"I pray that we as a people are using this unique time to grow spiritually."
President Russell M. Nelson.
In the belly of the whale/when he didn't have to bail/Jonah changed his status quo/and to Nineveh did go/Now that life is just weekends/let us too make our amends.
Advertisers are mindful of the nation’s mood, offering patriotism during wartime and nostalgia during recessions. Covid-19 offers a new challenge. The nation’s biggest brands are still searching for the right tone. (WSJ)
Advertisers push RELIEF/as the nation faces grief/Next they advertise RELEASE/encouraging a bogus peace/RECOVERY is then proclaimed/with many brands too loudly named/Lastly, they must fill the gaps/as marketers confront RELAPSE.
After the kids go to bed, the grown-ups are drinking and smoking pot to distract themselves from the hellscape that is pandemic parenting. (NYT)
Parents boozing in the night/offers an instructive sight/Nurturing is now excuse/for caregivers to cut loose/Raising kids is just too tough/without an intermittent puff.
Trump’s coronavirus quarantine could mean more time for tweeting. (WaPo)
Is it fair or is it meet/that Trump may have more time to tweet?/His button punching's now a threat/If it increases, we'll regret/creation of the Twitterverse/as something that makes life adverse.
Some of the biggest raises in corporate America went to the executives in charge of U.S. shale companies, even as their shareholders lost billions of dollars. (WSJ)
When you are a CEO/you are always in the dough/If stockholders take a bath/you are spared their awful wrath/and instead are compensated/with a bonus quite inflated/That's the life for me, yessir/with a Rolls-Royce and chauffeur!
Doctors, nurses and therapists have a prescription for helping all of us to get through these difficult times: Try a little laughter. (NYT)
Your laugh's a vaccination/You're immune if you can titter/Viruses will recognize/that you are not a quitter/So watch a funny movie/and give out with corny joke/The world's a better place/if you will grin instead of croak.
Trump says he and first lady have tested positive for coronavirus.
A man is sick; his wife is, too/so what's an enemy to do?/Though I deplore his policies/I won't rejoice in his disease/God grant that he recuperates/But Lord, let's have no more debates!
Another theory has it we are all bird droppings,
cast off by the legendary Roc
from the Arabian Nights,
which have come to life --
only the white part of the dropping
early on cheated the black part
of the dropping,
enslaving them forever.
So you've got to figure out if
you're the pale part or the
dark part, and then act
accordingly.
But that's just so much pigeon wax,
according to the Marmalade Research Institute;
they insist that a cabal of displaced distillers
of rose water got together in the fourteenth
century to create the illusion of wealth
and breed a deep seated suspicion
of frivolity.
They succeeded so well that today
we are wealthier than anyone was
back in the fourteenth century,
and enjoy a better understanding
of frivolity.
We vote it into and out of office
on a regular basis.
But of course the Marmalade Institute
is riddled with crypto-arrivistes;
their secret agenda is to provide
wheat germ for the masses.
Me, I believe that all men are unbalanced
on an equal basis --
but that some are probably more
balanced than others.
Like my ex brother-in-law who bought
us a chicken farm without
warning us about the feather lice.
He was loaded with that illusionary wealth.
And died just last week
because he didn't believe in wearing a mask.
He called it a conspiracy.
I call it karma.
. . . And the Roc just keeps
pooping away.
These are excellent vines.
They come from America.
Won't you buy some?
They are resilient and versatile.
So fine for mushroom baskets.
So strong for welcome mats.
So loyal to make flags with.
Please buy my vines.
My master will beat me
if I don't sell them all
by sundown.
Every strand comes from America.
America! Where there is freedom
to grow and fruit like a vine.
America! Great farmers who
grow rich from their fat soil.
America! Where the mailman
delivers your vote.
You can burn these vines
in your stove.
For warmth, or to heat stew.
They are very aromatic.
And lucky, too.
Tie one around your
true love's neck,
and they will never stray.
If you will buy my excellent vines
I will throw in this
excellent
red plastic bucket.
For free.
See, the sun is setting.
I don't want to be beaten again.
In America, I think,
they just throw these vines
in the trash.
And no one gets beaten.
"I'm not wearing it because of the virus; I'm wearing it because I'm ANTIFA!"
"Oh, I thought you said be a Scream Player . . . "
"I'm the inspiration for Shaw's 'Arms and the Man'."
"Sure, I've considered being a vegan -- have you considered being a spider?"
"I got a funny story about Groucho Marx" said Crazy Henry one Sunday afternoon, trying to cheer me up.
Ever since I'd lost my job and got evicted I had lived in his spare bedroom, and I felt bad about it. I recognized his kindly attempt to sweep my gloom under his dusty rug, so I glanced up at him from the sofa, where I was stringing horse chestnuts, and tried to listen.
"See, it was during World War Two, and Groucho was in his front yard in Beverly Hills . . . "
That was all I could take.
"Beverly Hills!" I interrupted. "Don't talk to me of mansions and movie stars when there's nothing for me to do but string these damn horse chestnuts together to make a few measly bucks a day!"
"But, see, Groucho was working in his flower garden, cuz . . . "
I stood up. I had made up my mind.
"I'm going home" I told Crazy Henry.
"You don't got a home; you got kicked out" he began, but I cut him off.
"I mean back to my roots in Minnesota. Our roots, really, since you grew up there too."
"Oh. What are you gonna do there?"
"We have family and friends; they'll help me find a sense of myself again!" I said, melodramatically. I was immediately ashamed of my histrionics.
"Sorry" I said to Crazy Henry. "You're the best friend I can ever have. But I gotta do something -- I'm going crazy just sitting around here!"
"Well, then" said Crazy Henry, "let's go together. I might as well visit the old gang too!"
So on Monday we left for Red Wing, with Crazy Henry generously paying all our expenses, to look at the graveyard where our grandparents and great grandparents were buried. I felt a great bond with mine -- eking out a pallid existence as street car conductors, potato boilers, and county clerks. Crazy Henry spoiled my mood by trying to finish his Groucho story:
"So it was World War Two, see, and Groucho was working in his flower garden cuz there was no help available cuz everyone was drafted, right? Then this lady . . . "
I walked away from him, rather abruptly. I guess rather rudely, too. I wanted to think about where I came from and where I was and where I could be going. My parents had moved to Duluth and been killed in a combination tsunami and avalanche during the winter. What had their lives mattered? What did my life matter?
"Let's go see the old high school up in Minneapolis" I told him.
But when we got there we didn't go in. The place had been turned into something called a 'Business Center' where entrepreneurs could rent office space and conference rooms. We drove by our old childhood homes, across the street from each other. They both had new siding, and AstroTurf in the front yard.
"Let's go to Little Tokyo in Dinkytown" I told him. "Maybe a good cheap meal there will give us the resolve our parents once had."
At the restaurant Crazy Henry tried to finish his Groucho story.
"So anyway, this lady walks by and sees Groucho working in his flower garden, and thinks, y'know, that he's the gardener or something, so she . . . "
Just then Wendy Ling stopped at our table to say hi. Both Crazy Henry and I had a crush on her during high school. Now she was a doctor working at the Children's Hospital at the University of Minnesota. She was really happy to see us, but we didn't ask her to join us; her language was something awful. Somehow she had acquired an English accent. And she used the F-word in every other sentence, to tell us how f-king happy she was to see us, and how f-king hard she worked at the hospital, and what the f-k was up with Trump and his f-king cabinet. When she finally left to start her shift, Crazy Henry and I couldn't talk -- we just shook our heads slowly back and forth, like two old oxen in tandem, mourning the loss of innocence and grace in the world.
We didn't stay much longer in Minnesota. We passed a health boutique that sold all sorts of organic energy drinks.
"You still got all those horse chestnuts out on the patio at my place?" he asked me.
"Sure" I said.
"I bet they'd make a good energy drink! Let's go back and work on that -- we can be partners!"
Six months later our energy drink Buckeye is on shelves everywhere in the Midwest. We sold the company to Nestle for a tidy sum. I have my own apartment again, and Crazy Henry finally finished the punchline to his Groucho story:
"She doesn't pay me but I get to sleep with her."
I think he left out part of the story.
