Post #900 – WOW! My efforts to do a post a day in retirement are right on track. I guess I have a lot to say, even if I’m only one listening. There’s an occasional comment from a friend, but every morning I have to clean out hundreds of spam messages. If it weren’t for SPAM, I wouldn’t have many readers at all. I get about 80 some messages a day from sources like Alanter, Sueter, Markter, Cheap Auto Insurance, Maryter, and Jimter who all “enjoy” my posts but suggest trying their products and services at another website address. Some don’t even try to disguise themselves as a comment. It’s the price of fame as a blog writer, like fighting off autograph seekers and the paparazzi. SPAM is my biggest fan!

I actually have a can of SPAM in my office, promoting the Broadway musical Spamalot that I’ve seen on several occasions. I can’t remember the last time I ever actually tasted SPAM, but the souvenir can is always there for the taking should ever get hungry. It’s a pop-off top so I don’t even need a can opener. My wife has a poster signed by the original cast including Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce, and Hank Azaria. John Cleese of Monty Python fame was the recorded voice of God. We’ve enjoyed it in New York, St. Louis, and Austin. The Broadway performance at New York’s Shubert Theatre was appropriately on April Fool’s Day of 2005. It was based on the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail, written and performed by the comedy team of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin.

I’ve already written about one of my favorite songs from the production, I’m Not Dead Yet! (See Post #810). This blog, although inundated with a LOT of SPAM is certainly no Spamalot. I would like to think that my attempts at humor are in the same vein as Monty Python, including “expressions of nonsense.” I have made 900 stabs at everything from silliness to sincerity, hoping to eventually shape my own voice. So far, all I’ve gotten in return is SPAM.