Another George Bailey Sighting HERE in the Pottersville Dimension (aka, BEDFORD FALSE)

Either George was in a terrible accident, or he's invisible just like... A Man Called Da-da? Hey, wait...
Is Da-da George Bailey? With AMNESIA? AND A FEW EXTRA HOLIDAY POUNDS?!This explains so much.
CLARENCE!!

Another George Bailey Sighting

Yet Another George Bailey/Bigfoot Sighting

Da-da's pretty sure this is another Sign of the Cheerpocalypse... er, Cheermageddon.

Another George Bailey Sighting in the Pottersville Dimension

Looks like George is getting the hang of this Pottersville Dimension thing.

George Bailey Sighted in the Pottersville Dimension

Seems there have been multiple George Bailey sightings here in the Pottervsville Dimension.
Da-da thinks that's a good thing, despite the look on George's face.

"Where's George?" A Holiday Conundrum (UPDATED)

[From the December 26th, 1946, Pottersville Post: “State and local authorities have finally given up on Pottersville’s biggest and costliest manhunts in recent memory. After a statewide search by Pottersville Anti-Terrorist Strike Teams, county detectives and cheerful K-9 squads, all attempts to turn up any trace of the fugitive known as, “George Bailey,” have failed. However, while searching for said villain, authorities have uncovered an odd cult made up of individuals unknown to Potter. The cult’s members have taken to leaping off several of the area’s fine bridges, shouting “Clarence!” for some as-yet unknown purpose. The shadowy, ‘Clarence,’ was unavailable for comment at the time of this writing.”]


Most folks have their personal scapegoats, those individuals, ethnic groups, or political organizations responsible for various post-Millennial meltdowns; some even feel the aforementioned are manifestations of an evil entity, spreading malice via bar-code numerology, fast food franchises and disposable diapers. Others blame oil companies, Goldman Sachs, Corporate America, etc. Da-da isn't here to castigate you for thinking the majority of your problems are interwoven into a cosmic discorporate tapestry of malevolence stemming from Steven Spielberg, Windows 8 and forced fluoridation, because that's all true (Steve is holding Da-da's children hostage right now via "ET"). But Da-da does have incontrovertible evidence that ONE MAN, over and above everyone else, is to blame for all our problems. Who is this monster?

It’s George Bailey from Frank Capra’s, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” You know, the guy who wished he’d never been born. Put simply, we all exist -- right now -- in the Non-George Bailey/Pottersville Dimension. Want proof?

Review with Da-da now the uncolorized version of Capra’s holiday classic:

George sits sipping coffee with Clarence Oddbody, the friendly, bumbling angel, after an unsuccessful suicide plunge into an icy river.

“I said I wish I’d never been born!” George says irritably from inside his soaked long underwear.

“Oh, you mustn’t say things like that!” Clarence implores. “Wait-a-minute. Wait… a… minute. That’s an idea.” He looks Heavenward. “What do you think? Yeah, that’ll do it.” A pause. “All right,” Clarence announces with a flourish, “you’ve got your wish. You’ve never been born.”

As George receives his “gift,” a stiff breeze blows the door open to the little shack, due to our own Big Bang and consequent cosmic expansion.

George and Clarence then venture forth into the Non-George Bailey/Pottersville Dimension, for a libation within a microcosm of what’s to come: Nick’s bar (note Capra’s Hell reference). This smoke-filled bar, run by the eponymous Nick (played by Sheldon Leonard, who else), is hardly the friendly neighborhood tavern; Nick provides us with our first clue that all is not as it seems as Clarence tries to order a foofy drink:

“Hey look, Mister. We serve hard drinks in here to men who want to get drunk fast and we don’t need any characters around to give the joint atmosphere. Izzatclear? Or do I have to slip you my lip for a convincer?” [Waves fist menacingly.]

George comments on never seeing Nick act that way, to which Clarence comments, “You’ll see a lot of strange things from now on.” Soon after Clarence and George are tossed out of the bar, Nick then mockingly doles out “wings.”

You know the rest. George goes on to discover that his lovely Bedford Falls, the Utopian Dream, has been transmogrified into Pottersville, named for the evil, money-grubbing miser and central banker, Mr. Potter. In this new dimension, crime is rampant (evidenced by police sirens, errant gunshots, and showgirls being tossed into paddywagons), lascivious lights strobe menacingly amidst bars, dancehouses and pawnshops, all the while serenaded by boozy jazz (the only good part about the Pottersville Dimension). All this decadence taunts the remaining good and virtuous into pawning their lives for a stiff drink, an inane gambling thrill, and a chance at making forty-or-so half-naked dancing girls who “know Potter.” In short, Bedford Falls had gone Vegas.

Even George himself, the previous Barometer for Goodness and Fair Play, goes crazy, assaults his wife (well, they aren’t married in this dimension), and slugs Bert the cop, who then shoots across a crowded square at a retreating George. George runs for the bridge in a confused and gangly mass of pleading, Jimmy Stewart-esque remorse… but help is on the way.
   
God takes pity on ol’ mossback George and plants him firmly back in his own dimension, where it’s snowing again (to cover up crimes of the past)... back where police say things like “STOP, or I’ll be forced to say ‘Stop’ again”... back to smiling, happy consumers... back to light holiday traffic and polite drivers... back to family and friends and neighbors and holiday cheer... BACK to the GEORGE BAILEY DIMENSION, LEAVING US IN THE SEEMINGLY TEMPORARY POTTERSVILLE DIMENSION... aka, "Bedford FALSE."

I’m certain that few, if any, will believe Da-da. But he expects to see a few more of you in line at Myrna’s Video-O-Rama & Discount Liquor, quietly purchasing your own copies of Capra’s holiday reminder. You’ll take it home and soak up the 80-proof holiday cheer, lamenting your loss of Paradise.

Then again, perhaps one or two of you will activate that latent bearded hippy freak that lives deep within your shell of fey capitalism. Perhaps you’ll join Da-da as he jumps off every available bridge, dam and waterway in a vain attempt at bringing back Goodness and Hope and Neighborliness and Fair Play -- and a bunch of other really great words Ben Franklin used to shout while taking air-baths in France -- thus dispelling the evils of the Pottersville Dimension. It's ok if it doesn't work: the fall will probably kill you.

“CLARENCE!!”

Stop the Floor Show, Da-da Wants to Get Off

Get ready: here comes the robot CATS floor show.

The holidays are headin' right for us like a busload of drunken Shriners, and so are the requisite spate of bad holiday parades. So, Da-da's gonna get right to the point: this holiday parade floor-show thing has to stop. The parade is about FLOW. It's flowing, it's happy, the horses are horseying, flag girls flagging, the band banding, moving in pavement peristalsis... and then it all suddenly STOPS so a bunch of overly made-up, way-too-cheery dancers can pretend to sing to canned music that blares and offends while BRAND NAMES are zoomed in on and talked about, "spontaneously," so sponsors can get their precious mindshare and everyone but Da-da (and, well, you) can make money. This single stupid idea has ruined parades -- except The Rose Parade, where they still preserve the flow, but how long can they hold back the mediocre tide?

Having marched in a zillion parades, Da-da knows 'em all too well. They're a tremendous amount of work. All that stuff you see has to be made and tried on and cleaned and rehearsed and sweated in and taken off and cleaned and put on again and pinned and glued and pinned and OW and cleaned and polished and bagged and put back on over and over again.

All the people and animals you see -- esp. the bands and the horses and horse people, jeez -- have to do so much in the way of logistics and preparation, not the least of which is getting up at O-Dark-30 just to be at Street X at 5:45 am for line-up in the freezing cold, and having to repeatedly endure being cajoled and tacked up and shined and buffed and polished and cinched and strangled and half-crushed... just so they can walk past you for 60 seconds in the rain and cold and horse poop and general Planet Earth nastiness, usually wrapped in bags like ambulatory hams in the rain.

[Img courtesy Patrick Kane/The Petersburg Progress-Index... and of course, all those poor marching schmoes.]

Sounds miserable, right? It is. It's the Ultimate in Un-Reality TV. No one ever shows you how miserable these things are to do (and Reality TV producers... please DON'T). Parades SUCK to be in, for the most part. But all this pain and suffering is made bearable by the smiling faces and the cheers and the applause, esp. when it comes from little kids, who are SO excited to see... well, see ANYTHING bright and shiny and enormous that makes noise. Yay! Their reaction makes it all worthwhile.

But those doing most of the work aren't getting that reaction, anymore. They're marking time for the goddamn floor show. Those overly cheerful back-up hoofers from Broadway's latest redo of "CATS" need their six minutes of feigned happy lip-synced fame, while everyone else marks time. THEY AREN'T EVEN REALLY SINGING, nor are they playing the instruments you're hearing. They're just flopping around, phoning in some bland smiley YAY-ness. Haven't we all seen enough of that?

Ah, but then it's mercifully over and the camera moves in on the horses and the Pottersville Marching Marauders... band music swells and we cut away for nine minutes of commercials. Caught in the snide are grandma and grampa and mom and dad and all those relatives and friends who did so much work to support this kind of parade activity, but fail to see its fruition. There's no closure, no satisfaction. There's only more BRANDING, more commercials. This is wrong, and everyone knows it.

Maybe if everyone in the parade were naked and the naughty bits covered -- just barely -- by BRAND NAMES, the camera might linger... kinda Cirque du Soleil T-day in Vegas. Well, naked in Chicago in November for three hours? Those errant broadcast crews will also document countless deaths due to exposure -- which makes it even more compelling for those schmoes who make money off these things. It's naked, it's reality, it's death. But alas, parades aren't about nakedness or reality or death -- or making money. They're about putting on a happy face for all those little happy faces. Sounds trite, but Welcome to Earth. Earth is filled with doves and bunnies and unicorns, too, you know.

Da-da's ready for his close-up.

So. BROADCASTERS. Take it from the unicorn and STOP ruining the lives of little children (who are all playing games on smart phones anyway 'cause your floor show sucks) and put the parades back the way they were. You know: miserable, but with a nice pay-off. Nowadays, they're just miserable, with BROADCASTERS getting the nice pay-off.

If this continues, perhaps we should all agree to stop participating in these big silly corporate productions and have our own little non-branding parades, without the cameras and committees and "eventized" corporate staging, and... you know... just have a nice little drunken hometown parade.

Dead Man's Email

Nothing funny here, citizen. If you're looking for funny, you might wanna move on to the next post.

Da-da's been spending time looking through his friend's email -- his best friend who relapsed back into booze for the last time, got mad at himself and took his own life rather than face the anger and guilt he felt at his all too human weakness... so, Da-da hacked his best friend's account looking for a last note, a letter to the editor, a final jeremiad about addiction or insanity or fluoridation... but there was nothing. Just job offers (Da-da's friend was eminently employable), a little father's day email to his dad (and to Da-da), and spam. Sad, really. There was no final note left to mark a life lived on the quiet edge of madness. No last thoughts on the whys and wherefores that were so severe that he decided to put a bullet in his brain. Yes. It's after midnight. And Da-da's in too truthful a mood. He tried to warn you off with his DO NOT ENTER sign, but you're still here in fascination of the abomination. Da-da did a whole novel about these midnight, living dead thoughts, but you don't know about that. So, what's this all about? Late night anger and upset? About a friend who took a wrong turn? Partly. It's that, and a friendly heads-up. It's also much more. Let's explore, shall we?

We all come to that dark place, sometimes. You know the place. That spot within ourselves where we question nearly everything and wonder why we're here, wonder whether we have value, whether we should indeed go on living. For many, it comes right down to an instant, a moment. Da-da has been here awhile and has years of experience and actual old fashioned mystical knowledge, not the least of which is memory of sitting on the brink of this madness -- read, HE'S BEEN THERE... and consciously stepping back from it, unlike his tragic friend, so allow him to speak to that real being inside you a moment.

You aren't what you think you are. You're actually a part of something so grand, so majestic, so INFINITE, that... well, words are cheap. Words aren't even a real part of us (they're our invention, so we can talk to ourselves), so let's chuck that and go on gut. Whether you like it or not, you are part of something huge and intractable. Immutable. Immortal. You cannot be destroyed, no matter what you do. Blow your brains out, take poison, jump off a bridge, put asps to your breast... it's not going to do a single solitary thing, EXCEPT make you come back and do this all over again. If you're indeed on this brink, or know someone who is, read/send them this post.

Fact is, this world is not real, and suicide will do nothing but prolong the inevitable. It'll make it worse, in fact, because you'll have to recover from what you think you've done -- and what you did to yourself because of it. Guilt guilt guilt. Fear fear fear. Ridiculous. "Reality," as you know it, is not reality at all, only perception. The real "reality" of you, of me -- we're the same being, you see -- is that We Are. No amount of violence you do to yourself will change that. Do yourself in and you'll still have to face the fact that you're part of a larger Something that doesn't judge, and that you've never done anything wrong and you never could even if you wanted to. Read that again. YOU are harder on you than any concept of a Supreme Being, silly lake of fire or otherwise. Would a Supreme Being want you punished for whatever you think you've done? Not One Da-da wants wearing the Royal Sweatpants of Eternity. We Are, brother, and we're part of something tremendous, something that has a name that you can't pronounce (literally a vibration), and it's something you need not be afraid of, something that loves us so much that even the worst is forgiven. This is hard to fathom for some, as the world you're used to is about sexy bodies and guilt and blame and fear and revenge. But Da-da's here to tell you that you should step away from the brink and join in the George Bailey Dimension.

Huh?

Yes. George Bailey. The guy from, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. The man who asked never to have been born. What's this got to do with anything and why? Because, doofus, by committing suicide, you are asking just that: to have never been born. But if you could see your life, no matter how hideous, if you could see what part that life might play, you might see the positive impact, the baby steps, no matter how small, the impact of your silly life has on others. Just as Stephen King wrote in, "The Shawshank Redemption," you have two choices: "Get busy livin', or get busy dyin." But you don't. Not only is this terrible advice, Da-da's here to tell you that there is no such choice. You might ex-out this body for a time, because you think you can't take it any more... but you'll be back, eventually, with that same fucking choice staring you in the face. And until you let go and let something else... whatever you wanna call it, Big Juju, a Higher Power... until you let It choose for you, until you let It take that fey compass from your hand and say, GO THIS WAY YOU BONEHEAD, you will be doomed to The Pottersville Dimension. Not indefintely, but for a time.

Time is an illusion most subscribe to, but it's not real. It exists only to give you a finite class length. You're a Supreme Being in your own right, part of one anyway, and you're in school, here to learn. Look away from the hourglass pain of the clock, brother, and choose to learn. Learn what? Let go and find out. Take the lessons, no matter how hard. Get through it. And get better. We'd be lying if we said we weren't counting on you. So... get busy lettin' go. Wait for the path to materialize, because it always does, and then follow it. When the student is ready, the teacher materializes. In the meantime, don't take things so seriously. And stick around. You'll be glad you did. We will, too. We're all in this together. And if you can't follow any of these ramblings, just go watch that Jimmy Stewart movie again. And pay attention this time.