Despite the whole Equinox thing, it’s still summer in New Orleans. I’ve been sweating like Orson Welles in The Long Hot Summer, my Paul Newman days are long gone. In other news, we had our umpteenth boil water order of the year, which means a lot of literal-minded folks didn’t bathe. I’m married to a microbiologist and we, well I, spit on that portion of the order. Even worse than stinky people, the boil orders bring out the same, inane jokes on social media. I wish I could bribe them to make it stop but I can’t. This one, by a crony of mine, is actually not bad:

https://twitter.com/AccidentalCajun/status/647001936038789120

Dr. A loves the Autumnal Equinox because one can stand an egg upright on the counter. Here’s an old picture of our late, great Torti Window and an egg:

As you can see above, some things never change: our messy housekeeping and the red plastic Proteus cup. Let’s move on to weightier topics.

Pope Frank is visiting America for the first time this week. He may be one of the few people to NOT get booed in Philadelphia unless, that is. some Republican politicians show up there. I’m not a Catholic but Dr. A was raised in the church. Like most sentient American Catholics, she has reservations about the church’s stance on many social issues. The genius of Pope Frank is that he has done what polite people do when there’s an ongoing, onerous discussion: he’s changed the subject. In this case to subjects more congenial to American liberals: poverty and the environment. He hasn’t changed the church’s stands on social issues but he’s signaled that he’s more tolerant and flexible. It’s worked thus far but the most important thing is his warm and pastoral nature. He’s managed to charm this atheist into thinking there’s some hope for the Vatican, after all.

Pope Frank is nothing like Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI aka Rodrigo Borgia who posed the eternal question, “Turds? You brought me turds?”

They were cigars from the New World, not turds. But “Turds? You brought me turds?” became a catch phrase in our house after we binge watched The Borgias on Netflix. In the end, Pope Alexander became a turd/cigar addict. I guess it beats the hell out of being a Cameroonian pigfucker…

This week’s theme song is inspired by both Pope Frank’s visit and the first item after the break. The connection is Paul Simon who wrote The Obvious Child after Pope John Paul conducted mass at the songwriter’s personal shrine: Yankee Stadium,

Crosses in the ballpark, crosses in the ballpark. Why deny the obvious child?

We’ll start with the official video:

Dr. A and I saw the Rhythm of the Saints tour when it came to New Orleans. It was a spectacular show. Here’s Simon and his crack band playing The Obvious Child in Central Park:

I made my peace many years ago with the fact that, as much as I admire him as an artist, Paul Simon is not a very nice man. He’s also a very short, vain man. In the live clip, he’s wearing boots with high heels and a toupee. He stopped wearing the rug about 10 or 15 years ago. I’m not sure if it had anything to do with this:

We go from toupees on the table to crosses in the ballpark. Why deny the obvious child? Something else is obvious at this point, it’s time for the break. See you on the other side of this life.

Continue reading “Saturday Odds & Sods: The Obvious Child”