Words To Remember Over The Holidays

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

Mark Twain

 

Lyrics From Tom Waits’ “Circus”

And me and Molley Hoey drank
Pruno and Koolaid and she had a
tattoo gun made out of a cassette
motor and a guitar string and
she soaked a hanky in 3 Roses
and rubbed it on the spot
and drew a rickety heart and
a bent arrow and it hurt like hell

 

From Larry Brown’s “Gold Nuggets”

I staggered down the dock, looking, sweating, amoung browned women in the sun, diamonds glinting, doing all I could at the time, knowing the sun would always go down, and another night would come, that our forms of salvation were ours to choose, as blessed to the misguided like me as any church.

 

Billy Collins feeds Schrodinger’s Cat

I Go Back To The House For A Book

I turn around on the gravel and go back to the house for a book, something to read at the doctor’s office, and while I am inside, running the finger of inquisition along a shelf, another me that did not bother to go back to the house for a book heads out on his own, rolls down the driveway, and swings left toward town, a ghost in his ghost car, another knot in the string of time, a good three minutes ahead of me — a spacing that will now continue for the rest of my life.

 

My Boy Robert Bly

A Dream of Suffocation

Accountants hover over the earth like helicopters,
Dropping bits of paper engraved with Hegel’s name.
Badgers carry the papers on their fur
To their den, where the entire family dies in the night.

A chorus girl stands for hours behind her curtains
Looking out at the street.
In a window of a trucking service
There is a branch painted white.
A stuffed baby alligator grips that branch tightly
To keep away from the dry leaves on the floor.

The honeycomb at night has strange dreams:
Small black trains going round and round–
Old warships drowning in the raindrop.

 

Because The Killers was a story before it was a band

“Well, bright boy,” Max said, looking into the mirror, “why don’t you say something?”

“What’s it all about?”

“Hey, Al,” Max called, “bright boy wants to know what it’s all about.”

“Why don’t you tell him?” Al’s voice came from the kitchen.

“What do you think it’s all about?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think?”

Max looked into the mirror all the time he was talking.

“I wouldn’t say.”

“Hey, Al, bright boy says he wouldn’t say what he thinks it’s all about.”

 

 

Anyone else think this dialogue seriously influenced EVERY gangster film and David Mamet play?

 

It’s Always Sunny Quotes

 

 

Underage Drinking: A National Concern [1.3)

 

Sweet Dee: I never statutory raped anyone before.

Trey: Oh... okay, I'll tell you what; lets just take it slow.

Sweet Dee: You are so sweet... where were you when I was in high school?

Trey: I was eight.

Sweet Dee: Right... Yeah...

 

 

 

 

The Gang Exploits a Miracle [2.7]

 

Charlie: Here’s a confession: I’m in love with a man. What? I’m in love with a man… a man named God. Does that make me gay? Am I gay for God? You betcha.

 

 

 

 

Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody’s Ass [2.9]

 

Frank: I did not go to Vietnam and watch a lot of good men die just for scum like you to take away my freedom!

Sweet Dee: You went to Vietnam in 1993… to open up a sweatshop!

Frank: …and a lot of good men died in that sweatshop!

 

For Ross

I just don’t want to die without a few scars.  ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 6

 

Words to Consider with an election in sight

From Joseph Heller’s novel Catch 22, published in 1961:

 

 

“The frog is almost five hundred millions years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all it’s strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as… the frog?”

 

After this week… I’m betting on the frog.

 

Fedor Jeftichew

More research I’ve come across for a new play I am writing. In a way, he is everything good art should be: intelligent, terrifying, and willing to bark at a crowd.

 

Jo-Jo The Dog-Faced Boy is perhaps one of the most famous of sideshow performers. He was born Fedor Jeftichew in St. Petersburg and toured with his father until the father passed away. He eventually got a contract with Barnum who made him a star.

Barnum’s explained that a hunter in Kostroma, Russia, had tracked Jo-Jo and his father to their cave and captured them.

The father was described as savage and could not be civilized. His promoter made a point of stressing his resemblance to a dog, and explained that when he was upset he would bark and growl. In his show Jo-Jo obliged by barking and growling, apparently quite the showman.

Jo-Jo spoke Russian, German, and English, and toured Europe and the US extensively.

http://freaks.monstrous.com/the_dog-faced_boy.htm