Mask mandates return

Plus some really great reasons you should like Kris Kristofferson...

Just in case you didn’t know and even if you did, lost people tend to wander in circles and right now I can’t remember why, but I think it has something to do with one leg being longer than the other or which side of your pants your twigs and berries dangle down, but that doesn’t make sense because then women would walk straight so maybe it has to do with political beliefs and Conservatives tend to wander to the Right while Liberals tend to wander to the Left, so the obvious answer is having a Liberal and Conservative hold hands when lost in the woods and I’m thinking that’s got “Buddy Movie” written all over it.

Imagine Bill Burr and Kevin Hart holding hands while Lost in Saskatchewan (which would make a great title) and tell me you wouldn’t watch that.

Moving on.

OK, I just Googled it and it turns out science doesn’t actually know why people walk in circles, but they’ve conducted experiments which means somebody got a government grant and one of the experiments was having blindfolded people try to walk straight and instead they wandered to their Right, walked into a voting booth and voted Republican. (Sorry, but that joke was lying right there and I walked directly into it because I tend to wander to my Left.)

So where were we?

Oh, yeah…walking in circles and I must be clairvoyant or her twin sister Clarice Voyant (who Hannibal Lecter seemed to have a crush on, so imagine being stalked by that dude) because I drew the above cartoon on July 23rd and starting on Monday, August 2nd Kansas City is going back to a mask mandate because too many people have decided to skip getting vaccinated.

Among my many other predictions; I said the people who will complain the loudest about mask mandates will be the people who made them necessary.

(On the other hand: I also said there was no way they could make M*A*S*H the movie into M*A*S*H the TV series because the movie relied heavily on nudity and profanity and I was only off by 11 seasons. M*A*S*H the TV series lasted eight years longer than the war it was based on so you might not want to ask me for hot stock tips.)

Who enforces the mask mandate?

An article in the Kansas City Star answered this question and said the Health Department, but I’m gonna call bullshit on that because I’m guessing the Health Department will not provide Seal Team Sick members (did you see what I did with ‘Six’ and ‘Sick’?) to make people who are being dicks and/or dickettes and refusing to wear masks, put a damn mask on, so just like last time the mandate enforcement will depend on bartenders and waitresses who never signed up to be the Mask Police.

(BTW: “Dickettes” would be a great name for a group of female back-up singers…“Now here’s Tom Jones and the Dickettes!” and once again I’m stunned that the entertainment industry isn’t knocking on my door, but maybe it’s that whole M*A*S*H prediction or the fact that I said, “Heaven’s Gate, Michael Cimino, $44 million dollars…what’s not to like?”)

OK, I just realized how much Movie History today’s story requires my readers to have in advance and just in case you didn’t know, Heaven’s Gate cost $44 million and made $3 million which is a great way to become an ex-movie director.

And now that I’ve looked up Heaven’s Gate, we’re about to go off course.

Kris Kristofferson-related story alert

I had totally forgotten that Kris Kristofferson starred in Heaven’s Gate and I’m a huge Kristofferson fan because he writes great songs even though he can’t sing for shit.

You probably know him for hits like Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down and Help Me Make It Through the Night, but I’m also a fan of some of his lesser known songs like Jesus Was A Capricorn and Just the Other Side of Nowhere and just to provide evidence of my great-songs-can’t-sing-for-shit conclusion, here’s a video:

OK, if that video didn’t convince you to be a Kris Kristofferson fan, it probably means there’s nothing wrong with your hearing, but let’s see if I can tip the scales in his favor by telling you about his background and I got this off the internet so the odds that it’s accurate range upward from 52%.

Kris was a rugby player, a boxer, a Phi Betta Kappa member and a Rhodes Scholar, joined the Army, completed Ranger School, became a captain and a helicopter pilot and then left the Army to become a songwriter. That wasn’t paying the bills so he got a job flying a helicopter for an oil company and wrote Help Me Make It Through the Night while sitting on top of an oil platform.

The first time I became aware of Kris was in 1970 when he won Song of the Year for Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down and I watching the awards ceremony (which tells you just how little I had going on in 1970) and Roy Clark presented the award and everybody was wearing those Rhinestone Country Singer Suits and Kris came stumbling out of the audience with long hair and a beard like a lost hippy looking for a Woodstock Porta-Potty and was so shitfaced he was facing the wrong way while accepting the award, which made Roy laugh and suggest Kris keep his acceptance speech to:

“Thanks a lot.”

Because he had accomplished so little in his life, Kris decided to become a movie star (loved him in Peckinpah’s Pat Garret and Billy the Kid) and eventually made a Star is Born with Barbra Streisand and here comes the story that cemented my admiration for Mr. Kristofferson.

Jon Peters was a former hairdresser turned Hollywood exec who was in a relationship with Barbra and what I read was Kris got tired of Barbra’s shit and at some point said something less than polite at a press conference and Peters stormed up to Kristofferson afterwards and said something along the lines of: “You owe an apology to my lady.” (Which has the twin virtues of being chivalrous and kinda creepy because any dude that uses “my lady” to describe his significant other trends in that direction.)

So this former hairdresser was getting in the face of this former boxer and rugby player and Kris responded with one of the best lines ever:

“When I want some shit out of you, I’ll break your head open.”   

OK, if you’re not a member of the Kris Kristofferson Fan Club after that, I give up.

Mask mandates, vaccination and Logical Consequences

So we’re going back to wearing masks because some people refuse to get vaccinated which brings up the subject of child-rearing which now that I write that sounds like something that ought to result in a prison sentence.

When I became a father I didn’t know much about how to do it because my dad died when I was seven and all I remember was “learning my lesson” by getting cuffed in the back of the head which I believe is now considered child abuse and not a learning method endorsed by the PTA.  

Being a reader I decided to read about being an acceptable parent and one of the best pieces of advice I read was the concept of “logical consequences.”

If your child won’t eat dinner, let him go hungry; he won’t die and he’ll probably eat a big breakfast tomorrow.

(There are exceptions to the “logical consequences” philosophy; like maybe you don’t want to let your child spend the night in jail and come home with a new appreciation for the distastefulness of the word “bitch” and an urgent need to visit a proctologist. Where the “logical consequences” line is drawn is up to the individual.)

Having said that…

I’m in full support of the Kansas City hospital which told its employees unless they had a medical or religious reason (and self-worship doesn’t qualify) they needed to get vaccinated or lose their jobs.

I also support the idea restaurants and bars could require proof of vaccination before you eat or get shitfaced and I hope businesses start doing that.

Those of us who got vaccinated have to face the possible consequences of that decision and those of us who choose not to get vaccinated should have to face the consequences of that decision as well.

Have a good weekend and if you run into Kris Kristofferson be polite because even though he’s 85 years old I get the feeling he could still break some heads open.

http://kingfeatures.com/comics/editorial-cartoons-a-z/