Jerry Springer Spaniel

 

[indiscriminate barking]

 

Jerry Springer Spaniel, a medium size springer spaniel, sits in the audience holding a microphone. He’s toying with the crowd quite literally, pawing out chew toys to anxious members of the ticketed crowd. Bart, a golden retriever and Missy, another golden retriever, sit next to each other on stage. They live on the same farm in rural Pennsylvania.

Jerry:   Missy, how many puppies do you and Bart have?

Missy:  I lost count a while ago, but it was at least a dozen last time I checked. 

[clapping from the crowd]

Jerry:   Is that all? 

Missy: I hope so. Bart got fixed last fall.

 

Jerry:   Are you sure about that? 

 

Bart shakes his head and Missy looks confused.

 

Jerry:   Josefina, why don’t come on down? And bring your little one, Antonio. 

 

One tiny chihuahua and a chihuahua spaniel mix amble up to the stage. Missy gets up and goes wild, lunging at the chihuahua. Security has to separate them using biscuits and treats. 

 

Jerry:   Dogs, dogs. Let’s act like civilized animals. So, Josefina, when did you meet Bart?

 

Josefina: Last winter.

 

Jerry: [to the crowd] Some resemblance, huh?

 

Bart: Jerry, if I may. I’ve never seen this bitch in my life. 

 

Jerry: To any human beings in the audience, that’s a technical term.

 

Missy: We’re going straight to the vet before going home, mister. 

 

Josefina: How can you say that, papi?

 

Antonio: Da da. Dada. 

 

Antonio begins to howl as pandemonium ensues. Missy bites one of the security guards. Bart urinates on the carpet. Josephina yips at Jerry and the crowd barks. 

 

Jerry: Tomorrow we have a poodle who can’t stop licking himself, a German Shepherd coming to terms with his war crimes, and a greyhound whose best friend is a flea. Take care of yourself and each other. Till next time, woof woof. 

Touch Glass

 

Nowadays, when burnt out people are looking for an offline reprieve, they stick their toes between blades of uncut grass in parks, lawns, and tufts. I’m here to tell you that does next to nothing for the active mind and less for the active body. 

Want to come back down to earth and reduce your screentime? Then you should really consider touching glass instead. 

In my patch of urban paradise, each day I awake to the glistening sparkle of shattered chards running the length of the block, as well as the length of my foot. For some in rural America, the sound of a rooster crowing or the sight of dew dripping down a leaf marks the morning. Not here. 

Here, a new day commences only when a driver’s side window is pulverized into a million tiny pieces. If you're lucky, you'll be dodging bits of car stereo as well. 

After a long day of clicking, baiting, and scrolling, I desperately need to feel the raw power of a broken Heineken bottle deep in my sole. I pace the sidewalk, taking it all in, sometimes to the point of walking into the ER. Okay, so maybe not quite walking in, but more hobbling in. Either way, you get the jagged point.

Overwhelmed by the news? That's nothing a quarter inch of glass penetrating your heel can't fix.  

What people have come to accept about the restorative qualities of grass is wrong. Grass is full of bugs and dirt. It stains denim unlike much else. Glass on the other hand, allows you to literally reflect on your life as you go over your foot with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass (preferably one that’s still intact). You can see yourself in each shard. This is a meditative state that also gives you the chance to check on the gauze in your medicine cabinet. Something that’s probably gone untouched for years. So now’s your chance to touch it. 

Go forth, touch glass, and keep hydrogen peroxide close by. 

How To Be an Anti-Intellectual by Inane X. Trendi

 

When I started writing this essay a few minutes ago, I realized that the words were coming slower than a leaky faucet dripping slower than one in a housing unit where the plumbing has gone from bad to worst. Some moments, like right now, I have something to say, if only to say what I just said. But I knew this was going to be a problem. I have to get to certain position of substance, albeit drips and drabs. If my essay doesn’t sound like one, at least it has to look like one. My method of writing comes from a tried-and-true technique that I like to call the “street method.” What it means simply is that if you hold up the article to someone walking across the street, they should be able to tell it’s an article simply by looking at it. As long as there are few thick paragraphs, I’m good. And so is my audience.

Not to mention a couple one liners to stop the reader or in this case, pedestrian, in their tracks. 

I realized pretty quickly that I am not an intellectual, having never been an intellectual, and mostly considered by most critics that I am, most of all, a revolutionary figure, brought about to disrupt their cozy status as keepers of the gate. 

What am I then, if not an intellectual? 

Then I got it after leafing through my dictionary. I had a bet with a friend that “aunt” was spelled like the insect. My shame turned to pride when I saw a list of prefixes littering the page like the department of sanitation on a raw sewage power play. 

I am an anti-intellectual. How did I not realize this before? It was right there, staring right in front of me, like a person right in front of me staring at me. I am not like anyone else or everyone else or no one else. 

 

I started to research the history of famous people and what did I find, you ask? I didn’t find me. First, I looked at the list of Nobel Laureates. I wasn’t there. Then U.S. Presidents. I wasn’t anywhere to be found. I started to dig deeper. Lists of Oscar winners as well as champion fishermen. I kept not seeing my name, image, or likeness anywhere. Where was I? I pinched my arm to make sure I was still there, right here, sitting at my desk writing. I was, breathing a heavy sigh of relief knowing I was not a figment of my own runway imagination.

 

I am real. I am here. I am me. 

They would say I'm dumb as a brick. I take that insult as a compliment. I like bricks and I talk to walls. And I appreciate straw and the men inside them. 

 

Book after book. List after list. I didn’t see my name. For a second, I thought, maybe it’s because I changed my name. But that doesn’t make any sense. Mark Twain changed his name and he’s everywhere. Same with Michael Keaton. So that can’t be right. 

 

No one ever wanted me at this or that table. Or the chair. Or in the den rearranging the furniture. They treated me like furniture. What they didn’t understand, what they mostly couldn’t possibly realize, was that like most anti-intellectuals I had never read from their “rule book.” I did my own thing and that’s that. 

The thing, that is.

The Contrarian Candidate

I have some bad news. I’m running for president. Why? Simple. I am a revolutionary agent of change. Yes, it’s true that I grew up with a silver spoon, a golden fork, and a diamond tea kettle. But in my youth, I often found time to relate to ordinary people when I wasn’t tossing around the football in Hyannisport with one of my seven thousand cousins.

Despite what you may have heard, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I’m a conspiracy practitioner. Big difference. This isn't college, this is the real world. 

 

Lots of politicians talk about criminal justice reform, but I do more than that. A lot more. Consider this: I defended my murderer of a cousin and then, despite other members of my own family, I came defended the man who killed my father. I had to cut him off a few times when he tried to profess his guilt. Look, sir, you’re innocent. I know a thing or two about being wrongfully accused. 

 

I don’t love the planet, I hate people. That’s the main big difference between me and other environmentalists. 

 

They say the apple doesn’t fall from the tree. In my case, it’s right there, worm-ridden and rotten, but it’s an apple nonetheless. 

And while I find the notion of social distancing morally repugnant, I have been comfortably out of touch for decades. 

I’m the Cockroach from the Met Gala

Now that the dust has settled and I’ve returned to my quarter-size hole in the American Wing, I should reveal the point of my party crashing protest.

It was not, as some believe, a commentary on the escalating War in Ukraine. And why would it be? My kind has never been too concerned about nuclear annihilation, given our physical and mental makeup. There’s an old joke in the cockroach community that we were long pulling for mutually assured destruction between the USA and USSR amid the wild, heady days of the Cold War. In fact, an uncle of a dear friend, spent much of his middle age in the comfortable surroundings of the nuclear football. He liked the light and his proximity to the apocalypse. It was somewhat calmer there. For cockroaches, the Cuban Missile Crisis was a great “what if?” Imagine if we had inherited the earth. Think of all the garbage to eat. The whole world a giant crumb. The notion makes me blush. 

Initially, I wasn’t going to attend the gala. I usually avoid the museum on busy days – holidays and such. Too many feet to dodge, not enough food to make it worthwhile. But there was something about a single celebrity posing on steps that gave me pause. 

I want to be a star. I thought maybe, just maybe, these celebrities would recognize our obvious common ground. We’re not so different, them and me. I scrounge around galleries after hours looking for anything I can shove in my face. Most of them would sell their soul for a Royal Qatari production of Godspell. They look everywhere for roles. I look everywhere for rolls. Usually buttered, sometimes oiled, often stale, and occasionally with a subtle hint of mold. And yeah, I've been on the casting couch, too, a time or two. Tattered ones with foam that's a cruel memory.  

I feel fortunate to have been reared among rare antiquities and accessible bathrooms. So I don’t receive the press like more glamorous New Yorkers; namely, the pizza rats and the bagel pigeons. But I’m here, doing my thing, appreciating art in my own special way.  

I have more class in my little antennae than most celebs have in their entire surgically-enhanced bodies. Perspective changes how you see the world. Most people don’t give the treads of their shoes much thought. I do. Or I did. When I’m spotted, people asked, “what is that?” instead of “who is that?” 

That hurts. 

Naturally, I’m a Buddhist. I was like these people once. Clamoring for a sitcom or my name on the marquee. Now I appreciate the little things. Like day old coffee cake and spoiled milk. Here’s hoping the Met does a food exhibit one of these days. You’d think with all those Cezannes in the museum a roach could find a decent stone fruit.

Alas, it's not meant to be. Just organic smoothies and a case of White Claw. Till next year. 

Something You Can Bank On

I have a bank. But I don't have a vault. 

I have capital, but no principles. 

I have an honorary chair but no actual desk

I have terrible ideas and worse aspirations. 

I have dishonest friends.

 

I have unscrupulous employees.

 

I have lots of your money and none of mine.

 

I have an ill-fitting suit and unkempt hair.

 

I have ambition and no intellect.

 

I have receipts that absolve me of any wrongdoing. 

 

I like to make bold statements, preferably with more of your money. 

 

I don’t make mistakes that can’t be papered over with a few billion. 

 

I have no shame. 

Monday Morning Meditations

 

 When installing cable for a certain provider, is it okay to say, “I’m on the Spectrum?” 

 

How many times a day are we allowed to say “climate change, huh” when discussing the weather? 

 

How many people who “just read a book” actually consumed the audio book over the course of a long commute?

 

What’s more annoying: someone talking on speakerphone in public or someone in a headphone stupor, mindlessly pushing their way through the world? 

 

If Picasso was a great artist and a bad guy, how many bad artists are great guys?

 

Why is it extra to have a side salad when it’s basically rearranged grass? 

 

Why do sports fans use the first-person plural pronoun and wear jerseys of other people? 

 

What year will saying “I can’t wait to put my feet up on a plush ottoman” become offensive? 

 

Forget robots, aren't most people artificially intelligent?

And didn’t most Hollywood writers stop writing years ago?