Waiter, Is That a Fly in My Soup?

Soupy Sales has died. Soupy was the mast. Soupy was my captain of humor. Soupy and I imaginatvely saled the seas of laughter. But then one day years ago, I joined the mutiny against Soupy, and he had to retire from the docks. Now the Soup has met his ship of fate, and the winds have ceased.

I think I'm hungry now. Little woman, is that Slavic soup of yours ready yet?

-Old Gargoyle

Keep Him Sweet

Restless-leg syndrome, microfibermyolgia (or whatever it's called), dry-eye syndrome, etc.---all these medical conditions I see on tv I think I have. But I think I know what I need for all this crap: good old cane syrup. Yes, heavy, black, sweet cane syrup, not this sissy maple stuff sold here in New England and Delaware. Gotta get me some cane syrup! Reader, feel free to mail me a few cans; whatever I don't eat I'll use as motor oil.

-Old Gargoyle

Toss and Blast

While driving home from my part-time job as a perfume-odor scenter (sniffer) at the J.C. Penny Store, I passed the park and noticed a sign at its edge: "Ultimate Frisbee Here." A dozen or so guys in the field were playing the game by downing each other's tossed frisbees by actually shooting them with handguns.

-Old Gargoyle

Little Green Men

Dozens of new planets in our galaxy have been discovered in recent weeks, increasing the odds, people say, that intelligent life exists on some of them. For a long time, I agreed with scientists in speculating that the possibility of intelligent life on some planets in the entire universe, if not merely in our galaxy, was strong. Yet in the past few years, after more reading in the most up-to-date facts and theories of scientific cosmology, I think I'm reaching the opposite scientific conclusion, namely, that intelligent life exists only on Earth. Religious fundamentalists and conservatives, with whom I generally disagree, tend to agree with my preliminary conclusion on this matter, but for theological, not scientific, reasons.

-Old Gargoyle

A Stiff Upper Lip

For decades the Catholic Church has allowed married Anglican or Episcopal priests, who wanted to convert to Catholicism but then continue their professional ministry as married Catholic priests, to do so in a quiet, semi-private manner. Now the Vatican announces that it not only will make it easier and more public for married Anglican priests especially in Britain (and presumably Episcopal priests in the U.S.) to be ordained as Catholic priests, but will allow them to retain some aspects of the Anglican liturgy when functioning as new Catholic priests. I can hear the howls of confusion or frustration from "lifelong" Catholic priests who had to resign their ministry when they married, from "lifelong" married Catholic deacons, and from "lifelong" Catholic women who wish to be ordained as Catholic priests.

-Old Gargoyle

Who in the Hell Was That?

I returned to Delaware just in time to renew the license plates for my old Yugo. "Hey," I said to meself, "it's time I obtained personalized plates." So I chose the ones with an owl pictured in an environmental theme in the background of the letters "TIC DOC."

-Old Gargoyle

Eat More Chicken

Whew, I made it back safely. It's good to be in Seine once again. When I told the Ontario magistrate that I had mad-cow disease, he turned white, and immediately ordered my release and deportation back to the U.S. (something about protecting Canadian's precious meat supply; baloney---what I'm worried about is protecting---as the colonel in "Dr. Strangelove" would say---my "precious bodily fluids").

-Old Gargoyle