Everybody in Hollywood Farts
Professor Farrell of the Mount Jenning Observatory has detected explosions on the planet Mars!
A large meteor has crashed in to a farmer’s field in Grovers Mills, New Jersey!
“Something’s wriggling out of the shadow like a gray snake…it’s indescribable, I can hardly force myself to look at it, it’s so awful! The eyes are black and gleam like a serpent. The mouth is kind of V-shaped with saliva dripping from its rimless lips that seem to quiver and pulsate!
It’s Halloween this week.
On this day in 1938 occurred maybe the best example of fake news in this nation’s history. More than a million people were convinced that Martians were invading the earth, by a young 23 year old radio announcer named Orson Welles as he presented his version of H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds on national radio. Panic broke out, terrified people jammed highways. It is said a woman ran into an Indianapolis church during evening services and yelled “New York has been destroyed! It’s the end of the world! Go home and prepare to die!”
I learned recently while writing something for work that Halloween is commercially second only to Christmas in the amount of revenue it generates.
We experienced this while in Florida with three trips to pumpkin patches, hayrides, pumpkin painting, carving tools, decorations for the windows from Michaels, and costumes from Party City.
I’ve had the pleasure these last few weekends of being able to spend some quality time with all three of my grandsons. We don’t get to see them enough, especially the Florida kids.
Having grown up in New Jersey and spent the rest of my years in Northern Virginia Octobers are typically cool. In fact while we were in Florida, Virginia experienced a frost. However in south Florida it was in the 90’s. Great for me, because I love the heat; not so great for the two large pumpkins we carved, one with a traditional jack-o-lantern face and the other with a ghost carved in it, because by the end of the first 24 hours the mold had grown in the cut outs and by the end of the second 24 hours they were sinking from rot. Next year just painted pumpkins.
This past weekend once again we experienced the bad in our world. Another shooting in a house of worship, this time in Pittsburgh, at a Jewish synagogue during Saturday morning services. There were eleven dead worshippers. Six were injured including four police officers who, it has been reported, ran into the gunfire.
And the week before that we had make shift bombs being sent to prominent past and current political figures by another no doubt disturbed individual.
And that weekend I was in Florida I read Amy Schumer said that any football player who doesn’t kneel with Colin Kaepernick is complicit. I take that to mean anyone who is not in favor of this kneeling protest in Amy’s world is complicit. I take a little offense to that, but the world is her stage and she is in a position of influence. And there are countless messages of influence and hate on the internet, network TV, movies, print, and still in fact, on the radio.
“Everybody in Hollywood farts.”
This profound statement was uttered by my grandson Christian while in the drive through of McDonalds, after he presented us with his gift of flatulence in the car, while waiting for his Chicken McNugget Happy Meal. He, of course, was referring to Hollywood, Florida where he lives. I of course, thought it was brilliant.
I think it’s great that Amy Schumer has her celebrity and her Hollywood (CA) status and I suppose that gives her the privilege to promote her opinions and spread her ideology on social media.
Yeah, but you know what? Everybody farts in Hollywood.
And everybody farts in Herndon, Virginia too, and everywhere else for that matter.
And we all put our pants on one leg at a time.
We are all human.
But sadly we are not all the same.
At least if it’s just me with saliva dripping from my rimless lips as they quiver and pulsate from reading my Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter feeds, and watching my TV, who is exposed to all this I can just say phooey!
Some folks don’t know how to say phooey. They don’t know how to process information in the proper context or ignore it for what it is. They take it seriously. It may fuel their hate or trigger something in a mind that may not be stable as yours, mine, or Amy Schumer’s.
Some of that flatulence is able to permeate further and deeper and stimulate sometimes unthinkable actions.
Some folks believe what they hear and read as the truth and they panic, maybe jamming the highways,
Maybe rushing into houses of worship and yelling…
Or maybe worse.
So to the twenty or so people in my social media universe who might read this, I promise I will turn down any offers to do Super Bowl commercials this year. And I know it must sound like a privilege ass sacrifice but it’s all I got!
And I suppose I have to confess I am guilty too so,
“Oops, excuse me, I guess I just farted!”
My bad!
Prayers go out to all those victim’s families, those victims themselves that are still fighting for healing physically and will be long term emotionally; their friends, the Jewish community in Pittsburgh and everywhere, houses of worship everywhere, the leadership and first responders in Pittsburgh and everywhere, and all of the rest of us who are responsible for working to help build a better world that my grandkids and your grandkids will be able to live civilly, safely, happily, and harmoniously.
