Sit Down Comedy … January 10th, 2020

Jonathots Daily Blog

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About a week ago I woke up grumpy.

I don’t do it often, but every once in a while I set aside the time, just to stay in practice.

Usually during these grumpy mornings I am well out of my mood by the time I enter into the actual work of the day. But on this particular occasion, I languished in my self-pity and remained grumpy well past the noon hour.

When I finally emerged from my dark cloud, a thought came to my mind. I realized that I had luxuriated in my vice of “cranky,” never considering that if my reaction—my temperament—were multiplied by eight billion, we would be in a helluva lot of trouble.

What would happen if the entire world woke up grumpy?

Certainly by nightfall—and I do not exaggerate—we would be involved in a thermonuclear war. We would blow everybody’s ass to Kingdom Come for daring to be grumpy on the morning we had reserved for the privilege.

Think about it.

We’re always so critical of life—and even one another—yet fortunately, we don’t all decide to go nutzoid at the same time.

There’s always someone who, when the idea of bungy jumping comes up, frowns and expresses some negative points that eventually bring the room to sense, which prevents us from jumping off a bridge head-first, at the mercy of an exaggerated rubber band.

Moving on from grumpy…

How about hungry?

If every person in the world woke up hungry—all eight billion of us—we’d have a situation.

Because the truth is, everyone in the world does wake up hungry. But fortunately, most of them don’t complain because all they have for their bagel is unflavored cream cheese. If the whole world woke up hungry and fussy over the choices provided, by nightfall the entire face of this planet would be overrun in terrorism.

How about horny?

Would we be dealing with rape and incest, not to mention a proliferation of babies conceived that we might not be prepared for?

Just simply this: if everybody in the world—all eight billion souls—decided next Tuesday to wake up sleepy (as I oft contend to be) how many airplane crashes would there be?

It is fortunate—even divinely inspired—that the human race does not destroy itself merely by sharing common vices at exactly the same moment.

Can you imagine four hundred people going to the DMV on Magnolia Street on the same day, who all arrive in a murderous rage?

It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Yield to Oncoming Traffic.”

Don’t you find this significant?

Stop—let this change your life.

We are not alone. If we were alone, we would find a way to line up our bad attitudes in agreement, point them at one another and destroy all that we are.

In the midst of every grumpy, hungry, horny and sleepy human gathering, there are some souls who have have chosen to wake up

…kind.

Yay-yay!

Sometimes it’s a choice. There are special occasions when the pillow is exceptionally soft, and the mercy of a good night’s sleep turns us almost angelic.

But every single day, if four billion people wake up nasty, then, in order to balance things out, we are required to have four billion waking up kind.

And these kind people provide three essential gifts:

1. They water down the hate so it’s not so poisonous.
2. They spice up the boredom, so it doesn’t cause us to have a cranial meltdown.
3. And they sweeten the disposition, so we do not aggravate one another.

The world is not without hope.

Every day, it is basically a numbers game.

G-Poppers … May 5th, 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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Old people don’t like to change.

Perhaps better stated, older folks think they’ve done all the changing they need to do.

It fascinates G-Pop that we spend so much time trying to appease the tastes, mentality and standards of individuals who have basically retired their dispositions, and use much of their gray matter considering longevity.

Perhaps it’s the fact that once we’re given our first prescription for high blood pressure and cholesterol, we are forever lost to discussing our treatments. Is it because older folks accumulated all the savings bonds and property, and seem to be in power?

The wealth of our nation actually lies in the elasticity of young minds–the flexibility of those who have not yet determined what color they would like their den to be painted.

It’s why Jesus said that the message of the Gospel is geared to the child-like mind, and only those who are willing to acquire such thinking can truly comprehend it. It is also why Jesus said you can’t put new wine into old wineskins. When the fermentation produces expansion, the old skins literally explode.

Yet children are relegated to a status of property, propaganda and proof of our prowess and parenting. So we ask:

• What are your grades?
• What do you like about school?
• What do you want to be when you grow up?
• What do you think of your teachers?

We trap our offspring into a prison of education and tell them not to contact us until they’ve graduated reformed. So they mimic us. It’s what they’re taught to do.

So rather than having a cultural and social revolution with every generation, causing us to grow in intelligence and openness to one another, we implant the prejudice and bigotry of the former generation firmly into the minds of those who are haplessly controlled by us because they live in our homes and feast at our tables.

We’re missing an opportunity. And because we’re ignoring it, we are condemning ourselves to more wars in the same areas of the world–just with new names.

Teach your children. Teach them well.

Otherwise they’ll end up with their father’s hell.

And here’s what G-Pop thinks we should teach them:

1. Love people.

There is no better species due to arrive. You can live with the monkeys or dine with the lions, but you will eventually find that their habits are even worse than your brothers and sisters living next door. People are the best that God offers us. If you’re upset about it, contact the Creator. He has not made a more magnificent contraption, and there is no sign that He’s upgrading the model. Love people or die complaining.

2. Respect people.

Get rid of your color charts. Get rid of your expectations. Keep your moral code to yourself. If you have a plan of salvation, enjoy it, but don’t force feed it to anyone else. Every human being is given three square feet of influence, and once you step out of your own, realize you are trespassing. Don’t be surprised if you get shot.

3. Work with people.

Working with people is easy. You listen, then you try. Just make sure that the trying is a test and not selling out completely. In other words, if you’re going to dye a piece of cloth, it’s a good idea to cut off a small unit and try the dye on it first, to see how it takes. As long as we’re willing to be wrong, working with people can be quite fun. But when we insist that we “have to be right” because we’re invested in the project and therefore need to make excuses for the failure–then we become obnoxious paper clip counters.

It’s rather doubtful that you can take anyone over the age of forty-five on a journey to love people, respect people and work with people.

Pick your target market. It will be the children of the Earth who still don’t have enough assets to sit on their asses.

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Val’s Pals … February 14, 2012

 

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Valentine’s Day–a delivery system for chocolate, flowers, jewelry, aftershave, golf shirts and miscellaneous power tools. Yet–is it more than that? It could be–if we actually focused on relationship instead of just commemorating a once-great union of hearts.

 

In my lifetime, I have watched as the pendulum has swung from the extreme of Father Knows Best to “Mama Knows Everything.” There is a general misconception in dealing with interaction between the sexes that some sort of cushioning or compromise MUST be established–because we apparently are from different planets, arriving on spaceships fueled by diverse energy. Because of this false representation, we seek to compliment or ignore one another in the pursuit of domination. Domination is useless, especially when it comes to interfacing with someone we purport to love.

 

Yet in the times when Father was supposed to be the All Knowing, women were underpaid, not considered worthy of leadership on a national level (or even high management in corporations), a little unpredictable and ditzy and meant for the home, not the battlefield–be it war, politics or business.

 

Move ahead through years of alleged women’s liberation and cultural growth, and today we insist that women are smarter than men, as we continue to underpay them, forbid them high seats in government and the Fortune 500, think they’re very unpredictable and ditzy and keep them far from the front lines of the war–be it commercial, cultural or military.

 

So what has changed? All we have done is play a pretend game: “Women are really smarter than men, but after all, we don’t need smarter. We’ve got men!”

 

As long as the goal in any relationship is to dominate, we will never truly understand one another, no matter how many boxes of chocolates, bunches of flowers or trinkets are peddled. Somewhere along the line, we have to understand that true friendship is neither complimenting or ignoring, but rather, trying to stay on point and being as honest as we can, while dancing around trying not to offend.

 

If a woman can’t find that in her mate, she will have a best friend she converses with and a husband she tolerates.  May I immediately point out that merely tolerating another human being is not the greatest aphrodisiac to lead into the bedroom? So then we get to preach that “women don’t like sex and men do.”

 

Now, this particular Mexican standoff doesn’t vary, whether in the secular or in the religious realm. The religious community believes that men should dominate and that women should raise the children and take care of the household. In some religions they’re even willing to cut off her sexual organs to make sure she doesn’t forget her mission.

 

In the secular community, the pretense is that women are much smarter, more organized and able to direct, while simultaneously they are relegated to a submissive position where they are basically housewives, even in the office (coffee and comfort), and they’re disemboweled sexually by being forbidden true authority.

 

Here’s my suggestion–let’s do something special on this Valentine’s Day. You don’t have to reject the power of the flower or the thrill of the drill, but you might want to sit down and have a conversation with the person you say you love that begins with this statement:

 

“Honestly… Well, I am not always honest with you, but instead, compliment or ignore you because I foolishly think, because of my training, that I am supposed to dominate you. I would like to stop that and instead, maybe for the first time in our journey together, find out who you are and what you want … and ditto for me.”

 

Now, if I thought the farce of “romantic America” could continue without creating chaos, I would never even bring up the subject. After all, America believes that McDonald’s makes the best hamburger and really, no harm, no “fowl.” But when you think that complimenting or ignoring your love to create domination is the best way to interact with another human being, while internally you find them obtuse or irrelevant, there is a nasty hypocrisy going on that will eventually flare up and decimate your contentment.

 

This is why we often step back and say, “I never thought they would get a divorce.”

 

Just removing domination from a relationship allows for two people to actually begin to talk again. The reason we didn’t like dating is because we had to chat. It is exactly the reason we should return to it.

 

So if you look at Val’s Pals on this day, they are  com through gifts and the action of ignoring expressed by pretending that somehow or another we forgot that it was a special day. It is all an inglorious ploy to create domination. Neither Father nor Mother know best.

 

Actually, we never get the best until Father and Mother learn how to communicate with each other.

 

 

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Below is the first chapter of Jonathan Richard Cring’s stunning novel entitled Preparing a Place for Myself—the story of a journey after death. It is a delicious blend of theology and science fiction that will inspire and entertain. I thought you might enjoy reading it. After you do, if you would like to read the book in its entirety, please click on the link below and go to our tour store. The book is being offered at the special price of $4.99 plus $3.99 shipping–a total of $8.98. Enjoy.

http://www.janethan.com/tour_store.htm

Sitting One

 I died today. 

I didn’t expect it to happen.  Then again, I did—well, not really.

No, I certainly didn’t expect it.

I’ve had moments of clarity in my life.  Amazingly enough, many of them were in the midst of a dream. For a brief second I would know the meaning of life or the missing treatment to cure cancer.  And then as quickly as it popped into my mind it was gone. I really don’t recollect dying.  Just this unbelievable sense of clear headedness—like walking into a room newly painted and knowing by the odor and brightness that the color on the wall is so splattering new that you should be careful not to touch it for fear of smearing the design. The greatest revelation of all? 

Twenty-five miles in the sky time ceases to exist.

The planet Pluto takes two hundred and forty-eight years to circle the sun. It doesn’t give a damn. 

The day of my death was the day I became free of the only burden I really ever had.  TIME.

Useless.

Time is fussy.  Time is worry. 

Time is fear.  Time is the culprit causing human-types to recoil from pending generosity. 

There just was never enough time. 

Time would not allow it.  Remember—“if time permits …”

Why if time permits?  Why not if I permit?  Why not if I dream?  Why not if I want?  Why does time get to dictate to me my passage? 

It was time that robbed me of my soulful nature.    It was time that convinced me that my selfishness was needed. 

I didn’t die. The clock in me died, leaving spirit to tick on.  

So why don’t we see the farce of time?  Why do we allow ourselves to fall under the power of the cruel despot?  Yes, time is a relentless master—very little wage for much demand.

I died today. 

Actually … a piece of time named after me was cast away.

Teaspoonology … February 13, 2012

 

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I understand and I am certainly not offended.  To the mindset of the average person in our hectic society, my little  philosophy seems frivolous, if not futile. I call it “teaspoonology.”

 

I have no grandiose notion that my contribution to life is going to come in some sort of magnanimous flood of information and wisdom. But daily I am provided a teaspoon–and I realize that I’m going to dump that portion into a vast ocean of life.

 

You might wonder how I was introduced to my particular brand of teaspoonology. Some years ago I noticed that “sour” was becoming the countenance, the taste, the thinking and reaction of those around me. A puckered face became the preferred visage.  It was like we had all decided that life was meant to be just a little bitter, so why fight it? And it was ushered in along with the assertion that presenting reality meant studying the dark side of humanity.

 

There was once a time when our literature, art, religion and politics presented our more bleak options as obscure, unnecessary and escapable. But then that changed. Goodness became the elusive; mediocrity and evil became the commonplace. It “soured up” the flavor of human life. So that’s why I decided to take my little teaspoon of contribution afforded to me every day of my life and sweeten it. So when it is added into life’s mix, for a brief time there is just a hint of a change in taste. Within moments it gets stirred in and the more discriminating soul might be able to notice the subtle difference.

 

I have discovered that I don’t have more than a teaspoon, but I do have the power to make sure that the elixir I add becomes sweeter and sweeter as I adjust its intensity. Yes–more potent with the nectar of possibility instead of adding vinegar to the already-tainted contents. For after all, what power is there in succumbing to stupidity? What joy in insisting that only sadness rules the roost? What victory in bowing one’s head in the presence of death instead of fighting to the end? It is my little concept of struggling against what most people would consider to be inevitable.

• Yes, I am angry at religion. It makes people believe they have no hope unless they embrace a God they are told they can’t understand.
• Yes, I am infuriated with politics.  It persists in a message of doom and gloom in order to garner a vote which grants power which is rarely used to improve anything.
• Yes, I am baffled by an entertainment industry which tantalizes us with images of our creature instead of the possibilities of our creative.

But I will not allow my anger to overcome my mission–and that particular odyssey is quite simple: to take my teaspoon of contribution, sweeten it more each and every day and faithfully drizzle it onto the great concoction before me.

 

It is a childlike precept. May I share it with you? “Since no one is better than anyone else, let’s ease up, take our teaspoon … and sweeten the pot.”

 

Does it work? Case in point:

 

When I arrived at my present lodging location, I met a maid who services the rooms and befriended her. I gave her a few dollars for her generous work and treated her as I would want to be treated if I found myself in her station. Last night, when I went to perform my final show at Cokesbury United Methodist Church, I left a bag of money in my room accidentally–not realizing that the maid was going to come in and clean my room. When I came back and saw the room was spotless, my mind immediately went to that vulnerable clump of cash. You know what happened? Even though she had to move the money to do her cleaning, she restored it in entirety to its proper place. An honest woman, true. But might she have been tempted to be dishonest if her first encounter with me had been a jolt of sour instead of a teaspoon of sweet? I don’t know–and I don’t care.

 

I am determined to take my teaspoon and blend it into the broth of daily life, working on increasing the intensity of its potential while encouraging others to simply reject the sour and embrace the sweet. It was my message yesterday. It will be my message tomorrow.

 

I do not think we can change the world by insisting that the world is too big to change.

I do not think we can personally be happy as long as we spend most of our time in despair over the unhappiness that surrounds us.

 

Somehow or another, we need to purify our teaspoon of involvement, sweeten it up and pour it in. If enough people would do it, it might alter the taste of our society just enough that others might notice and want more of the flavor. Certainly it is a piece of idealism, but without it, we are left dumping our refuse of bitterness into the common pot.

 

And this I know: the only way to truly stop misery is to refuse to participate in its insanity.

 

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Jonathan wrote the gospel/blues anthem, Spent This Time, in 1985, in Guaymas, Mexico. Take a listen:

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http://www.janethan.com/tour_store.htm