Clark Kent’s mom: SuperMa’am.

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I spent one birthday in my late-20s in the UK, with 3 of my best feline friends. 2 of them spoke French, so it was an awkward meal.

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I made the above picture to demonstrate what a Trump presidency will do to her in just one day.

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  Record heat. Extreme cold. Fiery explosion. Wildfire in residential neighborhood. Massive flood. Bribery scandal involving bible college. Next? Locusts. A week in Springdale.

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In a surprise move, the Trump team announced that Obama was going to have to pay to repair the Oval Office. Quote: “The Oval Office wasn’t round when he took office. We want that thing square again before he leaves.”

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The neighborhood where I live was hit by a grass fire that traveled and jumped along a long circuitous path of a surprising number of houses. The siding melted off many of them and the effect is other-worldly, especially with so many yards burned away to resemble a velvety black carpet.. It looks like my mouth feels when I accidentally eat a microwaved burrito and then try to cool my mouth off by drinking boiling coffee. The fire at Ozark Regional Transit woke us up early this a.m. too, even though at the time we couldn’t figure out what had startled us awake. I joked when I woke up that it was probably just a burglar dragging a chair across the kitchen floor. PS: I would have given anything to know when the fire hit my neighborhood, as I would then have photographic proof that my house was probably built on a defunct cemetery or ancient burial ground.

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I made this one: StreepFighter. You can applaud or puke, depending on whether you enjoy mockery or sincerity, in either order. (Meryl Streep)

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Warning: political quips here, ones I didn’t give away to the real comedians…
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Trump is writing a new book about all his fabulous ideas. All the chapters are Chapter 11.
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News flash: Trump asked Congress to pay for the cost of adding “Baby On Board” decals to all presidential vehicles after January 20th.
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They found an old bag in the Trump Tower and had to get everyone out on Friday. Update- it was just Mike Pence taking a nap.
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Subtle joke: The Secret Service couldn’t figure out why Trump kept bumping his head on the doorway into his office. They measured his height and discovered he had grown 4 inches. He finally admitted he had been taking viagra.

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After being asked for culinary advice at least 37 times a day, I present the one indisputable fact governing all other cooking and gastronomical guidelines:

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Day 3 of a friend’s social media fast… I imagined what words might come to her as she traveled back to meet the present. Despite all its weaknesses social media is not a zero-sum game: we can derive more than we put in if we choose it to be so. PS:the picture is of her when she was a sapling.

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Day 2 of a friend’s social fasting: a hybrid educational/ophthalmological joke…

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A congratulations for some talented kids on deciding to do their first album as Buddy Holly cover songs. Jackson does a spot-on impersonation of the legend. The Jackson Tres takes us back to the golden age of music.

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Since my friend Marjay is still absent from social media, I’d like to share a story:

A few months ago, Mike and Marjay wanted to go scout some retirement facilities suitable for them both. (Just a couple more years to go. Yay!) Since they are both movie fans, they found one that seemed to have all the amenities a themed facility might offer.

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One I made, below:

Meryl Streep, StreepFighter.

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Whataburger is changing its name to Whataburger-Battleship because its service is so hit-or-miss.

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If acupuncture exists (using precisely-located needles to alleviate pain), surely there is such a thing as inacupuncture wherein the person administering it simultaneously inserts 100+ needles into the patient via blowgun.

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Literary/Culinary review: I’m not saying my last foray for Italian food was a catastrophe but I decided to name the review “Midnight In The Olive Garden of Good and Evil.”

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Given Marjay’s absence from social media, I’d like to tell you a joke: Do you know why her own husband, Officer Mike,  had no choice but to issue her a traffic citation after she finished teaching for the day? She got caught grading on a curve.

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Regarding the oft-stated desire to be able to avoid seeing undesirable posts on Facebook: if people are being honest what they really are saying is they don’t wish to see posts that they disagree with no matter how heartfelt the content or how personal the message. It is a subtle and constant reminder that we might be quite wrong about something: or worse – that logic and critical thinking aren’t as important as we fool ourselves into believing.
Learning ocurs only when you replace opinion or ignorance with another truth. Some of us share only things that are meaningful, personal or with our own twist to it. We are doing it right. Those with the dullest ax to grind tend to also be the ones with both the tendency to repost what another person has said or made and display a resistance to considering that other opinions might have a toehold on truth. Facebook is just a mirror or window, depending on how you see your role in using it to enrich your life. It can be both road and roadblock, just as your own real relationships work in life.

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“Trump: He loves to refer to himself in the turd person.” – X

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(These comments refer to an Arkansas football player, Jeremy Sprinkle, who was caught shoplifting at Belk’s.)

This post from a dude named X who is not a sports fan (but who is bemused by the grandiosity of sports commentary): It’s so weird that someone named Sprinkle would be capable of doing something so boneheaded. Say the words, “They booked Sprinkles!” with a straight face. Go ahead – you can’t do it.

I had to google the phrase “Tandoori marl shirt” because I live in Arkansas and get all my shirts at the gym when people aren’t looking. Listen, I’m not intentionally mocking larceny or anyone who willingly hurts himself to play college sports under the tutelage of another grown man who earns $11,000 a day to holler at young adults and film a reality tv series – but my inner-comedian is howling with the never-ending litany of one-off jokes, one-liners, and irony inherent in the incident.

I ventured out and discovered a new world. But I wore the same shoes as the ones I wore last week. -x

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I took an old picture, added a dash of imagination – and gave it the sentiment that it first conveyed. Whether it’s hopeful or melancholy is in the eye of the beholder.

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My most inspired Saturday-morning creation, for my wife, who has shown the greatest aversion to what I’ve named “Hipster Santa.”

We rarely see commercials on TV, but when we do, it’s invariably the new Fiat ones with James Franzo as hot Santa.

They are absolutely terrible commercials.

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With no offense intended toward those who are cosmetologists: this is a social metaphor for behavioral criticisms..

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True story: I started an impromptu game of Elevator-Cash-Cab yesterday. When 4 people were on the elevator with me, I played host to the game. I offered $20 to anyone who could tell me how long it takes light (within a 200% margin of error) to reach us from the nearest star. I kept the $20, after being surprised at the answers. (PS: the sun is the nearest star. And ‘light year’ is a measure of distance, not time.) Yes, I play Elevator-Cash-Cab. I think random people doing this in public elevators would be a magnificent way to make life a little better.

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I wonder how Google Analytics and the FB algorithm is interpreting my multiple magnitude increase in fascist-authoritarian-nazi searches since the election. I feel like I’m inadvertently participating in a real-life reenactment of the “American History X” movie when seeing the news – and it Is my teeth stretched across the curb waiting for Edward Norton’s character to stomp the back of my head.

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It is as we all feared: knowledge is an anachronism and facts are simply opinions. Please forgive me as I make a fortune being a con man. I’m not certain that I’m joking. The elevation of crass stupidity has met me halfway along the road. I shake my head so often now that I look like the lead singer of an “Achy-Breaky-Heart” revival cover band.

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During the slanted hours of insufficient December sunlight, “Holocene” by Bon Iver is a testament to both style and content. At 4 a.m. on a solitary drive to a mindless rendezvous with trading my life’s scarcity of seconds for the vague and unsatisfactory value of a few dollars, this song is a masterpiece of self-reflection. It doesn’t sway me from turning into the lifeless parking lot filled with mundane assurances of more of the same , but it reminds me that the sum total of whatever ‘it’ is in life that is so valuable is scampering away from me, one subtle word and choice at a time. I could see for miles, miles, miles…

As this song played, I put down the driver window, low against the freezing and invasive cold. I looked across the long valley and the familiar road and noticed the brilliance of the lights to the West. In that transitory moment, I recognized a new vista previously unheeded, and a new appreciation for the mystery of the way a song not only reveals melody, but ourselves.

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Santa / Papa Noel Advisory: During the recent Russian-Putin cyberhack, it was revealed that Santa’s “Naughty & Nice” list was leaked. I discovered that I can skip by with 3 additional Acts of Shenanigans, Chicanery, & Mischief before the 24th – and still qualify to awake on the 25th to a bountiful xmas tree filled with exotic minimalist yuletide surprises.
Therefore, let it be known that if a series of disconcerting actions transpire in the next few days, it is because I am being mindful of the necessity of using all my allotted shenanigans under the “Naughty & Nice” bylaws. Thanks, Santa!

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When someone tells me I’m crazy, I usually give them the “NS,S” look of incredulity, because I know that they know that I know they probably eat raw meat when no one is looking. Because the first sign you are equally the problem is that you are trying to engage in conversation with a person that you claim to be crazy – which means you speak their language. Ergo, you’re as nuts as I am.

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The “Predator” movie made us imagine that aliens could be lurking all around us, intent on our slow destruction. Then, I come to reality and remember how many people voted as if an ultra-high dose of LSD hit their system – and I long for the vengeful aliens to distract me from the reality tv show of politics.

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For an anonymous friend, who paradoxically instilled in me the overwhelming desire to take a LOT of selfies while standing on train tracks.

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My wife & I had great fun watching our cat Güino dive-bomb the office window chasing a bird-feeder-thieving squirrel until he passed out. Because this is Springdale, though, we then watched a very pretty chicken drive him even crazier by scavenging, in open defiance of our feline protector, in the front yard. I threw seed out for the chicken to ensure that the cat would know no peace this peaceful Saturday morning. The chicken wanted to walk through the front door, so it evidently doesn’t understand the concept of fried.

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