Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction
Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of
hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my
pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --
"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers,
bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits,
vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers,
buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train
robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"
I recently learned the pontiff is only 84 years old. I say "only" because I was in the crowd outside St. Peter's for the Easter Mass in 1996 in the sweltering heat* and the pope already looked like he was ready to give up the ghost. The way he walked out to his pulpit with his severely hunched back reminded me more than anything of the Mystics from the Dark Crystal. That the pontiff was 75 at the time is hard to believe. He looked like he was 90. [UPDATE: Ah, yes. He has Parkinson's.]
(While we're at it, here's some photos of the Skeksis, because they're so cool. Those bony, bird-like freakazoids scared the fucking dung out of me when I saw that movie as a kid.)
*while the pope read a certain phrase aloud in every language known to man (literally - it's a tradition) and I pondered the fact that the next person who was going to pass out from heat exhaustion and be handed out of the crowd might very well wind up being me, after nearly coming down with hypothermia** the night before while "camping" outside with two friends in a tent with no poles sans sleeping bags, which we'd obtained from some Austrian girl we'd just met as she boarded a train for home.
**waking up in the middle of the night, shaking uncontrollably, is never a good sign.
