“Well, it is a really, really, like, really big crisis.”
“Crikey, we should get on with it then.”
“Yes, it is after all existential, and you know what that means?”
“No? What does it mean?”
“It means it is existential, out of this world of ours. Out of our very existence. Like an alien nation that we are. Like existential as in the word like, like, like wow man. Cool, pass the weed. Man this is good stuff. It is existential, out of this world man.”
“It is E.B Bud – existential to the core.”
“So, if we are in an existential crisis and our very survival as a sovereign country, nation is at stake, what are you….hmm…erm…man this stuff is existentially wicked man…so what are you going to do about it, dude in charge?”
“Existentially??”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“I am, we are, going to DISNEYLAND.”
“Existential…………………….man!”
My book of the month? Kurofune: The Black Ships. See link above for more information. It is available on Amazon. In audio format as well.
An irreverent look at growing up in a parochial, conservative environment in pre-woke era Toronto of the 1950s and 60s.
Just click on “Buy on Amazon” to purchase on line. You can also get this book in audio format. Go to Amazon.ca (Canada) or Amazon.com (US Residents) and type in audible and the book title.
Real cheap. Buy one and support a struggling Canadian author.
So, how was your day: blame it on Trump, maybe climate change, because if the ice had not melted near Trondheim, this would not have happened. No, tariffs are to blame. Insurance scam is my bet on this.
Words! What is in a word? My kingdom for a word! A horse
it may be but a horse is only a word that by any other name is
still a word. Words declare wars, they garner peace. Words can
be hurtful, they can be playful. Words describe words as in
spiteful words, hurtful words, insightful words. We can have a
war of words, crosswords, or them’s fightin’ words. Words can
be theatrical: we can have a play on words. Word is the law. It is
the word. Words are prophetic. Words can be the gospel truth. So
sayeth the word of the Lord. Words inspire, they transpire. Words
transcribe: you have my word on that. Failing that, can I have a
word with you? But words are not enough. That’s why we have
lawyers. Words can also be despotic, or chaotic. A single word
can inspire poetry, lyricism.
And when a few words are taken together, we have a phrase.
And when a couple of phrases are linked together we have, in a
word, a sentence. And when a group of sentences are grouped
together we have, in another word, a paragraph. And to describe
or summarize a paragraph, we can go right back to the beginning
of this word-train of thought—to paraphrase!
We can combine words to make quotable quotes: some
profound, some sublime, some simplistic, some stupidly clear:
“To be or not to be—that is the question.” That may be, but
on Jeopardy it is the answer!
“If things are good in moderation then they must be great in
excess.” My favourite.
“If something is worth doing, then it is worth overdoing.” My
other favourite.
“Baseball is 100 percent physical. The rest is mental.”
Adapted from Berra.
Yet words are not enough when communicating. Context and
understanding are crucial. Without context, meaning is confused
to the point of ridiculousness. Let me try to illustrate this by
something that I learned in school:
Take the word nit. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary
defines nit as a stupid person, a louse. Then add the letter k
before the n and you have knit. Yet the word nit from the word
knit is a whole different kettle of fish. And what is that anyway: a
kettle of fish?
Now, let’s take the word wit: defined as someone with a
sharp sense of humor, a player of words perhaps. As in, “That
man possesses wit. He has a sharp mind.” But then add the letter
t before the w and you have twit. Or combine the word nit with
the word wit and you have a nitwit. But nit and twit together does
not sound quite right—nit-twit?
Nonetheless, given that a nit is already defined as a stupid
person, and wit is someone who has a sharp mind, then nitwit
defiles all logic in a descriptive sense except perhaps to define
someone who possesses a stupid wit—which in itself is
oxymoronic. But dimwit already has that locked up. Yet what is
really frustrating about the undercurrent of this word is that
dimwit is the opposite of someone who has a sharp wit. So, that
being the case, let’s call him or her a blunt-sharp person!
To make matters worse, a twit could be someone who has a
sharp wit, and is still a nitwit or a dimwit. So why can’t we call
him or her a nit-twit? Or a dim-twit? The bottom line is that
nitwit or dimwit sounds better. The other bottom line is that
English words are just downright confusing without context and
a shared understanding of the contextual environment we are
communicating in.
Who ever thought that a single word like please, in context,
could be so humorous? Yet Henny Youngman made a comedic
career out of four simple words and a pregnant pause: “Take my
wife… please.” Yes, the word timing says it all.
Shakeyjay is out of sight, out of mind and outa here.
“British Columbia is going to ban cow flatulence George”
“What’s flatulence Jay?”
“Cow farts George. They are going to ban cow farts in British Columbia to save the planet! And then Ottawa. Natural gas George, Natural gas.”
“No kidding. You’re ribbing me Jay!”
“I can’t make this stuff up George. Next they’ll ban people from taking more than one breath a minute in order to reduce CO2 emissions. When that occurs you’ll be seeing a whole lot of people walking around Vancouver with puffed out cheeks – both above and below the waist! Holding their breaths and holding their asses. It’s insane George but I’m really happy about this because I won’t have to listen to these Moonbats anymore. Especially the pompous ones like David Eby lecturing me on how to live.”
“Wow, something sure stinks in the state of BC Jay”
“That’s Denmark George. Something smells in the state of Denmark.”
“It does? They banned cow farts there too Jay?”
“But the Moonbats in BC defend their actions by saying that people laughed at Noah too. With his ark George”
“Can you imagine the stink on that ark George? But then again the methane probably kept the water levels at bay by keeping that ark afloat and warm. And when the flooding was almost over somebody, Noah perhaps, lit a torch when he went down into the hold on that ark to see and hear and smell what the fuss, racket and stink was all about. Then, like the burning bush, KA-BOOM, that ark went up in an catechismic explosion.”
“Holy shit” Noah was heard to say, but in deference to his Lord, the supreme being.
“The Old Testament’s proverbial shit hit the fan-tail of that ark George.”
“Is that where the proverb Ship.High.In.Transit. comes from Jay? Noah’s ark?”
“Perhaps George but I don’t know for certain. Could be. But it’s probably why no one has found Noah’s ark today. The methane explosion ripped that ark into a gazillion pieces, spread all across the ancient world I would think.”
“Oh yeah, and forced childbirth is the single biggest cause of global warming. I kid you not George. Must be in the grunts and the groans and the flatulence from where those labour intensive green house gas emissions come from.”
“Women are giving birth in a greenhouse these days Jay?”
“Arctic melting will cause severe flooding on the shores of Greenland George!”
“Eureka, George”
“You don’t smell all that well yourself Jay.”
No, no, no George. Eureka! Eureka. You know -as in Archimedes and his principle, Eureka. That an object will displace its own weight in water. Arctic ice, it floats, but when it melts the water level in the Arctic Ocean remains the same. But the Moonbats out there will not believe this law of physics and will state categorically and adamantly that Archimedes and his principle are coming to you from Big Oil.
“Oh and one more thing George. Global Warming will wipe out breakfast cereals by 2070”
“That’s okay cause I like my cereal cold anyway Jay, so I’m not worried.”
“That’s the least of your worries George”
“Man, we are doomed!”
From the Craziness File:
“Thief allegedly steals up to $179,000 in gold coins and gold pucks from the Canadian mint by stuffing them, or so the mint suggests, up his ass, then walking out. Probably got the idea and motivation from the Johnny Cash song “One Piece at a Time”
“Wow. And the mint claims that they have a suspect and that as far as they are concerned the puck stopped there! Holy anal retentiveness George. Holy shit! That guy’s got balls and one helleva rectum, if he is found guilty of course, which he hasn’t.”
“That’s one helluva job Jay, one helluva job bringing that in!”
From the Oxymoronic File:
“Safe Injection Sites are springing up everywhere across Canada George.”
“Ban flatulence in cows, and in humans too, as it really is Natural Gas, isn’t it Jay?!”
“You bet George”
“200 protesters recently protesting the latest LNG proposition in B.C. then hopping into their SUVs, pickup trucks and cars for the drive home.”
“Protesters protesting a proposed new cell tower in the local countryside all the while talking on their cell phones to get more protesters out to protest the new cell tower’s construction.”
_____________
“Bit of trivia George. How many falls are there in Klamath Falls Oregon?How many huh, huh?”
“Dunno Jay. How many?” One set of falls perhaps?”
“Nope, none George. There are no falls in Klamath Falls Oregon.”
Quote of the week
“Militancy is great – for pacifists”
“Until next time George”
Shakey Jay out of sight, out of mind and out of here.
Check out my books in the links above. Great reads at cheap prices. Available in audio format.
Inflation in the US and Canada as illustrated by the cost of a Big Mac:
I remember a friend of mine ate 15 Big Macs on a dare and a bet way back in 1976. The cost was 49 cents per. He did it. We called him Big Max after that.
In 2025?
= . Can’t afford a “Big Mack” but
“Hey buddy, do you have any climate change??? Hmmm? Or Bit Coins???”
My continued book pick of the month, although I may be biased.
I Thought I’d Died and Gone To Heaven
An irreverent look at growing up in a parochial, conservative environment in pre-woke era Toronto of the 1950s and 60s.
Just click on “Buy on Amazon” to purchase on line. You can also get this book in audio format. Go to Amazon.ca (Canada) or Amazon.com (US Residents) and type in audible and the book title.
A great memoir. Real cheap.
An excerpt:
“I ONCE KNEW A GUY, a very close friend of mine at the time,
who ate fifteen Big Macs at one sitting. It occurred very late at
night after an evening of drinking and debauchery. It was a small
bet to start with to see how far he could go as he loved Big Macs,
but the challenge progressed nonsensically as we kept egging
him on. Great fun! He did it although he was a wee bit pale at the
end of it all.
Those were carefree days, as all days are carefree when you
are young. And those burgs only cost forty-nine cents each back
then. Not too sure if he ever touched another one after that
though. I do think that he is a vegan today. I can still see in my mind’s feeble eye this same guy being dragged down a set of stairs by his shirt collar by a tall buxom blonde Norwegian gal who truly was an Amazon Olympian at
six feet and some. Very athletic and, as my friend told it later the
next day, very ambidextrous, triple-jointed.
This blatant kidnapping occurred at a country and western
club that we called the “Hug and Slug”—a colloquial term for
the Army, Navy and Air Force Club, so called by all the
WESTPAC Widows that frequented this abode. An appropriate
name, I can tell you. WESTPAC Widows were those women
married to sailors who were deployed from home in the Western
Pacific operating areas for very long periods of time. To normalize,
these widows would frequent this country and western bar
every Friday and Saturday night for a bit of dancing fun and then
some. And we, being the young and restless lads that we were—
naïve, thank God, and wet behind the ears—were navy recruits
who were alone from home for the very first time and were
delighted to provide the required entertainment, for we yearned
for motherly comfort. This was also a time when very long hair
was the fashionable norm so we, with our newbie brushed and
navy white-walled haircuts, were social outcasts, as the saying
goes, especially at the bars, the discos, and the dance halls of this
parochial port town. Yes we would tempt our fate from time to
time and test our sense of belonging and manhood at these
discotheques, but after striking out early we would all head down
to the ole “Hug and Slug” to test the waters. It never disappointed.
Country and western clubs are extremely down to earth,
value oriented, and patriotic, old-fashioned, but all-welcoming
fun. We would end up having a great time there to the wee hours
dancing with these widows to such memorable tunes as “All My
Ex’s Live in Texas” by George Strait. Or the equally memorable
and nostalgic “Ten Tall Beers with a Shooter of Whiskey Is All It
Took.” Great stuff! A good time was had by all, for these women
could not have cared less about our appearance. As long as we
had some hair on the top of our heads, that was all that mattered.
And my friend? Battered and bruised by the pounding he took on
those stairs and helpless as he was, he had a very big smile on his
face for he knew his fate. She wore a determined and predatory
look if I ever saw one and was, as I recall, entirely attuned to her
prey and purring, “You’re coming home with me, sonny boy.”
“Oooooookay!” he whimpered. To us, “See ya!”
Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Bieber et al? Eat your musical hearts out.
“Please dear Lord, let’s float into space.”
“Please dear Lord, hear my prayer.”
Shakeyjay out of sight, out of mind and out of here. Have a great non political day.
Schoolchildren in the UK are now being taught that black people built Stonehenge and that the Roman Emperor Nero married a trans woman. He, Nero, was so happy with his choice that he lit a torch of enlightenment and we all know what happened next:
“Hey, does anyone know how to play this thing?” He was heard to say.
And….
Spring ahead at Stonehenge.
I did not know that. One can only laugh.
Hey, is Canada dead? Just asking, as Prime Minister Carney always dresses as if he is a mortician / undertaker.
Quote of the week:
“Women who are slightly overweight tend to live longer than the men who comment on it.”
“Listen to me, young lad. Adapt, and don’t let them get you
down, or get to you emotionally, in your thoughts, and if you do
it right you will have fond memories of your and your mates’
experiences and a lot of laughs. But I’m sure it isn’t as bad as
when I went to school. That was day and night back then. No rest
for the wicked boys and girls, as they said. We was all orphans.”
He paused, as if to let that last comment sink in. Then he
turned, slightly, to blanket another part of the rink with water.
Silent! I followed him around.
“Orphans? In Ireland? Wow.” It seemed so far away, and too
much to sink in.
“Orphans, yes. I don’t remember my mother or my father.
Just the school, the orphanage, the nuns and priests. But I got out
of it. Ran away and joined the Navy.”
And as if sensing my next question. “I was fourteen.”
“Yup, Royal Navy, the Senior Service, as they say.” He
volunteered, “It was also harsh discipline thar, in the Navy, but I
thrived on it cause I was already used to the abuse… Aaaargh.”
He laughed out loud.
“But in the Navy they had free rein to kill ya if they so
choosed. For being out of line, AWOL, or desertion as they
called it. But again, my mates kept me sane and my wingers safe.
And justice? For the smallest infraction, there was shipboard
justice… before the mast, before the Captain… the Coxswain
would cry out in his loud and booming voice: ‘MARCH THE
GUILTY BASTARD IN!’ As I said, I loved it. Rum was dirt
cheap and the cigs even dirtier cheapier. Clean sheets and three
squared—if you liked kippers and hard tack that is. But
compared to the boarding school, and the Army, I thought I had
died and gone to heaven.”
He paused, while directing the water to another section of the
rink. The was a moment of dead silence except for the crackling
sound that the water made when in contact with the frozen
expanse of the ice. He then continued with his story.
“I came through the war unscathed though. Only once did
providence come to my side.”
“What’s providence?” I interrupted
“Providence is a sort of destiny’s luck,” he continued. “Like
something that happens to you in the present that makes no sense
at all except that it has an enormous impact on something in the
future.”
He looked at me whimsically, quizzically, probably knowing
full well that I didn’t have a clue of what he was getting at.
“Let me explain it this way. I was transferred to an oiler—
that’s a ship that refuels other ships at sea, like a floating,
moving gas station on water—and just before boarding that ship
to leave port and to go out to our war station at sea, I was called
back. Some sort of emergency at home. How could that be, I
thought? I had no home! So the ship sailed without me and
when I arrived back in the town where I had lived at the
boarding school, it turned out that I did indeed have a younger
sister who was quite sick, had been given last rights, and had
asked for me. Turns out she, like me, had also been given up and
had been sent to another boarding school, but in the next village.
Damnation, I thought. I had a sister. As it turned out, her school
was a front for the so-called Magdalene Laundry Houses—or
asylum. You wouldn’t know about those places, but there was
nothing asylum about them I can tell you that. They was an
affront for sure, those sweathouses. An affront to humanity
human kindness, compassion, empathy, everything civil and
just. The Irish nun’s laundry school from hell. And that’s all I’ll
say about that.”
He paused briefly, then continued.
“But, as unluckily as it was for her that this was, it was also
luckily for me because that oiler took a hit and being so full of
oil went up like a some heavenly torch, burnt the sky crimson, in
spectacular fashion it was with shades of reds and oranges and
yellows, before being doused to eternity’s sleep as she slipped,
stern first, into the sea, breaking up below the waves to the
bottom below but with one last glorious belch of sea salt from
old Neptune himself, or so they told me after. No one survived.”
He let that sink in for the moment. Then continued, “I
survived the war though death really hit home. I cried and I cried
and I cried. I don’t know why I cried so hard because I didn’t
really know anyone on that ship, thank God for that. And I didn’t
know my own sister either yet I cried so hard for her.” He made
the sign of the cross with a free hand.
“What happened to your sister?” I asked, politely.
“Died… a lung disease. But she really died from one of life’s
broken hearts, and broken promises. I never knew her but I think
I loved her. Funny that. Not knowing somebody but still loving
them, potentially I guess, unconditionally perhaps, for I never
knew, I never knew her. The ties that bind, I think. You understand
me, boy?”
“I think so,” I said. I didn’t.
“Good, ’cause I’m not sure if I do… understand myself or
my life, that is.”
Silence again. Much longer this time as the time was needed
to take in this account of his.
“You should be getting home,” he said as he turned again to
strike out at another area of the rink.
“Stay in school, and don’t let them penguins get to you. By
the by, what’s your name?”
“John,” I answered, awkwardly.
“Well, John. I am Desmond O’Brian. Des for short, but not
for long.” He guffawed. “You can call me sir.” He guffawed and
guffawed again. Then he was suddenly snorting, snorting then
coughing, coughing hard, a bronchial, nicotine-laced cough that
went deep into his own form, shook his entire physical being
relentlessly before dying down and out through his throat.
“Glad to make your acquaintance, John.” He choked again
and waved me off with one arm, coughing again.
I left, turned away toward my street, and off I went, carefully
as the ground was extremely icy.
Before I was out of sight I stopped, turned, and looked back
at the rink. I could see Mr O’Brian ever so faintly, or should I say
his silhouette, which really resembled a dark, lifeless shadow in
the stillness of this winter’s night. The stream of water continuing
to rise, then arc, then cascade out and down and out again in
a frost-like icy fog over the surface of the rink. Tomorrow that
ice surface would be an awesome shade of greyish blue, a
smooth virginal sheen of ice, as fragile as frozen glass, bordered
by the brilliance of clean white snow, until the inevitable cut and
crunch of the first set of cold steel blades hit its surface.
I never saw Mr O’Brian again.
In today’s world, that park is bereft of young boys and girls
playing. Sadly, it is deserted all year long. Its lifeblood is a
distant memory.
Taken from:
I Thought I’d Died and Gone To Heaven
An irreverent look at growing up in a parochial, conservative environment in pre-woke era Toronto of the 1950s and 60s.
Just click on “Buy on Amazon” to purchase on line. You can also get this book in audio format. Go to Amazon.ca (Canada) or Amazon.com (US Residents) and type in audible and the book title.
Real cheap. Buy one and support a struggling Canadian author.
Shakeyjay is out of sight, out of my mind and out of here.
Have a great day, or week, or month, maybe a year.
= 
. Can’t afford a “Big Mack” but
