Oscar-caliber

Caller-Times photographer and avid shooter George Gongora simulates Saturday's accident with a 28-gauge shotgun.


At the behest of one of my three readers, I have decided to start blogging again.

What's that you say?-- "Paul, I was unaware that you quit blogging..."

Well, I did not actually "quit" so much as I was forced into a semi-sabbatical. Without divulging too many of the gory details, let's just say that the antibiotics have finally taken hold, the "infection" is under control, and I've been cleared to return to action.

My elite team of physicians banished me to bed rest last week, which enabled me to catch up on the hours upon hours of mindless television viewing that I usually miss while leading my normal, hectic life of teaching 2nd grade, fishing, hunting, and attending monster truck shows.

And oh, what a great week to be immobilized in front of the tube!

For starters, we had wall to wall Winter Olympics on NBC. Over on Fox channeI, I learned that American Idol is aired every single night of the week, and I cannot stop myself from watching it. On ABC, the pale female doctor (or intern? or whatever the heck her job is, she never seems to get dirty...) on Grey's Anatomy single-handedly saved the hospital from blowing up (though the hunky bomb squad guy was not so lucky), and, hmmmm.... let's see..... what else happened last week.... oh yeah, our Vice President shot somebody.

By now, everybody knows the story, and you are probably tired of hearing it. But imagine my shock and surprise as I was groggily watching some show on MSNBC, and I caught a glimpse of....

My dad.

That's right- my father.

George. My Pops. The Bossman. Big Poppa.

He was shooting a gun on some MSNBC news show, the show that nobody knows the name of, because it too closely (ok, exactly) resembles about 29 other news shows on about 15 cable news channels. But that's not the point. The point is, I saw my dad on the national news shooting a gun.

After picking my mandible up off the cut berber, my emotions alternated between extremely uncomfortable queasiness and unbridled, unadulterated jubilance at the sight of my dad on the television, explaining and demonstrating (with a shotgun and live ammunition) the logistics of just how Dick Cheney gunned down his hunting buddy.

Those unlucky few of you with the misfortune of never meeting George Gongora likely have no grasp of the massive amount of humor inherent in this situation.... If you have met my father, then I'm sure you will agree with my assessment that this video scores a 8.75 out of 10 on the George Gongora Unintentional Comedy Scale.

After watching him perform on MSNBC, I scoured the internet looking for more of his sublime thespian talents. This is all I could find. And it has proven to be more than enough.

My computer now plays this on a nonstop, continuous loop.

Yes, that's my dad, George, gleefully firing a .28 gauge shotgun at a simulated human target, re-creating the Dick Cheney incident for the whole world (or, at least the few hundred folks in Corpus Christi, Texas, with cable television capabilities) to see.

In case you missed it: click here.

Or here.

I'll write more later today; I've gotta get back to Googling my dad.