American Fez

Updated Epitaph

John Keats (1795-1821) ~ Here lies one whose name was writ in vitamin-enriched, lemon-flavored Italian spring water; bottled at source; available in your choice of either sparkling, still or choleric; please recycle Grecian urn after use. To learn more about the romantic poet family of beverages contact your local literary executor or visit our online library.

Strange Musical Instruments of the World

Number 13: the Gurglephonium

"Oh for heaven's sake Benjamin, forget about the bloody gurglephonium, nobody likes the wretched thing." These are the infamous words spoken by Sir Horace Spasm when reviewing an early draft of Benjamin Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, and the poor instrument has languished in obscurity ever since.
A poor cousin of the treble-splintered hacking tuba, the gurglephonium, once described by Schubert as sounding like the death-rattle of a consumptive pygmy with tonsillitis, first gained prominence in the Sunday morning markets of Moorish Spain. Here, engulfed in a cacophony of frenzied bartering, sneezing livestock and ear-splitting belches, desperate carpet merchants would draw attention to their colorful wares by exhaling into gaily decorated gurglephoniums. The result was often either a slit throat or an invitation to give a recital at that year's Eunuch's Jamboree.
Stanislaw Maniak was the first and only modern composer to incorporate the gurglephonium into a symphonic setting, albeit with zero success. His seminal Third Symphony: The Queasy met with a chorus of deafening boos when it premiered in 1872, and Stanislaw died two years later in a Polish lunatic asylum. With the exception of esoteric state functions at the Ruritanian court of Rudolph the Deaf, the gurglephonium disappeared from musical concerts altogether after the Maniak tragedy, and never was the phrase "Rest In Peace" more appropriate than when it was carved on Stansilaw's tombstone.
Aside from Benjamin Britten's aborted attempt, several other crusades to revive interest in the gurglephonium have been launched during the twentieth-century. Chamber pieces by musicians such as Schitberg, Moronovich and Bufoonokovski have all been greeted with various degrees of indifference and contempt, but curiosity concerning the gurglephoniums potential still persists in many of the world's most avant-garde basements, garages and maximum security prisons.

Blue Thames

Whenever I travel to England the country always seems much smaller, more brittle, far feebler than it did the last time I visited, rather like the sad shock of encountering a rapidly aging relative last seen in reasonably hale health two or three years previously, now ghostly gray, fragile boned and forgetful, less teeth.

Fortunately I was able to mumble my excuses to Old Father Thames and getaway before the British Airways unions go on strike.

American Fixtures and Fittings

Technology: the job-eating, micro-processed bacteria; bane of the working man; printer of pink-slips and filler-in of termination forms; the downsizing upgrader. This is the story of how ravenous technology and I became interactive.
I am the uniformed attendant who hands out warm towels, Egyptian cotton, to patrons of the gentleman's restroom, third floor, at the local Rextel International Super-Towers. Well, at least I was until this morning.
It was, perhaps, a menial occupation - 'Warm towel, sir? Perhaps some hand lotion, too?' - but provided me with a great deal of personal satisfaction and pride. During slow periods I would often carve tiny messages of goodwill into the surface of the sanitizing soap cakes that decorate the drains of each toilet: 'Thank you for choosing to urinate at this convenience,' and, when I could fit it on the cake, 'It is our pleasure to furnish these state-of-the-art facilities for the relief of your bladder.'
Of course, "state-of-the-art" proved to be my downfall; the robotic arm that would flush my simple trade beyond the u-bend in the pipe and out into the vast sewer of obsolescence; but I did not know that then.
Modernization began with environmentally-conscious waterless urinals, then moved ominously to vitamin-E soaked wet-wipe vending machines, before finally concluding with vari-speed hot-air hand dryers equipped with special damp-palm sensor and adjustable nozzles. These automatic systems and I were allowed to compete for a while, but it was clear that the non-human operations would eventually triumph. Indeed, once my wall-mounted rivals had been installed the patrons seemed discomforted by the very fact that I existed, brushing aside my proffered towels with an embarrassed shake of the head as they marched towards the howling machines. I had become the elephant in the restroom, so to speak, an inconvenience in the public convenience. I knew it would only be a matter of time before I myself was hung out to dry. The writing was on the wall, and it didn't say "For a good time call Dolores."
So farewell all you shoe-splashers. I hope you enjoy your voice-activated bidets. I am now seeking future-proof employment in the debt collection business. Perhaps I'll see you around.

Smorgasbord Schadenfreude

An acquaintance of mine who shall remain nameless, a self-confessed Christian who nevertheless often chooses Sunday brunch-going over church-going, has recently returned from vacationing in the Nevada desert with a shameful rash that shall also remain nameless: proof, if any were needed, that what happens in Vegas does not necessarily stay in Vegas, no matter how much expensive ointment you slather over it. He claims that this amusing skin condition is merely the result of an allergic reaction to his hotel's all-you-can-eat buffet: further proving, as I gleefully pointed out, that God does not always help those who help themselves. No doubt, I suggested, such sufferings were sent by the Lord to try him, much as he was sent by the hostess to try the spicy pork dumplings, and both the Lord and the spicy pork dumplings obviously move in mysterious ways.

Pocket Hankerchief Blues

Requiring a suit for a funeral, size 38-regular and hopefully modern, I wrestled my way through the revolving doors of my local fashionable boutique and toured the designer racks in search of something appropriate.
One well-cut example caught my eye immediately, but unfortunately the acronym "DKNY" was printed down both the right jacket sleeve and left trouser leg in large, bold, white letters. Another was embossed with grinning skulls and another featured scarlet leatherette lapels. There were suits suitable for gypsies and pirates, suits that Liberace would have thought too vulgar, space suits sans helmets, suits with short pants, and suits for stage productions of Guys and Dolls, but nothing sober.
I don't want to pay my last respects looking like the banjo player in an old-time jug band, so I guess I must give up on any suit stitched together in the twenty-first century, and a beat a retreat to time-worn Mr Henri's Gentleman's Outfitters, the bay-rum scented inside-leg emporium of yore.

The Gift of Laughter

Batteries are never included with the Gift of Laughter. Furthermore, there are many small parts in the Gift of Laughter that maybe hazardous for children and present a risk of choking. It is rare and expensive, too, as any gift worth giving always is. In fact, these days you often have to special order the Gift of Laughter from obscure corners of the globe. Thank God for the internet!
Your toothless aunt in Tallahassee may have given you a Gift of Laughter for Christmas last year, but, although she means well, it was the wrong kind. Obviously your mother needs to be more specific when describing the Gift of Laughter over the phone to senile relatives. Surely even she knows that any cartoon book featuring an overweight tortoise called Herb who wears a baseball cap and greasy dungerees is certainly not what you asked for. This Gift of Laughter is a gift you will definitely want to re-gift, possibly as a tax-deductible donation to your local lunatic asylum's library. Here it can be enjoyed by chronic depressives as they wander along the endless, sterile corridors in their dressing gowns and slippers, smirking mysteriously to themselves.
Indeed, any paperback book marked "humor" is more a gift of desperation than a Gift of Laughter. This is because the Gift of Laughter in printed form is now regarded as "literature," much like music is now called "classical music."

The Laughing Policeman on the Internet

"LOL LOL LOL, what's going on 'ere, then?"

(this post obviously belongs on Twitter)

Poor Reception

Predictably, my bravura performance as Hamlet at the Slugford Drama Festival has been heavily criticized by the philistine local media. These provincial idiots accused me of "merely phoning it in," when it should have been quite obvious to anyone with brains that I was playing The Dane as a modern commuter forced to deliver his profound soliloquies via AT&T's cellular network, and consequently experiencing all the communication problems that arise in such a situation.
Any audience familiar with theatrical genius would surely have understood that my slurred speech, nervous pauses, repeated lines and incoherent mumbling were all integral elements of this seminal interpretation of Hamlet's human condition, brilliantly conveying the poor quality of AT&T's service and the frequency of its dropped calls, and in no way offered incontrovertible evidence that in realty I am simply a extremely feeble actor who spends far too long in the bar before the curtain opens.

Honestly, do I really have to swagger on stage with an iPhone stuffed down my codpiece to ram the point home? This is the thanks I get for bringing my considerable talent for challenging, avant-garde theater to the stupid suburbs!