POPTHOMOLOGY IS SEVEN YEARS OLD...SOMEBODY, CALL CNN! OR WATCH KIDDIE A-GO-GO FROM 1969!

February 28th provides me with the opportunity to to express how seriously happy and amazed and grateful I am that YOU, YES, YOU are reading this. Back on February 28, 2008, I started this blog with no plan other than to have a place to put some ideas and creative work that had been backlogged for many years. Whaddya know, up through the ground came a bubblin' crude, and we are both still here! That is something that pleases me so much, because if I have the opportunity to deliver to you something that makes you smile or laugh or think or cry or dance or get inspired, there's really nothing better. Well, OK OK OK, if I shut this mofo down and went into a lab and cured cancer, THAT would be better. But since I never took chemistry in school I guess you will have to settle for this. Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me, sharing posts with your friends, and sometimes even letting me know that you specially liked some. After seven years, it is still quite a thrill.

My little gift to you today is an episode of Chicago's "Kiddie A-Go-Go" children's dance program from 1969, in three parts. In 1969, I turned seven years old, so would have been around the same age as many of the kids you see in the video. Holy crap, that flips my wig. If I had lived a little closer to Chicago at that time, I would've BEGGED to have been on "Kiddie A-Go-Go." I guess I'll have to figure out how to produce "Golden Years A-Go-Go" now, so WATCH THIS SPACE!

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I MADE YOU SOME GET WELL CARDS (2015)

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365-WORD MICROFICTION: "JUDY"

After ten years of thinking it each time I saw her face, finally, I said it to her. We didn’t really have the kind of relationship that was of this depth, but I said it anyway.

“Judy, I always have the feeling somehow that the world is breaking your heart.”

Her face dropped slightly in surprise, and she took her gaze away from mine to stare at something, or nothing.  An orange-y ray from the afternoon sun pierced through her wine glass, making a pretty light pattern on the table. A minute or two passed.

“Do you know that song, the old jazz one that goes, ‘Is that all there is?’” she quietly asked me, or somebody, or nobody.

“Yes,” I nodded, even though she still wasn’t looking at me. Another pause.

“Nothing is like how I thought it would be. Nothing is right. My life is going by and it will have meant nothing at all. I try to be grateful, and I am, I really am, but I feel like a failure.” Judy turned towards me, her face flat with exhaustion, eyes bright.

I watched a water droplet slide down my glass, and I traced its path with my finger. I sighed. I didn’t at all know what to say, until I knew exactly what to say, and it came tumbling out.

“In-between all the dreams and hopes and wishes and expectations that are put on us or that we make for ourselves…the gap between that and reality, is what being human is. It’s where all of us are all the time! All of us! That open field where possibility still exists, where we don’t know, good or bad, what our lives are going to be or what they will mean, because we can’t know. We balance the dreams and the boundaries, and this makes up our lives. It’s excruciating…and absolutely, crushingly beautiful. That struggle is what we are. It’s OK. It’s OK.”

She stared at me, and tears began to stream down her face. I began to loudly sing “Judy’s Turn To Cry,” and she laughed and I laughed until we were out of breath, not caring who, if anyone, saw us.

Lesley Gore, "Judy's Turn To Cry"

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I MADE YOU TEN VALENTINE'S DAY CARDS (2015)

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TEN PRESCRIPTION DRUGS I THINK SHOULD EXIST

MEDS.

AMIRITE?

ERR BUDDY ON DA MEDS.

Young, old, healthy, infirm, yes...it seems just about everyone in America is regularly taking some kind of medication, to the infinite delight of Big Pharma. Now don't get me wrong -- most meds are a magnificent benefit to living in Our Moderne Tymes. They can prevent Small Illness from becoming Big Illness, and Big Illness from becoming Actual Final Death. Hooray for Science! But are we an overmedicated society, too fast to pop pills for the slightest reason? Probably. Yet there are some conditions that remain unaddressed by the pharmaceutical industry, and so I have helpfully gone ahead here with my suggestions which should jumpstart their creation. Please to enjoy!

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VIDEO: "SPEED METAL DOG"

Sometimes there is a video. Sometimes there is a song. Sometimes, the video and the song need to meet. Please to enjoy Speed Metal Dog!



Speed Metal Dog from Marianne Sp on Vimeo.

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