If you cannot read these directions and warnings, do not use this product. –WARNING ON DRAIN CLEANER LABEL
What’s Walmart? Do like they sell wall stuff? –Paris Hilton
I believe I’ve been reincarnated because every time I eat chicken, I eat with my hands….like they did in the olden days. –Lee Ryan, English singer/actor
I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman. –Arnold Schwarzenegger
Just remember the words of Patrick Henry: “Kill me or let me live.” –Bill Peterson, football coach
I don’t think anybody should write his autobiography until after he’s dead. –Samuel Goldwyn
It’s clearly a budget. It’s got a lot of numbers in it.–George W. Bush
[Who was President during the Civil War?] Ummm…. Winston Churchill? I wasn’t around then, so who cares? –Tommy Lee, rocker
Predictions are difficult, especially about the future. –Yogi Berra
I guess I’m gonna fade into Bolivian. –Mike Tyson, boxer (after losing his last big fight)
I make Jessica Simpson look like a rock scientist. –Tara Reid, actress (suggesting Jessica was stoned?)
[This world is] the best of all possible worlds. –Gottfried Leibniz, German philosopher
REALLY? That makes a world of sense to me….if our soul competition is the worst of all possible worlds. –mistermuse
Some actors and actresses (and I don’t mean this pejoratively) basically play themselves in their films, while others are so believable and natural in varied roles and genres, they completely inhabit whatever given character they portray. An example of the latter, going back to Hollywood’s Golden Age, is Henry Fonda (if you think he played only serious parts, you haven’t seen the classic 1941 comedy, THE LADY EVE, in which he co-starred with Barbara Stanwyck — another of the most versatile players of that era).
Mae West was of the first category, very much the Diamond Lil character she created. Today being her birthday (8/17/1893), it’s her day to sparkle:
It has been said that “Mae West literally constituted a one-woman genre.” Basically playing herself, she was one of the country’s biggest box office draws in the 1930s, despite being almost 40 years old when offered her first movie contract (by Paramount) in 1932. Previously, she’d appeared in a number of rather risqué plays, including Diamond Lil and her first starring role on Broadway (appropriately titled Sex), which she wrote, produced and directed. As with all the plays she wrote and performed in, there was much controversy and publicity, and it was only a matter of time before Hollywood came calling.
Her first film (see opening quote) was NIGHT AFTER NIGHT, making such an impression that co-star George Raft reportedly said, “She stole everything but the cameras.” Her next film, SHE DONE HIM WRONG (1933), featured Cary Grant in one of his first major roles, and was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. It was such a big moneymaker that it saved Paramount from bankruptcy in the midst of the Great Depression.
West went on to make six more movies in the 1930s, but in 1934, the Production Code began to be strictly enforced, and censors doubled down on her double-entendres. By today’s standards, such censorship seems ludicrous, but those were moralistic times, and after her last ‘naughty’ picture for Paramount in 1937, they thought it best to terminate her contract if they knew what’s good for them. She did manage to make one more hit movie, co-starring with W. C. Fields in My Little Chickadee for Universal Pictures in 1940.
Unbawdied and unbowed, when asked about puritanical attempts to impede her career, West wisecracked, “I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.” Not for nothing was one of her nicknames “The Statue of Libido.” She died in 1980 at the age of 87.
If you love your country, you must be willing to defend it from fraud, bigotry and recklessness — even from a President. –Dr. DaShanne Stokes, author & sociologist
Tomorrow, August 11, is PRESIDENTIAL JOKE DAY (but then, isn’t every day?). The joke has been on us since the November election, though pundits continue to poke pitchforks at America’s joke of a President (to no apparent effect). The point is this: such a President only comes along once in a very long lifetime (thank the Lord). Therefore, with dark days looming ahead, it is incumbent upon us to hang in there, to make hay while the sun shines/while the birdies sing. Are you ready?
Let’s all sing like the birdies sing
Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! Tweet! Tweet!
Let’s face it, friends: the President may be a joke, but it goes without tweeting that he has become a very tiresome joke — and if there’s one thing I can’t stand….
Well, fellow losers, it seems like we’re going to be Singin’ in the Rain ’til the bitter end of his reign, so we might as well Send in the Clowns and make the best of the imposter (or is it Send in the Imposters and make the best of the Clown?):
In my last post, I noted how politics has gone to the dogs. In this post, I’m thinking about how to retrieve dogs from such uninvited tie-ups and (with WORK LIKE A DOG DAY coming Aug. 5) work toward putting them in respectable company. Given the base point (and I do mean base), you’d think this entails no big feat, but it does give me paws….
Since there are already more blogs about dogs than you can shake a stick at (including a — dare I say — fetching one by a regular follower of this blog), I don’t want to be a copycat. That would be barking up the wrong tree. So, to give you a different kind of doggy post, I’ve been doggedly digging up old dog doggerel, similes and sayings….but I’ll start young:
What are little boys made of? Snakes and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails — that’s what little boys are made of. What are little girls make of? Sugar and spice and everything nice — that’s what little girls are madeof.
It’s a dog eat dog world.
It’s raining cats and dogs.
Time to rest my dogs.
Crooked as a dog’s hind leg.
Dog days of summer.
Dog and pony show. Every dog has its day. Gone to the dogs.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Mean as a junkyard dog.
Sick as a dog.
That dog don’t hunt.
When you lie down with dogs, you’re going to get fleas.
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
It’s a two dog night.
So, let’s call it a day with two high-class dog songs:
Friends, if you think that a dog was elected U.S. President in the last election, you should live in Rabbit Hash, KY, where, in January (the very month Trump was sworn in as Pres), a PIT BULL was ‘indawgurated’ as the town’s fourth canine mayor since 1998:
The Rabbit Hash election may have been the pit’s, but there’s no denying the popularity of the dog mayor. As town historian Don Clare said last week, “People are tired of the political climate of lying. I think humans are finally coming to their senses after all we’ve been through in the last seven months. You just can look at a dog’s face and know that he is true blue and not trying to fake you.”
Long-time followers of this blog may recall that I’ve hopped on down the bunny trail to the nearby town of Rabbit Hash and posted in the past about the former mayor (border collie Lucy Lou)….but now I come to find that Rabbit Hash isn’t alone in having animal mayors. At first, this may get your goat, butt hang in there; at second, it’s the cat’s meow:
There have also been animals elected to political office in several small towns in Washington state, Minnesota and elsewhere, but alas, it seems that most voters aren’t as enlightened as their Rabbit Hash counterparts, and continue to elect less deserving humans (though it must be admitted that some have been jackasses). But then, as H.L. Mencken pointed out: Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise than religion has made them good.
I will close with a few ass-inine quotes as examples of why humans leave a lot to be desired as political animals:
Once you’ve seen one ghetto, you’ve seen them all. –Spiro Agnew, former Maryland Governor and U.S. Vice President
[On my commission, I have] every kind of mix you can have. I have a black, I have a woman, two Jews and a cripple. –James Watt, former U.S. Interior Secretary
The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep. –George Stephanopolous (when he was an aide to Bill Clinton)
As for yours truly, I haven’t posted all of the quotes I intended to post, but as they say of Trump’s tweets, enough is enough.
On the dubious theory that you can’t get too much of a good thing, I’m going to follow up I’VE GOT A SECRET and TO TELL THE TRUTH (my last post) with a take-off from another old radio (1940s) and TV (1950s) panel show called IT PAYS TO BE IGNORANT. Never let it be said, however, that I don’t have standards. Thus, I found 1940s-50s IGNORANT clips to be a bit beneath my readers’ level of sophistication, so I have opted instead for an updated 2013 spoof of the original program (the word “Alawite” in the clip refers to a religious sect in Syria):
Now, friends, we’ve all heard the old saying that ignorance is the sincerest form of flattery (or something to that effect). Therefore, in order to showcase certain public figures, past and present, in the revealing light of their own words, let us take a look at some of the more outstanding (though not necessarily funny) examples of why it pays to be ignorant (except when it doesn’t):
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the dumbest of you all? –Anne Robinson, British TV host, who “asked for it” when she left herself open to the answer on her own show:
Adolf Hitler was a Jeanne d’Arc, a saint. He was a martyr. Like many martyrs, he held extreme views. –Ezra Pound
Rural Americans are real Americans. There’s no doubt about that. You can’t always be sure with other Americans. Not all of them are real. —Dan Quayle, former U.S. V Pres
My fear is that the whole island [Guam] will become so overly populated that it will tip over and capsize. –Hank Johnson, Democratic Congressman from Georgia
Everything that can be invented has been invented. –Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Patent Office, 1899
Hurray, Boys! We’ve got them. We’ll finish them up and then go home to our station. –General George Armstrong Custer, before battle at Little Big Horn
I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves. –John Wayne
Son, looks to me like you’re spending too much time on one subject. –Shelby Metcalf, former Texas A&M Head Coach to one of his players who got a D and four F’s.
Saving the most classless and gratuitous example for last, this comes with our best wishes for a full recovery from brain cancer for the object of this quote:
Truth be told, I just found out that July 7 was TELL THE TRUTH DAY. Better late than never? That may or may not be true, but today I’m in the mood to post, and at this “late” juncture, truth is doubtless as good a thesis as any (if you believe Mark Twain).
Friends, I don’t claim to be in the same league as such legendary and current truth-tellers as Pinocchio and Donald Trump, but I am (almost) always in favor of telling the truth. In fact, one of my favorite TV quiz shows back in the day was TO TELL THE TRUTH. But before we go there, I need to set it up with a clip from a quiz show I featured in a previous post (I’VE GOT A SECRET)….the reason being that one of the panelists on the latter program (a humorist who is little-remembered today) plays a big part in the surprise ending of the TO TELL THE TRUTH clip, and it helps if you know he was once famous.
Assuming you can abide a bit more truth-telling, I will close with some quotes on the subject:
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and simple. –Oscar Wilde
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad. –Aldous Huxley
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor. –Albert Einstein
Beware of a half-truth: you may have gotten hold of the wrong half. –Evan Esar
A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. –Charles Spurgeon
All men are born truthful and die liars. –Luc de Clapiers
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move.
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love. –William Shakespeare
