"...This Is Porcine Airways Flight 236, Requesting Permission To Land..."

I'd consider voting for this guy.

That slightly maniacal-looking person with his head stuck out of the Armored Personnel Carrier is the mayor of Vilnius, Lithuania, Arturas Zoukas, or as he's known around town, Clem, and that's a Mercedes Benz he's crushing the living dogpoop out of, and I'll explain why in a moment. (You'd like to know, wouldn't you? Well, tough, I'm writing the story anyway.)

My primary function as your Popemeister, here at the All John All The Time World Church, is to spread the message of the "soothing balm of Johnism", at least, that's what they told me when they interviewed/hired me for the position. (On the AJATTWC employment application, where it asks about my "position" on my last job, I told them "prone".)

My secondary function, other than to ride roughshod over the Church mascot, my roommate, sidekick, BFF and three-times-a-week sparring partner, the Harley Dog, (you can see a picture of the great beast right over there <---, oh, sorry, --->), is to provide guidance and leadership to my flock of loyal followers, all several of them, particularly in the area of influencing, ahh, excuse me, helping them make informed decisions about the various issues that confront us all, all the days of our lives, especially the young and the restless of my flock. (In fact, when I finish this post, I'm headed over to General Hospital to visit one of my "people" who's currently under the weather; it's a minor surgery thing, she'll still be bold and beautiful when she gets out.)

Hey, did I tell you guys I have tickets to see "La Boheme" next week? No?

So there I was, minding my own Pope business, when I received this email from one of my flock of followers, not to be confused with Flock Of Seagulls, a really bad rock band from back in the '80s (actually, the band wasn't that bad, but the hairdos, yike), asking me a profound legal question (yes, your Pope is also a legal expert, holding a JP degree (Juris Poopahkis), as well as my degree from the school of Hard Knocks) that I felt had implications so profound as to compel me to answer in one of my thrice-weekly posts. (Thrice? Whoa, that's a good one.)

("La Boheme" is an opera by Puccini, okay? Soap operas, get it? Geez.)

The email, and the question it contained, came from some John guy's nephew, or at least he says he's John's nephew, although I'm sure only John's sister knows for certain, and it dealt with an obscure and little known legal tenet, commonly known as the "Are You Guys Really That Dumb?", and it requires a little background information to understand the principle.

Many years ago, back in my pre-Pope days, I had occasion to work with a gentlemen who, besides being afflicted with the social stigma of being a Minnesota Vikings fan, clung to the belief that the answer to the question "If a tree fell in the forest, and no one was around, would it make a noise?" was a resounding No. (The company we were working for had no pre-employment requirement of an IQ or any common sense; yeah, they hired me too.)

I learned this fascinating bit of information one day at lunch, when said fellow employee blurted out this amazing theory, just after asking someone to pass the salt.

"Yeah," he explained, "if there's on one in the forest, then there's no eardrums for the sound waves to bounce off of". (And at the next table, another of my fellow employees sustained an injury just then, a sprain of the muscle that allows you to roll your eyes.)

I left the company not long after that; I figured, with guys like that on your team, you're probably looking at a long, losing season.

The legal theory that John's nephew (?) asked about was along the same vein: it involved the crime of "mopery", which according to The Nephew is the "exposing of one's self to a blind person." (I had heard the word defined that way previously, but I wasn't sure that was accurate, so I looked up the definition in my New American Law Dictionary and Explainer Of Obscure Legal Theories but couldn't find it; shit, I'll just make something up; he won't know the difference.)

Where these two very obscure ideas meet is at the junction of "what, are you kidding me?" Allow me to explain. (Good luck stopping me.)

A tree falls in the forest, crashing to the ground in a great flurry of leaves, breaking limbs, snapping branches and small, furry animals, like the ebert, being violently thrown to the ground from their various nests and hiding places. The only reason that the noise attendant to such an event goes unheard is the absence of organs that can receive and interpret the sound waves, which are necessarily produced by said event. (The sound waves are produced, not the organs.) The boy genius at work there even mentioned them, thereby validating the alternative to his theory. Duh.

In a similar vein, the exposure of one's genitalia to another person, despite the fact that the recipient of the "exposure" is a person not having the ability to see, is still a crime, based on intent; the inability of the "exposure recipient" to see and be offended by said exposure does not ameliorate the crime. The "exposer" still has his yaya hanging out, and in most precincts, that's illegal. Or at least a crime against the senses. (Think Rosie O'Donnell naked).

(Not bad for off the top of my head, huh?)

So the answer to the question of whether or not a tree falling in the forest makes noise, and whether or not it's a crime to expose yourself to a blind person, even if it is Tuesday, and maybe to the most profound question that faces us all in life, is this...

...I believe the Dodgers can still make a late season run at the NL West crown; hey, they have Kershaw, who's getting serious consideration for the NL Cy Young, they have Matt Kemp...well, never mind that now.

(You didn't really think I was going to give you some great, profound legal insight did you? What, are you crazy, I'm a Pope, I'm not Robert Shapiro, gimme' a break.)

Oh, the mayor up at the beginning of the article? (See up.) I just used that because I liked the picture. I like Ol' Clem, too; the reason he was squashing expensive European automobiles was to put emphasis on a city ordinance banning parking in "bike lanes", which is where the ignorant douche-bag owner of the Benz parked his car.

Yeah, I like Clem; he wanted to send a message to the city's drivers: "Park in the bike lane at your peril". Then he showed his followers "the peril".

Just as your Pope will just keep trying to show all my loyal AJATTWCers out there the peril of "stupid".

Because maybe one, or even several, of the folks out there who believe in soundless falling trees, or the theory that "well, they can't see me so it's okay" or "hey, I'm important, look at my big car, I can park anywhere I want" will read one of my posts and wake up to what assholes they really are.

(Hey, Nephew Guy, I know you asked me about mopery just to have to have some fun, so that wasn't meant for you.)

You guys ever hear of a comedian named Judy Tenuta? Very funny lady; I have no idea if she's still performing or not, but when she was, she had a line she often used in her act, right after making some thoroughly outrageous statement: "Hey, it could happen."

When pigs fly.

Love and courtrooms,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

East Coast Disasters With An Left Coast Theme

 

...now I understand why James Bond ("Shaken, not stirred.") drove an Aston Martin...

  ...and now I understand why some people say the Roman Catholics don't have the sense to come in out of the rain...

 ...and I doubt I'll EVER understand this, but I promise to continue trying...

Your Pope is giving some consideration to running for President.

...(several minutes pass while the hysterical laughter dies down)...

That's not funny.

Why wouldn't your Pope Guy be a good President, huh? Americans seem to want their leaders to be male, tall, good-looking, somewhat articulate and charismatic as hell.

Okay, let's take them one at a time:

*Male...last time I looked.

*Tall...duh, check out my name.

*Good-looking...hey, it's all in the eyes of the beholder.

*Somewhat articulate...please.

*Charismatic...what, are you kidding, I have boatloads of charisma, I have super-tankers of charisma.

So why wouldn't I make a good president? Anyway, I said I was just considering running for President, I didn't say I'd made up my mind to do it. Geez.

We'll talk more about this later. (Boy, that sounds ominous.)

I will tell you that I, like so many of my fellow Left Coast residents, particularly those of us who live in and around the environs of Southern California, made light of the recent distress of our East Coast friends and neighbors, in their response to a 5.8 magnitude earthquake that hit parts of Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., and New York earlier this week and was said to have been felt as far west as Chicago.

If the news reports are any indication, and in this instance, since there's so many of them telling the same story, I'm pretty sure they got it right, it was chaos and terror all over the Eastern Seaboard, as folks who had never had the unique experience of living through an earthquake poured into the streets, basically scared shitless.

Now Left Coast folks, SoCal area veterans especially, don't even begin to acknowledge an earthquake until it's at least a 6.5 or better. Yeah, 5.8 on the Richter scale, that's nothing to mess with, but after you've been through a half-dozen or so of these things, anything under 6.5 is a yawner. (Ever see the movie "Independence Day"? Think of the scene where Will Smith wakes up suddenly in bed next to Vivica J. Fox, and believe me, that's somebody I would love to wake up next to, thinking they're having an earthquake in their neighborhood of LA (pronounced LAH), and when he says, "Hey, I think we're having an earthquake", and oh yes, thank you, Mr. Obvious Man, Vivica Fox puts her head up and says, "Not even a 4.0, baby, go back to sleep.")

Yeah, it takes more than a 5.8 to get our attention out here.

So, and I'm a little ashamed to admit this, like so many of my fellow LaLaLand residents, I chuckled a little maliciously at the sight of all those battle-tested veterans from the front lines of the daily political and financial market wars, running around looking like they didn't know whether to shit or go blind. (I have no idea what that means, but I like the sound of it. My old man had one even stranger: "Put his brain in a pee-wee's ass and it would fly backwards." I have NO idea what that means, but you have to admit, it's evocative as hell.)

This derision from we veterans of the "Quake Wars" here in SoCal towards our terrified brethren in New York, Washington, et al. is based, I believe, on two factors:

a) East Coasters in general, and New Yorkers in particular, have always cast a jaundiced eye downwards towards residents of LA; the East Coast has the nation's capital, the country's seat of power, the financial markets, media giants and corporations of New York, the intelligentsia of Boston, the Terrapins of Maryland (what the hell else is in Maryland?) and the beauty of New Jersey (???); we have Miley and Charlie and Paris and Lindsay and the 236 Kardashians and Disneyland, so there's an inferiority thing going on here, and;

b) we have just as many assholes out here as they have back there.

But just as I was getting some good chucks from watching NYC execs running around the streets of Manhattan in their Armani suits and Hermes ties and Prada handbags, trying to find a place to hide from Mother Nature, I started thinking about my first experience with the phenomena of an earthquake.

(You hear a story coming?)

I moved to LA in late 2000, after spending the bulk of my life in the Chicago area, and mostly I moved out here because I was sick to death of freezing my ass off every winter. So like so many before me, I heeded the words of Horace Greeley and migrated west, along with six oxen, a covered wagon, my wife Bess and my good Sharps rifle at my side, and as we moved over the plains where Indians...whoa, did I wander off or what? (I really hate when that happens.)

On a Saturday afternoon in February is when it happened to me the first time, and it was an experience I will not likely forget soon.

It was a pretty much a typical day here in the Southland; the weather was in the 60s as I remember, and it was sunny and pleasant outside. I had done some shopping and run some errands earlier in the day (hey, this was before my Pope gig with the All John All The Time World Church, so there was no staff to haul your water or bake your bread), and was settling in for a couple of hours of NBA basketball, because for some reason, there was an early Saturday afternoon Lakers' game on the tube that day, and I was all over it.

Now I'm about to admit to something illegal, and I hope that all my loyal followers will allow their Pope his little peccadilloes, and not call the local constabulary: I find that a couple of good hits off the ol' pipe enhances the "Laker Experience" considerably.

Especially the Laker Girls part.

So there I sat, in my lovely home here in the bucolic and generally misunderstood San Fernando Valley, basking in the warm glow of marijuana, Lakers basketball and an In N' Out Double Burger with cheese, a large order of fries and a Diet Pepsi, (have to watch the old waist line), watching as Kobe pours in about 20 in the first quarter when, very suddenly, I noticed one of my hanging plants was swaying in the breeze...

...inside my apartment, with no windows open.

Even stranger, my "swivel rocker" across the room was doing both, swiveling and rocking, like someone walking by had bumped into it.

Except that I was the only one home, and hadn't moved from my chair in the last half-hour, and Harley hadn't budged off his spot on the floor for at least a millenia.

Then I felt it; my chair moved, with me in it. Not much, but it moved.

No, wait, that's not quite right, the floor moved, not the chair.

No, wait, that's not quite right, the floor didn't move, the building moved.

Ah, excuse me, ah, anyone, THE FUCKING BUILDING IS SWAYING BACK AND FORTH LIKE A WILLOW IN THE BREEZE, THANK YOU, WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE, PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!?

Now I have been through numerous earthquakes since that first one; typically, and I think this is the reaction of most SoCalers, it's oh, we're having an earthquake, what time does the Dodgers game start?

Sorry, but no biggie.

But the first one, your first time, whoa; I was scared shitless.

No, actually, that's not accurate; I'll explain that in a moment.

Now I admit that being half way to I'mBakedLand does have a way of enhancing your first experience with an earthquake in a very scary manner; I believe straight it would have been much less frightening. But Mother Nature had not consulted me as to the most convenient time to start shaking the crap out of Southern California, so there I was, stuck in an unfortunate situation.

Putting it mildly.

Fifteen or twenty seconds into Bedlam, I realized what was happening, and I started to calm down. Hell, I had slept through tornadoes that took half the roof off our next-store neighbor's house when I was a kid, so I was pretty sure I would live through this as well, once I understood what it was that was, as Richard Pryor once put it, "making everything go gibbety-gibbety-gibbety".

So when everything settled down, and after I had taken a shower and changed my underwear, I called my sister, who also lives here in Valley, to ask if she had felt the quake. (This is my older sister, who came to LA back in the 60's; 18, not 19.)

"Yo, big sis, did you feel that?" I asked rather breathlessly.

"Feel what?" she responded.

Sorry, East Coast sissies, 5.8 is just no big deal, pretty much like Times Square, Fenway Park and Carmelo Anthony.

And did you see the pictures of the lavish wedding that Kim and Kris threw over the weekend, gush, gush? (Oh, and FYI, that "change underwear" thing was just literary license; I wasn't THAT scared.)

But I was pretty scared.

Love and natural disasters,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs Inc.

Party Time At The Zoo

Go ahead: I dare you.

I was "surfing the Web" the other day (does anybody else ever use that term anymore?), which is part of my duties as your Pope Dude, when I stumbled onto this headline:

"Holliday leaves after moth gets stuck in ear".

Since I saw this little blurb in the "Sports" section of MSN.com, I quickly realized that the "Holliday" the headline referred to was Matt Holliday, the left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. So I clicked on the link to find out how a moth got stuck in Matt Holliday's ear. (I mean, wouldn't you?) On the surface of it, you know it had to be a strange story, even without having all the particulars.

Without getting into all the gory details, suffice to say that Matt, who seems to be a decent human being and is outstanding in his field, was standing out in left field the other evening in a game against my L.A. Dodgers, pretty much minding his own business, doing his left field gig...

...when a moth flew in his ear.

Lemme' run that by you again, in case you missed it.

He was standing in left field when a moth flew in his right ear (Matt bats right-handed). You could see something was wrong with him; they stopped the game and the trainer came out, looked in Matt's ear, and then they took him out. But there was no explanation as to why he had to come out.

So after witnessing this, I immediately called Dr. Bill O'Lading, the director of the All John All The Time World Church-sponsored think tank, the Center For The Serious Consideration Of Weighty Matters, and the resident "science guy" here at the AJATTWC, to calculate the odds of having a moth fly in your ear when you're playing left field for a major league baseball team. (I think the odds change when you're playing for a minor league team.)

Dr. O'Lading called me back a few minutes later, after I had explained what I wanted, and after he questioned if I was crazy, which of course I assured him I was, but that my sanity had nothing whatsoever to do with having a flying insect becoming stuck in a ballplayer's ear.

According to the good doctor, the odds of having a moth fly into your ear while standing in left field at Busch Stadium, in the first game of a three-game series, are...

...about 800 bagillion to one, give or take a few zeros. (I'm not sure what to make of this, or whether it has any relevance, but on the Dodger's current road-trip, they've played in Miller Field (Milwaukee), Coors Field (Denver) and Busch Stadium (St. Louis). Is there a message in that somewhere?)

And this wasn't one of those little wussy moths, you know, the dinky kind that get into your house when you leave the door open for the one minute it takes to let the dog out, and then they fly all around the lamp until you get disgusted and you smack the little bastard, just so he'll stop flying in those crazy circles like he just fell into a bottle of Jack and swam his way to the top. No, this was one of those "industrial strength" moths; they showed a picture of the villain in a plastic bag after the Cardinal training staff pulled it out of Holliday's ear with a tweezers. (According to the Dodger's announcer, Steve Lyons, they first took Holliday into a completely dark room and tried to coax the moth out by shining a flashlight in his ear, (Holliday's, not the moth's) but the moth, figuring he had stumbled into a good thing, didn't take the bait; true story.) The damn thing was about an 1-1/2" long, weighed about 15 pounds and had a tattoo on his left wing that said, "Newt For President". Nasty damn thing.

Matt was able to return to play in the second game of the series last night, when the Dodgers beat the crap out of the Cards, 13-2. There were no further reported incidents of insect infestation.

You guys ever see "Mothra", the sci-fi flick about the giant moth that attacks Japan? If you're a fan of 1950's monster movies, you know that the island of Japan was regularly visited by evil, giant, radioactive mutant animals, (have you ever noticed how often my ex- manages to sneak into my posts?), like Mothra, Godzilla, Ghidora, Biollante, Oprah Winfrey and the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Mothra was, by the way, a giant lepidopteran, which in Latin means "one big effing moth".

I personally thought Matt Holliday was damn lucky the radioactive mutant monster genre of films is mostly defunct these days; you're sure as hell not pulling Mothra out of someone's ear with a pair of tweezers. Or Godzilla, for that matter. (I've never understood that term, a "pair" of tweezers; wouldn't that be two? And apropos of nothing, I once had a friend that used to say "Godzilla" to people when they sneezed.)

So Matt was fine, and I thought things were getting back to normal, although "normal" at my house probably isn't the same as "normal" at your house, when my eyes were assaulted by this headline:

"Hawk swoops inside NYC apartment building".

Run that back, please.

"Hawk swoops inside NYC apartment building".

According to this article, again on MSN.com, and aren't they just full of interesting news and stories, amongst other things, a red-tailed hawk recently flew into an open 5th-floor window of an upscale apartment building in New York. The hawk, being brighter than the average Tea Party Republican, immediately realized that the unit he had  flown into was not "rent-controlled", and flew right back out, after leaving a small deposit on the resident's shoulder.

Has Mother Nature slipped a gear or two here? Are the animals finally disgusted with humans to the point that they're thinking of taking over?

Yeah, you guys think I'm crazy, but what was one of the top-grossing movies from last weekend (8/19 through 8/21)?

That's right, opera lovers, "Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes". You gettin' the chills yet?

So I called Dr. O'Lading back, to ask him to speculate on whether or not, based on the strange happenings of the last few days in the "Animal Kingdom", it was possible that a REAL "Rise" of the animals was taking place. (Okay, I was just screwin' with him, but you know how snooty these "science" types can be. I once emailed Doc to ask him to calculate how much wood a woodchuck could chuck, if in fact a woodchuck could chuck wood; just bustin' his chops again, right? Then I got his answer: 56.3. Not cords, or tons, or pomegranates, just "56.3". Smart ass.)

Dr. O'Lading, understanding my proclivity for tasteless humor, declined to comment.

And in the meantime, while I'm trying desperately to get a handle on this whole "animal uprising" thing, guess who walks in the room with his leash in his mouth and a look of need in his eye?

That's correct, children of the corn, it was my roommate, sidekick, BFF and occasional sparring partner, the Harley Dog. (Harley has more titles than Moamar Ghaddafi, or however you spell his name, and a quick aside to the Libyan rebels who are currently working feverishly to throw that douche-bag piece of crap into the Mediterranean Sea: nice job, guys; how about when you're done in Libya you head to Iran and see what you can do about that bunch of happy assholes.)

And I thought to myself, self, I thought, any time Harley needs to go out, I jump. Any time Harley needs to be fed, I jump. Any time Harley needs to go to the vet, I jump. Any time Harley needs anything, I jump.

(And that isn't a complaint, by the way; anyone with a companion like Harley doesn't mind the aggravation, but it is a reality of having a pet. Actually, women are WAY harder to maintain.)

Harley's activities, on the other hand, where he wears a glove, are confined to going out, eating, lying on the floor, sleeping on the floor, bugging me for Girl Scout cookies, chasing an occasional squirrel or cat and not much else. Certainly no jumping, of any kind.

Uprising in the animal kingdom? Animals making an attempt to take over the world?

Shit, they already run things around my house.

Love and June bugs,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs Inc.

"...and Remember Our Motto Here At Camp: Clean Mind, Clean Body, Take Your Pick"

I turned the TV on the other evening to watch the Dodgers/Rockies game, about 10 minutes before game time. Since I was early, I caught the end of one of those ubiquitous "infomercials", which, in this case, was trying to sell a "compilation" CD of all kinds of soft-rock "singer/songwriters" from back in the 70's, you know, like America, James Taylor, Carole King, Gordon Lightfoot (and his band, Heavy Hand), Dan Fogelberg, Toad The Wet Sprocket, the Hornwater Doo Dah Band and the Vienna Boys Choir.

Now please don't think that I'm going to disparage these music collections; I love the damn things. I never buy them, but I love listening to the commercials, because you know something? Despite all the gushing and phony whimsy on the part of the announcers, the fact remains that, in most instances, these really are some great tunes. Especially if they come from a time in your life when you were, say, in high school, or going through your first "real" love or trying out your new "adult" wings for the first time or possibly that time when you were caught back in the rear of the barn with Bossie or any period of your life for which you have some nostalgia. (I'm thinking of a time, back in the late 70's, when I was gratuitously over-served at a neighbor's New Year's Eve party and yarked in the snow in their front yard. Unfortunately, due to the extreme amount of snow we had that year, it was spring before it all melted, so the "evidence" of my discomfort wasn't found until several months later.)

(Full disclosure: this was WAY before I became the Pope of the All John All The Time World Church. These days, I'm much better behaved, thank you; shit, the truth is, I'm just too effing old to act that any more. I'd love to say I'm smarter than that now, and for the most part I am, but not that much.)

The one name (and picture, see above) that caught my attention in those last few moments of the show was that of Carly Simon; they showed a quick clip of her singing "You're So Vain", and then cut to a shot of the by-now infamous album cover.

I know what you're expecting, given my reputation: something crude and sophomoric, right?

For once, I will rise above my baser instincts, not give in to my inner 14-year old and just say this...

...Carly Simon, to me, is one of the most breathtakingly gorgeous women I have ever had the pleasure, the joy, of seeing. And she has a world-class smile, which this particular photo doesn't highlight, which is a shame, because, despite the obvious, it's her best feature, and she's a fine musician and song-craftswomen as well.

A very talented, very beautiful young woman, a symbol of her age...

...who also has a really nice rack.

(I couldn't do it, I just couldn't do it; I tried, I really did, but I just couldn't do it.)

All of the above has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with today's topic, which is "10 Things Your Mother Didn't Tell You About Gonorrhea", no, wait, that's not right, uhhhh, yeah, okay, here we go, "Health Tips From Dr. Bill".

I got a call last week from Dr. Bill O'Lading, the Director of the AJATTWC-sponsored, in-house think tank, the Center For The Serious Consideration Of Weighty Matters, with a suggestion for my blog: how about if he wrote a periodic "health tips" article, under the name "Dr. Bill", you know, a question and answer, folksy, whimsical discussion with your old country GP and pillar of the community about contemporary health issues facing people today, such as VD, the HIV virus, vaccinations, health-care insurance, cancer research, the proliferation of short people and what doctor to choose for your penile enhancement.

After a brief discussion with the Harley Dog as to the feasibility of the idea (he was in favor of it immediately), I told "Dr. Bill" to get cracking and crank out his first column, which I approved and which follows below (below):

"HEALTH TITS" From "DR. BILL"

Ring...rin

"PJTT...hey, Mike, what's up...he wrote what?...oh, yeah, I just looked back...yeah, that's not good, especially after the Carly Simon opening...yeah, okay, I'll have him fix that right away, thanks for telling me...yeah...yeah, okay...hey, are we still on for lunch at the Beaver's Den?...cool...yeah, call me."

That was my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan (do you REALLY think it's the same one?); he noticed a small error in the heading for Dr. Bill's column. I'd better have the good doctor try that again.

            "HEALTH TIPS" From "DR. BILL"

(a huge cheer goes up from the crowd)

Hey, all you pine-nut lovers of nature and all things healthy, this is your old country GP and pillar of the community here in the bucolic and always befuddled San Fernando Valley, Dr. Bill, with this month's message of good health and clean living. Let's get right to the mail bag and she what she has for us today...well, here we go, thanks, Penelope.

Okay, here's our first enquiry:

*Dear Dr. Bill: I had been experiencing some problems in my abdominal area, so I went to my doctor and he told me I had a rupture and would need surgery. Problem was, he couldn't do the surgery for six months, something to do with when he was supposed to finally receive his medical degree from some college in the Upper DopeyLand. So I said okay and went home to wait. But I got tired of waiting and decided that the surgery didn't look that hard to do, and that I could do it myself. So I got a kitchen knife and had at it. It didn't come out as well as I expected. Dr. Bill, where did I go wrong?

            Signed, A Non-Doctor Who Treats Himself Has A Moron For A Patient

*Dear "Patient": At first I thought that my ex-in-laws had a lock on the annual stupidity award, only to have them be replaced by the TeaBags from the Republican Party recently. Then you wrote in, and I realized that this, this was the epitome of stupid. YOU DIDN'T EVEN USE A SHARP KNIFE, YOU SIMPLE SHIT. Geez.

...And Dr. Bill's "Lesson To Be Learned" from this question? If you're going to do self-surgery, keep it simple, like a spleen or a thorax. A hernia should only be repaired by a licensed, mostly sober physician.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43897202/ns/us_news-weird_news/?gt1=43001

We received this letter just last week:

*Dear Dr. Bill: I'm damn sick and tired of all these piss-ant third world countries trampling all over our God-given American values, and if that pinko weak-stick in the White House isn't going to do something about it, then I will. So I've decided to build my own nuclear reactor, right here in my kitchen. Yep, brew me up a big batch of U234 and make my own "White Lightening". I'll give that piece of crap Ken Ill Frong, or Kay Pill Tung or whatever the hell his name is over there in North Korea a little message he doesn't want. But before I do, I just want to know what kind of medical hazards I might run into while building my machine. Thanks.

            Signed, Cher Noble Was My Ex-Wife's Name

*Dear "Cher": If handled properly, both the product of the nuclear reaction, the U234 and other radioactive isotopes, and the nuclear waste should be fairly safe. Low level exposure to radiation of this type can cause nausea, vomiting, itchy eyes, in-grown toenails and lesions on the testicles, plus a strange affinity for zither music. High level exposure would probably result in various parts of your body falling off and/or causing any children you might have to come out looking like Newt Gingrich.

...And Dr. Bill's "Lesson To Be Learned" from this letter? This may not be as dumb an idea as self-surgery, but it certainly ranks somewhere on the list of Top Ten All-Time Stupid Ideas. Unless you're a responsible, experienced handler of atomic power, or a third-world maniac, best be advised to stay away from nuclear fission. And may the E=mc2 be with you.

 

http://www.thelocal.se/35306/20110802/

Or this letter from a poor soul in Kentucky:

*Dear Dr. Bill: I was hoping to hear more about the "Health Tits" that you mentioned earlier in your column; any possibility of that happening? Oh, you changed that, didn't you? Never mind. Anyway, here's my question: I've had some real problems in the past when trying to decide on a physician; some seem good when they first examine you, then they disappear. Some others, not so much, and some just don't seem right from the git-go. I've already had one unfortunate experience, and I want to make sure it doesn't happen again; my wife is upset enough as it is. Dr. Bill, what's the best way to choose a physician that will ensure I'll leave the OR with all the parts I came in with?

            Signed, Shorter In Seattle

*Dear "Shorty": Are you by any chance Jewish, and was this a circumcision gone seriously wrong? If not, then please rest assured that one over-zealous (boy, there's a nice way to put it) doctor is not indickative of the entire profession. Check with your local AMA board for their recommendations, always get a second opinion, and consider having an armed gunman in the operating room to monitor what's being removed the next time you have major surgery. And in a related item, you followers of Pope John The Tall might want to check out the Pope's post from way back in February, 2/7 to be exact, to find out about the horrors of vasectomies gone wrong as well.

...And Dr. Bill's "Lesson To Be Learned" from this writer? In this instance, size does matter.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44178165/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/#.Tk6C8l34JMU

And finally, a "Health Tip" directly from Dr. Bill to all the Neanderthal, dirt-bag South Korean men who ride the Seoul, Korea subway and grope and otherwise assault women on their way to and from wherever:

Guys, if Dr. Bill and some of his friends were residents of South Korea, and those were our wives, daughters, mothers, sisters or friends that you puss-bucket pieces of crap have been pawing at on the subway, you'd find it difficult to maintain your good health for any appreciable length of time, because we would catch you. And I considered as a fitting punishment, once either myself or one of my friends caught any of you in this repulsive activity, doing the same thing to your wives, daughters, mothers, sisters or friends, right in front of you, but I decided that would put us down at your level, and I refuse to lower myself to that extent.

No, here's what we'll do: the first time any of us hears a women cry out on a subway car that she's being "groped", we'll find you, take you outside at the first stop...

...and break all your fingers.

Slowly.

Please see "Seoul plans women-only subway cars", L.A. Times, 8/17 edition, page A6. (Sorry, no link for this one, but the article basically said that officials in Seoul were considering "women-only" subway cars because of all the groping of women by men. Somebody should explain to the Seoul City Council about the difference between treating the symptom and treating the sickness.)

Stay healthy and eat your broccoli,

"Dr. Bill"

Okay, well, thanks Dr. Bill, for those enlightening tips; boy, I fell healthier already. I think I'll go run a marathon.

Not.

Love and measles,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

The Pope And Harley World Tour: "Incognito", Part Four (And Final)

My neighbor downstairs, who by the way, apropos of nothing in particular, is a very attractive woman in her early 50's, left recently on vacation to visit her sister in Nova Scotia. When she told me she was leaving for Nova Scotia ("Hey, Pope, how you doin'? I'm going to Nova Scotia next week; do the mail and plant thing for me, would you?"), I had to stop and think if I knew anyone, not IN Nova Scotia, because as far as I know, other than my neighbor's sister, nobody actually lives in Nova Scotia, but just anyone who had ever even HEARD of Nova Scotia.

Nova Scotia, which is Latin for "...all hands on the poopdeck", err, sorry, "New Scotia", according to WikiPedia, is one of Canada's Maritime Provinces, and although Wiki has an article on the Province, according to the world map I received for free a number of years ago from some organization I had just joined, Nova Scotia doesn't exist. That's right, rodeo fans, this freebie atlas I received is like "Map Light"; they left off all but the biggest names of countries and oceans, so all you see is "America" or "Denmark" ("Did you leave the lights on in the den, Mark?") or "Water", so if you're say, Luxembourg or the Vatican or Lower Zimbabwe (home of the ebert), you just don't exist.

So I don't where my neighbor is right at the moment, but she can't be in New Scotia, 'cause it's not there anymore. (Nova does have a younger brother who manages the Los Angeles Hollywood Angels of Anaheim in Southern California, who's name is Mike.)

(I got up this morning and decided to be just as esoteric as I could be, all day.)

"...so in conclusion, just let me say how much Harley and I appreciate the Bored giving us this opportunity, once again, to go forth and spread the message of the soothing balm of Johnism to all the poor souls in our world who cry out for solace, for comfort from their afflictions, who thirst for a single drop of the cooling water of care on their lips, parched from the years of degradation...(Harley barks in the background)...yes, well, I should wrap this up and allow you ladies and gentlemen to get back to your meeting. Ahh, thank you." And I sat down.

That was how I ended my report to the Bored Of Elders of the All John All The Time World Church, of which, as you probably know by now, I am the Pope Guy.

After about a bajillion miles on the road, and a shitload of stops along the way, we finally arrived back at the headquarters of the AJATTWC yesterday, after leaving Washington, D.C. and the offices of Dr. Aaron Thetires, located at the Center For Really Important Space Stuff, the day before.

Before we left on the Pope And Harley World Tour: "Incognito" tour, the BOE had instructed us to, as quietly as possible, investigate a number of stories that they were monitoring, that they felt had grave implications for the future of the Church. So by day Harley and I were the usual media darlings we always are, and then, when our "official" duties had been seen to, off we went, into the night, to become our alter-egos, Spaceman Spiff and his sidekick, Harbacca.

(Actually, "Spaceman Spiff" was the alter-ego of Calvin, half of the funniest cartoon strip ever written, "Calvin and Hobbes", which was penned by a very erudite, hysterical human being named Bill Watterson; unfortunately, Mr. Watterson retired some years ago, and Calvin and his stuffed tiger are no more, and the world is a lesser place from the lack. Mr. Watterson, on behalf of all of us who thought C and H was essential reading, every day, please come back. We'll take up collections, we'll get you free tickets to see the Dodgers, which shouldn't be tough, since nobody wants them these days, we'll mow your lawn and trim the hedges, we'll get you passes to see Justin Beiber, whatever it takes, just please, please come back and write the strip once again.)

(Please.)

Over the course of our trip we met with four individuals, each of whom is in some way investigating the origins of life as we know it, by researching, from various different scientific approaches, the event that is now referred to as the "Big Bang", which in this case is a reference to the theory of the cataclysmic beginning of our Galaxy, and not the TV show. I hadn't known this at the outset of our trip.

(In the interest of brevity, a consideration I rarely make, I'll direct you to my posts from 8/10, 8/12 and 8/16 for explanations of whom we saw and what we discussed.)

We were barely into our meeting with Dr. Warren Peace at CERN, the European Organization For Nuclear Research, when I figured out why the Bored had such a keen interest in the people they wanted us to see and interview.

Duh, it was all scientists involved in study of the Bang.

So we gathered info and interviewed folks and studied charts and graphs and read reports and went to the 'Net and WikiPedia for more information and explanations and, in general, got REAL conversant with the theory of how our Universe got it's start.

And of course, in the process, we had to consider the subject from the one point of view that mattered above all others: how did we get here?

How did we get here? How did we come to be? Is it an accident of evolution? A Grand Design? Did the building blocks of DNA, our most basic genetic material, come from Out There? Are we alone, or are there more like us, out there somewhere in the far reaches of Space, the final frontier? "What" started it all?

Was it...God?

This was what the Bored wanted investigated, and it's not hard to understand why.

Because someday, oh fellow travelers along the road of life, someday we're going to find all these answers we seek (hey, you didn't really think I was setting you up for the big denouement, when I reveal that I, your Pope Guy, has suddenly unraveled the Great Mystery Of Life?...yeah, right), someday we'll "get it", and when that day comes, yes sir, boys and girls, I'm pretty sure that a WHOLE lot of people are going to step back for a moment, take a long, hard look at things and wonder to themselves...

"...what the hell was I thinking all those years?"

I have no idea how the Bored Of Old Guys at the AJATTWC is going to handle all the information that Harley and I brought back for them from our trip, but I do know this much...

...there were worried looks on their faces, and maybe some fear in their hearts as well.

But for me, in the final analysis, it isn't the destination, it's the journey. I intend to do all I can to enjoy the process of achieving all the answers, and I proceed on the theory that, at the end, I will finally have them all.

The ongoing debate in the interim is stupid, since it can't be proven either way.

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hutchens

("Nova Scotia" is actually French for "We're too small to be on cheap maps, but 29.3% of our populace is of Scottish descent, so put that in your kilt and run it up the flagpole.")

"In the beginning, there was Light, which was supposed to be less filling but have great taste...but it wasn't and it didn't, and the Creator was displeased, and he banished Light from Eden, and cast it out unto the Earth, and TC said to Light, because you aren't and you don't, I will place upon you a Mark, or maybe a William, that will forever brand you tasteless and gruel-like, and I will cause countless, stupid TV commercials be made in your name, so that people will come to curse you, and say you ill. You douche-bag."

You know, being Pope is about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on.

Love and Genesis,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc. 

The Pope And Harley World Tour: "Incognito", Part Three (And Counting)

"Off we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying high, into the sun...".

And all I want to know is, what exactly is a "wild blue yonder?" Is there such a thing as a "wild green yonder"? How does a yonder become a "wild blue" yonder? Is it genetics? Are we flying into the wild blue yonder or into the sun? (Boy, is this song ambivalent.)

Ring...ring...rin

"PJTT...hey, Mike, how are you?...yeah...yeah...okay, let's table that idea for the moment...oh, yeah, I just started to write it....it's what?...well, wouldn't it make more sense with a comma after "blue"?...I mean, it sounds like they're saying they're going off into the "wild blue yonder", not the "wild blue, yonder"...never mind, I'll talk to you later, I have to finish my post now."

Geez.

That was my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan, (by now you know it's not the same one that played for North Carolina, right?); apparently he had a small problem with what I wrote in the second paragraph. And later on, after I finish my essay on the soothing balm of Johnism for all my loyal followers, I'll speak with Monsignor Jordan and remind him who's Pope around here at the All John All The Time World Church. (I'll have the Bored Of Elders of the Church demote him back to deacon if he gives me any more lip.)

In our last episode (I really do like writing that phrase)...

In our last episode...

In our last episode...

Okay, I got it out of my system.

In our last episode, your Pope Dude (that would be me) and the Harley Dog, were just departing Northern China after interviewing the head of the state science agency, Dr. Bang Agong, about, and being given a first-hand "tour" of, the 7-1/2 foot long, 25-ton iron meteorite that was recently discovered by miners in the vicinity. Just after we politely declined Dr. Agong's generous offer to stay for lunch. ("Hey," he said, "you and dog like Chinese food? Big special on pork-fried rice at commissary. Well, we call "pork".")

So with no pork-fried rice in our stomachs, and no money in our clothes, wait, that was from "Angie" by the Rolling Stones, that doesn't belong here, let's try that again.

So with no "pork"-fried rice in our stomachs, we took off from China in the RU Kidding (see the first in this series of essays, posted to my blog on 8/10, to learn more about the Pope's atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, or RU Kidding for short), headed for the next stop in the World Tour, this time to meet with Dr. Peter N. Thewolf, a space scientist at Athabasca University in Alberta, Canada; Dr. Thewolf was the one who recently discovered the "Trojan asteroid" that is currently orbiting around the Sun, directly alongside Planet Earth, using the exact same trajectory as our planet.

(Somebody please explain something to me: why would you name an asteroid after a condom?)

We arrived in Alberta in the late afternoon, and since our appointment with Dr. Thewolf wasn't until the next morning, Harley and I decided to check out some of the sights of Western Canada after we had our dinner.

We got back to the hotel about an hour later, which should tell you a lot about the night life in Alberta; beautiful country, but it sure isn't LA (pronounced LAH). Shit, Alberta isn't even Cleveland.

"Dr. Thewolf, please explain the significance of the discovery of this "Trojan" asteroid that is orbiting the Sun in the same orbit as the Earth; what can we learn from this phenomena?" I asked the doctor in his office the next morning.

"Well, Your Tallness, scientists have long suspected the existence of these asteroids, circling right along with Earth as the planet makes it's way around the Sun; we've seen them in many other instances, alongside other planetary bodies. Jupiter, Neptune and Mars all have Trojan asteroids orbiting along the same path as the planets."

"You see, Pope, there are spots along the axis of a planet's orbit around the Sun where the gravitational pull of the Earth and the Sun cancel each other out, and those points, called "Lagrangian points", are where objects, like a space station or an asteroid, can "park", so to speak, and travel along with the planet it's attached to, gravitationally; think of the Moon and it's relationship to the Earth. Same thing." He paused to relight the pipe he had been smoking while we talked.

"So how does that benefit the people of Earth?" I asked.

"Excellent question, Your Tallness, excellent; you cut right to the heart of the matter. The reason we're so excited about discovering these asteroids in Earth's orbit is that they will make ideal candidates for visits from astronauts on manned space missions. Think about being physically on the surface of a planetary object that, most likely, has existed since right after the Big Bang; the scientific data on that chunk of space rock will be incredible. We should be able to determine a lot of what happened, and when, and how, at the time of the Solar System's first few moments. Absolutely amazing."

So for the third time in as many personal visits as we've had on this Tour, the person we came to meet with has mentioned the Big Bang, and none of them were referring to the TV show. At least I don't think they were.

Dr. Thewolf, Harley and I chatted pleasantly for another half hour, and then we excused ourselves to the good doctor, and took our leave. (We took the Kidding, too; it was a long walk to our next stop in Washington, D.C. from Alberta, Canada. And didn't she play keyboards for Macwood Fleet once?)

(Alberta Canada, you know, like Sue Smith or Hermione Trotbottom? Geez.)

We had one more scheduled stop on our Tour, a meeting with another doctor, this one in Chemistry. (Actually, the doctor has his Ph.D in Chemistry, but he was really in Washington, D.C., where the Center For Really Important Space Stuff is located, and where Dr. Aaron Thetires, who was the co-author of a groundbreaking new work on DNA in space, has his office.)

Dr. Thetires and his team of researchers at the CFRISS have determined, through all kinds of really esoteric and boring as hell science experiments, that, per their report, "the components of DNA have now been confirmed to exist in extraterrestrial meteorites."

We were escorted to what was obviously a working chemistry lab in the lower part of the CFRISS building, and that's where we met with Dr. Thetires, amidst Bunsen burners, pipettes (small pipes?), miles of tubing and bubbling retorts. (You've heard of scathing remarks? Well, these were bubbling retorts.)

"So, doctor, what significance will your discovery of the basic building blocks of DNA on these "extraterrestrial" bodies have for us here on Earth?" I asked him, after we had been brought stools to sit on; well, they brought me a stool, but they didn't bring anything for the Harley Dog. (But that's okay, I let him whizz all over their shrubbery before we left.)

"Your Strangeness, there is no way I can emphasize how important this discovery is," he said. "Finding nucleobase compounds not typically found in Earth's biochemistry strongly supports an extraterrestrial origin, and that would seem to suggest life as we know it on Earth having a possible extraterrestrial origin as well."

Dr. Thetires' findings reveal that meteorites may have been molecular tool kits, providing the essential building blocks for life on Earth, as well as possibly other planets as well.

"All this has implications for the origins of life on Earth and potentially elsewhere," Thetires said. "Are these building blocks of life transferred to other places where they might be useful? Can alternative building blocks be used to build other things? The potential is staggering."

"Is this part of the whole "Big Bang" thing?"

"Absolutely. These meteorites may have been floating around space since the time of the BB, just waiting for a new planet to bump into, much like the Genesis Machine in the Star Trek movie "The Wrath Of Khan", although not quite as dramatic. But the same principle obtains; something started the chain of life on Earth, and this discovery may lead us to know what, or Who, as the case may be." (The capital in the word was implied in Dr. Thetires' voice.)

"Or Who?" I asked.

And just as he was about to answer, my cell phone went off; it was RRMMJ, telling me that we were needed back at the headquarters of the AJATTWC, which is located in the sunny and always inappropriate San Fernando Valley area of LA.

We excused ourselves to Dr. Thetires, thanked him for his time and headed out to the Kidding for the quick jump home. Dr. Thetires promised to email the rest of his thoughts to me later that day.

The next, and last, episode, and Dr. Thetires final remarks? Same Bat time, same Bat channel, boys and girls.

Love and Star Wars,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

The Pope And Harley World Tour: "Incognito", Part Two

(The picture above has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with today's post: I just wanted to use it again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, and I assume that covers most of you, let me begin my remarks today with an anecdote..." And so began my report to the Bored Of Elders of the All John All The Time World Church, for which I am the Pope and spiritual leader, as well as, occasionally, the guy who cleans out the Men's room here at the headquarters of the AJATTWC, which is located in the sunny and vastly overrated San Fernando Valley area of LA (pronounced LAH).

(You know, like the words to that repulsively cheerful song from the movie "The Sound Of Muslix": "Doe, a deer, a female deer, ray, a drop of golden sun, me, a name I call myself, fa, a long, long way to run. So, a needle pulling thread, LA, A CITY IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA..."  and so forth.)

You will recall, or maybe you won't, in our last episode (I always wanted to write that line), your fearless explorers, yours truly, the Pope Dude, and my erstwhile companion, sidekick and all around BFF, the Harley Dog, were set to "blast-off" (another term I've always wanted to use in a story) for places and planets unknown, to seek out strange, new civilizations, to boldly...whoa, got a little carried away on the Star Trek gig, there. Anyway, me and HD (okay, for all you English majors and teachers, as well as all you good folks who, like myself, strive for proper language usage at all times, I know the phrase "me and HD" is grammatically incorrect, and I apologize if, by using it, I have offended anyone; I just like how it sounds) were sent off on a "missionary tour", not just a trip this time, to a number of places all over the globe, ostensibly to meet/greet local officials, to promote good relations between the Church and various secular leaders and organizations.

Our underlying mission on this trip, a task set forth for us by the Bored, was to, after we had discharged our official duties, get out and investigate a number of stories that the Bored had been monitoring recently. And we were to go "incognito", as much as that was possible for, well, pardon my lack of humility here, media stars like the HD and I.

What a dumb idea.

But, like good soldiers, we went and did what we were asked to do by the Bored, and now we're home, and now it's time for me to tell the BOE just what we learned while we were on the road.

Our first stop was in Geneva, Switzerland, home of European Organization For Nuclear Research, better known as CERN. (I'm pretty sure they speak French in Switzerland, although you would think they would speak "Switzer", which is how you get C-E-R-N out of European Organization for Nuclear Research; one of my favorite stand-up comics, Steve Martin, once remarked in a concert of his that the word for "cheese" in French was "fromage"; "...those French people," he gushed, "they've got a word for EVERYTHING!")

Anyway, we went to Geneva to meet with Dr. Warren Peace, who is currently working on an experiment at CERN that would, after many years and many failed attempts, isolate the "smallest particle of matter, the Higgs boson." Isolating the Higgs boson would "produce the final piece of evidence needed to prove that the Standard Model of particle physics, which explains the behavior of sub-atomic particles, is correct."

Dr. Peace and his staff accelerate "beams of protons" to almost the speed of light (which is considerably greater than the Speed Of Aroma) along the 17-mile long Large Hadron Collider, a machine/facility that was built "to create exotic particles that physicists believe existed in the moments after the Big Bang," to study these various particles that form the building blocks of matter.

Oh, so this is a "Creation" matter, huh? That explains the interest from the Bored. Now I'm beginning to understand the purpose of this trip.

I asked Dr. Peace if he were a religious man. He chuckled to himself as he answered. "Do you mean, do I believe in God? Or more to the point, if I am a believer, how do I reconcile science with the story of Creation?"

He paused and shook his head. "There's no reconciliation necessary. Science and belief in a Supreme Being have always been mutually compatible. What surprises me is that there's a doubt in some people's minds as to the complementary nature of these two ideas."

"You know, even though "science" (and you could hear the parentheses in his tone) has gotten a bad reputation in some instances, and admittedly science, by it's very nature, is often intrusive into the discovery process, for all of that, research and study will go on, because I believe it's Man's destiny to do so. We cannot sit still, we must seek out the unknown. It is who we are as a race."

We left Geneva, after gathering all the info we felt was appropriate, and headed for our next stop, the remote mountainous region of Northwest China, where we would meet with the local governor, and then head out into the field to confer with the local administrator of science, Dr. Bang Agong, who would lead us to a remarkable recent scientific find in that country, a massive, 7-1/2-feet long, 25-ton iron meteorite, which was found by miners in the Altai Mountains in China's Xinjiang Uygur province.

(If one of these babies had dropped out of the sky onto Carrie White's house in Stephen King's bestseller, "Carrie", as he describes it in the book, it would have been a much shorter story.)

"Dr. Agong, what is the significance of this discovery?" I asked, as we walked around the huge boulder. It was the size of a mattress, and a very ugly brownish-gray color; it reminded me of an ex-girlfriend.

"Oh, Pope," he says in response, "this very big deal in world of science. It come from outside solar system, probably formed 4 billion years ago, at Big Bang."

Oh, another Big Bang issue, huh? Once again, it wasn't hard to see from where the Bored's interest in these stories was coming.

Dr. Agong went on to explain that, "any newly discovered meteorites (regardless of size) have potential to provide scientists with unique insights into formation and earliest history of solar system." ("Hey," he says, "you and dog like Chinese food? Big special on "pork"-fried rice at commissary. Well, we call "pork".")

Since I was reasonably sure that Dr. Agong probably was not a God-fearing Christian, I didn't bother to ask him about his feelings on Creation, God and why MLB officials still continue to allow the Chicago Cubs to stay in the league; I was pretty sure I already knew his answer to all those questions.

We had a bunch more stops to make on our "tour", but only one more of any significance, and I'll tell you about that one, and the rest of my report to the Bored, in my next post.

Hey, I'm the Pope, I can make you guys wait if I want. Besides, it's almost lunchtime and I'm hungry, so I'm going to go beat Harley, make myself a sandwich (abracadabra, poof, I'm a sandwich), and then go goof off the rest of the day. (Just teasing about the Harley beating.)

Hey, it's a backbreaking schedule, but somebody has to do it, okay?

(Fox Sports here in LA does a thing at the beginning of each of their broadcasts; they flash these two CGI's on the screen, coming right at you; the first one says "WE ARE" and the next one says "FOX SPORTS", and as the images are shown, a bunch of what sound like testosterone-pumped, beer-upped sports-bar guys yell the words at you. You know, (real loud and forceful), WE ARE...FOX SPORTS.

And I keep waiting for them to go..."AND YOU...ARE NOT!", just like the old Chevy Chase opening to SNL's Weekend Update back in the 70's.

Hey, it's funnier my way. Until next time...

Love and quarks,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

The Pope And Harley World Tour: "Incognito", Part One

"...so what they're thinking about is a "World Tour" kind of a thing, where you and HD take the Kidding and head out to a bunch of stops that we'll schedule in advance, meet with the locals, you and Harley schmooze a little, kiss some babies and shake some hands and then, when you can get away from all the official stuff, you guys get out and find out what's really taking place with these reports and then report back to the Bored. How's that sound?"

I was talking on the Popephone to my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan (no, not the one you think, this one doesn't do commercials), and he's telling me about this great idea the Bored Of Elders of the All John All The Time World Church has to send Harley and I out, not on just a "missionary trip" as they do so often, but a whole missionary "tour" of a bunch of places all over the Galaxy. Well, all over the world, anyway.

All these places they want to send us have filed news reports recently that are, well, a little strange, on some unusual subjects, at least, that's what the Bored thinks, and they want HD and I to go and investigate. But here's the kicker: they want us to go incognito; something about not taking any chances on being caught checking these stories out by any rival churches. (???)

"Mike, I have no problem with all this, except one: I've never been inside a cognito before, and I'm not sure that's how I want to travel. You said we'd take the Kidding, so I don't get this whole cognito thing."

(At the other end of the telephone line, RRMMJ rolls his eyes to heaven, and silently asks for strength.)

"No, Your Confusedness, "incognito" is a word that means "with your true identity unrevealed"; you'd be traveling under assumed names, disguised so to speak, so no one would make the connection between you and the Church."

"Why all the secrecy?' I asked.

"Because that's just how they want it done, that's all."

"It wouldn't have anything to do with all the Bored members being a bunch of gray-headed douche-bags, would it?" I enquired, as Harley barked his agreement in the background.

"No, Your Tallness, they just have some concerns that if it gets out in the media that the AJATTWC is looking into these reports, other people might become suspicious and wonder what's going on, and they don't want to alert anyone just yet."

"Alert anyone to what? What's with all the secrecy?" I was starting to get a little annoyed with all the cloak-and-dagger shit.

So Mike proceeds to explain to me about that the Bored is concerned about dropping attendance and decreasing revenues, and the news reports they want "investigated" are stories of scientific breakthroughs in the area of "who we are and how we came to be here" and they're afraid that, as people become more attuned to science and understand our universe that they'll drop the AJATTWC, and for that matter all other organized religions, and follow the path of the "God Of Science", (gasp).

"You know, if the date today were April 1st, I'd say you were putting me on. Are they kidding?"

"No, Your M&M's, they're very serious. They feel the pull of science is becoming so strong that the secular is beginning to hold sway over the spiritual, and if that becomes the prevailing attitude in the world, well, we're all out of jobs."

"Yeah, but ultimately, isn't that why we're here, I mean, the AJATTWC, to set people on the path to glory, and then allow them to seek and pursue their spiritual "destiny", as it were, as they so chose. What difference does it make if my path is different that yours; my life is different than yours." I shook my head at the whole notion.

"Well, all I know, Your Grass, err, Grace, is that I don't want to be out of a job, not the ways things are these days."

As much as I hated to capitulate, I knew that this was a fight for another day. So I dropped the subject, and told Mike to start making plans to get everything ready for the "Tour".

Have I told you guys about the Pope's atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, or the RU Kidding for short? No? Well, what a vessel.

The Kidding has room to sleep 8 large adults, or 12 medium-sized people, stacked cross-wise. She is equipped with HyperAromaDrive, which enables the ship to achieve speeds that are in excess of the Speed Of Aroma, which, when compared to the Speeds Of Light and Sound, falls somewhere in between. With her own beauty parlor, pizza parlor, parlor, saloon, currency exchange, Starbuck's, the Eiffel Tower, two discos, a drive-through mortuary and a recycling center, she is state-of-the-art in Galactic Cruisers. (Think the Millennium Falcon from "Star Wars", with Harley in the role of Chewbacca. I, of course, will be in the role of Princess Leia, err, excuse me, Han Solo. There will be no one in the role of C3PO; if there was ever a more annoying character in a sci-fi movie, I haven't seen him/her. No, no C3PO, thank you.)

(And if I knew any "vertically-challenged" folks personally, I'd consider casting the role of R2D2, since he was the only one in those movies with any good sense.)

So, for whatever reasons, good or bad, me and the HD are off, sometime in the next few days, as soon as the staff can make all the arrangements, to boldly go where no man...shit, never mind.

(Have you guys met Harley? That's his pic there, to your right and up a little. He's the Pope's sidekick, roommate, sparing partner and the backup navigator when we're on board the Kidding. I'm not sure why he was smiling when I took this picture, but I suspect it had something to do with flatulence or chasing small, furry animals all over meadows of tall, green grass. Harley's needs, much like those of his owner, are fairly simple.)

(Several days later...)

Well, Mike called me a little while ago to tell me that all the arrangements are pretty much done, and that we'll be "embarking" tomorrow; our first stop? Geneva, Switzerland, to meet with local officials, and then, "incognito", to meet with Physics professor Dr. Warren Peace, from whom we're going to try and find out just what all this nonsense is about "Higgs bosons". (In Australia, that would be "Higgs bosons, mate." Okay, bad joke.)

(You know, "bosons mate", like sailors on ships? Geez.)

Well, I have to go pack, plus get Harley Dog all ready to go. (Oh, yeah, that'll be tough; pack a bunch of Girl Scout cookies, a few chew toys and you're there.) I'm taking my gerbil-golf clubs along, just in case we get a few hours free and I can get in a round or two.

I'm also packing all the "incognito" I can find; I don't want to be caught unprepared.

TO BE CONTINUED...(like it or not)

Love and suitcases,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

Oh, Were You Gone?

I try not to read too much "popular" fiction; a) I have an enormous mental list of good books that I want to read but haven't yet, and I don't want to delay working on that list with popular fiction because b) a lot of it is garbage.

But a few years ago, I did read the "best-seller" by Dan Brown, "Angels And Demons", and then subsequently, the follow-up novel and even bigger seller, "The Da Vinci Code". I thought they were typical "pop" fiction stories: interesting and fast-paced, with fairly well-conceived plot lines but poorly written stories, no in-depth character studies and a hefty price tag. A lot like Chinese food; good at the time, but not really satisfying, and three hours later you're out in the kitchen looking for the Girl Scout cookies and a quart of milk.

But I sat down the other day to re-read "Code", mostly because I had just finished the book I had been reading, ("A Heinlein Trio" by Robert Heinlein, the world's foremost science-fiction author, which consists of three of his "novellas", (longer than a short-story but shorter than a novel): "The Puppet Masters", "Double Star" and "Door Into Summer"; all excellent), and it was time for something new.

Having only read the book once, and quite some time ago at that, I didn't recall much of the story, and after reading the first page of the "Prolouge", I remembered why; they tell you who did on the very first page. Yeah, right there, page 3 in my edition, yep, "mountainous" evil albino guy shoots "renowned" curator, dead, in the Louvre. (Actually, the albino guy shot the curator in the chest, not in the Louvre.)

Hey, if this is Clue, it's all over. (If it's Monopoly, you've still got a ways to go.) "I think it was done in the Art Museum by the Albino Dude with the pistol." I win. So what's the point of reading the rest of the book? I already know the most important part: who did it. Wouldn't everything after that be rather anti-climatic?

I guess I'll have to read the book to find out. (I hate when that happens.)

Now some of you might be wondering just exactly where your Pope Guy has been for the last week; well, to tell the truth, which as a Pope is a typically good policy, unlike what those sleazy, lying douche-bags in Washington seem to think, well, I was off fishing. Yep, that's me, Captain Ahab on his all-consuming quest for the Great White Whale (that's what I used to call my ex-mother-in-law, although not to her face). That's right, opera lovers, I hung a sign on my office door that said "Gone Fishing". (Harley thought it said "Ngtyis Huycbge Z", but then, Harley's a dog, what does he know? That's his picture there to your right and up a little: no, you doofuses, your OTHER right.)

Actually, the REAL truth is, as opposed to the Washington version, which can be anything, I hit a period of several days where I had nothing in particular I wanted to say, and unlike a lot of people in this world these days, I try to keep my mouth shut when I don't need to speak. (I don't always succeed, but I really do try.) So since last Friday, 7/29, there has been a large void of silence (as opposed to the "soothing balm of Johnism") from the leader of the All John All The Time World Church, and I can only hope that the pain and uncertainty of not having your Popeamundo's stirring and uplifting words hasn't been too terrible to bear. (Have you ever wondered how anyone who doesn't speak English learns to do so? "...hasn't been too terrible to large, furry mammal of the ursine genus with humongous teeth and an occasionally poor attitude towards campers." Good luck.)

So for the better part of a whole week, I sat in my office here at the headquarters of the AJATTWC, located in the bucolic and ever-confused San Fernando Valley, suffering from a severe case of pecuniary strangulation, no, wait, that means I was broke, wrong fancy phrase there, okay, from a severe case of "writer's block", a malady from which, if you're not a writer, you can't suffer. (You'll just have to suffer from something else, like poverty, insecurity or being really butt ugly.)

Every time I would get an idea, or start again on an old idea that I had abandoned previously, hoping somehow for a miraculous resurrection, I would stand and watch as the waves of my hopes were dashed on the rocks of creativity. (Shit, that was poetic; well, it was at least interesting.)

I started this whole "Pope" journey back in January, when I was elevated (?) to the position of Pope of the AJATTWC, and this was the first time I had ever wanted to sit down and write something witty, brilliant and uplifting...and got nowhere. (My friends, all two of them, can't believe my silence; it's so out of character for me, or so they say. I admit, I am a talker, pretty much like the sun is kinda' warm.)

But I held my peace (there's that "English" thing again; change "peace" to "piece" and that phrase gets rather strange, or slightly off-color, depending on your general point of view; personally, I went right for the off-color translation) for a whole week and when the time finally came, well, here I am, back in the saddle again.

So how was your week? Did you guys do anything exciting? No? Boring bunch, aren't you? Let's see, what's going on with me? Well, the Dodgers are still 10 games back of the Giants, and Frank McCourt is still an asshole, ahh, let's see, I wrote a letter to my Congressman last week, informing him that if he and his colleagues in Washington didn't get their heads out of their butts and get the debt-ceiling thing fixed, that Harley and I would personally come to Washington and that I would allow Harley to do something rude on the Congressman's floor. I haven't heard back from him yet; I also haven't heard from the Secret Service, investigating a threat to a U.S. Representative, so maybe he hasn't gotten around to reading it.

Oh yeah, and the Smurf Movie was released last week; I think Katy Perry looks hot as hell as the Smurfette, which bothers me a lot, because that has to be some kind of completely new perversion that's not even in the books yet. Blue sex. EEYewah. (Katy Perry could make a barrel and a couple of ropes look hot.)

You know what would have been a really cool movie? A combination of "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Smurfs"; the plot could have been something like "small, blue curator of major art museum is found shot in the Louvre (not in the chest), and the killer turns out to be...the Smurfette, who is bent on taking over all the art institutes in the world and turning them into Starbucks, which they don't have in SmurfLand".

As long as the director and writer don't tell you the Smurfette did it in the first few minutes of the first scene, it's a possible.

Hey, anything is possible; they made a star outta' Miley, didn't they?

Love and writer's cramp,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.