#44 PSA POEM: ANOTHER REASON TO BE NICE.

All the little kids,
Out on the playground
Are learning to play together!

Running and jumping,
Laughing and learning!
They're all getting along!

(Except for Pete K,
From Mrs. R's class,
That kid is an asshole!
He pushes and shoves!)

But everyone else,
Is getting along!
Standing in line
They file into the school!

(Except for Pete K,
He's a little bully.
Whispering horrible things
Into Jacob's L's ear!)

The kids are in class,
Learning their lessons,
Learning to read
And to write and to add!

(Except for Pete K,
This kid is obnoxious,
He's making fart noises
And kicking Anne's chair)

The kids get together,
They're making a plan,
They whisper together
And look at Pete K!

The following morning,
Pete K's not at school,
And everyone's happy
And everything's cool!

All names in this story
Are fictional names,
If they sound like someone
Well that's just a shame.

So don't be the asshole,
At work or at school,
Your colleagues might
Be forced to do things un-cool,

Like poison your coffee,
Or follow you home,
So try to be nice,
And leave each other alone!

WEATHER CENTER, THIS IS BRAD...

"Weather Center, this is Brad, how may I help you?"

"I think your website is broken."

"I'm sorry for the inconvenience, could you tell me your name?"

"Dan. Look, I've checked the ten-day forecast for the past week, and the numbers aren't changing."

"Let me check the page.... let me see... it seems okay on this end."

"But the numbers, they're all similar, but those can't be real numbers. I cleaned out the cache. Is it pronounced 'catch,' or 'cash-ay?' anyway, I cleared out all my browser temp files, but these numbers are all negative and terrible, and they don't change."

"Sir, these are the real numbers."

"But can't you make them go up?"

"We only report the weather sir, we can't—"

"You can't do anything? For the love of God, you can't even try? You're the fucking Weather Center."

"Sir I assure you—"

"NO! No, you don't assure me. These aren't real numbers. This is insane! How long is this going to go on? What are you people doing? There's nothing you can do? Cloud seeding or whatever the hell the farmers do?"

"Sir, this is an unusually cold winter, but again, I can assure—"

(sobbing, line disconnects)

#45 TO ALTER FOREMOST "YES" ON THINGS GONE BY

To alter foremost "yes"
On things gone by
The buried precepts lost
In wayward thoughts

Of idle hours spent by
Somewhere else
While we our dollars make
By daily toil

Bleak, bleakest winter
Bone-snap cold
(driving indoors all,
the absent sun)

Diverse slanders
Uttered out-of-doors
Let bygone lip-synched prayers
Unanswered, fade

Ignored by yawning
Channel-surfing God
Who flips through decades
Clicking one by one

Sleep the death-like sleep
On crisp white sheets
Nocturnal thoughts of
Lost car-keys and things

The lumbering wonder
Thunders, underwhelmed
Hecate's whispered
Incantations lost

The Viking's funeral pyre will blaze
Up out into the sky
Upon the waves

Three thousand years
And not a minute saved
The sands of time
Will fall for anyone

Young faces wrinkle slowly,
Week by week
And strong backs slowly
Weaken, year by year

The dreams of long-dead men
Traverse the stars
To sadly settle planets yet unmade

The testaments of unnamed
Alien gods
Writ down on stones
Decayed one billion years

And everyone the pulverizing time
It grinds down every upstart
That it finds

To alter foremost "yes"
On things gone by
To move the minute hand
There yet again

The moon will close her eyes
And look away
The sun will smile and sadly
Shake his head

The sky will weep and stretch
From here to there
The earth will spin and say
That all is well

The graves will stand forgotten
Day by day
And everything will be
As it will be

To alter foremost "yes"
On things gone by
The buried precepts
Lost on scattered thoughts

#46 THE GUYS IN TIES

Guys in ties
Are in disguise
Because they know
You will surmise

That they are wise
And civilized
So they can tell
A thousand lies

"Deeply saddened,"
"Mistakes were made,"
"The documents were all mislaid."
"The emails somehow got deleted."
The biggest lies are most repeated.

An army of lawyers
Are all on hand
To lie in a language
We don't understand

And the guys with ties
In suits tailor-fitted
Will always manage to get acquitted
The system will maintain the status-quo
But if you are poor?
Off to jail you go.

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I'm too sexy for this post

I'm too sexy for this post, too sexy for this post
This post is the most.

I'm on Blogger, you know what I mean
And I type my little words in the textbox
Yeah in the textbox, in the textbox yeah
I type my tiny thoughts in the textbox

I'm too sexy for this update.

Cola Hubris

Those new Coca~Cola commercials are sad and incredibly stupid:

"Hey consumer! You are surrounded by an Internet filled with relentless, hate-filled trolls who will stop at nothing to make your life a living hell. Your only hope is that some reckless, clumsy network administrator who doesn't follow the rules (NO FOOD OR DRINKS IN THE SERVER ROOM, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD) spills his Coke on a MAGICAL SERVER that will allow the Internet, simply by the virtue of some freakish, impossible anomaly, to artificially cheer you up, by accident, by creating some kind of virtual AI "friend" that will boost your spirits, (which, by the way, you are unable to do yourself, as you are a complete victim of all the idiots on the Internet {stop staring into your phone!})."

Anyway, that's how I feel about Coca~Cola's new ad campaign. For the record, I like Coca~Cola. It is delicious and refreshing.  They should go back to the old, "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" hubris, and shitcan this "WE ARE YOUR A.I. FEEL-GOOD OVERLORDS" hubris.

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Saltines, Saltines, Saltines, Saltines!

I was having my midnight snack, at eleven, as is my usual habit, of that great Ambrosia, peanut butter and crackers, when this song sprang into my noggin', fully formed, like an epiphany. My apologies to Dolly Parton.

Saltines, Saltines, Saltines, Saltines!
I'm begging of you please don't take my man
Saltines, Saltines, Saltines, Saltines!
Please don't take him just because you can
Your beauty is beyond compare
With flaming locks of auburn hair
With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green

Your smile is like a breath of spring
Your voice is soft like summer rain
And I cannot compete with you, Saltines

He talks about you in his sleep
There's nothing I can do to keep
From crying when he calls your name, Saltines

And I can easily understand
How you could easily take my man
But you don't know what he means to me, Saltines

Saltines, Saltines, Saltines, Saltines!
I'm begging of you please don't take my man
Saltines, Saltines, Saltines, Saltines!
Please don't take him just because you can

You could have your choice of men
But I could never love again
He's the only one for me, Saltines

I had to have this talk with you
My happiness depends on you
And whatever you decide to do, Saltines

Saltines, Saltines, Saltines, Saltines!
I'm begging of you please don't take my man
Saltines, Saltines, Saltines, Saltines!
Please don't take him even though you can
Saltines, Saltines

# THIS IS MY PLATE OF LINGUINI

This is my plate of linguini. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My plate of linguini is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My plate of linguini, without me, is useless. Without my plate of linguini, I am useless. I must fire my plate of linguini true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...

My plate of linguini and I know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit...

My plate of linguini is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my plate of linguini clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

Before God, I swear this creed. My plate of linguini and I are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but peace!

Wear A Hat

I saw a guy riding a bike out in this weather, on these icy roads, and all I could think was:

"Sir, you need to put on a hat."

Because he wasn't wearing a hat. You need to wear a hat out in this stuff. Its friggin' dangerously cold out there.  Put on a hat, dude.

You know that picture of the guy in Vietnam (or Cambodia, or wherever) getting shot in the head? And the photographer snapped the picture right when the guy pulled the trigger to shoot the guy in the head?

The guy on the bike looked like that dude. He looked that miserable.

Put on a hat. Jeez.

Thought Experiment 15_01

Fifteen people are in a locked, windowless room.

#1 thru #10 are just random people.

#11 thru #15 are siblings.

#11 has a gun. He's waving it around and saying all kinds of crazy things. He has a long criminal record. He beats his wife. He's a major-league sociopath.

His siblings, #12 thru #15 are embarrassed and alarmed by his shenanigans, but #11 won't listen to reason. #11 is sensitive about his mother, and he makes this clear to everybody in the room.

"Anybody jokes about my mother, I kill him."

His siblings, while they might also be offended if someone insulted their mother, are at least reasonable about it. They don't like guns, and they are relatively sane.

So #1 thru #10 keep their mouths shut. Perhaps in the future they can reason with him, or disarm him, but right now, he's bat-shit crazy, and waving a gun.

Everybody keeps quiet except #3. He says:

"Your mama's so fat... "

BLAM BLAM BLAM

The crazy guy shoots #3 dead, as promised.

Now we all agree #11 has to be stopped, somehow. We understand the sibling's embarrassment about their psycho brother.

But what about #3?

2014 In Review

This year that thing happened and we were all like, NO WAY! And some people were naked too much, and others were wearing suits and they spoke into microphones. Then some political stuff happened, and we were like, NO WAY! ARGUE ARGUE ARGUE! But then something new happened, probably on television or in the news.

Some good TV series ended or began, and some people were like, THIS IS SO AWESOME, and others were like, "Meh."

There were some award shows, where men wore tuxedoes and women showed off their boobies, and everyone was like, "She looked this way or that!"

Then some science stuff happened, and robots. Just last year, we were all thinking, I can't believe 2013 is already over with, there was so much bullshit. What bullshit is going to happen next? And bullshit DID happen. This year we are all thinking, I can't believe 2014 is over with, there was so much bullshit, What bullshit is going to happen next?

Sports and award shows, and weather happened. There were some emergencies. Some people got all shot up and we were all sad for a few days, but then sports happened.

And economy. Gas prices were one price, and then another. There were jobs and stuff, or no jobs, and men in ties stood at microphones and said some stuff.

So anyway. Freedom 2015.

THIS IS GROUND CONTROL TO STEVEN SPIELBERG...

In CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, in the scene where they're setting up the giant Lite-Brite keyboard to contact the aliens, and everyone very busy getting all the gear ready, if the keyboard guy would have plunked out a couple of lines from David Bowie's SPACE ODDITY, the part that goes, "This is ground control to Major Tom..." and all the workers kind of looked up from their work for a second, realized what they had heard, and had a little chuckle, that would have been so awesome, you guys

Literature Quiz #16

Scraping Ice, Thinking Chess

Scraping ice from the driveway, thinking about chess.

MOBIUS DRIVEWAY

Every snowflake is unique and special.
Every driveway is unique and special.
Every snow shovel is unique and special.
Every shovel full of snow is unique and special.

The Mobius Driveway is a driveway in which no matter what end you start shoveling, you never reach the end, because by the time one end is shoveled, the other end is full of snow.

A Little Self-Promotion.

Lazy Americans for Equal Representation

Another dumb election season, another barrage of advertisements touting how this or that candidate hurt or helped "hard working families." Always with the "hard working families." What about the rest of us? What about the families that are just doing the bare minimum? The "slacker families?" Who's looking out for us?

Why are their no ads pandering to "lazy families," the "shiftless, borderline narcoleptic families?" Who is representing the "lackadaisical families?"
What candidate is looking out for the "lethargic families?"

I Carved a Chess Set