So It Goes

(I wrote this a few weeks ago but never published it. I don't know why.)

Kurt Vonnegut, great American author, playwright, poet, died a couple of days ago at the age of 84. (click the title of this posting to read his obituary) Some people may remember him from the 1986 film, "Back to School." He played himself. But he was really a novelist who never stopped being cool. "So it goes", as he said in "Slaughterhouse-Five."

He lived somewhere near my office in Manhattan and I used to see this shaggy, disheveled figure ambling around, sometimes sitting on a bench right in front of my building. He wrote some amazing, thought-provoking lines while not far away, I write lines that sell toilet brushes to consumers. So it goes.

No fan of our current moron-in chief, he once said, "the only difference between [George W.] Bush and [Adolf] Hitler is that Hitler was elected."

His last book came in 2005 was called "A Man Without A Country". It ended with a very pithy poem called "Requiem":

The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it,
"Forgive them, Father,
They know not what they do."

The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor of the Grand Canyon,
"It is done."
People did not like it here.

So it goes. Rest in peace, Mr. Vonnegut.

The 11th Plague

If Jews truly control Hollywood the way many morons would have you believe, then Gentiles control network programming. I've never been a programmer, nor have a met one, but it doesn't seem like a really hard job. I'll bet people say that about my job too. But I digress.

When I was a kid, the annual event that is Passover brought many traditions. One of them was the ABC presentation of the 1956 classic "The Ten Commandments". A biblical spectacular that retells the story of the Hebrew slaves and their exodus from Egyptian tyranny and ultimately leading to the holiday of Passover. While many religions and denominations may lay claim to the Bible, the story told in "The Ten Commandments" is exclusively Jewish. Except for the commandments part.

Over the past few years, it's been harder to find this movie on TV. ABC doesn't even run it every year anymore. But when they do, the choice of night is questionable. Like in 2007. Passover began on the night of April 3rd. It was a Monday. I could see a programmer not wanting to broadcast a 5 hour movie on a weeknight, especially a weeknight when many Jews wouldn't be watching. So how about the 2nd? Yeah, that would have been good. But instead, ABC ran it on April 7th: the Saturday before Easter. In fact, ABC has tied the broadcast event to Easter several times in the past. Yes, it's still Passover but that's not why it's on. Passover doesn't always coincide with Easter and when it doesn't, "The Ten Commandments" will be on TV on or around Easter.

Here's what you'll never see: "A Christmas Carol" in November. "The Passion of The Christ" on Yom Kippur. Some movies belong at certain times. A movie about a major Jewish holiday? A movie about something that happened years before there were Christians? Passover. There are 8 nights. Choose the Saturday or Sunday closest to the start of the holiday which it represents.

One thing I really love is the way this epic movie is summarized. All of your various programming guides need to sum up the plot of this thing in one or two lines. Tivo took a shot at it: "Moses leads an exodus from Egypt to the Promised Land, complete with parting of the Red Sea."

Goyim...

Oh, and then there's this.

The Messiah Is Coming!!!!!!

'Nuff said.

Now That's What I Call Rhyming

I'm not a songwriter, just a regular writer. I've written some jingles so I know how hard it can be to find a decent rhyme. I even bought a rhyming dictionary but it's been moderately useful at best. So it is with this in mind that I decided to give a shout out to two deceased performers from the 80s who sneer at the challenge of rhyming with the attitude of someone confident that they can find a rhyme for "orange" if they had do. Not content with the standard ABAB or AABB rhyme scheme of most songs, they stick with a less-conventional AAAA.

The first shout out goes to Michael Hutchence of INXS and the 1987 song "Mediate" from the "Kick" album. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit that Andrew Farriss wrote the words but who ever heard of him? Plus he's alive. What this song does is take the sound "ate" and rhyme it close to 80 times with few repeats. It works a little hard sometimes, like in the lines "sex ornate" and "edge serrate" but still, if I were on "Jeopardy!" and the category was "Sounds Like 8", I'd put all my money on Farriss.

Number two on the charts is Robert Palmer and his 1988 song "Simply Irresistible" from the "Heavy Nova" album. He takes the "ible" sound and rhymes it around 15 times. In retrospect, this isn't as impressive considering Palmer cheats but rhyming "permissible" and "principle" but why quibble (see what I did there?)?

If anyone else out there knows of other songs which rhyme the same sound over and over, please let the staff here at Greetings From Suburbia know. You'll get credit.

On A Serious Note

I'm sitting here at my kitchen table late Sunday night (or early Monday morning) and I get an e-mail from my best friend Dave. Comedian Richard Jeni apparently shot himself in the face. I have a way-too-personal relationship with suicide and reading about someone else's attempt, especially a successful one, really affects me. Or effects me. I could never tell those two apart.

So anyway, I won't ramble on the way I usually do in these things. But Elaine Boosler wrote something really nice that's worth reading.

I hope, wherever Richard Jeni is right now, he's finally found peace from the torture he believed he was facing.