What. The. Fuck.

When it comes to managing money, some people have lawyers, some have accountants, and some have financial advisors. Me? I have a money fairy.

The money fairy came to me in 1986. I was at a yard sale in Tennessee, and stumbled upon a plastic egg that was marked at $5. That seemed a little stiff, but when I shook it, something rattled inside (an original Constitution maybe?) so I gave the seller five dollars, and she gladly handed over the egg, then took off at a flat sprint. Later that day, when I finally got the egg open, the money fairy came out. Full Story »

On October 31, 1989, I was teaching my 8th-grade reading class a good and simple lesson.
“In your writing, try to avoid absolutes,” I said. “Don’t use words such as always, never, and impossible. It’s much better to say something is highly improbable.” Then I sat back, smiled, and let the wisdom I had imparted settle upon their impressionable minds.

“But some things are impossible,” said Dan, who hadn’t said anything else all year. I was prepared for this. Full Story »

Now, any normal person could glance at me and see that I was a guy destined to play football. I looked like a football player, talked like one, and ran into things with a violence that suggested a natural linebacker. But I didn’t like football that much. Truth be told, I was just clumsy and always late. Hitting other people was OK, but getting hit by other people hurt. A lot. I was too cerebral for football, so I went to the Babe Ruth Baseball League tryouts for boys aged 13-16, and was drafted by the Elks Lodge, Post 1776. Full Story »

You know how every once in awhile somebody will plow a car into a crowd of people? I think I now understand why.

Every Sunday morning we go to brunch in Denver. There are lots of great spots and we sort of rotate between them. Today we were going to see if we could get into the new Snooze location at Colorado & 7th. We’ve tried a couple of times before, but with no luck. See, the way Sunday brunch works most places in Denver is that things don’t start to pack up until 9:30 or 10:00. If you’re there before then the wait won’t be too bad.

Except for Snooze. Full Story »

by Rich Herschlag

I want to keep the health insurance I have—which is no health insurance. I was dropped when I had a heart attack. My insurance company called it a preexisting condition, and they were right. Heart attacks have been around a very long time. The important thing is that I treasure my insurance company’s free market right to maximize profits at all moral and ethical costs. I would willingly die defending that right. And now, finally, I may get that chance. Full Story »

You know who you are.

And… Full Story »

I graduated from college in August, 1981 and took a job as an English teacher/assistant football coach at a junior high school in Columbia, Tennessee. You may ask why an English teacher would think he could coach football? I had a plan. I was a fairly decent high school football player in the early 70s, First Team, All Mid-state, a three year letterman, a genuine football fanatic. So, using another English major football coach (Joe Paterno) as my inspiration, I boldly took my place along the sidelines. True, as a player I tended to be more cerebral than reactive. Many times my high school coach would stare at me when I asked to deploy my famous symbolic blitz or offered to confuse the opposing quarterback with a barrage of metaphor. Coach Crabtree just didn’t understand. Full Story »

Now don’t get me wrong, I like Obama and think his best days are still to come. But his administration has so far been a strange collection of backtracks, waverings, retreats, retreads, flip-flops, cricket chirps and sellouts, with a few successes here and there.

Friend of mine saw a link somewhere that wondered what it would be like if Team Obama applied its logic on health care to other progressive battles in history. He lost the exact link, which I don’t have either, so I hope my list below isn’t copycatting someone else too closely (email or comment if so, esp. if you have the link in question).

Anyway, here are a few headlines from history, if Obama logic was at work… Full Story »

This explains a lot.

Full Story »

So the Rev. Joseph Lowery is among the many fine individuals newly awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for 2009.

The good reverend has had a long and storied career, with a recent highlight being his poetic excoriation of the Bush administration with President George W. Bush himself sitting behind Lowery as he spoke at Coretta Scott King’s memorial service in 2006.

What will the loquacious Lowery say at his Freedom Medal acceptance speech?

I can imagine it’ll go something like this: Full Story »

Before it was dredged and cleared for flood control, Rock Creek cut a pristine path through the heart of Lewisburg. Well, maybe pristine isn’t the proper adjective for a flowing body of sludge that had a more scatological name than the one the maps gave it, but it was close enough to the Park for us to consider it our personal creek. There were crawdads aplenty down there, and frogs and turtles and large blackish things that might have been rats. Rock Creek was also prone to washing away the occasional carnival from the empty lot on Second Avenue, giving rise to infrequent sightings of gigantic pythons and rogue clowns, but we considered this a small price to pay for being able to fish two blocks from home. Full Story »

Just because….

Obama Drastically Scales Back Goals For America After Visiting Denny’s

“A TOP TEN LIST? Really? Are you fucking kidding me, Cargo? You do not appear to have the qualifications to make such a list, what with your lack of tooth gaps and, well, jeez. I mean, you? A Top Ten list? Gawd. You must be out of mate–OW!”

No.

As the American Dream™ continues to gnaw on every last bit of exposed flesh it can pick from our flailing limbs, it will no doubt, for many of us, also eat those debt-strangled, rapidly depreciating havens of dirty secrets, personal failure and indoor allergens known as parcels of real estate.

It will eventually, after a judicial process, a waiting period and probably more judicial processes, send a henchman or three to, at long last, relieve you of the burdens of homeownership and shelter.

But, come on. People in any line of work are nonetheless good, hard-working people too! They know just as well as anybody that remembers what it’s like to be employed in recent memory that work sucks and is hard, and comic relief can get us through even the toughest of times.

Accordingly, when the Evicto Man comes to summon you to your shiny new life as a spent munition in America’s War on Prosperity, here are the:

TOP TEN ADVISORIES FOR YOUR FRIENDLY FORECLOSURE EVICTION REPRESENTATIVE!

Full Story »

In an interview with the Al Jazeera news network today, legendary talk show host Larry King revealed he’s already writing a sequel to his new autobiography “My Remarkable Journey.” King said the follow-up autobiography, with the working title “If You’re Not Nauseous Yet, You Will Be,” will disclose many juicy anecdotes and surprises he couldn’t fit into his current book.

King, who’s been making the rounds to promote “My Remarkable Journey,” provided Al Jazeera with the following teasers that readers can expect to find in “If You’re Not Nauseous Yet, You Will Be”:

Geraldo Foiled Three-Way with Zahn

In 1999, over dinner at Katz’s Deli, Paula Zahn invited King and Geraldo Rivera back to her apartment for a ménage à trois, but King and Rivera’s bitter disagreement over which of them should pick up the check caused Zahn to rescind her offer and storm out.

“That really would’ve been something,” King said wistfully. “Paula Zahn, you know? Wow. The body on her. Thanks for the cock block, Geraldo.”

King added, “I hope the free pastrami was worth it, you schmuck.” Full Story »

by Rich Herschlag and Bill Staples

We knew LA was a little weird, but we really had no idea. Not even a year out there and sweet old Manuel Ramirez from the Bronx is caught taking human chorionic gonadotropin, a female fertility drug. Soon, Manny will be studying Kabbalah, eating quiche, and opening a Botox clinic in Malibu.

This wasn’t exactly juicing. Let’s call it milking. There are boobs and there are man boobs. Now there are Manny boobs. First there was Octo-mom. Now there’s Octo-Manny. This is not Manny being Manny. This is Manny being Mommy. Just in time for Mother’s Day. And this Mother’s Day, Mom got a hypodermic needle and a syringe.

This is not so much a fifty-game suspension as it is a maternity leave. Full Story »

Our friend Lee Camp is at it again:

Full Story »

by Terry Hargrove

I don’t regret any of the formal education I’ve received over the years. It’s unlikely I ever would have invented an alphabet on my own, and math has come in handy every now and then, especially the part about negative numbers. I use those a lot these days. But there are many lessons that I had to learn on my own, from the world, and that knowledge was gained through great physical and emotional pain. I know that water balloons don’t belong in church. I know that when The Dad told me to go get a switch (after I took the water balloons to church), I shouldn’t have dragged back a tree limb as a way of making a statement. Because The Dad used that tree limb to make his own statement, and at the end of the day, his statement was far more memorable. I know it’s a bad idea to try and make a pet of a goat. Poor, poor Hargoat. Let’s not go there.

The best thing about learning lessons on your own is that the world is constantly trying to teach us stuff, even when we’re slouching in the back of the room trying to sleep. Full Story »

I’m good with “carbon neutral.” No problems with “no greenhouse gases were emitted in the production of this product.” But there’s a small problem with the following image (taken by my wife at a local natural grocer). I’ll give you a hint – the chemical formula for sucrose, aka sugar, is C₁₂H₂₂O₁₁:

Full Story »