Blog #42

Did you all have a nice Christmas?  I hope so, and no matter what our religious persuasion might be, I’m certain that each of us was visited by our favorite Christmas icon, that bearded fat-man we call on every Christmas to bring us the things we want -- General Tso.  I hope your gifts were loving and your chicken spicy. 

2017 has only a few more days.  Another year has gone, and it was a strange one indeed!  Have you ever seen anything like 2017?  Hurricanes, fires, mass shootings, sexual scandals, politics, politics, politics!  Unbelievable!  It seems like the most prevalent form of hatred now is political.  We thrill when something bad happens to “their” side.  We mope when something bad happens to “our” side.  We’ve stopped talking to family members and friends because they didn’t vote the right way.  I think it is very sad and somewhat frightening when all our national energies are expended on trying to put Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in jail.  Don’t we have anything important to do?

Well I have something important to do – I’m going to clean up a bunch of little items I’ve been meaning to tell you about -- some light and frivolous things.  Like the death penalty!

I read a news story today about a man who has been on Death Row since 1990 and is scheduled to be executed next June.  He is suing the State because the food is not prepared to his religious standards.  He does get his special food, but he complains that it’s not good enough.  Well, I have the perfect solution – kill him now.  Why does it take so long to execute an execution?  I don’t like the death penalty, but if we’re going to have it, we should do it!  And by the way, if you have been found guilty of murdering your wife, who gives a Flying Franken what you eat?  We as a society have determined that you are not fit to live among us.  But you get to complain about the menu?  Maybe the food’s not hot enough?  Well, let’s get this over with and, where you’re going, I’m pretty sure the food is always hot.

I feel like I know something about a lot of things – history, astronomy, evolution, poetry.  I can even talk a little about Calculus or Sponge Bob.  But there are just some things I do not understand at all, like why “phonetic” is not spelled like it sounds.  Or why “abbreviation” is such a long word.  Or why a woman who drives a $65,000 Mercedes and wears a diamond ring as big as a cinnamon roll will go into a casino and play the penny slots.  Or my cable bill.  Now, I won’t bore you with all the details of my cable experience, but here’s the bottom line:  if we get rid of the land-line, we can save twenty dollars a month, but if we keep the land-line, we can save thirty.  Does that make any sense?  Well, that’s what the cable man told us.  You know the expression “my Mama didn’t raise no fools”?  Well my Mama raised nothing but fools, but at least this fool had the sense to marry a smart woman.  So Carol took that thirty-dollar deal faster than a vampire gets out of the sun, and we left as happy as a turkey on the day after Thanksgiving

The light went out in the bathroom.  It’s one of those long tube-thing lights.  Is that too technical for you?  Carol was out at a luncheon or something, so I was on my own, a position that usually leads to disaster.  But, somehow, I pried the plexiglass cover off, got the two tubes out and took them to the hardware store where I sheepishly asked for help.  I left with the two replacement tubes and then it hit me:  I had to get them home unbroken, install them and replace the Plexiglas sheet all by myself.  I considered that to have about the same likelihood as my getting hit by a falling cello.  Plus, my wife was gone.  I was alone!  I could fall off the stepladder and break both legs and die of starvation!  I could have a cardiac event and not be able to call 9-1-1!  I could get hit by a falling cello! 

Well, I got home, took out the stepladder and screwed up my courage.  I took a deep breath, told myself that I was a capable and clever man and had to do what a capable and clever man should do – wait for his wife to come home.  When she did, I asked her to hold the stepladder.  She refused.  You see, she remembered too well when her father was replacing a lightbulb and her mother was holding the ladder.  They were probably about our age at the time.  Well, her father fell and broke a hip – not his hip, the mother’s hip.  So Carol said, “I’m not going to let you fall on me.  You’re on your own, Buster.”  And so I was, but then I remembered what the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev said -- “If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”   So I pressed forward and got it done with only two band-aids and a little crack in the plexiglass that almost no-one can see.  You gotta do what you gotta do!

I have noticed a family of phrases being used more and more.  They are phrases like: You gotta do what you gotta do.  It is what it is.  Cheap is cheap.  It’s not over till it’s over.  I can only do what I can do.  All of these phrases have the same meaning – nothing.  They really mean, “I have nothing to say, but I was going to exhale anyway so I figured I might as well pass it over my vocal chords.”

Prices for medicine seem to have gone up a lot in 2017.  I just got a new prescription for my arm and my leg.  It cost me an arm and a leg.

These tablets will act as a cure

Please take before bed to make sure

Dilute with some juice

‘Cause repeated use

Will cause you to be very poor.

When one of the side-effects on the label is “Bankruptcy”, it’s time to look for a generic.  And now it’s time to close.  I have no more to say.  I can only do what I can do.

My friends, we have been with each other now for 42 weeks.  You know everything there is to know about me and my wife and my daughters – even the chickens.  And I feel like I’ve come to know you too.  So I think I have the right to make this request: Don’t make any New Year’s resolutions. I like you just the way you are.  Please stay well.  And even though it’s not over till it’s over – it’s over.  See you next year.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #41

More award shows!  Oscar, Emmy, Grammy, Tony, Golden Globe, People’s Choice, Critic’s Choice, SAG.  It seems that every week there’s an extravaganza where societies of rich people give themselves awards.  Have you ever really looked at the audience at these award shows?  I certainly hope Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren are watching, because if they want to tax the rich, this is the place to be.  There’s no power in Puerto Rico, there are violence and poverty in every large American city. But what do we see at these award shows?  A bunch of Barbie dolls strutting around in their Versaces and Jimmy Choos, signing $20 million contracts for their next movies.  And a bunch of fat, male directors looking for aspiring starlets to jump on their casting couch.   And when they accept their awards for being rich and skinny, or their awards for being ruthless and powerful, they always take the opportunity to tell us how to live our boring and normal lives.  They wouldn’t know what a normal life was if they ran over one with their Maserati.   Where is the Occupy Oscars crowd?  Where is the outrage?  Is there anybody disgusted besides me?

And the funny thing is -- we really don’t care who wins the awards.  We only care about “who” they’re wearing.  It seems to me that all these starlets are either too skinny or too large, and they’re either wearing Bulimia Blass or Oscar de la Tenta.  Which brings up the following question: why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?

Sorry, I had to get all that off my chest so I can relax and celebrate my 8^th birthday.  You see, it was eight years ago today that they brought me back to life with that most delicate and clever of medical tricks – massive electric shock.  I truly thought it was all over for me then, but I’m still here and the electric shock does not seem to have had any residual effects.  Except of course that when I cough, the garage door goes up.  But the fun part is that if I’m driving and want to honk the horn, all I have to do is rub a balloon on my hair.  And, of course, there are certain things I have to avoid, like vacuuming, cross-country skiing and having my picture taken while cupping a woman’s breasts.

And television.  I watch a little news, a little basketball, but the rest I try to avoid.  First, television is too noisy; I like quiet.  Second, I am an old-fashioned prude and I do not like how rough some of these programs are.  But, in truth, it was neither the noise nor the violence that made me stop watching television.

I can live with the noise – that is true

And the crudeness and violence too

But the first time this boy

Looked at Whoopi and Joy,

I simply could not stand The View.

Here’s one more thing I try to avoid -- driving on dark, rural roads at night.  To me it’s like playing Bambi Roulette.  So I always slow down and pay lots of attention.  At any time, a deer could run in front of me and the next thing you know, I’m up in Heaven with a twelve-point rack up my you-know-what.  No electric shock is going to bring me back from that!  And I can just imagine what God would say – MICHAEL, I TRIED TO KILL YOU EIGHT YEARS AGO AND THAT DIDN’T WORK.  THIS TIME I SENT RUDOLPH.

My wife and I went to a play.  At the end, as the standing ovation waned, she said to me, “I’m missing a shoe.”  I bent down and looked under my seat.  There was a shoe, and I picked it up and handed it to her.  “That’s not my shoe.”  What?  Am I at a play or a sale at Nordstrom’s?  She quickly found hers and I was left holding a red shoe.   What was I going to do with a red shoe?  Soon, of course, the shoe was claimed by a woman who I’m certain suffered from athlete’s foot, toe fungus, planters fasciitis and warts.  And probably gout.  I gave the red shoe to the woman with a pleasant reminder that, “There’s no place like home.”  Then I drove home as fast as I could (Bambi be damned) and scrubbed my hands in turpentine.  Why does it seem so disgusting to touch someone else’s shoes?

Or take pills prescribed for a dog?  I was having some arthritis a while back and my daughter Jennifer said she had some arthritis pills she got for her dogs.   The canines didn’t like the pills, so she offered them to me.  Of course I refused such silliness, but I went to the internet anyway to see what these doggy-pills were all about.  It’s really amazing how many canine illnesses there are.  You knew there was a list coming, didn’t you?  I love lists.  Here are some doggy diseases:

Ulcerative Collie-itis – Barkinson’s – Dysenterrier

Restless Tail Syndrome -- Itchy Pomeranian -- Rin Tin Tinnitus

Mastiff Neck – Aarfritis --  Irritable Bow-Wow Syndrome

I like dogs.  I like to talk to them and have them around.  But I don’t want one.  I don’t want anybody messing up my house and breaking things and pooping.  Except for my grandchildren.  And besides, I have a wife.  She’s like a high-strung yappy little poodle with curly black hair and skinny legs.  Except I don’t have to walk her.  I just have to take her shopping and drop her at the door of the store and make sure she never gets rained on.

And never allow her to become miserable.  When my wife mentions the word “miserable”, something had better change!  And that means now!  Like the Holiday Party we went to recently.  After about an hour, I could see that she wanted to leave more than a CNN reporter wants to leave a Trump rally.  You can always tell when she wants to leave.  She starts to make comments like, “Do you think your car door opener will work from here?”  Or, “Do you remember where you parked?”  Or the ever-popular, “What’s a nine-letter word starting with “m” that means if you don’t get me out of here in the next 30 seconds, I will stick a fork in your eye?”  That nine-letter word, of course, is “miserable”.   It works every time.

     

Christmas is a few days away.  If you celebrate, my Christmas Carol and I wish you a wonderful, safe and warm holiday.  If you don’t celebrate Christmas, you can still enjoy the lights and the music and the movies.  It’s a Wonderful Life is my favorite.  Also Miracle on 34^th Street.  Some people think Die Hard is a Christmas movie because it takes place at a Christmas party.

Whatever your favorite movie, please stay well over the Holidays and watch out for those deer.  And come back next week so we can wind up the year with a bang.  I’ll do my best.  See you then.

Michael                          Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

Blog #40

I have not seen a Marmatod in fourteen-hundred years.

A Marmatod is like an ox with feathers in its ears,

But somehow still it hears.

Well, it’s not really like an ox because it has four eyes,

A dozen antlers, sixteen legs, two flippers and it flies.

At least it really tries.

I think that I remember what a Marmatod has got,

But it’s been fourteen-hundred years and that is quite a lot,

So maybe I forgot.

That is probably my favorite poem.  It’s whimsical and silly and all the things that I’m not, at least on the surface.  On the surface I’m logical and organized and practical and reserved and dull.  But underneath, somewhere, is a Marmatod, writing poetry and trying to get the feathers out of his ears and looking for someone to play with.

Hi there.  Wanna play?  I hope you are all doing well, and I hope you don’t think that was a limerick.  No, you still have a limerick somewhere down the road, so strap yourself in for the newest edition of the Eminently Renowned and Critically Acclaimed International Phenomenon known as Limerick Oyster.  Well, I don’t know about the words “renowned” or “acclaimed” or “phenomenon”, but we are definitely International.  Limerick Oyster is now read in Afghanistan.  Welcome, Colonel Ric, and thanks for this wonderful sports question.  What is the least number of pitches a starting pitcher can throw and still have a complete game?  I’ll give you the answers later, and yes, there are two answers – one for the 2016 Season and earlier and one for the 2017 Season and later.

And thanks also for the top three Christmas songs in Afghanistan: Oh Taliban!  Oh Taliban! -- Frosty the Terrorist -- Grandma Got Run Over by a Half-track.

Yes, radio stations everywhere are playing Christmas songs non-stop.  We all love Christmas songs, but sometimes I just get overloaded with them.  I mean, how much Burl Ives can one person take?  Sometimes I just pop in the new CD released by some of my old rock-n-roll favorites.   You see, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney and Elton John have formed a new band called Peter, Paul and Methuselah.  They have come up with some new songs to reflect the advanced age of their fan base, for instance: 

I’m Too Sexy for my Cane --- Welcome to the Nursing Home California

Lucy in the Sky with Diapers --- Scenes from an Italian Rest Home

The House of the Rising Blood Pressure --- Celebrate Good Poops, C’mon!

You Had to Get a Flu Shot, Di’nt Ya --- Stayin’ Alive

And welcome back to all of my Oysters.  Are you enjoying the December holiday atmosphere?   Are you out shopping?  My wife loves to shop.  I mean she loves to shop, and when she’s really on a roll, you couldn’t pry her away from the stores with Shaquille O’Neal’s shoehorn.  Now, Carol does everything fast.  She plays cards fast, cooks fast, cleans fast, walks fast.  We even have a special nickname for her -- The Princess of Lickety Split.  I think I have it figured out why she does everything fast.  It’s to make more time for her favorite thing. 

She’s moving at light speed non-stop

Her pace – well it makes my jaw drop

I found out at last

Why she does things so fast:

It leaves her with more time to shop.

And where do people do most of their shopping?  Amazon!  I’m mad at Amazon.  Can we talk?  Amazon is planning a second Headquarters complex -- HQ2 they call it -- and they’ve asked cities around the country to submit proposals.  The market value of Amazon is over $500 billion.  They have all the money in the world.  But the cities, including St. Louis, that are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing sophisticated proposals have no money.  They can’t pay their teachers or their police officers.  They can’t fix their potholes.  Their citizens are taxed up to their nostrils.  But Amazon is making them spend precious dollars fawning and groveling at Jeff Bezos’ feet in order to get chosen.  Jeff Bezos is personally worth $100 billion.  How does it feel, Jeff, to have these poor, destitute cities begging and degrading themselves to have you pick them?  Does it make you feel like Harvey Weinstein?

A few days ago, I was driving east on a lonely suburban road, when I saw a girl walking east as well.  There was nothing around there so wherever she was going, it was a long walk.  I would happily have given her a ride, but in this world, I barely gave it a thought.  I mean, with men being accused and destroyed faster than Anthony Weiner can snap a Selfie, I’d sooner play leap-frog with a unicorn than pick up a strange woman.  She could accuse me of evil doings and I would be in big trouble.  What a world we have created where people are afraid to offer help and afraid to accept it.

And what a world we have made out of public toilets.  FIRST: What happened to flushing?  Is that one of those jobs that “Americans won’t do”?  Was it such a complicated process that we had to turn it over to an intricate and expensive droid?  I want to flush when I’m finished, not when R2P2 has decided I am far enough away?  SECOND:  I want some soap and water.  What happened to faucets?  They’re gone.  Instead, I have to wave my hands under a spout and wait for water to come out.  It doesn’t work the first time – or the second.  Sometimes, I have to conduct the entire 1812 Overture before a brief gush of water comes out.  THIRD:  What happened to towels?  I want a towel, not hot air.  I get enough hot air listening to talk radio.  And besides, the only thing that hot air does is turn the cold water on my hands into hot water.  What could be more simple than to have a bathroom with a toilet, a sink, some soap and some paper towels?  But instead, we have a fully-automated factory that whisks you in, flushes you out, soaps you off and blows you out.  I hate public toilets.

All right, the baseball thing.  For 2016 and before, the answer is 25 pitches.  The visiting pitcher gets the first 24 outs on one pitch each.  That’s eight innings.  Then, in the bottom of the ninth, with the score still 0-0, he throws the first pitch (his 25^th) and it is hit for a home run.  Game over, 1-0 loss.  Complete game.

But in 2017, you could intentionally walk a batter without throwing a pitch.  So, you can walk a batter and subsequently pick him off at first without throwing any pitches at all.  If you can get one batter out without throwing a pitch, you can get them all out the same way. The answer, therefore, is zero.  Are you proud?  No?  Better luck next time. Stay well.  Come back next week and we’ll play some more.  See you then.

The Marmatod                         Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com  

Blog #39

On a lovely, residential street near my home, there used to be a gray, wooden building.  More a shack really -- perhaps a hog shed -- an out-building of an old farm parcel.  It was surrounded by high-priced subdivisions on one side and glass and steel office buildings on the other.  It was old and useless and left behind in the modern rush, but it was interesting and provocative.  There was certainly a story there, a story from 50 or 100 years ago, a story the Shell station couldn’t tell, or the Walgreen’s down the street.  I used to wave at the useless, old, broken-down thing.  It seemed only fitting.  That was years ago and the old shed is gone now, replaced by yet another glass and steel office building.  Sometimes I think that the old and useless things in the world might just be the most interesting.

And speaking of old and useless things, I’m back.  And I’m shocked at all the powerful and famous men that are falling to sexual scandals.  My wife asked me if, in all the years I had been in business and had many women working under me (that’s a bad phrase, isn’t it?), whether I had been involved in any harassment.  “Well, in all honesty,” I told her, “there was one little incident in High School.  You see, the high-school girls were playing softball and I just couldn’t take my eyes off the shortstop.” 

I thrilled to her figure and grace

And loved when I looked at her face

So I tried to make sport

With the girl who played short

But I couldn’t get past second base.

It all worked out fine in the end -- I married her.

Want a movie review?  We saw a movie this week called Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, MO.  Why is Missouri the locale for every accumulation of deranged drug dealers and perverts?  First there was Winter’s Bone with Jennifer Lawrence, then Ozark on cable, now this.  Anyway, the acting was very good, but the constant assault of the vilest cursing and extreme violence was disturbing.  Perhaps children everywhere call their mothers words I have never used in my life.  Perhaps only in Missouri.  For two hours I was assaulted with raw hatred, bigotry and violence and the most disgusting language in a film that somehow billed itself as a “black comedy”.  Comedy?  They even worked a dwarf into the plot so they could make fun of him!  The fact that the acting was good did not lessen my revulsion.  Carol kind of liked it.  I guess she has more of a stomach for rape, beatings, suicide, blood, burning flesh, racism and defenestration than I do.

Even so, when I came out of the movie, I said I liked it.  You see, here’s what often happens:  we go to a movie with another couple, we watch the movie, we come out.  “How did you like it?” someone asks, and I reply, “It was ok; I didn’t love it.”   Three days later I see one of my friends and he says, “I heard you didn’t like the movie.”  How does this news get around?  And why would someone bother to waste their time by saying, “Michael didn’t like it”?  Who cares what I like?  Do you remember the commercial – Let’s get Mikey.  He hates Everything. . . . He likes it!  Hey, Mikey!  Do you remember the product?  I’ll tell you later.

Carol finally told me, “Whatever the movie is, just say you liked it so everyone doesn’t think you’re some old curmudgeon who hates everything.”   So I shrugged and said I liked it.  When we got home I told Carol the truth.  Then three days later we met someone who said, “I heard you liked the movie”, and Carol replied, “No he didn’t, he hated it.”  Yes, I hated this Billboard movie, but don’t tell anybody.  It’s just between us.  I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m a curmudgeon.

As soon as I started to accumulate grandchildren, I began to sit on the floor and play with toys, watch cartoon movies, make up stories and sneak extra desserts without telling their mom.  I stay young because I have my playmates.  And to them?  Well, I make them laugh and buy them toys and tell them stories, so to them I’m a super-hero.  Look, it’s POPPYMAN – faster than a, well, not actually faster than much of anything.  More powerful than a, no, not really.  Able to leap – are you kidding?  But I’m a good hugger, and even though my body ages inexorably, my grandkids have kept my mind young and childish.  I want them to have all the good things in life.  And then I want to move in with them.

This morning I got a call from my 12-year-old, Tyler.  He was at school and had completed an assignment to write about the person who had influenced him the most.  He chose me, and the teacher asked him to call me and read me the essay.  So excuse me for a minute while I wipe the moisture from my cheeks.  There must be a leak in the roof.

I remember to this day a night when Tyler was six.  Carol was in California helping to usher in another grandson (Parker) and I was alone.  Tyler slept over that night and we had a wonderful time – movies, pancakes, games.  Tyler slept with a little blanket he called a Lovie back then.  When we climbed into bed, he asked me, “Poppy, where’s your Lovie?”  “In California,” I replied.

Welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well.  As I said before, I read a lot of history, and from my readings I have painstakingly compiled a list of historical figures who, though you didn’t know it, most certainly were Jewish.  You can tell just by the things they said.  For instance:

We knew King Arthur was Jewish when he said, “I want a round table.”

We knew the Wicked Witch of the West was Jewish when she said, “I’m not going out in the rain and get wet.”

We knew Joan of Arc was Jewish when she said, “I’m cold.  Can we turn the heat up?”

We knew Attila was Jewish when he said, “Yes, Hun.  Whatever you say, Hun.”

We knew Venus de Milo was Jewish when she said, “Damn, I broke a nail.”

We knew Helen of Troy was Jewish when she said, “Menelaus, take me to Paris.”

We knew Goldilocks was Jewish when she said, “This bed’s too hard.  I want a new room.”

We knew Little Red Riding Hood was Jewish when she said, “We’re going out with the Wolfs again tonight.”

Wow movies, sexual perverts, Little Red Riding Hood!  Have I left anyone out?  Well, I’ll get ‘em next week.  Maybe it’ll be you.  Don’t miss it.  And stay well.   

MIKEY                         Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com 

 Oh, and the Mikey commercial was for Life Cereal.