“I wish I had the balls to do that, I thought, as I enviously watched the juggler.” [Brett Andy]
My favourite saying guy in the world is a guy called Jack Handey… if you don’t know who he is, then you probably have not hung out with me long enough. Continue reading
Oh sure, you type LOL, but not while you are ever actually laughing out loud – you wouldn’t have the stability…
But in the meantime let’s take some time out to appreciate five more quotes from my favourite actual LOL guy, Jack Handey:
‘Don’t ever get your speedometer confused with your clock, like I did once, because the faster you go the later you think you are.’ [Jack Handey]
‘One thing that a computer can do that most humans can’t is be sealed up in a cardboard box and sit in a warehouse.’ [Jack Handey]
‘I think a good gift for the President would be a chocolate revolver. And since he’s so busy, you’d probably have to run up to him real quick and hand it to him.’ [Jack Handey]
‘To me, clowns aren’t funny. In fact, they’re kinda scary. I’ve wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad.’ [Jack Handey]
‘Laurie got offended that I used the word “puke.” But to me, that’s what her dinner tasted like.” [Jack Handey]
Any of these come close to making you really actually LOL? Or do you have your own favourite Jack Handey to share? Let us know in the comments section below…
[To return to the beginning of this Jack Handey series and read more quotes, click here]
So i was nominated for this Spread Love Challenge by TheFabLetters which is this super interesting blog i stumbled on a short while ago where two women write letters to each other which become the premise of the blog posts. Some really good stuff there.
The Rules:
Write ten four word sentences about what love means to you.
Share your favorite quote on love.
Nominate ten other bloggers for the same.
Now normally i wouldn’t be down for this type of thing, but the opportunity of misdirecting with a classic Jack Handey quote:
And then writing some stuff on love and highlighting some bloggers i think you should check out [altho doubt i will come close to ten] makes it feel worthwhile…
TEN FOUR WORDS SENTENCES ON WHAT LOVE MEANS TO ME
Let’s be honest, that concept was clearly drawn up by someone in the bath reading a romance novel – can anyone come up with ten four word sentences that do love any justice at all?
i tried…
Love is messy. [Too few]
Love is a messy. [Too clunky]
Love requires work. [Too few]
Love is incredible. [Too few]
Love is really incredible. [Feels like the word ‘really’ got thrown in there just for word limit]
and so on…
The point being that you can’t adequately sum up love into sentences of four words or less. In this microwavic instant gratification culture and society most of us live in today, it is easy to be fooled by the idea that everything can be squeezed into 140 character or less Twitterial moments, but the truth is they can’t. Not adequately anyway. Which is the second time i have used the word ‘adequately’ in this paragraph, making it now three times too many…
Relationships cannot be jammed into tweets or even blog posts. They can’t be summed up in a song or even fully contained in a book. We can give hints and whiffs and ideas and metaphors and the audience can feel like they ‘get it’ but they never really do. Love has to be experienced and lived out and figured out and patched up and chased after and clung to and only those love-ing will ever really truly ‘get it’. Get it?
So we can make four words bumper stickers on the ‘Love is…’ theme but they will be completely and ridiculously inadequate.
‘Love is messy’, comes close but behind those three words lie ten thousand more. Experiences and moments and glances and sorrys and frustrations and make-ups and silences and ballads and bad movies and walks on the beach and sunsets and great meals and hard decisions and money issues and commitments and single tears and out of control laughter and… did i reach my word limit yet?
Jack Handey has it close enough. Love is liking someone a lot and choosing to do life with them in all its beautiful, painful and messy ways and not letting any of those categories be too much to continue on with the commitment you have made. Whether we are talking marriage or friendship or family. Love is saying, ‘i will see you again tomorrow.’
And so much more. [Ooh, ooh, four words]
There are a bunch of bloggers who i appreciate but the big ones like Sarah Bessey, Nate Pyle and Jamie the Very Worst Missionary are way too big and important to use their valuable time compiling Spread Love Challenge challenges…
But some lesser known types who i enjoy and would love to see tackle this [in a legitimate way, not in the cheatery way i did] are Bek Curtis whose blog Perfectly Flawed says it like it is… Lily Ellyn who, when she is not pushing out articles on Relevant magazine, has an eclectic collection of different thoughts and words called Such Small Hands… and of course my beautiful wife Val, aka tbV, who i would just love to see blog on anything as she is ridiculously talented, as you can see in On Afternoons and Coffeespoons, but rarely makes the time to do so… [there’s something worth starting a petition about] and also Candice Fourie and her most excellent Moments with a Mom is another one who writes powerfully but too infrequently…
i will finish this off with one of my favourite quotes about love in the guise of being a quote about being real and it is from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams:
[For a post titled ‘You Will Be Known by the Love’ click here]
[For a piece looking at Ten creative Ways to Love, click here]
You know how this works. We write LOL, but we barely ever really mean it… but Jack Handey is one of the guys who i know have made people LOL best and for real… so take a look at these offerings and see if any of them do it for you:
‘It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.’ [Jack Handey]
‘I guess of all my uncles I liked Uncle Cave Man the best. We called him Uncle Cave Man because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he’d eat one of us. Later on we found out he was a bear.’ [Jack Handey]
‘It’s too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs.’ [Jack Handey]
‘I bet the main reason the police keep people away from a plane crash is they don’t want anybody walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then when somebody comes up act like they just woke up and go, “What was THAT?”‘ [Jack Handey]
‘One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to a burnt down warehouse. “Oh no,” I said, “Disneyland burned down.” He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.’ [Jack Handey]
Which of those came closest for you? Or do you have a favourite Jack Handey? Share with us in the comments section and we’ll see if it makes it into the next episode of Chasing LOL…
So by now, if you know me, you know that i don’t really believe LOL is a thing.
Apart from someone in my close family who actually thought it meant ‘Lots Of Love’ and actually [true story] sent it to a friend via text who had just lost a family member, as in: i heard your dad died. LOL
But my basic theory is this: If you’re writing LOL [which, family member, stands for Laugh Out Loud] then you’re clearly not LOLing! Because who can type accurately if they are in fact laughing in an out loud kind of manner? [Most people i know shake, do you shake?]
Anyways, one person i know in life who regularly gets me to actually blatantly honestly LOL is my buddy, Dreadlock Mike, and i’m not sure why it is, but when we get together we both become little seven year old gigglers [do seven year olds giggle? whichever age that is, we’re them] which is why i love hanging out with Mike and recently it was Mike and i reading out Jack Handey’s that was bringing out the LOLs.
If you don’t know Jack Handey’s work, then it is my absolute pleasure to share it with you. Different people respond to different thoughts of his and so if you don’t like all of them, that is fine. i am going to post five today and if one of them brings you closer to LOLing than the others, let me know which one it was below…
The tiger can’t just change his spots. No, wait, he did. Good for him. [Jack Handey]
Whenever y read a good book, it’s like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don’t like to read good books. [Jack Handey]
Instead of a trap door, what about a trap window? The guy looks out of it, and if he leans too far, he falls out. Wait. I guess that’s like a regular window. [Jack Handey]
One thing vampire children have to be taught early on is, don’t run with a wooden stake. [Jack Handey]
It’s funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and they never realised that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating. [Jack Handey]
Which of those came closest for you? Or do you have a favourite Jack Handey? Share with us in the comments section and we’ll see if it makes it into the next episode of Chasing LOL…
[For more Jack Handey love, check out Chasing LOL part II over here]
Well it has been a long time coming but Brad Fish is back and with him a brand new Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect video, this time dishing out his wisdom and warnings of the kind of titles we give to people at weddings which can set us up for a whole lot of danger if we are not careful.
If you’re wondering who Brad Fish is, he is an alter ego [yes, there’s more, just check out Brett Andy if you’re not convinced] of Brett Fish Anderson who saves him from being killed from boredom or ridiculousness from time to time…
[Take a look at more Brad Fish Warning videos over here]
[For the best Brad Fish video thus far on the need for more Sax and less Violins, click here]
2013 was a fun year for me on the blog – decided to stop my Weekly Mash blog so i could be more focused on this one which is titled ‘Irresistibly Fish’ and there have been a decent bunch of new subscribers in 2013 [welcome!] as well as those who regularly pop in to take in some of what i write and share over here.
so brief intro to me if you are new – my name is Brett Fish [nickname] Anderson and i am married to the beautiful Val [tbV] and am from the country [#cough Americaland #cough] of South Africa where i have spent most of my life, except for the last 3 years where i have been in Americaland…
working as a resident of the simple way in Philly in 2011 and 2012 and after a visit home [to the still country of South Africa] moving to Oakland to work with the same boss but different non-profit known as Common Change which is great and you should totally find a group of friends who want to join you in a collaborative giving experiment and adventure and sign up, join a group and start helping meet needs of people you know.
then just recently i started working as the youth leadery type person at Re: Generation church near Lake Merritt and so am a little bit of the bivocational at the moment, but have LOVED the opportunity to be preaching again [once a month] and just connecting with some rad people who love Jesus [and enough of whom love cool games like Settlers of Catan, Bang, Puerto Rico and Dixit]
i am passionately in love with God and try to be a follower of Jesus and so a lot of this blog tends to be encouraging or challenging other people in their faith or else hoping to introduce people to Him. the bible tab on my blog has links to where i have been slowly walking through the psalms in blog posts [currently up to 64] and also meandering through the gospel of Mark in video posts [just finished chapter 12] and also recently started a series where i have been sharing and commenting on some of my favourite verses.
i also own the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin named No_bob [i was going to call him ‘bob’ but he doesn’t!] and hate raiSINs with a different absolute passion and do not find it surprising at all that the word SIN is hidden in the word raiSIN – in fact i have written and recorded two songs about my dislike of all things squishy fruit and it is high time i did a third.
otherwise i have a deep appreciation for humour and so whether it is sharing the brilliance of other people or else just being completely silly myself and aiming for laughs as my alter ego, Brad Fish, with his Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect [DTYCLE] series or trying out some Jack Handeyesque deep thoughts as Brett Andy that is bound to be part of my posting in 2014 and one of my quests is to write [on occasion] some funnier blog posts…
so if you are continuing to journey with me in 2014 i am hoping that we will see some more incredible stories in the Taboo Topics series [which has seen a whole lot of other people sharing some intensely deep and personal stories about areas we don’t often hear much about such as Singleness, Infertility, Losing a child or being a parent of one when it’s not all that easy and so much more], I hope to continue to try and speak life into Relationships and i have an exciting series in mind capturing advice and stories from people who have been married for differing numbers of years as well as inviting some of my single friends to share their insights in a particular area.
i am very much looking forward to going home for a visit in just about a week and also for the chance to do some fun-making on the improvised comedy stage with my old team of TheatreSporters, i am hoping to figure out a better eating/exercise plan when i get back so i can be more fit for field hockey which i have loved being part of [go Eagles!], i hope to do more slacklining with my friend Todd and the gang at Lake Merritt and to have some more amazingly fun evenings of games with friends we have made and also with the friendly folks at the games store on Wed nights.
and maybe, just maybe, i will finally get around to self-publishing the book i finished writing two years ago, titled ‘I kissed hating [the church] goodbye’ cos that would be very nice.
oh and the FISH stands for Faithful In Serving Him if you didn’t know, which is an Irresistible proposition to aim at in life… loving God, loving people and looking out for those who are considered by many to be ‘the least of these’…
lastly i do hope to find a way to engage more in the comments section with those who do read my blog so not sure if that means i must get more controversial or hilariously funny or some kind of differently creative, but hopefully a feature of 2014 will be more of you coming and saying “hi” in the comments, or that you think that i’m the biggest jerk you know or you would like the United Nations to raise a statue in my honour on Mars or something like that – just come and play, people…
and have a most excellent 2014 – let’s suck the marrow out of this life thing together!
![Taboo Topics: Sex Before Marriage - Meet Jamie Wright [aka The Very Worst Missionary] part I](https://brettfish.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/jamie.png?resize=40%2C40){kind=small}
Irresistibly Fish 