American Fez

This Rush Job of a World of Ours

According to the ancient scriptures, God created the world in six days, which strikes me as an unacceptably and excessively long time for a God to take to manufacture a planet as mundane as the Earth. Surely such an all-powerful Deity should be able to slap a few bits of mucky continent and lots of old briny water together in an instant, a "jiffy", even. Six days seems like the length of time that an amateur would need, a part-time hobbyist, or a dilettante with nothing better to do; the sort of person who bakes a poor man's pie from whatever is leftover in their fridge before it goes moldy.
Yet what's done is done and it took the time it took. Fair enough. Everybody needs to work at their own pace. Still, I can't help wondering what endless paradises and amazing marvels of nature even a slow-coach creator like God could have invented if he allotted twelve days to the creation instead of that obviously inadequate six; if he had taken just a little more time to weed out some of the more poisonous plants, fluff up a few clouds and file down some of the rougher types of rock, perhaps then there also might be no tsunami-inducing structural faults and brussel sprouts might actually be edible. Alas we shall never know, doomed to forever haunted by shadow of the perfect world that might have been.

Thanksgiving on Facebook

Live Feed

The Natives are attending Thanksgiving Dinner at The Puritan Colony an hour ago

The Natives have given a Turkey to The Puritans using the Gifts application yesterday

The Puritans have just given Smallpox to The Natives using SuperPoke! two days ago

The Puritans and The Indians are now friends via the People You May Know tool three days ago

Stuff That White People Who Listen To Right-Wing Talk Radio Like

1. The same things that they liked when they were twelve.

2. Being a dentist.

3. Light brown pants with adjustable waists.

4. Spending a long time sitting on the toilet reading the novels of Tom Clancy

5. Being proud of never traveling outside the United States but still affirming the incontrovertible correctness of their opinions concerning the rest of the world in the loudest voice reproducible by the human larynx while masticating the remains of king-size jelly donut.

6. Maintaining the belief that being obese is evidence of "good living" (see here)

Mole Man

There was a sullen mumble from inside an enormous sweatshirt hood, possibly either an apology or a demand, as a figure in unlaced, loaf-sized sneakers pushed its way past the other commuters.
He must have been wedged in behind us since Park Street, silently smoldering in space like a wad of Nike-branded ectoplasm before making his presence known by bundling himself down the length of the train towards the automatic doors, his progress impeded more by the vast bulk of his own voluminous clothing and hunch-backing backpack than the bodies of his fellow passengers.
Too late: the doors sealed themselves shut before he could exit, an unforeseen catastrophe that elicited louder mumbles and strangely spasmodic hand gestures, reminding me somewhat of a short, squat, denim and cotton-clad android suddenly unable to compute and consequently losing control of all its functions.
He remained facing the doors as the train juddered and pulled away, apparently anchored to the spot by his ballast-providing footwear, glaring into nothingness as the tunnel walls whizzed by, his pasty face reflected there like a dull cloud in a black sky at the end of the world.

See also:
The Devil's Subway Pass

Up With the Drunk

Dinner Party Self-Deception

Gerry rose from behind the remains of a savaged chicken and spanked his egg-shaped stomach. "That's some good living," he belched with pride and conviction, despite the obvious fact that it was an ill-concealed alien pod of very bad living; a coronary in nutrition's clothing prowling around inside his heart waiting to pounce; a fatty fifth column made of sugar, sodium and lard that had built its base in his abdomen and was planning on relentless expansion until eventually clogging its own supply lines and self-imploding in an orgy of high blood pressure. That's some good livin' if you don't mind some premature dyin'. It's his kids that I feel sorry for, because they're obese as well.

Turkey Sonata

Bad news: Henrietta has invited that megalomaniac old bore Beethoven to our Thanksgiving celebration again.
"Why can't your sister take him for a change?" I ask, but she just gives me one of her cold stares by way of reply.
Dinner is always such a fiasco when Beethoven turns up. He always insists in sitting at the head of the table, and then all he does is grumpily tap on his place setting with his soup spoon.
"You're not at Vienna's illustrious Hofburg Palace now." I tell him, "So you can cut that beating-time with your silverware business right out." But he just pretends he can't hear me and keeps on doing it.
"Ludwig, can you pass the cranberry sauce, please?" I ask him politely, but still get no response. "Ludwig," I repeat in a louder tone of voice, "Can you please pass the cranberry sauce?"
Nothing. I might as well be talking to one of those cheap plastic busts of him that you can buy in discount gift shops.
Yet he's suddenly all ears and furiously nodding his pompous head with its ludicrously windswept shock of hair when Henrietta says; "Would you care for another helping of saurkraut stuffing, Ludwig?" Then he starts shoveling forkfuls of it into his mouth quicker than you can say "allegro," his right-hand moving back and forth like he's playing the trombone in fast motion.
"My aunt Agatha was a keen pianist" I explain to no-one in particular. "She could play Chopsticks with her feet."
But nobody's listening. They're all too busy fawning over Mr So-Called Musical Genius and wiping sweet potato puree off his chin. Oh well. That's the holidays for you, I suppose. I reckon I'll just leave them to it and escape around the corner to the Vivaldi's house and watch the football as usual.

Monsters on Twitter

wolfman: woke up this morning with a bloody nose - anybody know whose nose it is? about an hour ago

the invisible man: if you can see it then it ain't mine ;-) less than an hour ago from web in reply to wolfman

dracula@vampire: LMFAO! about twenty-six minutes ago from web in reply to invisible man

wolfman: oh I can see it - and it's kinda green! about twenty-five minutes ago from web in reply to invisible man

dracula@vampire: where's Frankenstein!! ;-0 about twenty-three minutes ago from web in reply to wolfman

frankenstein@brain.com: ... friend? about twenty-two minutes ago from web in reply to dracula

dracula@vampire: WTF Frankie? Why do you always twitter the same thing? Get with the program flat-head about twenty-one minutes ago

Cloud Minus-Nine

Squashed into the window seat of a very small and extremely immobile plane, I realized that entrusting my sanity to US Airways was a tremendous error of judgment. Indeed, my journey would have been more comfortable, convenient and much speedier had I booked passage on a leaky, three-masted schooner crewed by an incompetent mob of rum-sodden orangutans suffering from serious arthritis. But I was not to know that when scanning the internet for the lowest-priced fares two weeks prior to my departure. (Actually, come to think of it, if anyone reading this knows of a web-site offering deals on ape-operated sea-going transport could they please let me know immediately as I still have to make my holiday travel plans and am looking for reliable modes of getting from point to point).
For some reason, the cramped and delay-encumbered US Airways flights seem to be the airline option favored by fat people everywhere. In fact, a US Airways jet taking off can be accurately likened to a blind man hanging about in the middle of a road for an hour and then suddenly tossing a can of lard into the air without seeming to care where or when the canister of fat will land. At least apes would have the good grace the eat the fleas on the vessel before letting their customers board.

Midnight in the Garden of Shrimp and Sirloin

I am currently exiled to the quaint old southern city of Savannah, Georgia. I am staying at the Marriott Riverfront, which is rather like visiting a village of gingerbread houses and deciding to stay in the block of chocolate on the edge of town instead. But at least it is a modern hotel with many conveniences, an extremely accommodating staff and several fully-stocked bars, and not some twee bed-and-breakfast run by a female fascist who forces her guests to get up at six in the morning to sample her homemade prune muesli.
Savannah's so-called Historic District is very pleasant and picturesque, but there is nothing to do here except eat, drink and buy foolish trinkets and pirate-theme sweatshirts in the zillions of restaurants and souvenir shops that sprout like weeds on every street. I walked for miles in search of shaving soap but never found a pharmacy, just row after row of steak and seafood grilles, Irish pubs and holes-in-the-wall selling unconventional candies by the pound. The Methodist preacher John Wesley once left this town in a huff and I fear so shall I.

Exit: Stage Floor

Shootin' the shit with Fox News about her future plans, chirpy Alaskan creationist Sarah Palin says "I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door. Show me where the open door is."
Indeed, and we can only hope that this providential door in question is of the trap variety. Begone wretched woman!

Visiting Hours

Clocks tick louder in the houses of the elderly. Every second is like a ceremonial gong announcing yet another cup of tea delivered by a shaking, pale and vein-blue hand; the arrival of another antique style of cheese cracker; another fossilized, powdery slab of Turkish Delight discovered during an archaeological dig in the kitchenette: "I like this sort, but you can't get them anymore." And I think how true that is of people, too.

Down Home Foreclosures

This morning I stood at the unlatched gates of a very old house in Inbred County. Generations of Inbred County folk have lived in this old house with its spine-chilling gables, heavy curtains and illegal architectural alterations to certain downstairs rooms that remain hidden from public view. They may have been evil-looking folk with low-foreheads, and they may have acted in a weird and disturbing manner more often than not, but they were honest-to-God, native Inbred County folk. They married their sisters and brothers in the front-room of that house. They raised their retarded and hunchbacked children in the attic of that house. They performed inter-personal colonic irrigations in the pantry of that house. And some of them even kept their kidnapped sex-slaves in the basement dungeons of that house, just like they've been doing ever since they bought their first shotguns. And as I stood at the gates of that old house in Inbred County I thought to myself: what is America coming to when an old Inbred County family is forced to vacate the home they've known so well for all these years and be taken to prison just because they keep innocent children chained to the wall in a tiny, windowless room in the cellar? Wall Street has so much to answer for.

American Hyperbole

For all those veterans who remember the Alamo, whatever that was. For all those shoeless kids from Scraggart, New Jersey who never got a chance to play golf on the surface of the moon. For all those droopy mustachioed immigrants in black-and-white photographs who formed human pyramids while balanced on skyscraper girders high above the streets of New York City. For all those who exercised their right to switch to the Verizon Wireless six-hundred minutes of talk-time plus free nights and weekends with unlimited texting plan. Yes, we have no bananas. For all those pioneers who have opened an Alfredo's House of Salami franchise in a suburban shopping mall food court in the past year. For all those crazy guys who went to Halloween dressed in a movement-restricting Gumby costume made out of smelly green foam. For all those creatively anachronistic gamers who wake up at dawn every Sunday morning, dress like Civil War Confederate soldiers, drive sixty miles to some rain sodden field to meet up with their reenactment group and then have to fall over in the mud and pretend that they got shot in the first five minutes of the reenactment. Yes but no but yes, we have no bananas. For all those bloggers who post their Amazon wish-lists in a sidebar on their site even though they really don't want most of the stuff they've listed there. For all those elderly folk who have paid the neighbor's kid to winterize their badly insulated duplex with Conford's Industrial Strength Polyurethane Sealant and don't known that it was withdrawn from the market six months ago because it contains unacceptable levels of lead. And for all those Americans out there who are cheering and shouting and crying and are not really listening to a single word I'm saying. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I have no, I say it again, I have no bananas.

Don't Worry, It's Only A Movie

G.O.P Studios contract actress Sarah Palin, familiar to fans of TV's The Twilight Zone for her role as the Creationist in series 3, is set to co-star with John McCain (Planet of Apes) in Dumb and Dumber and Plumber, a low-budget dramedy in which two deadbeat mavericks and their toilet-unclogging sidekick can't get elected no matter how much they pontificate about bombing and drilling most of the world's animal and plant life out of existence. Box-office poison George Bush (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) was also slated to appear but has been fired from the cast.
Two thumbs down say rational people everywhere.
God forbid that this movie does come to theater near you soon. All the critics seem to say "no," but I'm not so sure. I think a lot of those Undecided moviegoers canvassed outside cinemas are simply people who won't admit publicly that they don't want to watch anything with black people in it. After all, how can you remain undecided about a movie as terrible as this? I don't know. Surely it's time someone did a remake of Birth of Nation?