I know, I know......I have not kept up the great pace at which I started this project and I guess I should apologize, but, frankly, I am puzzled and a bit bewildered and don't feel like apologizing. I think I am playing in the wrong ball game or something. It has come to my attention that perhaps I am doing this whole thing wrong by trying to write while I am awake and conscious.
The truth is that I have not been feeling so tippy top for the past few days so I have neglected my Blog spending all my available strength and energy on feeling sorry for myself. Arrrrghhh.....I do hate self-pity, but sometimes I fall into the pit just like the rest of the world and, once down there at the bottom, it is so much easier to just wallow than to try to climb out. There I was wallowing away and thinking about starting a feeble ascent when I read a news item on AOL news about a newlywed who found that her new husband talked in his sleep and uttered such odd and funny things that she began to tape record him and publish his profundities (?) on a blog. In something like 2 or 3 days the visits to the blog were up to a million or so......or at least that is how I remember it. I wish I had made a note of the site or at least saved the story, but I was so disspirited that I didn't bother.
For one thing, I wish I knew how they are able to tell that a million people have checked out that blog.....is there a hidden counter somewhere that I don't know about, or do all of them leave comments? (a million comments would be a little much). I have been an abject failure at getting some of my known readers to even sign on as followers (they sneak in during the dark of night and disappear without leaving a trace), and only a few loyal and brave souls are willing to admit they have visited. I had made peace with that, I thought, and was content to continue to blather away talking to myself until yesterday when the above news item upset my canoe.
Now I can hardly remember what some of those pithy maunderings were, but it seems to me that one of them was something like, "Don't hit him with the lobster." There were a number of others, many of which also dealt with food, all equally nonsensical. I didn't laugh much, I'm afraid.....they really weren't that funny to me, but obviously the rest of the world finds them hysterical. I guess that is why I have a hard time laughing at the newest crop of nightime comedians who seem to be able to get people rolling on the floor laughing by simply uttering their universal one word punchline, "fart". Oh where are the current talented and intelligent likes of Johnny Carson, Bob Newhart, Steve Allen, George Carlin, Bill Cosby and Woody Allen etc????.......sob.
Another horrendous quote I come across recently was in re the mess that has erupted on late nite TV with Jay, Dave and Conan etc.........Sadly since Johnny Carson left I do not find any of those so-called comedy hosts (either the older ones or the younger ones) funny or even proficient at filling up a time slot but some hotshot comment writer had the infernal gall to say something like, "When are they going to get rid of those middle aged white guys who are way past their prime and let the young guys have their way?".......with what???.....127 ways to say "Fart"? When I was younger the funniest comedians were always middle aged white guys ......i.e. Jack Benny, Bob Hope, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle and since they were not allowed to utter a dirty word to get a laugh they simply had to make up for it by writing really funny material and performing hysterical skits that made you cry with laughing. Ah, but, I digress.........
To get back to the Sleeptalking Husband Blog......it seems that the wife has learned to use a voice activated recorder so that her sleep is not even interrupted trying to record her husband's utterances and so it appears that material without a single conscious thought or creative quality is being preserved without any real effort on anyone's part other than her transcribing the tapes onto the Blog. That it is being gobbled up by a million so people is what has me puzzled, bewildered and disspirited..........what am I missing here, folks????? I need some help, NOW.
By the way....if it sounds like I am simply a bad sport or just a jealous, out-of-date shrew well.....that IS possible but I AM dealing with it. And I promise that once I recover from this unexpected blow I will, indeed, continue blogging away in my usual unrestrained fashion whether anyone likes it or not.
The New Yorker covers: September 26, 2011
3 hours ago