Mr. Wow Blog
Briefly–Mr. Wow and Mr. Mark 8:36
6:29 pm | January 30, 2017

Author: Mr. Wow | Category: Point of View | Comments: 45

Mark: 8:36

   “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

whatsoul

   For centuries we have repeated and reflected on those words from the Bible, often drawing comparisons to this or that in our own life and time. 

   But have we ever pondered what it will profit a man who gains the whole world but who has no soul to lose?  

   Now might be a good time to start that particular pondering.  I’m sure some of us have already begun the unhappy process.

Comments:
  • Mimi

    Hi! The Apocalypse has arrived. I’m expecting locusts any day now!!! 

    6:37 pm | January 30, 2017
    • Mr. Wow
      Mimi…
      I’ve seen no locusts yet, but I do run across the occasional enormous water bug.  The tap water is not running red, yet.  Just in case,  I am boning up on my best Anne Baxter-“Oh, Moses,  Moses!”  (not to mention her sharp retorts to Yul Brynner–
      “You are no god, you are not even a man!”)
      8:16 pm | January 30, 2017
  • Daniel Sugar

    Let he who is without kidneys cast the first stone…

    9:00 pm | January 30, 2017
  • Deirdre Cerasa

    I’m here, heartbroken and furious. 

    9:33 pm | January 30, 2017
    • Mr. Wow

      Orange Man just fired his appointed Attorney General because she said she could not defend his immigration ban.  Sally Yates, the first (possibly reluctant) heroine of the Resistance.

      10:40 pm | January 30, 2017
      • Deirdre Cerasa

        I read it an hour or so ago. As far as I am concerned she is a heroine. 

        10:47 pm | January 30, 2017
  • Daniel Sugar

    Love Sally Yates!

    10:42 pm | January 30, 2017
  • Jean

    We can’t give in to despair. He and his henchmen mustn’t wear us down. I’ve been reading some good blogs and articles about the fatigue that sets in. Mostly they advice concentrate on a couple issues, pick a couple of things to support (I just committed to small monthly donations to the Sierra Club and the Southern Poverty Law Centers) and take a break from it all when despair starts setting in. We can’t give up our lives, all the joys our loved ones bring us daily, all the beauty in the world around us. If we do, they won. I’m going to read Rebecca Solnit Hope in the Dark. I heard her on a Sirius program speaking about despair. Made me think about how I approach this monstrosity who calls himself president (yes, a diminutive “p” on that, I won’t capitalize him hah!) I also don’t argue with his worshipers on social media. Counter-productive and they’re not interested in looking at things objectively. I just pass them by. What a freakin cluster-f$&k.

    8:49 am | January 31, 2017
    • Deirdre Cerasa

      So many fronts to fight on. There is something new and awful on an hourly basis. I don’t feel despair as much as disgust. I will keep speaking out, waiting letters, sending emails and ignoring the trolls. 

      9:15 am | January 31, 2017
    • Mr. Wow
      Jean, good advice! 

      I took an outrage-free day today and posted a warm photo of Michael Fassbender on by FB page. I want that image in my head for the moment.  Tomorrow, as dear Katie Scarlett said, is another day. 
      2:07 pm | January 31, 2017
      • Deirdre Cerasa

        I have taken an outrage free afternoon and will carry through this evening. I watched the committee vote on DeVos as it was hijacked by republican and Lamar Alexander. He allowed Hatch from Utah to vote by proxy. This is supposedly not allowed in these committee meetings. So I was done for the day. SIGH and GRRR. Now on to a glass of Pinot Grigio, broiled scallops and veggies. 

        6:05 pm | January 31, 2017
  • Rho

    All I can say, is OY VEY!!

    9:40 am | January 31, 2017
  • lulu

    If we all support causes dear to us, keep writing letters, sending emails to our congressmen/women and then do something every day to not only help ourself but to help someone in need, the world will continue to be good. Try mentoring a child whose reading skills need improvement, take a senior citizen out for a ride or nice walk so they aren’t homebound, well you get the idea. And of course read everything Mr. WoW shares with us!!

    1:12 pm | February 1, 2017
    • Deirdre Cerasa

      Exactly what I have been doing today. Emails, letters and phone calls to representatives. I have been a volunteer at our grandchildren’s schools for several years which is very rewarding. Onward with determination and also recognizing the need for self care. Reading Zur. WoW is a priority. 

      2:06 pm | February 1, 2017
    • Mr. Wow
      Oh, Lulu–you don’t want to read everything from Mr. Wow.  I am right now very tired of the “when is he going to get impeached?” drumbeat and the unending smugness of the still-in-the-bubble types at MSNBC.  

      I wrote something furious  on this, and was going to place  it on Facebook.  Then…I thought it over. I was gonna put it here but…I thought it over.  The media faces of liberals are not nearly as sensible or intelligent as you and Deirdre and Baby Snooks and Jean, etc.    Democrats sometimes make me very angry.

      Anyway, up to the importance of reading Mr.Wow, all your thoughts and suggestions are spot-on.
      4:25 pm | February 1, 2017
  • BabySnooks

    With a little luck the Democrats will win back both houses and proceed to get rid of the house madam who likes to take impeachment off the table and proceed to put it back on the table and not only impeach him but convict him and remove him from office and then ban the Republican Party.  

    2:45 pm | February 1, 2017
    • BabySnooks

      Assuming we survive the next two years and assuming the Democrats resist the urge to send the Clintons out to campaign for them. We’ve had enough Bushes. And enough Clintons. 

      2:48 pm | February 1, 2017
      • Mr. Wow
        Enough Clintons indeed.  Although she obviously is a preferred choice over what we’ve got, she never should have run again.  Democrats should have been looking  at and grooming  other candidates four years ago.  Considering the cyclical nature of politics, a Republican White House was not totally unexpected, but another candidate might have made it a less gruesome loss.   It was hubris all around.  Let’s have two “historic” presidents in a row–an African American and then a woman! 

        And nobody can convince me that Bill Clinton does not have some sort of psychological issue and resistance to Hillary becoming president. The meeting-with-Loretta-Lynch thing was just incredible. (one of his many “missteps” in this and her previous run.)  And HE’S supposed to the great politician!    She was surrounded by friends and allies who did her no favors–Podesta, the Weiner wife, the hubby.

        Bleh!
        4:37 pm | February 1, 2017
        • BabySnooks

          I held my nose and voted for Hillary and based on some comments here and there apparently I wasn’t the only one. But many held their nose and voted for Trump.  They were, and are, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Most people don’t want to hear that but they also don’t want to see it. And in both cases, well, past is prologue.  All we can do is hope people go to the polls in 2018 and take back the Congress. 

          6:32 pm | February 1, 2017
  • lulu

    I think we should have a virtual party and come up with our own non-partisan candidate. We can then promote the candidate with our charm, whits, knowledge and humor to the rest of those who are not smart enough to be part of Mr. WoW 

    8:49 pm | February 1, 2017
  • lulu

    Maybe we can entice the women of wowow to come back and help too

    8:58 pm | February 1, 2017
  • Rho

    Mr. Wow, you and Liz look wonderful on todays email!!

    2:57 pm | February 2, 2017
  • Mr. Wow

    Steve Bannon on Time magazine’s cover.  Misspelled his name, even though they had three chances to get it right–Goering, Goebbels, or Himmler.

    5:45 pm | February 4, 2017
    • Deirdre Cerasa

      Any one would do.

      9:39 pm | February 4, 2017
    • BabySnooks

      His Grey Eminence….

      2:17 am | February 5, 2017
  • Daniel Sugar

    Thank you SNL for making me laugh.
    “Don’t you ever call Zimbabwe again!”
    Hilarious.

    11:35 am | February 5, 2017
  • rick gould

    Here’s a blog post that may take your minds off the political unrest…Hollywood unrest!
    In anticipation of “Feud,” I wrote a piece pinpointing where I think the life-long Joan/Bette competition started: when they both starred in M. Somerset Maugham sagas designed to show off their acting chops: ‘Rain’ and ‘Of Human Bondage,’ respectively.
    Doesn’t that sound more fun than the Super Bore…Trump or the ballgame…your call!
    http://ricksrealreel.blogspot.com/2017/02/did-joan-and-bettes-feud-start-with.html

    2:33 pm | February 5, 2017
  • Mr. Wow

    Here’s a little something to get your minds off the weight world for a while from the Liz Smith column:


    Generally, it’s called Throwback Thursday.  But today we wanted to give you Throwback
    Monday.  The odd news about Judy
    Garland’s body being moved from New York to Los Angeles after so many years,
    got me to thinking about daughter Liza. 
    She lives quietly in Hollywood now. 
    But a couple of years ago, my guy Denis Ferrara did an interview with
    Liza
    , that captures so much of her gracious, energetic, optimistic
    spirit. 

      We’re being a
    bit lazy today, and at least this column can’t even allude to politics—a temporary relief and respite, yes?   Here are Denis and Liza M. circa 2014:

     

    Along with the Oscar, the
    Tony, the Emmy, the Grammy and the (still) clamoring fans at concerts all over
    the world, there’s something else Liza Minnelli has won through trials by fire.  She keeps her sunny side up; she walks on the
    sunny side of the street. Life is just a bowl of cherries, more or less.  Liza Minnelli is the most apparently
    optimistic star I’ve ever met.   Her
    public face is always turned upwards toward the light and her outlook is
    forward-thinking.  She knows who she is
    and what she’s experienced.  She knows we
    know.  And we know—or we should!—that getting into what we
    believe is the darker nitty-gritty of her colorful life is a pointless
    task.  

        Like her late great friend, Elizabeth
    Taylor, Liza tells only so much.  She
    keeps truly intimate matters close to her heart and away from her tongue.  Her parents were the iconic director Vincent
    Minnelli and MGM’s musical goddess, Judy Garland.  But since you know that already….

         If she’s gonna talk, she’d rather talk
    about her work.   And that is exactly what
    we did not long ago, after seeing Liza at the State Theater in New Brunswick,
    NJ.   She was sensational.  At the top of her current form.

     

    We gave her a call.

     

    LM:  Honey
    ,how are you?!
      (This delivered in
    her most upbeat tones—like a happy shot of electricity or a spike of Red Bull through
    the phone.)

     

    DF:  I’m great. 
    How are you?  I saw you in New
    Brusnwick and you were incredible.  I
    kept thinking, “Indestructible.  She’s
    just indestructible.”

     

    LM:  Yeah, that’s me, Wonder Woman!

     

    DF:  Is it tiresome when people—like me—comment on
    your energy and longevity and how you just “keep on keeping on?”

     

    LM:  No, it’s not tiresome.  It’s just…well, I don’t think about myself.  Look, when I go to the theater, I want to
    come out feeling good.  So that’s what I
    think about—am I going to make my audience
    feel good, too?  They’re all scrunched in
    their seats and paid good money, and I try to do what I can to entertain them.  We’re locked in a building for two hours after
    all!  When it’s over. I’m just
    tired.  I don’t feel very indestructible.

     

    DF: When they came to you and
    said, “Arrested Development” was coming back and would you reprise your
    character did you…

     

    LM:  Say yes immediately?  Of course. 
    They are the most talented, funniest, group of people in the world.  And the creator of the show is just brilliant.  (Liza is not big fan of phrases like “It’s
    just fine.”)

     

    DF: And you get to have
    vertigo again.

     

    LM:  That was my idea, actually.  It was sort of during talks we had about the
    character. They let me explore.  Well, it
    was my idea to fall down and it just went on from there!  (Big laugh)

     

    DF:  Do you want to act more?  Are you looking for things or are your people
    looking for things?

     

    LM:   I’d
    love to act more. I think it’s assumed I’m not interested.  But I am! 
    Listen, I act when I sing, I act when I dance.  But it all comes from acting.  I don’t have to
    sing and dance to act.

     

    DF: You tell a real story
    when you sing…

     

    LM:  I always think of myself as a storyteller.
    Songs are stories and that’s acting, too, to get back to acting.  And, here’s this—I love to learn.  That’s my favorite thing.  I’ll see something and I’ll say, “Oh, I want
    to learn how to do that.  And I’ve had
    such great teachers over the years, they taught me, they made me—Marvin Hamlisch
    and Fred Ebb and John Kander and Fosse and Charles Aznavor and…

     

    DF:  Wait, wait…I know you have a dozen more
    names.  You are incredible.  I’ve never known another performer who gives
    so much credit to others.  Everybody else
    always kind of acts like they’ve sprung full blown from the head of Zeus!

     

    LM:  My biggest talent, I think, was knowing who
    was best, who I could learn the most from. 
    So, how can I not give them credit? 
    I guess I have good taste.  And that’s a talent, too. 

     

    DF:  You still take singing lessons, and dancing
    lessons. That’s kind of incredible, but I have to say, there are aspects of
    your voice that are stronger than ever.

     

    LM:  Oh, honey, thank you.  But you know, things have calmed down.  Everything’s
    calmed down. At some point my body just said ‘Stop! Sit down!’  So, now I sit down a bit.  But then you have to project more in some
    ways—like a laser beam.

     

    DF:  Do you sing at home?

     

    LM:  Oh, sure. But you know, it’s like…I take
    singing lessons not to learn to sing
    but to keep up what I’ve got, to work the muscle.  If you sit down too  long, it’s hard to get
    up!

     

    DF:  Is there anybody, is any aspect of
    entertainment, you haven’t worked with who you’d like to?

     

    LM:  Oh, God, so many.  But, right off the top, Tom Hanks.  He has great taste, and every time I see him
    onscreen I trust him.  I think I’ve done
    that onstage—giving trust.  My concert audiences
    trust me.  But I’d like to extend that.

     

    DF:  Is it incredible to you that 40 years have
    passed since

    “Cabaret” opened?  To me it seems like yesterday that I was
    sitting at the Ziegfeld Theater watching it—and that was the first movie they
    played at the Ziegfeld!

     

    LM:  It was! 
     And it seems like yesterday to
    me, too.  I remember everything.  I kept thinking, “I wonder who they’re
    talking about?’  Or, “Is this really
    happening to me?” And what a film! 
    Nobody should ever just brush it off as just a musical.  You know, it was my father who took the musical
    off the stage and onto the street, he really made it believable to simply
    ‘Burst into song’ without the confines of a stage.  “Cabaret” did the opposite. It put musical
    numbers back onstage.

     

    DF:  I loved  New
    York
    , New York

     

    LM:  Well…

     

    DF: and “Stepping Out.”

     

    LM:  You did? 
    You saw it?!  It kind of got lost,
    which is a pity.  I think it’s a very hopeful film. 

     

    DF:  What is a day in the life of Liza Minnelli—I
    mean, do you go out and buy groceries and such?

     

    LM:  Uh, sure. 
    If I have to.  Something for the dog or whatever.   My day–I get up and go to dance class.  Have lunch, I do business.  Then the day is mine.  If I want to see friends or go to the
    theater, or whatever.  Again—it’s calm.

     

    DF:  Do you watch TV?

     

    LM:  I love it! 
    I love TCM especially!  I have it
    on right now.  The old black and
    whites.  You learn so much.  I still want to learn!   And black and white was universally
    flattering to women, and they had a way of making women up, and filming them
    that was extraordinary.

     

    DF:  Do you ever go on vacation?   I think you’re like Madonna sometimes—work,
    work, work.  Although I think she’s, um—calmer now.  With kids and all.

     

    LM:  Of course I go on vacation.  And isn’t Madonna great?  I think she’s a lovely woman.  I’ve always really just liked her.  She’s fun to have dinner with.  She’s not wacko.  She knows things.  She
    wants to learn too.  And Lady Gaga
    too.  She can do anything, and has a
    great sense of humor, too.

     

    DF: Do you ever forget where
    you are, when touring?

     

    LM:  Honey, how can ever forget being in, like—Poughkeepsie ?   I love the new audiences and the new places
    and new sights and sounds.  And
    especially how every audience is different; how each reacts to this or
    that.  And when you get into their
    groove, you lean that way.  I’m there to
    tell them stories. It’s like having a conversation; a conversation that never
    bores me. 

     

    DF:  What is the best advice you’ve ever been
    given? 

     

    LM:  Oh, Geez! 
    So much.  Well, one of the best
    things anybody ever said to me was “keep moving.”   But here’s the best advice I  can give: 
    “Stay curious.”

     

    DF:  That’s great. 
    And you have stayed curious.

     

    LM:  I have. 
    But please don’t ask me to do anything more than turn on my computer!  
    There’s curiosity and then there’s technology.   

     

     

    END

     

     

     

     

    12:17 pm | February 6, 2017
    • BabySnooks

      It’s so nice to read a column with no mention of that person in the White House and his family. Wish everyone else would follow your example! 

      11:41 am | February 7, 2017
  • lulu

    Happy Day After the Super Bowl and Puppy BowlI think Lady Gaga sang and said all – she scored the best ‘touchdown’ of all!!!

    1:52 pm | February 6, 2017
    • Mr. Wow
      Even tho I am not one of her fabled “little monsters” Gaga was glorious and made her point without offense.  (Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone–whom I adore–could learn from that.)  
        

      2:28 pm | February 6, 2017
      • Rho

        I thought Lady Gaga did a good job. 

        3:32 pm | February 6, 2017
      • BabySnooks

        She was being paid to entertain, not make a statement, and she did both without offending anyone as you put it although the people who might have been offended really don’t understand the meaning of “This land is my land…” 

        11:43 am | February 7, 2017
      • Deirdre Cerasa

        Gaga wa terrific! Madonna needs to take it down a notch. 

        8:25 pm | February 7, 2017
        • Mr. Wow

          Well, Madonna has just adopted two more children.  Perhaps she’ll…relax? 

          11:12 pm | February 7, 2017
          • Deirdre Cerasa

            Who knows. I do love her but cringed big time at the bomb the White House remark. Hopefully the kiddos will help her relax. 

            11:29 pm | February 7, 2017
  • Delusional

    Tom Brady made the point of the evening not Gaga.  A point everyone should take note of.  All his naysayers, backstabbers, and double agents could not deter his victory. 

    4:23 pm | February 6, 2017
  • Daniel Sugar

    R.I.P.  Richard Hatch
    Image result for richard hatch photos

    7:39 pm | February 7, 2017
    • Deirdre Cerasa

      Admitting to just how old I am, I remember watching Richard Hatch on All My Children in the 1970s. I watched Battlestar Gallactica because he was on it. Be at peace. 

      8:28 pm | February 7, 2017
      • Mr. Wow

        Deirdre–me too!  He was so beautiful. 

        4:21 pm | February 8, 2017
        • Deirdre Cerasa

          Phillip and Jenny!

          6:03 pm | February 8, 2017
          • Mr. Wow
            Oh, honey–don’t get me started on the soaps!  I began while still at home, w “Edge of Night”, “General Hospital” “Dark Shadows” “One Life to Live” “All My Children”

            Later I branched out a bit to some of other networks…but my soapy home base was ABC.  It went on for years!
            12:04 am | February 9, 2017
          • Deirdre Cerasa

            Oh yes! Dark Shadows was filmed in Newport so it was a big time favorite in Rhode Island. I liked Santa Barbara too. Eden and Cruz with so many Michael Feinstein songs as love themes. I still DVT General Hospital and binge watch late at night. xo

            8:06 am | February 9, 2017
  • Rho

    Happy Valentine’s Day, to all.

    10:08 am | February 14, 2017
    • Deirdre Cerasa

      Valentine’s hugs and chocolate to Mr. WoW and B and all the WoWers! If this is a rough day for you, hunker down, ignore the hoopla and remember, you are not alone. This crew has your back. xo

      11:42 am | February 14, 2017
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