CARL REINER

He was one of the great comedy directors.

He moved from Broadway and "Call Me Mister" to TV and "Your Show of Shows."

On the legendary "Dick Van Dyke Show," he wrote an amazing number of CLASSIC episodes.

It's an irony that he starred in the pilot, about a comedy writer who works for "Alan Sturdy," and has a suburban wife, a kid, and a few oddball co-writers. No, somehow it was decided that, despite his great work on "Your Show of Shows," the lead should be played by somebody else...even a virtually unknown guy from the Midwest who didn't fit the stereotype of a Jewish comedy writer.

It was just another example of Carl Reiner's humility, and brilliant comic sense, that Dick Van Dyke would star in the re-titled (from "Head of the Family") "Dick Van Dyke Show."

The show struggled in its first year and got a CANCEL (nobody knew who Van Dyke was, and the time slot wasn't the best) but producer Sheldon Leonard fought for the show, and with Carl continuing to write brilliant episodes, and people discovering the brilliant episodes during summer repeats, the show became a hit in its second year.

Carl's humility was also a factor in the Grammy-winning success of the "2000 Year-Old Man" records. He let his lifelong friend Mel Brooks get all the laughs. He could've snuck in a witty throw-away, as Fred Allen or Steve Allen would've done, but that wasn't Carl.

Mel got some laughs on a few lines that were a little bit edgy. He got laughs even out of one slightly inappropriate, but beautifully-accented word:

"How did you feel about Joan of Arc being burned at the stake?" "Terrible!"

Mel of course, went on to do Hitler jokes in "The Producers," racial and raunch gags in "Blazing Saddles," and even seeming to make fun of a mentally-challenged monster (the "Putting on the Ritz" number in "Young Frankenstein."

Mel developed a reputation for being outrageous, broadly "offensive" and unpredictably "crude."

Carl? Those words never applied to Carl Reiner. Even as abrasive Alan Brady on "The Dick Van Dyke Show," he never got a laugh out of an insult gag.

"Everybody liked him," son Rob Reiner said.

I first met Carl when my book "Stars of Stand-up" came out. He wasn't too well at the time; a little out of it, due to some illness or perhaps the meds he was taking for it. He and Mel Brooks had done a signing for their new "2000 Year Old Man" book, and Carl was pretty much in a daze, hardly acknowledging the fans, and writing "Carl," when the book was passed along from Mel Brooks.

Now, these two legends were looking at a different book. Mine.

Mel Brooks finished reading and he thought I did a pretty good job. He autographed the "Reiner and Brooks" entry, and handed it to Carl. Mel said, "He wrote this great book! Sign your FULL NAME!"

Which he did.

Carl put out what I think were his 19th and 20th books just recently. He was still a prolific comedy mind. He was also, like Steve Martin, addicted to Twitter. I don't think Carl himself did the Tweeting. His account gave an odd credit to a dotcom that, apparently, handled the job for him, and made sure there was a well of comments that could be posted regularly. Some say "he was posting on Twitter just the day before he died." Probably not. Still, it was nice to see something new from him, whether an anti-Trump sigh or a nostalgic salute to Noel Coward.

If some Tweeting was handled for him, he still had plenty of ideas to share, and was still doing interviews.

Mel Brooks drove to his house every day for dinner and "Jeopardy!" TV watching. The two old friends no longer had their wives, but they had each other.

From "Your Show of Shows" and the "Dick Van Dyke Show" and "2000 Year Old Man" albums, Reiner added books, more scripts, and a variety of film directing.

Some of his films were taken for granted at the time, and are now acknowledged as great achievements. This most certainly includes "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," which was considered just a "gimmick" picture...film clips expertly woven into a freshly plotted detective movie satire. Carl himself had a role in the film.

Few seem to remember that Steve Martin's "The Jerk" got poor reviews, as well as "Plaid," also starring Steve. Steve said he was hoping that disappointed critics would give him another chance with "All Of Me.

I remember Carl Reiner standing in the lobby after the press screening of "All of Me," which took place at a big midtown theater. The idea was not just to have a few critics sit around in a small room, but have a full audience laughing. Which they did.

As people were leaving, he called out, "Was it funny?" A great director, writer, actor...he was also that rarity in comedy, a gentle, inoffensive man. His humor was kindly, always.

The Black Racist Who Went After a faux-KAREN : "WE GOT IT!" at Trader Joe's

Buried amid the jolly ridicule heaved at a woman who had a meltdown in Trader Joe's, is WHO started it and WHY.

The guy who brought out his camera to film the meltdown did it because it was a white woman making a scene. A "KAREN."

How was this a "KAREN," the new hilarious slang word for any white woman who objects to anything a black person does? Answer, it wasn't. The woman who had her meltdown because she refused to wear a mask, was not saying or doing anything offensive to any blacks. But, ha ha, she was WHITE. That singled her out for this BLACK observer. He got himself a KAREN.

Here's exactly how he phrased it when, hoping for maximum ridicule of a white woman, he posted it to YouTube where it went viral:

He FOUND himself a KAREN, y'all. Ha ha ha.

He had to start with "Y'ALL" because that's a cool slang word. In revisionist history, it's owned by blacks, and borrowed, now and then, by well-meaning white Liberals. In real history, "Y'ALL" is a Southern word...a word from DIXIE...which blacks learned while being slaves and trying to avoid the lash. Fortunately, a beloved word like "Y'ALL" is not going to be deemed "inappropriate" or "a relic of the disgraceful past." No, in this case, ignorance is bliss, y'all.

If it had been a black woman carrying on for some reason or other, would he have whipped out his phone to capture it? Maybe not. Let's not make the woman a target of ridicule. OR, let's just post it about "a woman" being nuts.

But here's a white woman. So she's a "KAREN," code name for a "privileged white woman." Remember when the fight was against the term "uppity black woman?" Did you know that Bill White, the New York Yankees broadcast announcer, and former National League president and ballplayer called his autobiography "Uppity?" He did it because of how offensive that word was, in regard to blacks.

But, hey, "privileged white woman" is ok, and most certainly a "KAREN." Is ok. Just like Jesse Jackson called New York City "Hymietown" for having too many Jews. Let's not call it hypocrisy. Black ridicule of whites MATTERS.

There's a little three second YouTube clip, a kind of coda to the fracas. It's the black guy chuckling and saying, "GOT IT!"

The woman in question, asking anonymity (which miraculously has so far been granted), has defended herself. She claims somebody insulted her by telling her to wear a mask...and using the F-word and the C-word to do it. That would be FUCK and CUNT. She claims that she then acted in "self defense" to start screaming and raging all over the place. Making a scene, she seemed to say, was the only way to get away from the mean man who was stalking her with insults.

Hmmm. So where are the #METOO ladies to defend this woman? They don't believe her story? They don't care? Or is it that they don't riot and loot, so nobody gives that much of a damn anymore? Instead, her meltdown becomes a RACIAL issue. She's a "KAREN." This is about "WHITE PRIVILEGE." And nobody is calling this racist? REVERSE racist? Why not?

Well, for the same reason that today, Walmart announced it didn't want to offend blacks by continuing to sell a healing, logical, "ALL LIVES MATTER" t-shirt. NO, NO, NO. And NO. If you are suggesting that "ALL LIVES MATTER" under God, Allah or Jesus or Buddha, YOU A RACIST, Y'ALL. And Walmart does not want to have its stores looted.

Things are not going to get much better if the PC brigade continues to be irrational, if looting and violence can be excused, or if racism of ANY kind is tolerated. This includes the reverse racism of calling a white woman a "KAREN," and targeting her as an example of "white privilege." Can we be HONEST? Can we say that there are plenty of black women who are refusing to wear masks, and making scenes in stores, or going on social media declaring nobody can MAKE them wear masks? What if we said "UPPITY BLACK" about a woman like that? Oooh, racism, y'all. But "white privilege" is ok.

There's the N-word, just about the ONLY non-vulgar slang word NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO WRITE. But what about the H-word? HONKY. What about the L-W phrase? LILY WHITE? Since whites are in the majority, they are supposed to tolerate ethnic slurs better? That makes sense?

"WE GOT IT," ha ha, says the black guy with his cellphone camera, chuckling. Not a person making a fool of herself in a moment of stress. A WHITE WOMAN. So let's make it go viral, NOT as an example of a person being stupid about not wearing a mask...make it about WHITE PRIVILEGE, even though this woman isn't saying, "I'm WHITE so I am immune to Covid-19" or "I'm WHITE, and I don't want to breathe the same air as BLACKS" or anything of the kind.

On the LAW AND CRIME website, they offered a link to the black man's YouTube video, so you could hear him snicker, "WE GOT IT." And underneath? Hmm, the N-word is out, but you can print the F-word. And lookie lookie, what DOES her quotes show? They show an unhinged woman (her color does NOT matter) who is going off on an insane tirade, calling a MAN a "BITCH" and screaming at people who are "Democratic." Not BLACK. "Democratic." Huh? In another age and time, it would be called INSENSITIVE and perhaps even ILLEGAL, to hoist a video that exposes a woman with some kind of mental illness. You don't make fun of the mentally ill, you help them.

The woman could be emotional unstable, ya think? But she didn't say anything RACIST. So calling her a "KAREN" is just a tad slanderous.

It's Reverse racism. Picking out a white person for being white and calling her a "KAREN" just on her skin color...is RACIST.

We have a world where you can't say "AUNT JEMIMA" because it's RACIST. Somebody might be OFFENDED. There are no women named Jemima in the world and "Aunt" is terrible. (PS, so is "Uncle" as in "Uncle Ben," who may be removed from his rice box any day now). But "KAREN" is all right. Got that? "Aunt Jemima" is offensive to blacks, but "Karen," especially thrown at a woman who didn't do anything racist, that's OK? Why? When is any kind of racism OK?

Social Media...in case you DON'T know how bigoted, stupid, smug and dangerous people are

Mmm, what's trending TODAY in the bird-brain virtual landscape of the Human Zoo? Ah, TWITTER has people raging that two white people held up guns and wanted to defend a politician from being stormed by potentially violent bullying protesters.

Ya think this guy is from Norway, and not a Norwegian-American? Generally, assholes from Norway, Holland, Denmark, the U.K., even Germany...get a big kick out of sticking their virtual noses into American politics and giving out their heaves, sighs, grunts and whines.

I think of Randy Newman's slong line, "go back to your own miserable country." People think their country is so much better? Maybe because they don't allow a lot of immigrants in, and have a thousand year tradition of being the same color and speaking the same language? That'll reduce problems.

Of course, it won't stop your country from invading somebody else's. Fucking America is so terrible, but Lord Knows, none of the Great Nations of Europe ever, EVER invaded each other's space. There was no Spanish Inquisition either.

Mr. Lennon, sing it, please:

"I'm sick and tired of hearing things from uptight, short-sighted, narrow-minded hypocrites"

Indeed.

But on social media you get a ton of it, because EVERYONE thinks they know it all.

Be smug. Put on a fucking t-shirt with a slogan, and watch all the people SHARE it.

Ah, a beard made out of past-expiration kale.

Always good to recycle that shit on your face. Don't let anything go to waste.

Don't miss any opportunity to stand in the California sun, take a moment away from the six-figure job you have where you work at home, and gleefully stand up for your right to be...John...can you help me out here...

"I'm sick to death of seeing things

From tight-lipped, condescending, mama's little chauvinists..."

Yes, thank you, John. Chauvinism can, I think, apply to White Liberals who sashay around at "Black Life Matters" protests, and then go home and yell at the black nanny who didn't wipe the baby's ass good enough.

But don't get me started on playing Randy Newman's "My Life is Good."

Any reason to just TURN OFF your Twatter and Farcebook? When you get SHIT like the above?

Hypocrites. Yes, that's certainly the people who get so upset when a few rednecks...or in this case, a fairly benign-looking couple, hold up guns. White people can't do that. They have NO RIGHT to do that. They should KNOW BETTER than to act as if holding GUNS is the way to get things done.

Now THESE guys...

History repeats itself if you're stupid.

No question, certain groups, especially "of color," get a pass on holding weapons. White people will tremble in confusion and say, "Gosh, what did we do to those fine, fine people who believe in Islam, to make them want to gun down a bunch of people at a pop music concert? Ariana Grande is bad? Maybe she licked a donut? Drew a picture of Mohamed or something? We did WRONG, oh Lord, and the ALLAH people have EVERY right to wave their weapons!!!"

As for the White delight in pretending NOT to be anti-Semitic while being anti-Semitic? It's a good thing Jews have a sense of humor, so they can laugh at the irony.

It's also a good thing that the Jews aren't all 6'4" and overpopulating to the point where they can riot to get this bigoted shit ended.

So they put up with smirky memes, and worse...people like Roger Waters, Peter Gabriel and Patti Smith promoting BDS, and declaring that there's only ONE brat in the sandbox, and if two kids are fighting, you grab the ONE brat because it never "takes two" to have a fight. It's...what's that phrase Mr. Dylan, "the neighborhood bully."

Yes. Theres a teeny tiny sliver of land in the great Middle East, and it has NO OIL on it, but it's inhabited by awful-awful people who have merely been kicked out of every country from Russia to Germany, couldn't even find peace in France or Sweden, and desperately want a homeland...one that they read about in The Bible.

While the UAR and the rest of the Arab nations happily throw Catholics and Gays off rooftops and burn churches, and deny rights to women...even Women of Islam and of the right color...go scream and holler about Israel.

It's not anti-Semitic that you just happen to care about the Palestinians only, and want BDS sanctions against Israel only, and you don't give a rat's ass about child labor in China, China's rotten behavior toward Tibet, Russian ethnic ceansing, the Turks vs the Kurdds, the Croatians vs the Serbians, or any other ethnic battles anywhere in the world.

An irony is that joining Patti and Roger and Peter (and of course, Noam Chomsky, the turncoat traitor of all time), there's Dizzy Desi the Toot. The man, aka Desmond Tutu, knows of an apartheid nation called South Africa, but to him, South Africa's problems are OVER. No killings going on there. White people aren't being murdered there. Blacks are fine there. And Lord Knows (and Dizzy Desi is a religious man), North Korea gets along with South Korea, and Boko Haram, who have the same color as Dizzy Desi, are, what, raping and murdering Christian blacks in Nigeria just because it's their idea of sport?

Yeah, I try NOT to go to FARCEBOOK too much, and I try, I try to pick "FRIENDS" who are actally friendly, and not condoning anti-Semitic violence, which is what anti-Israel and BDS bullshit creates.

I also keep adding more BLOCK WORDS to my Twitter account. Today it was Kardashian, Kilmer and Karen. KKK. KKK is BAD, y'all.

Are you WHITE and named KAREN? I feel sorry for yo ass, BITCH.

Some people are SO damn PC they refuse to admit there's such a thing as "reverse racism."

"Reverse racism" is when minorities discriminate against white people. Simple? It's when they see COLOR when there isn't any, and when their self-entitlement (or righteous rage) gets the better of them.

"Reverse racism" can be ironic and hilarious sometimes. How about the show "Hamilton," which decides to turn white founding fathers into a bunch of black and brown rappers dancing around like idiots? Think a show about Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman could star a white man and woman? How about the proud way the show's author admitted that NO WHITES ARE ALLOWED in the show? And yet, if a revival of "Fiddler on the Roof" didn't have some blacks in the chorus, or a black guy playing Tevye..."Discrimination, y'all!"

Now here's today's amusing example of "reverse racism." It's a white woman who went nuts in a Trader Joe's. She was caught on camera NOT wearing a mask. Her excuse was she had a "breathing problem" and she ranted that she should be able to shop. Oh? Without distancing? Without worrying that she could get COVID, or, of she has COVID herself and doesn't know it, she could infect others?

Somehow, this became a RACIAL issue for some bird brains on Twitter.

One of the new favorite words in the English slanguage is "KAREN."

A "KAREN" is a WHITE WOMAN who is an ignorant racist. Yes, there are people like that. There are also blacks who give Asians and Latinos are hard time at the bodega. There are members of Boko Haram who give any black who isn't a MUSLIM a hard time or a cold edge of a knife. Racism exists all over the world. Chinese vs people from Tibet? Chinese vs Japanese? North Koreans vs South Koreans? Irish vs English? OK, we understand each other on that.

And yet, you can bet that TWITTER is not going to block or ban any of the RACIST (that's REVERSE RACIST) comments. Too many on Twitter used this example of ignorance and paranoia to focus on...COLOR. She's WHITE. She's showing WHITE PRIVILEGE.

As if there's never been a video on social media showing a "woman of color" making a fool of herself with some ignorant rant.

There are plenty of those, but if any comments pointed to her race, those comments would be removed and the user hit with a suspension. But it's ok to see "KAREN" to see "WHITE WOMAN" and "WOMAN OF PRIVILEGE" when this is more likely some trailer trash nutjob, the same kind who tell the world they don't wear a mask because Covid is a hoax.

Within an hour of laughing and jeering and racially cat-calling this white woman for "I HAVE A BREATHING PROBLEM" yet another hash tag term began to trend: KARENSGONEWILD.

Why? Because "reverse racism" is a lot of fun, and some people are ready to spend ALL DAY looking up examples of white women to jeer:

There's a song by some white woman -- oh, pardon me -- some WHITE BITCH -- with the title line, "IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPY."

Well, NOTHING makes some people HAPPY as much as finger pointing, having a witch hunt, and feeling righteous rage while feeling sorry for themselves. As in NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I'VE SEEN, especially YOU, you KAREN, you white privilege BITCH. Don't you know that any problem you have can be made into a reverse-racist TWEET?

Somehow, even the dopey Kardashians haven't turned this story into: "This woman doesn't understand the REAL tragedy of the Aremenian genocide...and ps, I bet she doesn't have a black husband!"

Somehow, not a single Jew wrote: "This obviously GENTILE woman has no idea that the Jews have suffered for 2,000 years, and along the way, people have said "You've got a big nose, does it help you breathe?"

But all seriousness aside, racism and reverse racism are GOOD things sometimes, aren't they? It allows people to work out their anger. It's a release of steam. And if that doesn't work, try some violence. It's ALMOST a surprise that there wasn't a follow-up video of a few blacks smashing this woman's head flat, like they did to Reginald Denny. You remember him? Happened to be driving his truck during a riot so he was pulled out and nearly killed because he was white.

"This world is ruled by violence," sang Mr. Dylan, "but that's better left unsaid." PS, do we know she's white? She could be mixed race, not too far from a Mariah Carey or a Maya Rudolph. She oculd be Latina. But no, it's better to start making degrading and deprecatory remarks on race. People can't have enough fun just calling her a bitch? They did. And come to think of it, that too is wrong, isn't it? In our PC times? This could've been a MALE idiot swaggering around declaring a mask would put his nose out of joint.

Adam Defends while Jimmy Caves

Jimmy Kimmel held out for as long as he could. A couple of days.

You can't blame the man. The puppy Jimmy Fallon apologized very quickly when pressured by The Mob. After all, these are high profile guys who are easily recognized and thanks to the Internet, THEY KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE.

The last thing either Jimmy would want is his head smashed the way innocent truck driver Reginald Denny got it during one of those peaceful riots over somebody with a criminal record resisting arrest. Surely that footage is on YouTube or somewhere? You see, if you've been oppressed, it's ok to take it out on some innocent person stopped in traffic. Pull him out of his vehicle, stomp him a few times, and have your friends join in.

One of them has a cement block and smashes it down on the white guy's head, scrambling his brains forever. Well, you know how THIS story ends? It ends with the white guy forgiving them all.

But Kimmel? Fallon? They do need their brains if they're going to continue to ATTEMPT to make people laugh. So Kimmel caved, and his pal Adam Carrolla grumbled about it:

If you missed "THE MAN SHOW," I can't really tell you much about it. The few bits and pieces I saw were infantile, moronic, and unfunny. The show was intended for low-class beer-drinking GUYS who hate women and any successful men. At least that's what I got from what little I saw. So making fun of a successful basketball player or using the "n word" just to be bratty or outrageous or try to summon the ghost of Lenny Bruce...you know where it's coming from. Not racism. The show was obnoxious to everyone, sometimes Adam and Jimmy were even obnoxious to each other.

Kimmel basically admitted that he held off apologizing because he didn't want THE MOB to win. They'd see it as another bullying victory for their WOKE campaign (fueled by bird brains on Twitter) to declare R.I.P. and "CANCEL" and "Goodbye Party" to anyone successful that they can vomit their bile onto. Well, it IS a victory for that bunch.

Kimmel will enjoy his July-August vacation in peace, one assumes. One can't be sure, anymore than tourists at PENNY LANE in Liverpool can be sure they can take pictures of the signs there. They might STILL be defaced.

Kimmel's obviously hostile apology was to people who were offended. It's all you can do with people who could get violent. Same way you don't argue with some paranoid maniac on the street who accuses you of something. You just apologize and try to get away with your life.

That Jimmy NOW believes that some of the things he did on "The Man Show" were improper, or stupid, is very nice, but that means he'll be apologizing for some of the things he did on his current show...in five or ten years. This would include making fun of the way immigrants speak (be it an unfunny idiot who seeks autographs of celebrities he barely knows, or the hilarious "Guilermo" who is such a stereotype he could play the Frito Bandito in a movie). This would include his creepy crooked grinning at everything KANYE says. This would include his rather sadistic "I ate the candy" videos that he encouraged sadistic parents to make and post on YouTube.

As for Adam, he rightly makes the point that comedians lives matter. Since there are no more protest singers -- a style that pretty much died in the 60's with singles by Dylan, Barry McGuire, Phil Ochs and a few others -- it's been COMEDIANS who have ridiculed the status quo. Who pointed a finger at Richard Nixon? David Frye. What TV show grabbed the pulse of the nation's bigotry? "All in the Family." What comedian lit a fire under racial issues? Richard Pryor. Who pushed a variety of envelopes? George Carlin, Sam Kinison, and even Jay Leno with his monologues. Who has attacked political hacks for the past 30 years? "Saturday Night Live." Who is the "King of All Media?" Howard Stern. Who rocked the boat on late night for 30 years? David Letterman...who had to apologize to Sarah Palin of all people, and give a mea culpa to the world because he had an affair. Bob Goldthwait's publicist once called him the "canary in the coal mine," alerting everyone to what's poisonous. Indeed, that IS what a lot of comedians do. They turn tragedy into comedy. Can you name any singer of the past 30 years, or any songs that have been more relentlessly topical on world issues?

So, for once, Carrolla's got it right. Yes, comedians can be controversial, including "Dice" Clay and Don Rickles. It's possible that they do some kind of damage...whether it's Jimmie Walker's stereotype on "Good Times" (which is co-stars loathed) or Howard Stern's goofing around with "retards" or bullet sound effects after a Latina singer got shot. But mostly, from the late "Natinal Lampoon" and "MAD" magazines to the current jokes from Bill Maher and Stephen Colbert, comedians have been the ones to purge anxiety and bring just the right amount of derisive laughter onto "leaders" who deserve it. And that includes Kimmel's jokes on Trump and his memorable "mushroom display" interview with the porn star Trump used for unprotected sex. PS, Kimmel's humiliation probably pleased one person more than any -- Trump -- and that's not a good thing at all.

Author -- Amazon Won't Make You a Whore If They Can Make you a Slut

A whore makes you pay for it.

A slut gives it away free.

Jeff Bezos is crafty -- he wants authors to be sluts...and HE makes pimp money off them.

Amazon has over 100,000 FREE BOOKS for download. Who needs pirating? Nobody needs to ever buy a book. There's plenty for free...

What's the deal?

Authors, like all entertainers, have an ego. They want to be known. Hey, says Bezos, "tell 'em you're on AMAZON!"

That's more prestigious than saying "You can download my book at Smashwords."

"Back in the day," a mediocre writer had to pay for it, and then choose to whore it (pay me for a copy) or be a slut and give it away in order to have any interest at all.

There were two notorious companies, Exposition Press and Vantage, who were willing, for $500 or $1000 or whatever it was, to accept any halfway literate book, give it a little copyediting, and print up a couple of hundred copies. They even took out a small add in the N.Y. Times Book Review to promote the newest titles.

Now? There are a bunch of companies that offer mediocre writers such services as: "formatting your book for upload," "designing a great looking book cover," "getting your book uploaded to Amazon," etc.

Bezos makes his money by having his own Kindle staff who will charge for the services. Bezos makes money by offering the option of a "print on demand" version. Bezos makes money by restricting some bargains to PRIME subscribers only.

The mediocre writers usually don't even break even. BUT, they can brag that they've got books available on AMAZON, and shut up about how much they paid just to be sluts who give it away.

"Gosh, you're a published author. I can get your book on Amazon?!?!?"

"Yes, and you don't even have to pay for it! My book is one of 100,000 you can get for free. It's, uh, a promotion...' It's, uh, an ego-trip. It's a farce. It's a slut-notion of being liked and wanted and respected.

You can imagine a slut being told, "Well, one day you might be banging a porn producer who will put you in a movie. Maybe a rich guy will want to marry you."

It's entirely possible a movie producer will download your free book, out of 100,000, and then PAY you for the film rights."

Look, it happened once, to pudgy E.L. James because some people were objecting to the easy availability of cheap dirty eBooks.

So yeah, "YOU could be another pudgy E.L. James."

To quote Hemingway, "Isn't it pretty to think so."

People quote Hemingway. They don't quote any of Amazon's 100,000 freebie sluts.

Update - Jimmy Kimmel still gets "CANCEL" but Mel Gibson gets a pass

Ever see a bunch of Jews rioting and looting?

That's why Mel Gibson has nothing to worry about from the CANCEL mob on Twitter.

The hysteria over Jimmy Kimmel has continued (like Covid continues). THEY are dragging out things he did on the intentionally offensive "Man Show," and things he did back when being an "edgy" comedian was cool and in the Lenny Bruce and George Carlin tradition.

I stopped watching the guy because he kept having KANYE on the show, and pandering to other idiots with nothing to say, giving out with that creepy smile of his. Now, despite having KANYE on the show and so many other rappers and crappers and athletes known for the price of their sneakers..."HE A RACIST. R.I.P. CANCEL!"

Right, R.I.P. -- a subtle wish that a comedian be KILLED.

Meanwhile, the notorious anti-Semite MEL GIBSON?

On Twitter it's "Jesus, that happened long ago. Why bring that up?"

I once wrote to Mel Gibson.

I said, "How can you make anti-Semitic remarks when your idols were Jewish? You know that The Three Stooges were Jewish. That's not just Moe, Larry and Curly, but Curly's brother Shemp. AND Joe Besser. All those Three Stooges shorts you love...and you'd wish The Boys were wiped out in gas chambers along with all the other Jews?"

Mel didn't read it; it was "RETURNED TO SENDER."

Kimmel, meanwhile, is getting rage for something he did, what, over TWENTY years ago?

All I can say is Yoko, watch yourself. "Imagine" (which you love to promote on Twitter, especially as a spiritual co-write between you and John) might get the big CANCEL. So might ALL of John's work. Any statue of him COULD be taken down. The man did use "Nigger" in the title of a well-intentioned song about persecution and abuse. But I digress...

Unlike Jimmy Kimmel, Mel Gibson was never going for a laugh when he made his remarks. He was intending them to be hurtful, and at best, once in a while he'd blame it on being drunk. In 2006, while growling at "Sugar Tits," the officer trying to deal with his arrogance, he blurted, "Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." He also shrugged off his father's even nastier anti-Semitism (the holocaust never happened, etc.) because, well, it's his father, who taught him so well, and you honor your father.

Sort of like Jesus the Jew honored his father? Hmmm, was/is his father Jewish? Never mind...

The #METOO movement that got a CANCEL on Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby (both in jail, so it was actually LEGAL), then began bullying and bitching about anyone, so Jeffrey Tambor ducked for cover, Al Franken resigned, Dustin Hoffman went silent, and even Bill Maher chose not to wisecrack about the time he told ubiquitous complainer Rose McGowan that he had a big penis. (No, it wasn't a "Show and Tell" just a tell, but a decade or so later, Rose decided she needed a little more publicity so she dredged it up. And after a day of Twitter Twits going to seed over it, it drooped.)

It's always a difficult thing, balancing "Freedom of Speech" against the right to insult a minority. If the minority is Jewish. No doubt Mel Gibson will continue to get work, especially if he chooses to direct some movie about Jesus...and leaves out anything that suggests Jesus was Jewish.

As for Kimmel, so far he's still silently "on vacation," and is probably smart enough to know, as Bill Maher knew, that sometimes even the wittiest wisecracker of comic truths has to just ignore dumbfucks and dummkopfs who won't get it.

NANNY NY POST: "Say you're SORRY, Jimmy Kimmel!" Jimmy Fallon did.

Christ. (Is that ok to say? I've had religous fanatics on Twitter mournfully tell me I shouldn't take The Lord's name in vain because it upsets them.)

I'll say it again, CHRIST! As in Jesus F.

Or to quote (or paraphrase -- I'm not in the mood to look it up) Lily Tomlin: "No matter how cynical you are, you can never keep up."

Every day there's more over-sensitive bullshit involving comedians who either ARE being offensive or WERE offensive years ago and must APOLOGIZE for it. Or die. Or never work again. Get the CANCEL across the forehead. Be forever un-WOKE. Go bunk with Kevin Spacey.

What NOW?

I have NO Jimmy in this race. It's not like I watch Kimmel and so I think people should leave him alone. It's not like I watch Fallon and think he's a hero. I don't watch EITHER of them.

Jimmy crack jokes and I don't care.

If Kimmel wants to disappear until the heat is off, that's a good strategy, it's not being a "coward." Bill Maher didn't bother to address some has-been actress who whined that he made a suggestive remark to her. People didn't give a damn anyway (the actress in question has made a career out of bitching about rude guys, because nobody wants to see her being a bitch in movies anymore.) Wait a day, and the howling mob with woke pitchforks and "CANCEL" and "RIP" written on their torches, move on to bully somebody else.

Kimmel certainly wouldn't impersonate a black celebrity TODAY. Not when there's riots and looting every day. He gets it: VIOLENCE WORKS. He's also not gonna dress up like Mohamed.

Why did Michael Starr or anyone else dredge up this shit? Doesn't it stink of "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?" Or, going back further, "ARE YOU A WITCH??? Can you PROVE you're not a witch? We'll lead you to this lake and throw you in and if you..."

Christ. Does Michael Starr have nothing else to write about? Does he think if looters overrun the local stores near him, and decide to rob apartments in his building, he'll be exempt because of this? "Oh, wait, that's Starr's place. Let's not break in. He's on OUR side, he wrote that Jimmy Kimmel should APOLOGIZE." Right. Karma, or something like that? The more times you whine about blackface (but ignore "The Washington Redskins" or problems involving other races, religions or sexualities) the better.

How damn CHILDISH is it, to point a finger and say "APOLOGIZE." What good does it do? For the puppy Fallon, it sent the mob in another direction. But shouldn't they have left him alone to begin with, since he's got THE ROOTS tooting behind him?

But, in all seriousness, making Kimmel take a knee and APOLOGIZE doesn't even prove sincerity. Who knows if Kimmel or Fallon REALLY are sorry they tried to get a laugh? They might only be sorry they got caught up in idiocy.

Who's next? Billy Crystal is probably hiding out for fear of being slammed for his affectionate Sammy Davis Jr. impersonations. Billy, if you choose to do a new movie, or write another book...be prepared to make the APOLOGY.

And how about the blackface scenes in Laurel and Hardy or Three Stooges films? Those guys are too dead to be WOKE, but do those scenes get cut? Maybe blurred with "WE APOLOGIZE" over them in big letters?

How do the dominoes topple? Any cable station running "The Jazz Singer" anymore? "Gone with the Wind" pulled ONLY because there was VIOLENCE in the streets? Now this hounding of Jimmy Kimmel? What other old TV show or old movie gets the self-righteous rage? And would it help if it wasn't always "this is terrible for blacks, who are rioting and looting with just cause?" Would it help if Frank DeKova's episodes of "F-Troop" were removed because he played Chief Wild Eagle and he was Italian? Or don't Native Americans rate? Or isn't it just a bit too ludicrous to make a big deal about it?

There will ALWAYS be people turning sensitivity into pathetic and wearisome "social justice warrior" bullying and nagging, and that's a damn shame. Columnists like Michael Starr should save their bilious yammering for things that are important. And that doesn't mean hounding some actress who was hired to play a transgender or a lesbian, and who is neither, just a GOOD actress. That doesn't include banning music and burning books, or shelving every Tarzan or Charlie Chan movie. What's next? Valerie Harper wasn't Jewish so ban re-runs of "Rhoda?"

My pal Mort Sahl used to say that if you take up the same position in America, "eventually you'll be tried for treason." Attention comedians...a joke you make today, MIGHT get you kicked out of show biz, or even BEHEADED a decade from now.

SOLSTICE! SOLAR ECLIPSE! NEW MOON!

"BLACK LIVES MATTER" - the Airplane joke.

Yes, it's an AIRPLANE joke. Surely you'll find it funny.

(Or shouldn't I call you Surely?)

I'll make this a short paragraph, and not dwell on the fact that I knew Leslie Nielsen, and we swapped books once. He gave me his mock autobiography, and I gave him a copy of my tome "Sexual Humor." I'll also not dwell on Poe's line, that there are things "of which no jest can be made." That's a phrase in "Masque of the Red Death." BUT....my friend Steve Allen assured me, "You can make a joke on ANY topic. The question is whether you should say it out loud!"

All name-dropping aside...

Feel free to SHARE the joke-meme below. It will brighten somebody's day. Or, it'll get you killed, which might STILL brighten somebody's day.

NO, no, no, it's ONLY A JOKE. In the interest of TRANSPARENCY, which is neither black or white, I add that I didn't make the joke up. I merely updated it. The first version I heard was on a Davey Bold record. And now, ladies and gentlemen who don't matter too much, I give you...THE KILLER JOKE....

WHO GETS TO BE ON THE "CREAM OF WHEAT" BOX NEXT???

I vote for...BEN CARSON.

He's dignified. He's nice looking. He was also a brain surgeon, so he could operate on anyone who gets warped in the head over cereal boxes.

HOWEVER...I'm open to other nominations. Al Sharpton would be an obvious choice. But we can always get more radical, and really, if you think about it (and everyone IS over-thinking), the choice should be a BLACK WOMAN.

That could be ANGELA DAVIS. That's a radical decision, isn't it?

Just add a little brown food coloring, ok? Don't worry about the additive. People who eat Aunt Jemima pancakes, pouring on Mrs. Butterworth's syrup, or shoveling down plates of Uncle Ben rice, or a big bowl of CREAM OF WHEAT, are not too concerned with their health!

Or, as the Robin Williams catchphrase goes...REALITY, WHAT A CONCEPT

Comedy = Tragedy + Time or, "When did Civil Rights Turn Into Burlesque and Parody?"

You've GOT to be kidding.

Some guy who may have had a criminal record, and may have resisted arrest, dies in Minnesota thanks to one lousy cop (and a few standby cops who didn't do anything) and the ENTIRE world goes nuts. There is, of course, tremendous looting in America, and since Covid-19 means nobody can go to a bar or a ball game, people decide to ignore distancing and have a nice social protest every day for weeks.

The World Trade Center is demolished, ISIS blows shit up, and it's "don't blame the Muslims for a few radicals." In England, a little girl is stabbed in front of her father, and a soldier is beheaded on the street and..."don't blame all immigrants because of a few." But a few cops go way too far, and we actually hear that ALL cops should be fired, there should be NO police force, and...oh, by the way, we're putting hundreds of people out of work because we don't like reality shows about the police anymore! Cancel those shows!!"

This is almost satire. This is almost laughable. It isn't too far from a black comedy (excuse the term) like "Day of the Locusts." How much more ludicrous does it get? Oh. You ain't seen nothin' yet...

Yesterday's news, said that Pepsi (purveyors of brown-colored soda dangerously sugary and diabetes-producing) has a CONSCIENCE. They are POLITICALLY CORRECT. Having modernized the "Aunt Jemima" logo years and years ago, now, NOW, NOW that there has been a lot of RIOTS and LOOTING that cause a lot of fear and financial loss...lets NOT take chances. CANCEL AUNT JEMIMA.

Yes, our "CANCEL" culture...borne of Twitter (where a few thousand nitwits can pressure people to do almost anything)...has led to people being fired, people resigning, and people hiding under their beds like it's Salem Massachusetts or the McCarthy era. SAY THE WRONG THING and YOUR LIFE IS OVER.

BOYCOTT! POINT THE FINGER! GET THE PITCHFORKS! BRING OUT THE MOB!

Where was I? Oh, let's throw in the Liberal Media (sorry, that Phil Ochs song is sounding MORE AND MORE appealing to me every day). Let's hear it, Liberals...getting all righteous about pancake syrup and breakfast cereal IS the right way to handle Civil Unrest:

FINALLY! FINALLY!

Yes, it took the death of George Floyd the Martyr to get people to understand how awful AUNT JEMIMA's FACE is.

THIS FACE:

I don't get it. Does she look any different from Oprah? From Maya Angelou? Aunt Jemima looks like a proud woman who owns her own company. She could have her own talk show like Gayle King. She KNOWS why the caged bird sings, and she KNOWS that you don't turn over the pancake until the top is bubbling.

As for Mrs. Butterworths, who the HELL could even SEE this woman's features? She's full of syrup! It seemed like the company was trying to present TV ads that encouraged blacks to be glad ANY black people were being used as mascots. Mrs. Butterworth is a disgrace as a mascot? Compared to what, the mascot for the Cleveland Indians? The Washington Redskins? The Atlanta Braves?

Frankly, I never even knew Mrs. Butterworth was black. Or brown. If you filled the container with milk, she'd look white? I have no idea, because...I never bought this product, and I NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT SUCH STUPID SHIT.

Now, how about the Cream of Wheat guy, and Uncle Ben?

What am I missing? The current logos for Cream of Wheat (which I haven't eaten since I was 12) and Uncle Ben (the only product of the four that I have tasted in the past 30 years) look fine to me. They look like older black guys you might see on the street.

Don't they reflect the truth? How different do these two guys look, compared to Ben Carson? And if we are going to get upset about Uncle Ben, do we start pulling jazz CDs from the shelves on Louis Armstrong or Clark Terry? Do we start snipping any subservient black from any movie, including Dooley Wilson in "Casablanca?" When does this BLACK COMEDY end?

As I said up top, quoting Steve Allen, COMEDY is TRAGEDY PLUS TIME. Well, the tragedy of George Floyd and the time it took to start looting and protesting, has yielded the comedy of this pathetic over-reaction. Right, right, this changes the world: no more Aunt Jemima.

Do you replace UNCLE BEN with...Malcolm X? Do you NOT use anyone at all, black or white? Do you put an ASIAN on the box, since RICE originated in ASIA? (Or did it, I'm not up on revisionist history).

Speaking of revisionist history, we're being told it's NOT just the PHOTOS. As the Liberals search for reasons why they should be loved, and why their homes should not be looted, they write THIS:

"Uncle Ben’s rice, which uses the image of an elderly Black man (previously dressed in a bow tie evocative of servants and Pullman porters, per the New York Times) on its packaging, has been criticized for both the image and the use of “uncle” in the name, as white Southerners once used “uncle” and “boy” to refer to Black men because they refused to call them “Mr.” Mars Inc., Uncle Ben’s parent company, said that “now is the right time to evolve the Uncle Ben’s brand, including its visual brand identity, which we will do,” the Washington Post reports.

Cream of Wheat similarly uses an image of a smiling Black man that was formerly named Rastus — a pejorative term for Black men and a frequent character in minstrel shows — and previously depicted as barely literate. The porridge brand’s parent company B & G said that it is launching an “immediate review” of the image and the packaging, which was updated in 1925 to instead depict Chicago chef Frank L. White.

Mrs. Butterworth’s signature syrup bottle was intended to look like the image of “a loving grandmother,” per parent company ConAgra, but it has been criticized for its resemblance to the racist mammy caricature. According to the Post, the bottle’s shape was “believed to be created using as a model the black actress Thelma ‘Butterfly’ McQueen, who played Prissy in the 1939 film ‘Gone with the Wind.’” ConAgra announced that it has begun “a complete brand and packaging review” of Mrs. Butterworth’s.

May I point out how demeaning "WHITE BREAD" is for white people? Wonderbread is no wonder. Most white bread is stripped of all nutrition, not just color. Should white people be rioting over this, and demanding the name be changed? Call it TRUMP BREAD or something. Likewise, there's WHITE AMERICAN CHEESE. As if AMERICAN CHEESE wasn't awful enough. How did AMERICA get associated with such a lousy cheese?

I hope you're laughing about this. Just a little. Because it's all just a little ABSURD. It's also a little dangerous, especially for people who like comedy, because you know what is next, don't you? COMEDY FILM CENSORSHIP.

There's already been a lot of very iffy bits of PC games in the world of comedy. It's a good thing Moms Mabley turned out to be lesbian, because her garish clothes and toothless rasping could be considered demeaning. "Moms" isn't too far from "Aunt" is it? And "Aunt" and "Uncle" are demeaning if you want to look at it the "right" way. A TV documentary presented the problem of "Amos and Andy." Hosted by black comedian George Kirby, it featured a variety of black performers praising the show and declaring that Tim Moore (Kingfish) was a comic genius, and wasn't doing anything stereotypical. Certainly not any worse than Sanford the Junkman as played by Redd Foxx. Should the show EVER be allowed on the air again? It hasn't. It's not had any official DVD release either. But the TV special seemed to suggest that it was a pretty good, pioneering show with its all-black cast, and that Jimmie Walker's character on "Good Times" was a lot worse. (PS, a few of his co-stars on that show agreed!)

It's quite possible that "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" and the entire ending of the Marx Brothers' "Room Service" could end up snipped and banned. There were blackface moments in Laurel & Hardy and Three Stooges films. The brilliantly funny black comedian Dudley Dickerson could be snipped out of Stooges shorts, too. Some who worry about his eye-popping funny faces, or those of Mantan Moreland, may next cast a jaundiced, un-popped eye at the many, MANY times in Richard Pryor movies where he acted scared to get a laugh.

There's a serious question about how...funny...blackface moments in 30's and 40's and 50's movies are...from now-banned Bugs Bunny cartoons to Moe getting hit with a bottle of ink and Larry Fine laughing and saying "Mammy!" Do we start snipping? Put a warning notice in front of the film? And do we bother to look at the way Native Americans, Asians and others have been treated for a laugh? Anyone hear the difference between Fred Allen's comical Mrs. Nussbaum and Jack Benny's wimpy and obnoxious Mr. Kitzel? The irony is that Jack was Jewish, and Fred was not. But if the jokes were good, is it such an issue?

I could go on, but hey, my Cream of Wheat is getting cold...

That's a JOKE son. I told you, I don't eat that crap.

PS...apologies to any Southerners who didn't like my Senator Claghorn reference, or the fact that I am a Northerner.

PS, who WAS that Mr. Penny from "Penny Lane" named after? It makes SUCH a big difference. And who was "Strawberry Fields?" Any relation to W.C. Fields, who once joked about a "Nubian in the fuel supply?"

RUMI'S BROTHER

Everyone knows RUMI.

It's impossible to surf SOCIAL MEDIA and not get a whole bunch of wisdom memes attributed to RUMI.

The Iranian Confucius, RUMI was a New Age guru before his time. Somehow, college girls in the 70's and 80's were too busy reading Kahlil Gibran to delve into the collected works of RUMI, but Millennials, and certainly their moms and grandmas, can't stop passing around RUMI memes.

HOWEVER...they don't seem to know about Rumi's brother. Here are some samples.

DING DONG, RIGHT THE WRONG: AUNT JEMIMA, THE WICKED BITCH IS DEAD!!

Pepsi, the company that makes those sugary pop drinks that don't cause diabetes, has shown just HOW much they CARE about people.

They've killed AUNT JEMIMA.

What, you didn't even know that the giant PEPSI company OWNS this slave? They do. And unlike the slaves of old, you can get that EVERYBODY on the assembly line that gets paid by PEPSI gets a fair and decent wage.

Surely, at least 50% of their workforce is of color? ("Gotta be, and don't call me SURELY").

Pepsi will also tell you that they deliberately colored their cola BROWN, even though they could just as easily make that drink without artificial color or dye.

So while THE BAND sings "JEMIMA SURRENDER," take a look at this:

Yes sir. Or better yet, YOWZA! (Funny, not very, how few people know or care that YOWZA is an extremely offensive slang word which goes back to whites making fun of how their black slaves said YES SIR...)

If AUNT JEMIMA is getting her ass kicked all the way to oblivion, UNCLE BEN must be shakin' in his gravy.

UNCLE BEN, once a credit to his race, is just another symbol we must ERASE from our culture. LORD, there is nothing more demeaning than to be called "AUNT" or "UNCLE." And even though BEN and JEMIMA are names that many people have (hell, Ian Dury's daughter is even named Jemima) it be RACIST to use those names. Glad we're sorting this out!

What next on the CANCEL THE FOOD front?

Well, WRIGLEY has to DO BETTER. They've got RACIST GUM. They be anti-semitic, y'all. Take JUICY FRUIT off the shelf. It's "JUICY?" "JEW, SEE?" We know what they're up to. It's also nefarious and downright RACIST to have "BIG RED" gum, when it's clearly offensive to Native Americans. And why doesn't WRIGLEY go back to spruce tree resin, the ingredient the Native Americans used?

Get the Native Americans OFF the reservations and into the WRIGLEY factories, using SPRUCE TREE RESIN to make gum! AND, to avoid any ADDITIONAL RACISM CHARGES, how about using more chicle, the sapodilla tree resin from Mexico?!?!?

WRIGLEY, you are obviously RACISTS against LATINOS as well. Meanwhile, DITCH THESE TWO PRODUCTS...

It's just a disgrace that William Wrigley became one of the weathiest men in the country! If there's a statue to him, TAKE IT DOWN, because he has OFFENDED people of color, and you must be very, VERY careful about being offensive these days. Unless it's pointing out who in our history is a LILY-WHITE HONKY MUTHAFUCKA. Which would be WILLIAM WRIGLEY. Among others. SO many others.

While we're at it, the removal of statues is going too damn slow. Cilla Black, for example, is NOT BLACK. Take that statue DOWN!

I know, Liverpool is doing its best, destroying every "Penny Lane" sign because some slave trader named Penny MIGHT have gotten Penny Lane named for him, but is it too much to ask that the CILLA BLACK statue be turned to rubble? Get a bulldozer on her ass!

PS, it would be a good idea to start going through The Beatles catalog and changing some lines. "Baby's in BLACK and I'm feeling blue" is clearly denigrating people of color and the color BLACK. Revisionist history, y'all. Let's DO IT. And don't you think Giles Martin (son of George Martin) could do some sonic tricks and simulate John Lennon's voice and change another line to: "Black Lives Matter Custard?" Lots of BAD, BAD examples in Beatles songs. "Blackbird singing in the dead of night...take these sunken eyes and learn to see..." What's THAT about? Paul insists it's a song about equality but we KNOW why the caged bird sings, and there's nothing NICE about having sunken eyes. As LaWanda Page would say, only a "FISH-EYED FOOL" would think that BLACKS would have or want SUNKEN EYES."

The world needs to be WOKE, y'all. TCM, Turner Classic Movies, needs to STOP using the phrase "FILM NOIR." We all KNOW that "NOIR" means "BLACK," and if there's anything worse than White Americans abusing blacks, it's White French People doing it. So, any CRIME movie with BLACK shadows and DARK lighting is a NOIR, is it? You French bastards associate "NOIR" with crime, do you? Time to LOOT the French stores, y'all.

It's important that our future, which will be armageddon and oblivion, be one EQUAL to ALL. As we overpopulate, as we get offended by anything and everything, as we demonize people and "cancel" people and BOYCOTT companies, we have to acknowledge that this isn't enough. Let's take our energies away from obvious ploys to deflect racism, such as COVID-19, and be aware of what REALLY matters.

Time to stop using phrases like "BLACK COFFEE" and "BROWN SUGAR," unless it's with reparations. For every cup of "BLACK COFFEE" that Starbucks sells, they need to give 30% of the profits to the Fund For Changing The Name of the United Negro College Fund.

Likewise, it's important to not just eliminate any perceived RACISM perpetrated by those Lily-White Honky Blue-Eyed Devils, but to replace such things with POSITIVE images that praise any career criminal, any violent once-jailed offender, and anyone who did the RIGHT THING by preaching violence as the best remedy for change.

Let's revise history and praise the black leader/martyr who popularized the term "Blue-Eyed Devil." He also made sure that 400 years of black slavery in the South was far worse than 2,000 years of Jewish persecution all over the world. Jews? "The Jew cries louder than anybody else if anybody criticizes him," he said, and yes, Pharoah makes Jews into slaves was nothing, and Hitler's genocide was nothing, and 8 million Jews marched to their deaths after being worked as slaves till they were skeletal...let's not whine about THAT!

Listen to his wisdom: "The Hebrews, the so-called Jews, can go back so far they can lay claim to that which is actually not theirs. But the reason they can claim it is that nobody else they are dealing with can go back far enough to disprove them. Except the Muslims -do you understand?" Yes, Allah before Moses, and Muslims were around before the Jews or the Christians. Anything else on the Jews from this great man?

"Remember, Abraham's religion was Islam. Abraham wasn't a Jew, Abraham wasn't a Christian, Abraham wasn't a Buddhist, Abraham was a Muslim...God told him, yes. He said, your people are going into bondage, they're going to become slaves, they're going to be afflicted, they'll be strangers in a land far from home for four hundred years. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says you and I are the seed of Abraham, we're the descendants of Abraham. Now the preacher in the church, he tells you that the Jews are the seed of Abraham. One of them is right and one of them is wrong..." He knew which one was right. Anything else from the great man?

"Who is the seed of Abraham? Is it this blue-eyed, blond-haired, pale-skinned Jew? Or is it the so-called Negro -- you? Who is it? And what makes it so pitiful, many of our people would rather believe that the Jews are God's Chosen People than to believe that they are God's Chosen People...The Jews know their history, the Jews know their culture, the Jews know their language; they know everything there is to know about themselves. They know how to rob you, they know how to be your landlord, they know how to be your grocer, they know how to be your lawyer..."

Anything else? The great man, now always mentioned in he same breath as Martin Luther King Jr. had more to say with his revisionist history and his interpretation of The Bible and his imagination:

"When jesus was talking to the Jews, way back here in John, he told them that they shall know the truth and it will make them free. The Jews popped up and said: "How are you going to say that we shall be made free? We have never been in bondage to anyone." Isn't that what the Jews told Jesus? Now look at it. If the Jews said to Jesus, two thousand years after Moses supposedly led the Hebrews out of bondage, that they had never been in bondage -now you know the Jews had Moses' history, they knew who Moses was- how could they stand up and tell Jesus they had never been in bondage? Not these things that you call Jews. They weren't in Egypt, they weren't the people that Moses led out of Egypt, and the Jews know this. But the Bible is written in such a tricky way, when you read it you think that Moses led the Jews out of bondage..."

And? "The white man's world is newer world than the black man's world..."Let us make man on our image, in our likeness. Let us make him look like us. He won't be the same as we are, he'll be in our image." That's God talking, right? He's talking to somebody...Those people who were here before Adam... "aborigines," which means what? BLACK FOLK!!!! You never find a white aborigine. Aborigines are called natives, and they're always dark-skinned people. You and I are aborigines. But you don't like to be called an aborigine; you want to be called an American. Aborigine actually means, "from the beginning." It's two Latin words, "ab" meaning "from"; "origine" meaning "the beginning"; and aborigine is only the term applied to those dark-skinned people who have been on this earth since the beginning of the universe. You know that's going way back...Black men have always been wise, black men have always been the wisest beings in the universe, and among these beings, black beings, there is on who is supreme; he is referred to as the Supreme Being, do you understand? "

More? A little more:

"So in six hundred years now they got a devil in the scene, a blue-eyed devil, bond-haired...We call them what they are. White, that's their color, but devil, that's what they are. These aren't white people. You're not using the right language when you say the white man. You call it the devil. When you call him the devil you're calling him by his name -serpent; another name -snake; another name -beast. All these names are in the Bible for the white man. Another name -Pharaoh; another name -Caesar; another name -France; French; Frenchman; Englishman; American; all those are just names for the devil...So The Honorable Elijah Muhammad says that these devils went back into Arabia. When they got there they started telling lies, started confusion..."

You can fine more of this fine, logical speech right here:

THE SPEECH ABOUT WHITE DEVILS AND EVIL JEWS So let's see a product named after this true hero. How about... MALCOLM X-LAX??

FUN WITH PRETENTIOUS AND RELIGIOUS SELF-HELP MEMES....

JESUS, JIMI - he was MORE than a GUITAR HERO, he was a philosopher/intellectual genius. RIGHT??

In the world of idiot memes, you'll likely come across THIS eventually -- a gruesome photo of the phony Jimi (real name was JAMES) Hendrix, with a quote that...oh, that sounds JUST like him, doesn't it?

I mean, the guy who dressed like a pimp and managed to half-sing "FOXY...LAYYY DEEEE" in a purple haze of drugs, could certainly come up with THIS sober thought:

The "LEGEND" of the guitar hero who choked on his own vomit, continues.

Why people are so excited about GUITAR HEROES is beyond me. It's some jerk on stage, making a stupid jerking-off face, and usually belaboring ONE string of the guitar.

Unless the melody is actually good ("Layla" for example), all you've got is an idiot savant who happens to be playing fast, or stretching a note so oddly and expertly you forget that you're going deaf.

There was that "terrible, terrible, terrible" year when JAMES, JIMI and JANIS died. Between them, they came up with, what, a half-dozen performances that actually survive the test of time and might be art?

Morrison gets credit for "Light My Fire," but he was hardly the world's greatest poet. In other words, he need not have drunk himself to death. Give him a point for the pout, and for acting like a dangerous rock star post-Elvis, but most critics, when he was alive, said he wasn't that good of a songwriter and his singing was mediocre.

Janis Joplin? She gets credit for turning a lame country ballad about some dopey chick, written by Kris Kristofferson, into a drunken rave. Yes, "Me and Bobby McGee." Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah nah yeah yeah yeah BOBBY MCGEEEE!

If you saw some ugly woman raving about some guy the Janis did, you send for the men in the white jackets. You'd be doing her a favor.

Still, it's not everyone who can be convincing in singing a thoroughly mediocre lyric about some jerk she's missing due to delerium tremens. Joplin gets credit, from some, for rippin' off da blacks. It won't be long, in today's climate, when people start banning her from the airwaves, toppling her tombstone, destroying any statue there might be of her, and declaring her to be a racist, y'all. Nice of her to put up a tombstone for Bessie Smith, but, y'all, she ripped off Bessie, y'all, copped a black singing style, y'all, sang BLACK, y'all, and that's not GOOD, y'all. Y'all get that? GOOOOOD.

Oh. All right. If you want to be nice (and I always do), give Janis a point for her really good version of "Piece of My Heart," where her high-pitched screaming (and people complain about Yoko?) actually is moving. She didn't exactly have the full-bodied wailing voice of better white singers such as Judy Henske and Genya Ravan, but she was appealing to people who actually LIKED drinking Southern Comfort.

Now, back to Hendrix. Give HIM a point for that stupid "Foxy Lady" song. Give him ANOTHER point for being a wise-ass with the National Anthem (maybe a version Colin Winkydink wouldn't take a knee over). AND, give him YET ANOTHER point, for his cover version of "All Along the Watchtower," where his pimped out singing and druggy musicianship made people forget about the pretentious lyrics.

Now, where DID that faux-Hendrix quote REALLY come from?

“We look forward to the time when the Power of Love will replace the Love of Power. Then will our world know the blessings of peace,” William Gladstone.

Poor Willi Glad. Anybody know who the hell he is? Go to Wikipedia, stooge! He was...

"Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four terms beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times." Or as the obscure (at this point) British Music Hall comedian Billy Bennett once said, "What did Gladstone say after '99? Why, a hundred, and he was right!" Gladstone was wrong quite a bit (part of his rivalry with Disraeli was probably basted in anti-Semitism) but get the quote right. It wasn't Jimi. It was Willi.

Now, just WHERE and WHEN Willi wrote or said this pithy line about the Power of Love (a phrase that does seem awfully Gibran, if not Rumi), nobody seems to know. They also don't seem to know WHERE or WHEN he wrote or said some other great quotes attributed to him, like:

“Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. ”

“If you are cold, tea will warm you;
if you are too heated, it will cool you;
If you are depressed, it will cheer you;
If you are excited, it will calm you.”

“Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to haunt for happiness”

“Good laws make it easier to do right and harder to do wrong.”

“Failure is success if we learn from it.”

It's possible none of the above are actually from Willi B., but one thing is certain...do NOT trust anyone who claims the author to be JIMI HENDRIX.

Just because it's quoted on some jerky-ass bot-created click-bait website...NO.

Sunday Bible Class

Comedy is Tragedy Plus Time

(Too soon?)

Luting.

Perhaps the saddest thing about the attacks on innocent store owners struggling to pay high rents, is that it just means more money for Amazon. So far, nobody's gone storming into any of Jeff Bezos' minimum-wage dungeon warehouses.

UFO'S ARE REAL

What's with these social media morons who keep posting blurry photos and saying UFO'S ARE REAL??

My question, Trekkies, Chicken Littles and Space Cadets:

Why are you telling me this?

What the HELL do you want ME to do about it?

1) Should I leave Mars and Milky Way candy bars outside my door every night?

2) Should I take up playing a theremin?

3) Should I post a sign saying "Alien Lives Matter?"