Shocking news this morning: Ricky Martin is gay. I know what you’re thinking: Ricky who? I’m not quite sure who he is either (the name conjures an image of some sort of Ricky Ricardo/Billy Martin hybrid), but I’m pretty sure he used to sorta be famous in a ‘Selena’ kinda way, except he apparently wasn’t shot by the president of his fan club (kinda like having Kathy Bates as your #1 fan). I’ll have more on this development as soon as I figure out why I should give a shit.

In other news about people I neither know nor care about, Padma Lakshmi says she no longer wants anything to do with her baby’s father. Apparently she’s on some show called ‘Top Chef.’ The only cooking show I’ve ever watched (besides the ‘Galloping Gourmet,’ back in the day) is ‘Emeril Green’ on Planet Green, and that’s only ‘cuz I like the way he says ‘gollick.’ As in, “youzuv gotta putta lota gollick in dere.”

The only Lakshmi I’m familiar with is Lakshmi Singh, who’s a newsreader on NPR. But this one doesn’t look too shabby and apparently used to be married to Salman Rushdie, so good for him. I’m more of an Indira Varma fan, personally, but to each his own.

The US Post Office is looking to save something like $3 billion by ending Saturday mail delivery, which I guess makes sense (though they plan on dumping 40,000 employees, which I hope comes mainly from attrition, and not layoffs; we do not need 40,000 angry and unemployed postal workers wandering the streets). We only get useless crap on Saturdays anyway (we get mostly crap Mon – Fri, for that matter), so I guess I can wait for Monday to get my junk mail. Oh, it’ll be a little confusing at first (like when you keep checking the mailbox on Columbus Day, wondering why the damn mail is so late), but we’ll get used to it.

Hell, once upon a time there was both morning and afternoon mail delivery (and, no, I’m not old enough to remember that), and I think everybody managed to get by on “only” once-a-day delivery.

People love to piss and moan about the USPS, but how much do you think FedEx would charge to get a letter from NY to LA in a couple days? Well (since you ask) I just looked it up, and to ship an envelope from my zip code to a residential address in LA by Friday, April 2 at 7PM would be $19.14 (if I drop it off). If I drop an envelope in the mailbox at work on my way in, it would probably get to LA by Friday for 44 cents. And if not, it would be there Saturday for sure (at least for as long as they keep delivering on Saturdays).

Plus, when you take into account the tremendous volume of mail that I’ve received in my lifetime, the percentage that’s been misdelivered is infinitesimal compared to the percentage of packages that FedEx has sent god knows where (hope you’re enjoying that Buddy Jesus Bobblehead, ya bastids).

Sadly, like most people, I have no real reason to send letters any more. It’s too bad. When I was a kid, getting the mail was a big deal (hell, I still get a small but palpable thrill at beating my wife to the mailbox and being first to see the duplicate copies of the NYSUT newsletter and pleas from Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden for money).

The kids in my neighborhood would sometimes follow “Joe the Mailman” around, and he’d talk to us like we were regular people, hand us a stack of mail, and let us “deliver” it to the appropriate mail box (which was probably highly illegal, but nobody cared; these were simpler times). He read our post cards, too, and nobody really cared about that, either. Hell, if we went somewhere and sent post cards home, we’d write “Hi Joe” on ’em.

Joe brought us our birthday and Christmas cards and delivered the notice from the US Government informing my borther that he’d been selected for the honor of serving his country in Vietnam. That one made my mom cry. He also brought the letters my brother wrote home from there (which I still have).

When the neighborhood kids took their road tests, Joe would call before school while he was sorting his route down at the Post Office to let them know they’d passed (based on how thick the envelope was; this was back when they didn’t tell you right away – for fear of the Brownie getting shot or something).

Joe eventually started bringing my dad’s pension and Social Security checks, and of course delivered the life insurance payment to my mom after dad died too damn soon.

Everybody knew Joe the Mailman (and his predecessor, Joe the Mailman), and everybody loved him. He got a free lunch at the Retired Teacher’s Home down the street (the old ladies loved him most of all, I think), and would hustle through his route on Saturday if the SU football game was on, so he could watch it on the TV that the guy had down at the Esso station (four pumps – three that worked), and he was up on all the neighborhood gossip. Even the neighborhood dogs loved him (not the guy that came on Saturday, though, who never stopped to bullshit – on the bright side, the mail came a helluva lot earlier when he was working – and never really looked you in the eye; we used to keep the dogs in on Saturdays until after the mail came). When Joe finally retired, they took up a collection and had huge going away party for him.

Ah, those were the days.

Now, of course, it’s all e-mail, direct deposit, UPS, and instant gratification. And I have no idea what my mailman’s name is.