Posts Tagged ‘reviews’

1. I Married a White Man – Wanda Calvert, a Baltimore washerwoman, explains how it came to be that she married a white man. The fact that she is also white makes the story very uninteresting.
2. I Loathe Lucy – Willam Frawley takes us on a dark journey into the seamy underbelly of Desilu Studios. He takes particular aim at “Little Ricky’s” incredible growth spurt. More specifically Mr. Frawley decries the implausibility of Little Ricky being born one season and showing-up as a wise-cracking 5-year-old in the next.
3. One Door Closes, Another Opens – An elderly female elevator operator from Pasadena is forced to retire after she accidentally inhales too much clumping cat litter. Her coworkers now call her, ♫The Little Old Lady with Emphysema.♫ When asked how she was doing the former elevator operator responded, “Well I don’t have as many ups and downs as when I was working.” In the British edition of this book, the little old lady is a lift operator from Wuthering Heights.
4. This Plant is Closed – The story of a Venus flytrap as seen through the compound eyes of a newly imprisoned fly. And yes, near the end, the fly does eke out a forlorn “Help me!”
5. This Plant is Closed – The story of a straw manufacturing plant as seen through the hole of the final straw. And when that final straw rolls off the assembly line, a visibly moved CEO picks it up and cries, “We’re closing now. This is the last straw.”

The Not So Good Ones

1. The Queen Elizabeth Phone Sex Tapes: Naughty, Naughty on the Telly – In these newly discovered recordings found in the rethatched roof of the Pig & Whistle Pub in Ipswich, the Queen is heard sharing tawdry talk with her palace guard Beefeater, Heathclyffe. Listen in sordid salaciousness as Heathclyffe refers variously to the Queen’s undercarriage as Her Majesty’s Pita, the Royal Gash and the Outback Downunder. Some question the tape’s authenticity. Especially since in the background we repeatedly hear someone picking up a phone and saying, “George Santos residence.”

2. Hair Raising Experiences – Pie weight salesman Osgood Pantene shampoos a woman against her will. Or did he? He says she agreed to it by bending over a portable basin he keeps in his wallet. She says she didn’t know what was happening until he had his sudsy fingers all up in her hair, but by then it was too late and she was all in a lather. This kind of thing happens a lot in the book so I can’t recommend it. I mean it’s just so lather, rinse, repeat. Still, this “He said, She said” shampoo story is Head & Shoulders above anything else we’ve read in the Bathic novel genre.
3. Letters of Pol Pot – People sometimes forget this little mass murderer who disappeared 1/10^th of Cambodia’s population in the 1970s – and just because someone screwed-up his take-out order (who orders blue curry?). In a pique of rage, he channeled his wrath into an indiscriminate cleansing of the population just to get rid of all the sloppy order-takers everywhere in the greater Phnom Penh region. His method was the very definition of overkill, but then again misplaced anger seldom achieves its goals. In this attempt to rehabilitate his legacy, Madam Wat, who ran the brothel Mr. Pot frequented, has released a trove of love letters the young and lovelorn Pol wrote to his favorite prostitutes. If this doesn’t make you reassess the diminutive despot, nothing will.

Internet (Net) and movies (flix, for the flickering light once associated with silent movies) have been combined in a cuckoo hip way to form what we know as Netflix. I pray you understand that.

As a savvy and demanding public of cord cutters continues to fragment the entertainment industry, Netflix has attempted valiantly to reconnect these fragments with prestige shows featuring ever more obscure premises. For example my neighbor Sam is actually in contract with Netflix for a show called Guess What I had for Dinner Last Night? And although the shows thin premise will appeal to a demographic limited to the people in Sam’s immediate household, apparently Netflix’s business model has found a way to make it profitable. These are shows you’ll never see on network TV because, ummm, who sees network TV anymore. Well that and the gratuitous use of swear words.

As a man of serious leisure and humorous disposition, I’ve taken the time to catalogue and review this year’s offerings from Netflix so you may more productively spend your hard-earned discretionary time. Incidentally, if Netflix finds this presentation entertaining, they say they’ll finance a series called It’s Fun to Play Make Believe Featuring David Hardiman and His Imaginary Friends.     

And so it is with lightly-bridled joy and many grains of salt I take great pleasure in presenting my review of new Netflix series.   

I Married an Eggplant

After matrimonial laws are changed in Massachusetts, vegetarian Trudy Lessing marries a very special eggplant from her secret garden. All is not well however in the Garden of Trudy when Roger (the eggplant) develops second thoughts about their marriage when he discovers Trudy is a vegetarian and is eating all his brothers and sisters. In an effort to improve their relationship Trudy becomes a strict carnivore, but then runs afoul of her militant PETA friends. It’s just one thing after another as no good deed goes unpunished in this odd couple romance. In Season 2 Episode 8 Trudy discovers Roger spooning with a curvy cucumber which leads to a very awkward threesome. In the season finale the Animal and Plant Kingdom become one when Trudy gives birth to a well-adjusted baby “egg man.” And when a teary-eyed Roger first holds his little sprig of joy he sings, “You are the egg man, goo goo g’joob.”       Read the rest of this entry »

A sliver of the future: Space Tourism. It’s what’s for dinner.

Be here now. You here it all the time. Be in the moment – that’s where it’s at. And while I don’t doubt the merit in being “present,” I also believe in expanding my awareness to include the future. To that end I’ve spent years practicing techniques that allow me to slither through cosmic wormholes and experience the future. I’ve become quite adept at it and sometimes I experience the future like there’s no tomorrow (so to speak). Unfortunately the interdimensional gatekeepers prevent time travelers like me from bringing back any of the good stuff. Instead I’m relegated to one duty-free keepsake memory from the future. After declaring this approved memory from a list of duty-free recollections, I then take it through cosmic customs and happily report it back to you in the present. And although it isn’t particularly earth-shattering or enlightening unto itself, this unique keepsake memory  does provide enough clues (much like a Sudoku puzzle) to allow one to fill in the blanks and perhaps imagine the society of 2031 in its entirety derived only from the scant evidence I’m allowed to present. If you can collate, extrapolate and percolate (as in drinking lots of coffee while trying to figure it out), you may be able to fully grasp the world of the future from the meager clues offered herein: as in this case Yelp reviews of space tourism flights. 

So without further fanfare or ado (could fanfare and ado be the same thing?), I’m mightily pleased to present to you my gift of Yelp space tourism reviews from the future.

5 Stars: Princess Space Cruise Lines

OK, first of all if I could give them 6 Stars I would. Princess dazzled me. What Princess Cruise Lines does on water they also do in the vacuum of space. Whether it was the unlimited Chilean sea bass (sustainably caught and ethically processed) at the seafood buffet or listening to 95-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck (also sustainably caught and ethically processed) sing his greatest hits in business class, Princess has managed to seamlessly extend their festive seaborne experience into a special airborne experience until eventually it becomes an unforgettable vacuum borne experience. And dare I say it: This vacuum does not suck. Read the rest of this entry »