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NOVEMBER 2020
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‘GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DAY’ Clint Eastwood Is My All-Time Favorite Actor
When I was a kid back in high school, my friends and I were absolutely, totally, and completely obsessed with Clint Eastwood. I can vividly remember our mile-high stack of Spaghetti Western VHS tapes. We watched “A Fistful of Dollars,” “For a Few Dollars More,” “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly,” and a half-dozen others until the tapes were practically worn out. At one point, my buddies and I even picked up some of the little cheroot cigars Eastwood smoked on screen and clowned around pretending to be as cool as he was. Looking back, I think I got hooked on those movies because they were classic battles of good versus evil, and I idolized Clint Eastwood because he always played the good guy. Sometimes he was a police detective, other times a soldier or just a man on a mission, but he was always the one decent dude in the movie who was trying to take care of the scumbags and protect the innocent. No one was better than Clint Eastwood with a pistol. Plus, he looked pretty cool shooting people down in his cowboy hat and poncho! Even today, I love rewatching those movies from the ’60s and ’70s, especially the Spaghetti Westerns, "Dirty Harry," and World War II flicks. The soundtracks are awesome and unlike any other music out there. Plus, Eastwood is such a versatile actor — he can be dead serious one second, and in the next crack the funniest joke of the movie. He killed it in “Every Which Way But Loose” back in 1978, when he played a backstreet brawler with a pet orangutan named Clyde. And I’ll never forget that iconic scene in “A Fistful of Dollars” where he walks past the undertaker on his way to a fight and tells him to prepare three coffins. Then, after the shootout, he walks back past the guy, holds up four fingers, and says, “My mistake, four coffins.” In the early days, I definitely wanted to be Clint Eastwood, or at least one of the cowboys or other characters he played. What I ended up doing with my life isn’t quite as glamorous as riding bareback through the desert or sneaking behind enemy lines in Germany to rob a bank, but I do get a thrill out of my tax resolution work. I like to think of it as saving people from really terrible tax situations, which might not be as deadly as bandits or Nazis but can definitely still ruin a person's livelihood. I’m probably at my happiest when I can combine my love of Clint Eastwood’s machismo and my tax work, which is why I get so much joy from using the soundtrack to “The Good, the Bad & the Ugly” to open and close my Saturday morning radio show. If you’ve never heard me on air, you can check out “Don’t Get Frantic With Paul Francetic” at 7 a.m. on AM 1050 WLIP in Racine and Kenosha or stream it at wlip.com. I’m there every week helping people
tackle their tax problems to the drumbeats and flutes of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra.
I know that it’s November and everyone is probably thinking about Thanksgiving, but as the weather starts to get snowy, I think I’m going to settle in to watch “For a Few Dollars More” one more time. This year, if you have a couple hours to kill after the turkey is gone, put on a Spaghetti Western. I promise you won’t regret it! Paul Francetic
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TOP 5 HEALTHY LIFE HACKS TO HAVE AN AWESOME MORNING
START WITH GREEN TEA, THEN COFFEE. A cup of coffee at 7 a.m. can leave you burned out by 10 a.m. Try swapping it with green tea for a more gentle wake-up call. After that, you can brew your favorite coffee to keep you going strong. This practice also might help you consume less caffeine overall! TAKE A QUICK MORNING WALK — AND HAVE YOUR MEETINGS ON THE GO. Morning meetings can make us want to fall asleep again. Don’t spend all of them sitting down if you don’t have to! Not only will morning walks help you wake up, but they can also add some extra physical activity to your day.
WRITE IN YOUR JOURNAL. Who says you have to journal at the end of the day when you’re tired and ready to sleep? You can journal in the morning about what happened yesterday and the things you’re looking forward to that day. Journaling can remind you of your daily goals and motivate you to stick to your commitments. PACK YOUR LUNCH (OR SNACKS!). Staying on track with your goals starts with having the energy to do them. Plan a healthy balance of fats, vegetables, carbohydrates, and proteins. This can be as simple as assembling dips, carrots, wraps, and salads each morning.
Getting your day started with coffee isn't always enough. Sometimes, you need to give yourself an extra boost, especially when you have little energy or trouble focusing. For an awesome start to your day, here are five tips to get you going right off the bat. WAKE UP 5 MINUTES EARLY. What’s the power of five minutes? It can be more than you think. Spend this time doing simple breathing exercises or a quick meditation so you can get focused for the rest of the day. If that’s not your style, you can prepare a quick to-do list for your day ahead. Either way, it’s always nice to have a little extra time for yourself without losing too much sleep.
It’s time to try these tactics to superboost your day!
PAUL’S ADVENTURES IN ACUPUNCTURE
How Lakeview Acupuncture Helps Fix My Winter Blues
A lot of people are freaked out by acupuncture, and I can’t really blame them. If you’ve never tried it, it seems a bit crazy that sticking a bunch of needles in your back can help relieve pain rather than cause it. I even had those same doubts — until my very first session with Lakeview Acupuncture last year wiped them away. Alternative medicine has always intrigued me, and that’s probably why I was open to the idea of trying acupuncture when I met acupuncturist Janet Hibsch and her husband at a radio station event last year. That night, Janet told me about her work. I was curious to learn more, so when a cold snap got me feeling down in the dumps I decided to give acupuncture a try. Lakeview Acupuncture shares space with Racine Family Care Chiropractic. During my first visit, Janet had me lay on my stomach on the table, then inserted needles in my upper and lower back and hooked me up to electrodes that administered a gentle current. I couldn’t even feel the needles! I just laid there relaxing for a while until Janet wrapped up the session with a nice
massage. When I got up to leave, I felt fantastic. I couldn’t believe how loose and relaxed I was leaving the office and how much my outlook on life had improved! My sister has been going to an acupuncturist for years and has told me all about how it helped with her health issues, but I hadn’t put much stock in the needles’ ability to balance the energy (also known as qi ) in my body until that point. Lakeview Acupuncture’s website explains that acupuncture reduces inflammation, increases blood flow and range of motion, reduces muscle spasm, decreases the side effects of medication, and helps you feel more relaxed. It certainly made me feel relaxed! This is my second winter relying on acupuncture. Frankly, I can’t recommend Janet and her services (she also offers cupping) highly enough, even to the skeptics out there. You can learn more about Lakeview Acupuncture at LakeviewAcupuncture. net, and if you make an appointment, let Janet know I sent you!
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ARE YOU HAVING DEBT CANCELED? MAKE SURE IT’S TAXED CORRECTLY! FTR TAX TIP OF THE MONTH
ZESTY ORANGE CRANBERRY SAUCE
In September, a new client contacted me to see if I could help him out with a tax liability from 2014. The client is disabled and receives two types of disability pay. He normally has a straightforward tax return and files it himself. For years, the process has included just three forms. However, 2014 was different because he had $45,000 of student loan debt forgiven! He received a Form 1099-C (Cancellation of Debt) from the student loan lender, but he didn’t know how to handle it on his tax return. So, he hired a tax return preparer from a large CPA firm in Racine to complete the 2014 tax return for him in April 2015. Unfortunately, the tax return preparer didn’t know how to handle the Form 1099-C either! He included the $45,000 of canceled debt on my client’s tax return as “income,” which meant the client owed over $13,000 to the IRS and $2,500 to the state of Wisconsin. The issue was that the preparer failed to determine whether my client was insolvent right before the debt was forgiven. If a taxpayer is insolvent (if his liabilities are worth more than his assets), a Form 982 should be included with the tax return so the canceled debt isn’t counted as taxable income. My client was insolvent. He had a $500 car lease payment, owed $900 a month in rent, and had $4,000 in the bank. He had no retirement assets. The $45,000 shouldn’t have been taxable — he should have owed the IRS just $250 and received a $500 refund from the state. But because his return was prepared improperly, my client paid the state $2,500 and started paying the IRS $150 per month. To fix this, I filed an amended tax return to remove the $45,000 of income based on the insolvent claim and included Form 982. We should be able to get back all of the money he has paid the IRS so far, but getting the $2,500 back from the state is going to be difficult because the payment was made years ago. Long story short, when you’re in an unusual tax situation, hire a preparer who cares about the details! To a big firm you may be just a number, but to a little guy like me, every little thing matters — as it should.
Inspired by OnceUponAChef.com
Skip the can-shaped cranberry sauce this year and bring a jar of homemade sauce to Thanksgiving instead. This easy recipe can be made ahead of the big event and keeps for 10 days in the fridge.
INGREDIENTS
•
1/2 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed
• • •
12 oz fresh cranberries
2 tsp orange zest
• •
1/2 cup water
Salt to taste
3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar
DIRECTIONS
1. In a medium saucepan, heat the orange juice, water, and sugar to a boil. Add other ingredients, then bring mixture back to boiling.
2. Reduce the heat to medium and cook gently for 10–12 minutes, until the cranberries burst.
3. Transfer the sauce to a bowl or jar, cover, and refrigerate until serving.
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INSIDE
RETURNSERVICE REQUESTED
Listen to Paul Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. on channel 1050 WLIP-AM or stream online at WLIP.com!
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All Hail the Spaghetti Western King Top 5 Healthy Life Hacks to Have an Awesome Morning Paul’s Adventures in Acupuncture Are You Having Debt Canceled? Make Sure It’s Taxed Correctly! Zesty Orange Cranberry Sauce
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How a Thanksgiving Dinner Mix-Up Led to the TV Dinner
A MEAL FOR THE CHANGING AMERICAN HOME
Would you believe that Thanksgiving dinner — a meal dedicated to home cooking, family time, and, well, being thankful — was directly responsible for the invention of the TV dinner, the ultimate
suggested they package up the remaining turkey with a few sides as frozen dinners that would be ready to eat after being thawed. The twist? They would be served in compartmentalized aluminum trays,
manifestation of the solitary, processed meal? If you are a little suspicious of that fact, you’re not alone. But, the connection is real. Those little frozen meals on trays were the result of a Turkey Day mix-up of epic proportions. The year was 1953. That fall, the frozen food company C.A. Swanson & Sons drastically
much like airplane meals, which were the inspiration for Thomas’ idea. Additionally, they would be marketed as “TV dinners,” with their packaging designed to look like a television set. By 1954, roughly half of American households had TVs. Over the next 10 years, that figure jumped to 92%. As the TV rose in prominence in American living rooms, the TV
overestimated howmany Americans would want a turkey as the centerpiece of their Thanksgiving spread, leaving themwith about 260 tons of extra turkey packed into 10 refrigerated railroad cars. They needed a way to sell this surplus quickly because they had to keep running the train cars back and forth between the East Coast and the Midwest to generate the electricity needed to keep the turkey from spoiling. The company sent out a bulletin asking if any of their employees had a solution to the problem. Swanson salesman Gerry Thomas had a winning idea. He
dinner’s popularity increased exponentially. Swanson sold nearly 10 million of them during the first year of production. By 1959, Americans spent half a billion dollars gobbling up TV dinners. Several other phenomena have been linked to the advent of the TV dinner, such as the erosion of the traditional family dinner and a preference for TV entertainment over family conversation during mealtime. It’s hard to believe it all happened because of one Thanksgiving Day with too much turkey!
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