The full posting, read in its entirety, courtesy of Truthout, should help us get through the next 198-odd days… until 2009-01-20.  Less than 200 days to go!

It is time to abolish the politics of hatred and deceit. It is time to get back on the course we should stay, not the one benefiting less than 1% of the Earth’s population. We understand that wars are fought economically, and that we are fighting a fight that has ancient roots. We unwittingly are victims of the war foist on us by the wealthiest amongst us as well as the insanely rich from other nations.

But there are a lot more of us who are getting the faint glimmer of realization that we have the power to come together and once again abolish tyrants.

May we see a real change in this country, and not another shadow puppet like King George the W^th.

Peace,

Shecky

Hi.

No, you’re not disturbing me at all. I always have time for you. In fact, I’m glad to hear from you… it seems to be kind of rare these days. I know you’re busy. I keep pretty busy myself, as you might guess. I’m happy whenever you take time out to talk with me… I’m here for you.

I’ve just been working on some furniture. It was a cabinet I once saw Norm Abram making on the Old Yankee Workshop show. Surprised? Why? I worked in carpentry for years while I was living among you all. It was good, honest work.

I came there, in what would now be jeans, a t-shirt, and boots, to see how it was for you to live in the working class. I am not into the flashy, royal, silver-spoon-and-limousine treatment. That’s garish.

If I were to sit down on the steps of a big, shiny televangelist’s church altar “set,” during a live broadcast, in my jeans, t-shirt, and boots, would you let me stay? Would you listen to me, or would you have burly deacons escort me out before I could share with you?

I would say that the trappings don’t matter… and if you want to know the simplest way to follow the Way, it’s this:

1. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
2. Be excellent to each other.

Yes, Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted “Theodore” Logan condensed “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” into the real essence of what I meant.

Station.

One of the greatest followers of the Way, who never called himself Christian, was Mohandas Gandhi. He really got it. Check him out as an example of how to do this gift of life you’ve received.

You know, while I’m thinking of it, I did want to say something about you calling my name, or Dad’s, as an exclamation. We’re both looking forward to hearing from you, and when you use our names to express anger, but don’t ask us to help you with your frustration, it’s pretty disappointing.

Think of someone shouting your name out, like they need you to rush to their aid, and then they bat you away as soon as you respond. Frustrating.

And speaking in that way, please stop being haughty, smug, and sanctimonious. No one likes that… least of all me. I want you all to enjoy life harmoniously. I don’t ask everyone to believe in me, but I do ask my believers to be as considerate to everyone else as they expect to be considered.

That’s why Dad gave all of you free will. No one is a “yes-man puppet.”

I do forgive you when you ask it of me. But please don’t take my concept in vain. Those who cause great wars against your fellow travelers, for oil or strategic military placement against other nations– nations with a hard-core underground of dear friends who call themselves Christians also– and do so in my name– aren’t following the Way. This goes for your cousins, too, who call out to Mohammad as their prophet.

I weep.

DISCLAIMER
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FADE UP ON
A burning pickle, wreathed in flame, rising from the smoldering pit of brimstone. It squirts a vinegary stream of hot ketchup out onto an unsuspecting hamburger. It roars, unsure of the giant fork flying toward it, but dodges at the last second. The fork flies into the pit, from which a huge, roiling groan of anguish coils, snakelike, into the foul steam rising. The Pickle looks back into the Pit, shakes what passes for a warty, misshapen head, and moves on.

A Hostess Snacks delivery truck pulls up in front of the camera. A Twinkie™ wearing a bandanna tied around his “neck” and a cowboy hat perched on his “head” looks out the window. “They laughed at me at the University,” he says.

DISSOLVE TO
Russell “Professor” Johnson from Gilligan’s Island: “True, but he was doing a standup routine at the time. At that, it wasn’t half bad for a bland, spongy pastry injected with cream filling so sugary it crunches.” A stereotypical Polynesian warrior runs in from stage left and lops off Professor’s head. Blood oozes down his trademark Oxford-cloth shirt as the body collapses onto the sand. The Warrior tosses the head into an also stereotypically boiling cauldron. Mmm… geek’s-head soup.

FADE UP TO
The Pickle, terrorizing the city. The Hostess Snack truck drives along, as if to lure the Pickle toward more mayhem and mischief.

SCENE PULLS BACK TO INSET VIDEO, STACY FLUFFPIECE AT NEWSDESK.
STACY FLUFFPIECE: That was the scene today in the heart of our fair city. Here with the story is our own Al Roquefort. Al?

CUT TO LOCATION SHOT
AL ROQUEFORT (wiping sweat off his prodigious ebony brow): Thanks, Stacy. What motivates a pickle? Why is it terrorizing the city? Is it looking for the legendary hamburger with that shake? Why do I look like Mr. Potatohead?

CUT TO
The Pickle lurches forward, rivulets of chartreuse pickle water emanating from its flesh. An oblivious little old lady shuffles past its shadow, her travel umbrella at the ready. Yellow spatters appear on her tattered, coleslaw-scented cardigan sweater where the threadbare bumberchute doesn’t shield her from the raunchy sweat of the cantankerous cuke.

Somewhere on a street corner, an East German street choir performs songs from Before The Wall Fell, accompanied by an organ grinder with a monkey. The perky beats drive the feet of passerbys to tapping. The six or seven men in the choir suddenly start whistling in near unison. The buildings start to appear to breathe as the scene morphs into a 1930s-style cartoon. The buildings start to cavort, suddenly towering to new, dark heights, as the Pickle turns to the whistling and tapping of the carefree Communists.

Rain spatters the pavement as the gargoyles above, suddenly crapulous with the cloudburst of acid rain, vomit their watery chunderings on the scene below. The very buildings take on the look of acid reflux sufferers, with torrents and fountains of fiery acid blistering their esophagi.

The Communist choir tears apart the hurdy-gurdy to use as rain hats. Still getting the icy tongues of filthy gargoyle effluvia down their backs, they offer up the monkey as a sacrifice. They rip it apart bare-handed, blood and fur drowning in the swill of the rain and pickle juice.

The Pickle looks upon the debacle with indulgence. It raises a huge, horrible hockering noise in its throat. It squelches and swishes the saliva, phlegm, and rancid yellow juice in its pimply, pickled mouth, consummating the vile act by spraying the bloodthirsty choir with the noxious plasma. The onlookers suddenly get that odd lemon-vinegar-bakelite taste in the backs of their throats, feeling their stomachs heave at the dastardly mob scene degrading before their eyes.

CUT TO NETWORK LOGO STILL IMAGE
STACY FLUFFPIECE (Voiceover): You’re watching the World News Network. Stay tuned!

CUT TO COMMERCIAL
Waxed-hair, shrill-voiced beard guy: This is Billy Might. Try new OxyAcetylene Cleaner. Set your cleaning on fire with our new Blowtorch Applicator! If you order now, we’ll double the order, so you get 2 tanks of OxyAcetylene Cleaner. Not enough, you say? OK, we’ll throw in a stiff cleaning brush and a set of rubber gloves. That’s a $20 value for the low price of $19.95. Operators are standing by, on chairs, with nooses around their necks, committed to suicide if we don’t sell enough units. Don’t let their blood be on your hands, order now.

CUT TO COMMERCIAL
[ALEX FROM A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, in the brainwashing chair, eyes clamped open. A beautiful rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony begins to play.]
ALEX: Please, no, not the Ludwig Van!
[Lab assistant, a long-tressed metalhead burnout dude with weasel-like face and gnarled teeth, looks thoughtful.]
METALHEAD: Like, OK, man.
[Late 1980s/early 1990s Hair Metal Ballad Love Will Find A Way starts blaring]
ALEX: Wot the ‘ell is THAT?
METALHEAD: Like, Man, it’s HAIR BANDS RULE, dude. Check it out.
[Titles of Greatest Ballads of Winger, Poison, Cinderella, etc. begin to scroll at a nauseating pace]
ALEX (despairingly): Please. Put the Ludwig Van back on.
METALHEAD: Uh, sorry, dude, like, the button ain’t workin’. Guess ya better buy one!
ALEX: NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
METALHEAD: Heh heh, heh heh, heh heh, heh-heh. (muttering) Hmm. Needs more explosions.
[Order info screen pops up]
ANNOUNCER: Hair Bands Rule, a limited time offer from Rustco. Only $24.95 on your Visa or Mastercard.

STATION IDENTIFICATION

CUT TO NETWORK LOGO STILL IMAGE
STACY FLUFFPIECE (Voiceover): We now return you to the Pickle Assault, live. You’re watching the World News Network. Stay tuned for all the latest developments!

SUDDEN [JARRING] CUT TO LIVE FEED
The miserable heat ripples off the hissing street. The Twinkie sweats, viscous, opaque trails of cream filling glacially oozing down its face. Onlookers pry their shirts from their backs and underarms, stuck there by 99% humidity. The Twinkie, preparing for the final battle, removes his absurd Western Stetson hat, 5 sizes too small, and flings it haphazardly into the back of the oblivious delivery van. He makes a lazy 180-degree turn, back toward the Pickle. He slows to a snail’s pace, at the ready to subdue the vigilante vegetable.

The Pickle, suddenly seeming to become doubly enraged at the weaving pastry truck, turns its attention there as it comes to a halt in the middle of the sweltering boulevard. It reaches up and sticks a finger into its own throat, and retches. A tsunami of bile and triple-acidity pickle juice wells up and projects in a orange-brown-chartreuse stream at the hapless vehicle facing it. The paint bubbles and sizzles, as does the pavement that the foul mess drools onto from the now-sagging van.

The Twinkie has no choice. He steps into the street, into the pool of Pickle sputum, and as he does, his feet singe and begin to burn and smoke before he quickly steps to drier but equally as-hot macadam. From the holsters at his sides, he draws two incongruous six-guns, comically large, shimmering in the equatorial inferno of the noonday Summer sun.

He fires, streams of cream filling spraying the Pickle with insensate sweetness. The Pickle roars, kicking at the Twinkie, knocking him down. The suddenly-impotent cream shooters clatter away on the broiling asphalt.

The Pickle sneers at its spongy yellow foe, and raises a huge green foot to stomp it, when it’s pelted by a shower of pebbles. It turns, face hunched in anger, to see the source of the latest feeble insult. A freckle-faced kid, incongruous in the city scene, dressed in ratty overalls and a faded, torn plaid shirt, holds a hand-made tree branch slingshot in his hand. He looks up, realizing he’s extended a silver-platter invitation to the wrath of the demonic dill. Frozen for a moment, he sees there are no more rocks to sling.

The Pickle smiles a warty, gloating smile as it gets ready to demolish this pint-sized hillbilly. However, a camping lantern flashes over the kid’s head where a light bulb would normally be. He digs into his generous, speckled nose and pulls out a greenish gob of snot. Rolling it quickly in the sling, he fires and hits the Pickle in one of its eyes.

The Twinkie has had enough time to collect his death dealing spray guns, coming up large behind the Pickle, and shooting it squarely in the back, keeping the guns trained on it. The Pickle starts to vibrate and shake, undulating in the relentless waves of filling. The filling oozes into its pores. Pickle juice sprays out over the crowd.

Suddenly, a pack of ninjas jump out from the shadows of a building, slicing the gherkin Godzilla into a giant pile of fluttering slices. Unfortunately, they also bisect the brave pastry, who was standing too close to their silent swords of death. As the sword cleaves the Twinkie in twain, its filling erupts and falls over the scene as treacle-sweet, sticky snow. The ninjas spread the remains of the Twinkie and the Pickle out over the street to dry. Smoke bombs explode. Odd, moving, ninja-sized bumps appear under the streets and even in the brick walls of buildings, and, as fast as they have come, they are gone.

CUT TO
AL ROQUEFORT (wiping sweat off his prodigious ebony brow): Thanks, Ninjas and Twinkie. You will be missed. This leaves us all with some questions. Where did this vagabond vegetable come from? Was this a failed experiment from a snacking company? Who’s going to clean this mess up, the squad who always cleans up after ultra-disastrous fight scenes? And of course, the age old question… why do I look like Mr. Potatohead?

FIN (WE HOPE).

It’s a long-lost memory, now, here in the Deep South, where we greet Autumn with the height of Hurricane Season, rather than hot cocoa and plaid.

It used to disintegrate slowly after the last kiss with that person we met at the beach during the rose’s full bloom, insulated from God Knows What by our innocence. That, of course, was lost then, too.

The last rose wouldn’t have passed on so soon, but it’s now much more convenient to place it between the bookends of 20th-Century Commemorations of Military Valor and Hard Work. Its annual birth and death are offset from their “true” astronomical dates, between Solstice and Equinox. Time itself doesn’t mind; we place it as we need it.

We change out of the swim suits and sandals, and lay the last rose to rest in its sunscreen-scented casket. I know I shall mourn it, albeit briefly. There is much to be done between Equinox and Solstice, as the Longest Nights march toward us. We’ll also mourn as the light dies in the sky, but our joy is ensconced in frost, snow, and swaddling cloths.

Alas, poor Rose; I knew you well. If only we could subdue the hustle, bustle, and hassle, and forever chase the infernal bug truck on our Stingray bikes. Would we could inhale your sugary fragrance and the New Jersey air freshener of our youth (DDT) ad infinitum.

Or was that ad nauseum?

8-X

Long John Shecky be sayin’: Aye, Cap’n Koop, I’ll swill a tankard o’ me finest grog t’ that! AAAARRRRRR!!!!

Even me parrot is happy.

Vegetarians and vegans, sit down, please, we aren’t attacking you. You are free to leave all the meat for the rest of us, the omnivores.

I’m just thinking that probably 79% of Americans are on some form of diet or other at any given time during the year, with the exceptions of the sundry Winter Holidays and Independence Day.  (As a matter of fact, yes, I am, too… more on that subject later.)

You can’t give up the meat that easily. How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat? Go meat!

In other words, it’s business as usual.
Peace, JG.

Fatherhood… many have done it throughout history, to state the obvious, because without fathers, lawns would be 9 feet tall, cars would go unwaxed, and the huge industries of team sports would likely founder. Yes, ladies, before you get the flamethrower out, think about it: lawn care and furniture moving are best left to the men while the intelligent household management is done by you, right?

OK guys, I think we’re safe for a few minutes.

I have to say I myself was blessed to have a great father. My Dad was all about model airplanes and baseball and hockey games and heading to the beach as often as the schedule would allow. Of course, as most of us Dads know, there were times he had to be the bearer of discipline. My sister was smarter; she knew when to knock it off and toe the mark. I, being the family empiricist and self-appointed black sheep, had to test & find the limits of shout, spank, and belt. I didn’t have to test this often, but of course I did.

My Dad usually approached life, especially with we little heathens, with a smile and a laugh. No mean feat, even in the “fabulous” 1960s. He’s also one of the most patient and strong people I’ve ever known. The only time I’ve ever heard him cry was the night my Mom passed away.

After that, my Dad was suddenly a single Dad with 2 kids in the house. He still carried all of this stuff gladly, with a joke and a laugh. We all learned to pitch in, and he taught us all sorts of things, but I think his biggest lesson (which, Dad, I know you’re still trying to teach) is

“Be positive. Figure out how to achieve your dreams: don’t start by saying ‘it can’t be done,’ start by saying ‘how can it be done.’”

There are more, of course, but that is the big theme. How much more successful would we all be if we took that to heart?

It’s been a long time for it to sink into my head.

I, too, am a Dad. I am one of the many of us who unfortunately do not have the blessing of the kids living in my home. They live with their mother, and I only get to see them a few, fleeting moments a year. For all you guys in this situation, you’re not alone.. but I know you feel that way today. It may have gone that way and for the best. It is unfortunate, and I can say I am sad that the kids always bear the brunt of the hurt. No, kids, it wasn’t your fault! I hope you can hear that one day.

If you were a Dad who turned your back on your kids, turn back, seek those kids out: they want to know where you are. Whether you can work with the ex or not, at least check the kids out. While some support orders seem Machiavellian, don’t be a deadbeat: you’re punishing the kids, not the ex.

I drive my new wife crazy with the constant hunt for ways to see the kids… but she knew I would want to see them any waking moment I could going in! So you guys with your kids right there… enjoy it and know there’s more than a few of us who envy that.

Oh, and to all the guys who stepped up the plate as step-dads… the Dads who didn’t have to be… here’s a glass raised to you guys, too. Just remember, when you’re in that slot, you’re there for the Dad that couldn’t be. But as long as you treat those kids right, that’s an honorable position.

So, guys, wax that car and grab the remote, or get out to the game or a movie, and enjoy your day. The dishes will still be there tomorrow.

Eddie joined the Guard when he got out of school
He worked at True Value, he’s nobody’s fool
Now it’s three hitches later, and it doesn’t seem cool
And Eddie is learning he’s just a tool

There’s peace on Earth tonight
And joy to the world
All around the world tonight
With the flag unfurled

Kitty Mae was going to be a doctor or a nurse
A few gall bladders and a white picket fence
But this bomb squad medic, for better or worse,
Gave her hands for the cause, does it really make sense?

There’s peace on Earth tonight
And joy to the world
All around the world tonight
With the flag unfurled

bridge

Yeah, they’re standing guard Somewhere tonight.
Because even if the job isn’t right,
Someone’s got to do it.
Yeah, keep the money flowing to the privileged few…
They’ll tell ya freedom isn’t free
And they want to go through it.

There’s peace on Earth tonight
And joy to the world
All around the world tonight
With the flag unfurled

There’s peace on Earth tonight
And joy to the world
All around the world tonight
With the flag unfurled

JG

2007-06-15

An original song from the upcoming surplus population holiday music CD, tinsel. It’s pro-troops, anti-war. Make up your own mind! It’s the best Christmas present you can give yourself.