Ill Tempered Dreidel

“I spin my little dreidel
Without a whim or care
No truer words were spoken
Than “A great thing happened there”
I had a little dreidel
I made it out of clay
But the clay came from a golem
Whom the rabbi made obey
Sure, the golem was defeated
By the townspeople of Prague
And the streets were free of evil
Though the sewers all did clog
From the blood of all the victims
That the mighty golem slew
The lesson you should learn
Is to not piss off a Jew”
Rebecca smacked her husband.
“Did you teach him that?”

Buffalo

Long ago, I sang “Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam!”
Well, I fell behind on my payments and lost the place.
Yeah, I thought a home where the buffalo roamed would be great, but it turned out to be a real stinker.
There’s no phone lines out here. Can’t even make a lousy cell call.
No power, either, although with the skies not cloudy all day, I have solar panels and batteries that work pretty well.
Water? Nope. And the skies aren’t cloudy, so no rain.
And then there’s all the buffalo shit.
They can have it!

Synesbleedathesia

Ever hear music so awful it makes your ears bleed?
Or see something so awful, it makes your eyes bleed?
Well, that’s to be expected, but it’s when you hear something so awful it makes your eyes bleed, that’s a crosswiring of the sensory organs.
Since Synesthesia is when auditory stimuli cause you to sense smells or see visions, or seeing colors when you see numbers, we’ll call it Synesbleedathesia when one sensory input causes another to output blood.
As for hearing things or seeing things that make your ass bleed, well, that’s salmonella.
Stop eating raw eggs, you idiot.

Unoccupied

It’s Tuesday. Time to visit John’s money.
I insist on meeting my broker in person.
Traffic’s bad. There’s protestors.
They call themselves “Occupy Wall Street.”
So, I get out, and they cheer.
“YOKO!”
Looking around at these wannabe revolutionaries, I mumbled that these fools couldn’t topple a government, let alone a tower of Jenga blocks on a wobbly kitchen table.
Whatever.
“Fight the power!” I said, and they cheered.
How many of these people hating bankers and lawyers for “not making things” actually make things themselves besides FB updates and noise?
Pathetic.
I get back in my limo and leave.

Maya

Maya plays the cello beautifully.
She started off in the orchestra, and for a while she played in a quartet.
Alone, up on stage, the height of a career… a soloist?
Where do you go from there?
So, she recorded herself, and performed with those recordings.
Good, but could be better.
A group of researchers in a media lab sampled the recordings, and built a virtual Maya that could adjust to her performances.
The effect was amazing, but something still wasn’t quite right.
One day, Maya walked into the lab, and she heard herselves performing perfectly, beautifully together.
Without her.

My Unfair Lady

If the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain, where does the rest of the rain in Spain fall?
My elocution tutor didn’t know. He just wanted me to repeat this phrase and didn’t want me getting off tangent, digging through the library for meteorological tables from the Iberian peninsula.
When I was done with Professor Higgins, I asked Doctor Odd about the rain in Spain.
He laughed. “When I am done with my Doomsday Cannon, it will rain fire and death upon Spain!”
I asked my parents if we could go to Paris instead of Madrid this year.

The Skye’s The Limit

He was a music prodigy. Played from the time he was three.
Guitar. Piano.
He could sing, too.
He loved to go out and perform, and folks said “You’re going places.”
It was a shame when he got sick and couldn’t gig anymore.
So, he played his music on the Internet.
Folks around the world got to enjoy him, and they posted YouTubes of his music, bringing in more fans.
When he got better and record labels came calling, he said “Thank you. I’ll never forget you.”
Neither did the lawyers, as the copyright takedown notices spread around the net.

Earworm

Earworms are songs you can’t get out of your head.
Usually, they’re bad songs.
But this one is good. Better than good. A reminder that not all is lost. And there’s hope.
It’s like an angel on my shoulder, whispering in my ear. Don’t despair. Don’t give up hope.
You can make a miracle happen.
On my other shoulder, the devil there tries to convince me otherwise. Tells me that things can will get worse, horrifying, it’ll never end.
The music drowns out his babble and chatter, and he screams for me to fear, for sweat and terror to drink.

Amy

I remember the day the stranger came.
Opened up his guitar case, pulled out a contract, and handed me a pen.
“Sign here,” he said. “I’ll make your name last forever.”
I said no, but so many said yes.
And now this girl, Amy.
The stranger’s men keep close tabs. When you’re worth more dead than alive, the party ends, and your friends find you with a needle sticking out of your arm.
Not me. I had my moment, but I outlived it.
Living legend?
No. A living ghost.
My hands, my head, my everything hurts.
But I’m still going.

The Answer

Bob Dylan says that the answer is blowin’ in the wind.
So, I figured that the stronger the wind, the better the answer.
That’s why our think tank leases offices in an airplane manufacturer’s wind tunnel.
I haven’t heard a single dumb idea since we moved there.
Of course, I haven’t heard anything since we moved there. The wind tunnel is deafening, and we wear earplugs for protection.
I tried to set up a whiteboard, but it kept getting blown over.
Maybe moving to the wind tunnel isn’t the answer.
Aha! That’s the answer!
The wind tunnel works after all!