Kamala Harris For President

                                                                Image by RJA1988 from Pixabay   

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

About 

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally." -Donald Trump

Dear (eventual) Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders), 

[Kamala Harris For President! Are you skimping on your meds again so you can afford to have pizza delivered once a week? 

Wait-wait-wait... Is this just your face-saving way of dropping out of the race? Are you no longer running for king? I've heard nothing from CNN or Fox.]  

No, Dana, I...

[And she's not running for president she...]

Don't think so huh? She's... nevermind. No, Dana, I'm still running. My formal endorsement is a purely defensive maneuver inspired by Scott Adams, the IUPPPP&PVOTTOT, Antifa, and Black Lives Matter. 

[Huh?]

In 2016, Mr. Adams (the Dilbert dude) had his lucrative corporate speaking engagements dry up and he started receiving death threats for predicting that Daffy Donald would win and explaining how the Donald so easily manipulates his fellow H. sapiens to get his way.

This was in spite of the fact he went out of his way to not endorse the Donald, and also made it clear he normally doesn't even vote. 

Adams, having achieved FU level wealth quite some time ago, nowadays devotes a lot of his time to trying to teach the world why H. sapiens are fundamentally irrational creatures that rarely act rationally and how to best use this information. 

In fact, like Jonathon Haidt, who proved this clinically several years ago, he points out that often as not we use our rational abilities to rationalize our irrational behaviors. 

For the record, nowadays Mr. Adams is a self-acknowledged Trump supporter and does plan to vote for the first time in many years. Two of his reasons are Uncle Joe's cognitive challenges and because he (or his handlers) are still playing the debunked Fine People Hoax card, among others.  

He's also mentioned the destruction of the ISIS caliphate and points out that prior to the plague the economy was booming and African Americans were enjoying record employment levels that Uncle Joe and the Obamanator could only dream of.

Anyways... Mr. Adam's formally endorsed the Hilliam in 2016. Given that allegedly rational people came after him in spite of the fact he clearly and unambiguously made it clear he was not endorsing the Donald, it was the rational (and funniest) thing to do. 

Especially since, figuratively and literally, people who wore a certain red baseball-style cap were (and continue to be) beat up on a regular basis in the name of social justice.   

Especially since, figuratively and literally, the Wokies have devolved to the point they're now setting things on fire, the rational thing to do is endorse Uncle Joe's regent before he hits the wall and/or is elbowed aside. 

[Wait-wait-wait, regent?]

Merrian-Webster - 1: a person who governs a kingdom in the minority, absence, or disability of the sovereign (my emphasis)

Substitute republic rapidly degenerating into a democracy for kingdom and it works perfectly.

[But what if the Orange One triumphs?]  

There are no mobs of red-hat-wearing Trumpets running wild in the streets. Win/win (survive/survive).  

Speaking of the Dilbert dude, I'd like to personally thank Scott Adams for being one of the talking heads I follow — although we frequently disagree and his ego... well, nevermind — to suss out what's really going on.   

See, as I've written before, my life has been a case study in how to be a day late and a dollar short. I'm an un-syndicated columnist (a pretentious blogger?) in an era in which trusted publications, reading, and word-blogging are rapidly being replaced by (often videoized) podcasts and video-blogging.

As for me, I agree with Daphne du Maurier. "Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard."

[Stick in the mud!]  

Thank you, Dana. Guilty as charged. 

Although I've always personally been a voracious reader, and now I'm a writer, I don't take this, well, personally. Depending on who you ask, as much as "half of the human brain is directly or indirectly devoted to processing visual information." 

I have mixed feelings about the podcasts that are more like broadcast radio shows (i.e., no video) because they make it possible to add yet another task/distraction to our multitasked lives and ever-diminishing attention spans.

[Huh?]

Are you gonna' tell me you don't know at least one someone who can't seem to function without never-ending audio (and/or video) input? 

[Oh.] 

[Is there a point on the horizon my blatherskitish buddy? You're about out of allocated words.] 

Well, I'm just glad that Scott Adams, and no shortage of others with a clue and who are more motivated than I, are willing to tweet and stream and appear as guests and write lengthy non-fiction books and teach classes and give talks and lectures and etceteratures. 

Your semi-humble correspondent is grateful that he's not the only one that thinks Western Civilization ain't all bad. I'm content to write my semi-humble little column aware that Adams, as well as the members of the Intellectual Dark Web, are trying hard to save the republic (and the world...) from itself.  

 

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Share this column or give me a thumb (up or in my eye) below. If my work pleases you you can buy me some cheap coffee with your debit/credit card.    

Feel free to comment/like/follow/cancel/troll me on Cranky's Facebook page.

Cranky don't tweet. 

 

That's Life

Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

                                          

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

About 

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

"So-called real life is just high school with money." -Omar von Puffendorf

Dear Grandstickies and Great-Grandstickies (and Gentlereaders), 

That's Life,  and with apologies to Frank Sinatra, Kelly Gordon, and Dean Kay — I tell ya, I can't deny it. 

[Deny what? And what's with all the links?]

It's a phrase from the song, and as to...

[What song?]

The song Frank Sinatra made famous back in...

[Oh, that song. I know that song. It's from that movie, The Joker, right? Have you seen it?]

Have not and will not. I'm not sophisticated enough to appreciate comic book inspired nihilism, despair, and violence masquerading as art.

[Dude!, It won a bunch of awards! It...]

It tells you everything you need to know about Hollywood and what passes for entertainment nowadays, Dana.

[Boring old fart!]

Hallucination!

Recently, in the course of one of my obligatory brisk walks around Mr. Cranky's neighborhood (geezercise), Mr. Sinatra's version of this song escaped from the zeitgeist of the mid-sixties and reincarnated as an earworm within the confines of my macrocephalic visage.

[Macrocephalic visage? Ain't that a fancy way of saying you have a big head, Charlie Brown?]   

Well, yes, but unlike Master Charles Brown, I have a manly trunk and a remarkable head of hair for someone about to turn 39 for the 28th time.

[Tanklike trunk is more like it, and you might be more circumspect about using the antiquated honorific "master," all things considered. Wait! You just did that to stir the sh..., provoke the poop.]

(At this point in the story your humble correspondent's eyes rolled up, a sly grin manifested, and in a singsong voice he said, "dum de dum de dum.")

When I got home from my walk I decided to google the lyrics for That's Life. As you may (or may not) be aware, the song in question was a hooge hit for Frank Sinatra in 1965.

I've developed a recent fascination with song lyrics and the web makes it possible to retrieve the lyrics of nearly any song nearly instantly. I find the dramatic contrast between reading the lyrics without the music and hearing the exact same words sung while music is playing particularly interesting.

If you've ever done this I'm sure you're aware of the dramatic emotional impact imparted to often quite simple, straightforward words when they're sung and accompanied by competently played musical instruments.

Music has the power to tap emotional reservoirs even when the lyrics are somewhat simplistic, or even if the lyrics aren't actually lyrics. 

[How do you sing a song without lyrics?]

Howsabout Clare Torry singing on Pink Floyd's The Great Gig In The Sky from the multimillion-selling, and still selling, The Dark Side of the Moon. (Apropos of nothing much, in today's money she was paid the equivalent of about $500.)

And don't forget the immortal Ella Fitzgerald, MASTER (mistress?) of both lyrical and scat singing.

[Who? What?]

Never mind.

[Hold up a second, you never explained the links that you started this column with.] 

Good point. Mr. Sinatra made the song his own by working his magic and slightly tweaking the original lyrics. Messrs. Gordon and Kay are the songwriters.

[Which has what to do with...] 

Well, while confirming my suspicion that I'd find relatively simple, relatively brief lyrics — summation: life's an emotional roller coaster but I'll never stop riding it till I can't — I also discovered the song has its own Wikipedia entry. 

Dean Kay, 80, had and continues to have, a world-class career in the music industry. Kelly Gordon also did quite well  — till he died from lung cancer back in 1981 at the age of 49. 

That's life.

Marion Montgomery was the first artist to record the song, in 1963, but it failed to chart. O.C. Smith, a struggling artist who didn't have a hit till '68, released his version in February of '66. It charted but only made it to #127 on Billboard's famous list.

BIG BUT... Sinatra heard Smith's version of the song on his car radio and released his version in November of the same year. Result: #4 on the "Hot 100" chart and #1 on the "Easy Listening chart."

That's also life. 

On the other hand... In 1968 Roger Miller released a song that was written for him, Little Green Apples, that made it to #39 on the Hot 100 chart. O.C. Smith released his version that same year which made it to #2 and sold over 1,000,000 copies. 

[Allrigtalready! I get it, you're trying to teach the Stickies something but geez...]

Did you know that when Mr. Smith's version of Little Green Apples reached number two that the Beatle'es Hey, Jude was number one? Do you realize that...

Poppa loves you,
Have an OK day

Share this column or give me a thumb (up or in my eye) below. If my work pleases you you can buy me some cheap coffee with your debit/credit card.    

Feel free to comment/like/follow/cancel/troll me viaCranky's Facebook page.

Cranky don't tweet.

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

                                                 Image by 849356 from Pixabay

This is a weekly column consisting of letters to my perspicacious progeny. I write letters to my grandkids and my great-grandkids — the Stickies — to advise them and haunt them after they become grups or I'm deleted.

Warning: This column is rated SSC — Sexy Seasoned Citizens — Perusal by kids, callowyutes, and/or grups may result in a debilitating intersectional triggering

About 

Glossary 

Erratically Appearing Hallucinatory Guest Star: Dana — A Gentlerreader

  

"Seventy is old enough. After that there is too much risk." -Mark Twain 

Dear Grandstickies & Great-Grandstickies (& Gentlereaders),

Chris Wallace, anchor of Fox News Sunday, recently interviewed the Donald on FNS. I didn't watch the interview, nor do I plan to. I did read about it, however, and was pleased to learn that the fearless Mr. Wallace occasionally responded to one of Daffy Donald's, um, alternative facts by saying, "That's not true, sir."  

[So you're writing a column about an interview that you didn't watch?] 

No, Dana. This column is about the fact I've not been watching the accidental president for years. I've never seen the Apprentice and I didn't watch a single presidential debate. I've never watched a Trump rally or news conference and I've never watched a Coronavirus briefing.  

I'm also proud to say that I didn't watch George Stephanopoulosese's in-depth interview of Mary L. Trump and don't plan to, but I read about that too.

Being a current events junkie I have seen an occasional video clip. When you frequent as many websites as I do it's impossible to avoid verifying that The Donald vs. the Purple Press show is still on the island trapped in the swamp.

Oh, and before I forget, if any of my younger gentlereaders, or alleged journalists, would like to discover what an actual journalist is, check out Chris Wallace. 

Now, I...

[Wait-wait-wait. Accidental president?] 

Absabalutely. Well, let me qualify that a bit. No one was more shocked than the Donald when he got the Depublican nomination. He wasn't running for president he was just doing his job, hustling hoopleheads for fun and profit.  

He was as surprised as the rest of us at how easy it was to kill all the paper tigers in the circus.   

Once he secured the nomination though and found himself competing against a pair of fellow world-class hustlers, the Hilliam, he played to win. The Donald always plays to win.

[But you said he wasn't serious about wanting to be president.] 

Yes, and I stand by that. But he views life as a zero-sum game in which there are the winners and there are the losers. Anyone paying attention knew that before Mary Trump excreted her version of just how bizarre the Donald and the Donald's daddy were/are.    

[What has not watching the Mary Trump interview got to do with not watching the Donald?]

She's a hustler, just like her uncle Donnie. I don't care much for hustlers but in her defense, from what I can tell she did actually write a book that I won't be reading. The Donald pays others to write books that I'll never read. Hopefully, she'll shortly fall off the radar and I won't have to not read her work or not watch her interviews ever again.  

Now, I did read a couple of paragraphs of his most famous book, The Art of the Deal, while skimming through a copy that a former acquaintance had purchased when it first came out back in 1987. 

In retrospect, I've come to realize that that was when I started going out of my way to avoid all things Trump. Prior to that, I had just been ignoring him. I had thought of him as just another egomaniac that would never have enough fame or money.   

In his defense, he's not actually written a whole slew of books that I've never read. Ms. Trump has only written one book that I'll never read.

[Why are you calling her a hustler?]

Well, she's managed to sell over a million books and the only fresh sleaze she could come with about the Donald was that he paid someone to take his SATs, for which she readily admits she has no evidence whatsoever. 

The Donald should've made her his apprentice back when she managed to get her hands on a larger chunk of her grandfather's money (the Donald's daddy) than he had left her in his will. How did the Donald miss such obvious potential? 

On a related note: I just went to Amazon.com, selected "books," and typed in too much is never enough by mary trump. Amazon provided me with 15 hits, none of which linked to the actual book in question. Some were completely unrelated, others linked to books about the book.

If I didn't know better I'd think that the Bezoid (that's the name of Amazon's lead Alogrithmite) was pulling some crap. But recently Jeff Bezos and the other usual suspects assured Congress that they don't do that sort of thing.  

[If that's true you should provide a link to your alleged search results.]    

Wouldn't work. The Bezoid would access any given clickers file(s) and provide them with customized results designed to sell them something.  

[That's a little creepy.]  

Nah, that's just good customer service. The Bezoid loves you. 

[You were serious, you really did write an entire column about avoiding the Donald! What's your point?]

My point is that the political version of you get what you pay for is that you get who you vote for. 

My point is that most of my fellow Citizens of the Republic are still hard-working, generous people who have better things to do than follow politics closely. God bless (help) us, every-one. 

My point is that our two choices for president this year are two old geezers that are even older than I am. One who feels free to lie to Chris Wallace (and all of us) on national TV and another (clearly cognitively challenged) who is afraid to talk to Chris Wallace on national TV.

My point is that if everything keeps turning to shyte and my grandstickies should find themselves reading this someday trying to ascertain what happened and why they're still paying for it (literally and figuratively) this might help.

Poppa loves you,

Have an OK day

Share this column or give me a thumb (up or in my eye) below. If my work pleases you you can buy me some cheap coffee with your debit/credit card.    

Although I'm not crazy about social media (too cranky) please feel free to comment/like/follow/cancel/troll me on my Facebook page.

Cranky don't tweet.