I’m sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable black leather poppa chair in my living room, enjoying lights and heat, and fighting with my computer again, because our power is back on. Like lots of folks around here, we lost power during hurricane Sandy. We’re lucky. Our juice is back on and we’re cooking with it again. You don’t pay much attention to your juice till it stops running, and you can’t cook, and you’re getting cold. I was trying to unscramble some stuff on the computer when a screen came up that said press any key. I did. And the screen went dark. I was about to press every key…with a sledgehammer when I realized the power had shut down. We don’t know how to deal with that. It’s a reality dis-connection. I was on the air at WNBC radio in New York when the big blackout hit about thirty years ago. I called down to engineering to get them to start the generators. They said, “The book says we have to get the TV station up first.” I said, “How many battery operated TV sets do you suppose there are in New York.” They just hung up. We all do stuff like that. I’ll bet you’ve lost power and started looking for a flashlight by flipping the light switch on the wall. We need our electric juice to keep the heat and lights on, just like we need our personal juice to keep our light sabers powered up to fight our constant battle against the bad guys on the Dark Side.
There are lots of short circuits that can blow our fuses if we let them. You get fired, or dumped, or sick. Short circuits like that can turn off your personal power lights…and that’s not much different from losing your electric power lights…if you’re not careful, you can walk right into a wall…or a fist.
Big Louie, his own bad self predicted at the beginning of the recent election campaign, that this time, the politicians would manage to overcome voter apathy, and replace it with voter hatred. And he was right. We hit a national short circuit, and lots of us dis-connected from each other. We started milling around in the dark, running into walls, and sometimes fists.
My friend Al spent years enjoying cookouts and ball games with his buddy George, but they haven’t been talking to each other since this election campaign started. That’s because they’ve both done what the politicians told them to do…they dis-connected from each other. They did that when they both hit the delete button on the word “Compromise”.
One prominent politician and un-reality TV star who doesn’t believe in compromises, is actually suggesting that we should overthrow the government. I thought that was illegal. In fact the word traitor comes to mind. And the governor of one of the states I’d kind of like to see us keep, because one of my brothers lives there, very famously said something to the effect that seceding from the union isn’t beyond consideration, because compromises are just for wimps. Tell that to the ghost of Abe Lincoln. Things are coming apart. We’ve got short circuits in our power supply.
And the guys who are tossing their short circuit hand grenades into our lives know what they’re doing. They’re after our power supply. And they know that before they can have it, they have to dis-connect us first.
Dick’s Details Quiz. All details are in the current podcast.
1- What are some “female executives” carrying in their purses that is kind of sexy?
2- What really happens at a sumposium ?
3- What is a “Crapula?”
Dick’s Details. They take your mind off your mind.
Big Louie, his own bad self says, “A bad compromise is usually better than a good fight.” I remember when I was in high school, trying to convince several girls who wanted to remain fully clothed that some kind of compromise would keep their juices flowing. They seemed to understand that quite well, but mostly they were in favor of short circuiting my personal power.
I was surfing on a tsunami of personal juices the day I met my Lady Wonder Wench. It was actually in a very proper office. She was standing there wearing a perfectly modest skirt and blouse, and we were talking about her doing some secretarial work for me. And all of a sudden, she smiled at me…standing there in that perfectly modest skirt and blouse, but that smile, and those eyes, hit my hormones big time, the juices started flowing so fast that I started seeing some things that weren’t really happening…like… in my head she was leaning down to adjust the straps on a pair of high heel shoes, and smiling up at me as she felt my eyes watching her. That modest blouse was open one extra button, and I couldn’t help notice that she was wearing black lace lingerie, and wearing it very well. Then…this is in my imagination remember… she stood up slowly…and with a wistful little girl smile…she smoothed out her skirt, stretched a little, and swiveled her hips as she stepped up on those high heels…gave me one more little sideways glance, tossed her soft, long brown hair once…and disappeared…into reality…in which she was just standing there in that perfectly modest skirt and blouse, and looking at me like…hello! Hello! Are you awake ? The circuits were all connected, and the juices were pumping pretty hard that day. There’s a story about what happened that night in the Bedtime Stories Personal Audio Cd, and in the current podcast. It is called, somewhat deceptively, Nothing Happened.
Every once in a while, my Lady Wonder Wench gives me that same kind of smile that’s in the story, and I swear I get a quick flash of the trace of perfume she left in my life that night, such a long time ago.
Nothing Happened is from the Bedtime Stories Personal Audio Cd. If you like it, you can download it from the Bedtime Stories icon on the home page.
A bad compromise is usually better than a good fight. A fight short circuits almost everything and it costs an awful lot of power. Wars are big fights. They usually leave even the winners all out of juice in the cold and dark. In our personal lives, we’ve all seen Pimple People who never cry, and Dreary Drones who never laugh. That’s the way they are. No compromises.
In the last few years, “Compromise” has become a dirty word in politics. Too bad. Think about the word. The first part of the word, “Com” is from the latin word “comis” which means friend. The rest of the word is spelled promise. Com-promise. So “compromise” means a promise of friendship. Sounds like a good way to re-connect our circuits and get our power pumping again. Working together like friends.
Maybe we can get the power turned back on again before the next hurricane, or the next national election hits…get our juices flowing again. What do you say we keep the state of Texas, mess up The Donald’s comb over, and send some beer and brewskies to Al and George. And I promise I won’t hit my computer with a sledge hammer any more.
I think we need to explain in words of one syllable to our politicians that “compromise” isn’t a dirty word. We should call them up and say, “Compromise means the promise of friendship, you fathead.” Whoops. Scratch the fathead.