Watching the news last night, you know what I realized? I’d make a lousy weatherman. For one thing–and God help me, I never thought I’d say this–I’m not funny-looking enough. You don’t believe me? Two words for you: Willard Scott. The other thing is, I have no patience. I feel sorry for the first anchorperson who says, “So, another day of rain, Paul? When are you going to stop this? Give us some sun, already!” (more…)
Supermarkets try too hard. You can’t walk into a supermarket anymore that doesn’t have a full selection of “Home-Cooked Meals”: hermetically sealed roasted chicken, baked hams in little plastic coffins, and ribs sulking in oversweetened barbecue sauce.
One day, I got to thinking. Why not take the next step, and have a potluck aisle? You could have everybody in the neighborhood bring something, and sell it all on consignment. There’d be aisles of steam tables piled with goulash, mashed potatoes, creamed corn, and all the stuff that someone found in the back of some Betty Crocker cookbook, some of it edible, some not. After all, what potluck is complete without at least one or two dishes that can be identified only by their dental records, or by some kind of culinary DNA analysis? (more…)
Science has made great strides in prenatal and neonatal research, and things have the potential to get interesting. For instance, it’s only a matter of time before we see a modification of the common “Parental Advisory–Explicit Content” stickers found on so many CDs. Building on pseudoscientific quack Don Campbell’s research on the effects of music on unborn and newborn babies, a bill to relabel CDs will be introduced. The current sticker will be replaced by, “Prenatal Advisory–Explicit Content.” It will be argued from both sides that hearing obscenity will have a deleterious effect on the unborn. Using the same labirynthine logic with which they’ve defined the abortion debate, the GOP will argue that the unborn, though they lack the facilities to comprehend what they’re hearing, could be corrupted by the content of the music; the Democrats, of course, will fall in line behind the GOP for fear of losing support on a populist issue in an election year. (more…)
Waiting for a bus one day in
“Can you tell me how to get to
I don’t overhear the reply. He continues, to me this time: “Do they believe in Jesus there? I heard some talk about Jesus over on
I wonder if he’s found it yet. Sometimes I’m not sure if I recognize it myself.
My grandfather was a bit old-fashioned, and we’d get reminders once in a while, like when he met my friend Phil.
“So, Bill. What’s your last name?”
“Yurchuk.”
“Bill Deerchuck. What kinda name is that?”
“Oh, it’s Russian.”
“You don’t LOOK Russian.”
“Well, I’m half Russian. My mom’s Puerto Rican.”
“Oh.” Long pause, then: “Well. Nothing wrong with them…. They’re good people. Good, fine, people…” And you can tell that something in him is telling him he’s dug himself a nice, deep hole. “Very hard-working.” Phil and I, meantime, know that if either one of us looks at the other, we’re both gonna lose it.
He was also an old-school Catholic. You’d have thought that the Catholic Church was a travel agency, and all those church visits were racking up frequent flyer miles. And if, for some reason, you needed a reminder of that fact, you only had to look at his Buick.
Some people are happy enough just to put one of those Jesus fish on the trunk, or slap a bumper sticker on. Grandpa had rosary beads hanging off the rearview mirror, a St. Christopher medal on the dash, a saint or two fixed to the dashboard with some kind of adhesive, a bottle of holy water in the little caddy, a little bible in the glove compartment… that car looked like a rolling botanica. And if you ever sat in the car when he drove, you knew why he needed all that stuff. Picture a New York City cabbie in slow motion: all the bobbing and weaving and cursing, but without the punctuality. He’d be talking to his beads as he went, too, so the typical ride went something like this:
“Our Father, who art–SLOW DOWN! Ah, ya sonofabitch. Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy–ah, shit! name…”
And you’d be praying, too, but not for the same reason he was. To this day, I think the first joyful mystery is that we always got where we were going in one piece.
WASHINGTON (AP): A source close to the president, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed widespread rumors of a coming toast shortage. Urgent pleas have been lodged with the Toast Producing and Exporting Countries (TPEC), whose members are expected to hold an emergency summit in Yemen (motto: “White or Wheat?”), during which solutions are to be discussed, and ways found to keep prices low at the toaster.
In the meantime, the United States Department of Agriculture has recommended toast rationing, especially in urban centers, retirement communities, and truck stops, where recent toast consumption has far outstripped the rates of both import and production.
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke does not expect that the shortage of toast will further dampen the currently bearish market. President Bush, speaking at a press conference earlier today, sought to quell consumers’ fears, alluding to America’s 257-billion bushel stockpile of emergency surplus toast, held in reserve on a military base in Arizona, whose hot, dry climate makes it ideal for toast storage.
Another letter, sent after the one below:
Mr. Wetauba,
It is with great and sincere regret that I read this missive on the loss of your dear client. It is with further regret, however, that I must decline your generous offer.
Even a cursory inquiry, you see, would reveal that my credit is somewhat less than Sterling. It is, in fact–in the going financial parlance–something closer to “rust.” The road to this unfortunate set of circumstances is long, circuitous, and probably dull to the uninitiated. Therefore, I will lay it out in detail. Someone of your financial experience and acumen, I’m confident, cannot but be impressed. (more…)
I use Hotmail, the filtering on which is generally halfway decent. That’s a good thing, usually, but one side effect is that I don’t get those Nigerian letters anymore. If you’ve ever taken a class, or read a book, on creative writing, you know that they’re big on “writing prompts,” ranging from traditional exercises to things that could almost pass for Zen koans; those letters were great writing prompts. Here’s a reply that I wrote to one of them:
Mr. Oko,
I’m so sorry, but I’ve been burned so many times in the past giving to lost causes. I sent something to the order of seventy-five thousand dollars for hunger relief in Ethiopia, and they kept starving. Same with the Biafrans, back when aid to Biafra was all the rage. I’ve given to the Rotarians, the Moose Lodge (only to find out that the closest they get to a moose is the one over the fireplace; and here I thought they were helping those poor animals. The bastards). Even donated a substantial sum of money for a friend’s breast augmentation, because I knew it would make him happy… he changed his mind after others had also chipped in no small fortune for the hormones and the rest of the surgery. You can imagine our disillusion. (more…)