Dear Joseph Merrick...

Human beings are animals, you idiot.

Not Lyrics From A Song By Morrissey, But Probably Should Be

And I never want to see you again-

Until the next time I see you again.

A Tribute To The Lord God King of Most If Not All Lord God Kings

 

Richie don't care about emphysema or cancer.  His secondhand smoke is first class cool.  Want your pants to be as fancy as the righteous buccaneer you see above you?  Don't waste your time, plebeian.  Chesterfield has a new king -- and his name isn't yours.

  

Billy Joe Shaver or Josh Billings may have written:  

"I ain't never seen no man swing a redwood tree -  

Just smilin' from ear to ear- hope he got no beef with me.

I got no worry of mosquitos or pterodactyls or asteroids you see-

Now that I've seen Dick Allen swing a redwood tree."

Remember this day:  for it shall be forever known as the day the public rises up and and demands that stirrups will have a new name:  "Allens."  Bellow to your congress and write to the courts.  Edit the Wikipedia and petition Webster's.  Ladies, hoist up your "Allens" and wear them with a smart pants-suit.  Gentlemen, a finer combination of cummerbund and "Allens" has and will never be known.  Your left leg is "pride!" and your right leg is "glory!"  Take them into battle and vanquish your foe.  In unison we'll cry, "For Richie!"

I don't care for Gatorade and have never wanted to be like Mike.  

But I do have a little devil in me and that's why I say, "I want to be like Dick."

Godspeed to the forever and beyond.

   

The First Joke Ever, Probably (And The Only Inoffensive Joke Currently In Existence)

Hey, Pangaea- get your act together!

Inappropriate Thought Upon Viewing The Forty Meter Dash During The Special Olympics

Bring retarded is no excuse for being slow.

Not A Movie About A Heroic German With A Speech Impediment

Schindler's Lisp

Reasonable Response to the Last Thirty Seconds of Every Police Song Ever Recorded

Yeah, Sting, we fucking get it.

She Brought Me a Murder

Hardboiled Stanton Pierre:  Go To Hell, Bastards!

Prologue

The sun was out.  I'd been driving for hours now.  I was tired.  I was not hungover.  I was mad.  This shitty Chrysler Cordoba isn't the luxury automobile they made it out to be.  Next time I'll buy some Jap car.  There's gotta be something redeeming about a car made by a nation of people that you tried to exterminate off the face of the planet with hell, fire, and hell-fire.

The road was a barren wasteland cutting through endless acres of barren wasteland.  There wasn't anything to see; if there were, it sure as hell wouldn't be that much to see.

The last town I was in probably had more cow shit than brains in it.  But I got myself a soft-serve and went upon my merry way.  Those cud-chewing morons hadn't the slightest clue.  So I said:

"Those cud-chewing morons didn't have the slightest clue.  Jesus, that town probably had more cow shit than brains in it."

I didn't hear a response.

"Hey," I said turning around, "you still tied up back there?"

Yeah, she was.

 Just like old times.

 PART I

I woke up to a Gene Krupa bass-kick of thunder.  Nearly shit myself in the process.  Actually, I think I did soil my undies when my office went nova from the lightning.  I've had the shades drawn for a few weeks now:  haven't seen natural light in quite sometime, which is why the storm scared me back to the days when I'd hide under my bed and then realize that was an awful place to hide from a thunderstorm because there were monsters under there with me.  So I'd dart out and make a break for the closet.  Well, shit- there are ghouls and goblins in there too.  I couldn't go to the old man's room because he was half passed out on the booze and he would think me a monster if I hopped into bed with him and then he'd knock me over the head with a bat.  At least he died a horrible, horrible death in Brooklyn and not in Los Angeles...

Which is where I am now.  It's a third floor walk-up and I'm above a massage parlor that's above a peek-a-boo joint.  Let me put it this way:  it ain't pretty.  But the office is mine and the sign outside the door says it's mine, so nanny nanny boo-boo to all those with less mine's than me..  There isn't much I have in this world, but what I have has my name on it.  Well, except for the bottle of brown eel juice and the Lucky Strikes.

I guess I hadn't been asleep for that long since one of the Lucky's cherries was still a-glow.  I put it out as I poured a shot.  Don't know how long it had been since the last drink I had that I didn't know how long it had been since the one before that, but nothing beats excess like being excessively on the piss, so I threw it down my gullet.  You know how sometimes when you're just about blind drunk you have this moment of clarity?  Like the heavens open up and this beam of light hits you and you realize that maybe you should stop drinking?  Because you have no friends- you have no money- you ain't pitching to any tail unless you pay for it, so you definitely ain't pitching 'cause you ain't got the dough- and life maybe perhaps might possibly become marginally better?  

Yeah.  Me neither.

I put the glass down on the desk along with my head.  Time to pass out.  It's been a long day of being drunk and not drunk enough.  As soon as I close my eyes I hear the familiar sounds high-heeled shoes getting close to my door.  I pull out my gun just in case it's one of them crazy snowbird faggots and not a dame.

Knock.  Knock.

I sit there.  I aim.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

"I can smell you drinking in there, Stanton!  Open the got-damn door!"

I know her voice.

"Uh, not gonna happen, missy.  Hinges are all busted up and my legs is pretty bum."

Legs.  Good Christ!  She had legs that stretched from Aberdeen to Walla Walla.  She used to wear these black leggings that had a seam that ran from the Achilles to behind the knee. 

"'Are' pretty bum, you moron."

And that mouth of hers.  Always had something smart to say.  She was usually right, too.  Like the time she called me a worthless fuck.

"You're nothing but a worthless fuck, you fucking worthless fuck," she said.

"Yeah," I said swigging back another shot, "You're probably right."

And now?  Maybe she's changed.  Maybe she's in love with me again.

"Open the door!  I'm wearing a long skirt and I'm not in love with you.  Nothing's changed!  Open the got-damn door!"

Guess not.

I got up and shuffled over to the door as slowly as I could.  I may not be able to torture her physically, but I can rile that pretty face up and make it red and puffy.  She could be the most impatient...

"Holy shit," I said opening the door.

"You gonna let me in or just gawk at my chest all night?"

"Gawk."

"Move," she sneered as she pushed me out of the way.  She sat down in my favorite chair knowing damn well that it is my favorite chair.  "I love what you've done with the place.  What was your inspiration for the Chinese takeout rotting on your desk can and the pile of dirty laundry?"

"Post-Modern Dumpster-Fire meets Homeless Reprobate Eating His Own Foot.  Why are you here?"

"It's been a few years, I wanted to see how you've been keeping." 

"Keeping up with the Joneses just fine, lady."

"Sure, as long as the Joneses were a bunch of chimps throwing shit at each other."

"Hey, what I do with my shit is my business.  Why are you here?"

 "I have a proposition for you."

"Not interested."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I 'm sure."

"Are you super, super sure?  Like so sure that there can be no more assurance at all?"

"Just fucking spit it out already."

"Would you like to kill my husband?"

"You mean metaphorically?  With kindness?"

"No, I mean with a knife:  a knife through his eyeball and into his brain.  Or into his heart.  Or his back.  You're good at that:  stabbing people in the back."

"Oh look at you," I bent my head attempting the most charming voice I could muster, "you are sentimental.  This is like the first night we spent together; except less fucking and more stabbing to death of your husband.  But hey, beggars can't be choosers.  Am I right?"

"Will you do it?"

"Sure.  Just let me get my stabbin' knife and we can be on the way."

She threw an envelope on the desk.  It was thick.  It was filled either with a giant brick of bologna or a giant brick of cash.  

Either way, I was eating tonight.

Either way, I was going to kill her husband.

A Narcissist Rejoices

"It was my fault?  Hooray!"

A Dullard Villian's Lament

Foiled due to nincompoopery.

Triumphant Arm Raising Lays In Wait

Do refer to the pleasing use of a 'whammy bar" in the first four bars!

Do refer to Joe Piscopo not referring to Eddie Murphy for the first time ever whilst on camera!

Do refer to Kevin Mitchell not murdering anyone!

Do refer to the splendid perm atop Gary Carter's genetically fine noggin!

Do refer to the 1986 Topps baseball card set handled in a most haphazard way!

Do refer to the rhyme scheme of "Let's" and "Mets" and of course "Go" and "Go!"

Do refer to the presence of  both God and a buccaneering Chang-Sing warrior from "Big Trouble In Little China" at 3:21!

Do refer to the passable batting stance and swing of the irrepressible Gene Shalit at 3:31!

Do refer to the entirety of "Let's Go Mets!" in all its splendor and glory!



In summation:

LET'S GO METS

Carry on.

On the Correlation Between Humor and Agedness

Some things just make you giggle.

Abnegation

He stood shivering on the corner in a drenched trench coat staring at his brogues. 

She was garbed in heliotrope avoiding the puddles.

Making her way to him, she paused to think about last year's wine and cheese tasting. 

He remembered that he loved her. 

The rain began again.

She hurried to the corner all the while forgetting her wine; and cheese.

He looked up to see her approaching; he pretended not to see her.

She stopped at the corner.

"Your trench coat is soaked," she says. "And you're shivering."

"Yes, I know.  I've been in the rain."

"Perhaps you should get out of the rain."

"No."

"May I ask why?"

"Because you wouldn't be there."

Harbinger of Misery: Baseball is a Cruel, Cruel Bint

Expansion season, you ask?  Why no, my dear, that is most certainly not the case.
A mentally incapacitated manager, thereby rendering Mittens Tuberculosis -- his most favorite-ist cat-- writing the opening day lineup, you inquire?  Nope.  Sorry, squirt, you're rather mistaken.

Then how, you wail to the heavens above, could anyone trot out what could only be considered a stream of consciousness lineup for a professional game?

No idea.  But here's the poop-pudding in your lunchbox:

Batter	AB	R	H	HR	RBI	BB	SO	pLI	WPA
E Young	3	0	1	0	0	0	0	0.94	.060
J Peterson	2	1	1	0	0	0	0	1.01	.019
N Markakis	2	0	1	0	1	0	0	1.17	.061
F Freeman	2	0	1	0	0	0	0	0.90	.015
C Bethancourt	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1.25	-.049
K Johnson	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	1.14	-.060
A Callaspo	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.88	-.043
A Simmons	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.61	-.030
J Teheran	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.70	-.035
Total	19	1	4	0	1	0	0	0.96	-.062

GRODY.


*Lineup courtesy of FANGRAPHS

Tribulation: The Lady and the Compromise

Almost getting what you want is the same thing as not getting what you want.

Of Whom the "Bhagavad-Gita" Was Referring, Probably

In the Hindu text "Bhagavad-Gita," Vishnu was imploring the Prince to toil if only for the fact that toiling was the Prince's duty. As such, the Prince scoffed and Vishnu was forced to manifest itself into its multi-armed form saying, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."

While one should never think to disagree with religious text -- regardless of the mutual absence of empirical proof -- one could allow themselves to assume that Vishnu's form was not so much intimidating for his multiple appendages, but for his striking resemblance to...







                       

Epiphany, A Visual Representation

Haiku: Sartre Was Right

Quiet night, alone-
Wishing you were here with me.
Damn, Sartre was right.

I Said That: A Moron's Guide On How To Prevent Dumbfuck-ness

Speak less, you moronic dumbfuck.

Chris Johnson Stars In: A Happy House Has A Vacant Master

 PART ONE

Chris Johnson grumbled and stood up from the couch. The old Teledyne giggled at him with its archaic HORIZ and VERT as he adjusted the antennae.  The screen door whistled a monotone tune from the constant breeze.  Autumn is good for song.

Chris Johnson sits back down and finishes his Salisbury Steak Hungry Man dinner.  His fork bangs against the aluminum trey forming a beat to the wind-skirl coming through the screen door that is hanging off its rusted hinges.  He sometimes wonders if he actually forgets to repair the door or that he forgets to care about repairing the door.  "What's the difference," he thinks.

The wife is in the kitchen.  She is playing solitaire with red-backed cards.  She had blue-backed cards, but the print on the front was too small for her.  The red-backed cards have bigger print.  Now she doesn't have to wear her glasses.  She thinks she's less attractive in them.  She has never bothered to ask anyone.

The dog gets up from the wife's feet and enters the living room where Chris Johnson has fallen into a dreamless state.  The dog looks up at him and tilts his head.  Slight whistling sounds are coming from his nose making a pleasing harmonic with the evermore gusty breeze outside.  The dog barks at the high frequency of the sound and Chris Johnson is startled awake.  His body flings itself into an apoplectic ballet while his foot kicks over the aluminum tray that contains the remnant of his Salisbury Steak onto the floor.   How long had he been asleep?  Had he even been asleep?  He'd prefer to remember being asleep as opposed to the idea of being asleep.

A dull thud comes from the kitchen.  Chris Johnson stands up from the old couch with its third (or was it the fourth?) slipcover.  The color was always brown; always brown.  He walks into the kitchen to find the wife standing over a rubber-headed mallet on the floor.  This is must have been the thud he heard.  Why was there a mallet on the floor? 

Chris Johnson looks at the wife.  The wife looks at him.

"Chris," she says putting on her glasses, "do you think I look less attractive in glasses?"

"No," he lies,

"Are you lying?" she asks.

"No," he lies.

"Okay," she says while turning around.

The mallet sits in the middle of the dirty dyer's-broom linoleum floor.  Chris Johnson hears the wife quietly crying.  She must have known he was lying.

"For Christ's Sake," he mutters as he picks up the mallet.