Joe Cillo

DIRT

Dirt gets no respect.
My boyfriend

More than 1 in 12 deaths are caused by the dirt we breathe.  Man made particles are clogging up the air and getting into our lungs and our bloodstreams.  Indeed, they are messing up our health and threatening our environment.

But what can we do?  We have to breathe and manufacturers need to make filthy engines to run our lives.  Sometimes we need to compromise our values in the name of progress. I believe a filthy life is worth the risk.

We need to experience a certain amount of dirt so we can recognize clean.  My gran ate a mud pie every morning until she was 10 years old.  “Sometimes I added a bit of tree bark for flavor and once in a while a cricket to give it crunch,” she said. ”My mother never knew because I snuck one in right after my morning dump, but she did ask uncomfortable questions when my teeth got a funny tinge.   We didn’t have whiteners in my day.”

My gran lived to 110 and on her death-bed she begged for a bit of dirt with her last breath.  We fed her two dust bunnies and a clump of sod from her African violet and she left us with a smile on her face.

Pregnant women in Wales craved coal to eat with the same intensity that New York mothers-to-be ached for a dill pickle.  Babies born in Wales showed no ill effects from their mothers’ blackened diets.  Indeed, Welsh choirs often attribute the purity of their tone to the anthracite in their systems.

I believe we are depriving ourselves of the very essence of life with our determination to purify everything we touch, breathe or feel.  An apple with the film of air, dust and insects nesting on their skins has twice the flavor of one tossed and whirled in a sanitizing bath of disinfectant and wiped with a sterile cloth.  A hand roughened by the soil of the day has far more warmth than one damp and sticky with hand cleaner that reeks of disinfectant.

Even natural human reproduction from conception to birth is riddled with mess, drippings and germs.  I, for one, prefer the old fashioned way to sanitary lab controlled in vitro procedures. If the cost of passion is a bit of risk and a possible germ, I am up for it.

Down and dirty is the way to go if you are to experience the lust and excitement of a rich full life.  If you are afraid of foreign objects compromising your health, you are doomed to a life filled with fear and your every moment will be preoccupied with prevention.  A clean germ free life is bland, boring and repetitive. To me, soap and disinfectants are for cowards. I’ll take my chances on the  feel of an unwashed handshake or the warmth of an unsanitary cuddle. They are so worth the risk.

Joe Cillo

www.forallevents.com/

BLUSHING

Blushing is the color of virtue.
Diogenes

Blushing has gone out of style and I think that is a terrible loss.  There is no better way of reading between the lines than to check the degree of rosiness on another’s face.   My mother could tell in an instant if I had eaten that chocolate bar, stolen the car keys or missed a period.  All she had to do is say “What are you doing?” and look at me when I answered  “Worrying about the state of the world.”  or “Trying to figure out what to get you for your birthday.”

I would always get a retort like “No dessert tonight,” or “I am calling your probation officer.”  My mother was one smart cookie. She always knew better.

Blushing was one of the best communicators we had in the old days.  For example, if you looked in your wallet and several bills were missing, you could look your partner in the eye and say, “Funny, I can’t seem to find the cash for that holistic medical procedure we discussed.” One look told you that he spent it all on fish and chips. (It is always a he…women use less obvious tactics).

When I taught primary school, blushing was the key to figuring out which kid stole my purse and which one was smoking something in the halls. I do not know how teachers cope today when nothing embarrasses anyone and everyone has the Internet for retaliation.   Nowadays, our children do not color up when they are naughty.  They either post their remarks on face book with a filthy picture or tweet their fury with a lot of hash tags.

People are no longer shocked.  We used to blush if our skirts blew over our heads in a strong wind.  Now, we remember to wear lacey underwear in case someone sitting on the floor looks up. That is why wax jobs have become primary grooming tools. Cleavage has become an advertising tool for the ladies, to say nothing of very tight underwear for the male population.  Women no long have to wonder what seven inches looks like.  All they have to do is look.

I am all for accepting who we are and what we do, but I think it is sad that we have lost our sense of shame.  It is actually very sweet to kiss someone unexpectedly and have him blush with surprise.  It has become a lost technique to take someone’s hand, look into his eyes and say I KNOW what you are thinking.” If that person turned red you knew he had the same thing on his mind that you did.

That kind of subtlety has gone out of style.  Now, you take a selfie of your private parts, post it on Tinder and hope for the best.

Joe Cillo

www.forallevents.com/

BEST DIGS EVER

If you want total security, go to prison…..
Dwight D. Eisenhower

I have always wanted to be daring and do something absolutely outrageous…but the truth is I fear the punishment.  I have read horror stories of what happens in prisons: brutality, rape, lousy plumbing…and I want none of it.  However, I am in the unenviable position of losing my house because it is under water and I am looking around for affordable housing for my declining years.  Unfortunately, the only shelter that is “affordable” for me on my pension is a used Yurt in the Andes or an abandoned cave in New Mexico.

Imagine my delight when I discovered the Maconochie Center, a prison in Canberra, Australia specifically designed to pamper lawbreakers with so much smother love that they realize the only way to have little fun is to obey the law and get out on parole.  The philosophy at Maconochie is that if you give love, you will receive it. I think that is a wonderful attitude.  It didn’t work for me with my two husbands, but it has been overwhelmingly successful with my dog.

The “guards” at the prison (called service providers) refer to the inmates as customers and do their best to give the darlings in their care whatever will make them feel wanted and secure.    If one of their customers is feeling a bit depressed, why not cheer him up with a couple gin and tonics, a shot of heroin and a little sniff of cocaine.  Whatever works as they say in the trade.

The residents at Maconochie Center live together in five bedroom cottages.  There is never a problem if a rapist cannot get along with the guy who strangled his baby.  Maconochie Center has mediators on call to help the boys (you KNOW they are boys) settle their differences.  Perhaps one of them needs a long walk in the country…where there are willing sheep?  Perhaps the other needs apple pie a la mode?  Who knows?  The staff at the center are there to help.

It sounds like a very fun place to live for me.   All I would have to do is grow a bit of cannabis in my yard before my foreclosure and sell it in a schoolyard.  If I wanted to be certain I could stay at this lovely place for the rest of my life (and after all, I am 81 years old.  How long can that be?)  I would have to toss someone around screaming “I am going to kill you!”  My mother said that to me often enough.  I know I can be convincing.  The good news is that I don’t actually have to plunge the knife into anyone’s heart…all I need to do in Australia is make the judge believe I really meant to do the deed.

The weather in Canberra is perfect for me.  You get four seasons, none too hot or too cold and at Maconochie there are endless opportunities to explore the outdoors.  I can use my computer at all hours and if I have a severe pain, I can get a prescription strong enough to use for recreation after the pain has disappeared.  But the best news of all is that there has been a rash of pregnancies at the center since it opened.  Why, I could finally have that baby I always wanted and not have to worry about dealing with the little sweetheart when it becomes a teenager.  By that time I will be long gone and the Maconochie service providers can take over.

Joe Cillo

www.forallevents.com/

BE GOOD TO YOUR PARENTS….OR ELSE!

Appreciating your parents is the only hope for civilization.
The Chinese Government & Lynn Ruth

China has decided it is a punishable crime for adult children to neglect their parents and I think that is a very wise decision. Wouldn’t it be wonderful for us all, if every nation followed suit?

It is about time someone took steps to stop the shameless way grown progeny are treating their parents these days. Elderly parents sit at home in their wheel chairs or on the sofa, counting the moments ‘til one of their offspring remembers that they are too weak and tired to get to Tesco’s; the hours tick by, their tummies gurgle, their heads ache and they stare at the door, praying it will open and the heir to their estate will appear bearing bubble and squeak and even a bit of pudding.

After all, parents have every right to expect their children to be there for them. Didn’t they clean up Junior when he got a bloody nose?  Didn’t they give their little princess dancing lessons so she could express her inner feelings? They let her get that disgusting tattoo of Frankenstein chewing a bunny and they never said a word when she appeared at the breakfast table, her hair dyed purple and three rings in her nose.

And that was before they became teen-agers.

They looked the other way, when their little darlings sold pot to the neighborhood grade-school kids, and the countless times they threw up on the couch from an overdose or got too affectionate with one another.  Remember that?

Didn’t they sacrifice that extra cruise, and the trip to see penguins copulate on an iceberg just so their son could go to university and their daughter could afford that abortion?  Of course they did.

And that is why the Chinese Government decided to step up to the plate and remind us that we owe Mummy and Daddy big time.  They were the ones who kept us alive through the bullying, the bike accidents, the shattered limbs and broken hearts.  Now, it is the children’s turn to keep their parents comfy and warm ‘til they breathe their last.  After all, there is always time to change the will, if they feel unloved.

Not that it will be easy if the law becomes universal. Take Mary Louise:  There she is galloping though her day, getting the kids to school, packing their lunches, rushing off to the office, picking up her darlings, and taking them to tap dancing and soccer, driving home, giving the house a quick dust, fixing dinner, greeting the father of her gang with a drink, serving food, cleaning the kitchen and collapsing in front of the telly.  At midnight, she and her hubby stagger up to bed, too exhausted to do what they used to do before they tied the knot. Suddenly, she sits bolt upright, snaps her fingers and says, “OH MY GOD!!!  I forgot to visit Daddy.  Now, we’ll never pay off this mortgage.”

And if her partner is a good sort, he says, “Don’t worry darling. I will visit you every Tuesday and bring chocolate.”

Joe Cillo

www.forallevents.com/

REMEMBER ME?

Look back and smile on perils past.
Walter Scott

It happens every day.  You open Facebook and find some forgotten person from long ago. My friend Barry re-discovered Gloria, his high school sweetheart there.  They both had been widowed the year before and…well, you know the rest.  They are now madly in love spending hot and heavy weekends together reminiscing about that lousy math teach who drove everyone crazy and the big mistake they made marrying someone else first.

I have not been so lucky.  The people who re-connect with me on Facebook are all part of a nightmare I prefer to erase.  They remind me that they knew me when I wore braces on my teeth and wandered through life with my head in a cloud, my feet encased in orthopedic oxfords.  I do not want to relive a time when I was ruled by parents, teachers and consensus.  Those days are past.

I can only suspect that the ones who contact me are so senile they do not remember anything more than my name. There could be no other reason.  I was not the hottest item on the block in days gone by.

Nonetheless, I fell in love with the unattainable on a regular basis and went to great lengths to let my targets know I was available.  When I look back on all of them now, I realize how desperate I was. Did I really want that short, pimply guy in my history class?  And why did my heart flutter at the sight of a boy in uniform.  Didn’t I realize that clothes cannot transform a boy into a man?

Not long ago, I got a friend request from Donny Okun who fancied me when I was nineteen and still hopeful. He was a sailor then who wore his bell-bottom trousers tight enough so I could see clearly what he had to offer. He sent me bouquets of roses every week for a month and then asked me to come with him to Canada for a night on the town.

OMG!  I was crossing the border with an honest-to-god sailor and you know what they say about sailors!!!  I threw caution to the winds and wore my most décolleté dress so he could see my equipment as clearly as I could see his.  We got in the car, I lit a cigarette and tossed the match out the window.

However, the window was closed and the flaming match ricocheted into my cleavage.  As both of us burrowed into my dress to keep me from bursting into flame, I realized all too clearly that I needed more than a pair of tight trousers to commit.

And now, this guy wants us to be friends?

I hit delete.  It was one of the wisest decisions I have ever made.

Joe Cillo

www.forallevents.com/

ART IS GOING TO THE APES

An ape cannot speak about his art
Anymore than a monkey can discuss a his digestion.
Jacques Cocteau and Lynn Ruth

In the late sixties, a gorilla won the Modern Art competition at the Detroit Museum of Art. The animals’ owner put several tubes of paint and a blank canvas in the ape’s cage.  The furry artist, whom I shall call Sybil, stomped on the tubes of paint and smeared the colors on the canvas with her paws.  After an hour, she tired of dancing and began eating the tubes of paint.  Her owner pulled the canvas out of her cage, hosed Sybil down and was amazed at the finished canvas.   It reminded him of a combination of a Jackson Pollack with a smattering of Kandinsky, a dash of Picasso and traces of Klee.  When Sybil’s masterpiece dried, he varnished it, framed it and entered it in the museum’s competition.

To his delight, the painting won first prize.  He bought a jeweled collar for Sybil, pinned a pink ribbon in her hair and brought her to the award ceremony. It was a little dicey getting her in the front door  but the owner insisted she was a service animal  He managed to keep her from molesting the guests by feeding her bananas and bit of cadmium red. When they called his name to accept the award, Sybil joined him on stage.  He told the astounded judges that it was not he who created the masterpiece they so admired.  It was his Sybil.

Years later, I took a class with the fabulously talented realistic painter Joseph Sheppard and he told me that Sybil was indeed a magnificent talent.  Indeed, he had joined her in her cage a few years after her triumph to raise money for the museum.  Together they painted a still life that hangs now in that same museum.

Evidently, gorillas not only paint, but they know what they are painting. Sister and brother gorillas Michael and Koko were taught sign language.  As a result, Koko (the artist in the family) was able to explain to her curator Dr. Penny Patterson, that she had painted a bird.

Just this past month, word is out that a zoo in North Dakota is selling the artwork of its 275 pound orangutan named Tal. His paintings are so colorful that they literally fly off the wall.  The animal’s favorite color is yellow and often he eats as much of the paint as he smears on his canvases. “Could be because it looks like a banana,” said the zoo’s curator.

There is no doubt that creativity is fundamental in the ape psyche. The animals  love using crayons, pencils and finger paint although they prefer oils they can eat. Everyone knows that children have the same propensity to eat the colors they use to paint. I believe we can learn a lot from the apes and their ability to transform their creative efforts into funds that support their favorite institutions.  I propose that we exhibit and sell all the paintings from local kindergarten classes to pay for amenities in their schools.  Think of it! We would no longer have to pay taxes to support education!  Our kindergartners would finance the system for us…and who knows?  There might be enough money left to reward the young artists with a few bananas.

Joe Cillo

www.forallevents.com/

ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?

Politeness; The most acceptable hypocrisy.
Ambrose Bierce

British men are the politest animals in the universe.  The first thing they ask you is “Are you all right?” and, if you are an innocent, you believe they really want to know. They seem so caring, so mild, so…so sweet.  But underneath that proper façade, lurks suppressed anger, aggression and hatred boiling about, absolutely aching to let off steam.  Just ask any woman over 14.  She knows.  She has seen it.  She has defended herself against it. And she has won.

Obviously, male testosterone and animal aggression are at an all time high universally in this century.  In Spain, chastity belts are a way of life. In Greece,…well…we all know what those men do to a woman. In Britain, however all that hormonal activity  is repressed and re-channeled.

That is why the crime rate for men in Britain has plummeted.  The male Brit is simply too proper for confrontation. In the UK, the very idea of murder is terribly upsetting. It is so messy.  The thought of assaulting someone on the street is repugnant to a real gentleman (and we all KNOW how correct an Englishman must appear).  It might stain your shirt or even worse…leave a bruise.

Every woman in a heterosexual partnership can testify to the passive–aggressive garbage they must ignore every day (for they too are very PC.)  For example, it is a well-known fact that a man will always call you darling before he hits you.  Always.  It is the way it is done.

The truth is that any fellow who is British in bed, will always apologize and we women know why. We watch pornography, too.   In fact, although the maternal instinct is very strong, most women would prefer that their partner was not present at the conception of their children.  They always hope for a French intervention…or even an Italian one.  Those men don’t bother with protocol.  They just get in there and get the job done.

No full-blooded Englishman ever actually leaves his wife. That explains those tortuous 40-year alliances that drag on and on plodding through rearing the children, indulging the grand kids and going on cruises to ease the boredom of it all.   A real Englishman stays with his spouse and ignores for her for so long, that she is forced to leave to preserve her sanity.  Clever fellows!  That is how THEY become the injured one.

Besides, as every male knows, it is foolhardy to walk out of a partnership until he has found himself a proper house cleaner and a hot young thing for recreation.

The fact is that English MEN have a sense of entitlement that women must accept.  They get it from their mothers.  They know how to push the right buttons to make women and children indulge them and juries excuse their behavior.

The buttons they push these days are on their smart phones and their I-pads.  Men in this country are addicted to online bullying and misanthropic tweeting. It doesn’t leave a scar.  It is not unusual for a hard working woman, to slave away for 8 hours at the office, gallop to Lidl (she knows where to find the bargains) on the way home, Hoover the house as she charges through it to the kitchen to make a healthy stir fry for the children while her partner is belching quietly and watching television in the parlor, scratching his private parts.  As she tosses the pasta into the drainer and chops the garlic, she will inevitably hear a beep from her phone, glance at it and see a picture of a hot pair of baubles with a cryptic note:  “Why aren’t yours like this?”

Women are not bothered by all this foolishness.  After all, we can multi-task.  Don’t think you guys are the only ones with secrets.  Women always have the final say when it comes to any connection with a man.  We know how to say no.

Joe Cillo

www.forallevents.com/