As Promised

I Repeat, the Geography Bee Is the Bee I Did Not Win

Last night I dreamed that I visited China. Now, if you know anything about geography, you know that there's an Upstairs China and a Downstairs China. I was Upstairs, and I was trying to walk Downstairs, but the steps weren't real steps, they were the architectural equivalent of plaid, and they moved. Again, if you know anything about geography, you know that Downstairs China is a rosary factory. And it turns out that Chinese rosaries are just like regular rosaries, except instead of having crucifixes at the end, they have tiny carved DRAGONS. Way to go, xenophobic unconsciousness, you fail!

Speaking of My Wrong Ideas of Countries, Harry has posted some great pictures of Wales, including one of a road sign in English and Welsh. Man, it never even occurred to me that Wales might have roads. In my mind, it's all ruined cairns and landfills full of harp strings and magic cowpaths punctuated by abandoned dwarf shoes. Am I to understand that this is inaccurate?

Stay tuned for tomorrow, when I will confess that I don't know what a moor is!

JELUS?

My little brother graduates high school today, and I called to wish him congratulations. When we reached a lull in the conversation, he remarked, "So my nipples have been really sore lately, and my friend says that means I'm going to have a Second Puberty."

Dispatches from the Front LINES, It Is a Pun

I rose this morning and said to myself, "It's a dazzling day, the sun is a fiery phoenix, the birds let loose with craps of joy, and the Phelps crazies are here in town to protest. Time to make a damn sign."

"What should we write?" Elegant Choice mused. "The temptation is to write something along the lines of GOD IS GAY, or, more cryptically, GAY GOD!"

"How about something more wholesome? How about a statement from the past? How about SIT ON A HOT CENT?"

"Too wholesome, I think."

"We need to add some poetry to this discourse," I decided. "If they're going to write nonsense on their signs, we're going to write nonsense too. Poetic nonsense. Pejorative poetic nonsense! I have it: HIDEOUS AT HEART AS CHRYSANTHEMUMS."

"It's perfect!" he cried.

It was. We found some sharpies and a hot-pink poster and set to work. The sharpies didn't show up very well on the posterboard, so I improvised a kind of hairy lunatic handwriting that was more or less legible. The result was this:

"Finished!" I announced. "Now, how should I dress?"

"Hmm. Like a milkmaid, if you can. Because GOD HATES SWEDEN too, apparently."

"I have just the thing."

When we arrived at the protest, I snuck up behind the Phelps people and stood near them for a while, to inject a little soy bomb into the situation. OH BLAST, the Phelps people were probably thinking, don't look now but there is a milkmaid behind us, undermining our hate effort with rotty poetry!

The biker gangs who populated the opposite curb failed to appreciate my nuances and began to taunt me, so I toddled over to the other side and explained that I was an undercover nonsense underminer, at which point they cheered and offered to carry my sign for me.

I believe this man went by the name of Skinner. I also acquainted myself with a T-Bone who offered to escort me home on his motorcycle. Man, I wish I had known that none of the counter-protesters were going to bring signs. I would have made dozens and handed them out, and you would have witnessed a parade of incoherence the likes of which our sodomite nation has never seen!

You Talk Too Much, You Talk Too Much, You Never Shut Up, You Talk Too Much

Speaking of fake kings, please enjoy yourselves some Bold King Cole. Stay tuned for the part where the Humbling Machine deflates him by fisty force! There is a rousing argument in the comments thread concerning Bold King Cole's balls, whether he has them, and if he does have them, where they are hidden. (My opinion: he himself IS a ball, a round bewigged ball belonging to God.) And speaking of pre-Code insanity, forget Baby Burlesks and direct your attention to Betty Boop M.D. It...is bonkers. It's the craziest thing you'll see all year.

In Which I Twirl My Fingers in a Week-Old Fray

I missed this uproar while I was away, but I feel compelled to weigh in anyway. I read the original comments right before I left town, and I remember thinking, "Ah! Barf-o is a term you don't hear nearly enough these days, let us hope it re-enters spoken circulation!" (Then again, you're talking to the person who recently expressed a desire to see Philip Schultz murdered by a telegram, so perhaps I'm not the best judge of What Is Okay to Say.) It would be disingenuous of me to be all RAH RAH I SEE NO PROBLEM HERE PLEASE SWALLOW ALL COMPLAININGS when I had such a wonderful experience with VQR, but that's kind of my point: I had a wonderful experience with VQR, and I'm a total nobody. I have no book, my list of publication credits is relatively short, I have no MFA, I never even went to college. My submitting style is best described as "babyish." Allow me to draw your attention to this would-be submission envelope, which betrays my inability to write two words in succession without freaking out completely:

What does a lowercase e look like? Is it maybe about
an inch long and totally invisible?

I'm slush to the core, basically. So I have trouble picturing the VQR readers as bad bastard sniggerers dressed in fake king robes and Burger King crowns who smoke cigars that are actually author fingers and add each new submission to the bonfire as soon as it arrives. I just don't see it.

Call Me the Auntie of Lies

I spent the last week with my fambly in St. Louis, busting a nut of anger in my father's face, sharing a bed with my little sister, who battered me as she slumbered, who attempted a stealthy kneerape on my person and then laughed out loud, and working to deconstruct the wildly cabalistic jokes of a seven-year old. Examples:

Q: What did the hippopotamus say to the ant?
A. Hey, where are your eyes?

Q. What did the frame say to the statue?
A. Better get burpin'!

Touché, my miniature! In addition, I touched romantically on Henry Shaw


and tricked some kids. Did you know if you bury something shiny in a sandbox, a child will believe it is treasure? Because children are dumb.

Possibly NSFW, Unless You Work at a Baby Nightclub

I don't know what's the matter with me, but I cannot stop watching Baby Burlesks on YouTube. War Babies is my current favorite, with its baby facials, udder sucking, and lollipop money, but Polly Tix in Washington and The Runt Page also have their charms. Be sure to read the comments! "iriswigle" takes the words right out of my mouth:

It was a judge of the US that had ordered Shirley Jane Temple to go to a red light district to pay for a fine and "hussle her buns". Bojangles found her looking for a way to make money to pay for the fine & she thought she could mimic his dancing. He took her to a studio and they followed the judges orders to the dot. There is a good ship and a bad ship. Is acting worse than what the judge had in mind? What do u find offensive? Kids play all day long? Share how you played?

It Is a Codger Phrase

It’s a cold Sunday February morning
and I’m one of eight men waiting
for the doors of Toys R Us to open
in a mall on the eastern tip of Long Island.
We’ve come for the Japanese electronic game
that’s so hard to find.

BE ASHAMED, Philip Schultz. Like the world would catch fire if you said "Wii" in a poem. I hope a telegram comes to life and murders you while endlessly reading aloud its own contents: The Future. Stop. Is Here and the Future. Stop. Is Good.