Archive for the ‘Ditties’ Category

From the “Too Soon” Dept.

An open letter to the Burning People that run Burning Man,

As I formulate this letter on further merchandising Burning Man, my concerns are twofold: 1. Can I properly convey my business plan to expand the Burning Man franchise? And 2. Can I do so without it being a study in clichés? The answer is a resounding Yes (on the business plan) and a definite No (on the cliché avoidance plan).

Burning Man is a very popular anarchical event of infinite self-expression. Its counterculture ethos speaks to the spiritual vagabond in all of us and despite its subversively-tinged sensibility, it has become an ever present fixture in the Mystical-Astrological Complex. And I believe we should tap into that vast reservoir of new-age good-will to decant a new demographic. Not only do we want to grow our natural constituency, i.e., those who dance like no one’s watching. But we also want to target market those who dance like there’s a stick up their ass? Read the rest of this entry »

I always knew my memory foam mattress would have a memory; what I didn’t realize is that it would have a consciousness too.

It was time for a new mattress. The old one had taken on the characteristics of its owner and had also begun to sag in the middle. It was spent from being flipped and rotated 9 ways from Sunday – the mattress and not the owner. The battered cushion had accumulated a decade’s worth of stains making it look like a bad tattoo that was slowly dissolving. So, the wife unit and I (wife unit being an old British colonial measurement of a female helpmate) visited The Illusion of a Bargain mattress store conveniently located at www.HappyMattress.com. Happy Mattress was a Chinese conglomerate affiliated with Sparkle Cleaners and Tasty Restaurant. BTW, be prepared for images unrelated to mattresses if you Google “happy” and “mattress.”

 

Because we didn’t care much for soft mattresses, we opted for a firm California King instead of a forgiving Martin Luther King. And because our bed was delivered during National Mattress Awareness Month (another Hallmark holiday I guess), they threw in some contour sheets and shams. I was beginning to believe the entire transaction was a sham until I laid down on the mattress. Holy Back-to-the-Womb Batman: it was like mother nature was caressing me in her arms.  Read the rest of this entry »

If I have any superpowers at all it’s in being a sober arbiter of esoterica. And it is in keeping with my need for precision in these peripheral netherworlds that I take exception to the gross hyperbole contained in Irving Berlin’s scantily-researched claim that ♫There’s No Business Like Show Business ♫. For Moses’s sake Mr. Berlin – we all know full well there are many businesses like show business. How dare this little refugee from Russia emigrate to our shores and tell us what our business is – such chutzpah. However innocuous the observation There’s No Business Like Show Business may seem, I’d like to see Mr. Immigrant Composer make that same claim in Mother Russia – he’d get a one-way ticket on the trans-Siberian express to a reeducation camp where his once-jaunty song would be repurposed into “There’s no Gulag like our Gulag.”   

I believe I can fairly sum up my bewilderment at Berlin’s lyrical impudence by paraphrasing Fredo Corleone when he warned his brother Michael about disrespecting Moe Green: “Irving, you don’t just walk into America’s Jazz Age and start yelling, ‘There’s no business like show business’ without attribution, sources or citations. It’s just not done.” Read the rest of this entry »

 

No issue too trivial, no remedy too irrelevant in structuring my universe.

♫ She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes 
She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes
She’ll be coming round the mountain, she’ll be coming round the mountain,
She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes

She’ll be riding six white horses when she comes (Hee Haw) 
She’ll be riding six white horses when she comes (Hee Haw)
She’ll be riding six white horses, she’ll be riding six white horses,
She’ll be riding six white horses when she comes (Hee Haw) ♫ 

Most of us feel a mystic kinship to Early American folk songs: case in point, the jaunty call and response song She’ll be Coming ‘Round the Mountain. Traditional ditties like these from the Early American songbook convey a sense of unbridled optimism stretching out over a robust country ripe with opportunity. And yet for all its nationalist fervor and manifest destiny the song fairly bristles with an inexcusable lack of time-space coordinates. More specifically, once the listener realizes an unnamed and otherwise phantom “she” will be coming ‘round the mountain, our first reaction is to wonder when she’ll arrive – when will “she” be coming ‘round the mountain? Our reptilian logic centers are primed for processing the precise locus of this event. And despite our anticipatory curiosity, all we are told is that she’ll be coming ‘round that mountain, “When she comes.” I’m afraid this simply will not do. Although I loathe words that have a “b” followed by an “h”, I nonetheless abhor songs whose feel good, sunny lyrics betray an appalling lack of time and place. Read the rest of this entry »

Ombudsmandry Throughout the Ages

by Frank Knarf

St. Albans Press, 341 pp., $55.00

 

In Frank Knarf’s bracingly inconsequential book Ombudsmandry Throughout the Ages, within the span of 3 pages the author tells us everything we’d ever want to know about ombudsmen. How he manged to concoct another 338 pages on such an esoteric topic I’ll never know. This is not an overly long book. Crime and Punishment was a long book. This book makes eternity look like a coffee break. To read beyond page 10 is a crime. To read beyond page 20 is both a crime and punishment. At least the middle section has centerfolds of historic figures like Attila the Ombudsman, Vlad the Ompaler and Donny and Marie Ombuds. Ombudsmandry Throughout the Ages is a tough read. In controlled clinical trials, professional scholars have attempted to “binge-read” the book and in all cases have suffered spontaneous narcolepsy or herniated cerebrums. It simply can’t be read at a sitting and I’m at a loss as to why St. Albans Press decided to publish it instead of the more titillating Hunter-Douglass corporately-sponsored catalog titled 50 Shades of Shades.   Read the rest of this entry »

12 Uplifting Internet Headlines

1. Trump to Nation: I was just doing this to get attention. Now I’m stuck being President. Be careful what you wince for. 

1. Elon Musk to Provide Free Flying Electric Umbrellas to First 100 “Mary Poppins” movie-goers.

1. Flint, Michigan Getting its Spark Back

1. Even if You Forgot the Question, Love is Still the Answer

1. Bend, Oregon Getting Things Straightened Out

1. Costco Surrenders to Popular Demand: “Alright already. We’ll remain in Christmas mode all year round now. We’ll be like a charming little Christmas village…in a big ugly warehouse,” says Mr. Costco

1. Moscow, Idaho to Change Name to Trump, Idaho

1. Shirley MacLaine to be Reincarnated as a Spunky Actress in Next Life: Wait Till You See What She Looks Like Then!

1. Philadelphia, PA admits Mistake: Will Now be Known as Filadelfia. No word yet on Worcestershire, MA.

1. Confused Internet Users Admit: So Much Time to Waste. So Little Time to Do It In.

1. Grilled Cheese Better for the Heart than Once Thought, says Kraft Cardiologist Group

1. Dogs are Really Just Saying Thank You When They Sniff Your Crotch. So are Husbands.

Top 10 Signs You May Have Alzheimer’s Disease

1. You don’t think you have it
2. You start a joke: “A rabbi, a priest and an atheist walk into a room”…and then you forget why they went in there.
3. You thought the Ice Bucket Challenge would’ve cured it by now
4. Sppeling detriorates
5. You feel you’re in New Jersey all the time because you fuggedaboutit.
6. You know it’s important to observe the first rule of Fight Club, but you just can’t remember it.
7. You think you can make fun of it in a stupid little list
8. You can only think of 8 reasons why you may have Alzheimer’s when you said you’d list 10.

Due to the Graphic Nature of This Piece Reader Discretion is Advised (not really)

 

I’m not exactly sure what they’re selling at Crazy, Sexy, Hot  drive-thru. I do know this much however:

1. It’s the first certified Crotch-to-Table restaurant in the United States.

 

2. As you exit the drive-thru a sign reads, “Thousands served; many to climax.”

 

3. All orders come with Wet-Naps and a lobster bib.

 

4. If they ask you, “Would you like that on the side?” say, “Duh?”

 

5. At some point all your car windows will steam-up.

 

6. If you order Fertile Fries, be sure to ask for spermicidal ketchup.

 

7. Be very careful answering the question: “Are you going to eat that in the car or will you be taking her home?”

 

8. Rumor has it the Dildo Burrito is filling. Very filling. Very, very filling.

 

9. It’s the only place you can get a toasted bagel with KY Jelly.

 

10. An old wives’ tale says that driving thru backwards can prevent pregnancy.

 

11. Interestingly, they have “Old Wives’ Tails” on the menu.

 

12. Employees say the pay isn’t very good, but that the tips are tremendous.