You write the caption!/What are they thinking?

...click the image to enlarge...

What caption would you put on this found photograph? A collective phrase, evil little thought bubbles emanating from each of the student's heads? And why is everyone staring at the word "cop," anyhow?
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Richard Gere, The Gerbil Story, and Sylvester Stallone

We've all heard the Richard Gere gerbil story. Here is an interesting tale from http://sujet.co.uk about the origins of that story. And it's almost as hard to believe as the gerbil story it purports to debunk.

"According to Stallone, Gere thinks he started the famous gerbil rumor because of a fight they had on the set of “The Lords of Flatbush in 1974 over a greasy chicken:

“I was eating a hotdog and he climbs in with a half a chicken covered in mustard with grease nearly dripping out of the aluminum wrapper,? said Stallone. “I said, ‘That thing is going to drip all over the place.’ He said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ I said, ‘If it gets on my pants you’re gonna know about it.’ He proceeds to bite into the chicken and a small, greasy river of mustard lands on my thigh. I elbowed him in the side of the head and basically pushed him out of the car. The director had to make a choice: one of us had to go, one of us had to stay.

So a guy spills mustard on your pants and you come up with a gerbil story that follows him the rest of his life? Boy, that tells you one thing. . .don't ever f*** with Sly Stallone!
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President Bush's Foot In Mouth Disease Rages Unchecked

According to Reuters, The President we know and love has returned. No more of this weeper stuff:

"Even for someone as gaffe-prone as U.S. President George W. Bush, he was in rare form on Friday, confusing APEC with OPEC and transforming Australian troops into Austrians.

Bush's tongue started slipping almost as soon as he started talking at a business forum on the eve of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney.

"Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your introduction," he told Prime Minister John Howard. "Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit."

Several hundred people at the conference laughed. Bush corrected himself and joked, "He invited me to the OPEC summit next year." Australia has never been a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Later, Bush mentioned that Howard had gone to visit "Austrian troops" last year in Iraq. There are, in fact, no Austrian troops there. But Australia has about 1,500 Australian military personnel in and around the country.

After his remarks, Bush took the wrong way off-stage and, looking baffled, and had to be re-directed to a center-stage exit. A veteran White House correspondent seized the opportunity to ask Bush whether there had been any new message in his speech. POTUS bristled: "Haven't you been listening to my past speeches?" he asked before turning away.

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Kent, Washington's Meeker Street 1946

This photograph shows Kent, Washington's Meeker Street, in 1946. . .seven years before I was born. I lived in the same house at 534-4th Avenue S. (at Crow Street), six blocks south of Meeker Street from the day I was born until 1971. Meeker Street didn't look much different in my youth, except the cars were about ten years newer (1953 Packards, 1957 Chevies, and Mercury Monterey squad cars). Even today in 2007, most of the same buildings exist on Meeker Street. Meeker Street was home to Shoff's Sporting Goods, Blessing's Jewelers, Dave Leonard's (R.I.P. -- he died a couple of months ago) Rexall Drugs; Grunstead's cafe; The White Spot Tavern, Red's Greyhound Bus Depot and Grill, the Big Bear Grocery store, the Cohen's hardware store, the Kent Barber Shop, J.C. Penney's, the Bible books store, the Club Tavern, The Pastime Tavern, Don Bell's Insurance. and the Ben Franklin five and dime store.
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Ex-Senator Fred Thompson tosses his hat into the crowded ring (with links to Jeri Kehn Thompson photos)

Fred Thompson tossed his hat into the ring yesterday on the Jay Leno Show, as his Republican brethren were debating in New Hampshire. The former Senator drew scathing criticism from fellow Republicans after he ducked out on last night's debate in favor of Jay Leno's show to announce his presidential bid.

465 people arrived here today looking for articles, photos, parodies, etc. of Fred Thompson, now that he has once again hit the news cycles. Unfortunately for Fred, however, the search engine and hot-link referrals shows that 25 of them were looking for information on Fred Thompson. Over 400 searchers were looking for the Jeri Kehn photographs that have appeared here:

A Jeri Kehn Thompson cameo appearance in a Fred Thompson campaign video, four new Jeri Kehn photographs, and a Mrs. Fred Thompson photo roundup

Three additional photos of Mrs. Fred Thompson a/k/a Jeri Kehn

One More Jeri Kehn Thompson photo

Jeri Kehn Photos, Part 3: Three more photos of Mrs. Fred Thompson

More Jeri Kehn photos--> A follow-up to "Meet the Thompson Twins: Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri Kehn (with photos) "

Meet the Thompson Twins: Fred Thompson's wife, Jeri Kehn (with photos)

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Poem: There's A Civil War In His Head

click the digital painting to enlarge


He won't or can't encrypt
The toxic thoughts emanating
From his cranium.
He doesn't even try to hide them
Under a bush, oh no,
And attempts to radiate goodness
And cloak the toxins
In a warp of avuncular benevolence,
But the unfeeling insect eyes
Stare through and past you
And the absence of humanity
Burns chinks in your retinae
With real and imagined thought crimes.
This is no personality disorder
Where something broken
Might be fixed
This is an actual defecit
Where the soul is missing
And presumed dead,
Lost somewhere along the way.
Maybe he scuttled his soul
To the bottom of a rumbling green river.
Maybe it was never issued
In the first place.
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G.O.P. rethinks policies on gays in light of recent events

Top ranking insiders in the Republican Party have disclosed to Vanya Newton at All This Is That's Washington D.C. desk that the party is debating changing its positions on homosexuality. The party has long battled against gays in the military, equal rights for gays, anti-gay discrimination, and gay marriage and adoptions. "In light of recent events," one official told us, "we have begun rethinking these policies." The senior official would not speak for attribution. Another top ranking Republican said, "this isn't totally foreign to us, as you well know. The Log Cabin Republicans have a long tradition in our party now."

Interestingly, the Log Cabin group may not be on board. Log Cabin President Patrick Sammon made the following statement about the resignation of Senator Larry Craig (R-ID): Senator Craig made the right decision in resigning from the U.S. Senate. He lost his credibility to serve the people of Idaho and his actions damaged the credibility of the Republican Party. Senator Craig had no other choice but to resign—for the good of his State, the good of his Party, and the good of his family."




"Of course, that's what the Log Cabin guys say," another G.O.P. source told us. "They fought for years to 'mainstream,' and these knuckleheads are ruining it for them. At least they have achieved a patina of respectability, and now they see it all falling apart."



A leading fund-raiser inside the party said, "Look, it sounds completely crazy, but it's kind of like 'when in Rome, do as the Romans do,' or even 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.' I mean, just this year you've got Congressman Mark Foley slobbering all over the pages; Reverend Ted Haggard buying gay prostitutes (and snorting crank!); Senator Craig, of course...or, the straw that broke the camel's back; Congressman Bob Allen offering an undercover cop $20 for oral sex; and Glen Murphy Jr., chair of the Clark County Party, who got himself in quite a pickle fellatng a sleeping man who turned out not to be gay at all."

The Republican money man added "If this is who we are, let's accept it. Let's bring in the gay voters. God knows, we need them now. We are not going to win any elections going forward shoveling the same old s**t at the voters. We didn't know it before, but we are clearly the gay party. It's time to accept that, embrace it, and exploit it."

A top aide to Republican Chair Mike Duncan said that the high command of the Republican Party is meeting in Key West at a weekend retreat to discuss whether this change in direction is viable."That's five righteous outings this year alone, man! How many dozens more went unreported? You can see why it might be in our best interest to embrace the gay lifestyle, if not in practice, with our support for our differently swinging brothers and sisters. The outcome of all this may well be that we don't end up supporting the gays, but we need to dial back the rhetoric and the anger and the hatred. . .at the very least. Sure, we may lose a few red states. So what? Think of all those blue states out there, ripe for the plucking."
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The Weeper:

POTUS at a Medal of Honor Ceremony for Marine

Corporal Jason Dunham in January, 2007

In Robert Draper's forthcoming book, "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush," taken from several extended interviews in late 2006 and early 2007, President Bush is quoted as saying, "I've got God's shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot. I do a lot of crying in this job. I'll bet I've shed more tears than you can count, as president. I'll shed some tomorrow."

"I try not to wear my worries on my sleeve" or show anything less than steadfastness in public, especially in a time of war.

"I fully understand that the enemy watches me, the Iraqis are watching me, the troops watch me, and the people watch me," he said, "I do tears."

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Protect The Children From Internet Predators

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Jesus Christ Wanted Poster

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Alien Lore No.112 /The abduction of Jack Brummet

click to enlarge - The abduction of Jack Brummet

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Eulogy for Uncle Bill

click to enlarge - Uncle Bill with his twin sister Betty, August 18, 2007, two days
before his death. Photograph by Loa Brummet Servis.

Earlier today, I gave the eulogy for my Uncle Bill Jones at a memorial service. I wrote about him a little bit and posted some pictures the day after he died. It was my birthday today, which made it all just a little bit strange. However, I did get to celebrate a bit later in the night at the Black Bottle in Belltown with Daryle Conners and Keelin Curran. We had drinks and dinner right after attending a lecture by the Buddhist guru Gen-la Kelsang Dekyong, who was fantastic! About which, more later. . .

I reprint the eulogy here because a few people at the memorial wanted a copy, and as a memorial to my Uncle

_____________________________

In this eulogy, I am going to have to call him Uncle Bill. I’ve never known him as anything else. You are his children, grandchildren, sister, friends, brother and sister in laws, daughter and son in laws. To me he was Uncle Bill, and all that entailed.

The things that seemed to matter most to Uncle Bill were, in this order:

His wife, children and grandchildren and sister.
Scouting.
Bowling.
Work.
Coffee.
Ballard.
And the ponies.

Since he suffered a major stroke, my family visited Uncle Bill every week or two. No matter when we came, if he had been awake or he had been sleeping, he would let you know he was glad to see you and usually tell a joke or two.

Even after his stroke, he remembered those things that gave him such great pleasure in life. And he talked about those things: cars, horse-races, his wife, work, and his kids. The details were often jumbled, but he always became animated whenever he talked about his family.

I don’t think Uncle Bill remembered lately, but earlier in our life we spent plenty of time in heated debate—the Republican vs. the Democrat, or the former sailor against the hippy, and he would explain why he didn’t like my haircut, my choice of presidential candidates, or my views on the war.
He loved to yank my chain and I’m pretty sure that’s how I became a chain-yanker myself. But we always walked away friends.

A lot of my memories of Uncle Bill focus on making the trek from the farm town of Kent out to the big city—Ballard, a place he loved (in fact, he regularly razzed us about living “in the sticks”). I remember his patient exasperation when he took me bowling once and I rolled about a 12, or on a Boy Scout trip when I was 11 and he had to teach me how to stay dry, fed, and not be homesick.

Uncle Bill often used my last name. In that booming voice of his, he would call out “Brummet! Come over here.” I think calling me Brummet was his way of letting me know I was by no means a pure-bred Jones, and while he loved and accepted us, there was a hint of suspicion about the Jones blood having mingled with those hillbilly Brummet genes.

Another wonderful memory I have is of Uncle Bill and our Grandpa Jones spinning their gambling stories, and how even then I wondered if they had really won all that money why they weren’t rich? They could spend hours talking about Nevada and the ones that got away…

When we walked in the door of the Ida Culver house, he would ask “What the heck brought you all the way up here?” He couldn’t sort out all the details—but he knew we were family and that was good enough. Often, we would hash out the details of who was who and even when he wasn’t quite sure, he went along with it, good-naturedly humoring us, as we were good naturedly humoring him.

Even up to August 18th, when we saw him for the last time, he still had his sense of humor. The first thing he said to me was:

“What took you so long?”
“You were waiting?” I asked.
“I was,” he said.
“Well, you couldn’t have been waiting too hard, since we had to wake you up.”
“We all have our own ways of waiting.”

And that was the last joke I would ever hear him tell.

Except for one person who had been there two months longer, Uncle Bill lived in the Ida Culver House longer than anyone else. He was a favorite of the nurses and orderlies, who would all stop to talk to him. He was the most radiant person in the place. The nurses liked to bring him snacks and cups of his beloved black coffee.

Despite the confusion, and confinement, and aching knees, he kept up right to the very end smiling and enduring.

One of my favorite pictures of Uncle Bill and my mom was their baby picture, taken in 1923. It’s a charming, “old-fashioned” picture [note: hold up the photo Jack!] and even 40 years ago, I remember thinking how long ago 1923 was and what a different world it was and is.

Last week, we celebrated the twins 84th birthday with him. I don’t know what he wished for, but as soon as he blew out the candles, Uncle Bill urged us on to the main event: cake and coffee. My sister gave him a new pair of gleaming white tennis shoes. He put the shoes on, and was sportin’ and totally enjoying having a new pair of kicks.

As he always did when we left, he extracted a promise from us to come back soon. My last glimpse of him was him waving with that roguish smile of his as the door closed behind us.

I know the last four years weren’t his best years, but I am glad we had them. We learned something about love and family. I know he felt the love of this entire family and took comfort in that.

And I also know that if there is a Heaven, Uncle Bill is up there, in the Grandstand, with a cup of coffee, a Racing Form, and Aunt Jean at his side, cheering on Seabiscuit as she runs against Citation, Secretariat, and Seattle Slew.

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