Planet Proctor 2005 Volume 19

 MERRY CHRIST'S MASS, OR WHATEVER…

        "Please accept without obligation, express or implied, these best wishes for an environmentally safe, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, and gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday as practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice (but with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or for their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all) and further for a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated onset of the generally accepted calendar year (including, but not limited to, the Christian calendar, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures).

        "The preceding wishes are extended without regard to the race, creed, age, physical ability, religious faith or lack thereof, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee(s)…"

        (A variation of this joke was sent out many PC seasons past, long before it became a Pseudo-Cultural War smokescreen for right-minded patriotic pundits.)

"Christmas --What other time of the year do you sit in front of a dead tree and eat candy out of your socks?" ~ Phil's Phunny Phacts

WHO AM JESUS, ANYWAY?

A Jew? He went into His Father's business, he lived at home until he was 33, and he was sure his Mother was a virgin and his mother was convinced he was God.  A Cajun?  He liked to serve fish to his friends, he could make his own wine and he wasn't afraid of water. A blackman? He called everyone "brother", he liked Gospel and he couldn't get a fair trial. An Italian? He talked with his hands, he had wine with every meal and he used olive oil. An Irishman? He never got married, he was always telling stories and he loved green pastures. A hippie?  He never cut his hair, he always walked around barefoot and he started a new religion.

        But new research reveals that he was actually a woman.  After all, he fed a crowd at a moment's notice when there was no food, he kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn't get it; and even when he was dead, he had to get up because there was more work to do.

   "If you want Bethany to shave her head and become a Muslim, then I've got a problem." ~ An agent overheard talking on his mobile at our Beverly Hills Health Club

NOT DUMB, LOGICAL

        Two blondes living in Oklahoma were sitting on a bench one evening and one says to the other, "Which do you think is farther away, Florida or the moon?" The other blonde turns and says, "Helloooooooooo, can you see Florida?????"

        On the way home, her car breaks down and she has to push it into a gas station where the mechanic has it back up and running in no time.

        "What' s the story? " she asks; and he replies, "Just crap in the carburetor"

        "So, " she asks, "How often do I have to do that?"

"I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb -- and I'm also not blonde." ~ Dolly Parton

I BELIEVE!

Muslims do not recognize Jews as God's chosen people. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian world. Baptists do not recognize each other at Hooters.  

   "Renaming a Christmas tree a holiday tree doesn't make any more sense than taking a menorah and renaming it a candlestick." ~ Liberty Council spokesman

TO THE SEC'T OF THE TREASURY    

        "October 15, 1902 - Sir, prices for the customary kinds of winter fuel having reached an altitude which puts them out of the reach of literary persons in straitened circumstances, I desire to place with you the following order:

        "Forty-five tons best old dry government bonds, suitable for furnace. Gold 7 per cents, 1864, preferred. Twelve tons early greenbacks, range size, suitable for cooking. Eight barrels seasoned 25 and 50-cent postal currency, vintage of 1866, eligible for kindling.

        "Please deliver with all convenient despatch at my house in Riverdale at lowest rates for spot cash, and send bill to your obliged servant, Mark Twain, who will be very grateful, and will vote right. "

"Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love." ~ Hamilton Wright Mabi

A PEACE OF PAPER

        "The Rant" writer Doug Thompson swears that witnesses present at a recent Whitehouse policy meeting on the renewal of the Patriot Act report that after GOP leaders told Bush that his push to renew its more onerous provisions o could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court said:

        "I don't give a goddamn, I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

        "Mr. President," one aide said, "there is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."

        "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper! http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml

"Resolving incomparable goals is a true function of politics." ~ Michael Crichton in "State of Fear"      

YOU MISSED IT

        I was tapped last week to play Pope Bennie the Whatever on "Jimmie Kimmel Live", but this time, instead of doing a voiceover, they wanted me to shave my beard and appear in a mattress commercial.  Of course, I did, and the picture below proves it.  The bit was aired on Wednesday eve, and if you missed it, I'll try to learn how to post the piece on an improved personal website next year, if I can find the time to get it together.

"Has a magician ever had an assistant named Miss Direction?" ~ Just Asking

THEATRE PROMPTS

        I was back in NYC last week to participate in my Allen-Stevenson School's 50th elementary school reunion (Michael Eisner was a no-show) and Melinda and I saw some wonderful shows. We highly recommend "Souvenir" about the incredible relationship between dowager/singer Florence Foster Jenkins and her accompanist of 14 years, Cosme McMoon at the Lyceum and if you know who she is, enough said; if you don't-go google and go see!

        I also adored "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" starring the fun-loving John Lithgow and Norbert Leo Butz, which is as polished, clever and surprising as "The Drowsy Chaperone" - now at the Ahmanson, but Broadway-bound, and also a must-see.

        Finally, upcoming, is Jay Johnson's "The Two and Only!" which will have its pre-Broadway engagement and West Coast Premiere at the Brentwood theatre January 20th.

And those of you HERE can catch John Carney's Wonder Cabaret. It is a wonder!  

        heck it out at http://www.carneymagic.com/WonderCab.htm

"We don't have to become terrorists to fight terrorists." ~ Sen. Tom Harkin, Iowa

C'EST GOOFY

        To our friend Bill Farmer, the voice of Goofy, this letter from a fan in Belgium, as written…

        "I'II want to have if possibly to ravoir photgrapheds an wrap signed. I am one of your larger fan in Belgium unfortunately for me, will never be possibly meet you. I will be happiest the Belgium if you me signed the photographs…My little boy it prenomist - aurelien - thank you advance."

        Bonne Chance and Good luck, Goofy.

  "Listen to the music inside your head.  Play with your heart." ~ Miles Davis to Richard Pryor

OFF PLANET

        Ye gods.  We recently lost entertainers Jeannie Carson, Sheree North and Richard Pryor, all of whom I had the pleasure of appearing with on stage in "Brigadoon" and "Sound of Music" on tour, "Muzeeka" at the Mark Taper and "A Safe Place" at the Actors Studio East, accordingly.  They will all be missed, but Richard in particular will always be remembered for raising the consciousness of comedy.

        Then there was John Spencer's sudden departure, not to mention Eugene McCarthy and William Proxmire, so I wont.

        We also said farewell to one of the world's shortest twins, 2-feet-10-inch-tall John Rice, who became a millionaire and a local celebrity as a spokesperson for a Florida pest control company. He was inspired to his towering success by his foster mother, Mildred Windsor, who told him and Greg, his surviving identical twin, "It's up to you to determine what your real value is going to be in life; you're like a couple of dimes in a bunch of nickels."

        Rice wrote, "A person is not measured from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, but from their shoulders to the sky. It all depends on how big you think."

        And a final Merry Christmas to the late John "Lock" Elliot, Jr. a major ad agency chairman and expert on the history of the holiday who said upon his retirement, "Big ideas are so hard to recognize, so fragile, so easy to kill.  Don't forget that, all of you who don't have them."

"I am certain there is too much certainty in the world." ~ Michael Crichton's "State of Fear"

WITH GRATITUDE

        To Tom Kane, Paul Apple, H. Lee Kagan, Patty Paul, Ken Wilhite, Jr., Vanna Bonta, Andy Thomas, and "Aloha" to Kristin and Geoff for our pre-Christmas Il Fornaio feast.

"We also have to work sort of on the dark side.  It's going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal, Basically." ~ V.P. Dick C.

We put the X in Xmas

OPEN THESE PRESENTS BEFORE XMAS

FOLLOW THE $: http://www.andyfoulds.co.uk/amusement/bushv2.htm

FOLD THE $: http://members.cox.net/crandall11/money/index.html

A&C IN SPACE: http://s95294420.onlinehome.us/userfiles/Ray-Chung-whosonforce.mpg

HOW OLD ARE YOU: http://www.frontiernet.net/~cdm/age1

YUM: http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-usb-drives-ever

IT'S A MYSTERY:  http://trunks.secondfoundation.org/files/psychic.swf

BALLS: http://www.elfmovie.com/swf/snowball_fight/index.html

HAVE A HAIRY MERRY HAPPY: http://www.chrismahanukwanzakah.com/

PLANET PROCTOR
© 2005 by Phil Proctor
Published Month Day, 2005