MLA, Lunch Money, Liberals, Larceny

My professional association, largely consisting of English professors and those who would be English professors, is meeting here in Chicago this weekend. I attended yesterday and found myself looking around and thinking that these were the people who had their lunch money taken from them. Like me, they are largely liberal or lefties. But as I looked at them some more I decided that I wanted to take their lunch money, too.

Her Heart Will Go On

Celine Dion is ending her five-year run at Caesar's Palace. She has obviously reached the point of diminishing "go ons."

Jesus and His Brother, Satan

Mike Huckabee has (somewhat disingenuously, one suspects) suggested that Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers. While the idea seems only perhaps a shade more original than the idea that Jesus was sired by a god and born of a virgin, it was clearly an attempt to discredit Mitt Romney with Republican Christian evangelicals.

I think Jesus and his brother Satan laugh when they hear the word Republican. And they weep when they hear the word Democrat. On the other hand, there is no reason to believe that Jesus and his brother Satan even care about what an atheist like me thinks.

Or his sister Salome.

Self-mutilation and the Language

As a new descriptor for all the cutters out there--self-cutters, that is--I would like to suggest an old word put to new use: cicatrix. It follows the logic of words like dominatrix, and hence it is self-explanatory. An essay or article might begin with somethng like, "Noted cicatrix and petulance expert Suzie Cutler, late of Ashcania, Ohio, has endorsed a new..." For her male counterpart, "cicator" seems logical, as well.

Why is it that I have not seen anything about Plato's cyber cave (cybercave?)? Plato's cave's wall's shadow-play is still going on, but now it has transcended itself, eh? The images are on the screen, broadcast as on televsion, but often presenting themselves as the real rather than the symbolic. Plato's theory was wrong for centuries, but maybe he's coming into his own at last. Images of images of....

Body and (vs?) Soul

The chick flicks they show at the plex
Are concerned with much more than mere sex
Such as touching and feeling
And the triumph of healing
But it helps if the hero's got pecs.

Phantasies

Rupert Murdoch held a fund-raiser for Hillary some time back, and has contributed to her campaign. Why?!! Is there a chance at some point we could hear him say, "I did not have sex with that woman."

Scott McCLellan says he was lied to and unwittingly lied to all of us. With civil liberties going down the tubes, isn't there a court somewhere that might say, "Ignorance of the truth is no excuse."?

Huckabee is gaining ground in Iowa, despite his "rock n'roll background. This is a chance to turn the Presidential race into "American Idol." What is Hillary's talent? Obama's? Do we give them immunity challenges? I don't care if I'm mixing my metaphors and talent shows. I just want to know soon we can vote them off the island.

Truth and Beauty

Kanye West's mother has died after, or while, undergoing cosmetic surgery. Sad, yet wonderful and appropriate. All deaths are sad, but for an English teacher to die from cosmetic surgery is wonderful and appropriate because it is dying for beauty. Beauty is truth and truth is beauty, as Keats tells us "Grecian Urn." What could be better than an English teacher dying for either one? I hope my own exit is so poetic.

Stevens and Stein

Upon hearing the news that Hillary is using audience plants to lob softball questions her way (a Republican trick, in the Gannon-Guckert mode) I thought, "Who can I turn to to explain my simultaneous disgust and delight, Mike?" Turn to the poets, sez I, turn to your favorite poets, and examine your conscience. My conscience, Wallace Stevens and Gertrude Stein came up with, "Schadenfreude is my ice cream."

Hillary Flips the Bird

Ms. Hillary’s ahead of the flock
And she strides with a President’s walk
And she says she’s for peace
But will war ever cease
When she constantly quacks like a hawk?

New Hillary Slogan

I have seen the error of my ways and from this moment I will support Hillary with my new slogan for her campaign:
HILLARY: YOU'VE ONLY SEEN THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!

Aromas

You stink, therefore I am.
Coco Chanel

With Apologies to the Scarlet Pimpernel

They seek him here, they seek him there
Those Yankees seek him everywhere.
Is he in Baghdad or in Baden-Baden?
That damned, elusive Osama bin Laden.

Humpty Democrats

When Democrats sit on the fence
We do it because we’re so tense
So we fall off it for FISA
And to make our kids nicer
Multi millions for abstinence.

Play with My Dalai?

"It's part of what we Buddhists call 'bad sexual conduct.' Sexual organs were created for reproduction between the male element and the female element and everything that deviates from that is not acceptable from a Buddhist point of view. Between a man an [another]man, a woman and another woman, in the mouth, the anus, or even using a hand." (the DL mimes masturbation)...
(June 1997, San Francisco ~ Dalai Lama)

A lot of Buzz today about the Dalai Lama, his Congressional Medal and so on. But obviously his devotion to freedom stops at the entrance to sexuality, especially homosexuality. He is one of those, apparently, who believe the body is a temple. They seem to populate all the world's major religions. There are a number of us non-religious folks who believe the body is a playground.

Whose party would you rather go to? If you'd rather chant than hang out on the slides, swings, and monkey bars with folks like me, quick move away from this blog and chant: Hello Dalai.

Torture?

We Bushies do not torture folks
Just deprive them of dinner and smokes
There's no time for levity
Our needs require brevity
We use freezing and dunkings and pokes

Childrens

In light of President Bush's veto of the children's health care bill, I have a question:
Is our childrens already healthy enough?

Limericks Political and Scatological by Hoof Ardette

Just a few limericks today:

Republican Senator Foley
had some thoughts about teens most unholy
Though charged to protect 'em
He craved teenage rectum
And some of that firm young cannoli.

In order to come Foley went
For boys at the age of consent
If younger email them
Until he could nail 'em
And whack off like a real proper gent.

Said the Father to Adam you'd best
Shun that fruit so you can stay blessed
Then He turned to Eve
Who asked, "By your leave,
Is that going to be on the test?"

Said the beguiling young lady Jeffabelle
Whose virtue was not merely laughable,
"My father the minister
Said wed or be spinister
And so I am simply ineffable."

An eccentrical lady of Berkeley
Approached her costume berserkly:
"I found my turban
In Afghanistan
And the rest of my outfit in Turkley."

Haliburton works hard at its game
Plays for keeps and doesn't feel shame
As it screws the G.I.s
Hoping no one gets wise
And gives war profiteers a bad name.

Hoof Ardette

No walkathons

Every disease seems to have a walkathon. How about, for prostatitis and prostate cancer, holding annual pissing matches?

Lesbian Lament

A song dedicated to the various Melissa Etheridge Clones--lesbian and straight--who assault the ears while one is waiting for the movie to begin.

I Can’t Find My Birkenstocks / Lesbian Lament


You took my love and now you’ve gone
Away for milk and pannetone
You went for groceries and you disappeared
It’s quite as if you never cared.

I search for this, I search for that,
You took the photos and the cat,
The pots, the pans and half the plants
The coffee mugs and my good pants.

I look for you in small cafes
And Starbucks sipping grande lattes.
You took the toaster and the clocks
And I can’t find my Birkenstocks
I can’t find my Birkenstocks.

I sit alone with no one there
I do my nails and brush my hair,
I had it cut, it looks real nice
It’s a color they call “Mocha Spice.”

I bought new pans and I got a cat
Redid the kitchen bright pink matte.
Bought new jeans and they’re distressed
Holes on the hips and I get dressed

To look for you in small cafes
At Starbucks sipping grande lattes
The toaster’s new and all the clocks
But I can’t find my Birkenstocks
I still can’t find my Birkenstocks.

Hoof Ardette

Leonard Cohen Parody

30 September

Leonard Cohen is a brilliant composer and often his songs are moving and effective. But the combination of self-loathing, hostility, and mysticism gets tiresome, eh? Why not just put on a hair shirt and try to write Paul Anka songs? It would be fun. Instead, we get things not unlike the following:

The Buddha Song

Your hair is golden, your buttocks are firm
Girls and boys see you and they start to squirm
You can light up a room that was given to gloom
You cavort, tease and flirt while large shadows loom
And you deny that you know it, though you surely do
So what makes you think that the Buddha would care
For a little trick like you?

You quote some old sutras and smile like you know
Some secrets that only the privileged can know
Your credentials are doubtful, your knowledge too glib
When you quote a koan it sounds like a fib
Your questions are those with answers too pat
With sartori waiting you’ll surely fall flat
So what do think that the Buddha would do
With a little trick like you?

Your spirit is wanting, though your body is nice
You think that you’re warm, but your touch is like ice
You do not think twice of the souls in your wake
I can’t quite convince them that your soul is fake
You look good in saffron while you’re chanting OM,
By a lake or the Ganges you act like you’re home
Now what acts would the Buddha perform
On a little trick like you?


The way it is waiting if you have the key
And the guru has said he won’t give it to me
But for you he’s wide open cause he’s charmed by your force
He’s pointing the way to the one and first Source
Your path might be thorny but he’ll get you there
With shoes for your soul and balm for your care
But I’ve washed his feet with my tears while he sneered at me
Why did I think that the Buddha would care
For a little trick like me?
Mike Perkovich

Snafuses Inaugural

28 September 2007
Good evening (your name here),

Why don't the airlines pass out tins of SpaghettiOs and a can opener? It would be at least as good as the food they used to serve and would cost less.

Pity poor Senator Craig
Who suffers from real restless leg
It sets his foot tapping
When he oughtta be crapping
But it isn't jet lag it's fag tag.

Conservative Senator Craig
Thought that fruits were a drag
True he loved playing footsie
To be some cop's tootsie
But he certainly wasn't a fag.