"You and I, we part our hair on the same side. I'm afraid that's where the similarities end, though, as you are the worst kind of Russian beet farmer and I sell c batteries."

It's a shame when senseless pageantry and competitiveness obscure the real miracle that is digestion.

Whoever said a messy home is the sign of a messy mind never considered how messy it can be just to get those damn sardine cans open.

As many people as could have guessed that these would be the sort of questions you’d ask yourself when faced with the dilemma of ____(1)_____ far fewer would have expected that your answer would be ____(2)_____.


A) the choice of spatulas; the big one
B) which robot to choose; the salad shooter
C) how to mend a broken heart; bubbles
D) waning natural resources; bubbles
E) how this will all end; walking pneumonia

Whomever put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop was most likely a rank opportunist. But whomever put the sham in the shamma lama ding dong was clearly a psychotic.

"See those peonies; so vulnerable; their pain is man’s pain."

"I really don’t see how."

"Ok, you’re right."

It'd be plain silly to grow a beard and then cut your nose hairs. We can forgive people's contradictions but don't make fools of us.

"Why are sea nymphs always throwing themselves around in such a maudlin way?"

By now we know virtually all there is to know about the wild kingdom. Whole libraries house documentary footage of almost every moment from the lives of almost every member of every phyla in every far flung stretch of humid reeds. But in all that footage we see no evidence of any wild animals itching.

We itch.

Our domesticated furry friends itch perhaps more than anything else in a given day.

So why don't they--living out there amidst whole minions of living, air-borne irritants--itch?

Who's fooling who? I want answers.

"These are my birthday shoes!"

"What do you mean? They were a gift?"

"No, never received a gift in my life; these are my birthday shoes!"

"You never received a gift?"

"Well, I once got a gift certificate but I don't consider that a meaningful gift--there's no thought in it."

"Sure there's thought in it--namely, 'this whole rigamarole is not as inherently meaningful as it is that you get something you want. your pleasure is more important than your being flattered by my thoughtfulness.'

"Oh, that's a lot of hooey. Time is money so you can subtract from the overall value of the gift certificate the cost of my time."

"So you're sayng that the measure of a gift's thoughtfulness is its cash value."

"Listen, bub, you gonna buy my birthday shoes or not?!?"

"How much?"

"20"

"10"

"Sold!"

"What do you mean 'you've always thought that eastern standard time was the correct time', Captain?"

"Just what I said: eastern standard time is the correct time."

"But we're in the central standard time zone."

"Well, it can't be two different times at once or nobody would ever be able to make plans. I think they've got it right in the east. It's 8:15 right now, not 7:15. And just as sure as the sun is risen, you can't tell me that it's 6:15 or 5:15. After all, our founding fathers came from the east."

"The sun's probably not up in Oregon yet so it makes sense for it to be 5:15."

"Loggers and tramps. I'll give them 20 more minutes--probably had a bit of a bender last night."

"The fantastic and the pedestrian meet in us--and where else, the world offers no other corners but the self. It's all just a metaphor that's designed for us to live in. Can't you see that?"

"OK Captain but I think you've misunderstand that particular metaphor about being married to the sea."

"..."

"Even if you're right, I won't be the flower girl."

"..."

"Oh, OK, don't have to go shouting 'mutiny!' every time you don't get your way."

"Oh, all any man really wants is to feel your nose split the breeze, to feel the ether glide by, to feel it all pass."

"Fine Captain, but I think you just like the way your voice sounds with your face in the fan like that."

Many complaints can be leveled against me and my mordant, incisive, rapier wit. However, no one can ever say I didn't eat lots of bananas.

If you do possess the auto-cleaning bio-faculties that you claim, why unspool whole rolls of toilet paper at a time? To make such a mess using something the only earthly purpose of which is to clean--but to clean others. Truly your vindictiveness is only matched by your cunning, cats.

"The night before as I tried to sleep there was a light on somewhere in my mind. As hard as I tried I could only find a faded and worn darkness. Today there was perfect blue around me, on me, in me--like that egg of a sun had finally been cracked and beaten into the blue. Could a life be lived like that? When the warm breeze comes along and makes you think that everything is the same such that the thought of the grey seems the skeptic's very pith. I can't be surprised that I was able to see it coming--looking back I've always seen it coming. He ws right when he said that the world was round. We think we're chasing the twilight when we're really just chasing our tails. Well, as the sun sets slowly so I commit my body--the soul's vessel--to the sea with this our faithful boat--a vessel in an unmetaphorical sense--the last great sailor has finally weighed anchor for good. "

"I don't even know what that means Captain. You've got the prickly heat again. OK, you're the last great sailor but that doesn't mean you have to prove it by drinking sea water by the bucket like this. We have that pump and the boat hasn't even taken on that much water. It was just a little spray."

"Sure you're a little green around the gills...that reminds me, can fish smell? If so, do they do such out their gills?"
"It would be in their gills not out."
"What?"
"I don't feel much like talking Captain."
"What was I saying...oh yeah, you think you're down and out now but have you ever had nothing to eat but sand? Sure, but have you ever had nothing to drink but sand? Well, I didn't think so. Between you and me I don't recommend any wild weekends in Juarez--you can never trust a place that's land locked. Take it from me, you just don't feel alive when you can't see the swells and smell the mackerel. You see, now finish peeling those yams."

She was a succubus, a cunning temptress, adroit acrobat, competent ornithologist and celebrated sprinter. She was also the operative that I was tasked with eliminating from the CIA's list of violent femmes and enraged suffragettes--me, a guy who a year ago was deemed unfit for service in the merchant marines after initial testing demonstrated a predisposition and predilection for high stakes games of truth or dare, on the lam now for three years trying to forget that fateful night when all I had to say was "dare" and everything would have remained the same--still living in Dubuque with Basque seperatist wife, Fabiola, and three loving children, Toulouse, The Greek, and Little Chaka, still eating the same old Basque finger sandwiches that Fabiola made, still watching The Greek excell at home economics and civics, still trying to find the time to fix the roof, still wondering how long I had to stay away from rhubarb before the swelling would go down, still a palooka. What happened? Well, I can't tell you that but let's just say that a poster campaign to end women's suffrage I had made in the 12th grade finally caught up with me. I'd approach, ostensibly inquiring about the eating habits of the tufted puftin, and she'd withdraw. She'd approach, lured by the identity I'd assumed which held itself out as an expert in ancient kitchenware, ostensibly to ask about a 8th century fork that she had a line on in Oman, and I'd withdraw. And so we danced--both knowing full well that one of us would win, one would lose, both understanding that the future vindication of our respective world beliefs depended on the other lying dead in a kiddy pool, both slaves to the common blood which surged through us demanding with the pound of every heart beat that we don't ask and just take, that we extinguish the flames of our missions by pressing together our wet bodies like amorous seals, both knowing that love, the only adventure we had left, was something the world would not allow us--at least not until it was too late--a series of events having been set in motion that could only end with the world merging back into a single continent under the publicly intrepid urging, and secret machinations, of a single frenchman who dared to dream--a dream from which no one would ever wake up.

"The present is the only time when we touch, the only time when we smell." thought First Mate Mullochnik regrettfully as he began preparations to leave the head.

"Don't smile at me Mitchey!" bellowed the Captain; he continued "You should just let your hair be naturally wavy. We're not pulling over for relaxant once we're on the river!"

"But captain, I meant no offense--I just don't think you would send your subordinates the right message if you wore a lady's fragrance--even if, as you say, in it you smell every one of the manifold mysteries and incantations of the Mississippi."

Sometimes everything around you slows down to such a light trot--sometimes everything seems so perfectly balanced on its head--to such an extent that we almost don't notice that the oxen have become unyoked and empowered.

Yes, when you smile the whole world smiles with you, but only because you have spinach in your teeth.

What kind of a hootenanny is this? Where are all the folk-singers? Where is that will to overcome which can only be coaxed out by incisive, spoken, political poignancy helped along by gentle acoustic strumming? What do we want? When do we want it? What do you mean any stew with my turkey leg? I thought people were dressed like that as a throwback to that strange psychic bridge between the 60s and Rennaissance times which so fueled our convictions and ignited our determination through tunics and the like. No, I don't want to watch them joust. Charles Reich clearly said "[The revolution] will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. This is the revolution of the new generation." . . . Well, if what you say is true this is very aptly titled 'Medieval Times'

Sometimes in life you don't just leave these things to that magic hand of chance--you order extra sauce.

What business is it of theirs if in the inviolable, sacred precincts of my own home i decide to plot the violent overthrow of the management of that Bennigan's?

You've asked me and I'll tell you. My favorite thing to do on days like these--when the sky seems as big as it ever was and riding atop every breeze is the sweet certainty that everything's alright--is to slowly, deliberately fill my cheeks to capacity with air and then slowly, slowly release a stream of this air at the unsuspecting subway passenger next to me until no more remains.

"I heard there are more sheep than people in New Zealand."

"You're thinking of Wales"

"No, sheep."

"There's fish out there. When you've danced with the lady of the sea as much as I have you just know."

"Who's the lady of the sea?"

"See that moon hanging low in that sea of a sky?"

"That's the sun."

"Oh...you know what a white sun means?"

"No"

"The lady's taken her bride."

"She's a lesbian?"

"What did you call that cursed hooch you gave me? I must admit I am under its spell. Either that or everybody is actually trying to steal my food. What an enchanting elixir, it's as if that conviction of every great poet that the world is capable of sudden and complete changes has suddenly been realized exposing only the skeptics and those who demurr as the real drips. In the words of Wallace Stevens 'we purge ourselves in the meantime in what are intended to be saintly exercises.' Before I purge, I ask again dear boy what you call this heady brew."

"Zima, Captain"

"Hell, don't call me captain. I've learned as much from you this strange night as you from me. Call me Lloyd."

"Listen, it's pretty clear that this impulse of yours to always interject with platitudes issues from feelings of intellectual inferiority."

"Prick"

"It's just like someone who's combative to compensate for feeling vulnerable. By the way you do that too. But for now let's focus on your feelings about my advanced coursework."

"Just because you take a karate class at a community college, taught by a 75-year old white guy who insists you call him Master Knuckles, does not make you a doctoral candidate."

"Oh dear, this is more serious than I thought. I'm glad we didn't wait any longer; you're beginning to resent me for the discipline and internal order that Master Knuckles has drummed into me."

"He's brained you with his walker three times now. I get the feeling that he's not a karate expert of any sort, is given to easy agitation, and does not like your company."

"If it's easier for you, we can treat Master Knuckles as the sort of personification of all of the ruin of your life, your aversion to stretching, your angry neglect of the internal energy highways..."

"Will you please just climb down from there. I believe you."