Music by Randy Newman.
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TA
It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties--you know, just to loosen up. Inevitably, though, one thought led to another and soon I was more than just a social thinker. I began to think alone--"to relax" I told myself--but I knew it wasn't true.
Thinking became more and more important to me. Finally, I was thinking all the time: it had taken over my life. That was when things began to sour at home. One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life. She spent that night at her mother's.
I began to think on the job. I knew that thinking and employment don't mix, but I couldn't stop myself. I began to avoid friends at lunch time so I could read Thoreau and Kafka. I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, "What is it exactly we are doing here?"
One day the boss called me in. He said, "Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don't stop thinking on the job, I'm gonna have to let you go."
This gave me even more to think about.
I went home early after my conversation with the boss.
"Honey," I confessed, "I've been thinking--"
"I know you've been thinking!" she said, "And I want a divorce!"
"But Honey, surely it's not that serious."
"It is serious," she said, lower lip aquiver. "You think as much as unemployed intellectuals. And unemployed intellectuals are broke. So if you keep on thinking, we won't have any money!"
"That's a faulty syllogism," I said.
She exploded in tears of rage and frustration but I was in no mood at all to deal with non-Aristotelian melodrama.
"I'm going to the library," I snarled as I stomped out the door.
I headed for the library in the mood for some Nietzsche. I roared into the parking lot with Bach's Second Violin Concerto on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors: they wouldn't open. The library was closed. To this day, I believe that an a priori deist hologram was looking out for me that night.
As I sank to the ground clawing at the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster on the wall caught my eye: "Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?"
You probably recognize that line. It comes from Thinker's Anonymous.
Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting.
At each meeting we watch an episode of American Idol. Then we discuss the show and especially the commercials and how they help us through our travails. Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.
Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker. I never miss a TA meeting.
At each meeting we watch an episode of American Idol. Then we discuss the show and especially the commercials and how they help us through our travails. Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.
I still have my job and things are a lot better at home.
Life just seemed...easier somehow as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me. Today I registered to vote Republican.
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Life just seemed...easier somehow as soon as I stopped thinking. I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me. Today I registered to vote Republican.
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Wooden Dollars
1. Only in America can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.
2. Only in America are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.
3. Only in America do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people buy cigarettes at the front.
4. Only in America do people order double cheese burgers, large fries and a diet coke.
5. Only in America do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.
6. Only in America do they leave cars costing huge bucks in the driveway because the garage is full of worthless junk.
7. Only in America do they buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.
9. Only in America do they use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsuckers.'
10. Only in America do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.
11. Only in America can a homeless combat veteran live in a cardboard box and a draft dodger and/or AWOL live in the White House. (Slick Willie/W. era.)
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The Truth About Eric Cantor
A visiting professor is giving a seminar on the supernatural. To get a feel for his audience, he asks, "How many people here believe in ghosts?"
It is just before the first in a series of financial meltdowns, they are all MBA candidates and it's the dawn of New Old Age 21st century: 90 students raise their hands.
"Well, that's a good start," says the tenured academic. "Out of those of you who believe in ghosts, do any of you think you've ever seen a ghost?"
About 40 students raise their hands.
"That's really good. I'm glad you take this seriously. Has anyone here ever talked to a ghost?"
Fifteen students raise their hands.
"That's a great response. Has anyone here ever touched a ghost?"
Three students raise their hands.
"That's fantastic! But let me ask you one question further: Have any of you ever made love to a ghost?"
Eric Cantor, a student in the back raises his hand. The professor is astonished. He takes off his glasses, takes a step back, and says, "Son, all the years I've been giving this lecture, no one has ever claimed to have slept with a ghost. You've got to come up here and tell us about your experience."
Cantor leaps to his feet, ecstatic to get the chance of appearing before a crowd that will not lynch him on sight.
The professor says, "Tell us what it's like to have sex with a ghost!"
Cantor is stunned: "Ghost?! I thought you said 'Goats.'"
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We Reserve The Right To Serve Refuse to Anyone
Black dude walks into a bar with a chimpanzee and addresses the proprietor: "I'd like a Remy and 7 for myself, and the same for my feminine acquaintance here."
"Sir," replies the barkeep, "I regret to advise that although we cheerfully subscribe to each and every requirement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all amendments to and/or variations on same, counsel has determined that these guidelines apply exclusively to members of our own magnificent and financially well-informed species at the top of the food chain by our own self-proclamation, Homo Sapiens."
"I therefore regret to advise," concludes the barkeep, "that we will be unable to serve your guest, including any heirs or successors thereto. I'd be more than happy to serve you, though. That was a Remy and 7, right?"
"Never mind," replies the Homo Sapiens. "I couldn't do it to her, me drinking and her just sitting there watching with those big eyes."
With that, the Homo Sapiens and chimpanzee exit the bar and return to the hotel.
There, exercising all the inventive and adaptational techniques available to man, the black guy sets to work on his chimpanzee in a fury of determination to see her done right by.
He shaves her face, extends her hairline, applies a 2" thick layer of rouge to her face, paints her lips with a massive application of Crimson Reverie by Max Factor, fixes a sultry yet inchoate neo-bouffant platinum wig to her skull and finally drops a $2000 Oleg Cassini original over her head, allowing the magnificent gown to fall gracefully to the floor, suggesting in the most subtle of ways, the promise of her near-nuclear sexuality.
They return to the bar.
"Barkeep, we'd like two Remy and 7's, if you please."
"Certainly, Sir, coming right up." The bartender pours the drinks then sets them before the couple with a restrained flourish.
Then he walks down to the end of the bar where an alcohol-wracked shadow of an ex-cube farmer is drinking desperately and, coaxing a tumbler to a perfect sheen with a bar towel, says to the drunk: "I don't know what it is these days...but it seems like every time one of these Italian girls comes in, she's always with a black dude."
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I Don't Care What They Say--God Bless The IRS
The IRS decides to audit Grandpa and summons him to the IRS office.
The IRS auditor is not surprised when Grandpa shows up with his attorney.
The auditor says, "Well, sir, you have an extravagant lifestyle and no full-time employment, which you explain by saying that you win money gambling. I'm not sure the IRS finds that believable."
"I'm a great gambler and I can prove it," says Grandpa. "How about a demonstration?"
The auditor thinks for a moment and says, "Okay. Go ahead."
Grandpa says, 'I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I can bite my own eye."
The auditor thinks a moment--Jesus I hate people--then says, "It's a bet."
Grandpa removes his glass eye and bites it.
The auditor recoils in amazement.
Grandpa says, "Now, I'll bet you two thousand dollars that I can bite my other eye."
The auditor can tell Grandpa isn't blind, so he takes the bet.
Grandpa removes his dentures and bites his good eye.
The stunned auditor now realizes he has wagered and lost three grand, with Grandpa's attorney as a witness. He starts to get nervous.
"Want to go double or nothing?" Grandpa asks, tauntingly. "I'll bet you six thousand dollars that I can stand on one side of your desk and piss Evel Knievel-like into that wastebasket on the other side--and never lose a drop anywhere in between."
The auditor, twice burned, is now paranoid. But he looks carefully and decides there's no way in the world this old fart can possibly manage it. So he agrees again.
Grandpa stands beside the desk and unzips his pants.
Although he strains mightily, he can't make the stream reach the wastebasket on the other side, thus pissing on pretty much the entirety of the auditor's desk.
The auditor leaps with joy, realizing that he has just turned a major loss into a huge win.
Grandpa's attorney groans, utters the words "Oh my fucking God!" and plunges his heads in his hands.
"Excuse me Sir," says the auditor, "Are you okay?"
"Not really," says the attorney.
"This morning, when this decrepit sonofabitch told me he'd been summoned for an audit, he bet me twenty-five thousand dollars that he could come in here, piss all over your desk and you'd be happy about it."
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Happy Birthday, Ed Zachary
The Editorial Waterboard takes time out from its busy schedule coordinating arms shipments to our brothers-in-arms in Gaza--Aloha Snackbar!--to wish The Journal's Senior International Correspondent, Ed Zachary a happy birthday. Ed is shown below shortly after catching a glimpse of his nemesis, Christine Jorgensen, on that piece of shit, CNN, our chief competitor in the 24/7 news cycle.
Ed is 153 years young.
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The Perfect Woman
JOCOP News Service--Washington DC by Ed Zachary
They came in their thousands.
Post-genderial feminists, bull dykes, GBLT Anarchists, Log Cabin Republicans and pussy-whipped Democrats gathered at the Capitol Mall to embrace Jesus H. Christ as their personal savior upon hearing the news that Hilarious Hamrod Clitorius (don't wanna rub her the wrong way) would likely be appointed Secretary of State and in-house Backstabber-in-Chief of the incoming BO administration.
"I'm so fucking thrilled, I just shit myself," squealed Hermione Pudendio of Amarillo Texas, a former Clitorius delegate.
"She'll be just great with her extensive foreign policy exposure going back at least 16 years when she was in an excellent position to tour executive mansions occupied by corrupt dictators and order room service from the various Hyatt presidential suites across the globe surrounded by Secret Service personnel. She got to know real people well that way. You wouldn't happen to have any WD-40 on you, would ya?"
Questioned as to the role of the former President in such a scenario, Pudendio replied, "Oh hell. He won't be no problem. People think he's a womanizer...but word is, he might get people to play with it, but the train never quite makes it to the tunnel, if you know what I mean. But that's ok, I'm with him a hundred percent as far as that goes. And so is my wife, Lois. Come to think of it, I guess you could say we got a lot in common."
Senator Clitorius' office refused comment on the report, except to forward a copy of the ex-President's new book, the cover of which appears above, a Journal exclusive.
Photoshop replacement of the vaginal vortex by a mouth was rejected by Clinton's publishers, who wish to remain unanimous on the grounds it would constitute a violation of the Homeland Anti-Irony Act of 1975.
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Humphrey Bogart Elected President in Stunning Upset
JOCOP News Service. November 4, 2008. Bumfuck
In a stunning upset, Humphrey Bogart was elected by a 4% margin over Governor Michael Palin for the Presidency of the United States in a come-from-out-of-nowhere upset that electrified stunned media pundits, both major political parties and multinational liquor and tobacco companies, whose stocks surged on the announcement.
Bogart was the nearly-unknown write-in candidate of the National Alcoholic Party (NAP).
At a press conference at NAP headquarters in Forest Lawn Cemetary, called immediately after announcement of the final electoral results, the Washington Post correspondent asked Bogart for his reaction to the election result:
"I can only attribute the election result to an electorate that has finally woken up and smelled the vodka--it was time for a change and change is what the people are finally going to get. They may not like it--if they get slapped, they'll stay slapped. But if you can't even pull a voting lever correctly, you had it coming, end of story, see?"
The NYT lead reporter inquired:
"But what of your health, Mr President-elect. You've been dead for 50 years. Won't your Vice-Presidential candidate automatically assume office?"
"This is a common misconception. Many of the candidates running over the past 40 years have, by any functional definition, been terminally deceased. I addressed this issue during my campaign in depth--being dead is not Constitutionally defined nor is it necessarily a disqualification for holding office, anymore than those physical ailments which have characterized numerous Presidents over the period of time since my own personal interment. These have included Addison's Disease, Syphilis, Alzheimer's, Stupidity, Carter Spinal-Vacuum Syndrome, Diverticulitis, Constipation and, most recently in the case of my immediate predecessor, Infant Death Syndrome--his own."
"Who is your running mate, by the way?"
"Claude Rains."
"Forgive me for asking, Mr President-elect," ejaculated the Washington Post correspondent, "but what are the main planks of your platform? These did not come to the electorate's attention during the campaign, owing to the obscurity of your--"
"Hold it right there, Bub. For the past 40 years, the electorate has been higher than I ever was. I mean, the whole country's been ripped out of its mind. I'm just a piker--by comparison I'm stone cold sober. Look at my hands--dead steady. That's why I can run the country and they can't even buy a cuppa joe for less than six bucks. As for my platform, it's simple: The world is two drinks behind."
Ed Zachary of JOCOP News service inquired: "Mr President-elect, you face a shitload of problems that would overwhelm anyone actually alive, including two wars, 25 years of financial bubbles, a crumbling economy and a brain-dead electorate. Aren't you concerned this will impact your family as you dissolve in the Oval Office?"
"Ed, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that..."
"But Mr President-elect, the wire services are rife with reports that you have appointed nobody to your cabinet during this time of national crisis. Is there some rationale behind this refusal to get started on the nation's recovery."
Bogart shot back: "I stick my neck out for nobody."
Joe Kidd, National Correspondent for the Washington Post, interjected: "Mr Obama, as you may have noticed, I'm blind--visually challenged to the nth degree, can't see a goddamned thing, nada, nichts, rien, zippadeedoodah. It has been said you are able to heal the infirm, the diseased, the weak and the poor, the insane, the syphilitic and the Republicans with a mere glance. Unprofessional as it may seem, I'm asking you now, selfishly, to cure my blindness."
"Here's looking at you, Kidd," replied Bogart.
The next press conference is scheduled for next Thursday.
Obama Declared Insane
The 2008 Presidential campaign was thrown into last-minute turmoil after release of a finding by a psychiatric think tank indicating that leading candidate Barack Obama is clinically insane.
Dr. Ezzelino Von Mannhandler, Director General of the Yale Research Institute for Mental Aberration (YRIMA), announced the finding of the Institute’s Panel of Experts, which was immediately endorsed by President-elect Sarah Lee.
“Barack Obama may be a very nice person and all that,” stated Von Mannhandler during a press conference following release of the finding.
“He may be conversant with Constitutional Law, in control of his emotional state at all times, smokes too much and wears boring suits—none of which indicate mental or emotional instability in and of themselves except for the suits."
“Ultimately, however, the Panel reluctantly agreed on its final diagnosis of Mr Obama’s mental state on the basis that he would have to out of his fucking mind to seek the office of the Presidency at the present moment with the sole proviso that he cannot traverse swimming pools on foot and/or possesses natural resistance to kryptonite.”
“The polity is so reamed, only a whack-job would consider taking on the office, much less actually seeking it out. Which led the panel to conclude that Obama is either a smooth-talking catatonic or has, so to speak, switched from Marlboros.”
“Contrarily, the other candidates are perfectly suited for the job of presiding over the non-future of the Republic with their emphases more properly being concentrated, as they are, on more appropriate arenas of public welfare including beer-distribution, hunting with automatic weapons, cosmetology, male pattern baldness, fashionable eyewear and personal vendetta, all of which fall well within the mandate of current Executive Branch guidelines as established by Vice-President Chauncy [Gardner]."
“No one in his or her right mind would get near the job of the Presidency, leaving this instead to experienced, well-seasoned cutie-pies with admirably firm buttocks such as those already in the possession of the incumbent-to-be, President Sarah Lee."
The Obama campaign declined to comment other than to quote the candidate himself: "Tell those Yale assholes to go fuck themselves. You got any smokes on ya?"
(YRIMA has no connection to the Sarah Lee/Novacaine campaign except to the extent it is totally funded by the Apoplectic Budweiser Distribution Corporation of Phoenix, AZ.)
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Exclusive Interview with Alan Greenspan
The Journal’s Senior Economics and Free Market Collapse Correspondent, Ed Zachary, was fortunate to run into Alan Greenspan who, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 1996 paved the way for the buoyancy which currently reigns supreme throughout the G-7 and 4-F economies. They encountered one another by accident in the Women’s Shitter at the New York Stock Exchange, both in search of (a) a drink and (b) Andy Warhol. As Greenspan had gotten an early start that morning with a refreshing 1978 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, followed in quick succession by a liter of Fundador, the great man readily agreed to an interview with Zachary, as follows:
Zachary: Chairman Greenspan, readers of The Journal would like to know more about the basic groundwork you performed in paving the way for the wealth and prosperity which pervades the world of short sellers today, with the exception of those who took their own lives during yesterday’s dead cat bounce.
Greenspan: Well, thank you for those kind words. You may not be familiar with my background at the Julliard School of Music where I was busily preparing myself for a future in the Jazz industry. I was doing fine until The Great Depression when I had to turn to finance in order to do to it what I did to jazz.
Zachary: Well, I had been aware of your musical precedents. But do you feel this contributed in any way to the Toxicity—a word I hope to be using about every four seconds, my employer is in competition with a real bunch of pricks, so we have to start using Toxicity—which has led to the rampant wealth creation which we see for those shorting the S&P500.
Greenspan: To the best of my recollection, the best known trombone solo of all time is the soaring cry of frenzied sexual intoxication which bifurcates “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”—the famous Frank Sinatra (a personal friend, by the way) rendition backed by the Nelson Riddle Orchestra recorded at Capitol Studios. That magnificent musical phenomenon was by none other than the late, great Milt Bernhart. Whom I knew well.
Zachary: Late? I thought he was still alive.
Greenspan: Alas, he took his life after Lehman. I told him to steer clear of the investment banks. But would he listen? Noooooooooo.
Zachary: Do you feel that your reputation has been besmirched by the huge upsurge of interest in the financial markets over the past few months, particularly, as it were, on the bearish side?
Greenspan: Would you believe I had a job offer from Bix Beiderbecke which, looking back, discombobulates me intensely because I didn’t take it, choosing instead to enter this business, pervaded as it is by rectal illuminaries. Try to imagine, if you will, the lyrical solitude of my coronet pirouetting like Fred Astaire over the main coda of Duke Ellington’s magnificent "Sophisticated Lady." I knew Duke, of course. Fortunately he died 30 years before The End. But that subtracts nothing from his oeuvre.
By they way, if you think journalism is chockablock with what you charmingly refer to in the vernacular as ‘chickenshit motherfuckers,’ you should sit in on a few Fed meetings. But that is neither here nor there.
Zachary: You were famously quoted, in 1996, as warning against “irrational exuberance” in connection with the stock markets. Do you wish now that you had drawn more attention at that time to the ticking time bomb of the derivative markets, as did Warren Buffett?
Greenspan: I know Warren well. We are very close. Not too close, of course, neither of us are gay. Did you know he is part Negro? On several occasions we would take time out from the trials and tribulations of Finance to revel in the atonal dissonance of Count Basie’s piano solos. I knew Count Basie, by the way. I was scheduled to appear with him on a CNBC symposium but he unfortunately died 15 years earlier. CNBC is a great network, I particularly enjoy the cheerful banter of the Squawkbox crew as the markets tank. I do feel however that the soundtrack music used on these financial programs is inappropriate, based on heavy metal rock ‘n’ roll, inappropriate, that is, as it may be for those Baby Boomers who thought they were on the verge of retirement. Surely, Little Richard would seem more germane, particularly the piano introduction to “Good Golly Miss Molly” in the present context. By the way, I never took narcotics when I was Chairman of the Fed.
Zachary: But “irrational exuberance….” Do you feel that somehow this ameliorates your legacy as financial czar of the USA for the period of time leading up to the present downside euphoria despite the unprecedented prosperity being enjoyed by short-sellers today?
Greenspan: Let me say this. Selling short is strictly illegal on 634 listed stocks, mostly financial, unless you have a broker who can whistle Dixie in mid-fellatio while twirling plates on the end of sticks as is seen frequently in the famous Chinese circus, Xiang Hua Wing. By the way, I know Xiang Hua Wing well. Who also wouldn’t listen and was up to his neck in AIG, may he rest in peace.
As for “irrational exuberance,” that was actually a misquote. My actual words were “irredeemable flatulence”—the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee had cut the cheese in a manner with which I could have had no previous experience or foreknowledge--it was most likely Limburger, I remember thinking at the time. But it might also have been a less than mature Camembert, one can never be sure. I was fortunate to have met Camembert last year at Basle, incidentally.
Zachary: Thank you for shedding light on the present market freefall, Chairman Greenspan. I got a hot date with Maureen Dowd.
Greenspan: Thank you. I trust I may tell celebrities that I met you and we are good friends?
Zachary: Actually, I’d rather you didn’t.
World Economy Saved!
Ed Zachary (né Zacharini) contributed this eyewitness report from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on the basis that you’re not drunk if you can still hold on to a horizontal surface. Ed graduated from Fort Wayne Junior College with an AA degree in (Home) Economics, went on to break big stories for the Berkeley Barb, Screw Magazine, The Escondido Daily Times-Advocate, Redbook, Watchtower and The Pattaya News before becoming The Journal’s Senior International Economics Correspondent in direct competition with Christine Jorgensen, his counterpart at CNN, except for his serving in this capacity without benefit of parachute or a huge chest and a bigger mouth. In the editorial section of the Mens’ Shitter at the Bumfuck Holiday Inn, Ed is affectionately known to one and all as the ‘Credit Derivative Wop.’
I came to when the CBS floor correspondent kicked me in the balls (intentionally?) as the House's Wall Street Bailout just went over the top to save the World Economy.
The reaction was immediate as several traders lost control of their lower intestinal tracts and filled their pants in relief. The smell was terrific from my unique position trying to lift myself off the ticker-tape strewn floor, even though ticker tape no longer exists. Dragging myself to my feet, I spotted that bitch from Bloomberg--fine ass but no jugs at all, a pirate's dream--and immediately approached her, flashing my Press Pass.
"I have two questions: one, do you think the bail out will actually trickle down to Main Street; and two, you got any aspirin on you? Gallo Tokay really packs a punch but what with the credit crunch, there's no alter--"
"Get the fuck outta the shot, shitbreath, I'm just going on-air."
"Oh yeah? Wanna interview me?"
"The only person who wants to interview you is Andy Warhol. Now get out."
Wandering through the crowd of relieved traders and media experts in search of Andy Warhol, I looked up at the board and couldn't help noticing the Dow heading straight south like a bad taco through a Tijuana tourist. Buy on the rumor, sell on the news, I thought to myself.
When the President made the announcement congratulating the House of Representatives and Sarah Palin for managing the rescue of the economy for future generations of hedge fund investors, a trader standing next to me let loose with a digestive emission that flattened the NBC correspondent whose hair pin caught the corner of a Credit Derivative trader's mouth on the way down, tearing half his face off. The S&P 500 made an attempt at a rally, then stalled and resumed its descent.
The dollar was making a big move on the basis that the US Dollar is the safe haven of last resort. I managed to interview a financial futures analyst who had reported for work that morning at the wrong exchange.
"Oh yes. The dollar is where you run to when you panic. There are two reasons for this. One, the US Treasury and Federal Reserve are true experts in monetary and fiscal policy. Two, the alternative is to invest it with a bunch of filthy wogs who will steal your money when you go to the bathroom."
Speaking of which, I needed a drink badly and could not believe my luck when I ran into Hank Paulson in the Women's Bathroom skolling a magnum of 1959 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild in one of the booths. I heard the familiar gurgling noise and banged on the door.
"You're not taking a shit, you phony!"
Hank opened the door and said, "You're right. You're always right, Ed. Have a pull. I can't believe what they did to my 3 page precis granting me total discretion over the world economy. That never would have happened at Goldman! These assholes in Congress, look what they've done! If I didn't have 650 million stashed under my mattress in Aspen, I'd be pretty upset. Have a drink."
Carefully wiping the top of the magnum off, I partook of the '59 Chateau Mouton which immediately recalled the familiar hint of Catherine Deneuve with an unusual insolence associated with the haunting scent of the girls' playground at the parochial school in Valence.
"Thanks, Hank. I needed that. Good luck."
"You don't have any crack cocaine on you by any chance--" Hank ejaculated as I headed for the door, but I was already back on the exchange floor in search of Andy Warhol and a quick sildenafil citrate ingestion for the date I had with Maria Bartiromo that same evening.
Unlike me, the Dow was well and truly back in the shitter as I emerged onto the trading floor. It ended the day down 162.84.
Maria Bartiromo stood me up. She was appearing on CNBC with the most intelligent man in financial broadcasting, Larry Kudlow.
I never did find Andy Warhol.
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Sermon on the Sphincter
A man had just been laid off from work.
He should have been elated. Inexplicably, he instead descended unto the abyss of a profound depression--he would not be able to service his underwater mortgage and make the minimum payment on his wife's credit card bill.
Despondent, he found himself standing on the railing of a high bridge getting ready to jump off, when he happened to look down and see a little man with no arms dancing all around on the river bank below.
He thought to himself, "Y'know, maybe life isn't so bad after all," and got off the railing.
He then walked down to the river bank to thank the little man for saving his life.
"Thank you!" he exclaimed. "I was going to jump off that bridge and kill myself but when I saw you dancing even though you have no arms, I changed my mind."
"I'm not dancing," the armless man replied bitterly.
"My asshole itches, and I can't scratch it...."
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Journal Bureau Chief Abuses Pontiff
JOCOP News Service--April 17, 2008
Scandal rocked the ecumenical community Thursday night as Vatican sources leaked details of The Journal’s David Marvin Mailer having abused His Eminence The Pope, brutally and repeatedly, in a midnight tryst at the Bumfuck Holiday Inn during an unscheduled stop in the Papal itinerary.
“I normally confine myself to underage, aluminical Australopithecus,” Mailer revealed in an exclusive interview with The Journal’s Ed Zachary.
“On this occasion, though, something just snapped and I felt a sudden tsunami of uncontrollable lust for homo sapiens—just as a change of pace, mind you. All work and no play make Jack one dull sonofabitch,” averred Mailer.
In reply to a query as to why he’d singled out Il Papa in particular, Mailer gazed into the distance for several moments , cleared his throat then spat emotionally onto the glazed tile of the Mens’ Shitter just down the hall from the Rheum Room.
“Well, first off, it seemed like the thing to do. Second, he was the only other guy in the Mens’ Shitter boisterously demanding what he called “Schnell Relief!”
"In the final analysis, I figured, what the hey, as long as I was going to defile my person with a species I wouldn’t ordinarily touch with a 2” pole, I might as well do to The Pontiff what he and his friends had been doing to Catholic Youth for the past 75 years.”
“And this took place where?” inquired Ed Zachary.
"Stall C for wide-stancers. We were both of us shitfaced on Remy and Seven…."
Asked if he had any message for His Eminence in the wake of an international incident of unprecedented unimportance, Mailer replied: “Yeah, I do. He don’t call, he don’t write, he don’t e-mail…"
"What am I supposed to do? Pray?”
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