FOLIO OLIO: CAPTAIN'S LOG: BEACH DAY

For the first couple of days here at the beach the waves lapped at the shore more like a lake than an ocean. All that changed today. 25mph winds in a roiling sea with whitecaps as far as the eye can see.

I've been watching a lot of football. And if I've learned anything, I've learned that I am sick and fucking tired of every fucking winning team pouring Gatorade over the head of their coach. Surely some team, somewhere, could come up with something original.

LET'S TALK ABOUT ME AGAIN, SHALL WE?

I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama.

This is what was going on there when I was in my formative years.

Luckily, I moved from there or else I would still be calling other citizens niggers, just like I had been taught.

Now I do my best to look beyond the color of skins to judge the worth of a person. My decades as a teacher of very young people helped.

Does that mean that I don't cross the street when four guys in hoodies are approaching me? No.

Go figure.

But I know for sure that the guy below hanging from the chains doesn't give a shit about skin color. A woman was swept over the falls and was being roiled in the current. He instructed his crane operator to take him over and he made the rescue.

You could change any color for any participant in this drama and the end would be the same. Black guy rescues black woman, white guy rescues black woman, etc, and it would not have mattered.

So why can't we take that same "save one another" mentality to all of our everyday dealings with people?

Google "birds, bird accessories, bird seed" etc for 2 hours. Now all your targeted advertisements are pictures of birds.

I grew up at the exact same time John Kennedy told us we had to beat the fucking Soviets to the moon. (and as I recall he used those exact same words)

When I forgot to do my homework I was asked if I wanted the Soviets to win the moon. It was a really big deal...a full blown national challenge.

What challenge do we have today to motivate young people.....study hard and make more money? Good luck with that now a days.

Anyway, back then these were the coolest motherfuckers in the solar system.

Now this guy and all those like him are my heroes.

This is a photo of this warrior's first day home from Afghanistan.

Dear men with small penises,
Get real, real good with your fingers and tongue.
Sincerely,
Womanhood

I got over the us and them queer thing a long time ago. I think what did it for me is that I taught so many of them and discovered that they were great kids.

Now I want them not only to be "tolerated" but given equal right.....like they were real Americans....oh, wait.....

When my counsellor changed our appointments from weekly to monthly, I smiled. I am so glad he now sees me as a "low risk client".

I know that there is a thin line between making fun of people and laughing with them. With this blog I can't deal with that. I will present anything I think will bring a smile to your face. My philosophy is that if you make fun of everyone, then you make fun of no one.

On that note, I present midgets pulling a jet airplane....

I'm thinking of getting a big tattoo on my forearm that says "No egrets". Then when people ask me where the R is I can say either "A pirate stole it", or better, "I hate birds, but the egret is the worse."

Not surprisingly, I love making fun of people who don't believe in fairies, pixies, gnomes, the Loch Ness Monster, yeti, etc, but who do (with all their hearts) believe in angels, seven headed dragons, talking donkeys, talking shrubbery, and ghosts....because, by god, angels and such are real and all that other stuff is just plain silly.

So that leads me to remind you of the judge in some arab country who ruled that if a woman's eyes are deemed too sexy, then she could be ordered to cover them.

THE JOKE:

"Man, she's got beautiful eyes."

"Shit, man, are you going to fuck her in the eyes or what?"

"Depends."

TRUE: A young woman in Blufton, SC is suing a bar for not asking for her ID. You see, she got drunk, wrecked her car and is paralyzed. Had she been asked for an ID, she couldn't have gotten drunk, ergo no accident.
It's called tort reform, people. Look it up. It's been in and out of the news for decades, but nothing gets done.
A simple solution to the woman above would be to have a lower "court" of citizens sort of like the grand jury, who would decide if a real judge's time should be wasted.

I hate hypocrisy. If this woman looked up and caught me staring at her.......attributes, she would look at me with disgust.

The woman above and the women below are doing, in my opinion, the EXACT same thing.

I have problems with women who sculpt their bodies to make them "perfect".

(holy fucking shit, these people exist)

Then there is this beautiful woman.
Which one would you rather wake up next to each morning?

As an artist, you would assume that I love all things art.

Well, almost.

As an artist who has worked in public arenas for 35+ years, I know that athletes and artists have a lot in common.

Artists' and athletes' mistakes are out there for everyone to see....every fucking day.

Then we come to this philosophy.

We continue to spend tax money on the arts.
But we have to borrow the money.
I know you will say, but it's only .0001% of the budget. But there are 15, 000,000 things in the budget that make the same argument.

Gentle reader, there are people all over the world who are so rabidly concerned about how the money is spent that they do things like this....

(TRUE: This is the second time this guy has done that)

Whole governments have been brought to an end due to the people's frustration with how the money is allocated.

Do you think that the veteran sleeping in a cardboard fucking box cares whether or not our government funds the arts? Or NASA?
We need to draw a line at the point of what we can and what we can not afford right now. So, when are we going to have to decide if we can't feed 1000 people in Detroit because we choose to keep the Grand Canyon open for all the old people in the Travel Homes? When do we decide if we should close libraries so we can build a sports complex? How many problems have to pile up before we turn all those brilliant minds at NASA toward finding solutions to problems here at home and letting the stars wait until we figure out our survival here on Earth?

And back to the arts. I don't think any child should be allowed in art or music class unless they can read at grade level. I don't care how well Mrs. Smith taught you how to chime those bells, if you can't read you will never make it.

TOONS TO AMUSE....