Not Safe For Work

In a small town in Ohio - let's call it Byhalia for the sake of argument, which is a real town but not the one we're talking about - a man with an incredible fear of horses was born.  Physicians with big teeth spent his childhood telling him that his fear of horses - equinophobia, it is called - will actually add to the quality of his life, since it will encourage him to do things to conquer that fear.  To that end, his parents enrolled him in an agricultural college.  This proved disastrous, as he was trampled more than once by horses who can, he insists, sense his fear.


It was at a horse show in Dubuque that he met both the woman he wanted to marry & the woman he did marry.  This was symptomatic of his life: there were things he wanted to do (stay the hell away from horses, marry a blonde massage therapist named Minday) & there were things he was told he must do (become a large animal veterinarian, marry his mother's best friend's chubby niece).  He also at this time began a love affair with automatic weapons & expensive chocolate.


"How many people," he told a journalist at his trail, "think night & day about killing the things they despise?  Because do not get me wrong, fear turns sour & that sourness is hate."  He practiced a sympathetic face in the mirror & even once, accidentally, told his wife in the throes of passion, with his eyes slightly tearing up, "I'm sorry for your loss."


This was back in the day when someone might be hanged for what he did, but instead he became well-known as one of the more caring large animal veterinarians in the county.  He insisted on autopsies of the beasts, but did them alone, so no one could see him hack into the creatures that caused him such pain & anxiety.  Early on there was an impulse to keep souvenirs from his dead enemies, talismans that perhaps could protect him, battle his fears.  He even began to think his father was right, that he was actually conquering a fear instead of becoming more & more mentally ill.


He might even have continued all his life, but his wife, feeling ignored & jealous, suspected he was having an affair, & discovered his murderous passion.

This Position, Up For Grabs

Three Barons vie for the same Ambassadorship.  They meet in the early evening on a rocky shore.  Only one of them remembers to bring a companion: a gospel singer.

"It is agreed," says one, "we shall endure the wind & the dust."

"This is the region," says another, "where heavy metal videos are frequently shot."

"Oh yes," says the third, "this is a shockingly inept piece of teen sexploitation."

Is there an election?  Are there rules for succession?  Whose bread must be buttered to make sure this matter is settled?

"Is that," asks one, "a bobsled I see in the distance?"

"I am exhausted," says another, "by the terrible tyranny of imaginary numbers!"

"Of the one hundred and thirty people I know," says the third, "I am the most intermittent."

Telegrams are dispatched.  Menus are updated after meetings with local suppliers.  It is explained to the First Lady what granite is.

"Stand down, sirrah!" demands one, "I have voyaged more fully than you have!"

"Alcohol poisoning!" counters another, "you are less than a Polish nobleman!"

"Revival & regret!" shrieks the third, "you smell & dance like the opposition party!"

Once the credit card scores arrive, the deliberations begin in earnest.  One orderly notices that no-one has checked the "geosciences" box at the top of official form.  Special recommendations by the press corps are faxed to members of the film industry.

"You will be magnificent," says one, "you have a lovely Van Dyke."

"After so much experience in retail," says another, "this will seem like jury duty."

"I must regretfully withdraw my application," say the third, "for I am now ruggedized."

Brief Conversations! Future Solar Eclipses!

Blue: The local municipality is woefully understaffed.

Adam: My what big hair you have.

Blue: Can you speak like a computer?

Adam: I can drink like one.

Blue: As the secrets unfold, they reveal deception & cruel truth.

Adam: How cruel?

Blue: Penguin cruel.

Adam: My god!

Blue: Shall we rhyme?

Adam: I told you I have only grudging respect for magicians & commuters.

Blue: & I told you I have become "something of a classic."

Adam: To what do I owe this pleasure?

Blue: The political party has since become more moderate, ignoring its revolutionary past.

Adam: I would never marry anyone who liked salmon.

Blue: The color or the fish?

Adam: What do you think?

Blue: I think if I took the throne, I could survive most but not all attempts at my inevitable overthrow.

Adam: Would you confuse - if you could confuse - your sons with your daughters?

Blue: It's a funny story - ask me about Lasik surgery.

Adam: Do you know Dave? He often says, "That's Latin for worm."

Blue: What can you get, you know, in your blood, that is bad?

Adam: Punishment, the military, toiletries.

Blue: I shall always be the last prominent supporter of new ideas.

Adam: We live with mixed reviews, though mostly negative.

Factual Truth! Same Time But Twice As Long!

The customization of the American television experience appears stalled out with the advent of mind-altering commercials. Too few people remember where they were when John Ritter died. In one study, the sex drive was amusingly confused with hunger.

Four-time Olympic hopeful Stamp Craig remembers the last time he endorsed a product. "Someone approached me with some food on a stick," he said, "& proceeded to paint a picture involving javelins & big booty girls in bikinis." He added, "It was the opposite of erotic."

Advertising executive Sam Jerky disagrees. "Whatever we say is sexy," he said, "is sexy. We create sexy. We once made eating a baby hippo sexy. How? We just did. A supermodel with a fork & spoon & even if she was crying it was sexy. Children downloaded it. That's sexy."

Children's rights groups could not be reached as it was recess time. One child who was, for good reason, left behind, pretended he was an extra on "Modern Family" & made faces that amused the production assistants in the crowd. Interns made bets on the intensity of his mother's obesity.

Where America's modern "Mad Men" will go from here will be outlined in an informercial on at 3 a.m. (no matter the time zone) from now until mid-July. Meanwhile, most regular viewers are encouraged to keep buying as much as possible. Virtually every product is guaranteed a stamp of approval.

Chin Chin Wasn't Just A Fox

Folklorists the world over (but mainly those who actually use the internet) were startled to discover, in 2011, a wholly new folk-tale which had escaped their attention, if not their notice. "Chin Chin The Fox," researchers revealed, was a hitherto unknown fable character with almost nothing in common with other folkloric foxes, nor those owned by Disney or Warner Brothers or Starbuck's (the coffee chain owns many children's story characters, but has chosen not to share).

Said self-styled "King Of Children" Reginald Hurry, "I recall I was sitting in my room tsk-tsking an article about Aesop when I see on the Porno Channel's news crawl that a collection of stories important to the Hoochie Coochie tribe had been unearthed by nosy Mormon missionaries, who took off with it on their bike. I told my parrot Erich Segal that surely this was a prank!"

Canadian leader-person Stephen Harper, whose house was down the street from the duplex where the manuscript was found, took two long breaths & privatized his old neighborhood. Twenty-three otherwise unassuming Canadians almost lost their methadone privileges. Said one inhabitant, "We've heard the stories around, you know, on the streets, sure, but sometimes we're too busy with our poutine which is, I assure you, as dirty as it sounds."

What are in these stories? Where did they come from? Were there pictures? Folklorists like pictures. Also strippers. To answer this question, several professional tale-gatherers left their favorite titty bar &, still a little drunk, with some glitter in their hair, appeared on the Cable Newsie Network's cross-cultural information spectacular, "Shambles & Lisp."

"Most foxes in folklore are, well, foxy, you know, clever, mischievous" said University Of Littleville Retroactive Professor Of Yesterday Elmer Elvis, "but not Chin Chin. He's hard-drinking. He rides a horse with three wheels. He's straight-talking, he gets the job done. In one story, he completely downsizes the entire Hoochie Coochie pantheon. Also, he steals a lottery ticket from his best friend, a squirrel, & doesn't tell him he won a few bucks. He's kind of a dick."

Adds famous clown Cody Blau, "What I was struck by was the way he chewed tobacco & swore like a priest. They told these oddball parables to their children! By all accounts, the kids who came into contact with Chin Chin's adventures grew up to be self-loathing sociopaths."

But scandal struck quickly, which was irritating, because someone was in the middle of a sentence. What if, suggested private story-collector & Ansel-Adams-lookalike Peabody Headhair, Chin Chin wasn't a fox at all? What if, as Headhair's reading posited, Chin Chin was a laid-off service station attendant from Bangor, Maine?

The uproar in this small academic community was almost audible. The etymologists downstairs actually considered calling the cops. But papers had to be written in order to be peer reviewed in order to be re-submitted with corrections (doesn't anyone use a spell-check?) in order to be queued in order to see the light of day in small, low circulation publications which collect dust on university library shelves.

These determined men & women of letters promptly went to work.

The Sad Plight Of America's Empty Clinics

In Danforth, Rhode Island (not the city's real name) (at least sources say), there is a Clinic For Hopelessness which also serves, perhaps appropriately, as the gathering place for Zumba refugees. Here, amid the stained, torn posters of Dance Dance Revolution & seventies teen icon Leif Garrett, a former doctor & television green-screen repairman named Henry Lickspittle remembers how to tie a shoelace & look directly into the camera.

"I am an odious man," he says, "but for all my life I've scorned people who collect aluminum cans."

When the Clinic For Hopelessness was thriving, dozens came to be treated & even more came to be mocked. Yet as the economy faltered - indeed, as hopelessness became its own world-view - the Clinic struggled, even once propping open its door to send the message that its doors were still open. This, says former janitor & part-time lisp dispenser Bald Hooligan, is how all the cats escaped.

"I miss them all," he says. "I miss Purrbox & Frown-Frown. I miss Snortstein & Speckles. I especially miss Too Much, Lap Dance, Flossylvania & Richie Rich. I didn't think I'd miss Gerberberry very much, & there were times I really wanted Salma Hayek to just run away, but I think," he sniffles as he wipes away a tear, "I miss those two most of all."

Across the country, in a clinic in the back of a grocery store in Van Capstan, Nevada, it's the pharmacists who have most to lose. Local pill-peddler Jake Potion shows a small delegation from Reuters where his former clients once got their prescriptions.

"The number of people who collapse in the aisles in our nation's supermarkets is growing," he says, tapping a picture of a brain on his tee shirt. "We don't know why it happens, or why it's always the Asian Foods section, or why everyone thinks it's freaking hilarious when the paramedics holler 'Clean-up on aisle ten!' We just know it's easier to wheel them back behind the dairy section & have a professional look at them there."

He has a downcast look. "Those robber-barons on Wall Street took all that away from us," he says.

But is that a fair estimation? One rich person, speaking pretty much on behalf of every rich person in America, says it's not. "Ha ha!" he says. "Tax breaks! Ha ha! Deregulation! Ha ha! Charter schools for our children! Ha ha ha! Job creation! Ha ha ha! I want a castle with a moat!"

In Texas there was once a clinic, called "The Never Say Die Clinic," inside the Alamo. In Louisiana, there was a clinic inside an alligator. In Nebraska, clinics could be seen for miles around after the corn fields had been harvested. Now, it's just a lonesome bison, perhaps, or a recreational vehicle being used to cook meth &/or make pornographic videos.

Bartbleby Oath said in a speech to children earlier this month, "If you want to see how broken is our health care system you can look no farther than fat children breaking their grandparents' arms & hearts with their obese kind of love. I have been meaning to say something about exercise but I am winded. Does anyone know of a low-cost place that doesn't cost an arm & another arm like a hospital emergency room, an intimate place where a health care professional might look at me without the need to be transported by ambulance? No? Not any more? Well, spit."

One of the last remaining clinics in the Pacific Northwest, the Hamster Clinic, survives thanks to private donations, mainly from wealthy rodents. But Lucius Hamster, the clinic's only employee & quite possibly a doctor, knows even his days are numbered.

"You can only make so much money treating pets," he laments. "I wish human beings would come in for health care. Perhaps I should change the clinic's mascot."

What will happen to all the empty clinics in this nation in decline? The "hazardous materials" trash receptacles do look, as some pundits have noted, rather tacky in a deli. Most are too small to support a roller rink. While many of the nation's mail carriers have eyed them voraciously, the postal service in Washington has reminded them they, too, are closing up many shops.

A troubled nation tries to find its insurance card &, with a sad sigh, drives to the nearest religious-themed hospital.

Inconvenient Prophecies! New Year's Irresolution!

Banish yes the furthermore thoughts of ill-repute in this divine sector of soul galaxy number one! Sub rosa ab ovo the fiercest of charlatans will converge on chatter-town & blatherskite within mere moments of the veil-lift in upper lower & sideways round! Come ye closer no more to always hear what lies aboveboard resisting both law & urge as scoop reveals what stab cannot!

Brethren? Is that thee? Hasn't harpies made killjoy of arse all? Sit if you can't stand, stand if you must, but one more glowing comet in the sky hand-shackles the dimly-lit mind of human racers! Didst thou not ken it were an competition? Sit or stand as my main man unfolds the map of the plan on the bandstand hand-to-hand & back again! The soundtrack of your laughter!

Were you never called Betsy as a rule? Didn't someone ever break a rose in your face? If wine makes you cry, do you keep bottles filled with winter & dew? When someone takes your pulse, do they hear the roaring twenties? Let us now in effect disregard the efficacious yes/no question as volcanoes ignore somnambulism! Let us give the slip to the on/off switch in print form!

Didst thou they think thirsty & thin thieve & thump in thy youth? Then it turns out there's no money in puzzling the proselytized! You have been given an entirely new year for manhandling, fondling & freakiness, faithful flukes - scratch out in greatest detail what graffiti has been painted in the brains behind your eyes! O indignity shake my left hand heartily! O grateful animals we!