1. Carol informed me that Monty Python's Flying Circus is available on Netflix. When I had looked for it several months ago, I didn't find it, so I'm very happy Carol informed me. This morning, I watched a couple episodes of the first season. I kept thinking about what I'd learned from watching the Monty Python documentary on Friday: the BBC in the Flying Circus days was not top heavy at the executive level. In fact, members of the Monty Python troupe claimed that many of the bosses were more concerned with getting out of the office at 5:00 to go to the pub than they were about the content of BBC programming. Consequently, Monty Python was on a very long leash -- if there even was a leash -- to experiment with surrealism, dadaism, irreverence, intellectual bits, slapstick violence, satire sending up Britain's social classes, the royal family, politics, the religious establishment, and anything else. For me, it's deeply satisfying to watch wildly talented people work without being cracked down on from above, to see artistic freedom at work.
Just for the record, this was my favorite bit today: it features a young Londoner who has left home in London and gone to work the coal fields in Yorkshire and returns home to his father, a man of the London theater, and his mother. If you decide to watch this sketch, very soon you'll see its genius and the way it turns the tables on the usual homecoming story. It's right here.
By the way, I also watched the pilot episode of Fawlty Towers. It all came back to me how funny this show is, but also what a nerve wracking nincompoop Basil Fawlty (played by John Cleese) is. Throughout this episode I bounced back and forth between laughter and high anxiety.
2. Byrdman had planned a trip over to Kellogg this afternoon and we were going to relax and yak with Cas at the Inland Lounge. But, this weekend the Lounge is closed, thanks to the sidewalk construction going on out front. When Byrdman said he'd still come over, I responded that I wanted to come to CdA. I wanted to leave town and do something other than oral surgery or pre-transplant list testing and meetings.
After enjoying splitting a German beer, Byrdman and I each enjoyed a pint of fresh hop IPA at Tricksters, featuring Simcoe hops, and then went to Paddy's Sports Bar where I enjoyed three sliders and an order of fries. We ended our tour of CdA, the Beer Mecca, out at Kilted Growler where I absolutely loved my four ounce pour of Black Butte XXX, weighing in at 13.6% ABV. Had I not been able to order such a small pour, I wouldn't have ordered this beer, so I was very grateful that I could order such a small amount. It was a most pleasing dessert after the tasty sliders at Paddy's.
It was a first-rate afternoon of yakkin'. We gave special attention to the current glorious state of men's professional tennis and to the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, which Byrdman had just seen -- and, we always talk about all the Kellogg years that have gone by and the many people we know from our hometown's area.
3. I returned home and discovered that Jake had texted me an invitation to come uptown to the Dirty Dog Saloon (formerly Dirty Ernie's), that he, Carol Lee, Ed, and Nancy were in the house. I didn't want any more alcohol, but I definitely wanted to see my friends, so I joined them and had myself a 7-Up.
Uptown Kellogg was desolate, wet, dark, empty, bleak, dismal, lifeless, unfrequented, unvisited, not quite godforsaken, but vacant. The Elks was closed. The Lounge was closed. We gave the Dirty Dog a little life, along with about four or five other people and Wah Hing's sign was lit. Otherwise, uptown Kellogg was dead. Yakkin' for while at the Dirty Dog was fun. Soon Ed and Nancy headed home and Jake and Carol Lee headed into the pitch black to eat somewhere, and I jumped into the Sube and navigated the barren streets of Kellogg back home where I was greeted by two excited corgis who wanted nothing more than to join me in the tv room and lie on the rug while I watched a half an hour or so of poker and then we all went to bed.
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