On The Beat - From Broadway to Biscayne Boulevard, from the Bird Streets to Euclid Avenue- Any Topic is Fair Game Until it is a Bore… 3/26/26
By Mr. Curmudgeon
Iran shoots missile at US warship. The war-torn country will soon be the largest confirmed impact crater in the Solar System, dwarfing the current record holder, the North Polar Basin (Borealis Basin) on Mars, if they keep it up.
$8.71 per gallon in California, and we are not talking Bondi-Santi Brunello here. This is regular gas, the same stuff you use to run your lawn mower or Woody. There was a time when gasoline was 10 cents per gallon. 40 million people have fled the “Golden” state to keep from going broke. It might become the bestselling horror movie of 2026. A good segue into the next topic…
I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025) is a horror movie supposedly on Netflix but it’s not on Netflix… Apparently there is some goofy digital pad lock on the movie if you try to watch it. And Netflix wonders why their stock is in the toilet, down over 3% in recent sessions. Ads upon Ads and blacked out films. We’ll give them a universal D- for that weak sauce. No salt, no spice, not even close to enough umpff. Is Netflix soon to go the way of Blockbuster? Let’s look at this pragmatically. I pay already for a subscription. Then, my valuable time is taken watching endless Ads. Therefore, I’m paying twice. But that is not enough? Netflix made $45 billion in revenue in 2025 on subscriptions. They are projected to make $3 billion just on advertising in 2026. Why do they need more money? Who gets all that money? They don’t pay a singe penny in dividends to their shareholders. Netflix’s co-CEOs, Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters each received a total compensation package exceeding $60 million in 2024. That was two years ago… What’s it at now, $120 million a piece? Maybe $1 billion?…. Is that not enough? Obviously it isn’t enough as I am blocked from watching “I Know What You Did Last Summer…”
Torrington Telegram (WY) publishes a weekly list of Court Fines, highlighting the names of the degenerates, their misbehavior, and their fine amount. So and so (the name of the accused): vehicle exceeded 70 mph (6 mph+) on a primary or secondary highway. Fine of $195! I assume it was in a school zone?… I’m for it though, both the fining and good old-fashioned public shaming. The criminal element is out of control.
The NBA Board of Governors has approved a vote for the league to explore bids and applicants for expansion teams, they say exclusively in Las Vegas and Seattle. Seattle? They tried to have a team once before and it was a failure. Why not pick a sports-crazy city like South Bend - “The Flying Leprechauns”? People keep doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. We remember what Einstein said about that…
The New York Yankees demolished the San Francisco Giants in their opening day performance at Oracle Park in SoMa. It was the second inning when the Yankees bats exploded putting up 5 of their 7 runs. Max Fried pitched like a legend retiring 16 of his last 18 hitters. Boone pulled him after the first out in the top of the seventh inning having only giving up two hits and no runs. The San Francisco organization was rattled. It had been a hundred years since they were beaten so soundly in an opening day game. If this game is any insight into the Yankees season there is going to be some fireworks in the Bronx.
Jonesborough, TN, a beautiful place of rolling lush green hills and magical forests, oldest and most historic town in the state is under attack. Just the other day “city officials” voted… to rip up 56 pristine acres of farmland and forest to be used to build massive factories to produce high purity depleted uranium…The residents who actually live there screamed and begged, “NO!!!! NO!!!!” Their pleas were drown out by the sound of bulldozers and piggy banks being wildly shook.
Some of the statements made in the press release posted on WCYB News 5 were odd:
"Dedication to serving the community's best interests." Community or stakeholders?
"Minimizing the environmental impact." It is a factory producing high purity depleted uranium, which is more dangerous than low-level radiation...
“Maintaining the positive dialogue and problem-solving spirit”. No idea what that even means.
"A matter of optimizing land use." So every acre of pristine land has to be ruined so some official can make a buck? The phrase, “Optimizing land use,” might be straight out of the mouth of Mao Zedong, back from the grave. I’m more confused after reading this press release than before I started. Hollywood makes apocalyptic movies all the time, but it’s not zombies, vampires, or extraterrestrial invaders that you truly have to worry about…
Courageous Boston police officer, Nicholas O’Malley, 33, was arrested for shooting a vermin carjacker and career criminal. Guaranteed the thug, whose name and age is not important as all criminals are the same, had a long, long rap sheet of offenses for which he was freed with barely a slap on the wrist to go out and harm other productive citizens. O’Malley should be awarded for his bravery and civic duty and maybe even given a key to that city, and if wrongly convicted, promptly pardoned by President Trump…
“Welcome to my kitchen, I’m Clara and I’m 91-years old.” Towards the end of her life, Clara Cannucciari created her own YouTube cooking channel, “Great Depression Cooking with Clara”. Her videos have millions of views, 12 million views, 9.7 million views, and she has 1.05 million subscribers (me being one of them). The recipes she makes she learned from her mother and others during the grim years of the greatest depression. These depression-era recipes are delicious. Pasta with Peas. Mushrooms and tomato sauce. The Poor Man’s Meal or Feast. Dandelion Salad. She was also an author of cookbooks. I’m writing a blurb about her because I stumbled upon one of her videos today. It popped up in my feed since I am a subscriber. People ate simple, chemical-free meals back then and lived to be in their 90s. Today, everyone is sick and on pills. Take from that what you want.
Black triangles seen hidden in the clouds over various parts of the northeast. Some suspect extraterrestrials are using clouds as camouflage to conduct reconnaissance. Why they are doing so isn’t yet clear. Here at the Lampoon Desk, we can’t help but agree…
In Pompeii, in a 1st century BCE banquet hall, frescos were discovered depicting Dionysian rituals. Because religious experts can’t explain it, they label it a cult. Right there is how things throughout history get misinterpreted. Pagans have always been given a bad rap and deemed to be mongrels and barbarians. However, I don’t believe that was the case at all. The wool has been tightly pulled over the eyes of the West for a 1,000 years or more. …
Paul Skenes’s opening day 2026 was the shortest start he’s had in the MLB pitching only 37 pitches before getting pulled after the Mets gave him a workout. However, it wasn’t wholly the Cy Young winner’s fault, as the Pirates’ defense was full of holes…That is for us to present and you to decide.