Slipped

The late genius Harvey Kurtzman presents an allegory for how we all for how other people I don't like deal with their mistakes.

Stupid other people!
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guest haiku 2

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These dumbass grass blades
Keep growing through the sidewalk.
Nature is stupid.


thanks and a tip of the hat to guest writer B.-H.
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guest haiku 1

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Spring is cold and sweet,

 Like the shelf in the icebox 

Where you kept your plums.

thanks, and a tip of the hat to guest writer "Bill"

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Dad's Black Widow Story

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In the late 60s, Dad’s back problems were making him toss and turn, so he relocated to a mummy bag in the living room so as not to bother Mom with it. At some point, he felt a burr stick him, groggily pulled it off and returned to sleep. A while later, he woke up with a burning pain in the burr spot, turned on the light, and saw a dead black widow where he remembered putting it. He showed Mom a growing red area surrounding what was now known to be a black widow bite. Mom got on the phone to the Emergency Room and to our family doctor’s answering service. The rest of the family started waking up.

My oldest sister put ice cubes in a bread bag and made him keep it there while calls went back and forth between our home and the ER. Our doctor was located, or he started answering, whatever. It was determined that Dad would be taken to the hospital where he’d be given an antidote shot which would make him sick but presumably keep him alive.

Around this time, someone (probably my oldest sister) noticed that the swelling and discoloration had subsided, having gone from hand-sized to coin-sized. Informed of this, the hospital decided he could stay home and avoid the sickmaking shot as long as he kept the ice on it and it continued to improve. So he did, it did, and the bear did.

Nobody really blamed the spider. Dad probably rolled over on it and it reacted. My sister had twice tried to keep a black widow (named Snarky) as a pet, but both died in captivity. The awful part of it all is that Dad was telling Bob and Ann about it afterward, concluding with the observation that though he still had the sacroiliac pain, the aftereffects of the spider encounter were nil, upon which Bob immediately turned to Ann and said “His back is worse than his bite.”

So we killed him.

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We Need a Sarcasm Font

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People are saying we need a sarcasm font, and we do. But that’s not enough. We also need a hyperbole font, and an amphibole font, a just-kidding-around font, a totally sincere font (no, really!), a font for kidding on the square, a whimsical font, a font for pretending you believe something you really don’t, a font for a modest intro, and a font for the crushing conclusion. 

We need a reductio ad absurdum font, an ad hominem font, a begging-the-question font, and a straw-man font. We need a font for mild irony, and we need one for …heavy… irony. We need a patronizing font, a placating font, an impassioned font, an apathetic font. 

We need a font for knock-knock jokes, for I’m-the-Guys, and Little Willies. We need a font for quoting from Peanuts, the Simpsons, Monty Python, and They Might Be Giants. We need a font for quiet resignation, a font for defiance, and a font for feigned cluelessness.

We need a font for flat-out lying.

Some will say we should use words to convey these things, but the fact is we need all these fonts. We need them every bit as much as we need a sarcasm font.

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edited from my twitter

For National Gorilla Suit Day 2019

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Deck Yourself

Deck yourself in garb of primate
Ooga booga booga, ook! ook! ook!
Warm the blood in every climate
Ooga booga booga, ook! ook! ook!
Don we now our ape apparel
Booga boo, booga boo, ook ook ook!
Join us all in acting feral
Ooga booga booga, ook! ook! ook!

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We Three Kongs

We three Kongs of simian mien
Peeling fruit of yellow and green
Crouching, feeding, on chests beating
Stars of the jungle scene!
Oo-oook…
Day of wonder, bright, acute
Day to wear gorilla suit!
Plantains cooking, backward looking
Day when evolution’s moot!

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Jungle Bells*

Swinging through the trees
With a holly jolly ape.
Music’s on the breeze.
Native children gape!
Lights on green fronds cling
And shimmer in the heat.
Let’s dance and sing till tree frogs ring
With a festive jungle beat! Oh—

Jungle Bells, Jungle Bells,
Through rain forests green!
Carols hum on a wooden drum
From hands that can’t be seen, oh—
Jungle Bells, Jungle Bells,
Tinkle through the swamp:
Festive chimes that hang from vines
For a sultry devo romp!

I hope the purists will forgive me for omitting the traditional hymns, but on consideration, they all seemed a bit stuffy and contrary to what I regard as the true spirit of this joyous day. Ook!

* Adapted from the popular winter song that has already appeared in these pages.

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