Recently 7 of my original drawings where returned to me. They are-

Philomena Undrapes

Tori Takes A Renaissance-style Selfie

The She Rat and the Forgotten Basement Artifacts

The Giraffe and the Okapi- Pecs Perch

The Virago and the Grundygut

The Thicc Lab Mice and the Pee Wee Iguana

Biceptember 2025

---These drawings are 2B pencil on different scraps of paper, and they’re large, the biggest being almost 3 feet by 9 inches (The Mice and the Iguana).
I’m offering them for sale.
$30 a drawing, first come, first served.
Postage included in purchase price.
I will personalize the drawing for the buyer.

Any interest out there?
Please buy a drawing and boost my ego.

Non sequiturs uttered by members of the What-A-Mess unit at Dic Studios, Burbank, 1995-

It wasn’t quite the Doctor Pepper World he thought it would be.

...there he was, cursing and throwing pizza in the gutter...

I think it’s funny, too... But it don’t look cute.

Dance of the Enchanted meatloafs.

I can’t vote or a man who looks like Frank Purdue.

Ivory Dishwashing Soap bottles filled with booze!

Sam Singer has a thing for drawing characters with tumors.

C’mon, you fuckin’ creep, get away from that xerox machine.

And now, in the guise of The Green Hornet... My mother.

It’s all about King George pissing blue urine when he goes out of his mind.

It looks like a bowl of crap with stuff on it.

Mickey Mouse burning catholics.

Can we get the food down our throats first before you start up with that crap?

I like the way he’s smiling... He’s got the eyes of a dead fish.

I’m as hungry as a blind lesbian in a fish market.

Disneyland for pillow biters.

I’m so happy. I’m so happy-happy-happy. I’m so happy... I’m so mentally ill...

I’m tryin’ to read Blue Beetle, so shut up!

He had about as much chance as a bottle of Thunderbird at a wino’s convention.

Why are you polishing a donut?

I was planting rutabagas and I buried it by accident.

Just another weasel story from Tinsel-Town.

Who do you think you are, Peter Pan? No, I’m Peter Potato, I can do anything I want!

Mister Papoo... A Galapagos turtle of a man... He gobbles up 30 hot dogs with chili, then he waddles out to the Jaguar and drives away...

...to eat a piece of enchanted meatloaf is to live a life of wonder!

1. Any body suspended in space will remain suspended in space until made aware of its situation.
Daffy Duck steps off a cliff, expecting further pastureland. He loiters in midair, soliloquizing flippantly, until he chances to look down. At this point, the familiar principle of 32 feet per second per second takes place.

2. Any body in motion will tend to remain in motion until solid matter intervenes suddenly.
Whether shot from a cannon or in hot pursuit on foot, cartoon characters are so absolute in their momentum that only a telephone pole or an outsized boulder retards their forward motion absolutely. Sir Isaac Newton called this sudden termination the stooge’s surcease.

3. Any body passing through solid matter will leave a perforation conforming to its perimeter.
Also called the silhouette of passage, this phenomenon is the specialty of victims of direct-pressure explosions and reckless cowards who are so eager to escape that they exit directly through the wall of a house, leaving a cookie-cutout perfect hole. The threat of skunks or matrimony often catalyzes this reaction.

4. The time required for an object to fall twenty stories is greater than or equal to the time it takes for whoever knocked it off the ledge to spiral down twenty flights to attempt to capture it unbroken.
Such an object is inevitbly priceless, the attempt to capture it inevitably unsuccessful.

5. All principles of gravity are negated by fear.
Psychic forces are sufficient in most bodies for a shock to propel them directly away from the surface. A spooky noise or adversary’s signature sound will induce motion upward, usually to the cradle of a chandelier, a treetop, or the crest of a flagpole. The feet of a running character or the wheeels of a speeding auto need never touch the ground, ergo fleeing turns into flight.

6. As speed increases, objects can be several places at once.
This is particularly true in tooth-and-claw fights, in which a character’s head may be glimpsed emerging from a cloud of altercation at several places simultaneously. This effect is common as well among bodies tht are spinning or being throttled, and simulates our own vision’s trailing retention of images. A “wacky” character has the option of self-replication only at manic high speeds and may ricochet off walls to achieve the velocity required for self-mass liberation.

7. Certain bodies can pass through a solid wall painted to resemble tunnel entrances; others cannot.
This trompe-l’oeil inconsistency has baffled generations, but at least it is known that whoever paints an entrance on a wall’s surface to trick an opponent will be unable to pursue him into this theoretical space. The painter is flattened against the wall when he attempts to follow into the painting. This is ultimately a problem of art, not science.

8. Any violent rearrangement of feline matter is impermanent.
Cartoon cats possess more deaths than even the traditionl nine lives afford. They can be sliced, splayed, accordion-pleated, spindled, or disassembled, but they cannot be destroyed. After a few moments of blinking self-pity, they reinflate, elongate, snap back, or solidify.

9. For every vengence there is an equal and opposite revengeance.
This is the one law of animated cartoon motion that also applies to the physical world at large. For that reason, we need the relief of watching it happen to a duck instead.

---Mark O’Donnell, 1980

The Humorist

“What is that, mother?”

“The humorist, child.
His hands are black, but his heart is mild.”

“May I touch him, mother?”

“Twere needlessly done.
He is slightly touched already, my son.”

“Oh, why does he wear such a ghastly grin?”

“’Tis the outward sign of a joke within.”

“Will he crack it, mother?”

“Not so, my saint.
’Tis meant for the Saturday Livercomplaint."

“Does he suffer, mother?”

“God help him, yes!-
A thousand and fifty kinds of distress.”

“What makes him sweat so?”

“The demons that lurk
In the fear of having to go to work.”

“Why doesn’t he end, then, his life with a rope?”

“Abolition of Hell has deprived him of hope.”


Religion

Hassan Bedreddin, clad in rags, ill-shod
Sought the great temple of the living God.
The worshipers arose and drove him forth,
And one in power beat him with a rod

Allah," he cried, thou seest what I got:
Thy servants bar me from the sacred spot.”
“Be comforted,” the Holy One replied:
It is the only place where I am not."


To-day

I saw a man who knelt in prayer,
and heard him say:
I’ll lay my inmost spirit bare
To-day.”

“Lord, for to-morrow and its need
I do not pray;
Let me on my neighbor feed
To-day.”

“Let me my duty duly shirk
And run away
From any form or phase of work
To-day.”

“From Thy commands exempted still,
Let me obey
The promptings of my private will
To-day.”

“Let me no word profane, no lie,
Unthinking, say
If any one is standing by
To-day.”

“My secret sins and vices grave
Let none betray;
The scoffer’s jeers I do not crave
To-day.”

“And if to-day my fortune all
Should ebb away
Help me on other men's to fall
To-day.”

“So, for to-morrow and its mite
I do not pray;
Just give me everything in sight
To-day.”

I cried: “Amen!” He rose and ran
Like oil away.
I said: “I’ve seen an honest man
To-day.”


Philosopher Bimm

Republicans think Jonas Bimm
A Democrat gone mad,
And Democrats consider him
Republican and bad.

The Lout reviles him as a Dude
And gives it him right hot;
The Dude condemns his crassitude
And calls him sans-culottes.

Derided as an Anglophile
By Anglophobes, forsooth,
As Anglophobe he feels, the while,
The Anglophilic tooth.

The Churchman calls him Atheist;
The Atheists, rough-shod,
Have ridden o’er him long and hissed:
“The wretch believes in God!”

The Saints whom clergymen we call
Would kill him if they could;
The Sinners (scientists and all)
Complain that he is good.

All men deplore the difference
Between themselves and him,
And all devise expedients
For paining Jonas Bimm.

I, too, with wild demoniac glee,
Would put out both his eyes;
For Mr. Bimm appears to me
Insufferably wise!


Hell

The friends who stood about my bed
Looked down upon my face and said:
“God’s will be done- the fellow’s dead.”

When from my body I was free
I straightway felt myself, ah me!
Sink downward to the life to be.

Full twenty centuries I fell,
And then alighted. Here you dwell
For aye, a Voice cried-this is Hell!

A landscape lay about my feet,
Where trees were green and flowers sweet.
The climate was devoid of heat.

The sun looked down with gentle beam,
Upon the bosom of the stream,
Nor saw I any sign of steam.

The waters by the sky were tinged,
The hills light and color fringed,
Birds warbled on the wing unsinged.

“Ah, no this is not Hell,” I cried;
“The preachers ne’er so greatly lied,
This is Earth’s spirit glorified!”

“Good souls do not in Hades Dwell.
And, look, there’s Roz Dutton!” Well,
The Voice said, that’s what makes it Hell.


Election Day

Despots effete upon tottering thrones
Unsteadily poised upon dead men’s bones,
Walk up! Walk up! the circus is free,
And this wonderful spectacle you shall see:
Millions of voters who mostly are fools,
Demagogues’, dupes and candidates tools-
Armies of uniformed mountebanks,
And braying disciples of brainless cranks.
Many a week they’ve bellowed like beeves,
Bitterly blackguarding, lying like thieves,
Libeling freely the quick and the dead
And painting the New Jerusalem red.
Tyrants monarchical- emperors, kings,
Princes and nobles and all such things-
Noblemen, gentlemen, step this way:
There’s nothing, the Devil excepted, to pay,
And the freaks and curios here to be seen
Are very uncommonly grand and serene.

No more with vivacity the debate,
Nor cheerfully crack the dissenting pate;
No longer, the dull understanding to aid,
The stomach accepts the instructive blade,
Nor the stubborn heart learns what is what
From revelation of rabbit-shot;
And vilification’s flames- behold!
Burn with a bickering faint and cold.

Magnificent spectacle!- every tongue
Suddenly civil that yesterday rung
(Like the clapper beating a brazen bell)
Each fair reputation’s eternal knell;
Hands no longer delivering blows,
And noses, for counting, arrayed in rows.

Walk up, gentlemen- nothing to pay-
The Devil goes back to Hell to-day.


A Paradox

“If life were not worth living,” said the preacher,
“ ’Twould have in suicide one pleasant feature.”
“An error,” said the pessimist, “you’re making:
What’s not worth having cannot be worth taking.”

---Ambrose Bierce

Just to let everybody know- Roy, Noah, and I are all okay and doing fine. We had to evacuate early this morning. It wasn’t fun. Our power was out and the air filled with smoke and ash from the Eaton Canyon fire, though we didn’t know that at the time. The cops made it sound like a wild fire was burning around the mountain behind us and would hit our neighborhood any minute, get out now! We ended up in the parking lot of the Pasadena Ralph’s supermarket, about three miles from my place. I reconnoitered in my car to see what was going on. There was no fire anywhere near our neighborhood. What we’d gone through was a precautionary evacuation. Later we all came back home in the early afternoon. The cops weren’t keeping anybody out. We were without out power until a little while ago. I was out checking a story a neighbor had texted me on my phone, that the fire had jumped the 210 freeway by the Rose Bowl. No. There was no fire, and since the wind has died down, it looks like the chances are good a fire won’t break out. Still, it's a waiting game, anything can happen between now and tomorrow. But our powers back after about 20 hours of cold and darkness, and things look hopeful. I’ll have a more detailed story about the wind storm thats still threatening to burn down Los Angeles County. But, again, Noah, Roy, and myself are okay and not in danger of being incinerated.., yet.

He was a friend of mine
He was a friend of mine
Never had the money
to pay for his fine
He was a friend of mine

I don’t know where he came from
I don’t know where he came from
One day he was there
the next he was gone
He was a friend of mine

He never done no wrong
He never done no wrong
He was just a poor boy
a long way from home
and he was a friend of mine

He was a friend of mine
He was a friend of mine
When I hear his name
I just can’t keep from crying
He was a friend of mine

-Old cowboy song

In memory of Richard Bartrop.

Strive to create for “The Night Cometh When No Man Can Work” ---John Lockwood Kipling

Everybody knew him as Taral. It wasn’t his real name.
It was a nom de guerre.
His real name was Wayne MacDonald.
He did not hate his real name, no.
He just felt it was too mundane, that’s all.
So, he came up with Taral.
Taral is from a language he invented called Siroihin.
Siroihin was spoken by the Kjola, an extraterrestrial race he created.
The Kjola were humanoids with silver fur and blue tinged arms and legs.
They had pointed, almost squirrel-like ears, short muzzles instead of protruding human noses, and were so technologically advanced that their science seemed like sorcery.
Saara Mar was their representative on Earth.
Saara Mar was young, slim, and honestly cute. Her mane was cut into a page boy bob. She wore a short simple sliver tunic, and walked barefoot. She could work miracles.
She was Taral’s alter-ego.
He often talked about doing comics or a graphic novel featuring her.
He never did. I think she meant too much to him to expose her to readers that way.
She was a personal thing to him, a very personal thing.
She was part of a World he’d built for himself, one that he’d share, but only a very few were ever invited in for an intimate visit.
I was one of those few.
Taral drew Saara Mar as mischievous, mysterious, sometimes painfully down-to-earth, but always elegant.
She was elegant, but everything Taral drew was elegant, even his cartooning.
He was an exceptional draftsman, and was a professional illustrator, though not in the Science Fiction field.
We all thought he’d be drawing for Analog, or Isaac Asimov's, but it didn’t happen.
He drew fanzine fillos, instead.
He should’ve gotten the fan art Hugo. He was nominated several times but never won.
He did get the Rotsler, though, back in 2008. That was his accolade, science fiction fandom acknowledging his talent.
Given his exceptional drawing skill, I’d sometimes wondered why he liked my cartooning.
He thought my drawings were unique- Funny, personal, eccentric. and sometimes with a sharp, stinging edge to them.
Kinda like myself as a person.
Kinda like him, too.
We met at the Phoenix Worldcon back in 1978, the first Worldcon I ever attended.
There’s a story about that I’ll tell you later.
Taral and I hit it off and became fast friends.
How do you define a friendship like ours?
In a way we were an odd couple.
An oddball couple.
I was bumptious, he was quiet.
I was a clown, he was a wit- sometimes.
I was uncertain, he was sure.
We had our ups and downs as friends.
I was cheerful, he was cranky.
I was cranky, he was cheerful.
We got on each others nerves,
but we always enjoyed each others company.
We were opposites that somehow got along.
And maybe more importantly...
...He stood by me when I went out of my head.
I stood by him when his life went through a rough patch.
To each other, we were the loyal brothers we both never had.
It was that kind of relationship.
We lived thousands of miles apart, but distance wasn’t a problem.
If we weren’t writing to each other, we were talking on the phone long distance.
It was a regular thing with us.
And we saw a lot of each other, too.
He’d fly out here to see me and attend cons, mostly furry ones.
He was a founding father- well, maybe founding uncle- of so-called Furry Fandom.
I’d go visit him in Toronto.
Sometimes I’d drive, sometimes I’d fly, and once I took the bus.
In Canada, we took long walking tours here and there. I got to experience a lot of Toronto thanks to him, and saw why he loved his hometown. Once, when I had my car with me, we toured Ontario, going as far as our money would let us. We enjoyed it, and I’ll always regret not being able to see more of Canada, but thankful I did get to see and enjoy what I did.
When he was down here, we’d go all over California, driving around Hollywood where he met Jay Ward, going to Yosemite, hiking up Whitney Portals trying to reach the summit of Mount Whitney only to have the thin mountain air send us gasping back down to where we could easily breath; seeing Death Valley, touring Bodie, my state’s best preserved ghost town, going up to the Gold Rush Country, taking in San Francisco, and, the last time I’d see Taral, driving up to the Reno Worldcon in Nevada in 2011.
We’d have long conversations about everything. Our talk was eclectic. He was an autodidact in some ways, and he always had something interesting to say.
I’d introduce him to my friends.
Sometimes he came across as cold or arrogant.
That was a shy man’s defense. Sometimes meeting strangers overwhelmed him. He wasn’t certain what to do or say.
Mostly he was diffident.
But once he was sure of himself and the situation, he warmed up and was friendly. People liked him.
He was a good guy.
Sadly, he didn’t take care of himself.
When I first met Taral, he was suffering from kidney stones.
Over the long years he suffered minor heath problems.
Middle age hit him hard.
He stopped walking regularly.
He didn’t watch his diet.
He got flabby.
He became inactive.
In 2011, he had a stroke.
At the time, I was calling him regularly to talk.
My phone service gave me unlimited long distance.
His speech was slow, and sometimes he slurred his words, but he was still mentally sharp, and would joke about his infliction.
Sometimes we’d talk about our mortality.
He would tease me bout dying, about what would happen to his estate after he died.
I was concerned his creative life would end up in a landfill. He chuckled about that. If he was dead, he wouldn’t care about it, so why would anyone else?
Thankfully, a lot of his friends did care.
Taral did not die lonely and forgotten.
He had friends and family.
They were looking out for him.
He had no written will, but told his sister that he wanted her to get his estate.
He was active until the unexpected end.
It came like the cliche thief in the night.
Sixteen days ago, a heart attack claimed him.
It was probably quick and painless.
He was cremated and niched with his mother’s ashes.
Because Taral had lived under the Ontario Housing Authority, his apartment had to be immediately vacated. It was on a waiting list.
He lived in the Toronto version of The Projects.
His friends pitched in and moved everything out asap.
His life did not end up piled on the sidewalk awaiting the garbage truck.
It was saved. All of it.
His books, cds, comics, toys, etc, will probably be sold and the money given to his sister. His furniture and clothes will go to charity. And his personal items his sister will collect.
His fanzine collection, artwork, writing, and correspondence will probably be donated to the Merril Collection, a science fiction archive at, I believe, the University of Ontario, Toronto, established by writer Judith Merril.
Taral was an important science fiction fan- A BNF (Big Name Fan), and the University would be interested in his personal files. Lord knows, his fanzine collection alone would've been enough to pique their attention- Unless he sold them off, he had rare fanzines going as far back as the 1930s. I remember him showing them to me, and I was impressed. He had complete sets of famous fanzines, both sci fi and furry, and they should be made available for research.
That should be his legacy.
And there should be memorial books published of his artwork and writing.
Taral was an excellent writer, and a collection of his essays would be enjoyable to read.
Maybe a memorial website will be established for him, displaying his talents.
Our creativity is our immortality.
Maybe the only immortality.
Where does Mister Grim send us to in the end?
Paradise?
Punishment?
Oblivion?
I don’t know.
And I’m not eager to find out, either.
Anyway-
I have no idea what Taral's friend’s are going to do.
I’m out of the loop, thousands of miles away.
I can only suggest things and hope for the best.
So...
Taral’s gone.
There’s a hole in my life.
There’s a hole in his sister and friend’s lives, too.
Damn...
Well, Walt Kelly once said that you only keep something for a while, then you give it back.
How long that while is depends on Fate.
I was lucky to have Taral’s friendship for as long as I did.
Lucky and grateful that I had it.
Fare thee well, good buddy, Fare Thee Well.
As for us, the still living-
Treasure your friendships
and seize the day
against that unavoidable appointment
with lurking Mister Grim.

---Schirm, August 16th, 2024

Th’ Modhren idee iv governmint is ’Snub th’ people, buy th’ people, jaw th’ people.’

An autocrat’s a ruler that does what th’ people wants an’ takes th’ blame f’r it. A consititootional ixicutive, Hinnissy, is a ruler that does as he dam pleases an’ blames th’ people.

The Vice Presidency-
Ye can’t be sint to jail f’r it, but it’s a kind iv a disgrace...It is princip’lly because iv th’ vice-prisidint that most iv our prisidints have enjoyed such rugged health. Th’ vice-prisidint guards th’ prisidint, an’ th’ prisidint, afther sizin’ up th’ vice-prisidint, con-cludes that it wud be betther f’r th’ counthry if he shud live awhile.

On Immigration-
“Well,” said Mister Hennessy, “divvle th’ bit I care, on’y I’m here first, and I ought to have th’ right to keep th’ bus fr’m bein’ overcrowded.”
“Well,”said Mister Dooley, “as a pilgrim father on me gran’ nephew’s side, I don’t know but ye’re right. An’ they’se wan sure way to keep thim out.”
“What’s that?” asked Mister Hennessy.
“Teach thim all about our instichoochions befure they come,” said Mister Dooley.

On Progress-
I’ve been up to th’ top iv th’ very highest buildin’ in town, Hinnissy, an’ I wasn’t anny nearer Hivin thin if I was in th’ sthreet. Th’ stars was as far way as iver. An’ down beneath is a lot iv us runnin’ an’ lapin’ an’ jumpin’ about, pushin’ each other over, haulin’ little strips iv ir’n to pile up in little buildin’s that ar-re called sky-scrapers but not be th’ sky; wurkin’ night an’ day to make a masheen that’ll carry us fr’m wan jack-rabbit colony to another an’ yellin’, ‘Pro-gress!’ Pro-gress, oho! I can see th’ stars winkin’ at each other an’ sayin’, “Ain’t they funny! Don’t they think they’re playin’ hell!”

A man that’d expict to thrain lobsters to fly in a year is called a loonytic; but th’ man that thinks men can be tur-runed into angels by an iliction is called a rayformer an’ remains at large.

Democrats and Republicans-
Th’ Dimmycrats ar-re r-right. They’re always r-right. ’Tis their position. Th’ Dimmycrats ar-re r-right an’ th’ Raypublicans has th’ jobs. It all comes up because our vinerated party, Hinnissy, ain’t quick at th’ count. Man an’ boy I’ve taken an intherest in politics all me life, an’ i find th’ only way to win an iliction is to begin f’r to count th’ minyit ye’ve completed th’ preliminries iv closin’ th’polls an’ killin’ th’ other judges an’ clerks.
Whiniver a Dimmycrat has to go to court to win an iliction I get suspicious.

Th’ trouble with most iv us, Hinnissy, is we swallow pollytical idees befure they’re ripe an’ they don’t agree with us.

-Commentary by Martin Dooley, an Irish-American saloon keeper in Chicago’s Fourth Ward, as related by Finley Peter Dunne.

On The Vanity Of Earthly Greatness

The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
is ferric oxide, known as rust.

The grizzly bear whose potent hug
was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar’s dead and on the shelf
...And I don’t feel so well myself!

Routine

No matter what we are and who,
some duties everyone must do.

A Poet puts aside his wreath
to wash his face and brush his teeth.

And even Earls
must comb their curls.

And even Kings
have underthings.

The sirens of the satellites are leaning from their stars,
With the purple-crested princes of old imperial Mars,
The spider kings of Pluto with their lizard-amoured slaves,
The cold, sardonic saurians that rise from Neptune’s waves,
The wing-shod men of Mercury, the pale Uranian knights,
The golden maids of Ganymede aglow with jeweled lights,
The guardians of the galaxies, the Legionaries of Space,
Are watching through their telescopes a self-destroying race.
Some are watching greedily and some with sorrowing eyes,
For some are human-weak and some compassionate and wise,
But all declare unanimously as thought-waves meet and blend,
The earth-men choose the evil road that leads to journey’s end.
Soon there will burst a flower of flame and all the worlds will know
Another race has gone the way that only mad men go.
But on the seared and broken earth a strange new courage springs,
And on the very brink of doom the voice of freedom rings,
The swords of hate fall powerless before the conquering darts,
The quenchless will to brotherhood that glows in simple hearts.
Their song floats through the galaxies as the old earth sways and croons,
And sends her challenging echoing through all the listening moons,
Sheer from the eagle’s battlements, with atom flaming jet,
We’ll blaze the trails of brotherhood, we’ll launch our space-ships yet!

We’ll Launch Our Space-ships Yet by Lilith Lorraine, published in Fantasy Book Number Three, 1948. Sincerely from the heart, but awful anyway. At least it’s not Allen Ginsberg.

Not so long ago, there was a very fine gander. He was strong and smooth and beautiful and he spent most of his time singing to his wife and children. One day somebody who saw him strutting up and down in his yard singing remarked, “There is a very proper gander.”
An old hen overheard this and told her husband about it that night in the roost. “They said something about propaganda,” she said. “I have always suspected that,” said the rooster, and she went around the barnyard next day telling everybody that the fine gander was a dangerous bird, more than likely a hawk in gander’s clothing. A small brown hen remembered a time when at a great distance she had seen the gander talking with some hawks in the forest. “They were up to no good,” she said. A duck remembered that the gander had once told him he did not believe in anything. “He said to hell with the flag, too,” said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had once seen somebody who looked very much like the gander throw something that looked a great deal like a bomb. Finally everybody snatched up sticks and stones and descended on the gander’s house. He was strutting in his front yard, singing to his children and his wife.
“There he is!” everybody cried. “Hawk lover! Unbeliever! Flag-hater! Bomb-thrower!” So they set upon him and drove him out of the country.

Moral: Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country.

-James Thurber

In a cramped anarchists garrett
so gloomy and so mean
you can smell the pungent odor of nitroglycerine.
They’re busy wrapping fuses
and filling cans with nails
while the little anarchist chlidren
send up this mournful wail-
Oh...
Its sister Jenny’s turn to throw the bomb
the last one it blew up our brother Tom.
Mama’s aim is bad
and the FBI caught dad
so its sister Jenny’s turn to throw the bomb.
In a cramped anarchists garrett
all filled with nitro fumes
they spend each waking hour
planning other peoples dooms.
They build bombs in the morning
so not a day goes by
when from some burning ruin
you can hear this mournful cry-
Oh...
Its sister Jenny’s turn to throw the bomb
the last one it blew up our brother Tom.
Mama’s aim is bad
and the FBI caught dad
so its sister Jenny’s turn to throw the bomb.
They’re taught bomb building from the day they’re born
and peace is something that they learn to scorn.
They can hardly wait
to see the flash and hear the noise
and watch the heads go flying off little girls and boys-
Oh...
Its sister Jenny’s turn to throw the bomb
the last one it blew up our brother Tom.
Mama’s aim is bad
and the FBI caught dad
so its sister Jenny’ s turn to throw the bomb.
She was maiming little children one fine day
when her older brother swore she’d have to pay.
He grit his teeth and pulled the pin
and the whole damn house caved-in
and I’ll bet she’s building bombs Below today-
Oh...
Its brother Franky’s turn to throw the bomb
sister Jenny’s gone the way of brother Tom.
Mama’s aim is bad
and the FBI caught dad
so its brother Franky’s turn to throw the bomb...

-ol’ nasty-ass pseudo folk song

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her.
“There’a a unicorn in the garden,” He said. “Eating roses.”
She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.
“The unicorn is a mythical beast,” she said, and turned her back on him.
The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips.
“Here, unicorn,” said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely.
With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again.
“The unicorn,” he said, “ate a lily.”
His wife sat up in bed and looked at him coldly.
“You are a booby,” she said, “and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch.”
The man, who had never liked the words “booby” and “booby-hatch”, and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment.
“We’ll see about that,” he said. He walked over to the door. “He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead,” he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away.
The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.
As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket.
When the police and the psychiatrist arrived they sat down in chairs and looked at her with great interest.
“My husband,” she said, “saw a unicorn this morning.”
The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police.
“He told me it ate a lily,” she said.
The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist.
“He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead, she said.
At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife.
They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house.
“Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?” asked the police.
“Of course not,” said the husband. “The unicorn is a mythical beast.”
“That’s all I wanted to know,” said the psychiatrist. “Take her away. I’m sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jay bird.”
So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution.

The husband lived happily ever after.

Moral: Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.

-James Thurber

Orenthal James was a mighty bad man
He killed two people last night
Chopped off their heads in West L.A.
Musta been a mighty sharp knife (Poor Boy!)
Musta been a mighty sharp knife

One was his ex-wife, the other one her lover
Orenthal was a very jealous man
He hid in the bushes and began to mutter
If I can’t have her nobody else can

He flew to Chicago, two cuts on his hand
Two bodies discovered too fast
His outa town alibi gone up in smoke
Now we find out about his wife beatin’ past (Poor Boy!)
Find out about his wife beatin’ past

They threw him in jail, they brought him to trial
Orenthal hired million dollar ’turneys
Told so many lies, I almost went blind
If he didn’t do it who did? (Poor Boy!)
If he didn’t do it who did?

Orenthal had the motive and the opportunity, too
He planned it all and tried to escape
Wrote a suicide note but wasn’t man enough
To speak the truth and seal his fate (Poor Boy!)
There was blood in the car and blood on his clothes
Though they never did find that knife
He smiled for the cameras and bought him some justice
And got away with killin’ his wife (Poor Boy!)
Got away with killin’ his wife

When the foreman returned and said Not guilty
I couldn’t believe my ears
Orenthal James is a mighty bad man
Oughta be in jail for 400 years
Servin’ time for 400 years

Orenthal James killed his bimbo ex-wife
The mama of his children, two
Been in Hollywood so long
He starts to believe the big lie
Don’t let it happen to you (Poor Boy!)
Don’t let it happen to you

Orenthal James was a mighty bad man
Killed two people last night
Chopped off their heads in West L.A.
Musta been a mighty sharp knife (Poor Boy!)
Musta been a mighty sharp knife

---Mojo Nixon

You always wonder how you will react to these things, but I can’t say I was all that surprised when NBC broke into “The Tonight Show” to say that John Lennon was dead. I always thought that he would be the first of the Beatles to die, because he was always the one who lived the most on the existential edge, whether by diving knees-first into left-wing adventurism or by just shutting up for five years when he decided he really didn’t have anything much to say; but I had always figured it would be by his own hand. That he was merely the latest celebrity to be gunned down by a probable psychotic only underscores the banality surrounding his death.
Look: I don’t think I’m insensitive or a curmudgeon. In 1965 John Lennon was one of the most important people in the world. It’s just that today I feel deeply alienated from rock n’ roll and what it has meant or could mean, alienated from my fellow men and women and their dreams and aspirations.
I don’t know which is more pathetic, the people of my generation who refuse to let their 1960s adolescence die a natural death, or the younger ones who will snatch and gobble any shred, any scrap of a dream that someone declared over ten years ago. Perhaps the younger ones are sadder, because at least my peers may have some nostalgic memory of the long-cold embers they’re kneeling to blow upon, whereas the kids who have to make do with things like the Beatlemania show are being sold a bill of goods.
I can’t mourn John Lennon. I didn’t know the guy. But I do know that when all is said and done, that’s all he was- a guy. The refusal of his fans to ever let him just be that was finally almost as lethal as his “assassin” (and please, let’s have no more talk of this being a “political” killing, and don’t call him a “rock n’ roll martyr”). Did you watch the TV specials on Tuesday night? Did you see all those people standing in the street in front of the Dakota apartment where Lennon lived singing "Hey Jude”? What do you think the real- cynical, sneeringly sarcastic, witheringly witty and iconoclastic- John Lennon would have to say about that?
John Lennon at his best despised cheap sentiment and had to learn the hard way that once you’ve made your mark on history those who can’t will be so grateful they’ll turn it into a cage for you. Those who choose to falsify their memories- to pine for a neverland 1960s that never really happened that way in the first place- insult the retroactive Eden they enshrine.
So in this time of gut-curdling sanctimonies about ultimate icons, I hope you will bear with my own pontifications long enough to let me say that the Beatles were certainly far more than a group of four talented musicians who might even have been the best of their generation. The Beatles were most of all a moment. But their generation was not the only generation in history, and to keep turning the gutted lantern of those dreams this way and that in hopes the flame will somehow flicker up again in the eighties is as futile a pursuit as trying to turn Lennon’s lyrics into poetry. It is for that moment- not for John Lennon the man- that you are mourning, if you are morning. Ultimately you are mourning for yourself.
Remember that other guy, the old friend of theirs, who once said “Don’t follow leaders?” Well, he was right. But the very people who took those words and made them into banners were violating the slogan they carried. And they’re still doing it today. The Beatles did lead but they led with a wink. They may have been more popular than Jesus, but I don’t think they wanted to be the world’s religion. That would have cheapened and rendered tawdry what was special and wonderful about them. John Lennon didn’t want that, or he wouldn’t have retired for the last half of the seventies. What happened Monday night was only the most extreme extension of all the forces that led him to do so in the first place.
In some of the last interviews before he died, he said, “What I realized during the five years away was that when I said the dream is over, I had made a physical break from the Beatles, but mentally there is still this big thing on my back about what people expected of me.” And, “We were the hip ones of the sixties. But the world is not like the sixties. The whole world has changed.” And, “Produce your own dream. It’s quite possible to do anything... the unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions.”
Good-bye, baby, and amen.

Thinking The Unthinkable About John Lennon, an obituary written by Lester Bangs and published in the Los Angeles Times, the 11th of December, 1980

When murder is committed, mankind takes alarm. There are cries for vengeance, calls for justice, motives are examined, clues run down, juries formed, detectives hired; All the combined efforts of man and his society are set loose on the hapless culprit who has done the deed.

When the murder of the spirit occurs, mankind seldom notices. If the murder is prolonged, interests drift elsewhere; If it is done by guile or by stealth, it is unknown; If it is done with openness to all, it
is unbelieved. It is a thing done by degrees, a truth that is stilled, a child’s outraged beliefs. Where one gives death, the other, drabness. There are many kinds of murder, and in this kind one can seldom find the culprit. There is no one to answer, there is no one to care. The victim doesn’t even know the crime. It is murder none the less.

There is a fact which is today unheralded, unknown to those it hurts most. It is a simple fact, a tragic fact, that Mickey Mouse is dead. There was a Mickey once that lived, and fought, and entertained the world. No battle was too great for him, no foe unchallenged. The marquees of ten thousand theatres proclaimed his fame, and in those dark Depression days the solace that he offered touched our souls. It was a shameless love affair. He was the stuff that poets from immortal time have sung. He was the celluloid crusader, an animated troubadour of song.

But somewhere, at some unknown time, he died. What artist, or author, or institution became so wearied of their trust, or failed to feel anew that miracles could happen everyday? If all things must end, should not our dreams be last?

There is today a traitor in his place. His name no longer inspires, no longer offers brief enjoyment for a troubled world. His face, now rarely seen on any screen, belies that great adventurer of old. The fire has gone out, he is contained, consumed, and worst of all, forgotten. Like his creator, at some secluded spot he should be be laid to rest, and propped up counterfeits back to their closets sent. The world is now governed in the grey light of ambiguity; It is the collective age when heroes are dismantled by committees.

There was a time, at distant theaters and raucous matinees, when cheers would reach the sun-filled streets when Mickey’s magic name appeared. And in the darker evening hours, the lines would smile in quiet pleasure at the poster which so proudly proclaimed his presence.

His voice and shape are stilled today, but not his soul, which all men gave him, for it goes on and will find other forms and places for embodiment. But in this form and at this time we can do little more than mourn his passing, as if it were a pleasant dream scattered by the dawn.

-Malcolm Willits

This requiem was published the second issue of the comic book fanzine Vanguard in February 1968. This was part of a pioneering article Willits wrote discussing in detail the history of the Mickey Mouse comic strip, and which also featured Willits' interview with Floyd Gottfredson, who started on the strip in 1930 and was still drawing it thirty three years later. Willits article and nostalgia for the 1930s Mickey Mouse is understandable. Starting in the 1950s, Mickey turned into a nonentity, a bland corporate figurehead instead of the likable adventurer he once was. Willits was critical about what Mickey had become, but nevertheless wrote a celebration of him instead of a put-down. 1968 was the year Richard Schickel’s The Disney Version became a best seller, and it was the start of Disney’s critical reputation taking a nose-dive. Back then, saying that you liked Walt Disney marked you as a Yahoo with your taste all in your mouth. A smirking Schickel lambasted Disney as gauche kitsch-monger, and consigned the man and all his creations to the dung heap of history along with other (according to Schickel) tasteless, worthless middle class crap that was once popular with the Booboisie. And at the time, it seemed like most of the spoiled brat Baby Boomers agreed with him. Disney was a greedy malevolent rip-off artist that preyed on our childhood innocence and dreams. All that Establishment asshole ever offered us was gaudy saccharine bullshit all slathered over with gooey sentimentality and twisted reactionary social values. Well, we wised up, didn’t we? Fuck Unca’ Walt and his phony baloney fascist fantasy con job! We want reality! We want peace, dope, and sex, especially the dope n’ sex ‘cuz that’s where it's at, man, that’s our reality, not that corrupt Mickey Mouse candy land bullshit! Burn down Disneyland, smoke a joint, get laid, and fuckin’ grow up, man! Right on! And so the enlightened Boomers seemingly rejected Disney now and forever. Seemingly, because in 1973 another best seller would be published, Christopher Finch’s The Art Of Walt Disney, and the irony was that Schickel- And I’ll bet you anything that he was gritting his teeth as he sat at his IBM Selectric- was forced to write a favorable review of it in Time magazine. And the other irony was that it was the fuck Mickey Mouse Boomers that made The Art Of Walt Disney a best seller. So much for reality, eh? They like Walt Disney? Philistines, nothing but Philistines! What an utterly empty generation...

We come from the Unknown and return to the Unknown, and our lives are a brief bright flash in a gap between Mysteries. Mitch is gone now, beyond pain, beyond fear, beyond travail, at rest from this problematic thing we call Life. Celebrate his creativity. Celebrate his humor. He made people laugh, and they liked having him around. And celebrate the good man he was and forgive his flaws, as we hope our own flaws will be forgiven, too. Pax vobiscum, Mitch. Death is not final. You will live though the fine artwork you created.

Star Wars: The Sugar Coated Poison Pill

All right. So it’s lots of fun. I loved it- hokey to the nth degree, making fun of Flash Gordon, old-style science fiction and, of course, itself. “Don’t take us seriously,” said the Star Wars masterminds. “Enjoy, enjoy.”

So I did. But it seems to me that Star Wars carries several disguised warnings, time bombs about the climate of our times, satisfactions hidden beneath the very conventions that are being made fun of. They make me very uneasy.

Conventions are the very essence of the danger of the piece and, little doubt, of the sequels that are to come in high gear from the same mill. If you know about the ‘convention’ of the science fiction alien, monstrous insect-animal mixture of gorilla with a heart, then the send-up is hilarious. But if you don’t know what a ‘convention’ is, then a lady in white who calls one “a shaggy carpet” (or words to that effect) is releasing all that you ever wanted to say about those who are unlike you, whom you didn’t try to understand. And the exaggeration of the types of aliens in the bar in Star Wars is a laugh riot, like n----rs in tuxedoes or bantus in business suits.

“But don’t take use seriously,” say the makers, who have taken themselves very seriously in promoting this vehicle so millions will see the mass destruction, militarism, black and white morality and racism in action. “It’s all in fun.” But we do see these things, gentlemen, and no matter how hokey the script, there are bodies in there, and beings being called carpets and medals being pinned on killers and chilling moral simplifications.

If Star Wars is indicative of films to come, then I am frightened. The excuse of escapism cannot cover the psychological power of models of violence, particularly violence disguised in technology where you don’t touch those bloody corpses. And the excuse of the “send-up” should not wash with us either, for most people do not intellectualize a film like Star Wars, and many of us who do intellectualize it are covering an inner gratification we do not care to face. MIRV and B-1 bombers are the outcome of the attitudes of a film like Star Wars, and if the film is seen by audiences expecting to see it, it will add its grains of hate to the mountain of “public feeling” where demagogues later dig for support of violence and moral simplicity.

These implications of Star Wars are worth a moment of nasty thought, even as one recommends it for its easy pleasures.

-Peter Brigg, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, published as a LOC in 1977 after the release of Star Wars. Quoted from a clipping found in a late friend’s files, source of publication unknown.

Hark the eager Liberal’s cry:
Thy redemption draweth nigh!
I will teach thee how to live...
HALT! says the Conservative.

The rolls of the sexes, though neatly assigned,
Seem interchanged now and then.
Not all Madonnas are women, you’ll find,
....and not all seducers are men.

She heard a song: and then appeared
A being who his love bemoaned-
Complacent, self-absorbed and weird.
So this is Man, she moaned.

Good is noble, Good is strong
But his task is hard and long;
Evil is so epicene,
So elusive, so serene.

All day upon the cross he hung;
Then Jesus died.
But many a year Mankind has swung
And smiled, though crucified.

Here’s Bishop Briskoe Pettifogg.
Is he in- or on- the hands of God?

Original Sin once happened to see
A Mister Chitt. Good Lord! said he;
Tell me, Chitt, do you think it’s true
That I’m in everyone- even you?
[i]Ahem, ahem, said Mister Chitt,
It’s a difficult point I must admit.
Your presence should never be understated
But I trust in me you’re attenuated.
With a relieved, expansive grin,
Thank you, Chitt, said Original Sin.

A thousand, thousand years ago
The ancients sadly laughed
As we, and at the same old show-
Reform destroying Graft.

Experience has much to tell
Of trial and error, love and hell.
But she is weary, she is old,
And Innocence is grim and cold.

Who said Death was lean and grim
and an aristocrat?
Taken another look at him,
Death is mean and fat.

When a money-grubbing mole
Crawls at last outside his hole,
Honor, shining the sky,
Seems a splendid thing- to buy.

Alas, it’s not the cares of State
That prematurely age the great.
It’s angry pens a-gleaming at them,
And someone always screaming at them.

As Grief fled stricken through the grove,
Sobbing dully for her love,
The cynic Gods, who saw and smiled,
Sent her Laughter as her child.
Oh, not for me! her chocking word
Arose at first to Those on High
But Laughter cackled in her ears,
He shrunk her heart, he stole her tears.
Her memories dimmed, she sang... and heard
Titters in the sky.

Evolution
Once, they say, a bat-like brute,
Which began to evolute
Long before the apes or others,
Grew so man-like he was hated
At at length annihilated
by his brothers;
And a shark that once began,
by mistake, to be a man,
Finding nobody could bear him,
Prayed to God Himself to spare him.
But the apes- though not so vicious
to begin with- were ambitious.
During man’s persistent climb
Up from the primeval slime
To the dismal though sublime
Heights that he now occupies,
With his Parthenons and sties,
Birds have watched him, wondering
When he’ll have more heart to sing.

The garden that gave birth to Man
Was not the first one in the Plan.
No, an earlier Eden lies
Far off, secret, in the skies.
And there, before the Seven Days,
Out of much too hopeful clays,
Mixed with ichors fierce and odd,
Something, once created God.

The old Librarian’s leaving his books-
It’s the King of Worms invites him;
But he’s spent his days in sheltered nooks,
And to lie in the fields affrights him.
Now that all his life is past,
He must look at life at last.

Los Angeles
I know a town where the wild cults grow,
Whose priestesses stalk to and fro,
Taking toll by tongue and pen
of old and innocent business men.
(Note: This is about Sister Aimee Semple McPherson)

A Mister Jenkins owned a brink
On which he used to stand and think
Of heaven above and earth below
And why the world is thus and so.
There is no better place to think
Large thoughts than on a quiet brink;
But Mister J’s became so vast,
So super-cosmic, that at last,
While grappling with what God had wrought,
He got completely Lost in Thought.
He disappeared without a sound,
And- what is worse- was never found.
Reader, I do not say that you
Or I would disappear from view
If we should let our thoughts expand,
But- let us keep them well in hand.

Tender are a mother’s dreams,
But her babe’s not what he seems.
See him plotting in his mind
To grow up some other kind.

Every Maiden’s weak and willin’
When she meets the proper villain.

A man convinced against his will
Is of the same opinion still.

With a heart torn and aching
And a raging soul within,
Pity the man whose feelings
Are clad in an armor too thin.

“Stern daughter of the Voice of God,”
Like Mary, you’ve a little lamb;
And everywhere you go I plod
Along, O Duty. (Damn.)

FATHERS AND SONS

SCENE: A tenement kitchen. A door stage right to the outside, a door stage left to the rest of the apartment. Center, a cheap broken-down kitchen table with a few badly mismatched and decrepit chairs around it. In back, a table from which MAE will take food, and, painted on backdrop, a stove and old-fashion icebox. The whole must look tawdry.
At rise, MAE is setting the table with some chipped dishes and, after a beat, HARRY a beaten-down little man, enters from right.

MAE: Hello, Harry.
HARRY: Hello, Mae.
MAE: What’s the matter, Harry? You look tired. How did it go today?
HARRY: (Throws himself in chair) Oh, what’s the sense of talking? The little man ain’t got a chance. Today, in order to get someplace, you gotta be a big operator.
MAE: What happened, Harry?
HARRY: (With quiet desperation) I made eight dollars... a big eight dollars. Is that what a man should bring home to his wife? Mae, I’m fifty-three years old and I made eight dollars... and I was lucky to make that. Thank heaven for the parade today! I might have ended up with a lousy two bucks.
MAE: Then you made six bucks at the parade, huh? Tell me about it.
HARRY: Well, there were a lot of cops around... and I was nervous. Mae, something’s happening to me. I’m getting so I can’t pick pockets when cops are around. I was never like that, was I, Mae?
MAE: No, you were never like that, Harry.
HARRY: Tell me, I was never like that.
MAE: You were never like that.
HARRY: I was never like that.
MAE: You were never like that.
HARRY: (Turning then quietly) I was never like that. By the way, where’s the kid?
MAE: (Hesitating, afraid to tell him) Oh... he’s around.
HARRY: Around where?
MAE: He’s... he’s... he’s in the playground playing baseball with the other children.
HARRY: (For the first time we see anger in this ostensibly gentle man) Baseball! This is how a boy amounts to something? This is where my teaching and training go?
Wasted! All wasted on a boy who takes a bat in his hand and smashes his father’s hopes and dreams!
MAE: Eat your spaghetti, Harry, it’ll get cold.
HARRY: Mae, I tell you this country is going insane. All a boy thinks about is becoming Mickey Mantle. I talk to him, but he doesn’t listen. I’ve failed, Mae. I’ve failed as a father. (Tears find their way into the gentle eyes of this poor crushed father)
MAE: No, Harry, and he won’t fail you. I know he won’t... he has your blood in him.
HARRY: I’m not a well man. I’m not a well man.
STANLEY enters right. He is about fourteen and when you see his honest, almost angelic expression, you can see why he’s such a disappointment.)
STANLEY: (Putting away baseball paraphernalia) Hello, Mom. Hi, Dad. (STANLEY slaps his father on the back.)
HARRY: You’re not ashamed to say “hello” to your father?
STANLEY: (Repeating slap on the back) No, I’m not ashamed. Am I, Mom?
HARRY: (Outraged) You’re not ashamed to waste your time in playgrounds, when you should be learning your craft? When I was your age I was breaking into candy store already!
STANLEY: Why does he gotta holler?
HARRY: You’re no good! You’re well-liked! (STANLEY turns quickly, stands tense, with his back to his father. He is embarrassed and ashamed. HARRY walks to him and puts his gentle arm around the boy.) Stanley, I’m your father and believe me, I know what’s best for you. I’ll help you. I’ll teach you. Stanley, you’re all I’ve got. Don’t you ever want to be a criminal?
STANLEY: (Obviously touched) Sure, Dad, but...
HARRY: Then in the name of Dillinger... why don’t you listen to me?
STANLEY: ‘Cause you holler.
HARRY: Stanley, I know how hard it is to start. I don’t ask you to do impossible things. Begin at the bottom. Start small. Put slugs into pay telephones. Steal a fountain pen from school. Punch your sister in the mouth.
MAE: (Firmly) Stanley... listen to your father.
STANLEY: Yeah, Dad, yeah!
HARRY: Say, that reminds me, This is the end of the term, isn’t it?
STANLEY: Uh huh.
HARRY: Okay, where’s your report card?
MAE: Oh, oh.
STANLEY: (Suddenly spins and walks downstage- stands tensely with back to father. Over his shoulder) I... er... I... uh... I lost it.
HARRY: What’s this nonsense? Show me your report card!
MAE: Stanley, show your report card to your father.
STANLEY: (Reluctantly handing HARRY report card) Here. Gee, Dad, I wish you wouldn’t...
HARRY: (Looks at card. Does a double take. Looks at card again. Very carefully, almost not believing what he sees) A? B-plus? A... B-plus... A... A... A... a... a... a. (HARRY goes shrieking offstage left, still shouting STANLEY reacts to the first couple of A’s. He is ashamed and says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it, etc.”)
MAE: (After a slight pause) You’re killing that man. He’s a sick man. Pay Attention. Oh Stanley, follow in his footsteps or you’ll put your father in his grave. (STANLEY sits on chair facing away from her, head bin hands. MAE walks to him, pulls his head up and says directly in his face.) Stanley, you’re an only son and you mean so much to us. Please, Stanley, for his sake and mine, steal something! Anything! I know you can. I know deep down inside, down where it really counts, you’re rotten. (MAE puts her hand on his shoulder. STANLEY looks around and then puts his hand over hers and looks into her eyes; a tableau.)
STANLEY: Thanks, Mom. I love him... and I love you, too. You know that. But something went wrong with me. I’ve got crazy blood in me. I’m a misfit. You know, like Uncle Fred, the cop.
MAE: Putting her hand over her mouth) Ohhhhhhh! You must never mention that man’s name in this house!
STANLEY: I’m sorry, Mom... (MAE is seated. STANLEY leans over her, speaking slowly and with great effort and conviction. He pounds with one fist on the table to punctuate his conviction.) I’ve got to tell you something. I know this is gonna sound strange, but you’ve gotta listen to me. Mom... I got a job... an honest job!
MAE: (Giving him a big hit in the face, knocking him to the floor) I told you never to use that kind of language in this house!
STANLEY: But, Mom... I bought something with the money. Something I love. Something I want to spend my whole life doing. (STANLEY exits right and returns with a violin case. He begins walking towards his mother with it when HARRY comes running in from left and sees it.)
HARRY: Stanley, oh son! You’ve come through! A Tommy gun! My boy’s got ... a Tommy! (He snatches case from boy’s hands, excitedly, and begins to open it. Looking in the case, he speaks in wonder.) What... on... earth... is... this?
STANLEY: Firmly) It’s a violin. I want to play the violin. I want to be a great musician.
HARRY: You want to be a... (HARRY wavers, clutches his heart. MAE catches him, holds him up. In a moment he recovers. Goes over to table and smashes violin in case.) There’ll be no musicians in this house! I’ll not have it! Do you hear me? I’ll not have it! I’ll not have it!!
STANLEY: Horrified) No! (He recoils, then runs three steps toward the door right, looks back and makes an unbelieving, horrified noise, as he reels off.
MAE: Stanley, come back...
HARRY: Let him go. He’s not my son! We’ll go on together. Alone. Get my stuff. I’m going to work tonight. Only when I am lost in my work can I forget the pain of life...
MAE: (Gets a black leather bag and begins stuffing tools into it. Glass cutters, wrenches, nitro, sandpaper and a couple of sandwiches, Still shaking, she speaks in a nagging tone.) Now remember what we went over, Harry. It’s a Thompson safe with a four-point, four-tumbler combination. Don’t use too much nitro and don’t forget to eat the sandwiches, and remember the watchmen are changed at10:15 now. And, Harry, don’t look suspicious...
HARRY: (Interrupting) Nag, nag, nag, nag, nag... (Just then the door right bursts open. STANLEY stands there, gloating, between two POLICEMEN.
STANLEY: There’s the man! Harry, the Eel! My father! Okay, where’s the award? (One POLICEMAN grabs HARRY while the other pays STANLEY.
COP: There you are, son. Five hundred dollars. (The POLICEMAN then walks over and grabs HARRY’S other arm.)
HARRY: (Finally finding his voice) Mae! Mae! The boy turned in his own father, his own flesh and blood, for a filthy award! (HARRY reaches out and takes her hand.) Mae, our boy’s a stool pigeon, He’s gonna be all right! He’s gonna be all right!! (The POLICEMEN lead him out. HARRY is triumphant, laughing hysterically. MAE has a happy mother’s smile on her face, and STANLEY is gleefully counting his reward as the curtain comes down.)

BLACKOUT

-Written by Mel Brooks for The New Faces of 1952.

Happy New Years to all my watchers.

In Baltimore there lived a boy
He wasn't anybody's pride and joy
Although his name was Jabez Dawes,
His character was full of flaws.

In school, he never led his classes,
He hid old ladies' reading glasses,
His mouth was open when he chewed,
His elbows to the table glued.
He stole the milk of hungry kittens,
And walked through doors marked NO ADMITTANCE.
He said he acted thus because
There wasn't any Santa Claus.

Another trick that tickled Jabez
Was crying "BOO" at little babies.
He brushed his teeth, they said in town,
Sideways instead of up and down
Yet people pardoned every sin,
And viewed his antics with a grin,
Till they were told by Jabez Dawes
"There isn't any Santa Claus!"

Deploring how he did behave,
His parents swiftly sought their grave.
They hurried through the Gates Pearly,
And Jabez left the funeral early.

Like whooping cough, from child to child
He spread the rumor wild;
"Sure as my name is Jabez Dawes
There isn't any Santa Claus!"
Slunk like a weasel of a marten
through nursery and kindergarten,
Whispering low to every tot,
"There isn't any, no there's not!"

The children wept all Christmas eve
And Jabez chortled up his sleeve.
No infant dared hang up his stocking
For fear of Jabez's ribald mocking,

He sprawled on his untidy bed,
Fresh malice dancing in his head,
When presently with scalp-a-tingling,
Jabez heard a distant jingling.
He heard the crunch of sleigh and hoof
Crisply alighting on the roof.
What good to rise and bar the door?
A shower of soot was on the floor.

What was beheld by Jabez Dawes?
A fireplace full of Santa Claus!
Then Jabez fell upon his knees
With cries of "Don't" and "Pretty please?"
He howled, "I don't know where you read it,
But anyhow, I never said it!"

"Jabez" replied the angry saint,
"It isn't I, it's you that ain't!
Although there IS a Santa Claus,
There isn't any Jabez Dawes!"

Said Jabez then with imprudent Vim,
"Oh yes there is, and I am him!
Your magic don't scare me, it doesn't..."
And suddenly he found he wasn't!
From grimy feet to grimy locks,
Jabez became a Jack-in-the-box,
An ugly toy with springs unsprung,
Forever sticking out his tongue.

The neighbors heard his mournful squeal;
They searched for him, but not with zeal.
No trace was found of Jabez Dawes,
Which led to thunderous applause,
And people drank a loving cup,
And went to hang their stockings up.

All you who sneer at Santa Claus,
Remember the fate of Jabez Dawes,
The saucy boy who mocked the saint...

...Donner and Blitzen licked off his paint.

-Ogden Nash

Skit written for performance at the Kadeko Cabaret, Weimar Germany, about 1926. Commentary on how certain Berlin newspapers would report the minor incident of a collision between a bicycle and a dog-

The optimistically liberal Berliner Tagebatt claimed that ‘dog and bicyclist race along the Kurfurstendamn, they hurry- despite a little scratch here and there- towards the brilliant future of the German republic.’

The pessimistically liberal Vossische Zeitung complained that the appearance of red blood on a black dog with white spots turned the incident into an expression of reactionary politics; it called for more laws to defend the republic.

The nationalist Likal-Anzeiger claimed that ‘a foreign bicyclist ran over the dog of retired general. Fifteen years ago the German people would have stood up as one body and would have swept the bicycist away with ringing manly fury, but today our faithful dogs lie limply on the ground, shattered by the Treaty of Versailles.’

The Communist Rote Fahne reported: ‘On the Kurfurstendamn, that pompous boulevard of satiated capitalism, on which the proletarian revolution will march against the imperialists in the very near future, a dog attacked a simple proletarian bicyclist!!!!!! That’s how it starts! First one dog attacks a single bicyclist, then all dogs unite against the Soviet Union!’

And, finally, the Nazi Volkischer Beobachter asserted: ‘Once more one of our party comrades has been attacked from behind in the dark of the night by a bow-legged, flat-footed dachshund. Bow-legged- that betrays the true race of those eastern Jewish pets, with their sagging ears and curls, who suck the marrow of our countrymen and steal the bones from under the noses of our German Shepards. Tomorrow, our Fuhrer Adolf Hitler will speak in the sports palace about this national affair. Party comrades should appear in simple battle dress, with hand grenades and flamethrowers.’

-Attributed to a satirist named Robitschek.

What is Truth? the Pilate asked The Savior

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly,
Deck the halls with chunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don’t say when.

Kill the turkeys, ducks, and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens,
Even through the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

On Christmas Day you can’t get sore,
Your fellow man you must adore,
There’s time to rob him all the more,
The other three hundred and sixty-four.

Relations, sparing no expense’ll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil
Just the thing I need, how nice...
It doesn’t matter how sincere it is,
nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What’s important is the price.

Hark, the Herald Tribune sings,
Advertising wondrous things.
God rest you merry merchants,
May you make the Yuletide pay.
Angels we have heard on high
Tell us to go out and buy!

So, let the raucous sleigh bells jingle,
Hail our dear old friend Kris Kringle,
Driving his reindeer across the sky...
...Don’t stand underneath when they-fly-by.

---Tom Lehrer, 1955

A farmer’s dog came into town
His Christian name was Runt,
A noble pedigree had he
Piddling was his stunt.
And he trotted down the street
’Twas beautiful to see
His work on every corner,
His work on every tree.

He watered every gateway, too,
And never missed a post
For piddling was his specialty
And piddling was his boast.
The city curs looked on amazed
With a deep and jealous rage
To see a simple country dog
The piddler of the age.

The all the dogs from everywhere
Were summoned with a yell,
To sniff the country stranger o’er
And judge him by his smell.
Some thought that he a king might be
Beneath his tail a rose,
So every dog drew near to him
And sniffed it up his nose.

They smelled him over one by one
They smelled him two by two
And noble Runt, in high disdain,
Stood still ’till they were through.
Then just to show the whole shebang
He didn’t give a damn
He trotted into a grocery store
And piddled on a ham.

He piddled on a mackerel keg,
He piddled on the floor,
And when the grocer kicked him out
He piddled through the door.
Behind him all the city dogs
Lined up with instinct true
To start a piddling carnival
And see the stranger through.

They showed him every piddling post
That they had in town,
And started in with many a wink
To pee the stranger down.
They sent for champion piddlers
Who were always on the go,
Who sometimes did a piddling stunt
Or gave a piddling show.

They sprung these on him suddenly
When midway in the town;
Runt only smiled and polished off
The ablest, white or brown.
For Runt was with them every trick
With vigor and with vim
A thousand piddles more or less
Were all the same to him.

So Runt was wetting merrily
With hind leg kicking high,
When most were hoisting legs in bluff,
And piddling mighty dry.
On and on, Runt sought new grounds
By piles and scraps and rust,
’Till every city cur went dry
And Piddled only dust.

But on and on went noble Runt
As wet as any rill,
And all the champion city pups
Were pee’d to a standstill.
Then Runt did free-hand piddling
With fancy flirts and flips
Like “double-dips” and “gimlet twists”
And all the piddling hits.

And all this time this country-dog
Did never wink or grin,
But piddled blithely out of town
As he had piddled in.

The city dogs a convention held
To ask “What did defeat us?”
But no one ever tipped them off
Runt had diabetes.

---Attributed to Jo Anderson. In memory of all my dogs, especially Yojimbo, who was the first.

HEAVEN’S mighty sweet, I guess;
Ain’t no rush to get there;
Been a sinner more or less;
Maybe wouldn’t fit there,
Wicked still, bound to confess;
Might just pine a bit there.

Heaven’s swell, the preachers say;
Got used to earth here;
Had such good times all the way,
Frolic, fun, and mirth here;
Eighty Springs ago to-day,
Since I had my birth here.

Quite a spell of happy years,
Wish I could begin it;
Cloud and sunshine, laughter, tears,
Livin’ every minute.
Women, too, the pretty dears;
Plenty of ‘em in it.

Heaven! that’s another tale,
Mightn’t let me chew there.
Gotta have me pot of ale;
Would I like to brew there?
Maybe I’d get slack or stale-
No more chores to do there.

Here I weed a garden plot,
Scare the crows from pillage;
Simmer in the sun a lot,
Talk about the tillage.
Yarn of battles I have fought,
Greybeard of the village.

Heaven’s might fine, I know...
Still, ain’t so bad here.
See them maples all aglow;
Starlings seem so glad here;
I’ll be mighty peeved to go,
Scrumptious times I’ve had here.

Lord, I know You’ll understand.
With Your Light You’ll lead me.
Though I’m not the pious brand,
I’m here when you need me.
Gosh! I know that Heaven’s GRAND.
But, dang it! God, don’t speed me.

---Robert Service