PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE AMMUNITION

There are fewer things that I can praise than there are about which I can "rant."  That's not bragging, it's only true.  There is something about praise that rings false.  Yet, it is supposed to be one of the easiest tasks that fall to someone to accomplish.  I have found myself questioning that all my life.  I had a moment in my life when I was constantly berated for being a constant grouch and a useless curmudgeon.  Curmudgeon?  I was only 16!  It came to me because I  was an outspoken critic of movies.  It was because I only liked "Tom and Jerry" cartoons and everything else was nothing but technology trying to explain life.  I have truly never been much of a movie fan.  I just can't get behind the screen.  The worst possible behavior that holds forth in movie houses is the applause at the end.  Yaay!  Great job, Clint!  Come on out and take a bow.  Hey, where is ol' Clint?  I just saw him stare down 125 people.  Where'd he go?  Gee, he's so shy.  Doesn't even appear for a bow after such a great performance.  It's going to be a cold day in Dante's place before I ever applaud for him again. 
A couple years later I go to another movie and the viewers applauded again.  I was pretty amazed.  All these people must never have been to a movie before.  Didn't they know that the leading man and the leading lady weren't going to come out to take a bow?  Really amazing a stuff.  Now if I were going to praise movies, how could I be humorous about it?
How could I be humorous if I were praising the Red Sox?  Or the San Diego Chargers?  or Beach Volley Ball?  

I have to admit that the things above are really quite frivolous to begin with.  There are other things that could get a lot heavier.  Like discussing cruel dictators; organized, legal bribery and politics; religion and religious convictions; morality and a host of other interesting realities, like bullfighting.  Even these things can be discussed in humorous ways, and very often they are, but only when what is being proposed is not laudatory.  
So that's who I am.  I love the give and take of cool discussion.  I love the cold, hard dynamics of intellectual exchange.  Interestingly enough, I can only do that in some areas.  There are some things that I just can't touch.  I just don't have the desire or the zeal to engage in useless give and take when I know that there is absolutely no chance that I will ever cross the divide between my position and that on the other side.  It has now become obvious to you that it is not a question of inability, it's a question of escape.  So, yep I escape from some things, especially if they are lodged in certain people.  It is then that I decide that silence is the only valor that I am going to parade around in at that time.  Believe it or not, that does happen.  It usually happens when I know that humor is not going to be the safety valve that I want it to be, or need it to be.   
So, dear readers, let me praise you for choosing to follow these humble musings.  You're the best audience I have ever had.  I love each and every one of you more than I love myself.  Since you know that I love you so much, know that I would never, ever prevaricate in your presence, not even in a moment of great need and great challenge when the bases were full in the bottom of the 9th with two strikes on me and two outs in the seventh game of the World Series and my team behind by two runs.  When I hit the walk-off home run, I would not expect one single, solitary syllable of praise from anyone and never, ever expect anyone to cry at my funeral after I got hit by a speeding car when I stepped off the curb in an ethyl alcohol, celebration induced, drunken stupor.
So there.