ROW 80 DAY 45 – WHY SO SERIOUS?

A typical day of me at the Bus Stop. If you add dark glasses and lose the mustache. Hair would be good, too. Hair. Please.

I know I have a tendency to get hold of one thing or group of ideas and wear it or them out, as it were. The sense of not being able to let go is not so much one of being afraid of the unknown is just being sure that the horse has been dead and beaten, never to rise again. In spite of the title, this is not a serious topic at all. Quite the opposite. This is actually picking up where I left off with my post “Unnatural Disasters” a few days ago, with our intrepid hero Nic Cage, doing his damnedest to look like a complete waldo in a crappy bear suit in that fine opus, “The Wicker Man.” I would say. “Well done, Nic. Mission accomplished!” The fact that the movie is howlingly bad is just another one of those extra-special things that I appreciated about reading that whole Cracked.com post.

Not one to leave the well alone, I went back yesterday and I think I broke my laugh. Seriously. I ran across something that over 24 hours later, I can still barely talk about this, without breaking out into this calliope-like wheeze, that is at once, cacophonous and sad; it sort of dies out. I fire it up again with bad air and regrets. I fire up those bitches called lungs and give a few more emphysematous yaps. I jest. You will all probably think, no, well, skip that. You all know I’ve been committed. That was my Drama Queen moment. On we go. 

Before I go into this, understand that for all the "high-powered things" I supposedly think or have thought or have done, or did, or do, I rank having a laugh, or having fun my number one priority. Make no mistake. It has to be a certain kind of fun. Anything cruel, mean, ill-intentioned, that kind of thing, no.That is not fun and is to be crushed out. Anything else, especially, anything that contains oddities, weirdness, is bizarre, or outré, is in general my cup of tea.

I’ve always enjoyed the strange lists in the books the Wallachinskys. My father and I spent hours poring over them. One of my favorite factoids: “King Charles II of England liked to roll around in mummy dust because he liked the ‘feel of ancient greatness.’” I love stuff like that. It’s so bizarre and odd enough to be true. He was king during the Restoration and I can see it. So, weird, odd, huh? Yes, it’s for me.

Cracked put out this article called, “15 Old Photographs That Proved the World Used to Be Insane.” Okay, fine. It starts out staidly enough. It shows old, almost daguerreotype pictures of what look like 2 gentlemen in suits wielding canes and very large mustaches. The article goes on to show how they practiced “Canne de combat” alá Jackie Chan. Cute, I do this already with the folks at the bus stop; this doesn’t prove we were insane. Anyone with a cane and who is Bipolar knows this; doesn't prove we're insane. Whoops; who was committed? Scroll, scroll.

We get to some felons who are getting the Hollywood treatment. But these guys aren’t like Bonnie and Clyde. They’re more like Stanley, and Bill and Syd. It’s not that these guys did anything spectacularly bad. Still, when you look at these pictures, they’re framed and shot in such a way that the men look chilling. I’d put these guys up against any of these crazies out in the hood. That says something too, because I’ll take on the ‘hood. I’d leave Stanley, Bill and Syd be; I’d cut them a wide berth.

Well, shit. Just when I think Cracked is letting me down, it’s on to page 2 and “Auto Polo.” Oh my. That just perked me right up. Bodies, hammers, flying autos. Wow! This is stupendous. Not just any kind of hammers. Flying hammers, it is pointed out, by the author, a Mr. Robert Brockway, who is doing a superb job with the pacing. What I find really hilarious is his parsing of this first auto polo picture. “There he is, currently flailing through the air. Now look at the other man -- the one with a giant smile on his face, waiting to smack said crash victim with a comically oversized mallet before he hits the ground. Everybody in that image either died immediately after it was taken or were promptly investigated for suspected Highlanderism. But that was auto polo.”
Read more: 15 Old Photographs That Prove theWorld Used to  Be Insane  

I have no idea if Mr. Brockway is correct in his assumption everyone died immediately after the photo was taken, not that it made one whit of difference. They would have been dead of old age by now anyway. I proceeded to laugh on.

By this time, of course, JC knows I’ve found something on the internet of amusement and am off on one of my “fits.” Were we just going to hang around “Auto Polo” that would have been amusement enough, however, there was an added bonus, and this is where I believe I may have injured myself. I just hope I am not out for the season. I think it’s just a strained hamstring, or rotator cuff injury.

After the glories of “Auto Polo,” I was still laughing and scrolling. Alas, “Auto Polo” was banned after a lot of carping and crying by the survivors apparently, so I guess they were still bored and decided to make do with:

Lion Drome

Oh, help me. I’m laughing just typing that bitch. “Lion Drome” is exactly what it sounds like. Let’s see what Mr. Brockway has to say on the subject of Lion Dromes. Quite a bit actually. But the part that put me into a state of total melt-down, all-circuits-overloaded, Defcon5 apoplexy was this phrase, “It was like going to the matinee now, only instead of watching Jeremy Renner pout in front of a shaky camera, you had the kids stick their unshielded little faces out over a bowl of automotive trauma and told them to inhale the heady fumes of gasoline and jungle predator.”

Read more: 15 Old Photographs That Prove the World Used to Be Insane | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/blog/15-old-photographs-that-prove-world-used-to-be-insane_p2/#ixzz24VgdS3Ga

Why oh why I didn’t have a stroke I will never know. The laugh gods were looking over me or something.This is without doubt just one of the funniest things I have ever chortled over. Chortled, hell. I made a complete gibbering, drooling, idiot out of myself. This has to be better than the best drugs in the universe; that combination of oddity, weirdity, what-the-fuckity, I’m just thunder-struck. I so love the imagination and inspiration that goes into these concoctions.  I really celebrate the tomfoolery of this. As stupid as it is, the bravery is earth-shaking. The icing on the cake? Check out the look on this lion’s face. He’s not all jungle predator. He’s more like a nine-to-fiver lion; an executive lion. Priceless.

I WONDER IF I ATE MY BRIEFCASE?

My thanks and very, very deep appreciation go out to Mr. Robert Brockway, Cracked.com and this post: http://www.cracked.com/blog/15-old-photographs-that-prove-world-used-to-be-insane Mr. Brockway is a wonderful writer. I enjoy his posts and this post is no fluke.

I don't normally do "housekeeping" anymore, per se, although I have a house. I am in Tampa,  soon to be witness to the RNC and Isaac. In my usual patented Mary-plan-not-a-thing, I've deliberated for all of 2 minutes and decided I'm going to pretend to "live" Tweet and blog from Channelside or the St. Pete Times Forum. As you can see, I am so interested, I don't even know where these jokers are meeting. Plus, I would have to ride a bus. They probably won't let me and whackamole within 16 city blocks of Romney, although I'm already in place, hee hee.

Anyway, after all the back and forth, I'm going to do pretty much what every one else does, sit here and make shit up, just like I always do. Follow me on Twitter, @Violafulry, #lolgop and prolly some other hashy-type marks, too.