People do very absurd things for very absurd reasons every
day
– just pick up a newspaper or a history text for a slew of prime
examples.
To commemorate all the absurd things people have done and
continue to do, someone decided to make today National Absurdity
Day.
People do very absurd things for very absurd reasons every day – just pick up a newspaper or a history text for a slew of prime examples.
To commemorate all the absurd things people have done and continue to do, someone decided to make today National Absurdity Day.
Why it’s today, I don’t know – that in itself is absurd. But it gave me the chance to research some veritably absurd events in world history that make today a perfect holiday for the absurd.
Nov. 20, 1984: One of the largest crowds in history showed up to watch Michael Jackson’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame be unveiled.
Granted, this was before Jackson looked like a cross between a transvestite and a plastic blow-up doll and was able to keep his inner child on a leash, so I can see why so many people turned up to see the unveiling of his achievements.
I was a huge fan far before I even knew what the term ” alleged child molester” meant. The first record I ever owned when I was 4 years old was Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Ever since the Pepsi commercial accident, when Jackson began his transformation into something that no one can really classify, just the thought of Michael Jackson is not only absurd, it’s downright criminal.
Nov. 20, 1984: 50 billionth McDonald’s hamburger is made.
1984 was a good year for the absurd, it seems. That probably had something to do with the fact that it was the 80s and that whole decade was filled with absurdities that shouldn’t even be thought about, let alone mentioned.
But while Michael Jackson’s star was being revealed, Edward Rensi, the president of McDonald’s, was making the 50 billionth hamburger.
That means that since this date 19 years ago, billions more hamburgers have been prepared and eaten at McDonald’s. This amazes me – have the billions of people who eat at McDonald’s actually tasted the hamburgers? The next time you sit down to a meal at Micky D’s, open up your hamburger and take a good look at what you’re eating.
It’s not pretty. Actually, it’s absurd.
Nov. 20, 1991: Michael Bolton’s single “When a Man Loves a Woman” tops the charts.
Like another Michael I know, just the name and the thought of the receding hairline surrendering to long, wispy locks is absurd.
The sappy rendition of a classic song topping the charts is absurd. The popularity of Bolton himself is really absurd. And the fact that women around the country actually swooned to his music and considered him sexy is completely absurd.
Nov. 20, 2000: Lawyers for Al Gore and George W. Bush battle before the Florida Supreme Court over the presidential recount.
Lawyers battling over whether the recount should be allowed to continue because of chads, hanging chads and the rest of the absurdities connected to that election defies the absurd and crosses over to embarrassing foolishness.
When it comes right down to it, elections themselves can be absurd. Between the politicking, the promises, the mud-slinging and the reality that more than half the people in this country just don’t care, the 2000 Presidential Election was a doozy for the history books of absurd political mayhem.
Nov. 20, 1761: Pope John VII was born.
This pope being born is not absurd. But it gives me the chance to recount some interesting history about the Catholic Church, which is one of my favorite subjects to rant and rave about.
I can do this because I endured nine years of Catholic school and anyone who went to Catholic school knows that us Catholics are part of a group with some absurd ideas and practices at times, to say the least.
A pair of popes (it beats a pair of queens) have a somewhat less-than-holy track record when it comes to the pleasures of the flesh that can definitely be considered absurd.
Pope Leo VII (936-939) died of a heart attack while having sex. Pope John VII (955-964) was bludgeoned to death by the jealous husband of the woman he was “with” at the time.
And on that cheery note, go out and revel in your absurdities on this most absurd of national holidays.
