Catdancer may not make it down here after all as her mom is being difficult and may wish instead to drive back with a boyfriend recently acquired. Maybe another time.

Last night Comedy Central ran a stand-up routine by Lewis Black originally shown in 2006. I haven’t seen anything new from Black since then. He is a comic genius and I hope he is okay. Three years is a long time to be silent in the comedy business although he did appear in Fort Myers about two years ago. Ed didn’t want to go. (Sometimes he hibernates.) Black is tall, just a bit portly, acerbic, politically rational, religiously irreverent, and has a rapier wit. I wondered if he’d find anyone besides us down here in Creationist Wasteland country to appreciate him. In his routine filmed at a theatre in Washington, D.C. to a large, enthusiastic audience, Black explained that, originally, he had been scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center. Then the KC staff had watched a film of his stuff, counted the “f…s” and told him there were 42 and he could still appear but HBO was not to say it had been the Kennedy Center. Black had a field day with that. In another stand-up I remember him saying he had been invited to do his stuff at the Press Club annual dinner where, traditionally, the president is invited. His best targets are stupid people. He did appear but I think Bush “couldn’t make it.”

In Catland, Brunswick and Toots are chasing each other without snarls. Chewy maintains his kitty indignation at the interloper. Ed hasn’t bonded with Toots, although he tries. Toots doesn’t like to be picked up, although early on, he was okay with it. Still he is beginning to blend in. The hair problem is epidemic. I guess I’ll have to vacuum, on a scale of my preferred chores, below bottom. I also have to get under the bed with the long tool and also behind the computer where Toots was camped out. A while back an outfit selling some “super” vacuum system came to demonstrate their product and offered to clean our floors for nothing in order to maybe sell us something. Ed is, of course, not merely a hard sell, but Attila, when it comes to buying stuff from vendors. The guy asks, “how often do you vacuum,” his opening line to the spiel. I answered cheerfully “maybe once a year.” That floored him because he is used to people being embarrassed about their sloth. Incidentally, the floor doesn’t look it as mostly it is the living room and that gets very little traffic. I clean the tile all the time (guh to that too).

Meanwhile, the news is full of pronouncements that those management goof-ups who got bonuses will be taxed 100% if they don’t return them voluntarily. I wonder how wise or useful it is to warn them. I hope someone in charge is monitoring their private accounts (I don’t care if this sounds repressive) to see if any large withdrawals are finding their way to offshore tax shelters. Some financial analysts are against targeting individuals specifically. They are warning “slippery slope”, and “where will government interference of this kind lead?” Well, disastrous times, engineered in large part by these very company officials, call for draconian measures.

Then we have Madoff’s wife, insisting millions in her account are hers and should not be part of any settlement involving Madoff, that she wasn’t part of what he did, etc. Well, unless she earned it personally, I don’t think she is entitled to it. She can live as nicely as the rest of us without keeping all of it.

Snarl.

xx, Teal