"I used to think the brain was the most fascinating part of the human body, then I realized: look who's telling me that."

-Emo Philips

The night, like bacon round a francheezie, has begun to surrond me (and the cheese canal of my inner sanctum)

I wonder if we'll ever know just how many nudes there are sitting on rocks on other planets looking up and wondering how many nudes there are sitting on rocks only to find out that in the end they too subscribe to the notion that one benchmark of civilization is the covering of genitalia.

And so it was that after hours of what seemed to him like spirited debate, Lenny the Statesman realized that the strange creatures hadn't the foggiest notion of what economic indicators were let alone which were best for the long term.

Am I really so fat as to cry tears of jelly?

POSSIBLE REASONS WHY THE PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY ENDORSES THE CREATION OF PERMANENT SPACE POLICE:

-Venus's impenetrable cloud cover warrants, at the very least, healthy suspicion, at worst outright mistrust
-so we don't have to fight them within our own atmosphere.
-disaffected Plutonians' icy stares could bring about a chilling effect on our economic output.
-the fact that the ancient Hebrews called Mercury the star of the sun or the son of the sun seems to mock the new testament and all it stands for: this is needless affrontery indicative of galactic ambitions which, when coupled with the erraticness of its namesake, makes some sort of security measures deperately needed. (magma core of the planet could also afford them the use of fireballs should it come to armed conflict)
-Saturn coddles terrorists
-the moon has to decide whose side it's on
-because freedom isn't free.

"Alright enough! After Bobbo here got shrunk I thought maybe it was you, Big Chief Walks Like Duck, but now it's all too clear: I just saw you shrink Alan Funt, the donkey, Milo the Medicine Man. Now just cut it out, the both of you!"

Now that his Aunt Clorvis was gone, nobody but his trusted horse, Maurice Chevalier, knew what a lively dancer Styles "Two Shoes" Papanikalaus had become. If he ever did make it, he assured his friend he would get the credit for their signature hand claps that he deserved.

And he played and he played. And after while the other Gods were able to convince the vengeful Hera that she was actually a very caring and empathetic immortal. The fact that she had responded to the impolitic boasts of Gerana the queen of the Pygmies - that she was more beautiful than herself - by turning her into a crane and proclaiming that her bird descendants would forever wage war on the already slighted Pygmy folk was really self-defense. So they were half a body shorter than any other human; so they were a winsome people whose only earthly joys came from turning cartwheels, weaving and filberts; so they already lived in paralyzing fear of prairie dogs and hoot owls; a halfling ought to know their place.

Tips for Wrestling with Inner Demons

Because they are inner demons and all of your appendages and weapons are external, traditional combat techniques won't get you far. The timid would tell you you really can't do much but try to drown them with protein shakes. However, in so doing you risk all that protein just making their hair and eyes healthier. Punching yourself will hurt you more than them and you'll lose the respect of your peers. Holding your breath will do approximately the same. Communion wafers and other edible religious artifacts ostensibly seem like the best shot but that presumes that they won't crumble or dissolve on the way down. Eating them whole is better but you risk losing consciousness if they get lodged, thus affording the demons the opportunity to advance no doubt taking a strategic stronghold in your hypothalmus--he who controls saliva production and other autonomic functioning controls the man. Those with acid reflux have an advantage but they've likely arrived at such by indulgent lifestyles which would tend to indicate a weaker constitution anyway. In the end your best bet is probably to punch yourself and mutter.

'yes it is a lovely ham but im just browsing'

It's not really volunteering on a Bolivian peanut farm if you're just doing it for the protein.

What makes you tick, Ol' Ironsides?

Q: Do you consider yourself a conscientious student?

A: I don't know if I consider myself a conscientious student. I pride myself on always having fresh pens and clean paper but sometimes that's not enough.

Q: Why the city?

A: I know lots of people like to flock to the countryside to become more in touch with the great magnet that controls all of our laws but there are laws that affect us right here in the city--such as those laws that force flashers to meet with many levels of city and state approval (even requiring them to buy, and then display, a medallion which is emblematic of that official approval) before they can go on continually exposing themselves to you or I.

mild cheeses: discretion is the better part of cheese-making as well.

No one is indifferent to pekingese. You're either with them or you're against them.

Ask the Last Honest Colo-Rectal Man

Q: Is it harmful to retain flatus (hold in farts)?

A: This is a matter of some historical disagreement. For centuries, people believed that "retaining flatus" was bad for the health. Emperor Claudius even passed a law legalizing farting at banquets seemingly out of concern for poeple's health--though it is notable that the law, as written, only applied to cowmen (half-cow, half-man) who weren't allowed into banquets without explicit authorization from Bovinia the Cow Goddess of Mount Oraple. Then in medieval times people believed that retaining flatus for too long would attract witches. This would have been unequivocally bad but it was thought that witches (and, in limited circumstances, dwarves) were the only ones who could cure you if the Black Knight cursed your chickens. However, they often demanded bread up front or took a percentage interest of the rights to your cobbling proceeds. Then among certain strata of Elizabethan aristocracy it was thought that farting was a decidedly plebian undertaking, and so, in deciding to retain flatus as a demonstration of their sophistication and grace many were later thought to have stunted their growth and hastened the mumps. It was subsequently theorized that the mumps came from gypsy lotharios who did not sleep nearly enough yet still didn't make any meaningful attempts to find any work except in widwifery which they were clearly not qualified for by disposition or training. Today it is an article of faith that retaing flatus helps create jobs.

One wonders how Thoreau's legacy as a transcendentalist and rugged individualist would be affected if people knew just how much he loved the tub.

Excerpt From a Suddenly Renewed Correspondence with an Erstwhile Fat Friend

"...Well I'll be dipped in marmalade. Hi ya, big fella. Glad to hear everything's alright. I hope you're not so big as to block out the sun for the nice aussies/kiwis who've played host to you for these past years. I can still remember that smell of slow death that came from your room every morning and thinking of the way your face swelled when you slept in tents does the same to my heart. Come home to us. Remember the way we'd blend like waters until we couldn't tell where you stopped and I started except by noting that you were the fat one and I was the one you were sitting on..."

Are we really so blind as to think that the strategic value of the middle east has nothing to do with all those genies and their luscious melon breasts?

Another Day in the Presumably All-Canine Canadian Province of Labrador - Chapter 1

The sun was a flaming frisbee as it rose. The Boulevard Rue des Poulet looked as it did seven years ago--enough time for a single revolution of the planet but not enough to gain the support of enough bulldog-proles to unseat Rusty the Poodle King--the last time Chi Chi walked its lengths. He knew the scrutiny of a daylit walk in the capital city spelled trouble for one of his past. But since the disappearance of Ladybird (a.k.a. Wiggles), his friend and lover, he knew a sense of abandon and resignation that almost welcomed a brand of trouble that might bring with it the diminution or outright end of his pain--and besides he loved the smell. As Chi Chi walked he felt a gathering unity in the pull of his hunger, his heartache, and what might well have been heartworm; in the bent reflection of the sun in the now-broken shop windows, and tumbledown shacks beyond, he saw the fleeting radiance and splendor that had gilded the capital city years ago inspiring in all its denizens some kind of ecstatic impulse to just sprint and sprint until they had to lie down on one side, their chests heaving and tongues darting, the nip of water they had just lapped up from the communal fountain, commemorating Rex the founding father and kibble-giver, now on the pavement around their faces in almost its entirety. These images raced through his head with similar frenzy. Illusory as they may have been they only stopped when Chi Chi would have to attend to a persistent itch where his neck met his face or when he thought he smelled news on a tree or fence. He thought he smelled something of note several times yet their was no news--the entire province seemed to have lost its bone yet no one knew where to look; the Poodle-King's sleight of hand had worked; the Bulldog-proles seemed to have forgot almost everything, again, contenting, and seemingly sustaining themselves, with whatever they could find whether it was a scrap of turkey roll, an empty bottle, discarded lightbulb, or styrofoam popcorn packing pieces. Indeed, their had been no news for the year since Chi Chi became a self-imposed exile--living with a nice family in Halifax. He didn't blame the Halvorsons for thinking he was a compelling refutation of the logic that mutts are smarter. They'd tell him to come, he'd stay. They'd tell him to stay, he'd pee. Chi Chi had never known mediocrity in any form. But to say that which follows from a sapping of the will to live is not mediocrity would render the term entirely useless. However, the Halvorsons never seemed to care and arguably loved Chi Chi more for his failings, for the couch he destroyed, for the Easter ham that could not be resurrected. And it was this feeling that dogs were essentially good and worth fighting for that compelled him to return. However, this was not the sort of goal the completion of which would usher in a subsequent period of unfettered elation. This was something Chi Chi thought the world deserved before he left it.

TO BE CONTINUED...

THINGS I’D HAVE ERECTED IF I WERE KING FOR A DAY:

1. obelisk
2. bust
3. arena
4. abstract, sculpted rendering of my fortitude/virility which to the lay eye looks something like an ostrich and a comb
5. ziggurat
6. youth astride a prow representing victory on the top of a pylon surrounded by hippocampi--half horse, half sea creature thought to like plankton in their feed.
6. snack shack

Excerpt From An Immodest Proposal

"...How about a rendezvouz? How bout breathing deep the bold bouquet of brotherhood? How bout drawing long on the frothy flavors of good fellowship and fraternity? How bout singing a song that cant be silenced--a song who's ony words are "we are here; we are now; we are"? How bout setting sail on Nicolai's warm winds as he reads to us his paper on the homoeroticism of the title, Moby Dick? How bout reenacting all those nights when Lil Gapper would claim he was "unclean" and beg us to douse him in soy milk? How bout retracing all those gentle steps we trod to save Guy after he had accidentally swallowed a spork, again? How bout us?.."

"Thirty spokes join together in the hub. It is because of what is not there that the cart is useful. Clay is formed into a vessel. It is because of its emptiness that the vessel is useful. Cut doors and windows to make a room. It is because of its emptiness that the room is useful. Therefore, what is present is used for profit. But it is in absence that there is usefulness."

The ancient masters have debated the meaning of this saying since time immemorial but it probably just means that it's ok that you're stupid.

Without her I'm just a guy thinking about how he should have eaten the last of the cheese and crackers before he left but since he didn't he's surprised that he has to poop.

The Untold Story of St. Louis

As the sun slowly rises under the arch we cannot help but think of the exultation and enthusiasm that must have dawned in the first explorers as they thought they had finally reached the end of this great nation only to see the sun set on those hopes as their worst fears were all too clearly true--they were only halfway across. True many of those self-same explorers grew disenchanted and hardened at this and went on to lead mean lives on the river, stealing what bits of sandwich and hooch they could from those around--though they could never steal back what was so mercilessly torn from their own breast--and eventually were unable to stay afloat in the rising waters of their own shame. Though their lives proved desperate and fruitless a city was born.

Excerpted Intimations of Divine Order from Youthful Memories

...Weekends like that force us to ask ourselves whether we are really bound by our predetermined fates or only by the limits of our imaginations. Was it long written in the stars that I was supposed to run headlong into that salad bar? Was it just an understandable misstep punctuating a night of fancy? Did the dark one in his fondness for chicanery move it closer with a wicked hand? Is there some grand design that choreographed the weaving blows that Gentleman Johnny and I exchanged like a skilled seamstress? Was it for the sake of dramatic flourish that he waited until our second round to put molten lava in my veins and steely death in my eyes? Why did he not do the same for Gentleman Johnny , instead deciding that he should be stopped--knowing, no doubt, that whomever weeped for Gentleman Johnny, weeped for treachery and deceit? Will we ever know? Well, it seems like an awful coincidence if I weren't put on this earth to have told Jerry Joe that his dance, rehearsed as it was, looked like a clipped goose trying to take flight ...

Excerpt From a Chain E-mail

"...If you're receiving this forward you have already been chosen for bad luck. You have no way of telling when this curse will manifest itself. I would stay away from anvils, dynamite and reptile houses in the zoo. Feel free to forward this to whomever you like, you little tomcat..."

Excerpted Quote From a Guy Who Gets Things Done

"...Well then perhaps I can do my Tongan fertility dance to try to bring an end to this rain by instead making Fat Bobby as fertile as the Mississippi Delta..."

Excerpt From an Advice Column

"...I agree. You wouldnt have such sensitive nipples today if you hadn't rubbed them with turkey grease every night until you were 12..."

Excerpt From a Fan Letter

"...Thought maybe you'd like to be the celebrity front of our organization here--the national order of yaffet kotto enthusiasts (kotto refused--we're looking for a fresh face anyway as we near the new millenium). Something tells me you've got just the spunk to make the hearts of those who'd stand against us go all-a-twitter. Well mull it over. Now back to the majesty of that dream within a dream that's sometimes called plankton..."