Long time no see! Been very busy, working hard on my rhubarb pie business (I didn’t tell you?!), which I’ve started out of my apartment. There isn’t too much rhubarb growing in Lower Manhattan, so it’s required much travel. And I’ve had to recruit several experts to help me get the process down and perfect a recipe. Okay, I’m obviously lying. I can barely add, let alone multiply and divide, so baking is out for me. Plus, I only cook with meat. Here’s what I’ve really been up to:
I spent a week in Los Angeles filling in for the Tim Conway Jr. show on KFI AM 640 (“more stimulating talk radio!”). And though the experience was phenomenal, and the KFI people top-notch, I left with one chilling takeaway: radio is really, really hard. You have to really like the sound of your own voice. Thanks to Tucker Carlson, Rep. Thaddeus McCotter and Rep. Michele Bachmann for jumping on the grenade for a few segments. I fill in for Fred Thompson in August, so expect my call.
Went fishing in Sullivan County, New York with some friends, but the Neversink River is full of ninja trout apparently. It was leftovers for dinner that night. But I’ve pulled so many fish out of the rivers up there, I’m probably on some trout Most Wanted List, with my picture up in every trout post office. The trout version of John Walsh talks about me on Trout TV. I’m on a trout “Do Not Fly (Fish) List.” I yank out a young one and they send out a trout amber alert. (This is the start of a gangsta rap track I plan to lay down one day, in case you couldn’t tell. I will call it “Mo’ Trout, Mo’ Problems.”)
Last weekend I co-hosted a T.A.P.S. fundraiser with another Threshold author, Lt Col Michael Franzak, a retired Marine Corps Harrier pilot and author of “A Nightmare’s Prayer,” at Book Revue in Long Island. There Mike and I met the world’s most patriotic dog. Check out the photo. If he isn’t named “Glenn Bark,” it’s a HUGE oversight. And it got me thinking…how many dogs out there do you think are named after Fox personalities? No offense to my friend Sean, but “Hannity” is a bitchin’ name for a dog. So is “Newt,” though it would make a better name, well, for a newt. I also wonder if there’s a Doberman out there named “Olbermann.” Or a husky named “Woof Blitzer.” Or a cat named “Andy Levy.”
On Friday I spoke at the Young Republican National Federation’s biennial Leadership Conference in Washington, presumably a much cooler group than the Old Republican National Federation. They had spent the afternoon with Rep. Aaron Schock, so by the time they got to me, they were all breathless and flushed. I suspect Schock is single-handedly keeping the young Republican constituency in Washington from prematurely tying the knot. Gonna be a cold, dark day when dude gets himself a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend.
Went on Fox & Friends to talk about Robert Gibbs’s so-called betrayal in admitting that Republicans could take the House in November. Only under this administration could the White House press secretary telling the truth about the left’s troubled future be characterized openly by Democrats, and with a straight face, as a gaffe.
Watched Obama stump for extending unemployment benefits, which means opponents can probably breathe easy that it won’t pass. Am I the only one alarmed by the fact that this president’s only idea for addressing joblessness thus far has been to keep the unemployed out of work even longer?
And I started reading “Talent Is Overrated,” by Geoff Colvin, about “What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else.” I’m only half-way through, but the takeaway seems to be that there is no such thing as natural-born talent. If you want to be successful, you just have to work your ass off. So I have no future.
Off to make some spare-ribs turnovers!