Category Archives: absurdity

February 16, 2015 · 1:16 pm

Random act of poetry: “Frozen Prison”

"I'm stuck in Frozen Prison and time keeps draggin' on."

“I’m stuck in Frozen Prison and time keeps draggin’ on.”

Frozen Prison

I hear the sleet a comin’
It’s rollin’ ’round the bend
And I ain’t seen the sunshine
Since, I don’t know when.

I’m stuck in Frozen Prison
And time keeps draggin’ on
But frozen rain keeps a-fallin’.
Oh, when will you be gone?

Why it was just yesterday
The weatherman told me, “Run!
Tomorrow won’t be a good day
And you won’t see the sun.”

But I walked around the town
Because I thought he lied
Now I hear that sleet a-fallin’
and hang my head and cry.

I bet there’s salt trucks rollin’
Up and down streets near and far.
Wrecker drivers drinkin’ coffee
And waitin’ for wrecked cars.

Well, I know it’s now a-comin’
I know it will be a big freeze.
Yet people keep a-movin’
And that’s what frightens me.

I saw the KUB truck rollin’
Easin’ down my street
Lookin’ for those wires
Hangin’ heavy with that sleet.

Well, if they freeze me in this prison
If that freezin’ rain falls fine
I bet it’ll be for days
I’ll have broken power lines.

Far from Frozen Prison
That’s where I want to stay
And I’d let that warmer weather
Blow all that blue away.

But I’m stuck in Frozen Prison
And time keeps draggin’ on.
That frozen rain keeps a-rollin’.
Oh, when will you be gone?

[–with apologies to Johnny Cash. Parody of “Folsom Prison,” which was written and sung by Johnny Cash. Parody by David E. Booker.]

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January 13, 2015 · 7:13 am

cARtOONSDAY: “mIGHTIER”

The "Past Due" ones were often the toughest to slay.

The “Past Due” ones were often the toughest to slay.

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January 2, 2013 · 9:19 am

Would you buy this novel?

Steve’s a potato and Stephanie’s carrot in a food porn novel entitled The Boiling Stew.

One reviewer said: “This novel is full of heat, with p(l)ot and sub-p(l)ot bubbling over at every turn. The range of emotions ignited in this novel will eave your blood boiling, you mouth watering with anticipation, and your mind consuming the meat of the story as the characters get their just deserts. No glass of water is safe! … Two oven mitts up!”

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November 18, 2012 · 8:42 pm

How my mind works

Sometimes when someone asks me a question, my mind goes on a rambling spree. Below is such a spree based upon an issue that came up at work. I place it here not because it is a masterwork of prose, but because sometime stuffing a response full of absurdities is the best I can do. Call it “How my mind works.”

My un-sophisticated wild donkey guess:

They (whoever they are) decide to re-open the contract for bids because they are looking for a version of the bids for separate (but equal) running of our place and the other one.

Then after another round of bids, public presentations (or whatever they are called), and an extension or two to get past the mid-term elections, the decision is made to either award one contract or two based on a giant rock/paper/scissors contest held on the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

The entire event is MC’ed by Martha Stewart, who will show how to make origami and lovely wedding and holiday center pieces out of the loosing contract bids.

Pumpkin guts

The looked inside his collapsed mind and all they found was a hollow laugh a pile of pumpkin seeds.

The losers will immediately file protests and lawsuits, claiming that the winner used disabled ringers who could only form rocks or paper with their arthritic fingers, and that bid information was leaked to retired generals by doctors’ wives and shirtless FBI agents, semaphoring in information about where the disabled ringers should stand to have the best chance of winning.

And there will, of course, be Congressional hearings at which octogenarian nuns with broken wrists will smile beatifically from the backs of the rooms as Senators and Representatives thump their chests and try to impress the doctors’ wives with their persiflage if not their perspicacity. All the while retired painters enhance the Congressional dome with a nice shade of blood red.

This event, in its entirety, will be carried live on Comedy Central, where the Daily Show will become a never-ending event unto itself, as – Thelma and Louise style – the federal government plunges over the financial cliff and into the abyss of absurdity from which it came.

We will all sit in stunned amazement, then slowly link arms as we rest on the Group W bench, and sing in slow undulation: “You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant / You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant / Walk right in it’s around back / Just a half mile from the railroad track / You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant – excepting Alice.”

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July 22, 2012 · 1:00 am

Workshop weekend: Sunday silliness: “Justice absurd”

Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jul/16/kpd-probes-shooting-of-man-in-underwear/

Knoxville, TN: What do you say to man in his underwear, lying in the street, shot in the back?

Scales of justice

A bit of law and disorder on the streets of our fair cities.

Apparently, that is not as important as what he says or doesn’t say to you or police officers.

On July 16, 2012, one Mr. B. was involved in a shooting incident that left him in the street of Washington Ave., dressed as described above. In need of medical assistance, the 30-year-old male was taken to the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Since Mr. B. has been “less than forthcoming” in helping the police, little else is known at this time.

One can only assume that the childhood exercise of show and tell has taken on an adult spin: show more and tell less.

Butt not to be outdone or maybe undone is a better choice of words here, a man in the West Tennessee town of Dyersburg, TN, complained to police when an accused prostitute took $40 from him, but did not “deliver the goods” so to say.

Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/jul/18/man-calls-police-when-prostitute-takes-his-money/?partner=popular

and

http://www.stategazette.com/story/1870129.html

On July 5, 2012, a 62-year-old man contracted for services with a woman half his age at the corner of Bowen Lane and Hornbrook Street. She then runs off with the money. He reports her to the police, who have a talk with her. She claims the money was for drugs – crack cocaine – and that she gave the money to another man, who then ran off, too.

The police cited her for prostitution and cited him for patronizing a prostitute. Both are misdemeanor citations. The second, still at large, unknown man has not yet been sighted.

Court date for Mr. Senior Citizen and Miss Rock and Roll was scheduled for July 20, 2012.

Now, I ask you, was the man in the underwear the mysterious second man? Granted, Knoxville, TN, is about 350 miles from Dyersburg, TN, but between July 5th and 16th this second man could have made it across the state, and might even have been making contact with an as yet undisclosed third man.

After all, in today’s economy, you have to stretch every dollar as far as you can.

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April 24, 2012 · 11:01 pm

Till(er) death do us part

[Editor’s note: I nominate these two guys, posthumously, for Darwin Awards. Or maybe they could share one.]

Source: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/apr/23/men-fatally-shoot-each-other-over-repair-issue/

Men fatally shoot each other over repair issue

Associated Press

Monday, April 23, 2012

MARTIN, Tenn. (AP) — Two West Tennessee man have died in an argument over a garden tiller at a repair shop.

WCMT radio in Martin reported the death over the weekend of 68-year-old Oren Willis.

Weakley County Sheriff’s deputies said Roy McAlpin and Willis, who was one his customers, shot each other Friday.

McAlpin was pronounced dead at his shop near Palmersville. Willis was taken to Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, where he died on Saturday.

Investigators said the men argued after Willis didn’t return to pick up his repaired tiller and McAlpin sold it to someone else.

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March 31, 2012 · 5:31 pm

Brush with success

Brush with success

Corner in a corner of his mind

He painted himself in a corner in a corner of his mind. His first brush with “success.”

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March 25, 2012 · 2:54 pm

Plucked from the breadlines: Food Porn found near your toaster

News Flash!

Beware of this food porn creeping into your local food store. Spotted today was FlatJacks, an innocent looking addition to your diet, promising to make life easier and in two flavors: Original and “BarBQ.”

All you need is a toaster and about 5 minutes of your time, and all your fowl desires will be met!

Chicken from a toaster

Chicken from a toaster! What next? Will pigs fly?

When asked, the chief of police said: “FlatJacks is not to be trusted. He will lay your waist, and leave you with nothing to crow about. We have one of top detectives on this and he will get to the bottom of it, and then we will lay out the facts and seek prosecution of those trafficking in this chicken s&*^t operation.”

Psychiatrists are warning that what FlatJacks has to offer could be habit forming. Said one: “It’s almost magical, what FlatJacks is promising. ‘Chicken from your toaster!’ Who ever heard of such a thing? Pure fantasy! It would be as if I said if I had enough feather dusters, I could fly.”

Even one Republican Presidential candidate has weighed in, saying: “FlatJacks is free market capitalism at its finest. We politicians used to promise a chicken in every pot. We can now promise one in every toaster! That’s progress.”

Asked if he had tried one, the politician coughed and clucked as if to clear his throat and then referred the question to his aid.

When asked about FlatJacks, the Democratic candidate said he would form a commission to study the matter, and take that commission’s conclusions under advisement.

One local preacher took no time in condemning “this abomination to the very soul of Christianity.” Wiping away sweat as he spoke outside on the church grounds where an outdoor dinner and preaching was taking place.

He continued: “Young folks today do not know the true meaning of dinner on the grounds. In my day, the men dressed in their best Sunday clothes and women wore skirts and dresses, and often wore bonnets or hats, and they brought their best homemade fried chicken. It was a little friendly competition to see who had the best. Now, well now, look around here.” He waved his arm toward his brood. “They come in summer shorts – men and women – I say, and the women, well some of them wear the scantiest of things, and bring KFC chicken, and don’t even bother to take it out of the bucket. Now, now they will be bringing these FlatJack things and demanding we have toasters outside and long extension cords, and rows and rows of toasters. This will become one big stick it and click it dinner. Stick it in the toaster and click the lever down. Stick it and click it. This is Satan’s handiwork, I tell you. Satan’s handiwork.” In the distance a roster crowed for a second time and the preacher broke down and wept.

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March 5, 2012 · 8:08 pm

Weird in an endearing sort of way

I have a friend who is tentatively planning to get married in March or April of 2013. Her boyfriend is an outdoorsman sort of fellow. They are considering New Orleans as a possible honeymoon destination, and I suggested that she and her intended take a raft down the Tennessee River near where we live to the Ohio River, the Ohio to the Mississippi River at Cairo, IL, and the Mississippi River to New Orleans. I suggested she could even mount her telescope to the raft and chart the stars as they go floating down the rivers.

She said she was not going rafting, not now, not ever, and not for her tentative honeymoon.

I said I was only trying to help them save on gas or air fare to The Big Easy and give them a chance to bond as they lived off the fish they caught in the rivers or the animals he shot on the land.

She said I was weird, but in an endearing way.

What I haven’t figured out is a river plan to get them to their other choice for a honeymoon: The Big Apple. Seems appropriate to send a newlywed couple to a city nicknamed after the fruit that tripped up Adam and Eve.

Some ideas are simply ahead of their time.

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January 29, 2012 · 10:38 pm

The blathering idiot has questions

Door is a jar

How can a door be a jar?

Just the other day, the blathering idiot had some time to kill, though he wasn’t sure it was alive to begin with, and while pondering the philosophical depths of life, came across questions for which he could not find answers. Below are a few of them.

How can a door be ajar?

How come left behind means you’ve lost it, but right behind means it is still with you?

How come you can be told to sit down and shut up, but never sit up and shut down?

How come you can give a nod, but never take one?

How come when you are taking a bow, you are giving it to somebody else?

How come a house warming doesn’t involve starting a fire?

How come you can give somebody the shirt off your back, but you have to beat the pants off him?

How come politicians run for office, but stand for re-election?

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