Where were you so late? Working my ass. I called your office. You weren't there. You smell like Jim Beam. You were with her, weren't you? Admit it! Why won't you just be straight with me, you spineless bastard? You think I honestly believe you took up smoking again "just because"? I know you're trying to cover her cheap Walmart perfume, you pig. Why can't we ever have an adult conversation? Don't you see you're tearing this family apart?!? See what you did?! Oh, honey, what are you doing out of bed? Everything's okay. Mommy and daddy are just talking. No, of course not. We're not getting a divorce. Not so long as daddy stops fucking around. Sometimes daddy does bad things and mommy has to remind him that he's a fucking asshole. No, daddy won't get a spanking, even if he deserves one. He will be sleeping on the couch tonight, though. And he'll probably be staying in a motel tomorrow. And the night after. Don't cry, sweetheart; daddy won't be gone long. Just until he can learn to keep his dick in his pants. See? See what you've fucking done? Your own fucking son! You make me sick. Oh, your dinner? Fuck you! That's where your dinner is, you asshole. And I swear to God, if you leave the cap off the toothpaste one more time, I will burn this fucking place to the ground.
FEBRUARY 17, 2021
They were faced with easily avoidable horrors and still everything felt like it was falling
apart and that which was previously normal was no longer so and satire retired because it had
nothing left to do and no one was happy, not eve those who were tired of winning and then Those
Who Actually Know said they had a plan and everyone listened to it and then they followed the
advice of Those Who Actually Know and then everything went according to plan and I guess everyone
lived happily ever after.
Or something. Fuck, man. I dunno.
FEBRUARY 09, 2021
We believe you, dearie. We truly do. It's just that... We worry about you, your father and I. I mean... You talk about him so much, this 'friend' of yours, but we've never seen him, even when you seem to. I just... and don't take this the wrong way, okay? Because this is out of love and not, like, any sort of condescending dismissal of the vibrant and possibly pseudo reality that dwells inside your otherwise level head. This is supportive and constructive criticism and, basically, an open conversation, here in a safe place, under the Trust Tree, so I'm... Okay, well, look, under the Trust Tree, I'm just gonna say what's on my mind - on all of our minds - and that is that we think that maybe you should seek professional help?
JANUARY 07, 2015
No one likes orphans. that's the primary cause of orphanism. If anyone cared about orphans, anyone at all, there wouldn't be any orphans. They'd have been adopted by now.
NOVEMBER 18, 2014
I never really liked Jon.
Everything I could do, he could do better.
When we were young, sharing a room:
I liked to write stories and he wrote poetry. He won awards.
I liked to draw pictures. He started a t-shirt company feature his own artwork.
I could only get to world 8-4, using all of the warp zone shortcuts. He beat the game
and all of the Goombas turned into Beetles, yet he kept playing because he could.
I grew a scraggly, half-hearted beard and the thatched wilderness of his face is a glory
to behold.
OCTOBER 25, 2014
Yo mama is so hot that when she eats an ice cream cone, the rocky road immediately evaporates and she's left with an empty waffle cone, which she eats anyway, albeit in a less enthusiastic manner than she would have had the ice cream that she so desired not immediately sublimated due to her hotness.
MARCH 21, 2014
I've always wanted to be a princess: capering and gamboling through sunlit topiary
menageries in damask dresses of finely spun silk, trailing brightly looped ribbons
and tittering gaily.
I would have a pony, obviously. All princess have ponies, but mine would be the most
spritely and princing'est of the ponies. Oh, to feel the wind sweeping through my
hair and the rippling muscles of that magnificent beast beneath my bum as a surly
serf leads it in slow circle around a straw and dung strewn pen!
MARCH 21, 2014
Do whatever you want with the body. Donate it to science. Throw it in the trash. Make a marionette. I don't care. But make absolutely certain that you burn all of my stuff when I die. It's my stuff.
MARCH 13, 2014
DECEMBER 28, 2013
And she says, "but the circumstances aren't right..."
"That's alright; we can change them," you reply.
Then she says, "you're missing the point."
We have nowhere to go from here.
SEPTEMBER 25, 2013
Alright, so: I'm back from Burning Man. Mostly.
On return, it took some time to reacquaint myself with socially acceptable circadian rhythms and nearly
as long to clean the dust off my belongings and person. I likely ate more dust out there than food, but
again: not a complaint; well worth it.
SEPTEMBER 13, 2013
Oh, Heavenly Father, today we gather to give thanks and praise for all that you have bestowed upon us in Your infinite grace and wisdom. We give thanks for family and for friends and for those who fall into neither category yet are with us today despite not having been invited. (You know who you are; we all do and so does God.) We give thanks for Your woe begotten son, Jesus Herbert Christ, Whom You sent to us so that we could string Him up on a cross and leave Him to suffer and die for no good reason. And we give thanks that this somehow gives us the impression that we have been absolved of the mortal sins that taint our souls because that bitch Eve couldn't keep her hands off the goddamned produce. Yay, God. Amen.
MARCH 31, 2013
One of the most powerful beliefs of Morons is that God speaks to us directly. Whenever we are presented with
'facts', we must ask God if what we 'hear' is 'true'.
Ask yourself now: who would you believe? God or 'facts'?
Though many Morons hold beliefs that may seem strange and, frankly, contradictory, in a modernized world, we
continue to adhere to those beliefs because God tells us. He tells us in our hearts.
Morons hear things with their hearts. Isn't that more better than things you hear with your ears and see with
your eyes?
OCTOBER 31, 2012
Alright. Okay. Quiet down, please. If I could get your attention for a moment... Yes, right. Okay, then.
I'd like to thank everyone for coming. Welcome to the first ever 'We May Not Be Winning, But There Have Been
Positive Strides' banquet dinner commemorating the modicum of progress we've recently made against our
humorless and justice-crazed Arch Nemesis.
SEPTEMBER 27, 2012
Dear Editor-in-chief,
For publication by National Geographic, I submit a chronicle of my recent travels to the exotic land of
Spain. Have you been to Spain? I have.
This article is entitled "Where Are We Going and Why Am I in This Handbasket?"
Thank you for your time and consideration. I eagerly await your response.
SEPTEMBER 17, 2012
The crowd of voices is a bubbling boil. Not a hum; not a steady, static.
It moves and changes, flows around eddies of silence, up and over, surging and breaking roughly against the
rocks just there, just now as disagreements flare and fall and are swept out again by the inexorable undertow.
AUGUST 08, 2012
For eons, the awesome power of the sea has entranced and eaten us. To re-establish our God-given dominance, we enjoy capturing marine organisms, placing them in decorative tanks and taunting them with our grubby, little fingers. Meet the inhabitants of my tank...
AUGUST 07, 2012
I have a bone to pick with you.
Well, not a bone, really. More just a 'thing', but that doesn't sound quite right. In fact, 'picking
a thing with you' sounds either like what dead-eyed couples do on long weekends - like shopping for
bathroom accessories or choosing a couch or selecting a puppy to match the drapes in the living room.
Ugh - or, it could be like picking at a thing together, a scab thing or a boil thing or a rash thing.
I will not pick at that sort of thing with you.
JULY 18, 2012
Did'j'all hear 'bout them move pitchers?
I heard tell o' them move pitchers from one o' them sof'-belly cityfolk that come on up ta town from
their land o' sin. And this cityboy, he says to me, he says - God's honest truth, so help me - he
says, "these there moves? They's like you got these li'l folk and they's trapped in this contraption
we calls a 'teller version'," says this there cityfeller.
JULY 15, 2012
For many, Easter is celebration and joy and seeking brightly painted eggs hidden in the underbrush by
some goddamned asshole who fucking...
Fuck.
Joy. Right. It's joy. For you: it's joy.
APRIL 04, 2012
Come! Sit! My office is yours. Take some weight off those swollen toes and make yourselves at home,
the both of you. It's always refreshing to meet expectant first-timers.
Just look at you two! You're aglow. And you, Mom: positively bursting! Too late to hide from family
now; the truth protrudes.
FEBRUARY 04, 2012
I've seen it glistening.
Memories then are scattered and scarce, but the astonishment stays:
I remember blue grandma in her blue house; I remember white icier furniture on her blue porch;
I remember Papa beside her, always happy to see me.
JANUARY 31, 2012
This is not the time for gift giving.
This is the time for thanks giving and I would strongly encourage you all to remember
that, lest you forget all those nasty redskins, cleansed from this majestic land of
purple mountains and amber-wavy grains centuries ago by our courageous, small-pox-
blanket wielding fore bearers.
NOVEMBER 19, 2011
Okay, so really, none of this is my fault. That's probably the best place to start, because I know you'll likely be thinking otherwise before you've read too far into this and I wanted to state first and foremost that, no: you are wrong. None of this is my fault.
OCTOBER 27, 2011
You're right; I have been a stranger. Though, considering my upbringing and heredity, I'm surprised that you're surprised. And but, while we warn our children away from strangers and the danger they conceal within windowless vans and overlong coats in overwarm weather, you still seem sweet on me.
OCTOBER 20, 2011
I don't care if you're hungry; can't you see that daddy is broken? Oh, now you're thirsty? Then get yourself something to drink like a real man! What are you now? Eleven? Oh, four? Still. Get a fucking cup. Fill it. Take a fucking drink. How hard is that? Wait. No, stop. Not the brown paper bag. Don't drink that. That's daddy juice. Go drink from the toilet or something.
MARCH 27, 2011
Critters chirped and sang unseen but were no help. Night wind shushed the trees as it sashayed through their leaves and maverick droplets began thup-thupping the dust at his feet. Convening clouds above muttered the threat of outright downpour. She waited, eyeing him intently.
MARCH 18, 2011
Love is when daddy's boss at the factory tells him that he's been made 'redundant' and daddy doesn't know how to tell mommy because there's already a huge stack of letters marked 'Past Due' by the door and so he goes down to O'Leary's on 5th and Orange and sits in the smoke, elbows on the bar, even though it's only 9am on a Wednesday.
MARCH 09, 2011
Delis are dangerous, relapse-wise. Sure, I could assemble my own sandwich, but between rising, shining and lunch, I'll sit on it and its baggie will rupture in my pack and wheat crumbs will burrow between laptop keys to breed.
NOVEMBER 11, 2010
Hello, everyone. Welcome to sunny San Francisco. I'll be your guide this afternoon.
Don't worry about taking notes. You're not likely to learn anything. Except, perhaps,
how great I look in a suit. Everything else, I probably made up.
You may be wondering how I'm qualified to lead this tour. That's a good question; keep
wondering. I do have a mostly successful babysitting track record and haven't lost a
child I liked yet. I hope to apply the skills I learned in that endeavor today, so in
about an hour, we'll have a snack of apple wedges and peanut butter followed by a nap
during which time I will sneak out to smoke pot in the bathroom.
JUNE 29, 2010
"Dear Jesus,
My mom says I get to go to Heaven when I'm dead because we're Baptist but Herbie Rosenthal has to go to Hell because she says he's too 'faggy' and she also says that Mr.
Muggles has to go to Hell because he's a dog, but he's a good dog, mostly. She says that the Bible says who gets to go to Hell and who gets to go to Heaven because the
Bible is The Word Of God. But why do you have to put people in Hell even when they're not bad?
I love you,
Jimmy Appleby"
MARCH 26, 2010
"Orin was the greatest writer in the world. Though he'd never had anything published, or indeed read by anyone else, he was certain of this. Certain because all that he'd read was dreck and though he hadn't read much after this realization, he could reasonably assume that what he hadn't and wouldn't read was also rubbish: the same story told over and again; predictable plot lines and trite twists."
JUNE 07, 2009
In and out of sleep. Tossing and drenching tangled sheets. Can't find the sweet spot, that indented sleep spot in the middle of the mattress. Shadows slide across long-watched walls, ambiguous shapes suggesting thoughts unbidden. Imagine heavy lids and the deep dark behind them. No use. Eyes still dry and wide. Mind still boiling over. I have to pee.
JANUARY 23, 2009
"Cake was consumed and in the flurry of presents that followed Bobby forgot all about the nightmares he would no longer be having. He was only slightly sad when no wrapped package contained the floppy-eared rabbit for which he had pleaded. This disappointment dissolved quickly in the laughing faces of a leering clown and a dozen gleeful guests. In fact, Bobby was quite content through the rest of his birthday party and into the evening. By the time his mother came to put toys into closets and Bobby into bed, he was ready and yawning."
JANUARY 05, 2009
Knock kneed and narrow limbed in the tangled shade between two tents, agape and still reeling from that
first kiss: quick and dry and off she'd gone, back into the throng of gleeful guests.
It glowed with me then; with buzzing neon proclaiming promise and the wide, bright whites of smiling eyes and teeth.
But when the gleam was gone and the lights burnt black, then it's just tattered canvas and rooking booths sans hawkers and marks,
webs cobbing unwon, stuffed prizes. A precarious Ferris wheeling slowly on rusted spokes. Merry-go-rounds that aren't and don't.
Discarded garbage riding the breeze, spewing greasy kernels on dusty avenues papered with plates mashed flat by now absent gawkers.
A lone busker, weary and worn, once smiling creases now forlorn, eyes on a crowd that isn't in attendance.
Singing anyway.
Dancing anyway.
DECEMBER 30, 2008
It was the night of Christmas Eve,
Santa was preparing to leave.
He filled his sleigh with lots of toys,
Ready to give to girls and boys.
He skipped and plopped down to the sleigh,
The reindeer flew up and away.
At the bit they chomp and dentate
As they struggle to drag his weight.
By the time it was almost dawn,
Old Santa made a great big yawn.
He turned the sleigh back toward his home
And allowed his senile mind t'roam.
He thought of the cookies, milk 'n' cake,
All of which he'd been glad to take.
He thought of the stockings all in place.
He thought of stuffing his big, fat face.
In his pond'ring he did not see
Flight one-sixteen to Kennedy.
The plan was flown by pilot Bob
Who did nothing besides his job.
But Bob had had far too much 'nog
And didn't see the sleigh through the fog.
He flew straight toward the man in red,
Now comes the moment we all dread.
Santa didn't see the seven forty seven.
It doesn't matter though; he's in Heaven.
All that's left is a crumpled sled,
And nine flat reindeer, all good and dead.
DECEMBER 25, 2008
