DECEMBER 1, 2023
Jeff Larsen is an Occupy Wall Street veteran, a demanding wiseacre, and a generally good egg. He now lives in New Jersey, was born at the same hospital as Bob Dylan, and was hit by a car as a child on Highway 61. He still ruminates on these as portents of something, but hasn't yet put all the pieces together. He fears for our Republic, and actively pursues a moral and ethical way of living. Follow him on his personal website: http://surrealplumber.wikifoundry.com
I'm a born contrarian. I look at conventional wisdom, the orthodox point of view, and try to detect the flaws in it. I'm generally suspicious of group-think, and I prescribe to what Charles Bukowski once said. If you have two lines of people, one with 100 people in it and one with two people, always get in the short line. I have worked directly in technology for 30 years, give or take, primarily in editorial or technical writing positions. I Continue Reading...
I was approached on Manhattan's Sixth Avenue a few days ago by a fund raiser for the Working Families Party, a progressive bunch who want legislation to improve the prospects of this increasingly beleaguered demographic. Continue Reading...
When I left central Pennsylvania, its single most defining characteristic for me was its blatant racism. Second was how profoundly unhappy and uninformed the people were. Not coincidentally, this area was most responsible for Trump winning that state. I always thought Harrisburg was an exceptionally rotten place, but now I realize places like this make up maybe 70 percent of the country. As a white man in New York, I have been totally Continue Reading...
Szell: Is it safe? [pause] Is it safe? Babe: You're talking to me? Szell: Is it safe? Babe: Is what safe? Szell: Is it safe? Babe: I don't know what you mean. I can't tell you something's safe or not, unless I know specifically what you're talking about. Szell: Is it safe? Babe: Tell me what the "it" refers to. Szell: Is it safe? Babe: Yes, it's safe, it's very safe, it's so safe you wouldn't believe it. Szell: Is it safe? Babe: No. Continue Reading...
It was maybe 18 inches from me, and it announced itself with no subtle gesture. It was exclamatory, a punctuation on everything surrounding it. It's color was indeterminate, its texture apparently quite smooth and soft, its presence spectacular. It was the wide horizontal grin of the top of an old man's ass, peeping out of the top of his miscalibrated, less than form fitting blue jeans. And it was riveting. Continue Reading...
The boys were tarring the on-ramp to the interstate again, and the smell wafted through to sun porch on to the kitchen and into the dining room, where Daddy Melon sat in his adjustable LazyBoy recliner. Daddy Melon has a habit of taking off his shoes, falling asleep for two or three days at a time, then waking with a start. Typically, it takes him on hour or two to rekindle his time/space continuum. Instances in which his discombobulation were Continue Reading...
The gesture was ostentatious, the prerogative obscure, the objective nebulous. But I sounded like I had a load of dough when I walked into the deep southwest stall at the Port Authority, jingle jangle with every step. And then the stench wafted like only poorhouse wino stench can waft. And I cursed the day I was born. Continue Reading...
Dear Presidential Candidate: How I received your solicitation for money is really bizarre, even subversive. I have never voted for a so-called "conservative" in my life, and surely never will. Your laundry list of credentials and ideological buzz points below are strikingly offensive to me in their level of hypocrisy and manipulation. I am somewhat slack-jawed by the fact that you are indeed running again, given your implausible and Continue Reading...
