Loads of Bon Mots

Welcome to a special non-topical version of these Adventures! Take this one internally and let it work globally!

There are a couple of reasons for going the non-topical route this week. One of them, which also may apply next week, is the little fact that even editors are human (!) and want Christmases and New Yearses off. So I have to turn this in several days before Christmas so that somebody else can have a Wonderful Life.

The other reason that this column is going to be utterly non-topical is that six days ago I fell off a rolling platform and got a significant “owie” involving pain in multiple places. I don’t know about you, but for me pain induces an impatience for the minutiae of the daily news, and turns my thoughts to the universal and timeless. And, where my thoughts go, there I must Adventure also, or my thoughts and I would become separated. (Get it? Advent; advent-ure.)

So what I thought I’d do today is share some little sayings that I either have lived by for years, or just made up recently out of crushing boredom.

“The essence of humor is clown squeezings.” A lot of people misread this one as saying we should go squeeze a clown for jollies. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying hurt begets humor. Some of these are metaphoric, damn it!

“A baby is nothing to sneeze at.” I think that can’t be said often enough.

“When life gives you lemons, pucker up.” I know, it doesn’t quite work, but the meaning comes across anyway, doesn’t it?

“Honesty is the best front.” This is one of my all time favorites. Remember kids; don’t waste your lies getting dimes and candies, cigarettes and kisses. Save your fibs for the big stuff, like escaping the death penalty, or truly worthwhile wide-awake debauchery that you’ll be able to remember when you’re in the rest home while being “tidied up” by the nurse after your daily business.

“Politics is never a dirty word.” Sometimes politicians will counter critics by saying, “You’re just playing politics.” They want to make it a dirty word so they can have it all for themselves. They know that all politics is about the exercise of power, that’s why they want to alienate you from the very word, so you can’t exercise power that you are entitled to. So whenever someone, even be they on your own side, says someone else is just playing politics, you should make vigorous expressions of disapproval.

“If you let a wild pig eat off your ass, it's your fault when he bites it.” That was the cleaned up version. At the moment I’m imagining Karl Rove as the pig, but it could be anybody. “Codependence kills,” is another one in the same vein.

“Never do anything you would be ashamed of. First, stop feeling you should be ashamed of it. Then do it.” Some of these are just plain obvious.

“When a 250 pound man gives the seat next to me to a 90 pound woman, and the bus slams to a halt, the 250 pound man will collide with my face.” I learned this one long before Homelessness Czar Philip Mangano cooked up the whole “house the chronically homeless first” line he’s been selling. I still would add to it though: “Better yet, buy bigger busses, seat everybody.”

“Beating your neighbor’s spouse doesn’t show how much you love your own.” These days what passes for patriotism is really national chauvinism. No one loves any one country that doesn’t first love humanity, as a whole.

“Language matters.” Sticks and stones may break my bones, but the constant abuse of language, especially by authorities, is making slaves out of us all.

This one’s just for me: “My mind is like a Border Collie, it needs to drive sheep.” While you think about that, I’ll get next week’s column ready.
Have a Happy, and may Bono be pleased with the New Year.

Space-time Keeps It's Shape

A Poem Regarding Humor’s Essence,

Or Opus I Lost Count, Can I Get Back to You on That?

by © Dr. Wes Browning

Some say the essence of humor is hostility.

I say it’s clown squeezings.

Extra virgin clown, first cold press.

Some say comedy is always ultimately cruel.

I say, here, have some grated Bozo.

Or, clown-ka-bob, made from tenderized marinated clown.

Or, crushed clown with chives, clown croutons,

or filet of clown, minced mime,

chipped clown on toast,

mime pâté, or clown à la mode

Yes, these are all excellent, I admit,

but I still say the essence of humor is

clown squeezings.

I think it is high time to give credit where credit is due to some of the many wonderful people who help make this paper the constantly changing reality that it is. I don’t know what that has to do with the poem above.

No, wait! Yes I do! I wouldn’t feel so generous if the Real Change weren’t “featuring” me this month. I am feeling heartily squeezed! And look out, I am about to squeeze back! I’m a little garlic, and I’ve got some juices!

I’m being “featured” because I went to Portland. Imagine that. Think what would have happened if I had went all the way to Walla Walla! Or Boise. Or San Jose! Especially since I don’t know where San Jose is. Do you know where San Jose is? Never mind.

As usual I digress. I also exaggerate. I had another reason to think of talking about other people besides me — Stan “two r’s, two s’s, eight lines” Burriss, glorious editor person, remarked in his official editorial capacity last Wednesday, at an official editorial meeting, that he didn’t have a clue where Tent City 3 is anymore, and hadn’t for 4 days.

Let me put this in perspective.

We are talking about Stan Burriss, former president of SHARE (Seattle Housing And I forget what the R and the E stand for. SHARE. You know. Look them up in the phone book. Homeless organization. Runs self-managed shelters, Tent Cities, stuff like that. We’ve written about them three hundred times.)

This is the man who for the last five years, every time there has been a Tent City, of any number, has said to me, “Say, Wes, you know, it wouldn’t hurt you to go up to Tent City and look around. You just might learn something. And you could write about it, and educate people.”

Every time he has said that, I have said, “What? I’m a teacher now? I’m writing a humor column! Knock, knock, is anyone home?”

So do you all see what an amazing turn of events we have witnessed here? If Tent City has had to move so often that Stan Burriss, of all people, can’t keep track of where it is, surely the foundation has moved under our blush and highlight, so to speak, hasn’t it? Or anyway, that’s how I feel about it.

There is another man who is deeply involved with Real Change whom I’d like to talk about. I am speaking of a man who I have known for many, many minutes, nay, days, Scott “SXN” Nodland, Real Change Board Member, once and probably future Treasurer of the Board and Real Change Landlord.

Scott once told me (this is an exact quote) “I want all the money!” That helps explain why those of us at the Real Change affectionately refer to Scott as “our Real Change Yuppy-Scum Landlord.”

Don’t misunderstand, we love our landlord. The expression Yuppy-Scum is just our way of acknowledging that Scott makes both Frazier and Niles Crane look like trailer trash. If there’s a Yuppy in Seattle who can kick Crane butt it’s our Scott! You want to talk Brie? You better know your French provinces buddy, ‘cause our guy is fully armed!

Anyway I’ve gotten carried away again, and have failed to explain that the reason I should be calling attention to Mr. Nodland is that he has somehow managed to become some kind of housing director or other at the Low Income Housing Institute, aka LIHI, aka, some other organization we’ve written about a half zillion or hundred times.

The way I see it, I live in the best of all possible worlds. Tent City keeps finding places to move to, not only faster than the city can follow, but also even faster than Stan can follow. The Real Change maintains a presence on LIHI. Meanwhile, space-time retains it’s shape, as I was sure it would.