Category: Funny Business

Funny how you can remember things that happened decades ago but can’t recall what you had for breakfast the day before.

This happens to me a lot, especially when my mind wanders back to grammar school.

I can still see Miss Baker’s hairspray-encrusted beehive – the light dancing off it as the sun beamed through the small window in the main door of my first grade classroom.

At that moment, she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Matronly, yes, but it worked for her.

Then there was the time I was with my mother at a department store. We saw a janitor walk into the main restroom and quickly scurry back out, shouting, “Who done this? Who done this thing?”

And yet what I remember more clearly than almost anything else is the story of the first Thanksgiving, which I heard from my Uncle Dwight. He was the “funny” uncle, the one that would often show up at our house wearing a muddy, orange jumpsuit with stenciled numbers on the back. Plus, he always drank sodas from a paper bag.

Whatever the case, in keeping with the season, I’d like to share the story with you today. It might not be exactly how I remember it, but it’s how I want to remember it.

THE FIRST THANKSGIVING

As you know, Native Americans were already living in what we now call the United States at the time of the first Thanksgiving. Back then, it was just called Native America.

This changed when the Pilgrims, who were tired of living under the tyrannical rule of King LeBron James and Marie Antoinette, decided to leave for the new world, so they loaded up on three ships – the Nina, Pinto and Santa Lucia, and made their way to Plymouth Rock. Once there, and with the help of the Mayflower moving company, they unloaded all their stuff.

The head Pilgrim was John Smith, a soldier, explorer, governor (and later kicker for the New England Patriots). At first he was disliked by some of the Native Americans, and at some point they wanted to kill him because he talked a lot and was boring as hell.

But just as one of the Native American leaders was about to hit him in the head with a lacrosse stick, Pocahontas intervened.

Pocahontas was later portrayed eloquently – and I’ll go so far as to say accurately – in that Disney movie where she hung out with a talking hummingbird and Mel Gibson, who we now know is an asshole.

Not sure what happened next, but the Pilgrims and Native Americans finally started getting along, so much so that Smith and Pocahontas even dated briefly. (Things never got serious, though, and they stayed friends right up until she got married to a guy who dealt in tobacco. His name was, I believe, R.J. Reynolds).

The Pilgrims and Native Americans decided to celebrate their newfound friendship with a feast, and figured they’d hold it on Thursday in late November to coincide with NFL games involving the Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys.

The menu at the first Thanksgiving featured turkey, cornbread stuffing, sweet peas, squash casserole, green beans, mac and cheese, garlic mashed potatoes, tater tots, Vienna sausages, cranberry sauce (the good kind from the can), buttermilk biscuits, crescent rolls, Red Lobster-style cheddar biscuits, giblet gravy, sweet potato pie, pumpkin pie, Pringles and Easy Cheese.

Hot dogs were made available for the children.

(Vegetarians and vegans were out of luck because, in those days, neither the Pilgrims nor Native Americans went for that shit.)

Anyway, this was all held at the pavilion at the Plymouth Rock Community Center, and it was truly a special time for everyone involved. The kids jumped rope and played kickball together, while the adults decided that diversity would be their strength, even though the Native Americans were from Native America, and the Pilgrims were from Pilgrimia.

This ritual was held every year for decades, but lost some of its luster when Wal-Mart began having Black Friday sales on Thursday. And according to the literature, the town’s only Arby’s location was open half a day on Thanksgiving, so a lot of people ate there as a change of pace.

Needless to say, the holiday has changed much in the billions of years since the Pilgrims and Native Americans first broke bread.

But my hope to you and yours is that on this Thanksgiving if you break bread, someone is there to fix it.

Amen.

By Scott Adamson
Adamsonmedia.com

“Justice League,” which opened nationwide on Thursday, is first and foremost a study of justice.

And when justice is part of a league, there are bylaws and dues, as well as games against tough opponents.

This is the main plot of the major motion picture, but the men and woman who make up the organization have their own stories which you may or may not know.

Batman, of course, dresses like a bat because his parents were killed in an alley coming out the back of a theater. I think they were watching “Left Behind” starring Nicolas Cage, so they left early.

Their murderer, Joe Chill, hated the movie so much he acted out in a most unfortunate way.

This made Bruce Wayne, suddenly a rich orphan, sad and mad. So, instead of becoming an ass hat, like a lot of rich people do, he became a crime fighter. And also a bit of an ass hat, at least as played by Ben Affleck.

Wonder Woman is an Amazon, but since she’s the most powerful of her kind I would go so far as to say she is Amazon Prime. According to Wikipedia, Amazon Prime brought in $6.4 billion in earnings last year.

You go, girl!

Wonder Woman, by the way, is Gal Gadot, who you may remember from “Wonder Woman.”

Flash (played by that guy in Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them) is a very fast person who doesn’t have a lot of friends because he’s a goober. His dad (played by the big naked blue guy from “Watchman”) is in prison for killing his mother, even though “Fantastic Beasts” actor doesn’t think he did it.)

Aquaman lives in the water but, in this movie, does not ride a giant seahorse. That kinda pissed me off because I really wanted to see that.

I don’t think this role is played by an actor. Best I can tell, he really is Aquaman.

And Cyborg is a former football player who became basically just a head and some shoulders but was hooked up to a box that turned him into a machine.

Sounds a little far-fetched, but whatever.

Ray Fisher plays Cyborg. You don’t recall seeing him in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” because he lost out on the role that eventually went to John Boyega, who is also in “Pacific Rim: Uprising.”

I’m looking forward to that.

And finally there is Superman, who some people thought was dead at the end of “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” but actually just didn’t feel good and needed some extended bed rest.

Returning for his third appearance as the Man of Steel is the guy who used to date Penny from “The Big Bang Theory.”

They must fight Steppenwolf, who had eight gold albums and 12 Billboard Hot 100 singles before turning into an absolute dick. He is played by Computer Generated Imagery, one of the busiest actors in blockbusters, and controls an army of giant mosquito-looking things (also played by CGI).

Anyway, that’s basically the spoiler-free, opinion-free review. There is plenty of dialogue and scenes involving the characters, and if you like this sort of thing, you’ll enjoy it.

If you don’t, you probably won’t. I mean, don’t go in expecting Schindler’s List because Liam Neeson is nowhere to be found, although I did see him in a trailer for an upcoming movie where he’s talking to a bad guy on the phone.

But isn’t he always?

Also, since I could not obtain image rights to stills from the film, I have provided my own original artwork which is embedded in this review.

Flatulence.

According to Merriam-Webster, the primary definition of flatulence is, “the quality or state of being flatulent.”

Frankly, that tells me nothing.

It’s like looking up petulance and seeing it defined as “the quality or state of being petul.”

The secondary definition, though, lays it all out there.

“Flatus expelled through the anus.”

Now we’re talking.

There are roughly 7.5 billion people on the planet, and the vast majority of them have anuses. And I’m going to venture a guess that every single one of them has to expel flatus several times a week.

Yes, I realize this topic makes some people uncomfortable.

It’s rarely discussed at the dinner table, unless of course the theme of dinner is gas and the main dish is 15-bean soup.

And I’ve never heard of an instance where it came up during a job interview, but I’d like to have been there if it did.

“So, Mr. Smith, I see you have a B.A. degree and several years’ experience in the field. One quick question though … where do you stand on flatulence?”

“You mean, expelling flatus through my anus?”

“Yes.”

“Personally, I’m all for it.”

“Great! I think you’ll fit in just fine here at Buttblaster Industries.”

Clearly, flatulence never finds its way into polite conversation. But really, it’s not the fault of flatus.

It’s the fault of you and me.

For starters, we’ve given it unappealing nicknames, like “farts” and “backdoor trumpets” and “butt cheek squeaks.” All are lowbrow – maybe even offensive.

They sound bad when you say them and even worse when you hear them.

Therefore, I think the first step in softening the reputation of flatulence is to give it a brighter, happier name.

My choice is “Chip.”

Once people are no longer afraid to talk about it (“Chip” is offensive to no one), then maybe we can take the next step and remove the shame.

I never admitted this to my co-workers over the years, but oftentimes I would get up from my chair and tell them I was going to step outside and “stretch my legs.”

I did this a lot during the course of the day, but I really wasn’t going outside to stretch my legs at all.

I just had to Chip, and Chip sometimes makes quite a racket.

The sounds vary, of course, from a creak to a plaintive wail to the unsettling noise sometimes associated with knocking over a filing cabinet.

For whatever reason, my Chips often have a sharp report.

One time, while standing outside the building at my last job, I unleashed a Chip that sounded very much like a firecracker. It was so loud birds nesting in nearby trees were startled and flew off in a panic. There might have even been a police report filed, although I can’t say for sure.

But if we weren’t ashamed of the noise, we wouldn’t have to lie to our friends.

It would’ve been nice if, while at work, I could’ve just jumped up, said, “I have to Chip,” and ran outside. And if anyone heard it, they could just shrug it off.

Because like I said, we all Chip.

Yet the biggest problem with Chip is that he often comes with some unwanted odor.

There are some that are mild and only slightly disagreeable, but there are others that carry the scent of week-old road kill dipped in balsamic vinaigrette. (And I’m not saying how I know this, but anyone who has consumed eggs and drank beer during the course of a day and feels a need to Chip must be quarantined, and his or her city of residence should be evacuated).

That being the case, even when we make Chip more accepted by society we have to recognize the fact that he is best released in wide-open spaces.

Because even if there comes a day when people have no qualms talking about expelling flatus through their anuses, there are limitations.

After all, if somebody Chips in an elevator, they need to have their asses kicked.