I stand in awe before me

Remember August 11th, 2008? That was the morning I published a rant about the World's Largest Watering Can, the pride of Utica, New York. I gave that piece the title “best idea I've ever had.” And I truly believe it is. I've never written anything better, and I don't expect I ever will. After writing something so heartbreakingly wonderful, I'm frankly amazed that I still have to do laundry or eat or even breathe for myself. A committee should be formed to ensure that I am never again troubled by such minutiae. It's the least a grateful mankind can do.

You do all the bailing; I get all the hay.

Somebody call Paulson and Bernanke. Tell them I got deal I want to make: I grab a flight to Vegas and spend an indeterminate period of time gambling, drugging, drinking, fighting, and whoring. When I finally crash, they step in to cover my debts plus pay me back all the dough I pissed away. They see to it that everybody but me deals with the consequences of any STDs, paternity suits, felony charges and brain or liver damage I may suffer as a result of my crazed and self-indulgent spree. But if I win any money, I keep it.

Author! Author!

So there goes David Foster Wallace, joining Thomas M. Disch, Stefan Zweig, Hunter S. Thompson, H. Beam Piper, Hart Crane, Virginia Woolf... too many to mention. All those writers who decided to, um, become their own sternest editors. Language is the great differentiator, the development that separates humans from rough beasts. It lets us know stuff we never thought of for ourselves. It lets us jump backwards and forwards in time. And it may allow its best practitioners to exhaust life's possibilities long before their bodies are used up. Want a long life? Do like me: Write short. Write shallow.

Just what are vagabond shoes, anyway?

You know what's a stupid song? That “New York, New York.” The opening “flink-flink-flinky-dink” riff is infuriating. You get drunks requesting it just to prove they can remember the name of a song, which is cheating, because it's also the name of a city. Then there's the blatant falsehood at the core of the silly thing. “If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere.” They obviously don't mean bagels-- you can't get a decent one west of Cleveland. Plus, a lot of people make it in New York who couldn't last a day in Houston.

Low humor from high ground

It's been just short of three years since we all trickled back. My buddy Gallivan had a guy ask him, “Did you evacuate?” Gallivan said, “No. I think I may have something on my shoe.” But seriously, the Great New Orleanian Diaspora of 2008 is coming along quite nicely. We're hundreds of miles away from home after a panicky period of planning and packing, and a grueling bumper-to-bumper drive. So it's a lot like Labor Day weekend all across America. Better safe than sorry, I guess. But you know guys; we hate to be accused of premature evacuation.