Trouble, Trouble, Trouble.

It was just one of those days. No one could do anything right. Kathy Griffin got dissed by Bristo Palin who took offense at Kathy making fat jokes so she reminded the nation that Kathy once had a botched liposuction session.

Seriously Bristol, I was on your side until you started becoming a judgemental little whiner. (After all, that's my job.)  I didn't complain once when you repulsed the nation on Dancing With the Stars. I even stood up for you, putting the blame right where it belonged on your maniacal momma.

Everyone makes mistakes. Not everyone tries to profit off them. But  you don't just profit off them. You try to lecture us. Now you want to be a spokesperson warning girls of the dangers of premarital sex. Honey, that horse left the stable a long, long time ago.

Poor Lindsay Lohan was in court today answering to shoplifting charges. I feel for her. I just want her to get the help she needs. All the help she needs. Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad.

But the topper of the day has to be the Republican Congressman who sent a woman a shirtless picture of himself. He answers her ad on Craigslist then she turns the poor guy in. Is he an adulterer? Yes. Does he deserve to lose his job? No! But my question is why is this woman on Craigslist looking for men then being offended when they send her a shirtless picture? And the guy was in good shape. It wasn't as if someone like me sent her a shirtless picture. Let's hope this gal never runs across Brettt Favre on her internet adventures. She'll have a stroke when the below the belt pictures arrive in her inbox.

Don't Just Turn off the Dark....Turn off Spiderman Completely

There's a bomb in Tiimes Square but don't call Homeland Security. It was planted there by Julie Taymor.

I have to admit I was intrigued by the idea of turning Spiderman into a Broadway Musical. I was tempted to go see Spiderman Turn off the Dark when I went to New York next week BUT that was before I saw the ticket prices for what almost every critic is almost as big a disaster as 911.

I have never seen The Lion King. I have never seen Beauty and the Beast. I have never seen The Little Mermaid (much to Larry's chagrin). I did see Tarzan. And the only reason I did can be summed up in five words: Josh Strickland in a loincloth. Still it was one of the most ill-conceived productions I have ever seen on Broadway and not just because the harness he had to wear covered up too much of Josh's loincloth.

People keep telling me that I would enjoy Beauty and the Beast. I saw the movie and I saw the Disney on Ice version. What more could I want?

I guess I did community theatre for too long. I cannot fathom a community theatre production lavish enough to do justice to the Broadway version unless you live somewhere out in the Hamptons. That is one reason I have little interest in it. That and the fact that it is a kid show. I haven't reached my second childhood.....yet but give me a few minutes.


As an actor I know there is nothing for me to portray in The Lion King.  I can't think of anything worse than having to wear a gigantic lion face on my head (I would end up stumbling around like Lucy in the Hollywood episode where she was asked to wear a giant headdress) or an audience being subjected to seeing my bare chest all night.

 I know the show was  huge success and that Julie Taymor was declared a theatrical genius when it opened. To me it is still a giant puppet show. To me she has never been an "actor's director." Theatre is about the human experience. As much as  Ilike all  the lighting effects and the glitz theatre still needs to be rooted in humanity.

Apparently Spiderman Turn off the Dark is all about the technical aspects of the show. You would think if that were the case they would have worked  a few of them out before they started previews. After spending 65 million dollars you would have thought they could have found a way to hide the wires that send actors flying to their possible deaths.

When I go to theatre in New York I want to see something that I can't see in the St. Louis area. I want to see a star or a new musical or play. I  generally prefer to see the original Broadway production of a show than the tour because the tours they send out now play theatres that are way too big for them. I don't want to go to The Fabulous Fox and see a set that isn't even big enough to fill a third of the stage or sit so far away that I have to use binoculars to see the actors. It's theatre. It's supposed to be an intimate, shared experience. Don't even get me started on the Muny. That's not theatre. It's a picnic with a show going on in the background.

Can We Just Give Christina and Everyone Else Who Flubs up a Break?

I am not a huge Christina Aguilera fan but she seems to be the latest victim in America's favorite sport; building people up so we can tear them down. I She sang at the Super Bowl (live I might dad) last night and flubbed the lyrics to The Star Spangled Banner. Did she embellish too much? Yes, she's Christina Aguilera. That's how she sings.


I have sung the national anthem at champion sporting events too. Although I have to say the crowd at the American Trap Shooting Grand National was a bit smaller. The important thing is they were just as drunk. Still, when you are singing a song that everyone knows it's a lot more likely that you are going to mess up.


So let's give Christina and the next person who messes up next a break. At least she cleaned up for the occasion.

Did Fred Gwynne Have a Love Child?

Is it just me or does anyone else think that Judge Alex looks a lot like veteran actor Fred Gwynne? There is too much of an age difference for them to have been separated at birth but maybe Herman wasn't so devoted to Lily after all.



An Issue of Great Concern

While the rest of the world watches the turmoil in Egypt something of great concern is happening in this country. Someone has changed the formula for candy hearts. They are now fruit flavored. Fruit belongs on a tree! Not in my bag of candy hearts.

This happened last year but I was able to find a few bags of the old flavors at Dollar General Store. This year even they offered no refuge from the onslaught of fruit flavors that Necco switched to.

I had hoped Necco would come to its senses and swtich back to the old formula this year. For me this was a bigger disaster than that new Coke debaucle a few years ago. Where was the public outcry over candy hearts?

Brachs still makes the old flavors. I can't tell you what the flavors are except that the pink ones taste like Pepto-Bismol and despite the fact that Pepto-Bismol saved my life several tmes as a child I still associate wintergreen flavoring with upset stomachs so I aways pitch the pink hearts. I don't eat the purple ones either. I have yet to identify that flavor.

But the Brachs hearts aren't as chalky and brittle as the Necco hearts are. A friend of mine at church found some of the old style hearts at a farm store nearby and left some on my music stand this morning. That is what I call true Christianity.....looking out for a brother in need. After all life isn't always about the big things. Sometimes its the little things like candy hearts that matter.

I Don't Think Google is Reading my Blog

A couple of weeks ago I was finally getting enough hits on my blog that I let Google "monetize" it, meaning I allowed them to place ads on my blog in exchange for payment every time someone clicked on one of them. (I haven't gotten a check yet)

I realize the folks at Google are very very busy reinventing the world and trying to take over Communist China but don't they have ANY humans working there? Or is the entire complex just filled with little "bots?"

The first ads that appeared were for bird feeders and something called a "squirrel-a-whirl" that I didn't mind so much since the posts at the time I allowed Google to put the ads on were filled with the adventures of Rocky. I could see how they might mistake me for a nature lover.

But yesterday I noticed a display ad for "And I'm a Mormon" God help me. Google really needs to do more than just scan the blog for words appearing here than to make the assumption that I am in favor of Mormonism because the word appears on this blog.

This morning the ad is for a presidential straw poll The only choices are Palin, Gingrich and Romney. I think Satan, the Devil incarnate or Lucifer would give people a much better range of choices than those three.

 I am sure they think I am a die hard Republican since I wrote a piece on Reagan yesterday. I am sure there will be an ad for cowboy boots and Alzheimer's medication appearing soon. I should have enough scruples to contact Google and ask that they remove the ads but frankly I am just barely computer savvy enough to be typing this.

So when you see an ad for the Republican National Committee appearing here, please go ahead and click on it! The half cent that I receive in revenue will be the only time trickle down economics has ever benefited me financially. 

Let me give Google a hint. If you want to place a display ad on my blog I would prefer seeing the Old Spice Guy.

It Must be Tough

Hugh Jackman is reportedlly having to eat 6000 calories a day to beef up for the next installment of Woverine. It must be tough but I am halfway there, Hugh. I am sure I have about 3000 on a slow day. Unfortunately Hershey bars, Chex mix and Twinkies are not seeming to have the same effect on my physique unless one is trying to build up their mid-section. I wondered how he had built himself up for the last Woverine film. He hadn't seemed nearly as brawny when I had the pleasure of seeing him (from the front row no less) in the Boy from Oz a few years ago.

Cardinals on Ice

I Blame Ronald Reagan for Everything or the History of America According to Gary

Ronald Reagn would have turned 100 on Sunday. You know what this means; the pro-Reagan people are going to fling that man's memory in our face for the next year as many times as Nancy flung herself across Ronnie's coffin.

The real reason I have always held Ronald Reagan in such low esteem was the way he undermined the election of Gerald Ford in 1976. (I don't generally hold grudges this long unless it involves the loss of a Hershey bar.)

Gerald Ford was in a tight race in '76. Reagan had no real chance of winning but he knew Ford was vulnerable and he mounted a primary challenge with his eye on 1980. Ford ended up narrowly losing to Carter. I will never forgive Reagan of depriving the nation of four more years of having Betty Ford as First Lady. I don't care if she was drunk. She had a good reason to be (chronic back pain) and she was fun.

No matter how decent an ex-president Carter has become he was not very successful during his four years in office unless you count that Mid-East peace thing. Let's face it: Carter was way too Christian to ever lead this country. He refused to go to war when Iran held Americans hostage. Reagan rode that apparent weakness to victory. When Carter did finally arrange the hostages released it played right into Reagan's  “Morning in America”  rhetoric.

Reagan was the first Republican that I remember that had the ability to get working class people to vote against their own interests. Union workers ignored their leaders and voted for him in droves. He showed his loyalty by breaking the air traffic controllers union his first few weeks in office.

I never bought into his folksy charm or believed for one moment he didn't dye his hair. He loved to wave the flag and invoke God at every opportunity but I doubt the thought of attending church unless the cameras were rolling ever crossed his mind.

The other little legacy he left us was the idea of school reform. Once in office, he ordered a report on  the nation's schools, assuming that the study would show they were in good shape and he could abolish the Department of Education. OOPS! Turned out the schools were failing. The federal government has been trying to fix them ever since with one failed program after another including No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top. No matter what program the feds come up with it always has the same result: a refusal to fund federal mandates and more hoops for educators to jump through.

Recently his son, the cute former ballet dancer, Ron created quite a stir when he said there were signs of his father's confusion when he was in office. Ya think? Later he said he wasn't referring to his father's Alzheimers. Please! Reagan was loopy from the start, a popular figure that could be propped up to put a good face on repugnant policies.

I know the Fox News crowd would love to see his granite-like features on Mt. Rushmore. Thank goodness he and the Bushes never really got along (fueled in part by that battle of the plaids incident between Babs and Nancy). In my sinister little heart I like to believe that the fact that the Reagans weren't all that nice to the Bushes during the eight years Nancy, er Ronnie was in office is the reason they haven't started the blasting up in South Dakota yet.

 I only live by a few bedrock principles and one of them is this: never underestimate the influence of Mama Bush.

Crystal

God Gave you Incisors for a Reason

Well Oprah was off on another of her kicks yesterday. Now she is touting Vegan ism. Who is she kidding? I am pretty sure Oprah is packing something besides bean sprouts in those thunder thighs of hers. (Warning: There will be misinformation in this post. I tuned in to Oprah by mistake and I only watched a few minutes. That's all I can take.) She had her entire staff take the vegan 21 day challenge. I thought Chicago had stronger unions than that.

But I come not to badmouth Oprah. It's the vegans I am after. Most of them look very sickly. They all remind me of Janice Dickinson somehow. (not pretty!) It is unnatural. Just look in your mouth. You have incisors for tearing meat. They are right there in the front of your mouth and they weren't put there just to look good in photographs. (Unless you are Justin Bieber or Julia Roberts) You also have molars for grinding grain but look where God put them; in the back of your mouth where cereal and vegetables belong....way down the food pyramid.


Vegans don't like to eat anything with a face. And except for that time we roasted a pig for the Latin banquet in high school I haven't either. Yes my burger and chicken breast had a face once the butcher removed it before I ate it.

They love to show pictures of cows being slaughtered. Why? I could find some gross pictures of vegetables or rice. Think about it. Down deep in your garden worms and maggots are crawling all over your veggies. Somewhere in  Vietnam there are women with fungus toenails tending the rice paddies. Do you want to eat that now? I am pretty sure the women tending those fields cannot afford Lotramin.

I Hate Weather

I hate weather. All of it. Even the good weather. What good is it if you can't count on it? In my next life I want to land on a planet with a stable atmosphere or at least somewhere in Camelot. Let's make it Camelot. I love a Lerner and Lowe tune.

Think how much money bad weather cost us. Heating cost, repair cost, the cost of protective clothing, not to mention the cost of all those extra groceries we all buy stocking up for a storm only to end up going out to eat once we realize we aren't  snowed in after all.

I spent the last few days worrying what I would do if I lost power. I wish I had developed a few mechanical skills. My father could do anything. I know every kid believes that of their father but in my case it was true. He was constantly fixing the neighbor's plumbing, autos and doing carpentry jobs for them. My one regret in life is that I didn't follow him around and learn something the way my little brother did. Which means whenever I have any kind of damage I have to  pay to get it repaired.

Thankfully this storm left my property fairly well unscathed unless you count the downed limbs in my yard. I do at least have the ability to pile up brush and set a match to it. I have enough downed limbs here to provide the Boys Scouts of America with firewood for their next Jamboree. I doubt I will be invited. I flunked knot tying back when I was a Tenderfoot. (Yes, I actually know scouting terms)
There is nothing prettier than ice coated trees but only if they haven't fallen on your power lines. I have enjoyed watching the birds on the ice coated limbs searching for the birdseed on the ground.

Rocky hasn't shown himself today. I hope he is ok. But I don't know why I should care. The tree he lives in shed several branches. He was probably up there with a little ice saw trying to do me in. Is there anything sadder on earth than an ungrateful child?