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- 30 July 2007
- No. 5,286 (cartoon)
- You’re insane.
Why else would I talk to you? 
- 31 July 2007
- Blasted Blasted Into Space
- Oh dear oh dear oh dear, the United States National Aeronautic and Space Administration announced that more than one astronaut had left Earth’s gravitational bondage in a condition that a lay person might describe as besotted, blasted, blitzed, blotto, bombed, buzzed, canned, cockeyed, fried, gassed, half-cut, hopped up, in their cups, inebriated, juiced, loaded, lubricated, pie-eyed, pissed, plastered, polluted, ripped, sauced, sloshed, smashed, soaked, soused, sozzled, stewed, stinko, tanked up, three sheets to the wind, tight, tipsy, trashed, under the influence, wasted, well-oiled, wrecked, et cetera et cetera.
But enough of slang: these astronauts were fuck-faced, sloppy-bottomed drunk. Maybe that’s why astronauts wear diapers? There’s only one rational response to such a a report: Huzzah! Scientists and engineers can launch any pile of protoplasm into space, but only America’s finest can meet the challenge whilst pleasantly and pleasingly pickled.
- 1 August 2007
- Big St. Pauli Girl Eructation
- Alexia came back from the liquor store displayed a dripping-cold case of St. Pauli Girl beer, then announced, “I came back with twenty-four girlfriends for us.”
“Wow,” I said, “I can already feel a big eructation coming on.” “Ewww, gross,” Alexia shot back, “when did you start talking like that?!” “Relax, sweetie,” I replied. “I’m not talking about the illustration on the bottles.” I then delivered a tedious and tiresome (is that redundantly repetitious?) lecture on how some Appalachian hillbilly (is that repetitiously redundant?) working for the American importer commissioned an illustrator to come up with a Dolly Parton clone in pseudo-Germanic clothing (who, disturbingly, looks like everyone’s mother) to replace the infinitely more attractive Bavarian archetype’s graphic identity on the gassy German brew. “Alexia, you should also know that an eructation is a synonym for a belch,” I told her as she was about to slip into a boredom-induced stupor. For some reason, Alexia didn’t look any less perturbed. I guess she’s just one of those people who doesn’t like to expand her vocabulary.
- 2 August 2007
- Thoroughly Fecked!
- Hubert asked me if I was still making my, “feckless art.” I laughed, and told him that I was full of feck. And for good measure, I added that I was—and am—more fecked than he’ll ever be.
Hubert couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t.
- 3 August 2007
- Puss o’ Death
- Once upon a time I lived with a cat named Oscar, who inspired a friend’s young daughter to write a poem about him.
Oscar, Oscar, David’s cat,
Has one eye and is real fat.
- I remembered the late, beloved puss when I read about another Oscar, who lives in a Rhode Island nursing home. Oscar appears to have the uncanny ability to predict death. Specifically, the cat hops into bed and curls up with someone who’s about to die. In some thirty cases, patients died within four hours of Oscar’s visit.
“Oscar is better at predicting death than the people who work there,” said Dr. Joan Teno of Brown University, who works with patients at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. I’m not so sure about Oscar’s abilities, though. My guess is that he curls up with people on the verge of death because they aren’t moving enough to interrupt his cat naps. In any case, dying with a cat seems like a good way to go.
- 4 August 2007
- Reincarnation Administraitors
- Dang, what is it with Chinese and the alleged afterlife? Earlier this year, I wrote about a team of Chinese murders killing women because of a shortage of “ghost brides.” And now, Xinhua reports that each and every Tibetan living Buddhas may not be reincarnated without the consent of the Chinese government.
This news makes my small brain hurt. Let me reiterate what I just wrote: on 1 September, Chinese administrators will require Tibetan living Buddhas to get government approval before they reincarnate. According to the Xinhua news report, the new regulations are, “an important move to institutionalize the management of reincarnation of living Buddhas.” I wonder what happens when a Tibetan living Buddha dies without filing the required paperwork? I wonder if dead Chinese government workers will shadow dead Tibetan living Buddhas in the conceptual afterworld? I wonder; I really, really do.
- 5 August 2007
- Burger Jim
- I was going through my files, and discovered a photograph I took in Anchorage a few months ago. I’m looking a primitive, hand-painted image of cheeseburger outside the restaurant, “Burger Jim.”
How very elegant! The proprietor didn’t call his establishment “Jim’s Burgers” or “Jim’s Restaurant,” just “Burger Jim.” And then there’s the image: until I saw the Burger Jim sign, it never would have occurred to me that one could paint a cheeseburger from an impossible perspective. It’s been quite some time since I was a slave to the cheeseburger, so I didn’t sample Burger Jim’s offerings. I suspect the cheeseburger painting was the best thing on offer there, and I now have my very own copy.
- 6 August 2007
- Judee Sill’s Permanent Beauty
- For reasons I don’t understand, I keep running into men who are enamored—bordering on being uxorious—of Judee Sill (7 October 1944—23 November 1979). Graham’s the only person I know who met her, but that doesn’t stop lots of other hombres from thinking of her as the ideal girlfriend. And why not; from everything I’ve read, ’twould appear she was brilliant and beautiful.
That, and she’s been dead for over a quarter of a century. How can anyone not like a dead artist? And then there’s always the whiff of necrophilia; no one’s ever had a disagreement with a dead girlfriend. Personally, I prefer to interact with the living; most of my dear friends are still breathing regularly.
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©2007 David Glenn Rinehart
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