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OBL, the Clarion from Hell

 

  If it were not for the occasional missive from our perceived hell for OBL, we would not be reminded of how the perfidious GWB and\ RC drove the country into a ditch, or the fact that BHO made them do it. You see, somehow we had been lulled into thinking that the perfidy twins, alone, were responsible for the disastrous state in which the country currently finds itself. No, no, no not at all! Unbeknownst to us, the omnipresent, unseen, voodoo-image of BHO ...

KING of KINGS

Having been born the same year as Martin Luther King, Jr. , I have a clear perspective of the America he attempted to change. It was an America divided by color and hostile to the 10% of its citizens who had been forced to the margins of society. There was a Mason-Dixon line, which southern part thereof was most honest in its racial relations. It carefully spelled out every facet of its extensive demarcations. The North was duplicitous. It feigned equality, while constructing an i ...

“RACIST” or REALITY?

When I first heard that Senator Harry Reed had said something about the president’s race Oooh! – I’m thinking Strom Thurmond or the ilk. The report was that, during the campaign, Reed had allowed as to the likelihood that, because Obama was light-skinned and did not speak with a “Negro” accent – except when he wanted to do so – and the fact that he is such a good speaker, probably would be to his advantage in his ques ...

This is an encomium to a good friend and events-planner extraordinaire.)

PEDRO the PARTY PLANNER

Peter, Petros, the Rock.
Perhaps not so solid as to support a church
But, solid in commitment -- you won’t go in hock --
Nor ever fear you’ll be left in the lurch.

Peter, Peter, Peter, in business he is true to ya.
Bubbly, faithful and giving.
He is as wine-wise as Julia
And as clever as Martha Stewart Living.

Peter, the go-getter,
The party-boy at large,
Will make a party better –
Even decor ...

Reviewed by Curtis W. Long



A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS
(Play by Paula Vogel)

In what turns out to be a chock-full-of-music drama, this one-night episode placed in the embattled U.S. capital in December of 1864, had a limited engagement at the Lucie Stern Theater in Palo Alto, California. It marks the 40th anniversary of Theater Works of Silicon Valley.

Playwright Paula Vogel is a native of Washington, D.C., and she uses her knowledge of the layout of that city as the backdrop for a complicated renderi ...

SILENT OR NOT . . .


The evergreen winter festival we have come to know as “Christmas,” does not conform to the obvious facts related to the religious event around which it was created. Oh, yes, historically, Mary, Joseph and the child can be placed in Bethlehem about the time of the birth in question. It is the surrounding circumstances and the time of their occurrence which, over the millennia, have undergone considerable ecclesiastical and political conversion. Here are some of t ...

THE MYSTERY OF CHRISTMAS FOREVER

(With all due apologies to Charles Dickens)

It is especially noticeable around this time of the year. We do not know exactly when it started. Its advent has been slow, imperceptive, steady, insistent, annoying, frustrating, and ultimately familiar and commonplace. We know the purpose of its existence – that is obvious – but we resent being the ones having to bear the burden of its effectiveness.

We have become inured. We know, now, that it is a part ...

OF JUDAS and ASSORTED VERMIN

Among one hundred senators,
All sworn to do our bidding,
One fits best among janitors –
Made queasy by that fitting..

This misplace solon vacillates
Twixt “rat” and “snake,” for starters.
His erstwhile friends he clearly hates
And now shamelessly barters.

A party favorite, he once ran
As V-P – It was ugly!
He became the forgotten man,
A burden he bore smugly.

But, in the race to keep his seat,
His party left him hanging.
In the midst of the ca ...

(Someone was explaining something to me, using metric measurements, as though it were a universally understood concept. Having no experience in a scientific or technological discipline, I realized I was not immediately grasping the import of what was being conveyed.

In jest, and ultimately in tragic truth, I said, “Don’t talk to me in metric; I’m
American.”

Ergo, the genesis of this otherwise pointless poem.)


METRIC AIN’T AMERICAN

Don’t talk to me of meters and ...

DAVID and JONATHAN
The Musical

Music: Tommy Dodson / Libretto and Lyrics: Curtis W. Long


Curtis W. Long, in San Diego, California, has developed a libretto and lyrics based upon the Old Testament Book of Samuel. Tommy Dodson, resident in Los Angeles, furiously is engaged in the process of applying his magic musical moves to the myriad mixed moods of the script and lyrics. The subject is the intriguing friendship between Jonathan the son of King Saul and the shepherd David, whom Saul summons, wi ...