it’s a birthday party, stupid!
Words generated by others (except for the hummer line, that’s mine) that made me laugh:
From Facebook — a brief conversation between Jay and me, marking Bike to Work Day:
Jay: Bike to work day! Drove solo to work and honked loudly at all the great bike-to-work folks. Way to go, guys!
Me: I did my part by taking the long way to work in my stretch Hummer!
Jay: That’s awesome. I’m going to disable my muffler and rev the engine in the parking lot before the drive home. Our office is right next to some wetlands so the endangered egrets should get a kick outta that.
From Undeclared: college freshman Marshall (played by Timm Sharp), experiences some teen angst:
There’s a stain above where I sleep and I can’t tell if it came down from above or flew up from down here.
(perhaps you need context for this one. watch the first 2,5 minutes of this clip.)
The latest cheap trick from Can-rockers Cheap Trick is an album released on an 8-track tape. Bah! My album will be released in the form of incidental grooving on the side of a thrown pot made in the style of ancient Greek potters!
Dion McGregor never made it big as a songwriter, but he gained fame for another talent — his roommate discovered that McGregor spoke at full conversational volume while dreaming:
- “Welcome to Midget City. Uh hmmmm … from the ground up we built it. Yes, from the ground up, ummm hmmmm. Well, we have 173 — a hundred — no — 174, 174 buildings … uh hmmmm. We have our own police system. See that little cop over there? One of our midgets.”
- “Well, I like … it’s 6 feet deep and about 8 feet long. Yes, well … yes … you can drown the neighbor children in it … if they’re noisy you just lure them in. We have a dumbwaiter that comes up from the garden … you just pop them in that dumbwaiter … drag them right up … and pop them in the water … drown them … throw them down into the still. Hah-hah-hah-hah-hah … of, of course, I’m kidding. Heh-heh-heh-heh!”
- “Well certainly you have to bring a — you have to bring a gift; it’s a birthday party, stupid! Well naturally. What do you think? You can’t go to a birthday party without bringing a gift. Honestly, for a child of 3, you can be so dense. Naturally … yes of course … I don’t care … you bring a gift of your own choosing.”
The two released a recording of these dreams and a companion book in 1964. “You may not believe this,” McGregor wrote, “but I’m one of those people who really values his privacy.”
From Pollyanna Cowgirl, a quote from Birds of America by Lorrie Moore:
There were moments bristling with deadness, when she looked out at her life and went, “What?” Or worse, feeling interrupted and tired, “Wha–?” It had taken on the shape of a terrible mistake. She hadn’t been given the proper tools to make a real life with, she decided, that was it. She’d been given a can of gravy and a hairbrush and told, “There you go.” She’d stood there for years, blinking and befuddled, brushing the can with the brush.
Bravo on the Dion McGregor sleep chronicles. Those. Are. AWESOME! I’m going to have to check out that companion book posthaste.
Forgot to mention I loved the dumbwaiter which allows for convenient drowning of neighbor children. I know four neighbor children who need a trip down McGregor’s dumbwaiter.
God that’s a great name for a band, a poem or a novel — McGregor’s Dumbwaiter.
Is the board meeting anytime soon?