I defy you to tell me how any of these actual Hallmark Christmas Ornaments have any relation at all to Christmas.
I am aware one of these is not from Star Trek. It still doesn’t exactly scream “Christmas,” does it?
Yes, these are all from my personal collection. That’s beside the point.
Someday, somebody is going to make a Tiger King-style documentary about Gallagher (the famous comedian and enemy of all watermelons) and his brother Ron Gallagher, otherwise known as Gallagher II, or Gallagher Too.
The broad strokes of the story are:
Leo Gallagher, who I will from here on out refer to as Gallagher, became a famous comedian, playing large theaters and small arenas all over the country.
Gallagher had a brother named Ron, who looked a lot like him.
Ron asked if he could put together an act made up of a bunch of Gallagher’s older material, including the Sledge-O-Matic, and play smaller venues where they couldn’t afford Gallagher. Gallagher agreed to this, as long as the advertising made it clear that the show featured Ron Gallagher, not Gallagher.
Allegedly, after a few years of this arrangement, Ron’s advertisements became less obvious about which Gallagher people could expect. I myself remember seeing a newspaper advertisement when he performed at a comedy club in Seattle that left me confused as to which Gallagher was going to show up. I seem to remember the wording being something like, “Here’s your chance to see Gallagher Too!”
Allegedly, Gallagher withdrew his permission for Ron to use his intellectual property.
Allegedly, Ron continued using it anyway.
I also heard a story through the comedy grapevine that Ron Gallagher (again, allegedly) started offering himself to some of the smaller venues Gallagher played at a lower price than his brother, but I’ve found no evidence of this on the web.
The records show that Gallagher sued Ron Gallagher and won.
Allegedly, most of their family sided with Ron.
I once saw Gallagher (the real Gallagher) perform: back in the very early ’90s, my younger brother and I saw him at the Capitol Theater in Yakima, Washington. The show started over an hour late, after Gallagher personally escorted security up into the balcony where he shrieked insults at two guys who had offended his girlfriend. (The guys probably had it coming.) Then, once the show did finally start, he took some time out to complain that the restaurant down the street had the temerity to charge him full price for his dinner.
What I’m saying is that I’m not surprised that there’s some emotional volatility in his family.
It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we’re properly motivated. I hate running, but I suspect I could have been a competitive sprinter if they somehow got a cat to act like it was going to throw up on one of my belongings just beyond the finish line. I know it would be very difficult to train a cat that way, but they could have used a crude robot, like the mechanical rabbit at a dog track.
Note from Missy: The funniest part of this strip for me is my character saying, “I hate hearing you shout obscenities,” because if I gave my mouth free rein, it’d be mother&^@#ing vulgarities all day long.
I’ve written a lot here about my time as a receptionist/office manager. I fear I’ve given the impression that I spent a lot of time dealing with unhappy customers in that job, but that’s not the case. People who came in saw me answering phones, greeting visitors, and offering them coffee. If the visitor was unhappy with our very important work, I was the one person in the entire place that they knew had nothing to do with their problem. Even unimportance has its upside.
The only time I really had to deal with someone irate was when one of the senior staff members was unexpectedly and unceremoniously fired. He was shown to the lobby, my domain, and told to wait there with me while his former supervisor gathered his things from his desk. That was a long fifteen minutes. Once I determined that he did not want a cup of coffee, we had very little pleasant to discuss.
I like the idea that the pharaohs did get a certain kind of immortality, but it’s as villains in horror movies. There are worse ways to be remembered. Think of Ramses. If there is an afterlife, he must look at the fact that there’s a brand of condoms named after him and ask, “How did that happen?”
Lately I’ve been working my way through a UK sitcom from the early ’80s called Yes, Minister, and its later incarnation, Yes, Prime Minister. I am enjoying it quite a bit. It is a product of its time. Characters occasionally express opinions that are no longer considered acceptable, but unfortunately that’s true in real life as well.
The sitcom is, in broad terms, about a politician and a bureaucrat fighting it out. The politician wants to create change and help people just a little bit less than he wants to pander for votes and make himself look good. The bureaucrat believes that what is best for the country and its citizens is to maintain the status quo (of which he is a part), dysfunctional as it is, because if it ever became more effective there might be chaos and change, which would destroy the status quo (and his own power).
Most episodes are one of these two getting the better of the other, but occasionally someone threatens their department, and they work together to fight off the attack so that they can remain there, fighting each other.
It's a very funny show if you enjoy dry humor, irony, and wordplay (which a lot of people don’t). Also, I find it tremendously reassuring to see evidence that politics have always been a terrible mess, no matter what country you’re in.
I was going to write something here about how my beard marks me as the evil Mirror Universe version of Scott Meyer, and that somewhere there’s another clean-shaven me who created a comic strip solely to tell the universe what a swell guy his friend, evil Rick is.
That got me to thinking about the Mirror Universe in Star Trek. (Yes, I was raised in the country, and I do occasionally still say things like, “got me to thinking. I’ve grown to accept that.) I don’t remember them ever showing us what the Klingon Empire is like in the Mirror Universe.
I’m picturing lots of doilies.
Note from Missy: The idea of mirror-universe Scott saying nice things about Rick feels so familiar. Is there a strip with that premise? Or was it in another commentary? There are over a thousand comics, and honestly, after about 50 I start forgetting what they all are. 😆
I generally have a pro-women stance, and will always advocate that they are equal to men. That said, whenever a woman says she wants to be treated like “One of the guys,” I do tend to think that they don’t know what they’re asking for.
Toward the end of the time period when my mother, both of my brothers, and I all lived in the same house, my older brother lost his toothbrush somehow. Instead of getting a new one, he found it more amusing to just use mine. Anyone who has an older brother (including my younger brother) will understand that me not wanting him to use my toothbrush did not stop him.
So, what did I do, you ask?
I bought a second, secret toothbrush (never a sign that your life is going well) and in front of multiple witnesses I used my old toothbrush to scrub between my toes, then put it back in the toothbrush cup for my older brother to use.
And he did.
Many times.
I saw him do it, and pretended to not want him to.
You may be wondering when I finally told him about this. Assuming he reads these comics and comments: just now.
