Headlines & Verse. Wednesday. August 2. 2017

VENICE, ITALY, TO BAN CRUISE SHIP TOURISTS

There was a young woman of Venice

Who said that cruise ships were a menace.

“They offload and eat,

Then splash with bare feet --

Why don’t they go visit Vincennes?

WORLD'S SEAFOOD SUPPLY SHRINKING AT AN ALARMING RATE

There once was a tuna, or cod,

Who thought it exceedingly odd,

That krill should decrease

Which led to the cease

Of fishes and shrimp -- run roughshod.

WEIGHT WATCHERS SEES MEMBERSHIP DECLINE FOR THIRD STRAIGHT YEAR

I'm fat and I don't care at all.

Should I be morose and then bawl

Ifmywaistlinegrows

Like some Hothouse Rose?

Shutup and pass me a meatball.

LOCAVORES MAKE FREEDOM, MAINE, NEW SHRINE TO FINE DINING

Oh, for a meal by a cook

Who never looks into a book --

But has intuition

About the nutrition

Of local caught trout from the brook!

Thank You, J.T. Turner!

A writer’s greatest friend is not his or her editor or publisher, but his or her reader. Someone who takes the time to enjoy my words is a friend to be cherished. So ‘Thank You’ to all those who expressed a liking for my recent mini-memoir, My Favorite Blow Off:

Sandy Weber; Dave Letterfly; Joe Giordano; Keith Holt; Mike Weakley; Mike Johnson; Ed Griffith; Mary Pat Cooney; Kevin McGowan; Andrew Donovan; James D. Howard; Stuart Bailey; Rosalie McNeil; Roy Dietrich;Loren Bagelman; Kel Parry; Sonja Barta; Paul Hill; J.T. Turner; Linda F Vogel Kaplan; Trudy Strong; Glenn Godsey; Esteban Vélez; Walker Blankinship; Kenneth L Stallings; Erik Bartlett; Kevin Smykal; Peter Pitofsky; Leo Acton; Lee Stevens; Bart Landenberger; and the invincible Sam Drummond.

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”

Ray Bradbury

Starbucks is Big in China

Consider this mind-boggling statistic that I culled from the company’s statement last week about its Chinese ambitions: Starbucks is opening more than 500 stores a year there — which amounts to more than one new store a day. Starbucks is creating some 10,000 jobs in China annually. In Shanghai alone, there are already 600 stores.
From a New York Times story by Andrew Ross Sorkin

From Beijing to Qinhuangdao, from Shanghai to Pudong,

If you’re selling java then you can’t go very wrong.

Starbucks is expanding like a Mongol horde set free,

Flooding ev’ry village square with cups of sweet coffee.

All the tea in China, not to mention Mandalay,

Will not stop the march towards gulping down a thick latte.

And not only do the Starbucks offer coffee on the cheap;

They also offer housing stipends and health care upkeep.

The pay is good, the hours firm, and parents get discounts --

Is it any wonder they make dough in large amounts?

You can raise a fam’ly on your Starbucks salary

In China -- while here in the States it still means poverty!

Senator Lisa Murkowski

Senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska

When threatening a Senator, you’d best have both guns packed

With lots of ammunition and a little bit of tact.

For Senators don’t back down quick, to presidents or threats --

They are liable to stand up and say “Just cool your jets.”

They like to hew the Party line; it butters up their bread.

But some of them grow consciences and vote for Good instead.

It doesn’t happen often, and it may not last too long --

But by god when it happens, then America feels strong!

That Congress had more backbone is what patriots should wish --

Let’s have more of Murkowski and much less of jellyfish.

My Favorite Blow Offs

In all my years as a clown with Ringling Brothers and other circuses, the one thing that eluded my grasp -- the Holy Grail, if you will, or will-o-the-wisp just beyond my reach -- was the creation of an original and unique blow off for a clown gag. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t conceive of any smash ending that would leave ‘em rolling in the aisles that hadn’t already been done by better buffoons than I.

At various times while inhabiting clown alley, to end a gag, I had my head blown or chopped off; my rear end set on fire or filled with smoking buckshot; been doused with water; smacked with pies; been conked by foam rubber pile drivers and mallets; been smashed down to midget sized or elongated into a two-storey beanpole; chased remorselessly by skeletons and devils; been deprived of my pants; shot up and suspended in the arena rafters; and painted fire engine red from stem to stern. And that’s just a listing from off the top of my head!

Could I but find Aladdin’s lamp, I would command the genie to give me an original idea for a blow off. But since that is unlikely to happen anytime soon, I will, instead, share some of my favorite cinematic blow offs with you -- for the great clowns of Hollywood stole all their best blow offs straight from the circus ring. Feel free to contact me if I pass over any of your own personal favorite blow offs, and I’ll add it to the list. There are so many to choose from:

In Laurel & Hardy’s silent film You’re Darn Tootin’ there is a gigantic ruckus at the end, where every man devotes manic energy to pulling the pants off of whoever passes by -- as the cops close in to collar Stan & Ollie, they make their escape by both jumping into the temporarily empty pants of a gigantic fat man who is frantically waving his hands in despair. As the camera irises in, we see the immortal duo briskly walking away from the camera ensconced in the single pair of pants, politely tipping their hats to us as the “End” title comes up. I remember seeing this movie at the Varsity Theater in Minneapolis when I was a teenager -- the gust of gut-busting laughter that greeted that blow off was the equivalent of a small atomic bomb.

A few years later, in Blotto, the boys think they’re having a wild night out on the town with a bottle of illicit hooch -- but Stan’s wife shows up to tell them the bottle contains nothing but cold tea and ipecac. As the boys scram from Stan’s irate wife, she follows with a huge shotgun, takes aim, and literally blows them out of the taxi cab they are inhabiting -- turning the vehicle into a mass of smouldering tin foil.

And my favorite L & H blow off occurs at the end of their last American-made film, The Bullfighters.  In this opus the boys are constantly menaced by a gangster who threatens to ‘skin them alive.’ At the end of the film he does just that, offscreen mercifully, and the movie ends with two clanking skeletons, with Stan and Ollie’s heads respectively perched on top of them, walking towards the camera, while Ollie intones one last time: “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into!”   

A colleague of Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase made two-reelers from 1925 until 1945 -- and his invention never seemed to flag. In 1940’s The Heckler Charley plays an obnoxious sports fan who heckles the players at every sports event he attends. His refrain never changes -- he hollers “Watch him miss it!” He finally gets his comeuppance at the end of the film when a gangster backs him up against the wall with his gun, ready to drill him. As the camera pans away from Chase and the thug to the crowded sports arena, we hear Charley’s motto one last time -- “Watch him miss it!” -- followed by a loud gunshot that has undoubtedly found its mark.

The Grand Guignol endings of Three Stooges movies, of course, could engage the attention of comedy aficionados, as well as psychiatrists, for an eternity. My personal Stooges favorite comes from their send up of Hitler in I’ll Never Heil Again. Moe plays Hitler, with Larry and Curly as his demented henchmen. They get blown to smithereens at the end of the film -- but not quite. The last shot shows their heads on a trophy wall in the study of the new ruler!

One last blow off before I quit . . .

Although I never thought it was all that hilarious, Buster Keaton claims in several interviews that the biggest laugh he ever got in his films was the blow off from his 1921 film Hard Luck. At the end of the film he jumps from the high dive and misses the swimming pool. He crashed through the cement patio, leaving a gaping hole. A title appears: “Years later . . . “ and Buster emerges from the hole in Chinese garb with a Chinese wife and several little kids in black silk pajamas and pigtails in tow. Go figure.

Ah well, to paraphrase Shakespeare:  “All's funny that ends funny.”

Headlines & Verse. Monday. July 31. 2017

TRUMP DUMPS SCARAMUCCI ONE WEEK AFTER HIRING HIM

Nobody moves faster than Trump,

When it’s time a drawback to dump.

Poor Scaramucci

Was given the smoochy

Of death and kicked out on his rump.

PUTIN REPORTEDLY DISAPPOINTED HE CAN'T PUT A MUZZLE ON TRUMP

If Putin thought Trump advantageous

To further his own plans outrageous,

He’s in for a schock

From all of the schlock

That Trump spreads like something contagious.

MOSCOW SHUTTERS US EMBASSY OUTBUILDINGS TO SHOW WHO'S BOSSKY

The Russians will play tit-for-tat;

Our diplomats they tell to ‘scat.’

To score extra points

They’re closing our joints

In Moscow and leaving us flat.

The New York Times Mail Art Project. Tribute to Winston Churchill.

I found an old magazine full of black and white photos of Winston Churchill, which decided me on a mail art tribute to the old bulldog. I can’t put my finger on why, but I think Churchill is due to make a comeback -- although he has never really left the stage; books about him, his wife, his kids, his debts, his diplomacy, and probably his fleas, have been coming off the press steadily ever since the First World War. He was his own best publicist. But something about him is going to reverberate through this century that will leave his contemporaries like FDR and Stalin in the shade. Maybe his pluckiness? His humor? His hard drinking? I dunno. Churchill has always resonated with me, personally. I think the old boy will resonate equally with the recipients of these mail art pieces . . .

Headlines & Verse. Sunday. July 30. 2017

FORMER KANSAS GOVERNOR SAM BROWNBACK CHOSEN AS NEW AMBASSADOR AT LARGE FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM 

Religion is all well and good,

Tho often tis misunderstood --

Some think it a sham,

Or giant grand slam --

It just means you do what you should.

CHINESE CONGLOMERATE GIVES BILLIONS TO AMERICAN CHARITY -- BUT NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW WHO OWNS THE COMPANY OR WHY THEY GAVE THE MONEY AWAY IN THE FIRST PLACE

from Michael Forsythe in the NYTimes

A gift horse is never refused,

Although its background is confused.

A charity must

Take money on trust --

Although its ideals may be bruised.

AMERICA STILL CONSIDERED LAND OF OPPORTUNITY BY INCOMING IMMIGRANTS

When immigrants come to our shores

We give them a smile and s’mores.

A pat on the back,

A sturdy knapsack,

Then make them do our dirty chores.

The New York Times Mail Art Project. Part Eleven. Nothing is perfect in life except gold.

The three mail art pieces displayed below are a triptych. Each one of the three has part of a statement: "Nothing is perfect/in this life/except gold." It is highly doubtful that all three pieces will ever be placed together again, once they're mailed. 

Mr. Goldman emailed me back: "Thanks Tim. I'm now located in Hong Kong so it will be a good test of the NYT mailroom to see if I receive it. I'll let you know if I do" 

Headlines & Verse. Saturday. July 29. 2017

MADURO CONTINUES TO THROTTLE DEMOCRACY IN VENEZUELA

Democracy’s a fragile bloom that hardly lasts an hour.

It’s crushed by those who seek to stay in everlasting power.

In Venezuela, government is spreading potent chains

To prolong the madness that comes when Maduro reigns.

O mothers of Caracas, raise your children to despise

Maduro’s grasping minions and their double-dealing lies!

YOUR AIRLINE SEAT IS GETTING SMALLER, AND THE FAA DOESN'T GIVE A RAT'S PATOOTIE

A young man who got on a plane

Had to get up and complain:

“My seat is so shrunk

I have to get drunk --

This whole thing is quite inhumane!”

HACKERS PROBABLY KNOW WHO YOU VOTED FOR BEFORE ELECTION OFFICIALS

Our voting machines are a joke.

They can be hacked in a stroke.

This means when we vote

That hackers take note --

And privacy goes up in smoke.