Tag: writing

Last Day At Windows On The World

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a window

Smell ya later

Working at Windows on the World was the most awesome experience I ever had in the restaurant industry. Fast paced and crazy during service but the waitresses were gorgeous. In fact the waiters were gorgeous too, most of waitstaff were Bohemians. The war between the front and back of the house was non existent because the expeditor was a buffer between the two factions and took shit from all sides. The pace of service was so intense we never really had time to build up animosity anyway. But nothing in my career has ever compared to the camaraderie in the kitchen.
Eight cooks on the hot line, four in the pantry, an a dozen or so prepping, and about sixty workers in the kitchen at any given moment. In the kitchen we spent what little quiet time laughing and getting to know each other better. It was like a damn fraternity. For four hours of service we were all we had to rely on, we all had each others backs. We snuck extra chef coats to each other, beers, joints, whatever. We got high after service and met for drinks before heading out to our homes or wherever we went. We became extremely tight nit.
The thing that I remember most was my last day there. They have this cute little ritual they perform for the people that leave that they love. And I was well loved, the hippie cook who played the harmonica into the expediters microphone, made everyone recognize the moment of silence for John Lennon during the global memorial at his death, and the teller of numerous jokes and puns that kept them chuckling for hours. So I was destined for their ritual which to be honest made me happy despite what the ritual consisted of.
In the back of the kitchen were three huge cauldron kettles for soups and the like. Considering we served over a thousand people a night the kettles had to be big. For the last day of any coworker they loved they reserve the largest kettle on the end filling it with an array of obnoxious liquids. Outdated fish stock, outdated eggs, vinegars, wines, anything they could find to make a disgusting smelly bath to dip the departing warrior in on his last day. My last day!
When the shift ended I knew it was coming because I had seen it before. Some fight like hell and end up getting bruised up, some try to sneak away before anyone grabs them, and some, like me, take it as a sign of love and a sort of torch passing. I passed by that kettle two or three times and I gotta say they really went all out for me. Stunk like rotted skunk anal glands, ripe with overripe vegetables, fish guts, and many things I decided were better not to try and identify. This was going to be one gnarly shit bath and I am going to be stinking for days.

My time came, and my coworkers grabbed me and dunked me like four times, worse than Ollie Dee from March of The Wooden Soldiers. I kicked a little and made a big scene out of it but in truth I went in it willingly rather than fighting a losing battle with ten ornery line cooks. Besides I wanted them to have as great a memory of my last day as I would. A lasting memory, although mine would have an added lasting effect of carrying around an odiferous array of decayed and rotted stenches for the next day or three. I came out dripping with gross puddles of digestive waste. Needless to say I gave them all hippie hugs which they tried in vain to escape always happy to share. I always shared my weed and beers with them so I felt it only proper to share my nefarious lingering funkfest of stink.

What I hadn’t considered was my trek home. Even after washing and changing into my street clothes the elevator ride down 106 floors had people congregating as far away from me as possible, and at least two women gagged at the fetid aroma. I was like a walking silent but deadly rank fart after an evening of beer and eggs. I had visions of a visible stench trailing behind me like a stink shadow. Everything in my wake gasped for air. Everywhere I went people turned to look at me shooting me snarly looks. I had no dog to blame and it was clear I was the epicenter of the situate of smell. I stopped in The Market Bar on the ground floor for my last drink with the crew and the bartender asked me to leave. From there I got on the E train to take the subway up to midtown. I felt like Pigpen from Peanuts as people moved to the other end of the car. Finally I decided to ride the subway in between cars hoping the wind would remove some of the foul smelling carousel around me.

But the aroma offended any in its path, even me. Its not like when you let one slip out and wonder why everyone holds there nose because being the owner of the fart, the one who dealt it, the smell never quite seems as bad. But this odiferous cloud of decayed matter clung to me as if it would never let go even offending me. My olfactory senses were forming an official protest threatening to impeach me if I didn’t shower and scrub with entire bar of Irish Spring and then douse every inch of my body in cologne. If I hadn’t gagged six times already from the stink stream I would have been offended but I knew I was about to take the advice willingly.

When I walked through the door I was greeted as I was every night, with the most enthusiastically happy hound on earth, my Afghan Hound, Stella Blue. No matter what kind of day she had she was always overwhelmingly happy to see me and shower me with canine affection. Unfortunately not one second after jumping up on me her ultra sensitive nose began twitching and I know dogs are not supposed to register emotion but there was serious disappointment in her eyes as she stared at me, shook her ears back an forth and ran the other way. Into the shower I went before any further embarrassment. I decided I needed to burn the clothes and I showered four times in a row. I then marinate myself in so much cologne I could have driven a taxi. It took me three days to completely eliminate that dark cloud of revolting essence of BO emanating from my body, and while the “O” finally skulked away the memories of Windows On The World has never faded. Stella finally got her groove back and forgave me, and the ten dozen or so flies that followed me home that night have since relocated. All in all being dunked in a kettle of decomposed shit water was like a dis-initiation imparting not just the squalid stink but a memory of a lifetime to always take with me for surviving that intensely hot and brutally fast paced kitchen, and if my memory serves me correct I loved every stinking second of it……PEACE

Snow White and The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Dwarfs

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snow

Once upon a time, there was a fantastic opening line for storytelling. A brilliant line in which you could use to begin a story and introduce the main character, be it a queen, a prince, a witch, a beautiful young women, or even three little pigs. From there you could then begin adding whatever elements help you to spin your yarn, be it spinning yarn or spinning straw into gold, poisoning apples, candy houses, gingerbread men, or any metaphor for life you use as your icon to express your points. The brothers Grimm were expert at this having woven a plethora of subliminal tales that kept the young ones starry eyed and motionless awaiting the end.
One story in particular has infiltrated our culture assaulting our values having us accept an unmarried young lady living with seven diamond mining miscreant males deep in the woods. If a young lady today admitted to living with seven dwarfs she would likely be telling the story on her reality television show. Come to think of it, the dwarfs somewhat resemble a much tinier version of the crew of Duck Dynasty. Here comes Snowy Boo Boo and the bayou backwoods jokers. Who are these seven dwarfs anyway? The truth is Snow White has a book deal in the works and has officially chosen The Existential Baker to prepare the press release.
Hers is a story of the consummate underdog overcoming all the odds and poor advice to remain atop the world of Fairy Tales. Snow is perhaps the most loved and popular fairy tale heroines of all time. Mary had her little lambs, Belle had her beast, Red had her wolf grandma, Ariel her voice, and Gldilocks had her choice of porridge, but none had to struggle as hard to remain an icon. Quite frankly when it came to giving advice, the little legends sucked.
.Having been given the name Snow White was the real curse. She was forced to live her life giving everyone the impression she is as pure as the driven snow when in fact murky slush is a better description. And worse than that she had to deal with Queen bitch on wheels. The mean queen gazes constantly into her mirror making duck faces and taking selfies when she notices a few new wrinkles one day. The celeb gossip paper, The Daily Mirror posts a story of how much younger and prettier Snow is so she hires a duck hunter to cut out Snows heart. The duck hunter realizes its rabbit season so he fakes her death brining back the heart of an alligator or something and the queen thinks she is back on top of the pretty polls. Discovering the hunters deceptive practice the queen has a fit, kills him then poisons Snow. Snow enters into a coma at the Dwarfs crib ( what happened during those days is an upcoming tell all written by Doc) and stays that way until a full grown dude, a prince or something slips her the tongue effectively waking her from the coma, and the perfect ending, they live happily ever after.
Snow tells a different story, one of bumbling and mistakes that could have been avoided had she not been under the care of the seven ineffective Dwarfs and she is finally ready to expose them not as helpful concerned garden gnomes, but the bumbling mini clods they really are. It’s a self help book designed to assist anyone in need avoid having themselves thrown headfirst into a coma awaiting a necrophiliac prince to come and kiss them. At one point or another each of the dwarfs has a golden opportunity to avoid the painful tribulation. Here’s a synopsis of her story.

Independence

Bashful’s unpopular advice . “Be reactive not proactive Snow, wait until something happens before you get ahead of yourself. Just always have the fan point away from you so when the shit really hits it won’t get all over you. You know the witch has done bad things to others but how can you know what she will do until it happens? Could be in a piece of fruit, could be a dart, or maybe she is just gonna roofie you at the bar. Worrying about it won’t get you anywhere, wait until she makes her move, then we can plan a counter attack. Besides, that way you won’t have to go out into any social situations where you need to meet knew people.”
Dopey’s dope advice. “Begin at the beginning not with the end in mind. Puff a bowl before you do anything so you won’t need a plan or to be organized. Don’t waste your time worrying about the end game, you may never even need it.Just get high and make sure theres lots of munchies around. Being proactive is like a belt made of watches, nothing but a waist of time.
Sleepy’s alarming advice. “No need to assign any priorities to anything. Best thing to do when your worried about stuff is to sleep on it, don’t do anything until you’ve had a good nights sleep and a couple of naps. Sleeping never hurt anyone, you don‘t lose when you snooze you get more when you snore! Just don’t forget to set your false alarm clock.”
Inter-dependence

Grumpy’s begrudging advice. “Who cares about a solution? Win-win? Balderdash, poppycock, bullshit! The only one who should win is me. But do I ever win? No! So the hell with everyone else, just look out for numero uno sister.

Sneezy’s nasal advice. This is my feeling, and its nothing to sneeze at Snow. When she tries to talk don‘t listen to what she has to say, drown out her words with a big sneeze. A few snot droplets does wonders in getting someone’s attention. Then you don’t have to hear them whine or anything. You don’t need to seek to understand, she has nothing to offer, unless she has like a box of tissues.

Happy’s stoner advice. Synergize my ass Snow. You need to like energize with a re bull and a blunt. You want people to work with you and get stuff done get them high and give them some Red Bulls, then they’ll like do whatever you want. They’ll even…..Oh man I forgot what I was saying. Anyway Snow everyone likes some good weed, to get, ah, to get, um, I forget again, but whatever, just light one up and you’ll have everyone on your side and like ready to help or something. Oh yea, and bring pizza man, everyone loves pizza.

Finally Doc gives his professional opinion. “ Let me fill you out a prescription. What do you want some pain killers? I’ll hook you up with some percocet, that should help. Sharpen the saw my dear, you never know when you may need to build stuff.

So you see Snow has quite a tale to tell, a story of what should have been a painless succes free of coma’s and necrophiliac orgies. Because of the habits of her ineffective Dwarfs she dealt with much peril and many hardships. Be sure to look for Snow’s follow up sequel called “Show Me The Monkey”. It promise to be full of salacious tales of the groups secret life in the forest. Also soon to be released is Doc’s new tell all. The Magnificent Seven ride again. High ho high ho its into bed they go. Big things come from men with small packages. …Peace

Sexual In Your Window

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sexendo

“Dad, what does sexual in your window mean?” Not a question I was prepared to answer my four year old because part of me wanted nothing to do with a conversation involving sexual innuendo with my daughter and the other part, that premature, I mean immature part of me wanted to make a joke about sex, stalking, and peeping Toms. But the question was asked and I had to attempt to explain it. Other questions followed as she grew up like the one that nearly caused me to drive off the road after she inquired what “Dad, what does eff you” mean? She even lifted her middle finger to extenuate the inquiry on our way to kindergarten. Or the time a few years later when she wanted to know why everyone was mad at President Clinton for doing oral sex with Lewis Insky. That one took some serious thinking because it was on the news hourly. Anyway, here’s how NOT to explain sexual innuendo to a child.

Sexual innuendo, double entendres or just sex puns. The more you play with it the bigger it gets so think long and hard before entering. Once you rise to the occasion you can go deeper and deeper into it. I try not to use sexual innuendos much because using them incorrectly can make you go down, and then its not easy to get it up again. Just about anything you pull out of your vocabulary can hint at one sexual practice or another. Something as normal as wood becomes a solid morning image and if its not standing tall its hard to beat. We use wood to erect structures and if a woman is looking for it you can give her the lumber and she’ll crack a smile. It can get downright indecent which is to say is if its long enough, hard enough, and deep enough, its in decent.
Maybe its because we have so many nicknames for our sex organs. Penis, dick, prick, cock, wiener, boner, and these are just some the ones that can be ‘slipped in’ a normal conversation. I grabbed the thorn bush and pricked myself. If I fold it over I will be half cocked. I like my wiener on nice soft buns and so do my buddy’s Dick Hertz and Hugh Jerkoff. On one hand you could have the member and in the other the shaft, its stiff competition between the two. Its easy to make a boner.
The vajay jay is no different. Vagina, pussy, snatch, twat, slit, box. The pussy cat slit the box with her claw to snatch the magic prize. The lady garden cream pie has been compared to a beaver, kitty, love pie, love tunnel, and a poon whatever the hell that is. The nether regions get explored with a cave dwelling love stick in search of a happy humping with an exciting climax. With so many slang terms for the various sex acts and the tools used to perform them its near impossible not to cum across an innuendo.
Basically I try not to give a bang to innuendos because on the hole they take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’ but they often slip out and you could get screwed in the end. I can’t put my finger on it but most of us have our minds in the gutter and like it there. A man and woman like to get something straight between them and they can do that by acting on whatever pops up.

Sex is in our face all the time sometime even sitting on it. We use sexual sport analogies, I got to second base then went in for the score. My bat was raised and her glove was open. Touchdown! In food, what she needs is a hot beef injection, maybe I should give her my sausage. I’m so hungry I could eat at the “Y”, maybe have a bearded clam or fur lined taco. Automotive, give her a lube job with my dipstick, that’ll grease my nuts. We are constantly pre-occupied with sex. Even the technical explanation of why we laugh at sex jokes is suggestive. What comes off our tongues is processed in our pre frontal cortex and the laugh cums in and out of the temporal lobe. We love getting it on and from what I hear men think about doing it every sex seconds while it takes a women sixty nine. No wonder everything we hear can relate back to sex.

A common vulgar sexual term is fuck. Popular misconception is it came from Fornication Under Consent of King, or Forced Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and while an entertaining bit of trivia the truth is it a derivative of some dudes name, John Fukker. But that doesn’t stop us from fucking an sucking our way into a multitude of sneaky ways to get it in a conversation. Getting laid, the old in and out, screwing, humping, banging, poking, shagging, or other acts like going down on, sucking off, polishing the helmet, giving head, eating out, jacking off, and on an on. There must be fifty ways to fuck your lover. We love double in tenders and in your endo’s.
So I will try to keep you abreast of innuendos and entendres without making you feel the boob. I usually put out on the first date because I’m loose. I prefer it tight but I’ll take it anyway I can get it. It will help me if you respond to my explorations because I do have a big ego but I prefer to not stroke my own. I like having it stroked for me. If you’re up for it we can enter a discussion but I suck at them and I get licked in debates. Then I end up with it all over my face. Hope I laid it out for you in a way will stand up in court……..Piece, I mean PEACE

Open Your Eyes

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alex

Fight Club, DC rules
Are you a republican or democrat? Oh Tea party? I get it, I get it, don’t take away your guns, get rid of gay people, and stop the handouts because everyone on welfare is lazy. Oh yea, I love the chastity belt, where’d you get it, Lord and Taylor? Oh I’m sorry, did you say its a faction of republican or republican’t? What’s that, an independent “no bullshit politics” believer. Love Jesse’s boa by the way, very stylish. Hopefully it will help him win the gay vote. So how long have you been a moderate? Staunch democrat? Cool, can I borrow a few bucks, I’m a little under employed at the moment.
WTF is up with all these political party fixations and all the fighting, don‘t politicians know the first rule of the fight club? Why does everyone who claims to belong to a political party feel a need to jump on every bandwagon the leader of their party feels will hurt the other party? I feel no obligation to any particular political party because not a one of them have all the answers. You can fool some of the people some of the time but if you lead a republican to gun control he won’t drink an drop of common sense. A democrat in the hand has the other hand in your wallet. There must be some sanity somewhere.
I registered as a liberal back in the 70’s in part because they embraced many of my beliefs and in part because I knew it would piss off my Dad. And it sure did, I endured constant lecturing about how dumb a move that was. That’s because my Dad was a staunch republican’t. He went so far as to vote for Barry Goldwater but that’s Goldwater under the bridge. The demo-cats out of the bag now, I belong to the Liberal party. But that’s in name only because as I understood it I needed to register as something in order to vote, and I wanted to vote. I believed my vote mattered, that it counted. I guess that was the liberal idealism in me.
If smaller government meant less politicos I would be for that in a second, but by smaller government they mean less federally mandated programs. I believe in everyone getting a fair shake, I was taught “share share that’s fair” which I in turn taught my children, and I believe we need to have some specific guidelines to live by. I don’t trust many people to play by fair rules because the game today isn’t the age old its not if you win or lose but how you play the game, its how badly can you defeat everyone else so you can take more than your fair share. As a rule if Trump is against something I’ll be for it, an if he’s for something I’ll be against it, because he represents what’s gone wrong with capitalism. Greed. How much is too much? No limit for the greedy, all they want is more. And then they want tax breaks on top of it. The ones who can afford it the easiest want what I refer to as corporate welfare, because its still a handout even if you don’t need it. Greed leads to corruption and maybe eventually anarchy.
Anarchy is good in theory, do whatever you want whenever you want but what if there were no traffic lights? Imagine how many accidents there would be? And how could anyone run a business if people could just walk in and take what they want. Unfortunately we are way beyond being able to successfully adapt the honor system as a society. The bottom line is we can’t trust each state to work together, as in the “United States” because too many states want unfair advantage and bigger government means they may have to share. Big government doesn’t mean more congress people, it means more rules and regulations to ensure all the states play nice.
So time maybe to abandon a total democrat or total republican view, maybe its time we as “the people” need to stop fighting with each other and begin compromising. The word wars between party enthusiasts is downright hateful, filled with untruths, out and out lies, and twisted views being hot out from news outlets. Maybe even subliminal. And its all the outlets, not far left lamestream media or right wing fair and unbalanced anger oriented made for TV news lies. Stop listening to hate driven opinions from television and research stories yourself. Because if we aren’t willing to listen to each other we have no right to blame congress, they get their strength from our blind faith, which should remain nothing more than an awesome rock band. ..Peace

Winter Warning

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ima

Squirrels play with their nuts all the time. Not because they can, but because they must. They need to hide their nuts in the winter to keep them warm, and who in their right mind wouldn’t prefer their nuts warm? I know I do. But its hard to keep your nuts warm in winter. When one walks through Manhattan in the winter you can smell nuts roasting out in the open, people sing about roasting nuts on a open fire, but squirrels know the best place for their nuts. Underground. They store their nuts away so they still have them when spring comes back.
On the way in to work this morning I noticed the hometown squirrels being overactive which can mean only one of two things. Either they found a supply of red bull which would explain their activity when crossing the road, running halfway out, changing their squirrel minds before heading back, only to change there minds again and continue heading across the street. Very indecisive. They scramble on the road like that all while tons of metal boxes on wheels come charging directly at them. That’s clearly a reaction from someone over-caffeinated. If they haven’t found a stash of energy drinks then they’re squirrel sense is tingling a warning that this winter is gonna be hella cold with massive snows. Squirrels are not optimists by nature, they generally see the oak tree as half full of nuts but if nothing else they are weather intuitive. So if you see them more active and busy than usual hiding their nuts underground its because they know something we don’t. They know some big snowstorms are coming our way. Squirrels can actually be heard laughing at us on ground hog day because we take the word of Punxsutawney Phil’s predictions about winter. Groundhogs have as much meteorological credibility as our local News agency’s weatherperson. But the squirrel knows and the ones in town are acting crazed so brace yourselves North East, we may be in for something long hard and cold. Protect your nuts..Peace

A Hunting I Won’t Go

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dead-jerry-rifle

Any Time The Hunter Gets Captured By The game

If I had to hunt for my food I would starve. My whole family would starve because the closest I ever came to capturing a meal was the time I dropped a can of Pringles and chased it down a hill. Perhaps it’s a morality thing, I mean its not like I’m a flatulent oozing vegetarian I love a good steak, but I don’t need to see it slaughtered. I’m still haunted by the one time I had to chose my own lobster only to have it sentenced to death and served to me with a plastic bib on. Why a lobster would wear a plastic bib is anybody’s guess, but back to the point. At the time I couldn’t help thinking what a shit I was for pointing out an innocent lobster to have it sent mercilessly to its death to satisfy my eating urges. One of those things that just kind of stays with you from childhood through older childhood.
Basically I’m saying I’m anti-hunting. I get that some people feel the need to sneak up on and slaughter animals because they have antlers but personally I don’t get it. I‘m not just being a tree hugging liberal about it, although I have hugged my share of tree‘s, but I walked the walked before talking this talk. That’s right, this peacenik hippie freak has walked the wild hills of Loch Sheldrake NY, up in the Catskill mountains, with a loaded rifle in his hand and lived to tell about it. I had mentally prepared myself to use it before leaving, but by the end of the weekend I was mentally prepared to use it on the drunken rifle toting deer killers. How does a long haired hippie freak in a bright colored ski sweater end up hunting wild animals you ask? A trade off.
I had forged a friendship with a dude my age at work named George. George was an avid hunter, going into the hills stealthily in camouflage during bow and arrow season only to return a week later with heat seeking shotgun shells for the opening of gun hunting season. He had been soliciting me for a week to come and join him as I stood my ground until one day he proposed an offer hard to refuse. “JT seriously dude, hunting is the best thing ever. There is nothing like it.” Now that I took as a challenge. Being a confirmed Deadhead I knew for a fact the actual quote is “There is nothing like a Grateful Dead Concert” and I let him know that in no uncertain terms. His response caught me off guard. “I tell you what, I’ll go to one of your Grateful Dead concerts if you come with me next week.” Hmmm, another challenge. I have brought four people already to their first Dead shows and have made for converts. If I go hunting next week it will force him to go to a show and he will also try weed for the first time. Irresistible offer. “Cool”
So it was set that next week I would travel up into the mountains with a loaded weapon in my hands and as a consolation prize turn a friend on to The Dead and get him stoned. For my part I went out and bought a few magazines, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, and Sports Afield to get myself familiar with all the latest on hunting protocols. What I learned only made me think I was making a huge mistake. But a deals a deal so I called George to find out what to bring. “Just make sure you dress in bright clothes, warm and in layers, and don’t wear that deer musk cologne you use.” Got it! “Okay, and its not cologne, its patchouli oil. But okay, I won’t bring it. I’ll be ready.” I went through my clothes noting a black leather jacket would not be appropriate and opted for a bright red yellow and blue ski sweater and of course layers. Off we went.
The plan was to drive up Friday night and stay at a motel in town, get up early an hit out into the forest is search of some helpless animals to brutally slay. Back in the seventies drinking responsibly meant wearing a seatbelt while guzzling so we drank a few beers on the way up. By the time we got to the motel the only thing we were sporting was a slight buzz. But the bar at the motel took care of that. It was like some kind of frat party or something, a ton and a half of guys getting drunk and doing shots. Pool table, jukebox, all the comforts of a local dive bar. Guys kept coming over to buy George a drink, and when he introduced me bought one for me as well. I’m not a carpenter but I got hammered that night. 2AM and I still had 2 coasters in front of me so we did two shots of Jack Daniels and called it a night. Tomorrow is the big day, the first day of hunting season and I can only assume the only advantage the deer will have is all of us having killer hangovers.
When I finally shook off all the fog from last nights alcohol I realized that all the guys I was watching head out into the woods were the same guys that were so smashed last night. And every last one of them had a bright orange vest, bright orange skullcap, and at least three quarter of them had orange pants as well. Either this was a prison break or hunters wear a lot of orange. All except me of course, who was in the height of winter style with my fleece lined red Nordic ski hat and my bright multi color stylish ski sweater looking like Jean-Claude Killy leaving the slopes of the alps to join a group of murderous hungover Orangemen into the Catskills. That was when the paranoia began to settle in, and I had gone from fierce hunter to frightened sheep following the crowd in two seconds. George sensed my apprehension and led me to a spot halfway down a mountain, “You stay here JT and if you see a deer shoot it. I’ll be around seeing if I can spook one out” He left and I was alone wondering what I will do once I really do see a deer. I kept thinking about Bambi and I decided I better not look the animal in the eye or there I no way I’ll shoot. The opportunity never came up, although I did see a cute bear cub off in the distance, and I watched a group of beavers working in the stream. Dam they were good!
George came back and collected me for lunch. We went back to the bar at the motel to get some chili con carne and when we walked in half the crew from last night were there and drinking already. The paranoia quickly returned as I listened to them talk about a kill, a shot, or something called a “sound shot” George came over with the chili, “You okay JT?” “Yeah I’m okay, little cold and I wish I had something orange to wear. By the way George, that dude over there was talking about ‘nuthin but a sound shot‘. What’s a sound shot?” George looked a tad concerned, “When you don’t actually see the animal but you hear it making a sound.” I was floored. Holy shit, what if I was sounding like a deer? I ate my chili in silence but all I could think about was these drunken fools taking sound shots after lunch.
The rest of the trip was uneventful and I basically hid in the woods trying not to sound like a deer. Along with the other hunters we got drunk at night and they kept talking about how they will “sacrifice the animal” if they have a decent shot. Luckily the weather took a bad turn and it was snowing too hard to hunt effectively. George got off one shot but missed but I never even raised the rifle to my shoulder once. I was okay with that. I said I would try hunting, knew it was not for me but found out I was understating how wrong much it wasn‘t for me. To this day I have never killed another animal, and I never plan to kill one. I eat meat, I’ll even eat venison, although I think its bullshit they call them deer when they kill (or sacrifice) it but venison when they eat it, but I guess it eases their conscience after slaughtering an unarmed animal. I did take George to a Grateful Dead concert and got him stoned, and he had a great time but didn’t convert. He was and always will be a “Rolling Stones Guy” but as long as he digs it that’s cool. He did smoke weed with me a lot more after that so I did make a bit of progress. I lost touch with George, as is usually does life got in the way and we both moved on and I’m sure he still hunts and that’s okay, because I still indulge in my passions as well. I used to wonder what I would have done if I was face with the opportunity to shoot an animal, would I have taken the shot. But as time has passed I have come to realize there is no way I would have pulled the trigger. I’m proud of that fact but in the end if I couldn’t buy food I’d be dead and wouldn’t be here to write these twisted stories. It is what it is…..PEACE

Tale Of The Tapes (Fly on the wall tells all)

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fly-on-the-wall-print

I…Sticky Lips Sink Ships

I swear sometimes its like they don’t even know I exist. Well that’s fine with me because my Dad always told me its better to keep your mandibles shut and be considered a fool than to make some buzzing noise and remove all doubt. Besides, with those new fangled fly swatters and bug zappers my species has been taking a huge hit in the census reports. I prefer to just sit on the wall and quietly listen to these humans ramble on about all their petty nonsense. Interesting surroundings here I must say, much too clean for this flies taste with not even a crumb or juice spill for me nibble on, but I am in The White House and this is The Oval Office so its only a matter of time until I come across a big pile of bullshit.
I’m not exactly sure how I ended up being a fly on the wall in the Oval Office but the last thing I do remember was sleeping at a bar in a hotel nice and warm all snug in the hidden hairs region of a women that picked me up in a bar. Destiny was her name and my destiny was to find a comfy place to sleep in her warm vulvic pubic bed. I had just flown in from Boston and boy were my wings tired! Destiny had been drinking when some dude started hitting on her. “What’s a beautiful woman like you doing alone in a bar like this?” Phhhhtt. Real original! I started dozing off because I had a feeling this clown wasn’t getting anywhere with my soft hair snuggle mattress . He said his name was George and he claimed he was a powerful man in DC. Oh yea, and a Scorpio. I fell asleep when he started asking Destiny what her sign was assuming Georgie boy wasn’t getting any honey tonight, at least not from Destiny. I got the feeling the asshole was married and Destiny would no doubt pick up on that too so I felt safe and sound curled up in her warm curlies. But great God Brundle-fly was I ever wrong. I never woke up from any of the tussling and troddling but damn if when I finally did wake up if I didn’t find myself here in the Oval Office stuck not in destiny’s coochie cot but in a thick and sticky mustache belonging to George, who it turns out is better known in Washington circles as G. Gordon Liddy.
G. Gordon was a real son of a bitch, even by fly standards. Let me just say that I had no trouble throwing up on his smelly-ass liprug to dissolve some of Destiny’s leftover love juice for my breakfast. He makes puking easy. Apparently he was some kind of bigwig in the FBI and has been screwing people over for a living for some time. He was a personal friend of the other asshole in the office, Richard Nixon. Well listen to my tale as I play the taped conversation and you’ll get what I mean.
“George, did you read what those Godless bastards at the Times wrote about me last night?” George started rubbing his lip which is what caused me to relocate to the west wall. “Dick, I’m telling you, some sonava bitch is leaking stories to those damn reporters and they want to print whatever they can to discredit The Whitehouse. What you need is an experienced, um, plumber, a plumber like me to find the leaks and eliminate them.” Nixon was clearly angry and interested, “Your right George, those pricks are out to destroy me, to take me down. Every chance they get The post, The Times, those pricks Severid and Reasoner, they’re all trying to screw Richard Nixon. Let me tell you George Richard Nixon will not be taken down by some liberal atheist commie shithead. What’d you have in mind?” George shuffled a little as Richard stared out the window. “Look, I have a source who tells me the Pentagon Papers were released by someone working for General McNamara. I have a name. The sonova bitch copied classified files and now wants to leak them for his own agenda. There’s something I want to try. This asshole goes to a psychiatrist and I’m going to liberate the files of this ratfink bastard from the shrinks office for proof. Then we’ll nail his communist ass to the fucking wall! No one will believe a word he says. Listen, I know a few guys from the organization I can still trust, and with me as their chief I’ll find him and any other scumbag commie leaker and get rid of them all. You’ll never be implicated in anything, It’ll be my operation and I’ll run it. Of course I’ll keep you informed but this will give you plausible deniability.” Nixon smiled, “Plausible deniability? I love it George, okay lets go with that. You head up my group, the Whitehouse plumbers.” George was one of those control freaks who need to assert his dominance and replied, “Operation Odessa Mr. President, in here we can be called the plumbers but officially we’re Odessa, part of the Committee To Reelect the President. I’m gonna get my guys together and I’ll report to you in two days. I already have my lead and he’ll be the first sonava bitch to go.” Nixon shook Georges hand and said, “No names George, not yet. These prick liberals are trying to ruin me, ya know? They want to bring own America, become commies and make it normal for our kids to be homos. I don’t think they even believe in God. You bring me some results and I’ll make sure you get rewarded.” George shook Dicks hand, “My reward will be serving you Mr. President, just leave things to me. I have the way to deal with the unpatriotic hippies. I’ll get rid of all your problems Dick.” George left and Dick opened a drawer of his desk picked up a microphone and softly spoke, “G. Gordon Liddy and President Richard Milhous Nixon, June 18th 1971.” and closed the drawer. Hmmm, odd these humans, they seem to secretly tape record conversations. I wonder why?
To Be Continued

How To Start A Universe

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COSMO AND THE GARDEN EARTH
(A guide to cosmic gardening)

PART 1. NOT JUST DUST IN THE WIND

Where should I begin? In the beginning God created the heaven and earth? I think that one is taken but why are we here? Some say in the beginning there was a vast empty space, a nothing vacuum in nowhere until a bunch of atoms spontaneously appeared and took to flying around everywhere (or nowhere depending on your view) when suddenly two overly aggressive atoms collided causing a huge explosion. Spontaneous combustion. The Big Bang! Yea, right! First nothing and nowhere then all of a sudden a Universe so huge it has no end. Wait, hold on, even better, first there was nothing and then the one and only god created shit to keep him from being bored. Spent six days building it then chilled for a few million years. A massive universe with one teeny weenie little speck where he created the supreme lifeforce, human beings that looked just like him, to rule over everything. First nothing then one man, one women, an apple and a snake. Now that’s even funnier! As a matter of fact both of these stories are a source of great humor and hilarity and the butt of many jokes at The Board of Co-operative Gods and Goddesses out in District seven. At any decent cosmic cocktail party you’ll hear no less than a hundred jokes about various theories of how life came to be in any of the life gardens but the Earth stories are by far the most numerous. The “monkey trials” keep gods and goddesses laughing for hours on end at inter-galactic get togethers. There’s not a god worth his sodium chloride that hasn’t heard of Darwin, Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, Elijah. Or the Talmud, Koran, The Bible or even The Upanishads. Stories of a pure evil horned devil with blood dripping from its hands and fear bolts being shot from its eyes keep them rolling in the anti-matter with tears of laughter. Satan, Lucifer, Serpent of Evil, Beelzebub, so many knee slapping names for the antichrist. Oh yes, the earthlings grown by Cosmo are a source of great amusement to all the gods. All the gods? Am I saying there really are many gods? Does a pope defecate in the woods? Is a Polar Bear catholic? Can white bears jump? Of course there are many gods, and many galaxies supporting forms of life. Did you really think you were the only living beings in the entire universe? Jeez, and I thought Wookies were dumb. Well sit back you Vader naysayer and let me tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Well maybe a fabrication or two along the way because YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
In the beginning, Once upon a time, at the outset, none of these phrases apply because life is a cycle with no beginning and no end. There has just always been many gods and goddesses with varying responsibilities. Gods an goddesses perform certain tasks or serve a particular purpose. Some create wind and motion to make global gardens spin, some enforce the law of gravity, some create laws of physics to apply differently in different area‘s, and the brightest gods ponder deeply the laws of the universe and how they should be applied. These are the most intelligent gods and goddesses and they held court to make decisions about everything. It is still known today as The Board of Co-operative Gods and Goddesses. (BOCGG) They made the decisions that effected the farmer gods who were expected to grow and experiment with the various galaxies across the universe. Each galaxy was tended to by its own god. There was great and clever Simon in the Tolkien Galaxy, Mychrighton in the Andromeda Strain Galaxy, The red haired beauty Lucille who watched over the Bobaloo Galaxy, Luke-ass who presided over The infamous Jedi Galaxy that was far far away, and so on. Here in our Milky Way galaxy, the farmer was and is the god Cosmo. Such a good farmer is Cosmo that they named the entirety of space after him. The vast space of the universe came to be known as “The Cosmos”. Travel was known as Cosmic travel, knowledge as cosmic knowledge and any left out odds and ends in space became known as Cosmic debris. Hey there brother, I’m not jiving you bout that Cosmic debris! Cosmo is indeed an accomplished cosmic gardener, in fact he is somewhat of a legend among the other gods. In Solar system 728KJ he had cultivated nine grooving spinning garden orbs he called planets. From the tiny and excruciatingly hot mercury, to the equally tiny but totally frozen Neptune he tended to all nine magnificently. Like the giant Jupiter (which for some reason had red eye in all the family photo’s) with an assortment of moons, and the ill advised named Uranus (No need to tell you the jokes at The District with this one) . He put some cool looking bangle bracelets around the lovely and mysterious Saturn, and named two of the planets after his own Mom and Dad. The entire universe was touched at the naming of Venus and Mars. Yes Cosmo had really taken pride in that particular solar system. But his pride and joy and claim to fame is most assuredly for his work done on one particular planet, known throughout cosmos as garden earth. Garden earth is a rather insignificant looking planet in solar system 728KJ. It is the third planet from Sun 728, and has the benefit of the perfect amount of sunshine. Earth also has a considerable amount of water on it which is the other essential ingredient in growing things. Sun and Water in abundance makes for a smashing garden. Cosmo wants to make planet earth, in solar system 728KJ the most prolific and successful garden in all the universe. With a vast ocean to create clouds which would in turn drop water back into the garden a system of synergetic energy is created. Cosmic irrigation! Garden earth is a thriving ever-growing populace world. A wide variety of vegetation and many roaming creatures inhabit the garden.
But what you see on garden earth today is not how it was at the beginning so put on your seat belt as we travel back in time to see how this all came to be The Planet Earth. Catastrophic is the best way to describe his first attempt. Maybe he wasn’t mature enough or maybe like a fool he just rushed in but either way it’s a story that is told and retold as far away as Gabor40904 which is about eight billion gazillion gamma light years away. To you that would be a mere two point five septillion miles give or take. At any rate here is what happened in Cosmo’s first attempt.

Out Of The Blue And Into The Black, Corporate Greed Rears Its Ugly Head

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Corporations are people, my friend. It was good for a laugh, a talking point that assisted in the self destruction of a campaign but was Romney really wrong. Maybe not. In a somewhat esoteric sense today Corporations have evolved much the same as animals and people. Maybe Romney had something, perhaps corporations do possess life. Matter of fact its my belief that corporations are the new black. Black plague that is, and it has become a growing entity. In CDC terms corporate greed would be classified as an emerging parasitic pathogen, an organism that can only thrive existing off a host, and that host is us. A pathogen is defined as a living organism that can cause disease and there is little doubt that the current financial state of America has become infected with disease caused by greed but what is in dispute is if big business is truly a living entity.
While they may not be living and breathing like humans or animals they have evolved much the same way as bacterial life forms. Business didn’t start out as a living entity, in fact to the best of my knowledge it’s the only non biological entity to undergo such a fascinating evolution, but make no mistake corporations are alive and they are dangerous. They will continue to grow and feed off of consumers while devouring smaller businesses until they rule the world, using a handful of corporate executives to carry out the genocide of humanity.
I can dig it, that sounded like the delusions of a hippie freak who did one too many tabs, or lost his way and joined a conspiracy theory cult, or maybe is still doing drugs and talking through his paranoid freaked out ass. But I’m not talking about some amoeba growing in a lab or some Steve McQueen Blob sort of entity but ya gotta admit corporations are becoming huge and eating up everything in sight. Giant Depots have all but annihilated the local hardware stores, small drug stores struggle to compete with huge corporations for their little slice of the business market pie. Even supermarkets have small pharmacies. And those food grocers better watch out before they fall victims to a bulls eye or a mart of Walls that’s attempting to make our lives a one stop shop extravaganza. Pick up whatever home improvements you need, clothes for the kids, your entertainment needs and even your weekly groceries in one living breathing pathogen. You can even grab some fresh made pizza on the way out.
Mom and Pop stores are disintegrating, even small restaurants are prey to companies that are so focused on profits they never even notice those they destroy in the process. Its not enough to have a successful business anymore, if a small company makes a unique product the big companies will have a cheaper version of it hours after they hear about it. There are over forty people who have more than one billion dollars that didn’t even make Forbes top 400 richest! So if companies profits are stretching into the billions where the hell is all the money going? You’ll never know because the way many people get rich is by finding ways to hide the rich peoples wealth and avoid paying taxes. They scream about giving handouts to the poor and want welfare recipients to take drug and alcohol tests. Maybe not such a bad idea, if the rich are also forced to take blood tests to get tax breaks. Why should they get the benefit of not paying tax dollars if they end up blowing it on designer drugs or over priced premium alcohol?
The gap between rich and poor has become way too wide because greed has gone corporate. Profits over people and if the laws prevent them from making more money then they’ll be able to spend in three lifetimes they can just buy the laws, the lawmakers, and the law enforcers. But sooner or later that system will implode leaving only rich who can afford their products and that’s when corporations will rise from Wall Street and humans will become the next dinosaurs. Destroyed by an asteroid of capitalism driven by executives that lost their way and chose power over life. IDK, maybe I did one too many joints watching the Twilight Zone but I’m afraid the new book called “How Your Business Can Best Serve Man” is really a cookbook!

Punny You Should Say That (An Owed To Joy)

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I heard someone say that puns are the slowest form of humor yet it takes a remarkably quick wit. Actually I think I may have heard slowest wrong but after being stalked by corny jokes for so long my ears hear colonel when its really kernel. I get it, they really said it’s the lowest form of humor but I’m still in limbo as to how low to set that bar. At any rate, puns are a play on words that can make a kid kid another kid or make a grown man groan so I want to pay my respect. I normally write in my boxers but I’ll try to keep this in brief.
When I was all of six years old I discovered the power of a pun. We had a gas station named Citgo and one day in the car, with Dad driving, Mom in the front, my little sister between them in babyseat and me squished in between my four older brothers and I made a bold statement. I said “Hmmm, Citgo, where you can sit and go.” Meaning getting gas I raised my arms to pantomime driving. Apparently my driving imitation looked more like someone moving their bowels and the family roared with laughter. That’s when I realized I could use English language to get noticed by pretending to have irritable vowel syndrome if I really pumped up the the puns I could keep them giggling consonantly. I had discovered the lowest form of humor and it lifted me up.
If puns are low its because they are the foundation of clever of humor. They’re black and white and read all over, they’re the reason the chicken crossed the road having its intentions come into question, It’s why it takes three pole dancers to erect a light bulb, and the basis of the omnipresent schoolyard knock knock jokes. All great comedians are pun practioners and are adept at sailing double entendres at triple warped mind speed leaving us land lubbers rolling in the Isles. Whether it’s a three act play on words, a homophone, which as it turns out is not a gay cellular device, or just a simple unmarried Miss direction puns take sharp and fast tongues to verbalize a stream of consciousness quick as a lick. Many punsters, myself included become almost obsessed, trying to twist everything they hear. Someone introduces me to Isabelle and I hear is a bell and feel combelled to chime in with a ringing endorsement about jingle jangling word association. A Pavlonian response that has me salivating at the a peal of making someone smile. If there is a low form of puns it cums from the perverse endless sexual innuendo punster. Those who chuckle and plan at the mention of such easy target words like woody, erect, hole, or the mention of Master Bates. It’s a favorite of that uncle who continues to play pull my finger well past its age appropriateness. For me sexual in your endo jokes are just too easy, like your mom was last night. But it will always have a place in punditry because like splinter religions, sects sells. A truly great pun takes an extraordinary amount of cleverness and thought using one ability to instantly see verbal connections where others see mere words and plugging the pun in before it sinks in. Great puns are like hand grenades because you pull the pin and wait for it to blow up. That’s why I pay homage. That and the fact that I still owe Homage a lot of money. I’m a self proclaimed lover of all things punny. Puns are a part of everyone’s daily life these days and no news story is complete without slinging some puntastic zingers.. Here’s a somewhat exaggerated example:
This just in from Know News is Good noose:
FRUIT LOOPY
A cereal killer is believed on the loose in General Mills campgrounds and campers experiencing in tents fear. Police canvassing their tented community in search of the frosted wheat whacker who is making the campers snap, crackle, and pop. They believe the perp is Cuckoo for Cocoa puffs so The Cap’n is putting the crunch on by running background Chex on all adults using hare brained tricks because every bunny knows that Trix are for kids….

But news stations really do use puns to make their point as in headlines such as “Chickens Cry Fowl” or “Locksmith Plays Key Roll In Bakery Break In.” Another area often engaging in punnery is just about every TV show and movie ever made. The best bantering between actors are scripted with artistic puns. It takes an artist to draw laughs from sketches. Without puns the artist draws a blank but looking around in a room packed with punsters the artist can draw a crowd. So much for a low form, it takes a highly evolved mind to come up with such clever comedy. Dimwitted humor pales in comparison. Slap stick falls flat, bathroom humor smells, and I suck at self deprecation. Sarcasm can be a little bitter, but not much better.

Today puns are significantly more evolved than the early days. I grew up with lines like “Take my wife. Please!” or “I just flew in from Baltimore and boy are my arms tired.” Today it takes much deeper thought because once jokes are use they become less funny. Ten years ago we had Bob Hope, Johnny Cash, Eddie Money, and Steve Jobs, and today all we have this worn out and tired old joke format. Take my wife is now I married Miss right, but I didn’t know at the time her first name was always, and flying in from Baltimore gets morphed to I can’t leave because I was on the third floor of the airport with someone else’s stuff and came down with something. There are a lot of people in the airport so I hope its not terminal or the only thing flying out of here will be rumors. Anyway, IMHO, like rock and roll the puns colors are true so punnery will never dye.
Thanks for taking the time to read this pun praising piece. This thoroughly enjoyable (for me) excursion was inspired by a high school English teacher of mine whom I have had the fortune of reconnecting with on social media. Professor Jim Zeitler shares my profound love of the English Language and our abilities to twist, invert, dissect, misdirect, turn inside out or upside down the words that make up our language to make others smile, laugh, or most important, to think. Jim sent me a book by John Pollack called “The Pun Also Rises” which delves into the history of puns and its impressive how deep and rich the history of witty wordplay is and how long it has been an art form. I dedicate this post to him because while my high school daze are way behind me his dedication to instructing and constructing minds is still going strong and I assume he will forever teach many of us new things. He has once again taught me things dispelling the age old cliché “You can’t teach and old dog new tricks.” And trust me, this old hound dog learned things he can sink his canines in and I’m not peeling the bark off the wrong tree. Okay no more, I’ll stop, I’m bushed anyway! Thank you Jim Zeitler, your wit an wisdom continues to reach out and inspire minds both young and old. … PEACE