Whenever a famous artist dies, the price of their work goes up.
The obvious example is a painting at auction.
It also applies to famous musicians who die suddenly.
I’m not talking about some Best Of album or unreleased studio material that gets rushed out and released out after they die.
I’m talking about the existing albums out there on the iTunes and Amazon marketplaces.
As people rush to download their favorite tracks to remember them, the companies quietly bump the price up from 99 cents to a buck twenty-nine.
Thirty pieces of copper for the modern-age Judases of Music.
Tag: tragedy
A Whiff Of Accomplishment
James made the best-smelling paintings.
No, not selling. Smelling.
He’d go to the beach and paint abstract waves and moonlit skies with tempera and plaster.
The mixture would capture the scent of the sand and the salty air, and if you closed your eyes and breathed in deep, you’d feel that spring Corpus Christi day.
His dream was to open his own restaurant, his paintings on the wall.
And he did. The opening was last month.
He made it.
And died last night of a heart attack.
A whiff, a touch of accomplishment, and your dreams is all you get.
Day
Jimmy’s a really annoying guy.
How annoying?
Well, he calls Thanksgiving “Turkey Day.”
And calls birthdays “Cake Days.”
And Easter ends up “Bunny Day.”
“Shouldn’t that be Candy Day or Basket Day?” I ask him.
“No, because people confuse that with Halloween.”
Which he doesn’t call “Candy Day” or “Basket Day.”
He calls Halloween “Pumpkin Day.”
When his mother died, I asked him if he called it “Casket Day.”
He looked me in absolute horror. “Oh my God no! How could you say such a thing?”
“I’m sorry for being so insensitive,” I said. “I guess you had her cremated.”
Not A Prophet
The press says that God talks to Jimmy, but that’s nonsense.
Jimmy can hear God talking, but he’s only overhearing what God is saying.
According to Jimmy, it’s a constant stream of mathematics. At first, Jimmy tried to copy it down, but he didn’t know mathematical notation.
Until the researchers taught him how.
Formula after formula, solution after solution. His notebooks contain tangled nightmares that Bertrand Russell and Einstein couldn’t have comprehended.
I watch him write, then erase what he wrote, write again.
Jimmy laughed. “God stutters.”
The lightning was quick; a charred desk and ashes were all that remained.
Vulge
All you could ever hope to learn is contained beneath the robes of Professor Vulge of Crimson University.
Vulge’s shroud, opaque veil, black gloves and socks are legendary.
Not even Vulge’s grad students, who call themselves minions, remember ever seeing Vulge… or hearing him.
Vulge just listens, and either points to the next student to present, or…
Oh, that dreaded, deadly gesture to the door!
Failure! Rejection!
It isn’t a semester without news of one… two… sometimes all of Vulge’s students hurling themselves to their deaths!
The administration is aware of this.
And made tuition payable in advance, and non-refundable.
Success
She kept a suitcase packed and ready.
Success was right around the corner. She knew it was coming. It would knock on her door at any moment.
It never came.
Oh, sure… Success sent emails and left phone messages and mailed her a few postcards begging her to come out and see him.
Remember the floral arrangements? She was allergic to flowers, but not these. Success was very thoughtful and did the research and found these flowers for her.
And she still wouldn’t leave. Success had to come to her.
“It doesn’t work that way,” wrote Success. “Goodbye, my love.”
Register
After my wife’s death, I was cleaning the kitchen cabinets in my Chicago apartment, I came across a small container of bouillon cubes.
The label said they were 18 years old.
This means they’re old enough to get a driver’s license, even though they probably wouldn’t pass the driving or vision tests.
And, being eighteen, they could also serve in the military, but I don’t think the military is openly recruiting potentially toxic substances.
But they could register to vote, as long as they register as a Democrat.
Right after they register my dead wife to vote, too.
Ah, Chicago.
Three Strikes You’re Dead
I took you out to the ballgame and bought peanuts and Cracker Jack.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked. “You know what peanuts do to you.”
You didn’t even look up from your program. “I left the Epipen at home. I don’t care if I ever get back.”
So, I handed you the peanuts.
The announcer asked everyone to please rise for the national anthem, but I could tell from your blue skin and the foam at the corner of your mouth that the convulsions weren’t far off.
After the third, I felt your wrist. No pulse.
“PLAY BALL!”
A Series Of Dogs
George Carlin once said that life is a series of dogs.
The dogs you owned, one after another.
For me, life has been a series of cats.
One, two… One time, four of them at once. Now just two.
They were all unique. Different. Special.
How they went, sudden or slow, each its own unique sadness.
Laying in bed, almost asleep, I hear the familiar sound of him leaping to the bed, walking along the blanket, laying down against my side.
Nothing. He is gone. And my mind thinks I still need him there.
Haunting myself for comfort’s sake.
Fishy Witness
They say that goldfish only have seven seconds of memory.
They swim by something, see it, and then forget.
Which is why you’ll rarely see a goldfish called as a witness in a murder trial.
Sure, some lesser-experienced and desperate district attorneys will try anyway, and they end up staring at a fish for an hour before the judge tosses their case out the window.
Still, when a Mafia boss says “Leave no witnesses” to his men, they take it seriously.
Flush it.
Cook it.
Feed it to the cat.
I just knock over the bowl.
Accidents can be caused.