Barry Parham's Blog: The Mooncalf Communion, page 6

Orbits, Continued

(Still lazy after all these years)
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Last week, I turned sixty-three. No, not colors.

No, I didn’t turn sixty-three pages, or sixty-three heads. No, I didn’t turn state’s evidence sixty-three times, though I could have. No, I didn’t turn over sixty-three times in my sleep, though I often have. No, I didn’t turn sixty-three shades of grey; in fact, I’m not allowed to have sex any more, because it makes me infuriatingly pleasant.

Last week, I turned sixty-three years old, which i...

How To Not Kill People

(therapy on the cheap)
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One of the handy side-effects of writing a humor column is that it can provide the writer with free therapy. This is useful because of one of the not-so-handy side-effects: writing a humor column doesn’t pay much.

Take, for example, pet peeves. We all have them, but rather than internalizing mine until I’m bitter and traumatized, I just start typing. Rather than letting those peeves simmer until I need to pay some goatee-sporting European to let me lie on ...

Abby Redux XIV

(advice, like it or not)
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Well, America, August 2020 is now in the books. And other than hurricanes threatening Tulsa, wildfires threatening to move to Canada, and Joe Biden threatening to defeat himself, it was a pretty normal month.

At least by 2020 standards.

And that means we’re now one month closer to a New Year’s Eve bash that hasn’t been rivaled since Prince put 1999 on the map. I haven’t seen this many people this ready to celebrate buying a new calendar since the year...

Plight of the Boneless Buffalo

(at least they have wings)
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In America, most people during their time on Earth work hard to make a difference, unless they’re network TV executives. (In that case, they just think they’re making a difference. Living with a laugh track every day will do that to you.)

But most of us want to contribute. Some will focus on agricultural breakthroughs, like the guy who invented seedless watermelon. (Of course, he had to keep reinventing them, every spring, because the melons wouldn’t m...

Think You Have Problems?

(Pain is relative. No, not a relative.)
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These days, a lot of us in America are focused on getting through the day without being breathed on, or having to drive eighteen hours to negotiate for toilet paper, or being suddenly transported to downtown Portland.

But not all of us.

While you and yours are busy tapdancing to the revolving, inconsistent COVID instructions, some people are dealing with just plain old street-level weirdness.

True, China’s Mexican beer virus has chan...

Pre-Internet Mating Tips

(Yes, I know you’re vacuuming, but where’s dinner?)
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In 1958, I was one year old. I knew one word, if you don’t count “moossutbupphpuss.” I had a promising number of hair follicles, a to-die-for knitted hat, and an exceptional Body Mass Index. I was moderately well-behaved, mostly because I couldn’t walk far enough to damage anything. And it would be at least four more years before I would get interested in “the fairer sex.”

But guys all over America were way ahead of me. In the ...

buggywhips.com

(meanwhile, Japan creates an 8-cylinder latrine)
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This week, while waiting for the latest government update on whether or not wearing a mask could kill me or people I nearly near, I read an interesting article on the internet. The author’s point was that Japan is far, far ahead of the rest of mankind when it comes to toilet technology.

And you thought they lost World War Two.

The Japanese have long had a habit of taking stuff that already exists and making it better, except fo...

Spare Time

(Hey, I know those shoes!)
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Maybe it snuck up on you. Maybe you got distracted and forgot. After all, it’s been an extremely not normal year, and we’ve all been busy trying not to touch anything, or go anywhere, or approach anyone. But it’s almost here: the second Sunday of August. That’s right, America – get ready for yet another historic celebration:

National Bowling Day.

Admit it. You’ve bowled. In fact, I can state with some confidence that every American guy, at some poin...

Hindsight Is 2020 AD

(August: okay, add humidity to the gauntlet)
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Let’s play a thought experiment. Five or so years ago, if you’d been warned by some guy to prepare for a year whose high point was a baseball-killing communist plague, what would you have done? I mean, what would you have done after you finished slapping the guy to his knees?

Five or so years ago, who would have dreamed that a deadly water-droplet-carried virus, released from a walled country that still hasn’t figured out how to use f...

Reading To The Rescue

(finally, something we can do without a mask)
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Oh, look. That pandemic thing is still here. Will no one rid me of this turbulent plague? (I know, it should be “turbulent priest,” but let’s not niggle.)

Here in the not very United States, we’re slogging our way through the fourth, or fifth, or sixth month (depending on who you ask) of this gym-killing, salon-slaying plague nonsense (depending on which governor you ask).

You’d think, by now, the White House would have appointed ...