Putties & the Firesign Theatre

Welcome to the Order of Humor Magick 8! We’re glad you could make it! Be sure and check out the other Order of Humor Magick groups on other networks. This group is where we Pagans can our humorous experiences with each other. This is either a sister or mother group to our other comedy groups: Paranoia for Pagans, Dead Parrot Fan Club, Putties for Pagans, and Geriatrics for Pagans. We realize that because so many unfunny things have happened to us, it might be difficult to find something humorous, but we’ll try. How about the way I broke my ankle? By sitting on it. Looking back on it, even though it is painful at times, I can now find the humor in the situation. At least this time they didn’t ignore my ankle in favor of my heart, which is fine. I have a good, strong heart. The sentence “We’re glad you could make it!” is a direct quote from the Firesign Theatre’s radio program, which they did in the late ‘60s to the early ‘70s.

Humor is very important to both of us in our magick, and in our daily lives. I literally wouldn’t be alive without it, and neither would Stephen. Of late, most of our humor has derived from our putties. Their antics send us into titters and guffaws, if not hourly, then at least daily. They’re individuals, except for Frikki and Frakki, who we still can’t tell apart. We just call them each Frikki-Frakki. Putties don’t come when they’re called anyway, except when you have food for them. “They come for me, I just say Putties in a high pitched voice. Putties will get you though times of no money better than money will get you through times of no putties.” I can testify to that. I had to go through several years of no putties before I moved here. Our putties have forces of Will. Pyewacket moved in here saying “I live here. This is MY house. These are MY humans.” Pyewacket is an ancient Witch’s familiar name which means “lively spirit.” It was featured in “Bell, Book and Candle.” You can Google it. You might be able to see it on the Internet. But it ranks as one of the better movies there are about Witches and witchcraft, besides “Practical Magic? And “I Married a Witch,” which was, by the way the basis for the popular sitcom “Bewitched”.

By the way, this may be off-topic, but do you know where the term “yarn” as a synonym for story or tale came from? In the olden days, before all our modern electronics, there were storytellers. In some cases, they were full-fledged bards. In other cases, they were just shanachies or storytellers. The women of the household would be spinning, either with a drop spindle or one of those new fangled spinning wheels they came up with a couple hundred years ago. A really good spinner could spin an entire bobbin of yarn whilst the shanachie told one story, hence the term yarn for an often tall tale.

Stephen says it’s funny how many ways SSI claims they’re helping us, when in reality they’re just screwing us over. I explained to him the real meaning of service as in what a bull does to a cow. This may clarify for you what the word “service” means in “Internal Revenue Service.”

If you’ve been following our groups for any length of time at all, you doubtless know about vaudeville occultism. If I’m wrong, and you just joined us, here is whT IT IS. Vaudeville occultism is where a person or persons suddenly burst into song at random moments. This is usually because a given moment or occasion reminds us of a song. These attempts at singing are often off-key, either accidentally or deliberately, just to be funny. If I weren’t encumbered with this damned non-weightbearing cast and a healing broken ankle, I would

For 7 months, from November until June, I was missing one of the two handsets of my main telephone (landline). One day in early June, whilst at my computer I happened to catch a glint of silver in the space between my mattress and the lip of the bed. I picked it up, and lo and behold, it was my missing handset! I went to the doorway of Stephen’s room, and said,

“Frog, this is just gonna kill you. Guess what I just found. It’s charging now.”

“What?”

“You know that handset for my phone that Tina spirited away last November?”

“You found it?”

“Yes!”

The latest thing that Tina has spirited away is the charger for my cell phone and now the cell phone itself. There’s a charger here, but it won’t fit into my cell phone, and my rollover minutes are adding up. I have over 7000 minutes added up, and I’d like to use some of them, if it’s all right with Tina. What has occurred to you that could be considered humorous? Keep in mind that both Stephen and I have rather dark senses of humor, what is commonly known as gallows humor. Some say our senses of humor are twisted, but you walk a few miles in our shoes (yeah, all three of them) and see how straight your sense of humor is.

There is a putty curse of return on this place. It didn’t end with Pyewacket coming in and saying “This is MY house. I live here. These are MY humans.” A little creature about 8 or 9 months old has also made that announcement, with the added question, “Where’s my dinner?” We call him the Grey Bandit. He belongs to the guy next door, but he thinks he belongs here at Puttyhaven. Go figure. He gets along with all the other putties, even Inky likes him, and Inky, my boyfriend, likes very few other putties. What other putties will find their way to our door or window? But Pyewacket attacks him. She’s the one he’s the most like, so I guess she sees him as a rival and a threat. From time to time there is what we call a putty invasion, where a whole bunch of putties come in all at once and disrupt things. The putty mantra is “Where’s my food?”

I store my remotes and a number of CDs in a vitamin box. Bailee constantly tries to lie in the box even though the box is too small for her. Stephen is reciting all this to me whilst sitting in my wheel chair. The female cats are playing with their balls. We thought for over 9 months that Dr. Livingston was male, but I discovered about 3 months ago that she was female. Then when Oreo had her 2nd litter and refused to nurse them after 3 weeks Dr. Livingston stepped up and nursed them. But what did she have to nurse them with? Your guess is as good as mine. We know she wasn’t pregnant, because we had her fixed.
Dr. Livingston is part eagle; she has an eyrie on top of one of my book cases, and will dive bomb you if you’re not careful. The putties knocked the balls out of the round green thing, so Stephen had to put another ball in there. They’re going apes*** over the pink ball, and fighting over it. Bailee Beasley Beastly the Triple B Threat can mimic a beached whale. She’s 25 lbs of comedy and terror emphasis on the comedy part. Frikki-Frakki are a couple of funny putties that we cannot tell apart. At least one of them is a master farter.

We make them bark by talking to them in a high pitched voice, and I usually give them something for barking but Stephen is sadistic, so he doesn’t. The rule is that if there is a putty on your body, you can’t move or go anywhere. Sometimes he will be reading a book in bed, puttied and some important thing will come up on the computer and he’ll take the putty with him when he goes to the computer, because he’s scared of their retribution should he break the rule about moving when puttied. Stephen is an advocate for putty rights. He thinks they should have the right to vote. (You knew he was crazy didn’t you?)

Then there’s the Necroputtycon: their book, “The Way of the Paw”, sacred to the Goddess Bast. Pyewacket is a tough putty, she can lick anyone in the house. Stephen would like to investigate if they lost the other ball because they’re being quiet now, but he can’t because he’s puttied. One of the descriptive mantras about them is “Little pieces of putty crap.” We also sing “How much is that putty in the window?” Charles Hixon introduced me to “Pye, pye, Pyewacket, pye pye Pyewacket chocolate covered Pyewacket! Yum yum yum!”

My boyfriend Inky is “First Putty, who lived in pits, and learned to use his claws in self-defense.” This is a take off on a Firesign Theatre routine. If you ever want a putty to pay strict attention to you, eat in front of hir, especially meat. Man I had two putties paying attention to me. Then when I was through, I put the plate aside so they could lick it. Were they happy then!. One thing about putties; you can make up any stories you want about them and they don’t mind. As long as you feed and water them, provide a clean litter box, and scritch them frequently, you can make up any stories you want.

I have a friend in Houston, TX who has two dogs who are scared silly of thunderstorms. Whenever there is one, and there are lots in Texas, they cry to come in, and lean up against Di and shiver. Rex will bring Di’s room mate her socks if he thinks he can get a treat for them, and the other one will try to rub his backside up against anything he can in the house, but principally Di’s leg. So any pet can be funny. Send us your pet stories, especially the funny ones.

Stephen needs help in finding things that are funny, because life right now does not readily lend itself to humor. He got a real kick out of realizing that Judy Tenuda is still alive, kicking, and still looks hot. She also still calls herself “The Goddess.” We are both big fans of hers, since she is the closest thing we have to a Pagan comic on the airwaves. He wants to see her do an HBO or Showtime special so it won’t be censored. I have a friend who reminds me a lot of her, except that Judy is dark haired and my friend is blonde.

. The Firesign Theatre is alive, well, and on the internet. I looked up the Firesign Theatre this morning. Their website is http://www.firesigntheatre.com/ . Their show can be heard through webstreaming on www.wfmu.org.

A month ago, I broke my right ankle. It was in a gallstone attack. I went to the bathroom, and was going to go to my room again when I was hit by a wave of pain so severe that I passed out. I must’ve sat on my ankle hard because when I tried to get up, my ankle went crunch! I sank down on my rear again against the door. Stephen and I had a dialogue:.”Are you all right?” he asked.

“No, I’m in a lot of pain.”

“I’m calling 911.”

“Ok.”

He asked me the questions the dispatcher asked him. I answered them. At length they arrived. I took my book and my purse with me. We went to Kaiser Morse hospital. I gave them the address. They knew how to get there. We arrived after a few minutes. They admitted me, and the next morning, my ankle was operated on. Then I spent from then until Wednesday the 7th in the hospital. I came home, and am now in full recovery. Three weeks ago I got into my room, and finally got access to my computer. Will give you updates as we proceed. Update: two weeks ago I got out of the house. My physical therapist taught me how to hop down the steps using my aluminum walker. I used it to go to the liturgy meeting, and then Sunday I went to our Grove’s Lughnasadh ritual, where I donated a dollar, and offered some whiskey to Miach for my own healing, the healing of my friend Snoodlady, who was in the hospital with a serious sinus infection that gave her double vision and vertigo, and my friend Cherye who has a nasty staph infection in her legs and feet. On two fronts there were immediate results. Snoodlady felt well enough to come home on Monday, and I learned to carry my walker whilst in my wheelchair. My physical therapist taught me some exercises to do in my wheelchair, and I worked myself up to 32 of each. The last one I learned was the wheelchair pushup. I did 32 of them today, for which I am very proud of myself. Stephen thought that you should know. ..

I was right about August being my month. August 20th is my surgery date, with July 13th being my pre-op appointment with the anesthesiologist. So I am praying for quick and safe healing.

We need paid readings and donations. Send donations to my Paypal account tezra.reitan@gmail.com and to Stephen’s email account at any of his email addies. If I get $5 donations, I shall send the donor a copy of one of my ebooks. For $20, you can have all five ebooks.

Remember, if someone from a Ning network asks you to pay, say “No way!” The only way this’ll work is if we all stick together and call the a**holes on their BS. We have to be willing to walk away from our networks, because they are counting on people being scared to walk away from their networks. This guy Jason Rosenthal is a bully, and there’s only one way to deal with a bully, and that is, to stand up to him.

Stephen was pretty pissed off that he would need only $87 to get back his long distance and preserve his DSL. He managed to scrape the $87 together. You guys have not been doing your part. It’s not as though he’s begging for hand outs. He is willing to return value for value given. Just three readings would have got him out of this predicament. Three readings or classes would do it. And $32 flat for a reading or a class is really a bargain. Ordinarily he charges $32 an hour, so $32 flat is a very good deal.

Back before my accident, Stephen was able to scrape $50 together to pay our friend to put our website together, and she’s working on it now. I’m looking forward to seeing it. It should be very impressive. Fear not, we’ll keep you abreast of all developments on this front. Abbott’s Inn International School of Magick will then be on the internet map, so to speak, in a big way.

Inquiring minds want to know: How do we add music to our sites? Please let us know. The person who helps us do that earns a reading on webcam on the popular IM clients. The person who helps us establish ourselves on the Paganspace.net chat client earns a reading. We’re using readings as currency here because we have no other medium to use for an incentive. All the money we make goes for paying the bills of bare-bones living.

Be sure and check out Fantasy for Pagans. Our next group here on Facebook will be Dragon’s Lair Coven 4.. Watch for it! Join it!