Laughter, the Best Medicine

The best theme song for my lately-days? By an artist who's the coolest a man can be with a mullet? Travis Tritt's A Great Day to Be Alive. It's country, with extra-goofy lyrics, and I'd be furiously mocked if I linked, but I think the title says it all. My other secret country-genre addiction, slightly more understandable and therefore a tad bit less shameful, is Big & Rich, a duo that's one-half attractively-oversized freak (why is he licking that guitar?) and one-half mysterious, angel-voiced, adorable little doll in perfectly-creased Wranglers. Appearances can be deceiving, true, but a man has to be extraordinarily gracious to own a set of pipes that sweet. Their music is a raucious, pop-influenced blend of bass and trickling banjo, with a pleasing harmony of the gruff voice and smooth. Songs feature fun but far-reaching relationship analogies (I've been in a Wild West Show, haven't you?) and pretty ballads rife with social commentary. I'm also overly-pleased with the recent rash of alcohol- and beach vacation-related country songs. I think Garth started it, but whatever, I'm happy.

Incidentally, I'm smiling because I found four pairs of thin turquoise-colored latex gloves in my coat pockets this morning, and I know what they're for and where I got them, but you don't, and you'd laugh if I told you. I just love secrets, no matter how bizarre. Also tickling my funny bone today is the fact that our City's Lutheran church is on- I shit you not- Straight and Narrow Drive. I don't know which came first. It's just funny.

Speaking of funny and how good it is for you, I would like to offer a quick, teensy tribute (so brief because he's so humble) to the Triumph of Spirit that is my boss, Mike. He was hospitalized last Monday with a swollen testicle that had to be removed, and he's still waiting for the results of the biopsy, which has to be scary-every-second. But today, his first day back, I see a man who has no intention of slowing down, rolling over, giving up, or trying to keep hush-hush something that would socially and emotionally cripple a lot of guys. Jo told him this morning that we've missed his chronic whistling and without skipping a beat, he said he'd resume, but it would be higher than it used to be. He's cracked jokes about lopsidedness all morning and insists that he lost all shyness about it after the second day, a day filled with good-natured nicknames like 'Lefty' given by his brothers-in-law. I am not at all surprised, but am ever so glad he's bounced back without a fuss. He's a good family man, a decent Junior Jazz (basketball) coach, an official in his church, last year's City Employee of the Year, an all-around great guy, and last summer he married off four of his five children, two girls and two boys, without a complaint about money or maybe someday missing them. Oh, but there were jokes- and that's where the lesson was. Anything's bearable if you can see the funny side of it, even facing death, which you may or may not (should if you are a loyal reader) know, is the issue of the year for me, that and a divorce of sorts. I got to looking at that word the other day and noticed it sort of looks like divide + force. Isn't that ironic? Anyhow in my case it was a slow division, one drip at a time, and the only force involved was gravity. I wonder how often physics really saves the day.