Blog #185

 

I was recently asked to pick a famous couple that my wife and I resemble.   One of those pointless wastes of cranial energy we call a Carol Question.  Like -- “Would you rather be an ugly tall-person or a beautiful midget?”  That one kept me up all night.  Anyway, famous couple.  Let’s see – George and Gracie?  I hate cigars.  Lucy and Desi?  My wife doesn’t have red hair.  Bill and Hillary?  Pants suits are out.  Brad and Angelina?  Who am I kidding?  I finally decided we most resemble Rocky and Bullwinkle.  Carol would be Rocky of course.  Rocky the Flying Squirrel was small and fast and smart and made all the decisions.  Bullwinkle J. Moose was loyal and steady and goofy, always getting it wrong, always getting in trouble, always getting lost.  What does a moose eat?

 

Hi there and welcome back.  Did you have a good Summer?  Well of course you didn’t!  You didn’t go to the movies.  The closest thing you got to eating out was to picnic in a park with two friends and every fly in North America.  You didn’t get your hair cut.  You couldn’t hug your children or grandchildren.  All you could do was sit on your couch gaining weight, trying to figure out how to Zoom and watching all 80 episodes of Schitt’s Creek.  The only people who had a good Summer were the looters and the fly-swatter manufacturers.  Well, Summer is over and now you can have a lousy Fall staying six feet away from people of your own political party and twelve feet away from people of the other party while everybody goes psychotic over the Supreme Court and the election.  Are we having fun yet?

 

Well, since you’ve had a lousy Summer and about to have a calamitous Fall, let’s see if maybe I can make you smile a little.  First, I apologize for mentioning a midget earlier.  I’m not sure why, but in today’s world it’s best to apologize for everything.  And in that vein, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, in a typical fit of inanity, has just announced new criteria for being nominated as Best Picture.  First, the plot must be about minority groups and their struggles and, second, the movie must star a designated proportion of, and I’m quoting here: Asian, Hispanic, Black, Indigenous, Native American, Middle Eastern, North African, native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, women, L.G.B.T.Q.  Got it?  It’s a complicated algorithm, but one thing is certain – the chances of the award being a male figurine named Oscar are about the same as Nancy Pelosi going back to that same hair salon.

Now, to qualify for the award and to take advantage of the charged political atmosphere, all the studios are remaking old favorites.  Here are a few re-done flicks you will be seeing soon: No Country for Old White Men, Broke-Black Mountain, Gangs of Portland, a biography of Donald Trump entitled Dr. Strange-Hair and, of course, The Good, the Bad and Joy Behar.

 

Well, as Ishmael tells us in Moby Dick, There is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men.  Maybe they could re-make Moby Dick.  All they’d have to do is make Moby a black whale and change Captain Ahab to a Middle Eastern Hispanic female from Hawaii named Captain Maria Fatima Kamehameha and cast RuPaul to play her.  Then they’d be a shoo-in for Best Picture.  Shoo-in, by the way, is a horse-racing term used when jockeys agree to allow a pre-selected, inferior horse to win the race by holding back their own horses and shooing the pre-selected horse to the finish line.  The shoo-in horse was a certain winner.

 

Have you had your Flu Shot yet?  I got mine last week.  I felt I had to get mine early so I could talk to you without spreading germs.

 

I got my new shot for the flu

Because it’s the right thing to do

‘Cause the flu’s a disease

That could cause me to sneeze

And spread all my flu germs a-choo.

 

Happy New Year to all my Jewish friends and readers.  In the Jewish calendar, it is now Year 5781.  The Jews have certainly been around a long, long time.  Maybe that’s why the matzo is so stale.  Yes, we Jews have been around a while.  Moses and I were that close.  In fact, I begged Moses to include Thou shalt not argue with your wife as one of his Commandments, but he rejected it.  As Will Rogers said, “There are two theories to arguing with a woman.  Neither works.”  I also tried to get him to include Thou shalt not slice, but he rejected that one too.  I was talking about golf, but Moses thought I was talking about circumcisions.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? . . . If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?”  (Merchant of Venice).  I am a Jewish cat, I suppose.  I celebrate Puss-over and I’m studying for my Cat-Mitzvah.  But I still think the matzo is stale.

 

Our Weekly Word is algorithm, which is a series of steps or instructions which leads to a solution or decision.  Are you ready to blow your brains out yet with all these definitions?  Are you ready to blow my brains out?  I’d better stop. 

 

I have to go now anyway.  I have to clean up the house before the cleaning person arrives.  Do you do that?  Why do we all do that?  We hire someone to clean the house, then clean the house before the cleaner arrives.  It makes no sense.  It’s like cooking your own dinner and taking it to a restaurant.  It’s like cutting your own hair before you go the barber.  It’s like directing your digit up your derrière while driving to your proctologist.  It’s like writing your own blog instead of reading mine.  Don’t you dare do that.  I’ll handle the blogging, thank you very much; you handle the laughter.  Please stay safe, count your blessings and try to find some fun in this crazy world.  See you next week.

 

Bullwinkle                                         Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com