Magic Beans

Email from McNeil. The above photo was attached, depicting McNeil and myself in an olden time of long ago. McNeil writes, "Remember that day I sold you those magic beans? You were so relieved you could finally get socks as white as mine."

Artist's Statement

Hey! Tomorrow is the big gallery show opening in Alhambra, California, so check it out! I think I forgot to mention it's ADVENTURE TIME and FIONNA AND CAKE themed, featuring works by more than 50 artists associated with those shows. My piece is called “100 Adventure Time Characters from Memory, Made with Covid.” I call it that because of all the Covid I had when I drew it with magic markers in a sketch pad that Dr. Theresa bought to cheer me up. Now, I was afraid maybe I had shortchanged the lucky buyer, if any, because, despite the ambitious title I had prematurely scrawled on the paper, I didn’t count the characters as I was drawing them, and then, after I had drawn them, I found them impossible to count. Until! Some weeks later, I struck upon the notion of identifying them all by name. Somehow, and I know how, but I’m too tired to tell you, a list of names was a much easier thing for me to count. So I’m happy to reveal that I overachieved, at least quantitatively: there are 106 Adventure Time characters in my drawing. A couple of them were driving me nuts because I couldn’t figure out, once I had recovered from my feverish agitation and actually examined what I had drawn for the first time, who the hell they were supposed to be. I worried maybe I had made some of them up in a delirium. But I thought about it all night and decided that one was a Gumball Guardian (I had forgotten they have noses) and one was the King of Ooo (I had forgotten a couple of his identifying marks, plus I had him in Princess Bubblegum’s crown, which, in my defense, he did wear for a while). Adam said I should sponsor a contest and see if anyone could guess them all. But who was a guy who was good at guessing? Oedipus? Well, he was until he wasn’t. Anyway, not even Oedipus at the height of his guessing powers could have figured some of my drawings out (Pen, for example, thought Chips and Ice Cream were Hot Dog Knights), so I’m going to tell you who I drew, in (once you see the "art") not a really helpful order: Cinnamon Bun, Hunson Abadeer, The Bear Who Liked Finn, Starchy, Tree Trunks’s Alien Husband, Little Dude, One of the Villagers from “The Visitor,” Shoko, Mr. Cupcake, Billy, Abracadaniel, Party Pat, The Comet, The Squirrel from “Up a Tree,” The Cosmic Owl, Bartram, Gridface Princess, Martin, Ice King, Y5, Banana Guard, Patience St. Pym, Flame King, The White Lion Who Became the Vampire King, Abraham Lincoln, Jermaine, Chips, Ice Cream, Lemongrab, Lady Rainicorn, Gumball Guardian, Shelby and his little brother Kent, Big Destiny, Marshmallow Kid, Blank-Eyed Girl, Peppermint Butler, Breezy, Scorcher, Simon, Original Gunter, Ice Thing, Ricardio, Mannish Man, Wildberry Princess, The Squirrel Who Hates Jake, Glob, Grod, Grob (we can assume that Gob is behind them, but I can’t in good conscience count that) Fionna, Mr. Pig, Shermy, Huntress Wizard, Snail, Sleeping Old Man (Prismo’s Physical Form), Tiffany, Princess Cookie, Finn, Joshua, Choose Goose, Toast Princess, Cherry Cream Soda, Flambeau, The Empress, Slime Princess, The Crabbit, Farmworld Finn, Betty, Toronto, Wooby Woo, Dream Warrior, Lumpy Space Princess, Lumpy Space Prince, Tree Trunks, Uncle Gumbald, An Ant, Crunchy, Glass Boy, Magic Man, Leaf Man, Banana Man, King of Ooo, TV, Wyatt, Bubble, BMO, Skeleton (from the Ble offices? Or maybe that’s a guy from the Deadworlds), Jake, Gunter (classic penguin version), Embryo Princess, Rattleballs, Mr. Fox, The Music Hole, Lemonhope, Prismo, Hot Dog Princess, Dream Bird Woman, Owl from “Up a Tree,” Loafy, James Baxter the Horse, Gingerbread Muto, Minerva, Bufo, Morty Rogers, Marceline, Princess Bubblegum. In retrospect, perhaps my biggest mistake was thinking until very recently (today!) that The Empress had one eye in the middle of her forehead like a Cyclops (though I knew better at one point). I could lie and tell you I was trying to draw Blaine from “Wizard City,” but I would only be hurting myself.

Memory Tricks

So, a little while ago, I was at Square Books and they had different books by Susan Minot stacked everywhere. I asked Richard, who owns the joint, what gives! Richard says to me, he says, Susan Minot is coming to town. Now, I did a little research, which I'm generally against, and this must have happened way back in October, though my guess would have been sooner, like March. Bear in mind for the remainder of the "post" how bad my memory is. Anyway, I picked up a book of Minot's called MONKEYS, a title I have always liked. There used to be a lot more monkey content on the "blog." What happened? When did monkeys lose their magic? Answer: they didn't. Maybe it was you! What was I saying? Oh! So I had been meaning to read a Susan Minot book for about 40 years. The way I remembered it... and I texted Tom Franklin to make sure... to make sure he was there, first of all. I was wondering if his presence in my memory was hallucinatory, as I recalled him playing an advisory role much like Elvis does in the film TRUE ROMANCE. Anyway! It was some time in the 1980s, and Tom Franklin and I were looking at Susan Minot's author photo in a magazine. Newspaper? Magazine. And we - aspiring writers at the time, to put it mildly - got in our heads that her book looked interesting and she looked nice and we could very probably be best friends with her if we drove several hours to wherever the article said she was reading. Jackson? New Orleans? I'm going to guess Jackson, Mississippi, because New Orleans would have been too easy, as I picture us standing in downtown Mobile at the time. Jackson would have been more of a quest. Jackson, Mississippi! The mere name sparks the imagination. No it doesn't. The end of the story is that we didn't go. And forty years later, here I am, finally reading a Susan Minot book. And I'm only on page 60, and there have already been, I would say, 10-14 owls in it. That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? It sure sounds like Susan Minot must have beaten the previous owl record, a tie between Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather. But not so fast! Hold it right there, chum! So, there is an "owl room" in this book. And some kids go in there and play an owl game of their own creation, which counts as one owl. A couple of pages later, there is a cake of brown soap shaped as an owl. That's two. Here's where it gets complicated! Are you getting excited? So, in this "owl room" are various kinds of owls. Some are described as being singular: "a hollow brass owl," for example. Other owls are multiple: "two china owls with flowers" or... and here's where you have to pay attention... "owl engravings." But how many owl engravings? And how many owls are represented in each owl engraving? Nobody knows! Possibly, not even Susan Minot herself knows! In any case, the owl room contains, at a bare mininum, eight owls. Oh boy, this is just the kind of "post" I love! However! By my usual method of counting "how many owls there are in a book," I would say there are 1. The owl figures in the owl room. 2. The owl game. 3. The soap shaped like an owl. That brings Susan Minot in at three owls! Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather remain undefeated! Wow, I'm just thinking of all the controversy this "post" is going to generate among people who enjoy counting owls as much as I do!

He's Back!

Going to cut-and-paste an email I sent to McNeil and say it's a "blog" "post." Sometimes that's the way I do it. Other times I take an email FROM McNeil and cut-and-paste it and call it a "blog" "post." That's just the kind of variety you've come to expect from the "blog." Now for that email: "Was reading in the New York Times about how Trump wants to go to Fort Knox and make sure the gold is still there, ha ha! And the article traces the conspiracy back to this guy you used to email me about, Peter Beter, the man with the hilarious name. I think he’s the one who claimed Jimmy Carter had been replaced by a robot. Good to see his work hasn’t been forgotten." End of email. In conclusion, if you "click" on the Peter Beter "link" above, you will see that McNeil was talking about him ten years ago! McNeil was ahead of the times, just like when he discovered that gin and raisins cure arthritis. Please consult your physician before going on a diet of gin and raisins.

Narrator Loves to Narrate

I don't care but anyway I have a lot of time on my hands lately. So, you know, I was talking about three authors who are concerned with owls hanging out in daytime, and all the problems that could cause for their metaphorical owls. It's almost like a clickbait headline: "Three Times Owls Got Totally Confused in Daylight!" So yesterday I was reading THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES, and the narrator - boy, does this guy love to narrate! - refers to the "complex irrationalism that haunts our era like a night bird lost in the dawn." Now! Is that night bird an owl? Hell if I know. What, can I read Robert Musil's mind? I can't even read his book! Ha ha, just kidding, Robert Musil, you're all right. But let's think of JULIUS CAESAR by none other than Mr. William Shakespeare and how his own "bird of night" is standing there in broad daylight, "hooting and shrieking"... like what? Like a damn owl, I say! Shakespeare's owl, unlike these other owls, if it is an owl, knows what it's doing. It's there to deliver a message. It's an omen! Anyway, I've confused myself.

A Very Long Dash

So Terence asks Rachel "didn't you wander about the hotel like an owl in the sun?"... only Virginia Woolf places a long dash - six times the length of an ordinary dash! - between the word "sun" and the question mark. I couldn't figure out how to replicate it and I'm so very tired. I mention all this because THE VOYAGE OUT has had four owls in it so far, a number of owls in a single work of fiction matched on the "blog" only by Willa Cather, I believe, though I have done zero research in the interest of confirming this... and, should you care to "click" on this "link," you will find that one of Cather's owls has a problem with the sunlight as well... a problem, it occurs to me, shared by the owl of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and probably some other owls, but I don't care, and neither do you. Why are we here?

Loose Gelatin

There was another owl in THE VOYAGE OUT but I chose not to alert you. However! A third owl gave me cause for comment. Upon learning the name of her beloved, the character Rachel says, "Terence - that's like the cry of an owl." Hmm! Is it? I don't mean to question Virginia Woolf's owl knowledge. But do owls say "Terence"? I am not convinced. One recalls the novel THE GO-BETWEEN, and a similar reflection therein upon the name Hugh, which makes a lot more sense. But I'm known to be a simpleton! Before THE VOYAGE OUT's third owl, there is a significant moment of jellyfish, causing me to recall an important jellyfish anecdote in BUDDENBROOKS, whereupon I pondered, should I do a "blog"trospective about Books with Jellyfish in Them? Ha ha, no, that would be insane. But MOBY-DICK must have some jellyfish in it, right? I've read it twice, but I wasn't looking for jellyfish either time. Then I remembered: Oh! I have a "blog"trospective about gelatin! And I use the term "gelatin" very loosely. But is it loose enough to include jellyfish? Yes. I say it is. If I recall correctly, SpongeBob sometimes gets jelly from jellyfish in much the same way that we, in our non-cartoon world, get milk from cows.

Until All the People Should Awake

"... but here in the darkness an owl flitted from tree to tree, and when the breeze lifted the branches the moon flashed as if it were a torch. Until all the people should awake again the houseless animals were abroad, the tigers and the stags, and the elephants coming down in the darkness to drink at pools." Nice! That's Virginia Woolf in THE VOYAGE OUT, a good book to read while you're lying in bed. I've just quoted, for example, something nearing the end of a long passage, several pages in length, that describes people going to sleep. Some of it reminds me of a passage by James Joyce, though, as I recall, Virginia Woolf had some awfully mean things to say about him. He must have touched a nerve! Anyway! I switched THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES (not before it presented me with a second owl sighting! "He opened his eyes again and stared briefly like an owl across the room, without really looking at anything") for THE VOYAGE OUT. I'm reading the former in the bright sunshiny daylight now, when and if there is any. THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES contains a lot of thick, chewy philosophy, hard to manage as one toddles off to dreamland.

Imagine There's No Book

Did you know Yoko Ono was a "night owl"? I did! All thanks to the latest entry in the Million Dollar Book Club, YOKO by David Sheff. And I found out early, on page xxxi. "Wait!" you're going to say. "Those are letters, not numbers!" Very astute. But what if I told you they were both? Roman numerals are the publisher's way of telling you that you haven't really started the book, but you have to read this part anyway, or they'll come to your house and grab the copy out of your hands. You know why I mention the night owl... it's because, as something you could almost think of as an Ono-esque art experience (no you couldn't!), I have dedicated my entire life to noticing how many owls are in books. Lots of owls! In lots of books.

Books Don't Help

I got out my TRAVELS OF WILLIAM BARTRAM, which maybe I’ve never opened before, to do some research on swamps for an unpublished novel, which will remain unpublished if I know my unpublished novels, and if I don’t, nobody does. I was reminded by a sticker on the back that I bought TRAVELS OF WILLIAM BARTRAM at A Cappella Books in Atlanta during the time I was working on my second book, which, in its initial stages, was supposed to be a novel called THE ALABAMIAD. See, old William Bartram had tromped around Mobile in the 18th century, so I thought it might be helpful, but it wasn’t. Anyway, I opened it up yesterday and I was thumbing through it and I thought, boy, old William Bartram surely knows about every kind of squirrel and every kind of frog. I wonder if he knows about owls! The answer turned out to be yes. He knows about the great white owl, and the great horned owl, and the great horned white owl, which was the order in which he mentioned them, and I could imagine Cliff Clavin saying it on CHEERS: “You see, Sammy, you’ve got your great white owl, and your great horned owl, and then you’ve got your great horned white owl.” And then Carla would push him off his stool. Best of all, Bartram mentions “the whooting owl,” which is, I believe, our first sighting of that variation upon the hoot-owl. Whooting! The whooting owl! I love you, whooting owl! Hey! Do you know what happened after I had written all of the above? I picked up an Elmore Leonard novel I’ve been reading and one character immediately asked a cowboy, "What do you call it when you're on the dodge? Riding the owl hoot trail?" Now, you’ll certainly recall my puzzlement over the owl-hoot versus the hoot-owl, and, of course, “the hoot-owl trail,” which I seem to have first encountered in TRUE GRIT. By the way, the cowboy in question is impressed by his friend's knowledge of the term "owl hoot trail," which he apparently considers the correct rendering. I close fondly as always by saying go to hell.

Famous Cats of Mississippi

I am sure you will recall 2013 as the year that Pendleton Ward made our cat Big Boy (formerly known as Sad Face) famous in Japan. ("Click" here to assess the accuracy of my dubious statement. Big Boy is still doing fine, by the way. Thanks for asking!) Well, great news! We have a new feral kitten. Ace Atkins found her under City Grocery Bar. And thanks to my award-ineligible interview series ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, part 5 of which is AVAILABLE NOW, you can see a photo of that kitten, who has been named Teeny Houdini for reasons that I plan to put into one of a series of unpublished novels. If you "click" here you can get a free peek at Teeny Houdini, but the interview is behind a paywall, so you will have to pay good money (well spent!) to find out more about how Ace rescued her from under City Grocery. (I don't know if that's true. I think you've already learned everything. But! If you don't subscribe, how will you know about all of Ace's adventures on the set of the Pauly Shore movie JURY DUTY?) Ace took the kitten in to get her shots and so on, and when Dr. Theresa picked her up, the team behind the counter told her, as soon as they stopped quaking in mortal fear, "This cat will never be a sweet cat you can play with. She's a wild animal! This is a wild animal you're dealing with. You're in for a terrible surprise. I don't think you understand. This is a wild animal. Wild animal!" And then the guy carried her out to the car in the carrier, holding it way in front of himself like it had that thing in it that ate the cow (?) at the beginning of JURASSIC PARK. Well, Teeny Houdini is already as sweet as pie, so go to hell.

Endnote Maniac

I didn't expect an owl in Kafka's diaries. I just didn't think of him as a nature guy, if you know what I mean, because I don't know what I mean, but luckily no one cares, and neither do I. Anyhow! There she was, suddenly, a teacher Kafka meets, "owlish young fresh face, full of lively tense features." Then, to my shock, the book was over a couple of pages later, but I should have known, because translator Ross Benjamin never met a sentence he didn't want to augment with an endnote. Did every endnote, however, serve an illuminating purpose? I read a lot of them, and I have to say no. But I like his energy!

Nine Years in the Making

Hey look everybody, I haven't bothered you too much about ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, the exciting multi-part interview I did with Ace Atkins about his work on the Pauly Shore magnum opus JURY DUTY, have I? Tell me the truth! But! Back in 2016, I did tease you with a few details of the time Ace was Abe Vigoda's hand double during that production. Well, I'm happy (?) to announce that Episode 4 of ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD is now available ("click" here), and I was finally able to dig up even more details of the "Abe Vigoda incident," a phrase I just now decided to put quotation marks around. If you think about it, a mere shift from B to C, already so close together in the alphabet, turns Abe into Ace. Think about it! You can find every episode of ACE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD as it becomes available on my convenient "linktree" thingamabob.

Fun with Kafka

Yesterday, as I texted Megan Abbott, I kept singing a phrase from Kafka's diaries in a Bob Dylan voice. It really works! Try it at home. "I keep remembering her ugly huge solemn Renaissance ostrich feather hats from the past"... I know it seems complicated! But just dive right in. Here are some helpful hints as you endeavor to sing the preceding phrase from Kafka's diaries over and over in a Bob Dylan voice: 1. Try to cram "I keep remembering her" into the upbeat. After that, it's a strictly normal rock-and-roll chugging rhythm all the way, as long as you 2. sing "Renaissance" in a triplet configuration. 3. Don't try to sing the phrase to the tune of "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat," though that would be the expected impulse, nothing to be ashamed of. It doesn't quite fit, though. Just make up your own Bob Dylan melody. It's easy! Bob Dylan does it all the time! Okay, now you are ready to have the time of your life singing "I keep remembering her ugly huge solemn Renaissance ostrich feather hats from the past" from Kafka's diary entry of February 13, 1914, in your best Bob Dylan voice. The most important thing is to have fun!

Just Think

This is not what I came here to tell you, but THE MAN WITHOUT QUALITIES has owls in it: "But just think of those summer nights! The owls whimpering, the night moaning, and when it all got too spooky we both got into my bed so we could go on talking." But no, I came here to say that I watched a Tim Holt western called THUNDERING HOOFS, and... well, first let me say something about these Tim Holt westerns. They're just great. The average runtime is about 65 minutes, I guess, and they all have the same plot. There's some kind of corrupt businessman or official who is messing around with the welfare of goodhearted townspeople, and here comes a stranger, Tim Holt, riding in to save the day. At some point, though, the bad guys twist it around so it looks like Tim Holt is in charge of their rotten scheme! So he gets locked up or ostracized or what-have-you, and things look pretty bleak for a minute, but it's okay, because he figures out how to expose the jerks and be celebrated as the hero he truly is. It's an incredibly comforting formula, and reminds me of some of Julia Pott's observations about the basic template of romantic comedy, but I put all of her thoughts on the subject into one of my unpublished novels, so I won't repeat them, not because I think anything will ever happen with any of my unpublished novels, but just because it seems exhausting to type it all up again. Or even to think about it! The main point is that I mused wisely to myself, regarding THUNDERING HOOFS, "'Hoofs' looks very wrong to me. I always thought it was 'hooves!'" So then I opened up Kafka's diaries, and in the next passage I read, the translator Ross Benjamin used "hoofs"!!!! So, boy, that was something. So I was like, I guess Tim Holt and Ross Benjamin know what the hell they're talking about, I'll leave this matter in their capable hoofs. BUT THEN! I told McNeil all about it, because he had just emailed me to relate his own uncanny coincidence. Oh, you'd like to hear about it too? Okay! You twisted my arm. Ouch! So, McNeil happened to idly pick up his novelization of the Dean Martin vehicle WHO'S GOT THE ACTION? and read a couple of pages. Wait! I must add that McNeil scrupulously clarified that the book may have been a novelization OR maybe the movie was based on a novel with, in its original printing, another title, and then they changed the title of the novel to tie it in with the movie. Nobody knows for sure! Because, like me, McNeil no longer cares to look things up. It's presumptuous of me to say that. Maybe he still likes to look things up. Anyway, he picked up the book on April 11 of this year... then, by chance, a few days later, he picked up an old notebook (a very old notebook) and learned that he had recorded a showing of WHO'S GOT THE ACTION? on... are you ready?... April 11, 1983!!!! You can pick your jaw up off the floor now. Anyway, though, the point is that McNeil issued a statement that he had never once in his young life seen "hoofs" used and he found the very thought of it unacceptable. And I was like, to McNeil, "Now that I've discussed this with you, I won't have to 'blog' about it!" Which, as you can see, was a dirty lie.

Per Se

So anyway you know I quit social media because I never stop yammering about it. Quitting social media means that a lot of times I don't know what anyone is doing, not that it's any of my beeswax. Like, I text Megan something about Kafka's diaries, and she texts back that she's behind on her reading because she and Bill and Jimmy are at the movie theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested, watching BLOOD SIMPLE. (To be clear, they're watching BLOOD SIMPLE in the current day, it wasn't on the bill when Oswald was arrested, as it came out many years later.) And I am like, mentally, "!!!" Because I didn't see that coming, "that" being Megan and Bill and Jimmy watching BLOOD SIMPLE in the theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested. Oddly, I was thinking about Lee Harvey Oswald yesterday, before getting that text, because I searched the "blog" to see if I had ever before mentioned Harvey comics, which, to my astonishment, I had not. I kept turning up allusions to Oswald as I searched. I've mentioned several Harvey comics characters here, but not, apparently, the Harvey comics brand per se, before yesterday. Isn't that something? And that reminded me of the time I went to the Dreamworks offices - they own the Harvey characters, or did at the time - and pitched my idea for a show, a show that both embraced and mocked the concept of the "gritty reboot." It had all your favorite Harvey characters, and all your least favorites, every Harvey character I could think of, even such misbegotten creatures as Baby Huey and Sad Sack! Except each and every one of them had been aged up into their 20s (of course, Sad Sack was a soldier and looked fairly haggard; I may have aged him down!) and they were all brooding and sulking and hot and tormented. The hook, which I still think is pretty good, was that Casper starts out the show as a regular guy, but midway through the first season, he's murdered! And that's how he becomes the friendly ghost. Who was I telling about this recently? It must have been Quinn. And I was saying that Richie Rich is in a coma, that's the big reveal at the end of Season 1. Everyone thinks he's running the town as a notorious recluse, but his evil butler Cadbury (not evil in the Harvey comics!) is keeping him incapacitated and... oh, who cares? But Quinn was like, "His spirit could be roaming around like in the movie JUST LIKE HEAVEN!" (I paraphrase. Also, that's a big spoiler for JUST LIKE HEAVEN, sorry. I really am sorry, because it works better if you don't know.) And I was like (responding to Quinn's idea), "No way! That doesn't correspond with my artistic vision!" But now that I've thought of it some more, it's fine. It's a good idea, Quinn! But I guess we wouldn't find out until Season 2. None of it matters, because the meeting was all "Ha ha ha! Wonderful idea! We'll talk soon! You're going to be a big man in this town! You're going to be running this dump one day! We love you! Let's get married! Hooray! Hooray!" and then... nothing. (Hey, that was only eight years ago, maybe they're still thinking about it.) Well, we're getting off the subject, which is that I googled it and found out that Bill and Jimmy and Megan were in Dallas for a festival put on by the Southwest Review. So when I "clicked" on the "web" site of that fine publication, I found an awesome interview that Mary Miller did with hero Lynda Barry! (You can read it, and you should, by "clicking" here.) I didn't know Mary Miller loved Lynda Barry so much! Or it's equally possible that I knew and forgot. But you know what? None of this is why I thought I was obliged to "blog" today. See, I accidentally read a New York Times op-ed that had one of those awful, cloying titles that usually warns me to skip it. But I read it for some reason, and it reminded me that THE GREAT GATSBY has a character in it to whom our narrator Nick refers at one point as "Owl Eyes." So THE GREAT GATSBY has an owl in it. I was like, "So what? My 'blog' readers will never know if I just fail to mention it." But my conscience overwhelmed me! And I knew that even though I read THE GREAT GATSBY many, many, many, many, many years ago, long before I cared (and eventually stopped caring) that every book has an owl in it, I was bound by honor to tell you that THE GREAT GATSBY has an owl in it. My life is a prison I've built for myself!

Art

When Quinn visited, we spent some hours in a coffee shop doodling aimlessly as I breathed in the Covid germs that would soon lay low my household. Anyway, whilst in the midst of doodling in the tragic manner thusly described, I produced this great work of art (above) - art! it thrives in times of adversity (Dr. Theresa and Lee Durkee and I debated this point while eating sushi the other night; Dr. Theresa and Lee were on the side of art, while I held a contrary view regarding its usefulness)! -, which, as you can see (go back and find the subject of this sentence if you can), Quinn wisely framed upon her return to Los Angeles for the edification (the art was) of her cat Gino. It represents Casper and his cousin (?) Spooky, who, if memory serves, and it probably doesn't, was branded by Harvey comics (the latter was) as "the tuff li'l ghost," but I'm not going to look it up because I don't care about looking things up anymore, or about anything else either. Except! Speaking of my lucrative new career in the visual arts, remember how I told you about an art show I'm going to be in and then I listed all the other people who have previously appeared on the "blog" who will also be in the art show, but I wasn't sure I had caught them all? Well, the other day I looked again, and Ako Castuera is right at the top of the list! How could I have missed her? How could have I missed her when she was right there at the top of the list where she belongs?

Breakthrough for an Animal

You know three things about me. 1. I'm sore all over from yesterday's garbage misadventure. 2. I get all my ideas from the obituaries. 3. I like to alert you whenever the New York Times mentions the TV show GREEN ACRES, mostly because they tend to get everything about it wrong. Number 1 came to mind just because I am sore all over, but numbers 2 and 3 were combined today in a way I think you will find most stimulating, yes, most stimulating indeed. So an underground cartoonist named John Peck passed away, and he was quoted on GREEN ACRES in his very own New York Times obituary. From the brief snippet, it is very clear that he understood GREEN ACRES completely, unlike the New York Times, although by quoting him on the subject - and in the limited space of an obituary, of all places! - they nudge themselves into acceptable territory. Mr. Peck, in a 1987 interview (a time when watching TV was considered a hobby for dolts... why, I recall when I was first employed by TBS in 1993, I would go to parties, and people would ask what I did, and I would tell them, and they would say - gleaming like a glazed ham with angelic pride! - "We don't even OWN a TV!" like I was supposed to faint or, maybe, lift them onto my shoulders and carry them around from room to room, blowing a trumpet)... what was I saying? Oh! So, Mr. Peck contrasted that attitude with the "high esteem" in which the GREEN ACRES character Arnold the Pig was held, because watching TV (an activity for which Arnold was famous), while looked down upon in humans, was "a breakthrough for an animal." The New York Times obituary department categorizes his statement as "dry."

The Garbage Story

Well, it's Thursday, the day I take the garbage to the end of the driveway to be picked up, as I'm sure Elon Musk and his doe-eyed teen protégé Big Balls know from examining my personal records. It's no secret anymore! Anyhow, I could barely tilt the garbage can back on its wheels to roll it down. It was like Dr. Theresa had thrown away a burlap sack filled with bowling balls without my knowledge! And then, once I got the garbage can rolling, it was all I could do to hold it back. It was so damn heavy that it was pulling me down the steep driveway beyond - and I'm sure this is no exaggeration - the speed of sound! I was like the Chuck Yeager of garbage cans. So, anyway, I'm sure you'll recall when the tree fell on our house. It turns out that the tree also made a hole in the garbage can lid, so that, in addition to garbage, the can was filled with rainwater, the heaviest substance known to science. I wrote about it in my diary, of course. And I was like, "I can't wait to tell Ace about it on our daily walk around the neighborhood!" But then I was like, "That's not enough! The people need to know my story!" I just wish my grandparents could be alive to know that a kid named Big Balls is helping run the government. They'd be so excited! After washing my mouth out with soap. Speaking of which, McNeil wrote to say that he saw a commercial where a guy sprays deodorant down the back of his pants. Once again, I thought of my grandparents and how much they'd be vomiting all the time and punching holes in walls with their bloody fists if only they could see us now. And they weren't even violent or especially emotional people. They had regular emotions! Still, I doubt George Washington himself would find it any harder to grasp our fascinating modern times when it's so exciting to be alive and guessing what's next. Anyway, I really pulled a lot of muscles and hurt myself in various ways today with the garbage can. Pity me!

Hear Me Mispronounce Things

You know, one podcast wasn't good enough for the likes of me, so I was on yet another podcast. I'm the Alexander the Great of podcasts, I won't stop until there are none left to feel my wrath. Now, I won't listen to them myself. Look! It's not because of the kind and gifted Jen Johans, who hosted the latest one. It's just that the things pouring out of my mouth are so embarrassing. I don't remember what I said on the podcast, except for when I mispronounced the title of the movie VOLVER. You'll have fun hearing me do that! As much fun as I did mispronouncing it! (I don't know how to have fun.)