The Friday Round-Up: 10.23.2015

The city of Boston offers a finite number of medallions for cabs, 1,825 to be exact. They are bought and sold much like houses, with house-size prices and purchased with house-size loans. Last year, the average medallion went for $666,547. This year, one got auctioned off at foreclosure for $310,000 — less than half of last year’s average —because, like houses, they are going underwater and, much like distressed homeowners, the poor cabbies can’t afford to make the mortgage payments anymore. And why are medallions losing value and why can’t the cabbies make their mortgage payments? Because of Uber and Lyft! Those ride-sharing services are killing the hacks! Am I the only one who thinks that eventually regulatory agencies will get mediaeval on Uber’s ass? Do you really think this will last?

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Because the public and the media have a duty to keep Donald Trump’s publicity expenses to a minimum, the Halloween craze this year is Trumpkins! That’s right, pumpkins made to look like the Donald. Halloween just got a little less scary and a little more . . . wait, maybe that’s scarier.

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I thought I heard a rumor recently that they’re bringing back “Fantasy Island,” the 1970s TV show. The other day I stumbled upon an original “Fantasy Island” episode and watched it until my remote’s safety feature sent a distress signal to my brain ordering me to shut the TV down before my cerebral cortex turned into Cheez Whiz. Did “Fantasy Island” ever do a crossover episode with “The Love Boat”? A cruise offering an excursion to Fantasy Island? That would’ve made sense, right? Also, was it ever mentioned how much one of those fantasies cost? And what would today’s virtual reality technology do to Mr. Roarke’s business?

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Completely on my own I noticed the “Hamlet” parallels present in the “Sons of Anarchy” series (finding out later, of course, that that’s supposed to be general knowledge). It took me several seasons to make this observation, and I probably should have figured it out sooner, but at least I did it without anyone’s help. My high school English teacher would’ve been proud.

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I’m reading “The Blind Assassin,” by Margaret Atwood, another flea market acquisition. Her writing blows me away. I do just enough writing of my own to appreciate how hard writing is, and can recognize unusual talent when it’s placed right in front of me. I’ll read a passage and imagine how pleased I’d be with myself if I wrote it. She is one of those authors I categorize as “poets writing prose” (other examples of prose-writing poets being F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Updike). I will miss this book when I’m done.

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Just back from the future, everybody! SPOILER ALERT! The Republican ticket turns out to be Jeb! and Carly. Democratic ticket: Hillary and O’Malley. Hillary and O’Malley win the general election. Next Friday, I’ll tell you who’s in the cabinet.

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“Jeb!” translated into Spanish is “¡Jeb!”

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My favorite season is autumn. Usually when the weather starts to get crisp around mid-September I get kind of excited, like there’s an adventure in the offing. I think this is because I associate fall with the beginning of a new school year; even after all this time the feeling still kicks in. I wasn’t a good student back then, I suppose you could even say I was a bad student, but those first few days were always a blast, seeing my classmates again, finding out who my new teachers were. The magic wore off quickly though.

Everybody must remember their first day of kindergarten. On my first day, it rained. My friend’s mother drove us in his family’s faux wood-paneled station wagon even though it was a short walk to the school. My mother dressed me up in a stiff yellow rain coat with a hood that never quite lined up with my face. One of the marvels that awaited me in the classroom that day were giant blocks you could step on. We were warned that misbehaving students would have to sit in a corner wearing a ridiculous hat with ribbons. A long display of the alphabet showing both upper and lower cases dominated one wall. “Holy cow,” I thought. “That’s a lot of letters!”

The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred that fall. It was explained to me by a well-informed classmate that President Kennedy was doing everything he could to keep columns of fanatical Russian soldiers from marching down my street with rifles bright and pointy with bayonets, and loud, clinking clanking, smoke belching tanks from tracking up our lawns. We imagined JFK and Nikita Kruschev duking it out while Castro, the big phony, egged Kruschev on. Why couldn’t the Russians just leave us alone?

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Most evenings when I get home from work I ride a stationary bike while watching DVD movies in half hour installments. Right now I’m watching “The King of Comedy,” a black comedy of sorts starring Robert DeNiro, Sandra Bernhard and Jerry Lewis. The last time I saw this movie was when it came out back in the early eighties and I remember feeling very uncomfortable and embarrassed watching it: the delusional DeNiro character, Rupert Pupkin, crossed many lines and I more cringed than laughed. Maybe because I’ve changed, or maybe because I now know what to expect, but I am completely enjoying this very strange movie, and, quite honestly, I think it’s one of Martin Scorsese’s best.

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“Playboy” is going non-nude! That’s means I can openly buy a Playboy and bring it home! For the articles.

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That is all.