September 19, 2012
The pleasant loan officer, after a full and satisfying day of denying loans, glided effortlessly through the water, completing his usual 20 laps in what must have been record time. He climbed from the pool, admiring his own torso with a discreet smile. Displaying a twinkle in his eye and a broad, friendly grin, he accepted the offered towel from the lackey.
“Thanks, Jimmy, you’re a prince,” he said to the bowing lackey. “You can go ahead and get back to roasting in the fires of Hell now.”
The lackey sank with a scream into the pit.
Sprouting tail and horns, the pleasant loan officer trotted off to bed, whistling his favorite Gounod tune.
September 17, 2012
Mother Nature demonstrates a pleasant arrangement of light and shadow.
September 16, 2012
Loon: They brought me another Frenchman for this week’s 3 question interview. What’s up with that? Anyway, here goes. So, Mister … Charles of France, is it? Ha, I kid. But, so, anyway, I’ve heard you were some sort of general or something. Did you ever actually use a typewriter yourself?
De Gaulle’s Ghost: No.
Loon: Not even once when your secretary was getting drunk at the aerodrome or some such thing?
De Gaulle’s Ghost: No.
Loon: I find that hard to believe. Come on. You had to have pecked out some urgent message at least once. Right?
De Gaulle’s Ghost: No.
Loon: Well, that’s all for today. Come back next week when I hope they bring me somebody who at least knew how to use a typewriter.
September 15, 2012
Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I could see them hitting.
No, not baseball. Golf. Golf, I tell you.
September 14, 2012
Jimmy held Stan and Ollie and crowds of extras and technicians spellbound as he read aloud and acted out the antics of Scraps, The Patchwork Girl, and the Gnome King and all everybody else in the Oz book, The Gnome King of Oz. So taken was the mob that Jimmy eventually read the entire series aloud to universal acclaim.
September 13, 2012
James would often entertain Stan and Ollie by:
a. ingesting haggis through his nose.
b. reading Oz books aloud to them.
c. rollerskating on one leg with his owl perched on top of his head.
d. spinning like a top while shrieking.
e. osmosis.
September 12, 2012
The question put to the loon was: “Are you prepared to create your little 4 inch by 5 inch painting of an orange?”
The answer from the loon was: “My Cub Scout knife what I got in 1952 says I should do it, so I’d best have at it if I know what’s good for me.”
The follow up question was: “Do you know what’s good for you?”
The follow up answer was: “No, but my Cub Scout knife what I got in 1952 does.”
September 10, 2012
The snorting legume rode into town, pulled up in front of the saloon, swung down from the saddle, hitched its pony, Old Sour Eyes, to the rail, and clomped through the swinging doors into the bar. All activity ceased. Customers froze in place, staring at the snorting legume. The player piano player stopped playing the player piano. The bartender broke the tension by wiping the bar with his filthy rag and calling out from under his handlebar mustache, “What’ll it be, pod?”
“Hmphh,” snorted the snorting legume, signaling the onset of the ensuing brawl.
The brawl ensued, what with tables overturning, fists flying, bodies arcing over the bar and crashing into various mirrors and destroying them. Bottles were broken over heads. Oddly enough, hats remained firmly in place. Ladies of the evening stood on the stairs conking nearby pates with frying pans. When all lay unconscious in a tumble of twisted limbs with nary a spur jangling, the snorting legume made its way to the bar, swept aside remnants of broken bottles, and eyed the cowering bartender, causing said bartender to produce an in tact flagon of rotgut and place it with trembling hand in front of the snorting legume.
“Hmphh,” snorted the snorting legume, and it downed the rotgut, exited the saloon, untied Old Sour Eyes, took smoothly to the saddle, and rode off out of town, whistling its soft snorting song.
