Dear Mr. President ....

  

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Date: August 3, 2011

To: The United States of America
       c/o President Barack Obama 

Subject: Interest Payment on Loan No. 2011-13C
_________________________________________

Dear Mr. President:

Please be advised that as of today you have missed a payment of interest due on the above captioned loan. The amount now due and payable is $68,000,000,000.47, covering interest, late fees, and a touch of hush money to keep this letter out of the hands of Rupert Murdoch.

As you recall, Loan No. 2011-13C was arranged to provide financing for you to provide tax, farming, and tanning/bronzing subsidies for the wealthiest .5% of Americans, six (6) month’s salary for one of the two (2) annoying brothers on Car Talk (the only currently permissible funding for the Arts per your Republican Party), and two lattes at Starbucks Coffee in Havertown PA.

We are sorry we had to turn you down for a smoothie, but it rendered the financial risk just too steep.

Perhaps you have simply overlooked this obligation.  Maybe you left your wallet in your other suit.  Oh, your other suit is at the dry cleaners,  and you don’t have the money to reclaim it? 

Well, just ask the dry cleaner to hand back the wallet!   You are the President of the United States, man! 

In some circles, you’re still perceived as having clout.

Please be advised that if you do not make payment of the above amount within five (5) days of the date of this letter, we will turn the matter over to the law firm of Ginsberg, Hirschberg, Feinberg, and Mishkin. Lotsa luck taking them on when your Michele Bachmann cannot even pronounce the word “chutzpah!”

Please also keep in mind that we have liens on everything in your country.  If necessary, we will foreclose on any and all assets necessary to satisfy the debt, including:

~ your Mount Rushmore,

~ your Grand Canyon,

~ your other suit, and

~ the armored and booby-trapped vault that contains your nation’s most heavily guarded and strategically valuable secret: Whether it really, truly is Oprah and Steadman, or  Oprah and Gayle, as even we suspect!

Please do not compel us to take this action. 

Very truly yours, 


The People’s Republic of China,  a/k/a

The Money Store

 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Sixties’ Speak - Then and Now

Now ....

I can't exactly say that I’d like to go back and relive the era of the 60’s. 

Then again, right now I’m experiencing a different era of the 60’s. Between the two I’ll take the first one --- cannabis-stained knuckles, fingers, and hands, hands-down! 

It seems incredible that’s it’s been over 40 years since those days of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll, and for me, well, two out of three wasn’t bad.  Much has changed in our culture since then, including our language.  Many of the old phrases are still around, but the meanings aren't quite the same.

Ready, Boomers?

Far Out! --- Once an exclamation of excitement, wonderment, and radical possibilities.  Now for many Boomers,  a belt size.

Roach Clip --- Once a tweezers-like holder for marijuana cigarette remnants. Now the realization that your exterminator has overcharged the hell out of you. 

Right On! --- Once a cry of solidarity and brotherhood. Now a shout out that your chip shot on the 11th has managed to trickle on up to the green.

Establishment --- Once the power, the Man, the established order you had to fight. Now the hot corner bistro you can’t afford.

Oh Wow! --- Once an exclamation of joy and exhilaration. Now an apt response when you open your cable bill.

Dope --- Once as in “This is really good shit, man.” Now as in “This man really doesn’t know shit!”

No. 9 --- Once an enigmatic phrase in a  John Lennon authored recording by the Beatles. Now the second and generally one of the weaker jokes in a Letterman Top Ten List.

Power to the People! --- Once a cry for freedom, justice, and equality.  Now the option to select your electricity supplier.

Getting Off Now --- Once the pleasured sensation that a drug experience was about to begin. Now an exhausted goodbye to your co-worker as you exit the 6:15 out of Center City.

Heavy --- Once a heart-felt designation of relevance and truth. Now just about anything we Baby Boomers try to lift.

In thinking back to the Sixties, much of the language we spoke was indeed self-indulgent and pretentious.  But a lot of it was more like Yiddish; that is, able to express thoughts and feelings in a word or phrase for which there was no equivalent in English, or anywhere else.

And with all its foibles and excesses, there was no equivalent - and never will be - for the 1960’s.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

.... and Then

The “Second” Second Amendment

 One Nation, Under Guns ....

“Didya take care of it yet?” asked Len Farbman,  my oft congenial but congenitally annoying friend from work.

“Not yet, Len,” I answered. “Maybe this week. Or ….. next week at the latest.”

“Perry,” he said firmly, “you only have until July 31! You’re procrastinating again!"

"Well, I believe in always going with what you’re good at!”

“Look, Per,” counseled Farbman, "Sheila and I weren’t exactly thrilled about having to purchase a couple of handguns either. But now that we both have ‘em, it’s so cool!

"How so?"

"The other day Sheila and I were in the bedroom,  and  I was standing in my bathrobe,  pistol in my calf-skin shoulder holster.   I turned quickly toward the mirror, pulled my gun,  and said  My name is Farbman …. Len Farbman.”

“Yeah, and what happened next? You guys made wild passionate love?”

“Nah, I hit the head and went downstairs to yell at the children.”

I said goodbye to Farbman, having promised him I’d go out that very day and purchase my requisite handgun.

I still couldn’t believe it. 

President Sarah Palin!  Swept into office via her rousing “Jesus loves Billionaires” campaign following hot on the heels of the exposure of the Obama/Nancy Pelosi/Shrek three-way love nest,  she’d been Chief Executive about a year and a half.

The new President had swiftly overseen passage of the Balanced Budget Amendment, which in its first year had mandated closure of all national parks and storage of Old Faithful in a bonded warehouse in New Jersey, the War on Terror reduced to a Hissy Fit Against Terror, and Medicare requiring all participants to seek most forms of treatment from the guy in North Philadelphia I used to get Quaaludes from in the 70’s.

Then there was the “Second” Second Amendment. The Administration had swiftly rewritten  its favorite Amendment to the Constitution, removing the awkward language about militias to produce a  far more smoothly worded principle of modern governance.

It now read:

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms is groovy.  Everybody gotta get themselves a gun no later than July 31, 2014!  KA-POW! Bang-Bang-Bang!  KA-BOOMIE!”

I flicked on the television. It was Good Morning America, and George Stephanopoulos was giving the daily “Murders, Mutilations, and Mayhem Report.”

"There were 2758 murders in the United States yesterday,” reported Stephanopoulos, “with another 1754 wounded and over 1300 incidents of snarling bad guys exhorting the well-meaning but submissive friend of the good guy to dance!  And in Kansas City MO, a Pillsbury Bake-Off ended badly when a dispute over sifting led to the to the execution style murder of Poppin' Fresh, the Pillsbury Dough Boy.”

Just then, Stephanopoulos said something about Elizabeth Vargas being shot and raced off camera.

To get with the President’s program, I headed out to the establishment Farbman had recommended, Friendly Freddie’s’ Fireworks ‘n Firearms.

“What the hell you been waiting for?!” exclaimed Friendly Freddie. “Not much left here now, except …. hey, interested in a bazooka?”

“No, no, no! ” I exclaimed. "Just your basic firearm, please!   I don’t know anything about guns; y' see, I'm Jewish! ”

“Oh, now I got ya," said Friendly Freddie. "Have any idea how your aim is?”

"Not good at all, Friendly Freddie. When I was a kid and I’d shoot off a cap pistol, the smoke would appear half a block away."

“Well,  don't worry, Mac," he said.  "I’ve had people in here buying assault rifles who shouldn’t be allowed to operate a slinky!  You’ll get used to it. You’ll like it.  Everyone does.”

Friendly Freddie fitted me with what he called a Glock 39.   I had to admit there was something fascinating about the shiny precision of the thing --- and  unlike on my old cap pistol,  there was no picture on the gun barrel of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans smiling and waving "Happy Trails to You!" 

Funny, I used to think all guns came with that!

As I left Friendly Freddie’s, I headed into nearby Woodmere Park.  Near the Park’s fountain, a bushy haired young man had pulled a gun on a middle-aged woman who grabbed her derringer and began blasting away.  A merry shoot out all 'round the fountain ensued! 

What fun! 

In a nearby cafe, a male patron was pistol whipping a waiter because his onion soup didn't have enough cheese and there weren't nearly enough crackers.   Yep, I'd frequently gotten poor service there myself!  Beats undertipping.

And I had to laugh when I saw all the alte cockers sittting on the park pavilion with the old-fashioned tommy guns straight out of 1920's Chicago! 

I wrapped my fingers around my Glock 39 and tingled as I felt its raw power.  Don't usually get to tingle all that much. 

Remember, I'm Jewish.

As I strode out into the Park, I understood at last what good old Farbman had been talking about. 

KA-POW! Bang-Bang-Bang!  KA-BOOMIE!

~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Short Primer on Poking

If you’re on Facebook, and statistics indicate both that you are and that you have repeatedly and emphatically refused to friend me, you’ve come into contact with that curious Facebook feature known as poking. As with climate change, the deficit, and comedian Bob Saget, few comprehend exactly what poking is or why it exists.

As a social media expert who once actually found what he was looking for on Bing, I am pleased to explain to you the true nature of poking provided you don’t turn around and explain it to anyone else without seeing I get royalties.

Poking begins with a little icon labeled “Poke” in the upper right corner of the home page of each of your Facebook friends. See it now? It’s the one with the pointing and projecting finger that looks like it might have been sourced straight out of a medical school textbook entitled Adventures in Proctology.

Click on it and you have successfully poked a Facebook friend. 

He or she is swiftly notified that because you have absolutely nothing whatsoever constructive to do with this most precious and wholly wasted upon you gift of life, you poked him or her.  Poking is Facebook’s way of saying “I care enough about you to execute one purposeless downward stroke of the index finger but not nearly enough to cough up the eight individual finger strokes necessary to type “ya good?”

Then you wait.

If the pokee does not return the poke within the time it takes for newly planted wheat to ripen at full height and be harvested, then it is safe to assume he or she finds you about as appealing as the latest Kevin James movie.  Most likely you were only friended in the first place to bolster the pokee’s numerical complement of friends so he or she’d look less like a loser to the cool friends the pokee hopes to impress.

That’s right. You’re Facebook friend filler.

But if the pokee does return the poke, a merry romp of poke/counterpoke oft ensues, terminating only when you finally have to get off the computer to go harvest the damn ripened at full height wheat since you were too busy poking people like an idiot on Facebook to hire anybody decent to harvest it for you in the first place!

Is poking sexual in nature?

I don’t know but poking sounds dirty, which is good enough for me. It must be significant that I have never poked a man, nor has a man ever poked me. It’s not that I’m against same sex poking, I just think it should be left to the states.

I want to make it very clear, however, that when I do poke a woman I derive absolutely no sexual pleasure or satisfaction from the poking whatsoever after my initial orgasm.

Of course, if she then pokes back, there begins a continuous and rhythmic back and forth interplay of poke and counterpoke with fore finger icons thrusting and counter-thrusting, mice twisting and swaying, and lap tops lustily lapping at such a ferocious and frenzied intensity that for months thereafter I worry that I will any day receive a message sent via a heretofore undetected Facebook icon labeled: 

 “Perry, I’m afraid I have something to tell you ….”

That be 'bout all I know about poking.

Why not practice your new found expertise right now by dropping anything remotely worthwhile you may be doing and poking yours truly?

I may be Facebook Friend Filler, but I always poke back!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~