The End Of Mad Magazine

One thing I'm going to miss is Mad Magazine. Perhaps you've heard, While Mad will officially continue publication, they won't be publishing anything new except once or twice a year on holidays and special occasions, like Life Magazine and a few others.

        One of my favorites is Mad's Chinese Menu: chinese menu parody | I like to make copies of this menu and when I go into shops that have other merchant's pamphlets, I add one of these.

As a stamp collector, I also loved their stamp collecting parody book, Mad's Talking Stamps. Check out these out takes: Mad's Talking Stamps | Stamp Bears. I would love to make my own version of that book!

Unfortunately, I just knew it had to die when it was adopted by DC Comics, the same company that makes Batman & Superman and started to accept ads. How could it possibly continue to parody corporate America when it was accepting ads from them? It certainly wouldn't, quite literally, give us the middle finger (again), any more than Archie Bunker, in that reproduction of that All In The Family episode, would say the word, nigger, out loud, as Archie originally did.  

Pre-Feminism TV

             I remember a song from the sixties, "The Everyday Housewife, Who Gave Up the Good Life, For Me". 

            Nice sentiment, but how many women would demand that the husband, as a condition of marriage, give up his job and any kind of financial independence and become totally financially dependent on her for the rest of his life, no matter how important he thought his job was or how he enjoyed his job?

            I’ve seen too many shows starring Lucy Ball that was all about some plot of her trying to get money out of Ricky, played by Desi Arnez, or later Mr. Mooney, played by Gale Gordon.       

           There was always Ricky’s reframe, “Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do!”

Ricky never had to ‘splain’ anything to Lucy. Husbands of the time never did. They were the “heads” of the household. Even in their production company name, Desilu, his name comes first, though she starred and brought in the money and he soon resigned.

I recently saw one episode of I Love Lucy, where she and Ethel tried to start a business based on her great cooking. It would be cooking. Women and wives were supposed to be great cooks. She failed, of course. She was supposed to fail. She was required to fail. Wives were not supposed to be good in business. They were supposed to be housewives.

I don’t blame Lucy Ball and her producers for making shows like that. She was a woman of her time, but I am a man of mine and I don’t care to watch such things anymore.

"Irrational Hope?" or "Why Haven't I Killed Myself a Long Time Ago?"

It's amazing the things you think of at 5:30 AM. I'm up this early because of back pain and an ongoing invasion of fruit flies. For the pain, I'm taking 400 mg of Advil PM or Ibuprofen every six to twelve hours. For the fruit flies, I just cleaned my place some more and I'll have an exterminator Friday.

Being this time of night, I had one of those thoughts like, my life has been so terrible, why haven't I drowned myself in booze, pills or some other self medication? The problem, as I see it, is that I still have hope, but is that hope really rational?

As I look back at my life, I graduated high school in 1975, and then it took me TEN YEARS to get a degree in ENGLISH LITERATURE!!!!

I then spent the next thirty years trying to start a career that never really happened, despite some occasional fits and starts.

One of the best things that happened to me in this time was that, in 1994, I had a nervous break down consisting of a massive case of chronic depression, which eventually got me into something called the Skylight Center, a club house for people with mental disabilities, which got me into Special Tees, which worked, for a while.

 Also, I got a great new psychotherapist, Ms Christine Murphy, who diagnosed me as autistic. I had a great time with her for about twenty five years. What a shame she couldn't last.

I'm now sixty two. I'm still looking to start a career when most people my age are looking to retire. I'm still as financially dependent on my mother as any child, even now, six years after her passing.

So, is my hope completely irrational? Wouldn't be more sensible to dive into a bottle of booze or pills and somehow kill myself?

Living alone

You know you’re living alone when…

You can turn the thermostat as hot or cold as you want, but you have to pay for it.

You don't need a cup or glass. You can drink right out of the bottle or milk carton! Who else will be using it?

You can walk around the house naked, if you want, but you have to hope no one shows up.

You can go to the bathroom with the door wide open and only your dogs will look at you.

You don't the have to share your food, or anything else with anybody!

If you forget your keys, there’s no one to let you in.

Unless someone shows up, you’re the only one who has to look at you’re mess.

Unless you hire someone, you’re the only one to clean up your mess.

Box Removal

BOX REMOVAL

My brother, Larry, had trouble removing a chandelier in a Styrofoam box from its cardboard box. It reminded me of all the things that are so hard to get out of the box. It can be so hard to remove things from the hard-plastic boxes they come in that you really need scissors, but what if what you’re removing from the box is scissors? 

Stigmata

                                                                                             Word count: 1331

STIGMATA

It started simply. In a Delaware public school, the principal walked into the lunch room and told the students that no one would eat before prayers, and called a student to the podium. The student began, "In the name of Jesus..."

 Yusef, the Jewish child raised his hand.
"That’s not the barakah we use at home. We don’t pray to Jesus.
The principal replied, "That’s what you do at home. Your public school is in America, a Christian nation, so you do it our way or you can go to the side room there and do it your way"
         Yusef got up and went to that back room, He found a small room, probably used as a closet before now pretty much empty, with nothing in the room but a cross pasted up. He realized he couldn’t do the prayer for his lunch. He didn’t have any.

He had a bad habit. Whenever he got especially nervous or upset, he started to scratch, even though there were times that he scratched himself raw and got infections. He scratched his head now, prayed in Hebrew, then went back to his seat, next to his classmates.
         His friend, Chuck, asked him why he couldn't pray like everybody else.

        "You know I'm Jewish", he said. We don't pray to Jesus

"Then who do you pray to?"
Before he could answer, another classmate said, “Jews don’t pray to anybody. They’re atheists, like Marx and Lenin”

“We do pray God. We just don't pray to Jesus"

                                   “My priest says that the only way to the father is through the son,

So, if you don’t believe in Jesus, you don't believe in God"
             "So does my pastor!" another boy said
              "My rabbi says that only God is God and all this Trinity stuff is a way of worshiping a false god"
               "Are you saying Jesus is a false god?”                                                           

 Then it started. He hoped he imagined the words, Jew boy. As he sat, he felt the redness where he scratched and resisted the urge to scratch some more.
               At three, he came home, kissed the mezuzah and his mother.
               "How was school?" his mother asked                                                                                     
            "We prayed today, at lunch. Isn’t that illegal in a modern public school? Doesn’t that defy separation of church and state?"
             "Some atheists made it that way. We all know that the Constitution permits freedom of religion and all this talk of separation of church and state can’t stop it. You’ll be happy to know I and your father are working on that. We already got the principal to agree to it, so think of us, as you pray at lunch."
            "But it didn’t feel right, Mom. I tried to do the prayer the way the rabbi taught me to, but I only ended up scratching."
            "We warned you about scratching like that. Remember when scratched so much your skin got so red and infected we had to take you to the hospital?"
           "Yeah, Mom. But it’s hard to be the praying Jew."
          "Your classmates know you’re a pious Jew. Now as the prayers make them more pious, you’ll have an easier time"
           "Yes, Mom"

           The next day, he heard the whispers he hoped weren’t and tried not to look around as he walked.

"HEY, JEW BOY!"

             He heard it loud and clear, this time, as it was yelled into his right ear. He looked right, and someone pulled on his left peyos, the long sideburns orthodox Jews keep. "OWW!" he shouted, and felt his head pulled to the left, as someone on his right pulled off his yarmulke. He never saw it again.
           In class, he started scratching his head, but pulled his hands down and started to scratch his palms and wrists, stopping when he noticed they were getting red.

At lunch he sat for a moment when he heard the principal call for the prayer.
"But you, Yusef, may go to your room"
           He heard the other students laugh as he went to his little closet. The cross was gone. Its place was the word, "Jewish place", written with thick marker, and a bible on a table. "Christian
Bible, of course", he thought. "Well, this time, I have my kosher sandwich and soda"
           He went into his backpack to find his can of Coke was gone, with a container of milk in its place. He found his kosher salami sandwich, but a milk left the meal not kosher. He left the room and went back to the teacher in charge of the Lunch Room, Ms. Smith.

            “Ms. Smith, what happened to my soda? Somebody removed my Coke and gave me milk.”

            “I did that. You kids get enough soda. Milk is much more nourishing.”

            “But Ms. Smith, I’m eating a meat sandwich, and mixing milk with meat is against Jewish law.”

            “You’re against the law!”, a student yelled.

            “Mind your business, Jack”, Ms. Smith replied.

“But Ms. Smith, Jews like Yusef think Jesus is a false god”

            “I’m sure that’s not true. This is America. Everybody worships Jesus, including Jews. Isn’t that right, Yusef?”

            “Actually, we do think Jesus is a false god.”

            Ms. Smith gave Yusef a sour look, then said to him, “We don’t need your wise ass heresy. You go to detention until you’re ready to apologize to our Lord and Savior.”

           On his way out of the Lunch Room, he heard some students.

"How was your meal?", someone yelled. Several students laughed.
             He never left detention that day. He cried to himself and didn’t even try to stop himself from scratching.
             The next day, he came in, staying close to the wall, holding his backpack close to

his chest. Someone tried to grab his peyos, but he had taped them down. He kept his yarmulke in his backpack until he got to class.
           "Today will be different", he thought.
           Lunch came and he was surprised to see his mother there.

 "Since I helped establish the prayers, I have the privilege of watching you lead the lunch prayer", she said.                                                                                  

              Lunch time came, and he stood in front of the room, with his mother on one side of him and the principal on the other. He had a full, freshly baked loaf, a real knife and real bottle of wine in front of him. He opened to the correct page of what this time was a Jewish prayer book, when a note fell out. He picked it up and it was a computer printed page full of nothing but the

word Jew boy, repeated over and over.
            He started to cry and scratched himself all over, especially his head, his hands, his feet, and even his side. All those spots began to bleed, so the teachers picked him up and took him out.

"Wilmington or St Francis hospital?" the secretary asked the principal.

"Delaware Psychiatric, and call his psychiatrist. He's had a nervous breakdown."
            I'm calling a lawyer, and you can bet the press is going to hear about this!" his mother yelled.
            Next week, he returns with his mother, his father, his principal and a cop, to pick up his things, for the last time.
           They pass through a crowd of students.
           "Not a word", the principal says, but a few grow close, with tears in their eyes.
           "I’m so sorry we did this to you" one says

         "Where can I get a yarmulke?"
        "How do I grow peyos?"
        "Can I join your shul?"
        The principal says, "I can understand your apologies, but why do so many of you want to convert? Isn’t that a bit much?"
        A student pulls out a newspaper. The headline says, "SCHOOL HAS NEW SAINT, JEWISH BOY HAS STIGMATA"

END OF STORY

Pet Peeves

PET PEEVES

Cab drivers who have to leave their windows open just a crack, so you, in the back seat, get all the weather, despite the fact that he insists he has his heat or a/c on. Sure they're on for him, but you're getting the weather.

Your mother has her own dialect and if you don't understand her, it's your fault.