Blog #151

Last weekend, Carol and I went to an exhibit at the Missouri History Museum.  The exhibit included all the Pulitzer Prize winning photographs since 1942 with an explanation of each.  It was well done, but crushingly depressing.  Almost all the photos were about war, disaster, genocide, famine – the perpetual cruelty and unending human inhumanity that is the heart-rending sorrow of our species.  It was physically sickening, as if the whole world were mankind’s abattoir*.  One of the photos was of an emaciated black child hunched upon the ground starving to death in Sudan.  Ten feet behind the boy stood a large vulture, patiently waiting for the world to let this child die.  Four months after taking the picture, the photographer committed suicide, haunted by his choice of taking the picture rather than immediately running to the child’s aid.  I had to sit down and fight the dizzying depression.  Count your blessings.

On page 29 of the Union Prayer Book (that’s a Jewish thing), we are assured that, “There will come a time when morning will bring no word of war or famine or anguish.”  Really?  Well, God in all His glory notwithstanding, I’m not convinced.  Where are the Good Old Days (and I don’t mean the 1950s) when God would smite the bad guys, like the Hittites?  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of smiting and smoting of the bad guys these days.  I guess we live in the No Smoting Section.

Thank you for listening to all that; I needed to get it out.  And I apologize to all you Hittites out there.  But now I need to cheer you up, although it’s difficult at this time of year.  According to an article by a British psychologist, the last week in January is the most depressing week of the year.  The psychologist based this scientific folderol on – well, who cares; it depresses me.  So far, he’s been right. Even the local radio station depresses me.

You’re list’ning to KEZK

The weather is rainy and gray

The traffic is stressed

I’m sure you’re depressed

Good morning and have a nice day.

To celebrate all this depression, we should all gather at a local restaurant for Unhappy Hour, where we can bitch about our health and the price of medications and our daughter-in-law’s parents and why it is that our neighbor is paying $5 less for cable than we are.  That, and half off on the Chicken Parmesan, will make us as happy as we’re going to get.

A local restaurant has a new idea.  It’s called the Limping-Bird Special for all those old men with canes and walkers.  If you get to the restaurant by 5:30 and are able to ambulate to your table by 5:45, you get half off on Hot Wokker Shrimp served on Limp Spinach.  I’m bad, I know.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you are well and beginning to cheer up.  Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote a little poem about that:

It is easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows by like a song;
  But the man worth while
  Is one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.

And speaking of depressing thoughts, do you remember the days when we would never go to a restaurant that had empty tables?  We’d rather wait than eat at an unpopular place.  Now, we get to a restaurant at 6:00, sit at one of the many open tables, order right away and are home by 7:30.  Do you remember when we would see a 7:00 movie and then eat dinner?  Now we see a 4:00 movie, eat dinner and are home by 7:30.  Are we getting older?  We are.  So what should we do?  In the show, The Kominsky Method, Alan Arkin says, “Maybe life has no meaning and the best you can hope for is being nice.”  So let’s be nice.  You look wonderful; I’m so glad to be with you again; and I love Joy Behar.  Is that enough of being nice?  Can I get back to my usual self now?

Weekly Word:  The asterisk after the word abattoir in the first paragraph indicates my attempt to teach you or remind you of a word you may or may not have known.  I am a teacher at heart.  An abattoir is a slaughterhouse.  Some of you, I know, need that kind of help.  I have a friend who thinks euthanasia is a group of Chinese students and another who thinks a veterinarian is a retired German soldier.

It’s good to know new stuff, although nobody ever tells me anything.  My daughter never told me about the parties she had at the house when we were out of town.  Don’t tell my Dad.  My business partner never told me about all the tickets traffic he fixed for my daughters.  Don’t tell Fox.  My wife never tells me anything.  Sit down and shut up.  In fact, I am perpetually on a Doesn’t Need To Know Basis.  But I know a lot of important stuff.  I know that Timbuktu is in Mali and that an abattoir is a slaughterhouse.  So there!

If you are reading this on Thursday, January 30 (and why on Earth would you not be?), you will find me packing.  Tomorrow, very early, we begin our Grand Southern Tour during which we will visit all the people we know who will let us stay in their homes for free.  I will be driving with my lovely wife riding shotgun.  She’ll be doing crossword puzzles, talking to her friends, reading a book, listening to Dr. Laura and telling me how to drive all at the same time.  And she won’t even be working hard.  Her Royal Speediness can do more things at once than a One-Man Band, and she doesn’t even have cymbals strapped to her knees.  I will keep you posted as to our location.

But now I have to leave.  I have to look up to see if Timbuktu is really in Mali.  Stay well, count your blessings again and come see me next week.  I’ll be in Florida, but I won’t forget you.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #150

 

This is going to be a very busy week.  The world is in turmoil.  There’s the Ayatollah in Iran, whose country is falling apart in protests.  He might be gone by the end of the week.  There’s President Trump, whose impeachment trial is underway.  He might be gone by the end of the week.  And then there’s Queen Elizabeth who is facing a royalty crisis brought on by Harry and Meghan.  She might be gone by the end of the week. 

We need to do something.  I have a plan.  To replace the Ayatollah, send Joy Behar to Iran.  At least that would get her away from here.  We’ll call her the Joyatollah.  I’d send Whoopi, but I’m not sure the Iranians are ready to be ruled by somebody named Goldberg.  To replace the President, Harry and Meghan, of course.  The White House is a little small for them, but they’re looking for a new place to live and the American people adore them already. 

And to replace the Queen, I suggest my wife.  She’s had a lot of practice, and I guarantee you those State Dinners would be over by 8:30. She likes the idea. 

I’ll drink from a solid gold chalice

And rule all the world without malice

Get my face in the news

And import a few Jews

To play mahjong in Buckingham Palace.

I’m not sure where that would leave me.  Court Jester, I suppose.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling splendid and full of spunk.  By now you know that I am full of something, so let’s see what it is.  Did you see the Academy Award nominations?  Every year, immediately after the nominations, the motion-picture world goes ape. Not enough women, the women scream.  Not enough blacks, the blacks protest. It’s ridiculous.  We should just give an Oscar to every one of those rich, narcissistic hypocrites.  Give them a Participation Award like they all want to give our kids. 

Here, I’ve got an idea.  Start with the Red Carpet so we can see “who” those skinny, pasty actresses are wearing.  As if any of us commoners could afford a de la Renta.  Most of the women I know couldn’t even afford to rent a de la Renta or get their foot in the Dior.   Or pronounce Hermes.  The last time anyone asked me “who” I was wearing, I answered Barney Rubble.

So we’ll watch the Red Carpet and a video showing all the cinematographers who died in the past year.  Then they’ll give everybody in the building an Oscar.  The whole thing will be over by 7:30 and we can all get back to watching The Kaminsky Method.  It will save us the misery of listening to Robert De Niro say F*** Trump six times and Gwyneth Paltrow telling us how the government is corrupting our youth while she’s selling vagina-scented candles on her website.

Or, maybe we could just have a White Male Academy Awards, a Black Female Academy Awards, an Ethiopian Midget Academy Awards, etc.  There would be an award show every Sunday of the year and nobody would feel left out.  Except Ricky Gervais.

Everyone believes that progress is good, but it has its drawbacks.  As the character Henry Drummond said in Inherit the Wind, “You may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.”  I’m a firm believer that progress is wonderful, unless it makes your life miserable.  Like the self-checkout machines at the grocery store.  How am I supposed to know the product code of an organic kumquat?  And which kind of apple did I get?  It’s an apple.  It looks red and juicy.  How am I supposed to know whether it’s a Granny Smith or a Jonathan?  Do they name all the apples after people?  The store does have a few highly trained checkers, but, instead, I stand there looking for bar codes and obeying some female voice -- Place the item in the bag. Take the item out of the bag and place it on the scanner. Do you have any coupons?  Are you a Republican?  And why I am subjecting myself to this?  Because the lines with live checkers are jammed with other people who don’t know what their apple’s name is either.  Progress!

And then there’s the hot-air drier in public bathrooms that uses more energy than it takes to make paper towels and blasts hot air which turns the cold water on your hands into hot water on your hands which you then have to wipe off with a paper towel.  Progress!

And then there are parking meters.  It was so simple before.  You parked your car, dropped a few quarters in the slot and walked away.  Now, when you park your car, there is no meter.  There is, however, a strange looking machine that resembles a cross between R2D2 and a can of Dr. Pepper.  And it’s 22 parking spaces away.  So you walk and walk and walk until you reach this contraption, put on your reading glasses and learn that you need to enter your space number.  So you walk and walk and walk back to your space, locate the space number, then walk and walk and walk back to R2D2, put your reading glasses back on, enter the number and find that you need to enter your license plate.  Now, you know some of your license number, maybe even most, but not quite all, so you walk and walk and walk back to your car and read the plate.  If you’re particularly smart, you take a picture of the plate so you won’t forget it as you walk and walk and walk back to the tin can where you put your reading glasses back on and enter the plate number.  By now, you have walked as far as it would have taken you to leave your car at home and walk there.  Progress!

And don’t get me started about electric cars.  Recently in St. Louis, two thieves carjacked a Prius, drove it a few blocks, then abandoned it on the street because they couldn’t figure how to shift to Park or Reverse.  Progress!

I’ll be back next week, probably still pissed at the world.  Stay well until then, count your blessings and try to figure out how that new thermostat works. Progress!

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #149

People say that I read a bunch of old and weird books.  I have, after all, read Moby Dick six times.  Paradise Lost by John Milton is certainly old (350 years), but not weird at all.  It is a beautiful allegory about God and Satan, Adam and Eve.  As Satan first comes upon Adam and Eve, he remarks that Adam was made for contemplation and valor, whereas Eve was created for softness and attractiveness.  In other words, men have the brains and the strength, while women are only good for cuddling.  What was Satan thinking?  Hasn’t he heard of Women’s Suffrage and the Women’s Rights Movement and the Me Too Movement?  That’s probably why he was sent to Hell.  Hell is the place where a man goes when he doesn’t respect his wife.  And he doesn’t even have to die to go there.

With that attitude, Satan could never be elected to public office.  Although I bet some of you think he was already elected President.  No, today, to be elected, you must recognize the worth and importance of women and you must embrace diversity.  In our zeal to appease the god of Diversity, every individual has to be placed in a cubbyhole so that we can keep score.  In every cluster, there must be a fair representation of African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Ethiopian Midgets, Albino Vampires and People Who Have Read Moby Dick Six Times.

Some candidates, however, forget to include what are widely considered today’s reincarnations of Satan himself – White Men.

Diversity needs a correction

You’re missing the whole Midwest section

I think you should ask a

Few guys from Nebraska

Or you’ll never win an election.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling well and in an artsy mood.  I went this week to the St. Louis Art Museum for a show about Rembrandt van Rijn.  No, that last name does not rhyme with pigeon, it rhymes with fine.  I like Rembrandt.  He had a fine (rhymes with Rijn) ability to draw life-like portraits.  An amazing talent.

And speaking of painters, I think the second greatest salesman in history was a painter, Claude Monet.

Yes, I call that one Water Lilies.  I understand your confusion because they don’t look like water lilies and they’re a little fuzzy and made mostly of dots.  But they’re water lilies.  The next one is also water lilies, but on this one I ran out of purple paint, so I made them all pink with a little green.  Here’s another one.  Yes, it’s the same water lilies, but you see, I had just bought some purple paint and wanted to use a lot of it up.  Would you like to buy one?  It’ll be worth a lot of money some day.

I said Claude was the second greatest salesman in history.  The best salesman in history was, of course, Abraham, the crazy, old guy in the Bible who decided to take a long walk in the desert.  When he came back, he had a story to tell.

Hey, everybody, listen up.  Out in the desert I ran into this thing called God.  He promised to take care of us and make us His chosen people, and all we have to do is two things.  First, we have to capitalize His pronouns every time we write Them.  And second, all you guys have to cut off the end of your dipstick.

Now that was a salesman!  And as long as I’m damning myself to the pits of Hades (hey, maybe Satan and I could get up a bridge game), I might as well tell you who was history’s greatest saleswoman.  It was the Virgin Mary.

Hi, Joe.  As you can see, I’m pregnant.  No, it’s not yours, but I swear I did not have sex with any other man.  And, it all depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is.

Joseph, upon hearing this unbelievable story, put his hand to his forehead and moaned, “Jesus Christ.”   Mary decided that sounded like a good name.

ROTTEN OYSTERS:  If you have seen all the other Star Wars movies, then STAR WARS Episode IX is epic.  But if you don’t know a Wookiee from an Ewok or don’t believe that Yoda is the cutest, little green thing since Brussels sprouts, then you will leave the theater with a galactic headache.  I loved it.  Plus, Tyler (my 14-year-old) promised that when he gets his driver’s license, he will pick me up and take me to a movie.  Awww!  Disney says this is the last Star Wars movie, but since they are going to make a billion dollars on this one, I figure another Episode is as sure as the rising of the sun, the falling of the rain and the guilt of O.J. Simpson.  Besides, we already know where the lightsabers are buried. 

ROTTEN OYSTERS:  (Yes, I saw two movies.)  JUST MERCY is a terrific movie.  Stop reading and go see it now.  The story was compelling and the acting was stupendous, especially Jamie Foxx.  Best movie of the year.

IN THE NEWS: (Here’s a news tip I got from a friend of mine.  It’s priceless and completely true.  Thanks, Sue!)

Gwyneth Paltrow has a company called Goop which is selling on-line a Vagina-Scented Candle for $75 each.  It’s already sold out.  I wonder how exactly did Gwyneth get all those candles to smell that way.  Just curious.  Maybe it had something to do with another item on sale at Goop – a Sado-Masochism kit with Do-It-Yourself straps.  Of course this is all true.  Not even Jules Verne could make up something that bizarre.  Maybe we should all keep this in mind the next time Ole Gwyn tells us how to run the world.

Ok, I’m in big trouble now.  I’ve denigrated Satan, Donald Trump, Monet, Abraham, the Virgin Mary, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethiopian Midgets.  I couldn’t be in more trouble if I had gone to a Trump rally dressed as Barbra Streisand.  I’d better go hide somewhere.  I’ll see you next week if they don’t get me first.  Till then, stay well and count your blessings.  If I insulted you, at least I made you laugh.  And that’s fine (rhymes with Rijn).

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #148

Since the last Oyster, I’ve had a birthday – 74.  But I’m not depressed.  It’s just another candle on the cake, another notch on life’s belt, another nail in the ever-closing coffin.  I thought getting older would take longer. But, as God said to Methuselah, “If you can make it to 800, your chances of reaching 900 are pretty good.”  Still, old is old.

·        I’m so old, they’ve discontinued my blood type.

·        I’m so old, I found a picture of Cleopatra in my Yearbook.

·        I’m so old, I have an autographed Bible.

·        I’m so old, I walked into an antique store and people started to bid on me.

Is that enough?  The only consolation I have is that many of you out there are older than me.  Sorry about that.  But you look marrrrvellous!  I’m not so certain about me, however.  On my birthday, I took a hard look in the mirror and tried to count my wrinkles.  I stopped counting at Oh, my God and told Carol I wanted to get my eyes done.  She looked at me, the sweet, sugar-tongued, considerate woman that she is, and said, “I like you wrinkled.”  That made me feel so much better. 

Hi there and welcome back.  You really do look great.  I hope you had a lovely New Year’s Eve and are itching to read more Limerick Oysters in 2020.  Well, here we go.  Oh, by the way, my granddaughter Zoey, who is 16 and spending her Junior year of high school in the Netherlands has started a blog.  She takes after her Poppy, and I’m very proud of her.  Check it out at walkwithus.family.

When I was in California last week, I of course went to a McDonald’s. Everything is different in California, and the difference at McDonald’s was that they have a problem with homeless people occupying the store all day.  They have tried to solve the problem by limiting the amount of time you can stay.  Each soda cup has a code on the bottom.  When you put the cup into one of these new-fangled, handy-dandy, 212-flavor soda machines, it flashes a message: Two more refills in the next 60 minutes.  If you get a refill 15 minutes later, it flashes: One more refill in the next 45 minutes.  Well, you don’t have to be Tonto to follow that trail.  They don’t want you hanging around all day, sucking from their sweet, carbonated teat.

If you want to hang out at our store

We’ve cut down the drinks you can pour

If you’ve got no home

Just go out and roam

Cause McDonald’s don’t want you no more.

Maybe the sucking line was a little over the top.  Sorry.

When you Google something on your phone, you get a list of news stories.  I don’t know how Google determines the order in which these stories are listed, but last Saturday, the #6 story was that the United States had assassinated a top Iranian military commander.  That was #6.  The #1 story on Google News was:  Modern Family star Ariel Winter dons thong bikini for New Years.  Now, I can’t blame Google for this national dyslexia.  I suspect the list reflects the number of hits these news items get, in turn reflecting that the American people, at least those who prowl and slink through Internet space, find Ariel’s tush more interesting than the fact that we are rapidly inching toward war with Iran.  What is wrong with us?

Television, however, is obsessed with the Iran story and is full of video showing Iranian street mobs burning American flags.  Where do they get all these American flags in Iran?  Where would you go to get an Iranian flag should you feel so juvenile as to burn one?  I am beginning to believe that the entire Iranian flap is being fomented by the guy who makes American flags.  His sales of American flags must be on fire.  And his sales of suicide vests are booming.

And then I heard George Stephanopoulos announce on ABC that in the month of December, one American serviceman was killed in Afghanistan.  I didn’t hear him say that in the same month, 90 people were killed by gunfire in Chicago and 37 killed in St. Louis.  It is apparently much safer to live in Afghanistan than in an American city.  What is wrong with us?

Sorry about the serious stuff.  I know you come here to be amused, not depressed.  So, let’s do a movie review:

ROTTEN OYSTERS:  Movies and live theater are very different experiences.  In every war movie, the sight of a helicopter landing is inconsequential, but when the helicopter lands on stage in Miss Saigon, it’s epic!  Every super-hero movie has somebody who can fly.  It’s mundane.  But when Peter Pan flies in a live theater, it’s awwwwesome!  On Broadway, CATS submerges you in a strange and spectral feline universe which is enthralling.  And CATS, the movie, does a very capable job of recreating that feeling.  Although the movie received poor reviews, I liked it a lot.  Forget Rotten Tomatoes, and listen to me.  Go see it.  Have I ever steered you wrong?  Although I do admit Judi Dench looked a little too much like Bert Lahr.

Did you love the Golden Globes?  I didn’t watch it at all.  Award shows are sycophantic, narcissistic, anti-government and unentertaining publicity parties put on by people who think parading your butt in a thong bikini is a measure of talent.  And those are my good comments.  But my wife is glued to them.  She likes to see what all the stars wear.  Once, I heard her screech, “JLo looks like a package!”  And what’s with the JLo shtick?  Can’t she just call herself Jennifer Lopez without the cutesy-fruitsy nickname?  Does Judi Dench call herself JuD?  Did Charlie Chaplin call himself ChaCha?  Did Sophia Loren call herself SoLo?  Did Diane Keaton call herself DiKe?  No.

That’s enough for now, but I’ll be back in a week and I expect to see you here.  Until then, stay well, count your blessings and put that thong bikini away.  Trust me.

 MiFo                                      Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com

Blog #147

Happy New Year!  Yes, 2020 is upon us, and it looks to be a very political year with impeachment trials and a big Presidential election.  We still don’t know who the Democratic nominee will be, but I have a suggestion for all you Democrats out there.  Forget about the candidates.  Just vote for the area they’re from.  If you like Indiana, vote for Mayor Pete.  If you love Delaware, Biden’s your guy.  If it’s New York you love, vote for Michael Bloomberg.  It makes it pretty simple. 

The hometown should count in this race

So vote for your own favorite place

Liz Warrens’ from Boston

And Beto’s from Austin

And Bernie is from Outer Space.

Do you remember when we all stayed up until midnight to celebrate the New Year?  Then, as we got older, we settled for watching the ball drop on television in New York.  That made it 11:00 here in St. Louis, and we could all get to bed a little earlier.  Now, if we see an eggroll fall off a table in Hong Kong, that’s good enough!  Off to bed.

I have made a New Year’s Resolution.  This year I resolve to do everything my wife tells me, take her everywhere she wants to go, and sit wherever she tells me.  This marks the 53^rd New Year I have made the same resolution.  It saves time.  But I’m not the only one making resolutions.  Here are a few I’ve collected:

·        Bill Clinton:  I resolve never to fly on a pedophile’s airplane.  That was a horrible screw-up!

·        Kevin Spacey:  I resolve never to fly on a pedophile’s airplane.  That was a terrible screw-up!

·        Prince Andrew:  I resolve never to fly on a pedophile’s airplane.  That was a Royal Screw-Up!

·        Nancy Pelosi:  I resolve in 2020 that unless someone slits my throat, I will get Donald Trump kicked out of office.

·        Donald Trump:  I resolve in 2020 to become much better friends with O. J. Simpson.

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling relaxed and ready for 2020.  I spent most of the past week in California.  I flew there last Thursday on Southwest Airlines.  The Flight Attendant read her opening instructions about seat belts and oxygen.  At the end, she said, “The flight attendants will now come down the aisles to make sure your seat belts are fastened and your shoes match your outfit.”  I was worried and slid my feet under the seat in front of me.  When we were thirty minutes into the flight, she said, “Our scheduled arrival is 4:30, but it looks like we will arrive forty minutes early.  These pilots are flying this plane like they stole it.”  She ought to have a blog.

I came here to Sunny, Crazy California to visit my daughter Stephanie and her two kids, and to nurse Stephanie through the recovery from a hip operation which she had Friday.  It seems that, since I had my hip replacement and did so well with it, everybody thinks hip surgery is as simple as finding an anti-Trump cable network.  A friend of mine just had his replaced.  I don’t want to mention his name here, so we’ll just call him Bob.  Well, the day he returned home from the hospital, I talked with Bob and he said he was going upstairs to bed.  I told him the stairs sounded like a bad idea, but, no, he said he could make it.  Ok.  Twenty minutes later, Bob’s wife called and asked if I could come over and help him up the stairs.  Me, a 73- year-old with a pacemaker, a bad knee and trigger finger is supposed to help him get up the stairs.  It’s like the blind leading the blind.  Like Twiggy giving dieting advice to Karen Carpenter.  Like Harvey Weinstein getting legal advice from Bill Cosby.  But, against all odds and predictions, I helped him up the stairs.  Amazing!

California is a real challenge for me.  First of all, every car is electric and you can’t hear them coming.  I almost got run over three times, and that was just in the Lucky’s parking lot.  Lucky’s is their grocery store chain.  It’s strange too.  The produce is on the left.  Everything in California is on the left.  Naturally, I spent more time opening the little cellophane produce bags than I did shopping.  Those little bags were invented by the Marquis de Sade to torture old men by giving them high blood-pressure and angina.  All for an avocado!  I could break into Hillary Clinton’s server easier than one of those little bags.  No wonder the blood-pressure medication is right next to the asparagus.

And nobody speaks English.  I spent 4½ days in California, which means I had been there longer than 60% of its population and was eligible for state welfare. 

But I survived, thanks to SIRI.  If I didn’t have SIRI, I would have wound up in Tijuana by the end of the first day.  Hola, amigos.  Este Gringo es muy stupido.  If Columbus had had SIRI, he would have found India like he planned and America would not have been discovered.  We’d still be living in teepees and voting for Elizabeth Warren.

I’m back home now, writing to you and listening to Rock ‘n Roll.  Last week, I criticized opera once again.  I’m sorry.  I know many of my friends love opera and the symphony, but, as I’ve told you before, I just don’t have the taste for that kind of music.  So now I’m listening to Steely Dan, Dire Straits and Al Green on my Playlist.  Heaven!  Roll over Beethoven and tell Tchaikovsky the news.  To me, and those like me, listening to Rock ‘n Roll is a religious experience. We worship at the Church of Eleanor Rigby.  Let it be, Brothers and Sisters, and have a wonderful New Year.

And as for 2020, I’ll be here all year, telling you to stay well and count your blessings and begging you to come back next week.  But I know you will.  How can you resist me?  Maybe I should make a New Year’s Resolution to be more humble.  See you next week.

Michael                                             Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com