Monday, March 31, 2008

Taste the yellow!

I was eating breakfast this morning, and an odd question occurred to me: What does yellow taste like?

No, Mom, I'm not ingesting things I shouldn't, I was merely glancing at the top of my single serving bowl of Corn Pops. There, under the bright red logo, was the phrase, "Big Yellow Taste!"

What the hell?

What kind of a motto is that? Is Kellogg going to start marketing Corn Pops to people suffering from synesthesia? Y'know, "Corn Pops, the cereal that tastes yellow, feels lemon, and smells G-Sharp Major!"

And it begs the question of how they can know that it tastes yellow. What kind of tests is this cereal put through to make sure that no batch goes out tasting too green?

Given that the Corn Pops I was eating didn't really taste like, well, anything, I suppose you could make a case that it was true. You can't taste a color, not without a major neurological disorder, anyway, so saying that the Pops tasted yellow could be correct.

It is odd, though.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Mom Story #1

My Mom and Dad went on a cruise, while I was living in New York. My Aunt Betty, Dad's sister, and her husband, Stan, were having an anniversary, or something, and they had all of their children, and spouses, and grandchildren, and my parents, join them as guest stars in their own personal Love Boat. By all accounts, a great time was had by all. I wouldn't know. I wasn't invited.

Bitter? Don't be silly. I laugh in the face of bitterness, and chuckle condescendingly at sadness.

Anyway, about a week after my parents got done seeing what Gopher is really like, I got a box in the mail. My mother, sweetheart that she is, had picked up a shirt for me during her travels. It was a nice shirt, too. Light brown, with a loose weave to the fabric that made it great for summer, which was raging humidly about the city at the time.

There was one small problem, however. This shirt, so nice in other ways, had a pocket on the left breast, on which had been inflicted the words 'KEY WEST', in oh-so-bright sparkles. This is what happens when your mother chooses clothes for you based on what she would want to wear.

I looked at the shirt, pondering. I really did like it, other than the eyesore of a pocket. Inspecting the shirt, I found that the weave was loose enough that I could get to the thread used to attach the pocket without damaging the rest of the shirt.

So I cut the thing off.

I spent about a half an hour, carefully finding each point of attachment, making sure I was cutting the right threads, slowly excising the overly happy pocket from the quiet goodness of it's home garment. When I was done, it was apparent, upon semi-close inspection, that there had been a pocket attached, but it wasn't too obvious, and looked like it would fade as the loose weave was exposed to washing. Even if it didn't, it was a small defect, and I could explain it away simply by saying to any who asked, "Hey, it's an imperfect world. Sometimes, pockets come off. Whatcha gonna do, eh?"

Felling quite happy with my new, slightly altered gift, I wore it to work that very day. Upon arriving home again, I made a quick call to my parents, making sure to thank them for the shirt, and expressing my happiness with it, telling my mother I was wearing it at that very moment. It was all skittles and beer, until I mentioned that I'd had to remove the pocket to make the shirt wearable. Then I asked Mom why she had bought something with such a gaudy embellishment. There was a brief silence on the other end of the line.

"Um, none of the shirts had any writing on them." She said in a quiet, hurt voice. "I had them put that on. It cost extra."

Oh, Christ... Life ain't fair...

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Who wants to shoot a clown in the face?

A new reality show, this fall on Fox.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Just a thought...

Much tragedy could have been averted if the Big Bad Wolf had simply been honest with himself about his fascination with crossdressing.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

An Action News 5 In Depth Report

Good evening. On tonight's 'Eye on the Family' segment, we will be looking at a very important question: are your children using illegal drugs?

The answer is yes. Yes they are.

If you have children between the ages of 3 and 27, and they are not currently in your sight, they are getting high right now. If they are in your sight, they got high while you couldn't see them. Or, possibly, they got high while you were watching me and not them.

They might be smoking Marijuana or Crack, the might be shooting Heroin, they could be huffing gas, or paint thinner, or nail-polish remover, they could be eating your wife's lipstick or your husband's shoes, or they could simply be breathing too deeply to give themselves an incredibly dangerous 'Oxygen high'. But, somehow, your children ARE getting high.

You have only yourself to blame. It was you who sent your children out into the real world, to school and playdates, where other children could introduce them to the wonders of Mescaline. You, who were so easily fooled into believing that Little Jimmy from across the street isn't involved in manufacturing Crystal Meth and white slavery.

There is only one solution. There is only one way to keep your children and yourself safe from the taint of drug use, a taint that will inevitably lead your sons to knifing strangers, and your daughters selling themselves on the filthy streets.

But first, here's Jim Crandall with Sports! Jim, how'd the Cavs do tonight?

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Mojo of the Blood Fire Apes!

The night hung over the city like a dead fish on a clothesline. Hot, damp air sidled up close and wrapped itself around me like a wet fur coat, which wouldn’t have been comfortable even if I didn’t have my own fur. But Primate City was lit up in all her neon glory, throwing cheap light up to the overhanging clouds, telling the vanished sun that she’d be fine if it never came back. I’d lived in the Big Banana all my life, but she never looked better to me than she did at night’s beginning. I didn’t even miss the daylight, anymore.


I took a last drag off my smoke and flicked the butt out the open window. The falling ember’s momentary arc joined the flashing lights of the city, adding it’s little glow to the dazzling array. As it disappeared into the shadow of the grubby alley below, I considered what the night might have in store for me. Sometime before dawn, I had to meet Crackers down at the stockyards, to pick up my ‘medicine’. I also had a bit of business to work out with Eddie Medium-Size, current boss of the Capuchin Brotherhood. I’d worked with Big Eddie, the old Capuchin boss, a couple of times, but Eddie Medium-Size didn’t have Big Eddie’s brains or flair for business. Cash is cash, though, so I might take a job from him.


I wasn’t worried about finding action tonight, though. I had that feeling, the old familiar one, down in the gut, that I wasn’t gonna be hanging around my office here in the Hominid Building all night, rhapsodizing about my city in the night. The fur on the back of my hands were tingling, and Sally, nestled in my shoulder holster, seemed restless. Something was up, tonight, and headed my way. So I sat back, and let it come.


There was a knock at the door. I smiled, a little. You learn to trust your feelings, as a PI, even more so than the average gorilla. I ran my tongue over my sharp canines and thought that you can bet the bank on your gut when you’re a…Vampire Gorilla, PI.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

That Guy

I know it's time to shave my head when I turn into 'that guy'.

'That guy' was someone I have noticed, and ridiculed, fairly regularly throughout my life. You might not have noticed him yourself, but I assure you, he's there. He's a balding fellow, receding hairline, one who's pretty sure he's unobserved. He's the guy who takes advantage of his reflection in a store window or a lobby mirror and tries to quickly rearrange his thinning coif to somehow hide the fact that in the war of scalp and hair, hair is making a strategic retreat. He's looking for a bit of magic, that guy is, a way of folding or turning or entangling his locks so that not enough hair can hide too much skin.

There's no way to do it, of course, but he, that is I, keep trying, like a fat lady in 'slimming' spandex and a belly shirt. We can't help it, but that such magic exists is just one of those illusions we need to get through the day.

Fortunately for me, I also labor under the illusion that I have a well-shaped, and not at all egg-like, skull. This allows me to see shaving my head as a viable option. This is good, as I hate being 'that guy.'

Friday, March 07, 2008

Ah, yesterday

Remember yesterday? When today was tomorrow, and tomorrow was a couple of days from now? Yesterday, when a couple of days ago was yesterday, because yesterday was today? Last week was still last week, and next week was still next week, unless yesterday was the end of the week, so that next week was this week, and this week had suddenly become last week?

Sunday, March 02, 2008

It's kind of a lateral move

I seem to have traded my addiction to weed for an addiction to BBQ-flavored Fritos.