Today's Mailbag

Since the latest flurry of publicity for me and for my work as a writer, I've gotten mail from a number of different sources. Two that really thrilled me today were from Bubbie Fatt of B. Fatt & Lazy Movie Reviews, one of the funniest sites on the Internet. And I got one from my Congressional Representative, Sue Myrick.

B.Fatt emailed me because I post at the site and he was touching base.

Sue Myrick because of the recent newspaper article about me. As it happens, I do write to her often, to try to get her to vote on legislation the way I want. No luck there, so far, but she and her office have always been responsive and civil. Which puts her in the company of the most responsive legislators whom I've routinely written over the years. I could always count on a response from the following elected officials:

Senator John Edwards.

Senator Jesse Helms.

Representative Sue Myrick.

Which brings me to a story about Rep. Myrick:

I used to deliver mail to a World War II aviator named Captain Killen. (Great name for a military character, and yes I filed it away for future use.) His wife had recently died and he was having trouble transporting her body. Forgive me, as I've forgotten some of the details, but either she had died while they were visiting in Italy or had died here and her wish was to be buried in Italy. Either way, he was having fits getting her body transported from point A to point B.

One day after he had told me of this difficulty, I was delivering mail to him when he stopped me to talk (as he almost always did). "Guess who I was just speaking to on the phone?"

"Who?" I asked.

He had gotten in touch with Representative Myrick. She knew, of course, where to go to get this done for Capt. Killen, but on this she needed some extra help. She needed someone with some clout, and she got it. So Captain Killen had a conference call that included himself, Congresswoman Myrick, and the late Senator Ted Kennedy who was able to get the final piece of the puzzle to fit to get the body of Mrs. Killen to its final resting place.

So there it was: he'd just gotten off the phone with one of the best known elected officials in North Carolina, and one of the best known in the nation. The two had put their heads together to help out this World War II veteran in his time of need.

That's what I call bi-partisan cooperation.

Thanks, Cap'n Killen!

They're Dead, Jim

Back in the earlier days of the Internet, there were a few websites that I quite enjoyed. Some of the ones that I enjoyed reading the most vanished. I don't know why they vanished, but they did.

The first one to vanish was a site called Media Whores Online. It was produced during the early days of the hijacking of our so-called democracy when George W. Bush was installed into the White House after a rigged election. The USA press refused to address this obvious fraud election, and so was born Media Whores Online in an attempt to address the media whores who went about acting as if George W. Bush was anything more than a mildly retarded figurehead. At some point the site vanished, along with any hopes I ever had that this nation would grow a backbone and produce some brain cells.

Another site that I loved to read was a very crude humor review column called "B. Fatt & Lazy". It was a movie review bit wherein the authors gave vent to every atom of vitriol and stream-of-consciousness nastiness that was stuck in their craws. They unloaded in the most hilarious manner on the popular movies of the day. Rarely did I fail to get a good laugh out of the site. But--alas!--it faded. After a (hopefully) faux suicide report of B. Fatt's last day, the site was quietly retired into oblivion. I miss it.

The third site that I admired for its sometimes nihilistic approach to society was Cruel.com. It was a non-political website that found humor in the strangest places that the owner located (with online community help). These displayed sites were generally "cruel" in that they did manage to (intentionally or not) display the bizarre workings and ironies of modern society. It, too, finally closed its virtual doors and is now a part of online history.

I miss all three of those website for various reasons. I've seen a lot of these ether-places come and go, but few of them made me think and laugh as much as that trio. And, unfortunately, not a single creator has risen out of the mudheap of the Internet to replace them.

So it goes.

(And before I could even post this bit, I've been informed that Cruel.com has been resuscitated. I'll withhold my opinion until I take a good look at it.)

Now This is My Kind of Humor