Tag: commentary

Imperfection

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Try as you might, perfection never lasts.
The moment you come close to perfection, the imperfections stand out in contrast so clearly.
That makes it easier to find and remove them, and makes the remaining imperfections stand out even more clearly.
The knife is steady, but the flesh resists. One final flaw, and this girl will be the pinnacle of existence.
I put the knife down. I will not cut.
No, there will be no scar. I don’t need lasers like others do, but my work is always perfect.
Perfection, averted twice, laughs and hides in the shadows once again.

The Champ

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It is the Fourth Of July.
Thousands of miles from the Coney Island Boardwalk, Hodo blindly crawls on the cracked earth, flies buzzing in and out of his nose.
There is no food.
There is no water.
There is nothing but dirt, flies, and death.
A pack of hyenas catches his scent, and Hodo doesn’t feel them as they tear into his flesh.
Back at Coney Island, the winner of the hot dog eating competition congratulations the runner-up.
They laugh, throw up on each other, and laugh again.
To Hodo, the pool on the ground would have been a banquet.

Chocolate Chips

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Willy Wonka became obsessed with the idea of a chocolate computer using chocolate chips for memory and processing.
“Usually, Mr. Wonka, your ideas are just goofy,” said the chief of the Oompah Loompahs. “But this one’s downright stupid. We make candy. Really good candy. And we make a lot of money making it. Computers, on the other hand, are low-margin. And the investment in material science research will cost a fortune.”
Willy just wouldn’t let the idea go, so the Oompah Loompahs locked him in his office until the ambulance arrived.
During the weirdo’s extended absence, things ran rather smoothly.

The Final Dream Of Robert McNamara

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Robert McNamara stood in the middle of a field, stark naked, and watched two circuses slowly moving towards each other in what would amount to a catastrophic collision.
“This is entirely too complex a situation,” he said, and he broke it up into its components: clowns, spectators, acrobats, animal acts, carnival rides, and cotton candy.
Then he streamlined the process by which each component functioned within the whole.
The ringmasters thanked him, and a single more efficient and effective circus rolled slowly across the field.
“Why dream this up at all?” he mumbled, and with that, the old man died.

Talk is cheap

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It used to be that talk was expensive. Only the nobles and politicians could afford to say anything while their servants and peasants were condemned to silence.
Some say that Hiram Gabsalot invented talk, but he didn’t: he just came up with a new industrial process to make it downright cheap.
Pretty soon, everyone was talking all the time. (Some people even talked in their sleep… something unheard of in the days when talk was as priceless as gold!)
The nobles and politicians eventually stopped talking altogether, choosing to use spokesmen to add to the constant barrage of meaningless drivel.

Jackals and Jokers

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Jackals and jokers line the streets.
Licking their lips as the coffin goes by.
A nice juicy leg would make such a treat.
You bite through the knees while I tug on the feet.
Don’t lock down the lid.
We all want a peek.
No? Not this time?
What if we promise not to suck out the other eye?
We made him. We own him. He is a part of us.
Let us tear him apart. Let us scatter his bones.
When we are done all is left is his suit.
What size did he wear? I take forty-two long.

The Garage

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Hewlett-Packard was founded in a garage. So was Apple.
Famous Amos started in his kitchen.
Me, I start businesses all over this house.
The bank began in the bathroom, consulting firms in the crawl space, and my shed led to the creation of a quarter of the Fortune 500.
If you look in the dishwasher, you’ll see some venture capitalists checking the industry broadsheets, looking for good investments.
It’s getting harder to find good talent, so I’m founding a business school in my pants.
Care to check out my generous endowment?
Um… try again, stupid. It’s in my back pocket.

Obsidian Falls

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Obsidian Falls is really in Oklahoma, but through a surveyor’s error and a history of stubborn city councilors, they remained a Kansas municipality.
Mapmakers never could find a solution that satisfied the residents. Usually, they’d mark the region as Oklahoma, include Obsidian Falls on Oklahoma maps, and ignore the protests and death threats.
So, Obsidian Falls moved.
Every brick, every tree, every sidewalk and every fence.
It took over a year to complete, block by block vanishing and reappearing 3 miles North.
The surveyor didn’t have the heart to tell them they were still 2 miles short of their goal.

The quiet city

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Downtown is quiet, abandoned for the holiday.
We get out our skateboards and own the sidewalks and streets for a day.
If we tried this during the workweek, we’d chased by the cops. Maybe even caught and arrested.
No cop cars. No sirens. No noise at all but the sound of our wheels grinding up the pavement.
At the end of the day, we get in our cars and go home.
It takes hours to get home, dodging and weaving the skaters and thrashers filling up the neighborhood.
They work Downtown, so they’d rather stay out here.
Goddamned clueless amateurs.

Piano Bar

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The kids were hungry, so I said “Let’s go to McDonalds.”
They screamed “No!”
Sounds weird, right? Kids not wanting to go to McDonalds?
Well, it makes a lot more sense when I mention: our McDonalds has a piano bar.
Three hours later, the kids are asleep in the ball pit and I’m blasted out of my mind as all the soccermoms and single dads are singing whatever the guy on the bench is playing.
A guy in a Grimmace costume asks me if I need a cab.
“Just a light,” I say, cigarette in hand.
The kids scream louder.