Category: My stories

Some say that veal is wrong because it’s cruel.
Same with foie gras, hamburgers, and lobster.
But when you hand me imitation pancake syrup instead of pure maple syrup, that’s where I draw the line.
Tapping maple trees isn’t cruelty. It’s a kindness.
Maple trees store energy as sap. The colder it gets, the more sap they store, and it causes painful bloating.
The local native tribes sensed this pain, and tapped the trees to relieve the pressure.
In the process, they came up with a sweet, tasty snack.
On the other hand, maple wood furniture is just downright vicious.

How should you write?
Write your words on the edge of the paper, and let every critic die from papercuts.
Write your words on the pen with the paper, and let them read the reader.
Write your words on the air, and swat them on to the page.
Write your words on the run, and the readers will chase you.
Write your words in the sand, and let the ocean be your editor.
Write your words on other words, and then write words on those words.
And then, when you are done with your words, your words will write you.

They say that in my darkest moments, I can channel Hunter S. Thompson.
I don’t think I’m anywhere near the guy. The dude was amazing.
But one day, I got close. Really close.
I loaded my gun, pointed it at my head, and pulled the trigger.
The fucking gun jammed.
The difference between me and Hunter is that he kept his guns in fine working order.
His gun didn’t jam.
Well, that and he was drunk off his ass at the time. And suffering constant pain.
I keep the bullet in my pocket, in case it ever wants a rematch.

Paul loves fezzes. He loves fezzes a lot.
He’s a fez evangelist.
“You’d look good in a fez,” he says to me.
He carries a tape measure with him. There’s a spare tape measure in his jacket, in case he breaks or loses the first one.
The bookmark for a fez shop is one of his home row icons.
He taps my phone, and now I’ve got the site up.
“Go ahead.”
I enter my credit card, and in 3 days I will have a fez.
Unless I hit the cancel button.
I wait until Paul’s gone to do that.

Home is the place you miss more each day you are away.
Home is the place where you don’t wish you were somewhere else.
Home is where you begin, and where you end.
Home is where people know they can find you, and where you can tell them to leave you alone.
Home is where you don’t just walk away from problems, but solve them.
Home is at the intersection of peace and quiet.
Home is where nowhere else feels more like home.
Ted touched the Home key on his keyboard.
Nothing happened.
So, he touched it again, and waited.

For the longest time, I thought that Michael Jackson was singing about Eddie in the song “Smooth Criminal.”
“Eddie, are you okay?” Michael Jackson kept asking.
But it turns out that he was worried about Annie, not Eddie.
I looked at the lyrics online, and sure enough, it says Annie, not Eddie.
All this time, I was worried about Eddie, when I should worry about Annie.
But then, who’s Annie?
Well, reading the rest of these lyrics, she’s probably dead.
While Eddie should be fine.
Or so I assume.
If you’re listening to this, Eddie, let me know you’re okay.

Kennedy said that he could enact civil rights legislation in America with the stroke of a pen.
When he failed to deliver, black people sent him pens with the note “Use this one, Jack.”
But Kennedy didn’t have the guts or balls to do it.
So, black men castrated and eviscerated themselves, and had their guts and balls sent to Kennedy.
“Use these,” said the gory notes that they had written with their own blood.
Jackie was horrified at the carnage. Johnson was enraged.
“I need this like a hole in the head,” said Kennedy.
So, Johnson gave him one.

The FBI has a file on Frank Sinatra with over 2,000 pages in it.
And it’s still growing.
For a while after Frank’s death, FBI kept his grave under observation.
At first, with an around-the-clock stakeout.
But later, with cameras that fed into an observation post.
Nothing ever happened there, except for fans leaving flowers, or the occasional celebrity friend paying respects.
The agency maintained the cameras for a few years, until they were no longer in the budget. There were more important threats to society to watch.
Nobody ever picked up the cameras. They just left them there.

Back in the Eighties, nobody was more awesome than Captain Lou Albano.
He was this huge hairy loud Italian professional wrestling coach.
The dude was freaky. He had rubber bands in his beard and pinned to his face.
He was in Cyndi Lauper’s music videos.
But then, wasn’t everybody?
His blustering shouts of wisdom held simple truths.
No, I wouldn’t vote for him if he ran for president.
And I’d hate for him to be a governor, like that Jesse guy was.
Maybe a mayor of some dying Rust Belt city.
Like Youngstown. Or Akron.
Or somewhere in New Jersey.

My friend the economist tried to convince me that economists are like master gardeners.
Some of them tell the hired help to pull weeds, while others tell the hired help to spread seeds.
I think they’re all just tossing a load of shit around, and they don’t care if it gets all over the hired help, the weeds, or the crops.
And they issue commands to their hired help, but none of them actually get their hands dirty.
Based on how fat my economist friend is, he doesn’t leave much of the harvest for others.
If anything, economists are vermin.