Day: August 4, 2019

Sunday Photo Fiction — Photobomber

Fandango15 Comments

32C83F50-7ABB-4BE2-8000-68BB9220FEC3“What the hell?” Alex said as he reviewed the pictures he took that day through the viewfinder on his digital camera.

“What’s the matter, hon?” Alicia asked.

“Look at this picture I took today at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela,” Alex said.

“Who is that guy in the picture?” Alicia asked.

“Exactly!” Alex said. “Some shadowy jokester jumped in front of the cathedral just as I was taking the picture and photobombed it.”

“You didn’t see him step in front of the camera?” Anita asked? “He ruined an otherwise great shot of the cathedral.”

“Tell me about it,” Alex said. He then went to the next picture and the next picture and the one after that. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “This same guy photobombed every one of my pictures.”

“You’re kidding,” Alicia said. “Every picture?”

“Every goddam picture,” Alex admitted. “And we’re leaving Galicia tomorrow morning. This really pisses me off.”

Alicia opened her laptop and did a google search. “Hon, come look at this,” she said. “This guy is a local legend. He is a supposedly a spirit who tries to protect the historic and religious sites of Galicia. He’s referred to as the Ghost Photobomber of Galicia.”

(200 words)

Written for Donna McNichol’s Sunday Photo Fiction prompt. Photo credit: Alexis Ortiz.9D556121-5A3F-4C86-9803-C16CFD8FDEDF

Weekend Writing Prompt — Antipathy

Fandango3 Comments

I am seething with antipathy.

Tygpress not authorizedToward those unscrupulous people at tygpress who are stealing our posts.

A539B741-7A53-4865-A1B4-79138E5377E0Toward politicians who send nothing but thoughts and prayers but take no definitive actions.

(30 words)

098FFF00-CC37-47FF-B4E4-7C22936B4685Written for Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt, where we are challenged to write a poem or piece of prose using the word “antipathy” in exactly 51 words.

Thoughts and Prayers My Ass

Fandango135 Comments

64157FDE-D25E-4EC1-84A0-088AE79282A1I’ve been pretty angry and upset over this whole Tygpress.com thing over the past three or four days. But in the scheme of things, it’s small potatoes compared with what’s going on in the United States.

At least 53 people were shot dead and many more were wounded by separate mass shooting incidents in just this past week.

Within 13 hours of the El Paso shooting, where 20 people were shot and killed yesterday, another 10 people were shot and killed in Dayton, Ohio last night. In both cases, high capacity, military-style, semiautomatic assault rifles were used to inflict maximum casualties.

A mass shooting is “an incident where four or more people are shot in a single shooting spree. This may include the gunman himself, or police shootings of civilians around the gunman.”

As of August 4th, 2019, 251 mass shootings that fit that definition have occurred just this year.  As a result, more than 1,000 people have been shot, and more than 280 have died.

When is enough enough? When will our elected representatives in Congress and our elected officials around the country stop sending out their thoughts and prayers, which do no good whatsoever, and take meaningful action to address this epidemic?

Republicans keep repeating the NRA mantra, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” But guns do kill people, and when you have more guns in this country than you have men, women, and children, and a divisive President who sows the seeds of racist and nationalistic hatred, what the fuck do you expect?

Republicans continue to blame anything but guns. One former Republican senator, expressing the NRA screed that “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” blamed the El Paso massacre on not enough gun-carrying shoppers at the Walmart. Another current Republican congressman blamed violent video games. Are you kidding me?

Wake the fuck up, America. It’s time to do more than to send useless thoughts and prayers. It’s time to take definitive action to pass common sense gun control legislation on the federal level. Otherwise, mass shootings in America will be an everyday occurrence and we risk becoming numb to this deadly assault against our fellow citizens.

Photo credit: Andres Leighton / AP.9D556121-5A3F-4C86-9803-C16CFD8FDEDF

Song Lyric Sunday — Cheers

Fandango7 Comments

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams has given us TV Themes as the theme. So many great themes from television shows I’ve watched through the decades came to mind, but the one I ended up choosing was the theme from “Cheers.” The song was written by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo, and the song’s actual title is “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.”

“Cheers” was an American sitcom that ran from 1982 to 1993, with a total of 275 half-hour episodes across eleven seasons. The show is set in a bar named Cheers in Boston, Massachusetts, where a group of locals meet to drink, relax, and socialize. “Cheers” ranks among my favorite TV sitcoms of all time.

Television producers Glen and Les Charles were looking for a theme song for their new television sitcom they were producing. They wanted an adult heme that would reflect the depth of the characters who congregated in the Boston bar where the show was set. They asked Portnoy and Hart Angelo to take a shot at composing a theme specifically for “Cheers.” It took Portnoy and Hart Angelo four tries, but the Charles Brothers gave that fourth attempt their stamp of approval.

The producers eventually asked Portnoy to record the vocal for the opening credits of their new series, and the finalized version of the “Cheers” theme song was recorded on August 13, 1982 at Paramount Pictures in Los Angeles, California.

Here are the lyrics of the song.

Making your way in the world today,
takes everything you got.
Taking a break from all your worries,
sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?

All those nights when you got no lights.
The check is in the mail.
And your little angel
hung the cat up by it’s tail.
And your third fiance didn’t show.
Sometime you want to go…

Where everybody knows your name.
And they’re always glad you came.
You wanna be where you can see,
the troubles are all the same.
You wanna be where everybody knows your name.

You roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee’s dead,
the morning’s looking bright,
(the mornings looking bright).
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
and didn’t even write.
And your husband wants to be a girl.
Be glad there’s one place in the world…

Where everybody knows your name.
And they’re aways glad you came.
You wanna go where people know,
people are all the same.
You wanna go where everybody knows your name.

Where everybody knows your name.
And they’re aways glad you came.
Where everybody knows your name.
And they’re aways glad you came.
Where everybody knows your name.
And they’re aways glad you came.
9D556121-5A3F-4C86-9803-C16CFD8FDEDF

FOWC with Fandango — Previous

Fandango25 Comments

FOWCWelcome to August 4, 2019 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “previous.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Or you can simply include a link to your post in the comments.

The issue with pingbacks not showing up seems to have been resolved, but you might check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.