Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Reading the Morning News: A hell of a way to start the day!

Us old farts are usually grumpy enough, without waking up with the headphones blaring in our ears, and a kink in our back, and a hitch in our gitalong, and the bathroom maybe three steps too far away, and some 62-year-old American socialite's half-naked body being found in a suitcase at a posh resort in Bali, and Robin Williams possibly having too many ex-wives and not enough cash to keep them in the manner to which they would like to be accustomed.... All that, Dear Readers, is a Hell of a way to return to the world from Dreamland. Trust me. Would I lie to you?

And the real 'stars of screen and radio' these days aren't in the movies or at a stand-up comedy festival doing fart jokes, thinking they're witty but only being half-right; the real stars are those slick talking heads on the Morning News, each desperately trying to outshine and out-talk and outwit the other, and dazzle us with brilliance if not baffle us with bullshit. No wonder Robin pulled the plug - he's been replaced by rank amateurs too flashily dressed for the time of day, giving away what he sold for a profit, and doing none of that well nor even consistently. So how's your day going so far? 

Lauren Bacall, Mrs. Humphrey Bogart, has died at 89, after a long and famous career of being mostly famous as a smart-mouthed young sexpot and the 'May' of a May/December romance with the aging Humphrey Bogart, 'Old Marblemouth' the mumbler, in a semi-scandalous relationship that probably was more the invention of some starving PR type than a genuine hot-to-trot passionate interlude. Hollywood being Hollywood, and all that. And dying at 89 beats the hell out of doing it at 29, 39, or 49, even if you aren't nearly as nice to look at in your retro outfits on the way to the mall to look for something that they quit making two decades ago....As some wit so rightly said, "Life is a terminal illness." And it's what happens while we're busy making other plans.

Today's Question Everything is: "Where have all my Russian readers gone?" I had a 150 or so last week, and now only 92. "What's the matter, Tovarishch? You forget how to use Google Translate in right-hand column? Is harvest time on collective farm? Too busy driving truck in convoy from Moscow to Ukraine? Looking for new supply of glass bottles for Moscovskaya Vodka and not finding?"
And I only have 26 readers in Ukraine this week. I fervently hope Xeniya B is one of them. She's a very inspirational young lady, and if I were half this old, and she couldn't run so fast, we might make beautiful music together..... and over in Turkey, 40 readers. I've heard of Lawrence of Suburbia, but Lawrence of Turkey? It's too close to Syria, and Bashar al-Assad. Someone should put a strong tranquilizer in his drinking water supply until sanity returns, if ever.

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