Welcome Back.

OK, that was a lot of fun. We all had a good laugh or two at the expense of fools, & that’s the best kind of laugh. ‘If you can’t think of a good Rapture joke, it’s not the end of the world.’ That was my favorite.

Y’know, I can’t help but think that the people who were that sure they were going, at the end of the day, weren’t going anywhere. If the Rapture had happened for real, we would all have been very surprised at who stayed & who left.

But we’re all still here & what sucked about life on Earth last week still sucks. Legitimate problems that gave this joker in Oakland just a little more ammunition to convince people that the world deserves to end, they’re still around. Some of the other stuff, like homophobia & good old-fashioned Christian intolerance, isn’t what I’m talking about. Those are problems, to be sure, just not in the way most apocalyptic Christians imagine.

So how about we dispense with the myths & fantasies & fairytales. Let’s stop waiting for dreams to come true. We could actually try to fix the world that we live in, here & now.

I know. Fat chance.

But we do get to play this End of Days game all over next year, when the Mayan calendar runs out.

Children of the Rapture.

So, should the Rapture NOT come Saturday, what happens to the children?

We’re all giggling up our sleeves at these poor delusionals that have exhausted their life savings to warn the heathen scum among us that it’s not too late to repent & be saved.

(Let’s just think about that for a second & then quickly move on: the End of Days is upon us & people are spending everything they have on advertising. Madison Avenue has won. Maybe it really is over, after all.)

When the End doesn’t come, they’re gonna be broke, because of this snakeoil salesman in California. (Don’t misunderstand me. I have no sympathy for them. None.) Is he gonna reimburse them? Not bloody likely. He’ll just pick another day, like the last time. Maybe he really believes this stuff. More’s the pity.

I could go on at length about how here we are, an allegedly modern society, & this nonsense still has astonishing traction. But, like I said before, what I really want to know is, what about the children? This wasn’t their idea. I doubt that they were seriously consulted. What did they do to deserve whatever comes Sunday, after their parents throw it all away on Saturday? Why are the sins (yeah, I said sins) of the father always visited upon the son? Are the infidels, atheists & other sundry unbelievers who these pious souls were willing to pray for, but happy to leave behind, supposed to step up? On Friday, we weren’t good enough. Will God provide? He’s lied to them already, at least once.

All I’m saying is, if you gotta roll the dice, then roll ‘em, but don’t bet your kids. There’s no such thing as a sure thing.

What about the children?

Metablog.

Blogspot has been down for over 18 hours. Something about maintenance gone bad, with spectacular conspiracy theories floating around. Since I’m trying to avoid thinking about how long it’s been since I last checked my hit count, I thought this might be a good time to muse about how this whole blog thing is going for me. Oh, & for you too. Of course.

Yes, it has come to this: I’m gonna write a blog about my blog, & I can’t promise that this will be the only time. You will see this as either an exercise in ironic self-reference (if you like it) or self-important narcissism (if you don’t). I’m OK with it, either way.

I’ve been writing this blog for a couple weeks now. In that time, I’ve tried to explain what I intend to do, told a joke or two, even ranted a little. So far, so good.

The main reason for doing this at all is a desire to find my voice, to see if I really can be the writer that I have imagined myself to be, without ever really doing it, for so many years. The answer so far is, Maybe. Maybe I can. I dunno yet. But I’m averaging about 40 hits a day, so somebody is actually reading this stuff, maybe even people that don’t know me. That blows my mind.

Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.

A few months ago, I performed my own songs, for the first time ever, at an open mic thing. Yeah, I know, it was planned by friends, produced by friends, & largely peopled by friends. It was quite possibly the friendliest audience I’ll ever see, & it went very, very well. I was scared shitless anyway & didn’t really enjoy it, or rather, I enjoyed it just enough to want to do it again & scare the shit out of myself all over. The most amazing part of the experience was the realization that there may actually be an audience for my bizarre little songs. Who knew.

I kinda feel the same way about this blog business. I would hope that I could provide wry commentary on life as we know it, the eternal search for irony. I plan to be funny soon, preferably when it’s on purpose. Make a contribution. But at the end of the day, I’m afraid that it really is mostly navel-contemplation. Me, expressing my opinion. Me, writing a slow-motion autobiography. Me, me, me. Hopefully, something of substance will come out of this. That's not for me to judge. I’m just as amazed at people reading this stuff, with the distinct possibility that some are coming back to see what nonsense I’ll drum up next, as I am at people liking my songs. It’s fervently desired & thoroughly unexpected. The difference is, with writing a blog, I don’t hafta stand up in front of people. This is a little easier. Just a little.

Oh hey, Blogspot’s back. For me, anyway. Me, me, me. See ya.

Enos Slaughter.

I wish I could take credit for this story, but I can’t. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but, frankly, I don’t care. I can’t even give proper attribution, because Google has let me down, this once. So I will repeat it as best as I can remember, heavily paraphrased.

Many years ago, I was watching a baseball game on television, & the announcer was talking about an interview he had heard, many years before that, with Enos Slaughter, Hall of Fame outfielder who played his best years for the St. Louis Cardinals. The conversation turned to Ty Cobb. The interviewer asked Enos Slaughter what he thought Ty Cobb’s batting average would be if he were playing today (the late 1960’s).

Enos Slaughter said, Probably .310 or .320.

The interviewer said, Is that all? He hit .367 lifetime, over .400 three times.

Enos Slaughter said, You have to remember, he’d be over 80 if he were alive today.

Happy Mother's Day...

The Mothers, Passaic NJ, 1974. Photo ©2011 Don McKennan.

...to all Mothers everywhere, especially my own.

In The Mailroom.

In our building, there’s a bulletin board in the mail room. It usually has fairly innocuous stuff on it – co-op board notices, misdelivered mail, guitar lessons, ‘Anybody got a cleaning lady they can recommend?’, like that. Over the years we’ve lived here I’ve paid it almost no attention.

But we were checking our mail today & my wife says, Look at this. Tacked to the bulletin board was a business card that simply said

WORK SETS YOU FREE.

No name, no address, no phone number, nothing else.

I have to admit, the point was lost on me until Jane repeated it, in German: Arbeit Macht Frei. The words at the entrance to Auschwitz. Somebody went to the trouble (& perhaps the expense) to print up at least one business card, guaranteed to upset people, frighten people, piss people off, & posted it anonymously, with very little possibility of witnessing any reaction. A random act of stupid. At the very least, this coward, who probably lives in my building, thinks this kind of shit is funny. Outside of Mel Brooks, very few people can make Nazis funny. This, in particular, I don’t think is funny. Jane is even less amused than I am, but then, she would be; she has the relatives with the tattoos on their arms.

I really don’t want to ascribe any political motive to this. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just an asshole doing what assholes do.

But I don’t get it.

Skippy.

In the days & weeks after 9/11, President Bush would not refer to Osama bin Laden by name. He called him ‘the evil one,’ & such. I thought that was a mistake, because that sort of non-naming conferred power in him that he didn’t deserve; it gave him mythic status. I thought we should give him a name that would cheapen him, trivialize him. I called him Skippy. It caught on, a little.

So Skippy is dead. Good. That’s good. I only wish there were a hell so he could burn in it.