So, the Human League song, I'm Only Human is playing faintly in the background and a guy is up on his ladder with a chainsaw. Apparently neither he nor his neighbor who is washing his car directly beneath this imminent catastrophe is aware that as soon as he cuts through the branch it's going to crash down directly onto his car.

In a different segment of that commercial, a man is standing on top of his car in a retention pond or some body of water after he has apparently gone off the road. In the next view, we see him on the ground with his Liberty Mutual agent, bone dry and she's consoling him and telling him everything will be fine.
Liberty Mutual: Responsibility. What's your policy?

Over the weekend, the heathens of news, MSNBC showed a picture of the Romney family with their  12,763 grandchildren and the newest member of their family, Baby Kieran a black child whom they adopted. Well, I looked at the photo and I thought to myself, 'I ain't goin' there.' I have severe issues with Willard but whom he adopts is none of my business. During the Melissa Harris Perry show, the subject is usually wonky or nerdy regarding the direction of policy or conditions Prof. Perry is concerned with. This photo was pretty stark in that it was a sea of tow headed Caucasian children with BK sitting on Mitt's right knee. Being older, what raced through my mind was a blackfaced Al Jolson, singing his timeless song "Sonny Boy."* And that's all the thought I gave it-- other than Mitt and Ann are still pretty pissed off that they spent a billion dollars to get elected President, yet didn't. And they're not the only ones.

With the slow and tortured rollout of the ACA and the Conservative opinion machine gleefully teaching us the meaning of Schadenfreude, new polls existed that showed that if the election were held today, Governor Romney would be the 45th POTUS. And the tyranny of big government would be shrunk to a size worthy of being drowned in a bathtub (GO, Grover). Attribution, baby. It's what I'm about.

But did they need to apologize?

After a non stop period of time where Phil Robertson was dissected, detected, inspected and elected** King of free speech, evisceration was on the menu for MHP and Dean. Both apologized to Mitt and Ann because although it was a s much fair game as anything else, they felt it may have been in bad taste. Perry just said she was sincerely sorry. Obeidallah apologized to the Romneys but said he'd never apologize to the flamethrowers for electing people that brought such policy to this country and he never would .And he reminded his readers that he is a comedian and sometimes jokes work and sometimes they do not. Fair enough. Story over? Hardly.

I offer attribution (**) to Arlo Guthrie for the words from Alice's Restaurant.
(*) the line from the song is "climb up on my knee, Sonny Boy .

Well, I was good for two days of positive vibes.

So, when we speak of diversity or the lack of it, I find solace in a Buffy St. Marie Song, made famous by a number of folkies in the 60's, The Universal Soldier. Hum along with today's humstle. And let's enjoy a lot of football this weekend. The metaphors of the drums of war never end, do they?

Neidermeyer, DEAD, Marmalarde, DEAD, Bolton, DEAD

I think Michael Bolton could have been included in that great John Blutarsky rant.

It seems as though Honda laid a real carpet bombing egg with its Happy Honda Holidays. I was keeping my mouth barf to myself, thinking that of course, I was among a very few that was immersed in this train wreck of a campaign, but the target group was millenials and they loved it, according to a advertising ratings website. But I have heard some grumbling from more than a few randoms in the past two days and apparently, I wasn't alone.

These moments are called cringe worthy moments. As the sheer volume of social media expands, more and more people will have things to say, that will be come bonafide cringe material. I had to get this off my chest.

So because this is 2014 and I promised to try to see something positive in everything, I take away that almost 800 people per month visit this blog and look in to see what I'm up to.I really appreciate that and hope you don't get all barfy when you read some of my shit.

Well, since we tackled the wonderful world of business and much of the news is going to focus on social and economic inequality, today's humstle is an easy one; For the Love of Money by the O'Jays.

I'm going to shorten these up. Easier for you to drive by, read, laugh, barf or whatever.

By the way, I don't want Michael Bolton dead. John Bolton?  Sometimes but even he's not worth that negative a thought. Having not seen a Honda commercial in the New Year, I think I got that death wish answered.

Next time----

Why?

A very oft used word. When something happens and we're at a loss to come to terms with whatever the it is we ask why. Annie Lennox made a lot of money singing about why. Tonya Harding* didn't want to lose her spot on the Olympic Women's figure skating team, so in 1994, she hired some goon to whack Nancy Kerrigan, her rival in the knee with some sort of metal pipe. Instead of Harding being ridiculed for this loutish behavior, Kerrigan got all the raspberries for being on the ground and screaming why; in that now famous manner.

So it's late and one of my favorite commercials comes on for Humira, an oft prescribed medication used in the treatment of psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and other maladies. In this one, it opens in a haircutting facility and the woman is embarrassed by her psoriasis. Big Pharma pays a lot of money to advertise on television and if they hit you with the cure to your ills long enough, they hope you will take their advice and ask your doctor if their medication is right for you.

But the drug companies have to mention what side effects their miracles may wreak upon the taker. So as the woman is smiling serenely as she lays back in the bowl, getting her hair washed-- which by the way is brilliant because if you know anything about cranio sacral therapies (of which I think a wash is one) you know what the memory of that sensation is when you get your hair washed. Really good, right? Unless your washer pulls your hair, that's not good.

But as she smiles because she's gotten over her insecurities about a visible rash that other people see, the announcer is soothingly saying three of the possibilities of taking this drug are tuberculosis, lymphoma and death. Are you fucking kidding me? This would be a moment that if I could, I would blubber my lips like Lewis Black does in his comedy. Some things are best left to our imaginations, but plug Mr. Black's hysterical cadences into this simple commercial. And write your congressman and ask him to investigate. You can tell I am older. When I was growing up, if something pissed me off and I asked why, my mother would would brush me off and tell me to write my congressman and ask him. There were an average of 14 women in the House of Representatives in the 1950's but I was not too aware of whom they were. If they weren't from my state, they probably were not too excited that I was pissed off about anything. I do remember Margaret Chase Smith from Maine.

So, today's humstle pays tribute to the 1950's elegy written by Eddie Cochran and his manager, Jerry Capehart- the best line in it was, " Oh well I wrote my congressman and he said quote: I'd like to help you son, but you're too young to vote." Summertime Blues. Does anyone remember the heavy metal version by BLUE CHEER? Yes, I have Vincebus Eruptis.

*Tonya Harding's Doppelganger???? Liz Cheney. Can I get an AMEN?

See you tomorrow.

2014

The upcoming year will be what we make it.
Life as we know it, can be over in a flash. My brother woke up with chest pains on an August Saturday. Less than 24 hours later, emergency surgery to repair a ruptured aorta failed and he was gone.
Earlier in the summer, two college friends passed away; one after a long illness and the other of complications related to Diabetes. People who are a part of my life but whom I do not know personally, also left us in 2013- authors, politicians, sports figures, entertainers. Winnowing out the herd, huh?
So how I will make 2014 better is to laugh out loud a lot more, to seek new friendships, listen to new music, cook better food, I finally succumbed to being on Twitter and Facebook and it's really not what I thought it was. Although a large number of people do photograph and post the food they just made. But that means I think socially participating is good and I'll probably continue to poke my head out of my cave.
I won't use the word meme or meh. I will continue to boycott any products Charles and David Koch's companies make. But that doesn't mean you should. You will pick your own stuff to concentrate on and I hope that is a good thing for you.
I'm going to use my Netflix account or cancel it.
I'm going to hope that the people we elect, will stop making decisions based upon money and snarkiness. And the incessant need to keep score.
I'm going to try to be at Djangofest, on Whidbey Island in September. I'm going to plan on turning 65 quietly and without much fanfare in late October. I'm going to hope the Cubs get better so that they can win a world series before I die.
I'm going to continue to eat better and lose weight because that's never a bad thing for me or any of us.
I'm going to still have opinions on these pages that will infuriate you, I think. But I hope some of the words make you feel happy and inspired to be a happier you. I have read many posts in the past few days about the enormity of 2013; some even saying they saw it as a passing black cloud. There was a lot of death this past year and I don't think that will change.
I hope people can get health coverage if possible, no matter how it happens, because most of us are one catastrophic illness away from severe trouble.

So, today's humstles are James Taylor's Riding on a Railroad and The Blind Boys of Alabama's version of Walkin' down Freedom Road.

Have a safe NYE. Have much fun and I'll see you soon.