HAPPY LABOR DAY WEEK-END 2025

Labor Day is not one of the heavy holidays, (as Memorial Day and several of the religious holidays are,) so I say—go for the fun over the next few days!

Take that break especially if you’re a worker, (and who amongst us isn’t?,) because we’re celebrating our country’s labor force on Monday.

And here’s something novel for my SoCal peeps to do this weekend: It’s the Cinecon Classic Film Festival, which runs from tomorrow night, August 29th, through Monday, Labor Day. What makes it especially interesting is that, among several personal appearances in conjunction with their classic films, such as The Pleasure Seekers and The Rare Breed, you will get to see Ann-Margret and—wait for it—ninety-four-year-old old school sex symbol Mamie Van Doren!!! OMG! It all sounds fascinating and there’s something for everyone over this weekend. For the complete schedule and more information, please visit www.cinecon.org.

If I decided to go out for a bit, that’s where I would head. But I’m sure that we all know how I’ll be spending this entire holiday week-end. And that is…watching the US Open, of course! On Monday, I previewed the action of this tennis tourney, (and discussed some of what had already gone on in the earlier Fan Week,) but I published the article before I finished watching the opening day’s last match, which was the craziest one any of us had ever seen. (You can catch-up with all those thoughts right here: itsnotaboutme.tv/news/tennis-the-2025-us-open-began-yesterday.)

So I have to tell you what happened in that very entertaining insanity of the first round Daniil Medvedev-Benjamin Bonzi match on Sunday night. (And what better time to give you this long-ish lowdown than on a four-day holiday week-end, when you have so much time to just relax and read?)

It’s hard to encapsulate that absolutely insane match, but I’ll do my best to make it as brief as humanly possible. Meddy, one of my fave players, was playing a much lower-ranked guy, but one who has surprisingly beaten him twice before, in the best-of-five match. Ben was serving for the match in the third set, and he had a fault on his first serve, which meant he had one more serve for that point. As he began bouncing the ball, an elderly photographer came out of the back and started walking on the court!!! (We still don’t know why he did that, but his credential has since been revoked, he was kicked-out of the tourney, and now he’s suing the tournament!) So the chair umpire gave Ben an extra serve, a decision which many of us feel was unfair, but with which some of the commentators agree. And that’s when all hell broke loose.

Medvedev went crazy, as Mr. X and I feel he should. He vehemently questioned the umpire while inciting the crowd to make more noise than I’ve ever heard at a tennis match! And the madness went on for…six and a half minutes!!! And then, the only one imploring the crowd to quiet down was…Medvedev!

And when Bonzi finally got to serve again, he hit…another fault! And on his next serve, Meddy won the point! And then he won the set! So they went on to a fourth set, which Meddy also won, and at 6-0! It was looking very good for him. And in the deciding fifth set, he was up a break. Twice! But then…he lost.

I knew he’d be disappointed about that, but I thought he would be at least satisfied with himself for turning what looked like it was going to be a straight-sets loss into a dramatic going-the-distance one. But…as he sat down after the handshake, he began destroying his racket like a madman! And that wasn’t necessary to do in front of everyone—he could have quickly walked off the court and obliterated his equipment behind the scenes! So now his already huge fine, (for yelling at the ump,) will most likely be doubled for “racket abuse.” Oysh.

And that was just the first night! So much more drama has already happened since then, with, I’m sure, more to come. So I’m glad that for this entire holiday weekend, I’ll be able to just kick back and do nothing but watch it all. And, of course, report back to you next week.

But, for now, I wish you all a fabulous, fun, perhaps relaxing, and especially safe, Labor Day Week-end. Have a good one, and remember to not work during it! At least not too hard. And don’t forget to wear white all weekend because, as “they” always advise, the unwritten but much-known old school rule is that it’s gauche to wear white after Labor Day! So you have until Monday night to get use out of your colorless summer wardrobe, even here in sunny SoCal.