Watching himself brush his teeth in the mirror was how he used to close the day at the office. He'd then leave the bathroom, go back to the office, collect his jacket and hat, and lock it up. Now that business has picked up, hours have been shifted. Murray Clavier now worked the eight to four-thirty shift instead of the relaxed eleven to seven-thirty. Murray did not take this hour shifting too well.
Now that he was part of the inner city rush hour, traffic jams frequent his mind. Traveling was a pleasure, now it's a pain. He could listen to the first half of a Tchaikovsky piece on the way to work and finish it on the way home. Now he listened to all but the final two minutes of the piece. Everything but the crescendo took up his journey to work.
After work, Murray listened to the Russian composer for the first two minutes and rolled down his window to find harmony and euphony in the traffic jam. The various honks and beeps of automobile horns and the droning motors of busses were too chaotic to form a formidable piece of symphonia urbania. Within a week, Murray paid closer attention to the subtle background of coughing pedestrians, splashing water, and chirping birds. Birds? Birds! All this time, he never thought of birds living in the metropolis. This awakened Murray to the sparse but various trees within the downtown area. Among everything metal, glass, and concrete was something breathing with leaves of green. It was spectacular!
The city seemed to be humanity's billboard of civilization with Mother Nature accidentally spilling some of her green paint on it as she was passing to paint her Appalachian Mountains canvas.
Murray Clavier felt like a wildman and this scared him. He did not want to become one of the Hippies. He missed that train by over thirty years. He also didn't want to become a lunatic raving in Central Park.
Murray wanted to sit in a tree; it was the closest thing he could get to a forest.
During a lunch break one day, he passed by a tree on the way to McDonald's. The color of green and the chirp of a sparrow hidden in the foliage enveloped his mind. For a brief moment, a hallucination of a congregation of maple trees swaying to a Seals & Crofts song put a smile of relief on his face. Soon the smile was wiped away by the grease of a seeping McRib. A napkin with the albino golden arches tried to bring back the smile, but it only absorbed the grease off his face.
As he passed the tree on his way back to work, he was tempted to climb it. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, put his foot to the trunk of the tree, and looked up at a piece of gum a couple of inches away from his fingers. He figured it was better than piss and finished his day at the job.
That night, dreams of tree sitting lingered in his mind. Right before he sat in an oak tree that grew so fast that he could see the whole city get smaller and smaller as the tree grew. Then the cloud weft passed and took him away to the Black Forest where his kingdom of Ewoks waited for him. When he began to act out Return of the Jedi, his alarm clock woke him up.
To be friendlier to his trees, Murray carpooled to work that day with his neighbor who worked three blocks away for a publishing agency. His day went by smoothly mainly because he spotted about three trees on the way to Taco Bell. After his workday was done, he started his three-block walk to the publishing agency. The urge to climb and sit in a tree took over his mind and within a block, Murray, briefcase in lap, found himself perched in a tree. Relaxation hit him instantly when he noticed that everyone passing by him in that try was obsessed with going somewhere. Murray was where he wanted to be, and he found it humorous that no one else wanted to be there.
No one wanted to be there until a cardinal built a nest on the branch above him. Could it be love? How could such a bird trust a person, who sat just a couple inches below, not to bother it?
The day Murray totally forgot about his job, he built himself a nest to cushion his seat. That was also the day one of the city crazies pointed out Murray's delirium. One would expect him to become more self-conscious, but he already was. Mr. Clavier wanted to sit in a nest forever.
A couple of days later, Laurie (a co-worker) found Murray in his nest. "Whatever are you doing, Murray? Mr. Cuthbert's been trying to call you for days. If you don't come in today, you'll probably be out of a job."
If Murray came in that day, he'd be out of his tree. Luckily, he still had common sense in his brain. He just misplaced it until Laurie found it for him. Anyway, he needed money to build a better nest in perhaps a better tree.
For the next couple weeks, Murray contemplated the best nest while behind his desk at work. Astonishingly enough, he got all his work done punctually. Mr. Cuthbert was amazed and brought him back to his regular salary. That was such great news to Murray that the greatest idea for a nest came to him: an ostrich nest.
The Bronx Zoo did not seem appealing for an ostrich nest, besides it might be fake. He must get an ostrich nest from where most ostrich nests are: Africa. This called for another week's paycheck and a week's vacation. The paycheck part was easy, but when Murray asked Mr. Cuthbert for the vacation, he was told to lose that part of his memory. Murray liked his memory and he liked his nests, so he quit and charted a flight to the Central African Republic.
When he got to the capital city of Bangui, he asked directions to the nearest ostrich field. There he ran into Dr. Pillsbury who specialized in ostriches, but unfortunately not their nests. He was more interested in their necks and trachea. Together they rode a couple hundred miles to a huge stretch of land littered with grasses and ostriches. They both were in heaven.
The difficulty for Murray was to reach the throne of heaven -- the largest ostrich nest in the field. Dr. Pillsbury had no difficulty as he sat in his antiquated Jeep and surveyed the grassland for ostrich necks. Hopefully his intention was not a new recipe for soup. As Pillsbury scouted the land, he watched Murray peaking at the nests. He hoped Murray's intention was not to filch the nest and take the eggs. Luckily ostriches know how to defend themselves.
Murray found this out when he found his golden treasure, and nest big enough for two people to sit in. "Hey!" he yelled. "Dr. Pillsbury would you like to join me?"
Damn it, thought the biologist, he's going to spook the birds and put them in the defensive. Dr. Pillsbury wouldn't join Murray in egg-lifting anyway, he told himself.
Pushing the eggs out of the nest, Murray prepared a nice spot for him to sit. As he looked ahead, he saw a speeding ostrich head in his direction. An ordinary ostrich looks freaky enough, but an angry ostrich looks frighteningly deplorable.
Murray lost his senses and thought this battle for the nest was a test to get to heaven. By all means, Murray wanted to go to heaven. When he roosted on the almighty ostrich nest, Murray's ultimate goal was accomplished and he let the ugly big bird peck him to death.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Shall I compare thee to a pint of ice cream?
Shall I compare thee to a pint of ice cream?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Chocolate chips do not shake the darling buds of May,
And ice cream’s eaten too quick a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his cream complexion melted;
And every fair from fair sometimes declines,
By Ben and Jerry’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal pint shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou eat’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou hungers;
So long as men can eat, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Japanese Solar System
Radio House Kingdom
In connection with…
The National Telescopic Astronomy Administration
Funded by NHK and NTT
Have jointly discovered 14 new planets outside our Japanese solar system
Planet One is New Tokyo with the highest real estate in the universe
Planet Two is The Planet that Says Ni! Because Ni means Two in Japanese
Planet Three was lost when Okabe-san bumped into the telescope
(it will soon be located under British Petroleum funding though, so please visit their homepage at www.killthegulf.com)
Planet Four is already inhabited by dogs. We’re waiting for a suitable name for that planet.
Planet Five was claimed by Pink Floyd and David Bowie to hold their new recording studio
Planet Six is so close to Planet Seven that we don’t know which is which
Planet Six will be the only planet in which racism will be encouraged
Planet Seven is where Earth will store all its toxic waste
Planet Eight is TOP SECRET c/o US GOVERNMENT
Planet Nine is Hubbell II: The Telesphere
Planet Ten actually is Pluto (we made a mistake)
Planet Eleven is completely made of gold and was found to have the Microsoft logo on it
Planet Twelve is for Japanese tourists only for authenticity’s sake
Planet Thirteen has been deemed Satan’s Liar of Doom by the Roman Catholic Church
Planet Fourteen is the last planet found so we don’t have enough information on it yet
Author's Note: I updated the statement in parenthesis because it's more relevant.
Your Name is Flanders
"No, it's not," he said quoting the obvious from an unseen and unwritten textbook. He calls it The Frizz and plants in his refrigerator. The lime on his windowsill shined; he wiped it off.
"Disgusting lime. I don't know how it gets there." His hair resembled a red tree. Actually he does live in a forest, not the Black Forest though.
Born without parents, this thinks-he-is-a man sits around putting tiddlywinks up his nose. When he doesn't sit around, which he never does anyway, the man eats like a platoon. Buying five bags of Frito Lays chips, he eats the other company.
"I am not quite that odd," he said scratching his head. Sometimes he thinks he has lice and eats imaginary ones to scare away the pretty girls. This is one reason he is single and might be female.
On his favorite closet, hangs an annoying sign reading NO SKELETONS HERE. This man needs a superhero. One time he wrote to Marvel Comics and they sent him a Fantastic Four tie. When push comes to shove, he'd rather dislike the Fantastic Four. "Push doesn't have to shove." He thinks he hears the narrative.
"I hear the narrative. Listen!" Somebody knocked on his door to ruin his silence. He answered the door, found nobody, and found a postcard from Greece. It displayed a picture of the Parthenon. He read the postcard hoping it wouldn't read him: THERE IS NO NARRATIVE TO HEAR.
"Don't tell everyone I am a fictional character, because I'm real. I fool you knot." This stupid man cannot spell not. "N-O-T minus the K." He is ugly and repulsive, yet it is hard to distinguish his gender. "Mail!"
Literally, a ton of letters gushed through his door, and swamped his kitchen designed like a bathroom.
"What in blazes is happening? Normally, these things don't happen to me. I've never been written about before." That's because he's a fabricated character just like Sherlock Holmes, but Sherlock is more believable.
"You make me sound unbelievable. Really I'm normal." He ate all his mail. "No, I didn't." He ran to the bathroom to send the mail back to his fans. "I'm still in the kitchen. Who is writing about me?"
In the Valley of Sixes, Mr. Shea picked a daffodil. Frolicking with his prize flower, cameras stood by. "This is what Pepsi or any other Pepsi product does to me!"
The director gave him his briefcase back. "Relax Arthur. Pretend Pepsi is running through your system."
"Why can't I have Pepsi really running through my system?" questioned the stiff actor.
"Good point." The director raised his hand and snapped his fingers. "Give this man a Coke!"
"No, no. Pepsi! I wanted a Pepsi!" demanded Mr. Shea.
"Coke...Pepsi...same thing," sighed the snooty director.
"Who said that?" asked the Pepsi representative on the set. He spotted the director and yelled, "Take this hypocrite away!" Two brutes and a brunette hauled off the unemployed director.
The Pepsi rep shook hands violently with Arthur Shea. "Thank you, Mr. Shea, for pointing out the traitor amongst us and that nothing beats a Pepsi."
Arthur was stunned. "Actually, I just wanted to..."
PEPSI IS GOOD. YOU CAN DRINK IT. IT MAKES YOU HAPPY. SOME PEOPLE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN SEX. AND MORE PEOPLE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN MARIJUANA. BUT I NEVER HEARD ANYONE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN COCA-COLA.
"Who moved that capitalized paragraph above this sentence?" asked the representative of PepsiCo.
The entire advertising committee confessed leaving Arthur Shea the only man left employed by Pepsi.
"You know," said the Pepsi intermediary. "You are the true heart of this advertising campaign. And do you know why?" He grabbed Arthur closer to him shoulder-to-shoulder. "You really want a Pepsi. Arthur Shea, you are a good man for this."
"Yes," spoke Arthur. "I want a Pepsi, but I prefer..."
He read a poem from his book entitled Chartreuse. The poem was entitled Goodness Gracious Me Oh My!
Too bad he didn't have an audience. The response would be too bad. "Why do I write these poems for myself?" he asked himself. "Why do I ask myself questions about myself?" he asked himself. "Why I am so selfish?" He expected himself to answer his question, but he didn't, and that startled him into a world full of other people.
"That was a horrible poem!" screamed Mrs. Gullbird and her clique of poem critics. They dragged him to himself.
"I liked the poem, Leonard," he smiled to himself without a mirror. "I especially liked the poet, Mr. Leonard Jumpsuit, the Emperor of Excessive Self-Indulgence!"
The lamp's bulb blew leaving Mr. Jumpsuit alone in darkness. He wondered about criminals and monsters. They didn't exist as long as Leonard sulked with himself. He wished he could go to the store to buy another light bulb. But that required him to meet people. People are miscreants; they're not like him. They criticize him to one point.
He went out to buy a bulb anyway. On his way, he passed Evan Jensen and his little dog, both of them sneering. Then he ran into Mrs. Gullbird again. She had to yell, "You're a terrible poet!"
Finally, he got to the store, Expert Hardware. Ignoring the scoffing people, he snatched the bulb and took it to the cashier, Mr. Henry Billings.
"That'll be exactly two dollars, Mr. Jumpsuit," smiled Henry after pushing buttons on his register.
His last customer, Leonard Jumpsuit, the town's most renowned poet, gave Henry two dollars and a pocketful of change. "I'll trust that you have a full dollar here, Mr. Jumpsuit." He bagged the bulb and handed it to Leonard with another smile. "Keep on writing those poems."
Without saying a word, Leonard left. Henry's boss said some words though. "After you count Leonard's change, you can go home. Your shift's up."
Henry counted: two quarters, one dime, three nickels, ten pennies, ten more pennies, and four last pennies. "I've been shorted a cent," he sighed. "No matter."
After removing his nametag, Mr. Billings left Expert Hardware for the day. His house was only two blocks away from his job, so he walked. This day, he only walked one and a half blocks and never walked again.
Grim Reaper is death and deals the ace of spades. R.I.P.
"My name better not be Flanders," said Arthur Shea getting his first glimpse at the script. "People named Flanders are always made fun of."
The director looked at the Expert Hardware Commercial script to see if he could change his name.
Apparently not, "Your name will be Flanders."
"Disgusting lime. I don't know how it gets there." His hair resembled a red tree. Actually he does live in a forest, not the Black Forest though.
Born without parents, this thinks-he-is-a man sits around putting tiddlywinks up his nose. When he doesn't sit around, which he never does anyway, the man eats like a platoon. Buying five bags of Frito Lays chips, he eats the other company.
"I am not quite that odd," he said scratching his head. Sometimes he thinks he has lice and eats imaginary ones to scare away the pretty girls. This is one reason he is single and might be female.
On his favorite closet, hangs an annoying sign reading NO SKELETONS HERE. This man needs a superhero. One time he wrote to Marvel Comics and they sent him a Fantastic Four tie. When push comes to shove, he'd rather dislike the Fantastic Four. "Push doesn't have to shove." He thinks he hears the narrative.
"I hear the narrative. Listen!" Somebody knocked on his door to ruin his silence. He answered the door, found nobody, and found a postcard from Greece. It displayed a picture of the Parthenon. He read the postcard hoping it wouldn't read him: THERE IS NO NARRATIVE TO HEAR.
"Don't tell everyone I am a fictional character, because I'm real. I fool you knot." This stupid man cannot spell not. "N-O-T minus the K." He is ugly and repulsive, yet it is hard to distinguish his gender. "Mail!"
Literally, a ton of letters gushed through his door, and swamped his kitchen designed like a bathroom.
"What in blazes is happening? Normally, these things don't happen to me. I've never been written about before." That's because he's a fabricated character just like Sherlock Holmes, but Sherlock is more believable.
"You make me sound unbelievable. Really I'm normal." He ate all his mail. "No, I didn't." He ran to the bathroom to send the mail back to his fans. "I'm still in the kitchen. Who is writing about me?"
YOUR NAME IS ARTHUR SHEA
by Jeremy Slagoski
In the Valley of Sixes, Mr. Shea picked a daffodil. Frolicking with his prize flower, cameras stood by. "This is what Pepsi or any other Pepsi product does to me!"
The director gave him his briefcase back. "Relax Arthur. Pretend Pepsi is running through your system."
"Why can't I have Pepsi really running through my system?" questioned the stiff actor.
"Good point." The director raised his hand and snapped his fingers. "Give this man a Coke!"
"No, no. Pepsi! I wanted a Pepsi!" demanded Mr. Shea.
"Coke...Pepsi...same thing," sighed the snooty director.
"Who said that?" asked the Pepsi representative on the set. He spotted the director and yelled, "Take this hypocrite away!" Two brutes and a brunette hauled off the unemployed director.
The Pepsi rep shook hands violently with Arthur Shea. "Thank you, Mr. Shea, for pointing out the traitor amongst us and that nothing beats a Pepsi."
Arthur was stunned. "Actually, I just wanted to..."
PEPSI IS GOOD. YOU CAN DRINK IT. IT MAKES YOU HAPPY. SOME PEOPLE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN SEX. AND MORE PEOPLE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN MARIJUANA. BUT I NEVER HEARD ANYONE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN COCA-COLA.
"Who moved that capitalized paragraph above this sentence?" asked the representative of PepsiCo.
The entire advertising committee confessed leaving Arthur Shea the only man left employed by Pepsi.
"You know," said the Pepsi intermediary. "You are the true heart of this advertising campaign. And do you know why?" He grabbed Arthur closer to him shoulder-to-shoulder. "You really want a Pepsi. Arthur Shea, you are a good man for this."
"Yes," spoke Arthur. "I want a Pepsi, but I prefer..."
YOUR NAME IS LEONARD JUMPSUIT
by Jeremy Slagoski
He read a poem from his book entitled Chartreuse. The poem was entitled Goodness Gracious Me Oh My!
I stopped in front of my house
Seeing many policemen surrounding it
"Your home is under arrest," they said
"For keeping you locked up at night."
I said, "I lock myself in there."
They placed handcuffs on me
And threw me in jail
The law's too tight
And the jailbirds bite
I never win
Too bad he didn't have an audience. The response would be too bad. "Why do I write these poems for myself?" he asked himself. "Why do I ask myself questions about myself?" he asked himself. "Why I am so selfish?" He expected himself to answer his question, but he didn't, and that startled him into a world full of other people.
"That was a horrible poem!" screamed Mrs. Gullbird and her clique of poem critics. They dragged him to himself.
"I liked the poem, Leonard," he smiled to himself without a mirror. "I especially liked the poet, Mr. Leonard Jumpsuit, the Emperor of Excessive Self-Indulgence!"
The lamp's bulb blew leaving Mr. Jumpsuit alone in darkness. He wondered about criminals and monsters. They didn't exist as long as Leonard sulked with himself. He wished he could go to the store to buy another light bulb. But that required him to meet people. People are miscreants; they're not like him. They criticize him to one point.
He went out to buy a bulb anyway. On his way, he passed Evan Jensen and his little dog, both of them sneering. Then he ran into Mrs. Gullbird again. She had to yell, "You're a terrible poet!"
Finally, he got to the store, Expert Hardware. Ignoring the scoffing people, he snatched the bulb and took it to the cashier, Mr. Henry Billings.
YOUR NAME IS HENRY BILLINGS
by Jeremy Slagoski
"That'll be exactly two dollars, Mr. Jumpsuit," smiled Henry after pushing buttons on his register.
His last customer, Leonard Jumpsuit, the town's most renowned poet, gave Henry two dollars and a pocketful of change. "I'll trust that you have a full dollar here, Mr. Jumpsuit." He bagged the bulb and handed it to Leonard with another smile. "Keep on writing those poems."
Without saying a word, Leonard left. Henry's boss said some words though. "After you count Leonard's change, you can go home. Your shift's up."
Henry counted: two quarters, one dime, three nickels, ten pennies, ten more pennies, and four last pennies. "I've been shorted a cent," he sighed. "No matter."
After removing his nametag, Mr. Billings left Expert Hardware for the day. His house was only two blocks away from his job, so he walked. This day, he only walked one and a half blocks and never walked again.
YOUR NAME IS GRIM REAPER
by Jeremy Slagoski
Grim Reaper is death and deals the ace of spades. R.I.P.
YOUR NAME WILL BE FLANDERS
by Leonard Jumpsuit
"My name better not be Flanders," said Arthur Shea getting his first glimpse at the script. "People named Flanders are always made fun of."
The director looked at the Expert Hardware Commercial script to see if he could change his name.
Apparently not, "Your name will be Flanders."
Friday, July 23, 2010
Doughnuts-77
That’s how many flavors we could have if you endorse our already patented 8 flavors which are:
- Bacon Bit Cruller
- Cheese Honey-Dipped
- Garlic and Onion Jelly
- Cabbage Custard
- Pineapple and Vinegar
- Whole Sugar Beet
- Chocolate Bouillon
- Cinnamon and Paprika
The Burt Reynolds Rap
Burt Reynolds is he
The Oscar nominee
He can swim and can ski
In “Trigger Happy”
He’s dangerous as can be
The man who is free
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
The old son of a gun
In Cannonball Run
His life is complete fun
This man can’t be stunned
In “Nickelodeon”
He was second to none
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Welles said success is him
He’s so suave on a whim
He’ll never sink, only swim
Full of vigor and vim
Life is never grim
When Burt Reynolds is him
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
He won a Golden Globe
Accepted in his robe
No alien will probe
More than his ear lobe
In the light of a strobe
Is the glory of his Globe
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Since “Armored Command”
He ruled movie land
Carrying a gun in his hand
He’s turned men into sand
Sixty years he has spanned
A life perfectly planned
The Oscar nominee
He can swim and can ski
In “Trigger Happy”
He’s dangerous as can be
The man who is free
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
The old son of a gun
In Cannonball Run
His life is complete fun
This man can’t be stunned
In “Nickelodeon”
He was second to none
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Welles said success is him
He’s so suave on a whim
He’ll never sink, only swim
Full of vigor and vim
Life is never grim
When Burt Reynolds is him
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
He won a Golden Globe
Accepted in his robe
No alien will probe
More than his ear lobe
In the light of a strobe
Is the glory of his Globe
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Burt Reynolds, Burt Reynolds
Burt! Burt!
Since “Armored Command”
He ruled movie land
Carrying a gun in his hand
He’s turned men into sand
Sixty years he has spanned
A life perfectly planned
Eat That Beach
The water turns to ice
The sand turns to spice
The beach is cold and sweet
Like a giant ice cream treat
The sand turns to spice
The beach is cold and sweet
Like a giant ice cream treat
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