The Holy Grail Press
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Word of the Every So Often
ipse dixit: (noun) (pronounced: ip-see dix-it – like it looks) Latin for a dogmatic and unproven statement. So much of everything the president says is ipse dixit.
The Daily Lesson
It was on July 25, 1916, that Frank Wiziarde was born into a traveling circus family. I mean, with a name like Wiziarde, what other choice would you have? Calling Westmoreland, Kansas, home, they traveled throughout the Midwest as the Wiziarde Traveling Circus, trying to earn a buck during the Depression. After the circus disbanded in 1936, Frank went to Hollywood and appeared in a few films, did a stint in the Army during WWII, and was a radio broadcaster in St. Joseph, Missouri, before he found his true calling. Beginning in 1954, Wiziarde played Whizzo the Clown on KMBC-TV in Kansas City, Missouri. If you were a kid living in that part of the world back then, you knew who Whizzo was. He’d make guest appearances at shopping malls and car lots and grand openings of any kind. But mostly, he hosted a children’s television show that came on every weekday afternoon. The show featured a live kiddie audience and showed second-rate cartoons, like Popeye and Huckleberry Hound. But, hey, you’re a kid, and if it’s a cartoon, you’re going to watch it. In-between those cartoons he’d crack jokes with his sidekick, Whizzo Dog. Whizzo Dog was a puppet that sounded just like Whizzo, which made perfect sense, because Whizzo taught him how to talk. Whizzo Dog’s best line was, “How ‘bout a rope trick?” And then, of course, Whizzo would do a rope trick. I get it on good authority that Whizzo also had a bird – Whizzo Bird, who brought toys to good little boys and girls. My sister has proof. He brought her a machine gun for her 4th birthday. It wasn’t a real machine gun, mind you. She wouldn’t get one of those until she was seven. Whizzo’s last show was on May 20, 1987. He made his final curtain call on September 11 of that same year.
Back in the ‘60s almost any major city had a TV clown. Chicago’s Bozo is probably the most famous, but they were all the same. They all yucked it up for the kids, and the kids loved it. Somewhere, somehow, clowns have fallen out of favour. But Whizzo still makes me remember that once everything was alright, and if it were alright once, then it can be alright again. And that, my friend, is the definition of hope. So everybody, sing along with me:
Who’s always smiling, never sad?
It’s Whizzo!
Who makes the boys and girls all glad?
It’s Whizzo!
He’s a merry fellow
with a big red shinny nose,
dressed in crazy mixed up clothes
from his head down to his toes.
He has a great big trunk of tricks,
has Whizzo.
He’ll sing a song or dance for you,
that’s Whizzo!
And when you’re sad
he’ll make you glad.
He’s the very best friend you ever had,
That’s Whizzo the clown, that’s who!
Cartoon of the Week
“How do you spell that?”
Stuff
Seeing the Dead
The dead are easy to see
once you get the hang of it.
At first you can just barely see them
out of the corner of your eye.
Remember when you thought you saw something
that wasn’t there?
Yep, that was a dead guy.
With practice you can get good at it.
The secret’s in not trying at all.
But take my word for it,
it’s not really worth the effort.
Once you do it,
it sort of becomes an obsession.
You start looking for them everywhere.
For the most part,
they’re exactly where you’d expect them to be:
In the graveyard just sitting on their tombstones,
smoking cigarettes and staring at their watches.
All of them with nothing to say.
It’s like some demented remake of Our Town
that has no point.
But then you start to see them in other places, too,
like walking around in the mall
or waiting for a show at the theatre.
Just this morning
I saw a dead man standing on the side of the road,
smoking a cigarette with his coat across his arm.
He was like one of those hitchhikers
who doesn’t even bother to put his thumb in the air,
because he knows eventually somebody’s going to stop,
and even then he’s not in any hurry.
And that dead guy,
he gave me the look.
That, “Yeah, you,” look.
But there’s no way I’m going to stop.
I won’t even stop for a live guy.
What makes him think I’d stop for him?
Besides, I’m not going that far.
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