Lenny Bruce as Jesus Archetype of Comedy

I'm rewatching CNN's History of Comedy from a few years ago. Mark Maron said that Lenny Bruce took the hit for all future comedians by going to jail for obscenity and being beaten down in a variety of ways. Elayne Boosler referred to Lenny Bruce as the Big Bang of comedy. His daughter said that no matter how many times he was dragged off stage or made to go to court, he always believed he had the right to free speech. He went from making $150,000 a year to being registered as a pauper. Someone referred to him as a martyr, and someone thanked God for him.

That is a perfect example of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey! Stand up comedy in mythological terms, with Lenny Bruce as a Jesus archtype!

July 19, 2021

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Did you see Trump's speech last night? I honestly tried, but I think I only made it a half hour. Somehow it went on for another hour??? You have to question the decision-making ability of somebody who chooses to follow Hulk Hogan.

https://youtu.be/yujF8AumiQo

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10 Short Rules For a Better Life, From the Stoics

2. Focus on efforts, not results

“Enjoyment means doing as much of what your nature requires as you can. And you can do that anywhere. Keep in mind the ease with which logos is carried through all things. That's all you need.” -Marcus Aurelius

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In Return of the Jedi, when Luke and Leia start chasing the biker scouts on a stolen speeder bike, Luke tells Leia to "jam their comlink, center switch." Why would there be a key button on speeder bikes to swart other speeder bikes' attempts at communication??? And even if there is, how would Luke know? And what kind of cockamamie scheme was it to have Chewbacca tossed into Jabba's dungeon jail? That was the best they could come up with? They were pretty freaking lucky that Jabba came back with an even more cockamamie scheme- putting all the heroes back together under minimal supervision.

July 19, 2019

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Jim Casy, Grapes of Wrath: "Before I knowed it, I was sayin' out loud, 'The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing.' . . . . I says, 'What's this call, this sperit?' An' I says, 'It's love. I love people so much I'm fit to bust, sometimes.' . . . . I figgered, 'Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,' I figgered, 'maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit-the human sperit-the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of.' Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent-I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it."

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This morning I accused the president, the great deal-maker, of being fallible since he failed to pass a health care bill while both houses were controlled by his party. Someone said it wasn't his fault because he was going to sign the bill if they passed it. I said that since he would have taken credit for it if it passed, he has to accept responsibility for it since it failed... and she deleted her comment, she bailed. You know what that means? I might have given her something to think about!

July 19, 2017

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Attempted murderer Ben Carson just said Hillary Clinton is in league with Lucifer.

July 19, 2016

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I think the Frontline documentary Escaping ISIS turned me pro-drone. Watch 15 minutes and see if you agree. (Watch more than that and you might wish you were droned. Rough documentary. You might want to just imagine it.)

July 19, 2015

Postscript- That documentary marked a turning point in my thinking. Before that, I used to think of all the innocent people we killed with drones, which is obviously terrible. Afterward, I started thinking about all the bad people we killed with drones, and realized there's nothing to be said with having boots on the ground, killing them face to face. There's footage of a young woman getting stoned to death for supposed infidelity, with her father in full support. I'd bet $1,000 to a donut that every last person I know would have pushed a button to kill the perpetrators versus allowing her to be killed.

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I think I ate root beer floats for dinner the last two nights.

July 19, 2015

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Damn, Gretel found some really nice stuff at the park!

July 19, 2015

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Douglas Adams- "Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

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Reflect for a moment on the fact that one day "Weird Al" Yankovic will be dead.

And now go about your day.

July 19, 2014

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I couldn't find Pepper in any of her normal spots...which occasionally means she snuck out and is at the Humane League or SPCA...but I found her in a room she never goes in, curled up next to a painting of her brethren.

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On this day in 1969- Chappaquiddick. Ted Kennedy crashed his car into a tidal pond at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. He all but announced his run for president several days before the 10-year anniversary. 

What's the line from Mad Men? If you don't like what they're saying, change the conversation?

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Presidential nominee, George McGovern, was born on this day in 1922. If I could change one thing about the United States government over the last 50 years, it might be to have him beat Nixon. It's impossible to judge how much snowballed after Nixon. I can't even imagine the world we would live in right now.

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."

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Also born on this day 100 years ago, Rachel Robinson- American professor, registered nurse, and the widow of baseball player Jackie Robinson. She was in the stands when he broke baseball's color barrier. She's still alive!

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Comedian Jim Norton was born on this day in 1968. If you ever meet somebody who says that he's their favorite comedian, run.

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Journalist and critic, Margaret Fuller, left us on this day in 1850.

"Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman... Nature provides exceptions to every rule."

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Other notable birthdays- Lizzie Borden (1860), Edward Charles Pickering (1946), Lisa Lampanelli (1961)

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Another notable deathday- Lefty Frizzell (1975)

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Kierkegaard- "The unhappy person is one who has his ideal, the content of his life, the fullness of his consciousness, the essence of his being, in some manner outside of himself. The unhappy man is always absent from himself, never present to himself. But one can be absent, obviously, either in the past or in the future. This adequately circumscribes the entire territory of the unhappy consciousness."

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McGovern again- "The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher standard."

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Here's a world-class recap paragraph about Mad Men- the greatest show in the history of TV. I might need to start rewatching it... it's somehow been 7 years. 

"Every episode is packed with comic and dramatic moments; period-accurate clothes and hairstyles and music; imaginative, hilarious, often deeply moving performances; and screenwriting that depicts the complexities and contradictions of the human personality with more insight and empathy than any American series to date. It’s a drama about how individuals are and are not affected by the local, national, and international history that’s constantly unfolding around them. It’s a psychodrama about how our personalities are shaped by our parents, our lovers, our friends, our bosses, and everyone else we know, as well as by people we’ve never met but feel as if we know: the politicians, civil-rights leaders, athletes, movie stars, musicians, and other icons who inspire, entertain, confound, and sometimes anger us as we muddle through our daily lives. It’s also a series with an unusually strong affinity for mythology, spirituality, religion, psychoanalysis, pop psychology, literature, poetry, cinema, and all the other means by which human experience is transformed into narrative. And at every level — the scene, the episode, the season, and in total — it is a masterpiece of construction, filled with major and minor bits of foreshadowing and recollection, lines and images seeming to answer each other across time."

https://www.vulture.com/article/mad-men-recaps-guide.html

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Washington Post- The One Constant of Trump's Presidency- Tomorrow Will Be Worse

"Some tell me they are weary of hearing about Trump’s abuses and they no longer are surprised by his outrages du jour. I share their weariness — I feel as though I’ve been a coroner working one car wreck after another for five years — but we can’t afford to look away until he is dispatched so overwhelmingly that his inevitable attempt to declare the election stolen won’t fly. Our very survival depends on it."

Why should we not become weary of all of these daily outrages? Because if he loses, he is inevitably going to declare the election a fraud... the outrage of outrages. (This article is a week old, and he essentially admitted this to Chris Wallace in the meantime.) Any weariness will help him stay in power. Even if Biden only squeaks it out, Trump goes. Some people act as if it has to be a landslide to be decisive. No, a one electoral vote majority wins- for either one!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/13/one-constant-trumps-presidency-tomorrow-will-be-worse/

July 19, 2020

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Collected Insights From Across the Internet:

A Red Moon happens every once in a Blue Moon

'Okay’ sounds more upbeat than ‘Ok’

Babysitters are teens that act like grown-ups so grown-ups can go out and act like teens

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Cy Young became baseball's first and only 500 game winner on this day in 1910. 

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Alternet- The 12 Worst Ideas Organized Religion Has Unleashed On the World

1. Chosen People 

2. Heretics

3. Holy War

4. Blasphemy

5. Glorified Suffering

6. Genital Mutilation

7. Blood Sacrifice 

8. Hell

9. Karma

10. Eternal Life

11. Male Ownership of Female Fertility 

12. Bibliolatry (worship of a book)

Need more detail? Go here:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.alternet.org/amp/12-worst-ideas-organized-religion-has-unleashed-world-2647334125

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Tomas Tranströmer- “In the middle of the forest there's an unexpected clearing which can only be found by those who have gotten lost.”

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Tertullian- "Men remain in ignorance as long as they hate, and they hate unjustly as long as they remain in ignorance."

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Ricky Gervais- "God gave you free will so that you have the choice to either worship him or go to hell."

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Susan Sontag- "The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is."

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The Sith Code:

Peace is a lie. There is only Passion. Through Passion, I gain Strength. Through Strength, I gain Power. Through Power, I gain Victory. Through Victory my chains are Broken. The Force shall free me.

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Thackeray, Vanity Fair- "The wicked are wicked, no doubt, and they go astray and they fall, and they come by their deserts; but who can tell the mischief which the very virtuous do?"

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Jean-Luc Picard- "To say you have no choice is a failure of imagination."

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Chekhov- "Wisdom.... comes not from age, but from education and learning."

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Marcel Proust- "Like many intellectuals, he was incapable of saying a simple thing in a simple way."

*Note that he said a simple thing in a simple way.

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Milan Kundera, Laughable Loves- "A man is responsible for his ignorance."

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Ernest Hemingway, Ernest Hemingway Selected Letters 1917-1961- "Then there is the other secret. There isn't any symbolysm [sic]. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is a boy and the fish is a fish. The shark are all sharks no better and no worse. All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see beyond when you know."

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