Sunday Morning Post (V.2, #4) - Terry Jones (But No Spam)

We lost another Python this week.  Terry Jones was half of the writing team of Jones and (Michael) Palin before, during, and after the Python years.  His passing this week did not come as a total surprise.

A few years ago, we learned that he had been afflicted with a form of dementia which robbed him of his ability to speak.  I don’t want to sound cruel, but given his prognosis at the time, I silently hoped that he would not suffer long.  Now his suffering is over and we can all mourn his passing and enjoy his many performances once more.

I’ve started searching Casa de Gunther for my copy of Dr. Fegg’s Nasty Book of Knowledge.  In the meantime, I will choose a clip from a variety of YouTube saved performances.  Ah, but which one?

 

Mr. Creosote from The Meaning of Life?  Too graphic for a Sunday morning when the blogosphere should be enjoying their breakfast. 

The hapless gentleman who happens upon Graham Chapman contemplating his flying sheep?  Tempting, when one considers that this was the first sketch of the show’s premiere episode.  Unfortunately, it’s more Chapman than Jones.

I can’t find a clip of the Spam sketch which doesn’t morph into something else and thus take the focus off Jones.   So please enjoy Jones’ performance as the (virgin?) Mandy Cohen from Life of Brian:

(Thank you for reading. The hunt for Dr. Fegg goes on…)

Sunday Morning Post (V.2, #3): A Toast to Prohibition

My history-addled mind is begging me to wax nostalgic about the 2020s: all 19 days of it!  (Ah!  Sweet-addled mind!) Better still, we can look back with some fondness to the decade known as the Roaring 20s.  It roared because business was excellent, the stock market boomed (for a while), and technology advanced like never before. Automobiles and radio became more popular, and talkie pictures were introduced.

We were more affluent and had more leisure time to spend on other pursuits, like attending baseball games and boxing matches. There was one slight problem: while we watched Ruth swat one over the bleachers or Dempsey knock Firpo out of the ring, we didn’t have a nice cold beer to enjoy with the game.

This was, after all, the Prohibition Era when America nearly died from thirst and was supposed to be over dosing on morals. Neither one really happened, especially that whole morals thing. Someone in the blogosphere noted the 100th anniversary when Prohibition of liquor began passed within the last few days.   So, we too will note it here.

The whole intent of the legislation was to sober America up.  Apparently, we were a nation of drunkards in the first hundred years or so of our existence.  The moralists in our midst demanded full abstinence from the demon rum.  The problem was the liquor sales were a great tax revenue source for the federal government.  An income tax law in the early 1910s, which required everyone pay taxes on the amounts they earned, gave the government another revenue source, and an excuse to revisit the old too much liquor consumption/tax debate. 

So, Prohibition was enacted and officially America did not have anything stronger to drink than black coffee for over a decade. Good times said no one ever.


We should emphasize that “officially” we had nothing strong to drink for over a decade. Unofficially we partied like it was 1933, the year Prohibition ended.  This national hypocrisy is what we like to fondly recall when we reminisce about the 1920s.

Prohibition is widely seen to have been a failure in legislative experimentation.  We are left with the myth that many people did not stop drinking and it encouraged organized crime in America.   Many people did succumb to alcoholic poisoning when they imbibed in unregulated hooch.  A number of others succumbed to massive blood loss when they were shot/bumped off/rubbed out by their business rivals in the liquor bootlegging industry.  The gangster mythos of the 1920s would lead us to believe that it was a very violent era.  In fact, it may have been no more violent than the previous decade when a world war and world wide pandemic occurred.

Good times indeed!

Many historians believe organized crime became more powerful which allowed it to thrive in subsequent decades because of Prohibition.  In one respect I don’t think “organized crime” was all that organized.   Did they, for example, create and administer any type of pension plan for their mobster brethren?   I’ve never heard that they had any sort of pension benefits.  Although, to be fair, very few mobsters lived long enough to collect any sort of pension.  The only one I can think of who lived in to some semblance of old age was Al Capone.  Even then he only lived longer because he was taken out of circulation when he was imprisoned for the most mundane violation of not paying his taxes.  Yawn!

If Prohibition teaches us anything it is that we shouldn’t try a whole sale outlaw of any of society’s perceived ills.   Prohibition only complicates society’s problems.  In that spirit let us raise a toast to Prohibition…may it never return!

(Thank you for reading.  I think I’ll make mine a strawberry daiquiri!)

Sunday Morning Post (V.2, #2) – Middle of the Month Odds and Ends

I could not settle on any one particular topic for this week, so we’ll settle for a group of smaller topics.

PRINCE HARRY AND MEGHAN MARKLE ANNOUNCE STEPPING BACK FROM THEIR ROYAL DUTIES.  THE QUEEN IS NOT SMILING.

I can’t really blame the royal couple from their desire to have a life away from the palaces and grandeur of the British monarchy.  It appears that they have genuine concerns about their family being constantly in the limelight.  On the other hand, shouldn’t they have settled how to raise the children prior to their saying “I do”.   Could they have settled the choice between raising their offspring in the allowance paid for by the British taxpayer, or should they raise them as multinational capitalists?

The Queen has called for a meeting of the family to discuss their decision which appears to be causing a crisis.  Pity!  Her Royal Highness has the good fortune to not have a five-year-old child running her country.  I just wish the United States had her problems.

STUPID WHITE MALE TRICKS DEPARTMENT:  SINGER MEATLOAF DENIES CLIMATE CHANGE AND FILM DIRECTOR TERRY GILLIAM STATES HE IS TIRED “AS A WHITE MALE OF BEING BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD.”

Rotund entertainer who has not had a hit in decades spouts off opposing a scientific belief that is so easily proven as Australia burns and we here in Southeast Pennsylvania are having winter temperatures more akin to a balmy spring day.   Climate change a hoax?  We should reserve a special label for these people who deny what they can easily see and hear as the truth.

Congratulations, Mr. Loaf!   We now confer upon you the title of “Village Idiot”.

As for Mr. Gilliam: yes, I know this is a heavy burden on white males, but we deny our history at our peril.  We offer a suggestion:  continue to make the world a better place by making films like 12 Monkeys and no more films like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

COMEDY ICON BUCK HENRY DIES.

Mainly a comedy writer and extremely low-key comedy performer, Henry left behind an interesting legacy: co-creator of the television spy spoof Get Smart; co-writing the screenplay for The Graduate (Plastics, Ben!), and later a frequent guest host on Saturday Night Live.   I tried to find a suitable video to post of one of these performances, but I couldn’t find one I liked.  Suffice to say that he was an important and influential comedy entertainer.

FINALLY, SENDING POSITIVE VIBES TO A BLOGGER BUDDY.

Hope this finds you doing better, Spo.  Give yourself time to rest and take any medications you are instructed to take. 

(Thank you for reading.  What’s that smell?  Did someone burn the Meatloaf? Again?)