Comely

Comely: (adj) typically of a woman) pleasant to look at; attractive.

If you just sit down (or stand, if you like) and think about it, the human race is pretty damn shallow. That’s why you have to be careful, if you’re studying, not to dive in. It’s just not deep enough and you’ll probably end up breaking your neck.

There are basically three things overall that make a woman comely: face, breasts and smell.

Also there are three things that allegedly make a man equally as comely: hair, muscles and confidence.

Now, you can see immediately that after the initial admiration, appreciation and enjoyment of a pretty face, a nice rack of boobs and an adequate sniff, it still comes down to dinner and conversation.

If that is awkward, “comely” quickly becomes “go-ly.”

And if the woman is sitting with a man who has thick hair, muscles and tons of stories to confirm why he is confident of his superiority, after indulging in the
pleasures of his particular prowess for a brief season, she basically ends up with a cab driver who can’t carry his share of dialogue.

For you see, there is what makes us come, and then there is what makes us stay.

And although I must admit, it is delightful to be comely, what you want is to develop the character, the humor and the gentleness to make someone want to remain in your presence for more than just overnight.

 

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Comedy

Comedy: (n) entertainment intended to make an audience laugh

The least humorous thing that can be done is to have a discussion about comedy.

So since I find myself writing an essay on the subject, you can count on two things: it will be brief, and as non-discussive as possible.

Comedy is what sane people do to try to change things they know will probably not transform, but still need to be addressed. In that way, it can sometimes be
heavy-handed. (How appropriate to refer to it as a Comedy Club.)

To me, comedy that benefits the human soul, like a medicine for our emotions, always has three ingredients:

  1. Self-deprecation. (You have to make fun of yourself.)
  2. Commonality. (It is all part of what the tribe does.)
  3. Some hope (leaving the hearer aware of the difficulty, but ready to approach the situation.)

When comedy provides these three angels to our journey, it may be the closest thing to defining God.

 

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Comedian

Comedian: (n) an entertainer whose act is designed to make an audience laugh

If you tell a couple of jokes at several parties in a row, you’ll start hearing your friends proclaim, “You could be a comedian!”

And when you bashfully turn your head, they insist, “No, no! You could do stand-up.”

There comes a time in everyone’s life when we prove our worth by knowing how little we are.

I’ve been funny all my life. I know how to make people laugh. That does not make me a comedian.

That makes me lucky.

That makes me interesting.

Sometimes it even makes me valuable.

But to sustain a routine which continually makes people laugh is truly a masterful gift.

Even though I, myself, would not want to try stand-up comedy, I have taken the time to study it quite thoroughly. It has three major ingredients:

  1. You have to be willing to insult people because you’ve already insulted yourself.
  2. You need to be overcoming something and not afraid to talk about it in vivid or even gross detail.
  3. You need to insert just enough pathos and emotion that the audience is breathless to hear more.

Now, if you think a mere amateur can pull off these things, you should go out and sign up for open mic night–at your local pizza place.

 

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Come

Come: (v) to move or travel toward or into a place

I am tired.

Come.

You don’t understand.

Come.

I mean, I’ve been mistreated–beaten around.

Come.

Did I mention, I also feel sick.

Come.

Sick and tired and worn out.

Come.

I’ve tried everything.

Come.

I really don’t believe there’s a solution.

Come.

No one listens to me.

Come.

Maybe I should say, no one hears me.

Come.

People are sons-of-a-bitches.

Come.

I’m afraid.

Come.

I’m needing comfort and understanding.

Come.

What do you have to offer?

Come.

No–I want to hear the plan.

Come.

Matter of fact, I insist on seeing a contract, negotiating a deal, having long conversations about this and finding the perfect set-up for myself, so I don’t have to go through this shit again.

Stay.

 

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Combo

Combo: (n) a small jazz, rock, or pop band.

Being clever is similar to setting a bear trap down in a room full of balloons. It is so easy to spring the trap and bust all your balloons of hope.

In my early years I had a music group and was desperately trying to promote us–at least to the point that I could make enough “jack” to pay for “Jill.”

Money was rare.

Now, opportunities and gigs seemed to pop up everywhere–but when the subject of remuneration was suggested, there were offers of free coffee, “help yourself
 to the day-old pastry,” or “we have a garage where you can sleep overnight.”

I knew I needed to do something drastic to set our group apart from the rest of the marauding musicians trying to fend for the single crust of bread, so I put together a damn good press release.

Now, wait.

Understand–this was an era when bands did not advertise themselves via printed material, but rather, through audition tapes or live performances.

I got a great picture of us, looking our cutest (and surliest) and attached our release. One of the things I discovered in writing the piece was that if you’re constructing a great article, it should not repeat words.

I kept landing on the word “group.” “Group?” “GROUP!”

So thinking myself extremely clever, I went to the Thesaurus and looked for different words to communicate the idea “group.”

One of those was “combo.”

I was ecstatic. The word sounded good to me, so I stuck it in the press release a couple of times and sent it off.

I noticed when I started calling places back to see if they wanted to schedule us based on our fine piece of promotional material, the proprietors would grumble, “We’re not interested in a jazz thing.”

I tried to explain that we weren’t jazz, but by that time they had hung up the phone and I was left standing, listening to the dial tone of the day.

Finally, one of the gentlemen I called suggested a nightclub down the street that specialized in jazz.

I squeezed in my question. “We’re not a jazz group. Where did you get the idea we played jazz?”

“Really?” he said. “Your article said you were a combo, and I never heard of any band calling themselves a combo unless they were jazz.”

I wanted to tell him about my journey through the “prehistoric thesaurus,” but instead, I went back to my creation and removed the word “combo.”

Needing to replace it, I inserted “adventurers.”

 

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Combine

Combine: (v) to unite; merge.

Earth is not a recipe.

Although we often consider it to be some sort of careful, articulate blending of ingredients, forming a broth or stew, it actually is nothing like that.

I think we’re a little frightened by how chaotic life actually is.

When you have a recipe, you gather your ingredients and you put in just the right amount of each one, to create something tasteful.

That’s not life. All life does is combine.

It doesn’t care if things agree and is indifferent to whether the enjoining of elements will end up being palatable.

It throws everything together, provides resources and stands back to see what will happen.

Those who pursue the comical belief that “everything has a purpose” and “God has a wonderful plan,”should go into the jungle, stand there, and just stare in every direction.

Thousands and thousands of forms of life, not to mention vegetation, combine to form what appears to be a huge single view with no apparent connection. Often the most intimacy in the jungle is burping after eating someone.

Although it frustrates the conservatives with how openly things combine, and it enrages the liberals about the inequity of the plan, favoring the fittest, the Universe doesn’t seem to care.

Matter of fact, on the day you’re born, the cosmos peers at you curiously and says, “So you’re here. Good luck. Please understand, it’s nothing personal. But we must get rid of you.”

 

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Combative

Combative: (adj) ready or eager to fight; pugnacious.

No one who has been to war is anxious to get back.

No soldier who’s seen his buddy explode next to him is convinced that the flag is worth such a horrible sacrifice.

No general yearns to put his plans to the test in the field of blood and gore unless he is completely out of his mind.

But in the same theme, none of us should ever walk into a room knowing we haven’t had enough sleep, haven’t worked out a conflict in our lives or are reluctantly participating in an event–and subject those around us to our combative nature.

In a gathering of a hundred people who are circling around and fellowshipping, it only takes three individuals slipped into the mix, who have shown up in bad moods and ready to argue, to turn the remaining ninety-seven into either frightened victims or triggered their angry monsters.

The human race is combative.

Somehow or another we have convinced ourselves that war changes boundaries or establishes authority.

All war does is steal away a generation of fertile, creative and productive minds.

 

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Comb

Comb: (n) a strip of plastic, metal, or wood with a row of narrow teeth, used for untangling or arranging the hair.

There are actually brave storm troopers who might use a comb to free their hair of knots.

It is not recommended for the squeamish.

Actually, the purpose of a comb is to prove that one’s hair is not tangled. Whatever you have to use to separate your strands, at the end of
that process, to confirm to yourself and everyone else that your “do” is without dead ends, you run a comb through it.

For combs are unmerciful. They will find any hairs lying on top of each other that might be in the way and pull on them until tears come to your eyes.

This is the purpose of a comb.

A comb is also used if you don’t have much hair at all, and therefore little danger of interaction with your locks, just for good grooming.

That’s why we often say, “they combed the desert” or “they combed the woods” to find something or someone.

Matter of fact, it might be good for all of us, after we’ve brushed up on our ethics and kindness, to run a comb through our lives to make sure that we’re free of being entangled.

 

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Coma

Coma: (n) a state of deep unconsciousness that lasts for a prolonged or indefinite period

Vigilant.

It is the most frustrating, mystifying and perhaps unachievable emotion available in the human heart–to continue to pursue a path of behavior and passion with no evidence that such devotion will ever guarantee success.

When my son was in a hit-and-run accident, he suffered a severe brain injury which placed him in a coma.

I was very young, and not just in years. I was young to the idea of inconveniencing myself.

Even though television portrays dutiful family members staying by the bedside of their loved one who is in a coma, the TV dramas only dwell in that lonely, still room for thirty seconds or so.

The silence is maddening.

Some nurses told me that people in a coma can hear, and others said there was absolutely no medical evidence that the patient has any awareness of the outside world at all. I stayed by his bedside.

Minutes were hours.

Hours, days.

And the days seemed like years.

I hated it. I felt like I was putting on a show for those around me by perching next to the unresponsive body of my young son, pretending to create a connection.

To my regret, I often slipped away early or arrived late.

A coma is when a human separates from us before drawing his or her last breath, letting us know how fragile life truly is.

My son finally did emerge from his coma, only to live in a vegetative state for about six years. The only thing he gained was an obvious function to feel more pain.

A horrible experience.

At times I have tried to glean some value from it, but ultimately, in my more cognitive perceptions, I declare it darkness.

 

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Column

Column: (n) a pillar or a page division; essay

The columns of our philosophy holding up our suppositions are divided into columns and rendered off for reading–in a column.

Now there’s a twisted path of reason. Should keep you busy for a while.

When I began writing on the Internet I was very uncomfortable with the term “blog.”

I am of the school of thought that if everyone thinks they can do something then no one can do it, because it is never done well.

Everybody has a blog.

For awhile I referred to my etchings in the great “Cloud” as columns–hearkening back to an era when newspapers actually delivered daily information.

No one liked “column.”

So I tried the word “essay.” Then I sounded like I lived in the nineteenth century, having tea with Charles Dickens and Mark Twain. (Emily Dickinson a no-show…)

It didn’t really make any difference. Once I penned something and placed it on the ethernet, it became a blog.

It’s just difficult to believe that blogs are going to sustain the great American experiment and hold up our faith so that insanity doesn’t crash in on us.

But since no one would ever listen to a case made for the value of pillars and justifications of margins, I think we are in the wild, wild West of authoring articles, sentiments and misspelled paragraphs from our six-guns of inadequacy.

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