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Archive for the ‘humor’ Category

My Night at à la Margo

The main ballroom is a sea of irresistible blondes. Only the constant clatter of helicopters overhead reminds us that this is basically a political gathering. I am the guest of Fred Limerick. Since Palm Beach County limits the number of country club memberships to 500, I am damn lucky to know someone who got in at its founding, when memberships cost a paltry $100,000 each. After January 20, the price for one of the four available slots will be a cool million. Fred, an investment banker par excellence, could pay even that amount without blinking, but for me, it’s flat-out great getting to see the ravenous denizens of Grumpworld up close and personal.

Who knows what may come of it? Fortune favors the bold. After all, Richard “Swinging Dick” Gates has become Grump’s choice for Attorney General and his chief qualification is his fawning adulation of El Grumpo.

Because so much liberal mouthwash is written daily about the 45th / 47th president, Fred has created a second persona for yours truly. Not “writer,” God forbid, but “Kevin who owns a jet ski franchise.” Interestingly, I even find myself taking orders for jet skis! I hadn’t realized how hot the jet ski market is right now. Since Kawasaki, Yamaha and Sea-Doo are manufactured in Japan, Canada and Mexico, they can all look forward to heavy tariffs in 2025. The situation will be even more dire for Chinese jet skis whose luxury and horsepower hit above their weight. Price quotes available.

“Mah name’s Pamela. Ah’m the guest of Franklin Pierce Jenkins,” a delectable blonde dish assures me, twinkling before my eyes. Me like!

Excitedly, I confide that “I have actually hung banners from highway overpasses together with a descendant of President Franklin Pierce.” I am careful not to reveal that the banners in question were for Kabala Hrdass.

“I expect to get appointed acting principal assistant under press secretary,” Pamela assures me, smiling ferociously and rubbing up against me. She smells of jasmine.

May the force be with us! May the odds be ever in our favor!  Audentes Fortuna frivoli, in a world where Grump has nominated Tulsa Oklahoma as Director of National Intelligence, anything is possible. The president has 4,000 political appointments to review and fill, of which only 1,200 require Senate confirmation. A sordid game plan quickly forms in my head: There is an island in the Caribbean which housed a Swedish colony from 1784 to 1878 and maintains vestiges of Sweden even today. I want to be named ambassador to Saint Barthélemy!          

A paid videographer takes our picture.

“Kevin! Duty calls!” Fred declares, leading me away. Having rescued me from the cheetah, he hands me a flute of champagne. “The man in the gray suit is Sandor Granger, chief headhunter for the Grump team,” he instructs me. “For him, you are a conservative speechwriter. Sandor! Here’s the dude I mentioned to you.”

Opportunity knocks. Mr. Granger and I exchange pleasantries and just as I provide a sound bite of serious commentary— “The deportation of illegal farm workers will drive up the price of fruits and veggies”— he abruptly hands me his empty glass and napkin, excuses himself and rapidly joins some people on the other side of the room.

Laughing, Fred comes over and says “Well, that could have gone better.”

I hand the glass and napkin to a waiter who is passing with a silver tray of bite-size canapés.

Fred and I went to college together. “Seriously, Kevin,” he warns me, “everyone here is on the make, so you really need to come up with a conspiracy theory or three that sing loud enough to be heard above the background noise.”

Shit! That’s gonna be hard. Going out to the lounge, I take a seat in an overstuffed chair, pull out my phone and google “Chinese malware.” I definitely like the sound of “CryptoLocker ransomware” from 2013. My adaptation: “The FuckYou virus is programmed to overload and shut down all cell phone traffic worldwide on January 22nd. It will replace your account with an AI-generated clone, running up your monthly phone bill ten-fold.”

Reentering the ballroom, I reconnoiter my surroundings. “Hi!” I greet a cluster of happy campers in tuxedos. “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help but overhear what you just said. The FuckYou virus is programmed to overload and shut down all cell phone traffic worldwide on January 22nd. It will replace your account with an AI-generated clone, running up your monthly phone bill ten-fold.”

“You’re kidding!” the ladies gasp. “Are you joking?”

“I got it direct from a source at the Pentagon and confirmed by yustyoking.com. The virus is expected to do $50 billion in damages and block Starlink until a heady ransom is paid to Black Bear, the Russkie hacker collective who have created it. If our government doesn’t pay up within 24 hours, the virus will unleash drone attacks on our infrastructure. Or so I’m told.”

“Sounds serious,” one of the men agrees, taking out a cigar and rolling it between his fingers. “We can make you National Science Advisor in charge of kinetic energy development. Now If you’ll excuse me, I’m going out on the terrace for a smoke.”

“Yeah, sure, great!” I tell him and suddenly, I am the life of the party, as more and more people come over to hear my predictions for the republic. “The Internet of Things is our future,” I instruct. “Repeat after me, I will not post personal data on TikTok.” Serving up platitudes and ever more outrageous B.S. by the second— latex space helmets, North Korean mind control, Eon Muskrat for president in 2028— I can feel the sweat droplets running down my back.

“Take me home,” a bitchy voice brays in my ear. Turning, I find it’s Pamela, guest of Franklin Pierce Jenkins. Standing next to me, she sparkles, laughing luxuriously. An easy way out of my new-found, risk-filled popularity, I ask everyone’s forbearance and march her to the hat check. “It’s a mink stole,” she exclaims, handing me her ticket. Pamela’s wedding ring is an enormous gold band encrusted with many diamonds. Impressive.

I tip the hat check girl behind the counter $20 and help Pamela into her stole. “Where duh y’all live?” she drawls, wrinkling her nose knowingly.

“I’m staying with a friend. George,” I tell her.

“Wish I had somebody named George offering me to stay over,” she replies meaningfully. “Where is this place you’re staying?”

“On the other side of the intracoastal waterway,” I tell her. Since Fred isn’t charging me room and board, I tip the parking attendant a cool $50. Taking the money, he grabs my ticket and hustles to deliver my late model rent-a-car.

“Ah’m vurry happily married!” Pamela chirps, hopping into the vehicle like a teenager.

“I’m glad to hear it,” I agree.

“Still, now that you’ve aroused my curiosity, I wanna see for myself where you’re stayin’.”

“This I can do,” I assure her, only to be stymied by the bridge which is up, stalling traffic. Brown and impenetrable, it looks as insurmountable as the Berlin Wall.

A local, Pamela isn’t surprised or annoyed. Turning in the bucket seat and draping a leg in my lap, she leans against her door and laughs, rubbing my crotch with her foot. “Take off my shoe,” she suggests.

I unstrap the shoe. Squirming, she twists her foot for maximum traction and velocity. Definitely fun AF, she has my full attention.

Eventually the bridge returns to Earth. Using the GPS, I drive us to Fred’s place and park on the street. “Why don’t you park in the driveway?” Pam asks.

“I want to avoid blocking the driveway. For when Fred gets home.”

“I thought his name is George.”

“George, Fred, interchangeable,” I suggest, making her laugh out loud.

“Show me the guest room,” she declares bossily.

For someone who looks like a Christmas tree decked in ornaments, her hair is like a Brillo pad and her skin feels hot and clammy. All this and we are not canoodling.

When Fred gets home, he finds us in the kitchen, drinking red wine. “Oh, yeah, you again,” he observes, only slightly amused. Later, when I prepare to drive her home, Fred tells Pamela “Once is plenty enough. Don’t come back.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she huffs angrily.

I cannot say the two of them like each other.

Not among the chosen for a cabinet position in the new administration, I fly home to Maryland the very next day.                                               

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humor, political satire

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Wow and When

BEATLES time! When Paul and Ringo, the last two of the Fab Four, released their latest (and last?) Beatles single “Now and Then”— featuring the ghost of John Lennon on vocal— fanboys Mutte & Clive in realPfft felt inspired. Mutte composed his take on the Beatles’ music while Clive donned his bowler hat. Say wot?  

“Wow and When” follows the Liverpool lads from their early days playing the clubs and hawking their songs into the drug-fueled era of Sgt. Pepper, the yoga-influenced White Album and ending with the headaches and heartbreak during the documentary filming of the “Let It Be” album. As Paul said during the recording sessions, “It’s like ah’s. You’ll get it!”

Wow and When Lyrics

One, two, three, four

You’re listening to the World Service

The mayor is very excited to welcome the boys

They sing and they dance, fully clothed

That’s the way of it

Playing the cloob

Nyes, the boys… the band…

Fresh-faced boys playing music

Yes, that’s them. They’re clothed in suits

Stiff upper lip

They live on cheese butties and mustard bangers

Some say it’s rock & roll, others say it’s rhythm & blues

A fine line between the two

It’s dead easy, y’know. It’s like ah’s… You’ll get it

Not to worry, they’ll be toppermost of the poppermost

Sorry, ye cann go in thar, the fahr marshall says there’s 300 birds in the cloob

Hey, all!

Then they’re riding around in a Mick motorcar

Aye, ridin’ around in the van

Yes-s-s and why not?

Sorry, gulls, he’s no longer available

Yes, he’s all tied up in knots over tying the knot

Rooty tooty Judy

She says she doesn’t understand what they’re doing half the time

Swinging London

Say, wot?

Aye, Abbey Road forever!

I’ve got blisters on me fingers!

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humor, music

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My Broken Remix

Welcome to the world of AI-generated sights and sounds! The Suno music app at Microsoft Copilot— based on the prompt “Create a song about a broken tooth”— generated a complete track, including a British Jamaican singer, musical accompaniment and lyrics. Sweet! The boys added a mad dentist on the left and a female dental assistant on the right.

Graphic artist Kuny used Bing Image Creator DALL-E for the artwork. Prompt: “Show a handsome man and woman kissing.” AI rules!

That was in March 2024. Never satisfied, Mutte & Clive decided on a glorious meltdown of a remix, incorporating Clive’s London narrator sitting in his fave armchair reciting a limerick about a pirate on the high seas and his pet parrot Meanie. “Squawk! Pieces of eight!” Lesson learned: Never let a live parrot into a recording studio.

Not to be outdone, Kuny solarized the record cover.

Love that funky music!

Kev

My Broken Tooth (Remix)

It tasted blood on my tongue

When our lips collided, something came undone

A rush of pain, a moment’s hesitation

But I couldn’t resist the thrill of your sensation (ooh-yeah)

You left a piece of you in my broken tooth

A bittersweet reminder of our reckless youth

Every time I smile, I’m reminded of the past

But I wouldn’t change a thing, those memories last (yeah-yeah-yeah)

There once was a pirate on the high seas

Who brought world commerce to its knees

Ruthless and toothless

His gums were quite useless

Like a fool he lived on gruel

While his parrot named Meanie

Feasted on papaya and zucchini

 

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humor, music

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Tanz im der Straße

If you think I am going to make a pitch for a charitable donation, surprise!!!

Fuhgeddaboudit!

It’s June, summer is here and we’re dancing in the street. Why would I put a pall on glorious summer barbecues, refreshing days at the beach, even pool parties, over something as selfish— and shellfish— as a request that you, dear reader, give up your hard-earned cash for me, your dear writer?

Not only a writer, but a friend.

As the French say, “Don’t visit France, just send your money.”

I say, keep your money, behalte dein Geld, I am making a pitch for a charitable donut. Maybe an elevator pitch for a feature film. Wassup? Two minutes of monologue to sell a concept to risk-averse film moguls. Harvey Weinstein lives! Maybe he’s a bad guy, maybe he’s a good guy, but I love his movies.  

We at the Hinterland Relief Fund (often disturbingly confused with the Hitlerland Relief Fund, of which we are NOT affiliated) have asked Sylvia de Plathelovich— the Walter Cronkite of local news— to come out of retirement and join us poolside to paw through the mail, electronic posts and legal documents to HELP SAVE THE WORLD.

Nothing less.

Tanz im der Straße in German means “dance in the street.” But why limit ourselves to German? Tanz in Urdu means a sarcastic, mocking sneer.

Nothing less!

Shades of Afghanistan.

It might seem tone-deaf to solicit contributions for downtrodden peoples in Africa, Asia and the Far East when closer to home, the Homeland of the Jews is getting pounded by Hezbollah missiles in the north and the murdering rapists of Gaza in the south. Who gives a flying banana over global warming, drought, starvation, tsunamis, political oppression and the near extinction of the armadillo when the Children of the Book are suffering ten times more? Even little climate activist Greta Thunberg has parked her Strike for School Lunch placard, donned a keffiyeh and marched in Malmö, Sweden for the eradication of Israel.

Nothing less!

Here’s the method behind my madness: Once a month, I tear open the collected solicitations from charitable organizations that come in the mail. My mom was a Certified Public Accountant who wrote tax code. When paying her taxes, she took advantage of tax deductions for charitable contributions. Giving to thirty different charities, she honed it to an art form. Now that she is no longer with us, the solicitations continue to weigh down my mailbox.

By the time I finish glancing through these appeals, I am ready to scream! Their dripping sincerity, bogus friendliness and the urgent summons made to our better nature, leave me clawing the walls.

To maintain my sanity, I end up writing a scathing blog in self-defense.

Meanwhile, the college students are marching.

I say: From the river to the sea, no Palestine for you or me!

SUPPORT ISRAEL.

Oh, see, I did end up making an appeal.

Kev     

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humor, political satire

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Flirting with the Devil

“You waved to me from the train, all blond and blue-eyed, your pale skin ruddy from the cold.” This was my grandfather Mordechai as a teenager writing to Trudi, his one great love. His devotion to her overshadowed the love he felt for my grandmother. Indeed, it overshadowed his love of anything else in life. I liken Mordechai to a radio receiver that could only receive one frequency. In his case, the other-worldly signal from Trudi’s brain, an electric motor that generated a signal strong enough to give some people actual headaches. It’s all in the love letters which she and my grandfather wrote to one another.

I emphasize the Russian side of our family, but we are also Feingolds, aus Deutschland. People who came from Germany to Sweden and, eventually, America.

Rosa, my Mutter, passed away a year and a half ago. In liquidating her estate, I have come upon a lot of greeting cards with the kind of heavy, Jewish decorative art that I learned to abhor in my youth. Arthur Szyk is a modern example of the genre. Among other things in the safe deposit box, there was this crumbling stack of letters tied in brown string. Old, from the Second World War, with German stamps and postmarks from her side and Swedish stamps and postmarks from his, the letters are in Berliner Dialekt. Written in Fraktur script, the handwriting is decipherable, but a bear to get used to. Why mom held on to her father-in-law’s youthful indiscretion, I’ll never understand, other than that she liked Mordechai.

In Berlin on business in the middle of April— Spring in the air— I took the letters with me to a philologist named Siegfried who I found online. Dare I say it? You can find anything in Berlin. I emailed Siegfried a few weeks before my trip and was amazed to receive a ready and rapid reply. He would see me. He lives on the second floor of a tan five-story apartment house on Barfusstraße in Wedding, a block from Schillerpark. Spirited, with a glint in his eye, a white beard and a gnarled face, he is in his late 80’s, one of that strange breed born prior to World War Two.

“Your parents named you Siegfried,” I blurted, shaking his hand vigorously, feeling my face go red. That was the effect he had on me. “Your name means victory and peace,” I added.

“It’s of no importance,” he assured me. “If it bothered me, I would have changed it, but it doesn’t bother me.”

“Oh, okay,” I agreed, watching him close and lock the front door before disappearing into the kitchen to make us coffee. In Germany, coffee is a must.

The walls of his study are filled with German expressionist paintings and woodcuts from the 1920’s. They must be worth their weight in gold! Serving the coffee, he read aloud from several of the letters, chuckling with amazement at their childish sentiments.

“They’re love letters by young people,” I explained lamely.

Siegfried gave me a fuller picture of Trudi’s train ride than I could piece together with my limited German. It was March of 1938. Trudi and her parents were leaving Berlin for Rostock, nearer the Baltic coast, where they spent the war.

Together with online searches, we could also deduce that Trudi’s father, Hans Schmitz, a somewhat overwrought Berliner, worked for the Reichsbahn, the state railway. So he never ended up in the Wehrmacht fighting on the Eastern Front. From his perch on the Baltic Sea, it was easy for Hans to turn a blind eye to the cattle cars loaded with Jews heading east to the concentration camps. A typical railway man, he looked upon politics as a disease and considered Hitler to be his own worst enemy. Hans turned down a promotion to Gauleiter, district chief, because it would have required him to join the Nazi Party. Trudi went to school, where they knitted socks for the troops, collected clothing for the Winter Relief and sent care packages to the front.

Quaint.

Rostock got bombed mercilessly. After the war, it became East Germany’s major seaport.

When Kristallnacht struck in November of 1938, the Night of Broken Glass, a pogrom against the Jews, the Feingolds signed over 95% of their possessions to the Nazis and decamped to Malmö in Sweden where my great-grandfather taught at the university. His expertise was ancient civilizations, which immediately put him at loggerheads with National Socialist mythology regarding swastika sun symbols and the qualities of the so-called Aryan race. The Nazis were only too happy to banish der Professor from the Reich. He was exactly the kind of intellectual Jew who made Hitler’s blood boil.  

“Den Teufel,” sighed Siegfried.

“The Devil?” I asked.

“You are American.”

“Yes, that’s right, Swedish-American. Growing up, my parents sent me to live—”

“Of course,” he barked, as if broken families were as common as dirt. “What interests me is the current state of America. Do you feel that you are flirting with a devil by allowing Trumpf to run for a second term?”

“Ah… um…” I stammered, caught off guard.

“That’s why I agreed to see you!” he harrumphed, which was okay with me, but unexpected. I took a clunk of cold coffee and gathered my thoughts.

“It’s a case of domestic politics,” I explained carefully. “There are all these politicians pooping…”

“Yes?” he asked, amused.

Thinking in a jumble of German, Swedish and English, I was having trouble expressing myself. “These politicians are screwing around. Chiefly Mitch McConnell, minority leader of the Senate, but yeah, it’s a handful of people who are oblivious to history and afraid of getting shot by Trump’s supporters. Every opportunity they have to put a stop to Trump’s candidacy, like three blind mice, they don’t do it,” I ended with an embarrassed chuckle. Why did I have to bring up mice, for God’s sake?   

“What about Biden?” Siegfried asked, making the name sound like two words.

“Megalomania,” I explained. “Egocentricity. Aware of his age, he promised in 2020 to only run for one term. He claimed he was a transitional president, a bridge to the younger generation. But when push comes to shove, his high regard for himself has convinced him that he can win reelection. A nice gramps, but really, really old and doddering,” I concluded. “It’s not that the Republicans are so strong, it’s that the Democrats are so weak.”

“I keep reading that in the German press,” Siegfried replied, taking out a meerschaum pipe and filling it with tobacco from a tin. “Do you identify as Jewish?”

“Very much so.”

“So, what do you think of the war?”

“A tragedy for all concerned, on the ground in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank,” I said, more sure of my opinion. “Hamas is playing the West for fools. First they murder the Israelis and then they stir up pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel sentiment among young people all around the world. They are winning the propaganda war, which sucks.”

“Let’s go outside. I want to smoke,” Siegfried insisted. Standing with me on the front walk, lighting his pipe with a fancy silver lighter and billowing clouds of white smoke, he asked if I had considered moving to Israel.

“I am considering it. I never expected the American public to turn on me, but I am a student of history. I see America reenacting all the same mistakes as Nazi Germany in the 1930’s.”

“I lived through one world war, I don’t want to live through another,” Siegfried declared, shaking his head. “The Russians are breathing down our necks. You Americans need to stop flirting with the Devil and get your act together.”

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essay, humor, political satire

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Kevin for Veep!

I don’t wish to intrude, but with so many highly-placed Republican vice presidential hopefuls trekking to New York to kiss Trump’s ring, I felt compelled by the Veepstakes to do even more: Now with Trump’s head on the chopping block in the Stormy Daniels trial, I too traveled to New York, but to kiss his ass.

Not wanting to arrive empty-handed, I watched as many of Stormy Daniels’ 169 videos as my eyes tolerated, read six books about the Trump presidency, immersed myself in the scandal magazine industry, perused the archives of several TV networks in New York and Hollywood, worked with U.S. government archivists to unearth as many related documents as possible, examined photographs, read seven scholarly papers, spoke with three historians who told me the court proceedings were a storm in a teacup, interviewed several lawyers who told me not to quit my day job, conversed with a half dozen dudes at federal prisons serving time for the January 6 insurrection, visited two museums and discussed family history over Zoom with purported Trump relatives at scraggly vineyards in southern Germany. Maybe they were bona fide relatives, maybe not. It’s always maddeningly difficult to nail down Trump connections to the Old Country.

I even consummated two trysts with sweet Black professional ladies from “the block,” Balto’s Red Light District, since extramarital sex appears germane to Trump’s case.

Since the journey is half the experience and ’tis better to travel hopefully than to arrive, I took a Zero Bus from Balto’s dilapidated Chinatown full of Ethiopian immigrants to Chinatown in NYC. Not surprisingly, seats on the bus were occupied primarily by Asians: Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Japanese and Chegroes. Sitting next to a pretty, 26-year-old Taiwanese, I considered myself lucky and spoke in a clucking English patois as close to Hong Kong dialect as I could muster. “Stop that,” she said. “Just talk ordinary English!” The damsel was not impressed. As the bus pulled into Chinatown in Philadelphia to disgorge and pick up passengers, I took advantage of the 15-minute layover to sprint across the street and grab dim sum take-out. Delicious!

Arriving in NYC, springtime in the air, I walked the 10 minutes from Chinatown to the Manhattan Criminal Court building at 100 Centre Street. Once on-site, I wasted no time in banging the drum for Trump:

“Trump who’s accused is not amused by being abused!

He’s got the Mar-a-Lago blues,”

I sang, loud enough to draw attention to myself but not loud enough to get arrested.

“Name’s Kevin Feingold. Can I become Vice President now?” I asked representatives of various news media. Dressed in my best dark blue suit and a red, white and blue striped tie, I also sported red socks imprinted with a black hammer and sickle, a left-over from the British rock scene of the 1980’s. I felt insanely envious of the broadcasters with their perfect hair and pearly white veneers. The networks’ assembled gear had converted Collect Pond Park across the street from the courthouse into a veritable Mars-scape of satellite dishes and high tech paraphernalia.

One-time presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy stood in the park, claiming the trial was an attempt to derail Trump’s reelection campaign. “Straight out of a Kafka novel,” Vivek complained. Meanwhile, I got a guard to let me in a side door of the courthouse to use the men’s room.   

In the hallway outside the courtroom, after a fusillade of invective from Trump himself, House Speaker Mike Johnson called the trial ­a shame, a travesty and a partisan witch hunt. Other notables supporting Trump in a clump were North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and U.S. Congressmen Byron Donalds and Cory Mills, the latter two from Florida. “It is sad that we’re here today and not out talking to the American people,” declared Burgum.

“Who’s stopping you?” I wondered, at which point I myself went back outside and spoke to the American people.

“People will little note nor long remember what I say here today,” I intoned. Aiming for ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN or at worst Fox News, I ended up facing the single camera of the West Piedmont Intelligencer YouTube channel. I understand that they specialize in cooking tips: recipes for apple butter, corn grits, cooked possum and the like. Makes my mouth water just writing about it.

“We need a strong leader to get through these troubled times,” I declared. “That strong leader needs a strong right hand. I will be that strong leader’s strong right-hand man.

“Why listen to Senators Tommy Tuberville and J.D. Vance? Why listen to Representatives Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Lauren Boebert from Colorado, Matt Gaetz and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Nicole Malliotakis from New York, Bob Good of Virginia and all those other groveling Trump sycophants when you can listen to my groveling instead? They have all made the trek here to New York, their pilgrimage to Mecca, but my pandering is at least as sincere as their pandering. Mine is U.S. Grade A groveling. The groveling that can Make This Country Great Again!

“When you say ‘America First,’ I say ‘Yes! First in Thirst, Leader of the Free World in carbonated beverages!’

“Thinking back to Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Mogadishu, to Grenada, to Lebanon, Vietnam, Korea, the Eastern Front, the Western Front, the beaches of Normandy, the Battle of Verdun, the Halls of Montezuma and the shores of Tripoli, I say ‘Honor our fallen martyrs! Honor the living as well as the dead.’ If elected, I will impose a high tariff on the import of tea cozies from Muslim countries. Let America find and fund its tea cozies locally, as we always have done, since the time of the Boston Tea Party.

“The libs may find me P.U., Politically Uncorrect, but I am proudly hetero. I like young girls! I like everybody else, too. Doesn’t mean I want to shag everything that moves. When I take stock of our country, our natural heritage, I want to admit more beautiful immigrant women to our shores, not less. Where is the ‘Erica’ in America? I wear my cred as a male chauvinist pig with pride: From mulatto matrons’ majesty to the fruitfully plain, I find all these women beautiful. Just beautiful. They are energizing the lifeblood of our country. We’re a beautiful country. Just beautiful. GAMA! Get America More Amazons!   

“Currently, I am gathering signatures to appear on the ballot in Maryland and Virginia. This is my two-state solution. Jihadists have got me on the run! To prove my bona fides, I have hired Mustafa al-Salim as a political adviser. Mustafa has not a single good word to say about Israel. Left-wing radicals need to take a sabbatical. Visit the encampments on our college campuses and you’ll see that all of life has become a comic book. Identity fanaticism is our way of life. Each of us is an action hero starring in a movie inside our own heads. Damn the bangalore torpedoes, full speed ahead!  

“It is time to deify the downtrodden hamburger. We Trumpists wear our victimhood on our sleeves. Witch hunt! Rigged elections! We seek humanitarian aid. We demand social justice for the martyrs of January 6th! I won’t shoot your dog or your goat— or even your mother-in-law on Fifth Avenue. But as Vice President, I am offering to plant swastika-shaped flower beds on the White House lawn and declare the resurrection of the 4th Reich. Long live Trump!”

Watching the videographer worriedly pack up his equipment and scurry away, I asked myself if it was something I said. Casting my eyes upon the multitudes, I didn’t see squat. Trolls we have, but where were the needy Palestinians now that I really needed them to fill out the frame?      

“Wanna party?” a raven-haired young lady in incredibly provocative brown leather thigh boots, a pink miniskirt, a white blouse and black leather jacket asked me, eyes flashing jovially. I think she applied her eyeliner with a spatula.

“Uh, I’m here running for a political party,” I stammered, feeling my face go beet red. “Republican Party. Legacy stuff,” I babbled.

“We can have a party of our own,” she giggled, her tiny white teeth peeking from between her ruby red lips.

Me like. You come to New York City, you gonna see the sights. Grabbing a cab, we proceeded to a cheap dive in the Bowery and did further research.   

Returning to the courthouse, I got back just in time to watch Michael Cohen, after his day’s testimony, get escorted to a black, armor-plated sedan by federal marshals.

I spent 20 minutes handing out campaign buttons. My slogan:

Find Gold with Feingold in 2024!

While in da city, I intended to plumb the law books in the library at Columbia, but I got chased off campus by angry anti-Israel demonstrators who mistook me for an Israeli spy. These things happen. I’m Jewish.

Instead, walking the High Line in the early evening, I got waylaid by a lady sitting on a bench with a tan Pekingese. Wrapped in a black leather trench coat that looked too warm for the season, she was an eyeful. Her fluffy dog had a flat face and the personality of a lion. I thought he was going to gnaw my leg off. “Don’t you like dogs?” she asked in a deep voice.

“I like you!” I joked.

“Fuhgeddaboudit!” she exclaimed, making room for me on the bench.

Her name was Suzanne. Long story short, after accompanying Bog the Dog back to her apartment and ordering Chinese take-out, we spent the evening listening to Arab pop music and watching YouTube on her wide-screen TV. Mostly “Boots on the Ground” pro-Israeli reports from Gaza. A secretary, when I told her about my vice presidential aspirations, she laughed and said, “If you try to grab me by the pussy, I’m gonna knee you in the balls!”

Wow! My kind of woman. I stayed over and, despite my forebodings, ended up with a friend in NYC.

Failing to make a dent with the Trump people, I was going to try to be Dr. Jill Stein’s vice presidential running mate in the Green Party, but I suspect that the war in Gaza pits me far outside the pale of Green Party orthodoxy.

My younger brother Tim thinks I am a libertarian, even if I don’t yet know it.

We all face our trials, even Donald Trump.

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humor, political satire

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My Broken Tooth

Music maestro Mutte Fjutt in Uppsala, Sweden and punk rocker Clive Flatenbad—a k a rap duo realPfft— continue their odyssey through the world of AI-generated sights and sounds.  

Mutte accessed the Suno music app at Microsoft Copilot, using the prompt: “Create a song about a broken tooth.” AI generated a complete track— music, lyrics and singing voice— even if the music was fuzzy, the vocal only 37 seconds long and the singer forgot some of the lyrics. Mutte deconstructed the music and re-recorded it, adding flourishes, solos and final mix.   

Graphic artist Kuny used Bing Image Creator DALL-E for the artwork. Prompt: “Show a handsome man and woman kissing.” AI rules!

Since March 2018, Mutte and Clive have been grinding out their quirky version of hit music. They started their collaboration doing political satire and have branched out from there into rap, hip hop, rock, pop, R&B, soul, jazz, bebop, K-pop and whatever else tickles their funny bone. “Everything we do is comedy,” insists Clive.

Sweden is joining NATO (my old stomping ground), Donald Trump is up for re-election, there’s heartache in Ukraine and headache in Gaza. Extreme weather plagues the planet and mass extinction looms on the horizon. Rarely have we been more in need of a laugh. Love that funky music!

Kev

My Broken Tooth

It tasted blood on my tongue

When our lips collided, something came undone

A rush of pain, a moment’s hesitation

But I couldn’t resist the thrill of your sensation (ooh-yeah)

You left a piece of you in my broken tooth

A bittersweet reminder of our reckless youth

Every time I smile, I’m reminded of the past

But I wouldn’t change a thing, those memories last (yeah-yeah-yeah)

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humor, music

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Penguin Mania

Yellow sunshine fills the sky. The fall weather is unseasonably warm. It’s early in November and 34 residents of Washington, DC stand on the Observation Tower of Dulles International Airport, waving goodbye to the last of the pandas. Dressed in panda-inspired knitted caps, their hearts are breaking as they press against one another and hold hands, already pining for their missing teddy bears. Frantically loyal, they seriously wonder what will become of the panda habitat so assiduously created at the National Zoo, now that its inhabitants are being repatriated to China.  

They need not worry. Locating an Italian manufacturer of snowmaking equipment in the Tyrol and flying one of its machines across the ocean, within two weeks, the zoo proudly announces that it has been ranked as Number Four worldwide in Emperor Penguin habitat. The future looks icy bright! On the Endangered Species List, classified as Near Threatened, Emperor Penguins’ existence is being propped up by cryogenically archiving penguin DNA as well as having them breed in captivity.

As the first pair of Emperor Penguins arrives from the Antarctic, they are whisked from the airport to the zoo by Constitutional Van Lines LLC, who landed a government contract after proffering the lowest bid to Congress. All well and good, but unfortunately, not everyone gets the memo: A trio of 13-year-old carjackers from Anacostia waylay the red, white and blue Constitutional Van Lines truck and make off with its two avian passengers.

“Who has our penguins and when will we get them back?!” thunders the Style section of The Washington Post.

The penguincam at the National Zoo shows a forlorn image: A state-of-the-art orange snow gun on wheels is parked in the corner of an empty, snow-encrusted enclosure. With neither penguins nor pandas in attendance, only a nest of mice can be seen scurrying about, black squiggles on a white background.

Offering a $10,000 reward, Fiends of the Zoo manages to provide the authorities with the names and addresses of the perpetrators, who have surreptitiously stashed their captives in a refrigerated meat locker at a local grocery store. The boys feed the birds canned sardines and raw Maryland perch.

This trio of miscreants is promptly captured by the police and brought before a judge. Since they are being tried as minors, The Post withholds their names from publication, although this doesn’t stop Antoine, Reggie and Tupac from getting thoroughly doxed online.

Having defecated in every corner of the meat locker, the penguins— nicknamed Lunchcart and Boxcar— seem no worse off for their ordeal. They are transported forthwith to the zoo.

Nothing in the Nation’s Capital, however, goes in quite as straightforward a fashion as one might wish. Thoroughly fed up with the Biden administration’s support of Israel, in December of 2023, Palestinian college students from Gaza— in the U.S. on student visas— tunnel their way into the penguin enclosure and capture Boxcar. Lunchcart escapes getting taken hostage only because he is housed separately and under observation after being inoculated against bird flu.

All over the zoo, Palestinian protesters march in groups, chanting through megaphones “Ha! Ha! Hamas! From the border to the sea, Ha-Ha-Hamas is you and me!” The noise level is deafening. Young girls in traditional checkered black and white kaffiyeh look like the devilish progeny of Yasser Arafat. They hang posters on the wire cages that say “LET GAZA BE FREE AS A BIRD!”

Waving Palestinian flags, they scrawl graffiti on retaining walls. Many of them get arrested and threatened with deportation. Who has raised these radicals? They promise a whole new generation of discord in international politics.

Naturally, this hostage drama garners both headlines and worldwide indignation. It feels as if Berke Breathed’s penguin hero Opus has jumped off the pages of the comic strip Bloom County and is being chased in circles in real life.

“While America considers this to be a case of domestic terrorism,” announces the Secretary-General of the United Nations at a press conference, looking appropriately somber and serious, “the United Nations insists on providing assistance, lest this form of activism become a daily occurrence.”

A special session of the United Nations is called to order to confront the dilemma. The sun is shining on First Avenue in New York City, but it’s cold. “Terrorism is as terrorism does,” insists the American ambassador.

The government of Antarctica would protest the capture of its citizen if Antarctica had a government. Since Antarctica has no government, Israel offers to represent the fauna of the region, claiming preeminence in dealing with Palestinians. “You can count the number of anti-Hamas Gazans on the fingers of one hand,” the Israeli ambassador assures the General Assembly.

After a tumultuous debate that includes a walkout and boycott by the Gulf States, Russia is assigned the responsibility of rescuing the penguin, based on their expertise in back-channel, underhanded double-dealing. Normally, these traits would be frowned upon, but beggars can’t be choosers. “If the Palestinians misbehave, don’t look at us!” swears the Russian ambassador. “Talk to the Iranians. Hamas warriors are clients of Iran.”

Everyone agrees that choosing Russia as negotiator is not a perfect solution, but it’s an acceptable compromise under trying circumstances.

The Russians and the Palestinians meet at the Rosemont Day Spa in the Catskills. Taking the Palestinian negotiators prisoner, the Russians pump sleeping gas into their quarters and storm the building. Using brute force, they rescue Boxcar. Unfortunately, the penguin succumbs to injuries sustained during her liberation.

It is at this point that noted theologian Meyer Bahnhof enters the picture, claiming from Lagos, Portugal that penguins are “the Chosen Ones,” anointed by God. Banned on many social media platforms for his rabidly Zionist outbursts, Bahnhof goes on Reddit and prophesizes a telepathic link between the thought processes of penguins and Artificial Intelligence. When asked, A.I. confirms this hypothesis. “Behold, the Lion of Zion is a penguin!” rants the theologian. “Down with the Philistines. Delilah be damned! Yahweh rules.”

While the whole world seems to be screaming for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war, almost no one is insisting that Russia accept a ceasefire in Ukraine.   

Slowly, methodically, Israel drives the Palestinians of Gaza deep into the Sinai Peninsula. For want of a better solution, the United Nations, the Gulf States, Egypt and the International Court in The Hague spearhead a humanitarian rescue operation which leaves two million Gazans as semi-permanent refugees in Egypt.

“Who needs Gaza?” ask the Israelis, taking a scorched-earth approach to Palestinian intransigence.

Global warming once again grabs the headlines. “We have plenty of water, but it’s in the wrong place,” declares the United Nations, alarmed over melting icecaps and rising sea levels. They decide to seriously curb emissions and combat global warming by the year 2055. As long as it doesn’t cost too much.

Since almost nothing is known about the mating habits of penguins, intensive study, scientific research and public scrutiny are applied to the problem. Eventually, Lunchcart and a newly-arrived female nicknamed Mayfly mate. They have a chick named Lotus Leopard, who grows up to become one of the leaders of the zoo’s Emperor Penguin colony.

Meanwhile, flummoxed by melting sea ice, Emperor Penguins in Antarctica face total extinction by the year 2100.

Mankind soon to follow.

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humor, political satire

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Strike!

The Writers Guild of America— 11,500 screenwriters— are on strike and I have a lot of time on my hands. Not that I am a commercial screenwriter. It’s summer and I have a lot of time on my hands.

Just this month, I applied to a talent agency to rep me. Their second Q was “What kind of work are you looking for?” Having low self-esteem, I don’t expect to get signed up straight-away by a major blockbuster. As many as half the new shows on streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, YouTube and Apple tv get canceled after just one season. The metrics are brutal that way. Since everyone has to start somewhere, I have instructed the agency that I am looking for gainful employment on one or more of those series, the ones facing extinction.

In the meantime, I dog walk.

Fortunately, there are dozens of online courses, competitions and workshops for would-be screenwriters. There is a whole cottage industry of helpmates who, for a nominal fee, will explain why your writing sucks. You are using the wrong-colored notecards. Your pegboard is the wrong size. Stuff like that. I signed up with Three Media in Stockholm, Sweden, for the course “Screenwriting. It’s Complicated.” The first thing I have learned is that no one knows what makes a show great. Good writing, high production values, talented actors and meaningful direction all contribute to the possibility of major success. Yet, sometimes, in spite of the very best laid plans, a show still lacks “heart.” The writers never seem to find their voice. Everyone on set seems to be simply going through the motions. The “star” phones it in. The director never gets a grip on the material. Some of which may even be in French!

Je me souviens, I think back fondly to the desert location of a recent TV pilot titled “Roar of the Lion!” Hired to assist the caterers, I was thrilled to be part of a major film project, I can tell you, the smell of pancake make-up and Fresnel lenses baking in the sun. I offered to assist the writing staff in any way I possibly could. Editing. Rewrite. Even transcription. (Typing up notes from a brainstorming session.) Appreciative, they sent me into town to buy donuts.

The good news is, I really hit it off with the female lead, Anna Petrovska. What a darling lady! A ruddy redhead, her skin luminous, her bright red toenails shone like rubies against the backdrop of desert sand. A notorious insomniac, she stayed up all night, practicing lines. Bleary-eyed, I accompanied her on this emotional journey. The line “I love you, Robert” was delivered with the following motivation (I quote verbatim from the script):

Sweating in the sweltering heat of the Kalahari, Cecilia mentions this in passing, meanwhile gutting the carcass of the dead lion in prep to stuffing it.

An anti-poaching polemic, the film skates the razor-sharp edge of satirical discontent.

Lying in one another’s arms, Anna and I worked up a sweat, as well.

All of this was before the writers strike, of course.

At home in Maryland, I was surprised to get an email from L.A. It was the director, informing me that additional dialogue was needed during post-production. I mean, this is in the middle of the writers strike. The film cutter, the assistant director and the director found themselves sitting at the editing console, trying to figure out how best to rescue their baby from early oblivion. “We know you harbor the ambition to become a wordsmith on the soundstages of Hollywood,” wrote my erstwhile benefactor. “Here’s a warm-up exercise in the dramatic arts. Cecilia needs to write to Robert from Paris where she is held captive by the villain Sultan Rhubarb. What does she say to Robert? We know that his answer is yes, since we filmed the chase sequence that takes up the last third of the movie. But what does Cecilia actually say? Your thoughts on the matter are most welcome.”

It was super groovy of the director to get in touch with me! I greatly appreciate it. You’ll notice that, since screenwriters are on strike, he never asks me to write any actual dialogue.

Being a blabbermouth, I have a pupu platter of great ideas about what to put in Cecilia’s letter to Robert. As I see it, she is more than just a blood-and-guts taxidermist, up to her elbows in animal cadavers. The lass has a lion’s heart worth of emotion pent-up inside her artisan persona. “Oh, boykie!” she writes, adding a touch of South African flair to the cocktail. “When I think of the blackness of night during our sojourn in Darkest Africa,” she exclaims, using the classical, chauvinistic, colonial moniker for the continent, “my memory of the braying of the hyenas sustains me, confirming that ‘We’ll always have Botswana.’ Come rescue me & etc. Yours, CC.”

Coming to a streaming service near you. Release date TBA.

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humor

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Mudlowe

Another take on a Raymond Chandler movie has arrived and I want a piece of the action.

My name is Oscar Mudlowe, not to be confused with Moscar Ludlow whose mail keeps getting delivered to my office. I’ve never met the fellow, but if you know him, please have him straighten out this business with the post office.

Those Hollywood movie people used to sit on the front stoop of their bungalow offices on sunny days, exchanging tall tales and congratulating one another on the exceptional California weather. It sure beats Pittsburg! Sunny, cloudy, I don’t get to sit outside. I’m holed up in my office, waiting for a new client to telephone or some hot dame with a problem to beat a path to my office door.

These things happen.

Many glamorous Beautiful People flock to Hollywood and sometimes some of them get into scrapes. I consider myself a scrape eliminator. I’m a P. I. but some folks say my services are P. U. Let them take their trade elsewhere. I don’t work for bellyachers. You want a referral? I’ll even give you a referral. Anything to get you out of my hair, off my calendar, your card eliminated from my Rolodex and all memory of you expunged. Poof! U R so gone! That’s how I stay busy and solvent. Deadheads like you I don’t need.

Some perps have accused me of ineptitude. To them, I plainly state, “Lookee what it says on our office door, etched into the glass:

Graham,

Crackers

&

Son

I am the son in that statement.”

Old man Graham and the Cracker family represented the two extremes here in SoCal: Old Money and poverty, the Amazing Blue Ribbon 400 and ditchdiggers. They let my dad Murray join their landscaping business. When they went belly-up in the drought of ’87, they segued into private investigation.

Coming into my office, she looked a treat. Dames like her I need. They keep me solvent. The bank accounts of their fiancés provide a constant source of renewal. She had the good gams, blond hair and chiseled good looks prevalent among dames of Austro-Hungarian descent.

“ ’Scuse me, lady,” I said, sitting behind my desk. “Are you possibly of Austro-Hungarian descent?”

“I’m from Argentina,” she replied coldly.

I pitch ’em like I see ’em. Sometimes I am so on the money. Other times, dead wrong.

Over my desk, I have a framed testimonial from Chief Running Bird of the Comanche Tribe. It says:

Him uniform a gray trenchcoat

Him stamina in reserve

Him make haste to find

Every single guilty perv.

“What can I do for you, lady?” I asked.

“I ordered a bookcase from a Swedish furniture manufacturer and it seems to have disappeared,” she enunciated, sucking down great clouds of cigarette smoke.

Sometimes in the course of human events, everything gets all screwed up. “Sounds like a job for their service department,” I suggested.

“It was a very expensive bookcase.”

“I charge $50 an hour. I don’t intend to work seven days a week on your case. I’ll provide an itemized account, how many hours on which days, gas money, incidental expenses.”

“What about dental?” she asked, lightning bolts flashing from her icy blue eyes.

“Get real.”

“You’re hired,” she replied.

I figured there was probably a lot more to this bookcase angle than meets the eye. There are some bad dudes in this burg. Some pretty shady characters occupy nooks in the furniture trade. A lot of the fentanyl powder and pills hitch a ride on furniture deliveries. Saves on gas. Postage and handling. Taxes. I could see where a lot of digging will uncover some pretty ugly skeletons from Davy Jones’s closet. I know this stuff. That’s why they pay me the big bucks.

If you don’t have a car in L.A., you’re toast. When I went to her bungalow at the Chateau Marmont that evening to report on my progress, she didn’t seem all that interested in furniture. I got a definite vibe that loose lips would sink ships and prices on villas in Topanga Canyon have skylined. You have to be a movie mogul to live there!

“Come on in and join me for a drink,” she suggested in a smoky bedroom voice.

Entering her rental, I scanned the inventory, looking for a Scandinavian bookcase, probably in furu. Swedish pine. Heavy, yellow wood. I didn’t find it, so maybe this lady was legit after all. A lot of people hire me in April so they can list my expenses on their tax statement for the write-off. She wasn’t one of them. With those blood-red nails of hers, she seemed legit.

“I don’t drink when I’m on duty, ma’am.”

“Okay, detective, I now officially declare you off duty. A whiskey and branch water for me, please,” she told me, stalking me like prey, blowing smoke rings with every third word.

Looking at the drink tray, I thought I was going meatballs and bananas.

I liked the leprechaun green throw rug she was wearing. Not my style, but even I had to admit that on her, it looked good. “What’s with the glad rag?” I wondered.

“This?” she asked me, batting her eyebrows. “This old thing belonged to my grandmother. I only wear it for the sentimental value.”

Looking closer, I realized that the gold thread resembled real gold. Hmmm. There are some bad eggs in this town, but apparently she wasn’t one of them.  

“Take off your jacket and let’s get comfy,” she said, loosening her robe.

“I don’t fool around with clients, ma’am.”

“Okay, detective. You are now officially fired. I’m still waiting for that drink.”

Oh. Shit. I really needed the work.

She was leading me by the nose. The very next day, she telephoned me to say I was rehired and she wanted hourly updates. This was gonna be a long one. I once had a case that lasted 366 days, from a post-Oscar After Party one year to the Oscar Ceremony the next. I didn’t think the Case of the Runaway Bookcase was going to take a full year, but I had a whole rack of pens and several reams of paper suitable for transcribing bills. Days, hours, gas, incidentals. California state tax.

The day after that a man named Arthur Chromedaddy tracked me down to a film lot where I was pulling security outside the Ladies Room. “I saw your ad in the personal notices in the newspaper,” he told me. “I always check the classifieds. Where do you want the bookcase delivered?”

The damned thing had been off-loaded by mistake to a warehouse in San Pedro, 25 miles from downtown. Go figure.

I charged her for days, hours, gas, the newspaper notice, incidentals and California state tax. I squared her account with the police. I think this is the beginning of a beautiful Freundschaft. Not bad for a couple of days gumshoeing around the City of Angels.           

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humor

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