Didn’t see my name in the top ten baby names of 2025
Or in the top 1,000 for that matter. (Link) Or in the yearly MacArthur “Genius” grants for a million bucks, either. Always a shocker.
The Judge. Son of Joseph and Aimee (Brichaut) Guinotte, early KC settlers…
Guinotte, my first name, is an old family last name. French Belgian. Judge Jules Guinotte, my great-grandfather and democrat judge (elected) for 37 years, was extolled as an honest politician (now, an accepted contradiction of terms, that) who also risked reelection by coming out against the corrupt Pendergast Machine, KC’s answer to Tammany Hall. Cool guy, this judge. He hunted with a Kentucky Long Rifle. Raced boats on the Little Blue and Missouri Rivers.
He once said, “A man is not poor who has a good bed,” and I agree, when I hit the hay at night, exhausted by current treatments.
I cast off his good name, though, went by Butch at an early age, through grade school, high school, college, and into adulthood.
It was easier than defending Guinotte to any number of young toughs who questioned the legitimacy of names they decreed not normal, a losing game. If your name passed muster, your corduroy pants would not. Or your yankee accent down south. Or after relaxing into south-speak, your accent further north. Onward. No moral here.
“Nothing I like to do pays well.”
Older edition of this. Funniest book I ever read…
Charles Portis said that. Marvelous author, Mr. Portis; I can’t believe he didn’t like to write, and that he wasn’t paid well for it, but maybe not.
I went through a Portis Period, read everything I could find by him, and he always made me laugh and marvel at his sentence structure, his effortless-seeming connections and ear for working-class American-speak that never belittled, only authenticated. Portis kept one reading long after most books tired one into yawning submission, setting them down for later.
The author of True Grit, he also wrote Dog of the South, (Link) my very favorite, and a bunch of others, all quite enjoyable. I can’t recommend him highly enough. I just finished his Norwood for maybe the third time. I think I’ll try to find a first edition of Dog. It made me laugh on every page.
A mill for your thoughts
Plastic mill. You couldn’t even buy a penny candy with ten of them…
I remember plastic ‘mills,’ red and green ones, in Missouri; you’d get them in change at the cash register in the 1950’s. Sales tax tokens.Their stated worth was, I believe, one tenth of a penny or something like that; worthless even if you had a stack of them. I doubt they were missed when they went the way of our Lincoln copper (clad) penny, RIP in 2025, just weeks ago.
BUT, and here’s a thought: why not reinstate them as pennies? Not as Lincoln pennies, that’d be an insult to him, but, instead, put some geek politician on them; half one major party, half the other.
Recycled plastic might solve the concern about rounding up or down to a nickel (if one can believe the news, they say such a concern exists, costing businesses millions or billions, if, indeed, businesses eat the cost).
1943 Pennies were made of steel during WWII, due to the cost and wartime use of copper; some such pennies go for ten bucks or more now, in good shape. Don’t bother collecting 2025 last pennies, though. They made billions of them.
Just a thought.
Six of one, seven of the other
Are you ever at sixes and sevens? These days, many are…
The six/seven thing, solved. For me, anyway. Middle schoolers don’t have a clue as some kid just picked up a stray phrase from a TikTok rap song that, in itself, is meaningless, and that’s the point. Whatever meaning it had for the rapper is long gone and now it serves one purpose; to have a piece of language that baffles adults.
Wikipedia tells us that a similar phrase, "to set the world on six and seven", is used by Geoffrey Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde. It dates from the mid-1380s and seems from its context to mean "to hazard the world" or "to risk one's life"
There are a lot of explanations for “6-7” but the one that I prefer is one that springs from something I read 50 or 60 years ago; I recalled having seen the phrase, “…they were at sixes and sevens about it” and looked it up. It means disarray, confusion. To use it in a sentence I might say, “The Kansas City Chiefs were at sixes and sevens during the Buffalo game.” And I don’t mean TDs or TDs with extra points.
Shakespeare used it. It’s been around for hundreds of years. I read it in a novel in my twenties and understood it immediately. And I would imagine it is now, again, a thing of the past, and that juveniles have moved on to something less cringeworthy to get a rise from adults.
Famous Book heading to OOP Out Of Print
The phone is a technological modern marvel compared to the stuff around it. Some old phonebooks hang from the mouthpiece…
The 2026 Farmers Almanac needs no introduction, but its outro is cloaked in mystery. The revered icon is being discontinued (Link) in print (and digital) form this year but not much is being said about it. And no enterprising retro-head or group is considering picking it up.
Left is a copy from 1989 on an old telephone—it’s a wall of really old stuff, Civil War pieces, etc. I bought that phone in the 1960’s in Iowa. I think I paid twelve bucks for it.
Well, the almanac had a decent run, having started in 1792, (or 1810, depending on your info source) and any outfit that would buy it would probably just chunk it into the AI machine. Anyway I ordered the hardback edition for posterity. (Link) (Posterity means garage sale of the future) Sorry to see it go.
Hot Cornbread Rock
Billy Bob has played here, too…
The North Mississippi Allstars play unusual instrumentation (is that washboard really electric?!) like whiffle bats instead of drumsticks in this video (Link) which speaks to drinking muddy water and sleeping in hollow logs, a recurring theme of the extremely thirsty and the overly tired in backroads music. But what a band!
There’s a quite catchy rinky-tink chuckle sound from a slide (tin can?) guitar that defies the usual slidyness, and plenty of other ear and eye grabbers to go around. I, for one, love it. This band will be in KC at Knuckleheads, April 17, 2026, if you’re near the area.
Then comes Blackberry Smoke and more slidey guitar, more fantastic southern rock (Link) and these folks will be at the Uptown in KC on their Rattle, Ramble and Roll Tour, March 22, 2026, 7pm. Lynrd is smiling somwhere.
And a quiet, transportive video to wrap it up
This is Kismet (Link). I won’t say much about it as it speaks for itself rather eloquently. It’s a three minute beauty with a beginning, a middle and an end. I’ve watched it half a dozen times, and it’s, well, just really nice. Thank Monos luggage and their agency, Doubleday & Cartwright, for not filling it up with copy and sell. When you have a moment go to their website—their stores are actual statements. Anyway, this is such a fine, fine piece.
Click on the link in the text above the scene…then you’ll be directed to “Kismet.” I bet you go back and watch it more than once…