In the video below you’ll see  wendydavis putting on her goggles (and yes, she’d been out of depilatory cream for the past few weeks, never mind that), just tendin’ to her own knittin’, dressed in her typically slovenly fashion and playing with the  little red truck and  pack of white dominoes her mum and pop had given her long ago.  When she got them out, it was always a signal that she yearned for simpler days, simpler times…when the only pressures in life amounted to ‘will my dominoes fall in that neat cascading motion I’d aimed for when I arranged them?’ or ‘how can I get Larry Martinez’s Roger Maris rookie card offa him?’, or groaning at the thought of how light her velvet drawstring Seagram’s marble bag had become lately.

She swears to you on her sainted mother’s grave (well, ashes in the apple orchard, but…never mind) that she never knew what was about to befall her fellow Firedogs as she oh, so casually…bumped that sweet little red  model Ford pickup truck into that first domino, whoa-jeez…if she could just have that one little do-over.  But no; not so much.  Watch and listen, okay?

Oopsie; sorry folks.  Dinnae mean to get you all so…messed up.

But seriously, by way of explanation:

NYC artist Anthony Freda allows me to use his work for my diaries, and even sends me all his new ones for my possible needs.  I’d call him a Dadaist; his work is so in-your-face that you learn before you’re able to defend against his pieces.  I’ve used them liberally over the past year at least, with nary a problem.  It did break the rules listed in the posting help section, I know, but sometime back I’d asked for, and received, permission to use them.  I can’t even remember now who was My.fdl management at the time, but that doesn’t matter now.

Many of his pieces I have on my computer, some I’ve sent to an adjunct Posterous site I keep for the express purpose of being able to assign urls to my own photos, his work, other stuff.  I knew I had the ‘Upended’ piece (Statue of Liberty lying horizontal under the American flag, whose stars were falling off it…), but…as luck, or irony would have it, I could.not.find.it.  ‘Grrr’, she thought.  Off to dig through four of Anthony’s websites to find it…I did at last, grabbed the url, loaded it into my diary, tra la la…

Many hours later, I booted Firefox to click into my.fdl and got that nasty burgundy ‘Reported Attack Page!’ thing.  When I clicked the ‘Why’ button, there were no no known attacks; that info didn’t show up on my page until later.  Oddly, once Mr. wendydavis got in from work and got online, his Firefox made it into the site, but later on, he got the same blocked page.

At some point, I got a very kind but URGENT  email from Brian Sonenstein letting me know I needed to delete the image, as they’d figured out that the possible attack was coming from AcmeIlloz, or its server or something….luckily, I could still get in with my IE, so, I deleted it, and Brian advised me that he’d let me know if they needed me to do more.

Mods have delineated clearly how I’ll have to use any of his images from here on out, and see if Mr. Freda is willing to upload them onto Flickr or Photobucket (I wouldn’t risk it, were I he…)

Anyway.  To the point: To all of you Pups, and to FDL and My.fdl management:

I AM SO SORRY THAT I INADVERTENTLY CAUSED THE PLACE TO MELT DOWN.

Forgive me if you can; if you can’t, speak to my attorneys from now on.  (Just joshin’, simmer down.  I clearly didn’t intend any of this, and I know you’ll at least get that.)

But O,  the many ironies involved!  One, that I didn’t want to hunt for that image on Anthony’s sites, but in the name of getting the post up in the time I’d allotted myself, I did.  And that this all happened on the heels of some ‘kerfuffles’ with management was not likely lost on any of us.  Had it been I making the decisions, I may have just pulled the whole post and had done with it.  Management kindly did not take that road, and I do hope the delay didn’t extend the fix time (I figured it would all be over by now, but it seems not.)

The third irony is that awhile back I was given the keys to the admin side of my other blogging home.  The guys there made raucous jokes about the fact that in all likelihood, I’D NUKE KGBLOGZ, the  asshats.  ;o)  Well, I showed ‘em, and I never have, but then I hadda go and nuke this place.  Oy.  Given the over-abundance of almost poisonous ironies in my life, I’ve been forced into such strong appreciation of The Ironic that it’s almost a religion with me.

So.  Apology given, I promise that I will work hard to make sure I never kill the place again.  And here is just the smallest bit of atonement I can offer to All Firedogs Everywhere.

It’s The Boss from Wrecking Ball, without the E Street Band, heavy with Irish punk influence (his pop was Dutch and Irish, mum Italian, I think).  You can just see the cloggers on stage…  There’s a bit too much fife and drum corps in the foreground to be able to hear the lyrics well, but they’re a powerful indictment of the forces that caused the death of his (and our) hometowns as opposed to forces that might once have been more likely to have caused their deaths.  The best review I found is here at nj.com; I wanted one that acknowledged the Irish in so many of the songs on the album; so many reviews skipped right past in, oddly enough.

Here are the lyrics, no doubt they will give you a few shivers:

No cannonballs did fly
No rifles cut us down
No bombs fell from the sky
No blood soaked the ground
No powder flash blinded the eye
No deafening thunder sounded
But just as sure as the hand of god
They brought death to my hometown
They brought death to my hometown

No shells ripped the evening sky
No cities burning down
No armies stormed the shores for which we’d die
No dictators were crowned
High off on a quiet night
I never heard a sound
The marauders raided in the dark and brought death to my hometown, boys
Death to my hometown

They destroyed our families’ factories and they took our homes
They left our bodies on the plains
The vultures picked our bones

So listen up, my Sonny boy
Be ready for when they come
For they’ll be returning sure as the rising sun

Now get yourself a song to sing and sing it ’til you’re done
Yeah, sing it hard and sing it well
Send the robber baron’s straight to hell
The greedy thieves that came around
And ate the flesh of everything they’ve found
Whose crimes have gone unpunished now
Walk the streets as free men now

And they brought death to our hometown, boys
Death to our hometown, boys
Death to our hometown, boys
Death to our hometown

(I’ll have to come back later to edit this, sorry.)