Author: Rev. Joe Dirt

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Cuz he can…

Señora and I decided to have a wild couple’s night out, something we had not done for quite some time due to COVID.  We have gone out to dinner a few times, always attempting to dine outside, but we went absolutely crazy Saturday evening.  First we went to one of our favorite restaurants in the metro area, a Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Grand. As always, they came through, and we both had a very enjoyable meal.

St. Louis has an iconic folk music venue, The Focal Point. The term folk music seems to be morphing into the category of roots music, but a rose is a rose.   We are both big aficionados of this style of music and Continue reading “Cuz he can…”

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Word of the Day – Croquis

  • Noun: Croquis
    1.  a rough draft
  • Synonyms: (Being a stolen French word in specialized use in the art world, not many English synonyms found)
    1. sketch
    2. line drawing
    3. cartoon???
    4. under-drawing
  • Usage:
    1. “But what’s your ultimate goal, you’ll say. That goal will become clearer, will take shape slowly and surely, as the croquis becomes a sketch and the sketch a painting…”
  • Encountered:
    1. While reading a didactic wall panel at the Beyond Van Gogh exhibit here is St. Louis

To see more Words of the Day, visit this link: Words of the Day

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Quote of the Day — Zsa Zsa Gabor

“A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he’s finished.” ~~ Zsa Zsa Gabor

 

 

To see more Quotes for Day, visit this link: Quotes for the Day

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Rev. Joe Uncovers an International Conspiracy

Señora and I are friends with a couple, Harry and Susan, who live a little north of Chicago.  A few weeks ago they drove down to visit their son in Springfield, IL, and afterwards they passed a couple days in the St. Louis area to visit with us and Susan’s sister.  We had dinner with them one night on our patio and dinner the next night at her sister’s house.  After dinner each night we passed many agreeable hours on our patio gabbing and partaking of water and sunlight that nature had graciously turned into the pleasant and pleasing beverage called wine.

On the night we ate dinner at our house we were having a bit of a problem with flies.  I started talking about wanting to get one of those guns that shoots salt in order to hunt down flies.  A week or so after their visit, there arrived an unexpected package Continue reading “Rev. Joe Uncovers an International Conspiracy”

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #3,935

yeah I know you did not ask!

I’m frequently perplexed as to whether the human race is advancing or not.  One area where we seem to be going backwards is in written communications.  There are a few reasons for this, but big ones are platforms such as Twitter that only allow 256 – up from 128 –characters per posting and texting.  Both promote the use of abbrvs. and acronyms, LOL. They also encourage the use of emojis, those ubiquitous smiley faces and other such small cartoons used as shortcuts for emotional content.

My text app has recently exploded with various emojis and other small images.  I type in beer and a picture of a mug of beer appears. I type in disrespectful and a scowling, purplish face appears, and so many more.

Pretty soon we will eliminate all cascades of letters symbolizing various concepts in favor of the new hieroglyphics.   King Tut and his Egyptian cohorts would be so proud.

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Rev. Joe’s Random Thought #1,191

yeah I know you did not ask!

It strikes that the new Republican slogan might be: “Death to America” while utilizing the American flag in any number of disrespectful manners.

Well maybe not “Death to America”, but surely “Death to American Democracy.”

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Pockets

I took The Wee Dog, Princess Lily, for a stroll tonight a little after dark-thirty. Being the middle of September, the evenings are beginning to get a little nippy, so  I grabbed a light jacket that I had not had on in a while.  As Lily and I were strolling down the sidewalk I stuck both my hands in the pockets of the jacket and discovered some items there in.  In the right pocket was the small plastic bag familiar to all urban dog owners, colloquially referred to as poop bags.  In the left pocket I found a paper mask that has become so fashionable and controversial during this pandemic.  As is my wont, I begin to reflect on these items as I walked.

The poop bag was a reminder to me to never say never, as I had more than once, emphatically stated that I would never pick up dog feces, using it as one of my arguments as why we did not need a dog.  However, if you have a dog in an urban / suburban environment it is only good manners to clean up your dog’s doings. When I was still working Continue reading “Pockets”

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Before I was born

I was speaking with one of my Spanish tutors, Micaela, this morning.  Mica lives in a small jungle town in Ecuador, but she has a good internet connection.  She is around 30 and an excellent conversationalist. We been working together for more than 2 years and have a friendly relationship.  For my part, I always enjoy our hour together every couple weeks, and she seems to do so also.

I sent her a few pictures of Cannon Beach in Oregon, then asked her is she remembered the movie Goonies, it being an extremely popular movie in its day, and having scenes in the movie set at Cannon Beach. Even though American movies and television programs are very popular there, she did not remember this movie .

I sent her a link to the IMDB page for Goonies. After looking at the page, she said, “Oh that movie was made in 1985 – before I was born!”

Grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe… got to love this getting old…the human race marches on.

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PBS Video of Interview with the last survivor of the Samuel B Roberts

This is the ship that Paul Henry Carr served on and died on… Paul Henry Carr was my mother’s brother, and for many years there was a US Navy missile frigate on active duty that borne his name.