Category: My stories

Everyone knows that Mel Brooks hired Richard Pryor for Blazing Saddles, but the studio couldn’t get the drug addicted Pryor insured, so Mel had to hire Cleavon Little to be the sheriff while Richard wrote the movie.
But do you know that Mel wrote all the black jokes and Richard wrote all the Jewish jokes?
Then, when asked, they took credit for each others writing.
Because, you know, racism.
And what better to write than a false narrative?
Well, these days, you wouldn’t know.
Mel tends to take credit for everything.
Well, anything that he didn’t do with Carl Reiner.

So, the pandemic made everyone stay at home.
Except for essential workers, in hospitals and the police and all that.
But also those dealing with food supplies.
Still not everyone was safe.
Meat processors and other suppliers were occasionally shut down when their workers tested positive.
Same with fuel and trucking.
This drove the price of meat up.
To the point that plant-based meat substitutes were now cheaper than real meat.
Despite the price and the health benefits, people still wanted meat.
Looking at their cats and dogs, wondering…
Does that canned cat food and dog food taste any good?

Here at the detention center, we pride ourselves on efficiency.
It used to take a stack of paperwork to process a subject, but we’ve reduced the number of forms necessary, eliminating as much as possible through digital records.
And we’re testing a fully-automated process.
No paperwork, all biometrics-based and handed by robots and conveyor belts.
Officers drop the subjects off.
They get scanned and fitted into a cart, moved through every step in the system until their ashes are dropped in a container for transfer to the pit.
Sometimes, they resist. Like you did.
Get back in the cart. Now.

My grandfather ran a chain of drycleaning stores.
One hour drycleaners in Cermak Plaza.
He was known for keeping a monkey in a cage.
“We don’t monkey with your business?” a sign said.
While the monkey whacked off.
He took it for a walk, and it bit a woman.
We ended up with the cage.
And put a guinea pig in it.
For a week.
It crawled out through the food dish gate and cut its leg, bleeding to death in a closet.
I remember screaming with tears, but the strange thing is, I don’t remember it having a name.

The hospital was stuck with a dead old man in its morgue and a dementia-ridden widow.
They left messages at the number on his file, and one day they got a text back with an address to send the body to.
It turned out to be the local zoo’s service entrance.
“They preyed on me for years,” an angry voice said. “Let the animals prey on him.”
The hospital said that was unethical.
“So was he. Put an ad in the paper for necrophiliacs. Ten bucks a fuck. When you have enough, burn him.”
After that, the number was disconnected.

The problem with “Punch a Nazi in the face” is that I think by now, nearly all of them are dead.
And when there were a few alive, the fucking ALCU was defending them in court, lying about them having been Nazis, and so forth.
“Demjanjuk was a kindly sweet old retired autoworker.”
Uh huh.
“Rudolph Hess was just following orders!”
Erm… he was giving them, too, asshole.
Fucking lawyers.
Maybe it should be “Punch fucking lawyers in the face.”
Lawyers, you know who they are.
They have degrees and law licenses.
And in England, they have silly white wigs.

It’s not racist to use math.
It’s not racist to be on time.
It’s not racist to follow driving rules.
It’s not racist to use proper spelling. Or grammar.
It’s not racist to read and get good grades, and to graduate.
It’s not racist to eat healthy meals.
It’s not racist to go to the doctor. And dentist.
To pay your bills on time, to save money.
To say thank you, and say you’re welcome.
To listen to classical music.
To go outside to talk on the phone.
And it’s not racist to smile and be grateful to be alive.

The ambulance rolled the stretcher in, but the patient was already gone.
An attendant wrapped a barcoded band on the guy’s wrist, and a doctor tapped NEW PATIENT on his pad before tapping the red icon.
Ten hours later, the pathologist looked over the body.
NO PENICILLIN was tattooed on the guy’s ass.
He looked over the chart. Nothing about penicillin. Or anything.
No next of kin. Just his workplace listed as an emergency contact.
“Natural causes” he wrote on the form, and he cut open the chest cavity, weighed some organs, made some other measurements, and closed it up.