The AJATTWC NOBULLetin_January 2014

"We interrupt this program to bring you a special bulletin..."

January 2014 NO BULLetin

THE ALL JOHN ALL THE TIME WORLD CHURCH

Edited by your favorite Clergyperson

Pope John The Tall

Leader and Head Guy

Well, maybe not a bulletin per se (that's Latin for "flushing toilet", see post from 1/25/14), but more a compendium (that's English for "a summary or abstract containing the essential information in a brief form", which is unusual for me, brevity, that is) of a number of items that have crossed in front of my viewfinder in the last few days, and that I believe deserve comment.

(For those of you who are not regular followers of my work, which is the spreading of the gospel of the "soothing balm of Johnism", an explanation of my now historic ascent to Papal irrelevance appears above.)

FYI, the NOBULLetin is supposed to be a monthly publication, but given time constraints, 24/7 news cycles and writer's block on the part of your Pope, sometimes it's not so regular. Like once a year maybe.

Sorry; I promise to do better in the future.

In no apparent order, which is a hallmark of my writing, here they are:

***From the Love, American Style Department...

            Toni Tennille, 73, the better looking half of the musical act the Captain and Tennille (which in this case is a dubious distinction), announced last week that she has filed for divorce from her husband of THIRTY-NINE YEARS, Captain Horatio Hornblower, a/k/a Daryl Dragon, 71. Ms. Captain cited poor musicianship and questionable taste as the reasons for the break-up of the marriage.

           

THIRTY-NINE YEARS with the same guy and NOW you realize he's the wrong one. What, you weren't paying attention? You're 73 years old and NOW it's back to the dating scene? (To invoke the name of my atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, or for short, what, RU Kidding?)

           

Love apparently will not keep them together.

***From the This Is Somehow Very Wrong Department...

            This past Saturday, 1/25/14, in an NHL Pacific Division contest, the Anaheim Ducks beat the Los Angeles Kings 3-0...at Dodger Stadium.

            No, you didn't read that wrong, the game was played outdoors at the home of my favorite baseball team, the Los Angeles Dodgers. See the link below for a video and the story of the game.

            Hockey, at Chavez Ravine.

            I'm sorry, but this is wrong, very wrong. I mean, the picture just looks so weird. I watch just about every Dodgers game on TV during the season, being retired from my regular job (being Pope doesn't require an inordinate amount of my time, d'uh, leaving me ample opportunity to indulge my love of baseball/the Dodgers), not to mention a number of personal visits over the years when I was a resident of L.A., so I see/have seen the stadium frequently and I can tell you, this just isn't right.

            Okay, I'm done kvetching (that's Yiddish for "flushing toilet").

http://espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/10353509/nhl-dodger-stadium-game-hockey-anaheim-ducks-los-angeles-kings

***From the When Did That Happen Department?...

            Now I pride myself on being a pretty aware Pope; I make every effort to keep abreast of the news and to be knowledgeable of current events, reading a daily newspaper and surfing a number of on-line news sources regularly. But I have to tell you that your Pope really dropped the proverbial ball on this one; when the hell did stamps get so expensive? The last time I remember the price of a postage stamp, it was 37 cents. (Okay, obviously I haven't been paying attention to this issue lately.)

            But according to numerous articles just about everywhere last week (see the article from the New York Daily News below, as an example), the United States Postal Service, bastion of incompetence and mediocrity, is raising the price of a 1st Class stamp to...FORTY-NINE CENTS.

            I don't have a problem with the amount necessarily, I just wasn't aware that stamps had gone up that much. But whether the price is fair or outrageous notwithstanding, what galls me is this raise vis a vis (that's Latin for "what, are you people kidding with this?") the utter incompetence of the USPS, and to increase their rates again, apparently for the fourth time in as many years, is like adding insult to injury, salt in the wound and what would the fox say. (He'd probably tell you to take your raise and insert it some place unmentionable.)

            I recently moved from the bucolic splendor of the San Fernando Valley area of L.A., back to the frigid plains of Northern Illinois, and in the process of doing so, well in advance of the move, I petitioned the Postal Service folks for a change of address for both my personal and business mail. In the two plus months since the change went into effect, the geniuses at the Post Office have lost at least TEN (you know, like in one more than nine and one less than eleven), TEN pieces of my mail, items that I can verify from the originators were sent but have never arrived.

            Lost in the ozone? Who knows, but I know this much, I never saw them.

            I sent an unpleasant letter to the Postmaster at the Van Nuys CA branch that handles the mail for Sherman Oaks, where I lived, complaining of the service and the loss of my mail; I suspect the letter was passed around at break time (8:00am to 12:00pm daily, after which it's lunch-time, to be followed by an afternoon break from 1:00pm to 5:00pm), and generated some hearty laughs from the employees. (The word "employees" is used here only to indicate the receipt of a paycheck; it is not used to indicate productivity.)

            Gee, it's hard to imagine how an efficient and well-run agency like the Postal Service lost FIVE BILLION DOLLARS last year, isn't it?

            49 cents a stamp? You guys at the USPS have the balls of a rhinoceros.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ostal-service-raises-price-stamp-49-cents-article-1.1592053 

***From the They're All The Rage These Days Department...

            This will probably only be funny to folks who have been following the exploits of the Mars Rover Curiosity; I have, and I thought it was hilarious.

***From the Serious Lack Of Taste Department...

            Cervidae flatulence.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/deer-farts-on-camera_n_4653026.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news 

Love and the monthlies,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

Flush With Success

"Having knowledge is to be aware that a tomato is a fruit; having wisdom is knowing not to put one in a fruit salad."

Pope John The Tall, in an address to the United Planets Council, Star Date 5689.65 (CST)

For those of you who follow the various ramblings of your Pope, the aforementioned John The Tall, leader of the All John All The Time World Church and the person, now infamous, who introduced the "soothing balm of Johnism" to an unsuspecting world, and whose ascent to Popedom is described above (see above), you will know that, being dissatisfied with sun and beautiful weather after 13 long, grueling years in the San Fernando Valley region of the Granola City, Los Angeles ("What isn't fruits and nuts is flakes"), I returned to my ancestral roots here on the frigid planes of Northern Illinois recently. (My dissatisfaction with the weather in SoCal is reminiscent of the sarcastic remark by the character Lacy Underall in the movie "Caddyshack": "Daddy thought I was having too much fun in Manhattan." Yeah, there was way too much of that horrible nice weather there in L.A.)

Imagine being removed quickly from a lounge chair in the sun by the pool and dropped unceremoniously into a huge bucket of ice water.

I was having no luck whatsoever with finding an apartment by remote control, i.e., via the Internet, despite my knowledge of the area from my many previous years of residence here, and bemoaned my difficulties to my daughter on several occasions, as we spoke on the phone last fall. She, in casual conversation with her mother-in-law, a very kind and generous lady named Mohandas (that's not her real name; the names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent and the uninformed), mentioned my constant whining about my difficulties, and Mohandas, in a moment of generosity that I'm sure she has since come to regret, offered, through the good offices of Fred, my kid, to allow me to move into her home and temporarily occupy her commodious basement, which was at the time, sitting mostly vacant and cold.

Thinking that apartment hunting would be considerably easier on-site, rather than on-line, I contacted her, we worked out the details and one 2000-mile, 38-hour drive cross-country in a rented 16' truck with my son-in-law and my car, attached firmly to a trailer hooked to the rear (my car, not my son-in-law), the rest, as they say, is geography. Killing two birds with the proverbial single stone, I was now home for the holidays and able to pursue permanent housing in person.

Mohandas is a very nice lady (okay, her real name is Goneril), and she has been more than accommodating during my residence here in her dungeon (it's actually a beautifully neat and clean space, with two remarkable features: 1) it's huge, being large enough for hockey games and 2) it's also cold enough for those same games; it's never above about 60 degrees down here, which is colder than you think when you're sitting at your desk working or lounging in front of the TV). I use her kitchen (sparingly, but I never used my own kitchen more than sparingly before) and her guest bathroom, both of which are upstairs. Other than that, I stay down here, out of her way as much as possible.

It's her bathroom that's the focus of today's little saga, specifically the toilet.

(Now before I relate my tale, let me digress a moment to point something out to you, dear follower of Johnism: anyone who knows me well knows that I am a staunch supporter of equality, in all aspects of life, for women. Equal pay, equal rights, equal everything, the whole enchilada, okay? This isn't a story about an incompetent female, so I don't want to hear any of that "he's a sexist" nonsense from anyone when you've finished reading this.)

One day last week, I ventured into the above-mentioned bathroom, with the express intent of relieving my over-burdened bladder, and upon entering, I noticed a small piece of what looked like, and turned out to be, plastic, lying on the floor next to the commode. Since I was mostly certain it hadn't been there earlier when I was taking my shower, I knew it to be a recent intruder. As my glance moved upwards, I further realized that the small invader of my privacy had, in fact, removed itself from the handle on the toilet that releases the water that flushes same (technical term: "trip lever"), in what was obviously an attempt to escape and secure it's freedom from the tyranny of boring repetition.

After brief examination, my first, and quickly dismissed, thought was to glue it back onto the handle; unfortunately, I immediately recognized that this would, at best, prolong the incipient failure of the handle, and such failure would necessitate my either a) using Mohandas/Goneril's bathroom to relieve myself, b) relieve myself and not flush or c) go in the shower, all of which were unacceptable alternatives.

My next thought was to hustle down to the local purveyor of all things repair, Home Depot, and obtain a replacement; however, closer examination of the now-defunct handle revealed that it was imprinted with the name of the manufacturer, indicating that it was an OEM product. Knowing that my erstwhile "landlady" has intentions of selling her place and retiring in the near future, and not wanting to be the cause of a huge drop in market value ("Yeah, we were gonna' offer her 175 for her place, but when we saw that aftermarket handle on the throne in the guest bath, we knocked 5K right off the top"), and further knowing that the replacements at HD are either cheap junk made in a foreign country where the workers are exploited and earn about 14 cents a week or ridiculously expensive, I figured I'd better seek out an OEM part.

(For the uninitiated, the term "OEM" stands for "Oboe Estover Mitosis".)

Although I'm not a child of the computer age, I have however been using them since the mid-1980's and have well acclimated myself to the 21st century mode of shopping, i.e., finding things on-line. (I may not be able to find an apartment, but a OEM replacement handle for a toilet, no problema.)

I Googled the manufacturer of the toilet (Gerber, and all I could think was that I hoped it wasn't the same company of baby food fame), found a plumbing supply place that sold their parts, located the handle in question, walked upstairs to double-check it was the correct part, (it was), placed the order ($8.19 for the new handle and $9.00 shipping; welcome to the wonderful world of on-line shopping), and less than ten minutes later, the deed was accomplished.

Please note that, to date, I have yet to apprise Mohandas/Goneril of the failure of her plumbing. I have the situation under control.

M/G's new handle arrived several days later at my P.O. box, and after being notified of it's arrival, I picked it up and brought it home; installation was briefer than the time it took to order it (if you've never replaced a toilet handle, trust me, only being severely challenged mechanically would enable someone to make this a difficult project), and the toilet is now back to full functionality.

Later that evening, after M/G had gotten home from work, I arose from the dungeon with the old, broken handle in hand, to explain to her what had happened.

I was a moment into my story of escapist pieces of plastic and broken handles, when I happened to look up and noticed the look on M/G's face: utter perplexity; she seemed to have no idea what the hell I was talking about, let alone any comprehension of the arcane workings of residential plumbing. I was convinced I was correct in my assumption when I asked her, in a moment of attempted levity, if, rather than throw the now-failed part in the garbage, if she would like to keep it as a souvenir, to which she replied, "well, if you think we should".

It was at that moment that I realized that a) some people should probably not own their homes and that b) those same people are the very ones who keep home repair/home handymen in lucrative business.

And gender isn't the issue here, as I'm sure this applies to many of those of the male of the species as well (I once had a neighbor, a guy, who told me his idea of home repair was to call 1-800-HELPME; I have an older brother cast from the same mold), which is why I gave the "I'm not a sexist pig" speech above. That my son-in-law owns his own very successful general contracting business and is very generous with his time is a blessing for this nice lady, otherwise she would be at the mercy of smart-aleck repairpersons like me, who would make bad jokes about souvenir toilet handles and soak her a gazillion to replace same.

And while none of this is of any great import in the overall scheme of life, it provided me with an object lesson of some value: even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

Which of course has nothing to do with my story, but I needed some kind of familiar aphorism to end this tale.

Hey, it was better than even a blind pig finds a truffle now and then.

I can't wait to be around when the furnace filter needs to be changed.

Love and DIY,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

Would You Like A Fortune, Cookie?

Hail, hail rock n' roll.

(Always wanted to start one of my posts with that.)

Your Pope (that would be me, John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church and Massage Parlor; the history of my meteoric rise to Papal stardom appears above), recently moved from the sunny climes of Southern California, specifically the San Fernando Valley area of LA (pronounced "LAH"), back to my roots here on the frigid plains of Northern Illinois ("Illinois" in the Hulahoop Indian tongue means "flat as a table and up to your butt in icicles"); a number of my more sane friends questioned the timing of this move, coming as it did in November, which, while still relatively warm in SoCal, is considered winter, i.e, effing cold, in table/butt-icicle land.

"Why are you moving back there in winter?" asked my erstwhile ex-neighbor Susie, better known (to me) as TL, which is short for TennLamb, her email handle, TennLamb being a contraction of Tennessee Lamb, as in "If you'll be my Dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennessee lamb," from the great Lowell George/Little Feat song "Dixie Chicken".

The answer to her question was, hell, I don't know; like the guy that jumped naked into a cactus patch, it just seemed like a good idea at the time. (Actually, I wanted to be home with my family for the holidays; I've come back to visit every year for the last several, so, I figured, why make it a round-trip?)

Honestly, the cold and snow really didn't concern me when I was considering the move; I lived here for many years previously, still had my long underwear, hats, scarves and gloves and knew how to drive in winter ("steer into the slide"), so I knew the gig. Besides, as I told Susie, and everyone else who questioned my sanity, now that I'm mostly retired, having no day-job to get up in the mornings and go to, hell, what did I care what Ma Nature was inflicting upon the world outside; I don't have to go out in it if I don't choose to.

Not calculated into this plan was a certain amount of time for my body/physiology to adjust from daily 70-80 degree Valley weather to, are you kidding me, the wind chill is WHAT?

I hadn't been here three weeks when I got the flu; sickest I think I have ever been in my, using the term guardedly, adult life. Spent a week in bed miserable, figuring that I would have to get better to die.

Got back on my feet and, within a week, promptly caught a cold; lacking bad luck, I wouldn't have any at all.

It was during my second stint in bed sick (this time for 5 days), that I learned of a phenomena of which I had previously been blissfully ignorant.

The company that makes those Halls "triple soothing action, mentho-lyptus" cough drops puts pithy little sayings on the wrappers.

Word.

And I quote:

            "Don't waste a precious minute."

            "Get through it."

            "Put your game face on." (Which begs the question, "On whom?")

            "Take charge and mean it."

I love this one:

            "A pep talk in every drop." (That one was trade marked.)

Now I don't mean to sound like a curmudgeon here, but after spending half of the first six weeks subsequent to my triumphant return to the Land Of Lincoln in bed, hoping to die, my appreciation for these gems of wisdom was limited.

I have never really liked or appreciated the little slips of paper with the brief Oriental philosophies contained in fortune cookies either; frankly, although I like the cookie part, I've always thought most of the sayings were trite or, in a lot of cases, rather stupid. No slam to Confucius, but I mean, is there a point to these?

My all-time favorite fortune cookie messages:

            "You just ate cat."

            "Never tease an armed midget with a high-five."

And of course, at the end of a dinner with friends in a Chinese restaurant, some too-clever-for-words-genius will invariably comment to his/her (usually her) fellow diners, "Oh, read your fortune and add the words 'in bed' at the end", which, in my mind, typically only makes the message sound even more inane.

"You will inherit a potato farm and make a killing in tubers." Yeah, Einstein, add "in bed" to that.

I'm going to lobby someone to try my cough drop/fortune cookie sayings as alternatives to what they're using currently.

To wit:

            "The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it's still on my list."

            "If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong."

            "I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you."

            "Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until they speak."

            "You do not need a parachute to skydive; you only need one to skydive twice."

            "Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car."

            "You only live once, if you're lucky."

Besides being infinitely more clever than the ones on the cough-drop wrappers and in the fortune cookies these companies are boring us with currently, mine are a lot funnier.

(FYI, for those of you unaware of this, my sayings actually have a name...they're called "paraprosdokians", which in the Hulahoop Indian tongue means "potato farm".

Okay, I lied about that; here's what the word really means, per WikiPedia:

"A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists. Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but they also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a form of syllepsis."

Is it possible to have an "anticlimax"? I mean, you either do or you don't, right?

So on top of being in bed, sick and miserable with my cold, I had to endure Kraft Foods' (the maker of Halls Cough Drops) idea of uplifting messages on the wrappers of their product. (Yeah, I know, I didn't have to read them, but once I knew they were there, oh well.) Somehow, this must rise to the level of "cruel and unusual punishment".

"That wasn't moo goo gai pan, it was sweet and sour raccoon testicles."

Love and chop suey,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

There's Just No Accounting For Taste

Wow, the time sure flies by when you're having fun, fun in this case being defined as the absence of root-canal work.

Today, January 18th, 2014, is the third anniversary of the inception of the blog of yours truly, Pope John The Tall of the All John All The Time World Church; that's right, oh dedicated followers and lovers of sports, three years ago today, I began my quest to bring "the soothing balm of Johnism" to the world masses, by posting my deathless prose and timeless messages of hope and frivolity online, for all to see and appreciate. Over 10,000 (TEN THOUSAND AND TWELVE, to be precise, as of this morning) page-views later, I'm still here, banging away.

So far so good.

Throughout the past three years, there have been flights of fantasy on my atomic-powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, or the RU Kidding for short, along with my faithful companion and official canine of the Pope, the Harley Dog, to the ends of the earth and the heavens as we know them, pitched battles to bring "Johnism" to the teeming hordes, all sorts of administrative boondoggles to contend with as the leader of a major religion, issues brought to light to hopefully help my loyal followers understand how to cope with an ever-changing world and in general, a lot of rank silliness.

There have been nun's habits to select, 26-foot statues of Marilyn Monroe, giant fish, aliens by the bucketful, great looking cars that I can't afford, ghost stories, stories about the best team in baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers, upside-down tomato plants, intestinal vegetation, an assistant to Harley named Tucker Dog, a personal email from a rock icon, Girl Scout cookies, statues of Harry Carey being defaced, contests, a rock band named the Flaming Iguanas, jokes about three-legged pigs, news bulletins from the AJATTWC, a woman with a bra size of 102ZZZ, komodo dragons, politics and politicians and all kinds of other foolishness.

And throughout it all, I have remained your cheerful, lovable Popemeister, always ready to fly off (figuratively), at a moment's notice, to exotic lands and far-flung planets to spread a little humor (sometimes very little), and hopefully bring a smile to your face and take your mind off your worries for a few moments.

See, I'm not such a bad guy; hell, I'm not even near as bad as my ex-wife makes me out to be.

So I thought that, just for yucks, to kind of, you know, celebrate the occasion, I would come up with a "Hall Of Fame" of some of my better posts, better meaning mostly coherent and in some small way, humorous. At least I think they are. Of the 174 essays I've posted over these past three years, these are the ones that I personally have enjoyed the most. (Actually, I've written/posted more than that; I've deleted a few stinkers.)

So in no particular order, and by no means inclusive of all my great messages on the subject of adopting "Johnism" into your lives, I give you the Pope John The Tall "Greatest Hits".

Seldom have so many sunk so low for comedy.

And remember, blessed are the lazy, for while they accomplish little, they're well rested.

Enjoy. And please feel free to peruse the entire catalog of my work; 174 forays into doofusness.

Love and oldies,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.

THE GREATEST HITS OF PJTT

***At Least He's Not Dating An Alien From The Planet Noloc***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/01/at-least-hes-not-dating-alien-from.html 

***On Being A Cub's Fan And Not Understanding Vaginas***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/02/on-being-cubs-fan-and-not-understanding.html 

***The Writing Of Notes And The Hitting Of Gerbils***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/02/writing-of-notes-and-hitting-of-gerbils.html 

***Living Alone, Talking To Yourself And Whale Weinies***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/04/living-alone-talking-to-yourself-and.html 

***God Of Wind***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/05/god-of-wind.html 

***Sperm Bank Announces New Policy: Home Delivery (Just Like Dominos, Guaranteed Hot)***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/10/sperm-bank-announces-new-policy-home.html 

***加倍努力，芝加哥熊 (That's Chinese For The Greatest Team Ever)***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2011/11/thats-chinese-for-greatest-team-ever.html 

***...And From The Totally Unintentional Irony Department...***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2012/07/and-from-totally-unintentional-irony.html 

***The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-more-things-change-more-they-stay.html 

***You Are Still My Perfection***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2013/01/you-are-still-my-perfection.html 

***Maybe It Was Caspar's Older Sister***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2014/01/normal-0-happy-new-year-one-and-all.html 

***Just For The Halibut***

http://popejohnthetall.blogspot.com/2014/01/just-for-halibut.html 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

Maybe It Was Caspar's Older Sister

Happy New Year, one and all, from your favorite Pope, John The Tall (see above for a detailed and most likely confusing explanation of how I came to rise to this lofty pinochle); my best wishes for a safe and prosperous 2014, or whatever year it is where you are.

I'm going to tell you a spooky story, so if you're inclined to be weirded-out by such tales, you might want to stop here and go read something else, you sissy.

Now strictly speaking, I don't put much credence in stories of the "supernatural", although I thought Peter Straub's "Ghost Story" was the most frightening book I have ever read, and I am literally getting goose bumps as I write this, thinking about Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting Of Hill House". I didn't sleep real well for a night or two after I saw "The Exorcist" for the first time, and "Poltergeist" gave me a pretty good rush as well.

But in real life, day-to-day living, not so much; I can't say that I've ever even given the subject much thought. Oh, there was an incident back when I was about 16 when, along with a buddy of mine who swore, at the right time of night, you could see lights moving across the altar of an old church in our neighborhood, we entered said church (folks were MUCH more trusting about leaving church doors unlocked in those days, which was just after the Civil War, don't you know?), and promptly exited, an hour or so later, in a bit of a rush, having witnessed something that didn't seem completely kosher.

But I was, like a lot of 16-year olds, a bit of a doofus then, and I'm unhappy to say that the ensuing years haven't changed me much.

But belief in the supernatural, nah, not really. To my way of thinking, things that go unexplained, like UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, crop circles and why anyone could possibly think Miley Cyrus has any talent whatsoever are just things which science hasn't stumbled onto an explanation for yet.

You know, like why this country elected George Bush twice.

Okay, here's the tale (Edgar Allen Poe, eat your heart out).

I recently returned to the city of my roots here in Northern Illinois, after 13 interesting but increasingly lonely years in Granola City ("What ain't fruits and nuts is flakes"), Los Angeles CA; loved the weather, but my family is here and I wanted to come home. I'm semi-retired these days (very small "semi"), working only a few hours a week for the several clients that still remain from my sales/marketing firm, and since money is tighter these days, and since I, apparently unlike many others, found the process of on-line apartment hunting to be impossible ("First Month Rent Free, Roaches No Charge"), my initial long-distance forays into the local housing market were less than successful.

My beautiful and extremely bright daughter, Fred (not her real name; all names have been changed to protect the innocent and confused), being made aware of my inability to find a place to live by my constant complaining about it, called me one day with a suggestion: "Hey, Dad", she says, "I was just talking to Mohandas (my son-in-law's mom), "and she suggested you move into her basement so you could be here and check things out in person. Plus that would get you home for the holidays." (This was back in October of last year.)

What???

"Yeah", says my erstwhile kid, "she's got plenty of room; her basement is ginormous."

Give credit to my offspring: what her description lacks in proper grammar is more than made up for by how descriptive and accurate it is; the basement is, indeed, "ginormous". Mohandas and I cut a deal, and in I moved, after the moving truck loading, the 38-hour cross-country trip with my son-in-law, complete with trailered car, the unloading at the house and storage unit, etc.

I filled up about 1/2 of her basement with an easy chair, my TV/stereo, my desk/computer/printer stand, a bedroom set, complete with queen-size bed, a refrigerator and some odds and ends, and I'm thinking about scheduling NASCAR events in the other half. I use a map to find my way around.

Last night, not feeling like cooking nor disturbing my extremely decent and thoughtful landlady by banging around in her kitchen, I went to a local eatery, had a very nice meal, complete with a quite interesting conversation with my wait-person, who was, a) very bright, b) quite attractive and c) young enough to be my other daughter, which pretty much cancelled out b).

Arriving home, I switched on the Blackhawks game, and settled in for the evening.

(I have recently become a hockey fan, after years of disliking the game for all the gratuitous fighting; said daughter, above, and her hubby have become big fans of the Chicago team, and she kept assuring me that the fighting wasn't near as bad as it used to be. Deciding to see if she was tugging at my extremity, I watched a game or two when I got back in town and, I'm happy to report, got hooked. The games are exciting, fast-paced and populated by some incredible athletes that can do things on skates at high speed that the majority of us couldn't do on the living room rug bare-footed, in slow-motion. Go 'Hawks!)

Game over, and the 'Hawks triumphant over the NJ Devils 5-3, it was now 9:00pm and decision time: go to bed and read or sit in my chair and read. (I'm not much of a TV person; sports and an occasional movie.)

One of the beauties of retirement (even semi), at least for me, is the flexibility of the schedule: if I want to crash at 9:00pm, or even 6:00pm for that matter, although I only did that when I had the flu a few weeks ago, who cares? I mean, there's no desk to be at nor clock to punch in the mornings, so I don't concern myself with my rather, at least to some people, odd schedule (you'll understand more below). Besides, I'm going to wake up at least once in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom anyway, so why not?

(I am the embodiment of the old joke about a "senior" all-nighter being not having to get up once to pee. As I've aged, my bladder has shrunk to the size of a walnut and my brain has installed software therein that does a "WARNING! WARNING, OLD PERSON! BLADDER IS NOW AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY AND MUST BE EMPTIED IMMEDIATELY! WARNING! WARNING!"  kind of a thing. My friend Ron, who is the same age as I am, says he never wakes up to pee at night, but since he smokes dope all day and goes to bed stoned, I don't think that counts.)

I'd give 1000 bucks to, just once, sleep all the way through the night. Shit.

So I crashed at 9 o'clock, dove into "Eisenhower, Soldier and President", which is pretty interesting, although when I first started reading it, after 12 pages or so, all I could think was that I hoped the author, Stephen E. Ambrose, could fornicate better than he could write, otherwise I would have predicted a lonely life for the man; it read like a high-school textbook. It's gotten much better.

I managed about a half-hour's worth, turned the light off and fell asleep.

Right on schedule, Ol' Walnut Bladder woke me up about 1:45am, and believe me, after turning on the light by my bed, walking the 200 yards across the basement, turning on the light in the basement stairwell and trudging up the steps, walking down the medium-length hallway to make a right turn into the short hallway that leads to the bathroom, turning on the bathroom light lest I urinate all over the toilet, the floor, the tub and myself, washing my hands thoroughly, then reversing my steps to return to bed, I am now completely awake.

So I read some more, and finally fell back to sleep about 3:45. (This is pretty much every night; remember what I said about the "odd schedule" above? Yeah.)

And dreamed.

I sleep on my left side, for no other better reason than explains why I'm right-handed, that is, I just do/am, on the right side of the bed; I'm not democratic enough to sleep in the middle.

Suddenly, I was aware of a woman, a rather tall woman, standing at the foot of my bed, just at my feet, clothed in what looked to be a long, white nightgown, wearing a straw cowboy hat. (Hey, it's a dream, they're not supposed to make sense, okay?) She was facing the same way I was, to my left, with her left shoulder to me, and muttering something under her breath that I couldn't make out. It was scary how real it seemed, so there somehow, like I could have reached out and touched her.

(At first, I thought it was my mother, who met her demise about a year ago at the ripe old age of 98, but realized in an instant I was wrong; this woman was much younger, with flowing blond hair. Glad too that it wasn't Fran; she and I stopped speaking about 5 years before she died, then she cut me out of her will, which I found out about when my brother called to tell me that she had died, and I didn't go to the funeral. There's a LOT more to that story, believe me.)

My spectral lady began to move to the other side of the bed, and as she moved, still saying whatever in her low voice, I found myself trying to call out to her, to ask her what her name was, to tell me what she was saying, (to try to get her to climb in with me; I am the epitome of what Jean-Paul Sartre said about guys: "I breathe, therefore I perv"), to try to get her attention in some way. I kept trying to say something, but nothing was coming out.

She stopped a few feet past the bed, and as she did, I was finally able to croak out a sound, and that's when I woke up. In that moment of startled wakefulness, in maybe 5 seconds of passing time, I flipped onto my back, glanced to my right and saw it was 4:18am, realized that I had had this same dream just recently, although I hadn't awoken that time, and turned back to look at the spot where my dream-lady had stopped moving.

Which was directly under the smoke-detector, which like my printer, my clock radio, my modem, my computer and other myriad devices here in my basement home, has a small, green LED light that glows all the time, steadily, not on and off or blinking or anything, just on, only right then, it wasn't glowing, as it always does, but pulsing, becoming brighter and dimmer and brighter and dimmer until, after a few moments, it stopped.

I ran, shrieking and half-naked, into the cold Illinois winter night, never to return again. (Okay, that part isn't true.)

But the rest of it is, and I have to tell you, it was weird; not Justin Beiber weird, not unexplained lights across the altar weird, but pretty weird. I know what you're thinking, that I was still asleep, but I wasn't, because I had to get up and go pee again.

Honest.

I'm hoping she comes back tonight; I mean, yeah, it was just a brief encounter, but I gotta' tell you, she looked pretty hot.

I wonder if this kind of thing ever happened to Peter Straub?

Love and Lovecraft,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc