Category: Black Comedy

Bug Nuts

Today marks the first [and very overdue] public eulogy for Bug Nuts Bogdanovich, our champion in countless conspiracies to take over the world at large.

His first name was actually Larry (Lawrence Milton), but nobody bothered to call him that once he’d begun his studies in undergrad. You see, he was constantly running around from place to place, appearing to be perpetually late for an appointment, while in reality he was always early. His main concern was to make sure that he didn’t get distracted along the way.

It’s a sad sight when a person who’s perpetually early is always rushing around in addition to that particular quirk. They can’t stop to smell the roses or anything. They’re just frenetic, losing small pieces of their humanity along the way, as achievement after achievement just whizzes by, a parade of accolades that really mean nothing in the grand scheme of things. I see it as his way of compensating for validations that he may not have received earlier in life. Or perhaps he’d gotten too much recognition and it developed a pattern of addictive behavior to continue seeking that high.

Who knows… he never let anyone into his inner life [enough] to see what really made him tick, so it’s all conjecture now. What his cohorts and loved ones do know is just how much work he took on all the time. People were naturally drawn to him, even though he kept everyone at arm’s length. That’s precisely what gave him an alluring aura. “If only he would take the time to get to know us better, maybe we could see what kind of a person he truly is! As it stands, he could be a really nice guy, a serial killer, both, neither… frustrating.”

The moniker “Bug Nuts” stemmed from the one time he actually let his hair down (metaphorically–he would never allow himself to get bogged down in matters of extreme grooming, it would be such a waste of time in his eyes). He went to his dearest friend Beatrice’s little birthday gathering for a couple hours, actually imbibing spirits and taking down his defenses for once. If there had been more people gathered there at that time, he more than likely would have withdrawn into his introvert’s shell and waited it out while occasionally making pained eye contact with Bea.

But since he did feel comfortable enough to be more of himself around these people (he got a “Goldilocks Zone” vibe off of them), he found himself embroiled in an entertaining conversation about insects. He fancied himself an amateur entomologist (among his other passions), and he was really getting fired up about dung beetles of all species. Bea, having witnessed several minutes of unbroken bug talk, exclaimed “hey wow, look at Bug Nuts Bogdanovich over here!”, and the rest is history.

I don’t claim to have known this man very well at all, but from the few fleeting moments we spent with one another, I felt it was my duty and privilege to give him a respectable send-off into the great blue yonder with a laugh or two.

So here’s to you, Mr. Bogdanovich. Beetles love you more than you will know. Whoa whoa whoa.

Levity

Levity slices through to the heart of an artichoke much more effectively than any knife.

That’s at least what my uncle Gilfroy told me one time over whiskey sours. I couldn’t partake with him, seeing as I was just a wee lad at the time, but he certainly enjoyed at least a handful of those particular beverages that afternoon. I couldn’t be sure if he was yanking my chain or just drunk enough to start seeing metaphors as literal occurrences. He had a funny way of abandoning our family’s sensibilities from time to time (usually with the aid of drink), and we still haven’t pieced together whether or not we should have ever been taking him seriously.

I for one enjoyed his antics, all the way up until his disappearance.

Now, the grey-hairs in my family clan have all unequivocally declared that he died at sea promptly after concocting a hair-brained scheme to sail around the world. I think they were just coming up with a convenient excuse to bookend his misunderstood life and wrap it up neatly with a cute little (morbid) bow. Personally, I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s alive and well, coming up with different vegetable-related remarks every time he meets a new person he likes.

Dips and Dives

Exaggerating one’s influence should be among those acts reserved for the dolomite entrepreneurs out there with more margarine than non-dairy coffee creamer at their regular disposal.

If we allow these blowhards to navigate the kitchen table’s width and fail to uncover the tangential ne’er-do-wells we’ve been warned about, then what was it all for?

All we can say is that protesting such an alteration of manifest destiny (density?) comes with the price of freedom (and a bag of chips in some circumstances), and nothing short of Ozzy the Philistine could resurrect the embattled intentions of those labor organizers mainly concerned with seizing the means of production.

We must remain ever-vigilant, for you never know when pediatric charlie horse tendencies will rear their ugly heads in the recesses of adolescent America. We (the Americanses) once sat atop the global jungle gym, our ingenuity and general cuteness inspiring power-seekers a world around to blush with envy at the amenities they could only imagine (until that coal train came a rolling down the bend with the promise of sooty modernity), filling their heads with unrequited lust for widgets and modules and bells and whistles that could fill their modest spaces—digital and otherwise.

And, of course, once even a modicum of that prosperity had begun evening the materialistic score, we flat out lost our lease on the planet. As our Gaia gathers the foreclosure paperwork, we scramble like the varmints we really are, pushing and shoving, blaming all but ourselves and projecting our greed onto unrealistic scapegoats for just long enough to lose any chance of saving what had once been humanity’s little slice of paradise that, against all odds, had once been a serviceable milieu.

Ah well, the sloughing-off period is just gonna have to start a little early this time around, with a tad more english on the dips and dives.

Stubborn One

Petrification process, present yourself!

Not yet, eh? Why not?
Not talking, eh? Stubborn one, aren’t we?

Well, if you won’t talk, then I’ll just have to be the one to break the ice.

Once upon a time, a fly buzzed around from place to place. Its favorite place to land was upon the top spike of a stegosaurus’ back. Didn’t matter which particular specimen, as long as the spike was at the highest point of the animal.

It may seem odd that I’m mentioning a fly’s perching preference, but by the time I’m done explaining why, you will have–at the very least–a beginner’s understanding as to how futile our existence proves to be over the course of time.

I have now finished my explanation, in case you weren’t aware.

Peabrain

I preyed upon myself
through lack of imposed restriction
and dearth of self-shepherding.
Anything was–and still is–possible
when given the proper attention
or suitable elbow grease.

But who did I think I was fooling?
Certainly not myself:

Enigmatic Pilgrim Extraordinaire[!]

performing dichotomous dives
into shallower waters for all to watch–
on an annual basis.
I could have sold tickets
to these affairs. At least then
I wouldn’t be mired in so much debt.

If only I brandish a magic wand
and distract that Paleolithic peabrain
while my other hand composes tarantellas
or masters new guitar chords
to incorporate into the cliché magnum opus
that I’ve been planning since,
oh I don’t know… birth.

Hands and Knees

Owning up to the egregious malfunctions
held as the standard in social technology,
we must become better initiators of cosmic (or
at least karmic) change for the sake of our
tequila-rearing counterparts.

This bleak mindset–perpetuated to depress
the more sensitive-types and appease the oligarchs
for some preordained time–was perhaps
meant more for the unfolding
stalling of unified civility, or
just as some kind of morose cash grab.

The only ones who definitively know
where this particular roller coaster is headed
will also be the ones in the frying pan–come judgment day.
The justice system may not be done after all;
the ones who had hijacked office may snap
back to their senses before all is lost.

Endorphin meltdowns scream incontinence!
Mind you, this doesn’t mean we need to
get on our hands and knees and scrape the shit
from incompetent postal workers’ satchels.
We simply need to make a stand
for what’s good and proper in this,
our world of *TODAY ONLY* $19.99 deals.
Got to move that product, for Christ’s sake!

Readymade

I’m gonna let this here sandwich–tuna
and potato on marble rye–cool
on the windowsill for a minute (or
more likely three), just like
my little orphan auntie used to do

back when the regenerative stillborn
recollections astonished even the staunchest
followers of the occult (and lesser occult-like
activities cut from a quite-similar cloth (or suitable
cloth-like substance that may adequately demonstrate
the tensile strength of a natural fiber (cotton
would be the fairest readymade comparison))).