Puddin' Tane?*

Poor guy. I can only imagine the laser beams I'd be ducking if I went to pick up my daughter and said "Come here, Daddy's got you, um, er, uhhh... Brenda? Lucy? Hester?".


*Holy crap. Never made the connection.

Cue Nelson

"On the one hand, people will now say you can't prove the fraud... but the rule of law says that when evidence is destroyed it creates a presumption that the people who destroyed evidence did so because it would have proved the contention of the other side."



Ha Ha!

Fire up the colortini...

...and watch the pictures as they fly through the air.
Tom Snyder dead at 71.
He is survived by his eyebrows.

Gee, I'd hate for it to turn into the obit section around here, but...
I was a fan- he was just the right touch of madness for late night talk. There was one unforgettable interview with Robert Blake, during which Baretta appeared to be having a nervous breakdown and was talking into the camera to his wife/girlfriend, begging her to come back to him. I don't know if this is the same person he was later accused of murdering, but boy was Blake unhinged. Snyder displayed compassion, attempting to re-rail the conversation away from whoever it was Blake was talking to. Still, gripping television, and I couldn't help but think of that interview when he was arrested.

And then, of course, there were the eyebrows, which crawled around Snyder's face like a couple of woolly caterpillars.
Tom Snyder regularly made me think "man, those people sleeping don't know what they're missing!"

you mean this isn't the George Jones Invitational, officer?

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Floyd P. Sincerbeaux!

Sincerbeaux reportedly told deputies that he had been drinking and was driving the lawnmower to a relative’s house in Geneva, Ontario County.

That trip on a lawnmower would give him plenty of time to sober up. Or drink more. Here, see for yourself. Fifteen miles? No problem- I'll be there in about three hours!

my good deed for the day

Okay, look. I'm no detective, but I don't think it takes Sherlock Holmes to deduce:
That cat is killing those old people!


Please, don't thank me.
Hiyooo Silver!

don't fart in the amazon, is my advice to you

Like gluttonous piranhas, supermassive black holes in young galaxy clusters gorge on bountiful gas until little fuel is left, and then they fade away, a new study suggests.


This article has done more to shift my perceptions about piranhas' eating habits than to explain anything about black holes.

"Don't worry about those piranhas, honey. They only eat gas, and they fade away when they're done".

All of these objects-stars, black holes, galaxies and galaxy clusters-can crash and merge with one another.

Can piranhas do that too?

you'll be wantin' to subpeona robert louis stevenson, then?

Congress Seeks Tales of Piracy

I'm relieved that our government is finally standing up for America's beleaguered recording industry. Because if the government doesn't, who will? The hundreds of lawyers the beleaguered recording industry keeps on retainer?
I'll have more energy to worry about whether I can afford to keep my baby in diapers, now that I know someone's making sure Clive Davis can afford his.

Thanks, Congress!

long story short

When I worked for one of the big B bookstores, I learned to hate many things. Two of these were "spoken-word" poetry performances and authors. I also learned to appreciate the experiences that inspired me to question the prejudices I was developing.
Part of my job for awhile was to be the liaison for author appearances. It was frequently astonishing to see little-known, moderately succesful, or out-and-out unknown authors all behaving as though they were J.D. Freakin' Salinger and we should be turning the world upside down for them because they'd managed to bamboozle someone into putting their words between covers. Author appearances were often arranged with little lead time, and there seemed to be a reverse correlation between the success of an author and the level of gluteal osculation they required.
What can I say about "spoken-word", or "performance poetry"? I think we can all admit that I can be forgiven for painting that genre with a broad "it sucks" brush.
Sometimes, though, it's nice to be proven wrong about things.
One of these last-minute author appearances involved a poet named Sekou Sundiata. I actually looked forward to this, as I'd taken home a promo cassette thinking that it might be worth a good laugh and was surprised to find witty, unpretentious, fresh and engaging performance poetry! I figured, though, that he'd be some kind of diva and would complain about the last minute set-up we'd arranged for him.
Mr. Sundiata was, instead, very grateful for our modest accomodations and was just a very warm, genuine guy all around. A pleasure to deal with and a great talent.
So I am saddened that he has left us. Some of my friends (and enemies I suppose) are of the opinion that I hate to be wrong. Sometimes, this is not the case. Thank you sir, and rest in peace.

to fetch a predator

1941 goes to the races!

Yesterday, I was feeling pretty down and needed a laugh, so I decided to watch Talladega Nights.

In a way, it worked. Now I can make myself giggle just by saying "I was feeling pretty down and needed a laugh, so I decided to watch Talladega Nights".

how to put people off balance (for parents only)

I just ran into a colleague who asked how the baby was doing. Because it is required of everyone that they ask me that everytime they see me. I said she was doing great, and added
"How 'bout you? You sleeping through the night?".

Q: "what are you doing?" A: "I'm killing a vampire!"

Some thoughts on this story:

I used to have a running gag with an old roommate of mine, which was this: when someone on the phone asked one of us what we were doing, we would answer: "oh, just fuckin' the dog".
We had no dog. I'm not sure if that's why it was funny to us. "Fuckin' the dog" was the catch-all phrase meaning "I'm not really doing anything worth mentioning". I would like to reinstate this practice using the phrase "killing a vampire".

Also: I believe the culprit may have answered "killing a vampire" because he didn't want to say "I'm beating the peacock!".

Also: I once had a friend who went a little nutso. I recall a party at which he, in all earnestness, proclaimed that Grimace was a vampire. I wonder if he was the one who attacked the peacock.