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The Tyrannical Rule of Three Callbacks

February 23, 2021 0 Podcast Writing
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Last Call for the Three Comedians

The melancholic comedian considered the puzzle of existence. 

The listener doesn’t know. The ins and outs.

He considered the audience, melancholic, dour, hard to please. Their lack of humor saddened him and effected his presence, a poor reflection upon them. He sought out the advice of his compatriots. 

His bombardier insisted the answer was to hurl more bombs, from unexpected directions, the unpredictability measured to alter the viewpoint of the audience. In this she was adamant. It was the only way. Confrontational mendacity. Factionalize the audience. Make them fight themselves before you. Because the listeners don’t know. 

What’s good for them. 

She had written a book on this subject, of interest to those who rebel. Naturally it bombed in the marketplace. She claimed it had been defused by being watered down by said marketplace; because a product of a marketplace can never overturn 

the market 

in which it, itself, is a product which arose from those market forces. But people don’t usually find talk like that funny. 

That’s the problem, said the bombedier. The body counts.

The upbeat comedian commented that the way was to be as middling as possible, to pander to the most genteel sensibilities,  feed the crowd hamburger to warm their hearts, to make the audience feel 

comfortable 

and part of the majority. To fit in, together. Because the average listener doesn’t know. 

What they are missing. 

That is why they are so easily satisfied. The other comedians called him a dirty hack, which, of course, he was. But those people who called him that were themselves guilty of being controversial. And it’s a strange hill to take a stand on because controversies shift underneath you. And you might slip and fall. And people would laugh.

***

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Martin Van Buren and the unwanted package

February 16, 2021 0 Podcast Writing
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A charming castPod with a special appearance by Good ol’ Charlie Brown.

I was at home and I was not thinking about either Martin Van Buren or the kangaroo. I had real world problems on my mind.

The kangaroo was famous, for, among other things, having carved a phallic replica he called “Mr. Pokey.” He carved it from hardwood. Really bang up job. Intricate. You could see the veins. It stood at about 8 1/2 inches, which was awkward if you were trying to conceal it. He told everybody it was 8 1/2 inches, but it was really 7 5/8. Everybody knew. Man is the measurer of all things. And every one of them, when no one was looking, had measured the thing. Some of them, the ones who were not good at math, consulted each other’s notes. That went just about as well as could be expected.

Because of the whole issue about concealment, he eventually whittled it down to 3 1/4. It was never the same.

But he made the bowl that held the weed, which was snuggled, nestled, really, between the cock and the balls, Bigger.

And he tried to toke the disappointment away.

He was not as popular after he carved the thing down. Who is to say what happened. Let history decide.

As I said, I was not thinking about him. But when he hopped on over to my place, or rather was delivered by another, secure, as if in their pouch, I ended up calling Martin Van Buren. For help.

“Hey Martin, how’s it hanging?” And there was some small talk. Not about Mr. Pokey. And then I said, “Hey Martin I got the kangaroo over here.”

But that’s not really how it happened. I mean that happened. But it happened an hour or so later. After I had failed to dislodge the kangaroo from my own pouch.

So when Martin said, “Fuck the kangaroo,” I had to change my tactic. He was not the first person to say Fuck the kangaroo. That day. And I just wanted him to bounce.

The kangaroo came with a military issued shit-bag, so named because it contained all his shit. Notably Mr. Pokey. Nobody wanted to see that little thing. The kangaroo is running on empty.

First thing he did was ask me to take him to a garden party. Said they could put him up there. So I put him in my car with his government issued shit-bag. And we took off.

But when we got there, people ran into the house. A woman came out. Holding a baby. To prove she meant business. And she looked at me and she nodded and said hello, saying just that, hello and my name. Because she was polite. Then she looked at the kangaroo and said, “You got a lot of nerve coming around here MotherFucker.”

And that’s how I learned the back story. Seems there had been a party the night previous and the kangaroo had been present, and drunk. He was also feeding drinks to good ol’ Charlie Brown. After he and good ol’ Charlie Brown got real drunk, wasted, they had a fight over this and that. And the kangaroo, who was an amateur boxer, had gone off and slugged good ol’ Charlie Brown.

I pieced this back story together, by listening to the things the woman with the baby was saying. First she came out of the house and she was not angry at me. Rather she was angry at the kangaroo. Everybody today was angry at the kangaroo. And if they weren’t angry at the kangaroo, they would be. Because the kangaroo had gotten his kicks and now the play was turnabout. And she came out and called him a MotherFucker who shouldn’t be showing his face around here again and how dare he. And she waved the baby at him like some sort of a voodoo ritual. That you conduct when you’re confronted with a MotherFucker of his type. And she turned around to walk away, with the baby, when she turned back and said “MotherFucker, you hit good ol’ Charlie Brown. In the face.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. I took it as fact. Pegged her as an eyewitness. Her name was Peg, by the way. I tell you this, though you will literally never see her again in this story. But I am not a MotherFucker. 

 I was cleared once in a tribunal.

By the way, good ol’ Charlie Brown was, in the parlance of the day, special. That’s why people were so angry.

So that’s how we ended up, bounced back at my place, me and the kangaroo, who had little in common.

So I called Martin Van Buren.

For help.

To dump something on someone else’s doorstep. But then we would have a fabulous time.

“Oh,” said Martin Van Buren. “Like the good time we had last week when we visited four fast food restaurants in a row, last one being a corporate burger joint where we had just each finished our fourth meal of the afternoon when you left to use the restroom. And the manager of the place, because it had just opened up, was talking to me about employment opportunities. When you came out and said we had to leave.”

“We had to leave,” I said.

“Because you puked in the bathroom,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “All over the floor.”

“You MotherFucker,” he said. “I could have gotten that job.”

“You didn’t want that job,” I said.

And he knew it was true. Especially then. Because he was going to have the nickname “puke boy” and everything he did wrong the manager was going to say he was raised in a vomitorium. 

And so we all headed for the big city.

We drove for 63 miles in silence.

And when we got to the city, I hate to break this to you, nobody there wanted the kangaroo. And the kangaroo started pestering us, right off, to bring him back home. But I think you see where this is going. The kangaroo had no home. Because the kangaroo was welcome nowhere. We considered ditching him there. But instead we drove back in silence for 63 miles.

And I don’t remember how we got rid of the kangaroo. But at some point he bounced.

Meanwhile Martin Van Buren became the president of these United States. But you know that story. That MotherFucker.

“Winner Winner!” & “Amazing Grace” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

“Someone Else’s Memories” & “Scattered Knowledge” from the album “The Politics of Desire” by Revolution Void licensed under Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0.

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Snack Pack

January 31, 2021 Writing

The convergence of porn in programming is right on the cusp. Right on the edge. Leaving people just… Wanting. For instance I was watching, turns out, a commercial for a cooking show. And I kept waiting for the announcer to remove their shirt. Then I realized it was a cooking promo. Then the announcer removed the shirt.

Soft Tacocat
Soft Tacocat

Better gaslighting on hold

January 21, 2021 Writing

Do you think we have it bad now? Do you understand that rooms used to be commonly gaslit? Rooms. Rooms. After dark your sitting room didn’t know whether it was coming or going.
Now that no one has a sitting room anymore every room is standing room only.
Whither the vestibule?

The economy is so diverse it includes the little piggy who goes to market AND the little piggy who has none, who is there to make the piggies in the middle “f-uncomfortable.”
The little piggy who goes to market blames it all on government pork, of course.
The swine.
The radical little piggy front has been infiltrated by the pigs.

Jimmy Dean is people.

Man is only the measure of all things because people developed a measuring system. But there are competing systems, and they are incompatible.

Bildungsroman re-piped

January 14, 2021 My books Writing

“It is my sad duty to inform you that the …president… was shot twenty-five minutes ago and has been transported to the hospital.” The children in Frank’s class cheered. It was not an uncommon occurrence. It happened in other classes. The teacher’s face fell. He scowled at the children and started angrily berating them. “That is the president of these United States!” he said.

person holding a sign
Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

The lack of unity amongst the children for these United States flustered him. It was unacceptable. Would not be given toleration. When you lose the youth, your society declines. Freedom to choose is the promise of these United States. That was sacred. Could not be deviated from. Not an inch. The flag. Worth defending. The children quieted down, but a certain giddiness remained through-out the day.


The president was not popular in the eighth grade circle. And the breaking up of the monotony of the everyday was not without its part in the festive, circus-like atmosphere. At least the class clowns were respectful; silent, all in the same car. But there were sporadic lectures resulting throughout the day. As a corrective, drained of all meaning. A dark ritual.

Lunch.


But there was one class, and what I tell you now has passed into legend, where, after a stern lecture from the teacher began, a single student, unnamed, but it was a female student, said, “How do you know the cheering was for the shooting of the president and not his transport to a regional hospital?”

burning pink candle against gray background
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

And the teacher was struck dumb for answers.
And the girl broke the silence again, “Frankly I’m offended you didn’t ask. The judgmental attitude you hold toward innocent youths is disturbing. I should report you.” And with that she physically moved her desk around to face away from him. A rejection of status. Emboldened, the other students did the same. Anarchy! Rules turned on heads. Silence reigned until the bell.

Rang.

There was a bathroom in the lower hall where there were no stalls. People didn’t linger. There was no stalling.

Three toilets in a row with no walls. Communal commodes. It is crazy how close the toilets seem without stalls. An illusion. Once Frank sat there with another boy and he didn’t remember who spoke first. They spent an afternoon there, because who wanted to go back to class. But he didn’t catch the other truant’s name, and even if he had seen him in the hall later they would not have made eye contact. Sometimes people drift apart, even when they bonded quite closely initially. Because circumstances change.


And there was also no mirror in that bathroom, being that there was no time for self reflection. Where there had been a place for a mirror, on the far wall, there was a framed piece of plywood. Like it was meant to be a mirror but was going against the grain. On this flat surface people scribbled messages like throwing a bottle into a polluted sea. “I live near campus and I have a waterbed.” (One is identified by what one owns.) “For a good time call #######” but the numbers were cross hatched out. (Mysteries are enticing to the inquisitive mind.)


Sometimes people squinted at the dull polished metal of the paper towel dispenser to see how they looked. A clown funhouse reflection on demand. You don’t need to know what people’s hair looks like. Einstein hardly used his comb. Maybe he never found one to his liking.