Category: Life

Let Them Race Cake

To inaugurate a hospital or new building, one might cut a ribbon. To christen a ship, smash some champagne or three-buck-chuck on its bow instead of drinking the perfectly good bottle of booze. The Eastern Orthodox Church dunks infants in baptismal fonts brimming with olive oil, and boy, National Geographic has some haunting pictures of that.

But what if you’re a casino that’s just built a six-story parking garage and you want to commemorate the occasion with more than a few yards of 4″ wide red satin and a comically-oversized pair of scissors wielded by the nearest politician up for election next month?

Build a car out of cake and race it, of course! (Warning: Article viewing limit)

Photo by Michal Balog on Unsplash
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If You Don’t Write Fanmail, Start

Sir Ian Holm died.

I should have sent him a note saying I liked him as Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings films. And Fifth Element. And one of the audio versions of the Lord of the Rings. And in Day After Tomorrow, admonishing his colleagues to not waste fine scotch delaying the inevitable but instead enjoy it in the face of oblivion.

Dave Madden died. He played a wise-cracking, curmudgeonly, grumpy, sarcastic, Jesus-loving, story-telling janitor in the radio theater Adventures in Odyssey. He wasn’t my favorite character in my childhood, but once I grew up and listened again to the episodes, the humor then clicked for me. And since I’m now a janitor, well, I feel a kinship to the character. I never wrote Dave Madden fan mail.

Continue reading “If You Don’t Write Fanmail, Start” →

Don’t Stop Writing Fan Mail

It’s been so long since I’ve let poetry bubble up I’d forgotten what it was like to evoke emotion. To be honest, I don’t know as my words have had such an effect as this before.

Back in the days when I decided to be bold and try new things, I read in the paper about a local kickstarted pizza cart, Pizzeria La Sorrentina, near the car museum. I was (and still am) a foodie and was inspired to write an honest, albeit gushing, review on their Facebook page.

I never did that before. Oh, sure, I’d like a friend’s page about their small business or band, but they were always people I knew in person. With every bite of the pizza, I wanted more and more to meet Daisuke Matsumoto, the Japanese gentleman who studied pizza in Italy to not just learn how to make pizza but to become wonderful at it. I realized he was (and is) excellent at making pizza. His passion pours into every knead and stretch of dough. For me, paying sixteen bucks for what some would consider a “small” pizza is worth every single cent.

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Blessed Are the Misfits microReview

Blast are the MessfitsGrowing up, my family and I would visit my Nana in Port Angeles. Sunday mornings, we trooped with her to church and I’d be the visitor from out of town in a Sunday School class. On one occasion, the teacher taught about Noah’s ark and how all those who accepted Jesus were basically on Noah’s ark.

Post lesson, one of the nice lady teachers asked me, “Do you feel like you’re on Noah’s ark?”

“No.” I said.

“Well, do you want to pray so you are?” She smiled a kind smile.

“No.” I looked around nervously.

Now, understand this: I was about seven years old. Let me project for you what literal seven-year-old me was thinking at the time.

“Lady, we’re in a class room. In a church. We’re not on a boat, much less Noah’s ark. So, no, I don’t feel like I’m on Noah’s ark. If I pray and ask to be on Noah’s ark, I believe you and I’ll be on Noah’s ark. I don’t like boats. So forget it.” Continue reading “Blessed Are the Misfits microReview” →