An encore post for Labor Day: Dig it

I thought I'd wish you all a happy Labor Day this year with an encore post from nine years ago about the late labor leader Jimmy Hoffa. As you probably already know, Jimmy Hoffa disappeared mysteriously and has never been found. There's been much speculation he's either in various pieces in different states, or wearing cement shoes at the bottom of a lake.

Or as Tony Soprano would say, "He's in 'witness protection'".

Anyway, thank you to the work force that with dedication and determination keeps this country running year in and year out. It seems like there should be more than one day to celebrate their efforts.

Whatever you're doing today, take a moment to thank them, even if quietly to yourself.

Happy Labor Day. Please to enjoy.

There are some days when I think to myself I could be putting my time to better use. Like the ones when I’m just vegging out on the couch, watching Source Code for the thousandth time on cable and doing my impression of a vacuum cleaner slamming Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies down my throat.

But then I think at least I’m not out digging a hole looking for Jimmy Hoffa.

I don’t actually think that, but I could.

Once again, the FBI has a tip about where the body of the former union leader may be buried in Detroit. And once again, they’re breaking out the backhoes, shovels and forensic kits and going looking for him.

I think we know how this expedition ends.

This time it’s thanks to a tip from a former mob underboss named Tony Zerilli. He was the second in command of the Detroit mafia when Hoffa disappeared. While he doesn’t have direct involvement in the crime since he was in jail the day Hoffa disappeared, he alleges he found out the location of his body once he got out of prison.

By the way, Zerilli is 85-years old now. I'm not in the FBI, but if I were I'd have a lot of questions about how reliable his memory is.

The other question is who gains and who loses in the search? The FBI does both. Their inability to solve the Hoffa matter has been an embarrassment to them for over forty years - that’s why they keep trying. If they find his remains, their perseverance and skills are rewarded. If it turns out to be like Geraldo and The Mystery of Al Capone’s Vaults, they lose. Again.

At this point, no one else besides them and whoever is left in Hoffa's family really cares. The chances are just as good Hoffa was tossed in an incinerator and there’s not even a body to find.

Still, it makes for good folklore and so-so movies with Jack Nicolson.

The Mooch

I'll just say it. I love the Mooch. But that wasn't always the case.

At first glance, Anthony Scaramucci would seem to be the perfect swamp creature, cut of the same $1000-a-yard cloth as the rest of the scumsuckers who were employed in Cadet Bone Spurs administration. He got his bona fides working for years at Goldman Sachs, who coincidentally issued my Apple credit card. I get 2-3% cash back on every purchase so I have mixed feelings. Plus I grew up with a kid named Steve Goldman. No relation.

I may be getting off track here.

Anyway, Anthony was, as the kids say, money. Just the kind of person the daughter-lovin' traitor-in-chief likes to surround himself with. So for eleven days, Scaramucci was breathing rarified government air at taxpayer's expense as White House Director of Communications.

For all eleven days, I pretty much hated him like I hated anyone who'd support and associate themselves with the unstable genius and his unhinged, self-serving, racist democracy-destroying policies. But the tide started to turn for me on his last day, when he was fired for leveling some choice, well-deserved obscenities at Trump's live-in Secretary of Nazi and human fleshlump Steve Bannon.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Like everyone who's made a quick departure, the Mooch started hitting the talk/news show circuit. Big ships turn slowly, but with each appearance, over time, I began to see his changing opinion about his former boss. It was like watching a flower bloom. It was just that beautiful.

At first, he left the White House but still supported the president.

Then he supported the president, but wished he'd listen to his more experienced advisors.

Let's just skip ahead: now he thinks Trump is a scum-sucking, insane, sex-offending, enemy of all that's good in the world, a gigantic loser and festering piece of shit that needs to go to a Shawshank-like hole cell as soon as humanly possible.

That's an opinion I can get behind. The Mooch has come around, and it's not because it's in vogue. You can tell by watching and listening to him he's seen the light and means what he says. I always try to catch him on Bill Maher or Stephen Colbert. I listen to his podcast. And I imagine with each appearance how pissed his old boss must be.

Plus the man's name is now a universal unit of measure, as in "I have to be out of this apartment in three Scaramucci's!"

So yes, despite the fact he was briefly employed by the worst president in history, his casual dress is Armani and his hair is slicker than an Exxon oil spill, I like the Mooch.

In fact, there's really only one thing that bothers me. Does anyone else see it, or is it just me?