American Literature 101: Mitch McConnell Refuses To Discuss Tea Party Racism: 'I Have Got Better Things To Do'

Hi,

You may find this surprising but, I'm not a fan of photos of men's feet. With that in mind, I'll spare you a photo of how good my feet look since I clipped my toenails with the new nail clippers I bought this morning to replace the ones that I used to own but lost last week when my apartment went up in flames. Oh, did I not tell you about how I plan to use my apartment blowing up for all the would-be humor I can milk it for? Well, it did and I do.

Anyway, I've been thinking a lot today about how good my toenails look since I cut them and started walking around all day in my new $1.oo flip flops that I bought this morning to replace the ones I used to own but lost last week when my apartment went up in flames. Man, that was pretty freakin' weird. Did I tell you about that? No? Oh, well, it wasn't really a big deal. I didn't really need all those chord charts for all the different people I play bass for anyway.

Anyway, I am listening to Gil Scott-Heron's album "I'm New Here". Actually, I kinda keep going back to this one track. I guess it's the 10th one on the album. I'll post it below this paragraph and I don't really give a damn if someone tries to arrest me for that because my apartment burnt down and I'm kinda in a bad mood. And by the way, my bad mood doesn't mean I wasn right to get all mad and walk out of the room yesterday. But now that I think of it ... actually, I was 100% right. Probably more like 110%. Anyway, if you listen to this Gil Scot-Heron track and it's not obvious to you why someone would keep replaying it ... I guess you and I are really never gonna work out on account of the fact that you are either deaf or you have bad taste in pretty much everything aural.

And speaking of dying and New York city, one of my favorite books that I used to own but lost last week when my apartment went up in flames is called Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison. Since I like that book so much but didn't really wanna buy it again since I had already read it, albeit about 8 years ago and have thus pretty much forgotten everything except the fact that I liked the fact that the end was in the beginning, I decided to restart my book collection today with a fun trip to The Strand where I picked up a copy of Ralph Ellison's "Flying Home and Other Stories". The astute among you will notice that I have not applied the standard html link application to neither "Ralph Ellison" nor "Flying Home and Other Stories". This is because I know you're smart enough to know that you can just copy and paste the words "Ralph Ellison" or "Flying Home and Other Stories" into the "search" field at amazon.com which can be clicked to by following the convenient link in the bottom right hand margin of this page. And assuming you buy the book, or anything else for that matter, from amazon.com, assuming you got there by clicking on the convenient link provided by me, you will be contributing to something I like to call: My Income.

Anyway, the first story in "Flying Home and Other Stories" is not the namesake of the book. Instead, the editors creatively placed a bit of light reading called "A Party Down At The Square" in the beginning of the book. As you may have guessed from the title, this story takes place in a town square. I haven't finished the story so I'm not entirely sure what town we're talking about. I think it might be in Alabama. Maybe you know where this is going. I sure didn't. When I was a kid in Connecticut we used to go to a party, down at the square, that we called "Mt. Carmel". It was a big flaming W.O.P. fest. I'd hang out getting powdered sugar from the fried dough all over my shirt and beg my dad for 75 cents to ride the miniature ferris wheel. Sometimes there would be a Neil Diamond cover band too. My Aunt Vincenza loves Neil Diamond. I could never decide if "They're Coming To America" was an amazing song or one of the best comedy routines I ever heard. For the sake of argument, let's just say it's both.

As I was saying, "A Party Down At The Square" is all about how this kid is gonna get burned alive and what can only be described as "pretty much all the white people in town" are standing around cheering on the fact that this kid who's name may or may not be a word that rhymes with "bigger" is, to put it another way, about to get set on fire. While he's still alive. Anyway, the town people call this kid the name that sounds like "trigger" but begins with an "n" and only has an "r" at the end of it so many times that you start to think there was a certain time and place in American history where people wouldn't have been offended by anything Mel Gibson said to his ex-girlfriend. If you don't believe me, you should click my link to amazon.com and buy the book yourself. Or you could just ask Mel Gibson's ex-wife since she seems to think that the guy who started dating this girl ...

... after what can only be described as two lonesome and gruelingly long months out of their 30 years of marriage is a real stand up guy.

Anyway, if I don't eat something in the next five minutes I might actually pass out. Assuming I wake up after said passing out, I'll be here working on The Old Fashioned Ladies Club which, incidentally, is only 30 days away from becoming the latest club.

Mwah!

M

P.S. Apparently this happened at Luke Wesley's Fourth of July party ...

P.P.S. Which may or may not have been the party where I taught his hot mom how to dance ...

P.P.P.S. ...

Publishing 101: The Sabotage Thrust and The Fragility Of Living Forever

Hi,

I'm back. And yes, I've been wearing the same jeans for 7 days. Thanks for noticing. And no, I have not run out of things to say. Maybe I just got tired of saying the interesting things I am always thinking about to you? Ever think of that? I bet not. I bet you never really even tried to think about anything the way I do and if you had ever been paying attention during that free trial couples therapy session we took back in 2003 you'd remember that it is actually important to pay attention to the other person in a given relationship but you probably don't remember since the 17 therapists we met with never got a chance to cover that topic on account of the fact that no one could get a word in edge-wise through your incessant listing off of all the things that I forgot to say and how I didn't pay attention and and and and and and ... apparently sometimes it's the things you don't do that hurt the most.

Anyway, I just made a great breakfast for me. For part of it I used the biggest zucchini squash in the history of squashes that will take me the better part of a week to eat that I have ever boughten.

Here it is before I unceremoniously slaughtered it for my own sustenance without regard for it's feelings as a living being:

Here is an artistic representation of my satiation:

And speaking of artistic representations. I've been spending a lot of time looking at all the new and exciting advertisements covering up the bottom third of all the videos on youtube. Just this morning I was mesmerized by various ads from Siemens about some of those non existent green jobs that people keep forgetting about and rediscovered the lost art of unrestrained joy at receiving my gift card just for being the 1 millionth visitor when I was distracted by how this guy named Straw mispronounced incredulity and found out that Michael Foot died:

If you're done feeding your dumb face you can look at the video here.

And if you have friends that are foreign you might ask them to ask their grandparents if they remember this speech which is probably not quite as good as the most quoted speech in the history of speeches that are frustratingly hard to find speeches where he said, “I am an inveterate and incurable peacemonger ...” but no one will ever know for sure because I can't find the speech and everyone looks to me for obituaries about people that Americans don't really care about anyway:

Moving right along, the lapsed Catholic in all of us will be relieved to know that for as long as our unemployment benefits allow us to pay our phone bill we can keep on skipping church and living in sin or, as the case may be, wishing we were living in sin with someone we wished were actually divorced and not just thinking about it. That's right kids, for the low price of 34c a minute (plus connection charge) you can dial 0-826-96-80-16 and connect with the Line To The Lord! Once connected the Line To The Lord, you can talk to the lord from the privacy of your own conscience and confess to your guilty hearts content.

The Independent reports that while Protestants around the world were clearly miffed at being one upped by the best Pope in the history of people who have friends of friends who know Jewish people, some lingering questions do remain. For instance: "Whether God is at the end of the line may be a matter of faith." However, assurance is given that "the phone line was adding to commercialism and materialism in the world."

Thank god.

In unrelated news, or if you think 34c a minute is too expensive to talk to the lord, there is also a free service for those of us who have good aim with a hammer:

And speaking of Jedi mind tricks, Lindsay Graham (R-SC) is smarter than you think. That's assuming you didn't think he was all that smart. Assuming you thought he was the carrier pigeon for all things good in the world of keeping white men rich, you're probably pretty pissed off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28friedman.html?sudsredirect=true

Anyway, speaking of being pissed off, I have to wrap this up so I can go to Luke Wesley's house and listen to his new album. I'll be sure to set my stop watch so I can let you know how long it takes me to fall asleep.

Mwah!

M

P.S. If you have insomnia at 10pm tonight ...

P.P.S. The Misty Boyce Experience Power Trio That Plays Mostly Ballads will be playing at Rockwood Music Hall ...

P.P.P.S. Presented by some organization you've never heard of.

P.P.P.P.S. And as if you needed more enticement ...

P.P.P.P.P.S. Yours truly will not only be playing one note at a time for most of the songs in the set ...

P.P.P.P.P.P.S. I'll also be talking through most of one of them.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S. Melting comes before rusted.