Stevieslaw: Give Me That Old Time…Larceny

Posted on July 1, 2011 by stevieslaw

The Associated Press reports today that Standard and Poor’s will give the United States its lowest credit rating should congress fail to raise the borrowing limit—putting us in the same category as say Albania, Angola and Cameroon.  A calamity? Not to worry, the Senate is on it (the House is thankfully on recess).  Of course, there is the fact that some Republican members of Congress don’t believe that defaulting would be a big deal.  They are part of the Republican “don’t believe club.” They don’t believe in evolution or global warming either—demanding evidence while brushing aside the actual evidence.  Belief or non-belief is the new reality for many in Congress—as if governing from inside a Disney cartoon.

Smokey Diamond and I, while firmly believing nothing bad can ever happen, have decided to pool the very limited resources the Too Big To Fail gang left us by mistake (heads will roll) and invest in a lump of gold or platinum.  We understand very well that the corporate marauders will come for this nest egg as well—as soon as they’ve accumulated all the money they possibly can—with the help of the “don’t believe club—by moving it around on computer spread sheets.  It’s just that when they decide to steal our last remaining nest egg they will have to send two guys named Sal, dressed all in black, eyes only peeping through their ski masks, in the dead of night, with a crow bar for entry and revolvers for back up.  In this age, there is something refreshing in being pillaged in that way.  It’s something Smokey and I can believe in.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: New Rule for Nobel Prize

Posted on June 30, 2011 by stevieslaw

King Gustav of Sweden announced today a new rule for the Nobel Peace Prize award.  The Nobel Committee will award the prize only to those dead for at least 50 years.  A formal death certificate will be required.

His Highness, Carl, when asked if the new rule was in response to the actions of the American President, Barack Obama, who despite the peace prize has continued wars in Iraq and Pakghanistan, engaged in a war in Libya, and used drones to bomb targets in Somalia, Yemen and a small country without a name somewhere in Africa or Asia, would only say, “who knew?”

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: No Poll Tax This Year.

Posted on June 21, 2011 by stevieslaw

Pennsylvania House Republicans, certain of passing a bill demanding photo id from all voters, conceded today that they would not be able to push through Poll Taxes and literacy tests as part of their new voting rights push.  As you may recall, the photo id law targets the kind of large scale voter fraud that never happens.  A spokesperson for Daryl Metcalfe, the sponsor of the voter id bill, said of a poll tax, “it is certainly worth studying.”  “Poll taxes and various literacy tests were the law of the land in many states not that long ago, and when properly modified could be made to work here as well.”

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, poetry, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Father’s Day

Posted on June 19, 2011 by stevieslaw

Father’s Day

Your song sang in my mind today.

I longed so to sing it with you.

It was one of your sillier songs,

and it rolled round and round,

like that toy train you bought for me

once, when I was five or six.

It was more than you could afford

and I soon disposed of it, as a child does.

 

I see you still, on that morning

you first walked with me to school.

New York City so slyly proud of

Autumn, it cackled in the painted trees. 

We sang together then and loud

and made a spectacle of us, you’d say,

like Ben Hur or The Ten Commandments,

screened in Technicolor at our theatre

by the elevated train. We made so little

 from it dad—I have  just the memory.

 

My cousins, my children paraded to your

songs.  I suppose they sing them still.

But time sings in a minor key, wrapped

in weariness, as in a concert hall,

half full, on a gray and rainy  afternoon.

The movie theatre has closed for good now

dad.  Others share the sidewalks and the sun.

 

I realize now after all these years of passing,

how much I took for granted,

and how little there is left of you

in the whirrings and stirrings of all

the lush, little lives of yet another spring,

and how very sad that must make me,

if it weren’t for your song.

 

Posted in poetry | 7 Comments

Stevieslaw: Personhood and Compassion in the House of Representatives.

Posted on June 17, 2011 by stevieslaw

The Republican Caucus in the House of Representatives took an unprecedented step today in defining personhood for the purpose of legislation.  First class people will be defined as: a. a fetus or b. an individual earning more than $250,000 a year or c. a traditional family of four making more than $400,000 a year.  Those, voting Republican, but not qualifying for personhood will be able to wear a charming, American-made button that says, “Person in Training” in red, white and blue letters.

In an unrelated story, the Republican led House of Representatives voted to slash domestic and international food aid yesterday.  This will cut the Women, Infants, and Children program, which offers food aid and educational support for low income mothers and their children, by nearly a billion dollars.  The international food program, apparently less dependable than drone strikes, would be cut by about a third.

A spokesperson for the Republican Caucus was quick to point out that people will not be affected by the cuts.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Threat Leveling the Marcellus Shale

Posted on June 17, 2011 by stevieslaw

Smokey and I would like to offer Kudos to our local newspaper, the CDT. Once again they have put two stories together on the front page that were made perfectly for each other.  The first is entitled: Ridge: Firms need better image, discusses what former governor Tom Ridge—now a consultant to the natural gas industry—feels is lacking in the natural gas bunch—a better image.  And just under Ridge’s picture, the CDT has placed the article, “DEP probes water wells leaking gas,” which talks about the annoying habit of methane gas bubbling up through water wells and streams near the new gas wells and how the industry response is that it was like this in Pennsylvania before the gas wells.  Need a better image—well yeah.

Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, went to Williamsport to interview Ridge’s spokesperson, Miss Orange Green.  Ridge, as the article makes clear, is no expert on natural gas extraction and we wondered what he brought the industry as a consultant.  Miss Green was clear, stating, “Tom Ridge is perhaps best known for the color coding system of terror threats as the first secretary of homeland security.  He hopes to do the same thing for the gas extraction industry.” 

“You mean he will color code the environmental threat state so the public can be aware if something dangerous is happening?” asked Diamond.  “No,” replied Green, “Mr. Ridge works for the gas industry, not for the public.”  He will color code the environmental threat to the industry.”  “When the environmental terrorists are threatening to expose this or that, Tom will alert the industry through a color code—orange for high, for example, so that the industry can respond with placating noises.”  “The Wizard of Oz figure behind the curtain will assure you that everything is okay—whether or not it is—just as we did with homeland security.”

Feel better now?

On a lighter note, Smokey and I are beginning to believe there is some intelligence at the CDT that is placing articles together like they did today and in the recent past.  Neither of us is a believer in coincidence, like for example, when your water well starts producing methane gas just after they sink a gas well a few thousand feet away.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Exclusive Photos Here

Posted on June 16, 2011 by stevieslaw

Exclusive photos of Anthony Weiner stepping down will be available at stevieslaw.  We can get them to you on Twitter, or for those nostalgia buffs, we can mail them to you in a plain manila envelope.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: A List of Winners from this year’s reading.

Posted on June 13, 2011 by stevieslaw

My friend, Fred Ramsey, got me started by putting a list on facebook of the books he had read this year.  I read a lot, which is great, but retain little, which is not great.  Here are some of my favorites from this year’s reading. I read little other than fiction these days.  Some of my choices are odd since I look for foreign authors.  On that note, I think the books published by “The New York Review of Books,” are worth a look. 

Henry James: The Ambassadors/ Portrait of a Lady—hard to read any other fiction after reading these.

Alan Bennett:  An Uncommon Reader

Roberto Bolano: The Skating Rink (an easy intro to his work).

Peter Carey: History of the Kelly Gang.

Junot Diaz: Drown–

Jennifer Egan: A Visit from the Goon Squad.

William Gibson: Spook Country.

Jaimy Gordon: Lord of Misrule.

David Grossman: To the End of the Land (long and repetitious—but)

William Kotzwinkle: The Fan Man.

Jonathan Lethem: Chronic City.

Colum McCann: Let the Great World Spin.

William McIlvanney: Laidlaw.

Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke

Ismail Kadare: The Siege/ The General of the Dead Army (the siege is brilliant)

Stief Larsson: all three

J.M.G. Le Clezio: Wandering Star.

Zachery Mason: The Lost Books of the Odyssey

Maile Meloy: Both Ways is the Only Way I Want it.

Tea Obreht: The Tiger’s Wife.

Sembene Ousmane: God’s Bits of Wood.

Victor Petevin: The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Tom Rachman: The Imperfectionists.

Juan Jose Saer: The 65 years of Washington.

Jose Saramago: Blindness (finally, one I could finish and enjoy)

Wallace Stegner: Angle of Repose.

Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge

Pramoe Dya Ananta Toer: This Earth of Mankind (1 of 4 volumes)

Jess Walter: The Zero

David Foster Wallace: Infinite Jest (on my second try).

Any of the Venice mysteries of Donna Leon/ the mysteries of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo/ Alan Furst—start with the early ones/ Anything by P.G. Wodehouse—the Blandings Castle novels are my favorites/ I sat in on a class of Shakespeare this past semester—can’t go wrong there.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: Cousin Myron and the Bombing of East Yehupits.

Posted on June 9, 2011 by stevieslaw

Myron called me yesterday at two to tell me to turn on the TV.  Myron, as you may recall is a high school dropout and self made millionaire with flaming red hair and a temper to match. 

“What station?” I asked.

“Matters not,” said Myron, “Any news station will do.”

I turned on PBS in time to watch Secretary of Defense, Bob Gates, being raked over the coals by a bipartisan bunch from the Senate for our inaction in East Yehupits. Jim DeMint (R-SC) put it clearly on the line.

“Mr. Gates,” he said, “with active wars in Iraq and Pakghanistan, some sort of war in Libya and now evidence of covert drone strikes in Yemen, my constituents and I want to know why we are not bombing in East Yehupits.”  “Do we not have enemies hidden in East Yehupits, Mr. Gates?”

“I honestly don’t know, Senator,” replied Gates.

“We have enemies all over the globe and we are bombing nearly everywhere Mr. Gates, and you’re saying we can’t find anyone worth bombing in East Yehupits?” “That seems unlikely to me and to my constituents.”

Mr. Gates, turning a bright, unpleasant shade of red, could only respond with, “Senator, I have to admit that my staff and I have been unable to find East Yehupits.”  In conjunction with the CIA, however, we will find it, and I assure the Senate that once we do, we will use drones to bomb it.  You can count on us in East Yehupits,” assured Gates.

Leave it to Myron to get everyone stirred up over a non-existent place from our childhood where things that didn’t or couldn’t happen in Brooklyn happened all the time.  It was a great idea, born out of disgust with our current policy of bombing everyone, everywhere. I am all for it.  Let’s stop bombing everywhere but East Yehupits.  Bomb the hell out of East Yehupits.  Myron is probably making the t-shirts and buttons as I write this.

“But, East Yehupits! Imagine anyone falling for a name like that,” I thought.

Sure enough, this morning’s paper had a statement from Sarah Palin about the untenable situation in East Yehupits. 

“I would like to know,” she said “how the Obama government could lose the whole country of East Yehupits—a critical player in our terror campaign.”  “The State Department in a Palin Administration would focus on countries with the importance of an East Yehupits—not misplace them.”

Exactly.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stevieslaw: What’s in a Name

Posted on June 8, 2011 by stevieslaw

Stevieslaw: What’s in a Name?

Some of you might know that Smokey Diamond, our intrepid reporter, changed his name from one that suggested either the arrival of the storm troopers or, when mispronounced, a feminine hygiene technique.  With bullying one of the few art forms left to Americans, Smokey found growing up was just a little bit harder than it needed to be. Now Smokey has learned that the penis genius, Anthony Weiner, is claiming that the bullying he suffered as a youth, because of his name, is responsible for his irresponsible actions as an adult.  “It was not easy,” Anthony whined, “being the “weiner” on the block.” My self-esteem suffered all through my childhood.”

Now, we have learned that the Weiner has introduced legislation in the House to ban the use of names for American children.  “Children,” say the Weinie, “should be given numbers at birth instead of names.”  “Having a unique number instead of a name for life would be useful in the digital age in any event, and no one could be bullied on the basis of their number.”

At Stevieslaw, we are not so sure.  We can imagine a future in which bullying, only on the basis on numbers, would easily continue.  As in: “Spoken like a real 29,” or “Just another filthy 54.” Nicknumbers would abound and be used to intimidate and threaten. All people whose numbers ended in 222 might sooner or later be banned from the country club—while the 666ers would have trouble finding a church.

I don’t know quite what to make of the Anthony—as with mustard and sauerkraut’s—claim that bullying did him in.  Smokey on the other hand was firm:

“What a Weiner,” she said.

Posted in gang gang dance, Humor, parody, sleepless in state college | Tagged , , | Leave a comment