This One Is For You, Big Guy

"...so, you gotta' date this weekend?...what's Glor, I mean, what's Susie doing this weekend?...oh...hey, sorry, man, that's really too bad...yeah, she was a great gal, Mike, what happened?...yeah...yeah, I could see why that might have pissed her off...listen, dude, I gotta' go, you okay?...hey, hang in there, all right?...call me if you need to talk...okay, buddy...yeah, hey, we'll do Hooters next week, all right?...okay...talk to you later..."

Shit.

I was just on the Popephone with my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan (no, not the one that hangs around with Charles Barkley); he was telling me that he and his girlfriend Susie broke up last week. (Everybody here at the All John All The Time World Church, including me, your Pope Guy, called her Gloria, which was short for Gloria the Gorilla; not to speak ill of the departed (left, not dead), but Gloria had a small, ahh, how can I say this, body hair problem, shall we say? (She looked like she was going to leap into a tree and begin climbing at any moment. Nice girl. Having two eyes but only one eyebrow got her some attention as well.) Anyway, Mike is pretty upset, and I can understand how he feels, having been there once or twice in my life.

Of course, everybody around the office here at the AJATTWC thinks Mike is better off without "Gloria"; she treated him pretty shitty. But walking in and finding him in the bathtub, which was filled at that moment with several gallons of Wesson oil and a collection of USC cheerleaders (female ones only), wasn't designed to be the best method for maintaining connubial bliss. (She didn't buy the story about him trying to score some season tickets to the Trojan's football games. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have bought into that excuse either, and Susie is WAY smarter than I am, as are most women I know. Truth is, I think most women are smarter than ALL men, especially when it comes to the thinking we guys do with the parts of our bodies other than our brain.)

Which brings me to today's topic; advise. No, I don't have any.

But I get tons of letters, emails, texts, smoke-signals, faxes and intergalactic "spail" (that's "speed mail" for you uninitiated), asking me to offer some comforting words, or a bit of advise about a personal problem, or containing a cry for help, loud and clear, for some momentary solace over the loss of someone special in their lives.

So while I don't feel competent to write an "Advise Column", I thought that, periodically, I would entertain some of the communications that I receive from so many of you, my faithful followers, and try to give some insights into the murky realm of interpersonal relationships, based on the message of the soothing balm of Johnism.

(You buyin' into that? Good, I've got some land down in Florida I'd like to talk to you about.)

My first "supplicant", as it were, is a young man named TW (initials only, no names to protect the innocent, and the embarrassed); he writes:

Dear Pope Guy: My wife threw my out of our house several years ago on a cold, winter's evening, after she found out that I had had a "liaison" with a hooker while I was away from home on business. Actually, it was several "liaisons". Okay, I had a whole string of bimbos from coast to coast, and now I'm alone again, and my work is suffering and the lawsuits are starting to pile up. Pope, what can I do to get my wife to come back to me and forget the $100 Bajillion divorce settlement she wants? Signed, How Come There's Only White Balls In My Golf Bag?

Dear "Balls": Well, first off, nice job on the bimbos, dude; it's just like Gertrude Stein once said: "You can never be too rich, and you can never have too many bimbos." But buddy, not cool letting the wife find a text message on your cell phone from Bambie the Bimbo, making crude, but loving, remarks about your johnson; bad move, bro.

            I'd say you have two chances at getting the little women to return; slim and none. Probably best to move on with your life. Oh yeah, and open that checkbook, Birdie Boy, 'cause this one is going to cost you some BIG green's fees.

Or this one from NG:

Dear Popeamundo: I'm a middle-aged guy, married for the third time, and the current Mrs. G is starting to get suspicious about my reasons for wanting to return to public life; she thinks I'm going to go back to my "old" ways, back in the Jurassic period, when if it wore makeup and a skirt, I tried to make a move on it. (Got me into some serious trouble a few years ago when my aide and I walked into a gay bar by accident.) Anyway, she's concerned that it's "full blast and top down" once I get on the road again, and I'm taking a lot of heat at home, to say nothing of what I'm hearing from the media. Any ideas on how I can allay her fears? (Is that like "getting laid?") Signed, Eye Of Newt

Dear "Eye": Sleazebag. And you made ol' Bill C. look almost like a pillar of virtue, which is a hell of a job, lemme' tell you.

Or this cry of help from KK:

Deer Poop Johnn: Hey, who cars if our hole family has the IQ of soap, we have reelaty, err, rialety, shit, reality, there, shows up the wazoo, so who needs your stoopid "Advise Columm", huh? Who wants advisse from an old guy who doesn't even have a gurlfriend, anyway? That's so lame. Hey, do you know where I can get another toy Chiwhawa, ahh, Chiwowa, shit, dog for my purse? I ran over the lasted one I had with my Homer, err, Hummer. Signed, Lost In Hollywood, Which Is As Lost As You Can Get

Dear "Lost": The AJATTWC has an in-house charity called the Home For The Chronically Bewildered; I'm going to recommend to the Bored that you be given consideration as a potential resident of our facility. Oh, yeah, the pictorial in "W" magazine a few months ago was excellent.

Here's one I received just recently:

Dear Pope John The Tall: As we stand on the brink of another four years of lying, filthy Demo, ahh, of a Democratic White House...

That one wasn't supposed to be in this batch of mail.

Okay, here's one that I really haven't had a chance to read yet:

Dear Valued Customer: We see from our records that your subscription to "DDD Beauties" is about to lapse. Why not...

Whoa, THAT one sure wasn't supposed to be in here, either. Geez.

Okay, one more:

Dear Pope Dude: I was Marie Antoinette in another life, which has the benefit of never having to suffer from headaches in this life, but that's not the subject of this letter.

            I recently was on a "singles" cruise when this really nice-looking, but rather hairy, guy came up to me on the shuffle-board court and asked me if I would like to come to his stateroom and check out his collection of holy cards. Well, I was kinda' bored that day, so one thing led to another...

            We spent several wonderful days onboard, having romantic dinners, playing roulette in the casino, hitting gerbils off the fantail with five-irons, enjoying margaritas on the beach at St. Thomas while we watched the sunset, it was truly an idyllic voyage. But right before we docked, on the last day of the cruise, I lost touch with my "Harvey", as he called himself, and I haven't seen him since.

            One thing he mentioned, several times, during our brief time together; he told me he had an important position with your church. Can you help me locate my darling, please? The only other thing I know about him, besides the fur, was that he didn't have much skill with cutlery. Does that help identify him? Please let me know ASAP. Thanks. Signed, Left In The Lurch By Someone From Your Church

Dear "Left": Never heard of him.

That's all the letters I'm going to respond to for the moment; I'll do this again from time to time, to give what comfort I can to the "love afflicted" by extending the soothing balm of Johnism to them. In the meantime, I have a certain dog I need to go find and with whom I need to have a long talk.

The slut.

I knew letting him go on that cruise by himself was a bad idea, but I let him talk me into it, and here we are. "... he didn't have much skill with cutlery...". Geez, Harley, what a sleaze bucket you are.

Oh, here comes the mighty warrior now, back from the trenches of the war between the sexes. Hey, Lothario, what's happenin'? You big dummy, c'mere. (Lots of petting and wrestling and gentle tail-pulling and face-licking and all sorts of human/canine interaction takes place here.)

"Hey, you wanna' go bye-bye? Do you? Careful there, big guy, you wag that tail of yours any harder and it'll come off. Where's your leash, huh? Come on, go get your leash, good boy."

With my sidekick, roommate and backup navigator when we're onboard my atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, at my side, we're off to the beach to chase seagulls and good-looking women, preferably semi-clothed types. (The women, not the seagulls.)

And no more cruises, Dog Food Boy; I'm keeping you home, close to me, where you belong.

Because when you have Harley, you don't have any need to write letters to any Pope Guys for advise.

Love and better days,

PJTT and the Harley Dog

Copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

Has It Caused Any Train Wrecks Yet?

Note to Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise, his coach, Rick Carlisle, his star player, forward Dirk Nowitzki, the rest of his very capable team members, including Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Tyson Chandler, Shawn Marion and all the others, to all his staff of coaches, administrative people, and in fact, to all the wonderful folks involved with the Mavericks team there in Dallas:

If you don't want to see a tear in the fabric of the universe, do not allow the Miami Heat to win the NBA Finals, which start tonight in Miami against your team.

There will be fire, pestilence, civic unrest, rioting, looting, cow-tipping, people removing those tags on your mattress and box-spring that says "Do Not Remove This Tag, Felon Boy", chaos of an unimaginable magnitude and just a phalanx (the first time I saw that word in print I thought it meant something dirty) of citizens in this country who will fall to the ground and begin weeping uncontrollably and tearing at their clothes (all female NBA fans are strongly encouraged to engage in this last activity as much as possible) if the Heat wins.

It's just too awful to contemplate.

Due to limitations in space (that's how people refer to the Harley Dog and I anytime we're off on one of our "missionary" trips through the Universe in my atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding), I'm not going to rehash all the media hype and nonsense coming out of Miami earlier this season when the Heat were building a roster and signing free-agent players as fast as Pat Riley, the President and Head Dude for the team, could get pens in their greedy huge hands. It was ugly, but so were a lot of my ex-girlfriends, which hasn't anything to do with the Miami Heat, but has a lot to do with why I'm still single at the ripe old age of 143.

So, Dallas, get out there and kick some Miami butt, okay? And don't get all puffed up with self-congratulations either; you weasels eliminated my Lakers in the second round, so I'm not cheering for you because your team suddenly became millionaire philanthropists and this is some outpouring of affection, I want you to win because I can't stand the idea of the Victory Parade taking place in South Florida. You're the proverbial "lesser of two evils".

Just not by much.

But if you think that LeBron James is big and ugly, which he is, take a look at that travesty at the top of the page, which, given the fact that it's one of the most startlingly unpleasant sculptures I've ever had the displeasure to view, I suspect you've already noticed.

That's the new statue of Pope John Paul II, which was recently unveiled in the Termini train terminal in Rome Italy.

No, it's not a statue of Benito Mussolini, the Italian ruler from back during WWII, although a number of residents of the Eternal City have likened it to the former dictator.

According to the article from the Associated Press, a sketch of the statue was seen and approved in advance by the Vatican. "Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the sketch 'received a positive opinion by the culture commission' of the Holy See. What happened between sketch stage and the final result, he couldn’t say." Sounds like the members of the "Culture Commission" were hitting the sacrificial wine a little hard that day. Geez.

The sculpture, recently erected to mark the late Pontiff's 91st birthday, which would have been on May 18th, was donated to the city of Rome by the "Silvana Paolini Angelucci Foundation, which is dedicated to humanitarian efforts". The Foundation avoided mentioning the controversy on its website; if it had been my money that paid for that thing, I wouldn't mention it either.

An online survey of Romans on the website of the daily newspaper, Il Messaggero, that asked residents of the city to comment on the statue, was running about 90% "Did Not Like (Sucked Big)" as of last week.

Okay, I'm no connoisseur of fine art; yes, I used to be a member of the Art Institute in Chicago, and I love great paintings and sculpture, and I could have spent days wandering around the Institute's exhibits. But for all that, no, I don't know much about art (or his brother, Mat, the one that lays on the floor all the time), but I know what I like, and boy, is that thing awful.

Not to denigrate another artist's work, but I'd have a hard time signing my name to that abortion. That's taking ugly to a whole new level. (My ex-, Dee Dee Spanxalot, took things to a whole new level on many occasions; unfortunately, it always seemed to be on a downward spiral, rather than upward. All those sultry nights, the satin sheets, the candles and soft music, the Sousaphone and the 55-gallon drum of Lime Jello, boy, those were, ahh, interesting times indeed.)

Since the newspaper Il Messaggero decided to take a poll of what people think of the new piece, I think we Americans should have a similar organ for our opinions; accordingly, I'm launching a new survey, which will be called "Rating Religious Art". In this simple test of "like/dislike/hate/wish they would burn it" artistic point of view, citizens will be asked to compare various pieces of "religious" art; for example, in one set, the survey respondent will be asked to judge the relative qualities of the Michaelangelo's "Pieta", the "Last Supper" by da Vinci, the Sistine Chapel depiction of God touching man, again by Michaelangelo and the...Pope John Paul II sculpture by artist Oliviero Rainald.

I've got the da Vinci and six points.

Tell you what, let's keep it simple. By show of hands, all those of you who think the new statue of Pope John Paul II is as ugly as a duffle-bag full of assholes, puttem' up...one, two, five, seven, twelve, two hundred ten, okay, there's a bunch of you.

Now, all those that like the new statue, also by show of hand...just that one guy, huh? (Must be the artist.)

I'm going to direct my staff to compose a letter to Pope Eggs Benedict, asking that, in the name of good taste and good art everywhere, the new statue of PJPII by taken down, dismantled and melted down into, well, whatever people use bronze for these days. (FYI, the "Bronze Age", the transitional period between the Stone Age and the Iron Age, took place roughly from 3300 B.C. through 1300 B.C. That was even before my time, although not much. I told my friend Ron the other day that one of the things I hate most about getting older is that my age is rapidly catching up to my IQ, which means I'm really getting old, or I'm really dumb; okay, it could be both.) The world already has enough eyesores as it is, with oil spills and strip-mining and over-crowded cities and billboards and Rosie O'Donnell and boy, the list just goes on, doesn't it?

In my letter to my fellow Popeperson, I'll urge that, for all of the above reasons, the new "stat" has to go; I don't care where especially, just make it be gone.

And if Strudel Boy can find a way to make that abomination disappear, maybe we can get him to work on LeBron James next.

Hey, LeBron, here's some perspective for you and all of your egotistical, self-centered, narcissistic fellow athletes; guys, if you couldn't throw, hit, shoot or catch a ball of some sort, many of you would be the biggest, tallest hamburger-flippers ever employed at McDonalds. Not all of you, in fact, not even most, because there's a lot of great people in professional sports, and many, many decent ones as well. But for all of the LeBrons, and the Chad Johnsons and the Terrell Owens and the ARods and the Pete Roses and all the other douche-bag jerks who think that skill on the playing field equates to a feeling of superiority over your fellow humans, yeah, guys, this butt's for you.

I hear Pat Riley is taking bids for a statue of LeBron James to be erected in front of the American Airlines Arena, where the Heat play their home games. Hey, Pat, I know the name of a sculptor that's available. I hear he works cheap, and you know, big guy, you get what you pay for.

Love and Rodin,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

Cheering For The Pope

In an effort to utilize all the different types of media available to us these days to bring you the soothing balm of Johnism, I thought that, rather than a written message extolling its virtues, I would use the medium of the Internet video to deliver my hominy for today. Your Pope believes that its important...shit, the Popephone is ringing...

"PJTT...Mike, I'm right in the middle of writing today's post, what's up?...it's what?..."homily", I thought it was "hominy"?...so what's hominy?...you've got the what?...oh, GRITS, I thought you said you were sick...what the hell are grits?...from corn?...have you ever seen a grit?...yeah, me neither...okay, I'll change it...yeah...okay, hey, are we still on for Hooters Friday night?...cool...okay, call me later."

Shit.

That was my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan (no, not the one who used to do Gatorade commercials); he tells me that the word I wanted to use up there in the first paragraph was, ahh, homily, not hominy. I guess hominy is, umm, food.

(Remember the first diner scene in the movie "My Cousin Vinny" when Joe Pesci's eponymous character told Lisa, his girlfriend (played remarkably by Marisa Tomei, who won an Oscar for her performance) that he didn't think he had ever even SEEN a grit before. Thank you, Joe. Oh, and speaking of corn, my good friend Ron was recently diagnosed with diverticulitis; when we were discussing it, we both admitted that neither of us had any idea what diverticulitis was, and assumed it was something you got from scuba diving, which made no sense, because my friend Ron has never, ever "scubaed", at least not in a body of water larger than his bathtub. Anyway, I asked him what treatment modality his doctor was going to use to combat this horrid killer, and he said none. "He told me to stay away from corn and nuts, and other than that, there really isn't much else to be done." I told him that I was glad he wasn't a vegetarian squirrel.)

Anyway, as usual, I digress. (If digression were an art form, I'd be Picasso.)

So for today's uplifting message of the soothing balm of Johnism, I'm going to direct all of you to the website below, and ask that you view the short video there called "The Pope John Cheer", which will give you all the wholesomeness and decency you'll need to sustain you on your daily sojourn through the heathen world around us.

http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/11995168/the-pope-john-cheer

Go in peace, my children, and may the Farce be with you.

Love and grits,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

Shame On You, Shame On Me

I've had several of my faithful followers ask me to comment on the events of last weekend; you will recall that the Christian commentator, Harold Camping, predicted that, according to his interpretation of the mathematics in the Bible, the world would end on May 21st.

As of May 22nd, we're still all here. Gee, what a surprise.

Camping now admits that his calculations for the original "doomsday" were incorrect and that, after recomputing the numbers, the new date for the final day of our existence is now October 21st. (Hey, he only missed by five months; predicting the end of the world must be a lot like horseshoes and hand grenades, all you gotta' be is close.)

My position as Pope of the All John All The Time World Church requires that I make some observation about Mr. Camping's predictions; however, I'm inclined not to do so. As I told one of my flock the other day, commenting on Camping and his nonsense is like picking a fight with a third-grader; it's not much of a challenge.

But I'll say this much, and then get on to the rest of my life: a very wise gentleman once remarked to me that if you fooled him once, shame on you. If you fooled him a second time, shame on him.

And while I feel some degree of compassion for the families of the people who were already taken in by this lying piece of camel dung, guess what?

If you buy into his bullshit a second time, shame on you.

And maybe I shouldn't say this, but for my money, if you bought into it the FIRST time, shame on you.

Mr. Camping, do all of us that have some sense a favor: shut up and go away. You're wasting good oxygen that one of the rest of us could be using. No one with an IQ of over room temperature believes your garbage anyway, so spare us, okay?

Dean Acheson, who was the Secretary of State under President Harry Truman, and was a highly intelligent and principled gentleman, once remarked, in reference to the First Amendment's "freedom of speech" clause, that "Freedom of speech is a restraint on government, not an incitement to the citizen."

In other words, Harold, just because you have the right to speak doesn't mean you necessarily should.

I suppose the next thing you'll tell us is that the Cubs will win the Series this year, when anyone with any knowledge of the Bible, err, of the MLB and baseball know the Dodgers are going all the way this year.

(Waits until laughter dies down to continue.)

Yeah, and next week Earth will receive a cryptic yet decipherable message from somewhere in deep outer space, explaining how to build an incredible machine that will allow us to accelerate several astronauts to the Speed of Aroma and deposit them on the shore of a mysterious beach that faces a vast, placid ocean on an unknown planetoid in the Aldoran Nebulae, after they all turn a bright chartreuse pink and grow a left-handed tentacle. And a third eye. No, wait, that was the basic plot of the book (and movie) "Contact", except the part about the turning chartreuse pink and growing a tentacle and a third eye; I made that part up. (Hey, I've had girlfriends whose looks would have been vastly improved by turning chartruese pink and growing a left-handed tentacle and a third eye.) (Several.)

Hey, Harold, when you can accurately predict the stock market and this year's NBA Finals winner (Mavericks), lemme' know, because then you're onto something useful.

Unlike yourself.

Love and Nostradamus,

PJTT

Copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

It Wasn't My Fault

Okay, now I'm not trying to impugn anyone here, but there's an explanation for why Your Pope didn't post anything to his blog yesterday, and since that deprived all of you of my daily message, which of course was chock full of the soothing balm of Johnism, I feel an obligation to explain.

The reason I didn't write a post yesterday? I couldn't.

The weinie-heads at Blogger.com had the website shut down all day and I couldn't get logged on. (Yeah, and see if any of those guys get into Heaven..."I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too...". (Thank you, L. Frank Baum, once again.) Harley gets all worked up during "The Wizard Of Oz"; he thinks Toto was the victim of poor management and could have gone MUCH further in Hollywood with a good agent. He also wants me to carry him around like Dorothy carried her dog. I reminded him he that weighs 100.4 pounds, at least according to the digital scale in his vet's office the last time we were there, and that, as a lap dog, he'd make a fine nuclear physicist. I let him sit on my lap one time, a few years ago; imagine being sat on by a pregnant water buffalo. No, Harley Dog, the only thing you have in common with Toto is an attractive human.)

See, even the Pope Dude has situations where he doesn't have all the control he would like to have, and much like the feeling you have when you can't get the lid off the new mayonnaise jar, it was frustrating.

So I stomped my feet and cried really loud and jumped up and down and threw a tantrum and guess what?

I still couldn't get access to the site, so no post for yesterday.

Shit.

I have some errands to run later, after I read my morning paper, as well as a shitload of rosaries I have to bless, and some appointments with other "brother Wizards" that I have to keep, so I'm just not going to have time to write a post until later, or maybe even tomorrow. Yeah, okay, I heard the gasp of shock go up from the crowd, I know you're upset and disappointed, but have faith, my children, it's only one day.

Hey, hang on, the Popephone's ringing...

"PJTT...hey, Mike, what's going on?...good, that's great...yeah, I'm working on it right now...why?...okay, but tell the committee I said no sainthood unless they can explain those paycheck stubs she had from that "Hannah's House Of Harlots" place in Vegas...I don't want another "situation" like the one we had last year when we had to explain those compromising pics of me and all those little people from after the "Wizard Of Oz" reunion dinner we got invited to...yeah...yeah, I'm explaining it right now, what a bunch of cry-babies, geez, one day without a post and they're coming unglued, for chrissake...yeah, okay, I gotta' go, I gotta' finish this...yeah...hey, lunch at the Beaver's Den later?...cool."

That was my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan, (no, not the one who didn't make his freshman basketball team); he expressed to me upset how he was with the utter and complete failure of the Blogger.com people to do their jobs competently, and how bad he felt, as do I, about not being able to post an essay yesterday.

Okay, if I get going and get all my errands done, MAYBE I can write something later; I'm not making any promises, but I'll try.

Hey, there's a Dodgers game on this afternoon, okay? How about priorities, huh? I'm only one man, admittedly an amazingly good-looking one, but only a man; I can't do everything.

Somebody has to staple the Sunday bulletins later today too, and ol' Harley Dog doesn't have opposable thumbs, so he's no help, and that means that I have to do it. So no post today either, now that I think about it. The hell with all of it, I'm just not doing one today.

Just like those Blogger. com people, I'm taking another day off.

With pay.

Love and workloads,

PJTT

It Sure Wasn't Like This When I Was In School

"...and in closing, allow me to give you the same advise I give all the students and young people, kids much like yourselves, (only not as green and without the second heads), from the All John All The Time World Church Youth Corps, about the future and their role in the world, as they graduate from college and prepare to take their rightful places in society: clean mind, clean body; take your pick."

I'm practicing the commencement speech I've been asked to give at the Humidorianian Military Academy And Currency Exchange, on the planet HumidorPrime, next week. It's quite an honor, considering the Humidorianians have NEVER had an "outlander" address the graduating class of their highly respected and galactically known military academy. (The Humidorianians train space pilots, navigators, astrogators, alligators, communicators, sea urchins and the '78 Reds to be responsible and highly competent members of astronaut teams that are sent out into space, "to boldly go where no man has gone before", (thank you, Gene Roddenberry), to explore, colonize and govern (and introduce WalMarts to) new worlds and civilizations.

I've never been to HumidorPrime before, but as the Pope Guy of the AJATTWC, it's certainly not the first time the Bored Of Elders of the church has sent me to some God-forsaken rathole, err, sorry, some new and exciting place that offers new challenges and experiences for your Pope and Harley Dog, who I usually drag along on these trips to provide company and another, totally unbiased, opinion of local customs and culture. (Harley has WAY more culture than I'll ever have; he's better looking too.) (Oh, by the way, "the Harley Dog" I mentioned above is Harley, my sidekick, roommate and the "official" canine of the AJATTWC, as well as being the back-up navigator onboard my atomic powered rocket ship, the Royal Unionship Kidding, which he and I refer to as the "RU Kidding" for short. His picture appears -->. Mine doesn't.)

We'll be taking the RU Kidding obviously, since it isn't likely we can get the Popemobile to exceed the Speed Of Aroma, as the Kidding is capable of doing, and since HumidorPrime is just under 23.6 light years away, or about as far as the Dodgers are from the World Series, you can just bet your '97 Camry with 103,000 on it isn't going to get us there. The Kidding is outfitted with HyperAromaDrive, which is the thingie that allows the ship to travel at speeds well in excess of the threshold of Aroma Speed. (The best way to explain the "Speed Of Aroma" is to liken it to other measurements of time/distance, e.g. the speed of light, which is a visual comparison, or the speed of sound, which is obviously aural in nature, and the speed of aroma, which is an olfactory comparison.)

Zero to sixty measured in nanoseconds; "God Of Wind", eat your heart out.

I'm quite pleased at having been picked for this honor; not only have the Humidorianians never had someone other than a planetary "big-wig" give the commencement speech at the Academy, they've never had a Galactic figure of, and please allow me a moment of unrestrained conceit here, my prominence and notoriety to address the Kadets at their graduation. I am humbled and thrilled by the prospect.

Anyway, you'll have to excuse me; I need to get back to rehearsing my speech so I have it down cold. The technology on HumidorPrime is a little behind ours; they have no TelePrompters, so I to rely on the old memory for this one. Shit, the Popephone is ringing...

"PJTT...hey, Mike, how are the arrangements for the flight to HumidorPrime coming?...great...excellent...hey, make sure the guys in the back get our clubs loaded onboard; I hear Humidor has a bunch of great gerbil golf courses I want to check out...thanks...so, what's up?...yeah...whatta' mean, "there was a little mix-up with the invitation"?...they want WHO?...WHAT!?!...are you kidding?..."isn't that the name of your spaceship?", ha-ha, very funny...how's Harley going to give a commencement speech, HE'S A DOG, FOR CHRISSAKE...fine, that's just great, so what am I supposed to do?...no...no...no, I'm not going.. forget it, I'm not going to be a glorified "dog-walker" for them...no...I don't care, send them a message and square it somehow...no...no...a year's supply of Thin Mints?...(large sigh of resignation here)...all right, I'll do it...yes, yes, I'll go, okay, are you happy now?...I gotta' go...yeah...tell the Bored this sucks, okay, but I'm doin' it...yeah, okay, call me later."

Shit.

That was my consigliore, the Right Reverend Monsignor Michael Jordan (no, not the one that owns the Charlotte Bobcats); he tells me that someone in the AJATTWC office read the invitation from the Humidorianians incorrectly, and that it was Harley that they wanted at the Commencement, not me, and not to give a speech, but to just "be there" to add his "presence" to the proceedings. The invite said that they wanted someone of Harley's "high moral fiber" to be in attendance, to act as an example for the newly graduated Midshippersons (they're politically correct on HumidorPrime as well) to emulate.

Geez.

Please allow me to repeat what I said to Mike: "HE'S A DOG, FOR CHRISSAKE!"

Now granted, the Harley Dog is easily the best dog ever, hands down, no argument, settled in advance, Walter Cronkite's "...and that's the way it is...", done deal, the absolutely best dog ever. He's smart, affectionate, silly, funny and a great companion, but he's still a dog, and HE CAN'T TALK, YOU MORONS, HOW THE HELL IS HE GOING TO GIVE A SPEECH, HUH?

Geez.

Oh, that's right, the Humidorianians just want him there to add his "grace, dignity and class". I'll grant you Harley has more g, d and c than most people I know, but...okay, he's got way more than I have, even, but hey, no speech? No applause, no bright lights?

Boy, what a downer. Miley Cyrus won't be this depressed on the day she finds out she has no talent, assuming she ever does.

(Another large sigh of resignation here.) I guess it could be worse; I could be going with my ex-.

I understand from several people I know who are familiar with the Humidorianian Military Academy that it's a pretty straight-laced institution; to quote Dean Wormer (what a great name) from the movie "Animal House", "...no fun of any kind..." is allowed. There's a curfew during the school week, and staff monitors in all the hallways at all times, periodic, unannounced inspections, no alcohol or "drugs" allowed, no pets, and a security deposit is required. Essentially, it's the Alcatraz of institutions of higher learning.

(Segue begins here.)

And the students of the Academy are apparently not as free and fun-loving as their student counterparts in Germany. Or as open about how they intend to pay for their education, either, I suspect.

According to a report from Rueters, datelined Berlin: "One in three university students in the German capital would consider sex work as a means to finance their education, a study from the Berlin Studies Center said Wednesday."

These are German kids? Offspring of Freud and Wagner? Sex-workers? Boy, what's wrong with that picture? I mean, if this were France, or Italy, or Holland or even Lower Zimbabwe (home of the ebert), I could probably understand it, but GERMANY? Naw, no way, no way a bunch of uptight, sauerkraut-eating German kids pay for their schooling doing Johans Unter Den Lindens. (FYI, prostitution is legal in Berlin, however cow-tipping is still prohibited.)

The study by the Center also queried young people in Paris, France, where the percentage of students who said they would consider being a "sex-worker" (things are screwed up somewhere in the world when "sex" has to be considered "work") was somewhat lower (29.2%) than the Berlin figure, and also in Kiev, Russia, where the college attendees who were asked if they would consider prostitution as a way to pay for their education mostly wanted to know if that meant sex with humans or what exactly, before they would answer the survey questions. Upon answering, only 18.5%, or 1 in 1693, of the students in the Russian city who were surveyed said that they would consider being a prostitute as a means to earn money for tuition. (86.3% said they would consider doing it for free vodka.)

The report went on to add this interesting little tidbit of information: "The study found some 4 percent of the 3,200 Berlin students surveyed said they had already done some form of sex work, which includes prostitution, erotic dancing and Internet shows."

You know, these kids could be on to something; I mean, think of the possibilities for the Congresscritters in Washington.

Committee Chairman: "Mr. Representative, you want a new military base built in your state? No problem. Just one question: how do you intend to pay for it?"

Congressperson Weasel: "A tax increase?"

CC: "No, no, legislationboy, the people are already neck deep in taxes, try again."

CW: "How about one of those, whatta' call them, you know, the things we always attach to bills that we think the taxpayers won't notice..."

CC: "You mean an "earmark"?

CW: "Yeah, one of those "landmark" thingies, how 'bout we pay for it with one of those?"

CW: "Mr. Weasel, you're apparently unaware of a new policy that was recently agreed to between the House, Senate and the White House; it's called "You Pay? You Lay", and basically it sets out the guidelines for a new way of paying for the various stupid, useless, tax-revenue wasting projects that Congresspersons, like yourself, are always proposing. In other words, Mr. Representative, if you want it, you're going to have to earn it. The hard way."

In deference to the level of good taste I'm trying to maintain in my posts, (really? since when?), I'll refrain from making the obvious connection that already exists between prostitution and politics. (Too easy.)

I love this: "The main motivation of students to turn to prostitution were the financial incentives, namely the high hourly wages," Eva Blumenschein, one of the study's authors and a 26-year-old student at Berlin's Humboldt University, told Reuters.

Hourly wages? Prostitutes are paid by the hour in Berlin? Boy, leave it to the Germans to get the railroads running on time. Sex by the hour? Oh yeah, that's romantic.

Well, I can see from the sundial on the wall that I should wrap this up; I still have to practice my, shit, I guess I don't have to practice my speech, now that I think about it.

I didn't want to give that speech anyway.

You know, if they're using sex to pay for tuition in Berlin, you have to wonder what they're doing in Harzzel, on the planet Xanthous, where not only is prostitution legal, but it's also an athletic competition.

Hell, they even allow female Xanthousianians with three breasts to charge an extra "handling" fee.

But there's no student discounts. Period.

Love and matriculation (no, that's not something you do with your teeth),

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.

Falling Back On The "Wizard Of Oz" Defense

You guys remember the scene in the movie "The Wizard Of Oz" (thank you, L. Frank Baum) where Dorothy and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion are trying to convince the guard at the front door of the Wizard's palace to grant them an audience with Oz...

...and he listens sympathetically for a few moments...

...then tells them, rather bluntly, to move on, and come back tomorrow...

...after all the heartache and travail they went through to get there; what an asshole.

Guess what, guys? Your Pope hasn't got a clue what to write about today, and, due to time constraints and general laziness on the part "His Immenseness", I didn't just rerun an old post like I usually do when I'm suffering from "writer's block", which in my case presupposes "writer", so...

"Now go away and come back tomorrow."

And clean up the mess that lion just made. Geez.

Okay, standard fall-back suggestion: check out my short, animated video, "The Pope John Cheer" at:

<http://newvideos.xtranormal.com/web_final_hi/a1adfd3c-78a3-11e0-a6c5-003048d6740d_61.mp4>

It's truly wonderful, just like your Pope Guy, and approved and licensed by the All John All The Time World Church Bored Of Elders.

I guess that makes it official or something. Anyway, you can get your daily dose of the "SBOJ" (Soothing Balm Of Johnism) from the video, and then I'm off the hook for the day. (Me and the Harley Dog are heading for the beach; we walk along the Palisades above the Pacific Coast Highway in Santa Monica, and Harley about goes nuts trying to sniff all the places the other dogs in the park have gone "wee". One of my all-time favorites authors, an hysterically funny man named Christopher Moore, says that a dog whizzing on a tree is leaving a "doggie email"; I love that.) Anyway, Harley will drive himself to distraction trying to answer all the messages (and run out of pee long before he does) and I'll commune with Nature (and I promise I will not notice all the half-naked and mostly naked women enjoying the park and the beach) and then later on this afternoon we'll come home, have a bite (Harley and I take turns on each other) and then later on watch the Dodgers embarrass themselves against the Chicago White Sox.

My daughter and son-in-law are BIG White Sox fans; I love them anyway. (They're turning my two grandsons into Sox fans as well, that's the problem with this situation, but hey, it could be worse; they could be Cubs fans.)

Love and beachballs,

PJTT

copyright 2011 Krissongs, Inc.