Grey Pride

Despite what biblical-misinterpreting Pentecostal whites have to say about "pride goeth before new home construction" or something, the station house is of a mind that pride is a healthy thing. Pride in a job well done. Pride in a home and family well tended. Pride in a committed union of conditional love. All are things to be, yes, proud of. Pride in your homeland, mixed race or transparent gender. Pride in one's church community, parochial school or university of two years (prior to a forced exiting for repeated, drunken exhibitionings on game days.) Pride in one's physicality? Why bloody not, if yours is a body of desirable tonality that you enjoy photographing in the mirror of the downstairs lav, unbeknownst to your mister or missus, a body that has the Tinderers® swiping and construction crews hooting, howling and falling off high beams paralyzing them from the neck down? Pride in the gifts bestowed upon you by a hemp-sandaled, long-haired Lorde? Pride in you eyes as blue as the sky blue-hued vodka you carry in your napsack? Pride in fulsome head of wavy grey hair at fifty? Pride, which is to Grey Pride? Pride! As we think of it, if you elect to carry yourself in one of the many Grey Pride™ Parades dotting the landscape on either side of the pond this last day of June, loud and proud in a crowd with other prideful, Dago-T-shirted, grey-haired blokes and birds, one hopes you've do so with pride! As something of a closeted grey, Yours Truly Dooley™ stands alongside you, arm-in-age-spotted arm, helmeted, yes, but with grey hair undercover, parted on the left. Methinks pride goeth down like a flask of warm, buttered rum and bowel-relieving Smooth Move® tea. Share some with your parading friends, but keep an eye trained for the portable toileting stations along the route. #Pride!

Rascal Flattened

Celebrating a Deathday™ (June 30, 1993): Chubster child star George "Spanky" McFarland from the “Our Gang” television series died of a heart attack on this day in Grapevine, Texas. When he passed, the formerly adorable scene stealer was said to be carrying the trademark blubber that endeared him to audiences back in the day. Born October 2, 1928 in Denison, Texas, Spanky got his start in show business modeling fat kids' clothing for a Dallas department store and was also seen in print adverts for Wonder Bread®, which we imagine he ate to his meaty little heart muscle’s content. He joined the “Our Gang” crew in 1932 and enjoyed a ten-year run with rascally mates Alfalfa, Buckwheat and that oily-haired little weasel who grew up to be Barretta. After hanging up his 3-piece suits and saddle shoes, Spanky went on to serve a stint in the U.S. Air Force and later host an afternoon children’s show before steering his soapbox derby car into the music world where he was a guitar strummer in the poppy curiosity Spanky & Our Gang. He and the gangbangers charted with delightful ditties such as “Sunday Will Never Be The Same (As Saturday),” “Like To Get To Know You (In The Biblical Sense)” and “Lazy Day (A Laggard’s Anthem),” before Spanky made a U-turn back to his natty, Rascalian roots, making in-character appearances at golf tourneys, charity auctions and on the telly with plaid-suited, chunk-heeled talk show grinner Mike Douglas. Today, the station house fondly salutes George “Spanky” McFarland. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, Citizen Gangsta.

Nice Day For A Wiccan Wedding

If Memory Swerves™, ‘twas on this day in history (June 28, 1919) that one Harry U.S. Truman wed his bewitched betrothed Beth Wallace in an unincorporated forest preserve outside of Independence, Missouri. The costumed groom and his masquerading intended were pronounced man and wife in a traditional Wiccan handfasting ceremony, with a descendant of the Roman god Neptune® on hand to give away the bride (pictured). The Truman's was an unconventional love story, first told in serial installments in the weekly broadsheet The Independence Registrar and later adapted into the film “When Harry Met Sally," because “When Harry Met Beth” sounded too much like bloody “Hairy MacBeth.” The famously short-tempered future president was a romantic in his younger days, telling a friend that Beth had the "most beautiful golden curls and blue eyes." He told another friend that "the curve of her derriere could cause a weaker man to drop." He continued to up the ante when tactfully informing his hillbilly cousins in Kansas City that “she is of sturdy hymen.” In the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines, he was heard to utter, “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that,” which is to say, consent to be married in the Church of the Freemasons, setting the stage for Beth's conversion to a proper pagan faith. After his turn in the Armed Forces, Truman toiled in an Amish space heater facility by day and moonlighted as a magician, before turning to law, civil service and all the rest of it. At the wedding ceremony, after the traditional gutting of the forest animal and spilling of the blood, Truman declared his love by shouting, “She stirs something in my loins, which is to say, my trousers.” After the ceremony, under the spell of the evil brown spirits, Harry boasted to Beth’s father, “I will respect her in the morning, but I will defile her goodly this eve.” For her part, Beth Truman would occasionally give in to his clumsy advances and meager deliverable, eventually giving birth to a daughter, Margaret, though paternity tests proved inconclusive. The Trumans would serve ten years in the White House — three 4-year terms — before returning to Missouri to start a popular paddleboat operation in the Ozark Mountains. Their lives were twice given the Hollywood treatment, first in “Give ‘Em Hell, Harry O.,” with David Jansssen, and later, “The Truman Show,” starring bipolar Canadian face stretcher Jim Varney or possibly Carrey.

Northern Exposures

Random Memorandum™ to Sigurður Hjartarson, founder of the Icelandic Phallological Museum, home of the world’s largest collection of penises: Tell me, sir, as a teacher and historian, what is phallo-logical about a public display of private parts? When I was a lad growing up on a remote farm in Lincolnshire (where Missus Buckley lived), I was taught that one’s privates — one’s John Thomas, Jimmy Wriggler or Tallywhacker — were just that: Private! Your online bile, or rather, bio states that your interest in phallology “grew out” of a fascination that began when you were given a bull’s penis to use as a cattle whip as a boy in Reykjavik, Iceland. Methinks your parents were likely out of their gourds on gløgg or grögg or whatever volcanically-alcoholic national beverage they were guzzling at the time, and should have been bull whipped for their unthinkable indiscretion. That said, at some point this prickly fascination — like the rent in the museum — is all yours. While I have yet to police your facility in person, I have it on authority that you have for public viewing the dandy doodles of over 200 land and sea creatures, ranging from the 170 cm blue whale’s penis to the embarrassing 2 mm bone of a hamster. Penises hanging on walls like hunting triumphs, a tanned bull’s penis, a smoked horse’s penis, the shriveled penises of reindeer, fox, minks and rats, seal and walrus penises, even the "imaginary penises" of elves and trolls, all displayed with curious curatorial affection and/or affliction. One struggles to imagine that there are patrons for such distastefulness. Is there an audience clamoring to see a marsupial’s meat musket? A grizzly bear’s yard o’ beef? A pink flamingo’s pink cigar? Explain this cock and bullcock business at once!

Citizen Kane-ine

Happy Anni-hearse-ary™ to Emmy® award-winning canine thespian Wishbone! This beloved, Mensa-level Jack Russell terrier was a veteran commercial actor for brands like Mighty Dog® dog food, Massengil® dog douche and Trojan® lubricated dog condoms, before landing the breakout role on the docu-drama which bore his name. Airing from 1995 to 1998, “Wishbone” purported to be children’s fare, but with themes paralleling famous stories from folklore and classic literature — Dog Quixote, The Old Dog and The Sea, The Doghouse of Seven Gables, The Houndstooth Jacket of the Baskervilles — the show had great appeal among the intelligentsia — which is to say, book-reading coffee drinkers — as well as the usual suspects here at the station house. Indeed, Yours Truly Dooley® learned more about history from this intrepid, four-legged time-traveller than any tight-lipped school marm or tight-arsed TED® chatterbox I've suffered through online. Wishbone was a natural on-screen, slipping into characters sight unseen. Considered to be the John Barrymore of talking actor dogs — his portrayal of Robin Hood put Kenneth Costner’s to bloody shame — Wishbone, alas, retired from the stage and screen to attend Phoenix University, a phony baloney correspondence college that attempted to trade on his celebrity via a testimonial advert, which Wishbone refused to star in, as he couldn’t bring himself to utter, “I am a Phoenix” with a straight face. He passed away on June 26, 2001 at age 91 (in human years, which is to say, 13 x 7). RIP, Citizen Kane-ine!

Oh My Darlings

Life in the time of the Corona® brand viral contagion finds all manner of Quaran-Teamed™ musicians plying their craft on the social media and we're of a mind to share one of our own, compliments of none other than Mayberry RFD's late Briscoe "Darling" Dillard Jr. and his band of misfit offspring, the Dillard boys. Though not official residents of the town proper, all were welcomed by the venerable Sheriff Andrew "Ange" Taylor with open arms and C chords. Unlike nowadays when every cleavaged chart-topper and bearded ukulele strummer has a Twitternet™ channel, action figure doll or toilet water deal, the motherless Dillards — Bocephus, Bojangles, Bodean and Bobice — were happy to let the music do the talkin' — with their sweet-as-plum-pie sister Charlene chimin' in with the rest. Their doltish appearance and homespun humility has always belied their prowess and I’ll never adequately repay their nod to Yours Truly — "Dooley" — in their mountain hymnal of the same name. The "young failers" from the hill country are all grown up now, just a-grinnin' and a-pickin' to beat the bloody bland. An overdue doff of the floppy brim — and a toot on the empty moonshine jug — to these able Citizen Appalachians™. “Dooley slippin' up the holler / Dooley tryin' to make a dollar / Dooley give me a swaller / I'll pay you back some day.” Brilliantine™! 

I Think She's Alone Now

If Memory Swerves™, ‘twas on this day in music history (June 24, 1987) that teen sensation Tiffany Darwish — pictured today, packin’ on the pounds, if not packin’ in the crowds — took the stage at a shopping center in Paramus, New Jersey. It was her first stop on a first-of-its-kind tour of department store collectives across the U.S., part of a marketing strategy to improve flagging record sales for the aspiring pop star. The concept of bringing her cutesy self to the very places where tween audiences made purchase decisions with their lemonade-stand monies proved fruitful, indeed. Let the Beatles have Shea Stadium, Jimi Hendrix, Monterey Pop and Bob Dylan, bloody Fairport Convention. Tiffany was cornering the market on makeshift food court stages, one lip-synched, thirty-minute show at a time! As the buzz grew, radio responded by playing her version of Tommy James and the Del Webb’s “I Think We’re Alone Now (Deadbolt the Door and Let’s Do This)” and taking it to Number One. Tiffany was now a bona fide star whose crowd-sourced shows surely tried the limited peacekeeping skills of the licensed — but not in an official police capacity — store security dunderheads. Fandemonium was at a frenzied, fever pitch and the attention-loving starlet was at the center of it. “Everywhere I go, I get mauled,” screamed a delighted Tiffany to a USA Today™ reporter on the bus after a show. With her frosty Orange Julius® in one hand and a super slim, super-calming menthol Capri® in the other, Tiffany then said prophetically, “We should start calling these places, ‘Shopping Mauls.’ (Long pull on cigarette, cough cough.)” And so ‘twas, the birth of that most American of mainstays — the bloody shopping maul, or rather, mall — all thanks to a perky songbird with the name of an upscale plate maker. Today, the former teen idol and her hair extensions can be found gracing — or rather, disgracing — the pages of Playboy® magazine or on the telly on shows like, “How I Met Your Mother’s Plastic Surgeon” and “Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Something Or Other.” I think she's alone now, which is to say, unagented.

Now Entering

Random Memorandum™ to the citizenry of Intercourse, Pennsylvania: For too long you've been the cheeky buttock of an unfortunate joke that has outlived its welcome. ‘Twould seem there is no beginning nor end to the indignities and entendres you suffer. To wit: 1) When tasked with defining "Intercourse," Daniel Webster himself — or possibly Noah — could not do so without inclusion of the term “genitalia.” 2) The 1980’s Mennonite police procedural “Witness,” filmed in bloody Intercourse, makes no mention of the town, so as not to foretell sexual congress between big-boned actress Kelly McGillis and sturdy-jawed detective John Book. 3) In more recent times, U.S. presidential dopefuls steer clear of your city limits, saving themselves the embarrassment of “entering Intercourse” as they spread their negligible charm, empty promises and jellied pompadours on the campaign trail in the eastern colonies. Enough! Your protestations that “Intercourse means Fellowship” have done nothing to dissuade legions of French-kissing tourists from snapping Polaroid Instagramatic photos beside the signs posted at village proper, or neighbouring arsewipes like the one pictured here from tee-heeing your name onto a poorly designed tee-shirt. ‘Tis time for the citizenry to rectify that which conflicts with the sanctity of your spirit. I beseech the good and Godly Intercoursarians to rewrite history! Gather with paint cans and brushes at the ready to crudely spell out your beliefs on the signage about the town: No-Intercourse-Outside-the-Bondage-of-Holy-Matrimony, Pennsylvania!

The Ohio Player

If Memory Swerves™, ‘twas on this day in his-sorry-arse-story (June 22, 2012) that Pennsylvania University football coach Jerry Sandusky was convicted on 45 counts of sexual molestation charges, which was bloody horrible business for all parties, including the citizenry of Sandusky — indeed, all of Ohio — whose despicable native son Sandusky dragged their goodly name through the mud out back a Chillicothe, or possibly Bellefonte, courthouse. Since that dismal, disgraceful day, the kinfolk of Sandusky — Ohio, not the pedophilia's familia — have had to endure talking head Nancy Graceless administer one stern talking to after another on their rumpus room tellys, the only relief from which was to fan themselves on the porch steps of their weathered frame houses, to a one, years shy of a Sherwin Williams paint job. It hardly seems fair that regular folk should have to pay for the sins of a demented assistant-coaching father, which is why the station house would like to offer words of encouragement to these good people and remind them that facing down adversity is the hallmark of every third-tier flyover city/state in America. To bolster their sagging spirits and/or breasts/jowls, I offer up some of the positives that have come out of Ohio: Buckeyes (whatever they are), Skyline Chili (what I wouldn’t give for a bowl right now), THE Ohio State university, which is to say Oberlin College, motorcar tires, that "Four dead in O-H-I-O” song, Olympic sprinter Jesse — or country singer Jake — Owen, western writer Zane Somebody, Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Pete Rosen, television actors Jamie Farr (M*A*S*H) and George Clooney ("Facts of Life"), film actress Debra Winger ("Slumber Party 57"), beloved, tattooed roundballer LeBron James, astronaut John Glennon, the first man to orbit the Earth after the far superior Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and, lastly, Miss America 1965 Sue Ann Downey (pictured here), not to be confused with “Golden Girl” Sue Ann Niven, portrayed by Oak Park, Chicago native Betty White.

Let's Dance! (Wait, Let's Not!)

With apologies to the late Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charisse, Busby Berkeley, Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Francis the Dancing Mule, the entirety of the MGM and RKO Radio Pictures families, the Radio City Rockettes, the Tropicana Showgirls, Florenz Zigfield and her girls, Messrs. Robert Fosse, Robert Stigwood and Alan Carr, certified flying-ace John Travolta, Aussie sidekick Olivia Newton-Johns (no relation), flashdancer Jennifer Beales, footloose blue jean-wearer Kevin Bacon, dirty-minded Patrick Swayze, baby Jennifer Grey, father Joel Grey, the trashcan pounders in "Stomp," the ragtag leapers in "Rent," bowler-hatted Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, U.S. Ambassador to Czechoslovakia Shirley Temple, toe-tapper Gregory Hines and "White Nights" co-star Mikhail Baryshnikov (who should have known better), here are 30 reasons why I don't fancy song and dance, neither in the cinema, nor on the stage: Awkward and unnecessary prancing, dancing, romping, stomping, bumping, thumping, twisting, turning, thrusting, lusting, hustling, bustling, juking, jiving, shouting, shrieking — singing, if you will — grinning, spinning, bouncing, bounding, shimmying, shaking, rollicking, frolicking, kicking, leaping and pirouetting — which is to say, cavorting and caterwauling of any sort — particularly amongst, but not limited to, the ranks of the kitchenry, including the Executive Chef, Sous Chef, Pastry Chef, the Sauce Guy, possibly the Sommelier, the Maître d' and the attendant wait-staff.

Swim Trunk

Halt! Hold it right there, Citizen Cannonballer™. I don’t give a bloody damn how refreshing you find a dip in the cool, chlorinated water, pool access is limited to card-carrying club members, registered guests or certified Olympic cannonballers! We can’t have limbless interlopers gallivanting — or approximating a gallivant — about the club premises. What’s more, cut-offs are expressly verboten! (I’m speaking of your swim trunks, of course, and not your physical trunk, as it were.) While I'm not unsympathetic to your apparent handicap, I must insist that you make you way to the shallow end of the pool and remove yourself from the water’s edge at once. If, perhaps, a kindly club member takes you under wing and/or appendage, allowances will be made and you can “bob” to your heart’s content. But until that time, out you go with the undertow!

Pissing Contested

Halt! Hold it right there, Young Citizen! While the trajectory and velocity of your urinary stream is impressive, I must insist that you take it under cover of a public latrine or, at the very least, into the bath house pool alongside other, more discreet, kidney relievers and allow the chlorinating agents in the water to do their cleansing work. In the future, be mindful that public nuditity is illegal on my watch, so if you find it necessary to “make water” in order to extinguish an unruly brush or trash can fire, do remember to keep your bathing trunks secured, with your "butt ox" covered, while using the front-facing “fly hole” as a proper exit for your "hosing" assemblage.

When I'm 94

The younger — and, evidently, shorter — of the surviving Beatle Brothers, Sir  Paul McCarthy (pictured, second from left) is celebrating a birthday today and Yours Truly Dooley® can't help but wonder whether this music idol of advancing years — born June 18, 1942 — ever looks back with regret for penning "When I'm 64." As I Understand It™, the ditty was written when "Macc" was just 15 years old, in his mum and dad's sitting room in Liverpool, using only a slide whistle for accompaniment. 64 was surely an arbitrary number for the young lad, but if he'd somehow thought to make the 6 a 9, he’d have saved himself great misery later in life. He and his mates eventually recorded it for the “Sgt. Pepper’s” platter and 'twas only a matter of time before lusting ladybirds were shouting at the mop-topper while he was going about his business, “I’ll still need you, Paulie,” or “I’ll still feed you, Paul,” or “I’ll be giving you a Valentine alright, if you'll bring a bottle of wine 'round the flat when mum's away.” Perhaps it amused him for a time, but as he approached decade five or six, surely he'd had enough. If he'd have sung, “When I’m 94,” fans may well have ignored the notion, for who wants to tend to a bloody ninety year old? Alas, as fate would have it, when Sir Paul actually turned 64, the words he had written in his youth would come back to bite him, compliments of a she-devil named Heather Mills, the plus-sized, limb-compromised mother of his beloved daughter Beatrice, the wife who proved a bigger mistake than that Ebony & Ivory business back in the 80’s. We’re told that Ms. Mills took umbrage at the suggestion she would be needing and feeding an old codger who was losing his hair. Mills would maintain that she had no interest in "knitting sweaters by the fireside," whilst also refuting McCarthy’s claim that he was "doing the garden, digging the weeds." The two separated when McCarthy was 64, the final straw being the notion that Paul and Heather would be bouncing their grandchildren Vera, Chuck and Dave on their knees. "No grandchild of mine will be named Vera, Chuck or fooking Dave," said the witchy woman and that was the end of that tune. Happily, McCarthy has a more proper birthday tune in his catalog, one we'll imagine his lovely wifey #3 Nancy cheerfully singing to him in celebration today, along with all of us here at the station house: "You Say It's Your Birthday, Happy Birthday To You!"

Soprano's Swan Song

Celebrating a Deathday™: Guinea garbage hauler, strip club owner and caporegime Anthony John “Tony” Soprano died suddenly on this day, June 17, 2013. He was 51 years old. Like all dago-tee-shirted goombas, Tony was a family man. He and sisters Barbara and psychotic hosebag Janice grew up in the “Down Neck” neighborhood of New Joisey, with their Eye-talian American parents—crew captain “Johnny Boy” Soprano and mother Livia, whom Tony famously declared dead to him during the family’s reality TV saga “The Sopranos. Tony’s reputation was as large as his over-worked heart, even among those who weren’t in possession of a pirated Home Box Office® signal. But before you shed a tear over the loss of this premium-channel spaghetti-twirler, consider that the waste disposal chieftain was, indeed, a real-life mafioso responsible for many deaths during the eight years of his eponymous show. To wit: Soprano shot and killed Willie Overall to become a made man; strangled Fabian Petrulio for ratting out Paulie’s crews; shot and killed Chucky Signore for conspiring with double-crossing uncle Junior to kill Antonio; slew Matthew Belivaqua for attempting to kill 1800 tequila spokesman Christopher Moltisanti; executed Salvador “Big Pussy” Bonpensiero for, let's face it, being a big pussy; bludgeoned Ralphie Cifaretto to death after their horse dealing went the way of all horse dealings; killed Tony Blundetto with a shotgun for the unauthorized hits on Joey Peeps and Billy Retardo; and finally, killing cousin-in-law Christopher for hawking over-priced tequila, one supposes. This isn’t even counting all the hits Soprano ordered or his deviousness as a younger capo before the reality show hit the airwaves. That this misadventurous lap dancee managed to avoid incarceration only to receive a death sentence from the great Joisey prosecutor in the sky? Fuggedaboutit™. ‘Tis the way the cannoli crumbles. Soprano leaves behind his long-suffering nurse wife Jackie, butter-faced daughter Jamie-Lynn Sigler, a punk-ass son whose name escapes me, along with other grieving “family members,” like goomba sidekick Silvio Dante, one-time band mate of another Joisey “Boss.” Happy Anni-hearse-ary™ to Anthony John Soprano, who went to that red gravy restaurant in the sky on this day. As he and his amoral mates would say after polishing off bean-packed bowls of pasta e fagioli, let ‘er RIP.

Hard On Dad

In my Father’s Day, they didn’t dole out little blue pills to raise, as it were, a man’s hope of initiating an act of sexual "congress". Heterosapien males didn’t have a gaggle of Twitternet® breast flashers to eyeball if they needed assistance in arousing goodly intentions in their peckers, either. Back then, if a man was unable to sustain an erection and move heaven and earth for his intended, he properly jumped off a cliff or joined the bloody priesthood. He didn’t get on the telly and announce his woes to the world. Projectile dysfunction was a disgrace not discussed in polite society and the perversions of aural sex were unheard of. Fortunately, my father, the late Royal Air Force (RAF) Intelligence Officer Aldridge “AJ” Johns, had no issues related to flaccidity or perversity. I am living proof that dad was capable in the rigorous demands of the bedroom, where foreplay — not to mention floor play — meant four hours of play and he was always on his game, which is to say, dear old mum. Indeed, he was as proud of his missionary position as he was his standing in the military. It is with deep, rather penetrating, emotion that I salute him and all stand-up gents who answer to the name Dad on this day. Bravo, Citizen Seed Planters! #FathersDay

STFU!

'Twould appear to Yours Truly Dooley® that our citizenry has developed something of an obsession with the status of the front doors dotting our landscapes. Today alone I have been instructed to "shut the front door" on three occasions that have shown no evidence of open entryways in the vicinity! For the vinyl record, when I enter or leave a residence, you can be assured that I check to see the door is safely fastened. Furthermore, when I arrive at — or depart from — the station house, I can say with all manner of confidence that the door will not be left ajar. (Please note that though I was raised on a remote farm in Lincolnshire, I was not born in the barn!) Lastly, given that conditioned air does not come without goodly expense, methinks all would be Dooley Advised™ to "Shut the bloody windows!"

The Death of Corabeth

Celebrating a Deathday™: Chitter-chatterer for the ages, Corabeth Walton Godsey of Walton’s Mountain died on this day June 14, 2016. She was 83. The wife of storekeeper Isaac “Ike” Godsey, Corabeth had a grace and style that belied her humble position and whilst not the wealthiest of mountaineers — that title would fall to the medicinal making Baldwin Sisters — she was blessed with riches beyond money, including her infamous, illustrative gift of gab and the love of adoptive daughter Aimee. The station house remembers Corabeth with fondness and to honour her passing, we all contributed to this eulogy — trading couplets like chin-haired coffeehousers rockin' a poetry slam, and shedding real tears for the stately town crier. Rest well, good lady.

"Funeral Blue Monday"

Stop all the clocks, cut off the station house phone;

Garnish the HoneyBaked® spiraled hambone.

Silence the player piano and with muffled humdrum,

Commence the funereal luncheon, let the mourners come.

Let rubber-banded aeroplanes circle overhead;

Whilst website administrator Sheffield tweets “She Is Dead.”

Put crepe paper bows ‘round the necks of white doves;

Whilst Yours Truly Dooley™ dons black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my NorthEast and SouthWest,

My working Leatherman® compass, my Sunday blessed.

My noonish, my midnight, my straight talk and plainsong;

I thought unrequited love lasted forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: Put them out, one by one;

Corabeth Walton Godsey is gone, dismantle the sun.

Pour out the Ocean Spray® and sweep up the floor;

For no good will come calling at our screened patio door.

A Bushel And A Peckerwood

Celebrating a Deathday™: Long-suffering screen legend Gregory Peck (pictured here without eyebrows, for some bloody reason) was put out of his misery on this day, June 13, 2003. Now, if you’re thinking that an extended illness is sad business, one that can rob even the most vital and adored cultural icon of their dignity, not to mention their last breath, let me reassure you that Peck died peacefully in his sleep — of natural causes at age 87 — with adoring wife Veronique at his side. ‘Twasn’t death that caused him to suffer, you see, but something far more benign. If you know anything about this handsome Hollywood everyman, or if you’ve simply scoured his Wikipedia page like yours truly Dooley, you’ll know that Peck was born Eldred Gregory Peckerwood on April 5, 1916 in San Diego, that he attended military school as a lad and teacher’s college briefly, before being introduced to drama at the University in Berkeley. You’ll know that his ascent to movie stardom was fairly swift, that he enjoyed acclaim from the ‘40's clear through the '90’s and was nominated for an Academy Award five times — winning just once for his role as spirits salesman Atticus Flinch in “Tequila Mockingbird." You may know all that and then some, but did you know that he suffered in silence for some fifty years, all on account of a '50's Broadway show tune that crept into the nation’s consciousness and dogged him for his life thereafter? If you've ever heard Doris Day warble, “I love you, a bushel and a Peck…a bushel and a Peck and a hug around the neck. A hug around the neck and a barrel and a heap, a barrel and a heap and I’m countin’ bloody sheep,” you'll understand. Yes, that miserable "Bushel And A Peck" ditty — first performed in the stage musical “Guys and Dolls” — would follow Peck around like odious flatulence trapped in the trousers of his gray flannel suit. Fans would say, “I loved you a bushel and a Peck in 'Moby Dick'!” “You bet your pretty neck I loved you in 'Cape Fear'!" Crikey, even his own children would say, “I love you a bushel and a barrel and a Peck, daddy.” His second wife was said to have whispered it in his ear at the altar, “I love you a bushel and Mrs. Peck” and he nearly had the union annulled. Peck had hoped interest in the song would wane, but 'twasn't so. He expressly forbid the song be played or mentioned in his household, but his grandchildren’s nannies would sing it to them and they would approach their grey-maned grand-dad and shyly tell him that “I love you a bushel, Grampa Peck,” which 'bout gave him a  coronary. It just goes to show that we all carry great burdens and no matter how much prestige one enjoys, the photo-choppers at the weblog "Celebs Without Eyebrows" can have their bloody way with you. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™, Gregory Peck!

Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

Portraiture presents a unique challenge to the novice artist — if I dare call myself such — but the rewards of success are rich. I painted this study from an image in my mind's eye, born of a chance meeting whose memory still burns. ‘Twas the evening of my art tutorial and I, a most unlikely student, was en route to the Uni. As I strode past a storefront barber college, I glanced through the window, past the ghost of my own countenance and was captured by that which was before me. She sat undisturbed in the student stylist's chair. A young beauty on the verge of womanhood. Her hair was a yellow not found in nature, but rather that of a fountain straw or bathtub duckie. A green bow had been knotted atop her head, a precise compliment to her red — no, rose! — spectacle frames. Something about her harkened back to my schoolboy days, but I was discomforted to examine this notion further. I shook myself from my reverie and quickly moved on. But I carried the image, as I said, in my mind’s eye, along with a decision to scuttle my current drawerering — a painting of the neighbor’s cat staring down a fully-dressed turkey bird — and redirect my efforts thusly. Whether I had the skillset or fortitude to do this maiden justice, by pastel chalk or brush, I would commit her image to canvas. I would call her, "Lady in Waiting." No! “Barber Ella.”

There Are Three Kinds of People In the World

Surely you’ve heard it said there are “two kinds of people in the world.” 'Tis been postulated by numerous know-it-alls over the years. Bushy-browed-and-proud yarn spinner Mark Twain once said, “There are two types of people. People who accomplish things and people who claim to accomplish things." This from someone who had two names — he was born Samuel Clementine, as crossword puzzlers will attest — and whose pen name “Twain” literally means “two.” Hair-sprayed-and-legs-splayed advice columnist Abigail Van Buren — she herself dual-monikered — once observed, “There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who enter a room and say, ‘There you are!’ and those who enter a room and say, ‘Here I am!’” Alas, here I am — Yours Truly Dooley® — to report that the time-worn adage has officially worn out its welcome. After an exhaustive search of the chit-chat rooms and breast-flashing photo booths dotting the Albert "Arnold" Gore Memorial Misinformation Superhighway™, my team of patrolling associates and I have determined that the figure has increased fully a number of 1. ‘Tis why we’re introducing a new e-nitiative at the station house: “The Three Kinds of People In The World™.” Three kinds of men, three kinds of women. Three kinds of teachers and lawyers, doctors and nurses, seed sowers and dope blowers. Whether this effort represents an accomplishment on the order of something Mark Twain would acknowledge, we can’t say. But ‘twill allow us to better keep the citizenry apprised of the split — in triplicate — personalities populating their planet. First on the docket: Brother-in-Laws (pictured). To wit: There are Three Kinds of Brother-in-Laws in the World™: 1) The beer-guzzling approval seeker; 2) The whiskey-chasing loudmouth; 3) The thrice-married, twice-bankrupted, Cheshire Cat-ish conspiracy theorist. Don't say we didn't bloody warn you.