{"id":41199,"date":"2017-08-16T16:12:06","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T22:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=41199"},"modified":"2018-03-07T16:32:40","modified_gmt":"2018-03-07T22:32:40","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony-were-all-toast-in-the-heat-of-the-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony-were-all-toast-in-the-heat-of-the-night\/","title":{"rendered":"The View From The Balcony: We’re All Toast in the Heat of the Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

The dog days of summer are slapping us down like Muhammed Ali slapped George Foreman down in 1974. Cue up Martha & The Vandellas or Linda Ronstadt\u2014whichever you prefer\u2014\u2018cause we\u2019re in an honest-to-God heat wave, whether you measure it by Farenhot or Helcious.<\/span><\/p>\n

If he were still alive Johnny Carson would be saying, \u201cIt\u2019s really hot out there,\u201d to which we\u2019d all shout, \u201cHow hot is it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so hot I saw two trees fighting over a dog.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt so hot I caught Doc and the band snorting ice cubes.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, my friends, it\u2019s sizzling out there. They call America a melting pot. If you ask me, the melting pot is a freakin\u2019 cauldron. Mississippi\u2019s burning again. It\u2019s like we\u2019re the epicenter of global melting.<\/span><\/p>\n

My Balcony friends have all been bitching about the heat.<\/span><\/p>\n

My good friend Leon, a very insightful man, said, \u201cIt\u2019s so hot that when I got in my car and turned on the radio some band called The Heatles were singing \u2018Helter Swelter.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

My bud The Sheik, said, \u201cIt\u2019s so hot that I put bacon strips on my tomato plants and 15 minutes later I had BLTs for everybody!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sir Martacus, one of the Knights-of-the-Long-Table, said \u201cIt\u2019s so hot that they installed a fan in the debt ceiling.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Twinkle Toes: \u201cIt\u2019s so hot that Ya Ya\u2019s frozen yogurt\u2019s melting in the streets like The Blob.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bullfrog: \u201cIt\u2019s so hot my iPhone succumbed to spontaneous combustion and turned into a Hellphone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Diamond Girl got delirious and thought she saw Margaret Hamilton on the Courthouse lawn. She screamed to the mirage, \u201cHey, witch! We\u2019re melting! We\u2019re melting!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Preachers who don\u2019t give the fire and brimstone sermons this time of year are missing out on the best chance they\u2019ll ever have to convert a multitude of sinners. Who in their right mind wants more heat than what we\u2019ve already got? We\u2019re about as close to the gates of Hell as we can get and it ain\u2019t gonna help one bit to stop drop and roll.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so hot that that Ron Shapiro\u2019s thinking about opening another theater called The Stroka.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so hot that the clock tower on the Courthouse looks like a Salvador Dali painting.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so hot that Farenheit 451<\/em> is selling like hotcakes at Square Books.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so hot that when Donald Trump says, \u201cYou\u2019re fired,\u201d he whips out a flame-thrower and shrieks, \u201cBurn, baby, burn!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so hot that the town of Coldwater changed its name to Boiling Mad Inferno.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s so hot that Waldo\u2019s sleeping in a cooler in the back of McEwen\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

What do you do when it\u2019s blazing outside? You adapt. I heard that Heaton & Heaton put their Hawaiian shirts on sale\u201466.6% off. Hope springs eternal. I rushed down to get one, not giving a tinker\u2019s damn if it would go with cowboy boots or not. As fate would have it, the racks were empty. \u201cWhere\u2019d they go?\u201d I screamed. \u201cWhere\u2019d they go?!\u201d Mr. Heaton pointed to the door.<\/span><\/p>\n

I ran outside just in time to see Jim Dees turning the corner toward Proud Larry\u2019s carrying a huge box with 666 Hawaiian shirts in it. I yelled, \u201cHey, Dees!\u201d He just gave me an evil grin and kept on going. I heard him singing as he strolled out of sight, \u201cGoodness gracious! Great balls of fire!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hot as all get-out and just getting hotter.<\/em><\/span>
\nIf you can jump in a pool, I think you oughter.<\/em><\/span>
\nSit on some ice if your butt can take it.<\/em><\/span>
\nHat-up your brain so the sun won\u2019t bake it.<\/em><\/span>
\nTurn on the AC. Whip out the beer.<\/em><\/span>
\nDrink all you can \u2018cause the end is near.<\/em>\u00a0\u2014The Sundown Cowboy<\/span><\/p>\n

I close with this gem my high school English teacher, Mrs. Corrine St. Clair Guild used to quote:<\/span><\/p>\n

“As a rule, man\u2019s a fool.<\/span>
\nWhen it\u2019s hot he wants it cool.<\/span>
\nWhen it\u2019s cool he wants it hot,<\/span>
\nAlways wanting what is not.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And that\u2019s one fool\u2019s blistering View from The Balcony.\u00a0\"The<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The dog days of summer are slapping us down like Muhammed Ali slapped George Foreman down in 1974.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":39753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[8851,5,642,4,10286,3,753,10426],"class_list":["post-41199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-column","tag-mississippi","tag-ms","tag-oxford","tag-randy-weeks","tag-the-local-voice","tag-tlv","tag-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/2017-5-11-View-from-the-Balcony.jpg?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}