Funny Bone Friday with Tom Papa

Migrants & Melania

Thus far in the global migrant crisis Canada’s border has been quiet, mostly due to our geography/isolation. But now that the U.S. is closing in on itself and relegating immigration to a zone of fear and instability, we have seen a threefold spike in the number of refugees/migrants coming across.

You know people are desperate when they trudge north through waist-deep snow and brutal winds in the deepest, darkest winter for 10 hours to the border, losing fingers and toes to frostbite in the process. Now that spring is whispering in the wings and soon the weather will be warm, this trickle could very well turn into a torrent. The New Yorker reported on an underground railroad poised to launch the migrants they are currently housing and protecting. Soon we may see our nation’s claim of racial tolerance tested.

On another note, Melania Trump has been on my mind for a long while; I’m not alone in wondering what kind of man Rump is in private and what she must endure. In one of the protest rallies outside the NYC Rump Tower someone held up a sign that read: Melania, blink twice if you need to be rescued.

This week, 22 Minutes, Canada’s troupe of irreverent comics who riff on current political topics, put out their latest video: “Mrs. Trump, this is the third time this week.”

So I’m posting it here, because we’re all holding our breath and it’s Funny Bone Friday, Episode #12

 

Bring on the new year, I’m done with this one.

A quote by Kurt Vonnegut, with whom I would have dearly loved to drink.

Got the post-Brexit jitters/blues?

Time for celebration. Or not. Time for a drink or four and time for a thrashing dance. Or not. Always time for a box of chocolates. And definitely time for a laugh.

Episode #11 Funny Bone Friday

(Post Script. June 30th/16)  Of course it’s a terrible shame that those in the UK who value their EU citizenship will lose it, and that the value of the pound is taking a hit and there will be short-term structural economic repercussions, but what’s missing from the post-Brexit media coverage here in Canada are two important things: (1) respect for the British voters who have chosen their path, the majority of which no doubt based their decision upon intelligent conviction rather than baser instincts or gullibility, and (2) discussions around the very real possibility that this event spells the beginning of a global movement against the rapacious greed of international corporatism.

Rump Tower

After a week of that loud buffoon posing as a U.S. presidential candidate whose name will not be uttered here because he should be ignored if not banished, somebody in Vancouver suggested that we ought to rename the downtown tower by removing the T.

Of no relevance whatsoever to Mr. Mouthpiece, here’s a short and silly video of a dog and his canine ventriloquist that always makes me laugh.

Because it’s Funny Bone Friday Episode #10 and we all need our funny bone tickled.

When a child soldier plays paint ball…

From The Moth,  a personal story told by Ishmael Beah, once a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Listen to his perspective when he plays paint ball with some toughs from New York City’s East Village. It’s a story that generates much laughter and cuts right through some of the nonsense in gangs and gun culture.

May 21, 2011. The Moth. Reading Between the Lions: Stories of the New York Public Library. Photo by Sarah Stacke

Because it’s Funny Bone Friday, Episode #9, and we all need our funny bone tickled.

Timeless Michael Jackson

Funny Bone Friday Episode #8 because we all need our funny bone tickled.

It’s Funny Bone Friday!

When he was Canada’s Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau once made this comment about the USA:

Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.

We love our neighbours to the south and we also like to take the piss out of them because so many of them know so little about us. Here’s a link to a YouTube video of one of Canada’s funniest political satirists, Rick Mercer, on a cultural safari to find Americans who know anything about Canada. While you may not get some of the inside humour, you can certainly see how delightfully, terribly gullible Americans can be — another reason we love them and believe, foolishly perhaps, that we are superior. 🙂

FBF #2 Because we all need our funny bones tickled.