December 25, 2010

A Poem That I Wrote on Christmas That Has Nothing to Do With Christmas (as far as I can tell)

BOOM


My mom was born in 1947
on the leading edge of years
when women launched babies
from powder kegs and claimed
the bombs men dropped
a couple years before

It was a boom

There was nothing about this time
that meant so much to them, no
such constant demography,
obsessive introspection,
color graphs in unread
newspapers

Just a boom

Babies wailing to drown out
the agony of soldiers,
their families,
their countries,
their homes

And boom

December 19, 2010

More Jokes for the Very Serious

JOKE 1
A naked woman walks into a bar followed by a bighorn sheep.  She is carrying half a zucchini and a parrot.

She cries to the bartender, "You gotta help.  This bighorn sheep has been following me around all day, and now, it attacked me and ate all my clothes and half this zucchini!"


The bartender asks her, "What's the parrot for?"


The naked woman says, "Companionship."



JOKE 2
A man dies and goes to Heaven.  He gets to the gates and finds a person named Steve checking people in.

"Where's St. Peter?" asks the man.


Steve tells him that St. Peter gets off work at 5 p.m.


The man says, "Oh."  He also notices that the gates are much more bronze than pearl.  He wonders why people have been so misinformed about something that basic.



JOKE 3
Six guys walk into a bar.  Over the course of many beers, they each take a trip to the bathroom.  The last man to do so returns to the table and says, "Man, you guys really did stink up the men's room!"  

They laugh because it's true, and this last guy has changed into women's clothing for no discernible reason.  


So, his friends are also laughing because of their discomfort with the situation.


One of them comments that he likes the color of his high heels, and then the night ends with a lot of silence and disbelief.



JOKE 4 
A tiny cat approaches a pit bull and claws at the dog's nose.  The pit bull says, "That was unkind."  The cat apologizes and realizes that it was, indeed, unkind.  It was also unnecessary.  The cat feels great shame.


JOKE 5
A giraffe and turtle are talking after work.  The turtle has to shout to be heard by the giraffe, but she doesn't mind because the giraffe is a good friend.  The giraffe tells the turtle that he can't make it to the turtle's party the next night.

"Why not?!" shouts the turtle.


"I have to visit my aunt in the hospital.  She had a stroke," replies the giraffe.


"I'm sorry to hear that!" the turtle bellows. "I had a stroke once!"


"Really?" asks the giraffe.


"Yes!  But you probably couldn't tell because I'm very far away from you and walk slowly and awkwardly even when in the best of health," answered the turtle.


"That's true," notes the giraffe.


Sadly, the giraffe's aunt died a week later.



JOKE 6 
A Jew and a young black man bump into each other on the sidewalk.  The young black man works in finance and the Jew is a rapper, because you are not expecting that.


JOKE 7
A man and a woman are trapped on a desert island.  Neither of them can figure out why it is called a desert island when there are abundant sources of food and fresh water within its interior.  They think that it's an injustice and vow to change the public's perception of this island should they ever get rescued.

One day, a bottle washes up on the beach, but neither of them sees it because they usually sleep under palm trees in the hot afternoon.  Anyway, it's no big deal, because it's just a bottle.  It is washed out to sea by shifting evening winds and low tide.



JOKE 8
A teenage boy enters a drug store.  He boldly steps to the counter and asks for a box of extra large condoms, but then when they are rung up, he realizes that he doesn't have enough money.  So he asks if they have any used condoms he can buy at a discount.

The clerk laughs loudly and says that no one sells used condoms.  The young man leaves embarrassed, but he resolves to pursue this new business possibility.



JOKE 9
During a party at her boyfriend's house, and young woman gets drunk and falls asleep in the bathtub.  People take pictures of her sleeping in the tub and post them on the internet and type things like "LOL!!!!" as captions.  

It is truly enlightening.

December 18, 2010

Brendon Writes 11 New Jokes for the Very Serious

Joke #1:
Three guys walk into a bar and order a pizza. The bartender tells them that they don't serve pizza. The three guys leave the bar and walk into another bar and order a pizza, but that bar also doesn't serve pizza. They leave, feeling increasingly frustrated.


Joke #2:
A man visits a prostitute. After having sex, he realizes that he has left his wallet at home. The prostitute gets upset and demands that he call someone at his home and have the wallet delivered there. The man then realizes that he doesn't have cash in his wallet anyway, but he does remember the number and expiration date of his American Express card. The prostitute doesn't take American Express. They are at a very awkward impasse.


Joke #3:
A priest, a rabbi and a goat are debating the nature of God. This debate is being broadcast on the radio. You are listening, and the whole time you can't believe how eloquent that goat is.


Joke #4:
A teacher asks his class why Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Several students give decent answers, but the only black child in the class feels like the teacher is looking at him the whole time.


Joke #5:
A dead baby is found in a dumpster in a bad part of town. Everyone agrees that this is very tragic and probably also symbolic of something deeply wrong with our society.


Joke #6:
A boy tries to kiss Helen Keller which really surprises her because she didn't even know he was there. It turns out that this boy never was very good at communicating. Years later, in her memoirs, Ms Keller would remark on the irony of this situation.


Joke #7:
A drunk man walks into a crowded funeral home and pulls down his pants. Thankfully, a cool-headed police officer who happens to be attending the wake is able to quickly escort the man from the building before any further embarrassment occurs. The drunk man is arrested and charged with several misdemeanors. As of this writing, the case is still waiting to be processed by an overburdened court system.


Joke #8:
A blonde woman wearing a bikini is hitchhiking along the interstate. She gets picked up by three fraternity brothers. They are so charmed by her physical appearance that they drive ten miles out of their way to get her to her destination. Not once during the trip does anyone ask why the woman is only wearing a bikini and hitchhiking on a federal highway, though it seems like it should be cause for some concern.


Joke #9:
Your momma is so fat that I'm going to give her the number of a registered dietitian who should be able to help her lose weight. Can you keep me posted as to whether or not she follows up?


Joke #10:
A gay guy is showering at the local health club. Another man enters the shower area. This man is probably more accurately described as bi-curious. They talk about a television show they both enjoy. One of these guys is named Wendell, but I can't remember which one.


Joke #11:
A teenage boy and girl are on their first date. They go to a movie that they both want to see. The boy is so nervous he spills his soda in his lap. Now, his pants are sticky and smell like Dr. Pepper. If he were smoother, he might have asked the girl to help him clean his pants, but he understands that "smoother," in this case, would be a synonym for sexist and disrespectful.

November 22, 2010

What TSA Stands For Now

Given the paranoia around security issues, and the wholesale cowardice that legislators use by exploiting fear of terrorist attacks for cheap political gain, the United States' Transportation Security Administration or TSA is in need of renaming to more accurately reflect what they actually do.


1 - Travel Suspiciously Arrested

2 - Touching Swimsuit Areas

3 - Tits, Sacs, Asses

4 - Totalitarian Safety Abrogation

5 - Tough Shit America

6 - Travelers' Smoldering Anger

7 - Theater, Securely Absurd

8 - Terrorist Sanctioned Aggression

9 - Thanks, Senator Assmunch

10 - Tenuously Skipping Anuses

11 - Total Sexual Assault

November 21, 2010

I Cannot Understand Poetry

I Cannot Understand Poetry

I've never understood poetry, the practice of lining up words and the spaces between silence, the sound of symmetry.

I never understood poetry, a broken mirror to reality they told me meant anything can be reflected, opaque but precisely.

I'll never understand poetry, life is too much without covering your thoughts in shadows, boxed-in by complexity.

I cannot understand poetry, and that's very frightening.
It probably means too much to mean too little to me.

Where Is My Mind? An Impossible Essay about What Goes On In My Head.

There really can be no sure way of saying where my mind is at any moment.

Experts claim that all higher-order living beings, and most non-Glenbeckian humanoids, have what they call primary consciousness - they are alive, they can integrate what's happening to them to create a sense of the present and what needs to happen to continue living.

Most humans also possess a secondary consciousness where they know that they have consciousness, and it is the filter for their world and allows them to integrate past, present, hypothesize about unknowable things, test their perceptions, draw conclusions and even predict the future.

However, I feel often that I am in the throes of an uncontrollable tertiary consciousness.  It almost feels like a dissociative state, bordering perhaps on pathology, except it breezes in and out of my mind so quickly that I hesitate to call it anything other than a waking lucid dream.

Lucid dreaming is being able to know that you're dreaming while you are dreaming.  I am not a lucid dreamer in that I've never had the ability to know I'm dreaming while still asleep.  I have these when I am awake.  It can happen dozens of times a day, or I can go a day or two without it happening at all.

I would say that they were lucid daydreams, but unlike daydreams, nothing weird happens.  I simply feel like I've stepped out of my mind for a few (maybe 3-5) seconds, and what I am perceiving mentally doesn't become bizarre and dream-like - no fish driving cars or polygons that have the ability to speak - I just observe myself observing my reality.

It's almost impossible to describe.  Not an out-of-body experience, because I know and feel myself as still there and do not perceive other things that are not there or are three miles away, just the observance of my observance of reality.

Yes, it's very metacognitive, but it is also not of my control.  I can consciously chose to think about what and how I'm thinking.  This is different.  This can even be layered on top of metacognitive states.  It just happens, then goes away.  It comes back 15 minutes later, or 12 hours later, or it happens several times in the same minute.

Here's what goes through my head while these incidents are happening to me:

1) Oh... it's happening...

2) What happens if I say this / What happens if I do this?

3) Is the world continuing?

4) Yes, it seems to be.

5) Did I cause it to continue in this way?

6) What if I had done this differently?

7) Would the world be continuing in precisely this manner as I now perceive it to be continuing?

8) I cannot know.

9) Can I ever know?

10) Is it stopping now?

11) It's melting away.

12) Here's my reality again.

I don't mean to seem melodramatic, but it is a bizarre series of perceptions that are entirely mundane and impossible to answer at the same time.  Those questions all race through mind in a few seconds.

When I'm wondering in question #2, it is almost always the most rudimentary of things to say or do - picking up a scrap of paper, scratching my chin, saying "yes" instead of "no" about something - it is not ever about big words or actions or grand moments.  Always finding me in only quotidian thoughts or actions.

I can say that I mentally feel different while it's happening, and there is a very brief sense of the incident being "switched on" in my brain, and then it seems to dissipate or melt away when it's ending.  I still can function normally, but everything feels a little muted, echoed and filtered by this state of mind.

It happens when I'm talking to people, when I'm silent, when I'm running, when I'm resting, when I'm reading.  There does not appear to be any time when it cannot happen; perhaps because I still function normally even in the middle of the incident.

It's a spontaneous, instantaneous test of reality; sample size of one; no controls; untraceable methodology; and an unknowable hypothesis.  In other words, a horrible experiment, testing nothing and proving nothing at the same time.

It's like a tripartite cognition: when it happens I recognize what's objectively happening, what's subjectively happening inside me, and what's not happening subjectively all at the same time.

It all leaves me with the question of how much my ability to subjectively perceive my world actually affects my objective world.  Not in the sense of controlling each and every thing around me, but rather in the sense that there may be no difference between subjective and objective reality.

In my thinking brain, I know there must be.  In my brain during these episodes, it conflates the two, and so creates a bizarre feeling of cognitive overlap.  One template on top of the other.

Where the edges do not overlap perfectly, however, I see blurred and gray moments in time.

Why?  I have no clue.

I'm wondering if anyone else has any ideas.

Thank you.

(Sorry for the lack of humor in this post and the poorly-worded ramble.  I am at a loss for accurate ways to describe what's happening and how it actually feels.  Even if I can describe it accurately, I'm not sure I can make it relatable it to anyone else.  I don't possess the philosophical vocabulary for it.)

November 18, 2010

Some Fun New Fast Food Restaurant Names and Concepts

These fast food restaurant names are free to all. I will allow you to use the name in exchange for all the pointing and laughing.

Rapirito (Extremely fast Mexican food, extremely prone to being mispronounced.)

Oozers (Burgers loaded with everything that makes them compulsively edible.)

Extroodles (Quick pasta, quickly processed by both ends of the transaction.)

Kwik 'n Frickin' Chicken (Otherwise known as K'F'C where the apostrophes are said as adorable little clucks.)

Sum Ho's Spread (A Korean buffet-style eatery, leftovers can be taken home in adorable pink boxes.)

Chunkers (Everything gets put in a blender that you get to control! Weeeeee! Will it be a spoon or a fork for eating?)

Fastcism (You don't get to chose, but you eat quickly, quietly and leave. Eyes down!)

Doms' Subs (You can tell them to make you any kind of sandwich you want, any way you want it, and please don't be nice about it. You won't believe the different toppings and sauces they'll give you if you don't ask for them!)

Lances (Waiters in only barbecue aprons serving only the finest of hotdogs and elongated meat meals.)

Cooters (Snuggled closely to Lances, waitresses in only barbecue aprons serving only fish tacos and many forms of finger food.)

Foodthings (What? Oh, yeah... I think we have something like that in the back. Hold on.)

November 16, 2010

Proposals to End Road Rage

Road rage is a curable disease.  

Our best transportation emotologists have been working on this issue for decades, and although their funding always hangs like bloody threads from the windshield, they persist for the benefit of fellow travelers all. 

Presently, new research promises diversionary tactics may help lessen even the most virulent outbreaks.  Road rage, apparently, can be detoured before it even starts.  The potholes of perturbation can be smoothed over with the asphalt of amelioration.

Here are some of the most likely cures to this epidemic.


1 - Highway Hilarity

2 - Freeway Folksiness

3 - Exit Ramp Empathy

4 - Interstate Intercourse (Social)

5 - Thoroughfare Thoughtfulness

6 - Journeying Je Ne Sais Quoi

7 - Path(os)

8 - Avenue Avuncularity

9 - Way Whimsy

10 - Boulevard Bon Vivance

11 - Passage Passion

12 - Merge Mirth

13 - Tollway Tolerance

14 - Pike Placidity

15 - Lane Lassitude

16 - Go de Vivre

17 - Street Stoicism

18 - Overpass Openness

19 - Cobblestone Concern

November 3, 2010

Mind over Matter: The Empirical Tests

Matter: Broken femur, protruding slightly through the flesh
Mind: Over this matter after eleven shots of tequila

Matter: Vomiting guts out
Mind: Over this after purchase of replacement, vomit-proof guts

Matter: Moving 180 pound sofa-bed up three flights of stairs to new apartment
Mind: Over this after providing eleven shots of tequila to a nearby draft horse

Matter: Ten pages due to boss in three hours
Mind: Over this when you remember you hate your stupid boss

Matter: Only half way through the marathon, and you can't take another step
Mind: Over this when you repurpose marathon as a fist fight, anger carries you home

Matter: Draft horse stuck in your third floor apartment
Mind: Over this when you find two old pairs of rollerskates and rediscover gravity

Matter: Lost your mind
Mind: Doesn't matter

What I'm Crushing Today

1 - Hope
2 - Fear
3 - Bunnies, ugly and farsighted
4 - Umbrellas
5 - Certainty
6 - Peanut Shells, unsalted
7 - Love, love of
8 - Derivatives
9 - Sons-a-bitches
10 - Underwear, plaid
11 - Snodgren, Irma
12 - Pleasantness
13 - Haste, undue nature of
14 - Spelling
15 - Stuff, things and
16 - Logic, lists displaying

November 2, 2010

I Will Totally Punch You In The Face!!!!!!!!

Do you see that?  Count'em!  Go on, count the exclamation points in the title of this post.


Yeah?  What did you get?  Seven?  


Okay, I thought there were eight or nine, but seven works, because I'm at least that mad, and it's probably best from a public relations angle to not oversell too early in the game.


People will start not knowing if I'm serious, you know?  If I just throw out eight or nine (or ten!) exclamation points, and then am only able to deliver seven (or six!) exclamation points' worth of rage and violence.


That would cause my reputation great harm.  I can envision a day when people would stop taking my posts seriously because of such punctuation-based hyperbole.  That would be horrible!


Actually, that would be horrible!!


Better.


It's never wise to start off a violent tirade and have people expect more than you can deliver.  Outside of YouTube commenters, very few writers can objectively "bring" eight or nine exclamation points to an argument in a convincing manner.  


At the most recent regional conference, the Central Region Aggressive Punctuation symposium, the keynote speaker chastised the audience to dial down the rage within the prose and use fewer exclamation points!  Unbelievable!  


He was nearly shouted down.  Someone even called him an ALL-CAPSer, which I could tell from my seat near the back of the room stung quite a bit.


Once the attendees quieted down, we learned that the speaker wanted us to try to use something he called "wit" to underscore our vitriol.


What?!  Instead of bitterness and sarcasm?!


As an experience purveyor of harsh punctuation, I didn't need some jag-off telling me how to convince people with written volume!


Whatever!  I stopped listening and walked out!


I'm sure he felt good to get his huge speaking fee and leave all of us...


What?


There's eight?


No, come on!  Stop joking!


You said seven!  You did too!


Yes!  Seven!  I'm not... I'm... I'm just not ready!


Because you said seven, that's why, Asshole!


Fuck!  Now I have to swear more and bring up Hitler somehow!


Oh!  This is not good!  Not good at all!!


Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!  Fuck!


I coulda sworn there were only seven!  I'm not ready to do eight!


Whaddya mean, "I have to?"


Who the fuck are you anyway?!  Hey!  Douchebag!


I'm talkin' to you, Fuckface!!


I don't fuckin' care 'bout that!!  You're the Nazi who insists of perfect, regimented accounting of all punctuation marks!  


You and your jackbooted thugs gonna break down my door at midnight if I don't bring eight to this game?!!


Yes!  You so fuckin' are!  


Come here, Hitler!!  Now!!!!


NOW!!!!  


Just come here right fucking now, or I WILL TOTALLY PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE!!!!!!!!

November 1, 2010

Ways I Spice Up My Life Without Frequenting Prostitutes!

You wouldn't think it was possible, but here are some solid entertainment options for those locked in drudgery looking to break away from all that sex with prostitutes they keep accidentally having.


1) When on vacations, I mail any spare body parts I find to my home address in packaging that looks very suspect.  Upon returning home, I bring the packages back to the post office, and they open them for me while I exclaim things like: "I sure hope there isn't a nose in that package!" or "Who keeps sending me kneecaps?" or "Whoa!  That box is adult male leg-sized!"


2) I put dry ice and red food coloring in my swim trunks, dive into the public pool and just start thrashing around.


3) Go to the bank and exchange the dollar bills in my wallet for the exact same amount of money in dollar bills just to enliven my currency.


4) It's not abduction if you tell the person they're under citizen's arrest.  To strengthen your case, read the person their Miranda rights or whatever rights you can remember.  It's the least you can do.


5) Tickle strangers.


6) Read Proust to the chickens but only to some of the chickens to create vicious, but literate, rivalries in the coop.


7) Frequent prostitute interns.  Not the same thing.


8) Drink soap, water and glycerin, then, at midnight, stand under a lonely streetlight in a black trench coat and fedora, head downcast, and French exhale bubbles.


9) Using only four million toothpicks, record a top ten pop album and discern the true nature of love.

October 31, 2010

Suggested New Taglines for the Television Show "Glee"

I'm not sure if "Glee" has an official tagline, slogan, motto, whatever you want to call it.  I am sure that it used to be a show I enjoyed greatly; a show that promised much.  A show with interesting characters tripping along in situations and wrapped in contexts germane to average Americans - high school, cliques, taunting, being taunted, sports, boyfriends, girlfriends, nice teachers, mean teachers, ineffectual administrators, hormones, finding your own way, impromptu $500,000 production numbers in high school auditoriums.

Also, for  a while there, it had these things called writers.  Writers who created compelling stories that, while not always perfectly believable, were believable enough for the purposes of compelling television.

Perhaps my expectations were too high, though I never expected the show to be as realistic as "Freaks and Geeks," or as amazingly contrived and elaborately plotted as "Arrested Development."  Was it too much to ask, however, to have some of the Freaks and some of the Geeks walking the same halls with some of the plucky triple-threats from "Fame," and to have Gob Bluth as their principal?  (I mean, come on!  What school kid in their right mind wouldn't want "The Final Countdown" as their institution's fight song?)

Also, Lucille and Buster have to be in there somewhere.  That's not optional.

Without getting into particulars, I will only say that, after Glee apparently fired all of its writers, the show has dropped precipitously.

Yes, yes, yes... those kids can sing and dance!  No shit.  Everyone knows that.  I'm going to go out of my way and make the wild assertion that their stellar singing and dancing abilities were two of the three reasons that they were cast in the first place.

The third reason, I suspect, was acting ability.  Acting ability is usually displayed by people called actors who read words in a script and then speak them in such a way as to make you care about their characters - not like or love or hate or worry or wonder or feel ambivalent about - but all of those things and so much more.

It's the reason why, when you watch the actor Martin Starr playing the character Bill Haverchuck in "Freaks and Geeks," you both laugh with him and feel great empathy for him when he comes home alone to his very small house, makes himself a grilled cheese sandwich and bursts out laughing while watching television - mouth wide open, partially-chewed sandwich bits visible in his mouth and all.  You care.  A scene with no lines at all, but, because Bill is so established by the brilliant writing in the series up until that scene, you care deeply.  If you don't, you're probably a fucking sociopath.

Compare that scene to the horrific treatment which beset Rachel Berry and her birth mother, Shelby Corcoran, when they were coming to terms with their deservedly complex feelings for each other given their situation.  The writers actually put very real thought into the situation and treated it with the ambiguity it deserves, and then?  To say "good-bye?"  They sang Lady Gaga's "Pokerface" to each other.

Signifying what?

Who the hell knows, but it was the Lady Gaga episode, so that was the shit that was dumped on the viewers.  Lyrically and musically, it was a song which was completely irrelevant to character or context, intent or import and pulled the empathy of the viewer away from the characters and made us just feel sorry for the actors.  It was almost shocking to witness.

I'm not going to slight any particular actor on the Glee cast, and here's why: it is extremely, extremely difficult to make those increasingly moribund, illogical, disjointed, almost apathetic lines come to life.  Characters say lines that make you think they're speaking another character's words and not in the transformative sense of truly growing to understand the other character, but more like the "oh, shit, that was your line, wasn't it" sense.  Characters have stopped developing and started playing a psychosocial game of hopscotch from episode to episode or even scene to scene.

Again, this hopscotch stems not from the playground game, which progresses rationally and has distinct roles for the participants, but rather from the type of hopscotch one might play after dousing ones sneakers in gasoline, lighting them and trying to stomp out a field of prairie dogs with the flaming treads.

In other words, not a real game of hopscotch at all.  Prairie Dog Self-Immolation Stomp Scotch?

There's a very real sense in the show that the characters start a table read before a new episode is filmed by reaching into a large bucket where the lines have been cut into small scraps and speaking whatever they pull out.  One step above magnetic poetry perhaps, but not a big step.  At this point, I'm half-expecting Finn to start worrying aloud about his menstrual cycle.

The show, at least in its first half-season or so, seemed to exist to tell a story about its characters, which I (stupidly, I guess) assumed was the point of most fictional television shows.  (I know, how horribly Western canon and linear of me.)  The songs came into the show at key points to underline feeling, heighten tension, resolve conflict, make us realize that we actually did like Journey, etc..., but they served the story, for the most part.

Since then, we have been deluged with "theme" episodes, which have flipped the characters and story into the role of supporting songs.  Consider the aforementioned "Pokerface" trashing and the debacle that was the entire Britney Spears episode as two very salient bits of evidence.

Maybe this is laziness on the part of the writers, maybe greed on the part of Fox, a combination of greed facilitating an innate desire to phone it in.  Who cares.   For whatever reason, it happened, and curmudgeons like myself are already waxing nostalgic for the "glory" of a show that is not yet even out of diapers.

So, in honor of the disappointment which it has become, I offer some new taglines that more closely fit my current view of Glee.


1) Getting Less Every Episode.


2) Like old-school MTV without the plot!


3) Have you downloaded the songs on iTunes yet?  Have you?  C'mon!  Do it!  Now!


4) EL - E - G


5) Sectionals, eventually.


6) There's a story in here.  Somewhere.


7) We've jumped dozens of sharks.


8) Glee without mirth.


9) All these songs are on iTunes!  They are!


10) A television show you can watch on the radio!


11) We're popular now; so we don't have to care about you.  Ironic, isn't it?

October 29, 2010

Where The Pain Takes You

1) Down Pain Avenue three blocks, then a left on Pain Street


2) On a double-date with hurt, angst and suffering, and you really have no good way to figure how to pair up


3) To Spain in a plane where it mainly rains, unless you happen to be in Spain already, and so you should remain, or are close enough that you could walk or take a train


4) Pain House, not to be confused with The House of Pain or Paintopia: An Executive Community of Prestige

5) Wherever it wants provided you have a passport and an ass to kick all the way there


6) Over Despair Falls, which you briefly think means your despair will fall away, but then you remember that pain's always playing dickish jokes like that


7) Toward a performance art career

8) (Tie)  dark places / abandoned interstate highway restrooms / shows by performance artists / WalMart / church basements

October 27, 2010

Euphemisms I Invented For The Word "Penis" Which Are Much Worse Than The Word Itself

1 - Broad Sword

2 - The Very Bad Juggler

3 - The Conjunction

4 - Download Cable

5 - Leaky Faucet

6 - The Prime Directive

7 - Lemonade Stir Stick

8 - Li'l Bunter

9 - Disease Vector 1A

10 - Strange Tree

11 - The Overused Metaphor

12 - Trumpy

13 - Wastepipe Not Meeting Current Environmental Regulations

14 - DNA Spit Valve

15 - Progeny Projector

16 - The Misunderstood Genius

17 - Creator

18 - Zippersaurus Rex

19 - The Actual Middle Finger

20 - Sir Dangly

21 - Tonsil Bridge

22 - Blind Spelunker

23 - Vomit Eel

24 - Lite Saber

25 - Non-Load-Bearing Beam

26 - The Lowest Highest Point

27 - Manifestering Destiny

28 - Firestarter

29 - Soldier With A Head Wound

30 - Pat Sajack

31 - A Less Than Impressive Volcano

October 26, 2010

Evolution F**ks Up

Evolution has been drinking heavily, not taking care of itself.  It's gotten sloppy.  Careless.  Relying on lesser paradigms to phone it in for itself.  

Recently, it went on a bender with phrenology, and was found naked three days later in a church basement babbling about how everything there was "totally awesome."

Evolution has made the following mistakes, and offered its sincerest apologies, saying, "It won't happen again!  Honest!  You gotta believe me, baby!  That wasn't me.  This is me.  I'm back, honey, for good this time!  Evolution gonna treat you right, baby!  I mean it!"


Cymbal Flounder - a very flat fish, concealing itself in the silty seabed, but like a percussive dinner plate, ringing clangorously with every move making it too easy a target for predators and keeping nearby coral reefs up most of the night


Donkitty - while adorable at birth, these furry, hoofed mammals quickly outgrow their scratching posts and remind us all why the pussy and ass are better left separated


ZeBra - part ungulate, part underwire, mostly unflattering, made for both poor sales figures and poor figures


Monkeys - these were supposed to have been killed off a couple million years ago when they lost to humans, but evolution admits to letting them hang around to see if they ever will type the complete works of Shakespeare and because of their penchant for wearing funny, funny hats


Girplatypus - the constant butt of evolution's jokes, throwing a giraffe's neck on the common platypus seemed really funny after all the theories in the bar were past their fifth mixed drink


Glenn Beck - it got this one right only to prove intelligent design is obvious bunk, but evolution has regretted it mightily ever since


Chickens - fat, flightless and faulty, this design should have been terminated long ago, but evolution could never determine if the chicken or egg died first

October 22, 2010

Concerns I Have About Space And Time

- Space gets angry if I pretend it's not there, and it may be more than a healthy amount of anger.


- Time has begun overusing chat abbreviations in its texts.  I'm not sure it even knows what they mean; leading to awkward exchanges like this:  Me - "We can talk later. I'm at my dad's funeral."  Time - "rotflmao"  What?  That's going to cause a lot of trouble with people who are not as understanding as I am.


-  Often, time just keeps going on and on when I give clear signals that I'm no longer paying attention.


-  Finite or infinite?  Space wants it both ways, and it's just not something my heart is able to grasp.


-  Time has expressed unwavering support for space, but then often uses air-quotes when discussing space's many "accomplishments."  Just like that; air-quotes around accomplishments.


-  I found an empty bottle of rum under space's bed.


-  Time has grown increasingly abusive toward other dimensions, often running backward just to fuck with their flow.


-  I recently learned they may be closely related, which is going to make for a very awkward conversation given what happened at Debbie's birthday party last weekend.

Answers You Did Not Want To Hear To Questions You Always Wanted To Ask

1. Reddish, but with black smears in it.

2. Under the coffee table.

3. Stay near the middle but look to the left the whole time.

4. Seven or eight, I forget.

5. Sorta.

6. Because he likes things.

7. It was a woman's fault.

8. Probably magic.

9. Jesus or his little sister.

July 18, 2010

Things Which I Must Stop Licking

1) Women, without their consent or proper spicing

2) The line, because I'm supposed to toe it

3) That open sore because it will probably just get infected, also it's on the neck of the President

4) Sharks, the mouths and (possibly) the anuses thereof

5) Improperly spelled words before painting tongue with Wite-Out

6) Other people's brains - either commit to zombism or don't, none of this sissified "Brains-Lite / Low-Calorie" approach

7) Toes, they may have been on the line... the filthy, filthy line

8) Escalators, despite the obvious benefits accruing to one from licking them

9) Crucifixes, especially before communion as "an appetizer from the Jesus buffet"

10) Timex watches, they actually aren't lying about their saliva-worthiness

11) Electrical outlets, even if they have a crispy, crunchy, chocolaty outer shell

June 28, 2010

Proper Collective Terminology for Things Which Could Possibly End the World

A plague of locusts does not equal a plague of zombies, because there is no such thing as a plague of zombies. Yes, I understand: You are under attack. Okay.

So, the world is being besieged by a massive amount, number, grouping of some thing, do we just forget proper speech? No! We do not. The first rule in defeating your enemy is knowing how to address your foe correctly.

What follows is a list of the proper collective terms for just some of those groups which mean us a coda of destruction.



1. An Evisceration of Emus
2. A Shard of Deconstructionists
3. A Perturbance of Toddlers
4. A Clot of Nitwits
5. A Something of Nothingness
6. A Madness of Reefer
7. A Disconcerto of Ennui
8. A Grape-Juicing of Stains
9. A Creep of Mildew
10. An Empty of Pessimism
11. A Colloquy of Colicry
12. A Totally of Insincerity
13. An Oklahoma of Musicals
14. A Braining of Zombies
15. An Ainting of Poor Grammar
16. A Mis of Understanding
17. A Jack of Jills
18. A Lesser-Greater of Bad Math
19. A Covering of Boobies
20. A Bubbling of Goo
21. An Ending of Infinities

June 23, 2010

More Appropriate Names for the Artist Who Should Be Formerly Known As Sting

At some point in the late 1980s or early 1990s, the musician who, at the time, went by the one-word moniker of Sting, started estrogen supplement therapy or a testosterone removal regimen, and decided that his next career would be as far removed from being awesome as he could get.
The Man Who Still Retained The Increasingly-Deceptive Name of Sting decided he would spend most of his time demonstrating that he was serious and intelligent and caring and serene and Zen and could, if asked, menstruate rainbows for you on cue. In other words, he became self-important and emotionally bombastic in exactly inverse correlation to his music's importance and rocking bombast.
What could we expect? He was Important and Smart and Meaningful, dammit!
Rock and Roll and its audience of rowdy ruffians now safely beneath him, The Artist Who No Longer Could Artistically Claim To Be Anything Like A Sting proceeded to soften His sound to the extent that His last three albums have consisted entirely of something sounding similar to the sensuous and self-serious susurrations of a monk in a library, like Yanni or Zamfir without all that messy dynamism.
So, I salute your complete "transformation," Mr. Gordon Sumner, but only in the sense that a transformation often takes the form of a fundamental breakdown. You have dulled your edges and softened your points and hacked away at a musical style which challenged listeners to find meaning and replaced it with a pompous meaning which challenges listeners to find music.
Therefore, you no longer get to be called Sting.
I am suggesting the following substitutions that better fit the pandering "man" you have become.


1) Stung
2) Mystical Enchanter of Song
3) Ingstay
4) Renfestus
5) Gordon M. Pussington, Esq.
6) Middle-of-the-Road Artist #793511
7) That One Guy, You Know...
8) Grandfather
9) Middle-Aged-Lady Whisperer
10) His Grandiloquence
11) Stinq

June 4, 2010

Everything I would like to put in a taco, but the authorities will not let me

Turns out, even tacos have The Man looking out for them and stifling culinary creativity! Here's how they have stomped on my attempts at rescuing the taco from gustatory conventionality.


1) 3-4 ounces of despair, fresh-picked from my Garden of Dreams I Am Now Too Old To Accomplish - like ever running a sub-5 minute mile again.

2) A squirt of luscious droopiness, for my eyelids.

3) One piece of genetic therapy, just in case regular therapy doesn't work, and I want to go all biological and stuff.

4) At least 7 songs by Yo La Tengo... I shall start with "Blue Line Swinger", "Barnaby, Hardly Working", and "Autumn Sweater" and from there it's a stage dive into so much other awesomeness that it probably doesn't matter. Someone will have to hold my taco while I stage dive, though.

5) A secondary taco - not a taco layered inside of the first taco, but an entirely self-contained, autonomous second taco unit that will step in for the first taco in the unlikely and unfortunate event that the first taco is unable to perform its taco duties.

6) Tits. I'm a healthy, heterosexual American male. I feel my taco should have breasts. Is that so wrong?

7) A spicy, but understanding, salsa which will make even my post-taco burps diplomatic and caring.

8) The internet. I feel it shouldn't take much to make my tacos wireless. I don't know why they should be; they just ... Should. Okay?

9) Half a slice of Ambiguity. Which half a slice? Hard to say, but that's the beauty of this ingredient. In the end, will you even know if you have eaten the taco? No, you won't, and the question might haunt you for weeks, making it the most satisfying taco ever. Much more so than those simple declarative tacos that leave no doubt and insult your intelligence / stomach.

May 23, 2010

Pretend Book Jacket Praise from my Imaginary Book Fictively Entitled, "Apocryphal Title of Brendon Etter's Illusive Book"

At three this morning, I was struck by the sheer legendary magnitude of supposed praise that was being hypothetically printed on the unreal jacket for my bogus book. Quotes have flooded in the way that only such unreal praise can: All at once from pretty much everyone and anyone you can think of, though none of whom can I specifically name.

Why did I do this?

Because writing is dangerous and lonely work, and most of you nutjobs never, ever show any appreciation for any of my writing, which means I must invent my own. So, here I go. Here's what I can only imagine is being said about my fake book...



"Incredible" - Famous Writer Lady

"This product crassly uses a story to manipulate the reader, but be not deceived: The story is entirely fictional!" - Moral Absolutist Critic

"Incredible" - Famous Writer Guy

"Half-way through this book, I had half of it left to read." - Precise Critic

"Go to a place where you can buy this thing, and buy it there! Tell them I sent you, but don't tell them why specifically. It's better to be mysterious; plus I'm not sure what I'm telling you to buy, and I don't want to get arrested for your illicit purchase." - Self-Important Celebrity

"Uncredible" - Not Quite As Famous For Very Good Reasons Writer Guy

"Something salmon face book go has positive time!" - Poorly Translated Foreign Critic

"This book contained 733 commas, each more fraught with pausing than the previous." - Even More Precise Critic

"Not credible at all." - Honest Critic

"Half-way through this book, I think I had about ninety percent of it left to read." - Very Imprecise Critic

"Intercredible" - Famous Writer Transexual

"These words will be on the book jacket with my name under them!" - Critic For All The Wrong Reasons

"As good as that other book by that other guy!" - Vague Critic

"I liked the word parts." - Lazy Critic

"Where this book succeeds is in telling a story that people will want to read." - Obvious Critic

"I read this book in public to be seen as literary and not just another pretty, wooden actress with fake breasts." - Fake-Breasted Wooden Pretty Actress

"This is a book." - Lazier Critic

"The flush of jejunely aspirational yearning of Etter's antagonist bolsters the chthonian regret of the protagonist's muddied desires." - Pretentiously Meaningless Critic

"I am writing words about what I perceive to be the quality of the words in this book!!!" - Excited Meta Critic

"Best movie ever!" - Very Confused Critic

"Book." - Laziest Critic

The Names of Bands Fronted by Famous Historical Figures

Special thanks to the curriculum of Mr. Ernie Cruz which inspired me to create a list of band names had they been fronted by various historical figures. I'm probably not going to treat the assignment with as much reverence as Ernie's students.

1. Napolean Bonaparte - Emperor Abba Fodder

2. Pope Urban II -The Urban Beatdowns

3. Carry Nation - Beer Barrel Poker

4. Adam Smith - Market Mark and the Handless Bunch

5. Sylvia Plath - Joy Division

6. Charles Darwin - Select This!

7. William Shakespeare - Food of Love

8. Eve - Oppression Justification Figurehead

9. Isaac Newton - Move It, Move It

10. Sigmund Freud - Cigarhead and the Gynophobes

11. Gertrude Stein - Thereless

12. Confucius - Say Wha...

13. Helen Keller - Close Enough

14. Plato - The Underpinnings

15. Jane Goodall - Not Monkees

May 21, 2010

Other Amazing and Weird Similarities between Kennedy and Lincoln!

Here are just a few other creepy coincidences (or are they coincidences?) that they (yes, THEY!) don't want you to know!

1. Both Kennedy and Lincoln were male AND had penises.

2. Kennedy was the President of the United States when he was killed; so was Lincoln.

3. Lincoln once made a campaign stop in Addison, Virginia. Kennedy had Addison's Disease.

4. Both men were killed by a bullet - a very hard projectile propelled at great velocity from what some experts call a "gun."

5. Lincoln had prominent facial hair covering an area of his face; Kennedy also had that same area on his face.

6. Lincoln was shot on 04/14/1865. Kennedy on 11/22/1963. Neither of their birthdays.

7. Both Presidents were shot by people with sort-of-funny middle names.

8. People were sad about the assassinations of both men.

9. Both Presidents' last names have seven letters in them, and seven is a lucky number.

10. Kennedy was killed the same year the actress, Jodie Foster, was born. William Hinckley, the man who attempted to assassinate President Reagan, supposedly did so in a vain attempt to impress Jodie Foster, and Reagan was a Republican President just like Lincoln. Very compellingly, Jodie Foster is an avowed Democrat, just like Kennedy!

11. Lincoln was famously born in a log cabin; Kennedy was also born famous.

12. Abraham Lincoln actually died the day after he was shot, on April 15, which is now - not coincidentally - the due date for filing your federal income taxes; the same federal income taxes Kennedy filed many times.

13. Abraham Lincoln's middle name rhymed with Kennedy's middle name.

14. { Fill in the blank! }

May 20, 2010

Brendon Etter's Glossary of Literary Terms

I'm certain that I will ace the test with my firm grasp of these terms from the written world.


1. Irony - Using tone, style and steam to deliberately wrinkle clothing.

2. Alliteration - Picking up, discarding or appropriately reusing previously unwanted words.

3. Iambic - An unstressed syllable followed by a dog food nugget.

4. Naturalism - Writing which you can just tell was done by a naked author.

5. Synecdoche - A literary device which metaphorically represents one of those Jewish churches.

6. Foot - What you write with if you want to be the subject of a sentimental personal portrait on the news.

7. Forensic Oratory - Using a rousing speech to force the killer to confess.

8. Gothic Novel - A book that really doesn't care if you read it or not. Whatever.

9. Hermeneutics - For unknown reasons, this is an important word to know when talking about writing. Now, you can use it too.

10. Leitmotif - A children's toy in which plastic pegs are placed within a lighted grid to create recurring phrases, repetitive imagery and pretty, pretty pictures.

11. Onomatopoeia - A word which means exactly what it sounds like it means.

12. Paranomasia - A psychological condition in which a writer uses the page as a canvas for futile anger, but the words, upon interpretation, mean nothing.

13. Soliloquy - Masturbation writ large.

14. Marxist Criticism - When someone named Marx makes fun of your writing.

15. Paralipsis - It is not necessary to define this because then you will define it.

16. Primitivism - To write a piece of literature on a large rock using smaller rocks.

17. Problem Play - A drama you don't like.

18. Cacophony - Using a fake Irish penis in your writing.

19. Assonance - The vague feeling that what you're reading is shit.

May 17, 2010

Five Reasons Why "What Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stronger" Is a Stupid Saying

Where to begin? Perhaps with the title of this post. This was one of those sayings that people started using to distract others from their misery, probably during the Black Death or the Ford administration. It's not only factually wrong but also sentimentally misguided because, taken at its root, it actually encourages people to seek out disease and ineffectual Republicans. Many counterpoints can be counterpointed exposing the moon-faced fallacy of this bromide.

1) Both having hair and being bald do not kill you, yet are polar opposites. Therefore, one of them has to kill you and one of them must make you stronger, and, in process, disproving the expression.

2) A Siberian tiger could, in theory and with minimal outside guidance, lock you in a room and play with you for years in a bad way, keeping you right on the border of death. At no point during your torture would you be considered stronger by objective outside observers who could be charged $10 a head to see this gruesome attraction. (Note to my business manager: Research costs of keeping a Siberian tiger angry but not too hungry.)

3) Sticking with felines for a moment: Were you to take the place of Schrödinger's cat, we would both not know if you were alive and not know if you were stronger. All this not knowing, would pretty much guarantee that you would be simultaneously dead and stronger and, weirder still, possibly a cat owned by a dead Austrian physicist.

4) If you were to be changed into a frog by a vengeful witch, would you suddenly become that much more muscular or filled with greater emotional fortitude, or would you be, as I suspect, hopping around, watching out for predators, and thinking, "Holy shit! I'm a frog! This is not good!"

5) Smoking heavily for a couple decades might not kill you, but I'm not aware of any character-building or physically redemptive traits the addiction proffers. I suppose you could win an "I was more addicted than you" argument with an opponent who had only smoked for ten years, but, again, is that a position of strength from which to debate?

May 16, 2010

I Awoke Before You (a little poem)

Every once in a great while, I write a poem. You shall see, after having read this, why I do not write more of them... I'm no Rob Hardy, for shit's sake!


I Awoke Before You


I awoke before you,
damn bird,
at least an hour.

Or should it be -
I awakened before you?

Awaked?
Awook?

Regardless, it was at least a whole hour
before you, and you're still a damn bird.

So chit and cheek and craw
like you called the sun forth
your own damn self.

But you didn't, damn bird,
because, as I stated above,
I woke up at least an hour before you,
but I sat quietly
and waited for the sun.

May 14, 2010

Reasons Why I Might Hit You on the Head with a Hammer

For today, I thought I should offer some justification for my behavior. Should it happen, that is.

It would be very unfortunate for you to be in critical condition in the hospital and, on top of the bleeding, swelling, unconsciousness, pain and perhaps bewildering sexual excitement, you were also confused as to why I crushed your skull with a hammer.

My motto has always been: I maim, but I care.


1. You were sexually assaulting the hammer, and I felt it would only be poetic justice.

2. We were practicing your headers into the net off corner kicks, and I had a giant mesh bag with soccer balls, except the last "soccer ball" was a hammer, and instead of kicking it to you from the corner, I ran toward you, yelling, "This is really a soccer ball in my hand!" and "Stand still!"

3. The nail in your skull just needed one more good smack to be flush.

4. To build character - maybe yours, maybe mine, maybe a character in my moving new biopic.

5. Because you knew... too... much.

6. Trying to impress Jodie Foster.

7. Bad hammer-eye coordination, resulting in the hammer hitting your head, not your eye.

8. For the punchline of a very funny joke that you probably wouldn't understand if I took the time to explain it.

9. Trying to impress this woman who said she sorta-kinda knows Jodie Foster.

10. My experiment to see which would fall fastest, a hammer or a grand piano, ended badly, but not as badly as it would have had you been standing under the grand piano.

11. I was rendered temporarily mad by all the flash photography.

12. You said you knew a secret, and I wanted to see what it was.

13. Trying to hit Jodie Foster's head, but you were making out with her.

14. To get your attention.

15. Listened to the Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" backwards, and it sounded like frustrating gibberish devoid of hidden instructions; so I hit you on the head to calm myself down.

16. Because it was there.

17. My new hammer was advertised as "strong enough to stand up to your toughest challenges," and I always considered you one of those, or at least the head part of you.

18. I just get, I don't know... excited, I guess.

19. Other.

May 7, 2010

Extremely Bad Pick Up Lines

Let's just say these only work on extreme masochists, and since you are unlikely to find them, you have to be extremely masochistic yourself just to try them.

"You look so much skinnier through my telescope."

"Is that your face, or did an angel have immaculate diarrhea all over you?"

"Why don't you sit on my lap, and we'll talk about the first thing that pops up like the meat thermometer I just inserted into my penis."

"I would probably bathe for you."

"They're like tattoos, but I do them much faster and without all those boring details."

"I used to think I'd never find that perfect woman, but with your help, I'm sure we could figure out where I left most of her body."

"Have you ever had the feeling that destiny was standing and coughing right in front of you?"

"It's hard to believe how easy hair burns."

"Most people have no idea how hard it is to really be an asshole, you know?"

"My mom isn't using the whole bed; so why don't we go to her place?"

"You're more adorable than the last ferret I stuck in my pants."

"It's not that you're fat, it's that there's so much more of you to fondle inappropriately."

"My sense of humor is not recognized by most legal authorities."

May 6, 2010

Brendon Etter Writing As David Mamet Writing As Margaret Wise Brown in the Children's Bedtime Classic, "Shut Up Moon"

In this great big room,
there was a fucking bunny.
Ya know?
And, uh, let's say a phone.
Why? So...
Fucking bunny might need to call someone.
Some other bunny. Something.
I don't know.
Fuck.

Also, there's a red balloon
'Cuz it's a kid's book
so a balloon seems right.
Bunnies, balloons, blah blah blah.
Probably a moon.
And why don't you imagine there's a picture too
A picture of...

Fuck if I know.
It's dark in here 'cuz the fucking bunny
is going to bed
which I alluded to earlier
because it's a bedroom
so shut yer yap.

The place is a fuckin' mess.
Shit everywhere.
Typical I guess.

There is a doll
laying in the hall
Two little cats
Both fucking brats
And a broken switchblade
Stabbed into the eye
Of a creepy old guy
By a withered old hag
Half in the bag
Screaming, "Die! Die! Die!"

Shut up room!
Shut up moon!
Shut up balloon!
Shut up picture of something I can't make out
in all this fuckin' gloom!

Shut up bunny!
Shut up bed!
Shut up old man
With a knife in your head!

Shut up doll!
Shut up hall
and shut up light
someone left on in the hall!
Again. Shit.

And shut up cats,
you fucking brats,
or I'll give you both
some shut up smacks!

And shut up old hag half in the bag
You scream and you cry
"Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!"
and stab old men in the eye

Shut up dark
Shut up air
Shut up noises
every-fucking-where

Seriously.

I mean...
there's a little bunny
trying to get some
fucking sleep
in here.

May 5, 2010

The Dream / Nightmare Threshold

Where does a dream cross over into a nightmare?

Here are a few examples from my sleeping life which may or may not be real if only because reality doesn't always apply in such a world.



Dream: The apples were fresh and tart. Nightmare: The apples acted fresh and tart.

Dream: The beautiful stranger touched my shoulder. Nightmare: Her hand stayed on my shoulder after she left the bus.

Dream: I pitch a no-hitter. Nightmare: Wearing only crotchless panties.

Dream: The valley lay before me in richest greens. Nightmare: The valley lay before me, exactly six feet deep and freshly dug.

Dream: The numbers add up. Nightmare: The numbers perform a very quick tracheotomy.

Dream: She said "yes!" Nightmare: When I asked if she saw me pitch my no-hitter.

Dream: The map leads to the treasure. Nightmare: The treasure is an identical map which leads you to an identical treasure.

Dream: Circles and squares in exactly the right colors. Nightmare: Marching to a military song that is in the wrong key.

Dream: The pizza is done. Nightmare: Done with me and not shy about letting everyone know it.

April 29, 2010

The Titles of the Poems I Have Written about My Missing Winter Coat and When I Wrote Each

"No! No! No! No! No!" - October, 1984

"Then I Was Naked" - October, 1984

"Cruel Winds of November, '84" - December, 1984

"Reagan Did THIS to ME and Now He Can't Recall!" - March, 1985

"In Memoriam: One Year Ago Today" - October, 1985

"Worse Than Bananarama" - November, 1985

"Oh! Bitter Fruit! (The New Winter Coat)" - January, 1986

"Retracing My Steps, Redux" - February, 1986

"Suing Everybody for Stealing" - March, 1986

"The Heat of Summer vs. The Warmth of My Missing Winter Coat" - July, 1986

"Hot Leads in the Case" - September, 1986

"Observed In Silence: Second Anniversary" - October, 1986

"My Lawsuits Are NEVER 'Frivolous,' Your Honor and Other Truths Well-Spoken" - January, 1987

"One Single Tear / Where I Last Saw It" - April, 1987

"The Infallible Zipper: A Celebration" - April, 1987

"Your Hanger Swings Empty" - July, 1987

"I, Remaining: The Third Year" - October, 1987

"My Body Belittles My Pain: Growing Too Big for My Missing Winter Coat" - January, 1988

"Forgiving Myself" - March, 1988

"It Wasn't Supposed to Be This Way! (Starting College without You)" - September, 1988

"Drinking Drowns the Pain" - September, 1988

"New Friends: Blaming Others" - November, 1988

"The Pain Breaks the Bottle" - December, 1988

"Never Forgetting: Belated Fourth Anniversary" - January, 1989

"Salted Wounds: Bananarama Wins Frivolous Libel Suit" - January, 1989

"Blaming Others More Loudly" - February, 1989

"Hail Thee! Ex-Coat Most Snuggly: A Song Cycle" - March-July, 1989

"Pills of Empty Promise" - June, 1989

"Without: Five Years On" - October, 1989

"They Shoot Coat Thieves, Don't They?" - February, 1990

"Reborn: Girlfriend As Missing Coat!" - April, 1990

"Redone: Missing Girlfriend As Missing Coat" - April, 1990

"Refocus: Missing Coat, Missing Heart" - April, 1990

"New Evidence" - June, 1990

"Moving On / My Struggle" - September, 1990

"You Keep Pulling Me Back: Now We Are Six" - October, 1990

"Taking No Chances: The New Girl and The Contract Of Understanding" - January, 1991

"Letting Go" - March, 1991

"Burning Brightly" - May, 1991

"Never Gonna Give You Up: The Astley Pledge" - July, 1991

"Letting Go Again" - August, 1991

"Still Letting Go" - January, 2007

"Signing the Last Check to Bananarama, the Worst Group Ever" - December, 2008

"Letting Go Again, Redux" - February, 2009

"The Missing of Things: A Modern Day Verse Saga of Memory and Misplacement, Drugs and Drinks, Libel and Letting Go" - (in progress)

April 21, 2010

My Recommendations For People Who Are, At This Very Moment, On Fire

1. Find something else to think about. Are the birds singing? Don't you just love apple pie? Let your mind take you away from the burning of your flesh.

2. Stay away from valuable paintings in museums. Fire will damage most canvases by the great masters. You don't want that guilt hanging over you during your potential recovery.

3. Don't run! Walk casually so as to not attract embarrassing levels of attention. There's no need to turn physical pain into social discomfort.

4. If inside, make sure that you are in a properly ventilated room. This will help you to avoid legal liability for violating provisions of your state's clean indoor air act.

5. Don't re-invent the wheel! Many people have been on fire before. Learn from their examples and fine-tune only where necessary.

6. Stop blaming others for your fire. Own your burning, or your burning will own you, or at least the epidermal parts of you.

7. The human body is mostly water. Knowing that most of you will eventually put out the fire on a small portion of you, feel free to relax.

8. Is it a prescribed burn? Overgrown skin is more prone to natural burning and regrowth cycles. Nature has ways of making room for healthy new cells.

9. Admit that you are powerless over fire; so sit and do nothing.

10. Make sure that it is not a superpower with which you have just been invested. You would feel quite dumb if you extinguished a blossoming superpower, wouldn't you?

11. Learn to overcome your fear of water very quickly.

12. Document the fire so as to learn from it. Also, so you don't forget about it with all you have to do today.

13. Stop whining! You think other people don't have problems? Of course they do. Your complaining just makes your burning more insufferable for those unfortunate enough to be around you at the time.

14. Check with your health insurance provider to see if "on fire" is a pre-existing condition and if there are any specialists in-network.

15. Be sure to update your social networking accounts with a witty status like, "Is it hot in here, or is it just me on fire?" or "I'm a hunka, hunka burnin' flesh!" or "Goodness! Gracious! Great balls o' fire! Literally!" or "Need a light?" People will laugh!

16. Remember, it could be worse. You could be on fire and stupid. Count your blessings.

17. It may be tempting, but don't hold a grudge against fire. The anger will only burn you up on the inside, and the fire will win again.

April 16, 2010

Things I Might Yell At My Smarter Cat

1) That's not what Foucault meant! *

2) Because you have an insufficient grasp of fractals, that's why!

3) I'm so tired of your clawcentric diplomacy!

4) Of course the data look different than you expected! Duh!

5) What about MY id!?

6) Your suppositions would be laughable if they weren't so tragic!

7) Steer into the skid!

8) I distrust your family recipe for
coq au vin!

9) I demand a recount! **

10) Do you not understand why a three-party system would be better?!

11) To the breach!

12) Catsense as a phenomenon has been roundly discredited! ***

13) You, sir, do not know what pain - real emotional pain - is!

14) Fuck you, cat! You're a fucking cat! Untie me now! ****


* No one actually knows what Foucault meant, including me, but the cat doesn't know that nobody knows, so I usually get a pass on that one. Ironically, Foucault himself theorized that his cat was actually the only one who knew what Foucault meant, though Foucault's cat's own writings claimed this assertion "made as much sense as that bastard's thought processes which, in turn, made as much sense as an underwater clothesline."

** I am entitled to a recount by local election laws, but the cat has a powerful legal mind.

*** In some circles.

**** You fucker!

March 14, 2010

Things You Might Hear Me Say to Subtly Remind You That Today Is My 40th Birthday

1) Just think, in exactly 40 more years from today, I'll be twice as old as I am. Today.
2) It was a night, much like this one, exactly 40 years ago...

3) Yes... I understand... I'm sure I can have another 40th birthday... sometime... in the future.

4) Man! If I had a doughnut for every birthday I've had in my life, I would have 40 doughnuts right... about............. now.

5) Do you see that little girl over there? Yeah, that one. Well, guess what? It's her 6th birthday today. We share birthdays, that little girl and I do, and she was born on my 34th birthday.

6) You know, I think I'm just going to head down to the store and pick up 40 birthday candles or something.

7) I wonder what it will feel like to turn 41? Guess I'll figure out exactly one year from today.

8) I don't know, just can't stop counting to 40 today for some completely weird, non-guilt-inducing reason.

9) (coughs, with the cough sounding suspiciously like the word "forty") Sorry, I've just been coughing up a lot of my exact-age-as-of-today lately.

10) Well, I mean, wouldn't you be pissed if they cut an hour out the day that happened to be your 40th birthday? I know I am......... I mean, would be... possibly, you know... if?

11) Yep, just another day... my 14,610th day, to be precise. That's all. No big deal. What? No, no... don't get up. I don't need any help subtracting 10 leap days from 14,610 and then dividing that by 365 to come up with a number like... well, somewhere really, really close to 40.

12) Wow! If Elvis were still alive, I'd be 40 today!

March 13, 2010

Being a Curious Inspection of Random but Interesting Points along My Own Personal Temperature Scale

At 0 degrees Brendon, I exist.

At 43 degrees Brendon, I can melt cheese in my hair.

At 17 degrees Brendon, purple looks good on me.

At 151 degrees Brendon, regret becomes desire.

At -19 degrees Brendon, I obsess about cans of all types.

At 2 degrees Brendon, I become completely Brendon - otherwise referred to as "Absolute Brendon."

At 303 degrees Brendon, I will tell only lies.

At 96 degrees Brendon, hamburger is suddenly much less of a helper.

At 72 degrees Brendon, the room will rotate approximately 72 degrees.

At 999 degrees Brendon, I look good on purple.

At 102.9 degrees Brendon, I will bring you more rock and more talk.

At -62 degrees Brendon, I mow the lawn without leaving a number where I can be reached.

At 8 degrees Brendon, lists make themselves up unbidden.

At 00 degrees Brendon, I cancel myself out - "double-aught Brendon" syndrome.

At 27 degrees Brendon, a skeleton crosses the stage, and now the danger starts.

At 5 degrees Brendon, blood will cover the streets, children will lie down with dirty plants, the end of times is nigh!

At 13 degrees Brendon, I can melt ice simply by removing it from the freezer and staring at it.

At 44 degrees Brendon, I finally get a chance to prove what a plucky second-stringer can do out there, coach!

At 255 degrees Brendon, I will sneak my finger into your nose.

At -X degrees Brendon, I might feel a little negative and ex-y.

At 1007 degrees Brendon, I dine on stars.

At 50 degrees Brendon, puppets lose their voting rights.

March 11, 2010

Some Metaphors for Love That Didn't Make the Cut and the Reasons for Their Exclusion

Here's the original list: Brendon Writes New Metaphors for Love

And here are those metaphors that were left off the original list for the reasons specified in parentheses.


1) Love is the ultimate four-letter word.
(The exact number of letters in "love" are still being counted by professional lingual accountants.)


2) Love is a stranger with candy.

(It could also be a stranger with broccoli or a trumpet. You never know unless you ask every stranger personally.)


3) Love is a snorkel breaking the surface for the breath of life.

(Too heavy-handed. Also "snorkel" is a word that cannot ever be taken seriously in this context. Snorkel, snorkel, snorkel!)



4) Love is a raindrop on the tip of your nose that tickles and taunts until you tongue it to your mouth, and it tastes like sweat, not rain, and you realize that you are inside, at the dance, next to your first date, and you probably smell horribly, plus he or she has now seen you lick some of your excessive and foul sweat from your own nose.

(Let's just say this was excluded for very good reasons.)



5) Love is a thought about a feeling about your behavior thinking that it might mean you're acting like you feel like you're in love.

(I'm not sure this is a metaphor. I'm not sure what the hell this is at all.)



6)
Love is a mighty train that you never see coming even though you are standing right in the center of the tracks, and it's perfectly flat all the way to the horizon, and the engineer is blowing the horn non-stop, and I know you have very good hearing, and the damn thing is moving, like, maybe, what? Ten miles per hour? But do you move? Noooo! You just fucking stand there, because you're a huge fucking moron, and... move! MOOOOOVVVE! You stupid fuck! WHAT is wrong with you?! Fine! Fine! FINE! I hope you are fucking crushed by the train of love! See what I care! I hate you so much!
(That one just got too personal. Huge train wreck.)



7) Love is the explosion within that doesn't make you run for the toilet or splatter viscera everywhere.
(Probably not safe for children.)



8) Love is a grape.
(My psychologist tells me I need to stop personalizing my passion for grapes. I love grapes, but grapes do not love me back. Nor are grapes love themselves. This is a difficult task for me given that I never go anywhere without a bunch of ripe, succulent grapes in my underwear. Out of respect for my therapist, however, I left it off the original list.)


9) Love is kind of, well, sort of, you know, ummm, that one time, remember?

(That so very completely was not love.)



10)
Love is a footprint on your heart left by the barest tread of an angel.
(Fucking nauseating.)


11) Love is steam.
(That's what I thought, and now I'm writing this from the burn ward. Stupid steam. Looked like love.)


12) Love is patient and kind unless it's TIME TO GO, and I told you that a half-hour ago, and I'M WAITING, and WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING NOW, and I bet you'd be one of those idiots who would just stand there on the tracks and do nothing while a train came right towards you!
(Much too honest, not oblique enough in its message.)


March 10, 2010

Brendon Writes New Metaphors for Love

If there is one topic that no one, and I mean no one, writes about, it's love.

How do we learn about this powerful emotion if it has been banished from our literature, our glossy magazines, our televisions, our narcotics packaging? I am here to break through this taboo.

America, we must talk about love!

I will start the conversation with some helpful ideas about what love is. Since it is, in at least ninety percent of all situations, an intangible phenomenon, I will write of it metaphorically - relating love to some other concept, idea, object or fluid that the reader may find more easily understandable.

Let's start, shall we?


1) Love is like a metaphor that is a simile.

2) Love is a beautiful creature that walks right into your heart and sits there, occasionally farting.

3) Love is a stupid tree, like the stupidest tree you can think of, and then one that's somehow stupider than that stupidest tree, that's what love is.

4) Love is an uninvited guest who stays at the party too late not having even brought a bag of chips or anything.

5) Love is an audacious 'postrophe.

6) Love is the lackluster serial killer of rationality.

7) Love is a fire, burning deeply and forever inside you, no matter how much whiskey you pour down your throat to extinguish it.

8) Love is an itch that you just gotta scratch, eventually leading to an infection which will probably require emergency medical services which are prohibitively expensive for most people.

9) Love is a banjo or an oboe or a mouth harp or a theremin or a tuba but never all five at the same time.

10) Love is the last word of the last page of your favorite book, especially if the last word on the last page of your favorite book is "love."

11) Love is a two-dimensional heart shape that doesn't really look like the real human heart which I don't think looks so much like love as it does a softball in cherry Jell-O.

12) Love is bacon unless you're a pig, then it's a lot of bacon all at once.

13) Love is an alien being that the government will try to cover up.

14) Love is the disgusted fascination of popping a zit.

15) Love is a close call in a game that you argue about with the officials until you get your way, and it causes you to win the game, but then you realize that, even if you were right all along, you would have been better off losing the game anyway.

16) Love is the lonely sea, but not the gross, polluted parts of the lonely sea - the nice parts.

17) Love is a flower, and don't even try to pretend it isn't, you cynics.

18) Love is a theoretical subatomic particle encircling the human heart, and the only way to prove it will be to stick two lovers in the Large Hadron Collider and smash them directly into each other at nearly the speed of light in temperatures approaching absolute zero.

19) Love is a zombie who can juggle.

20) Love is not only like a red, red rose; it may actually be the red, red rose, though many argue that a red, red rose is only a very red flower.

21) Love is the why, but not the how, the which, the where, or the who. It is also 35% of the what and a smidgen of the therefore, but it is all of the why.

22) Love is a bank robbery from which the cops chase you, and then they catch you, and they smack you around for a while, and then you say, "Wait! That wasn't a bank robbery! That was love!" And then they let you go; because it was love, and they can't charge you with that.

23) Love is a gun especially if you're into the kind of love where someone might get shot at any moment.

24) Love is a circle with an infinite radius and a diameter almost twice as long as that.

25) Love is the word which puts it in direct competition with the bird which had been the word for quite a while until love came around and starting clipping its wings.

26) Love is a waterfall which dries up to reveal another waterfall, which also will dry up to reveal another waterfall, which will also eventually dry up to reveal another waterfall, which will run dry as well, and behind that, there'll be a few more waterfalls, but when the fifteenth or so love waterfall dries up, you'll see a cave. Go to it. Careful! The rocks are still wet. The cave is too small to enter, because of the decreasing size of the nested waterfalls, but kneel down. Dig your arm around in the tiny cave. Love is in there somewhere. Keep reaching! Just do it! Watch out for snakes.

27) Love is all the letters of the alphabet, especially "o" and "e" and "v" and another one I can't remember right now.

28) Love is the scent of fresh strawberries on naked people.

29) Love is a syrup that you've never tasted, but that you hear tastes like love syrup which you understand is not as obscene as it sounds.

30) Love is a number I'm thinking of between one and one hundred that rhymes with "nifty tricks," and if you figure it out, don't tell anyone, okay?

31) Love is the trajectory people are always falling in.

March 8, 2010

Some People Jesus Knew and His Nicknames for Each of Them

1) Paul, the Assyrian Butcher - "Chopper"
2) Seth, the Mangler - "Sir"

3) Pontius Pilate - "One-termer" or "Dickface"

4) Richard, the Church-builder - "Ricky Tabernacle"

5) Josephus of Sycophantya - "Leech"

6) Peter, Andrew, James the Greater, James the Less, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Thaddeus, Simon & Judas Iscariot - "J-Crew and Mr. Squeals"

7) Madeline of Judea - "Bubbles"

8) Prophylus, Elegant Dancer of the Times - "Space Cowboy"

9) Bob of Nazareth - "Doppelgänger" or "Team Player" or "Sucker"

March 7, 2010

If You Go Beyond Bed and Bath...

Scientists have long speculated that, when travelling the limitless mallscape, which is expanding without cease at the speed of credit, humanity may encounter worlds of goods which mimic our own, but embody some strangeness or other dimension that we cannot perceive. One flamboyant and well-decorated hypothesis proposes potential worlds beyond not only the bed but also the bath.

While not without some virulent detractors, the theory has attracted attention for its radical assertion that what we see of retail may not be all there is. So what might exist beyond the bed and the bath?


1) The Infinite Kitchen

2) The Foyer Horizon

3) Crate & Anti-Barrel

4) The Uncertainty Den

5) Garage of Ten Dimensions

6) Wormhole / Playroom

7) Schrödinger's Stairs (which can possibly be used to ascend and descend simultaneously)

8) Pottery Singularity Barn

9) The Five-Season Porch

10) Pantry Constant

11) Orange Julius

Poker Hands of the Utterly Despondent

1) Pair of Tears with an Ace kicker
2) Straight to the Knife of Hearts

3) Flush, Two high

4) Full House, Doubts over Thoughts

5) Two Threes or not Two Threes

6) The Gravedigger Special, one Six of Deep

7) Five Kings of Impossibility

8) Four of an Unkind

9) Despair of Nines

10) Empty House, Nothing over Aught

11) Treble Troubles

12) Roil Flush

13) Zero of Hopes High

14) Four Jacks - the Jack of Asses, Jack of Shame, Jack of Dread, and Jack of Pain

15) Straight Flush of Empty Suits

March 3, 2010

The Title of This List Is the Title of This List

1) This should have been number 5.
2) Started out well, but I opted not to include it in this list.

3) Yeah, I don't know. Probably not.

4) I think this is the best point in the whole list.

5) This is where number 1 was going to be, but I ended up putting number 5 here instead.

6) Funny, funny stuff.

7) I reached a little too hard for this one.

8) But I made up for it with the subtle wordplay and unexpected drollness of this.

9) I'm not even sure what this one means, which is humorous in its own way.

10) Unnecessarily harsh critique exposing old emotional wounds in the author.

11) Apologizing all around, otherwise known as compensating for primitive prejudices laid bare by number 10.

12) There is a point here, but not in this part of the list which is, all of a sudden, full of unprovoked cursing.

13) This one is more the sentimental favorite.

14) I chuckle to myself.

15) It ends abruptly. More so than you had anticipated, but that's basically the definition of ending abruptly, of course.

(extra spaces to denote a greater passage of time in the progression of the list)

16) The list makes a surprise comeback.

(amazing guitar solo plays in your head)

17) The actual end is here.


(The guitar solo may still be playing in your head, but it can no longer legally or comedically be considered part of this list.)

March 1, 2010

Why Women Should Be Allowed To Ski Jump In The Winter Olympics

Right now, women are not allowed to ski jump in the Winter Olympics.

That's wrong!

I am proposing that all women be allowed to ski jump in the Olympics from this point forward.

(Truth be told, I'd like all women forced to ski jump in the Olympics. Just a very specific power trip for me, I know.)

Listed below, dear reader, find some of my reasons for overturning the Olympic ban on women's ski jumping.


1) Research shows that women are just as stupid as men. Some are stupider.

2) So many of the "Magical Fairy"-themed ski jumps which dot the global landscape are shunned and left unused by men.

3) Anything which puts healthy young women in full-body spandex needs to be encouraged.

4) When the ski jumpers screech "weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...," it will sound more gender-appropriate.

5) Provides deep cleansing action for troublesome pores.

6) Should prove that hot pink is the most aerodynamic and uplifting color, as has long been predicted by aerocolorological engineers.

7) Mattel has millions of "SkiJump Princess Barbie" units to move in anticipation of the demand.

8) Head replacement surgery has made great strides in gender equity over the past twenty years.

9) On paper, it may look more dangerous than other Olympic sports in which women participate, but the ski jumping is actually done on snow - not on paper.

10) Top-heavy jumpers should tumble cartoonishly through the air, if my knowledge of cartoon physics is accurate.

11) Having your face removed by snow-friction is empowering.

12) To prevent them from ski jumping in the Summer Olympics, a far more dangerous situation.

February 26, 2010

Guaranteed Ways to Get More Men to Watch Figure Skating

A list I wrote because I, like everyone else, enjoy dabbling in rote gender stereotypes for comedic effect. I only hope you approve, or, failing that, I hope you disapprove with such overheated invective and self-righteous priggery as to make me laugh.

1) Bonus scoring and enhanced-difficulty ratings positively correlated with skater's breast size, both male and female.

2) Wrap skaters in layers of Pennzoil and Bud Light ads.

3) Various "no-go" areas on the ice that explode if touched with enough force.

4) Allow Hot Lesbian Pairs Skating.

5) Viewers must take one drink every time Scott Hamilton groans like a masturbating pervert as a skater attempts a jump or some similarly difficult, and apparently, extremely sexual "trick."

6) Nailing a triple axel only counts if you swallow the whole doughnut in the air.

7) More flamethrowers.

8) Pairs skaters must also have a nemesis (of the judges' choosing) on the ice during their routines; they have to avoid and/or subdue the nemesis successfully for their routine to count.

9) Routines must always be done to "Stairway To Heaven" by Led Zeppelin or "Free Bird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd (or appropriately-rocking cover versions of each.)

10) All individual competitors must do the short program at the same time on the same rink. Last one standing wins.

11) A new event where skaters perform a routine while descending the bobsled course. No bobsleds allowed. Points for fastest time, technical and artistic elements. Deductions for screaming.

12) Whipped cream belly slides recognized as part of the art form.

13) One word: Icequake.

14) A certain number of horny cheerleaders per skater.

15) Obstacle course portion of the competition to feature: The Stampoline, The Firesphere, The Whirlytoss and The Groping Clownbot.

16) Judges allowed to press button for one skater that opens a hole in the ice above the tiger pit. Skater has fifteen seconds to get out before the ice hole closes. Bonus points proportional to tiger-related blood loss sustained if skater completes the routine without wussing out.

17) More Three Stooges-related routines encouraged.

18) No crying allowed, and as little feeling as possible.

19) Motorized skates.

20) One judge is a week from retirement who's "gettin' too old for this shit"; the other is a by-the-book, naively optimistic rookie.

February 25, 2010

New "Extreme" Olympic Sports or Blockbuster Movie Titles?

Trying to broaden its appeal to younger audiences, the Olympics have expanded into newer, trendier sports. Here are a few suggestions for possible new extreme sports to help capture prime marketing demographics, mixed in with a few of my favorite blockbuster movies. I do not know which is which, however. You decide.

1) Snow Double Cross
2) Luge Attack
3) Hyperathlon
4) Team Handbomb
5) Badminton II - Worseminton
6) Javelinator
7) Voodoo Judo
8) Zing! Pong!
9) Snow Double Cross II: Triple Cross
10) Decapitlon
11) On Her Majesty's Short Track Speed Skating Service
12) Snow Horde
13) Breast Stroker, Private Eye
14) Snow Double Cross III: Cross On Cross On Cross On Cross
15) Ten Meter High Dying
16) Dodge-arrow
17) Rhythmic Gymnasts of the Lost Ark