muffy bolding

Fred McFeely Rogers; March 20, 1928 – February 27, 2003

Among other astonishing tidbits of wisdom — like, say, a behind-the-scenes look at how crayons are made — Fred Rogers provided me with my very first lesson on how you can totally and completely love someone with all your heart…even someone you’ve never met.

In the early 1990s, I read a newspaper story about Mr. Rogers’ stint as the main guest speaker at the graduation ceremonies of some fancy Ivy League college back East. I smiled as I read that he was overwhelmingly chosen — from among a rather large field of quite renowned and impressive possible candidates — by the graduating students themselves.

However, because of the great affection that I felt for this man, as I read the story I distinctly remember also feeling a small, but palpable twinge of fear in my chest — fear that perhaps this bored, jaded, favored, overly-educated, disenchanted slice of my generation had chosen him to speak at their college graduation as some supreme statement of kitsch, or even as an opportunity to poke fun at his tender, gentle ways in a very public forum.

When I got to the part about him walking to the podium to begin his speech — in that purposeful, patient, and unhurried walk of his that we all know so well — the protective concern that I was feeling instantly shifted into a sense of great pride, relief, and community. They hadn’t let me down.

And I began to weep. And I weep again, even now, just remembering it.

As Fred Rogers was introduced and began his walk to the microphone where he would address them, thousands of voices — voices that were soon to take their place in positions of great power, leadership, erudition, and meaningful discourse in this nation – spontaneously and enthusiastically erupted into song; his song:

“It’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood, a beautiful day for a neighbor…
Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neighbor?”

They hadn’t invited him there to their hallowed halls to make fun of him at all. They had invited him there, with great reverence, to pay him tribute. He had — one song, one smile, one loving word at a time — been a part of each of their journeys to adulthood. They had asked him to be there, on this symbolic last day of their childhoods, because they loved him.

Those thousands of voices raised in song were a profound and heartfelt “thank you” for the many years that he gave them his kind, patient, and undivided attention. A voice that was there, everyday, even when parents or friends weren’t. A voice that, to a tragic few, may have been the only loving and reassuring words they might hear all day.

I miss him, and his kindness…his cardigan and his sneakers…his calm, sweet voice and his silly puppets. But most of all, I miss his unfailing belief that all things are possible.

Because they are.

That simple, glimmering truth was his gift to us all.

Thank you, Mr. Rogers. This place isn’t the same without you.

The very existence of this video proves, once and for all, the indisputable truth about the MYSTICAL, MAGICAL TRANSFORMATIVE POWERS OF BREEDING. Celebrity Chef Anthony Bourdain was the MOST HATEFUL, MOST DISDAINFUL, MOST PUNK ROCK, NON-FILTER-CAMEL-SMOKING, BUSHMILLS WHISKEY-GUZZLING BASTARD ON THE PLANET — contemptuous of all things mainstream and middle-America. He was one of those black high-top Converse/Ramones t-shirt wearing hipsters who would flick cigs and sneer “BREEDER!” at folks pushing a stroller through Central Park. A REAL hardcore prick.

Then, three years ago, at the not so tender age of 51, Bourdain knocked up his Italian girlfriend. She delivered unto him a baby girl…who has since, of course, become the LIGHT OF HIS MOTHERFUCKING LIFE. He quit smoking cold turkey after pretty much a 40 year habit, and taught himself to slow down and really smell the “nasty bits” he was sauteing up for the worldwide audience hopelessly addicted to his travel/cooking show. To say it changed his life would be an understatement.

Want proof? Here he is — the once scornful, bitter, curmudgeonly prick — recently appearing on Nickelodeon’s Yo Gabba Gabba…all for the love of Ariane.

Histrionic, post-60s teenage Summer romance song…complete with a PERFECTLY coiffed flip. SO fucking good.

Yes, we may have kicked their collective ass at Olympic hockey, much to their national horror…but when it comes to providing the most basic human right of access to quality healthcare to its citizenry, we got NOTHIN’ on those FABULOUS Frostbacks. ALL HAIL CANADA!

Librarian

I have loved a hundred men—

Traveled the earth, sought them out, perused
The cafes, cathedrals, universities, auto
Shops, seaports, and hardware stores, acquiring each
Of them, a hundred strong, judging none

By just his cover. They are catalogued
All, sordid and filed, eager for my hands
To pluck, like posturing books from a potent shelf—
Waiting for me to flutter their pages,

Caress their spine, and preen their gilded edges.
They vie to seduce me with their blurbs, and impress
Me with the grandness of their frontispiece. I mouth
Their names with a shake of the coils at my nape.

I love them all the same—

One, who paints my toenails like rich,
Italian tiles; And One who tells me
My eyes are the exact color of his first
Car, a ’69 Camaro Rally Sport,
With tuck and roll upholstery.

One, who stoically bears my shame,
Gallantly returning the videos three
Days late, paying my fines
With coins of his own making;
And One who paints cerulean doors, bakes yams,
And reads Roethke aloud, like a warrior-poet.

One, watchless, who tells perfect time
By a graceful glance at a certain slant
Of light tilting in through a bedroom window;
And One who visits me in my dreams, whispering
Alchemical equations in French, altering
The composition of my leaden heart.

One who can tinker with a car and drink a beer,
While discussing Libertarian theory
And the space/time continuum;
And One who wields a hockey stick
Like a hammer of the gods, then stops
And buys me tampons on his victorious
Journey home from the icy northern rink.

One who charts the stars
From a vessel named ‘Dissent’;
One who roars The Wasteland
As he staggers in the snow;
One who eats thunderous apples
To fill my sullen silence;
One whose cruel, sensuous strides
Knife the air he moves through;
And One who weeps
At the sound
Of bagpipes.

I am their mistress and their keeper, these
Bound brothers, lined side by side
On the possessive shelves of my gallery.
It is my imprint between their covers.

No other book lovers are allowed to browse
My special collection, with their overdue root
Touch-ups, their screeching heels, their false
Beauty marks penciled on like dewy

Decimals, and their endless trails of perfume
On-recon. And if, peering over the top
Of my jealous spectacles, I should ever catch
Them there, sashaying my aisles,

I will raise one vengeful finger to my lips,
And shush them into nothingness.

— Muffy Bolding

“The simplest act of surrealism is to walk out into the street, gun in hand, and shoot at random…” –Andre Breton

GENIUS! Allan Uthman, the guy who writes this annual hammering of the pricks, is SO fucking brilliant that I was actually moved to send him a fan letter a few years ago in which I told him his writing is SO GODDAMNED GOOD…that I’d blow him for the difference. Let’s just say HE APPRECIATED IT.

The 50 Most LOATHSOME Americans:

#35. Teabaggers

Charges: America’s dumbest and most racist citizens finally found a cause they could all get behind that isn’t pro wrestling or NASCAR. The Lolcats of protest sign grammar, they think scare quotes actually make things scary (e.g. ‘Obama is a “communist”’). They don’t understand that they’re duped showpieces for billionaires who threaten their freedom and prosperity far more than their beloved nemesis, Big Gubmint. And their instant escalation from complacent couch potatoes to rhetorical revolutionaries just happened to coincide with the election of a black Democrat with the middle name Hussein. What are the chances?

Exhibit A: They called it Teabagging first.

Sentence: To star in an extremely patriotic, live ammunition reenactment of the Battle of Bunker hill.

The 50 Most Loathsome Americans, 2009

“I doubt I would recognize Lady Gaga if she walked into a room unless she had a wedding cake on her head.” — Stephen Fry

I ADORE Craig Ferguson, I adore Stephen Fry, and I adored Tom Snyder and My Dinner With Andre…and I ADORE this idea: a late night talk show host KICKIN’ IT OL’ SCHOOL. As intelligent, honest, and engaging as Ferguson is — not to mention HILARIOUS — I would watch this flavor of talk show every goddamned night. It feels very REAL and low-tech — akin to reading an actual book you can hold and smell, or having a conversation with someone’s flesh and blood face, as opposed to just their pixilated picture on a computer screen. Fuck the braying, extraneous audience — ship ’em back to Omaha. What I want to see and hear is just two people talking…surrounded by delicious, beloved, empty silence…just waiting for them to fill it. BRING IT.

Craig Ferguson last night: no audience, one guest, a great hour of TV

The reason I like Edna St Vincent Millay
Is that her name
sounds like a basketball falling down stairs.

The reason I like Walt Whitman
Is that his name
sounds like Edna St. Vincent Millay
falling down stairs.

— David Mamet

“We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glow worm.”
— Winston Churchill