A Load of Hooey (10 page)

RINGO: Well, I thought it was really pretty…

McCARTNEY: Stop—it's no “Octopus's Garden”! Am I right? Let me play it again, in its entirety, just the way it came to me, when I was alone, writing it…

[
McCartney plays “Blackbird” again, from beginning to end, and again, it's an impossibly beautiful and perfect composition. The other Beatles stare at their shoes
.]

McCARTNEY: Garbage, right? Yeesh! I am so sorry. SOOOOOO sorry. George, please forgive me. Do favor us with another of your sitar explorations so as to wash the taste of that dreck from our ears! Do, please! Where's the sitar? Hurry, get a sitar!

HARRISON: Well, I liked it…

McCARTNEY: Shows what you know! I'm sorry. I'm just embarrassed. John! The Great John Lennon! Sir, I am so sorry to waste YOUR time with that!

LENNON: Well…it's a little lullaby-ish for my taste, though.

McCARTNEY: Of course! It's just a throwaway lullaby! People hate lullabys! They're awful, awful! John, save the day and yowl us all one of your patented free-form political diatribes to obliterate the memory of my gummy treacle!

HARRISON: Look, man, I think your sarcasm is unnecessary, you know? It's going to be on the album and all, there's no need—

McCARTNEY: Oh! Do you think it'll make the album?? Oh, will it?! Oh, thank you, George! Thank you! You deign to have one of my songs grace the next Beatles album? Because usually I do have to fight pretty hard to get my usual 90 percent of the songs on there next to your 10 percent! Oh, joy! Did you hear that, Ringo! I'm going to have a song on a real Beatles album! Me, Paul McCartney!

[
At this point, Harrison rises to leave
—]

McCARTNEY: Don't leave! Don't leave, please, we need you to noodle around in the background! Where's that sitar?

[
Harrison slams the door
—]

McCARTNEY: Oh, no! Now who will noodle around? Nobody?

LENNON: Look, man, we get it, you wrote a perfect song. Congratulations, but really, I mean, what's next?

YOKO: [
unintelligible “artistic” clucking noises
]

McCARTNEY: YOKO! Is Yoko here? There you are, dear, under the covers! Do you play the “bed” now? Is it an instrument?

Uh-oh, have I accidentally given you a new idea for a performance? Oh well, by all means please scream out one of your bloodcurdling antisongs to strip away the execrable beauty I just plastered all over the room because I just wrote the greatest FUCKING MELODY EVER FUCKING FUCK-WRITTEN! Let's hear it one more time just to check—

[
Paul plays “Blackbird” again…and again, it is a perfect song. Note: no overdubs needed
.]

McCARTNEY: Yup: THE GREATEST SONG EVER WRITTEN! Glad I double-checked! Hey, where's everybody going?

[
The remaining Beatles have left the room. McCartney, exhausted, stays behind and plays “Blackbird” to himself three more times, smiling the entire time
.]

I MISSPOKE

I
'm Rod Blogbert, candidate for Senate, and I approve this message.

Rape is an awful act. The other day, in a TV interview, I misspoke. I used the wrong words—
guilty
, and
pleasure
—in the wrong way, and for those words, in the order they came out of my mouth, I apologize. The letters in the words were also at fault for having lined up in such a manner so as to form those wrong words, but since I am going to need those letters to deliver this apology, I'll go easy on them—this time.

As a candidate running for Senate, I want justice: both for the victims of sexual assault and for myself, for misspeaking. We have both been wronged.

I have a compassionate heart, and right now it hurts—for those victims, as well as for my political career. The mistake I made was in the
words
my mouth spoke, not in the heart I have. If my heart had its own mouth, it would never have spoken those words in that order.

But, I am sad to say, my mouth is not alone in its dastardly malfeasance. My lips formed many of the consonants I used in my interview, but they could not have done so without the cooperation of my teeth and tongue. Together, this “troublesome trio” conspired to misrepresent the intentions in my heart by forcing
my mouth to emit sounds that in turn suggested that rape victims may experience something other than a horrible violation. I'm not certain how much my lungs had to do with all of this. I suspect that neither lung was aware of the scandalous, offensive, utterly retarded purpose that the air they expelled was put in service of during “The Great Misspeak.” Let me say that if I know my lungs, they would never have cooperated were they aware of what lay ahead for the air they were soon to expel through my vocal cords.

This leads me to the big one: where was my brain in all of this? I'll tell you where it was: nowhere to be found. My heart is in pain because my brain had abstained. Hey, that rhymes. Anyhow, my brain really needs to “show up” for these events where my mouth is talking. I'm thinking of employing a “brain/mouth” rule if you choose me for Senate.

So let me be clear: I do not think that the words
rape, guilty
, and
pleasure
belong in the same sentence—or even paragraph. I probably shouldn't have used the word
retarded
earlier, either, but I am typing this and my fingers may yet be attempting an overthrow. Oh, if only you all could hear what my heart is thinking!

This, then, is my apology, and I hope it suffices. I have been asked to withdraw from the race by my party, my friends, my wife, and my conscience, but my gut won't let me.

I FOUND A JACKSON POLLOCK!

Excuse me for jumping and shouting “Hooray!”

But I found a Jackson Pollock today!

It was under the stairs, behind some chairs.

It had been there for years, we were all unawares.

In a spare space a-clutter with old brooms and dustbins,

in rurally rural old rural Wisconsin!

At first I'd no idea, unsure what I'd found,

some old thing worth nothing, thought I—

nothing world renowned…

But now I know it's a Pollock and here's how I know—

all the splotches of paint are placed there just so.

They “pop” and they mingle to coax forth a mood,

they tell you a story, they force you to brood,

upon their deep meaning, there's just something MORE there

than just splotches of paint that are going nowhere.

So I know it's a real one—

a top-notch big deal one—

the kind that will hang in a Met or a Getty,

and when I know what it's worth, will I sell it?

You bet-y!

But how will I prove it? There's no autograph,

I might show it to everyone and everyone will just laugh.

I have searched for a fingerprint or a hair I could test,

to prove that my Pollock is ol' Jack at his best.

I can't find a one, not a single damn follicle—

but I know if I did it would surely be Pollockle!

Oh, relax, I am certain, no need to get colicky,

the experts will swear that my Pollock is Pollocky.

So, what was it doing in Grandmama's storage?

Forgotten before I went out on my forage?

Let's just say Grandma wandered, she roved and she mingled,

before she was married, back when she was single.

Famous names, it was rumored, she'd befriend and be-met,

she was the toast of New York,

and the belle of 'gansett!

(A side note: my Pollock was swaddled in paper,

with typing upon it I've just begun to decipher.

Some absurdishy prose about night and its mother

signed by a Kurt Vonne-something-or-other.)

But if finders aren't keepers,

if that's not enough,

to prove provenance and stop all the guff—

listen here, final proof is coming your way,

and you won't put a roadblock in my big payday.

Grandma knew there'd be doubters, second-guessers, and pros

who would line up to back up each other's big “no's.”

A line of art experts, a doubt promenade!

So she wrote very clearly for whom it was made—

In the corner the dedication: “Bobby O., 2nd Grade”!

Famous Quotations—Unabridged

“
Know Thyself
. Come on. Hurry up. We're waiting. Oh, forget it.”

—Socrates

ABS

Y
ou are probably wondering where I got these amazing abs. They're so ripply and rock hard, they're difficult to fathom. If I were a character on a reality show about me and my middle-aged acquaintances, I might be nicknamed the Conundrum, in reference to these abs of mine. See, the abs don't match the visage. My perturbed, puffy face sets you up for a blubbery gut. But then you see these abs, stacked like bricks, clearly delineated, and you have to ask, “Does he work out for two or three hours a day, or does he just work out all day?” Or perhaps you think I purchased them from a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. My secret is simple—dynamic tension! Constant dynamic tension. Tension that is tense, and dynamic, and never ending—the best kind of tension there is! I have analyzed each ab and where it draws its tension from so that you, too, can get the abs you've always dreamed of!

The ab on the upper right is taut and sinewy thanks to middle school. Specifically, the effort of trying to get my two kids placed in a top-notch middle school. Filling out forms, attending open houses, prepping for interviews, taking the entrance exams—it's a lot of work, and I am there every step of the way, standing behind them, leaning over their shoulders, looking down (that's what tightens the ab), swallowing hard (also good for the ab), and clenching and unclenching my fists (good for the fists). Thanks,
kids—Dad loves you and Dad loves the ab you've given him.

The middle-right ab bulges handsomely thanks to talk radio. I simply tune in to conservative talkers when I am driving, and my screaming at the host tightens this ab for an extended, uninterrupted rep. Plus, disagreeing with someone on the radio gives me that powerless, overwhelmed feeling I've become addicted to. It's better than a drug, because you get the abs!

The upper-left ab pops out impressively from the effort of lugging five-gallon water jugs into our kitchen. Actually, the lugging does nothing for the ab; it's the part where you have to tip the full jug and place its spout into the dispensing reservoir, without spilling, that strains and sculpts this beautiful ab. The short moment of dread focuses tension on this ab like a ray gun. Afterward, slipping on the spilled water can be great for a whole-body clench.

The middle ab on the left (not my left, your left, if you are looking at me) is called Terrence. It's a dignified ab. It tenses each time I read an op-ed article about global warming. The article's point of view is immaterial; simply being reminded that I can do nothing to stop the horrific future of floods and catastrophe gives this ab a taut yank that lingers, burning calories in my well-creased forehead at the same time. Best to do right before bed, as the accompanying nightmares keep those abs pumping into the early-morning hours!

The bottom-right ab, the biggest of all the abs—and therefore the most impressive—is from not having sex. This ab is always quietly tensed. Has been for years now. Can you imagine the Dalai Lama's lower right ab? Must be huge. I, however, did not take a
vow of chastity, so it would be a sad situation, if it didn't yield such an amazing ab.

The bottom ab on the left is harder to explain, but I believe that this ab is simply self-aware. It quivers with tension at all times, even more so when I am supposed to be relaxing, and I believe it is searching for a sense of purpose for itself and no answer is forthcoming. Nothing works this ab like a vacation. The aimless uncertainty, the absence of all deadlines, tightens and sculpts like nothing else. After ten days in Hawaii, this ab looks amazing.