Get Incensed

Diff’rent Strokes … for different folks ….

The Catholic Church — God bless ‘em, they’re good for at least six posts a month — is coming out with a coloring book that alerts kids to the danger of being sexually assaulted by a priest.

The book, entitled Being Friends, Being Safe, Being Catholic, relies heavily on guardian angel imagery to get its message across.

According to Breitbart News, “One image in the book features a guardian angel hovering over an altar boy with a priest lurking in the background … In another, the angel warns of a sexual predator attempting to chat with a child over the Internet.”

There is a comforting message here for young Catholics: If you’re worried about being molested by a priest, you should know that the Victoria’s Secret models and Curtis Sliwa have got your back.

Uh … in a good way.

One prevents your bishop from abusing you, the other prevents you from abusing your bishop…

Hoping to capitalize on brisk sales of the book, Crayola is coming out with a companion crayon set that includes extra “Flesh” colored crayons.

In an effort to improve its image, the Church also said that inappropriate touching by a priest would no longer be termed “molestation” but would now be referred to more euphemistically as “coloring outside the lines.”

Rejected titles for the new coloring book included: Becoming an Altered Boy, Touched By An Anglican and Come, All Ye Faithful.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to confession right away.

“Bless me, Father, for I have punned ….”

Pomp and circumstance….

This just in …

In a recent study, a chimp beat nine college students in a short-term memory test.

To be fair, the chimp was home-schooled.

Further investigation uncovered the fact the monkey had spent two years at a local community college and secretly attended a Kaplan prep course prior to the study.

The chimp, Ayumu (whose name means “mandatory testing” in Swahili) will attend Princeton University in the fall and hopes to major in marketing while trying to land a spot on the gymnastics team.

In a related story, the names of the nine college students are being withheld pending their trying to get a job. Ever.

Famed daredevil was planning scooter jump of eight boxes of Depends and a case of Polident before his untimely death…

Evel Knievel was what, in another age, used to be referred to as a “hustler.” He was always playing an angle and was a tireless self-promoter.

His biography on Wikipedia may be the most interesting thing you read all week … especially since the Iowa primary is at the top of the news.

IMHO, the story that best epitomizes Evel Knievel is the one where, looking to become more financially secure after the birth of his first son, Evel set up his own business:

Using the hunting and fishing skills taught to him by his grandfather, Knievel started the Sur-Kill Guide Service. He guaranteed that if a hunter employed his service and paid his fee that they would get the big game animal that they wanted or he would refund their money. Business was very good until game wardens realized that he was taking his clients into Yellowstone National Park to find their prey.

As they say in Ireland, “It’ll be a long time before we see his like again.”

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that Evel would have been disappointed in the newspaper headlines that accompanied his passing. They were remarkably mundane for a man who lived such a colorful life.

So, in honor of Evel and all the memories he gave us over the years, I came up with a few headlines I’d like to see about Evel Knievel’s grand finale:

Famed Daredevil Makes Final Successful Jump to Other Side

Tough Break: Guinness Book Broken Bone Record-Holder Knievel Passes Away

Security Ramped Up to Handle Crowds at Knievel Funeral

Hearse Carrying Knievel Clears 19 Buses on Way to Cemetery

As usual, when trying to deal with a loss, I seek wisdom from a higher source. So, I’ll end with two quotes from Point Break. Fittingly, one is from Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) and the other from Bohdi (Patrick Swayze).

Both are appropriate for saying goodbye to Evel Knievel:

“Vaya con Dios, Brah.”

“Goddamn! You are one radical son of a bitch!”

Almost heaven, West Virginia….

Can you tell I’m easily distracted? On Thursday, November 29th, I posted Something to Be, Part One. Here it is, November 32nd, and I’m just getting around to Part Two.

I’m going to blame it on the Internet which has helped shorten the attention span of a whole generation.

It was either that or global warming.

The problem was the original post digressed into a story about my grandfather. My only excuse is the story I started out to write about was so nutty, the weird tangent I went off on seemed reasonable by comparison.

The story that got all this craziness started was one where 48-year-old Thomas Montgomery was posing online as an 18-year old Marine in an attempt to pick up an 18-year-old student who was actually a middle-aged mom from West Virginia.

Then it gets weird.

The lady in West Virginia (let’s call her Mary, because that’s her name) occasionally mailed packages to the Thomas. There was only one problem: Thomas was married and his wife opened the packages. Tom’s wife wrote to Mary and told her to stay away from her husband and that, by the way, he was 48-years-old.

Somewhere in the 18-month long online “relationship” Tom and Mary were having, Tom mentioned a guy he worked with, Brian, who was 22 years old. Actually.

Mary did the only sensible thing she could think of when she heard from Tom’s wife: she wrote to the 22-year-old dude to see if Tom was really as old as his wife said he was. And then she started an online relationship with Brian.

Despite his wife’s knowledge and objections, Tom continued to pursue Mary. Even if we assume Tom had all his marbles, they clearly weren’t playing the same game.

When Tom learned Brian was also talking to Mary, he did what your average 48-year-old guy who thought he had a shot at some 18-year-old kitty would do.

He shot and killed his buddy Brian.

There are a few points that need to be emphasized here.

First, there are no hot 18-year-olds in West Virginia. If someone tells you there are, the guy’s either high, lying or he’s from West Virginia and he’s trying to pimp out his daughter.

It’s West Virginia. Hot left West Virginia in the 1800s.

Next point. Let’s face it, no one you’re dating is worth fifty years in a PMITA prison. No one George Clooney is dating is worth fifty years in a PMITA prison.

If you’re even a little objective about it, whoever you’re dating probably is not even worth getting embarrassed on the Jerry Springer Show over.

I’ve never understood fooling around on your spouse. Pick a side. If you want to be single, be single — with all the scrambling to find a date, spending money and Jack Daniels that involves.

If you want to be married, be married — with all the responsibility, spending money and Jack Daniels that requires.

I don’t want to tell you how to live your life, but if you’re going to fool around, you at least need to spring for a post office box.

Better yet, as my grandfather would tell you, “Don’t be either of those guys.”