Saturday, August 27, 2016

Things That Really Matter and Stuff That Might Not But Sure Feels Like It

To quote the great Ricky Mokel, I think about stuff.

Silly stuff, often, but then things that are unwieldy and grotesque, too. Things like racism. That's one of the Big Things. And lately, in addition to how endemic and horrible it is, but also about how a lot of people are beginning to look in mirrors and more deeply for answers.

Wisdom can be painful. (I've heard.) But when an exchange like this happens, it seems the jagged places in being human fit, flush and finely after all.

And in news completely unrelated to things of substance, I'll have an announcement to make about my career in show business that's almost too exciting to believe.

I'm not being coy, either. I'm simply not allowed to tell this thing that's happening until They say so. I'll say this much: I'm thanking the Big Guy and any angels who were involved.

http://fortune.com/2016/08/24/c-span-racist-heather-mcghee/

Thursday, August 25, 2016

Please to enjoy.

I think you'll admit it takes a certain amount of moxie to sing in public places where folks aren't expecting it. Maybe even more to don a pair of wings. But I think Martina Bruno rises to the occasion.

(Ouch for the pun.)

Please to enjoy.

https://youtu.be/_YwTrz942ZM

It's a Wonderful Life in.... August?

Stolen shot from a stranger's blog.

I can't stand how cute this is. Also, I'm hoping that this kid's anonymity will be preserved despite the incredible worldwide impact of this particular Facebook page.

It's not like this signifies anything. Promise? Nahh.

She's certainly too young for outright ambition. But you gotta love parents who let their kids hammer away on their pianos - especially jelly fingered, crumb carrying toddlers.

Our grandparents did that and there is no better way to un-tune - don't think that's an actual word - a piano than to let a dozen youngsters bang away at top part of "Heart and Soul" on it. (And that's just a plain terrible song when talented hands are playing it.)

More people should take photographs like this. And if you do, please send them here.

We're apparently hitting a sloppily sentimental stage.


Racists Anonymous

Things I never thought I'd live to see. If it's anything like other 12 step groups, what happens between the lines, the words and even the suggestions will be transformative beyond belief.

I'm proud for the folks who were brave enough to step through these doors and try to accomplish together what they weren't able to do alone.

Look. I'm a comedian. I know damn well there are punchlines galore just ready to be rolled out. And I hope they are.

But for this minute in time, somebody had a crazy ass idea and spoke it aloud and made it happen.

Brothers and sisters. Selah.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.wcnc.com/amp//news/local/racists-anonymous-meets-in-charlotte/307308310?client=ms-android-verizon

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Loss

Someone I care about just lost his closest relative. It was surprising to hear several of these comments, all coming from folks who meant well, I realize, in the hours immediately after his loss.

And, no, I don't get Guideposts magazine but I do get their candy ass, heartwarming newsletter about angels in my email every week, so shoot me.

https://www.guideposts.org/comfort-hope/12-things-not-to-say-to-someone-who-is-grieving

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

I'm such a redneck.

Really. Deep down. Angel believing, Jesus loving, know we don't die and all that asking for answers from the Light stuff notwithstanding, there is a redneck.

The guys who run North Korea and Syria, for starters, just need all kinds of ass kicking which is soooo not what'll make anyone great again.

I'm not dumb. I know that guys on our side go under cover of darkness and do all kinds of things that are against the rules. You know: those grand, necessary rules made in the light of day where people sit in great halls, civilized places, wanting the very best of humanity to be what rises to the top like cream that'll never come from a cow long past her milking days.

What becomes of those hopes and those old cows? Are the dogs are my feet right now happily nibbling on chunks of her?

Is my subconscious bizarrely suggesting that despots be made into chew toys with squeakers in the middle?

Am I, instead of both that closet and apparently unrepentant redneck, a genius in disguise: not suggesting random assassinations after all but a repurposing of commodities long past their usefulness?

And, in the perfect world I'm just now inventing for your consideration, those old cows would die a peaceful, bucolic death on green rolling hills. And then humongous angelic forces will simultaneously sweep through this earth, disappearing the wholly malevolent, the ones who, by God, don't play fair.

Instead of the exploding bloodbaths these cancers of humankind cause, they'd be removed simply and suddenly by, well, sort of a cellular remodeling. Yes, that's it. A radical transmutation would occur and the flotsam and jetsam of who they once were taken to a plane above, a far less dense one than here, where all things are made new.

If heaven needs fertilizer, we'd have plenty.

Pretty heady dream, that. But when it all boils down to it, it's just another way of saying there are those who are no longer welcome at the party. And the frightened opportunists who make such leadership possible - what of them? Reckon that's a whole other cat treat to think about.

We now return you to whatever it is that chaps your ass in hopes that thoughts of it so not expend too much of what makes you beautiful and important on this earth. Because heaven knows the bad damn news is a killing thing, but but seeing it is how the genocide starts.

PS. It may be a momentary fit of pique, but still. Full fledged citizen of Redneckia. And a seven year-old one at that.. Scribbling on the subways of Facebook...

Kim Wrong Un

Bashar al Asshead.

THAT'll show 'em.

Weird to think I'd be put to death for that there.

Oh yeah one more pants kick to Julian ASSange for releasing stuff that'll probably get some innocent people killed. You pasty faced self righteous candy ass embassy hiding mofo. I'm all for the dissemination of that hidden arcane shit that proves all power corrupts absolutely but damned if you haven't become a parody of the freedom fighter more like freedom Fuhrer. Whassa matta? Can't get good take out?

OK. Someone OBVIOUSLY needs to fix her blood sugar. Or take a nice walk.

---------------------------------------------

P.S. -

Thanks for reading that. It felt good to write: like the comedic fits I'd have before some weird resolve hit me. When I'd do extended Rabelaisian riffs on just about anything that didn't "set right with me".

Perhaps those things need to be let out after all. Maybe I forgot the Jester Imperative which is this...

You can't kill real archetypes. You can put goddess dresses on them and say OM in Sri Lanka, but really, the Alabama slow pitch all star softball playing joke telling ho will wanna hit a grand slam in the end and know Jesus loves me anyway because - aha - I've known that stuff deep down and true blue since before pointy headed idjets who put mean stickers on Him told me so.


You Ain't Nothin' But a Pound Dog

These two adorable dogs are now happily ensconced with people I care a lot about. The boy dog to the right is pretty happy about his new little sister. Rumor has it that her head stays wet most of the day from either being licked or inside his bear-ish mouth which she'll either decide she loves or doesn't as time passes.

All we know is this: Two pups were on death row and now have each other and a family.

It seems a little thing in light of all the devastation occurring this summer...

Our hearts are going out to all the people AND animals displaced by the floods down south and the fires near us.

Here's to all the force of love, charity and help that good folks are sending their way.

Really. Words are what we do and they feel really freaking feeble right now.


Bad Mommy

I can't say catnip gives him the munchies but Cheetah definitely gets loaded on it. I'm a tad jealous. Apparently they can have all of this that they want and it doesn't hurt them.

Because he'd attack the other cats on it, I haven't allowed it in years. But since the other two are safely across Rainbow Bridge now, just look at the fat little bastard.

Mitzi was fat and lived to 18. Cheetah will not be that lucky because we've started his new regimen. He likes dog food which is a problem but we'll figure that out.

For now, he does this three or four times a day and is none the worse for wear.

I haven't washed Mama Dog's bed yet because I think they're still missing her and need that scent a while longer. Keno drags the bed around a couple of times a day and Cheetah has been sleeping in it. Pretty cute. Except Roger has been going over to it and sighing. I wish I didn't think that's what he was doing, but it looks and sounds just like it.

We're all together.

The gang's all right.


Line drive to center field....

Little dickens.

Looked like a bad late night about to happen. My trusty steed AKA a big ridiculous Eddie Bauer Expedition which would be starting junior high if it was a kid would not turn over after a twenty minute grocery store run.

And of course, Roger was there because we like late walks when it's cool...

As we're waiting for AAA, this creepy guy starts circling the lot. So what do I do? Get out my big ass poodle, that's what. Damn straight.

Then a police car shows up just to park and rest at the CVS next door. We're saved from our imagination, at least...

Thanks to that fabulous thing called technology, we were able to see the AAA guy's route to us. He looked really far off according to the text, but LO! Like the Lone Ranger galloping up or...

On the wings of a snow white dove!

OK, maybe just in a regular tow truck. We met a dog-loving dear specimen of humanity. With family back in the Carolinas. What do you know? Kindred spirits meeting in a zip code that's Trophy Wife central, not exactly old broad with an old truck who sees dead people turf. Chuckles abound.

Spirit seems to be on a teaching path at my house. And the parameters are extending.

When we were young, we'd fidget and fume at delays like this. Imagine. Being grateful for the experience of it. And we'll be even more so if the truck starts in the morning. Digits crossed.

PS I'm not sure, but I think Roger might have been stepping on the power window buttons. Maybe I won't take his seatbelt off when I go in anymore. Little dickens.

Monday, August 22, 2016

Jack Riley, RIP

I loved this guy and only met him once.

He played a joke on me. I was so thrilled that I forgot to laugh.

And know this: Heaven just hit the jackpot.

All my sympathy to his beloved family.

Ah, Youth.

Once, when I was busy dying in that unaware way I had, someone thought I might require a kind of transfusion. The musical kind. Since I was swimming in the Nile, at the time, maybe the loudspeakers were what I needed. I took the CD. And eventually listened to it...

The album was "Day For Night". The band was The Tragically Hip. Gordie, the gentleman who wrote and sang most of their songs, announced that he had terminal brain cancer several months ago. Over the weekend, they did their last performance in Canada, O Canada, where they're from.

This American's words of praise and gratitude pale beside that of his countrymen, but TTH might be one of the best damn bands on earth forever: protean, rocking, smart, intimate and completely unique.

Gordie will be missed and, while the band isn't dead and neither is Gordie - yet - a change is here.

We're all the richer for having heard them.

I wanna sign off as brave, as witty, as Gordie has been all this time, but I think I'll just play that original CD, not stream it, because I still have it - its scratches even matter.

I lived to tell the tale. Gordie isn't done yet, but Somebody thinks otherwise.

I'm sorry for all those who love him.

And if you know their music, the line about relishing the fray is the one I keep hearing the most. Ah, youth.

Between Bounces

As we wrangle some thoughts on things from Aleppo to Louisiana, and get them into posting shape, as well as some less earth-shattering ones of a more personal nature, we're struck by a friend's great timing: She somehow knew that we needed an update on one of our favorite pups of all time, Señor Edwardo.

Here he is in repose. He's a Jack Russell and they are customarily going BOING. But even feisty terriers must rest.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Flea & Koko

Amid thought-furniture on things from Aleppo to Louisiana, things that make comedians stub their souls in the dark, there's this:

A famous kitty-loving, barrel-chested simian trying her hand at funk... Lessons in the back beat, loud and clear, Miz Koko.

https://youtu.be/7HS_wPT8vRU

Links Contact