Happy Anniversary Jeff!

A very great day eight years ago today. 

I haven't been wearing my wedding ring much lately.

That's not any sign of marital woes whatsoever.  Just the opposite, in fact. Oddly, it's a sign of the strength of our marriage and my love for Jeff.

Eight years ago today, Jeff and I got married.  I'm biased, but I still regard that as the best wedding ceremony I've ever seen. But I should explain the ring, since I brought it up.

Jeff and I don't get out much these days.  You know, Covid.  For the past so many months, Jeff and I don't go out to shows, movies, restaurants, plays or to visit friends.

It's just as depressing for us as it is for everybody else, but we are hanging in there just fine. We make do. It works.

I now work mostly from home, he's retired.  When I do work outside the home, it's in somebody's garden, far from any other people, which makes social distancing easy.

Before Covid, I was out and about quite a bit.  I wore that wedding ring as a badge of honor, gloating to everyone how lucky and blessed I am to be married to Jeff.

Jeff knows how much I love him, or at least he'd better! I have nothing to "prove" to him. Since most of my life outside the house is gardening, I don't want to lose that ring in the dirt. So I take it off. And there's just no incentive to put it back on, since I can't wave it under anybody's nose. Yes, I'm that shallow.

I don't need to wave the ring under Jeff's nose, either. He knows how much I love him. I've said this a million times before:  What first attracted me to Jeff was his absolute decency, kindness and humor.  These characteristics just keep growing on me, confirming to me every day that marrying Jeff was by far the best decision I ever made.

I imagine the isolation that Covid has created for everybody can create tension in some marriages. Being cooped up in the house with the same person day in and day out might not work for some people.

It works for me! I'm happy to report we're great.  We are also smart enough to explore both our mutual interests and our own.  Jeff has gotten somewhat addicted to researching family ancestry. I was initially only marginally interested, but now he's got me totally hooked.

I go out and do my gardening.  Now Jeff seems to have gotten that gardening bug. He's been experimenting with hollyhocks, gardinias, calla lillies and other plants. The gardens around the house are so much better as a result.

This is just one example of how this works so well.  We have our own interests, along with common ones. Separate interests meld into one, and the result is much greater than the sum of its parts.   It's a sign of what Jeff has done to my entire life:  Add one ingredient, namely Jeff, and it just transformed my whole life.

Life goes on, we hope, anyway.  Even the small disasters seem much more manageable with Jeff around. Recently, the fridge sprung a leak and wrecked the floor. The hot water heater needed replacing. So did the kitchen stove. Jackson the Wonder Dog got sprayed by a skunk. The extreme summer weather was harsh on the gardens.

I tend to whine when a problem hits, but Jeff always gently reminds me that we just need to deal with it.  It cuts the whining short, and we move on and solve the problem.

There's a song I like called "Easy's Getting Harder Every Day."  Because of Jeff, if I wrote my version of that song, I'd have to call it "Hard is Getting Easier Every Day."

Jeff might have spoiled a cry in your beer country song, but he keeps improving everything else around him. Including me.

I don't deserve this, but I'll take it.

Happy Anniversary, Chief!

Randy Rainbow Channels Officer Krupke

For awhile, I stopped religious posting Randy Rainbow videos, since I didn't want to be all Randy all the time.

But I can't resist.  

Last week, Rainbow borrowed from Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein with his take on "Gee, Officer Krupke" from "West Side Story."  Sondhein and Rainbow are enthusiastic fans of each other, so why not?

Don't worry, Rainbow doesn't have a problem with Fauci. He's begging the good doctor to save us from lots of other idiots.

By the way, Rainbow hasn't been able to have a hair cut in five months, but his do still looks fabulous. Just saying.

Anyway,  here's the video:

Gallows Humor Videos Help With These Tough Times

Sarah Cooper is just one of my gallows humor
lifelines in this terrible pandemic era. 

Sarah Cooper. Julie Nolke. And, of course, Randy Rainbow.

These are people I absolutely rely on as this depressing, awful, horrible pandemic roars on.

LIke everybody else, I get anxious, depressed, angry, frustrated over the way things are, the bad direction the nation is going in, and the so-called leaders who have utterly failed us.

Negative emotions like this are not sustainable. The wear you down, and you become brittle and hostile and standoffish and not somebody you want to be around

So you look for an antidote. The best way to do it, at least for me, is to just embrace the gallows humor the current situation has us in. Which is why these three people are my lifeline.

You can look Cooper, Nolke and Rainbow up on social media. I have featured all three on this here blog thingy before, but it's always good and to highlight them again.  Maybe they can be your lifeline

First, here's Julie Nolke with Anna Akana in "Pandora's Box"  We watch Pandora and Zeus having a Zoom meeting. And it is the ultimate example of a bad, stereotypical mess up of a corpoerate meeting between a boss and underling.

 It turns out, both are culpable here, and it's a parable of how the leaders and their middle managers are incompetendly mucking up our lives.



I know many people will disagree with me, but Donald Trump's voice just grates on me. I clench my teeth every time I hear that idiot spout his word salad.  Sarah Cooper comes to the rescue with her delicious lip syncing of Donald Trump.



And who can forget Randy Rainbow? I've stopped posting every video he puts out, like I used to, because as much as I love Randy, I can't be exclusively a Randy Rainbow fan club. It's so easy to ind his videos anyway.

Between his singing talent, his top rate ability to throw shade, the lyrics, and the ideas, and his pretend participation in news conferences, you can't beat him. He also has an encyclopedic knowledge of songs he can tap to turn into his perfect parodies.

And his naughtiness.  I'll spoil a joke because I love it so much: Rainbow sings that lately all his rallies and events are like his sex life: Nobody comes.

His latest video taps "Poor Unfortunate Souls" from "The Little Mermaid to bring us "Poor Deplorable Troll:

Watch:

Odd TV Commercial Is A Brilliant Short Film

A scene from the epic 2009 ad for Cullman Liquidation

Believe it or not, the ad you'll watch at the bottom of this post is a real TV commercial. It's also an absolute work of art.

It actually came out a decade ago, but is enjoying some new viral fame out there on social media.

It's an ad for Cullman Liquidation, a purveyor of used mobile homes. I checked, and it IS a real business. 

The proprietor of Cullman Liquidation introduces us to his team, and gives us some intriguing personal biography.  For instance, he tells us, for no apparent reason, "My wife's boyfriend broke my jaw with a fence post."

There's quick cuts to the team looking menacing, a woman smoking a cigarette and a few sound effects. It's really a terrific short film.

Producers of several "reality" shows contacted the company pitching a show, but they turned the idea down, which is probably kind of smart.

Watch:

Harrowing Hudson River Is The Video You Need Now. Seriously

A superhero in Hoboken rescues Teddy. Film at 11. 

You probably need a feel good story right now. I do.

Don't worry about the beginning of this story, because, spoiler alert, you'll like the way it turns out.

Inside Edition reported on what they call is a harrowing rescue along the Hudson River in Hoboken, New Jersey recently.

A toddler named Thomas, who is almost 3 years old,  lost his best friend, "Teddy" who fell into the river while he and his mom were taking a stroll.

A heroic rescuer appeared on the scene, found Teddy floating in the river, retrieved him and performed some dramatic CPR.

The rescue was successful!  Teddy has fully recovered and has been reunited with Thomas.

Like many heroes, the rescuer disappeared into the crowd when things settled down. Thomas' dad, Ron Levi, is on the hunt for the hero.  The Levi family, at the very least, wants to take the hero out for ice cream.

You'll fully understand when you watch the video:

Imagine A January, 2020 Conversation From Yourself 4 Months In The Future

April, 2020 Julie Nolke tries to explain the world to January, 2020
Julie Nolke, and it's confusing. 

(EDITOR'S NOTE) Fun Update to this post when you scroll down past the video with this first post.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION 

Almost none of us new the coronavirus pandemic would this be horrific and all consuming back in January or early February.

Imagine if your future self, from April 2020 sat down for a chat with you in January, 2020. The future self maybe couldn't give you all the details, but could provide hints.

Julie Nolke did imagine that. So she made a video of her January self hanging out blissfully in her home when the April version of Julie Nolke appears.

How awesome! The January Julie Nolke is going to learn what will happen in her exciting year. But, it becomes apparent that what actually happens is not her ideal version of exciting. January Julie Nolke learns that the giant Australian wildfires (remember those?) will not be the defining image of 2020.

It kind of goes downhill from there.

This video, by the way, was made before the nation erupted in protests over the George Floyd, who was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer in May.  The video probably would have been much different, and darker, had it been made more recently.

In any event, the video is genius. Watch:




UPDATE: Now, Nolke has an update, a darker one, really, of the April self in the video above talkig with her June self.

"Murder hornets? Murder hornets!"   Then the conversation devolves from there, believe it or not.

It's a great video, but to make absolutely sure the new video gets revenue, I'll just have you click on this link.  Proceeds of the video go to the Official George Floyd Memorial fund.

Sarah Cooper's Trump Lip Syncing Is Comedy Gold

Sarah Cooper in full Donald Trump mode

There's a series of TikTok clips and YouTube videos that you just HAVE to sample.

It's writer and comedian Sarah Cooper imitating Donald Trump's rantings during news conferences and other events. What makes this so hilarious is her very natural looking but mocking mannerisms that just really hit the funny bone.

They come quickly. Notice early in the video, below,  how she sniffs the Sharpie she's holding.

Or when she's playing with the spray bottle of bleach while touting how that might cure Covid. Or how she quickly puts away that can of Diet Coke when a reporter starts asking questions.

Cooper has said in interviews she's amazed how some corporate types, and people like Trump can prattle on about nothing and people around them pretend they're saying something profound. She's just exposiing the vapidness of these so-called titans in these videos.

She said she purposely dresses as herself and doesn't put on a wig or makeup to look like Trump.  After all, it's the words she's highlighting.

In any event, you have to see Cooper's videos to truly enjoy them.  It's the best parody since Randy Rainbow.  Who, by the way, put out a new video last week called "Distraction." It's to the tune of "Tradition" from Fiddler On The Roof.  So go watch that video, too.

But first, here's a Sarah Cooper compilation:



Cooper also parodied the infamous interview between Anderson Cooper and the completely bonkers mayor of Las Vegas a month or so back: