• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

  • About David
  • New here?
  • Reading
  • Video

VIDEO: Take a break from crisis with a 90-second parody video

By David McElroy · March 17, 2020

The last week has been pretty tense for everybody. A lot of people are worried about issues related to the new coronavirus. Others of us are even more concerned about the economy.

On Monday evening, I made a quick-and-dirty video — only 90 seconds long — to make fun of one of the sillier things that’s been making headlines lately. I can’t tell you more than that without giving the joke away.

I shot all of the video with my iPhone at my office on the spur of the moment — in less than five minutes — and then edited it later in the evening. I’m sorry to say that there are a couple of video glitches on the final output, but I don’t know why. They weren’t there in the original footage, but I didn’t take the time to find the source of the problem.

I hope you’ll enjoy it. Otherwise, it might be worth every penny you’re paying for it.

Keep Reading

Share on Social Networks

Related Posts

  • If we keep waiting for perfection, we’ll always keep traveling alone
  • Trust and spontaneous order don’t require heavy hand of the state
  • Time to face facts: Most people don’t really want individual liberty

Filed Under: Uncategorized

More than ever, big crisis makes me long for family to take care of

By David McElroy · March 15, 2020

My heart beats a little quicker this week. There’s crisis in the air. There are problems to solve. And my instinct is to take care of the people I love.

We all react to a crisis in different ways. Mine is to want to take charge and create safety and stability for a family. So much of that sounds ridiculous in rational terms, but it’s who I am at the core.

I don’t have a family. I don‘t have anybody to take care of — except for my dog Lucy and my cats Merlin, Thomas and Molly. On top of that, I‘m in a period of transition. There’s nobody who loves me. There’s nobody who’s counting on me. Nobody needs me.

But I ache for someone to count on me. I long for a wife and children who look to me to help guide us through what could be difficult economic days ahead.

And I find myself saying once more, “Let me take care of you.”

Keep Reading

Share on Social Networks

Related Posts

  • Whose life is it anyway? Police taser man trying to protect home from fire
  • I can’t help wanting to replay life with emotionally healthy parents
  • 16-year-old charged with felony for science experiment gone bad

Filed Under: Uncategorized

I’m trying to do something new — and I don’t know what to call it

By David McElroy · March 12, 2020

Try to imagine that you’ve never seen a sunset.

Now picture yourself on top of a mountain in the evening. You look to the west and see clouds. As the sun sinks beyond the horizon, the sky starts filling with dramatic color. The light show is stunning, because the sky which had been just blue and gray and white only minutes before looks like something out of a dream.

You don’t know what this is. You might feel awe. You might feel scared. You might feel like worshipping a Creator who is making this happen. You might feel a hundred different things. But your heart would know you were witnessing something majestic and stunning and powerful.

If you know what this is, you just call it a sunset and enjoy it. You understand the way it works and why it happens. But until you’ve experienced it and come to understand it, there is no way you could imagine such a stunning natural spectacle. You would have no frame of reference for it.

Right now, I am trying to create something brand new. I can almost see it, but I’m still blind. I can feel it. I’m stumbling toward something that is brand new — and it is as different to me as it would be to experience a sunset for the first time.

Keep Reading

Share on Social Networks

Related Posts

  • Don’t believe the words they say: Politicians revert to their incentives
  • Want to start a ‘free city’? Check out the guidelines to see if you qualify
  • THE McELROY ZOO: Here’s why Merlin enjoys autumn and spring

Filed Under: Uncategorized

  • ⪡
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 152
  • Page 153
  • Page 154
  • Page 155
  • Page 156
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 702
  • ⪢

Primary Sidebar

My Instagram

This is the face of a man who’s thrilled that the This is the face of a man who’s thrilled that the weekend is finally here. It was a very long (and productive) week, but the time has finally come that I have time to write and read and think. Late Friday night, I’m at the McDonald’s near my house with a Diet Dr Pepper and a MacBook. For me, it’s like Cheers without the booze.
Donald Trump has figured out who to blame for the Donald Trump has figured out who to blame for the the D.C. Reflecting Pool turning green. The dastardly deed was carried out by a specially trained squad of Antifa cats trained by the Far Left. It’s not his fault. Arrest all the cats! #satire #parody
This was the sunset that faced me as I left Walmar This was the sunset that faced me as I left Walmart near my house just a few minutes ago. It was a beautiful light show for just a few minutes.
Here’s proof that reality and satire are indisting Here’s proof that reality and satire are indistinguishable these days.
This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot out This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot outside of the Walmart near my house just after the sun went down Friday evening.
This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy gas a little while ago. Even at a no-name brand, the price was $4.09. If I remember correctly, it was $2.29 a gallon at the same station on the day the war started. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of winning. 🤣
For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color is poking through the skies to the east of my back yard.
Follow on Instagram

Critter Instagram

When I came home at midnight, Alex didn’t think th When I came home at midnight, Alex didn’t think the event was worth getting up for, but he did hang his head over the edge of the castle’s top level to make sure I hadn’t brought anything for him.
Just before sunset, Sam is on Neighborhood Watch i Just before sunset, Sam is on Neighborhood Watch in an office window. A family across the street has gone to the beach for the week, so Sam feels extra pressure to keep the neighborhood safe while they’re away.
This is what happens when Oliver wants to get into This is what happens when Oliver wants to get into my lap when I’m working on my MacBook. If you can’t tell, that black thing underneath him is my torso and my head is just behind his head. He often looks as though he’s trying to see what’s so interesting on that screen that I spend so much time looking at. As you might have guessed, he was purring for the entire time he was settling into his spot.
I asked Alex whether he was awake as I left the ho I asked Alex whether he was awake as I left the house Wednesday afternoon — and he wasn’t quite sure.
After they had a late dinner, the cats are staying After they had a late dinner, the cats are staying up late for a chess tournament. Alex and Sam are playing first and they’ll switch up for the next games. Alex is the house champion, but Sam is giving him a run for his money tonight. 😺
The longer Sam is with us, the more often I see hi The longer Sam is with us, the more often I see him in confident poses such as this one. For a long time, he typically kept his tail a bit lowered and didn’t make eye contact very much (with the other cats or me). At this point, his tail is up and his eyes seem far more confident. That’s the way I see him Tuesday evening just before sunset — and it makes me happy.
I found a low-quality image Monday night of baby O I found a low-quality image Monday night of baby Oliver and Lucy on the bed together two and a half years ago. I loved the easy comfort they had with one another even back then, when Oliver was new to the household, so I did a lot of editing to turn it into an image worth sharing. Seeing this really makes me miss Lucy even more. The second photo of Oliver and Lucy is from May 24, 2025, about five months before her death.
I just caught a tiny mouse inside the house — and I just caught a tiny mouse inside the house — and I have to say that this guy is very fortunate that I caught him after the cats were all gone to the office. He was lucky enough to live long enough for me to release him outside, but if Alex had been around, he would have been dead by now. 😺
This is my current view as I look down toward my l This is my current view as I look down toward my lap. I was sitting in a chair in my bedroom when Oliver climbed into my lap. But because I was using my MacBook at the same time, the lap wasn’t good enough. He wiggled underneath the laptop until he had taken over my entire torso and forced me to put the computer down. He’s really good at getting the attention he wants.
Follow on Instagram

Contact David

David likes email, but can’t reply to every message. I get a surprisingly large number of requests for relationship advice — seriously — but time doesn’t permit a response to all of them. (Sorry.)

Subscribe

Enter your address to receive notifications by email every time new articles are posted. Then click “Subscribe.”

Search

Donations

If you enjoy this site and want to help, click here. All donations are appreciated, no matter how large or small. (PayPal often doesn’t identify donors, so I might not be able to thank you directly.)




Archives

Secondary Sidebar

Briefly

It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

Read More

Crass Capitalism

Before you buy anything from Amazon, please click on this link. I’ll get a tiny commission, but it won’t cost you a nickel extra. The cats will thank you. And so will I.

© 2011–2026 · All Rights Reserved
Built by: 1955 DESIGN