 The Heat Monster has returned! We're looking at several days of 3-digit temperatures here in southern Oregon, so please, sit back and enjoy a few more episodes from my Bad-Ass Chicken Stories of the 1970s. Of course I am stunned by the horrible, Cecil-murdering dentist, Donald Trump, and the continuing stories of shoot-happy cops, but you can read about that anywhere...  
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 I took a brief trip to the underworld the other day. I responded to a friend’s post on Facebook, of her Chihuahua taking a dump on a picture of Obama. Usually when I see crude, hateful attempts at political humor, I ignore them. But this one came right after a wonderful breakfast I shared with my husband on a Saturday morning, and it pissed me off. I’d post it, but you probably get the idea. I’ll admit, early in my Facebook days I got criticized for posting a picture of Honey Boo-Boo. I took my friend’s comment with grace, and vowed not to post any more pictures of Honey Boo-Boo, her family, or Walmart people. These days my Facebook page allows friends to disagree with me, but mostly we like to entertain and enlighten each other, play games, support each other through sadness and difficult times, share the highlights and triumphs of our lives, and even complain, occasionally. I just couldn’t let this one go. I commented to the poster, as did several of my left-leaning friends, that her picture was offensive; that hatefulness and disrespect are not “family values.” Then came the barrage of right-wing response from her friends. It was Stephen King-ish,* as if a portal to the underworld had opened, exposing a dark legion of teeth-gnashing, confederate flag-waving, gun-toting, Obama-hating venoms. I’m not so naïve as to presume they haven’t existed all along. Crude, political humor has been around since newspapers began to be printed. Probably on stone walls, come to think of it. Even worse, we seem to have a “shooter of the week” these days, and people gather in great numbers to let us know that open-carry’s a cool thing, neo-nazis and white supremacists rule, and by cracky, the south may rise again. So I don’t need to be reminded that hateful, narrow-minded people roam the earth. I can look at the news any time. You would be amazed (or maybe not) at how many people rallied to my erstwhile friend’s defense, telling her how much they enjoyed that picture. Comments directed at me ranged from “Get off Facebook!” to “Some people have no sense of humor,” “Just let it go!” “America was founded on hatred and disrespect,” and my personal favorite: “As a republican, I think a little poop is ok.” Luckily, I’m striving to perceive events that sting as growth opportunities. (Or, as my father used to say, “With all this horseshit, there must be a horse in here somewhere.”) I remembered that I’d had a propensity to “stuff” my feelings. Early on, I learned that I would be safer if I kept my opinions to myself, thereby avoiding loud, scary, confrontational scenes. I adopted the groovy, “It’s all good” attitude, (which I still have, but with highly improved borders). All this culminated in a persona which did little more than merit me the status of either a doormat, or a mascot. My therapist characterizes this as “letting people throw their ca-ca at you.” I imagined I was taking the high road by letting offensive insults and degradations “roll by." But they didn’t, really. I caught them and stuffed them deep inside where they festered, because the aggressors always got away with the abuse, and they and I both knew it. Stuffing is dangerous stuff! Think of it as a figurative, psychological form of packing peanuts that can manifest in all sorts of ways that compromise a person’s health, well-being, self-esteem, and personal appearance. So which is more painful? Standing one’s ground, opening up to the possibility of insult, discouragement, harassment, denial and ridicule? Or stuffing one’s feelings, prompting the cumulative regret of never having said how you really feel (plus all those psychological packing peanuts)? I’m passing on the stuffing. In fact, I’m on an endeavor to let all my old, accumulated packing peanuts go! The sensation of standing my ground has become deliciously empowering, and I get better with practice. As for the insults, I figure I can easily rinse them off in the shower. * I like Stephen King! I didn’t for a long time, until I read 11/22/63, prompting a 180° reversal on my part. I haven’t stopped loving his writing since.   This week I’ll be tooting someone else’s horn for a change. My husband Wayne celebrates the 5th anniversary of his podcast, The El Wayno Loco Show.
Like many of us, he rose from humble beginnings as a music lover who made “shows” on cassette tapes and sent them to friends. Then he spent eight years honing his skills as a mobile DJ in Austin, Texas. He continued to make shows for friends. In fact, that’s how he got me. When we reconnected after 36 years (we were high school smootch-mates who drifted apart in the 70s), he began sending me some of his custom shows. Serendipity stepped in, and brought us through the aughts, to 2010, when he got a gig at a community radio station in Ashland. He sharpened and upgraded his skills in a weekly, digital format for another year or so. After leaving “The Little Station That Couldn’t,” he began creating his own weekly, unfettered, three-hour podcasts a week later, from his own studio, without missing a beat. Why the name, "El Wayno Loco?" According to Wayne, he "didn't want the show's title to be defined by any particular form of music." His CD collection does however, include several versions of the soundtrack to the movie Psycho. But enough about chronology. The man is a savant; a veritable encyclopedia of popular music. The choices of songs and the manner in which he weaves them together are magic. Most shows have a theme, such as “Chillaxin’ At The Beach,” “Perchance To Dream,” and the fantastically popular three-part series, “One-Hit Wonders of the 1960s.” Each one is like floating on an enchanted sea, its segues flowing together with a delightful sense of acuity. He draws upon rock, folk, ska, Americana, British pop, R&B, and the occasional movie soundtrack. His introductions to each show are often comical, peppered with sound bytes curious enough to cause the likes of Svengoolie to blush. You can download any one of over 250 shows at the free archive.org site, where he has his own page. His shows range from three to four, sometimes five hours long, and they've been downloaded over 28,000 times. Toot! So tune in, download a show, and enjoy!  The Heat Monster is still with us. The temperature, (or "tempacher," as the local TV meteorologists pronounce it, which drives my husband to distraction) has been near 110° every day for more than a week. So how about a little comic relief from a strip I used to do in the 70s: Bad-Ass Chicken Stories! They were based on a real story of a poultry truck that crashed on the LA freeway, sending its chickens into the brush by the road, where they lived and became a nuisance, according to a story we saw on the Johnny Carson Show. Eventually, the police came up with the idea of soaking chicken feed in wine and feeding it to the chickens, who were eventually caught. But not before I, with the help of my late friend, Phil Bewley, came up with this cartoon.  |
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