BOB SASSONE: THE OFFICIAL SITE

…Tic Tac, mentioned in that Trump tape, feels it’s necessary to release a statement:

And let’s not forget that Skittles released a statement last month after Trump Jr. mentioned them in a tweet.

Still waiting to hear from Bit-O-Honey and Werther’s Original.

I’ve wanted a desk for a long time. I’ve been using my coffee table as a desk for…10 years? 20? It’s been a while. I wanted a normal place to write again so I ordered a nice big folding table to use as a desk.

I had it delivered overnight. It was supposed to be here on Monday but for some reason it got “delayed” while it was on its way and didn’t come until Tuesday. Now I know why: they needed time to throw it off a speeding truck.

That’s really the only explanation. This wasn’t just “slightly damaged during shipping,” this was total destruction. The side of the tabletop was crushed in like someone had taken a baseball bat to it. The bottom of the table top was full of scratches and had a giant section where the laminate was completely torn off. The metal hinges and legs? I tried to fold down one of the legs and everything fell off and hit the floor.

I’m pretty sure they took it out of the box and then threw it out of the truck as it was speeding down the highway. It bounced around for a few seconds and was then run over by a 2005 Toyota Tercel (red). They then stopped the truck, put the table back in the box, taped it up, and then delivered it to my front door.

I got a refund.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of this site.

20 years! That means it’s older than Google, older than the iPod, older than the word “blog” itself. We called them online journals or homepages back then. This was way before social networking, clickbait, and autoplay videos screwed everything up. I went online via TIAC (The Internet Access Company) and my phone line was constantly tied up. AOL ruled the web in 1996 (thanks to those “10 Free Hours!” discs we all got in the mail), Friends was still on, and Everybody Loves Raymond hadn’t even started yet. “Macarena” was the number one song, most people didn’t have cell phones, and I had a lot more hair.

How long is 20 years? When I started this site, “content” was still called “writing.”

Every year or two I post something to tell newcomers who I am and what I’m working on. I write a weekly column for The Saturday Evening Post (every Friday morning) and I contribute to Esquire and other publications and sites. I created the pop culture mag/blog Professor Barnhardt’s Journal in 2002 and in 2003 I published Book, with Words and Pages, a collection of essays and short humor pieces. You can read it here for free. I’m currently working on another book and other projects. You can find out more about me here.

I’m not on Facebook or Twitter. I consider this my HQ on the web and I update it all the time. If you’d like to contact me you can send me an e-mail or leave a comment on a post. You can sign up to get notified when I update the site (enter your e-mail in the box down there on the right). I also send out a handwritten or typed letter via snail mail (the old-fashioned way) every month, in an envelope with a stamp and everything! If you’d like to subscribe the details are here.

And now, a flashback:

Even in the 90s that was embarrassing.

Surf’s up! See you on the net!

God help me, I think I have another hobby.

I was walking around the supermarket, minding my own business in the soda aisle, when I came across an entire section of classic and vintage sodas. This was new. I’m used to seeing Pepsi and Coke and Dr. Pepper, and while these too are classic, they’re not the same as these sodas my supermarket has suddenly started selling. I’m talking about Dad’s Root Beer and Goody Pop and Nesbitt’s and Bubble Up and many others. A lot of these I’ve never tried because they haven’t been sold around here and I’m not a huge soda person anymore (Diet Pepsi is usually all I do). They’ve always been in the back of my mind in a “yeah, I’ve heard of those…” sort of way but I never really gave them much thought. So these are new to me and the bottles are really eye-catching and fun and make you think, hey, that would be a fun thing to collect!

To make a long story short, I’m now a collector of soda bottles. Sigh. Anyone have any ideas on how to display glass bottles in an apartment where I can barely move around without knocking something over?

This will teach me to go grocery shopping.

(This piece originally appeared at CliqueClack in 2011, two months before Rooney passed away. Gawker is ending this week so I thought I’d post it here today.)

This is a love letter to Andy Rooney.

If you’re looking for snark about Rooney’s retirement, you won’t find it here. Don’t worry, though, because this is the Internet, and snark is always just a click away. Oh look: Gawker has one of their typical “we hate Andy Rooney because he’s older than our grandfathers!” posts up, titled “Andy Rooney Is Finally Done Talking.” The first line? “Momentously eyebrowed useless old crank Andy Rooney…”

Charming.

This isn’t a surprising thing, because for a while there Gawker had a regular “let’s hate on Andy Rooney” post every Monday morning after his 60 Minutes essays aired, but I was a little surprised by The AV Club’s similarly-titled hit piece, “Andy Rooney Is Done Complaining,” where the writer wonders if, when Rooney is done with his final essay, he will “vanish in a puff of cinder.” The only thing worse than these articles are what the readers say in the comments section below them.

This is an online world where cleverness is too often mistaken for wisdom.

In a press release yesterday, CBS announced that Rooney’s last “A Few Minutes with Andy Rooney” segment will air this Sunday on 60 Minutes. It will be his 1,097th essay for the show (he started them in 1978) and will be preceded by an interview with longtime 60 Minutes cohort, Morley Safer.

There’s been no definitive reason given for the change. We can speculate that it might just be because of Rooney’s age (he’s 92) or because CBS wants to go in another direction for the show (though they say they won’t replace Rooney). Or it could be a combination of the two. It was announced a couple of weeks ago that Rooney’s weekly column for Tribune Media Services would also be ending. An editor’s note has been attached to Rooney’s most recent columns that ominously said:

“Andy Rooney’s long-running weekly feature has switched to classic columns in the humorist’s signature style. TMS is also offering all subscribers a trial of our Humor Hotel package of commentary columns featuring witty insights on society and culture. The rotating staff of four writers for this weekly feature include a stand-up comedian, talk-show host, best-selling memoirist and Hollywood actress.”

Sigh. You ever get the feeling that all the things you love are going away, one by one?

This is a very sad day. Rooney is one of my favorite writers, and I’m not afraid to say that. I don’t mean it ironically or in a “laughing at him” sort of way. The guy is a great writer: clean, uncomplicated, wise, and funny. A lot of people only know Rooney from his 60 Minutes essays, and while I think that’s more than enough material to realize that the guy is a great writer, people might just think of him as “that guy from TV” and not understand that he’s done a lot more than that. He has written 16 books, including a terrific memoir of his time spent reporting overseas during World War II (My War) and many books of essays.

But there’s another side to Rooney too — a side beyond the writing — and it’s the reason I love him so much. If you only know him from TV, and you’re willing to just go with that whole “You ever wonder….” impersonation cliche and not really think about Rooney any more than that, you don’t know that he and his wife raised four great kids. You don’t know that he was married only once, to Margie, for 62 years, and after she died in 2004 it hurt him so much he cried himself to sleep and couldn’t even type her name in columns anymore. You don’t know that he served in World War II and wrote for The Stars and Stripes and saw the horrors of war. You don’t know that 60 Minutes wasn’t his only TV writing job — he actually started in the 1940s and worked for such people as Arthur Godfrey and Harry Reasoner and wrote for many shows over the years.

What has always struck me the most about Rooney is how normal and average he is, and I mean that as a compliment (that’s another thing the snarky writers at Gawker and The AV Club will never understand — normal and average can be a good thing). He is probably the most normal “famous” person in the world. A guy whose face and name are instantly recognizable, even though he never does interviews, doesn’t live in Hollywood, and never dated the rich and famous. The only scandals he has been involved in were actually rather minor if you look back on them. In the ’90s he said that he didn’t agree with the gay lifestyle, and after Kurt Cobain’s suicide he talked about how he couldn’t understand why young people were so upset by the death of Kurt Cobain and that he’d love to be that age again. He also disliked the term “African-American” instead of “black” and made some comments that some thought were insensitive. But these weren’t opinions born of hate or ignorance or uncaring, some rancid political or social agenda Rooney was trying to push on us. They were opinions based on the generation Rooney is from.

There’s a lot of people to hate in the world of television and publishing and media. But Andy Rooney? How the hell could anyone hate Andy Rooney? Think about it: what the hell did Rooney do to deserve this much bile? Is he wrecking cars on the highway? Is he stealing money or firing employees? Is he beating up hookers in hotel rooms? Is he selling drugs to minors? Is he flipping out and attacking TMZ cameramen? He’s a great-grandfather who keeps to himself and works in his woodshop and makes ice cream and has an innocuous three minute segment on a TV show – the most popular segment, incidentally, the ratings go down when he’s not on – where he talks about what’s on his mind (hey Gawker, almost like a blog!). One day the writers of Gawker are going to be in their 70s and 80s and 90s, replaced by robots that hit all of the snarky keywords and post the latest gossip about Lindsey Lohan’s great-grandchildren, and they’re going to have big eyebrows or a hand shake or imperfect facial features or boxes filled with memories. And, unlike Rooney, no one is going to remember anything they did in the 2000s. Because they were just the shit stains that posted insults on a blog, and everyone did that at the time. It was so easy.

Actually, for someone who works on one of the top TV shows of all-time and is a rather iconic figure, he actually seems like a decent, regular guy. Isn’t that something that should be celebrated?

In a 1995 interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose, Rose called him a “star,” a term Rooney truly disliked: He told Rose, “a writer is all the ‘star’ I wanted to be.” As a writer I know exactly what he means, and I hope that I can have a tenth of the career that Andy Rooney has had. He not only taught me how to write, he also taught me in a big way how to live. Thanks Andy.

I’m not on social media anymore, but I hear things. Right now on Twitter there’s a hashtag game – #fav7films, one that everyone seems to be participating in – where you list your favorite movies. You’re supposed to name just 7 but, to quote Ralph Wiggum on The Simpsons, that’s unpossible! Since this is my site and I can do more than 140 characters, here’s my 20.