The Whiff of Swiffer's Whiff

Today I saw a certain Swiffer commercial on t.v. for the first time. The good news: two young and pretty actresses, God bless their little careerist hearts, landed jobs with national exposure. They did not threaten or obviously harm anyone with their dialogue. Their characters were pleasant and through them they depicted a major aspect of the human condition: loneliness and its relation to libidinal as well as platonic companionship. Nothing wrong with such creations. The bad news? Though anthropomorphized, these characters were, you see, pieces of DIRT. No, I'm not railing against 21st century thespians, some of whom doubtlessly though, have drunk deeply from the well polluted by over 40 years of pornography leaching (and leeching) into our so-called mainstream culture. No, these actresses were decent, without any Lohan-ish/Madonna-ish/whore-ish attitudes or looks. They were however, one was asked to imagine, actual pieces of DIRT, debris, greasy matter, decaying food particles, shedded hair, bits of shredded wheat, dust, grime, insect excrement, lint, chewing gum, Scotch tape, sweat and whatever else remains stubbornly on one's kitchen floor because it has been deprived of the sweeping, swashbuckling, all enveloping embrace of a magnificent cleaner-upper such as the charismatic El Senor Swiffer: all-purpose mop! These gals were wearing regular, demure business attire: but dresses that were, I swear, the color of olive drab vomit that must have blended itself with mud, grease and pus somehow, to produce a vision of the most unwholesome mess this side of the Love Canal. These ladies, a.k.a. sleazies-make-ya-queasies, pondered their fate as they began to seem to despair that they would ever get "picked-up" (oh, inspired paronomasia!). At that very moment, Johnny Depp-Swiffer comes diving down from the sky and the chosen chunk of matted garbage blissfully leaves her fellow fragment of feculence just as the latter preliminarily and resignedly floats the notion of monastic friendship. Her lucky pal clings ecstatically (and statically?) to the underside of Mr. Big in one of those embraces one saw at some muscle beach back in high school or college days when the prom queen could no longer resist the charms of the Big Hunk on Campus and wrapped her legs around his torso with bacchanalian abandon. Who REALLY wonders why space aliens (think Organians, dear Star Trek fans) do NOT attempt to make contact with this earthling race of ultra ninnies? If our mesomorphic black ("colored" didn't cut it then or now and "African-American" had not yet made the scene as a term in '69) buddy of Ethereal Cereal fame and Watts, Calif. (loved the old wax quart carton of milk with the familiar white and red Queensboro brand label alongside his breakfast bowl) could be informed that such a commercial REALLY would be made and that it would be shown in 41 years, he would have ejaculated ("to utter suddenly and vehemently"--Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary {so leave me alone}) once more: "No shit!". Pal, sad to say: on the contrary, yes (much) shit! And we've an "endless stench" to quote the ol' Cement Lamenter.

Cement Lament

Rotten cotton
Sails away.
Hope's a dope
Fissure-men stay.
Old, too old
Soothers say.

Upchuck Chicky

Dense as clay.

Hurt, big hurt

Drops its drawers

Wicked she-dogs

Never paws.

Thimble symbol,
Thread of wife:

No help here

Nor garden's life.

Dust the rooms

Speak of care

Figure not

Nor deign to dare.

Spit up blood

Clot to scorn

Rip the lungs
Dung at dawn.

Stop the seed

Wind the sheet
Crush the heart
Not a peep.
Vince, the Man,

See him fade.

Place the dirt with the spade
On the site of his snooze,
Still a wish
Washed by booze.
Sober up: news again
Same as old...
Inkless pen.
Why, oh why?
Push away
Cup o'dregs
More to pay.
Leave me be or suck me dry.
In starry sky my only pie.
So long, Clem!
Clam it up.
Razor cuts,
Jaw's stubble juts.
Pigs and you: ruts and nuts.
Blast your smile,
Why schmooze the putz?
Soldier will
Stand stock still
And outlast last princess pill:
About face (when gaze she'd meet)
Sub-second 'fore...martial retreat.
Pride it comes
And pride it goes
Yet I shall stand on tippy toes.
And shoot the shit or third world scum,
Toss the bull or mongrel bum
When we see the unter-mensch
In numbers numbing,
Endless stench.
Then woe and sex, back burners keep
Thankful we, on our feet.
Drain each sewer-
Happy fight
Though we lose to the night.
No vulva's call to sap our strength,
No hopeless womb to charm our length.
Just one great "No!"
Until the fall:
Our gall is all...
Hail! Shopping Mall!
Yes, pavement crack of parking lot
With filtered sun through skylight slot
Lets weed wend'n poke through brave
As it greens an old Yank's grave.

Marquard Aardvard Farquard Was A Friend of Mine

Well, I managed to navigate my way back to the "Palace" and I thank you gents for your help, i.e.making me a co-honcho of this here Blogosity (Jim) or whatever the correct job title is and for the detailed e-mail of steps to take (John) to get to here from where I was. At some point the screen instructed me to contact "Rus" for an invitation so I knew that I was getting off square one in some strange way. Essentially, it was a matter of forming two accounts with the two e-mail addresses and tattooing the respective passwords upside down on my bay window (I just have to glance down). So, who the hell is M.A.F.? How should I know? He was a lot easier to name than he'll be to flesh out. Let's just say for now that he's a shadowy guy from old New York (he longs for OLD old New York, i.e. New Amsterdam) and he hides his sorrow with many a tankard of whatever was Heineken's "ancestor" from the 18th century. Also, he's haughty as all get-out, feeding off the pomposity of his moniker, unlike the Boy Named Sue who fought against the supposed daintiness and timidity of his handle. And he visits me in the wee hours of psychic twilight when reveries abound of Cholly Knickerbocker's past and future. Well, to be continued....but before I go, am reminded, since this is a kind of party and T.M.R. recommends a wingding at M. Twain's (complete with heaping helpings of L&O, or chocha...we are talkin' Yackson Heights, after all), that I am eager to brag about, and so shall: that I'd be glad to risk a jihadist as a fellow passenger on a 21st century version of Lucky Airlines' {maybe Kalula's?} idea of a Real Ball). Even if he showed up and beat me out for the winning ticket to the exclusive Original Mile High Bimbo Parlor in The Sky, I'd just solemnly warn him that the babes, one'n all, are previously owned models of indeterminate mileage. Recoiling in disgust, Mo'll drop his ducat which I'll grab and be off to the races in my tidy whities. Besides, internet lore assures us that just the sight of a nekked babe dictates suicide for Mr. Nowhere. I'll make sure his scimitar is handy and not any firearm to perforate, besides him, our cabin walls. GO LUCKY AIRLINES!

Who's that Lady?

Beautiful, yes she was. Lovely blue eyes, stunning blonde hair, delicious smile. Her statuesque figure attracted numerous wandering eyes. But it was her legs that turned heads, caused hesitation in conversation. Those shapely stems, those gorgeous gams.

They were artificial.

Margaret's Best Confession Ever II

by T.M.R.

The first snows of September were falling on How-Many-Syllables, Vermont, the day Fr. Dennis MacAuley -- crazy as a loon for months -- buried Margaret Roche. The 40 pushups he had assigned her for penance had proven too much for her frail old heart [see Putney's Palace, October 29].

Margaret didn't mind the 40 pushups that killed her. She had always felt that the heavier the penance, the better it would be for her soul. Now she was getting a chance to find out.

"Margaret died smiling," Fr. Dennis began his homily at her funeral mass. He lifted the lid of her coffin and peered inside. "And she's still smiling." He removed Margaret's jewelry and patted her down for loose change.

Margaret's eldest daughter, Mary Veronica Dolores-Veronica, broke down and wept.

"She was ninety-five years old, for chrissakes," said Fr. Dennis. "What were you expecting?"

"Now give 'em a Bible reading," whispered the voice of Shecky Greene, one of the many voices that gave Fr. Dennis advice. "Hurry up. I'm Jewish. I don't feel comfortable in here."

"Today's reading is from the Book of Putney," said Fr. Dennis. He cleared his throat. "And Putney sayeth unto Nathan, 'Nathan, you're corrupt.' And Nathan standeth erect and sayeth unto Putney with great pride, 'Thank you.' I forget the rest of the scene. The mass is over. Go in groups. Hold hands on the stairs. No peeking, boys."

"That's it?" said Mary Veronica Dolores-Veronica.

"That's it," said Fr. Dennis.

Shecky Greene whispered something to Fr. Dennis.

Fr. Dennis nodded. "And take the old stiff with you."
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Mr. Andy Pandy

by T.M.R.

Three young men decided to go camping. They put on revealing summer dresses and colorful lipstick and ...

No. Start again.

Three young men decided to go camping. It was July 1975. One of them left a pregnant wife at home ... because leaving your pregnant wife at home while you go camping is a manly thing to do.

The three young men found a campground. After working at it for three hours, they pitched a tent. They were very hungry now. By mistake one of the young men ... who would later become a first-class barbecue chef ... poured way too much starter fluid on the hibachi, so the fumes from the starter fluid permeated their weiners.

Attracted by the smell of too much starter fluid, another young man wandered over from a neighboring tent. He introduced himself as Jerry and sat down without being invited. His real name, in fact, was Benjamin, but he called himself Jerry.

Jerry made a living distributing Andy Pandy cartoons. He was also mentally unstable. He had a floating decimal point and a fixation on the number 23. Here is a paragraph of Jerry's conversation to illustrate his problem:

"So I bought a house for $23, but I pay $2.3 million a year in utility bills, and I only make 23 cents a year with the Andy Pandy cartoons. My car gets 2.3 billion miles to the gallon, and I've had it for 2.3 days, with only one tune-up, which took 23 days, so I had to walk 2,300 miles to work in 23 seconds."

Finally, one of the three young men couldn't take it anymore. All around them, hundreds of fireflies were blinking on and off. The young man said to Jerry, "Look, Jerry. Look at all those blinking decimal points. Go catch some."

Jerry was puzzled. "Why do I need decimal points?"

"You do. Trust me. You do."

"What do I do when I catch one?" asked Jerry.

"Eat it."

Wanting very much to be liked, Jerry ... whose real name was Benjamin ... spent the rest of the night chasing fireflies. He ate dozens of them.

Of course, the fireflies were useless in solving Jerry's (or Benjamin's) floating decimal point problem, but the three young men had rid themselves of Jerry, and that was enough for them. They didn't give a damn about Jerry's floating decimal point.

Today, 35 years later, they do.

Jerry (or Benjamin), after eating dozens of decimal points that night, decided to abandon his Andy Pandy distributorship and go back to college. He majored in economics and earned a Ph.D.

Jerry is now known to the world as Ben Bernanke ... who is single-handedly destroying the U.S. dollar and the U.S. economy by propping up his friends on Wall Street and in the corrupt U.S. banking system with $2.3 trillion in free federal handouts, and setting the stage for 2.3 decades of 23 percent inflation and $23,000 television sets from China.

The moral is obvious: Be nice to dimwitted people.
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Her Only Child

by T.M.R.

At the age of 64, Roger L. left his room for the first time in his life. He was hungry. His mother had not brought him a meal for three days.

He found the 95-year-old woman dead in the basement laundry room. She had gone into cardiac arrest while doing Roger's laundry. Roger delivered his soiled garments directly to the basement laundry room via a special chute built into the wall. The chute had cost $14,000 to install, but Roger had insisted on it. His mother took out several loans against the house to pay for it.

Roger looked at the pile of unwashed laundry next to his mother's body.

"You always find a way to let me down," he said, poking her with his foot. "I'm goin' to the track, baby."

In the kitchen, Roger emptied the cupboard. It took him twelve trips to move the non-perishable items -- mostly cans of Progresso soup -- to his room.

Now set up to survive comfortably for many, many years ... or so Roger believed ... he locked the door and took a nice, long nap.

Three weeks later, he was dying.

As modes of dying go, death by starvation is comparatively easy, and this gave Roger lots of time to review his life without the distraction of pain. His only regret, he discovered, was that he had never met or married Teri Garr.

Shrugging off that single disappointment in an otherwise fulfilling life -- lived on his terms and no one else’s -- Roger L. passed away with a smile on his face and, by coincidence, with his television tuned to an obscure 1989 movie, Out Cold, in which Teri Garr plays a femme fatale. In one scene, she wears a black wig.

"God, she looks hot in a black wig," were Roger's last words.

The circumstances of Roger L.'s death prove ... incontrovertibly ... that our seemingly cold, indifferent universe does, in fact, pay attention to what's on our minds.
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Margaret's Best Confession Ever

by T.M.R.

After twenty years as pastor of St. Dismas' Church in How-Many-Syllables, Vermont, the Rev. Dennis MacAuley went mad.

The widening rift between Fr. Dennis and reality first affected his work on the evening of Saturday, June 26, 1995. Fr. Dennis was hearing confessions with one ear, and the voices of Theodore Roosevelt, Josephine Baker, and Vince Lombardi with the other.

The voices were giving him advice. However, they were all talking over one another, and he was having trouble understanding them.

"One at a time, please," said Fr. Dennis, adding, "I'm going to the track, baby."

On the other side of the confessional sat Margaret Roche, his oldest parishioner. Nearing the end of an almost blameless life, Margaret was ninety-five and homebound. She had never sinned very much to begin with, and now, even her opportunities to sin were limited.

Margaret, nevertheless, came to confession every Saturday evening. She spent much of her time in between confessions writing down a list of her sins -- or what she believed to be sins -- so that she wouldn't commit another sin by wasting Fr. Dennis' time.

She had no idea that on the other side of the confessional that Saturday evening, Fr. Dennis was getting advice from Theodore Roosevelt, Josephine Baker, and Vince Lombardi, and that all of them were speaking at once.

"One at a time, please," said Fr. Dennis.

"I'm sorry, Father," said Margaret. "I was going too fast."

"One at a time, please."

"I know. I will."

"One at a time, please,"

"I had angry thoughts about my nurse this week."

"One at a time, please."

"No, not both of them. I mean that trailer trash on the night shift."

"One at a time, please."

"I'm sorry, Father. I called her trailer trash. In church."

"One at a time, please."

"I feel terrible."

"Make her run ten stadiums," whispered Vince Lombardi.

"We don't have a stadium," said Fr. Dennis.

"Oh, Father," said Margaret. "May I donate?"

"Can you hear them, too?" said Fr. Dennis.

"I can," said Margaret. "Those people in back are so rude."

"Why can't they just shut up?" said Fr.Dennis.

"I know, Father. Bless me, please."

"Why?" said Fr. Dennis.

"You're so right, Father. Just give me a penance," said Margaret, holding her breath. Since childhood, she had always felt cheated if a priest didn't assign her a burdensome penance.

"Five hundred thousand Our Fathers," said Fr. Dennis, "and," he thought about it, "Two million Hail Marys. Now drop and give me twenty."

Margaret was thrilled. "Twenty what, Father?" she said. Fr. Dennis hesitated. He wasn't sure.

"Push-ups," whispered Vince Lombardi.

"Push-ups," said Fr. Dennis.

"Push-ups?" said Margaret.

"Make it forty," said Vince Lombardi.

"Forty push-ups," said Fr. Dennis.

"Forty?" said Margaret. Her eyes brimmed. "Thank you, Father. Thank you so much."

"One at a time, please," said Fr. Dennis.

"Of course, Father," said Margaret. "One at a time." She called to her nurse. "Debbie. Help me get down on the floor."

"One at a time please."

"I understand, Father."

"One at a time, please."

"Don't be angry with me, Father. I'm very old."

"One at a time, please."
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Wrong Time in October to Start a World Series

Howdy Pop, Jim, Country Jim, etc.

Am gonna cut this short as I realize the mega drama is beginning in San Fran as we speak, or rather, as I bloviate to no one. Here's hoping 1954's magic is here again! Also, I wanna see that guy who looks like he stepped out of a time warp from a 1968 Bryant/Newtown H.S. game (Tim L...whatsisname). Haven't seen such long stringy hair or such a baby faced beardless look since, well, since you looked like that once upon a time.

Rus

Relationships

Stinky earned his nickname early in his teen years. Enamored by Brylcreem; he wasn't convinced that a little dab'll do ya. Initially, his nickname was "Slick," but that sounded almost cool. By all standards, especially the lowly ones of his cohorts, Edward Doohickey was not cool.


Stench overrides grease, and cruelty reigns over generousity of spirit; hence Edward "Stinky" Doohickey.

Perhaps it was fate; Stinky now cleans septic systems for a living. Hey, s#*t happens.

To prove the old adage that there is someone for everyone, Stinky found a girl who, after an unfortunate ordeal in a skunk and turnip farm, developed an hysterical and permanent loss of smell.


Ironically, her name is Rose. She calls her husband "Eddie."

She calls Edward Doohickey "Stinky," because everybody else does.

Eddie Budds is her husband. They don't talk much anymore, not since the ordeal in the skunk and turnip farm.

Rose has a thing for slick hair; she has no regard for the smell. She is not exactly Stinky's "type;" he doesn't really have a type. She's not a septic system. Theres is a complicated, but satisfying relationship, as long as no one mentions Ghandi. (Stinky is of the opinion that Ghandi's extreme weight loss only served to highlight the size of his nose.)
He has issues with intimacy. She has no arms.

Yes, there is someone for everyone, but Eddie Budds is still looking.
His standards are low, but at least one arm is a prerequisite.