The surveyor's apprentice got it all wrong and the guy ended up building his dream house two meters over his property line. His neighbour demanded that he move the house. Lawyers got involved - one for the guy whose property had been infringed, two for the surveyor and his company and one more for the guy whose brand new house could not be legally occupied until the situation was rectified. It took 16 months to resolve the property dispute. In the meantime, squatters had moved into the empty house and pretty much trashed it. In the end, the lawyers got paid, the place was bulldozed and someone's dream went up in smoke. Other people's lives.
July 2, 2019
LETTER OF THE MONTH
Dear Keith,
There are four things I love in life, in order - pizza, beer, the LA Dodgers and my wife. Only trouble is I told this to Charlotte and she don't like being behind pizza. What should I do? I can't lie and put her first because a pepperoni pie makes my mouth water and she sure as hell don't. I suppose I could move pizza back behind beer and then move Charlotte up over the Dodgers, but she would still be behind pizza. You think that would make her happy?
Signed,
Perplexed
Dear Perp,
Good god, man, make shit up! Tell her she's number one if that's what she wants to hear. You don't have to give up pizza, beer and the Dodgers to show her some respect. If that will make her happy, anything else is just you being dumb.
July 3, 2019
What if you lived to be a thousand years old. Your current age at say, 50, would only be 5% of your life. 5%! Right now, at 50, you think you're already past the half way mark and well on your way to old and cranky and yet, if you changed your perspective to living a thousand year life, you've just begun! Now suddenly 50 feels spry, almost baby like. Does too. Anyway, how you think about your life is your life. Capish?
July 4, 2019
BAD MOVIE DIALOGUE
JULIA
Can you believe we're here?!
CARL
Yes, but where are we exactly?
JULIA
We're right where we wanna be, Carl!
CARL
Yes, but you're talking about the metaphysical, I'm talking literally.
Where is here?
JULIA
You cray cray, Carl. There's nothing to understand.
CARL
Yes, but where are we, exactly?
JULIA
If you say "yes, but" one more time I'm going to punch you.
CARL
Yes, b- Just tell me what's going on, Julia?
JULIA
I'm here. You're here. We're where we want to be. What else is there, Carl?
CARL
God, Julia!
(takes a breath)
Ok then. We're here. Now what?
JULIA
What what?
CARL
(exploding)
Julia, you are the most exasperating woman I have ever known!
JULIA
Why thank you, Carl. That's the nicest thing you've said all day. Shall we go?
CARL
What?! Where are we going?
JULIA
So many questions, Carl!
CARL
Yes but-
Julia hauls off and smacks him. Carl's glasses fall off and now he can't see as he blindly flails forward, trips on a stick and falls down a well. Carl dies and Julia moves on.
July 6, 2019
When his immigrant parents died, he inherited his family's failing restaurant. There was no point in carrying on as things were, and there was too much debt to just shutter the doors, so he had to come up with a plan. He decided that he was going to take the most popular items from all the fast food chains, hire a food scientist to reverse engineer them, and then offer the exact same items (with minor tweaks and a copycat name) on the restaurant's menu. He even renamed the place Copycats, and it was an immediate smash hit. Of course, he was sued by every fast food restaurant he ripped off but won more than he lost (turns out you can't copyright recipes). He hired a business consultant and within a year had 240 franchises. Two years later, now with franchises all over the world, he made the cover of Time magazine. Under a picture of his flagship restaurant it said, Copycats - food plagiarism or genius idea?
July 7, 2019
The blubbery orange dotard declares that George Washington took over JFK airport during the Revolutionary War so that the British couldn't land their airplanes in New York. Uh, is this not the definition of a complete and utter moron? I mean really, what kind of brainless twit believes and says something so incredibly stupid, in public, for the record? Wake up America, this inept chump is making you look bad.
By day, I brook no fools, I crack the whip, I beat them bloody if necessary. Peons!
By night, underneath this heavy woolen jacket lies a hoary tiger-man. Grrrr.
I've got monster sideburns, a start on a half-mullet and money.
I can smile but my teeth aren't so good. Can you make me smile? Will you see the rot?
July 9, 2019
She went through two and a half packs of cigarettes a day while pregnant and jokingly named her kid Smoky. As if it was a self-fulfilling prophesy, he started smoking at age 7 and was stealing cartons by age 9. In his teens he started selling bootleg cigarettes in quantity off an Indian reservation in Maine, got busted, went straight, went to work for a tobacco company, became their top salesman, then VP of Sales, then President and CEO. He was up to 4 packs a day and with all the people he addicted along the way was in possession of more bad karma than you could shake a stick at. He died from emphysema at the age of 54. At his funeral, standing over the grave, his mother lit up a fag and wondered what would have happened if she had named him Boy Who Does Good or Sam the Saviour and whether he would have then led that kind of life instead of the one he did
July 11, 2019
Let's say you have a choice to make. You mull things over and finally decide to go one particular way. But because you've given it some thought, you know there are dozens of others ways you could have gone. But guess what? Each of those other ways gets played out in other lives that you are currently, simultaneously living. Are too. We are multidimensional beings. There are many of you. Are too.
July 12, 2019
He was leaving on a business trip when his wife said, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do", but this caused him great concern as his wife was completely uninhibited and would basically do anything with anybody at anytime. So what did she mean by that? Did she just say it was ok to mess around? Did she want him to have an affair? Was this a hint or some kind of suggestion? And what would she be doing while he was gone? He left, worried and nervous. Was that her intention?
July 14, 2019
Trump is both a joke and a punch line. The joke is he thinks he's President, haw! The punch line is he thinks he's going to be remembered as Lincoln - as if Lincoln were a narcissistic, brainless, lying piece of shit, har har.
July 16, 2019
I had some of my stuff being reprinted and sold without my permission. The guy who was the chief ripper-offer said I should be flattered as he only stole the choicest Internet material. You know, this has happened to me before, and the guy stealing my stuff then said the exact same thing. Copyright supposedly gives the holder a sense of ownership security, when the reality is that you are going to have to defend that copyright, with lawyers, and lots of money, and you're going to have to do it over and over and over again. I'm just guessing, but it's probably how open source got started.
July 17, 2019
Overheard a mother and daughter at the mall.
-- Is Daddy coming back?
-- I don't know, sweetheart.
-- Do you want him to come back?
-- I don't know.
-- Where is he?
-- I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't know why he left, if he's coming back or if this is it. I'm sorry, honey, I just don't know.
July 19, 2019
Right after a friend died, I had a dream with him in it. In the dream we didn't interact, but with a nod of the head, we did acknowledge each other. Well, he's dead and I'm not, so how could we both be in the same dream unless we were in the same place? So, when I say that death will be familiar, what I mean is it's the same place you go when you're dreaming. You've been there every night of your life. It's anything but unfamiliar. And certainly nothing to be afraid of. Capish?
July 20, 2019
I'm sitting with a friend on his back deck drinking beer, schmoozing, and listening to John Prine when a momma bear and her cub emerge from the woods not 15 yards away. Whoa, everyone is way too close to everyone else; this is so not good. When the baby bear starts toward us, I actually say, Yikes, and my friend and I move inside. The little bear scrambles up on the deck and walks around while momma watches from the yard. 10 minutes later, both bears are back in the woods and my friend and I are back on the deck. And just in case it was the mellifluous tones of John Prine that attracted them, he puts on AC/DC and we continue on with our afternoon. Ah, the rural life.
July 22, 2019
I'm at the movie theatre when I hear a small noise from the woman sitting next to me. Moments later it happens again. I ask her if she's all right. She says she's fine but her dog wants out. Huh? She swings her purse across her lap, opens the top and shows me a Jack Russell Terrier inside her handbag. She tells me that she feels guilty for leaving him at home so she takes him everywhere. The dog whines again. The people sitting behind tell us to shut up. The dog takes this moment to leap out of the bag and run down the aisle. She starts calling the dog's name. More people tell her to be quiet. People several rows down suddenly stand up and start screaming about a rat in the theatre! Two women flee to the lobby. The movie stops. The lights come on. The manager enters the theatre. The woman is still calling for her dog, others are still screaming about a rat. Frankly, this was worth the price of admission and was way better than the crappy movie we were all trying to watch. Was too.
July 23, 2019
Mental unbalance is always portrayed as a bad thing. But what if you were unbalanced in a good way? Like, what if you thought you could fly, leapt off a 10 story building and actually flew? So who's the crazy one now?
July 26, 2019
Just listen to him say anything - anything at all - and he sounds like the stupidest kid in 5th grade. Trump is an insult to the Presidency, the English language, philosophy, intelligence, concerted thought, planning, the American people, the world at large. What a deluded old man. But take comfort, there will be a downfall, there always is, and it will be spectacular.
July 28, 2019
Why is it so hard to understand that you can do as you please with your life? Why do so many abdicate control to others? Why aren't you your own best advocate? Why aren't you the best that you can be? I'm listening.
July 29, 2019
And now, a poem for skeezy politicians everywhere.
