WELCOME TO THE BLOG OF POPE JOHN THE TALL, LEADER OF THE ALL JOHN ALL THE TIME WORLD CHURCH


******PLEASE NOTE******

(Notice I said please.)

To those of you who are new to "the Pope" and the "AJATTWC", the following various posts are the official communications of yours truly, Pope John The Tall, or as I'm known in many circles, PJTT.

I aspired to the position of Pope of the AJATTWC several years ago, after the Roman Catholics elected Joseph Ratzinger, a German Cardinal, as their Pope; I figured if he could do it, so could I.

Despite what would seem to be a "religious" theme, I try not to play favorites: I'm satirical/irreverent about everything, in an attempt to give my readers a few yucks; that is the goal. If I haven't made you laugh, well, I tried, and I hope I'm given an "A" for the effort. (Or at least a really solid "C".)

I further hope that my faithful readers (all several of them) and any of you who wander in from the cold of the Internet, will derive much solace and spiritual awakening from my timeless prose, and, as I so often refer to it, the "soothing balm of Johnism"; if you don't, how sad for you, because I'm a pretty funny guy. (My daughter tells me, regularly, that I'm "silly"; I suspect that she's right.)

Please note that everything on my blog is meant to be fun, and in no way insulting to anyone, unless of course you're a politician, then you can assume I intended to insult you. (Hey, it goes with the job, guys; if you can't take the heat, then the harder they fall.)

Never mind.

Anyway, welcome and thanks for stopping by; please feel free to peruse to your heart's content (there is a large archive of my past posts, going back several hundred years, in the right-hand column), and please be sure to make a large donation at the door as you leave. (It's tax-deductible.)

Speaking of leaving, as I make my exit, and probably none too soon, here's something from the Book of Excretions, Apollo 13: Dodgers 6...

"Blessed are the lazy, for although they don't accomplish much, they're well rested."

Enjoy. (Or don't, it's still a free country. It is still a free country, isn't it? They haven't changed that as far as I know, have they?)





Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Just For The Halibut


My last post was a ghost story (see "Maybe It Was Caspar's Older Sister", 1/4/14), so now I guess it's time for a fish story. Well, not exactly a "fish story" per se (that's Latin for "accidental bowel leakage") but a plea for a new national holiday, based on this country's obsession with...

...big fish.

(I saw an ad in the Chicago Tribune last week for a new product called the "Butterfly", which purports to cure the embarrassment of ABL, or "accidental bowel leakage", which, while I'm sure isn't funny to the people who suffer from this malady, I thought was totally hysterical.)

As your favorite Pope, that is, Pope John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church (see above for a convoluted explanation of my meteoric rise to blogger superstardom), I feel it is my beholden duty to advocate for certain causes that arise from time to time in my viewfinder.

Like it or not.

In the opening scene of the wonderful Rob Reiner movie (and FYI, I'm not crazy about Reiner's politics, but I do enjoy his movies) "The American President", the Pres, Andrew Shepard, played to a tea by Michael Douglas, is striding down a hallway in the White House, while his assistant, Janie, is scurrying along beside him, reminding him of the day's schedule, and making notes of his comments.

"And at 11:00 you have the Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce here to give you a 200 pound sturgeon," says the erstwhile young lady.


(Full disclosure here: I had the movie on an old VHS tape, which unfortunately I no longer own, having FINALLY made my entry into the 21st century world of home entertainment by obtaining a DVD player just last year; accordingly, I can't quote the dialogue exactly, but I'm pretty close. Sorry.)

"Janie, make a note," says Pres Shepard, a wry smile on his face, "we need to schedule more events where some group gives me a big fish."

"Yes, sir," replies Janie, serious as a heart attack.

"Janie, it was a joke."

"Yes, sir," says Janie, who will never be inducted into the Comedy Club Audience Hall Of Fame, apparently having absolutely on sense of humor whatsoever.

FYI, that's a "Dunkleosteus" at the top of the page, a prehistoric beastie said to measure up to 33 meters in length, which in feet is about 4,953, give or take a millimeter or two.

What exactly is this obsession people have with large fish? I mean, all the way back to the Bible and the story of Jonah and the whale (three days and nights at the whale stomach resort of your choice, yuck) on through Herman Melville and his famed maimer of Captain Ahab (played with sinister abandon by Gregory Peck), Moby Dick, we seem to have this thing with fish the size of South Dakota.


(I did some research on the name "Moby Dick": according to melville.org, the name probably came from an "article by Jeremiah Reynolds, published in the New York Knickerbocker Magazine in May 1839. Mocha Dick: or The White Whale of the Pacific recounted the capture of a giant white sperm whale that had become infamous among whalers for its violent attacks on ships and their crews. The meaning of the name itself is quite simple: the whale was often sighted in the vicinity of the island of Mocha, and "Dick" was merely a generic name like "Jack" or "Tom" -- names of other deadly whales cited by Melville in Chapter 45 of Moby-Dick." The author goes on to explain that no one quite knows why Melville changed the name to "Moby"; maybe he preferred the Caramel Flan Latte.)

Okay, so we have a "thing" for large, gill-bearing aquatic craniates (thank you, WikiPedia). So I figured, given everything, we should have a National Big Fish Day, to celebrate our grand obsession.


I would think, given Congress' willingness to throw money at just about anything, that our national legislators could cough up a few bucks for another national holiday. And surely our good President (played by Barrack Obama, in a manner reminiscent of other great performances by such acting luminaries as Corey Feldman or the Muppets) would have no problem signing into law a bill that establishes a particular day to commemorate and celebrate all the over-sized ichthyological wonders of the deep. Of course, the Republicans would oppose such legislation, but I think it could garner enough support from states with a strong fishing industry to pass both Houses of Congress.


Of course, with the track record of the 113th session of Congress, just getting a bill written and to the floor would be a miracle, let alone actual passage. But one can hope.

Maybe it has something to do with being a Pisces, but I think this is an idea whose time has come.


National Big Fish Day; Red Lobster and Long John Silver's would love it.


So I'm starting the movement officially, as of this writing; I'll be lobbying my Congressperson for a bill to this effect, and indicating that I expect his support, even if his idea of seafood is tuna casserole.

National Big Fish Day...coming soon to a holiday near you. 


Okay, another full disclosure here: I don't really give a hoot in hell about having a National Big Fish Day, I just had a bunch of big fish pictures I had accumulated over the past few months and I needed an excuse to post them to my blog.

National Big Fish Day, what, are you kidding me? That's as ridiculous as someone wanting to name February National Canned Food Month.

Oh, February is National Canned Food Month.

Never mind.

Enjoy the photos, and remember, you can tune a guitar but you can't tuna fish.


Love and Chicken Of The Sea,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Dawn

Dawn