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