Napalm and Silly Putty (16 page)

Or you can choose to say good-bye in a realistic manner. “So long, Steve. Don’t let self-doubt interfere with your plans to improve your life.”

Well, some people need practical advice.

? HYPERLINK “file:///E:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Dom\\Desktop\\1791_NapalmSillyPutty%5B1%5D\\Napalm_body-contents.html” \l “TOC-62” ??LOVE AND REGARDS ?

Have you noticed that quite often when you leave someone they ask you to relay an affectionate message to someone else? They’ll say, “Give my love to Klaus. Tell Klaus Rebecca sends her love.”

Do you mind that? Do you mind being used that way? The awesome responsibility of carrying Rebecca’s love to Klaus? Suppose you don’t see Klaus? What do you do with Rebecca’s love? Carry it around? Give it to someone else?

“Wilhelm! I can’t find Klaus, here’s some of Rebecca’s love.”

Suppose Wilhelm doesn’t know Rebecca? Can he legally accept her love? Especially when it was originally intended for Klaus?

Or suppose you give Wilhelm Rebecca’s love for Klaus, and then you run into Klaus, what do you give him? All you had was Rebecca’s love, and you’ve already gone and given that to Wilhelm. Can you reasonably ask Wilhelm to give back Rebecca’s love? Maybe he’s gotten used to it by now. Can Klaus sue Wilhelm? Can Wilhelm be arrested? Can you be arrested for transporting love across a state line?

All right, back to reality. Just for the sake of argument, let’s leave Wilhelm out of this altogether. Suppose Rebecca gives you her love to give to Klaus, and you do see Klaus, what form should the love take? Can you risk giving Klaus a tongue kiss? Which brings up another possibility: maybe Klaus is gay. Klaus doesn’t want Rebecca’s love, Klaus wants Wilhelm’s love! If Klaus tells you to give his love to Wilhelm, just tell him, “Bullshit, Klaus. You give your own love to Wilhelm. I’m going to find Rebecca!”

Now, sometimes people don’t quite want you to give their love to someone else; they only want you to give their “regards.” That’s all they’re sending that day. Regards. That’s not as important as love, is it? No. By the way, do you always relay the type of affection the sender intends? I don’t. Generally, I wait till the last minute and then decide what the other person deserves.

For instance, Susan might say to me, “Give my love to Dave.” Well, I might not feel Dave is deserving of Susan’s love. Dave might be one of those people who piss me off. I’ll probably just give him a few regards; keep him in his place. I feel it’s my decision. After all, I’m the one who’s doing all the work.

And if I really don’t like the recipient, I might reduce the level of affection by an even greater degree. Susan might say, “Give all my love to Dave and tell him I can’t wait to see him again so I can hold him in my arms, kiss his sweet, soft lips, and make love to him all night.” And I’ll say, “Dave! Susan says hello.” Screw Dave! That’s what he gets for pissing me off.

Then there are the recipients who try to anticipate what degree of affection they’re going to receive.

“Did Susan send her love?”

“No, Dave. She only sent her regards.”

“That’s funny, usually she sends her love.”

“Well, not this time. In fact, she specifically told me, ‘Don’t give Dave any of my love.’ It seems she’s running short of love and has to be careful whom she gives it to. However, she did say she’s overstocked with regards and wants you to have a whole bunch of them. So, be satisfied, Dave. Take your regards, and get the fuck out of my life!”

Well, he should damn well be satisfied with regards; it’s a lot better than simply being sent someone’s “best.” There are some people who just send you their best.

“Give my best to Dave.”

“Your best what, Susan? If this is your best, perhaps you’d better keep it to yourself.”

And yet, receiving someone’s “best” is better than simply being “remembered to,” isn’t it? That’s the lowest of all. Hardly worth even telling the poor person.

“Remember me to Dave.”

“Okay.”

“Dave? You remember Susan?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she remembers you, too.”

That’s it, my job is done. I’m off now to find Tex, so I can tell him Billy Bob said “Howdy.”

One final thing. There are times when someone wants you to convey more than simply love. They want you to give someone “a big hug and kiss.” Now they’ve got you trafficking in sex.

“Give Joachim a big hug and a kiss for me.”

Usually it’s women. I find that women are a bit more expressive at times like these. And sometimes they’re really explicit.

“Bye-bye, Elena. Drive carefully. Give Flaco a nice blow job for me. And don’t forget to lick his asshole!”

“Okay, Belinda. But next time let’s get Klaus to take care of that!”

? HYPERLINK “file:///E:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Dom\\Desktop\\1791_NapalmSillyPutty%5B1%5D\\Napalm_body-contents.html” \l “TOC-63” ??EXPRESSIONS I QUESTION ?

There are many expressions we take for granted. We use them all the time, yet never examine them carefully. We just say them as if they really made sense.

Legally drunk . Well, if it’s legal, what’s the problem? “Leave me alone, officer, I’m legally drunk!”

You know where you can stick it . Why do we assume everyone knows where they can stick it? Suppose you don’t know? Suppose you’re a new guy, and you have absolutely no idea where you can stick it? I think there ought to be a government booklet entitled Where to Stick It . Now that I think of it, I believe there is a government booklet like that. They send it to you on April 15.

Undisputed heavyweight champion . Well, if it’s undisputed, what’s all the fighting about? To me, “undisputed” means we all agree. Here you have two men beating the shit out of one another over something they apparently agree on. Makes no sense.

It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch . Every time I see a television news story about a mass murderer, the guy’s neighbor always says, “Well, he was very quiet.” And someone I’m with says, “It’s the quiet ones you gotta watch.”

This sounds like a very dangerous assumption. I’ll bet anything that while you’re busy watching a quiet one, a noisy one will kill you.

Suppose you’re in a bar, and one guy is sitting over on the side, reading a book, not bothering anybody. And another guy is standing up at the front, bangin’ a machete on the bar, screamin’, “I’m gonna kill the next motherfucker who pisses me off!”

Who you gonna watch?

Lock him up and throw away the key . This is one you hear a lot from men. Men like to talk that way; it makes ’em feel tough. A guy sees a rapist on the TV news, he says, “You see that guy? They oughta lock him up, and throw away the key.”

This is really stupid. First of all, every time the guy’s gotta take a shit, you’re gonna have to call the locksmith. If he’s in prison thirty years, even if he’s eatin’ government cheese, it’s gonna cost you a fortune.

Second, where do you throw the key? Right out in front of the jail? His friends’ll find it! How far can you throw a key? Fifty, sixty feet the most. Even if you hold it flat on its side and scale it, whaddaya get? An extra ten feet, tops! This is a stupid idea that needs to be completely rethought.

Down the tubes . That’s one you hear a lot. People say, “This country is goin’ down the tubes.” What tubes? Have you seen any tubes? Where are these tubes? And where do they go? And how come there’s more than one tube? It would seem to me for one country all you need is one tube. Does every state have to have its own tube? One tube is all you need.

But a tube that big? Somebody would have seen it by now. Somebody would’ve said, “Hey Joey! Lookit the fuckin’ tube! Big-ass fuckin’ tube, over here!” You never hear that. You know why? No tubes! We don’t have tube one. We are, sorry to say, tubeless.

Takes the cake . “Boy, he really takes the cake.” Where? Where do you take a cake? To the movies? You know where I would take a cake? Down to the bakery, to see the other cakes. And how come he takes the cake? How come he doesn’t take the pie? A pie is easier to carry than a cake. “Easy as pie.” A cake is not too hard to carry, either. “Piece of cake.”

The greatest thing since sliced bread . So this is it? A couple of hundred thousand years . . . sliced bread? What about the Pyramids? The Panama Canal? The Great Wall of China? Even a lava lamp, to me, is greater than sliced bread. What’s so great about sliced bread? You got a knife, you got a loaf of bread. Slice the fuckin’ thing!! And get on with your life.

Out walking the streets . This is another one you hear from men. Some guy sees a rapist on the news. Same rapist as before; only this time he’s being released. The guy says, “You see that? You see that guy? They’re lettin’ him go! Now, instead of bein’ in prison, he’s out walkin’ the streets!”

How do we know? How do we know he’s out walkin’ the streets? Maybe he’s home bangin’ the baby-sitter. Not everybody who gets a parole is out walkin’ the streets. A lot of times they steal a car. We oughta be glad. “Thank God he stole a car. At least he’s not out walkin’ the streets.”

Fine and dandy . That’s an old-fashioned one, isn’t it? You say to a guy, “How are ya?” He says, “Fine and dandy.” Not me. I never say that. You know why? Because I’m never both those things at the same time. Sometimes I’m fine. But I’m not dandy. I might be close to dandy. I might be approaching dandy. I might even be in the general vicinity of dandyhood. But not quite fully dandy. Other times, I might indeed be highly dandy. However, not fine. One time, 1978. August. For about an hour. I was both fine and dandy at the same time. But nobody asked me how I was. I coulda told ’em, “Fine and dandy!” I consider it a lost opportunity.

Walking papers . Some guy gets fired, they say, “Well, they gave him his walkin’ papers today.” Lemme ask you something. Did you ever get any walking papers? Seriously? Believe me, in my life I got fired a lot of times. I never got any walkin’ papers. I never got a pink slip, either. You know what I would get? A guy would come around to my desk and say, “Get the fuck outta here!!” You don’t need paper for that.

The riot act . They keep saying they’re going to read that to you. Tell the truth, have you heard this thing at all? Ever?

It’s especially a problem when you’re a kid. They like to threaten you.

“You wait’ll your father comes home. He’s gonna read you the riot act!”

“Oh yeah? Well, tell him I already read it myself! And I didn’t like it! I consider it wordy and poorly thought out. If he wants to read me somethin’, how about The Gentleman’s Guide to the Golden Age of Tongue-Kissing?

More than happy . I’ll bet you say that sometimes. I’ll bet you say, “Oh, I’d be more than happy to do that.” How can you be more than happy? To me, this sounds like a dangerous mental condition. “We had to put Laszlo under physical restraint; he was . . . well, he was more than happy.”

One more of these expressions: In your own words. You hear it in classrooms. And courtrooms. They’ll say, “Tell us . . . in your own words . . .” Do you have your own words? Personally, I’m using the ones everybody else has been using. Next time they tell you to say something in your own words, say, “Nigflot blorny quando floon.”

? HYPERLINK “file:///E:\\Documents%20and%20Settings\\Dom\\Desktop\\1791_NapalmSillyPutty%5B1%5D\\Napalm_body-contents.html” \l “TOC-64” ??SHORT TAKES ?

I don’t hear much of that elevator music anymore. What’s going on?

IT’S TIME TO START SLAPPING PEOPLE

Don’t you think there were probably a lot of singers with great voices who never got famous because they were too ugly to stand up and be seen in public?

I can’t wait to see one of those actor-assholes who drive race cars get killed on TV.

Why do women wear evening gowns to nightclubs? Why don’t they wear nightgowns?

I think many years ago an advanced civilization intervened with us genetically and gave us just enough intelligence to develop dangerous technology but not enough to use it wisely. Then they sat back to watch the fun. Kind of like a human zoo. And you know what? They’re getting their money’s worth.

After you die, your “stuff” becomes your “personal effects.”

GOD BLESS US ALL. RIGHT IN THE MOUTH

I think people should be allowed to do anything they want. We haven’t tried that for a while. Maybe this time it’ll work.

People ask me if I have an e-mail address, and I say, “www.fuckyou.com@blowme/upyourass.” And they seem to understand.

Message to the Denver Nuggets regarding Columbine High School: There’s no reason to cancel a sporting event just because some kids kill each other. Try to concentrate on basketball and leave the life-and-death shit to someone else.

Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.

Baseball bats are now the preferred weapon for many drug gangs and others who have a business need to administer behavioral reminders. They’re cheap, lethal, legal, untraceable, and hey! It’s the national pastime.

Dying must have survival value. Or it wouldn’t be part of the biological process.

Why is it that, when making reference to something in the past, people often think they have to say, “I hope I’m not dating myself”? Listen, if you’re so embarrassed by your age there’s a simple solution: open a vein.

I don’t have hobbies, I have interests. Hobbies cost money. Interests are free.

With all the presidential administrations we’ve had, I’m sure that by now there must have been at least one person who, besides being in the cabinet, was also in the closet.

I don’t like it when I’m in an audience and the emcee tells us to give someone a welcome specific to that city: “Let’s all get together and give this little lady a nice Toledo welcome.” I’ve often thought if I were from Toledo it would be fun now and then to give someone a Baltimore welcome, just to break the emcee’s balls. Or maybe slip in an exotic Budapest welcome when no one is expecting it. One thing I would never do is give someone a Dallas welcome. That’s what JFK got. Dallas welcomes don’t last too long.