Blog #359                                         January 25, 2024

 

What with everybody and his Grandpa running for President, the promises, insults and invective flying around are as plentiful as green hair at the Grammy’s.  And one of the more popular forms of entertainment is to accuse drug companies of being greedy, manipulative corporations.  Well, they are, but somehow these terrible Machiavellian drug behemoths have invented Lipitor which keeps my arteries from clogging and Carvedilol which keeps my heart from dancing the cha-cha and my pacemaker from getting hotter than wherever Jeffrey Epstein is.  So I have some appreciation for their skills.

 

And anyway, greedy, manipulative corporations are what Capitalism is all about.  Apple is a greedy, manipulative corporation.  So are Netflix, Verizon, Starbucks and Amazon, and they all have made your lives better.  And come to think of it, McDonald’s and Coca Cola are too.  And Spotify.

 

Spotify is a music app which allows you to download your favorite songs.  Spotify now has a service that puts together song-lists for your pets.  Yes, your dogs, cats, lizards, hamsters and even tropical fish.  I wouldn’t make this up.  Included in the list for your dog’s entertainment are songs by Joe Cocker Spaniel, The Beagles and Sonny and Shar Pei.  Favorite numbers are Hotel Collie-fornia, Let It Bichon and Bark the Herald Angels Sing.  They also have a list of books about your pooch.  One is a handbook to canine coloring called Fifty Shades of Greyhound and another about what dogs are the best to give as gifts, called I Don’t Give a Shih Tzu.

 

Ok, now that we’re warmed up, let’s get started.  Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re all feeling fantastic.  One of my loyal readers sent me a note saying he had shared last week’s blog with his grandson.  The grandson liked it and wanted to be on my e-mailing list.  The reader, a fraternity brother of mine, is about my age, so his grandson will be in the 18-22 range, I presume.  I have four grandchildren in that range and I’m not sure any of them read the blog.  We are, after all, separated by two generations and barely speak the same language.  Does this young man know what a slinky is?  Has he heard of Sky King or Mr. Green Jeans or Tonto?  Does he know what a collect call is?   Or a decoder ring?  Or a DeSoto?  Does “Plop Plop Fizz Fizz” mean anything to him?  If I mention Mr. Potato Head, will he think I’m talking about one of our Presidential candidates?  Maybe both.

 

Well, young man, welcome.  Glad to have you on board.  Each week, I’m going to teach you a Weekly Word.  Today it is Machiavellian, which means sneaky and cunning and lacking a moral code. 

 

While I was writing the above paragraph, reminiscing about the “good old days”, I received a notification from my library.  Do you remember the libraries when we were younger?  Stacks of books concealing in their dusty and mysterious pages the wisdom and the art of all humankind.  Silent scholars bent over worn tomes in search of elusive knowledge.  Libraries were quiet and old and stodgy.  Not anymore.  The notice I received was to announce that RuPaul was coming to the library in March to promote his (yes, his) new book about his life as a drag queen.  RuPaul was an experimenter in gender-expression before the concept was de rigueur, and I’ve enjoyed his escapades for decades.  He is 63 years old and I would wager that none of my grandchildren, or even my children, has heard of him.  I might just go to see old Ru.  “We’re all born naked and the rest is drag,” he said.  I could never be a drag queen.  I haven’t figured out how to dress like a man yet, let alone Carmen Miranda.  Oops, there’s another reference to something nobody younger than me would understand.

 

For my new readers, I have a three-legged cat named Shakespeare.  The past week, we in St. Louis have been visited by a wintry mix of bitter, cold weather, and Shakespeare has been torn between a desire to see it and a fear of being left out on the porch.  So he has vociferously demanded entry or exit to the porch area a total of 67 times so far, each of which requires me to open and to close one of the three exits.  This must have broken the world record for master-beast entries in a single day.  Obviously, I consider myself the “beast” in these transactions.

 

Just give me the freedom I seek

Or Pops, you will be up Shit’s Creek

If you don’t let me out

Then I promise, no doubt

I will not let you sleep for a week.

 

Message from Shakespeare:  Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more! Macbeth doth murder sleep.” (Macbeth).  Damn right I won’t let him sleep if he doesn’t do what I want.  You have to train these humans. Wasn’t that a good limerick?  Better than the ones the Old Man writes.  Purr.

 

The numbing cold we’ve been experiencing has added to the feeling of malaise and helplessness in the world.  It reminds me of the day 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.

 

And while you’re doing that, try to stay well and remember to come back next week.  I’ll be somewhere.  Probably here.  You’d better be here too or I’ll send Shakespeare over to meow in your face at 3:00 in the morning.

 

Michael                                             Send comments to mfox1746@gmail.com