped tie (who a year later would be marching on Washington, in a pony tail). 
Even through the 80’s and 90’s and beyond, clothes defined…Izod labels, the right loafers and khakis – it still mattered. But more and more cracks appeared. 
In 2000, I landed a job at a law firm in a tall (for DC) building. Lawyers were not then and still aren’t leading edge types, but there was already ‘causal Friday’, i.e., no suits unless clients/court. Then in 2004, still smoldering from 9/11, the firm went ‘casual summer; the de rigeur suit was dead. 
On it went, in bits and leaps. More and more variety, less and less uniforms. Along came the virus and Boom! Not only can you dispense with ‘business casual’ dress – whatever that ever was – you don’t even need to come and present yourself to anybody. Stay home! Relax! Keep your jammies out of sight on Zoom and you’re good!!
It’s all good, mostly. Clothes don’t define anybody. No judgments on that surface stuff. Let it fly – or not! But get off my lawn a little. I took my oldest to be fitted for a pre-college suit last year. My younger son in a T-shirt at his (remote) piano recital stung a little. Alas, not a collar in sight, the whole program. And the barefoot young man on the plane…come the hell ON.

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Schteak. American Style

Food and Drink, Good Clean Fun, Recipes /

Writing this on Mother’s Day. I can’t even begin to measure my mom’s loving, multi-faceted, nuanced mothering – straight up unconditional love, support, encouragement, doses of reality, big laughs, tense card games, Jeopardy!, on and on, rest in peace Mom! But alas, mama/daddy the bow…. child the arrow. Forth I went, as it should be! And I learned a few tricks M&D could not touch, at all. 

Take steak. Listen, I liked – loved – steak night!! Because it was so rare (LOL). Chuck steak was…steaky. Chucky. They didn’t give away those steak knives at the gas station for nuthin!!! But there’s something beef-elemental about steak that only steak can deliver, almost any steak.

We’re all aware of bourbon-soaked applewood, designer charcoals and the like. I guess it’s fine, go for it. It’s probably better. But not everybody lives in the country or the damn suburbs with endless green-space to pollute with char-smoke. There are those in the city or a van. For you, I offer on-stove, oven-roasted Schteak, in homage to a good, good friend who actually butchered meat FOR A LIVING at one point and anyway, informs my inner cow.  

Moms won’t like my method – hardly anyone will – until they belly up for din-din. Look: (dontcha love when somebody says “look” on NPR or Meet the Press…you know they about to lay it on you!!!), this won’t be pretty, I won’t lie. But you wanna eat good, right? At least once in a while.

Butcher. Not Safeway. Don’t have a butcher? Move to a modern city/area that does…or go online and say USDA Prime and enter security code ‘yes’. Get some U S D A Prime bone-in ribeye beefsteak. Or a little harder, probably a little better but trickier, Prime Porterhouse. Yes, it costs $856. Do it. Need to justify? Skip dead animals or Comcast for the summer-winter, or quit golf (that hook? It is yours). Buy some nourishing meat with what you save! Get the good stuff. I know that’s the advice every cook person gives. Because it’s true.

And thick. Thicckkk. Two imperial inches minimum. Not easy to find, but stacking 2 one-inchers from CheapCo isn’t sanitary. Thick can be had. Now turn stove to Highest. Iron pan is a must — Lodge ok, Griswold better (vintage available); enameled is ok, Le Cruset is just La Ca$het, Go Staub!!

Meat at room temp (oops, shoulda mentioned that earlier). It’s peppered and properly seasoned with salt. That is all it is. Once the pan is HOT, put on the steaks. Gonna smoke big time. Hugely. The fan, the windows, oh the smoke! Plumes!! Smoke detector goes off!! Use a towel to fan the smoke away from the detector(s), which you can’t disconnect any more than drive without seatbelts. A couple minutes later, flip. More smoakkk!! Smoke baby!! Beep beep beep…beep beep beep. Family/neighbors are either out (preferred), or not liking you right now. A clouded minute or two on the B side, then move the pan (careful – handle HOT) quick into the 5000+++ deg oven (preheated, again sorry). Let it groove in there awhile, maybe your asparagus or little potatoes or tomatoes are already inside, roasting. Yes! I dunno how long inside to get rare/mid-rare, never timed it. Not 5 minutes (raw) but not 22 (getting brown). Before too long, take it out. Rub with a garlic clove and spritz of lemon. Let it ‘rest’ a little. 

Meanwhile, drinks, trimmings. The zesty grilled crust gives way to the juicy, beefy redness inside. Almost all food groups at once…feel your blood get nourished. I’ll say it – almost melts in the mouth, but you’re gonna wanna chew, savor the full range of Schteak flavors. Take that family!! 

Real good the next day too, cold. Also works for burgers – 80/20 ground chuck. Smoke baby smoke!

  • Old Man Wrong
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Shaken Not Zapped

Endorphins, Fitness, Food and Drink, Good Clean Fun, Recipes /

You know popcorn? You may not know popcorn. It shouldn’t cost $58.50 and leave you sick after watching The Matix XII at the Come On In, What Are The Odds Of Getting Ill-plex. It‘s not the ‘as much fun’ (actually far more fun) ‘to make than it is to eat’ stuff. Although the J. Pop experience was always oddly…hot, I won’t lie. And it ain’t Orville Fudruckers Buttery Microwave in a 2 minute ‘bing!!’ all done folded bag. The waxy weirdness of the insides, burnt clumps here and there, dry tasteless stuff elsewhere. 

Grow up! People been trying to mess up popcorn since Charles Cretors invented the popcorn maker out of his old Chicago candy store in like 1890. Get in touch with this Nature’s wonder y’all!l Ima tell you how. 

Good p’corn needs the stove. Period. Why did our moms get a gadget or machine for everything? Keeping away from dirty nature, I guess. Oh well – Greatest Generation, they did win WWII etc. We can forgive ‘em for wanting to get out the kitchen and live! But. Corn goes on the stove. 

Pot. Oil (Google tell you which kind) and you can throw in some bacon fat/lardo or butter because umami. Fair measure of salt. I get it – salt bad. But salt ‘properly seasons’ food. Food’s swizzle stick. To counteract the bad, go for a nice long walk every day. Ahem. 

Gring in some pepper. (Or buy a pepper grinder and some peppercorns and then grind in. C’mon!! Thro’ out that powered pepper from 2011. How old are you??!?) Now, there is a secret ingredient. It is lemon juice. Not ReaLemon, that of the plastic lemon-looking thing with the green screw top. Actual lemon juice, a good bit, squeeze into the oil/lardo/salt/pepper mix. Set it all on the stove on lowwwwwww. Low. Then put in the corn. 

Now go watch a Next Gen or something on Netflix…45 min. By that time — Data having let go of the dream of becoming fully human, somehow becoming more human in the process — the kernels (not colonels) are dark brown and nutty and ready, come what may.  Ready to get rocked. Now you gotta put down your phone thingy and get up. 

What is needed is a blast of the highest heat known to your stove, you at the controls. There’s a lid on the pot and there’s a towel over the lid and you’re shaking that pot like it’s never got shook, its shoes are falling off, it’s missing appointments, it’s making promises it’ll never keep, it is giving and giving, corn popping like absolute crazy, shake shake shake shake and then…

It’s over. Last chord in Day In The Life… bonggggnngggg…. 

That’s it! You will like the result.

Old Man Wrong

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