Tim Torkildson's Clown Alley

Friday, August 23, 2019

In 1940, Adolf Hitler faced a most unlikely enemy: the Three Stooges (WaPo)

My mother had a built-in radar that warned her whenever I found a Three Stooges movie playing on our old Magnavox black and white television set.

"Turn that off!" she'd yell from the kitchen, or from the laundry room in the basement. I guess it didn't help that I always turned the volume up full blast as soon as I heard their theme song, "Listen to the Mocking Bird."

Only a fool disregarded my mother's commands, so I would sullenly switch channels to some dismal gray soap opera or Art Linkletter's House Party.

She harbored an unreasoning hatred of Larry, Moe, and Curly -- and all because I once filled my palm with black pepper and blew it into the face of my baby sister while she was in her playpen. Moe did it to Curly with interesting results, so I figured I might as well try it on Linda.

I vowed as a child that when I was grown I would seek out the Three Stooges to offer them my fealty -- their violence attracted me in a savage way.

But alas, when I attained my majority they were gone -- dispersed by old age and the collapse of the two-reeler industry. So I became a circus clown instead. I traveled on a train and threw pies at grown men with red wigs and pants that fell down when they played the trombone. And they threw buckets of water on me and kicked me in the rear. It was a very fulfilling career.

Then, one night, in a dream, the Three Stooges came to me. They floated over my murphy bed on the train. Moe spoke first.

"Listen, kid" he said, "the production of too many useless things results in too many useless people."

"Why soitenly!" Curly chimed in. Moe hit him on the head with a bung starter. "Shaddup!" he snarled.

Then Larry said "What Moe is talkin' about is that the development of art should be dialectical and not metaphysical."

"You shaddup, too, lamebrain!" Moe said, slapping Larry on the cheek.

Then I woke up in a muck sweat, a changed man and a broken clown. I couldn't figure out what they meant, and I lost all heart, all belief, in the power of slapstick. I quit the circus and wandered through fields of sunflowers until I learned this one true thing:

Life is a movie script that the Hays Code refuses to pass.

Awakened from a deep sleep

Behold, he changed their hearts; yea, he awakened them out of a deep sleep, and they awoke unto God.

Alma 5:7

The ringing of the chimes of God persist unto this day.

They peal to wake the sinner from his unproductive way.

No alarm clock sold on earth can pierce the inner ear

of conscience like the Lord's own spirit when we will but hear.

Throw away your watches and put calendars aside;

the Lord of Hosts will give you heart your time to well abide.

MLB players never know what day of the week it is (WaPo)

The doctor says I have imerologiophobia -- a fear of calendars. There are no support groups for it, or medications I can take. It's not covered by my health insurance, nor can I file for Workman's Compensation. Most dictionaries don't even list it. The only symptom is that I never want to know what day of the week it is, or month, or even year. I don't have any calendars in my house nor use any apps to check on the date. So, yes, I miss a lot of appointments and my friends have grown used to the idea that I never celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas. And I go in to work every day; when the building is locked and deserted then I know it's the weekend or a holiday.
My mother wasn't frightened by a Franklin Covey Planner when she was carrying me or anything. I grew up in a normal household that worshiped calendars and clocks like deity. When I started working I always had an At-A-Glance Classic Monthly Desk Pad at my work station, which I filled in like a crossword puzzle. That was a long time ago. That was when people scribbled elaborate plans for a paperless society on stacks of yellow legal pads.
No, my so-called malady came on gradually. First I grew tired of carrying a small leather daily planner in my shirt pocket, so I began leaving it at home -- then finally tossed it into Lake Minnetonka during a fishing trip. It felt wonderful, soul-saving, to be rid of it. Then as the internet took over I deliberately held back on automatic notifications for work meetings and birthdays, anniversaries and doctor appointments. I was never important enough to have a secretary to schedule appointments for me and remind me of them. The days began to flow into each other like eggs into cream into sugar into a rich thick custard.
The fact of the matter is that today I struggle against the labeling of my condition as a disease or a phobia or anything negative or debilitating. Instead I like to think of it as one of those Star Trek episodes where some poor schnook begins showing weird symptoms like glowing hair or sparks from his fingernails, and initially the crew all fear him but then it turns out he is just evolving into a being on a higher plane of existence and everyone rejoices and gets him a cake to wish him luck.
I want people to understand I shun calendars, and am even violently opposed to them, not because of any internal flaw in my brain or body, but because calendars have become a symbol of oppression to me. I have broken my allegiance to them, and this has made me a pariah to some, and to some I am as foul as was Cain when he slew his brother Abel -- perverting the social contract to achieve my own selfish ends.
But I'll show 'em; I'll show 'em all! You who read this manifesto will be fortunate enough to know that I have paid a coven of international hackers to scramble every single online calendar app in existence -- so that August now has only 29 days and Easter always falls on July 4th and every other year has become Leap Year. Plus I had the hackers add in an extra month -- called Felbish -- between February and March.
The world will thank me for this one day . . .

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An email response to this post from Mr. Nathan Draper, of Bangkok, Thailand:

"You ought to send a Homophones desktop calendar to Mr Noman Global. Might go viral!"

Thursday, August 22, 2019

A baby showed up in New Zealand’s Parliament. The speaker let him sit in his chair. (WaPo)

"When babies rule the world" said Crazy Henry, "I for one will be happy to obey them."
We were walking on the left bank of the Mississippi just below the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, treasure hunting. Crazy Henry is convinced that the Spaniards came through the area several hundred years ago and left behind chests of gold looted from the Aztecs. I have given up trying to convince him that he's completely misinformed about the whole thing -- so when the weather is nice, as it was that evening, I go along with him just for the walk.
"Babies can't rule anything" I told him. "Not even themselves -- they have to wear diapers, y'know."
"Well, so did Winston Churchill when he got to be Prime Minister a second time" Crazy Henry replied.
"You sure about that?" I asked.
"Sure as rain" he told me. "I read about it in Reader's Digest; the guy was getting so old that he couldn't make it to the bathroom half the time, so they rigged up special diapers for the old boy."
You can't argue with Reader's Digest. It would be like spitting in the Pope's face. So I let it go and admired the mottled blue and red sky as the sun began to set and the pigeons started their circling descent into the ruins of the old flour mills that used to explode all the time on the other side of the river.
"Is that a baby seal?" Crazy Henry asked all of a sudden.
"Where?" I said.
"Right there, on the water. That little black thing splashing around. It's a baby seal, I know it is" he said excitedly.
It was some kind of black blobby thing that was bobbing up and down in the wake of a string of coal barges, and it looked like it might be alive, the way it was moving against the waves.
"I'm calling the Coast Guard" said Crazy Henry.
"Just wait a minute" I cautioned. "Looks to be a huge catfish, is what it is."
In another minute the black blobby thing disappeared under the water, before either one of us could make out what it really was. We walked on in silence, Crazy Henry turning over brush and rip rap looking for his Aztec gold. The pigeons had finally settled into the ruins and it was getting dark.
"Time to go home" I told him. Then an evil thought struck me. "Y'know" I said to Crazy Henry. "babies have an affinity for gold -- so maybe if you borrowed one for a few hours you might stand a better chance of finding some." But Crazy Henry didn't take the bait.
"That's ridiculous" he said with a frown at me. "Babies have an affinity for angels and strawberries, not gold."
"But sometimes they're born with a golden spoon in their mouths" I countered. That stopped him in his tracks -- or so I thought. Actually, his mind was still on the baby seal, or whatever it was out in the water, because he then said "That poor baby seal must have lost its mother back in the Arctic somewhere."
"Well why don't you staple some 'Lost Baby Seal' posters on all the telephone poles when we get home?" I asked him sarcastically.
But just then the night fell on us like an assassin's blow and we had to stop talking.