Tales of the 47 Percent & Other Divertissements

Sofa,  So Bad

It should come as little surprise to anyone that Clint Eastwood's bizarre appearance before the Republican National Convention a few weeks ago featured a chair. 

After all, Mr. Eastwood's obsession with home furnishings has long been known.  He began his career starring in a TV series whose theme song was:

Keep Rollin', Rollin', Rollin',
Though the streams are swollen,
Keep them dawwgies rollin', Naugahyde! 

Then he moved on to star in a number of spaghetti westerns playing the role of a mysterious stranger known as The Man with No Lamé  and finally as Detective Harry Callahan uttered one of the most famous catchphrases in all of motion picture history: 

Go Ahead, Make My Bed! 

Now I don't mean to couch my comments or table any points for discussion but whoever it was furnished the go-ahead for Mr. Eastwood to appear at the RNC?

That guy had to be futon crazy!

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Tales of the 47 Percent

Hector:  Hey, Madge, being how youse is up, wouldja get me another eight pound bag of cheese doodles?  

Madge:  Yeah, Hector, soon as Keepin' Your Intellect Down with the Kardashians is over.

Hector:  Madge, did the Welfare check come in yet?  I got me the Disability (wink) check and the Food Stamps right here.

Madge:  It's in, Hector, along with the Beaujolais Stamps and the Cocaine Stamps.    

Hector:  Ain't government entitlement grand, Madge?!

Madge:  Say, Hector, didja take care of them picture IDs for us for the election? 

Hector:  Of course.  We just gotta vote in this election!  How about that Mitt Romney guy anyway?!!!

Madge: Yeah!  Born with a silver spoon up his butt!

Hector: All he does is spend his days runnin' around makin' boring speeches and changin' his mind about stuff. 

Madge: And he acts like he's entitled to be president or something!

Hector:  How can you not love a guy who does nothin' at all and has a humongous sense of entitlement?  

Madge: Yeah, he's our man, LET'S GO, MITT!!!  But know what, Hector?

Hector:  What's that, Madge?

Madge:  (serious) One day we really ought to quit being victims, take some personal responsibility, and start to care about our lives. 

Hector:  (concerned) Really?

Madge:  (breaking out in laughter)  No,  of course not, you idiot!

Hector:  (relieved) Race you to the cheese doodles, my girl!

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Ten-ish, Anyone? 

It isn't always just Republicans saying and doing goofy things these days.

Last week President Barack Obama appeared on The David Letterman Show and while he did well in the interview with Dave, he might have been better advised to bypass the opening Top Ten List.

Did you happen to see it? 

Top Ten Reasons I, President Barack Obama, 
Decided To Do The David Letterman Show

10) Because I couldn't trust Biden not to fuck it up!   

9) Unlike my opponent, I need the money. 

8) So quiet in the world,  not a blessed thing to do tonight.

7) If Clinton went on, I'd have to kiss his ass for another three weeks!

6) Needed to cheer myself up after a good cry with John Boehner.

5) Always wanted to palm Paul Shaffer's head like a basketball. 

4) Dave promised me I'd get to meet Clint Eastwood.

3) After the end credits, I get to say "I'm Barack Obama and I approve this stupid TV show!"

2) Michelle cancelled, they needed a last minute replacement. 

And the Number One reason I decided to do The David Letterman Show is: 

1) Dreamt of being on Letterman ever since I was a boy in Kenya.  Oooops!

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The Invention of Birthdays

It's my birthday today, and I'd like to take a moment to thank you all for your expressions of best wishes and many happy returns, if only I'd received any.  As you may know, I don't particularly like or appreciate birthdays as is well evidenced by this picture of me above taken at my joyous birthday celebration just last year. 

How did the custom of observing birthdays begin anyhow? Unless you're under seven, birthdays are generally about as appealing as playing musical chairs with Clint Eastwood.

So I did a bit of research. 

As it turns out, birthdays  were invented in 1674 in England by a man named George Noisemacher, the Earl of Birthday. Prior to that time the duration of a person's life was measured by division into two discrete periods as follows:  

Cute 

Formerly Cute 

This system had worked pretty well throughout all of recorded history except it required an arbiter to determine when each person was to graduate from Cute to Formerly Cute status. That arbiter was a shaman or high priest during the Bronze Age, an Imperial Tribunal during the Roman Empire, and a panel of annoying celebrity judges during the Middle Ages whose main function was to make fun of the goofier applicants while sniping away moronically at their fellow judges.

Over time the Cute/Formerly Cute System grew bloated and corrupt, however, with many a toothless old coot riddled with gout remaining Cute long after his time provided he was landed, or at least in a holding pattern by Flight Control waiting to be landed.

The Earl of Birthday

(Or maybe it's the Earl of Sandwich. Not sure.)

It fell to the Earl of Birthday to develop the alternative system of "birthdays" as follows: 

First an accounting was made of the gross sum of the times the annual date on which the individual had been birthed had recurred throughout his or her lifetime.  Then a specific number based on this accounting was rendered subject to annual updating according to Manual 10-A which, at least as of yesterday, has still not been issued!

The number derived was referred to as the person's "age" after Lord Birthday's daughter Aggie, who had oddly enough been graduated to Formerly Cute status almost from birth and had apparently urged her father rather strenuously to work up the new system ASAP!

Well, you can imagine just how scandalous all this was! 

The Church inveighed bitterly against the Birthday System, decrying that "No one shall ever give The Lord Jesus Christ a number and take away his Cute."  Throughout Europe birthday partisans took to the streets and the cry "Happy Birthday to You, You Belong in a Zoo" echoed from Britain to Brandenburg and Paris to Prague.  Finally, everything came to a head in London when over 335 people were brutally smeared with ice cream and cake during the so-called "Cha-Cha-Cha-Cha-Chance Riots of 1687."  

Many then set out for the New World in the hopes of finding freedom to practice birthdays as they wished.  The ship Bonholme Dick which sailed from Portsmouth to New England in 1694 with over 327 so-called birthdayers aboard was not atypical, including in its manifest "460 partye hattes, 80 balloones, and two clownes."

Aggie Birthday

Inspiration for the New System?

By the year 1800 almost all nations of the world had adopted the Birthday System except France, where they were just being difficult. Some bizarre glitches remained for several years, however, as evidenced by random documents describing Benjamin Franklin as dying in 1790 at age 12, Andrew Jackson becoming President when he was 482 years old in 1829, and Perry Block celebrating his 62nd (!) birthday in 2012.  

But all in all, thank you, George Noisemacher, Earl of Birthday, for the system you have bequeathed to us that has allowed me today to express my gratitude to all of you for your  best wishes and many happy returns .... if only I'd received any.

Hey, what the hell's the matter with you guys?   

Didn't any of you get Manual 10-A?

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 Cave painting from France depicting celebration 

of  tribal member's accession 

to status of  Formerly Cute