"A comprehended God is no God at all."
(Gerhard Tersteegen)

 

MEN AND WOMEN IS THE SAME SEX!

Sunday's Times had a great "misprint" (or something) in a Metro section article about the "Babs Confabs" and the third annual Barbara Fan Reunion in West Hollywood. The penultimate paragraph on page B4 reads as follows: "Robin Lippman -- who saw 'The Mirror Has Two Faces' 16 times the first week, says he has watched 'A Star Is Born' 163 times and even purchased the dress Streisand muddied in the movie -- took in both events, savoring every bit of Streisand she could." He...she...? Which is it, "Robin"? Does Robin have two faces, too? The last paragraph (like SNL's "It's Pat!") doesn't help a whit: "'This is the greatest weekend of my life,' said Lippman, 36, an administrative assistant from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who wants to be buried in the Streisand gown. 'I don't want it to end.'" And it also doesn't help that the article by staff writer Tracy Johnson (A guy? A gal?) is introduced by a foto of an apparently cross-dressing (and cross-eyed) performer identified only as "Halstead," performing at "a benefit for the 'Hello Gorgeous' museum."

And strangely in the same vein, a pal sent me a color ad from a January 16th Times' "Cost Plus World Market" Sale bannered, "Ring it in Chinese Style" and offering for only $9.99 -- "Healthy Balls...Hear the bells ringing delicately inside each sphere."

 

THIS IS ONLY A TEST

More funnies from Canada Cat, culled from the Vancouver Sun's journals of grade-school teachers' test papers:

  1. We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk from rayon. He is a larger worm and gives more silk.
  2. One of the main causes of dust is janitors.
  3. A scout obeys all to whom obedience is due and respects all duly constipated authorities.
  4. One by-product of raising cattle is calves.
  5. To prevent head colds, use an agonizer to spray into the nose until it drops into the throat.
  6. The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
  7. The climate is hottest next to the creator.
  8. Oliver Cromwell had a large red nose, but under it were deeply religious feelings.
  9. The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom.
  10. Syntax is all the money collected at the church from sinners.
  11. The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
  12. In spring, the salmon swim upstream to spoon.
  13. Iron was discovered because someone smelt it.
  14. In the middle of the 18th century, all the morons moved to Utah.
  15. One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.

 

I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE COMET!

(Author uncredited, from stef.donev and Marv Wolfman)

You can listen to thunder after lightening and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it you got hit, so never mind...Talc is found on rocks and on babies...The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down...When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions...When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting... Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand... Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction...South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage...Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime...A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go...There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet to be discovered. Finding them all means living forever....

 

AND SPEAKING OF NOT LIVING FOREVER...

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost children while living in the White House.
Both were shot in the head.
Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners.
Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names compromise fifteen letters.
Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And last but not least –

A week before Lincoln was shot he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot he was in Marilyn Monroe.

(From Jerry Stanley via Steve Donev and Mike Harris...)

 

MAN-O-MATIC

TV pitchman and gadget inventor Ron Popeil is responsible for a lot of America's consumerist culture, but he denies responsibility for one part: he insists he has never said "It slices! It dices!" in any of his commercials. The inventor of dozens of gadgets, including the Veg-O-Matic, Mince-O-Matic, Chop-O-Matic, Mr. Microphone, Mr. Dentist, Miracle Broom, Kitchen Magician, Inside-the-Shell Egg Scrambler, GLH-9 (spray-on "hair in a can") and, of course, the Popeil Pocket Fisherman, regrets that someone else beat him to the invention to end all inventions. "The guy who came up with Velcro, that's the real inventor," he admits. "I would give up everything I have created in my life to have thought of Velcro." (AP)

 

TABLE THAT NOTION

Not done with Donev yet, who forwarded some more samples of New Elements for the Periodic Table by readers of The Washington Post:

Canadium Eh: Similar to Americium, but a little denser. Much more rigid. Often called Boron.

Innofensium Pc: Precisely equal numbers of electrons, protons, neutrons, leptons, quarks. Completely inert, utterly useless, but smells like a rose.

Budweisium Ps: Has no taste or smell; is often indistinguishable from water.

Cabmium Cb: Found in abundance, except when needed. Exists in two states, in motion and at rest. When in motion, it cannot be stopped, no matter what you do. Cabmium has a charge associated with it. The charge is variable, and scientists have not determined the formula for calculating it.

Snot Sn: Bonds forever with corduroy.

 

A SINKING FEELING

From my webpage creator, Rich "NASA" Arnold, comes these answers to Gary Goodrow's questions regarding the Titanic article several orbits past:

In 1898, U.S. author Morgan Robertson wrote a story entitled "Futility: or the Wreck of the Titan" about an "unsinkable" luxury liner that struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its April maiden voyage with horrendous loss of life. In April 1912, the Titanic, remarkably similar to the Titan in length, tonnage, number of passengers and shortage of lifeboats, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage, with horrendous loss of life.

Similarly, in 1893 W.T. Stead wrote "From the Old World to the New..." which deals with the sinking of a ship and he also penned an earlier story for the Pall Mall Gazette about an accident with another ship where many lives were lost because there were too few lifeboats.

W.T. Stead -- was lost on the Titanic.

 

POPE POOR-EE

A man who smelled like a distillery flopped on a subway seat next to a priest. The man's tie was stained, his face was plastered with red lipstick, and a half empty bottle of gin was sticking out of his torn coat pocket. He opened his newspaper and began reading. After a few minutes the disheveled guy turned to the priest and asked, "Say, father, what causes arthritis?"

"My poor friend, it's caused by loose living, being with cheap, wicked women, too much alcohol and a contempt for your fellow man."

"Well I'll be damned," the drunk muttered, returning to his paper.

The priest, having second thoughts about what he had just said, nudged the man and apologized. "I'm very sorry. I didn't mean to come on so strong. How long did you have arthritis?"

"I don't have it father. I was just reading here that the Pope does."

 

SPEAKING OF S' POOR...

Allan "Low Moan on the Totem Pole" Shearman sends "A brief hi from the Island of Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, formerly Serendib - from which the word serendipity comes, not the other way round. Sri Lanka, I believe, is Sinhalese for Beautiful Island - but of course you would know that. I have learned to say Happy New Year. While we were here, it was Buddhist New Year, Hindu New Year, and then a few days later, Muslim New Year. Plus they have a National holiday every Full moon (called Poya - don't know how it's spelled) - so it's party party party. We're doing a small movie about Mother Teresa called 'In the Name of God's Poor,' but judging from the stuff littering the streets, I think it should be called In the Name of God's Spoor. Sounds like a British expletive along the lines of Jesus Wept or God's Teeth, doesn't it - God's Spoor!" Ghezeundheit!

 

RANDOM ACTS OF MADNESS

And then Penn Jillette responded to a recent piece as follows: "As far as I know the phrase 'random acts of kindness' was coined by Jenny Holtzer and has some irony attached. Kindness cannot be random. As Lenny Bruce said, 'The only anonymous giver is the guy who knocks up your sister in a taxi cab.'"

And Garry "Good Grief" Goodrow responded thusly to the same stupid piece of random writing: Here's a sixties memory: -- There was a Japanese masseur at Big Sur Hot Springs who introduced me to "The Theory of Asshole Yoga". It is stated as a riddle, like this: "Why is the following statement true? -- If everyone in the world would agree to expose their assholes to the sun for one minute every day, there would be no war." Now, I assure you that the statement is indeed true, and for a very simple reason. What is it?

[Ya have to leave people time to ponder such profound questions, so I'll say goodbye for now.] – GG

 

OK, so will Ay -- PP 4/27/97

 

Published 4/27/97

PLANET PROCTOR
© 1996/2002 by Phil Proctor