Doctor Who and the Afterlife

Last night's Doctor Who, “Dark Water,” featured the death of a prominent character. He then wound up in a sort of waiting room for the afterlife with a pleasantly efficient administrator, a soothing trope to anyone who's familiar with films like Here Comes Mister Jordan, or its remake, Heaven Can Wait.

But in our story, the dead still have contact with their bodies. So our hero is cold because his body is in the morgue. And as he's chatting with the bureaucrat — who is charming, but no Claude Rains — we hear a blood-curdling scream. The bureaucrat says, "Oh, sounds like someone donated his body to science."

Later, we hear the dead all saying, "Please don't cremate me."

Y'all, my mom died suddenly last summer. We donated her body to science, because she was always doing whatever she could to make the world a better place, and this was one more way she could contribute.

When your loved one's body is donated to science, the, um, leftovers, so to speak, are cremated. So we're two for two there.

It really freaked me out.

Mack Sennett Would Love My Sorry Ass

Today was the Greening of The Church, so I decided to carry out my undorking of the church sign.

Little did I know those old-school church sign letters just float on those rails.

And we were having a Clash of Fronts, in which the wind blows strong.

So I'm out there trying to fix our church sign...and it turns into some kind of slapstick comedy.

The minute I get one word sorta OK, the wind whips up, and letters go flying into the air. They make a lovely tinkling noise, but really.

People driving down the street are torn between sympathy, empathy and HaHa!

Let's not mention the rosebush I wound up squatting into.

I'm saving the bowl of characters that spell out our URL for later.

Sewing and Sowing Are Different Things

Sewing is the act of joining two pieces of fabric together with a needle and thread, whether by hand or machine.

Sowing is the act of spreading seed upon the ground in anticipation of its producing crops. One sows in order to reap.

To "sow dissent" is to spread disagreement across the land, perhaps to reap real political action.

To "sew dissent" makes no fucking sense.

This has been a public service of my inner copy editor.

The Tale Of the Truck

Last Sunday, I served as assistant minister. I couldn't do anything right.

I not only forgot how to serve Holy Communion, but I forgot how to sing, which I've been doing all my life.

Then on the way home from church, the engine in my truck just...stopped.

I put my hazard lights on, but I had to wait a couple of changes of the light to push it onto a side street. It was funny how people kept pulling up to the bumper, baby, then finding out Mr. Truck wasn't going anywhere.

Mr. Truck's oil was low, so I trekked the three blocks to the Mapco. Thank God I had worn my longjohns. It was bitter cold in Nashville terms.

I knew Mr. Truck's timing chain had broken.

I walked to the Germantown Café.

They were closed, but the staff there were so kind to me. Even though they were officially closed, they gave me a Bloody and a phone book to search for tow trucks. I finally found one, but it would be $75 cash.

Lucky for me, my bank still has a branch in Germantown.

The gentleman driving the tow truck told me of the brutal work he'd put in during the previous week's snowstorm.

Did you know that towing is divided up by area, and if a tow doesn't show up within 30 minutes, Metro can call another? Neither did I.

Anyway, he was kind enough to drop me at the Eastland Kroger, because he was going that way. So I was able to get my grocery shopping done and walk home.

But then the truck! It's old enough to have graduated from college, if it were a person.

A Thousand Dollars! Yikes!

I can't afford a car note; and a truck is a good thing to have. So I took the plunge.

I am so glad I did. It's a whole new vehicle. And no, I won't tell you which shop did the work, because they're backed up already.

DIAF?

I can't use this expression, because my baby sister really did DIAF, in August, 1967.

Tonight I said it in anger, and I hated the words coming out of my mouth.

I'm not offended by the meme; it's an abstract concept to those who use it.

The One True Crab Cake

This recipe is from former Maryland First Lady Mrs. Tawes's My Maryland Recipes. I consider it canonical, the only recipe you'll ever need.

I've had tarted-up, trendily seasoned, so-called crab cakes served to me by elitist chefs in the flyover states. But we East Coast lumpenproles know the blue crab's delicate flavor is easily overwhelmed by strong spices and funny sauces.

Crab cakes are poor people food! They are to be bound with mayonnaise and breaded with cracker crumbs the way God and Mrs. Tawes intended.

Mrs. Tawes’s Maryland Crab Cakes
(makes 8 to 10 cakes)

1 1-lb. can of back-fin lump crab meat, or 1 pound of claw crab meat, or a combination of 1/2 pound of claw meat and 1/2 pound of regular grade
2 eggs
2 Tbs. mayonnaise
1 Tb. Kraft horseradish mustard
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
5 drops Tabasco
1 Tb. chopped parsley
cracker crumbs
fat for frying

Combine all ingredients except crumbs and fat and mix together lightly. Form into desired-size cakes. Do not pack firmly. Prepare cracker crumbs by rolling out saltine crackers into fine crumbs, then pat or roll lightly on the crab cake.  

Fry in 1 1/2 inches of hot fat in iron frying pan on both sides until a golden brown. Remove and drain on absorbent paper and serve immediately.

You are permitted a dab of tartar or cocktail sauce, if you must. But don't tell me about it.

Update 4/20/2012: A certain someone who borrowed my post has an awesomely high page ranking. It's probably my own fault for neglecting this blog, but it still rankles. I'm the one who had to endure those giant pancake-like so-called-crab cakes.

Please treat your crabmeat gently, and our fragile waters thusly as well.

Advice To Young Men Who Would Be Pleased By The Company Of Young Women

I've neglected this blog, but what the hell: About a week ago, I was at Kroger. It was a Thursday night (party night for your suitcase college attendees), and I passed these two young men in the parking lot. It was a brisk fall night, so there was no reason for me to smell them as I passed ten feet away.

But I did. They must have bought the Axe Body Spray crap lock, stock, and barrel, because this oily cloud of douchiness engulfed me as I passed them. I wanted to tell them, "No! Stop! You reek!" But they would have blown me off as some old broad.

We ladyfolk learned that lesson back in the '70s and '80s. Remember Jean Naté? I still have a bottle of it because it allegedly freaks cats out, and if you spray it on your sofa, they won't claw it. I don't think that's true, but it's nice to think that our feline friends have more discerning tastes than people who would wear Jean Naté.

Any scent that's dispensed in aerosol form is inherently trashy.

Those boys in the Kroger parking lot were adorable, and their own soapy-fresh boy-musk would have been heady enough for any girl. But noooo! They had to spray themselves with cheap perfume and propellants!

Would that propellants become repellants.

Does anybody want to schtup these guys? If so, how do they stop the watering of their eyes?

We Are Douchebags - watch more funny videos

Well, everything sucks.

Except this picture of John Barrowman.

“It's like having Barbie represent women”

From Nightline (yes, that Nightline):

Former child star Kirk Cameron and his evangelist colleague Ray Comfort had pledged to prove the existence of God, scientifically. Cameron and Comfort run an organization called the Way of the Master, which comprises a Web site and cable television show, all focused on preaching what they say is the truth of Christianity....

They were confronted by the might of the "rational response squad" in the form of unabashed atheists Brian Sapient and his comrade, a woman who goes by the name of Kelly. They had been included in a previous "Nightline" report, telling the story of the Blasphemy Challenge in which they invited atheists to deny the existence of the Holy Spirit by posting videotaped denunciations on their Web site.

Comfort and Cameron make videos where they use bananas and peanut butter to "prove the existence of God."

The stupid! It buuuuuurns! (H/T to PJ over at Not the Mad Priest's place for the title.)

Regret This!

Y'know, I was thinking about that idiotic Supreme Court decision about late-term abortion, and it struck me that Justice Kennedy said that because some women regret having had an abortion, it should be outlawed.

That is the biggest crock of shit, y'all. Have you ever made a major purchase? A house, a car, a large appliance? A week later, you were convinced you'd made the biggest boner of your life, weren't you?

So I guess we'll be outlawing Realtors®, car dealerships, and HH Gregg next, right?

Didn't think so.

Bizarre

Mike Daisey is a monologuist and author. At a recent performance, a "Christian" group staged a protest by walking out of the performance and dumping water on his notes. They didn't say who they were, and they wouldn't stay to talk with him.

As it turns out, they were visiting from out of town and had bought the tickets without knowing what the show was like. Now, I can understand their wanting to leave when they heard a few f-bombs and found out what they were in for, especially since the group was made up of high school kids. But did they really need to be disruptive and destructive? How is that Christian?

And what about the chaperones' responsibility to do some fucking research and find out what kind of show they were taking the kids to? What a bunch of self-righteous assholes.

A Boob For All Seasons

When I think what this little shitstain tried to do to the Justice Department, I keep remembering this scene from A Man For All Seasons:

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Sweet Chocolate Jesus

These people are insane.

Prayers

Sheesh. I never update this blog. I only got on tonight so I could remind myself of the address because somebody asked.

So I noticed that I still had Steve Gilliard's old address on the blogroll. Steve's hurtin' right now, in the hospital recovering from his second heart surgery, and he's a young man (well, my age, anyway).

If you're the praying sort, please remember him in your prayers. He has a fine mind and knowledge of military history that is invaluable to us liberals. He was calling this stupid war a snipe hunt before it even began.

We need him firing on all cylinders. And his family needs him, too. The way he writes about his niece and nephew, well, you just know he's a terrific uncle.

Fuck this shit

The great Molly Ivins has died.

Shit, shit, shit.

I knew she was hurtin', but I prayed for her, and I convinced myself this wasn't going to happen, not this time. She was gonna pull through one more time. At least.

We need her down here, God! Maureen Dowd doesn't have her ginormous heart, and Dana Milbank, well, let's just not bring him up, OK?

Well, I guess God needed to laugh to keep from cryin', what with His children fighting this stupid war, and all.

Lord, have mercy

The congregation at St. John's in Atlanta near-unanimously chose to call Brad Schmeling as their pastor in 2000. He told the congregation he was gay; he told the bishop he was gay. That was cool. Gay people are welcome to serve in the ELCA.

He also told everybody that if he met a special someone, he'd tell them about that, too. When he did, he did.

His congregation, which adores him, celebrated his commitment to his partner with a big ol' party. Then he told the bishop. And the bishop did his job and filed charges, because they violated the rules.

Gay pastors are allowed to serve, as long as they remain celibate. Because pastors have to remain celibate outside marriage, and gay people can't get married. See the beauty?

No, neither do I.

It's a sucky rule, but rules in the ELCA are voted on in General Assembly by clergy and laity alike. Last time around, rules that would have covered Pr. Brad and his partner passed a simple majority, but they needed a super-majority. It'll happen eventually, thanks to the brave witness of people like Pr. Brad and the congregation of St. John's.

Their actions are civil disobedience in its purest sense: I will openly violate this rule, and I will happily suffer the consequences, just to point out how stupid the rule is.

They're all taking a heeeeuuuuge risk. Pr. Brad could be turned out of ELCA and lose his rostered status as well as his pension, and St. John's could be cast out of ELCA and lose support from the synod. St. John's is like my church, the oldest Lutheran congregation in the city. Their current location is itself a rebuke to hatred and oppression.

If you're a prayin' wo/man, sign up for their prayer vigil.

Oh, dear

This is so embarassing. The lovely and talented MadPriest has given me a shout-out.

Well, that wasn't so bad, but he's added me to his blogroll. Oy. That means I have to, like, keep it up and add more stuff and shit.

I only started because I wanted to blog a mission trip to the Gulf Coast, but I couldn't afford to go, so it's just here.

But Lord knows there's some shit goin' down in my neck of the woods, so I should probably blog on that. Plus, I have a post in mind going beyond George Sanders to all the plummy-voiced British villains of the Golden Era of Hollywood. So there you go.

Overboard (1987)

Overboard is kind of like a mashup of a coupla Preston Sturges movies, with Capra's It Happened One Night thrown in.

The rich person forced into the life of a peasant is like Sullivan's Travels, even though John Sullivan never really has amnesia, but is temporarily out of it due to a blow to the head.

Then there's the spoiled yet spunky gal jumping off the yacht in full evening dress from, uh, Happened, I think. Clearly Edward Herrmann's upper-class twit in a captain's hat is an allusion to Rudy Vallee in The Palm Beach Story, only Herrmann's Grant Stayton III is a dickhead, and Vallee's character is actually very sweet, not to mention frugal.

I only got to thinking along these lines because I saw it as part of a double-feature on amnesia, where it followed I Love You Again, in which William Powell's tedious small-town Rotarian gets whacked on the head in the first reel, which cures his amnesia, returning him to his forner personality as a rakish con man, who impersonates the Rotarian on his return home, where he finds his wife ready to divorce his boring ass, and they fall in love all over again. Oh, and of course the wife is played by Myrna Loy, and it was directed by Woody Van Dyke.

I'd also spent most of the day exploring the life and work of Thorstein Veblen. I'd never heard of him before, but a passing reference to him in a Daily Kos diary led, as is the passing reference's wont, to Google, to Wikipedia, to.... Well, Google him y'ownself (I already gave you the link!), but suffice it to say I'd spent hours pondering the uselessness of the idle rich and the beauty of solid craftmanship and the evil of Calvinist thought, which produced the perversion that is Social Darwinism, which continues to fuck up our society to this day.

Canvassing is Hell

You go out knocking on doors, and you run into people you know.

And then you find out people you adored died two years ago.

And you want to die because you weren't there for their funeral.

Life sucks sometimes.

I Love This Dog

I'm going to marry him.

Look at that face. Does he not look like he's ready to start singing, "Nobody knows the trouble I seen...."

And his name is Job. His peoples did good.

God bless him for whatever put that pained look on his face.