Birth of a foal

Election hell: we need another miracle

I didn't particularly feel like writing this today. It's a horrible grey day out there, merciless. We just had Halloween, and it freaked out my cat so badly that he's still anxious, with huge eyes. Now it's plain rotten out.

I hate it when something partially comes to me. Yesterday I couldn't remember the name Joyce Carol Oates. I kept thinking of the name Cornelia. I was thinking of another author, Cordelia Strube. . . Another name was Robert Fulford, the Canadian literary critic, and all I could come up with was "Bob".

My mind plays these games with me, chasing itself. Like charades, it will give me one syllable, then two. . . then take them away again. I am reminded of my favorite scene in one of my most beloved movies, Young Frankenstein: "SED-A-GIVE??"

But this isn't a can't-remember thing so much as a CAN-remember-and-can't-find-it. This is rare on the internet. As with Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want. At first I thought it was a song by a Canadian group, which would partially explain it.

One of the other songs I couldn't track down was called Africa and was by a Canadian group called Thundermug. Until I found the name Thundermug, I couldn't find it anywhere on YouTube.

This played incessantly all during one summer when I had just left home, so it evokes both excitement and utter terror. Now I realize it must only have been "Canadian-famous" (like Robert Fulford, who may not even be alive any more). It's a unique sound, with all those kazoos and bird calls. For years, I thought the lyrics were, "South Africa, ah-AH-ah." Doing a bit of digging, it turns out to be "LOVE Africa, ah-AH-ah."

Africa

written by Bill Durst and Joe De Angelis

Love Africa (ah-ah-ah)
Beautiful land (ah-ah-ah)
Hot is the sun, cold is the night
You're mine!

Thunder saw savanna
I can look out to the sea, look at me

Live off the land (ah-ah-ah)
Smoke Mashmakhan (ah-ah-ah)
Forests so green, jungles so deep
Sublime!

Up the great Zambezi
Sail the Congo to the sea

You're my father, you're my mother
You're my sister and my brother
You're my friend

Soft rolling sand (ah-ah-ah)
Where life began (ah-ah-ah)
Song of the bird, roar of the beast
Sublime!

???? ???? ??? Turkana
Tanganyika call to me, call to me

------ kazoo solo ------

You're my father, you're my mother
You're my sister and my brother
You're my friend

Love Africa (ah-ah-ah)
Beautiful land (ah-ah-ah)
Love Africa (ah-ah-ah)
Sing coloured man (ah-ah-ah)

Love Africa (ah-ah-ah)
Beautiful land (ah-ah-ah)
Love Africa (ah-ah-ah)
Beautiful land (ah-ah-ah)
Love Africa (ah-ah-ah)
Beautiful land (ah-ah-ah)
Love Africa (ah-ah-ah)
Beautiful land (ah-ah-ah)
Love Africa

These are the only lyrics I can find, and I think there are several mondegreens in them, but it's hard for me to correct them. "Sing coloured man" sounds pretty racist to me, even though it came out in the early '70s. I always thought it was "sin-coloured land", which is more poetic, even if it doesn't make much sense.

But that is NOT what I am talking about now! I am talking about the chorus of a song I heard one billion times on the radio - a long time ago, probably in the '70s when so many cheesy-but-memorable songs came out. ("And honey, I miss you. . . ") It's a gospel number, and over and over again I am hearing the chorus in my head:

Hey Lord, don't you think it's time

Hey Lord, don't you think it's time

Don't you think it's time

We had another miracle

Lord, don't you think it's time 

That's all. No verses. No name of group. But I can hear that spirited chorus singing in four-part harmony, hands clapping, organ playing. I want to find this! I want to hear it again. At first I thought it might have been recorded by a Canadian group, The Bells, who had a few mainstream hits before fizzling out like most '70s groups did. But when I traced it down, it was a different Don't You Think It's Time. There are a lot of songs with similar titles, and none of them are "it".

If I could get the name of the group. . . Until I somehow found the highly questionable name Thundermug, I could find nothing of Africa, because I kept calling it South Africa (which is exactly what it sounds like - a serious mondegreen). So if I could get a little more of it - 

I've tried all the million-and-one lyric sites. Nothing. I've beaten the YouTube bushes, which always seem to yield something up sooner or later, even some pathetic cover with a drunk guy on an out-of-tune guitar.

Yet I hear it, rollicking, spirited - I want to hear it, and guess why?

I think it's time.

I think it's time we.

I think it's time we had.

I think it's time we had another.

I think it's time we had another MIRACLE so we could get through the swamp of horror that is the American Presidential election. My stomach queases, I feel not only downcast but doomed. It just doesn't seem to want to go any way that could be good.

I've had a lot of thoughts. Trump is a cancer on the body politic, no doubt, but what about Hillary Clinton? I think she's tough, astute, and has the capacity to lead the free world. She's more than capable. The email scandal is nothing but blowing smoke. It's a non-story.

But like Nixon in the infamous Kennedy-Nixon debate, Clinton has no camera presence.

This isn't something she can help or change. And I did not fully realize it until I saw Michelle Obama's recent speech - the one that took my breath away.

You know what I mean. Unless you're Republicans, in which case, you may kindly take a hike.

Michelle Obama glows with charisma. Her speaking voice is warm and expressive. She is full of passion. Hillary Clinton's voice - and again, this is not something she can help or change - is rough and monotone. It just has no emotion in it, is almost croaking. She isn't always grim, and some of her facial expressions are quite delightful - but TV is merciless, and insists on a certain kind of vibe, and she doesn't got it. 

Doesn't got it, my friends.

What does Dump-truck have? Nothing, as far as I am concerned. He's just a rich asshole who tapped into something, a seething unrest in a large group of people who felt powerless and saw him as the way out.

Or, The Way. 

I won't say who this reminds me of. I don't have to.

So all this leads back to a rollicking gospel number that I cannot find anywhere. It's as if it never existed. That never happens on the internet. It's all there, always. Even Thundermug was there, for God's sake! I didn't hear this song in church, by the way. No. I heard it on the radio. Over and over and over again. And I want to hear it now, so badly! So, so, so badly:

Don't you think it's time

we had another miracle?

Lord, don't you think it's time?

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

And I'll bet she isn't even a virgin!

Virgin Mary Statue Crying For No Good Reason

NEWS  January 3, 2011
VOL 47 ISSUE 01 News · Religion

WORCESTER, MA—Nearly a week after a statue of the Virgin Mary began shedding what appeared to be actual tears, worshippers at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church told reporters Wednesday they had lost patience with the figure's nonstop whining and carrying on.

The self-absorbed drama queen.


"Like everyone else, I got sucked in at first," said the Rev. Paul Doherty, the pastor of the church, who admitted he had once kissed the tears streaming from the eyes of the 5-foot wooden altarpiece. "But now it's just too much—crying in the morning when I come in, crying during baptisms, crying, crying, crying all the time. I've called around to other parishes, and all of their Marys are doing fine, even the cheap plaster ones that have to stand outside in the wind and rain. There must be thousands of Marys in the Greater Boston area, but ours is the only one who can't hold it together."

"To think I actually thought it was a miracle," added Doherty, looking up at the statue's glistening, tear-slicked face. "The real miracle would be if Old Faithful over here would turn off the waterworks for five seconds."

Longtime church organist Agnes Wright told reporters that the weeping statue had become a distraction and that she now privately hoped someone would lay a drape over the self- indulgent figure or at least turn it so it was facing the wall.

"I know she's sad, but c'mon, she's acting like the world revolves around her or something," said Wright, adding that Mary's incessant sorrow had made receiving communion a "chore." "I just spent the past 10 years watching my husband slowly die from Alzheimer's, and I cried on my own time. I didn't make it this endless production."

"Show a little dignity," Wright continued. "The statue of Jesus has nails through his hands and feet, for God's sake, but you don't see him crying."

Despite warnings from church officials that any pilgrimages to the statue would only encourage its blubbering, thousands of faithful from around the world have converged on the church in hopes of getting a glimpse of Mary and her extraordinary appetite for drama. Day and night, visitors have been standing in lines a quarter of a mile long in order to witness the statue's breathtaking self-absorption firsthand.

"I came all the way from Oklahoma City because I had to see Mary's big pity party with my own eyes," said Jen Gammons, 53. "When I finally got up close enough to get a good look, I just wanted to smack her. We've all got problems, okay? But we don't all break down and start bawling like a bunch of babies."

At press time, church officials said they planned to continue services as normal for the foreseeable future, despite the fact that the statue's weeping continues unabated.

"I don't even want to deal with it at all, frankly, so I'm just going to ignore her," Doherty said. "Why indulge it, you know? I'm not going to debase myself by going over and consoling her and saying, 'Oh, you poor, poor thing, what's wrong?' Screw that. I'm going to read my sermon, and if she wants to cry all through it like some kind of grade-school prima donna, then she can be my guest, but I refuse to so much as even look in her direction."

When reached by reporters, a Vatican spokesman said Pope Benedict XVI would be arriving in Worcester next week to "give that statue something to cry about."

From The Onion, a few years back, but still pretty relevant. Pregnant out of wedlock? Are you kidding me? Not another single Mom mooching off the state!

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Leprechaun in Alabama (Autotune Remix)

Miracle child

Behold, a miracle.

On July 4, I posted an entry called Say yes, and start again. I told a story, a true one, about one of the most heartbreaking things I've ever known about.

This was the sledding accident on a Christmas Eve in which 4-year-old Lucia was killed by a truck turning a corner. Through a series of incredible coincidences, her mother, infertile for years, was able to become pregnant again. This story's twists and turns were labyrinthine, but at many crucial points, faith was the force that made it all possible, even against impossible odds.

And she is the result. This baby bloomed out of tragedy and is soft as a rose and bright as the stars. Her name is Stella Lucia. Look at her! She's a miracle.

God's apology

Came across something today that struck me as exquisite, and it reminded me of a friend - someone no longer near, because he's crossed over into Mystery Land and now walks with his ancestors. We were friends for less than a year, but it was life-changing: both of us were in the trenches, and as the bullets flew and the bombs thundered overhead, we sat in Starbuck's and compared souls. I know he'd get this, and laugh in that half-delighted, half-wincing way of his, the way that saved my life. Peter! This is for you:

"Friends are God's way of apologizing to us for our families."