A wise man once said :
"Humor is the beginning of prayer", and truer words were never spoken!
As many of you fans of this fine "blog" already know, I am a man who possesses a fine humor. But a prayerful man...well, I like to think I am but only God (and my conscience) know for sure.
Where's all this leading you're asking, are you? Well, I'll tell you and I hope I won't be boring you all to death in the process.
OK...have a listen now...
There has been a lot of talk, recently, about a new film coming to the theatres soon called, The Passion of Christ.
I know you must have heard about it. It is the film directed by that famous film actor himself, Mel Gibson.
Now...I've read that there is a lot of criticism of this film because (supposedly) it blames the Jewish people for the death of Jesus. I've heard a lot of people think that the film is too prejudice towards the Jewish people and for that reason it is causing a great deal of anxiety and tension prior to it's official release.

Now...for what it's worth I've been thinking about this and here is what I've decided.
First off, it seems to me that any film is an interpretation of a particular story according to the viewpoint of the director. In other words, we have to realize that the "events" of the Passion of Our Lord as portrayed in Mel Gibson's film are only the personal interpretation of events as understood by Mel Gibson himself. None of us should think that this is the only way in which the events could have occurred. There is a tradition in the world of the arts called "literary license". I'm ready and willing to give Mel Gibson a nod toward exercising this "literary license" as he is the artist behind the canvas this film is "painted" upon. It's his right to show us what he thinks happened. It is equally my right to accept or reject his interpretations of the events as he portrays them in his film. To me, that is an important point that a lot of folks are not thinking about.

There is another point about this film I would like to discuss also.
Now...before I begin keep in mind that I am no theologian. I am also not a historian and I make no pretenses to being a scholar of any type. What I am, however, is a thinking man and its with this in mind I ask you to consider this thought.
It seems to say in the New Testament that Jesus was condemned to death by the Jews. I honestly don't think that the writers of these Gospels meant for us to think that ALL JEWS FOR ALL TIME were the ones condemning Jesus to death. NO. I think the Gospel writers meant it to mean that only the "particular Jews"in the courts where Jesus was living and being tried were responsible for Jesus's death.
It is as if I said that the British were responsible for the death of the great patriot Robert Emmett (which they were). I don't mean to condemn ALL THE BRITISH for all time! No, I am only blaming those British who were directly, historically associated with the great man (Emmett) himself for his fate.
There is a fine distinction now, isn't there?

Anyway...there it is. I've been thinking a lot about this film and hearing a lot about the controversy surrounding it. I want to see it for myself and I plan to judge it's value and it's merit with the above thoughts in mind. I would recommend the rest of you do the same. Give it a fair chance. I hope it can be as much a prayer as it is a film.
We need more faith and more prayer in all of our lives, don't we?

Well, thats all I'll be writing this evening.
I hope I didn't bore you all to death with my ramblings and my fine discourse.

If you want to pass on your thoughts about what I've written here just click the link over there on the left that says "Email Me" and tell me what you think.

Best of the evening to all of you and to your loved ones as well.

Slainte!

OK...I'm ready to share some more of my "pearls of wisdom" with you once again.
I know what you all are thinking..."where's he been for the past week?"
In due course I'll be telling you where I've been hiding but for starters let me dispel some of the "rumors" circulating about the web as to where I've been.

First off...I've not been drunk. Lets get that one swept away immediately (if not sooner). I do my best writing when I'm in my cups so theres no need to think I'm off laying stiff out on a board somewhere.

Secondly...I''m not drowned, baked, basted or hanging dead from a limb anywhere.

Third...and Last....I've not run off to make my fortune as a "rap singer". Mind you, I don't begrudge iany youngster stringing together non-sensical words to make a pound or two, but thats not my " thing"...if you know what I mean!

Heres the truth as to where I've been:
I've been right here, surfing around the 'net reading some of these other 'blogs!!!

Why does everyone think they have to write every blasted thing that they are thinking about?
Why does everyone out there think that their poetry has to be so gloomy?
Jaysus (sorry if I'm offending anyone) I've read happier words on craphouse walls!!!

Its enough to take a creative mind like my own and drain it of any wondrous creativity at all!
Every blog I read starts out with somebody "reflecting on their trip to their analyst". It seems that they are all touched in the mind somehow! AND they all want us to know how nuts they are, too.
Jaysus...(sorry)...if there were that many nuts in the world the squirles would never starve!
And then they drag in their parents!!!
Their mothers were all sluts and their (dear) fathers were all fallen down drunks!
Its all crap!!!

Well...what can I tell you?
Maybe they all learned how to write from reading our old man James Joyce!!

God help us!!

Well...you won't be getting any sad tales here, so no worries on that matter. Life deals out a lot of pain but it also deals out an equal portion of pleasure also.
Why does everyone want to dwell on the pain I might ask you?
If you have the time to suck in air...you have the time to laugh and smile.
Thats an old saying. Not really...I just made that up. Its a good one though.

All right...all right...you've all been asking for some more witty verse so here you go:

I asked for a pint....
And the barman said 'aye!
I asked for a smoke....
And my wife she aked "why"?
I asked my old doctor....
Should I give up the drink...?
He answered me wisely...
" Now what do you think...?"

Well I hoped you liked it.
That was another good one I just thought up!!

Alright now.
All this thinking and poetry writing has angered my thirst so...
I'm off for a wee bit.

Slainte!!

Well, I decided to bless you all with some more of my witty writing, so, hang onto your hats ladies and gents ...here goes.

Actually, I heard a good one the other day from a friend of mine down at the local "grog shop".
He told me that the great man himself, Winston Churchill , once said something like this:"Democracy is the worse form of government there is...except for all the rest of them".
I've been thinking about that and, you know, I think he was right.
Now...I'm no great fan of your man Churchill mind you, but you got to give the devil his due, as they say. Heres what I'm sitting here thinking:
Everyone gripes and complains about their taxes and their thises and their thats but it should be duely noted that we all have the right to complain. We have the freedom to stand up and tell the politicians and the government officials what we don't like and that is a right a lot of other folks around the world would give anything to have now...isn't it?
I'm getting older..(nothing special there 'cause so is everyone else I know)...and I'm reflecting back on a lot of things that I have taken for granted in my life up till now.
I can walk out my door and go anywhere I choose to go.
I have the right to vote for whoever I want to vote for.
I have the freedom to go down to O'Connors pub whenever I want and to talk about anything I want and to whoever I want to talk to. The devil be shamed as the old folks say.
Try that in some other countries...like Iran or Burma or Saudia Arabia.
You'll get your head handed to you..or worse!
I've even heard that you better not be caught with a thirst for the grape in Saudia Arabia...they'll cut your head right off of your neck.

OK...enough of that.
Besides, I can't go down to the pub too much or my darling wife will be complaining.
She's a lovely lady but the softest part of her (sometimes) is her teeth.
Ahha now...I hope she isn't about somewhere reading this...

Anyway...God Bless the Queen...'cause nobody else here in Ireland ever will!! haha.
(An OLD joke). Thought you'd like it.

I've been saying some prayers for those men and women over in Iraq.
Its bad, isn't it?
Somebody said that there have been over 500 Americans killed so far.
There are more than a few Brits killed also and other troops from other countries also.
There have been a lot of Iraqi people killed too.
God give them all rest.

The price of freedom is always high, isn't it?

All right now...more news you might like to hear.
No one other than my own best friend told me that there was an uproar at the "SuperFootball Game" over in the States.
He said that people started taking their clothes off all over the place. And this was while it was all on the television he said!!
Haha...I got to move to Texas. See what we're all missing???

Speaking of which I put up some links to a couple of great internet sites that you might just like.
There is a link to the GAA Football site. One of my favorites!
There is a link to an organization here that is out to preserve traditional Irish music and to provide educational resources to teach the traditional music to the kids. Try that one out. You'll think its grand.
Oh...there is a few more links up there as well.
Tell them I sent you. I don't think they'll hold that against you.

Speaking of teams...do you know which team is my favorite?
Well, I'll tell you.
I'm very partial to that team of men who come out from the Guiness Brewery in Dublin and check that the local drinking establishments have their spickets and stuff "up to their demanding standards". God bless 'em. I mean it.
I make few demands in this life but I do demand that my brew has a nice full and frothy head on it.
Enough of that now I'm building up a powerful thirst all too soon and, besides my wife wants us to go to a movie show tonight.
If you're reading this dearie I didn't mean that crack about you being so hard as your teeth. You know I'll love you madly till we're pushing up the sod...

Well...I'd like to thank all of you for the time you're kind enough to spend with an old geezer like me.
I got this computer a while back and I'm hooked on this web thing.
My lovely bride (did you read that darling?) tells me not to waste my time writing all this down. She says nobody is reading this anyway.
I don't know.
Know what laddies...I don't care either.
I go around reading a lot of the blogs on here. Ahha...some of them are great reading for sure!
There is one blog written by a woman who writes poems made up of the first word of every piece of spam email she gets!!! Imagine that.
Anyway...I'd better go.

Email me if anybody out there is reading this..ok?

Slainte!

Well here I am back again.

I'd like to start today by quoting the words of a very wise man who lived and died not so long ago. It goes (something) like this:
"Horse sense is the sense a horse shows when he decides not to bet on people".
That snippet of wisdom was from the great man himself, W.C. Fields. (And I knew you would love it!). He was a drinker though.
He once said about a woman he once knew:
"That woman drove me to drink...it was the only good thing about her!"
One time they say he was in his dressing room off the movie set and the director yelled to him "Camera re-loading". Fields yelled back "I'm re-loading too!"
A grand man...we'll not see the likes of him again...thats for sure.


I'm sitting here listening to the voting results from the Democratic Primaries and caucuses being held in nine States throughout the United States.
No big surprises it seems. It's Kerry by a landslide!! Or, so it seems at this early hour.
Edwards has "won" South Carolina.
Lieberman is losing everywhere and it looks like he is about to drop out of the race.
General Clark is in a three-way tie for Oklahoma. ( I love a close one, don't you?)
Yada...Yadda...Yadda...and the beat goes on, the beat goes on...!
The rich get richer and you and I get poorer.
I should throw my hat in the ring.
No, I wouldn't want to lose my hat.
OK...why is it that there never has been a female President in the USA?
Any ideas? I'm wondering why that might be.
There have been excellent women Presidents and Prime Ministers in many other countries.
Pakistan (of ALL places!), Israel (Golda Meir), Great Britain (Agh...forget Great Britain!),and our own dear old Erin (Mary Robinson..God Bless Her!).
I don't know whats wrong with those Yankee voters.
They can put a robot on Mars but they can't put a woman in the White House!
Of course they can put a man on the moon but they can't find an Arab hiding in a hole! (Osama Bin Laden).

On a serious note now that I've got your ear...
I've gotten off of my lazy duff and I added some lovely LINKS.
Included in these links is a link to a personal favorite town of mine. My own lovely Doolin in the lovely County Clare.
If you like traditional Irish music...and I mean the real stuff, not the "new age", "touchy-feely" sicky psycho sludge that passes for the real thing...then Doolin is the place for you. We have some great pubs too. Three of them to be exact. Try O'Connors. Tell them I sent you.
Also tell them I'll be settling up my tab next time I come around (just kidding about that one, don't you know?) hahaha.
Whats that link to the Grand Rapids Art Museum doing there, you are wondering, I bet?
Well...I LOVE that place. Seriously. They have a wonderful on-line collection of sketches, paintings, sculptures and the like. I like art...I thought you might like it also.

Hit the link there...you won't be regretting it.

OK..OK..also, I put in some other links that I thought you might enjoy.
They're all clean and family oriented so no worries there.
Click them and you'll be telling me thanks the next time you log on.

OK...heres a joke for you.
Al Gore says he invented the internet but don't believe him.
Abe Lincoln must have been the inventor of the internet.
Why you're asking?
Look at your history...it says in every history book I've read that Lincoln was born in a blog cabin!
So there now...

Some folks have been asking what I look like, can I post a picture of myself.
The answer is no...I'm using the cheap version of this Blog host and pictures aren't allowed.
Also...if you saw my picture you'd all be saying that "Agh...I've seen better faces eating hay".
So you're not missing much.
OK...well I'm off. (I'm still sober mind you, but not for much longer I hope.)

Peace

Slante!!

EXTRA......EXTRA......EXTRA....EXTRA....EXTRA...
The email responses to this blog are just POURING IN !!!
Listed below are some samples of the email responses I have received over this past weekend.
So, put your feet up. sit back, relax , throw another blog on the fire...and read my rave reviews ! :

From a fan in Great Britain who writes:

Thank you, thank you, oh my...thank you for such insightful, all inspiring and deeply passionate prose!!!
I wept, I cried, I laughed, I jumped for joy...oh my, what a tumult of emotions your blog has brought forth from within my souls! Thank you, thank you thank you Irishman from the bottom of my heart!!

From a fan in East Timor who writes:

You sir are the next great master to rule over the realm of the written word!
Your prose, your imagery, your verse!!! Oh the world WILL TAKE NOTE sir, mark my words!!
Bard of Avon make way...there is a new dog in town!!!

And this from a fan in the Faukland Islands:

Words alone cannot express how much I appreciate your wonderful blog!!
You are a magician, a wizard who weaves a magical world full of wim and whimsey!! I love you!! Yes, its true...can we elope???

Of course there were some critics:

From a somewhat irate reader in Somolia:

You can't fool me for a second!! Your reference to pencils and the lead contained therein is a simple ploy to disguise your REAL intent. YOU HATE THE ENDANGERED, RED WINGED, TREE DWELLING, BLOOD SUCKING DUNG BEETLE... don't you, Irishman?
Ahha...thought you could fool me, didn't you? Well guess what...I know how to read BETWEEN THE LINES and you, sir have just been exposed as a CAD, a TWO TIMING NO GOOD HATE MONGER and a DUPE FOR THE MULTI-NATIONAL LOGGING COMPANIES WHO ARE OUT TO DESTROY OUR FORRESTS AND ALL THE TREE CLIMBING BLOOD SUCKING CREEPY CRAWLY CREATURES THAT LIVE WITHIN !! Shame on you and a pox on your seed forever!!
Signed,
Helen A. Skirt


And this stinger from a reader somewhere in the Pacific:

Cannibals!! Cannibals!! Ha!! You wouldn't know a cannibal if one was to bite you right on the {edited by the blogger}!! I, sir, am the son of the last great cannibal ever to walk this earth and I KNOW a cannibal when I see one...so there!!!
Signed,
Izzy Tender

Another fan wrote:

Your poem was so deep...oh, so deep. I couldn't sleep for days. I am in constant wonderment trying to understand how, and indeed why, Sam and Sally actually got into that stew??? And why salt??
Does the salt symbolize the dicotomy of the human experience? So deep, so very deep!! And why did Mickey's sister sit upon that sil??? Are you toying with the image of the soul cut loose, forever, from it's mortal imprisonment? So deep, so very very deep!!
Please promise us you will never stop sharing your deep intellectuals musings with us...oh please promise!!! So deep...oh, so very deep!!
Can I have your autograph??
Signed,
Betty Shakesit

And lastly, a fan from Arkansas wrote to say:

Gosh...ayuck! Cannibals and Democrats and poetry too! Geez of Petes!! What a great change from all those other blogs that I been surfin to. All they write about is their latest trip to their analyst, or how sick their dog is, ayuck!! This one here is funny and educational two!!! { He meant too} Ayuck!! Keep on bloggin Irishman...cannibals, ayuck!! hahaha.
Signed,
Noah Boozer

Well, there you have it!!!
More to follow tomorrow!

I will be adding some links also. So...be sure to check them out as well!! I will have a "surprise link of the day" for those of you who are feeling lucky!!

Slainte!

Another day...
Another Blog ! But first , a word from our sponsor.

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The diagnosis is simple: BIRD FLU !!
The solution : SIMPLE !! STOP BEING SO CHICKEN !!
OK...I know, knock off the malarchy.
I will. Promise!

By the way, did you ever stop to think:

How DO they get that lead into all those little pencils?
I mean, seriously...do they hollow out whole trees and pour the lead in and then whittle them down into those familiar "number twos"??
I bet you never thought about that did you?

I promised you some verse and so I now present you with the following poem:

Little Mickey had a sister
She was dead before we missed her...
On the sill she sat one day...
Till a gust of wind blew her
away!

Here's another question for you all to ponder:
When a cannibal gets nervous...does he chew his fingernails???
(Think where that could lead!?)

Which reminds me of a story I heard one time.
Two cannibals each bought a lottery ticket.
One of them won the jackpot...
The other was jealous.
The winning cannibal said to the other: "Ha Ha, eat your heart out!, fool!"

Now for some news:
They say that Howard Dean is running out of money. His campaign bragged that they had a "war chest" totaling over $42,000,000 only a few months ago.
Where did it all go?
Think about it, folks...
would you want that spend thrift for President?? He spends money faster than a drunken sailor!

Speaking of (drunken) sailors...Kerry is coming on strong, isn't he??

Ah well...enough is enough.

One more wee bit of verse and then I'll leave you all be.

Sally and Sam sat still in a stew...
Said Sally to Sam, I'm hot...
aren't YOU???
Said Sam to old Sally...
I think its YOUR fault...
Not please just shut up...
And PLEASE pass the salt!!

Slainte !!