Jacquie Phelan's Weblog

Now and then I love calling Carol (Cunningham) to share my latest silliness…today (Friday, last of the month) after I read her the great words I found on Larry & Molly’s fridge last night, and will duly record here for you m’dears. In a second.
After sharing the funny Fridge Entertainment (I get up while the Thursday night musical gang slogs through a hornpipe or a waltz, things my banjo is not suited for, or I’m too lazy to slow down for, and walk into Casa Rea’s kitchen, and read the fridge. It’s a repository of lefty propaganda, wit and other ephemera…like a nice enamel magnet with a WW2 fresh-faced typist saying “Gee, I wasn’t using those civil rights anyway”…), Carol said in a solemn voice, “I hope you’re not going to Critical Mass tonight”.

This was out of the blue. I’d just come down from FHP (email me to find out what the initials for our tree-house aerie stand for!) with Chas, and put the tea on while yakking with my Mother-In-Love (no other term comes close).

“Why do you say that?”
“Well, it’s all over the front page…It sounds like a major free-for-all….”
“But…you know I’ve gone off & on for years, made that movie, told you how family-friendly it is…is there something they’re saying in the paper?”

I hadn’t looked at it yet.

“You haven’t had BREAKFAST YET?” she said shrilly.
“Uh, no, late night…music, remember?”
“Well, go have breakfast, you’ll keel over at the phone or forget it altogether…”
“Hardly happens” I assured her, wondering if she had a clue about my last week back from travels and barely remembering to eat…
“It’s just that the S.F. Chronicle tells a very biased story, and I thought you knew better than believe those jokers…People bring their kids in trailers…lots of kids in trailers, parrots on the handlebars, riding while filming…and it’s all safe-super-safe, because the COPS are keeping it that way. They prevent the (rare) road raging murderists from bumping the riders off…It’s really a sort of rolling party street festival, Mom”.
“Well, they sounded like it was kind of out of control…”
“Carol. Remember who are the biggest advertisers…Car companies. The paper has an entire 12 tabloid size pages given over to car shite”.

I’m still pretending I’m an irritable Scots bike nut, not a boring ol’ Marin hypocrite with a car right outside. I barrelled on, warm to the subject, with captive, loving relative lashed to her telly.

“If they framed the Mass as a safe, sane activity that points out all the flaws in the existing system of personal transportation, guess how many advertisers would be majorly pissed off? The auto companies, the insurance companies hell even the City,with its hefty returns on parking lots and parking violations…the entire city fabric is shot through with Car Craziness and they rely on the media to prop up the illusion…and besides–”

“Go have your breakfast. Please eat before you hop on your bike”
“OK. Love ya.”

and now, about those Funny words I read on the fridge:

IF you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you an resist complaining and boring peope with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
IF you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you, when through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
if you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
THEN you’re actually a dog.

~ by jacquiephelan on September 28, 2007.

Posted in Jacquie Phelan