Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Winchester Cathedral
Forgetting SS
Baxey had told him the number to put in the blue space but
the woman interrupted him, and Krick forgot.
So he put in his old Social Security number.
That eventually brought a visit from Enforcement, Mr Pal.
"Were you making a joke or something?"
Krick made no answer to that, so Mr Pal wrote one and pointed
to his own mouth.
Krick then said, reading, "It's just a silly joke. I certainly realize
that what we have now is far superior to that despicable
Social Security!"
Pal then slowly pronounced “Winchester Cathedral.”
Which shut off all sound recording devices.
"Well, The Republicans have promised an infinitely
better program," shrugged Pal.
"Yeah, for eleven years," Krick added. Pouring out whiskies
for both.
Mr Pal finally toasted "That woman who caused all this!"
"A bit of a buttinski," laughed Krick.
"No more! I'm off to shoot her."
"Isn't that drastic?"
"WE MUST STICK TOGETHER!"
Anything said in a very emphatic way turned the recorders
back on.
Labels: "Entitlements", end of Social Security, future, Republican, Social Security
Monday, March 30, 2015
Gracing Work
With All Due Speed
Many prevailed on Senator Harley Eps
to introduce the bill asking, as a Social
Good, for the Non-Working Class to
work an hour a week. It passed.
The particular task ordained was to
schedule the off-time of the Working
Class. Thus making such leisure richer
and more fulfilling.
Not arduous, since computer programs
existed to do just that.
So the new job consisted in pressing a
button or so.
But, some of the NWs came in contact with
workers, and requested a sort of hazard pay.
The flat fee for NWs was 500 an hour.
Virulently anti-union, of course, they formed
one, and their contract was to be larded
with clauses begatting clauses as to family
leave, holidays, sick time etc.
Their first demand was a doubling of the
flat fee. So, 1000 to work an hour a week.
Eps and colleagues had enough at that point,
and legislation cancelling the law sailed through.
And, farsighted on this rare occasion, putting
aside up to two hundred million for the expected
lawsuits.
Labels: American Aristocrats, anti-labor, chutzpa, demands of labor, labor contract, lawsuit, social engineering, Union, work
Sunday, March 29, 2015
Flowers
Among the things
Mr Halcub never
promised his Janice
was a rose garden.
She made do with
a tub of geraniums
on the fire escape
where she dried
her hair, so bright
it lit them.
Labels: flowers, geraniums, hair, love, marriage, rose garden
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Colors of Injuries
He was hired in the factory for his ability to climb the highest
machines and perform the necessary adjustments and repairs.
If it were a tree, he'd beat an ape up it!
Pretty much a solo act, his life assumed a routine where he went
from huge machine to huge machine.
Until an airhose went crazy one fateful day and sent him pinballing
down the supportive fretwork of the largest monster there.
The foreman expected him to be dead, but he sprung up and did
stretching exercises. His face, however, remained purple and he
was bruised all over.
Thence the nickname, Bruise.
Bruise refused to go the infirmary back then. Indeed climbed
back up and secured the mad airhose. Wiry as ever!
The foreman was so grateful that Bruise avoided the doctor, because his department had the worst safety record, that he kept nudging him up until he reached the top of his pay grade.
His fellow workers had insisted that he should sue, but Bruise never
did anything to divert him from his chosen mission.
Later, after an auto accident, he did find it convenient to sue, and
settle for a large amount. “Put you on the stand and no jury
would hand you less than a million!” his lawyer affirmed.
By some medical miracle or other, the bruises never faded and
always looked fresh.
He resembled a newly-tattooed man if all the tattoos were shades
of purple. The areas between the bruises got multi-hued.
His wife divorced him, becoming sick at the sight of it all.
But now, Glads has moved in. "I like the look of him in bed.
Sorta all colors!"
Labels: bruise, bruising, factory, hazard, industrial, industrial accident, Law, medical miracle, tattoo, worker
Friday, March 27, 2015
Trains Leaving Stations
When Patriotism Pays Off
-The Democrats steal the tickets,
but you Republicans steal the train!
-Our Patriots have gone one further
and stolen the stations.
-All to no avail, you're so incompetent
that no trains run!
-Be one tomorrow taking the kids to camp.
-The Fascist Indoctrination Express?
-We like to say Cho-Cho!
///
Mars Mafia
-THAT train has left the station!
-Thus have I lost the argument to
your brilliance! But let's leave
genius for everyday. Not a real
train has run for a year!
-And you thought the Democrats were
incompetent!
-Well, you've been so hellbent on Privatization
elsewhere, you've neglected the practical.
Can't you reward your patriotic crooks and
still run a train from time to time? I go to the
station every single day in hopes.
-And if we get one to you?
-Regardless of destination, I'll take it to the end of
the line. There to meet some Melody, in a shaft of
light cutting through the rubble and bombed-out
buildings.
-She must be a blond. They show off better in
shafts of light.
-She is, and we shelter in each other's arms!
It's truly wonderful.
-Let her have it! She's dying for it! The Romance
Shit is just that.
-No hurry.
-But there is! We start rebuilding soon.
-You could make it sooner if you stuffed more
money in your patriots' pockets.
-Everything in measure to build the Shining
City on the Hill!
-Melody and I might want a studio apartment.
-Hundred G's upfront!
-Though the war is over, it’s still the Mars Mafia.
-That’s a constant!
Labels: Democrat, devastation, graft, Patriotic Graft, patriotism, Republican, Romance, sex, stealing, war
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Power and Precision
-How much does it weigh?
-Do you mean here?
-Okay, let's assume in our further discussion
that we're referring to this latitude and longitude,
and not Mars, or Fiji, or Jackson Hole.
-Two-point-two kilos.
-How can your wife stand you?
-Who cares as to her trivial likes and dislikes!
-Ah hah! Sounds like Mr Precision gets Aces
slapped down on his little power-hand.
-Two-point-two kilos.
Labels: friendship, Metric System, power, power games, precision, relationship, wife
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Appraising Lunatics
Radical Fringes Minus One
-Their Rightest Nut will run!
-No power to ‘im! Where are our Lefty Nuts?
-Extinct!
-Oh come on now! There are some who...
-Herbert Hoover’d invite ‘em in for pool!
Labels: fringe, Herbert Hoover, Left, lunatic fringe, Right
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Of Oneself
The Modest Man
would hurt blowing
his own horn, even
the merest toot! So he
had two Pulitzers,
in different fields?
He married, some wished
a true virago to vilely choke
his clean perfection, but no,
she medaled in Violin and
Olympic Skiing. Good Lord
such a pair! And never speaking
of themselves. Enter our Beau,
and the ear-splitting Trombone
of Self! A constant celebration
of zero accomplishments! When
it was suggested to look to Exemplars
and consequently shut up, he spat
"THOSE two? No thanks! Ice
coats Mount Olympus, but
on the jungle floor, the core
human stinks comfort one nicely!”
“Sez you again and again?”
“Again and again!” Wink.
Again and again.
Labels: accomplishment, blowing your horn, bragging, exemplar, Pulitzer, talent
Monday, March 23, 2015
The Word
“We're both ragtag fundamentalist preachers,
or act the parts. He does drunks and addicts,
and I, Scarlet Women!
The Mega Church hires us to travel around to
rural churches and scare the Devil’s own shit
outa everybody.
Hey! We really go fire-and-brimstone! Everybody
loves it! Well, not the particular objects. They end
up trembling.
It's a real partnership. I research for him
and he for I. Say a guy owns a little hardware
store? Three rehabs, and slumbers in gutters.
Customers don't have a clue, so, you know:
Truth sets everybody free! My Partner gives the
shoddy bio from the pulpit as a fiery warning
to us all. The devil being the manufacturer of
all such addictive crap! And toxic secrets.
He chooses for me a typical pink pretty. Butter
wouldn't melt in her pursy mouth! Could be a
juicy abortion back there, though. Or whatever.
Well, THAT’s hitting the lottery!
Probably just the usual carnality with associated lies.
At any rate, when I'm through with her, she's quivering
Jello on the floor, that Scarlet Woman!
I say it like it's fun, but it's damn hard work too!
Good? Are we actually doing...?
Ultimate questions left for Headquarters! We serve!
Hey! Degrees from two halfass Bible “Colleges?”--
and I majored in Basketball?
Two Good Ole Boys made good, if you ask me!”
Labels: Abortion, addiction, Bible, bible thumpers, carnal, Fundamentalism, good ole boys, mega church, preaching, rehab, Scarlet Woman, sin
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Casino Physics
Light-Shade-Friction
"Just a matter of staying
in the shadows," explicates
Carmichael, inventor keen
as Edison & slot thief,
re ducking spycams as he
jimmied new-tech machines
with his too-weird devices. Casinos
pruned him finally, out of umbrage.
In the verge where sparks dis-
charge from the so-rubbing
pantyhose of waitresses!
Labels: casino, horticulture, light, shadow, slot crooks, slots, spycam
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Yes, the Neighborhood Is Vulgar. No, It’s Not Always Unwise
-She says she can’t live without me!
-What do you say?
-Not much. I hardly know her. She’s making me up, and then
falling in love with the, the...making-up-thing that she...
-That’s cuz you’re handsome!
-(soft) And stupid.
-But, you’re a man! Have you shown her that you’re a man!
-Not really.
-What’re you waiting for? What you think SHE’s waiting for?
-For ME!
-Damn straight!
-Well off he goes! Romance in his pants! We’re not doing her any favors.
-Hey! That’s love. And insanity. She’ll get over him FAST!
-And we don’t even know if our hero can get it up.
-Evidence from the Y’s shower room indicates a miraculous
surplus available! Could have charged admission.
-Having anything doesn’t mean you know how to use it.
-A freak with the IQ of a rubber plant!
-His mother speaks well of him.
-And his Aunt Dot?
-Of nobody!--Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa made to feel
like crumb-buns.
-I can’t help it! I love that kind of woman!
-You’re sick!
-Ah yes!
Labels: critic, endowned, enfatuation, Mother Teresa, neighborhood, Romance, Schweitzer, vulgar, Woman
Friday, March 20, 2015
Dream Tactic
Varieties of Lying Experience
-I guess the moral question is can you trust someone who
lies in dreams?
-Let’s jettison the dream part! I don’t wanna show off my
two-bit psychology just now. Maybe the moral part too.
At any rate, what happened?
-Lorkie screaming “I SENT you verification on that!”
-“Well I never GOT it!” I lied.
-Okay, okay, that’s the Self-Preservation Lie. Real question
is how many share it?
-Whole department.
-Whole department lying? Triumph of Capitalism!
-Somebody’s gonna get fired!
-A necessary component! But, let’s recap: We have the
Self-Preservation Lie and the Social Lie together. Yeah, they
can’t let you get away with that!
-I’LL be fired?
-Most likely. They’ll trap you into lying again. With witnesses,
your former friends. Then beef up the discharge report with
additional Creative Writing.
-What can I do?
-Stick a fork in yourself: you’re done!
-In the dream or life?
-There’s a difference? But you can do what Bipsey Hockney did,
some sort of voodoo delivered Mr Cato the flu for a week. When
the obnoxious prick came back, thirsting to perform Management’s
dirtiest tricks, Bipsey fell through the cracks. So let’s hear it for
Incompetence!
-My only hope?
-Has never failed me!
Labels: business, Capitalism, firing, incompetence, lying, Lying in Capitalism, office, prevalence of prevarication, Self-preservation lie, Social Lie
Thursday, March 19, 2015
The March of Time
3000
When Hawks meet to usher in
The New Millennium, they
agree to stone oppo-
nents back to The
Nuke Age.
Labels: hawk, Millennium, neocon, Nuke Age, Stone Age
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Where the Music Is Something Grand
All the Gentry Will Be There!
advertises an Irish ballad.*
As in our Senate and House,
they're active, or their
designated ass-wipes.
*McNamara’s Band
Labels: ballad, class, Gentry, House, Irish, McNamara's Band, Music, senate
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Figuring Out Heaven and Earth 1,2
Justine & Bernadette & Bernadette’s Curley
-That man should be ashamed!
-Every chance he got, he made an
exhibition of himself. And in
a bad way!
-Yeah, he was no good all right!
But...I liked him.
-How could you like him? Thinking
of the humiliation of his wife
and children?
-Well, I obviously didn't think of...
-Hey! He was never punished on this Earth!
-You mean, they'll get him eventually?
-That Final Tribune, Baby!
-Sounds like a hip newspaper. But, it’s
Tribunal methinks.
-Anyway, he'll get it then! Worse than he
deserves, I hope.
-One can always hope. Besides, he'll have
St Peter in stitches with all those little acts
he pulls.
-He's worthless, but makes people laugh!
-So, Pete gives him a pass in?
-Probably.
-Who else gets passes?
--Well, the five-percent.
-They PAY their way in then?
-I suppose.
-You mean HEAVEN'S Deck is stacked too?
-Most likely.
----
The New Hire After a Week
-I hear nothing but bad about our boss,
Mr Hoska, but you say he's wonderful!
-And generous! Why he'd give you the
sleeves outa his vest!
-Hah! Back at YOU on THAT one! Vests HAVE
no sleeves!
-I give up trying to fool you forever!
Labels: Family, friendship, joke, office, shame, work
Monday, March 16, 2015
Sauce. Goose. Gander. Eventually.
-He reeks of insincerity! Especially when they
force him to lard in God-references.
-I give him a pass in that case. That's merely
Hypocrisy. They usually run neck-and-neck with
the other side there.
-Their Hypocrisy-Triumphantalism being a passing phase?
-Most definitely! It’ll shake out to both having predictable scoundrels that way.
-Is Hypocrisy the Golden Mean then?
-There can be no other!
Labels: "democracy, God, Golden Mean, hypocrisy, political hypocrisy
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Identity
Glurtzmans
I settle on doing one flamboyant thing a day...
then, lose interest...so, a week.
Buy a Hawaiian shirt, garish Flame-Motif!
Go back a bit. Meet this couple on the beach at the Surfing
Competition, and they scream, “Dr Glurtzman!”
“No,” answers yours truly. But, they insist, and I tire of
informing them otherwise.
I gather he taught at Nicolet College. Physics. And very
demonstrative. Acting out Einstein, Heisenberg, Planck.
Well, good for him!
I missed my chances to be demonstrative, and thus turned
Church Mouse.
I google him later, but have the gist already.
Don’t worry. I didn’t become him, but did plan to add a bit
of unpredictability, flair. Thus the shirt.
Which I wore to the Presbyterian Rummage Sale. Confiding to
Jill-Ann that I should sit on a table and be bought.
She said she’d put in a bid now. Well, the silly talk that goes
on at such events!
I plunged then, though! Inviting her for coffee after the half-day Sunday. Right after Reverend Andony will show up and stress that he wants all the crap out of the hall. We’ll throw it in closets alongside biblical displays: under the
stage cubbies, it’s all Loaves and Fishes.
While I wait outside for Jill-Ann to freshen up, Dr Glurtzman shows! He isn’t the real one either, but informs me. “The old boy’s dead, entertaining St Peter and the Gang with the one that Heisenburg forgot his socks for the Nobel. It’s...important that he stay dead--if you catch my drift.”
He killed him? For the insurance? And now pretends to BE him?
Then he says “I’ll buy that shirt right off your back!”
But I’m too shook to answer. Too much for me, and I gush
It was a one-time thing, my briefly letting some inane
youngsters persist in believing I’M Dr Glurtzman!
Long story short, Jill-Ann and I marry.
And what a cramp in the balls she turns out to be!
I worry that the other phony Dr Glurtzman will return
to murder me!
But that’s in the Period of Adjustment right after strangling
on the knot.
All kinds of shit went down then!
Upshot? Dr Glurtzman as Peter Destiny Hasolastern, nabbed
in a terminally seedy Lauderdale motel room with a fourteen year
old girl.
So bye-de-bye, Insanely Violent Death. You can say what you
want about marriage, but it’s preferable.
Labels: con man, identity, Lauderdale, murder, role-playing, sex, surfing, underage sex
Saturday, March 14, 2015
Instruments
Only ten or so people in the world can actually "play" the Feldsmurr.
He's one, and another moves into his condo complex.
He has never seen her at The Exotic Instruments
Convention. So, a mystery.
She takes to playing it at the pool, and acquires
some fans.
They request Sinatra melodies, but forget that!
You can start with something someWHAT recognizable, but the Feldsmurr goes wild then.
Makes you improvisational despite yourself.
An acquired taste, but her fans remain faithful.
She has a pretty nice body, and is tolerant of the
various seedy-senior Romeos hanging out there.
So, he becomes one. You never know.
Right now you're saying: "Why don't they just play duets on the damn thing?"
Impossible! Two of these instruments produce sour chaos, even in expert hands.
Things go well at the pool, and they have a date tonight.
Where he'll show her his Feldsmurr, and whatever else.
Labels: exotic music, love, Music, senior, senior sex, sex
Friday, March 13, 2015
Refining Brotherhood
When the candidate professed that "The Supreme Triumph
in Life is knowing one's place in it!" Val paid no attention.
He was an old man running against an old woman.
Well, the old man won, and what the newspapers now called
the New Royalists were ecstatic.
"Good luck with all of that Class Baloney! Val told Mahan.
Let's see them try to enforce that crip-crap in a nation
with a tradition of equality--well, not always, but you know
what I mean.”
Well, they knew what they meant also. But Val and Gretchen and
the gang that hung around Kippy’s Kool Kup ignored these old
ones the same way they would have the old ones who lost.
The newest couple watching the football games there was Gritz
and Nelly-Belly. She being pregnant. Gritz worked in the foundry
and had a mouth you couldn't believe! His wife matched it! Hal often got them to cool it, especially when families with young children dropped in for a snack.
But Gretchen became infatuated with them since their friends were
so Steady-Eddie boring. And life itself had reached such a stuffy,
boring level!
“All our friends are so CAREFUL all the time! Those two make
me laugh!”
So, she started inviting them to family events--where they mostly behaved.
But, enough slipped up that his Uncle Ducks noted them.
One thing and another, he asked them to cut the vulgar couple loose. “They'd be much happier with their own kind.” etc.
Hal wouldn't do it, and, of course, Gretchen backed him up.
The next request came from up higher--Ducks being just
an alderman. And this time he had to insist. The policy had
come down from Washington.
Her girlfriends quickly got to her, too, and so she didn't
object anymore.
It fell to Val to tell them, and he did. Both cried.
It was so embarrassing!
Val and Gretchen still see them at the Kool Kup, and they're often
laughing with a rougher bunch, so it may be true we're happiest
staying in our place.
Labels: Conservative, football, keeping your place, knowing your place, peer pressure, social stratification
Thursday, March 12, 2015
The Assignment
-I’d like a committee full of prestige, and with absolutely
no work.
-Sorry, they go to the boyscouts and girlscouts, to give
ridiculously off-topic speeches for the dolts back home.
-Well, you gotta do something with ideologues, I suppose.
-Defuses ‘em and gets ‘em outa the way!
-How about International Bushwah, then? I can babble on
and on without a thought.
-I got you on Finance.
-Mass Confusion!
-Way the bankers designed it while stealing us blind!
We need hardheads like you to cut through the bullshit!
-Oy! Talk about thankless! One guy got lost in that committee
around 1960 and hasn’t been heard from since.
-Never mind all that! This is the People’s House doing the
People’s Business!
-Don’t remind me!
-You wanna lazy berth, run for Senate.
-Soon as the Kabuki Masks finished.
Labels: bankers, bullshit, Committee Assignment, Congressional Committee, finance, Kabuki, People's House, politics
Wednesday, March 11, 2015
Scale
Burke is largely into insignificance: humans as much much
less than specks in a speedily expanding universe.
Hal tells him he's sick of hearing it, and has decided
to make the best of his speckdom by getting a girlfriend.
The old Ford dealer now runs Valley Couples. "I put you
in a Ford, now let me...!"
Hal's just-hatched ad: “Insignificance wants similar for both
to prove greater or lesser.”
Burke pronounces it too romantic. But he, as you've probably
concluded, is nuts.
One reply, so Hal meets her at Just Coffee. The fashion in the
Valley is to name most establishments modestly, but
sociologically. This one aids poor farmers in Central America.
Beats, for Beatrice, drives for Federal Express, Hal for its Brown
Competition: a springboard for a conversation that rushes
until closing.
Other dates with these two, of course. In one, though both
ordinarily eschew detail, they compare contracts.
Then, one night at the Starlight, booze-dreamily explore
living together.
Therefore, the eventual cottage on Appletree Lane, once rural,
but now mostly strip-malls.
Both sets of friends come easily on board, and Burke actually
encounters a woman into Astronomy, and they argue massive
points–-approaching a trillion light-years. Continuously.
The most urban section of the lane holds Appletree Chapel,
and Beats' special buddy, Reverend Nancy Carks.
She marries them a year later. The reception at the Starlight,
where proprietors Mo and Minnie open all the doors to let
the swelling talk out.
The younger folks dance the Ratutsi-Doo right out to the sidewalk
and between parked cars!
Bride and Groom join them, sliding onto the hood of a Subaru.
Some Reception? Yeah!
No babies come, and they never find out why. But Rev Nancy
gets them to adopt Bert and Ernestine, two comically diverse
versions of busy medium-sized mongrels--after an elderly
pair of parishioners addles together to Bide-a-Bit.
Bert and Ernestine have aged alongside everyone else, and no
longer emit a blood-curdling howl when Beats and Hal leave for
work in their uniforms. But take more hugging now.
Labels: astronomy, dating, dating service, dogs, Federal Express, light-years, UPS
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
-What he say on his deathbed?
-That, all rumors to the contrary, he overwhelmingly LOVED the Dog-Eat-Dog! Would’ve stayed in it even for no money.
-You believe that?
-Not completely. Gotta be a bone in there somewhere for dogs to truly snarl and fight.
-We’ll never see his like again.
-How about his dislike?
-Hated everybody!
-Well he gets an F-Plus!
-Which reverts to F when he gets forgotten
in a week?
-Is anyone remembered past then?
-Nope. That’s the outer limit.
-So? Carpe diem! Seize the day!
-You can’t say both, the Latin and translation.
One or the other!
-Didn’t know there was a rule.
-Definitely!
Labels: avarice, carpe diem, Dog-Eat-Dog, dogs, greed, remembering dead
Monday, March 09, 2015
Human Advancement
or God Shedding His Grace
-A funny thing happened when we were congratulating
ourselves on our progress.
The Republicans got back in and threaten to pass an omnibus
bill entitled “The Right to Work for Starvation Wages As the Rich
Fuck Everybody with Our Fawning Concurrence, And the Spicks
Are Placed in Pens Awaiting Deportation, And the Blacks Shoved
in Jail Again, And All the Lovely Ladies Kept Barefoot and Pregnant Because of Their Recalcitrant And Weirdly Hormonal Behavior Generally.”
-That’s omnibus all right. Class and Race with the usual dollop of
bizarre Gynecology.
-With a special vengeance!
-Uh huh, but so what? There’ll be deals to soften the whole damn thing. That’s the nature of politics: It’s “Work it out!”
-Not this time. The Frenzy is on ‘em!
-Drool in the air?
-Wear a raincoat.
Labels: barefoot and pregnant, Blacks, class, Conservative, Gynecology, Race, Republican, rich, Right To Work, sex, The Gynecology Party, women
Sunday, March 08, 2015
Conversing By the Bay
-Don’t put raisins on paper towels!
-I heard that somewhere.
-Of course, I just said it.
-I mean, before.
-I made it up. Jenny asked me to get them at Safeway, so...
-Do your memory tugs have to be negative? How about:
Use paper towels after eating raisins?
-Who could be that gross? It’s not Sloppy-Joes! Besides,
negative you remember.
-I’m still pretty sure that someone said it before.
-Probably so! Four fifths of the world’s knowledge is bullshit!
-And the other fifth?
-Horseshit!
-Good! I can skip Philosophy 101 at Berkeley.
-I don’t like you. Does anybody?
-I don’t believe so. You?
-Nary a soul now. Jen did once.
-Then, I will.
-Likewise.
Labels: Berkeley, memory device, new friends, Philosophy 101, remembering, San Francisco
Saturday, March 07, 2015
Blue Collar
Idle Hands. Not.
When the men came back from the war, Flip had
completed his apprenticeship with the oldsters
who had left retirement for the emergency.
The veterans proved insufferable, calling him
girls’ names. Too, they defied the foreman by
prolonging breaks with war stories.
Flip did the job, no more, no less.
A spate of faulty raw materials ensued. And the
vets complained: “Crap stock equals crap work!”
Flip spoke up then, to their amazement. “The latter
you can do on your own.”
Thus he made enemies and didn’t care.
He became the youngest foreman ever. A concerted
slowdown followed.
In here, he got to speak with a jeep messenger, who
told him “Hey, I was a Major! A Big Deal! Not so now.
And these other recalcitrants miss the prestige,
excitement, and whores!”
Flip told him it was about time they stopped. But the
slowdown got slower, so he fired the worst one.
They marched into the Big Guy’s office and threatened
to form a union. He pointed out that they had unanimously
voted one down a year ago. But, ironed out a compromise:
Flip would take the fired one back, they would do the
work without further glacial drama.
But Flip told Mr Dash, “Him or me!” And wouldn’t be moved.
A funny thing happened then: The remaining warriors
grew obsequious.
Moreso than Flip liked, but they did the work--
mid flattery.
Life was lightened then by Bodgey, a Doberman
with eyes, one brown, one blue. Delly brought her
home from her job at the animal hospital because
the owner stopped paying board. “He went to find
gold in South America, and is probably dead.
You can’t make this stuff up!”
So, the three of them in the cottage. Flip and Delly
bought an adjoining acre for Bodgey to romp in.
The plant hummed over the years, with most of the
foremen now closer to Flip’s age once upon the time.
Management wanted him to move up to Corporate,
but he’d miss the factory floor too much, the noise.
Bodgey eventually stiffened with arthritis and
Dr Hellickson prescribed pills and massage.
The couple took turns carrying her out to her
play area.
She passed, of course. They could hardly move
or speak for a long while.
The years flew, and new corporate masters declared
Flip must retire. Not so bad financially, since he
had a solid pension and Social Security.
Delly joined him by leaving Dr Hellickson, and they
moved to North Carolina. A double-wide next to a
barn-workshop. Flip built rustic furniture, sort of,
his take on it anyway, all by hand, no power tools.
And no nails either.
Buttsy from the lumber yard delivered some nice pine
since his driver was sick. He asked to see Flip’s pieces
and was completely blown away by a chest of drawers.
“Listen! I got some exotic wood I won’t let anybody
touch. But you use some to build one for me?
No hurry.”
“It takes me forever.”
It was finally done it a few months.
Buttsy fetched in his pickup, first having Flip sign it
in a hard-to-get-to interior place, then nestling it in
a nest of blankets and covering it over almost reverently.
“Well, how much? And don’t sting me too badly!”
Flip and Delly laughed. “Jeez. I don’t know. How about
two hundred?”
“The two’s right, but make it thousand!” The couple
very nearly fainted!
“I got buyers lined up for five more. I charge them
four--just so you know what a dreadful Capitalist
you’re dealing with!”
Delly volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club, and
persuaded Buttsy one day to contribute the
exotic wood for Flip to fashion a chest for the
annual auction.
It fetched Nine!
“You’re getting famous!”
“Yeah, and it’s going to my head! I had two Cokes
yesterday instead of the one.”
Doc, the pharmacist, approached about
bookcases to line the den of his new house.
“How long you got?
“Move in, year or so.”
“I’ll do half, next year half also.”
Doc said he couldn’t wait, and Flip shrugged.
But he phoned that night and took Flip’s deal. “I guess
you don’t know it, Flip, or care, but it’s Art, I mean really is,
so I’ll hafta wait.”
When Flip hung up, he reminisced with Delly.
“You know, the men called me Gertie when
they returned from the war?”
“You’ve come a long way, Gertie!...but I’m worried
you’ll start finding me boring.”
“No way, My Beauty! And besides, I was never bored
in my life.”
Labels: art, blue collar, Craftsman, generation gap, marriage, veterans, working
Friday, March 06, 2015
Question For the Ages. Or not.
-What’s it really like for the Party when
the other one is in?
-Easy for the Dems. More wheelbarrows
of cash rumble to the RICH, but they’ve learned
to live with pretty much that same old fatalistic
shit over the years anyway: any reform aiding
anyone else being quickly transmuted, one way
or another.
-A Law of Nature?
-Something like. But more iron-bound.
-And, for Republicans on the outs?
-THE END OF THE WORLD!
Labels: Armageddon, Democrat, gifts for rich, outs, Republican, rich
Thursday, March 05, 2015
The Celebrity
Mr Disease
When Dr Cantry asked him to represent
the disease, it sounded funny.
Actually, of course, she meant efforts
to fight same.
So he became the public face for the latter.
First on TV, where Jenny made him up meticulously.
“These new cameras pick up a flyspeck at fifty miles!”
Soon, people waved on the street.
The mayor phoned with a request to join the
Youth Sports Week Parade. The army truck
holding girl softball players became his choice
since they had more hell in them, thus least
reverential to him and his disease. Called him Dad.
The most comic deference happened at Acropolis
Lunch where Markos insisted he sit in a booth now.
Still orchestrated the usual 40's era food jokes though.
Thus pretending he didn't have a lit degree, announced:
"We have two kinds apple pie today, Apple and Pin-Apple!"
It became his turn--and he didn't do one of his fadeouts,
though he had to yell from the booth. “You call this Chicken
Soup? The chicken walked through it on stilts!"
Waiter Jellybean, started dressing as a gangster, and our
Mr Disease enjoyed hassling him.
You'd almost expect Sam Spade to pop in to ask some
pointed questions!
And one blunt one.
Labels: death, disease, food, Greek, Sam Spade, TV
Wednesday, March 04, 2015
System(s)
Property
-When it was decreed that everyone own land,
some purchased just a few square feet.
-Largely symbolic?
-You can say that again! Just enough room for him
to stand, but John Q has the harrowing fantasy that
someone wants to take it away!
-Thus, arguments?
-Add shootings and wars!
-Therefore, Property is evil!
-Nonsense! The System will work admirably if
everyone just calms down.
-You could say that for any System.
-And will.
Labels: arguments, Capitalism, property, shootings, socialism, system, violence, war
Tuesday, March 03, 2015
(or Don’t deride cyanide)
Capital Atmospheric
-You call him Senator Arguments?
-He makes them from all sides.
-Even arguing with himself?
-Brilliantly!
-After all of that, how does he know
how to vote?
-Easy! As he’s told.
-Supreme Court next?
-Doubtless!
Labels: argument, issues, puppet, rhetoric, senate, senator, Supreme Court
Monday, March 02, 2015
“Just how do Lesbos do it?”
asked Ambrose.
“I don’t know, but they know how to press
each others double-hot buttons.”
“Tongue them, you mean.”
All this, while maneuvering the cables in
place to lift the 40s era safe from the floor,
out the place from whence the skylight had
been removed, and down to the street.
Ambrose continued the operation from
there. Maxy-O had jumped into the crane
on the roof, and awaited his instructions via
walky-talky.
Everything cautiously perfect. Then a
cable snapped, the ends looking like
bits of lightning.
The deep green safe hung at an angle
for a few beats, while the blue sky
darkened.
It slipped and plunged, flattening the
fleeing Ambrose.
They took him home and slid him under
the door to his wife, who, of course, had
never seen him that way.
Couldn’t resist all that last, and the Lesbians
should be pleased.
Labels: accident, coordinating work, death, joke, lesbian, marriage, work
Sunday, March 01, 2015
The Woman Who Wouldn't
Please don't impute sex im-
mediately. Came out diffident
in everything. Steady, not ex-
perimental, in dull truth.
As an example, when two-
toned sneakers attacked
the village, she eschewed
chartreuse/orange for a few
pairs of firesale black.
In similar vein, when a brother-
sister gifted her a Jill Karby
Blouse--both having hopes--
she took advantage of their
emphatic glasses, and dearth
of judging size, by wearing it
to bed. Alone and happy! For
emotion exhausted and
embarrassed, and that
was that! In Hollywood Bourgeois,
she meets a Fellow Diffident, they
develop a rattling hate, then, lah-
dee-dah, one paradoxical love-
v-v-v! Some weirdness splits them,
AND, with all looking altogether flat-
ly, grimly pastel...ah!...
Well, she does prove Darker
Art-House, in a new flick so
Swedish-Boring as to supply pain.
Thus now, how truly to get her an
ultimate wiggle on?
Nothing. She’ll go her way.
And die. Like the rest of us.
Labels: boring, bourgeois, diffident, emotion, fad, film, love, sex, Swedish
