BUSINESS IDEA*

Though I owe my existence to capitalism, to demonstrate my allegiance to it, I will periodically come up with business ideas.

BUSINESS IDEA*

A printing company who specializes in business cards printed on the back of scratch-off lottery tickets bought at a nearby convenience store (provided they also own the convenience store).

*All BUSINESS IDEAs are mine. I'll sue you. I'll sue you for fun.
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Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: A man sits on a stopped train next to another stopped train aimed the opposite way. One of the trains starts to move, but he can't tell which one is moving.

Solution: To break the train window and leap out. After hitting the ground, if he falls forward, he knows the other train was moving and probably gets run over. If he falls sideways, it was his train.

Complication: Imagining leaping from a train window is the highlight of his day.
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Based on and in memory of George Carlin and his comedy. I'm a couple days late, but he's not going anywhere.
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The Wisdom of Henry Placard Vol. 1

I have a friend's neighbor who I sometimes run into with a mixture of dread and awe. The neighbor's name is Henry Placard, and he doesn't seem to have friends of his own. My friend, a very liberal Chicago Public Schoolteacher, lives upstairs from Henry's apartment and gives him tomatoes from his indoor, hydroponic garden. Henry has taken the tomatoes not as a food, but as an invitation to knock on my friend's door to share whatever theory he's been working on. We can usually herd him into the foyer before he starts to expound, but no further. Henry is a ward of his parents. He's rich as shit, though he has no job, and he's not going to sit down or shut up until he's done. And then, exhausted, he's going to leave.

Henry is a genius. And I, with my digital voice recorder bought back when I thought I was a journalist, recorded him. I'd post it as a download, but since the recorder was in my shirt pocket, you'd have to listen to the recording several times before it makes sense, by which I mean before you understand the words. Here is the first of hopefully many Henry Placard monologues:

"Soooooo, I think, maybe, the increased popularity of ear-buds is really less of a function of their increased sound quality or anything like that, but more of an innovation to decrease the offense to your own vanity by wearing the ear-buds, and as they go smaller and smaller so goes the, you know, the decrease in vanity maintenance which allows you a whole lot of other energy to pursue what you want or do what you want. And that's really happiness. So, I mean, I shouldn't probably disparage ear buds at all ever because they really free up a lot of good energy to go after what you want and not to have to worry about how people will think about you if you're riding the bus with a giant pair of headphones, and, you know, you have just pissed yourself or something (cackling, coughing)."

And then, singing:

"I got a bunch of coleslaw. Mmm-mmm-m-MMmmm, Mmm-mmm-m-MMMmm, Mmm-mmm-m-MMMMm, cole-slaw, Mmm-mmm-mmm, Mmm-mmm-mmm, Mmm-mmm-MMM-mmm!"

Henry turns around and staggers through the still-open door down the stairs and into his own apartment. He leaves his door open, but he doesn't come back up. Presumably he's eating coleslaw.
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Henry, I know you compulsively Google yourself. If you read this, just let me know if this post pisses you off, and I'll delete it promptly.

Who? What? Why? So What?

Who?

The pizza delivery receptionist

What?

Changed her title to "owner's wife."

Why?

The owner disappeared.

So what?

Now the sausage tastes different.
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My Trick

I am a small man.

During a night-walk through the city, I feel bigger, as if I expand to fill the space usually occupied by people during the day. However, other night-walkers are also bigger, bigger than me. The men, especially, are strange and menacing in their size and ugliness. If I see one (or a woman wearing men's pants) I'll discreetly diagonally cross to the other side of the street to avoid him, regardless of race, because I imagine he intends to aggravated-ly assault me. Aggravated assault is manly. Simple assault is like an accident.

Because it is sometimes impractical or rude to zig-zag down the street, sometimes I am forced to pass only a couple of feet from a giant, ugly psychopath. My hands quiver, and my feet walk heel-to-toe on the far edge of the sidewalk. I often fall off into the grass, where the dog poop lies, and then scamper away.

These spells of paranoia are no good for me, so I have come up with a trick: I pick a kind person I know who resembles the man walking toward me and imagine that it is he, the kind one, who I am passing. In this way I pass former teachers, college buddies, and work colleagues, each totally non-threatening. Of course last week Mr. Sheridan, my high school physics teacher, hit me in the stomach with a crowbar and took my wallet — probably to teach me the rate at which a falling body accelerates — but I wrote a letter to the school board. How can they let this man teach young adults?

Problem/Solution/Com- plication

Problem: Going to a sleepover as a bedwetter

Solution: Bring own sleeping bag; no liquids after 9 P.M.

Complication: Shaking out the powdered pee before everyone else wakes up.
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It Begins

My heart feels like a ripe peach, so full of sweet juice that it hurts. I should stick a needle in my heart to get rid of some of the juice. That would have to be some long needle, and it would probably hurt. Heavens, it would probably send me to Hell.

It's the weather that does this. Not so much the weather itself, but rather its effect on the ladies' clothing choices. There's only so much flesh I can handle before I have to cage myself at night. Otherwise I'll go into feral cat mode: spraying trees and rubbing my face against people's legs, getting locked up by the police, facing assault and lewd conduct charges, spending my life savings on a team of lawyers, and getting off because I'm a cute white boy who cries easily.

Ah, the heat. The heat makes it so I dare not wear a pair of boxer shorts for more than one day. If I do, I spend the second day ill with anxiety and constantly hunched over, sniffing at my crotch and wondering if that pungent odor is coming from me or the Korean restaurant down the street.

I love summer.

Who? What? Why?

Who?

Really smart people

What?

Eat brains in tacos.

Why?

Because the taco disguises the brain flavor.

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