Wishing everyone a Happy New Year! Please be safe. And remember the simple things you are grateful for or appreciate.
On a personal note, I won't be updating the blog for a couple days. After struggling with the ravages of age-related conditions and terminal illness for many months, my dad passed away yesterday afternoon. Being the free spirit he was, he had a good sense humor, so I think he'd appreciate a joke.
New Year Prayer for the Elderly
God,
Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,
The good fortune to run into the ones that I do,
And the eyesight to tell the difference.
Christmas Town, U.S.A. (Krapsody) - The Christmas prowler still on the on loose has a name...Santa! That's right year after year "jolly old Saint Nick" has been raiding and looting homes across the globe!
It's the night before Christmas and you might think that you and your family are safe and snug in your beds, but if you think that no one is stirring, not even a mouse, you're sadly mistaken. The truth is that Christmas Eve is the one time of year when you're in the most danger from America's longest-running fugitive, the midnight prowler known as "Santa Claus."
"He's making a list / Checking it twice" Remember those lyrics from "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town?" Well, in the spirit of making lists and gift-giving, I'd like to share what I really want for Christmas - a Russian mail-order bride.
Let me add that this is only because I get three thousand spam emails per day that push me towards seeking one. Well, not quite that many really...but since they were offering, I naturally got curious to see what's behind the former Iron Curtain (since it's too difficult to look through the rivet hole.)
Merry f$%^&*#@ Christmas. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Santa's heard it all before. "Santa! Santa! I want stuff! Give me more STUFF!" I tell ya what, all that thankless consumerism is really starting to give old Santa a rash. You all seem to think that Santa exists for no other reason than to bust his ass every Christmas just so you can get the latest bit of tawdry crap you saw on your teevee last night. Christ!
Well, when it comes down to it, Santa will probably end up giving in (Santa always has been a softy); but Santa ain't gonna' like it!
You might ask yourself how Santa copes. I'll let you in on a little secret: the answer is "barely". Ho ho ho! (Santa really busts himself up.) Anyway, Santa always finds it therapeutic to blow off a little steam during the "shopping" season by getting together with all his fellow Santas... (What? you didn't think there was just one of us? For the entire planet?! What a rube!)
...Anyway, like Santa was saying, Santa likes to get together with his pals and head on out on bicycle (to keep Santa's girlish figure) for a bit of pre-season Merry Making. Santa invariably does a lil drinking and, well, sometimes things get a wee bit out of hand. Deal with it. It's Santa. If you complain, ya won't get nuttin' but coal in your stocking.
Bagdad, Iraq (Krapsody) - How about some good ol' shoe tossing for the whole family?
Shoe tossing for me, shoe tossing for you, shoe tossing for all!
YOU DOGS!
I'm of course referring to those shoes that came flying at George W. Bush during his Baghdad press conference on Sunday Dec. 14, 2008.
Bush was regurgitating his usual drivel about why he stopped golfing, and the multi-billion dollar success of the war in Iraq, when a TV journalist from Egypt named Muntadhar al-Zeidi threw his shoes at President Bush.
Bush displayed terrific athleticism in dodging both shoes, don't you think? He was like a fierce jungle cat! An agile ninja!
He exhibited remarkable composure, and he calmly resumed the press conference without skipping a beat. "This is your farewell kiss, you dog!" al-Zeidi shouted in Arabic before he was tackled by Iraqi reporters.
When the Secret Service "body man" finally appeared and made a move to wrap the president in a human shield -- as if it had just dawned on the Secret Service that they were in the middle of Iraq (new Secret Service motto: "We said we'd take a bullet; nobody ever said anything about a shoe!") -- Bush subtly waved him away. No way was he leaving Iraq cowed and covered.
"OK, everybody calm down for a minute," the president said. "And if you want some -- if you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw."
Then as he assessed a room full of nervous laughter and building embarrassment, he added, "Thank you for your concern, do not worry about it. So what if a guy threw a shoe at me?" Bush laughed off the incident with a pun, saying: "I don't know what the guy said, but I saw his sole."
Who would have thought that such an ugly, unpleasant incident would turn into Bush's finest hour? He was calm, collected, and composed. How unusual is that?
Totally unscripted, nobody had been prepped. It was Bush's best conference, or speech in his presidency, ever. A sea of calm in the country of his discontent.
Of course within hours of the reported shoe-throwing, the memes began appearing all over internet land. "Shoegate" is a monumental viral video event, that includes animated images and at least two games: The Flying Babush and Bush's Boot Camp.
You can watch a video of shoe-throwing mashups below.
Bush was certainly not humiliated the way al-Zeidi expected, or the way al-Zeidi turned out himself. He just needed a better pair of shoes. Maybe a pair of steel-toed exploding sandals to fling next time. Let's see what GW thinks about this!
Hey, all this attention and subsequent lampooning could have been worse. It's not the first time and certainly won't be the last time that public figures will be mercilessly mocked and ridiculed.
The acutely embarrassing photograph of Senator John McCain (on the right) caught with his tongue hanging out after the third and final presidential debate on October 15, 2008 also became a subject of pitiless ridicule on the internet, with its many Photoshopped, remastered, and creatively exploited spoofs and spin-offs, such as the few seen on the left.
This resulted in a cascade of hilarity, the likes of which have not been seen since Tom Cruise made an ass of himself on the infamous Scientology video. Cruise is still taking hits for that and his glib appearance on that Today Show Interview with Matt Lauer so many years ago. It seems like aeons now.
And tomorrow we'll have another event to make fun of. So let the LULZ commence.
What in the heck is Krapsody? Humor, comedy, satire, a medley of militant irony. Not Safe For Anyone, Anywhere at Anytime (NSFAAA). These are my scrawlings about anything I find funny, weird, or want to rant about. Add a dash of sarcasm, spoofs, parodies, some slapstick, some plebian rigmarole, and that gas producing potpourri makes this the place to find out of the ordinary humor. It's All Krap, All The Time. Hey, I didn't say it was EXTRAORDINARY humor, now did I? Suffer Pope!
