Americans lack ambiton

According to a recent report by Career Builder employment agency. Ambition, like acne, is one of those things most of us leave behind by age forty. The problem is ambition leads to supervisory jobs and since most people lack ambition, supervising people can drive you batty. As I was told in the break room years ago, "If they see you are a hard worker, they'll just keep piling on the work and nobody ever gets promoted around here."

So let's get out there and ACHIEVE!

Editor's note: Someone gave me a whole book about having no ambition. Pete Jordan has made a career out of being a layabout. I guess that's his ambition.

Back to school shopping

When I was in school I would go down to Modell's and buy a few pens and pencils, a few notebooks and I was finished. The next day my mother would take me to the mall where she would buy a couple of plaid shirts, a pair of slacks and I'd be all set for school. The whole expedition came in for under fifty dollars.

Today things have changed a bit. Nowadays, kids have to have Kindles, computer pens, IPads, and other high tech necessities. Of course, children learn a lot more in school than we did. It's amazing how erudite kids are today.

Editor's note: I wrote a new blog on the Sixties about clams.

The bucket hysteria

Unlike most mass hysteria's in history, the bucket challenge comes from the top town. The head of the organization does it then he challenges his minions. Then the minions do it and challenge their minions. For those of us low on the totem pole there is the hope that the hysteria will have played out before it reaches our floors or God forbid, our offices.

So what should I do now with my portfolio

Well now the market is going down. As of Friday afternoon the Dow was $16493, lower than my prediction for the year ($17,250)  although the Dow peaked at $17.151 not long ago. I predict we're still going to hit my prediction but there will be rough riding ahead. So, I recommend,  if you are brave, keep your money in stocks but take some profits too.

I'm ultimately optimistic because the market today is scary enough to discourage most middle class Americans. Only people with great pensions or significant resources can play the game now. That means times will be good. Like restaurants, tourist resorts, stores, music venues and parties, the best things in life are only accessible for the few and not the masses.  "Oh yes, as a boy we had a summer place in the Hamptons, before it was discovered."

Being lousy at sports

I have always been lousy at sports. As a kid, no one wanted me on their team. I blame that on the fact that I had very few friends as a kid. At summer day camp I had to sit on the bus with the mentally disabled kid who also sucked at sports. As an adolescent I listened to the radio for hours with my poor coordination and skinny frame.

Now I am an adult and I don't have golfing or fishing buddies calling me up on weekends wanting me to make up a  foursome. I still suck at sports.

I drive around the area and suddenly come upon traffic jams in front of the high school. Everybody is watching their kids who are playing sports, and presumably, are good at it. After the game there will be barbecue and beer for the parents and baseball for the kids. Later the parents will engage in a little wife swapping  while I'll be at home watching Turner Classic Movies.

Today I sat down with a group of babyboomers and found out that people who shine at sports when they are young get arthritic and decrepit after they hit forty. At least that's what the lady drinking a Pinot Grigiot said. Apparently, if true, people who sucked at sports look better and have better health, at least comparatively, as they get older. That knowledge put me in a much better mood. Look I can sprint to the mailbox to retrieve my Netflix dvd. I'm so happy I always sucked at sports.

Guilty pleasures

It's summer and time to enjoy some guilty pleasures. My first one is Til Lease Do Us Part. It is a mildly amusing web series about two lesbians who break up but share the same apartment. Sort of fun. I like Eduardo.

Another guilty pleasure is a mainstream comedy on CBS, Mom. It seems this show has been getting a lot of airplay this summer. It shows the modern American family. Three generations of women live in one household. Mom and Grandmom are recovering alcoholics and the daughter is pregnant. The episodes of the AA meetings are fun. Sounds weird in concept but it is sort of endearing.

I originally thought Last Tango in Halifax was about Canada but it is about an extended family in rural England. It is also a show about a December to December romance and the troubled families that both oldsters have. Unless most shows, the women are all pretty homely, an unusual feature in tv. At heart a soap opera, but I find myself getting drawn in to this series. Nothing like a guilty pleasure when it is too hot to go out.

American teeth

Lately I've noticed that whenever French or British novels bring up American characters, they always bring up their teeth. Apparently, one way Brits distinguish themselves from Americans is by those symmetrical white monuments between our gums. In Peter Mayle's A good year, the character identifies a long lost relative as American simply by looking at her teeth. Apparently no matter how hard an American may try, the locals in foreign countries can spot them simply by looking at their bicuspids. Americans, at least Americans who travel abroad, visit the dentist more than our international friends.

Are we obsessed with our teeth? I always knew we Americans were obsessed with b--bs. Now I find out Americans are also known throughout the world for our dentifrices.