Hello Dear Readers! It’s time once again for the Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week our prompt for the story is the third definition of crush:: to reduce to particles by pounding or grinding <crush rock>
El Guapo Guapola Takes the Plunge!
Full-Time Adventurer and Part-Time Blogger, El Guapo Guapola and his hired Sherpa, Jimmy, trudged through the snow at the base of Mount Everest, synchronizing their steps to the rhythm ofZZTop – Double Back as they began their historic ascent up the mountain.
For you see, El Guapo Guapola was about to attempt to become the very first human to bungee jump from the top of Mount Everest, and, if he was successful, he would not only have the world at his feet, he might possibly have the world as far up as his mid-thy.
“Jimmy, my man,” said El Guapo. “Hand me another clove cigarette so that I may dangle it languidly from my lips.”*
Jimmy reached into his backpack and fished out a clove cigarette. “Would you like your usual shot of Jameson to go with that?”
“But of course!” said our hero.
The only sound that could be heard was the crush of ice as Jimmy set up a full rocks glass of Jameson. EG downed the shot. Smooth* and thought about a Sunday afternoon long ago where the very same drink had been the catalyst for his historic naked dance on the bar of a pub he couldn’t remember the name of.
As they climbed higher, EG was starting to get chilled from the Arctic (or possibly Antarctic) winds and began to question his decision to wear his Lucky Rock Climbing Outfit. He was thankful he had remembered to include his ski clothes in Jimmy’s backpack.
When at last they reached the summit, Jimmy fastened the bungee cord to El Guapo Guapola’s ankle. But El Guapo just couldn’t take the cold any longer. He would have to change into his ski clothes before taking the plunge.
Quickly he tore off his rock climbing clothes. But just then his toes. Start. To Slip*.
. . . and the rest is history . . .
The Magnificent Hair of the man who wanted a pony! Happy Birthday to you!!!
Hello Dear Readers! In the words of the wise and wonderful Lucy Ricardo after drinking too much Vitameatavegamin:
“Are you tired, rundown, listless? Do you pop out at parties? Are you unpoopular?”
Well, the answer to all your problems might be that you’re low on Vitameatavegamin; then again — it might be that you are simply exhausted from too much blogging.
Seven Ways to Tell If You’re Tired, Rundown and Listless From Too Much Blogging
You’re insurance rates have gone sky high ever since you got a little mixed up from fatigue and added a new post to your car’s dashboard.
“Well if it’s any consolation, at least I remembered to Save Draft.
You instructed your hairdresser to change your personal settings and give you a new theme.
“Are you sure Mimbo Pro is going to look okay with my general settings?” “Well, we’ll find out!”
You got a little bent out of shape when your house guests left and didn’t nominate you for an award.
Yeah . . .bye . . . come again . . . NOT!
You try to leave comments on your ATM machine.
I am now telling the computer exactly what it can do with a lifetime supply of chocolate . . .
You can’t understand why the postman keeps bringing you mail of people you’re not even following.
Yeah,it says right here, “To Betty and Barnie Shlubbs” from AARP.” “What in tarnation? We would never follow them!”
You try to count how many drivers look over at you in traffic so you can feel like you’re getting a lot of traffic views.
Okay, let’s see . . . the guy in the blue truck makes four and oh oh . . . the two people in that yellow Kia just looked over . . .
You’re the only one at the movies who, instead of laughing, is shouting out the letters L O L.
L O frigging L! Gosh I’m having a good time!
And there you have it Dear Readers! If you recognized yourself in any of the above scenarios, you might want to go right out and buy yourself a great big bottle of Vitameatavegamin. That’s Vita Meata Vegamin! Because, as everybody knows, it’s the answer to all your problems!
In 1967, when I was a sophomore in high school, I fell in love with an older man. I would have married him in a heart beat too, if he had ever asked me. But alas, he never did –partly because we never met and partly because he had been dead since 1945.
The personage to whom I refer is a rather obscure gentleman that, unless you were lucky enough to have discovered his many books of humorous essays, he could be easily overlooked. His name is Robert Benchley.
This is the picture of my beloved Robert that I keep taped to my computer.
I stole Robert Benchley from my Mother. She had him on her beside table. The book was called, Love Conquers All.
One day, I took Love Conquers All to school with me and started reading it in Spanish class. The first essay I read was “Do Insects Think” in which Robert writes:
During the summer of 1899, while I was at work on my treatise “Do Larvae Laugh,” we kept a female wasp at our cottage in the Adirondacks. It really was more like a child of our own than a wasp, except that it looked more like a wasp than a child of our own. That was one of the ways we told the difference.
I had never read anything like it! I was shocked to find there were actually people out there, grown men, in fact, who made it their life’s work to be funny like this! And not Mark Twain funny or Will Rogers funny, because they were funny too. But they were an acquired taste of funny, a more mature type of humor. You had to be sophisticated and know a little bit about the world to appreciate them.
And thinking back now on when I was 15, the only thing I can remember knowing about the world is that eating an entire bag of Sweet Tarts for lunch made your mouth really sore for the rest of the day.
So you can imagine how happy I was when I realized that I could appreciate Robert Benchley’s humor without having to know a darn thing about the world!
Robert Benchley was my kind of humorist!
Robert Benchley and The Algonquin Roundtable
In the 1920’s, the coolest people in New York City were a group of witty writers, actors and celebrated personalities who met for lunch every day at the Algonquin Hotel in New York City.
Naturally, my beloved Robert Benchley was among the sparkling members of the group — which also included Dorothy Parker who said a lot of really funny things like “Way deep down he’s very superficial.” (I wanted to like Dorothy Parker, but from all that I’ve read, she really wasn’t very nice at all.)
The Algonquin Round Table in caricature by Al Hirschfeld. Seated at the table, clockwise from left: Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Heywood Broun, Marc Connelly, Franklin P. Adams, Edna Ferber, George S. Kaufman, Robert Sherwood. In back from left to right: frequent Algonquin guests Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield and Frank Case.
Anyway, there’s a really good movie based on the group called, Mrs. Parker and The Vicious Circle starring Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dorothy Parker. Jennifer Jason Leigh is excellent as Dorothy Parker, and Campbell Scott really nails my beloved Benchley.
Robert Benchley in Hollywood
Robert Benchley is probably most well known for his 30 comedy shorts in which he instructed audiences on things such as: How to Sleep and How to Eat.
Benchley also wrote much of the dialogue and frequently acted in many full length movies of the time as well — usually playing the part of the on-the-wagon drunk.
My two favorites are Alfred Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent where Benchley plays the part of Stebbins. Here’s a taste of the Benchley-esque dialogue:
Johnny Jones: This is Scott ffolliott, newspaperman same as you. Foreign correspondent. Mr. Haverstock, Mr. ffolliott. Scott ffolliott: With a double ‘F’. Johnny Jones: How do you do? Scott ffolliott: How do you do? Johnny Jones: I don’t get the double ‘F’. Scott ffolliott: They’re at the beginning. Both small ‘F’s Johnny Jones: They can’t be at the beginning. Scott ffolliott: One of my ancestors was beheaded by Henry VIII. His wife dropped the capital letter to commemorate it. There it is. Johnny Jones: How do you say it, like a stutter? Scott ffolliott: Just a straight ‘fuh’.
The other Benchley movie I dearly love is The Sky’s the Limit. It stars Fred Astaire and Robert Benchley. The plot’s really stupid but Fred Astaire performs One for My Baby where, in a drunken display of despair, he dances on the bar shattering all the glass (here). And Robert Benchley plays the sidekick character who has to deliver a speech he is totally unprepared for — check it out here.
Well, I could go on and on, Dear Readers, about my love affair with this older man. And perhaps I’ll expound upon this topic when I write my memoirs someday. I already have the title. It’s called “Do Larvae Kiss and Tell?”
Until next time . . . I love you (but not as much as Robert Benchley)
