Tag: cartoons

You Can Have First Shower Today, Dear, I’ll Be On The Street …

jono55

Just study this photo for a moment. Everything you need to know about why the fascists are going to be eliminated is right there in the frame. In frigid Minneapolis a young woman comes out of her house in bathrobe and slippers with her phone in hand to film the goons of ICE. Now look at the number of other people who are also filming this scene.

ICE is an army composed of the sort of humans you find when you turn over rocks, led by cruel people whose grasp on power is slipping away daily. This casually dressed woman knows that she is only one of many but, by God, if her pictures can be of any help she is out there shivering and taking them.

A message for the criminals of ICE and their handlers. Once America regains its sanity, we will find you. We are writing everything down.

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I had another letter to the editor published Wednesday. Not anything earthshaking, just enough to annoy some of the hard-right citizens of Montrose County, which is my principal goal. I’m getting better at the process, and more of these letters are getting through. If the paper doesn’t like one, you never hear back from them, it simply vanishes and is never seen again.

So … I have found a few things that are important if you seek success in having your letters printed. Here’s my personal list.

  • Never drop an f-bomb in your opening sentence
  • Keep the word count well under 9000
  • Do not suggest assassinations as a way of improving society
  • Avoid topics that are ultra-passé. For instance, forget the Barry Manilow stories …
  • Cannibalism, diarrhea, and large pustules have limited audience appeal

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White Rabbit, by Jefferson Airplane

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(Ahhhhhh, that one about the psychiatrist’s couch. Coarse language, I know, but I cannot stop laughing at it.)

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A dusting of snow has fallen over the past 24 hours. Not enough to require anything of me. I can safely ignore it without having to worry about the elderly slipping and falling on my part of the sidewalk. Friday evening was the first fish fry of the year at the local Catholic Church. Each year, during Lent, the church serves up a dinner for $15.00 per person that includes either deep fried or baked fish, fries, coleslaw, Mac n’ cheese, and a delightful selection of desserts made by ladies of the congregation. It is dispensed from a buffet line in a large, barn-like room.

The quality of what is offered varies from year to year, so the first one is the tell. Here’s my breakdown on the offerings.

  • Cole slaw was excellent, with good flavors, bright colors, and someone actually paid attention to proper seasonings
  • French fries: made sometime this week, limp, gaunt, pale in color
  • Mac n’ cheese: baked in a very large pan to the point where the pieces of pasta were beginning to lose their boundaries and were turning into one great twenty pound pasta rectangle
  • Fish: it would seem that the person responsible for the deep fried variety must also operate the local crematorium. My pieces were fried until whatever fish there was had shriveled to a nubbin inside the armor of the breading. The breading was also not penetrable with a fork, but required attack with a knife as well. Some pieces had to be picked up in one’s hands and eaten like fish-on-the-cob.
  • Desserts: superb examples of the best of church basement food

So, the verdict overall for this year is: not bad, better than average. We went with friends and will no doubt attend at least one more session before Easter rolls around to end all the fun. Sometimes it’s about the company, and not the food at all.

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Robin and I will sometimes fill the odd moment playing games on our phones. Each game comes with a free version and a paid version. Take the free one and you get commercials, just like on television. The ads come in waves, and the wave this week is making the assumption that I am a large-breasted woman over 60 years of age. I am offered brand after brand that will make my life a joy, and in each ad there is at least one lady who jumps up and down wearing the bra being offered to show me how little ‘jiggling’ there is with this undergarment.

As a male senior citizen I find all of this interesting, and while at present I have no need for such masterpieces of support, I now know that if things go south and I do need one, I will absolutely go for the model that snaps in front. It just makes such sense.

The last time I really thought about brassieres I was an adolescent, and my concerns at that time were to develop the dexterity needed for the one-handed-behind-the-back-unsnapping from the en face position. The secret, I learned way back in those uncertain years, was practice.

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Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down, by Kris Kristofferson

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Lastly. I think that I mentioned once or twice before that I have learned how to grow mushrooms in my home. The sort that contain psilocybin. The reason? To see if some thorny chronic pain issues could be improved upon, as has been reported in the literature. I am microdosing with the dried mushrooms, and the jury is still out on whether there is improvement. It can take a while.

But I have about a pound of powdered magic mushrooms in my freezer, which is enough for at least a hundred full-blown trips, according to my informants. In Colorado it it legal to grow them, use them however you want, and to dole them out to family or friends. What one cannot do is sell them. Colorado is one of those few states with a relaxed attitude toward psychedelics, but they are very serious about money exchanging hands.

It has occurred to me that I might be able to use my supply to brew up a batch of cream of mushroom soup that would be legendary and be talked about in Lutheran Church basement kitchens forever. Imagine, if you will, one hundred Scandinavian-Americans who have slipped the surly bonds of earth, put out their hands, and touched the face of God … all at one time.**

Of course I wouldn’t do such a thing. Perish the thought. But it would be something to see …

** (Lines borrowed from the poem High Flight, by John Gillespie Magee Jr.)

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Viva Los Lobos

jono55

Poco is not as happy these days as he once was. He’s nearly 20 years old, has arthritis, cataracts, and some variety of kitty neurologic decline. He is very slender and less steady on his feet. At times he seems to take fright from things I can’t see.

But he sleeps well, still goes outdoors when the weather is clement, takes care of his litter box needs without requiring any help from Robin and I, and l.o.v.e.s to be brushed. His appetite suits his activity level, and he is not fussy about what we serve up.

It is not hard to imagine that his fragile situation could change fairly quickly. An injury, a stroke, a serious illness … any of these could put the thumb on the scale for an old guy like him, and I have wondered … when does the subject of euthanasia become part of the conversation?

If you search the internet for help with these sorts of questions, you aren’t much smarter at the end of your queries that when you started. And don’t even bother to ask “Is there some way I could help my old friend along if I ever decide that it is the kind thing to do?” Because you will only be apprised of the dogma that you should let your veterinarian decide such matters and manage whatever medications and treatments are needed.

I bristle at this a bit. If I were to follow that advice here in Paradise I would have to bundle Poco into a carrier (which frightens him), load the box into the car and drive for ten minutes to the vet (which terrifies him even more), and then hand him over to relative strangers ( very alarming) for an IV line to be placed. Then a barbiturate would be pushed in and that’s all she wrote.

All of this unpleasantness reeks as far as I am concerned. If the need arises, and I hope that it does not, why should a pet’s last hour be so distressing? Surely there are less traumatic ways to take one’s leave.

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Mas Y Mas, by Los Lobos

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I am letting the political cartoons tell most of the story for a while. Our present government is a monstrosity, contaminating everything it touches, and I’ll get back to railing at it again one day. But some of these drawings, my my my, don’t they go straight to the heart of things?

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One of my favorite posters of the anti-Viet Nam War years was this one. I thought it struck just the right balance – the heart and the head at the same time. For me, much more effective than any tirade. I was able to identify without too much trouble that the original was created by a woman named Lorraine Schneider.

Two by two inches — that was the space allotted to artist Lorraine Schneider when making work for a miniature art show at New York’s Pratt Institute in 1965. In that small space, the artist, printmaker and peace and civil rights activist found a message that filled whole worlds.

That artwork, titled “Primer,” features the sentence “war is not healthy for children and other living things” in childlike script, juxtaposed with a black and white sunflower. It was made in response to the Vietnam War, but like other great works of art, has found a life well beyond that moment in history …

Kveller: Lorraine Schneider

Substitute “ICE” for “war” and you have something perfectly applicable to today’s news headlines. In fact, I have done just that for, what else, a button.

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On a wander along the Uncompahgre River last week I was reminded of how little fishing I’ve done over the past year, and how easy it would be to get out there and annoy some fish to no end. I don’t catch very many, but it must be very distracting to the fish to have me bouncing artificial lures of various sizes and colors off their heads. The heads of perfectly serene trout who want nothing more than to eat an occasional insect drifting by and who clearly know the difference between a real bug and a fake one.

But I love the rituals, the casting into tree branches and onto power lines, the regular insertion of sharp hooks into soft fingers while attempting to tie on a new fly. My angling experience has advanced to a whole new level since there is now a tiny hole in my waders, and I am too cheap to buy a new pair. An hour in the stream produces one cup of ice water in that right boot, and from then on it is a race between how much of a cold wet foot I will tolerate and how many fish I am catching. Usually the discomfort wins out.

No matter. Most waders will eventually leak, whether they are the bargain basement variety or a primo set made by Simms or Patagonia. Sun and storage and time are enemies of whatever is used to keep the water out. Part of the game.

BTW, I’m still using the Tenkara style of fishing, rather than a traditional rod and reel combination, and I enjoy it very much. The rod breaks down to fit into a 20 inch case, and with that and a line or two and a handful of flies you are good to go. The whole rig is so easy to throw into a car or a backpack as it is small and almost weightless.

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Emily, by Los Lobos

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Valentine’s Day came arrived and departed. We actually have a pair of chocolatiers here in Paradise, whose services are heavily utilized on this holiday every year. These artistes love their work and will fill your ears with information about every single piece you buy. I made my purchase on Friday and hid the box in a safe place overnight in the garage.

These are not the sort of concoctions you jam into a pocket and munch without thinking as you walk along. They are tenderly taken from the box one at a time and slowly savored. It is not only women who are vulnerable to the mysteries and charms of the cacao bean.

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We have a new restaurant in town, named La Michoacána. It is an ice cream shop, with a few twists Robin and I sampled the ice creams last Friday, and they were very good. While we were eating out treats, we notice a couple of things. One of the menu items was nachos, and here’s how that goes. You take a bag of Doritos or Tostitos, slice open along one side, top to bottom and then pour the queso and extras right into the bag. Then you take your prize and a fork and sit down to stuff yourself.

The other interesting thing was that all of the posted menus were in Spanish. Totally. No English whatsoever. It was Bad Bunny deja vu. We loved it! Takes some cojones to do that in a red town in a red county where ICE might have more supporters than they did in Minneapolis. But for me, one sweet day I’m heading back for one of those nacho bags, and I will report to you all about it complete with any medical complications that might develop. With photos.

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Freak Flags Flown

jono55

Sunday afternoon Robin and I drove down the Million Dollar Highway (US 550) to a point a few miles past Ouray on a scouting expedition. We were checking snow conditions, since in the valley the small amount of snow that had fallen in the past couple of weeks still lingered only in small patches where the sun couldn’t get at it. Otherwise – bare brown ground is the order of the day. What we found? No White Christmas this year, folks.

Higher up, the ski area at Telluride has only a few runs open, mostly blue and green ones. Thrill seekers will just have to wait a little longer to get their kicks. Behind the scenes at Telluride there are labor disputes to worry about as well. So not such good news in the Land of Shiny People for the holidays.

However, the restaurants, liquor stores, and shops that sell expensive things you could easily do without are all open and humming. It turns out that a person can aprés-ski with verve and panache even when they can’t actually ski. Good to know.

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Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming, by Ane Btun

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Our holiday plans are completely local this year. None of our children will be within easy reach, so we’ve invited several friends for dinner on Christmas Day. This group is composed of the sort of people who don’t need any prodding to begin a conversation that will start the moment they come through the door and end only when they have pulled away at the end of it all. Politically we are of similar mind, so there will be no need for wit sharpening. We can toss clichés at one another without fear of contradiction.

While that might sound boring and dreadful, one has to remember that we are living in an area where two-thirds of the voters picked a felon/rapist for President in November of 2024. So feeling slightly more comfortable in flying our freak flags is a treat. A blessed respite.

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Yesterday the temperature here in Paradise hit 68 degrees. Two days before Christmas Eve. In the mountains of Colorado. At times like these I feel sorry for those old-timers whose store of weather knowledge has been rendered nearly useless by climate change. They can’t predict things any more. The game is so changed that all they can do is ruefully shake their heads.

Of course I am also one of the ancients, but I am not so affected as some. As I went through life for the most part I was oblivious to what was going on around me. If I walked out the door and it was raining I might notice that I was wet but didn’t think more about it.

I had other things to think about that I believed more important. Things involving my work and family. I couldn’t do anything about the weather so I ignored it. In this way I was almost the polar opposite of a farmer, whose livelihood was so dependent on sun and rain and temperatures.

I took care of children indoors, and bother what was going on outside. It didn’t touch me unless the power went out in a thunderstorm and we had to somehow keep our machines operating on emergency systems.

So ask me anything you want about the weather … past, present, or future. I will smile and say “I have no idea.” Perhaps this will bring you some comfort if you realize that you are not the only one in that position.

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O Holy Night (Po Hemolele), by Joanie Komatsu & Ruth Komatsu

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God bless the political cartoonists. Actually, God bless cartoonist of any stripe. The best of them have the ability to boil a truth down from a chapter to a page to just the fewest words possible and then place it in a frame and offer it up to us. To me it’s much like when you are cooking and you make a reduction. Heating a liquid until just the right amount of water is evaporated and the contents couldn’t be distilled any further. They become the purest essence of what is contained in the pan.

That’s what the best cartoonists do. One thing I can say about the Cluck Gang, they come up with more than enough fodder for these entrepreneurs to chew on. Every single rock that one turns over has a snake under it, fanged and venomous and ready to go.

One interesting thing about political cartooning. To really get the full benefit from the better ones, the reader has to be reasonably well-informed. Look at this one, for instance.

First of all, the mask and bindings are right out of the movie Silence of the Lambs. The red tie and blonde hairdo identify the person being restrained as Cluck.

The elephant is the symbol of the GOP, and its support of at least one possible pedophile has become obvious from the ongoing Epstein saga.

I know that in the US of A we are supposed to be presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law. But get serious, folks. If there were nothing rotten about the Cluckster-in-chief in those files wouldn’t they have been released months ago, just to be done with it and regain the narrative? Can you think of any other reason for this drawn-out and clumsy cover-up? Really … I’m asking.

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Tonight is Christmas Eve. I love the story. When you’ve heard it as many times as I have, it gets Crispr-d into your DNA, and it’s hard to stand back and really look at it objectively. To paraphrase Jon Kabat-Zinn , “Wherever you go, there you are, and thy DNA tags along.”

So I enjoy the carols, watch all the Christmas specials on television, send out my cards, purchase my share of gifts … nothing has changed for me for generations now in how I observe the holiday, and I suspect that it never will. For one thing, the tale keeps on being repeated in daily life, with different characters.

Today the United States has its own version of Herod sending out armies to find the Josés and the Marias and the babies and do them harm. We have people who are without homes and must take shelter where they can. We have women delivering their infants in the equivalent of stables where infant mortality is so much higher than in better regulated and managed facilities.

So you can see that the legend is always fresh for me, even if the particulars are altered.

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Here’s a beauty to end the post on. I googled its origins and found that the Scots and the Irish have both claimed the tune as their own. We’ll let them carry on the fight while we enjoy its lovely melancholy, which is universal.

“The Parting Glass” is a Scottish traditional song, often sung at the end of a gathering of friends. It has also long been popular in Ireland, and modern versions reflect strong Irish and North American influences. It was the most popular parting song sung in Scotland before Robert Burns wrote “Auld Lang Syne.”

Wikipedia

The Parting Glass, by boygenius and Ye Vagabonds

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Impostor Syndrome

jono55

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day. I am a veteran, so I can legitimately stand up with other vets at public occasions when asked to do so. And although I did serve, wear the uniform, and go wherever the USAF wanted me to go, I always feel a bit of an impostor. Why, you ask?

Because:

  • I ended up in Nebraska, not Viet Nam.
  • I was never injured in action.
  • I was never under fire.
  • I spent the two years sleeping in my own bed, with my family comfortably nearby.
  • For me the worst part of national service was the inconvenience of a two-year interruption in my career plans. Pretty puny when put up against the sacrifices made by thousands of my brothers and sisters.

But technically speaking I am a veteran, and if you want to give up your seat at the opera or strew rose petals in my path, go right ahead. I would not be so rude as to correct you.

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Well Come Back Home, by the Byrds

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I have feelings galore about the weekend display of cowardice of many Democrats in the Senate, but Jon Stewart says it way better than I ever could.

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This has been a banner season for those who like political cartoons. At least for progressives. I like them because they cut right through any attempts at subterfuge and skewer those most in need of that attention.

The first one in the series is actually not a cartoon, but the back of a pumping truck seen while waiting for the light to change in Grand Junction this past Monday. It is the line at the top of the truck: “Filled with political promises” that started me laughing out loud.

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No snow as yet at the ski resorts nearby, Telluride and Powderhorn. The owners aren’t hopeful for Thanksgiving, but that’s not too unusual. Robin and I skied Alpine for the first 20 years or so we were together, but tired of the lines and the ever-increasing lift ticket prices. This year they are around $245 for a single day. We still enjoy Nordic skiing, but last year there were only a few days here in the valley that were good for that.

We are pretty demanding of perfect snow conditions, preferring days when the skis glide slower and control is as good as one can get. The idea of plowing into anything solid while wearing thin bits of wood and plastic on our feet is less and less attractive each year. When I lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where several hundred inches of snow fell each year, Nordic skiing was wonderful. By December there were several feet of snow on the ground and new snow fell nearly every day. Going through a forest was almost surreal. All of the underbrush was buried and you moved silently through the trees, which were the only things protruding from the snow.

There was one drawback to this serene beauty, however, and that was that it attracted snowmobiles. Not content with the hundreds of miles of trails dedicated to their use, they brought the smell of exhaust and the deafening roar of their engines everywhere. Each time a line of them passed me I quietly wished I was armed with a rifle of a caliber large enough to pierce the motor of those beasts and send terror into the hearts of the riders. Yes, yes, I admit to violent reveries back then. And the language that echoed in my brain is embarrassing to recall.

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Snow (from the film Brokeback Mountain), by Gustavo Santaollalla

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