Last week I thanked you all for your continued support. This week I’m pleased to announce that for the first time over 20,000 of you visited this past month. In addition to the comments you see on the posts I get a lot of private emails as well. I can say with a big smile on my face that your continued support means a lot to me.

I also realized that I’m more in love with blogging than writing novels at the moment. That may be an outgrowth of my heavy editing over the past several months in order to get the most recent book ready for some contests. And, frankly, until I hear a few things I’m waiting on I’m too distracted to really focus on the novels. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to write but that I’m like a squirrel with shiny objects distracting him. Combine that with the fact that it’s still snowing here in North Hell (Minnesota) in the middle of April and I’m just not terribly motivated. (Yeah, I know – “Put on your big girl panties, Nancy, and get to work. It’s Minnesota, not Florida and you can move.”)

For now that benefits you in the audience. I will write more here when I’m not able to focus on the books. That may lead to some silly videos, some political posts, dog pictures – in other words, no change at all.

I did want to mention that my spam filter has been working very hard lately. If I let the spam monsters autopost on the blog you’d be subjected to an undending pitch for NFL jersey knockoffs, pornography, patent medicines, rants that make me look like an Old Testament prophet in comparison, and a host of small products that seem to think my readers are dupes. Thank you, Askimet, for filtering out the trash.

That, however, might stop your comment from making it through. I have deleted thousands of spam comments in the past few months and it’s more than likely that a few legit ones got nuked as well. I apologize. Part of the problem is that the spam robots actually flatter me in their text. I get comments like: “Gee, this is a really informative and fun blog. I’m telling all my friends about it. Would you like to guest blog at my place?”

Unfortunately that little ego boost has HTML code attatched that will creat a link to “Sexually Active Teen Lizards dot Com” or some other outrage. Consequently, if you have commented and can’t get through the filter you can send an email with “That danged spam filter got me” as the subject line to joseph at commotioninthepews dot com. (Have to post it that way or get buried.)

Finally, I’d like to say goodbye to Jonathan Winters. Growing up he was one of my favorite comedians. He’s also part of that vanishing group of WWII Vets. Another Marine who shaped my mind gone forever – been a week for that kind of thing – I’m actually shedding a tear for that loss. My dad loved him as well. When I was little we had a couple of comedy albums in the house that darned near got worn out over time. Bob Newhart’s “The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back” and Jonathan Winters “The Wonderful World of Jonathan Winters.” I suppose the three of them, my father, Jonathan Winters, and my dad’s friend Harry Schwartz are all standing around Heaven in their Dress Blues laughing and telling jokes.

Without further ado, here’s a video of Jonathan Winters. I just picked it at random, but you really couldn’t lose with the man. Make sure you stick around until the 7 minute mark. I nearly choked I laughed so hard. In watching a bunch of his clips today it became very clear to me that a lot of what I have in my sense of humor was directly shaped by this man. It hadn’t dawned upon me until this moment that most of my silly voices, improvisational bits and an awful lot of the facial expressions come right out of his acts. I picked a good one to mimic. We’ll miss you, Jonathan. Semper Fi, Marine.

**this will be included in all posts until further notice. Please subscribe now to Commotion in the Pews and then “like” the Facebook author page. I will be giving away a $100 prize from Walker Farms Honey in May if, and only if, I get 100 new subscribers and 100 new likes to the author page. It stands at 65 today, needs to hit 166 before the prize can be awarded. This helps me when I approach agents and publishers trying to get my books published. Thank you!**

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