“Altogether—shout it now,
There’s no one who can doubt it now!”---Jack Yellen
Tuesday, January 1, 2019
It’s a luminous New Year’s morning in central Florida, sunny and warm, no threat of rain, friends emailing pictures of beachtime bliss from St. Augustine ninety minutes away. The reddest cardinal ever created stood on a fenceboard and greeted me this morning on my way to feed the horses. “Your cares and worries are gone,” he chirped, “there'll be no more from now on!” Cardinals are such optimists. But there’s plenty to be lighthearted about, despite the raucous rein of The Nude Emperor. We are not in assisted living yet, we still have all our original parts and the mortgage is paid. We have not lost any friends to the Grim Reaper in the last two months and all the pets are healthy. The Red Sox are World Series champions and the rebounding Florida Gators have somehow throttled Michigan in the Peach Bowl. It’s time to start planning the Summer vacations, two weeks in Idaho and Yellowstone, a long weekend in Provincetown with sisters Kathy and Alice (the embarrassed Republican). There’s even good news to report on the national front. The money-changers have been expelled from the House of Representatives and Melania has made it a record 24 months without duplicating one item of clothing. And then there’s all this:
The Skies Above Are Clear Again
1. The Country Is Not At War With Czechloslovakia. Or Belize. Or The Ottoman Empire, even. President Thump has even recalled troops from Syria and Afghanistan, leaving U.S. forces in a meager 148 foreign lands. The boring old contretemps with Russia has abated since Kremlin overlord Vladimir Putin was offered and accepted a six-film movie contract from MGM Studios. Putin will play the hero in a new series of Ramboish films set in rural Russia, battling Chechen terrorists, Leningrad pig rustlers and Tsarist revolutionaries seeking to return 117-year-old Anastasia Nikolaevna to the throne. Kim Jong-un has been contracted to play Tonto.
2. Godzilla Is Dead. Really. After 64 years and 726 films terrorizing humanity, the dastardly creature has breathed his last, the victim of food poisoning at the Osaka Home For Aged Monsters in his birth country, Japan. In his heyday, the big guy took on all comers, including King Kong, Mothra, Megalon and even Sarah Palin on an ill-fated trip to Alaska. “Palin was the toughest,” he often said, shaking his oversized cranium. “She tricked me into chasing her deep onto the Matanuska Glacier and I stumbled around for weeks with nothing but frozen moths to eat. I would have died if I hadn’t finally run into an Arby’s.”
3. The Zombie Invasion Has Petered Out. About time, too. For a while there, it seemed like every week brought a new undead movie or TV show. And unlike the zombies of our youth, which were slow, clumsy and often blind, these latter-day characters could run like Secretariat. They could leap tall buildings in a single bound, trap you in a storm cellar and….well, turn you into one of them. It wasn’t pretty. Fortunately for mankind, Woody Harrelson came out of retirement, rented an old Winnebago and drove around the country’s zombie hotspots, plying them with marijuana and Moody Blues albums. Things quieted down after that.
4. President And Democrats Agree On Border Moat. The Wall is history. The Nude Emperor and leaders of the Democratic Party have agreed on a one-mile wide activated moat along the U.S.-Mexico border. The moat will be operated by Aquatica Water Parks of Orlando and will feature giant waves and roiling surf. No vehicles will be permitted on the waters and candidates who enter the moat will have to pass a measuring pole attesting to a minimum height of 5-5. Anyone who can swim or surf from Mexico to The States will, after a vigorous background check, be placed on the fast-track to citizenship and offered starter lifeguard jobs at remote beaches and inner-city country clubs. Christian values, of course, will be considered.
About Those Resolutions….
Every year at this time, well-intentioned citizens make promises to themselves to turn over a new leaf, to become better, more conscientious human beings, to engage in physical and spiritual self-improvement, to be more considerate of their fellows. They are like the robins who appear at the beginning of Spring and quickly disappear into the firmament. We see them each year at Lifetime Fitness and like facilities, where they show up in sparkling newfangled workout garb on the first week of January, grunt around the machines and free weights for a few weeks and introduce themselves to the regulars. “I’m Vito, ex-of Passaic,” they will say, “and I’m making a lifetime commitment.” One month later, Vito gets on the scale, throws up his hands in frustration and is gone forever, another victim of Instant Gratification Fatigue. It’s a well-known fact that 90% of New Year’s Resolutions are tossed in the dumpster by the middle of February. But then again, there is that 10%.
Last year, Siobhan Ellison, a research scientist from Fairfield, Florida resolved to become 1/8-inch taller. She didn’t tell anyone about this, lest they scoff. Then, she undertook yoga, specialized massage and The Rack to accomplish her promise. This morning, she measured herself against last year’s pencil-line on the kitchen wall and voila!….one-eighth inch taller.
In for a penny, in for a pound. This year, I am encouraging her to go for a 12-inch gain so she can be a middle blocker on the UF volleyball team. She has, after all, four years of eligibility left. Siobhan says she will do this if I can learn to stand on one leg for three minutes during our weekly yoga sessions. I called Florida VB coach Mary Wise yesterday and told her to keep looking.
Not Your Mother’s New Year’s Resolutions
Thursday, January 3, 2019
1. I resolve to never again use my Mickey Mouse voice while having sex.
2. I will find that bastard who let the dogs out.
3. I resolve to be more assertive this year. If that’s okay with everybody.
4. I will no longer hit on short-haired women driving semis.
5. I will make absolutely certain my grandfather is no longer inside before opening the shower door.
6. I will change my name to Simon and speak in the third person.
7. I will improve my health in increments. During the first week, I will stop buttering my doughnuts.
8. Actually go into an elevator and say, “I expect you’re all wondering why I called this meeting.” Bill has been verging on this one for years but has never pulled the trigger.
9. Buy a parrot. Teach him to squawk, “Help! I’ve been turned into a parrot!”
10. Stop making fun of Aquaman.
Predictions For 2019
Every year, we like to check in with Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga to find out what’s coming up in the next 12 months. Baba knows. Born Vangeliya Pandeva Dimitrova in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in 1911, Baba lost her eyesight at a young age, but the cataclysmic event unlocked in her great powers of clairvoyance. Her legion of followers claim that Baba foretold the events of 9-11, the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk in 2000, the Thailand tsunami of 2004 and the rise to power of Vladimir Putin. And now she’s ready for another Big One. U.S. President Donald Trump will become extremely ill in 2019. Say what?!?
Yessir, according to Baba Vanga, the 45th President of the United States will succumb to an unknown disease leaving him with hearing loss, tinnitus and brain trauma later this year. Trump’s symptoms will look somewhat like those suffered by a number of American diplomats in Cuba early last year.
Baba gives equal time to Putin, who, she claims, will survive an assassination attempt in 2019 from “someone within his own circles.” Putin has admitted to at least four previous attempts on his life and is now under the protection of an elite team of snipers.
According to the Bulgarian mystic, there could be a much bigger tsunami this year than the Thailand killer, this one scheduled for parts of Pakistan, Japan, China, Indonesia and even Alaska. Nearly 400 people have already died in September’s 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Indonesia when a tsunami rocked the city of Palu on Salawesi Island.
Don’t worry, though. Neither Vladimir Putin, the catastrophic Trump presidency nor global warming will bring the world to an end this year. That won’t happen until faraway 5079, according to Baba Vanga, who does not specify how this will happen but hints that rap music could play a part.
Not Dead Yet
In a previous edition of The Flying Pie, we reported that Bill was undergoing a CT brain scan for possible irregularities in the pituitary gland. Try as they might, however, the radiologists could find nothing untoward up there. The next step in The Great Mystery of Bill’s Elevated TSH was a trip to Doctor’s Imaging in Gainesville yesterday for an ultrasound of his thyroid. Results are pending until tomorrow, but our hero is not worried. If worse comes to worst, which we’d just as soon it didn’t, thyroid cancer is curable 98.6% of the time. Bill has already sparred a few rounds with prostate cancer and knocked it out about ten years ago so he is at peace with the issue. If things don’t work out, though, he would definitely like lots of flowers and not a financial contribution sent to some vague charity in his name. Once a traditionalist, always a traditionalist.
That’s all, folks….
