Sit Down Comedy … May 15th, 2020

Jonathots Daily Blog

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1777

In the frigid squall of a Nor’easter, a people of revolution discovered themselves without victory, their Declaration of Independence descending into an anemic squeal.

Hopelessness.

1862

American brothers and sisters embroiled in an un-Civil War, where those who still desired a Union were being butchered weekly on the battlefields, bleeding for a lost cause.

Maddening despair.

1929

As the year draws to a close, a nation which has survived a World War, a pandemic flu and a crime spree brought on by Prohibition, is completely swept away by a nationwide depression, making one and all paupers.

A nonsensical horror.

1940

The British Isles left as the only nation standing between civilization and complete domination by a tyrant from Germany.

Terror from the skies.

2001

The sunshine over New York City, Washington, D.C. and eastern Pennsylvania is suddenly blackened by the religious fanaticism of men who thought they were doing the will of God.

Breathless devastation.

For the human race to have no apparent solution or doorway to possibility is nothing new.

Covid-19 is not a worse adversary than terrorism, Nazis, financial devastation, slavery and domination by a foreign power.

We just need to hear the words again.

Someone needs to speak them, and then we need to say them to one another and continue reciting them until our brains sprout minds of wisdom to guide us to the next step in restoring our dominion on Earth.

Covid is a virus—it has not come to replace us.

We are not its servants.

We are not without insight, history and potential.

The words need to be spoken:

“There is no temptation that is not common to all men. But God shall provide the way of escape.”

Somewhere between our American brethren who want to save their political asses, and the members of our family, who are halted in fear and don’t know what to do is the necessity of hearing a George Washington, an Abraham Lincoln, a Franklin Roosevelt, a Winston Churchill, and yes—Rudy Giuliani.

• We are not going to walk out of this.
• We are not going to crawl out of this.
• We will need to define a realistic plan that leaves room for error and adjustment.

And then, as a people…

We must march out of this.

Sit Down Comedy … December 13th, 2019

Jonathots Daily Blog

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The fellow told his buddy that he just saw the fattest guy he had viewed in months.

The lady at the deli remarked that she had met the kindest man.

The woman recalled that forty years earlier she was sexually harassed by a dude who was silly and too flirtatious.

The family on Laurel Street thanked God for the gentleman who helped pay their rent.

The little boys were so excited about meeting the guy at the mall, who they knew must be the real Santa.

The audience gave a standing ovation for the masterful performance.

The mentally ill man lamented the asshole he insisted ruined his life.

The married couple was humbled by the counsel from the man who assisted them in saving their union.

The sister-in-law was bitter because the brother missed his mother’s funeral.

The waitress stared at the huge tip in her hand, which came from the stranger.

The landlord was offended that his tenant skipped out, leaving unpaid rent.

The reader was transformed by the author’s prose.

In all cases, the person lamented and loved…

…is me.

Sit Down Comedy … July 26th, 2019

Jonathots Daily Blog

(4117)

Father Abraham had two sons.

Two sons had Father Abraham.

One was born of slave. His name was Confederate.

The other—Union—was birthed in free will.

Confederate worked very hard planting the land, establishing a close-knit home where family was honored above all and faith was treasured. In the household of Confederate, change was feared, opening the door to superstition, aggravation and an unrighteous pride about race.

Union, on the other hand, sat on the cusp of a great industrial revolution, where a man’s work was in a line of assembly, his home perched in the midst of hundreds of other families. Union believed his faith was better expressed by his deeds, and that change was the only way to frighten superstition and dispel racial baiting.

Father Abraham understood both of his sons.

After all, he, himself, was conceived and reared in blue grass but nurtured in a spring field.

But try as he would, Father Abraham was unable to bring the boys to cooperation. They argued, they struggled, and eventually they chose to fight. Just short of the last drop of blood flowing from their veins, peace was sought.

It was a tenuous agreement, and even while the ink was drying on the pages of the treaty, a friend of Confederate killed Father Abraham.

It enraged Union.

It made Confederate defensive, feeling compelled to explain the sinister deed.

Even to this day, the two brothers are segregated, isolated in their politics and their traditions—one believing that life is more a “state of mind,” and the other rallying behind “we, the people.”

Father Abraham had two sons.

Two sons had Father Abraham.

I am one of them

And so are you

So let’s just praise the Lord.

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The C Word … February 19th, 2019

THE

WORD

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Jonathots Daily Blog

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When I sat down to consider “the C word,” many grotesque possibilities came to mind. I will not go into the ones I rejected. They are obviously repugnant or too controversial to even give utterance.

Instead, I chose a peculiar one because it is subtle and might even seem to be positive until you carefully study the history of its drastic devastation.

So the C word—the word that should never be used again or even spoken—is CULTURE.

For eighty-five years in this nation, we fostered, promoted, advertised, argued and finally fought over a fictitious cultural difference.

Here was the contention:

Mason liked fried potatoes. Dixon preferred grits.

Yankee Doodle drank beer and brandy, while Johnny Reb preferred whiskey and moonshine.

The North favored a Union. The South touted states’ rights.

Missy, a woman living north of the line, spent time working in the fields with her husband, planting, while the Dixie chicks pretended to be more fragile, appearing dainty.

Mason didn’t have slaves. Dixon did.

But Dixon didn’t call it “slave labor.”  Working under the guise of business, these folks who were shipped in from Africa were addressed as “field hands,” for it was the commerce of the South—and King Cotton required serfs to work, and black ones seemed to be more suited for the heat and the burden.

For eighty-five years, we pretended it was a “cultural difference.”

Men we extol as the founders of our nation, ignorantly hid behind debate, hoping it would disguise the atrocity.

It came down to a simple question:

You say slave, I say worker—almost a member of my family.

You say a person and I claim property.

You interrupt my culture and I wail and squeal about states’ rights.

We thought we could compromise, tolerate, negotiate and even appease one another. There were so many compromises that we started naming them after states, like Missouri. There were so many times we thought we had it worked out on paper, negotiating a deal or producing a favorable agreement, that many people were shocked when this “culture problem” created a Civil War which killed three-quarters of a million people.

And the fires of that conflict still smolder to this day.

We thought we could handle cultural difference. We believed we could let bygones be bygones.

But a cultural crisis was brought on by the crisis of culturing.

The truth is, human beings become viable to one another when they insist on similarities and pursue commonality.

You can eat your potatoes and drink your liquor any way you want.

But free will, justice and equality cannot be negotiated.

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G-Poppers … February 2nd, 2018

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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President Trump is not a moron. He is also not a genius.

Although there are proponents who would suggest that he falls into one or the other of these categories, the truth of the matter is that Donald Trump is President of the United States. He achieved this by campaigning and receiving the lion’s share of the electoral votes.

G-Pop wants to make this clear.

G-Pop is the veteran of many presidents and can tell you that most of them were accused of moral indiscretion, the majority considered crazy, and all of them touted to be dictators who over-extended their power.

It is important to understand the nature, the function and the mission of the job.

Most of the time the President of the United States is not negotiating with foreign powers nor plotting global wars.

He is the closest thing to a daddy that 320 million immigrants have.

As our daddy, it is his job to provide a sense of security and a voice of kindness. That’s it.

G-Pop’s not even sure if it’s a political position. Approaching it from that angle only seems to render the job mean-spirited, stalling action and legislation.

He is our father, who art in Washington–and maybe someday, our mother who art at the White House.

Questioning the morality, sanity, motives, hidden meetings or deceptions of our President is just political maneuvering to gain control of our country.

What the position really requires is kindness.

No one understood that better than Abraham Lincoln. Although President Lincoln had good reason to be furious over the attitudes of the Southern states, his second inaugural speech characterized his tenderness toward his children in Dixie by saying, “With malice toward none, with charity for all…”

Yet every President G-Pop knows has selected to be vindictive against his enemies, contending that if you don’t punch back, they’ll just punch harder. But Abraham Lincoln, in four short years, saved the Union, freed the slaves and was able to end a horrible conflict.

Did he do it by being mean?

Did he do it by being angry and sending out nasty notes to his enemies?

Did he do it by sleeping with his interns?

Did he do it by torturing the prisoners of the Confederate Army?

No, he did it as kindly as a man can do when waging a war against insanity.

Kindness is when we look in the mirror and practice the words we’re going to say to another to get a sense of how it might feel.

You don’t have to be a moron or a genius to be President.

But G-Pop wants you to know that it’s the mission of our President to allow kindness to flow to the north, south and east…from the West Wing.

 

 

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Abe-bull … August 2, 2012

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Of the forty-four men who have held the position of the highest office in our land, Abraham Lincoln may be one of the few who actually understood the job.

Being President of the United States demands that you comprehend the magnitude of the mission while having a mind for the messiness. You must deal with the threat of your time, keep the nation at peace in its heart, while finding a way to disregard the many voices in Congress which would steer the ship toward the rocks. Of course, being the best at something does mean you’re going to be the most criticized. For after all, everybody has an opinion on everything, which they will gladly share with everyone, and it always ends up being a little wrong every time.

Abraham Lincoln, Republican candidate for the presidency, 1860 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So if the name of Abraham Lincoln is brought up, you just might hear:

• a tyrant (for after all, he did suspend many personal rights in the pursuit of keeping the country together)
• a racist (the point being that he never really wanted to free the slaves, just scare away the English and French from assisting the South)
• a hick (certainly reaching for his napkin instead of using his sleeve was not Abe’s first instinct)
• a lousy husband (there are those who felt the problems with Mary Todd were due to Lincoln’s insensitivity)
• an abused husband (in contrast, some felt that Mary Todd’s insanity held Lincoln back from even greater conclusions)
• a Yankee (anyone south of the Mason Dixon line certainly had no problem voicing this thought)
• stubborn (well, if you consider that he stood against almost everybody at some time or another)
• honest (that was his campaign slogan, you know–Honest Abe)
• a lawyer (he was licensed to do so, though didn’t spend a tremendous amount of time in that pursuit)
• had a girl’s voice (he was known for his whiney tone and high pitch)
• a failure (by the way, if you’re keeping score, he actually lost that Lincoln-Douglas debate)
• awkward (what’s the old saying? He was too tall for his feet)
• an abolitionist (the average plantation owner didn’t see any reason for sticking up for black people unless they were trying to woo one late at night in the slave quarters)
• a gay man (yes, there is some sort of report that he shared his bed on cold nights with a male traveling companion) and most recently…
• a vampire hunter (no idea on that one)

There you go. Obviously, all of these things can’t be true and what is true is probably lost in antiquity. So most of the opinions of people nowadays would just be what I call Abe-bull.

Here’s what we do know–of the two most important questions posed to Abraham Lincoln, he answered them in such a way that it brought dignity to his memory. And those two questions are simple: what is the best of my understanding of the present situation? So therefore, looking at myself and my abilities, what can I do?

There were many people who lived in Abraham Lincoln’s day who had a grasp of the problem but were frightened of the solution. To Lincoln, it was easy. His understanding of the situation was that the United States was a union of people who believed that all men are created equal. So therefore, he decided to maintain the integrity of that union at all cost, and in the process, set in motion a mission to make us equal.

Now, Richard Nixon came along at a time when the country was embroiled in a never-ending war, social upheaval and confusion, with our sons being returned in body bags every single day. His response to that was to elongate the war, increase the bombing and lie to the American people about his actions, culminating in a cover-up that nearly emotionally destroyed this country.

Judas Iscariot lived in a day when his nation was being occupied by the Roman Empire, and he believed there was a need for a leader to come along and save them, allowing them the freedom to be themselves in worship. But when he met a man who had a message of love for the entire world, he opted to reject him and betray him because the solution was not totally on point with his own thinking.

Franklin Roosevelt came along at a time when the country was in a depression and eventually involved in a war, and rather than following previously policy or even reasonable thinking, he created jobs (often made up) and generated a pathway which eventually led us out of the financial ruin, mainly due to our involvement in a war to destroy fascism.

Jesus of Nazareth came to the earth when some of the worst domination and violence that ever existed was in full swing, and instead of feeding the frenzy of revenge, he asked men to seek out their own talents to make the world a better place. And because they decided to remain vicious, he was willing to become their savior instead of just their teacher.

Can I tell you folks, I have been called fat, generous, stubborn, liberal, conservative, a heretic, a preacher, a singer, a squawker, a musician, a hack, a husband, a meanie, a saint, a sinner, a lover, a fumbler, a Yankee, a Rebel, and most recently, a gypsy troubadour (I assume similar to being a vampire hunter).

I ignore all of these assertions. I follow the philosophy of Abraham Lincoln, so I take a look at the world around me and I come up with this: to the best of my understanding, God loves people and wants them to expand and succeed. So therefore, I think I should let them know of this great opportunity in as many ways as possible.

There are two ways to live in this world. You can listen to all the news reports or you can go out and make some good news.

It’s up to you.

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