Your Own Personal Jesus

News this week that James Cameron has an upcoming documentary on television showing what some are claiming is the "tomb of Jesus" doesn't sound like news to me. I've been hearing these stories now for a few years. The catacombs in Jerusalem, well known for a long time, have a tomb supposedly inscribed, "Jesus, son of Joseph," and one for Mary Magdelene and even one for "Jesus' son" by M.M.

Cameron, well-known for making a popular movie of one of the most famous disasters of the 20th Century, the Titanic, and turning it into a schmaltzy love story, has something to do with the Jesus documentary. Cameron is like a lot of Hollywood -types, a huckster selling a product. If they can get people to watch this stuff, why not? It's like those stories I've heard off and on of finding the remains of Noah's Ark, or relics, splinters of bone from a saint, or a vial of Christ's blood. There's no end to any of it, as witness the ongoing story of the Shroud of Turin, which pops up every now and again to some public attention. People eat this stuff up, whether they agree with it or not. How much furor was set off by a potboiler like The Da Vinci Code?

If it involves religion or Jesus it's going to get attention. The faithful won't believe it, the unbelievers will scoff, and the mystics will argue about it. In the meantime folks who made the documentary will walk away counting their money.

Jesus is a public figure whose image is everywhere. I went through my house and even I, the least religious person I know, have pictures of Jesus. I looked at them, scanned some of them and noticed that not one of them is identified as being Jesus. Not necessary. Jesus is like Santa Claus, with an image and persona instantly known.

Click on pictures for full-size images.Two of the pictures I have, the Jesus jigsaw puzzle and the cheap five-and-dime store black-and-white print, show a more effeminate Jesus; a kinder, gentler Jesus. The picture of Jesus talking to the couple in the garden is from a 1959 book called Your Bible and You by Arthur Maxwell. The picture is by the great illustrator, Harry Anderson. The anachronistic sight of Jesus in modern setting was popular a few years ago. I remember the button-down, crewcut 1950s and this Jesus would not have been talking to a couple in their garden. He probably would have been hauled off by the police. If it was ten years later the couple would have mistaken him for a hippie, flower power and all that. The picture up on top of this essay is of a more rugged and macho-looking Jesus I found on a postcard. This is the resurrected Jesus outside of the tomb where he laid for three days. The idea that the new documentary promotes is that Jesus was but a mortal person who lived, died and had a wife and kid.

TV hype and hoopla notwithstanding, my interest in all this is our common perception of Jesus. All of the pictures I've posted here have things in common: Jesus has long hair parted in the middle, he has a beard, and he's wearing a white robe. This is what people think when they picture Jesus. I believe this is more of a modern image, within the past few hundred years, anyway. Jesus wasn't described physically in the New Testament, so we're basing our image on an idealization made many years after he lived. Some of the pictures look like modern American guys, not like a resident of the Middle East from 2000 years ago.

What I wonder is, if it is true that Jesus actually was a god who was sent to earth, born and lived as a mortal, is the only person who ever died who has been resurrected, then what happens if he comes back and no one recognizes him? What if he looks more like someone of Middle Eastern origin than a guy from a Hollywood casting agency?

If Jesus is coming back, maybe it might be a good idea to know who we're looking for.

As for James Cameron and his documentary, I won't be watching. I'm tired of being burned by this sort of thing. The cable channels constantly run "documentaries" on UFOs, Bigfoot, haunted houses…the list goes on and on…and they never prove anything one way or another. They just repeat the same old unsolved mysteries we've heard about over and over, ad infinitum. I don't expect anything different from this documentary, thinking it's probably closer to the "mystery" of Al Capone's vault than the solution to a mystery 2,000 years old.

Ciao for now.

Sunshine Superman

This is a picture of Barack Obama, striking a pose in front of the Superman statue in Metropolis, Illinois. Superman has become visual shorthand for an ideal. Poor Barack. He looks kind of slim compared to the chiseled, buff Superman.

Superman has been around about 70 years, growing from the lithe concept thought up by a couple of Cleveland, Ohio, boys named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, into the gargantuan and grotesquely muscled character of today.Closer to the lithe concept is the movie version. My wife and I saw the Superman movie on its first run in 1978 which introduced then unknown actor Christopher Reeve, who looked good, but had no big, bulging muscles. Ditto the actor in the 2006 Superman Returns.

Superman is so familiar and iconic he can appear in this Sunday funny, "The Flying McCoys," with no need to explain the joke to anyone.I read the Superman comics from about 1957 until 1960 or '61. This past Christmas I got the book, Showcase Presents Superman which reprints many of those same issues I read as a youngster. Occasionally I pick up the book and read a story and I may remember it, but now I'm reading it from an adult viewpoint instead of that of a kid. I'm sure it was deliberate for the publisher to put out the book with those issues from those years, because those were the years the baby boomers were reading them.

Even though I read the stories as a kid who was not as discriminating as I am as an adult, I remember thinking how screwy some of them were. The motivations escaped me. I couldn't figure out why Superman needed a secret identity. Just be Superman all the time, screw the Clark Kent schtick. Superman/Clark were a real pair, like a split personality, creating a two-person lover's triangle. Lois loved Superman, Clark loved Lois.* Boy, talk about turning a guy--even a super guy--into a head case. I know the Clark character created more story possibilities, but c'mon. Superman didn't really need Clark, and that always bothered me.

When I was a kid I became aware that we can recognize people by the sound of their voice, the sight of their teeth or the color of their hair. In other words, we recognize people not only by the obvious, but by the very subtle. It just always struck me that unless the people around Superman were totally blind and/or stupid, there wasn't a way they couldn't know Superman was Clark.

Another thing that bothered me were the endless powers: flight, strength--strong enough to move planets!--x-ray vision, heat vision, telescopic vision, super ventriloquism, super hearing. Every time the writer needed a gimmick out came a new power. One of the rules of fiction is that you've got to have conflict, so you put your character in danger to see how he reacts. Superman couldn't be put in danger. He could bounce bullets off his chest . He could literally do anything. The only thing that bothered him was kryptonite, which was a rock from his home planet. Kryptonite must've fallen to earth by the ton, because a lot of the stories in the reprint book used it as a plot device. They had written themselves into a corner because they made Superman too powerful. The endless supply of kryptonite as a plot device was yet another thing to bug me.

Since this blog is Paranoia Strikes Deep, here's some paranoia: How could any government on the face of the earth react to a real life Superman? If there were such a person the people looking to get rid of him wouldn't be the crooks, it'd be governments (some say we're still talking crooks) who couldn't stand the thought of him able to breech any kind of national security at will. There'd be no way to stop him unless they built kryptonite filing cabinets to hold all of the national security files. I think any government would be extremely nervous having a Superman flying around.

There were just so many things like those examples that I couldn't fathom about the character that at a young age I dropped Superman from my reading list. Re-reading the gimmicky stories in this volume made me remember why the stories always struck me as so untrue. I guess the writers, artists and editors thought if you could accept a guy in a blue and red circus costume flying and lifting buildings, and that even those closest to him didn't know he was living a double life, then you'd accept the implausibility of his secret identity .

They were wrong. The Superman I read about in the comics, and the one I wanted to read were two different characters.

*******

Lois' fantasy.

*Lois was kind of a nightmare figure for a boy. She was always after Superman, conniving, scheming, trying to trick him into marrying her. It was a view of women held by the writers and editors, and then handed down to the young and impressionable readers. There was no sex, quite the opposite. Lois was so non-sexual you have to wonder what attracted Superman to her. I mean, why have hamburger when you can have steak? Superman could have had any babe he wanted. Lois was a pest, a plot device, the damsel in distress to be rescued by Superman over and over. There were probably times when he thought, "If I have to fly to a volcano one more time to save Lois, I swear I'll pretend I don't see her and let her fall in."

Superman's fantasy.

But the ideal is what it is, and Superman would never do that.

24 Skiddoo

Did anyone else notice this about this week's episode of 24? Milo got shot. Jack looked at the wound and said, "It's a through-and-through. No arterial bleeding. You'll be OK."

Milo was so OK that a half hour later (remember, this show is supposed to be transpiring in real time), Milo is in the office asking Chloe why Morris smells like alcohol. No mention of the shooting, no holding his side in pain. That's pretty good. He would have had emergency personnel arrive at the shooting scene, he would have likely gone to the emergency room, had his wound cleaned and dressed, given a tetanus shot, antibiotics, whatever, maybe even put in a hospital bed, but no-o-o-o-o-o, not in 24's unreal world of "real time."

I'd have more comments about this show but I start to watch every episode and for some reason I wander off and find other things to do. It's hard to sit still and watch such silliness.

Ciao for now.

"Come and keep your comrade warm..."

I enjoy a good paranoid conspiracy theory. Tell me your beliefs about the JFK assassination, how he was killed by the CIA/Mafia/Cubans/LBJ, how the government has flying saucers stored at Area 51, how black helicopters are abducting cows and cutting out their sex organs, how the Illuminati actually rule the planet. I'm interested in all conspiracy theories, I just don't believe any of them.

About the only conspiracy story I believe is that some Al Quaida terrorists conspired and then flew some planes into the World Trade Center buildings.

Growing up as a liberal Democratic-type in Utah during the 1960s I felt totally surrounded. The state was then, as it is now, redder than red. Border-to-border Republicans. Talk about conspiracies! In Utah County just south of us the John Birch Society was very powerful. If you don't remember the Birchers google them. They were a bunch of right-wingy-dingies who had a lot of conspiracy theories going on, among them Eisenhower being a Communist-dupe.

One day in about 1965 a teacher of mine, who I later found out was a Bircher, played a tape for us by some evangelical type. It was Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles. I'd forgotten about the tape until a Google search of "Beatles" came up with the pamphlet you see pictured above you. Among other claims by the speaker was that the Commies controlled the music business. They had put out children's records in the late 1940s (get 'em young) on a label called "Young Peoples' Records" (aha! "Peoples" is a dead giveaway that something is pinko!) He played a part of one record called "The Little Puppet," which he claimed had a drumbeat set to the pace of a heartbeat to put the listener--a young kid--into a state of hypnosis, and make him suggestible.

The speaker even claimed to have the "first" rock 'n' roll record, and he played part of it, but I don't remember what it was. That's when I knew the guy was full of it. As dumb as I was in my high school days I knew there was no such thing as a first rock record. As anyone with even a small bit of musical knowledge can tell you, rock grew out of several different genres: rhythm and blues, country, jump, swing, big band…you name it, it had an influence on what was later called rock 'n' roll.
The speaker told us in grave tones and so many words that the music aimed at "today's youth," (and by that, I mean mid-'60s) was sent to us by wicked, evil people intent on corrupting our morals, bringing down our great country. Well, I'm paraphrasing because I'm depending on memories that are four decades old, and if my recall isn't right on, then it's clear as to the intent of the tape.

I made some noise in the classroom about how it was crap. My friend got up and marched around the classroom like the little puppet, "hypnotized." As I recall we were both told to shut up and sit down, but I felt if I had to listen to this stuff I might as well let the person inflicting it on me know what I thought of it. I don't remember it ever being brought up again in class. Maybe the teacher got told he was overstepping his bounds.

The idea that rock music was some sort of tool of the devil is still around, although I haven't heard the communists invoked in a long time, probably because they don't have a lot to do with anything anymore. They aren't the straw men the conspiracy theorists like to point at. Nowadays it's almost more likely to be our own government at the root of the conspiracies rather than some external force.

I've heard so many conspiracy theories about music that I've lost track of them. Backwards masking, satanic messages, etc. It's all interesting, though. A good paranoid conspiracy tells me more about the person who espouses it than it does about the conspiracy.

I'll bet when "Back In The U.S.S.R." came out it drove the right-wingers nuts. They wouldn't have had any sense of humor about a funny riff on the Beach Boys.

What's also funny is that while these folks with Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles were claiming the music was inspired by the communists, countries like the Soviet Union were denouncing rock music as a tool of the capitalists to corrupt their youth. Nowadays when I step into a store and hear Beatles songs played over the store sound system it's hard to believe that they were anything but mainstream. But there was a time when the Beatles were blamed for a lot of things. Our parents' generation was baffled by their popularity, what made them so appealing to us. There just had to be something else going on…no one could really like that noisy stuff, could they? Maybe now our own kids and grandkids wonder what it was about the Beatles that made us like them so much. I'd say that rather than being part of a conspiracy, the Beatles were there at the nexus of the sixties social movement, replacing the old with the new. That would seem like a conspiracy to many people, but the Beatles also had the talent. Whenever I listen to their music I'm reminded of how different, fresh and new they sounded in their era. Even if their music is now mainstream--even fogeyish to the hip-hop crowd--it still has all of the elements, lyrics, music, vocals, that made it great and turned our musical worlds upside down. You don't need a conspiracy to do that.Ciao for now.

Blog People

I read in a print magazine today that only 8% of Americans read blogs. The writer was snorting with derision, accusing us blog-writers of just reading each others' blogs. To which I snort right back and say, yeah, so?

If that anonymous writer--and I won't identify him or his magazine--would have done a little math he'd realize that if 8% of 300 million Americans read blogs, that would be an astounding 24 million blog readers. I don't know about you, but given the chance to have even a percentage of 24 million people read my stuff makes me feel kind of lighter than air, y'know? How many people read his magazine?

My buddy Eddie has a counter on his blog but I don't. I don't really want to know how many people read my blog. It could be one or 10, it could be 10 million. So what? Years ago I sat in my basement office with an electric typewriter my dad bought in 1965. I wrote letters every night to my friends, one at a time. I've always done that. I finally burned out the typewriter in the 1980s, and before going with the computer I wore out another electric typewriter and had started on my third. Now I've been through four computers.

I see this blog as a continuation of those letters I spent hours on every evening. I have a compulsion to write. I'm sure many other blog writers feel the same. Maybe a lot of people don't feel the compulsion to read us, but that's OK with me. I am still compelled to put it down and send it out.

The blog is good for something else. I save a lot of ridiculous pictures I find in various places. This I found on an old book. Where else would I get a chance to show this?Click on picture for full-size image.

To the approximately 23,999, 999 people who probably aren't reading my blog all I can say is you're missing out on that.

Ciao for now.

Cheaters Cheat

Like everyone else I've been following the story of the astronaut, Lisa Nowak, who drove 900 miles to confront a rival for a fellow astronaut's affections. People are really titillated by the case because of the stories of disguises, wearing a diaper so she wouldn't have to stop to pee, spraying her rival with pepper spray through the window of a car. Wow. Who wouldn't be titillated?

It's too bad that this poor woman has to be this year's Runaway Bride, exposed to humiliation for all of the world to see. When it comes to love, folks, we've all gone a little bit goofy at times.

We hold ourselves to a high standard that few of us are able to reach, so we have our ways of rationalizing. I don't know astronaut Lisa's story, but I'm willing to bet she left her husband and children thinking the single male astronaut was going to marry her, then found out there was another woman he was seeing. Why doesn't this surprise me? I think I saw it in a movie once. She had probably told herself that this was the guy for her, her one chance for true love, etc., etc. The reasons don't matter…what matters is that she stepped over a line we've drawn that separates acceptable from unacceptable behavior. I'll bet you've done unacceptable things and never been caught. I have. Thank god I didn't get my picture splashed all over the front pages of the world's press. Thank god I'm not an astronaut/evangelist/politician/movie star or whoever else it is that we hone in on when they screw up.

I read a statistic once--and I take statistics with a grain of salt--but this particular statistic said that about 50% of partners in a marriage cheat outside the marriage. They have an affair, they have a one-time thing, whatever. If you were to ask a group of people, "Is it good or bad to cheat on your spouse?" they'd all say, "It's bad." If you polled them individually as to whether they had done it they'd say, "Yes, but I had a reason." It's always the other person who is immoral, who is the cheater. Not me. Not us. I--we--had a reason.

I'm not about to judge other people on what they do outside their marriage. I'm more interested in how they view what they do. I spoke once with a woman who, with her husband, is a swinger. They have a particular moral code. If they get together with other couples for a foursome, or with a man or woman for a threesome that's OK if they are both there during the sex. If one of them goes outside the marriage, has sex with someone and the partner isn't present, that's cheating.

Or there was the married woman who told me once, explaining her behavior with someone else's husband, "anything short of 'sticking it in' (her term) is just flirting. If you 'stick it in' it's sex." I'll bet she was fun on a date, but her partner would be disappointed at the end to find out it's just flirtation.

The case of Lisa Nowak brings up a question I've always had about leaving one's spouse for another person. What happens if that second person turns out to be a mistake? Do you keep repeating the behavior until you find the right one, or do you get smart?

I worked for a woman once who left her husband for another man. The man left his wife and teenage son for her. He was 42, she was 24. They left a lot of destruction in their wake. They disrupted the business where we all worked; they wreaked havoc on his former wife and son, they practically destroyed her husband, who lost all pride in trying to keep her. Her excuse was, "I deserve happiness, and you're not giving it to me." Well, la-de-da. Someone owes you happiness?

She and her lover took off for parts unknown and weren't seen again for 30 years, when she came back to town. She looked me up via e-mail. I talked to her and found out the man she left her husband for had died of cancer some years before. She was still angry with him, though, because during their marriage he had "cheated on her." She fixed him. She "cheated on him," too!

It struck me that she had cheated with him, ruined two marriages and expected him not to continue his behavior? That seemed naïve to me but I didn't say anything, just let her finish her story. Now she'd met a wonderful guy; he was retired so he had her retire and they were joined at the hip. They were with each other 24 hours a day. Well, that's one way to keep her husband from cheating.

I thought the truest thing I ever read about the aforementioned situation was in a piece of fiction, a short story whose title and author I've forgotten. In the story a man and woman who had left their respective families were confronting further adultery by the woman. The man is anguished, screaming, "I lost everything for you! I left my family, my job, my life for you! How could you do this to me?" She just replied, "Because we're cheaters, and cheaters cheat."

There doesn't really have to be a reason. It's just how we're built as humans. With that in mind, I wish poor Lisa Nowak good luck in facing the criticisms of a harsh and hypocritical public, basking in her misery while we hide our own dirty secrets.

Ciao for now.

Stupor Bowl

Show of hands. Who watched the Commercial Bowl this past Sunday night? You know, the show where they introduce a lot of commercials and squeeze a little football in between. I saw about 15 minutes, which is about my tolerance for this sort of thing.

I can accept the fact that Americans have made this day, this so-called "Super Bowl Sunday," a de facto national holiday, replete with parties, booze and food…like a second New Year's Eve. I can accept rabid football fans wanting to see their team win. What I can't accept is that so many people actually tune in to watch COMMERCIALS! Jesus, folks…you are out of your frickin' minds.

It all goes along with my theory that Americans have formed a sick and symbiotic relationship with their television sets. If all television disappeared tomorrow most Americans would probably have to kill themselves for feeling that part of them had died, and from want of something to do.

Television is killing more of your brain cells than alcohol. It is more addictive than cigarettes, and puts you in a worse state of mental discombobulation than LSD.

I have some recommendations for those of you with the TV jones, who need to take a breather from the image orthicon tube…

• Read a book.

• Go out and look at the sunset. Look at the moon. Look in your neighbor's window. Look at your neighbor mooning you.

• Read another book.

• Play with your kids, and I don't mean a video game! Toss a ball around. You do know what a ball is, don't you? You see them on TV all the time when you're plopped in front of the tube watching anything that moves on ESPN.

• Make love. Make war. Make anything but another stab at the remote buttons, hoping in vain to find "something good on."

And what the hell is this fascination on one night of the year with television commercials? I mean, who really cares? These are exactly the same commercials you'll now be skipping in order to go to the bathroom. Unless you're so far gone you wear an adult diaper so you don't have to get up during your TV viewing. What do I care if Budweiser or Coke or Doritos spent $2.6m for 30 seconds? There's a sucker born every minute, and in this case, there's a sucker born every 30 seconds.

Let's have a big whoop for how much money those advertisers spent to reach you.And furthermore with commercials, have you checked the running times of your favorite shows lately? It used to be that without commercials an hour drama on television was about 52 minutes long. When I went into Comcast's On Demand the other night (yes, I was watching TV, so do as I say and not as I do), I saw that shoes like CSI, CSI: Miami, et al, now give you 44 minutes of drama. So that means instead of eight minutes of commercials an hour like we had before, we now have 16 minutes of commercials. It's no wonder I can do my laundry, mow the lawn and read the latest issue of Newsweek before the show comes back on.

Ciao for now.

The panel on top (click on it for full-size image) is from an old Mad comic book and is for my buddy Ed, who has a really great blog called Chicken Fat, and is a major Mad comics fan.

Usefully Useless

Several months ago I showed you some items I'd found at thrift stores for a dollar or less. I have an eye for the kind of oddball thing that maybe only I can appreciate. I call them the usefully useless, which means that they are kind of orphan objects. They stand out to me, but have no real use except maybe one, if even that. Every time I look at them I think, "I oughtta get rid of that useless crap." But then I think, "Someday I might make use of it."

It's probably the same reasoning that caused me to pick up the item I call Hippie Boy. It's a bookend, unfortunately just one of a pair. I kept my eyes open for years looking for Hippie Boy's mate. I didn't know whether he'd been part of a pair with a Hippie Girl or another Hippie Boy. No matter. I never found either one. Hippie Boy is a caricature of a college student, circa 1970 or so. He has long orange hair and an orange mariner's beard. He's about 19 or 20 years old, wearing a flowered shirt and sandals. He even has glasses with the eyeballs painted on. Over the years as memories fade the image of a hippie has replaced what hippies or even college students really looked like in those days. The one thing I found about Hippie Boy that seemed close to my recollections of the era is that his feet are dirty. They weren't when I bought the item in the 1980s for a dollar. They got that way from sitting on my dusty shelf holding some books against a wall. I remember that about hippies: barefoot or sandaled, a lot of them had really dirty feet.Click on the pictures for full-size images.

The other item is what I call the Tattooed Poodle. He's a bank, but for some strange reason, known only to the designer, he's decorated with some really strange marks. I like him. He sits on a shelf with about 15¢ in change inside him to make him useful.The last item is my favorite. It's a hand carving, a woman with a broomstick stuck up her butt. She's about 18" tall with the handle. In looking at the item, which I picked up several years ago in a thrift store in Logan, Utah, for $1.00, I think I know where the unknown Gepetto started carving, and maybe his impetus to carve a woman. There are marks on the wood that look like nipples. One on the right protrudes, the one on the left is inverted, but he probably looked at a piece of wood, said, "Hey, that looks like boobs!" and got out his pocketknife. You can see he even crudely made some dress folds with a wood burner tool. The bonnetted lady has a big nose and a sharp-toothed smile. When my wife looked at it with her usual look of, "What the hell do you want that ugly thing for?" she asked, "What do you think it's used for?"
I looked at it and said, "It's a hubby-bopper. Like a rolling pin." I made a pantomime of bouncing it off my skull. "Guy comes in late, wife grabs the hubby-bopper to let him know he's gone wrong." Luckily my wife's never used the hubby-bopper on me. It's heavy. It'd hurt. Thank god that for now it remains a useless object.

Ciao for now.

F*cking Rome

My wife and I like the series Rome on HBO. We watched the first season last year and were quickly caught up by the characters, situations and the actors playing the roles. We have watched the first three episodes of Season Two and all I can say is…what the fuck?

I don't remember Season One using the word fuck as much as I've heard it in these three episodes. I know that HBO series use fuck because it's naughty and they can get away with it. You pay for the "privilege" of watching the same lame movies over and over again on HBO, and many of them use the word fuck. So they have extended that to their homegrown series like The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Rome, etc.

Not only was the word fuck overused to the point of silliness in episode 15 (third episode of Season Two), but other situations were overdone, also. Two incidents of buggery, men on other men. Three bare bums of men; the gangster Carbo, his robe pulled up and raped in his bare butt; Mark Antony, walking into the bath with the sexy Atia, shows the actor nude from the rear, and at the end the actor portraying Brutus is shown nude from the back.

As my coworker Peg might say, "Why do they always show guys nude from the back?" Well, they have shown a penis or two on Rome, just not in Season Two…so far, that is. Keep watching, Peg, they may have a surprise for you later and give you a full monty.

I'm demanding some equal time. More boobies along with the butts! Also, my objections to the word fuck remain. I'm not against using it, just not in every scene. Fuck is a word which should be used for emphasis. At the most maybe twice an episode, if even that. C'mon, writers…you're better than this. Is there a reverse censor at HBO? A guy who sits down and watches these programs before they air and says, "We only have 19 uses of 'fuck.' We need more." Is there a requirement for a certain number of times the word fuck has to be used on HBO?

If you're a big Rome fan, don't get after me for my criticisms. I am a fan also. I just think the show can be made entertaining and be just as interesting without all of the language and shock video--killings, including a throat slashing and beheading, and the aforementioned anal sex--because they've got one of the most talented casts of any HBO series, hands down.

Detachable Dick

Like a few million other Americans I watched the State Of The Union address last night. I didn't expect much and didn't get much from our President. He is still off in some Cloud Cuckooland where progress is being made in Iraq, and life's better all around for everyone. Everyone that isn't getting blown up, that is.

The real treat to me was looking past Bush at Cheney and Nancy Pelosi behind him. Besides the fact that Nancy Pelosi is one fine-looking woman, Cheney is always worth looking at just to see if he gives one of his patented sneers or otherwise makes his usual stone face do something remotely human. Last night he winked at someone in the audience. Maybe his wife, maybe his mistress, maybe one of his buddies.

He also popped something into his mouth. At first I thought, "Nitroglycerin." I thought maybe he was having some chest pains, but whatever it is he popped into his mouth, he appeared to keep sucking on it for a long time. I then thought, "Maybe it's a Lifesaver. Maybe when the speech is over he's going to grab Nancy and lay a big wet one on her, sticking his tongue in, putting the Lifesaver in her mouth." No such luck, buddy. I'm sure Nancy has dodged more kisses than a stud like you has ever given.

They also showed pictures of the audience of dignitaries, occasionally identifying a senator or congressman, or even Supreme Court justice. I saw Hillary sitting behind Barack Obama and was hoping she'd put a V with her fingers behind his head, but she was being dignified. I saw Senator Patrick Leahy give a wolfish grin. Maybe he was thinking about setting up a little meeting with Nancy Pelosi. I didn't see anyone picking their noses or doing anything egregious, but I might have missed something because I had to get up and go to the bathroom a couple of times during the speech. Being able to go to the bathroom was something I thought about. All of those people were packed into the gallery and no one could get up and go pee if they had to. Maybe there is a big run in D.C. on Depends undergarments right before the State Of The Union. That wouldn't help if you had to fart, something I can do in my easy chair, but can't do in public. Just gotta hold it, Senator. Only another hour to go and then you can go to your chambers and cut loose.

*******

After the State Of The Union Sally turned the TV to HBO and we watched the last part of a Wanda Sykes special. Wanda is a black female comedian who is known to me mainly from being on the Larry David show, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Wanda did a hysterically funny and obscene bit about how nice it would be if women had "detachable pussies." They could leave them at home when they went out. That way if a guy jumped out of the bushes while they were jogging they could say, "Sorry, my pussy's not here."

I thought how nice it would be if guys had detachable dicks. You could hand it to a woman you wanted to impress, saying, "Take this home, introduce it to your pussy. If they like each other we can go out." You might want to take some Viagra before handing it to her, though. You wouldn't want her to just drop it and say, "Ewwwww, what's this tiny little limp thing, a worm?"

If I was God, I would've designed people that way.

Wanda used the f-word a lot. I really have nothing against the word fuck. I use it occasionally, though, when I really mean it or really feel a compelling need. Unlike some folks I don't use it in casual conversation. Nowadays when I walk into any school on my route I'm apt to hear it, both from boys and from girls. And that's just the elementary schools! High schools it's all over the yard.

A word loses its power when it's overused like the word fuck. If I fuckin' wanted to fuckin' say fuck I'd better fuckin' say it with a fuckin' reason, otherwise it fuckin' loses its fuckin' intensity.

There have been episodes of The Sopranos where I swear (yuk-yuk, no, they swear, not me) they use the word fuck more times than I heard it in two years of the Army, and when I was in the Army I heard it a lot.

So, fuckin' have a fuckin' great day, you fuckin' fuckers.

Ciao for fuckin' now.

Bunco

Whatever happened to the word "bunco"? We who used to watch Dragnet were used to hearing the word when Jack Webb as Joe Friday would open a show by saying, "…my partner Frank Smith and I were working the day watch out of Bunco…" According to www.dictionary.com a bunco, or bunko (short for bunkum) is a swindle or confidence game.

Does anyone even use the word "swindle" anymore? Nowadays I think the words bunco and swindle have been replaced by the words "scam" and "con."

The Internet is still in its wild and wooly phase, where anything is possible and no one seems to have perfected a way to maintain some sort of control over the cretins who come through your monitor from god-knows-where, trying to extract money illegally from you. Everybody remembers the Nigerian e-mails where some lawyer in Lagos, Nigeria tells you somebody died leaving you $2,000,000, and all you have to do is send him $5,000 and he'll make sure you get it. Are those still being sent? I haven't seen one of those in a few years, although I heard just recently about several people who have fallen for it, losing thousands of dollars in the process.

The other bunco/con/scam is "phishing," where some crooks send you an official looking e-mail supposedly from your bank or Paypal or eBay saying there has been an attempt to get into your account, so send us your password, credit card numbers, etc., and we'll make sure it doesn't happen again. Has anyone fallen for that one?

You don't need the Internet to pull a scam. In 2003 Sally and I got a phone call on a Monday from our credit card company asking if we'd authorized some suspicious payments and we hadn't. The week before our son's wedding someone had wiped out our checking account. We went to our bank and reported it and got our money back immediately. We told them what we thought happened. Sally had gone with a friend to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. The waiter had taken her credit card, kept it for what Sally thought was longer than necessary, and then two days later the charges started hitting our account from other states. At the time we were so glad to get our money back we didn't really think much about what could be done about it. The bank didn't seem all that interested, nor did the credit card company. I'm sure it happens so often that they probably just chalk some of it up to the cost of doing business, and of course they add those charges right back to you in forms of increased service fees. So we get scammed by crooks and no one asks who was at fault, and then we end up paying extra for it.

A couple of weeks ago I heard on the local news about a Salt Lake City Quizno's sandwich shop. About 30 customers complained that after they used their debit cards to buy lunch unauthorized charges showed up on their credit card statements. At least the customers knew where the scam originated. Some employee of that particular Quizno's either sold the credit card numbers or used them himself. You don't need the Internet to get ripped off; you can get it by buying lunch.

I wonder if this has happened to anyone else: Last year before my son's birthday my wife bought him an iPod from Amazon.com. While ordering it she read that if she opened up an Amazon.com Visa account and have them put the items she was buying on that card, she could get free shipping. She signed up for the card, never intending to use it. She thought, "I'll get the card, I won't activate it, then when I pay it off in one lump sum I'll cancel the card." She didn't think much of it until she got a credit card statement showing that someone had placed e-trades to a stock broker in the UK on our card. She made some phone calls, signed a statement that the charges weren't made by her, and we never lost anything, but no one accepted responsibility. Amazon.com said it wasn’t their fault, Visa said it wasn't their fault, so how did someone get the credit card number since except for the initial charge for the iPod, the card was never activated? That's just bunco!Ciao for now.

Four of 24

This is a yearbook picture of my dad, Leon, taken when he was in prep school, circa 1936, which would have made him about 15 or 16. He looks very mature for his age, but some of that is because in those days teenagers weren't a separate breed of human like they are today. The clothes they wore were cut down adult wear, not a completely different wardrobe with matching hairstyles, piercings and accoutrements.

My dad's cousin, Lorna, gave me a print of this picture which I re-photographed some years ago. The details are a little murky but you can see right off that dad was a handsome guy.

Years later, when I first joined the school district where I've worked for the past 30 ½ years, I met a lady named Enid. She recognized my name and said she was from my dad's home town. She told me, "Your dad's family was well off compared to the rest of us. We barely made it through the Depression but your dad and his sisters seemed to have everything they wanted. Your dad even went to a private school."

She added, "That Leon, he was the most handsome guy. I used to think he was the handsomest guy in town."

I waited for her to say, "…and you take after your dad." But she didn't. And I don't.

*******

I watched the first four hours of this season's 24 with Kiefer Sutherland. I watch the show--not always, but occasionally--for different reasons than the usual 24 fans. I think it's more like a comedy. The plots are so overcooked, the characters are so earnest, the bad guys so bad, the good guy (Jack Bauer, played by Sutherland) almost as bad, that it makes for caricature rather than character.

This time out they're chasing Arab terrorists who have suitcase nuclear devices. As episode four ended, one of the suitcase nukes had gone off in Los Angeles, and we could see the mushroom cloud rising over the city in the distance. Oboy. What happens next? Tune in next Monday.

I admit that during the last hour my attention started to drift. There's so much activity on screen that my mind starts looking for relief. I pick up a newspaper or magazine to read while the characters are running around, shouting, racing in cars.

Something I've noticed about 24: The cell phones they use (which they are constantly using) always work. There are no drop outs, no dead areas with no reception. The person they're calling is always able to pick up the phone and talk; no voice mail, no missed calls. They are on the road when no one else is out there. In these episodes they were able to follow a terrorist without traffic problems, then switch over surveillance to a satellite. It can be made to swing over from its position in space and look right down on the terrorist's car with just a few keystrokes on a computer somewhere at hq in Washington. Somehow Jack managed to do all that and still get back to rescue a hostage, all within the hour timetable of the show.

There are so many plot elements like that piling up in the episodes that it adds to the surreal atmosphere. I also like that Jack, who has been tortured by Chinese for 20 months but never talked (according to the Chinese, who gave up this information to the Americans without even being asked!) has had his conscience tweaked, so when he tortures a suspect he feels bad. Of course, sometimes that's hard to tell because Kiefer Sutherland has one expression he uses throughout the show. Except when he's yelling, which he does quite a bit.

In one of the episodes (I can't remember which; sorry, they all start running together in my mind), a guy crashes through a glass coffee table and has a big shard of glass sticking out of his leg. A guy gets shot in the leg. Someone is tied up and gets stabbed in the knee as torture. The writers need some new ideas of which body parts to attack.

In 24 no one seems to ever have to stop for a pee break, or to eat a sandwich or have a cup of coffee. I guess when you're saving the world (or at least, the good ol' U.S. of A.) you don't have time for breaks. Personally, I think it would be better if on the episodes where Jack says, "This takes place between 10:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.," he would tell someone, "We need to stop at Starbucks and get a cup. Jeez, I'm gonna drop if I don't get some caffeine."

Ciao for now.

Eat My Shorts, Sasquatch

Here are some odds 'n' ends today. My brain is still semi-frozen from being out in the Arctic-like weather all day.

*******

Hey! Someone has found Sasquatch! Any suspicion that the creature known as Bigfoot--or is it Bigbutt?--doesn't exist should be dispelled by this picture.
*******

Is there anyone else out there who likes a Zero Bar? I found this on the Internet. It's a page from a 1940s candy wholesaler's catalogue. Hollywood Candy still makes Zero Bars but they are hard to find. The only place I have seen them in several years is in Wal-Mart. They might be better distributed in other areas of the country than they are here. I worked with a guy once who used to eat two or three Zero Bars every day for lunch. Not with his lunch…they were his lunch. I wonder if he has any teeth left.I also like Hollywood Candy's Payday, which is also in this 60-year-old catalogue. I don't recognize the Hail Bar on the same page as the Zero.

*******

Back in the 1960s Batman was king…for about 15 minutes. Actually, a year and a half. Still, that short period of Batmania is well remembered. No matter what else was going on I used to park myself in front of the tube two nights a week to watch Batman. I still remember the Neil Hefti theme song, and like other TV show themes from the '60s it is still instantly recognizable. I haven't seen an episode of the Adam West Batman show in years. Is it still in syndication? At the time of its popularity the stores were inundated with merchandise with Batman logos. I really like the shirts on these kids in this old picture. It's probably inspired by the TV show, but it isn't the TV show logo, which was more stylized. This is actually the logo from the old Batman comic books I used to read in the 1950s.
*******

This is one of those really embarrassing events this guy will want to forget as soon as possible, but may haunt him until they shovel dirt on him. When busted for drunk driving he tried to eat his underwear to cover up the alcohol in his system.

Sounds like he's been watching Bart Simpson, "Eat my shorts, man."

*******

George Bush is in so much trouble now I am not going to add to the general outcry. It's more fun to watch his fellow Republicans carve him up like a Thanksgiving turkey. I've done a lot of bitching about Gee Dub since I had a letter to the editor published in my local daily newspaper on December 31, 2000, protesting the results of the Presidential "election." But even as I vow to quit dissing Dubya I can't resist this dig:

Ciao for now.

Happy Birthday

Today is Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Happy birthday, Dr. King.

Where I live, Utah, was the last state to recognize the King holiday as Martin Luther King Day. Before 2000 it was called Civil Rights Day or some other euphemism. African-Americans make up only about 1% of the population and most Utah natives are still not used to non-white faces amongst the mostly Northern European-type residents.

In the 1960s I saw a huge billboard on State Street in Salt Lake City. It had a picture of Dr. King sitting in a chair, in a classroom setting. The headline on the billboard said, "MARTIN LUTHER KING AT A COMMUNIST CELL MEETING!" The billboard was signed by "TACT--The Truth About Civil Turmoil." There really was no way anyone could tell where the picture was taken or when, or whether it was a commie cell meeting or the social committee in the basement of a church. Even people around here who hated King, who hated everything he stood for, didn't swallow that. I remember talk radio programs with people discussing how untrue the billboard looked to them.

Utah, and particularly Utah County, just south of us, was the hotbed of activity for the John Birch Society. It's still the single largest concentration of conservatives in the state. I assume the organization TACT, which I never heard of before or since, was probably either part of the Birchers, or some guy paying for a billboard and calling himself an organization.

I think it was that billboard that was the catalyst to make me pay attention to the civil rights issues going on at the time. I was a teenager, usually just involved with myself and my friends, letting the world go by without thinking about it much. The billboard's message worked for me, but in exactly the opposite way the person who erected it wanted it to. After seeing the naked and libelous hatred in that message I had much more sympathy for what people were out marching for.

It was about a hundred years from the end of the U.S. Civil War until the first Civil Rights Acts were signed by the President, and it might be a hundred more years before people start judging people by "the content of their character and not the color of their skin." I wonder how long it would have taken had there not been a charismatic leader like Dr. King to remind us we're all in this together.

*******During the 1950s or early '60s this comic booklet came out with the story of Dr. King and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, made famous in the history of the civil rights movement. It was distributed in the South, and was a primer on non-violence, including two pages on the Gandhi story. You can find the whole thing posted at this site. There are also some other interesting educational comic booklets posted there; things I'm sure you've never seen before. I know I hadn't.

This particular comic book is well done with excellent illustrations. Organizations found out that people respond positively to information given in this format, which is why it's always been so successful.

*******

Years ago when Martin Luther King Day was being proposed, then implemented, I heard a lot of grousing and complaining. One guy said, "Who the hell wants a holiday in the middle of January?" I told the guy, "People might not accept it as a holiday until the car dealers and furniture stores start using it as a selling tool." Sure enough, this weekend the ads are out, and the "Martin Luther King Day clearance sales!!!" are bursting out of my local newspaper.

Ciao for now.

Renewing Acquaintanceships

This was a week of interesting surprises.

First surprise, interesting but no fun, is how damn cold it's gotten. It's settled over most of the nation so everyone knows about the teeth-rattling chill, but I have to work in it.

********

My wife, Sally, works for an education foundation, which is headquartered in an elementary school. Said school is on my regular school district mail delivery route. Monday night she told me, "I found out the principal, whose name is now Mandy H--, was once Mandy V--, and she went to school with us."

I did a Danny Thomas spit take. Coffee shot out of my mouth. I said, "Mandy V--? I dated her!"

I don't know what would get a spouse's attention more than words like that, but Sally suddenly became all ears. My advice is, if you want to get your husband's or wife's undivided attention, say something about someone you dated.

It really wasn't much of a date, though, but the story has an interesting twist. I got lined up by a mutual friend. Mandy V-- was really cute. She had/has a pretty face with attention-getting eyes. I was a senior and she was a junior. We went on one date in the fall of 1964. I don't remember what happened on the date, but I remember what happened before the date.

Mandy had told me, "Meet me at the Hires Root Beer stand. I'll be inside waiting." I showed up at 7:00 in my 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air two-door hardtop like I was supposed to, went inside the Hires stand, but the only person I saw in there was a hard-looking man sitting at the counter. I was disappointed but went back outside and got ready to drive off. I heard my name in a loud whisper. I looked over and behind a light pole was Mandy, trying to get my attention. I drove to the pole and she jumped in and said, "Get out of here, quick!" I did.

When we were clear of the parking lot she said, "That's my boyfriend in Hires. I didn't want him to see me." Alarm bells went off in my head. Boyfriend…? I asked, "How old is your boyfriend?" She said, "Thirty-three."

I don't know how old you are, but consider when you were 17-years-old, and how other people looked to you. Thirty-three looked to me like real old, real grown-up, real dangerous. My balls shriveled in my pants. The last thing in the world I wanted was to be with someone who had a boyfriend who looked like he could pop my head like a grape. So the rest of the evening is wiped from my mind, but I still remember how I felt when I heard that startling bit of news.

My question now would be, why was a 16-year-old girl going out with a 33-year-old man? Well, we all know why the guy was interested in her, don't we? I wonder what ever happened to that relationship but I won't be asking Mandy, because I don't plan on talking to her. I don't renew acquaintanceships like that, nor would there be a reason. She's management now, I'm still a flunky. She probably doesn't remember me or that night, and thank god for that. Like George Costanza, I don't want to be remembered.

*******

When that happened I told my friend Dave in an e-mail, "I don't renew acquaintanceships," and for the most part that's true. However, later in the week my old e-mail buddy Eddie contacted me. He'd been looking for blogs about Harvey Kurtzman, who was the creator of Mad, and came up with me. It'd been several years since we had written to each other. Unlike Mandy, Eddie I welcomed back in my life.He has a really interesting blog called Chicken Fat, which reminds me a lot of my own blog. But then, I could have gotten the idea from Eddie because of his way of making everyday life sound interesting. Maybe Eddie and I hit it off because we are both observers of other humans, who notice things maybe others don't notice. Or it could be that we share the Zodiac sign of Cancer. Or most likely it's that after reading Mad comics our minds are just twisted and bent into the same configuration.

*******

Lots of folks have spent the week commenting on Gee Dubya's latest Iraq speech. Right now there is the unmistakable smell of desperation. I could practically see the flop sweat rolling off his forehead as he knew what was at stake since he has lost most of his audience and his core group of supporters.

When I was in the Army a sergeant told me the story of why the chevrons that indicate the rank of sergeant are pointing up instead of down. "It's because the Army has never lost a major battle," he proclaimed. Nice story, but what about Little Big Horn? Anyway, not only is the U.S. Army having troubles fighting an enemy in Iraq who is gone like smoke, they will probably never be able to say they won this war, unless getting out with at least some respect from the rest of the world could be counted as winning.

Ciao for now.

Factoid or Fictoid?

This morning I got one of those e-mails that your friends send you, things that they received that they pass along. It was titled Did You Know and included "facts" like "Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand and lollipop with your right." Now who figured that out, and should I believe it? I'm not going to go through the unabridged dictionary typing out words to see if I can make one with my left hand that's longer than the word stewardesses, so it's basically impossible to know if it's true or not.

Suspicious type that I am, I call little factoids like that "fictoids," because I suspect they may be fiction.

I'm willing to accept some things the e-mail says like, "A dime has 118 ridges around the edge," or "Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite," because I believe those facts could be readily checked. I'm not going to go check them by counting the ridges on dimes or blowing myself up with dynamite to see if the taste in my mouth as I die is peanutty, but they sound reasonable. I'm less willing to accept at face value that "the average person's left hand does 56% of the typing," or "women blink twice as much as men." How could I check either of those? Into the suspected fictoid file they go.

One of the lines had a familiar ring to it. "If the population of China walked past you, eight abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction." I heard something similar over 40 years ago when I was in junior high. The teacher who said it to us had a slightly different, more ghoulish, take: "If you lined up all of the Chinese and machine-gunned them as they walked by you you'd never kill them all because they'd reproduce too fast." Those were the years of more open and casual racism. There was the Cold War; China was "Red China," Chairman Mao had his Little Red Book, and fresh in our memories we had the Korean War and thousands of Chinese soldiers coming over the hills in North Korea to engage our guys in battle.My classmate, Richard, who was a smartass like me, piped up: "It'd be hard for them to 'do it' if they were walking." The teacher looked at him for several seconds until the laughter died down. "All right, it would," he conceded, and went on to another subject. I got a mental image of people having sex and babies while lined up, walking, waiting to be machine-gunned to death.

In 2007 I ask, was this fictoid determined before or after the Chinese adopted the one-child to a family rule? They do have a lot of people. According to no less an authority than the CIA China has a population of about 1,300,000,000 people in a land mass a little smaller than the U.S. The U.S. has a population of 300,000,000, or roughly one billion less residents. So would you be able to machine gun all of the residents of America if they'd be so dumb as to march by you and be shot, or would we be reproducing too fast, too?

Whew! That's a lot to think about from one little e-mail.

Here's another factoid that I consider suspicious: "If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of six months waiting at red lights." Awww, c'mon. If you live in Utah like I do you just blow through red lights. That could skew the averages. Over a lifetime Utahns probably only wait three months at red lights. People in Utah do not think of a red light as "stop," but more like a challenge to get through an intersection without being t-boned by another car. Into that alleged fictoid file it goes.

I have no way of knowing if this is true or not (it's the first time I've ever read it, and I've read a lot about Prohibition-era gangsters): "Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer." But I like it. You could sound real smart at a party if you dropped this one into a conversation. "Well, you know," grinning, slowly rotating the ice in your whiskey glass, "Al Capone's business card said that he was a used furniture dealer." Gasps of amazement come from the crowd. Wow, you're suddenly the smartest guy in the room, with the most unusual and arcane trivia. Is it true? They don't care. You don't either.

Ciao for now.

Reverse Resolutions for 2007

If a year had an asshole, it would be January.

*******

We're a week into 2007. How many resolutions did you make, and how many have you broken?

I'm not one to make resolutions, because I know how easily discouraged I can get saying, "I'm going to lose that 20 pounds this year!" or "I'm going to get that better job!" and then end up 10 pounds heavier and in the same crappy job.

What I've decided to do this year is reverse resolutions. That is, I'm going to tell you what resolutions you should have in regard to me.

My first reverse resolution would be to tell you that when driving on the freeway with me make sure you use your turn signals. Also, do not drive on the freeway at 75 mph while talking on your cell phone. This will give me road rage, thereby raising my blood pressure and increasing my anxiety. You resolve to knock off the shit that is pissing me off while you're driving.

Second, you will resolve to treat me with common courtesy. The other day a very elitist and queenly principal in one of the schools I service breezed by me. I was holding the door open for her and she went through it without looking in my direction and without saying, "Thank you." I don't know what Her Majesty was thinking, but if a student did that to her I'm sure she'd have them hung by their thumbs. I'm used to students doing that to me because they're young and dumb, but if an adult does it to me I'm always surprised. So next time I'm holding the door open for you my reverse resolution for you is to at least say "Thanks." You don't even have to be sincere about it, just use common civility.

My third reverse resolution for you is to stop trying to sell me your religion. This past two weeks I've had two attempts by folks to proselytize me on behalf of their churches. To thee I say nay! I'm not interested in religion and I'm especially not interested in your religion. Don't try to convince me by testifying to me that you're convinced of the truth of your faith. I don't care. I don't believe in your testimony any more than I believe in your religion. Don't try to tell me I'm going to hell because I don't accept Christ as my savior. You go ahead and do what you gotta do to make it to heaven, but don't try to make me think I'm going to be punished because I don't believe in your ridiculously strict and baseless dogmatism. My reverse resolution is for you to resolve to leave me alone when you are thumping your bible.

There! I've given my resolutions to you, so let's make sure you make all of them work. We've still got 51 weeks left in this year, lots of time for you to leave me and my atheism alone, don't piss me off on the road, and don't act like I'm your servant when I'm being courteous.

*******

It was my granddaughter Bella's second birthday on December 29. She is such a cutie, as is her little sister, Gabby. I love you, girls.

Ciao for now.

It's Death Week!

Has anybody here seen my old friend Saddam?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walking
Up over the hill,
With Jerry Ford and James Brown.

The Iraqi and U.S. governments stretched a point when Saddam Hussein stretched a rope. James Brown did the Funky Chicken for St Peter, while Jerry Ford tripped past him and through the Pearly Gates. It's Death Week!

*******

So Gerald Ford has died! I admit to having a bias against ol' Jerry for the past few decades. I didn't really have anything against him as President, because he inherited so many problems from his two predecessors. Like the whole Vietnam mess and the usual shenanigans in Congress.

I didn't have a specific problem with him and the Nixon pardon, because that just seemed like business as usual at the top. The good ol' boys taking care of each other. The problems I had with Ford were the Dynamic Duo* of Cheney and Rumsfeld, who both worked for him.
I'm also mad at him for not getting himself elected President. Yeah, that sounds odd since I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976. Gerald Ford was never elected to anything but Congress, and yet by a couple of strokes of cosmic fate got into the White House. He retired after 2 ½ years with a full Presidential pension, full Secret Service protection, and for nothing more than being in the right place at the right time. He was able to do this by not making waves, by being a good Republican flack and go-to guy his entire political career. He polished the right apples along the way.

Don't feel bad this guy died, folks. He led a charmed life while he was alive. For many years I referred to him as America's highest paid Welfare recipient. I wish I could do something for a couple of years and retire to East Street the rest of my natural life.

*******

He died a bearded reprobate......but he was such a nice-looking young man!

Saddam Hussein was one of those guys you like to read about, but would never want to meet. I read enough about his torture chambers, his climb to power over the dead bodies of his enemies, and his further peccadilloes to know I didn't care much for him.

My favorite gruesome stuff was about his sons, though. In any other country they'd be considered sociopaths and locked away for good. These were a couple of ruthless criminals who literally got away with murder. But, while their dad met the hangman, they met their ends fighting to the death with U.S. forces. Their dad hid in a hole, then when discovered came out declaring he was president of Iraq and wanted to negotiate with George Bush. That alone got him the Chutzpah Award.

*******

The first time I saw I saw James Brown was on the old Lloyd Thaxton TV show, circa 1965 or '66, doing "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag." I wasn't hip to the slang. I wondered what a "brand new bag" was. Maybe a new girlfriend?

Does anybody else remember Lloyd Thaxton, the poor man's Dick Clark? Brown had the most ridiculous bangs I've ever seen. Thaxton asked him about his hairdo and J.B. said, "Got to keep up with the thang, man."

I'm not real big on funk, but I've got to admit, J.B. kept up with the thang.

Ciao for now, El Postino

*Here's the real Dynamic Duo.

Christmas At War

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2006!

I found this picture on a soldier's blog. Sorry for appropriating it, guys, but I want to use you to make a point that with all of the news from and about Iraq, it's easy to forget you are there in Afghanistan, also fighting.

I hope that everyone will be thinking about the tough job our men and women in the armed forces are doing while we open presents, visit with friends and relatives, and eat dinner.

Hey, guys…love your hats, but ditch the cigs. You're in a business that's risky enough.

And lest you have forgotten (like that could happen), here are some folks to remind you of what's home.

*******

In a prior blog I talked about getting a Superman suit for Christmas. My buddy Dave was reminded that he wanted a cowboy outfit with a black hat. He just had to have that black hat. This isn't a picture of Dave, but this boy also got a black hat.

That's one of the things I've noticed…sometimes the really good guys wear black hats, and sometimes the sneaky, crooked bastards will wear white hats to fool you.
Ciao for now, El Postino