Nada De Laurentiis

I made this for dinner last night.
Except I didn’t have any sweet Italian turkey sausage, so I used hot Italian pork sausage.
And I didn’t have two red bell peppers, so I used a combo of yellow, orange and green.
Also, I used Mexican oregano, and dried basil.
Only three garlic cloves.
There was no Marsala wine handy, so I substituted apple cider.
Ditto the fresh Italian sandwich rolls, so I served it over spaghetti.
Doubled up on the red pepper flakes.
Oh, yeah, and I added a garnish of flat-leaf Italian parsley and grated a little Parmigiano-Reggiano over it.
Now that I think about it, I guess I didn’t make this after all.
But it was still pretty goddamn good.
Finally, Friday

Friday? Already? ‘Bout fuggin’ time, is what.
It seems to have been an active week. Ace shooter Casey B. Gibson blew through town en route to the Tour of the Gila and we got together at El Bruno’s to eat chile and wonder why all these sullen young punks are moping around on our lawns. Mister Boo continues to have a leaky faucet. One deadline was confirmed and another beaten into submission, if barely. Call it a TKO.

The Giro d’Italia got under way, but not without a hiccup at Live Update Guy.
The software pulled a Rip Van Wankel on us and Consigliere Pelkey had to deploy the Taser to encourage vigorous if financially unrewarding activity.
Hey, it was a 9.8km time trial; no wonder the 1s and 0s nodded off, along with most of what proved to be a very small audience.
And there was healthful outdoor exercise. Various elements of the Universe conspired against my fitness regimen for much of April, but May is off to a better start — this week I’ve logged two runs and three rides, all of which featured old bikes, blue skies and tailwinds home.
This afternoon I required a short nap on the sofa for some reason. Happily, The Boo needed a snooze, too, and he kept it corked, which I call progress.
Every silver lining has a dark cloud, of course, and ours at the moment is the aforementioned wind — a thunderous gale that has triggered a wind advisory, a red-flag warning and my allergies.
P’raps Der Trumpenführer is giving an address somewhere? That would explain all this hot air.
Don’t touch that dial

Charles Pelkey advises that we are enjoying “technical difficulties” at Live Update Guy as the 2016 Giro d’Italia gets under way with a pan-flat, 9.8km individual time trial in the Netherlands.
There. Now you know as much as I do. More as I hear it.
In the meantime, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which it seems is the only way these days to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding Live Updates. Family entertainment? Bollocks! What they want is filth: People doing things to each other with chainsaws during Tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theater critics exterminating mutant goats. Where’s the fun in LUGgery? Oh, well, there we are. Here’s the theme music. Goodnight.
• Update: We’re live. Pop on by and say, Ciao.”
Grave consequences

On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was laid to rest in his hometown of Springfield, Ill.
One hundred and 51 years later, Honest Abe is spinning in his grave.
Ordinarily I dismiss the “both sides do it” argument, but I think in this case we might agree that while the Pachyderms are the primary architect of this clusterfuck, the Donks share the blame for morphing into Republican Lite in the decades since Nixon flogged McGovern.
When both sides of the aisle focus on making themselves and their benefactors comfy-cozy as the working stiffs enjoy another tasty plate of shit soufflé, this is what you get.
I remember a snarky slogan from my faux-hippie days that seemed funny at the time: “America: Fix It or Fuck It.”
Coming to a ballot box near you in November 2016.