Along comes a goober

Posted on July 28, 2016 by PMcG

Have recently read that the best tactic when negotiating is knowing when to shut up. Note: the tactic isn’t shutting up. It’s knowing when to shut up and only then shutting the actual up. Just another example of how nothing is easy.

People can get quite anxious when a conversation is suddenly shattered by the anvil-through-a-glass-topped-coffee-table hoo-ha of silence. Many feel they must charge into that void, swinging the heavy yammer of bovine sushi, (sometimes known as lower case b.s., not to be confused with upper case B.S.)

Yammering is like golf—the fewer the swings the better. As the old Byrds song reminds us “There is a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to laugh, a time to weep, a time to belch, a time to go sheesh, a time to eat it, a time to ralph* from eating it, a time to have gas, a time to quickly slap your hand over your head and look innocent, a time to play the banjo, a time to “put that goddam thing down!” etc.”

Here’s a carefully thought out example of shut-up time. Let’s say you’re selling a pig. (Those of the Vegemite inveiglement—who would never have a pig—pretend you awoke to a rogue porker rifling through your vinyl collection. The pig, hearing the cocking of the shotgun you keep beneath the covers, goes all oinky and drops a Best Of Air Supply album. You now have a pig with bad taste. All very humane, please pass the hummus. May I continue?)

Along comes a goober. He says “I see you have a pig for sale.” You say “Yup.” Big mistake. Can’t you see? He’s cleverly gotten you to admit that you have a pig for sale. Do you see where this is going? He knows you need him, i.e., the goober, but you don’t need the pig, i.e., the pig. As a trouser thief might say: You’re about to lose your pants.

The buyer takes full advantage of your blatherosity. Resist filling the lull with a sob story of how the pig once saved your life but things have gotten so bad you can’t even afford to buy the missus a pickup truck with tires so big it takes a village—maybe even a town–to change a flat.

Which means you either have to sell the pig or…

“I’ll take the pig off your hands,” says the clever goober, “if you throw in the missus.” Even before you can shout “Nope-a-mundo!” he adds “I’ll toss in a copy of ‘101 Favorite Limericks About Trucks With Big Tires.’”

Look, it’s just an example, but get your temptation insurance paid up. (Make sure you have an “Accidentally sold the missus” rider.)

Now, had you been shutting up, you could have stylishly vomited a small river of tobacco juice on goober’s shoes (eventually to trickle into the Chesapeake Bay and kill off a bushel of crab cakes—but, hey, that is not your concern.) If you don’t chew tobacco it’s considered good form to upchuck* last night’s spaghetti. It conveys the idea that you are not a man to trifle with. Nor will you ever be asked to judge the annual pasta fazool fest at the V.F.W.

Otherwise, you quickly explain the deal to the missus who, in disbelief, takes a hard look at the goober and the pig. Then at you. Back to the goober. You start reading aloud “There was an old man with a big truck…” She grabs your shotgun and says “Don’t move.”

She and the goober and the pig back up slowly toward the goober’s truck. She fires a warning shot. As they drive off she can be heard shouting “We’re gonna need us some bigger tires, Slim. And pants for the pig.”

*No Ralphs nor Chucks were harmed during the writing of this blog. This time.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2016, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, Mockery and derision, News You Can Use (Sort of) | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

F.A.Q. The Deal

Posted on July 22, 2016 by PMcG

(Due to previous commitments, the part of A. is played today by his understudy, B.)

Q. What’s the deal?
B. Seven card stud. Two down, one up. Ante’s a buck. Two raises, max. And nothing, I repeat, nothing is wild. He said with thinly disguised irony.

Q. No, I don’t mean cards. I mean what’s the deal? You hear the italics?
B. Oh. You mean like what’s up Dude?

Q. Yeah. Shoot the poop, gimme the scoop. Uh, Dude.
B. You think it’s that easy, huh? By the way, did you hear my italics? Of course not. And did you notice that I didn’t say italics in italics? We don’t talk much Eyetie down here.

Q. Wow. What is the deal with that?
B. You got ID?

Q. I’m not with The Spanish Inquisition, if that’s what you’re worried about.
B. Then what’s with the Cardinal Torquemada outfit?

Q. This old thing? It was the only clean outfit in my closet this morning.
B. That’s exactly why I’m wearing my Rosalind Russell outfit today.

Q. I think you have some lipstick in your beard. Oh, and be careful, this is a Juan de Torquemada outfit from 1410. Do you know what that means?
B. I’m just filling in for A. He got into a fight with I. I knocked the P out of him. Really Teed him off.

Q. You know, if I ask you Y, that will put us over three jokes on the alphabet shtick. You never do more than three jokes on a subject. It’s a cardinal rule, although ironically, not a Cardinal Torquemada rule.
B. U don’t say.

Q. C? No laughs. Anyway, back in 1410, Juan de Torquemada was a cardinal. Played a lot of pinochile. Solo. But it was his nephew Tomas de Torquemada who was the Grand Inquisitor of Spain. He’s the one who did all the torturing. A lot of people get them mixed up. Especially since they both lived in a village called Torquemada. At 2525 Torquemada Drive. House with the stake in the front yard.
B. Isn’t he the guy who invented the torque wrench?

Q. I get that question a lot.
B. Do you give the answer a lot?

Q. Oddly enough, it was Tomas de Torquemada’s other uncle, Torky, who came up with the wrench.
B. I don’t think that’s oddly enough at all. I think there’s room for a lot more oddly. Maybe if you’d put Uncle Torky in italics.

Q. You mock me.
B. C.

Q. Look, can we get back to my main point: what is the deal?
B. What makes you think there is a deal?

Q. I’ve heard a lot of buzz about it.
B. Buzz? Like what, bees? Or like a buzz saw? You’ll note that those are two very different buzzes.

Q. Yes, I just jotted that note down.
B. I do hate to see a grown man jot.

Q. When will A. be back? I know he’d tell me what the deal was.
B. Okay, okay. The deal is this. Life rhymes with strife. Strife rhymes with knife. Knife rhymes with Fife, Bernard P. P rhymes with tee hee. Tee hee doesn‘t rhyme with yoo hoo. Yoo hoo is the name of a chocolate drink that Yogi Berra used to endorse. Yogi Berra is not to be confused with Yogi Bear. Bear rhymes with hair which doesn’t last forever. Just like life, which rhymes with…

Q. Wait, that’s the deal?
B. Hold the italics.

Q. Look, can I speak to another letter. How about C or D or E?
B. Sorry, but they went out last night with O and caught a code.

Q. Then how about the next letter?
B. What? The F?

Q. You continue to mock me.
B. Oddly enough.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2016, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, Mockery and derision, News You Can Use (Sort of) | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

A Dick by any other name

Posted on July 15, 2016 by PMcG

The three-day sports controversy cycle:

Day 1, 10:15 p.m. The crawl at the bottom of the screen during EPSN’s nightly Let’s Talk About LeBron James Until We Barf: 

Breaking News: Major League Umpire Dick Blumpidge, Jr., called for the suspension of fiery New York Yankee’s shortstop Chico “Cheeko” Chico, after ejecting him during tonight’s game against Baltimore. Blumpidge said Chico shouted “an obscene name” after a called third strike. MLB Commissioner Furlong LaRue’s office said it was just an office and would have to wait until humans arrived in the morning before commenting.

Day 2, 8:24 a.m. Transcript of ENSP’s Bob and Bob and Bob in the morning (with Bob Bobson sitting in for Bob’s son Bob.)

Bob: I wonder what name Chico called that ump, Bob?

 Bob: We’ve slowed down this clip from last night’s game. It appears Chico is saying   “What a dick you are.”

 Bob: Um, are we allowed to say dick on TV?

 Bob: Just playing Devil’s Advocate, Bob. The ump’s name is Dick. If you see where I’m coming from.

 Bob: Isn’t it possible he’s asking a question. Like “What, Dick? You are being unclear. Could you please repeat the call?”

 Bob: Jimminy H. Crickett! He’s just a ball-busting hot-head.

 Day 2, 1:43 p.m. Transcript of ESNP’s The Patrick Dan Dan Dandy Dan Dann Show, with guest Baseball Commissioner Furlong Larue.

 PDDDDD: Are you going to suspend Chico for using the d-word on Dick Blumpidge, Jr.?

 CFL: Look, nobody likes to be called a d-word unless they are a d-word and even then some don’t like it because they are such d-words they think they aren’t a d-word. In the case of Blumpidge, though, being called a d-word is just the price you pay for being a Dick.

 PDDDDD: Yes, but that’s Dick with an upper-case D. I think Chico meant a lower case d, although it’s hard to tell if he meant Dick or dick. It would be like me calling you furlong instead of Furlong. You wouldn’t know if I was referring to you as a measurement of 660 feet, or just your first name.

FL: Actually, Furlong is my middle name. My actual first name is Commissioner. That’s how I got this job. But I hear you. There are times I wonder if someone is calling me an upper-case or a lower-case Commissioner. I lose sleep over it.

PDDDDD: Maybe Blumpidge should change his name.

 FL: But how long before someone calls him a Dickless wonder? When you get down to the epistemological metaphysicality of it, we are all Dickless wonders. Except for those who were simply born a Dick.

Day 2, 4:09 p.m. Live cut-away from SPEN’s Pardon The Irritable Bowel Syndrome to a press conference called by Chico “Cheeko” Chico.

 CCC: I am sorry I called umpire Dick Blumpidge, Jr., by his first name last night. I should have been more respectful and said “Mr. Blumpidge, yes, you Dick. And speaking of Dick, is it true your own parents called you Little Dick?”

Grizzled Scribe:  Chico, are you aware that Donald Trump has ordered a wall built around you?

CCC: And speaking of little dicks…

Day 3, 6:00 p.m. SNPE Sports Center

 Good evening: LeBron James ate breakfast, lunch and dinner today.  He then walked 29 steps with a basketball before bouncing it even once.  He later quipped “They didn’t call Marco Polo for traveling, did they?”

In other news, outfielder Zulchie Milko was ejected this afternoon for calling umpire Dick Blumpidge Jr. an asshat. Later, through an interpreter, Milko insisted he’d said  asset “as a way of complimenting the Little Dick.”

Commissioner Furlong LaRue said he’d never heard of an asshat and wondered if it was pronounced with an upper-case or lower-case a.

 ©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2016, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, News You Can Use (Sort of) | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The really sick part

Posted on June 29, 2016 by PMcG

We sat on the sofa, K-Mac and I, watching a talking cookie on the Smart TV try to persuade us that cookies know how to talk and that they have kids and dogs and mortgages and pickup trucks and hopes and dreams like everyone else and that we should listen to their important commercial message.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a cookie walking a dog or driving a pickup truck, but that wasn’t the weirdest thing. It was the cookie’s bold, yet unspoken message: “Eat me.”

I looked at K-Mac and she looked at me. (We do this every now  when one of us believes the other has said something, only to find it was simply the coughing-up of a popcorn husk.) This time she uttered a line destined for a book of quotations about life back when we had everything but the brains God was about to give us, then suddenly thought  “Why do I even try?” and left immediately for a galaxy to be named later — although for now, we may call Igalixpoo.

What did K-Mac say? (Good, you’re still paying attention).

K-Mac: “I don’t think they should make commercials with talking food.”

Me: (Coughs up husk).

Not only is that a deeply profound thought, it’s something I was about to say myself, but she cruelly beat me to it. No doubt, we’ll laugh about it when we’re dead.

In the meantime, the quote seems a reasonable, politically apolitical stand against the exploitation of poor, ignorant foodstuffs who don’t know when to shut up and stop looking so edible.

Yes, I know this is the voting season (la saison des vomissements). We’re supposed to hate any food that doesn’t look like we think it should. Or which we think tastes like naugahyde, especially red naugahyde, although most of us have never even tried it, let alone stopped to chat it up at the odd locker room buffet table.

Just because something looks and tastes like naugahyde doesn‘t mean it is naugahyde. It may simply be Brussels Sprouts trapped in red jello which, as they say in rodeo bars, is a horse of a different color. And therein lies the problem, for as they say in the other rodeo bar across the street “They shoot horses, don’t they?”

These days, when someone wears the wrong underwear outside their pants in public (and who is to say what is the right underwear?) or who sings out of the wrong hymnal, or puts the emphasis in pronouncing Igalixpoo on the poo rather than the lix, we salivate in anger and rush to buy two to three automatic weapons each. Yet if someone decides that some poor slob needs a massive beat-down for the simple reason he looks like he needs a massive beat-down, we say how would you like to be president?

Couldn’t we at least vote down suicidal baked goods, so obviously high on fried donut vape, as they dare us to eat them? To use an Icelandic voting metaphor (A samlíking Atkvæðagreiðsla) “It’s one thing to vote with your feet, but quite another to eat with them.”

True, that conjures the old saw “Does eating mussels constitute taking performance enhancing drugs?” But I’m going straight to moral ambivalence — and the kitchen — to get a plate of cookies. The really sick part: I’m also putting in my ear plugs so I don’t hear the chocolate chips screaming.

The moral: never say “eat me” to somebody who had creamed naugahyde on toast for supper. They just might oblige.*

*Not to be confused with Mary J. Blige, except in an emergency. Seriously.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2016, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, funny, News You Can Use (Sort of) | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Fly who buzzed me

Posted on June 23, 2016 by PMcG

Monday
9:17am. Started writing “How to Make a Million Before the Weekend.” Why haven’t I thought of this before? You get rich before the weekend so you have two straight days of buying toys and playing with them and eating beef jerky and having beer come out your nose before you go back to work on Monday. BTW: I called in sick and tired today so I could figure out how to get the milli—what the hell? A fly just buzzed my ear. Right in the middle of a no-fly zone!

9:31 am. Called a couple of millionaires for some tips. Warren Buffet put me on hold. Bill Gates said he’d get back to me. So I—Damn, that fly is back. Does he not remember we just signed the Flea in the Fly in the Flue treaty?

4:53 pm. Still holding for Warren Buffet. My ear is getting pretty hot and sweaty. It’s hard to type with just one hand. Ow! That fly just doinked my ear again. He made me slap my ear so hard I had to slap my face and shout “Cut it out!”

Tuesday
11:44 pm. You know how in baseball, the catcher trots out to the pitcher to tell him one finger means fastball; two means hold on, my undies are bunched up; and five fingers means I’m just scratching myself? The pitcher covers his face with his glove, so that millions of trained lip readers can’t figure out what he’s saying and leak it to Bill Belichick whose spies are everywhere. Here’s the deal: With the NSA always listening in, what if everybody used a baseball mitt to cover their face when they’re talking. (Or if they haven’t brushed their teeth?) How can I monetize that idea? I think I’ll run it by Warren—the ham-and-egging fly just landed on my monitor screen. When do you finally say that’s it, I’m going after that fly? I’ll just grab this old baseball trophy and…

Wednesday
10:10 am. Well, I needed a new monitor anyway. Say, this is completely off topic, but do people ever get Cleveland and Cleavage mixed up? There’s got to be some dumb ball out there who’s said “Hey isn’t that woman with the uh…the uh… I bet she’s from Cleveland.” Now the dang fly is practicing touch and go landings on my bald spot. I’m getting my Glock.

Thursday
11:12 a.m. Wow, I didn’t know you could put your phone on speaker so you don’t have to hold it against your ear all day and all night and get cancer. I can just set it down on the—Damn. The fly is standing on my phone! Damn. I just pounded the phone with the butt end of my Glock and it butt dialed a roofing salesman and simultaneously fired a round that decapitated my Gimli-son-of-Gloin action figure and went through the window. Followed by the fly.

Friday
2:09 p.m. Spent hours at the store demanding a new phone. Said I had no idea why mine suddenly stopped working. Reminded them I’m expecting a billionaire to call at any moment. “You didn’t hit it with anything, did you?” asked the snippy clerk.” I said “Why would I do that?” She gave me a beady look. “Because a fly was standing on it?” I finally got a new phone after I threatened to sue and gave them $650. Meanwhile the roofing guy was swatting at a fly up on the roof and he fell off. Hope he’s got medical insurance, ‘cuz he came down with a case of the shingles.”

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2016, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, funny | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Brand X

Posted on June 17, 2016 by PMcG

If there’s one thing I learned at the home, I’d be surprised. Actually, I didn’t start learning stuff until my lawyer convinced a judge I wasn’t really crazy as a bed bug.

My lawyer: Your honor, have you ever seen a bed bug?
His honor: When I came back from my trip to Vegas, several bugs jumped out of my suitcase. I tried to get an injunction on the grounds that what bugs people in Vegas stays in Vegas. But they had a pretty slick lawyer, who also jumped out of the suitcase.

My lawyer: On that occasion, could you tell which of those bed bugs were clinically crazy and which were just bugging you–which is both their job and God-given vocation in life?
His honor: Um…gosh…I just assumed….

My lawyer: The last time I checked, the Second Amendment says “…the right of the people to openly carry nuclear weapons (if they should ever be invented) and to bug their fellow peeps shall not be infringed, except in the event of a nationwide fringe shortage.”
His honor: Hummida hummida hummida…

Anyway, upon my release, the first thing I learned—from a guy selling nukes outside the home–was this: you’ll never make it in life or death without a brand that stands out like a sore thumb or, preferably, a baboon’s bright ass.

Truer words were never spoken, except for the time Alexander the Great said “An army can conquer the world, but I tell you it is nothing without a rag time band.”

How do you go about getting a brand? Repeat this mantra several times a day, (although not out loud):

My brand is my name; my name is my brand, do da do da day.

You can see how essential it is to have a unique name. Take Freakin’ Phil Fronk.®© Not literally, though. Freakin’ Phil has registered and copyrighted his name and he likes to sue. Or, let’s say your name is Skippy. Too bad because there’s already a Skippy peanut butter. But there’s no Skippy’s Pink Catawba. Hurry while supplies last!

When I was a kid, my mother demonstrated the power of a name brand with her frequent quip “Church: the best seat in the house.” I thought it was a religious reference until she pointed out the manufacturer’s name on the lid of the family’s porcelain chariot. I have never felt the same about church since, though ironically, I go to church almost religiously, several times a day. Talk about brand awareness.

What does my own name brand stand for? I stand for the national anthem. I stand for the seventh inning stretch. I stand for the fast approaching foul ball. I stand and scream “Oh crap!” whenever I spill a beer in my lap. Fearful of a CTE-causing noodgie, I stand for nuns on the subway. I stand and deliver for I am your bold deceiver, mush-a-ring and a do rum dar (clap, clap, clap, clap) whack for the laddie-oh, there’s whiskey in the jar.

Whenever I am so worked up that I am literally beside myself, I stand by me. I can’t stand six string banjos, roofing salesmen at dinner time and the heresy that you can take seventy-five steps with a basketball and not be called for traveling. One of my favorite songs contains the lyric “Don’t stand, don’t stand so, don’t stand so close to me, or at least brush your teeth every now and then for Pete’s sake.”

My brand screams that I am a stand-up kind of guy, especially when there are no chairs or Church seats around. Just remember this important truth:a brand is only a perception.

Steers, of course, would disagree.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2016, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, News You Can Use (Sort of) | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A common geezer mistake

Posted on June 6, 2016 by PMcG

Ladies and gentlemen, today we are launching an internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate incident. As you know, it has ruined the lives of several innocent and, frankly, very attractive sheep. It has also prompted some of our most senior executives to retain counsel and go into hiding. I have time for a few questions as long as they’re not hard.

Q. Is retaining counsel like retaining water?
A. I’m not at liberty to have any idea.

Q. Do you know where those senior executives are hiding?
A. On the advice of my mother, youuuu shut up!

Q. The New York Times is reporting that they were hiding under their beds and, in one case, in the dirty clothes hamper.
A. Do you know the New York Times is run by heavy metal Communists?

Q. Uh, isn‘t that the name of a song sung by McGeorge Bundy and the National Park Invaders?
A. Whatever. BTW: we’re launching the investigation from our pad on Cape Bob. We’re having a band and balloons and hand crafted sheep dip.

Q. Will you smash a bottle of champagne against the side of the investigation during the launch?
A. Of course not. Investigations are invisible.

Q. Like hot air?
A. Exactamundo.

Q. You know, Investigation-launching is very old hat. Have you ever considered getting a new hat?
A. You should talk to our Vice-President of Hats who is currently indisposed.

Q. Isn’t he the one in the dirty clothes hamper?
A. He has retained water and is so bloated he can’t get out. A rescue squad with the Jaws of Bob is en route.

Q. Seriously, have you considered alternatives to launching an investigation? Like catapulting?
A. We tried catapulting an investigation last spring, but it went into somebody’s yard and they wouldn’t give it back.

Q. Will you investigate aggressively and fully cooperate with the authorities?
A. Does everybody die in the Game of Thrones — including Old Man Thrones and that short guy?

Q. Isn’t that like asking “Is The Pope Catholic?” or “Does a bear walk into a bar?”
A. Is Meadowlark Lemon a deceased Harlem Globetrotter?

Q. You’re not saying Meadowlark Lemon took the big bad bounce are you?
A. Does Putin have a small boobulah?

Q. Isn’t that like asking “Is Putin always riding a horse half-naked?”
A. No, because his horse is always completely naked.

Q. Haven’t you used that joke before?
A. Would you like me to send the Jaws of Vladimir to your house?

Q. Will this be a large-scale and systematic investigation?
A. The scale of this probe will be unprecedented.

Q. Does that mean awfully huge or awfully tiny?
A. It will be ginormous.

Q. Last November you launched a ginormous investigation. How is this one unprecedented?
A. In the zeal we will show in leaving no stone unturned. We have a strict policy here of turning every stone a full sixty degrees.

Q. Do you then look beneath it?
A. Does night come after day, except in Alaska and the sink hole beneath Donald Trump’s hair? The only thing you find under a stone is a worm or a snail. Our executives sign a CMHAHTDBNFA40Y form promising they are neither worm nor snail.

Q. I don’t follow. I was taught CMHAHTDBNFA40Y stood for “Clearly, Magillicuddy has a handicap tonight, deflecting bullshit Nietzsche floated after 40 Yuenglings.”
A. That is sooo last millennium. No one says that anymore. I’m talking the “Cross my heart and hope to die but not for another 40 years” form. Don’t worry. It’s a common geezer mistake.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2016, all rights reserved.

Posted in Absurd and/or zany, F.A.Q., News You Can Use (Sort of), Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments