Let the record show — wait a minute, what record? Whatever — I taught my last class today, Friday December 13, 2024. The end of an error, for sure. I mean era. How fitting that my career would end on Taylor Swift’s birthday. That can’t be a coincidence.

So many fond memories. There was the law class with about 80 students at the end of which one of the coeds came up and told me my fly was down. I thanked her and suggested she tell me before class next time. There was the tax test that one of the students did poorly on and she came to my office to speak to me about it. She said she didn’t have time to prepare for it, so she just copied all the answers off of her neighbor so they weren’t really her wrong answers. I needed to let that sink in for a moment. Then I said: You are telling me you cheated on the exam and you want that to act in your favor?

But overall, no question, I loved the students — loved them all. I was very lucky to blunder my way into my career. I can’t imagine a better professional life, given my unique assortment of deficiencies.

I asked the tax class if they’d mind if our photographer Phil took a picture of them, you know, for the memories, and they said okay.

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Hey Chatterheads, facebook tells me it’s our friend Sandee’s birthday today — same as Taylor! — You’re the cuter one, S — no question. Hope it’s joyous, and many more.

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Today’s NYT XW had a jarring musical juxtaposition. Remember ALONE AGAIN? It’s clue was “1972 Gilbert O’Sullivan hit with a melancholy title.” Well, it was crossed by “Sexually charged title track of a hit 1973 album,” which was LET’S GET IT ON. Rex handled it thusly in his blog:

“Quite a 1-2 punch. If you’ve ever heard “ALONE AGAIN,” you can see how you might need to chase it with “LET’S GET IT ON,” just to get yourself up off the floor. In fact, it might be too jarring, that segue—hard to get excited about getting it on when you’re buried under an avalanche of grief. Seriously, “ALONE AGAIN” goes so hard at the end … you think, “wow, this guy has lost a lot,” and then in the last few lines he’s like “oh also this happened” and you really just wanna call him and see if he’s OK. That funky, sexy opening guitar lick on “LET’S GET IT ON” might be a little off-vibe following a song whose last verse literally ends with “I cried and cried all day.” I can imagine trying to play “LET’S GET IT ON” for the “ALONE AGAIN” guy and having him look at you like, “Really?” Would not put “ALONE AGAIN” on my sex playlist, if I had such a thing, which, officially, I absolutely do not.”

I remember ALONE AGAIN but I must not have paid attention to all the gloom. Here are some of the lyrics:

In a little while from now
If I’m not feeling any less sour
I promise myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower
And climbing to the top
Will throw myself off.

[That’s how it opens. Ouch.]

It seems to me that
There are more hearts broken in the world
That can’t be mended
Left unattended
What do we do
What do we do

[Here’s how it ends:]
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide the tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul
Couldn’t understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start
With a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
And when she passed away
I cried and cried all day

Here — take a listen, for old time’s sake. BTW, twenty minutes after this video was filmed, the guitarist had a seizure.

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Let me tell you about a joke. It was behind a little door the puzzle opened up for me at 17A today . The clue was “Question after an untimely joke,” and the answer was TOO SOON?

It came up in an unusual movie I saw years ago, 2005, actually, called The Aristocrats. It was a documentary about a single joke that was making its rounds among comics. It’s not a particularly great joke, but it involves drawing out a scenario and it became a thing that the hallmark of a great comic was how well he or she could draw it out.

So this movie discussed the phenomenon and, most importantly, showed how various comics handled it. George Carlin, Drew Carey, many of the great comics of our day. Here’s the joke: a family (mom, dad, kids) approaches a talent agent trying to “sell” their act. The talent agent says, well what do you do? What they do is then described as the most disgusting dirty stuff you can think of. That’s the what the comic has to portray — and each one takes his or her unique approach. And after this disgusting scene is finished, the talent agent says, what do you call yourselves? And they say “The Aristocrats.” That’s the joke. Not especially great, everyone concedes. It’s all in the telling.

So the last comic they show telling the joke was the late Gilbert Gottfried. And it was just after 9/11 and the comic world didn’t know how to inch itself back in — audiences were so down. Gottfried opened with a tasteless joke about the Empire State Building and it was not well received — someone yelled the now-famous TOO SOON: the line from the puzzle.

So Gottfried decided to just blow the place all to hell with his version of “the joke.” Even after hearing it 20 times, as I did watching the movie, his version was pure disgusting comic genius, IMO. Here it is. Warning — if you don’t like dirty jokes, do not watch this.

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Whew. Hard to follow that. Need help from a big star.

In honor of Taylor’s 35th birthday today, this 31-second “tribute” was posted on TikTok by the NFL, grateful for the unlikely merging of Swiftworld with pro football that her romance with TK has brought about. (Hope you can get it to play. Try clicking on that circle thingie bottom left.)

At Owl Chatter, the feeling is anything that distracts from the plight of the Jets can’t be all bad.

@nfl

karma is the guy on the @Chiefs saying happy bday to me 🎶 #taylorswift #traviskelce #nfl #kansascitychiefs

♬ All of Me – Toby Gad & Celina Sharma

Happy Birthday, babe!! We’ll see you at the next Chiefs home game.

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I’m gonna end with a beautiful song posted by Rex commenter Son Volt. I can’t figure out what it relates to in the puzzle, but who cares? It’s by a group I never heard of (vu den?) called Everything But The Girl, and it’s called “We Walk The Same Line.”

Good night everyone. Thanks for popping in.

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