Sad day yesterday, well Monday, I guess. You know rainy days and Mondays always get me down. And, it doesn’t rain so much here, so I focus my depression on Mondays.

Scooter Libby’s sentence was commuted, and Beverly Sills passed from the bounds of earth.

On the Scoot-man, all I can say is what the fuck and what kind of brass balls does GW have. Seriously, he’s like, “Fuck you, I’m in the home stretch, I can do whatever the fuck I want. Surge this.” If he doesn’t go down in history as the worst president ever, then as a country, a people, we have completely lost our collective soul.

For Beverly, I essentially tag two vaguish memories in my life. My ritual after school for many, many, many years was the afternoon talk shows they used to have. They were on TV. TV had like three channels that came in well on VHF, which I don’t fucking know what it means anymore.

Another cluster of shows were on UHF, again, no clue to what that abbreviates or acronyms. Those shows were usually repeats or local shows, and there were old movies, like creature doublefeatures and whatnot.

But, my addiction was shit like Dinah! and Mike Douglas and Merv. Come to think of it, that might very well be where I first saw the whole stand-up comedy thang.

Bevery Sills was a guest on those type of shows and was the antithesis of your basic opera diva cliche.

In that same vague reverie of seeing Beverly, I imagine Pat watching, as well. In the certainty of uncertain memory, I think there was enforced silence when she was first profiled on 60 Minutes some time in the mid-70s. Maybe. Kinda sorta. I could be making shit up.

Pat did like the local kid story. The Brooklyn girl who could sing her heart out. Or Arthur Ashe coming out of segregated neighborhoods to play a previously white-washed game.

The exception that proved that rule, I think was Barbra. Pat had no love for La Streisand, no matter the roots to riches story she might have lived.

It might have been the nose. Or maybe the schoolteacher in Pat just couldn’t abide the missing ‘A’ in her first name.

But, an earthy, down-to-earth, regular gal who could sing at the Met, that was a woman to admire. She was a real American. RIP, Bev.