Alicia Keys – "Like You'll Never See Me Again" (2007)

If I had no more time

No more time left to be here

Would you cherish what we had?

Was it everything that you were looking for?

We haven’t heard much from Derek Jeter since he retired in 2014 after playing 2905 games for the New York Yankees.

But we heard from him tonight, when the New York Yankees retired his number 2 in a letter-perfect ceremony at Yankee Stadium.

Jeter speaking to Yankee Stadium crowd

Jeter spoke for just over three minutes – without notes.  He began by wishing a happy Mother’s Day to his grandmother, his mother, his sister, and his very pregnant wife – all of whom stood nearby as he spoke.

Click here to watch his speech.

As wonderful as it would have been to be Derek Jeter tonight, I think it would have been even better to be his father, Charles Jeter.  

Derek Jeter with his father, mother, wife,
grandmother, sister, and nephew

Mr. Jeter was no doubt filled with pride and joy tonight.  But his son has filled him with pride and joy many other times in his life.  

Many of those proud and joyous moments were the result of something Jeter did while wearing his Yankees uniform.  But many of them had nothing to do with baseball.

I’m guessing that his feelings tonight will pale in comparison to what he will feel when he sees Derek in the role of father to his newborn daughter. 

*     *     *     *     *

I have to admit that I didn’t get Derek Jeter at first.  It took me several years to realize he was a one-of-a-kind figure – the ne plus ultra of all the legends who played for the New York Yankees.  (Don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not saying he was the best player who ever wore pinstripes.  But he is the greatest Yankee . . . which is something entirely different.)

Jeter was overcome with emotion after
his last Yankee Stadium game

To say that he was everything that Yankees fans were looking for in a player is an understatement.  He was much more than that.

On the field and off, Jeter not only exceeded your expectations, he exceeded your wildest imaginings.  

Twenty years ago, it was absolutely inconceivable to me that I would ever feel about an athlete – or about anyone other than a member of my family – the way I came to feel about Derek Jeter.

I can’t explain those feelings in words.  But I don’t need to.  You either get what made Derek Jeter so special, or you don’t.  Either way, nothing I write here is going to change that.

*     *     *     *     *

Tonight’s Yankee Stadium ceremony – which lasted almost an hour – was perfect.  (ESPN paid Jeter the ultimate tribute by broadcasting the whole thing without commercial interruption.)  

The Yankees have retired more numbers than any other major-league baseball team.  That is exactly as it should be, of course – they’ve had many more players who deserve that honor than any other team.  (I’m sorry if you’re a Cardinals fan, or a Dodgers fan, or a Red Sox fan, or a fan of some other team and you don’t want to hear that BUT YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART THAT IT’S TRUE!)

Jeter is a member of an even more select group.  He’s one of the 14 Yankees with retired numbers who spent their entire major-league careers as Yankees.  

Jeter mural outside Yankee Stadium

(The others are Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Bill Dickey, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Thurman Munson, Whitey Ford, Jorge Posada, Don Mattingly, Mariano Rivera, Ron Guidry, and Bernie Williams.  Most of those players are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and every single one of them deserves to be there.)

*     *     *     *     *

“Like You’ll Never See Me Again” was released in 2007 on Alicia Keys’ As I Am album.

I’ll never forget seeing Keys and Jay-Z perform “Empire State of Mind” live at Yankee Stadium before the second game of the 2009 World Series:

The good guys eventually prevailed in six games.  Jeter played every inning and hit .407 in what turned out to be his final World Series.

Here’s “Like You’ll Never See Me Again”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Ice Cube – "It Was a Good Day" (1993)

Today I didn't even have to use my AK

I got to say it was a good day

Reno, Nevada – “The Biggest Little City in the World” – was named after Major General Jesse Lee Reno, who was killed by friendly fire on September 14, 1862, during the Battle of South Mountain, which was fought a few days before the Battle of Antietam.

General Jesse Lee Reno (1823-1862)

In 1889, veterans of the Union Army’s IX Corps, which Reno commanded at South Mountain, erected a monument to him at the spot where he was killed when shot by a young Union soldier who thought he was a Confederate cavalryman.  That monument – which located on the Frederick County–Washington County line near Middletown, MD – is adjacent to the Appalachian Trail.  

The Reno monument

Reno graduated from West Point in 1846 – fellow Civil War generals George B. McClellan, A. P. Hill, George Pickett, and Stonewall Jackson were among his 58 classmates. 

He fought in a number of Mexican-American War battles as a young artillery officer.  One side of his monument lists those battles as well as the Civil War battles where he saw action:

Reno was appointed brigadier general of volunteers when the Civil War broke out, and eventually was promoted to command of the 8500 soldiers of the Army of the Potomac’s IX Corps.

I parked near the Reno monument when I played hooky from work a couple of days ago and took a long hike on the Appalachian Trail just west of Frederick, Maryland.

The Appalachian Trail is
marked with white blazes

I hiked south on the trail until I reached Lamb’s Knoll, which is 1758 feet above sea level.  That makes it the second highest peak on South Mountain.

Lamb’s Knoll is the site of a microwave communications tower (which is now used by the Federal Aviation Administration) and an old fire observation tower (which was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1934).

The Lamb's Knoll microwave tower

There’s some kind of secret government facility on Lamb’s Knoll as well.  Some say it was one of several emergency shelters built where the President and other government officials could hide in case of a national emergency:

“U.S. Property: NO Trespassing”

It was a little early for the numerous mountain laurels on the Appalachian Trail to be in bloom, but the pinxter flowers (which are a wild azalea) were everywhere:

A pinxter bush

Here's a closeup of a pinxter flower cluster:

*     *     *     *     *

After my two-and-a-half hour hike, I dropped by Steinhardt Brewing and visited with brewer Jim Steinhardt.

The Steinhardt brewery is located in the garage of Steinhardt’s handsome home, which is located in Braddock Heights, Maryland, an unincorporated community just east of South Mountain and the Reno monument.

Brewer Jim Steinhardt, hard at work

Jim was busy sanitizing empty kegs, but he kindly took the time to answer my questions and pour me samples of two of his Belgian-style ales – a dubbel made with candi sugar and a dark strong ale he calls “Black Abbey.”  

Both were tasty and well-balanced.  The dubbel exhibited the banana/clove flavors characteristic of beers made with Belgian yeast, but those favors were relatively subtle compared to other Belgian beers I’ve tasted. 

The “Black Abbey” ale was potent but smooth and drinkable despite its high alcohol content.  

Both of the ales I sampled are available at the nearby Braddock Inn, a 1903-vintage restaurant that serves as an unofficial tasting room for Steinhardt’s beers.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Steinhart’s “Imperial Tupelo Stout” (flavored with vanilla and Tupelo honey) at the nearby Brew’d Pub restaurant later that evening.

The Brew’d Pub, which has 20-plus craft beers on tap, is located in a building that dates back to 1783:

The Brew'd Pub

While I was there, I struck up a conversation with Chris Turner, whose Backup Beverage LLC distributes a number of craft beers and ciders.  

Chris had brought along sample bottles of several beers he distributes for the Brew’d Pub proprietor to try – including a French country ale from Two Brothers Brewing in Illinois and a mango wheat beer from Free Will Brewing in Pennsylvania – and he graciously offered me a taste of each.

*     *     *     *     *

Let’s review the bidding:

Instead of wasting the day in the office, I hiked the Appalachian Trail on a perfect spring day, then enjoyed free samples of several delicious craft beers courtesy of a brewer and a craft-beer distributor.

To quote Ice Cube, “I got to say it was a good day.”

*     *     *     *     *

Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day” was released in 1993.

Ice Cube was one of the original members of N.W.A., who put the “gangsta” in gangsta rap.  

After leaving N.W.A., he starred in a number of movies, including the three Barbershop comedies.  And in 2014, he appeared with Elmo on Sesame Street.  

Sesame Street is a long way from Straight Outta Compton.

Here’s “It Was a Good Day”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Van Halen – "Hot for Teacher" (1984)

I got it bad, so bad

I'm hot for teacher

Emmanuel Macron – who was elected President of France on Sunday – knows exactly what David Lee Roth is talking about in today’s featured song.

The 39-year-old Macron has something in common with Donald Trump: neither man had held elective office prior to being elected president.  

But there are differences between the two presidents as well.  For example, Trump is 24 years older than his wife Melania, while Macron is 24 years younger than his wife Brigitte.

French President-elect Macron
with his mother wife

According to the Washington Post, the fact that Macron is young enough to be his wife’s son rather than old enough to be her father “delights many French women”:

“Why can’t we marry younger men? I date them all the time,” said [Martine] Bergossi, the stylish owner of Alternatives, a secondhand-couture shop in Paris, who prefers to leave her exact age to the imagination.

“It’s normal to see men with younger women,” she said. “So it’s rather great to see the opposite.”

I wonder if Mme. Bergossi was aware that President-elect Macron and his future wife met when he was a 15-year-old 10th-grader at a Catholic school in Amiens, France, and she was a 40-year-old teacher who was married and the mother of three – including a son who was in Emmanuel’s class.

He's hot for teacher!

From the Daily Mail:

[W]hen the teacher-student relationship burst into an affair, the scandal was talk of the town . . . .

“It was a huge scandal at the time,” [said] Benoit Delespierre, a local journalist who is close to [Brigitte’s] family . . . .

“People are opened-minded about love and sex in France.  But still it was a big deal.  She was married with three children and he was her pupil.  You can imagine what the other parents made of it all.”

Emmanuel Macron’s parents were aghast when they learned their teenaged son was canoodling with his married middle-aged teacher, but chose not to make a corrupting-a-minor complaint to local police.

(Why is the President-elect wearing a shirt in this photo?  Hiding his moobs?)

According to Anne Fulda, whose book, Emmanuel Macron: A Perfect Young Man, was published last month, Macron’s mother confronted Brigitte and begged her to leave her son alone – at least until he was 18.  But “Brigitte said she couldn't promise her anything,” according to Fulda.

Macron’s parents packed their boy off to an elite secondary school in Paris, hoping the separation would bring an end to Emmanuel’s dalliance with his teacher.  “You won’t get rid of me,” he told Brigitte before leaving.  “I will return and I will marry you.”

And marry her he did – some thirteen years after the relationship began, when he was 29 and she was a 54-year-old grandmother of seven.  (The French newspapers have run photos of him giving a bottle to the youngest of his step-grandchildren.) 

She's hot for student! 

Inquiring minds want to know one thing above all else about this story: how old Emmanuel was when he and Brigitte started bumping uglies.  But she’s not talking.  From the Daily Mail:

Brigitte has refused to reveal when the unlikely pair first became intimate, proclaiming it “our secret.”

“Nobody will ever know at what moment our story became a love story.  That belongs to us.  That is our secret,” she said.

Why won’t she spill the beans?  Surely the statute of limitations has run by now.  

*     *     *     *     *

Do you think that the reaction to the Emmanuel-Brigitte relationship would have been a little different if he had been the 40-year-old married teacher and she had been the 15-year-old student?  (Or if both the student and the teacher had been male?)

Absotively posilutely!.  At least that would have been the case in the U.S. – the French might just say, “J’en ai rien à foutre.” 

*     *     *     *     *

“Hot for Teacher” was released on Van Halen’s 1984 album, 1984.

Here’s the “Hot for Teacher” music video, which features Norwegian model Lillian Müller, who was Playboy’s 1976 “Playmate of the Year.”  

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Run the Jewels – "Close Your Eyes (And Count to F*ck)" (2014)

And even if some good ones die

F*ck it, the lord’ll sort ‘em

In 1209, Pope Innocent III sent a crusader army to southern France to stamp out the Catharist heresy.  

Pope Innocent III

Catharists believed . . . but do you really care what Catharists believed?  Suffice it to say that some of their beliefs were antithetical to the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

You can question whether the Catharists’ beliefs were any crazier than those of the Church, but I’m not certainly not going to do that.  (The last thing I need is for the Pope to order a crusader army to go medieval all over my ass.)

Béziers is one of the oldest cities in France

Soon after the crusaders arrived at the French city of Béziers, a stronghold of Catharism, a group of mercenaries being paid by the Pope broke through the city’s defenses.

Not everyone in the city was a Catharist heretic – in fact, there were many good Catholics living in Béziers.  The crusaders asked the Abbot of Citeaux, who had been given command of the army by the Pope, how they could distinguish heretics from believers.  

The Abbot replied by saying “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.”  He described what happened next in a letter he subsequently wrote to the Pope:

Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people.  After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt, as divine vengeance miraculously raged against it.  

I'm surprised Quentin Tarantino hasn’t made a movie about the massacre at Béziers.

*     *     *     *     *

Run the Jewels is a hip-hop duo that consists of Killer Mike (a black rapper who made his debut on OutKast’s 2000 album, Stankonia) and El-P (a white rapper, producer, and record company executive).  

RTJ’s music is intense, angry, and paranoid.  It’s reminiscent of N.W.A. and Public Enemy and other early-day gangsta rappers, which is high praise indeed in my book.

Killer Mike and El-P

Run the Jewels might be too violent and profane for your taste.  But I believe that the best rap music – like the best rock music – is loud, aggressive, and unapologetically hostile to the powers that be . . . parents, teachers, the police, and the government.  It is designed to be disturbing to all of those who live decorous and polite lives. 

“Close Your Eyes (And Count to F*ck)” – which is a fantasy about starting a prison riot, among other things – features Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha (who knows a little about being intense, angry, and paranoid).  

"Run the Jewels 2" album cover

It’s from the second Run the Jewels album, Run the Jewels 2, which Pitchfork called “the most viciously realized rap album of 2014 and many other years.”

Here’s the official music video for “Close Your Eyes (And Count to F*ck)”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Rufus Thomas – "Walkin' the Dog" (1963)

If you don't know how to do it

I'll show you how to walk the dog

When my dog Lily needs to poop, I just open the door and let her go into the backyard.  No fuss, no muss!

But what if I lived in a happening neighborhood in Brooklyn instead of a boring Washington, DC suburb?  I’d have to take her down the elevator in my apartment building and walk her on the busy streets until she got down to business (in full view of everyone walking by) – and then I’d have to pick up after her.

(By the way, did you know that most mammals need only about 12 seconds to poop?  If you don't believe me, you can click here to read the Science magazine story that is my source.)  

Picking up poop s not the only inconvenience that a New York City dog owner has to suffer, of course.  Let’s say I run into a friend while I’m taking Lily back to my apartment building, and the friend suggests we get a beer.  What the hell am I supposed to do with Lily while I’m in the bar with my friend?  

Do I tie her to a parking meter or bike rack?  That’s not advisable – after all, there are a lot of shady characters in the Big Apple.  And what if it’s raining, or really cold, or really hot?

So I tell the friend I’ll have to take a raincheck on that beer.  Because I’m not going to walk Lily all the way back to my building, go up in the elevator to my floor, put her inside my apartment, take the elevator back down, and walk back to the bar.

Thanks to a Brooklyn dog lover, there’s a solution to my dilemma:

The Dog Parker

It’s the Dog Parker – which claims to be “not your average doghouse.”  

From the company’s website:

Precision Engineered

Dog Parkers are designed to ensure your dog is safe, secure and protected while you go inside.

Thermo-Controlled

Dog Parkers automatically cool the air to ensure your dog is comfortable and safe all year round (32-80 degrees F).

Spacious & Comfortable

Dog Parkers are designed to fit most dogs comfortably and use fans to keep the air inside fresh.

Veterinary Grade

Dog Parkers' interior surfaces are firm, non-porous, comfortable and easy to clean.

A Dog Parker in action

Auto-Sanitizing

Dog Parkers use UV lights to kill bacteria, viruses, and molds between uses, giving you extra peace of mind.

Remotely Monitored

Dog Parkers are internet connected, allowing you to keep tabs on things remotely via your smartphone, anytime.

I saw a Dog Parker recently when a friend and I were taking a postprandial stroll through DUMBO (“Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass”), my favorite Brooklyn neighborhood.

How does it work?  Easy-peasy, actually.  You use the Dog Parker app to find the nearest vacant Dog Parker, and make a reservation for it.  When you get to your Dog Parker, you simply open the door with your membership card and put your dog inside.  You can then run some errands or get a drink with a friend, knowing that your dog is safe and secure.  When you’re ready to retrieve Fido, you unlock the Dog Parker with your membership card – only your card will work, so no one else can dognap your pet.

What gave Dog Parker co-inventor Chelsea Brownridge the idea for a shared dog house?

The inspiration for Dog Parker started with my dog, Winston, a terrier mix rescue who lives with me in Brooklyn. Winston is extremely high-energy and suffers from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).  For a long time, it was difficult taking Winston around the city with me because so many places don't allow dogs inside.  I wouldn't tie him up because, like many, I worried he'd get loose, get scared, or be stolen.  Sometimes, Winston needed to stay home more often than either of us wanted just because I'd go into a store for a few minutes where he wasn't allowed.  I hated that Winston and I were missing out on lots of extra walks and adventures together.  It made me sad to see his disappointed face as I left the apartment right after getting home from work to run errands, leaving him behind again.  Eventually, I realized if Winston and I faced these challenges, then millions of other pet parents shared this experience when it came to spending more time with their dogs.  

Dog Parker co-inventor Chelsea Brownridge

As a solution, I created the Dog Parker — a shareable dog house — so that the Winstons of the world can enjoy exploring the city life more with their owners.  The Dog Parker combines dog-first design with technology to create a safe and comfortable house for dogs.  It is important to me to make Dog Parkers accessible for all dog owners and to better enable dog-friendlier communities with the help of local businesses. 

My vision for the world is a place where every dog owner has an option to have their dog join them for a walk, anytime and anywhere.  I'm committed to giving dogs a safe home away from home — one Dog Parker at a time. 

(Standing ovation for Chelsea Brownridge!)

There are about 20 Dog Parkers in Brooklyn.  It’s not clear when Dog Parkers are coming to Manhattan, or Boston, or Washington, or any other place.  But hopefully every city that has bike sharing will have Dog Parkers soon.

*     *     *     *     *

The legendary Memphis soul singer Rufus Thomas was 46 when he wrote and recorded “Walkin’ the Dog.”  Often billed as “The World’s Oldest Teenager,” he continued to perform until a few years before his death in 2001.

Rufus Thomas

“Walking’ the Dog” was Thomas’s signature record.  It peaked at number ten on the Billboard “Hot 100” in December 1963.  The song was later covered by the Rolling Stones, Johnny Rivers, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the Flamin’ Groovies, Aerosmith, Spirit, Green Day, and many others.

Here’s “Walkin’ the Dog”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Hal (ft. Gillian Anderson) – "Extremis" (1997)

A melting of minds
A cerebral mesh
A union of liquid

And virtual flesh

I’ve been watching a BBC series called The Fall, which stars Gillian Anderson as Stella Gibson, a London police detective who’s been sent to Northern Ireland to help the local police deal with a nasty serial murderer.

Gillian Anderson as Stella Gibson

The writer of The Fall named many of his characters after guitars: both Stella and Gibson are brands of guitars, as are Benedetto, Brawley, Breedlove, Burns, Eastwood, Hagstrom, Kay, Martin, (Paul) Reed Smith, Spector, and Tom Anderson.  

Stella is an icy blonde femme d’un certain âge (the actress is 48 in real life) who has a penchant for inviting younger male officers to drop by her hotel room for no-strings-attached one-night stands.  (Don’t call her . . . and don’t expect her to call you.)

To say Stella views herself as superior to men is an understatement.  Here's how she replies when her superior officer (who has the hots for her) asks her why women are emotionally and spiritually so much stronger than men:

And she delivers this statement when interrogating the suspected serial killer:

A woman once asked a male friend why men felt threatened by women.  He replied that they were afraid that women might laugh at them.

When she asked a group of women why women felt threatened by men, they said, “We’re afraid they might kill us.”

It appears that the original source of Stella’s bon mot is Second Words, a 1983 book by Canadian author Margaret Atwood:

“Why do men feel threatened by women?” I asked a male friend of mine. . . . “I mean,” I said, “men are bigger, most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better, and they have on the average a lot more money and power.” 

“They're afraid women will laugh at them,” he said. “Undercut their world view.” 

Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, “Why do women feel threatened by men?” 

“They're afraid of being killed,”they said.  

How times have changed since 1983.  Here’s a quote from an article on xojane.com (which describes itself as “not snarky” but “inclusive and encouraging” and “nonjudgmental”) titled “Your Misandry Playlist: My 15 Favorite Songs About Killing and/or Hating Men”:

[P]lease just don't even start with me about how some of these songs wouldn't be OK if a man wrote them because I'm sorry but songs about killing women in a society where that fear is a daily reality for most of us just are not a 1:1 comparison with songs about women lashing out at their oppressors and abusers. . . .

Jokes about killing all men are funny (and art about killing men powerful) because women as a whole are victimized by men on a daily basis. . . . And misandry jokes are not “sexist” for the same reason that white people jokes are not “racist” -- because sexism and racism must be backed up by institutionalized oppression.

*     *     *     *     *

“Extremis” is a collaboration between Anderson and a relatively obscure British ambient/techno band that called itself Hal.  She not only sings the lyrics – actually, she speaks the lyrics rather than singing them – but stars in the music video for the record.

Here’s a video of Anderson’s appearance on a popular British morning TV show with two members of Hal just after “Extremis” was recorded:

Here’s the “Extremis” music video, which is very brown-eyed:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Bruce Willis (ft. June Pointer) – "Respect Yourself" (1987)

If you disrespect anybody that you run in to

How in the world do you think

Anybody's s'posed to respect you?

A young lawyer at my law firm sent this e-mail out last week:

A client is looking for guidance on [a certain federal regulation].  Has anyone put together an overview of that rule that they’d be willing to share?

(It should be “Has anyone put together an overview of that rule that he or she would be willing to share?” – but I have bigger fish to fry than bad grammar.)

I wrote back to the young lawyer – she’s someone I work with on occasion – attaching a memo that I had written twenty years ago about that regulation.  (The regulation at issue has been amended since I wrote the memo, but most of what I had written was still accurate – a little tweaking and it would have been good to go.)

It surprised me when the young lawyer – who has always struck me as being well-mannered and circumspect (almost to the point of being boring) – responded as follows:

Wow, twenty years ago I don’t think I even knew how to use a computer.  Thanks for sending!

In other words:

Wow, you are really, really, REALLY old.  Thanks for sending!

When I shared this with my children, one of them told me that the young lawyer should have written something like “It’s great to be able to learn from an expert with so many years of experience in this area!”

I appreciate her message of support, although I could have done without that “so many years” language.

She went to make a point that I had not thought of:

I get reverse remarks like this at work all the time since I'm often the youngest by far in work groups or meetings.  People will mention an event or a famous person from the past and say, “I BET YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT/WEREN’T EVEN ALIVE FOR THIS!”  Or if I'm with another young co-worker, they will ask our office administrator if she is “keeping the kids in line.”  I find that disrespectful, too! 

It’s probably true that young people are the victims of age-related disrespect just as often as they are the perpetrators.  Not that I ever am guilty of this – I am so bleeding envious of younger people that it would never occur to me to put them down.

Here’s how another one of my children responded to both our complaints:

As Stephanie Tanner would say HOW RUDE!  On both accounts . . . 

Haters gonna hate.  They hate you cause they ain't you. 

My children forever see the world through the prism of the late, great Full House television series.  (I’m talking the original Full House – not the dreadful Fuller House reunion show that’s currently airing on Netflix.)

Stephanie Tanner was our least favorite of the Tanner daughters, but her “How rude!” is one of the more memorable Full House catchphrases.

*     *     *     *     *

Stephanie Tanner was portrayed by Jodie Sweetin, who was only five years old when Full House debuted.

Jodie Sweetin then

Like many of the regulars on Full House, Sweetin’s on-screen persona had little in common with reality.  (For example, Full House dad Bob Saget is known for his X-rated standup comedy, while Dave Coulier – who played goofy Uncle Joey on Full House – inspired the quintessential “woman scorned” song of all time, Alanis Morrisette’s “You Oughta Know.”)

Sweetin’s life didn’t start well.  Both her parents were serving prison sentences when she was born.  

She started drinking alcohol when she was 14, shortly after Full House was cancelled.  She graduated to ecstasy, methamphetamine, cocaine, and crack.  

Jodie Sweetin now

Sweetin just turned 35, but she’s already been married and divorced three times.  But that didn’t stop her from getting engaged for the fourth time in 2016.

A year later, she called off the engagement.

*     *     *     *     *

Did you know that Bruce Willis had a #5 hit with his cover of “Respect Yourself” in 1987?  

The original “Respect Yourself” – which was recorded by the Staple Singers in 1971 – only made it to the #12 spot on the Billboard “Hot 100.”

Which proves that there is no accounting for taste.

Here’s the music video for the Bruce Willis version of “Respect Yourself.”  It has absolutely no redeeming qualities except for the presence of the Pointer Sisters, who must have been absolutely desperate for money.

Click below to buy the Staple Singers’ version of “Respect Yourself.”  I couldn’t live with myself if I though I was responsible for even one of my loyal readers spending their hard-earned money on the Bruce Willis version.