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Dummy wins a comb over
Tommy had two gigs yesterday. One was at a daycare and the other was at an assisted living complex. The first one went fine. The toddlers usually scream with joy or fright when the dummy, Mark, begins talking. He did his usual knock-knocks because kids love the knock-knocks and then did a skit with the dummy on one knee and a five-month-old on the other. The four-year-olds love this because they aren’t babies any longer.
"Knock knock" (The infant starts the joke)
"Who’s there?" (dummy is good at looking at the kids)
"Lucifer." (Daycare teacher looks around uncomfortably)
"Lucifer who?"
"Lucifered different, we get a neeewww video to watch after cookies."
"Hurrah for the video and hurrah for the cookies!"
This is how he sold his video.
He took his fifty dollars plus his video money and drove to the old folks village. His act went best when a certain group of old thuggy ladies didn’t show up to gossip loudly at the middle table.
"She doesn’t know how to pee anymore" "She keeps talking about her husband" "She needs to close her mouth when she eats walnuts" "What do you call that guy?" "A ventriliquist. A ventriloquist. A fool!" "Hahahahaha!" "HaHa"
They showed up this time. He was ready this time because he had bought a video 2 days prior from a magic store ($120, if you’re serious) that showed him how to use his dummy as a ouija board.
The old ladies were back at it again. This time one of them had a walkie talkie cell phone and was talking to another old lady who was on the comode.
"Yeah, its that fool with the dummy again!" BEEP!
Tommy took Mark out of his case like a professional murderer and set him on his knee, pricked a drop of blood from his finger, wiped it inside Mark’s mouth, and dropped two pair of dice through a hole bore inside Mark’s back that had the names of the ladies’ deceased husbands. He had to shake him like a Boggle because the dice had to be one name face up. After five tries, they faced up on the name, Louis.
Mark began speaking in Louis’ voice and one old mean lady perked up and Louis said,
"Sally, you should shut up sometimes. And stop sitting with Hildy. She calls you Wingnut!"
Tommy had a great show and sold 2 videos.
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The Winking Wilzner
"Fridays are my diving boards and Sundays are my towels."
"That’s wonderful. Where are the teabags?"
"On the subject of my weekend, I will be rushing headlong into a journey of painting my bedroom to a color that matches the sepia-colored photos that I bought in college."
"I guess sepia was in then."
"Huh?"
"Where are the teabags?"
"Under the sink, next to the bag of brillos."
"They’re not there."
"Well, then. I have a sepia print of my favorite actor, Dilly Shan-"
Jeffrey went on a journey himself. He lied down on the carpet next to the mini fridge and took a much needed nap. He wasn’t tired. He just needed to escape the depression created by his officemates who appeared slightly higher than himself and this was his only weapon. He didn’t feign sleep, he went straight to the REM’s immediately.
What a wonderful tool! And he will keep his job due to its ambiguity.
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Driving in Ireland
Driving in Ireland is really fun, especially in the south. There aren’t many long stretches. It’s a lot of curves on tiny roads. Some two lane roads are the size of our one lane roads and some one lane roads are the size of driveways. Sometimes I had to just pull over and let the other car go by. Shift on the left. Drive on the left. Good fun.
And there’s a lot of sheep who have the right of way. Sheep everywhere. And stray dogs. Sweet dogs with sad eyes. An owned dog ran beside my car as I was up to 30 mph. I’m told dogs that still have their balls can do that. I have a friend who bought his dog neuticles, silicone balls for your neutered dog. I don’t know how fast he ran. -
Belfast
There’s a good scene going on in Belfast. At least to me there is. Lots of folks came to the show. I played at the Menagerie, a good bar with good people and good beers.
The band, Son of Shrimp, invited me to play with them. They are awesome with the prog rock. Really nice fellows. The other fellow, John Cairns, was good, also.
Jimmy and his new wife, Georgie, came and brought some of my new fast friends from Jimmy’s wedding. This one guy, Brendan, looks like Robin Leach and has the mannerism of the great Steve Porter.
The way Brendan looks. On the right.We had played trivia at the Farmers Inn the previous night and I gave him answers like a traitor because he’s that cool.
I gave him Cleavon Little. He came to my show.Jimmy gave us a ride around Belfast. He offered to take his car since I had EU Ireland plates which I guess might not be cool in some parts. He drove us by a police station where he was almost shot during a riot in the 80’s as he was driving home from work and some kid stood in front of his van with a gun pointed at him. Jimmy leaned below the windshield and hit the gas. Looking in his rearview mirror he saw the kid getting up off the side of the road laughing.
We saw a lot of murals. A lot of them are beautiful and a lot are just heartbreaking. Check these out.
Republican
LoyalistI’ll go into more stories if you and I ever sit down with a beer. But I will say this now: The Irish people are lovely. Really nice people. You can have a few beers with one and you might be friends for life. Holy shit are they kind. And Belfast is awesome. You should go.