Tag: commentary

The Violent Pizza

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My friend Mikey is one of those political vegans. He orders what he calls non-violent foods, made from healthy ingredients that don”t come from exploiting farm animals.
Today, he’s at a bistro ordering a “non-violent pizza” with garlic, tomatoes, broccoli, and soy cheese.
But the chef has other, sinister plans. He puts on his rubber gloves, reaches for the glowing tubs of shredded meat, and constructs… The Violent Pizza!
In a matter of minutes, a horrifying, angry pizza-creature will burst from the brick oven.
Terrified patrons will scatter and flee.
Mikey, however, will smile and calmly ask for a salad.

Electro the Magnificent

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Electro the Magnificent ran everything for almost a thousand years.
Every decision was made by this amazing and powerful electronic brain.
Even Electro’s critics found it to be perfectly capable of responding to all problems with a fair solution.
Over the centuries, humans tried to revere Electro as a god, but Electro guided people away from treating it like a cult figure.
At the end of a thousand years, there was peace, prosperity, and unity not only on Earth, but all human worlds.
Researchers stopped the model at that point.
“So, should we turn it on?” one asked.
Would you?

For The Birds

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Ever sit down in a restaurant, and you hear people babbling in another language, and you just know it’s about you?
I’m that way with birds. I think among the chirps and tweets and caws and trills, they’re talking about me.
I grabbed a bird off of a clothesline and demanded to know what it was saying about me.
It kept cawing and scratching madly, so I asked it slower and louder.
That always works with people, right?
But no matter how hard you try, it doesn’t work with birds.
So, I threw it against a wall and walked home.

Bowling Alley

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A neighborhood only gets a movie theater when people there go to the movies so often, some chain finds profit bringing the movies to them instead of making those folks drive an hour or two.
It’s not the same with bowling alleys. Those chains use satellite photography to watch empty fields for kids playing sandlot bowling, rolling balls over the uneven, rocky ground at makeshift pins.
Or maybe they put their agents in shoe stores, listening for when someone asks to rent the ugliest pair in the store for a few hours.
Whatever you do, do it fast.
We”re desperate!

My Bloody Valentine

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Five hours ago, this bum was using his pen knife to cut aluminum cans into hearts to give away on Valentine’s Day.
Now, he’s a bloody pulp under a bench. Some other bums beat him up for the aluminum cans, cashed them in for beer money.
He could have defended himself with the knife, but to him, it was a tool and not a weapon. Just as Cupid”s bow and arrow are for love, not war.
A mother tells her son not to worry. He’s up in Heaven now.
I hope they clean him up before they let him in.

The Cello Player

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Few things are certain in life.
Most of all, of the things you can count on, I’m most certain that you’ll never hear a chick say “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m fucking the cello player.”
Guitarists, singers, bass players.
Even drummers, if you can imagine that.
But when it comes to cello players, they’re the ones that haul their cellos up five flights of stairs into a lonely, cramped apartment.
Nobody knocks. Nobody calls.
More time for practice, right?
I guess so.
But no matter how good he gets, no chick will say “Oh, yeah? Well, I’m fucking the cello player.”

Secretaries

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When I have a choice, I’ll always pick the ugly secretary.
It’s been my lifelong experience that pretty secretaries can get by on their wonderful looks, but ugly secretaries have to be good at what they do.
It has also been my experience that pretty receptionists are utterly useless. Nobody wants them as a secretary, so they stick them up front to greet people.
There are no ugly receptionists. Well, in a way, there are.
In those cases, they’re meant to be security guards. Not exactly a friendly reception, but very useful, as my experience and two broken legs suggest.

Space Program

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You know all those monkeys and dogs they shot up into space in the Sixties?
They never told the public the truth about those animals in the space program.
But I will.
Every time they fired up one of those monkeys up into the sky, a dog would come down.
And when they fired a dog into space, back down they’d get a monkey.
Scientists couldn’t explain it. Dogs turned into monkeys and monkeys turned into dogs.
Years later, the Russians revealed that their dogs also turned into monkeys and their monkeys turned into dogs.
They couldn’t explain it either.

Delays

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Through the tears, the sky glistens like the clouds are coated with glass dust, spread across a smear of powder blue.
Beyond, stars twinkle in the darkness. You can’t see them during the day, but they’re out there, all around us, a snapshot from tens, hundreds, thousands, and millions of years ago as the light tries to get here as fast as it can.
Once, I heard thunder a year after lightning had struck a tree. I was walking past a tree stump when a loud blast shattered the air.
Better late than never, I always say, but enough’s enough.

On TV

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The cable company sent a new lineup card in the mail.
So, we told the television to scan channels, and two minutes later it finished.
There’s more stations in Spanish, shopping channels and religious channels.
You know, the junk you never watch.
More sports. And National Geographic, too.
Then there’s this weird station with a security camera. It’s overlooking a parking lot gate, but it’s all hazy and blurry.
Hey, is that our gate?
I’ll get my cell phone and call you. Then I can jump around and wave and you can watch me on television.
It’ll be so cool.