
This is not actually a picture of Boogendorf, this is Toonerville where the clocks are wrong and a giant Mickey Mouse lurks in the foothills beyond.
Today I mean to justify my existence before God and everybody. Apparently in the modern world you have to be certain things in your basic foundation to justify getting travel visas, citizenship, and a basic right to continue to exist unmolested. We apparently elected a new leader, the Mad King of Boogendorf, to make sure all Boogendorfers are suitably qualified to live in Boogendorf. So this is a brief photo essay to justify my case for why Boogendorf should accept me as a citizen and not execute me outright.
First of all, I am not one hundred per cent crazy. You can tell from this photo, can’t you?
This kooky dorfleflop can’t be any more than 65% crazy because his pin head is not large enough to harbor more than 65 out of every 100 truly derfy and sanity-stealing notions. (What is a dorfleflop, you say? Well, dorf is a German word for town, and dorfleflops flop in a dorf and think they belong like everybody else who has flopped there before.)
But using the Mad King of Boogendorf as a measuring stick (an orange measuring stick with an extra-long tie), that is clearly not crazy enough by half.

What’s the deal with the clocks always being wrong in Boogendorf?
I have always heard it said, “It takes a village to raise a child”. And I think that saying I heard is probably true. I was raised by the village of Rowan, Iowa in the 60’s and 70’s. I learned to draw there. And I can draw real cartoon human beings.
Of course, one must be careful to note that if you could actually draw real cartoon human beings they would be alive after that, and that would make you like God, able to create life from nothing more than pencil, pen, and paper. And in Boogendorf there is only room for one God. That, of course, is the Mad King of Boogendorf. So I guess that is a disqualifying quality too.
And that saying about a child raised by a village is a saying somehow connected to Hillary Clinton, and Hillary Clinton was defeated (I have also heard disgraced, demoralized, and denounced) in the last election by getting more votes than the Mad King of Boogendorf. So I am judged lacking by my upbringing too.
I am also undeniably guilty of playing with dolls. I mean, I collect them, I comb their hair, dress them in different clothes, take them apart and repair them, and pose them for pictures. That can’t be normal. But is it abnormal enough to make me qualified to be a Boogendorfer from the village of Boogendorf? Maybe if I plated them in gold or something, or had enough money to go to “golden shower” extremes? I guess I don’t understand how to be Boogendorfy enough to live in Boogendorf. The “Boo” in Boogendorf proves that you have to be pathologically afraid of things more, just like other Boogendorfers are. I am sure the average Boogendorfer is afraid of people who play with dolls. Especially if those weird people don’t own any guns and don’t like to kill stuff. That just ain’t natural. You even need to give guns to little girls to make them safe against those evil anti-Boogendorfers.
So, I guess I am doomed to live a life outside of the walls of Boogendorf (and they are really great walls, too). I should be grateful that the citizens of Boogendorf have only rejected me and not used their sacred second-amendment rights to execute me. For now, I am simply not a Boogendorfer.
When You Can’t Laugh at the Clowns
It is sad that Ringling Brothers, Barnum, & Bailey will be closing for good this coming May. I have personally gone to the circus and enjoyed the spectacle under the big top (though actually in arenas) about fifteen times, first with my parents and then with my own kids. I loved the elephants, the wire-walkers, the lion tamers, and I laughed at the clowns. And now that will no longer be possible. I have gradually lost more and more of the most important things in my life as I have gotten older. I lost mobility with arthritis. I have lost financial security through health problems. I have lost the ability to do the job I devoted my life to and so deeply loved. And now I can no longer laugh at the clowns.
The problem is not that there are no clowns left, even though most of the greatest ones, Emmett Kelly, Bob Keeshan, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, and the man who played Bozo, have all passed on. The problem is not that my kids are afraid of clowns, scared to death of people who aggressively get right up in your face while theirs is covered with grease paint (especially since my kids are now grown and can sock the clown in his painted mush if he gets too close). The problem isn’t even that the clowns are not funny any more.
The problem is that the Clown in Chief has killed the laughter. He has become an agent of instability and chaos. When he is mocked brilliantly by Alec Baldwin on Saturday Night Live, he has to mount a tweet storm on Twitter and uses his limited twit-wit to angrily denounce and threaten and belittle instead of laughing at the jokes as other politicians like the current President and Vice President have graciously done, even sometimes using self-deprecating humor to get in on the jokes themselves. Even notoriously humorless political clowns like Ted Cruz and Sarah Palin have more grace in ignoring mockery and smiling at insults than this Great Orange Face that we put in charge of the country’s most serious business.
The ability to laugh at oneself is a very serious thing. When the whole “golden showers” business made it into the national debate, this manic moron did not make it seem mere political hum-buggery by laughing it off. No, he got deeply offended and defensive, the same way a person who is actually guilty of the accusation would react. So, if it is not true, the Crybaby in Chief has only bolstered our belief that it is most probably true. As ridiculous as the accusation sounds, you have to admit that Trump’s behavior in the past makes you at least entertain the possibility that it is a true thing that he has done.
And now, he has over-reacted again, this time to the very real concerns raised by Congressman John Lewis, an honest-to-God civil rights hero, with cruel and crusty criticism that lowers my respect for Trump as well as lowering all future expectations. The man isn’t even sworn in yet, and he has already shown such bilious badness in his character that I truly dread living in this country under his rule.
I am a man who lives to laugh, and laughs to live. That is how I overcome the things that bother me as well as the things that hurt me. I use laughter as medicine, not as a weapon. And I hate to see the viruses in our society that I have always been able to inoculate myself against with humor become totally drug-resistant in that way.
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Filed under angry rant, clowns, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, politics, satire
Tagged as Bozo is dead, clowns, Donald Trump, politics, rant, Ringling Brothers closing