Day: October 19, 2019

Walk Away Renee

Fandango12 Comments

At first I wasn’t going to respond to Jim Adam’s Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Music Challenge this week. Jim gave us the song “Walk Like an Egyptian” by the Bangles and tasked us “to focus on this song and use it for inspiration in any form of creative expression…that you can share with the writing community.

But Jim is my blogging buddy, and I wanted to show my support. So rather than focusing on walking like an Egyptian, I decided to focus on the word “walk” and to come up with a song using that word that I liked. And I settled on the song “Walk Away Renee,” written by Bob Calilli, Mike Brown, and Tony Sansone, and recorded by the group, The Left Banke.

And when I see the sign that points one way
The lot we used to pass by every day

Just walk away Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You’re not to blame

From deep inside the tears that I’m forced to cry
From deep inside the pain that I chose to hide

Just walk away Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
Now as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes
For me it cries

Just walk away Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
Now as the rain beats down upon my weary eyes
For me it cries

Your name and mine inside a heart upon a wall
Still finds a way to haunt me, though they’re so small

Just walk away Renee
You won’t see me follow you back home
The empty sidewalks on my block are not the same
You’re not to blame

As a bonus, here’s the “walk this way” scene from my favorite movie, “Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein.”

We the People

Fandango19 Comments

Trump and the ConstitutionHow is it that the Republicans in Congress and those who support Donald Trump can still believe that his presidency is copacetic? Things in and around the White House are not in excellent order. Far from it. In fact, the ubiquity of corruption, dishonesty, and ineptness is astounding.

Trump and his cronies are treating the presidency like a three-ring circus, with a constant drip, drip, drip of questionable, and probably, illegal actions.

First there was the withholding of congressionally approved funds for Ukraine by Trump and his delegates. The money was to be withheld unless the newly elected president of Ukraine agreed to investigate one of Trump’s political rivals. And while Trump claims there was nothing wrong with his dealings with the Ukrainian President, his own “acting” chief-of-staff publicly admitted to a quid pro quo for political purposes and told those reporters assembled to “get over it.”

And then there was the infamous telephone call with Turkey’s dictator, Erdogan, in which Trump gave the green light for Turkey to send his army into the Kurdish homeland, a narrow swath of land in northern Syria. This act will be devastating to Kurds, who fought ISIS on behalf of the United States, and it gave Erdogan America’s blessing to essentially engage in ethnic cleansing (i.e., genocide) of the Kurdish people. It’s an almost incomprehensible betrayal of our allies in the battle against ISIS.

And what about Trump’s desperate move to defy subpoenas, to try to prevent anyone associated with the Trump administration from testifying before Congress, and refusing to comply with demands to provide documents to congressional committees? These are outrageous acts of obstruction of justice.

And finally there is the selection of Trump’s golf resort, the Trump National Doral Miami, as the site for the festivities at next June’s G7 Summit. This is in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, which prohibits federal officeholders (including the president) from receiving any gift, payment, or other thing of value from a foreign state or its rulers, officers, or representatives. Having foreign leaders, their entourages, and security teams paying enormous sums of money to stay at a property owned by Trump is the very definition of using his office to line his own pockets.

So back to my original question: how is it that the Republicans in Congress and those who support Donald Trump can still believe that his presidency is copacetic? When will they begin to put country ahead of party? And when will we the people, the American voting public, say that enough is enough?

Written for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (copacetic), Your Daily Word Prompt (ubiquity), The Daily Spur (ring), Daily Addictions (drip), Word of the Day (desperate), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (festivities).

SoCS — My Oh My

Fandango7 Comments

D’où“Oh crap,” John said.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Judy, John’s wife of forty years, asked.

“You know that line, ‘lions and tigers and bears, oh my’?”

“Yeah,” Judy said. “From The Wizard of Oz.”

“D’oh!” John exclaimed. “Oh my God, I knew that, but my brain just couldn’t call it up. I must be losing my mind. I think I’ve got early onset….”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, John,” Judy interrupted, “you don’t have early onset anything. We’re just getting older and sometimes our memory fails us and we can’t instantly remember things we’re sure we know. That’s just aging.”

“Oh right, that’s easy for you to say, Judy,” John said. “Your mind is as sharp as ever, while mine is fading fast. I think I drank too much alcohol in my younger days.”

“Oh boohoo, John,” Judy said. “You may have been a bit bohemian back in the day, but you and your cohorts were anything but alcoholics. You’re not being coherent, so quit whining.”

“Oh, so now I’m being incoherent, am I,” John said. “See, early onset dementia. Uh oh, Judy, my life is over.”

“Oh hell, John,” Judy said. “Shut up, you old fool.”

Written for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt from Linda G. Hill. We are tasked with writing a post using the word “oh” or to find a word that starts with “oh.” I bent the rules a little bit and included words containing “oh,” as well.

FOWC with Fandango — Copacetic

Fandango26 Comments

FOWCWelcome to October 19, 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 “copacetic.”

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.