Weird

 

When I started "blogging" (or whatever you call this), I had to come up with a name for the blog.

My first attempt was to name it "Alan's Alley" since that was the name of a weekly sketch on The Fred Allen Show. It was a radio show way before my time. (Before some smarty boots mentions it, "Allen's Alley," featured a character named "Senator Claghorn," who eventually became the basis for "Foghorn Leghorn" in the Warner Brothers cartoons. Never say this blog is not educational.)

That didn't work out, so I considered some other names before settling on Humor Me. One name was "Wierd."

You may notice this is a misspelling of the word "weird."  The kids at Wheeler could not spell the word weird because they took the "i before e except after c" very seriously.

For some reason, this word appears frequently in my yearbook inscriptions, as in "Alan, you are one weird guy" or something similar. Actually, it read: "Alan, you are one wierd guy."  As Five For Fighting said, "it's not easy to be me."

 
I decided against it because nobody would get the joke except my mid-70s Wheeler classmates, who would argue with me that they spelled the word correctly and that I was a "wierd guy."

Since we are in the "throw anything against the wall and see if it sticks" portion of the election season, it appears the Democrats have found a new word to describe Donald Trump and company.

Weird.

Out with the "existential threat to Democracy," and in with "weird."  Trump's weird. Vance is weird. Six out of the nine Supreme Court justices are weird.  Ninety-nine percent of the people who vote for the Republicans are weird, and they must be made fun of at times.

Over the past ten years, I have come to realize that Trump has acted like Trump for decades if not centuries. The way he acts in 2024 is the way he acted in 2014, 2004, 1994, et al.  When he was bringing money into NBC for his goofy game show, nobody said he was weird.  When he was sending money to Democratic Senate candidates, nobody said he was weird.

 Now, all of a sudden, Trump is weird. He is strange, man, and not in a good way.

JD Vance has also been tagged as weird. His statement about "childless cat ladies " has caused such a stir that both Chelsea Handler and Jennifer Aniston felt compelled to comment on it.  So you know it was serious. 

For the record, Vance said in 2021, in an interview with Tucker Carlson (oh heavens!), that the country was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

It was a hyperbolic, sarcastic remark, but it didn't say anything about couples unable to have children and being against IVF.  It was cutting, to be sure, but I'm not sure it was weird. 

He didn't say all childless cat ladies are miserable-just this bunch.

But, if people want to get up in arms about it, well, that's politics. Welcome to the NFL, JD.

What was weird about JD's introduction to National politics was a thread about Vance being sexually attracted to couches.

I saw dozens of Vance couch jokes on X and I wondered where in the world it came from.  Someone said it was in his book Hillbilly Elegy.

Well, I read Hillbilly Elegy and I don't remember him expressing interest in couches.  I think I would.

Business Insider tracked down the creator of the Vance and Couches joke.  It was some guy on X that wrote a joke about Vance. That's it. 

"Perhaps, Rick (the X poster) said, whether Vance actually had carnal knowledge of one or more couches is immaterial. Rick suggested Vance making love to a couch may best be viewed as what Werner Herzog has described as the  "ecstatic truth" — in Herzog's words, "a kind of truth that is the enemy of the merely factual," encompassing falsehoods that "make some essence of the man visible."*

In the past eight years, people have correctly noted that Trump has told some tall tales, to put it nicely. When considering this, it is best to acknowledge that if Trump actually lied is immaterial. It is best served by thinking it as "ecstatic truth" because he was trying to make the essence of his opponents visible**.

As for his decision to include a fake citation (Rick listed page numbers from the book) in a post about a man having sex with a couch, Rick claims highbrow inspiration. "Not to  egghead it up," he said, but he was an English major "and I do have  certain literary tastes." Listing page numbers was "in the vein of"  authors Jorge Luis Borges and John Fowles, who used excerpts and citations, real and invented, to lend an air of authenticity to their  fiction. "It's something I've found funny my entire life," he said."***

I'm all in favor of political humor and appreciate a lot of it. I used to read National Lampoon when I was a kid and regularly come across pictures like this:

This was tasteless and not very funny. But, there was truth in it and the truth was the main reason Edward Kennedy never became President. ****

The joke about JD Vance is tasteless and not very funny either. The problem is, at least from a humor stand point, is there is no essence of truth about it.   The joke just says, "I don't like JD Vance because he's from the opposite party so let's post something distasteful and make him deny it. Ha. Ha."

If this is what this election cycle will be like, we're in for a bumpy ride. 

Footnotes:

*Business Insider, July 30, 2024

** That's a joke son, a joke. 

***Business Insider, July 30,2024

**** The cartoon is titled "The Delegate From Chappaquiddick"

Goodbye, Joe

 

 

Last week, I said, "As of today, right now, at this moment, it sounds like Biden, could possibly, maybe, perhaps stay in the race."  

Of course, the next day, Biden announced that he was withdrawing from the race in a letter posted on Twitter, now known as X (or on X, which used to be known as Twitter).  

I'd like to know if Dave Barry ever has days like this.

He didn't really explain why he was withdrawing. He couldn't say, "All my so-called friends don't think I can win. Listen, pal, I could win in a landslide if I wanted."  That would have been rude to Nancy, Chuck, and the Obamas.

Then he endorsed Vice President Harris, which spared us from the "mini-primary," that probably would have ended up nominating George Clooney.

Vice President Harris, who was known simply as Vice President Harris just a couple of weeks ago, has re-energized the Democratic Party's base, which is almost exclusively on X (or Twitter).

She is seen as a combination of John Kennedy, Barack Obama, and George Clooney.

Well, maybe.

Harris is having a honeymoon, no doubt brought on by relief that they no longer have to defend President MaGoo.

Her next big test is picking a running mate, which should be easy.

Harris has to pick Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania because she has to win Pennsylvania to win the election.

She might pick Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, who is a former astronaut and the husband of Gabby Giffords, who survived a shooting.

He might bring Arizona, but I wonder if he can bring in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania to the fold. He might, but what do I know?  I couldn't see Biden withdrawing a month ahead of the Democratic Party convention. 

After hiding for a couple of days, Biden appeared before the nation to explain his withdrawal from the race.

Apparently, Biden was cruising to re-election when he realized he could just hand off to a new generation to defeat The Existential Threat To Democracy and let the new generation defeat The Existential Threat to Democracy.

Why didn't he think of that before?

He said he thought he deserved re-election, but gee, that new generation needs to have their turn at bat. So, out of the kindness of his heart, he withdrew and hoped everybody remembered what a swell President he was and forget about having to pay $7.00 for a family bag-sized of potato chips. 

There was nothing in his speech about his age or health. He was just the type of guy to give up the Presidency because it was the right thing to do, whatever it was.

Joe is going to focus his attention on his remaining months as President, trying to figure out a way to pardon his son, who, let's face it, is kind of sketchy.

He's going to go back to Delaware, eat ice cream, take a nap, and turn in around 9:00, so not much will charge.

The guy who has been on the national scene since I was in eighth grade at East Cobb Junior High is leaving the stage.

 Goodbye, Joe, we really knew ye. 

 

 

That Was The Week That Was

 

A little inside baseball.  I try, really try, to write three Humor Me blog posts a month.

Believe it or not, it can be a little tricky.

First of all, I have a "job" that takes up a lot of my time, and a lot of it is spent typing. Frankly, sometimes I'm just "too pooped to pop" as my mom would say and the thought of sitting behind another computer banging out a post is too much.

Then, I have something called "a life." I have a wife, a son, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson. My wife wants to see our grandson as much as possible, so we have to travel from the palatial Manis Manor in Cobb County to my son's house in the wilds of Paulding County.

We also go to church, the gym, and the grocery store.

You get the picture. Unlike talented writers, I have to think about a topic before I write about it. In addition, my actual writing is hindered by my general lack of knowledge of grammar and my problems with spelling.  Pro tip: if you take up writing as a hobby, learn how to spell. 

Since my blog is not about one specific thing, I must search for topics.  Last week was the week I had too many things to do, so I didn't write. Of course, that is when some kid tried to kill Donald Trump by blowing his head off but instead almost blew off his right ear. 

I remember where I was when I first heard the news: I was in the Chick-fil-A drive-through. I know, big surprise.

My wife and I watched the coverage of the assassination attempt on television.

Trump was talking in that way he talks. He grabs at his ear. The Secret Service grabs him. He pumps his fist and is rushed to his car. This scene was replayed over and over again.  At least with the Kennedy Assassination, it took several years for the Zapruder film to be shown. 

For someone my age, it was just Deja Vu all over again.  Kennedy, King, Kennedy, Wallace, Ford (twice in one month), and Reagan.   

Of course, there is a long string of mistakes and failures.  The Head of The Secret Service said, with a straight face, that the roof where the shooter had a clear sight line of Trump, only a football field and a half away, was slightly sloped and presented a safety concern for the agents, who, you know, are supposed to jump in front of bullets. So, we couldn't be expected them to be actually on the building like the shooter.

First, it is "pitch" instead of slope when discussing a roof. Second, the shooter made it up there with no problem.  Finally, when the shooter was killed, he didn't fall off the roof.

If you are going to say, "The buck stops with me," like you are some latter-day Harry Truman, you cannot offer up a lame, mealy-mouth excuse for what was clearly a mistake.

Of course, the internet speculated that it was "staged" because, for all its usefulness, the internet is also the place where stupid people hang out.

My favorite debate on X (Twitter) was about Trump's ear bandage.  You would be amazed on how many ear bandage experts there are on X. 

The attempted assassination eclipsed the latest Media game of trying to run President Biden out of the race because we have just learned he is old.

Look, not all 80-year-olds are alike. Mick Jagger can still strut around and sing like he did when he was 30. Biden, on the other hand, is looking more and more like Mr. Burns.  I half way expect him to end a speech by say, "Smithers, release the hounds!"

He commented three times on the attempt on Trump's life. All three times, he seemed to imply that maybe Trump wasn't such an existential threat to all that is kind and good after all, and everybody should cool it.

He spent the rest of the week shouting about what a great president he was and that he was not going anywhere.

Then he got Covid, and it sounded like all the Big Wig Democrats were finally ready to join in one big chorus: Joe Must Go (If he feels like it, which he really should, if he wants). They even came up with a plan in which they would have a mini-primary system in which everybody could participate and select a candidate that would energize the party.

As of today, right now, at this moment, it sounds like Biden, could possibly, maybe, perhaps stay in the race.

The Republican Convention was this week. Trump announced his new VEEP pick: JD Vance of Ohio, who has been a Senator for a couple of weeks.

Vance wrote the book Hillbilly Elegy, which is a good book.  He was a big-time Never Trumper in 2016, but he's walked the aisle and is now a Trumpster like no other.  Trump loves him some people that grovel.

He brings some intellectual heft to the ticket. He also has a PWT background. It is refreshing to have a Republican who wasn't on the Day School Polo team in eighth grade.

The Convention went on as planned, and it seems that the Republicans were unified.  They let some regular people speak, and everything was honky-dory for the GOP for the first time in a very long time.

 Then Trump spoke.

He spoke for 96 minutes. For the first 30 minutes, he was the human all his children and grandchildren said he was. For the remaining 66 minutes, he was cranking out the greatest hits.

At least it answered the question of whether the assassination attempt changed Trump.  Answer: No.

That's a lot for one week. I'm too pooped to pop. 

President Gaslight

 "Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

As you all know, I majored in college in history (like a doofus). But you don't need to be a history major to understand that President Biden put in the worst debate performance by anyone in a Presidential debate. Ever.

That includes Ford (liberating Poland), Carter (discussing "new-clear" war with his daughter), Dukakis (answering a question about his wife being raped and murder while looking like he was doing a Sodoku), and Bush I (looking at his watch)

I don't think you can minimize how awful Biden looked, acted, or spoke in his debate with Former President Orange Dictator.

It was beyond description.  Biden's performance was a dumpster fire wrapped in a train wreck during a massive poop storm.

If Trump is such a "threat to Democracy" that Democrats have been saying, for the good of the party, country, and world, President Biden should withdraw from the race and allow his party, the party he loves so much, to nominate someone else. 

Even Vice President Harris.

Though I disagree with Harris about 99.9% of the time, I'm pretty sure she knows what day it is. I think.

But, you know, history has shown that it is hard to get somebody to bow out when they get to that level.

In 1944, President Roosevelt looked sick. Because he was! He was in very ill health. But he thought he was the indispensable man. He "agreed" to be nominated and won reelection running against Tom Dewey, the last Republican with a mustache.

He served 82 days of his term before dying in office.  He was 63 years old. 18 years younger than Biden is now.

After Nixon released the "transcripts"  of his secretly recorded tapes, it was obvious that he was going to have to go. But he hung on as long as he could. Finally, Barry Goldwater and a couple of others had to walk into the Oval Office and get Nixon to scat.

But over the last 30 years, Presidents have hung tough.  I still don't know how Clinton made it after he wagged that crooked finger at us and said he didn't have sex with that woman. In case you forgot, Clinton did have some form of sex with that woman, although I'm not sure Clinton counted it as sex.

Who can forget all of the issues Trump had while he was President?  He just hung tough and survived two impeachments.

This time, it is a little different. It is about basic honesty.

The White House, The Democratic Party, and the mainstream media have not been honest with us about Biden. What they have been doing is gaslighting us.

According to the interwebs, "Gaslighting is the action of repetitively (and often brazenly) lying to someone to manipulate."

The White House, The Democratic Party, and the mainstream media have acted like there was nothing wrong with Biden, and there is something wrong with you if you think the President is infirm.

What am I? A doctor?  No, I'm not. I'm not able to make a medical diagnosis of Alzheimer's or dementia.  However, I will note that it didn't prevent the Twitter-verse from diagnosing Trump as a narcissist.

But I have known elderly people, and I'm getting there myself.  The presidency is a tough job, and it requires firing on all cylinders.

Can anyone honestly, in your heart of hearts, say Biden's firing on all cylinders?

He is not.

Anything is possible in politics and Biden might be able to win. But it doesn't look like it.

 

Prop Bets For The Debate

 

 

A post about Prop Bets from a Baptist may sound a bit odd—almost as odd as "Baptist Sipping Whiskey" or a calendar featuring "The Sexy Women of The WMU".

First, I need to define a Prop Bet. A Prop Bet is a bet which "may or may not have a direct bearing on the final score."  It happens all the time in the betting world, especially for a big game like the Super Bowl, where people bet who wins the coin toss and/or how many times Taylor Swift is mentioned in the broadcast. (In the last Super Bowl, if you bet Taylor Swift was mentioned 480 times in the broadcast,  you won.)

There will be a Presidential debate between President Magoo and ex-President Current Felon Orange, the apparent nominees of the major parties.

This is highly unusual because 1) It is in the middle of the summer, and 2) the parties still need to nominate them officially. 

I think this is because, deep down, both Democrats and Republicans want this election to be over as quickly as possible. Plus, both parties hate us.

This debate, down the street from me in Atlanta, has the political world in a tizzy because the political world thinks debates help decide elections, except when they don't help decide elections

I'm not sure how many people will watch this debate. There's always baseball, and Netflix has a seven-part documentary on The Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Of course, I would never watch a documentary on beautiful young women hopping around in hot pants when I could watch two 80-year-men yell at each other.

But I have listed several prop bets if you want to make a little scratch on the side. Remember, this is for simple entertainment purposes only and if you have a gambling problem please seek immediate attention before College Football season starts and you lose a lot of dough.

How many times will Trump say "rigged"?

How many minutes into the debate before Biden wanders off stage?

How many times does Trump keep talking after they turn his microphone off?

How many times does Biden use the word "Democracy"?

How many times will the CNN panel of Jake Tapper and Dan Bash fact-check Donald Trump?  "No, Mr.Trump, this sky is not the most amazing blue you've ever seen in your life."

How many times will Trump mention the border?

How many times will Biden refer to Trump as a felon?

How many times will the CNN panel of Jake Tapper and Dana Bash fact-check Joe Biden.  I already know this one. The answer is ZERO. Even if Biden starts in on one of his patented tall tales like he was once the starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers and/or that he co-wrote Dr Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech.

How many times will Trump say something that is rude, crude, and socially unacceptable?

How many times will Biden claim the economy is "not really that bad"?

How many times will Trump say "Drill, Baby, Drill"?

How many times in the debate will Biden challenge Trump to a wrestling match?

How many times will Trump refer to illegal immigrants as vermin and how many times will Biden refer to them as "friends we haven't met yet"?

How many questions from the CNN panel of  Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will be about the growing budget deficit and debt?  (Answer: Zero)

Will both men be asked about Catlin Clark and the WNBA?

How many times will Trump refer to the rioters of January 6th as patriots, "including the guy who pooped on the floor" and promises to pardon them, but he hasn't decided on the guy who pooped on the floor because, "even I would say that was kind of gross". 

How will both men answer the question "the person they most admire"?  (Trump: "Me".  Biden: "My dad because he would always say, 'Joey, don't worry about people who dress up in animal costumes and make out. That's another subgroup that you can exploit for your own electoral  advantage'. He was always saying things like that back in the days when they had bumble bees on quarters and you could take a dollar and tell the guy at the cash registrar that you wanted 'four bees, please' because I was a cool guy back then and all the chicks loved me.  Then I would tell that guy to look out for Corn Pop because he was a bad dude."

Fatherhood

It may sound amazing (or not), but I've been writing this blog since 2009, and I haven't written much about being a father. 

 

This is interesting because Father's Day comes around once a year, and you would think I could come up with some Dad jokes.

 

(This would be an excellent time to remind you that I wrote the forward to Greg Marshall's book Attack Of The Killer Dad Jokes. I probably should win some sort of award for it. You should buy the book and tell people you know who wrote the forward.)

I'm in the time of my life where I am watching my son be a dad to his son, Rowan. Rowan is fortunate because my son is a ten times better Dad than me. Most of it was because my son didn't sleep at all for the first year of his life.

 

My son was born in 1991 and that year is a blur to me. There was something called "The Gulf War".  1992 is a blur to me, too. 

 

I woke up in 1993 to somebody from Arkansas running the country and something called "Garth Brooks" on the radio. My advice for all would-be dads is to get as much sleep as you possibly can before the baby is born. 

 

Being a father is one of the most rewarding things you can do. It is also the most frustrating because, let's face it, most of us have no clue how to be a father and have to rely on how our fathers raised us, which can be tricky.

 

Some of our fathers were Ward Cleaver, but some of my friends' fathers were just a mess. Some drank too much, cheated on their wives, or were just plain mean.

But they didn't have classes to teach them how to be fathers, so they had to rely on how their fathers raised them. This is probably the reason they drank too much.

 

When I was growing up, Dads wanted to be something other than your best friend. They wanted to be the King Of The Castle, where every word was treated like some kind of Holy Writ.

They didn't particularly care if you had an opinion. They didn't care if they called your opinion stupid (which it probably was) and it hurt your pumpkin little feelings.  Deal with it. The Germans didn't care about his feelings when they were shooting at him at Guadalcanal.

 

Maybe they were not the most emphatic, but most dads taught you by example. Some of them were bad, but still it was an example nonetheless.

Before the pandemic, a group of our friends from the church we grew up in, had a little reunion. All, except for one, were married to the same person. 

 

 It wasn't that we were holier or better than other people. It was just that we saw our parents, and our parents stuck together. Buying a ticket to Splitsville wasn't in our emotional DNA when things got rough.

All our fathers did one thing: they got up in the morning and went to work.  They made a living to support their families. They didn't gamble their money away and didn't chase skirts. 

When my son came along, our church had something called "The RA Racers." It was a pine box derby race in which the kids "made" their cars and would race them to see who won. 

Another bit of  advice for any dad is to avoid living in an area that has a pine box derby and a large aerospace manufacturer that employs a boat load of engineers.

I have never been handy, crafty, or particularly smart, so my son was at a complete disadvantage when it came to his RA Racer car.

I was hands-off of the RA Racer car, but one year, his car came in second place for "design."  He was really proud of his second place. That's as close as he got to winning anything in the five years we did the RA Racers.

But he learned that he wouldn't win an award every time he showed up somewhere and would have to figure out how to make a fast race car.

Long story short,  he didn't grow up and work for General Motors.

But he did grow up and marry a girl. They saved their money and bought a house.  They had a baby.  

That's what he learned from me.
 

I did teach him how to tell a joke. Greg Marshall had a little to do with that, too.

 

 

About The Other Day

 

Look, I have never claimed to be Nostradamus.

But, I wasn't surprised about a Manhattan court convicting former President Trump of thirty-four felonies, especially when they came back so quickly after the start of deliberations.

You hate to say the fix was in, but the fix was in.

Anytime something doesn't go Trump's way, he'll squawk that the system was rigged so he couldn't get a fair shake. In the past this has included, but was not limited to, The Emmy Awards and buying a NFL football team. 

A broken watch is right twice a day, and a blind pig can find an acorn.  It is one of the few times you could watch one of Trump's screeds and think, "Well, he's got a point."

The judge has given money (not a tremendous amount, but still) to the Biden campaign, and his daughter is a consultant for the Biden campaign.

If Alito is supposed to recuse himself because his wife flew a flag upside down, then we should at least concede that Judge Juan Merchan should have done the same.

Jonah Goldberg made a good point about the recent Trump mess.

"Donald Trump had sex with an adult film actress while his third wife was nursing their newborn child. He had an affair with a former Playboy model. He denies this, but as far as I can tell no one else does. Even Trump’s staunchest defenders don’t try—at least not very hard—to do so. He falsely recorded his effort to pay off to Stormy Daniels as legal expenses. He spent his entire professional life abusing the legal system, stiffing contractors out of their fees by threatening to bankrupt them in frivolous legal actions. As a landlord, he violated fair housing laws. As a presidential candidate, he promised to put his business interests in a blind trust, but once elected he didn’t and monetized the presidency for his own benefit. Also as a presidential candidate, he led chants of “Lock her up!” about his political opponent. He invited Russia to release information about her.  He was impeached (the first time) for abusing his power in an attempt to intimidate a foreign leader to investigate Joe Biden for corruption. When he tried to steal the 2020 election, he pressured his own Justice Department to allege crimes to buttress his false claims that the election was illegitimate. This was also around the time he encouraged a mob that visited riotous violence upon the Capitol in an effort to intimidate Congress out of fulfilling its constitutional duties. He’s promised to pardon people who beat up cops on his behalf. He defended the mob that chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” He’s argued—through lawyers in court—and in his own words that he should be immune to any criminal charges that stem from actions he took as president, and to a certain extent, as ex-president. He’s vowed that when he’s president again he reserves the right to do what he’s outraged is being done to him. I could go on, but you get the picture. Now, I want to be clear: Except for the misdemeanor of false records, none of these things are proven crimes and some of them are not crimes at all."

 

I'm not an attorney, and I've only spent two nights in a Holiday Inn Express, but I don't understand how any of this case was "against the law," much less a felony. Maybe it was, and I'm just too dumb down here in Jawja to understand it.

But please spare me from all the "rule of law" nonsense.

I spent a good bit of my life listening to people call Edward Kennedy a "lion of the Senate" even after he left a girl at the bottom of a pond to drown. He didn't get one minute in a courtroom for a trial because he was a famous Democrat in a state run by Democrats.

In contrast, Trump, at worst, mislabeled an account on purpose.

As far as I'm concerned, Trump was convicted thirty-four times of being Trump

Everybody got what they want. Democrats get to refer to Trump as a  "convicted felon," which he is, and the Republicans get to refer to it as a show trial, which it was.

The problem for the Democrats is they are like the dog that caught the car.  It is a feather in their cap for "finally" getting Donald Trump, who they laughed and golfed with less than twenty years ago.

Despite the conviction, Trump has a better-than-average chance of returning to The White House

Look, Trump is a lout and total jerk. But even fat orange crybabies deserve a fair trial and if they are convicted of a felony for the felony to actually be a crime.