LFS: The Storyteller

--> ©2015 by LeeZard On The Hill, St. Louis, MO, August 2013. She is sitting and reading a book. I don’t know what I expected but it wasn’t an attractive young woman in shorts and a college sweatshirt lounging on Yogi Berra’s front porch. I glance down and the bronze plaque embedded in the sidewalk tells me I’m at the correct address. “Excuse me,” I call, “I’m sure you hear this a million times but I’m still another tourist and Yogi Berra fan. Can I take a picture?” As a youth, Yogi Berra lived here for 18-years She smiles brightly, “Sure, go ahead.” I snap away but I’m not  done yet. I take a few steps up the short walk, “Listen, I’m sorry to bother you but I’m driving cross country and writing a book on my travels. Can I interview you?” She marks her place in the book and throws me another killer bright smile, even friendlier than the first, “Sure but I only have a few minutes.” I cannot believe my luck. She introduces herself as Courtney Brown an...

©201 6 by LeeZard   Donald Trump scares the hell out of me and I'm not just talking about his hair. When “The Donald” first announced his presidential aspirations I, like a lot of people, laughed him off as a joke, a sideshow. Well, the circus has come to town and The Donald is its ringmaster.  His rise and staying power in the Republican Party’s polls is simply beyond my imagination and, yet, the more I look at America today, the more I understand why his campaign is not merely a flash-in-the-pan. Let’s count the ways in which he scares me more and more every day. It’s not just about his billions. Not everyone can “buy” an election. As a journalist, I’ve covered countless campaigns and, as a communications professional, I’ve managed media for countless others. The winner is not always the candidate with the most money. It is more often the candidate who taps into the major blood vessels of the body politic. Sadly it is often the candidate who taps into t...

--> ©2015 by LeeZard I’m glad I live in America; it could be a helluva lot worse. I could be living in Haiti, Nepal, an African nation ravaged by Aids and/or Ebola or even Russia. But I don’t. The fact is, though, I don’t think America is the best country in the world anymore, far from it. Yeah, this is the part that will piss people off. So it goes. Blind patriotism, like anything in the extreme, is dangerous. There’s a reason the word ‘blind’ is there; it means you don’t see anything beyond your nationalism. It means you don’t see the racism, the violence, the poverty or the perpetually hungry. It means you think we don’t live in a dictatorship when, in fact, ours is a dictatorship of the wealthy. OMG, he’s talking like a fucking Communist! Really? Let’s compare. ECONOMY   We are no longer the economic engine that drives the world. According to Bloomberg Business:  “Emerging markets in Asia and Africa reign supreme: They're at the top of globa...

--> ©2015 by LeeZard An old high school pal recently re-posted on Facebook, “ Some of the artists of the 60's (or their estates) are revising their hits with new lyrics to accommodate aging baby boomers.” She proceeded to add a pretty funny list from the original post, along with a few of her own (and from other friends). Let's give it a roll, shall we? Here's my random list. Feel free to comment and add your own. ·        ABBA --- Aching Queen ·        Beatles --- I Don’t Feel Fine/I Saw Her Lying There/I Wanna Hold Your Gland/Yellow Hematoma ·        Johnny Nash --- I Can Cialis Now ·        Rolling Stones --- Let's Spend Social Security Together/Sympathy for the Surgeon ·        Bette Midler --- Wind Beneath My Jeans/I’m Wrinkled Dammit/Do You Wanna Limp ·    ...