Rest Easy

Enter Groucho Violent,
star of the nerves and streets,
a double threat if there ever was one.

His reputation precedes him as witty enough to turn a phrase and hard-knuckled enough to know when to admit defeat in the face of a petulant and pernicious foe who, in all likelihood, believes that their position of power has been handed down to them from the LORD ALMIGHTY, and any little rivulet of diarrhea that escapes their corpulence is to be rendered an earth-shattering development in the field of extrapersonal material management, now and forevermore.

Groucho is no stranger to the justice-enforcement arm of things. When his even-keel demeanor and righteous self-taught martial arts techniques combined on one fateful and blustery Flag Day eve, the Justice Jab was born. If you’re still unfamiliar with the singlemost effective crimefighting maneuver ever concocted by man or beast (in Mr. Violent’s last-ditch effort to uncover the overall reason as to our lack of humility when confronted with reasoning), you have some real catching up to do.

The Justice Jab is a miracle worker when the recipient of said jab needs to be awoken from the haze that they’ve come to accept over time, through sheer laziness and self-disrespect. The haze’s effect causes but is not limited to: depression, sluggishness, flatulence, lack of interest in things one would normally enjoy, unjustified sporadic agitation, and death. Such a disconcerting malady comes as a direct byproduct of this world we’ve inherited (through no fault of our own). Rather than face the music, the vast majority of we, the privileged few, have chosen to consume the content created specifically to manipulate our emotional and physical dependencies more efficiently and cheaply than cocaine ever could.

So the next time you see Groucho Violent
meting out swift street vengeance,
you can rest easy
knowing that he’s doing humanity a service.

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By All Accounts

As a younger man–though old enough to know better–I once navigated a rather cryptic epoch during which I chose (wholeheartedly or pigheadedly) to stick with my plague-rich mentality of promotional ice cream lotteries, confident in my god-given ability to strike it rich. With my trusty two and a quarter inch nail at my disposal, I scribed the five luckiest numbers ever known to man and beast in my favorite subterranean cave, positively declaring an end to the ceaseless turmoil of fumbling around in the cosmic muck for a few measly digits that–at one of my lower points–I thought would elude me as long as I were to inhabit this particular body. I then hastily chucked good ol’ Rusty (that’s what I called my long-suffering galvanized friend, knowing that his kind doesn’t rust for decades–a joke we shared on countless occasions) into the nearest ravine, a flourish that would–by all accounts (payable or otherwise)–bring this self-imposed trudge to a meaningful conclusion.

Boy, what a boneheaded mistake. No sooner than I’d comforted myself with that symbolic nail toss, a magpie hopped on by and casually reminded me that the most lucrative lottery drawings typically have six numbers. I wept, knowing that I’d severed the most rewarding relationship of a lifetime under the false pretense of a free scoop of rocky road at a participating Neddy’s® Frozen Custard.

I shaved and went back to my old CPA job.

(Nothing More, Nothing Less)

Let’s take a look at the specials, shall we? Ah yes, the infamous Reuben Dip! Once heralded as Middle America’s foremost club dance from 1963, a clever chef has converted it into an open-faced sandwich comprised of corned beef, Swiss, kraut——you bloody well know what comes on a Reuben. The kraut does have a tough time sticking around, which means that the Swiss is really pulling double time to blanket all of its unruly counterparts for the purposes of a successful thousand island dip (and, of course, more than just one dip, because what kind of sandwich would that be, falling apart after just one dip!?). All of this just goes to prove that you really can’t have an idea too grand to be transposed from the clear blue sky, as long as you believe in the work you’re doing. Once upon a time I——of all people——caught myself poo-pooing the idea of representing a pinto bean omelette cooking on the planks of a cruise ship’s bow as it headed to the Galapagos for some tortoise observation (nothing more, nothing less), and for what? A tedious bit of self—censorship for no purpose other than suppression of a creative pang? No thank you, Mr. Governor (if that is your real name). So I wrote it all out, the fateful egg mix congealing to form a canary semicircle of legume-y goodness and taking on life’s subtler philosophical quandaries with a bit of a sense of humor. I called it Hull of Beans, and it was universally panned.

This Here

Ordinary sanctions wouldn’t apply to the effervescent pigeon toes for too much longer, scrutinizing the woes of foreverpenguins—adept at taking their time when you just want to get a movin’ to the promised land (or at least the land referenced in books of yore). What really must happen is a distancing from tyrants and despots who normally would have built their empires upon the sweat equity of the under-the-tablers brought around from the time of the Immeasurable Reckoning.

The new standard—a babe in the woods—must rear itself without even a kindly wolf or flyover pigeon at its disposal! While certainly not necessary in this predicament, self-sabotage becomes more likely with each passing day as doubt does its dubious duty of doling out a deluge of doldrums, waiting to be conquered through a steady, dedicated hand (though it knows the chances are quite slim in this here forest).

Roses

The ever-present Rumpelstiltskin type of orangeade
seems to have no connection to the ingenuity
of a person concerned with a corrupt bargain
and everything to do with a personal vendetta
to be meted out over the course of several decades,
if not millennia.

Such a skip in discourse may only lead some people
to believe of its malintent, but truly
there is nothing wrong with such a change in scale.
How else are we to judge our actions
against the actions of others in present or past?
How else are we to compare ourselves
to the species who specialize in longevity?
The trees out there, the mollusks, the fungi,
all of them. We’re just individual pinpricks
in their rearview mirrors, and it would take a miracle
for us to cause more than just a blip
on their collective radar screens.
How do you like those terrible mixed metaphors?
Yeah, it’s getting me pretty hot too, come to think of it.

Who needs any kind of inspiration anymore anyway?
It would seem as though folks
mainly just seek to consume
pleasant media at a reasonable price,
and anything falling outside of that window
must be judged much more critically,
since fewer people have sought it out.
And the ones who go out of their way to discover
such outlets must therefore–in their own minds–
be superior beings, leading to tirades
about their keen eyes and intellects
while we sit there right next to them
with a thumb up our ass, hoping only
to take that thumb and plug up their infernal nostrils.

“What is that intoxicating aroma? Roses?”

“No, genius, it’s my shit-covered finger. Why don’t you go off somewhere and have a time of it while you prank a local youth?”

“Why, you insubordinating little trolley-hopper, I’ll have you know that I earned this domineering nature through sheer pluck and grit. Also, possibly through piss and vinegar. Over the course of my years, I haven’t been able to differentiate the two, though you might say I’m a bit of a glutton for the cinema. Wait, what kind of critic am I? Shit, I forgot. A jack of all trades such as myself can only be concerned with where the next paycheck’s coming from.”

Two Different Languages

Gratuitous vomiting noises seem to have permeated this otherwise lovely air today. But you know what? I could care less! It’s a gorgeous day and I’m out here walkin’ Stormin’ Normal, the long-haired dachshund. Believe you me, Normal is nothing but. He’d much rather prefer to chase rats around in the sewers than cultivate an image of military impunity and historical nickname significance. He does know how to storm about the neighborhood, but when it comes to commanding hundreds of thousands of troops, you might as well send a beagle out there in his place.

The vomiting noises have yet to cease here, I don’t quite know what to do about this. On the one hand, someone could be violently ill, necessitating first-responders on the scene. On the other hand, even if I were to be at the right place at the right time, there’s no way I could do the same good work of an EMT, and all I could do is hold their hand (if it’s not covered in vomit) and try to comfort them while the professional health-perpetuators make their way over.

Normy doesn’t seem to have a care in the world. The way I figure, if we can hear gratuitous vomiting noises from here, Norm should be able to smell the ensuing vomit and tug on the leash like there’s no tomorrow. Don’t ask me how I know, but Normy’s a bit of a vomit connisseur. He really digs it, in other words. I’ve tried countless times to break him of his obsession, but it’s like we’re speaking two different languages.

So unless Norm’s lost his incredible sense of smell, I’m certain that this person making the vomiting sound-effects really has no problem whatsoever with their digestion. More than likely, they’re trying to make a scene in front of their friends for money. Well, that’s just my assumption, since the only times I’ve acted up like that in front of my friends, some quantity of money was involved. But then again, if we were to go by the old adage that pushes the “friends are forever” line, I never did have any friends in the first place.

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