“His heart danced upon her movements like a cork upon a tide. He heard what her eyes said to him from beneath their cowl and knew that in some dim past, whether in life or revery, he had heard their tale before.”

― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
AND
On the label of a bottle of Writers’ Tears Irish Whiskey that’s calling me

Overestimated worth
Persona inflated
Spoiled since birth
Not really sophisticated
Self-important
Struggles to think
Clearly abhorrent
The weakest link
Irrelevant imbecile
Arrogant idiot
The Achilles heel
In your own Iliad

Eager to be meager

The odor of mediocre

A fruitless doofus

Colossal waste of space

Wannabe intellectual
Gonna be ineffectual
Hardly ever, very seldom
Do they get they’re not welcomed

Like a white crayon, some people are useless
The idol of the idle, brimming with excuses
Even with wisdom teeth, still no smarts in their heads
Toothless truants proud of their obtuseness
Cerebrally impotent, they are mental eunuchs
Can’t help out the team? They’re better off dead.

Tin can with wings you are
Sitting in 29D with fellow peasants
First class/business, coach, premium coach
Legal segregation in the friendly skies
Oh, how you love to pack us in like sardines
Like them, I get salty when I think about
How my boarding pass is always the last group
The crass troupe, the ass group
In a fast loop, we’ve all been mass duped
We never get other seating groups
How am I in an aisle seat but it still feels like I’m being crushed in the middle?
Little does anyone know, the toilet is broken and the last row is choking
On the smell of baby diapers and regret of not being able to afford a personal jet
The bathroom back here is occupied, how come I can’t use the one up there?
No one is using it. Are my ass cheeks too poor to sit on a communal throne for shared shitting?
Yes? Well. Well damn.
Ah, yes, little baby of recent amniotic escape fame, please don’t stop your demon shrieking.
Pay no attention to the rest of us with our eyes closed. We’re not trying to get some sleep, we’re dead. We died inside long before this flight. Your shrieks only make our ears bleed in pure bliss.
A321, why are your cupboards full of peanuts, pretzels, and cheese crackers?
I paid hundreds of dollars for a seat on this flight.
Least you could do is give me something more than some 50¢ snacks from the vending machine.
The incoming plane was late
We boarded the plane late.
We’ve been sitting on the tarmac for nearly an hour.
Now the pilot says we have to go back to the terminal for a maintenance check.
We will never see daybreak over bluegrass fields.
We will never see dawn in the Queen City.
Will we still be rotting away on the runway on New Year’s Day?
Thank God I have a 3-hour layover, but will that be enough now?
This guy just reclined his seat on my knee.
Excuse me while I choke him out. Any last words?
I keel you. I keel you.
A321, see what you turned me into.

“Think about how stupid the average person is, and then realize that half of ’em are stupider than that.”

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”

“If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to have selfish, ignorant leaders.”

“In America, anyone can become president. That’s the problem.”

“Here’s all you need to know about men and women. Women are crazy. Men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.”

Bring me all of your dreams, 
You dreamers, 
Bring me all of your 
Heart melodies 
That I may wrap them 
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers 
Of the world.

–Langston Hughes

Latrine is a fancy Frenchified name for a piss ditch.

I’m never getting my hair cut at a place that advertises “Family haircuts.”

Ever heard of the saying “cute as a button”? How is a button cute?

If there’s conditioning shampoo, isn’t only fair that there’s shampooing conditioner?

Heard on this reality show, a contestant say, “The hardest thing about snake hunting is finding them.” Hunting. Finding. Aren’t they the same…ah, nevermind.

If I were ruler of the world, I’d implement mandatory retail work for everyone. At least a year. The world would be a nicer place then.

* * *

Tried to explain to someone that I picked up by a rideshare at A Street in Culver City. They kept asking what the name of the street was.

“What’s the name of the street?”
“A Street.”
“I know it’s a street, but what was the name of it?”

And so on and so on…

* * *

If you say “parmesan” and “Papa John’s” the same way, we can’t talk to each other.

Super Bowl is not the same thing as Super Bowel.

Why is the viewing of a deceased person called a wake when that person ain’t awake?

I saw some signs marked “free” on various discarded items on the sidewalk. The “free” sign wasn’t needed.

Just saw a handwritten “homeowner loan” sign off the freeway. Why the fuck would I call that number?

Love and peace in your work, and they ask where’s the rage?
They say start a new chapter, but then they tear the page.
They beg you to join them in a war that they don’t care to wage.
They say the coast is clear, then why’s there a barricade?
They want to hear your voice, but say please don’t serenade.
You give them food for thought, but they hate your marinade.
You give them blood & sweat, but tears rain on their parade.
They tell you it’s not a game, as they keep up their charades.
They want you focused, but only notice when they’re engaged.
They want you front and center, but won’t share the stage.
They want a force of nature, but where’s the weather gauge?
They say they gave you directions, but suddenly there’s a maze.
They gave you their word, but now they wanna paraphrase.
They say no questions asked, but then they interrogate.
They say they love your mind, but rather you not cerebrate.
They tell you there’s no tricks, but you see that there’s a mage.
Spread your wings, they say, but, um-hmm…there’s the cage.

My life has been the poem I would have writ
But I could not both live and utter it.
— Henry David Thoreau

“Walla walla walla walla. Walla walla. Walla walla walla walla walla walla walla. Walla walla walla walla walla walla walla. Walla walla walla walla walla walla walla! Walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla wallawallawallawalla walla walla walla walla. Walla walla walla walla walla walla walla? Walla!

Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb.

peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peas and carrots peasandcarrotspeasandcarrotspeasandcarrotspeasand carrots.

Walla walla rhubarb peas and carrots.”

Just saw a business with a sign that read “after-hours chiropractic.” Well, well, well…

I don’t trust grown men riding kid bikes.

Been going to Jack in the Box for years now, and I have yet been greeting by a clown springing up from behind the counter.

Cash-only businesses need to stop it. It’s 2022. Phones don’t need cords. Cars drive themselves. People send messages through the air now. And you don’t need to get paid in paper notes. Thought you were in the food business, not the drug trade.

Some people state the obvious so often it becomes confusing to you. Someone I know always states how the weather is. “It’s a clear day.” “It sure is a sunny day.” “Wow, today is really windy.” I have to double check to see if we’re living on the same plane or timeline.

The sound of a hybrid car backing up is the same sound of the heavenly gates opening up.

Tarzana, CA is named after Edgar Rice Burroughs’ incredibly racist story Tarzan. Fuck him.

I keep hearing that cyanide tastes like almonds. Who is researching this? Who takes cyanide and lives long enough to report his findings from his flavorful palate?

How many Crime of the Century cases will there be this century? The last century had at least a million.

People are going around calling the pandemic “the pandemmy.” Leave it to Americans to take something that killed millions of people worldwide and rename it a moniker that sounds like something cuddly you pet constantly and take to the groomer every other week.