Living in a Shipping Container

The market for housing is rough;
to make it you gotta be tough.
A shipping container
would be a no-brainer;
for cozy, just put up a ruff.

Washington Post Reporter to Poet: "Get Lost"

((Ms. Margaret Sullivan, of the Washington Post newspaper))

Well, you can't please everyone.  This email just came in from Margaret Sullivan at the Washington Post:

Sullivan, Margaret via washpost.onmicrosoft.com	7:02 AM (7 minutes ago)
to me

 

Dear Tim,

 

Thank you. I do get a great deal of email so although I appreciate your talent, would ask to come off your list. 

All best wishes. 

MS

 

 

This blog is sponsored by The Colombia Journalism Review. 'Encouraging Excellence in Journalism'.

Why seest thou this man

 " Why seest thou this man, and hearest him revile against this people and against our law?"

Helaman 8:2

When we see and hear the prophet of the living Lord,

it might be his words are not too gentle, but a sword.

If all we want is honey drizzled on our impure ears,

we might end our lives in naught but ashes and salt tears.

The kindly words soft-spoken by our prophet here today

still contain stern warning that we'd better mend our way.

Because if we don't harken to his gentle spirit now,

like Nephites our bruised heads in sorrow we may someday bow. 

You make your own problems

My dad was Norwegian, and so, by definition, morbid and moody.

Unlike the go-getting dads in our Southeast Minneapolis neighborhood, my dad would never dream of telling me "You make your own luck". He believed instead, and rather strongly, "You make your own problems." So I grew up with a timid and diffident mindset when it came to luck.

I was always the class clown in grade school and high school. And so when Ringling Brothers announced the opening of the Clown College in Life Magazine, I surreptitiously cut out the article and mailed away for an application. I told myself I wouldn't be lucky enough to ever hear back from them. And I was almost right.

A few months later, after graduating from high school with mediocre grades, I heard back from Bill Ballantine, the Dean of the College. He invited me to attend that fall.

But I didn't find out about the real luck behind this break for me until years afterwards, when Bill's secretary, Linda, told me that when my application had come in Ballantine had glanced at it and then thrown it in a wire wastebasket, where it languished for two days (the janitor was rather dilatory). Then Irvin Feld, the owner of Ringling Brothers, happened to pass by the secretary's desk, saw the mashed up application, and demanded "What's this?" She pulled it out, smoothed it down, and handed it to him. He read my application, she said, with deep interest, and then commanded "Invite him down; he sounds like just the kind of nut we can use!"

My winning streak continued at the Clown College in Venice, Florida, when it came time to audition for Mr. Feld and a select audience he invited to the barn-like Winter Quarters building to view each clown doing a solo act.
My solo act, juggling straw hats, lasted all of forty seconds, when one of my inflammable hats rolled over to the hot footlights and caught on fire. I hastily stamped it out, and then, completely flummoxed, took my bow and exited.
The luck came when I accompanied another clown for his solo act. He juggled fire torches, and I came out with him dressed as a comic fireman, holding an old-fashioned brass fire extinguisher canister. I was not supposed to do anything, just stand there; but I decided to put down the canister and let it tip over. Next thing I knew there was foam fizzing out of the hose all over the place. When I tried to pick up the hose I squirted myself right in the eyes, becoming temporarily blind. And then I turned blindly around with the hose in my hand, spraying the audience, including Mr. Feld in the front row.
For that I got a tongue lashing from Bill Ballantine, but a few hours later I also got a contract to appear as a First Of May on the Blue Unit of Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Combined Shows. The Greatest Show on Earth. As Mr. Feld handed me his gold Waterman to sign the contract, he chuckled: "You're a natural lunatic, Mr. Torkildson -- I like that!"
My streak of clown luck continued for the next 6 years, from the circus in the US to gigs inMexico and Thailand and then back to the circus, where I got into a fight with Michu, the World's Smallest Man. I was blacklisted from the circus after that, and my clown career went to hell in a handbasket.

Helaman 7:8

  "Yea, if my days could have been in those days, then would my soul have had joy in the righteousness of my brethren."

Helaman 7:8

My days are now, my place is here;

and so I must attend with cheer

to all my duties this day brings

no matter how my yearning swings.

For I do dream of better times,

of sweeter days and softer climes;

Good places I was meant to be,

but for my God's economy.

But since no time machine exists

and I've no time for vain sophists,

I'll focus on what present ways

I can serve in these dark days. 

Helaman 6:3

"And they did fellowship one with another, and did rejoice one with another, and did have great joy."
Helaman 6:3

When the clouds are rolling up and thunder echoes deep,
there is comfort in the joy of fellowship's wide sweep.
 For though the world may hasten to its bitter tawdry end,
the Saints will gather and rejoice that Jesus is their Friend.
Despite our diff'rent languages and cultures, we are sure
that happiness is part of life for those both clean and pure.
And if we slip and stumble it is good to know that others
will not judge but strive to be our sisters and our brothers. 
 Won't you join our lively ranks, and learn the mystery
of how those favored by the Lord obtain such pristine glee? 

Altercasting

To make people act as you wish

use lather from any soap dish.

Just tell them how warm

they seem to perform;

they'll stop being such a cold fish. 

Pizza

Inventing the pizza's heroic;

chewing it, you can't be stoic.

The crust and the sauce,

with toppings -- it's boss!

It's Homeric, or even Troic! 

Dissenters

  But it came to pass in the fifty and sixth year of the reign of the judges, there were dissenters who went up from the Nephites unto the Lamanites; and they succeeded with those others in stirring them up to anger against the Nephites; and they were all that year preparing for war.

Helaman 4:4

Honest disagreement is no bar to amity;

but backbiting dissension leads to dire calamity.

No two people think alike but that's no cause to fight.

Only lust for power turns debate to dynamite. 

So if your shoulder holds a chip, don't nail it down -- instead

pry it loose and throw it into any old woodshed.

Stow your tongue and bow your head, then turn the other cheek;

otherwise a traitor you'll become and havoc wreak.

And when the battle's over, win or lose, you won't receive

any of the plaudits that you thought you would achieve. 

The readers who speak their own mind

The readers who speak their own mind

are not often very inclined

to dally with prudence;

instead they like rudence.

Their ignorance is nonaligned.