"MAYDAY! MAYDAY!"

I enjoy blogging about pseudo-holidays, those annual commemorations where you don’t get the day off from work, so I had to write something about today:

1. the only holiday that rhymes
2. the only holiday that is also a distress signal
3. the only holiday that involves a pole (unless you count National Strippers Appreciation Day in August)
4. the most Official Holiday of the becoming-more-irrelevant-everyday International Communist Movement.

Speaking of which, this would’ve been a very good day for the Last of the Old Time Commies Fidel Castro to make a personal appearance and show the cynics of the world he isn’t dead. That is, it would be, if he wasn’t dead. I have pretty much joined the cynics on this issue. If ol’ Fiddy isn’t decomposing, he’s probably in a coma so deep that only Terry Schiavo’s parents can talk to him. Frankly, in that picture of him meeting recently with a Top Chinese Official, don’t both of them look like figures from Madame Tooloose’s Wax Museum? And Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is obviously losing credibility with his “I talk to him all the time – he’s still in charge” statements… otherwise why did he just do a WalMart Price Rollback of the price of oil to any country that’s willing to admit it’s friendly with him? I’m sure that military uniform Castro used to wear all the time can conceal all kinds of tubes and wires attached to el presidente’s body, certainly better than that athletic jacket in that photo.

Maybe he really is recovering, lucent and still capable of ordering anyone’s arrest at any time. But like Roger Ebert (who provides a heroic example of how not to go into hiding when you’re sick), maybe he’s lost his voice. Maybe he realizes that the tradition of Machismo is older and still more powerful than his little Revolution thing, so if he couldn’t stand up and make his usual rousing speech he shouldn’t be showing his face at all. See, Fidel? That’s why stand-up comics write books – for when they can’t stand-up no more.

Or maybe he made a deal – you do know that Michael Moore is finally going to release his movie about health care, the unsubtly titled “Sicko”, next month. And by the way, when he finally does put that movie in theaters, it will immediately worsen our health care crisis. Why? Because while it was in production, a bunch of HMOs and drug companies tried to sabotage it – every time Roger would start filming people with medical horror stories, they’d immediately turn around and give them everything they need, want or could ever ask for, so they wouldn’t complain to Michael. For the last couple years, the most effective way to get an operation pre-approved was to hint to your insurance company that you’re talking to Michael. As soon as that movie’s in theaters, that big bargaining chip goes away. But I digress.

Since “Sicko” includes scenes of the Cuban Medical System being better than the American Medical System, one of two scenarios is in play. If Castro is dead, a result that would make Cuban Medicine look bad, they can’t reveal it until “Sicko” has had a few weeks in release to make some money. Or, if Castro is really recovering well, he may have foolishly agreed to make his re-emergence at the premiere of “Sicko”… it was originally scheduled to come out before May. Just a little conspiratorial speculation. I don’t know why, of all the life-or-death situations in the news these days, Fidel Castro’s is the only one I find kind of funny…

To change the subject to something more non-sequiturial, let’s celebrate May Day with some May Bees!

And, just to try for the umpteenth time to imbed some YouTubishness in my blog, have some MAYPO!

If that didn’t work, here’s a link to the clip. That’s the best way to spend May Day. Going around yelling “I Want My Maypo!”