“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances…”
On Sunday, August 20, 2017 the world became a less funny place. One of its great humourists, Jerry Lewis, exited the stage one final time leaving behind a legacy he and his family can be proud of.
“I’ve had great success being a total idiot.”
I can’t claim to know too much about the man himself, but from what I can gather he was a consummate professional – dedicated to his craft, and making himself the best he could be at it; he also seemed to have a heart for serving others as his life-long work with the Muscular Dystrophy Association (maybe donate one more time in his honour) and his desire to help children in need; and he was funny.
Not Will Ferrell ‘I’ll cringe while I laugh at your jokes and wouldn’t think of letting my niece and nephew watch or listen to you’ funny. Not profanity-laced, crude modern-day stand-up funny. Just funny. Good old-fashioned, innocent funny.
Some years back when my niece was born, I felt the need to go out and buy several DVD sets of things I didn’t want her and my nephew to miss out on; included in those are three of the greatest duos of all time imnsho – Abbott & Costello, Hope & Crosby, and – you guessed it probable – Lewis & Martin. These were the groups I wanted to share because they’re some of my favourite entertainment memories; those winter nights when mom and dad would go to Hollywood Video and rent us movies, it would often be these guys. And one of my favourites! Scared Stiff…
This here is my kind of funny. And it’s the kind of funny I’m glad I can share with everyone.
And now there’s less of it in the world… You will be missed, Mr. Lewis, but you have left a mark that remains. Thank you for the memories.
Godspeed.
In other news, the President gave a speech last night outlining the new strategy moving forward in Afghanistan… and it was surprisingly good. When CNN has a hard time finding anything bad to say about it, and Senator Graham has nothing but praise for President Trump – hell has frozen over with the jihadists in it (I wish).
“The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable,” Trump said. “We cannot repeat in Afghanistan the mistake we made Iraq.”
I appreciate what the President had to say, and that he was man enough to admit that he has changed his mind (as did the last President) based on the advice given to him. While the worst people have been able to say about the speech is that President Trump didn’t give enough specifics – that is something I’m more than okay with. He didn’t say exactly what he’d be doing and how long we’d be doing it – it’s best not to telegraph that info so the enemy can just wait us out… like they did when President Obama set an arbitrary withdrawal date of 18 months. Apparently unlike our last President, this one occasionally learns from history. President Trump has also done infinitely better than President Obama in not playing armchair General, and disseminating authority and decision-making power to the people who are qualified to do it on the ground – and this sounds like more of the same; which has given us yuuuuuge gains in the battle against ISIS so fat this year. I look forward to seeing what our men and women in the armed forces can accomplish with the gloves taken off and the Generals in charge.
Today’s Verse:
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.
~ Proverbs 17:17
And Another Thing…
The home of the First and Second Battles of Bull Run – Manassas, VA – has had to cancel its Civil War Weekend for safety concerns. This is getting stupid, people – and it just keeps adding to the reasons people are the worst: so just stop it.
Civil War re-enactments were one of my favourite things to go to when I was younger; I loved learning about the era and the people and the events that shaped and changed the course of our country. Just stop already.
On that note – have an awesome Tuesday!
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