Decent

What does it take to be a decent person?
No, seriously . . . I'm asking
because I haven't met
a single damn
decent person
yet.
And
I've lived
a long, long time.

'Tis of Thee

The Mexican Place

Hey kid
with the big fucking mouth,
and the perpetually sweaty hairline,
why don't you shut the hell up,
so the rest of us can sleep?

And how about the next time your
daddy has you for weekend visitation,
and he takes you to the Mexican place
you supposedly like so much,
how about you not act like a red-faced
little shit and act your age?

Thrice Frice Bice

I have a pile of miniature elbows
in my face,
and when I come to and begin
to relish your presence in my
heart attack,
I will sing a song of "Sick Spence,"
that serial killing singing frog
from three towns over,
over there,
where I see the sky is falling
and the world is falling apart.

Goddamn, I'm sad.

Buffalo Gnats

I've got a bunch of tiny bulldozers
with each of your little buffalo gnat names
on them.

I Don't Know Kind Words

How am I supposed to take that
seriously? I am, after all, an
invincible ass-kicking robot pirate,
and there's no arguing with that.

My words are fists!
And my ideas are shards of plastic
sharpened and drizzled with a
doughnut glazing of
epic proportions!

Argyria

You sounded like the name of a beautiful girl,
Argyria, but then you turned my skin purple
as the sunlight skinted off the silver deposits
in the molecular structure of my skin.

Slowly, then more quickly, I started to die,
Argyria, you stole my life away. Colloidal
silver, they said, was the cause as my
extremities began to twitch and my headaches
took me deep into hallucinatory battles
with demons of the netherworld.

Argyria, you were the cause of my
enzymes being suppressed

Suddenly, Over a P-930 Form

Dale finally admits that his kids are not the problem.

Grieving, Rolf

There was that poor kid named Rolf.
Lived just down the street from
here. His parents couldn't afford
him a bike, but he always
dreamed of riding.
One day, he stole a bike from
Dave Adams' garage
and walked it up to the top
of Rogers Hill so he
could ride down it like the devil
on flaming wheels.
He wiped out about halfway down
and bumped his head for good.

On Faulkner's Crumble and the Ensuing Tumble for Us All

I always used to laugh
when literary superheroes
sold out and started writing
scripts for Hollywood.

Take Faulkner, for example.
A damn good writer was he.

In one fell swoop, he sold
everything he'd spent a
lifetime building and
burned his entire
reputation to the ground for
a little money and fame.

I spoke with him once after
he started working for Howard Hawks.
He was drinking (of course),
and he said he could return to
Mississippi literally, but that
in his mind he'd left Mississippi for good
and that was the worst thing he'd ever done.

I just laughed then, not knowing what would
become of the literary world.

Nowadays, you can't get literature and greed
to stop copulating
in the public eye, not even if you squirt them
twixt their nethers with a firehose.
And there
aren't even any literary superheroes
left to let you down.

A Question Posed by William, the Thinker

Why are stupid people
always on the opposite
side of issues I support?

Bill, Tapeworm to the Stars 2

Oh geez, so it’s been awhile since I last posted. I have to tell you I’ve been having some trouble with my latest landlord, the Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s currently filming a new picture, Brothers, and the stress of shooting is hard on Jake. Shooting is apparently something Jake takes very seriously, and it’s always been incredibly hard on him. I’d heard this when I was living deep in his sister’s guts. Speaking of Maggie, let me just say, that girl is wack. She is not good living for a tapeworm. I’ve been around the block, and she’s just bad news. Her diet’s a mess, and she was drinking a ton of Crystal Light or something. That’s why I jumped ship and headed for her bro’s shit factory. It’s been pretty cool down here for a while, but then news of Heath Ledger (R.I.P) got him down. He wasn’t eating much for awhile. These two got to be pretty good friends, and I know Heath’s passing was difficult for Jake.

At any rate, I’m not here to talk to you about Jake Gyllenhaal or Heath Ledger. I’m here to tell you about the year 2000. Things were going well for me. As I mentioned previously, I’d been tunneling around in Anthony Bourdain for awhile. Then, one night I saw the perfect opportunity to climb the tapeworm ladder. Shania Twain just happened to drop in at Tony’s restaurant, Brasserie Les Halles. Well, at the time Shania Twain was the shit, and I wanted to be a part of her shit. So, I jumped shit, so to speak.

Living in Shania Twain was pretty sweet for awhile. She was on a break from her career. We spent a lot of time traveling. I really got to know Shania. The real Shania, not the crossover sellout that her record people were pushing her as. She even wanted me to call her Eilleen, her birth name, which I gladly did. She is a very real, lovable person down deep. It’s that damn recording industry that makes people look like assholes. And I should know . . . I’ve seen plenty.

So, after about a year together, Shania decided to get back into the studio and start recording a new album. I was all for that, but I said, “Shania, why don’t you do what you want to do?” She tried. She dumped her manager and felt she'd done the right thing. She was going to get back to her roots. Well, you never know who you can trust in this business, and her new management company Qprime was even worse than her previous. They wanted to really push the crossover queen angle, and this really sent Shania into a downward spiral emotionally.

She did as they beckoned and began to fall apart spiritually, emotionally, and physically, too. As her diet got out of control, I started to get sickly. I knew I couldn’t go on like this any longer, so I decided to move on. I’ll always remember my time with Eilleen fondly, but a tapeworm’s gotta eat.

Did I fall in love with Eilleen? I think I did. In fact, I know I did, and I’m going to share something with you that I’ve never shared with anyone in my life. When I left Shania’s lower GI, she was in the process of writing songs for her 2002 album Up!. She was stuck. Totally blocked as a songwriter. She was not eating for days at a time. Drinking very little. She’d stopped talking to me, and I just couldn’t live in those conditions any longer. Before I left, though, I wrote down for her a song that I had written 6 months or so earlier about our blossoming relationship. That song was “I’m Gonna Getcha Good!” You might remember it. It was the number 1 single on that album. It hurt me every time I heard that song to know how wrong things had gone between me and Shania, but I was happy to see her get some final joy out of our time together.

I know a lot of you are thinking, "Yeah, right, a tapeworm that writes music," but it's true. I write these blog posts don't I? It may be hard to believe that a tapeworm can write lyrics, but just read some of these lines from the song and tell me they weren’t written by a tapeworm.

Don't wantcha for the weekend, don't wantcha for a night
I'm only interested if I can have you for life, yeah
Uh, I know I sound serious and baby I am
You're a fine piece of real estate, and I'm gonna get me some land

Thanks for reading. Hope to be back soon.

Bill

On Meredith's Realization

Full cup of coffee in hand and the sun shining brightly, it hit her.

You Cheating Dogs

Mallory wins the bet!

On a Long, Long, Long, Long Marriage

It's been one long 40 years.

What's Missing?

Though often difficult, life must go on.

Of Curiosity and School Computer Access

Ryan and Darnell learning, growing up.

People Slogan

Bowhunter (in Khakis and Polo)

Seeking Prey After an Exhausting Conference Call

A Sudden Occurrence

It suddenly occurred to Donald and Patrick that they were screwed. You can't, after all, defeat a fast motorcycle with a mere barroom dart.