A Shirt? Who Needs It?

Hmmm ... you don't say?

Add this as an exhibit in the Museum of Intense Irony.

Cur-sed Earrrrrrrth!

Last Flashes

I was looking for the light/
To bring you out/
From the shadows/
Redefine you now for only me/
And honey I'm sure/
That you've been in love before/
Plenty of men/
Have held high places in your eyes/
And jealousy/
Has got no use for me/
The past is beautiful/
Like the darkness between the fireflies.

-- Mason Jennings

Two fireflies flash by in the mid-August evening.

Their kind emerge in June in a frenzy of ecstasy, sparkling yellow at twilight for a fleeting matter of weeks, desperate to find a woman who will reciprocate their call and ensure that their short lives will mean something when they end.

She flashes back. The lovers meet. They die. Life goes on.

Not for these two belated suitors of desperation and futility.

What was once a galaxy of pulsing light in the humid dusk is an early-summer relic now.

These two are torch-bearers for a time that passed before it ever seemed to begin, when summer was new and pregnant with the promise that has now fulfilled itself.

They are the bathing suit 75 percent off.

The "Star Wars" movie still playing in the cineplex.

The empty book bags thrown into the closet.

The swimming pool lamp still burning in the deserted pool.

The song that was to be the song of summer before summer decided on a better song.

If only you two could come inside: watch the yellow lights of the school buses flash by instead, then see the leaves turn flaming gold and red, then stay warm by the fireplace, then catch a glimpse of the first petal of the new warm season and then meet your destiny like you should have ...

More Marshmallows ... All The Time!

How do we let them get away with this?




When we were children, we accepted it as a universal truth of the way things just had to be.

If we were going to eat cereal with marshmallows, we were going to have to eat a disproportionate amount of bland fiber along the way. If we could get away with it, we might just filter out all the marshmellows and conveniently disappear the rest of the bag.

Today, in light of "Limited Edition Double Shooting Stars! Lucky Charms," we realize it didn't always have to be this way. We could have had more marshmallows all along (and these extra marshmallows do indeed reset the bar of how Lucky Charms cereal should taste).

But even more egregious is that they plan on reducing the number of marshmallows to previous levels at some point in the future -- unless, of course, "Limited Edition" in cereal terms means just about as much as "Going Out Of Business" does for a bargain beachwear store sale in July.

Why hasn't there been a mass revolt? Three things come to mind: 1.) The kids who eat it are too young to have their voices heard, 2.) The stoners who eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner aren't motivated enough, or 3.) The parents who buy it are just trying to find a way to trick their kids into eating more fiber.

It's curious why market forces haven't dictated that there be a cereal made solely of marshmallows (technically, it might not be cereal then, but then again they make those pixie stix filled with nothing but pure sugar).

It's a mystery why these types of cereals don't have, at the least, more marshmallows than they have putrid -- and now whole grain -- cereal rings.

Yes, we are always after those Lucky Charms ... and we should get them, because this is capitalism, you whiny little leprachaun martyr!

The power is with the people. We must demand more marshmallows for ourselves and our children -- not in limited edition, but all the time.

We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have a world to win. Marshmallow lovers of all countries, unite!

The Littlest Photo Essay

When a kindergartner learns how to turn on a camera:





























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When a kindergartner goes to work with you ... and draws a picture of you in a tie, and you tell him, "Good, but let's make it a little 'louder'" and he draws fireworks, and then a basketball that you have obviously just dunked into a goal, with him looking on in his favorite #8 basketball shirt:




Can't you just hear all the noise?

After all, fireworks can be pretty loud.

Smash Them, Watch Them Bleed

Whenever people want to describe a particularly passive, meek person -- an all-around nice guy -- they often use the phrase "he wouldn't hurt a fly."

But the real question is ... would he hurt a mosquito?

Sure, a fly does that thing where it hangs out on a log of feces, then flies onto your food and rubs its shit-covered legs together and ultimately regurgitates onto your meal for some evolutionary pragmatic reason.

Still, generally they don't get the smackdown unless they keep sitting on your food or make a bunch of noise or roll with more than, say, two friends.

But who thinks twice about killing those blood-sucking mosquito bastards on first sight?




There was a bumper sticker the other day. It said, "I Brake For Snakes." And, let's face it, snakes can be quite controversial in the sense that not everyone will brake for them and, in fact, quite a few actually accelerate over them.

But at least some people brake for them.

If Noah actually did stick all those animals on that boat, and he corralled the mosquitos together, he deserves a wedgy of apocalyptic proportions.