The Jester
Lamar Deal
My Bad
I am more than a little sick of some of the phrases that we use without thinking. Sometimes it just seems easier to use some hackneyed trope than to dig a little deeper and use truly descriptive language. The thing that most appalls me is that I use these all the time. Here are a few shopworn shibboleths that I would like to see tied up in a gunnysack and lobbed into the nearest river.
“My bad…” That’s cute coming from a child but if you’re over four years old you need to drop this from your personal lexicon right this minute. This baby talk phrase gets trotted out to cover any faux pas from spilling salt to setting off a thermonuclear bomb. “Oops, my bad!” just doesn’t cut it, Osama.
“It’s all good…” No it ain’t. This is a sorry substitute for actual thought. This is usually used to cover moral ambiguities:
“Is that legal?”
“Chill, dude, it’s all good…”
…or to stop a barroom brawl:
“I’m gone *$&^ you up, fool!”
“Hey, man, it’s all good…”
SMACK!!
“Dang, I said it was all good…”
“That affects me how?” This is one of my wife’s pet phrases, although she denies it. I’m not even sure why this bothers me. Maybe because it’s so snarky. The phrase has a built in sneer that just really gets on…(see next line)
“My last remaining nerve…” This is one of my pet phrases. I’ve been using this for at least a couple of decades. I usually preface it with “You’re tap dancing on…” and follow it up with “and you’re wearing your jackhammer shoes…” I thought that was really funny once upon a time, but now it seems as contrived as it actually was back when I first started using it. Now it’s just dumb. Stop me before I use it again. Please.
“Threw him under the bus…” The first time I heard this phrase was when Rush Limbaugh used it to attack Barack Obama for distancing himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, saying that Obama “threw his white grandmother under the bus”. I’m sure that the phrase goes back further than that, but just the fact that Gas Bag Boy used it pretty much ruined it for me forever.
“That bites, sucks, blows, eats it, chews it” (or other orally fixated expression) As in “That phrase just totally bites the big one.” As opposed to partially biting the big one. Or the medium one or even the small one.
“Talk to the hand…” Talk to the finger. Yeah, that finger.
“Hel-lo?” This denotes total cluelessness, as in “Hel-lo? Are you that stupid?” sometimes accompanied by a tapping on the head as in “knock wood”. If the perpetrator just pretends to “knock wood” try to ignore it. If he actually “knocks wood” on your own private, personal noggin, as far as I’m concerned you can bust him one for his own good. Someday he’ll thank you for it.
“Well, duh!” Very like “Hel-lo?”. If you are in fact as dumb as “Well, duh!” implies, odds are you won’t be offended by the use of the phrase.
“She has issues…” …only if she’s a magazine. Otherwise she has problems. Or she’s as crazy as a rat in a coffee can. A lot of people have “issues” with the word “crazy”. To me, the word is perfectly serviceable and superbly descriptive; sometimes no other word will do. Take Jeffrey Dahmer for instance. He didn’t have “food issues”. He was “crazy” or as the psychologists say, “wiggetty-wiggetty-wack”.
“Drank the Kool-aid…” Generally refers to anyone’s willing co-operation in a stupid course of action. This goes back to the Jonestown Massacre of 1978 when 918 less than stable followers of the deranged Rev. Jim Jones committed suicide by drinking cyanide laced Kool-Aid in what had to be one of the worst public relations nightmares ever for the manufacturers of a children’s drink.
“You must be confusing me with someone who gives a damn…” I don’t.
“Ya think?” This belongs in the same category as “Well, duh!” and “Hel-lo?” No, I don’t think. I use trite phrases like “Ya think?” to keep from thinking. Duh.
“__________ challenged” or “________ impaired” I know this was first used with the best of intentions. The word retarded had become a pejorative; such an insult that mental health professionals coined the terms “mentally impaired” and “intellectually challenged”. Then somebody made a crack about short people being “vertically challenged” and pretty soon anybody who was different was “this challenged” or “that impaired”. Enough already. It’s no longer funny.
Well, that’s my rant for this week. Hey, it’s all good. If you’re humor impaired or have issues with my opinions, my bad. Talk to the hand. I mean hel-lo? Ya think?
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
GREETINGS FROM WORLD HEADQUARTERS
If you've stumbled onto this site you may be asking yourself, "Just who the hell is this guy and why should I care?" Okay, maybe you wouldn't ask yourself that. I would ask that, but then who am I? You begin to see where that line of questioning can go.
I'm just some schlub who has dabbled in this and that, as opposed to having had any kind of realistic goals. As child of the Space Age (that was before the MySpace Age) I wanted to be an astronaut, until I found out that actual work was involved. Then I wanted to be a cartoonist, largely because I was the best cartoonist at Byron Elementary School. Sad to relate, I spent the next 25 years pursuing art as a career only to discover that I had pretty much peaked in the third grade. Still, I managed to make some money along the way.
I jumped on the standup comedy bandwagon in the early 1980s in Atlanta and took mediocrity to a whole new level. This was at the urging of my good friend Dr. Emil Fazuil*, who was drunk at the time. So was I. I worked with a lot of pretty big names before they became famous. One or two of them might remember me vaguely, vague being a fairly accurate description of my act. I might have succeeded but for a lack of insane ambition. I had the talent, I think, but I wasn't willing to work to acquire the skills.
I was 27 when I first got the comedy bug. At the outset standup comedy looks like a pretty good deal. It's the only job I know of that allows you to drink on the job, it's a great way to meet women and, at the top, the pay is crazy good, hundreds or even thousands of dollars per hour. Even on the lowest rungs you can make 20 or 30 bucks a minute. The downside is sometimes you might have a 14 hour drive to work. A few years of that and a day job starts to look not quite so horrible. See, the thing is, from out there in the audience, standup looks easy. It ain't.
*Names have been changed to protect the guilty. I don't know very many innocent people.
I'm just some schlub who has dabbled in this and that, as opposed to having had any kind of realistic goals. As child of the Space Age (that was before the MySpace Age) I wanted to be an astronaut, until I found out that actual work was involved. Then I wanted to be a cartoonist, largely because I was the best cartoonist at Byron Elementary School. Sad to relate, I spent the next 25 years pursuing art as a career only to discover that I had pretty much peaked in the third grade. Still, I managed to make some money along the way.
I jumped on the standup comedy bandwagon in the early 1980s in Atlanta and took mediocrity to a whole new level. This was at the urging of my good friend Dr. Emil Fazuil*, who was drunk at the time. So was I. I worked with a lot of pretty big names before they became famous. One or two of them might remember me vaguely, vague being a fairly accurate description of my act. I might have succeeded but for a lack of insane ambition. I had the talent, I think, but I wasn't willing to work to acquire the skills.
I was 27 when I first got the comedy bug. At the outset standup comedy looks like a pretty good deal. It's the only job I know of that allows you to drink on the job, it's a great way to meet women and, at the top, the pay is crazy good, hundreds or even thousands of dollars per hour. Even on the lowest rungs you can make 20 or 30 bucks a minute. The downside is sometimes you might have a 14 hour drive to work. A few years of that and a day job starts to look not quite so horrible. See, the thing is, from out there in the audience, standup looks easy. It ain't.
*Names have been changed to protect the guilty. I don't know very many innocent people.
Monday, January 18, 2010
This is for the Jesup Press Sentinel. I'll be doing a column for them which will appear the first Saturday of each month, or until I piss someone off. I'm just saying.
Model Citizen
I haven’t always been the model citizen I appear to be today. I was talking to Ware County Sheriff Randy Royal the other day and it occurred to me that back in the day, any interaction that I might have had with law enforcement would likely have started with blue lights and a siren.
“Could you step out of the car, sir?”
“No, sir, I could not. I could prolly fall out…”
Why is it the only time anybody calls me “sir”, it means I’m in trouble?
It’s the same way with ”Mister Deal”.
“Mr. Deal, could you recite the alphabet backwards for me, please?”
“Okay, you go first…” Seriously, how fair is that? “Recite the alphabet backwards…” What if you’re dyslexic? I’ll tell you what the officer won’t like: turning your back and singing, “A, B, C, D…” I cannot emphasize enough just how much the officer won’t like it.
The fact is I just can’t believe that I’m a grownup. I don’t mean that the same way my wife can’t believe it, like when I watch Spongebob Squarepants. I mean in the sense of “Hey, Baby Boomer, you’re in charge now! That’s right Mr. Big Talk; you! What’s that? How does the economy work? You knew when you were 16, didn’t you?!? You knew everything back then, didn’t you, Smart Guy?”
And I did. Mark Twain once allegedly said (and if he didn’t say it, he should have), “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” I am not as quick to learn as Mr. Clemens, but more and more I see the point. A lot of what I used to know, I only thought I knew. A lot of the rest, I can’t remember.
As to why I can’t remember? Let me put it this way: I don’t worry much about microwaves from my cell phone burning out brain cells. Any brain cells that I didn’t kill off back in the seventies are natural born survivors. After I’m dead those brain cells will climb out of the grave, like roaches. Zombie brain cells…
I’m amazed that my g-g-g-generation is allowed to drive cars without supervision, much less vote in Presidential elections, perform surgery and fly airplanes. I have a lot more faith in Gen-Xers than I do in my own age group. They can’t possibly be more dangerous to themselves or to the world at large than we were.
I’m sure some of you may be thinking, “Not me! I never did that kind of stuff! Humph!”
Humph, indeed. Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t, but if I were a betting man (and I am) I’d bet that 80% of the male population born between 1946 and 1965 has something in their past that they don’t want their kids or grandkids to know about. Any takers?
Model Citizen
I haven’t always been the model citizen I appear to be today. I was talking to Ware County Sheriff Randy Royal the other day and it occurred to me that back in the day, any interaction that I might have had with law enforcement would likely have started with blue lights and a siren.
“Could you step out of the car, sir?”
“No, sir, I could not. I could prolly fall out…”
Why is it the only time anybody calls me “sir”, it means I’m in trouble?
It’s the same way with ”Mister Deal”.
“Mr. Deal, could you recite the alphabet backwards for me, please?”
“Okay, you go first…” Seriously, how fair is that? “Recite the alphabet backwards…” What if you’re dyslexic? I’ll tell you what the officer won’t like: turning your back and singing, “A, B, C, D…” I cannot emphasize enough just how much the officer won’t like it.
The fact is I just can’t believe that I’m a grownup. I don’t mean that the same way my wife can’t believe it, like when I watch Spongebob Squarepants. I mean in the sense of “Hey, Baby Boomer, you’re in charge now! That’s right Mr. Big Talk; you! What’s that? How does the economy work? You knew when you were 16, didn’t you?!? You knew everything back then, didn’t you, Smart Guy?”
And I did. Mark Twain once allegedly said (and if he didn’t say it, he should have), “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” I am not as quick to learn as Mr. Clemens, but more and more I see the point. A lot of what I used to know, I only thought I knew. A lot of the rest, I can’t remember.
As to why I can’t remember? Let me put it this way: I don’t worry much about microwaves from my cell phone burning out brain cells. Any brain cells that I didn’t kill off back in the seventies are natural born survivors. After I’m dead those brain cells will climb out of the grave, like roaches. Zombie brain cells…
I’m amazed that my g-g-g-generation is allowed to drive cars without supervision, much less vote in Presidential elections, perform surgery and fly airplanes. I have a lot more faith in Gen-Xers than I do in my own age group. They can’t possibly be more dangerous to themselves or to the world at large than we were.
I’m sure some of you may be thinking, “Not me! I never did that kind of stuff! Humph!”
Humph, indeed. Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t, but if I were a betting man (and I am) I’d bet that 80% of the male population born between 1946 and 1965 has something in their past that they don’t want their kids or grandkids to know about. Any takers?
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Questions for 'Pinkos'
Our alleged local newspaper, the Waycross Journal Herald (suggested slogan: "Too rough for toilet paper") recently published a letter to the alleged editor written by an alleged sane person, one Harrison D. Watts. This is one of those letters. I was going to just give a synopsis and quote some of the odder bits out of context. Then I decided that this is a feast best savored in its entirety.
Editor, Journal Herald:
While the local pinko/socialist apologistas are gloating over the victory (?) of Barak Hussein Obama and telling the conquered peons to "suck it up" there are still some unanswered questions about the real authority of the current leader of the Democratic machine. Answer are out there. The truth will be exposed someday.
Questions like these have NOT been answered. All we have gotten is hot air gloating.
1) Is there any proof that B. Hussein Obama is NOT a secret Mohammedan? (His aunt certainly is. She's in Boston fighting deportation back to Kenya.)
2) Is the any PROOF of B. Hussein Obama's actual birthplace? B. Hussein Obama has SEALED any birth records relating to him. He has said that he was born at TWO different Hawaiian hospitals. And his grandmother says she was present at Obama's birth, neglecting to say how she got to Hawaii from Kenya. Very suspicious, methinks. And the recent resurfacing of Obama's BROTHER raises more questions than ever.
3) Has anyone ever thought to point out that EVERY socialist regime ever imposed on free people has FAILED?
4) Why has no one realized that once you "spread the wealth" thw way Obama wants to, there is no more wealth to be created after that?
5) Why stop with taking over the healthcare insurance industry? Wouldn't a total takeover of ALL insurance make more sense? Every citizen could, in theory, get all needed insurance from the government - car, accident, marine, home, fire, burial - you name it. Why not have life insurance paid for by the government with the government as beneficiary?
6)Who pays for Nancy Pelosi's daily hair plastering and facial shellac jobs?
7) Why are Congresstwerps Rangel, Murtha and Dingell so all-fired anxious to hide their own personal millions while trying to impose Obama socialism on everybody else? Very curious!
8) And one last question that has every serious minded thinker simply beside him/herself? Once Levi Johnson has stripped down and waved a middle finger to Sarah Palin from some center-fold or other, who do you think will call him first: The cast of Bridezillas or one of the guyliner/hair goop losers from American Idol? (Sorry, that is too tough a question; maybe it shouldn't be answered!
(signed) Harrison D. Watts
Editor, Journal Herald:
While the local pinko/socialist apologistas are gloating over the victory (?) of Barak Hussein Obama and telling the conquered peons to "suck it up" there are still some unanswered questions about the real authority of the current leader of the Democratic machine. Answer are out there. The truth will be exposed someday.
Questions like these have NOT been answered. All we have gotten is hot air gloating.
1) Is there any proof that B. Hussein Obama is NOT a secret Mohammedan? (His aunt certainly is. She's in Boston fighting deportation back to Kenya.)
2) Is the any PROOF of B. Hussein Obama's actual birthplace? B. Hussein Obama has SEALED any birth records relating to him. He has said that he was born at TWO different Hawaiian hospitals. And his grandmother says she was present at Obama's birth, neglecting to say how she got to Hawaii from Kenya. Very suspicious, methinks. And the recent resurfacing of Obama's BROTHER raises more questions than ever.
3) Has anyone ever thought to point out that EVERY socialist regime ever imposed on free people has FAILED?
4) Why has no one realized that once you "spread the wealth" thw way Obama wants to, there is no more wealth to be created after that?
5) Why stop with taking over the healthcare insurance industry? Wouldn't a total takeover of ALL insurance make more sense? Every citizen could, in theory, get all needed insurance from the government - car, accident, marine, home, fire, burial - you name it. Why not have life insurance paid for by the government with the government as beneficiary?
6)Who pays for Nancy Pelosi's daily hair plastering and facial shellac jobs?
7) Why are Congresstwerps Rangel, Murtha and Dingell so all-fired anxious to hide their own personal millions while trying to impose Obama socialism on everybody else? Very curious!
8) And one last question that has every serious minded thinker simply beside him/herself? Once Levi Johnson has stripped down and waved a middle finger to Sarah Palin from some center-fold or other, who do you think will call him first: The cast of Bridezillas or one of the guyliner/hair goop losers from American Idol? (Sorry, that is too tough a question; maybe it shouldn't be answered!
(signed) Harrison D. Watts
My Reply
The Editor:
I am happy to see that the Waycross Journal Herald has dropped all pretense at journalism and has embraced its role as a humor publication. Lord knows this town could use a good laugh.
I refer of course to the proliferation of jocundity set forth by one Harrison D. Watts in his letter of November 14th, 2009. I will confess to being slow to get the joke. Such is the subtlety of the man that I assumed, naively perhaps, that Mr. Watts is mentally ill and that you, Mr. Editor, were cruelly exploiting his delusions for your own aggrandizement. I apologize for my error. It is now clear to me, upon reading Mr. Watt’s most recent screed, that Mr. Watts is a sublime humorist and that you, Mr. Editor, are a supreme judge of applied wit. Imagine my chagrin.
Nonetheless, I feel compelled to respond to the hilarious points that Mr. Watts made. Let us begin with the spelling of Barak (sic) Hussein Obama’s name. I can only surmise that either Mr. Watts thinks that misspelling someone’s name is funny and that you, Mr. Editor, agree or that someone (oops!) failed to use that pesky spell-check.
Let us, for the sake of brevity (alas, not one of Mr. Watts virtues), ignore the logical inconsistencies of the first two paragraphs. Let us also, in the spirit of Mr. Watts, feel free to USE CAPITAL LETTERS for EMPHASIS!!! (I threw in the exclamation points for free). I will address these points numerically, just as Mr. Watts has done.
1) Is there any proof that B. Hussein Obama is NOT a secret Mohammedan?
YES! It’s called OBJECTIVE REALITY. Claiming that one’s crazy aunt’s assertion to the contrary is proof is NOT proof. Who doesn’t have a crazy aunt or two?
2) Is there any PROOF (again with the caps) of B. Hussein Obama’s actual birthplace? Yes. Again, it’s called OBJECTIVE REALITY. Ho hum. More loopy relatives. Who ain’t got a barn full of those?
3) NON SEQUITOR!
5) Once again, v-e-r-y slowly…NON SEQUITOR…
6) Huh?
7) Congresstwerps Rangel, Murtha and Dingell? That just sounds FUNNY! Ha! Ha!
8) As to Levi Johnson’s ‘stripped down, middle fingered centerfold salute to Sarah Palin’? While I can’t address your admittedly hot synopsis (I am fanning myself as I type this), when Mr. Watts’s medications wear off and his galloping senility has been conquered and your own TENUOUS SENSE OF REALITY has returned, please, please, please, let me know just what the good gentleman was TALKING ABOUT.
Lamar Deal
Waycross, Georgia
I am happy to see that the Waycross Journal Herald has dropped all pretense at journalism and has embraced its role as a humor publication. Lord knows this town could use a good laugh.
I refer of course to the proliferation of jocundity set forth by one Harrison D. Watts in his letter of November 14th, 2009. I will confess to being slow to get the joke. Such is the subtlety of the man that I assumed, naively perhaps, that Mr. Watts is mentally ill and that you, Mr. Editor, were cruelly exploiting his delusions for your own aggrandizement. I apologize for my error. It is now clear to me, upon reading Mr. Watt’s most recent screed, that Mr. Watts is a sublime humorist and that you, Mr. Editor, are a supreme judge of applied wit. Imagine my chagrin.
Nonetheless, I feel compelled to respond to the hilarious points that Mr. Watts made. Let us begin with the spelling of Barak (sic) Hussein Obama’s name. I can only surmise that either Mr. Watts thinks that misspelling someone’s name is funny and that you, Mr. Editor, agree or that someone (oops!) failed to use that pesky spell-check.
Let us, for the sake of brevity (alas, not one of Mr. Watts virtues), ignore the logical inconsistencies of the first two paragraphs. Let us also, in the spirit of Mr. Watts, feel free to USE CAPITAL LETTERS for EMPHASIS!!! (I threw in the exclamation points for free). I will address these points numerically, just as Mr. Watts has done.
1) Is there any proof that B. Hussein Obama is NOT a secret Mohammedan?
YES! It’s called OBJECTIVE REALITY. Claiming that one’s crazy aunt’s assertion to the contrary is proof is NOT proof. Who doesn’t have a crazy aunt or two?
2) Is there any PROOF (again with the caps) of B. Hussein Obama’s actual birthplace? Yes. Again, it’s called OBJECTIVE REALITY. Ho hum. More loopy relatives. Who ain’t got a barn full of those?
3) NON SEQUITOR!
5) Once again, v-e-r-y slowly…NON SEQUITOR…
6) Huh?
7) Congresstwerps Rangel, Murtha and Dingell? That just sounds FUNNY! Ha! Ha!
8) As to Levi Johnson’s ‘stripped down, middle fingered centerfold salute to Sarah Palin’? While I can’t address your admittedly hot synopsis (I am fanning myself as I type this), when Mr. Watts’s medications wear off and his galloping senility has been conquered and your own TENUOUS SENSE OF REALITY has returned, please, please, please, let me know just what the good gentleman was TALKING ABOUT.
Lamar Deal
Waycross, Georgia
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Enough
That’s it. I’ve had it. Enough. Stop it. No more B.S.
Let’s get this straight. Barack Hussein (yes, damn it, that’s his middle name) Obama is the legally elected President of the United States of America. Yes, he was born in Hawaii, which was a state in that Union when he was born. The Certificate of Live Birth on file with the State of Hawaii and the various public announcements in any and all newspapers of record are valid proof of that birth and not the result of any time traveling conspiracies to ensconce a Negro Usurper into the Office of the President of the United States of America.
And no, Barack Hussein Obama is not a Muslim, despite any number of protests by any number of idiots (and if you feel that I’m talking about you, then apparently I am) who somehow fail to understand the fact that Mr. Obama is a Christian.
And no, ACORN is not a criminal enterprise dedicated to taking over America in league with Americorps in order to transport underage prostitutes into Federal housing projects, no matter how much Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, et al and their panting fans wish it were so.
And no, repeating phrases such as “drinking the Kool-Aid” and “throwing (insert name here) under the bus” and “ditto” are not valid arguments, or even reasonably good metaphors.
Putting aside all ideology, putting aside all conspiracy theories, putting aside all politics…the Constitution of these United States of America mandates that we “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty, etc, etc…”
So please, just stop it. Stop babbling nonsense and pretending it is sense. Stop listening to those who would lie to you and have you fight against your own best interests so that they might continue to profit by taking advantage of your good nature.
For your own sake and for the sake of those you love, stop listening to these radio, television and yes, print media fools. Anyone who believes that health care in America doesn’t need drastic reform has never had a sick child, a sick parent or loved one or has a great big pile of cash or an incredibly good insurance plan.
Health care is a basic human right. Period.
There is much more that I might address on these subjects, but frankly, I am tired unto death of defending simple common sense and objective reality right now.
Thank you for your indulgence,
Lamar Deal
Let’s get this straight. Barack Hussein (yes, damn it, that’s his middle name) Obama is the legally elected President of the United States of America. Yes, he was born in Hawaii, which was a state in that Union when he was born. The Certificate of Live Birth on file with the State of Hawaii and the various public announcements in any and all newspapers of record are valid proof of that birth and not the result of any time traveling conspiracies to ensconce a Negro Usurper into the Office of the President of the United States of America.
And no, Barack Hussein Obama is not a Muslim, despite any number of protests by any number of idiots (and if you feel that I’m talking about you, then apparently I am) who somehow fail to understand the fact that Mr. Obama is a Christian.
And no, ACORN is not a criminal enterprise dedicated to taking over America in league with Americorps in order to transport underage prostitutes into Federal housing projects, no matter how much Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, et al and their panting fans wish it were so.
And no, repeating phrases such as “drinking the Kool-Aid” and “throwing (insert name here) under the bus” and “ditto” are not valid arguments, or even reasonably good metaphors.
Putting aside all ideology, putting aside all conspiracy theories, putting aside all politics…the Constitution of these United States of America mandates that we “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty, etc, etc…”
So please, just stop it. Stop babbling nonsense and pretending it is sense. Stop listening to those who would lie to you and have you fight against your own best interests so that they might continue to profit by taking advantage of your good nature.
For your own sake and for the sake of those you love, stop listening to these radio, television and yes, print media fools. Anyone who believes that health care in America doesn’t need drastic reform has never had a sick child, a sick parent or loved one or has a great big pile of cash or an incredibly good insurance plan.
Health care is a basic human right. Period.
There is much more that I might address on these subjects, but frankly, I am tired unto death of defending simple common sense and objective reality right now.
Thank you for your indulgence,
Lamar Deal
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Long time Passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone
They’ve gone to graveyards every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
If you’re under, oh, let’s say, forty years old you probably won’t recognize the song. It’s Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”, an anti-war song made popular by the combined efforts of Peter, Paul and Mary and the Vietnam War.
I first heard this song as a second or third grader in the early sixties. I went to a small school in Byron, Georgia, which before Interstate 75 blew through was a very small town. There were about 300 students in the school; grades one through twelve, and the teachers would round us up in the auditorium for a sing-along about once a month or so. (It just occurred to me that younger folks may not know what a sing along was. More’s the pity.)
Mostly the songs were old patriotic standards such as Dixie and The Battle Hymn of the Republic with a few Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly songs thrown in. Other songs were anti-war and anti-segregation protest songs written by beatniks and what in a few years would be called hippies. Of course I didn’t know that at the time. I just knew it was fun and a little thrilling for everyone to be singing together.
The lyrics were handed out on mimeographed paper. Mimeography was a primitive method of making blurry purple copies using smell and ink. The smell of mimeograph ink is as close to a time machine as humans have achieved so far. I guarantee that if you are about my age one whiff of that ink will carry you right back to elementary school. Nothing smells quite like it and more than a few kids were sort of addicted to sniffing the stuff. So I hear.
Our teachers were Daughters of the Confederacy. I don’t mean that they necessarily belonged to that organization, although they may have. I mean they were that old. Their grandfathers and fathers and uncles had fought in the Civil War or as they called it “the War of Northern Aggression”.
So these relics of the Old South would lead us in songs such as “We Shall Overcome” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” and ”The Times They are A-changin’”. I can’t help but think, here in the present day, that those dropped “g”s must have really worked their English teaching nerves.
As I came to hear those songs in later years and in wildly different circumstances I came to wonder why those old ladies sang those songs in particular. In my adolescent arrogance (which in my case is just now starting to wear off) I thought they were just clueless. I got many a chortle over the years by just thinking on it.
Now that I’m older and, one hopes, wiser, I think maybe they weren’t so clueless. I’ve learned that old soldiers sometimes need to tell their stories and that children sometimes listen to them. Those old biddies had long memories and they remember those stories told by the fire on cold antebellum nights.
They might have asked, “Granddaddy, how’d you come to lose that leg?” And Granddaddy might have told them of Pickett’s Charge and Antetiem and Bull Run and of the fetid field hospitals where the only anesthetic was a rag clenched between the teeth and where the doctors were as likely to kill you as a Yankee minie ball and the stinking, ever mounting masses of the bodies of boys who would never be men fighting for a cause that would never be right…
Maybe that’s why they chose those songs. When will we ever learn?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone
Long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone
They’ve gone to graveyards every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?
If you’re under, oh, let’s say, forty years old you probably won’t recognize the song. It’s Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone”, an anti-war song made popular by the combined efforts of Peter, Paul and Mary and the Vietnam War.
I first heard this song as a second or third grader in the early sixties. I went to a small school in Byron, Georgia, which before Interstate 75 blew through was a very small town. There were about 300 students in the school; grades one through twelve, and the teachers would round us up in the auditorium for a sing-along about once a month or so. (It just occurred to me that younger folks may not know what a sing along was. More’s the pity.)
Mostly the songs were old patriotic standards such as Dixie and The Battle Hymn of the Republic with a few Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly songs thrown in. Other songs were anti-war and anti-segregation protest songs written by beatniks and what in a few years would be called hippies. Of course I didn’t know that at the time. I just knew it was fun and a little thrilling for everyone to be singing together.
The lyrics were handed out on mimeographed paper. Mimeography was a primitive method of making blurry purple copies using smell and ink. The smell of mimeograph ink is as close to a time machine as humans have achieved so far. I guarantee that if you are about my age one whiff of that ink will carry you right back to elementary school. Nothing smells quite like it and more than a few kids were sort of addicted to sniffing the stuff. So I hear.
Our teachers were Daughters of the Confederacy. I don’t mean that they necessarily belonged to that organization, although they may have. I mean they were that old. Their grandfathers and fathers and uncles had fought in the Civil War or as they called it “the War of Northern Aggression”.
So these relics of the Old South would lead us in songs such as “We Shall Overcome” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” and ”The Times They are A-changin’”. I can’t help but think, here in the present day, that those dropped “g”s must have really worked their English teaching nerves.
As I came to hear those songs in later years and in wildly different circumstances I came to wonder why those old ladies sang those songs in particular. In my adolescent arrogance (which in my case is just now starting to wear off) I thought they were just clueless. I got many a chortle over the years by just thinking on it.
Now that I’m older and, one hopes, wiser, I think maybe they weren’t so clueless. I’ve learned that old soldiers sometimes need to tell their stories and that children sometimes listen to them. Those old biddies had long memories and they remember those stories told by the fire on cold antebellum nights.
They might have asked, “Granddaddy, how’d you come to lose that leg?” And Granddaddy might have told them of Pickett’s Charge and Antetiem and Bull Run and of the fetid field hospitals where the only anesthetic was a rag clenched between the teeth and where the doctors were as likely to kill you as a Yankee minie ball and the stinking, ever mounting masses of the bodies of boys who would never be men fighting for a cause that would never be right…
Maybe that’s why they chose those songs. When will we ever learn?
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