Long ago, while I was walking in Hoboken, Frank Sinatra came down the other way.
He walked up to a lamp post and tied a string to it.
Tugging on that string, he muttered “What a world!” before untying it and moving to the next post.
He did this for 30 minutes before a limousine caught up to him, and some guys in tuxedos helped him into the back.
When he died, I wondered if they tied that string to the inside of his coffin.
I dug up his grave, but it was empty.
(Perhaps he’s sitting on a rainbow?)
Tag: cliche
Poets Steal
T.S. Eliot said “Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.”
Me, I steal, demand ransom, and threaten to cut off toes and fingers if my demands aren’t met!
He’s been tied to a chair in my kitchen for 3 days.
“My life is measured out with coffee spoons,” he says, and smiles.
I dump out the silverware drawer over his head.
“Let’s not be narrow, nasty, and negative!” He whines.
“Time’s up,” I say, pulling out my gun… and…
The damn thing misfires.
So, I pull a knife from the butcher’s block and I killed him.
Boy, did he did whimper.
Knowing
Whenever GI Joe used to say “Knowing is half the battle,” I wondered what the other half of the battle was.
My friends didn’t know.
“But knowing is half the battle!” I said.
“Yes, the other half,” said Ricky, the kid who ate paste. “Perhaps the other half is not knowing?”
“Just like that Socrates guy!” said Sue. “He knew that he didn’t know, so not knowing is… knowing you don’t know!”
“Maybe we just need to buy lots of their toys?” I asked.
We agreed, and played GI Joes in the sandbox.
Except for Sue; she played with matches.
Sonnet 18
I see him, wrestling through would-be Plaths, Frosts and Burkowskis at the coffeeshop:
It’s Open Mike Night, and, like a schoolchild, he’ll recite Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 from memory.
Dreadful.
From the stage’s barstool, he’s downright singsongy, ruining the verse, digging up Shakespeare’s grave, skullfucking the corpse…
Enough! I shout. I would rather be beaten across the face and chest with a volume of Shakespeare’s work than hear you open it and read from it!
The crowd is stunned. Shakespeare’s torturer stares blankly.
Reciting from memory, he has no volume to beat me with.
But he’s got the barstool.
I run.
Unscholarly
“Sic Semper Tyrannis!”
John Wilkes Booth limps off the stage as chaos overtakes Ford’s Theater.
In the background…
Singing?
“STOP!” shouts Professor Rathbone, clicking a hand control.
Everyone freezes in place, frozen in time.
Rathbone twists a knob on the control, scrolling the scene backwards.
Women and men point and sit back down, Booth flies up to the Presidential box, scuffles with an Army major, and unshoots Lincoln.
Rathbone clicks again, walks to the stage, and spots the quietly singing Rick Astley.
He points the control, clicks, and the hologram vanishes.
The grad students chuckle as Rathbone resets the scene.
Elephant In The Newsroom
New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal said that he didn’t care if his reporters were fucking elephants, as long as they weren’t covering the circus.
However, Rosenthal changed his mind after paying a rash of elevator repair bills when reporters brought their dates to the office.
Then there was the stampede at the paper’s Christmas Party. I guess the peanut martinis were too strong, and there was an argument between two elephants wearing the same dress.
Abe put out a memo the next day: no dating elephants.
But clowns? Totally okay with him.
Care to sniff my flower, Mr. Friedman?
Worn Out
Some people don’t like it when you say their name.
So, they say: “Yeah, that’s my name, don’t wear it out.”
How do you wear out a name by saying it?
I went up to Steve and said “Steve” a hundred times, and it came out the same every time, although I did need to sip my glass of water halfway through the hundred Steves.
When I was done, he was still Steve.
So I did it a thousand times. Ten thousand times.
No difference.
When Steve died, his name was on his headstone.
Cheap stone. It’ll wear out eventually.
Forgetful
I’m having trouble remembering simple things.
Things I do all the time.
Like if I turned off the stove before going for a walk.
I’ve done it so much, I can’t remember if I just did it, or I’m remembering doing it thousands of times before.
The same goes for locking the door.
Filling water bowls for the cats.
Even shampooing my hair.
I feel the bottle on the shelf. Is it wet?
Duh. My hands are wet.
I smell my hands, and I’m still not sure.
So, I reach for the shampoo.
Well, it says “Lather, Rinse, Repeat” right?
The Short End
Ever felt like you’ve ended up holding the short end of the stick?
This baffles me. I’ve always wondered which end of the stick is the short end of the stick.
After gathering thousands of sticks and carefully measuring every end of them, I’ve come to the conclusion that despite the wide variety in sharpness, thickness, branching, and leafiness, sticks don’t actually have short or long ends.
Other researchers working independently have confirmed my conclusions.
Then, we went camping together, gathered up some sticks to make a fire, and roasted marshmallows and wieners with the longer sticks.
Science is fun.
Musicals
Before I ever read Dickens’ Oliver Twist, I saw a tape of the 1969 musical.
I find musicals stupid. People burst into song over the strangest shit. Everybody dances and spins and laughs and leaps.
Did something get in the water supply? A gas leak making everybody loony?
A little chasing, a little murder, and we find Fagin fumbling his wealth into the muck.
Poor guy. Oh well.
Later on, I read the book.
They hanged him?
Dude. Harsh.
I put the book back on the shelf, sigh, and load up the DVD.
Perhaps musicals aren’t so stupid after all.