Hello Everyone:
Please watch the moving video program below starring the Very Nice Congressman.
After watching this video, I became very concerned and sent the following e-mail to President Obama:
"Dear President Obama:
If you are planning to, please do not eat another bacon-lettuce-and tomato sandwich (BLT). According to a moving video picture I just saw starring a very angry but nice congressman, the Republican Party will ban bacon if they find out you have eaten another BLT sandwich. I would be very very sad if this happened, because I like BLT sandwiches very very much and eat them every single day. If the Republican Party banned bacon, they would be just LT sandwiches, which does not sound very appetizing to me.
Maybe if you put something like boiled spinach, green pepper or eggplant in your sandwiches instead, that would be better, because I would not mind if the Republican Party banned those three unpleasant foodstuffs.
Thank you for your help.
Hugh Lafferty"
Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Why I Want to Go to Prison: Part I
Hello Everyone:
This recent "blog" posting from The New Yorker about a woman who wrote many of her books while she was in prison has inspired in me a very smart and good idea that is sure to help me finish the book I am trying to write now. I would like to share it with you and ask you what you think:
"Dear FBI Director Robert Mueller:
My name is Hugh Lafferty. I live in Emeryville, California. I am also the author of two very worthwhile and readable books: Hate Letters to Stephen Colbert and Paint! The Substance that Covers the Earth!
I am working on a new book called Gravity’s Rainbow: The Prequel Where Tyrone Slothrop Meets Stephen Dedalus. Writing this book is turning out to be a little harder than I expected. (For example, there were no V-2 rockets raining down on Dublin, Ireland in 1914 -- at least as far as I know.)
To overcome the creative roadblocks I have been encountering, I think it would be a very good and smart idea for me to rob the Bank of America on California Street and Kearny in San Francisco, on October 23, 2009 at 4 PM (unless the MUNI bus system breaks down again, in which case I may very well be somewhat late).
Just when I am making my “getaway,” you will arrest me, put me on trial and have me sentenced to Federal Prison for a very nice long stay. This way, I am sure I will be able to finish my book without distraction.
Some (among them my wife Gladys) have suggested that I commit a lesser crime that would result in a shorter jail sentence, such as Blackmail. Unfortunately, it turns out that Someone Smarter and Faster than I got to David Letterman before I did.
In addition, a very long jail term in federal prison would also allow me much more time to finish the many other books I want to write without distraction. Among them are:
When Life is Unfair: Penis Envy from Mozart to Strom Thurmond;
Rip-off! How Cynthia Ozick Stole My Ideas, Changed Her Name to Dan Brown and Made Millions; and
'I Just Wanted to Ride in the Air on a Big Crane': How I Discovered the Truth About Al Gore's Global Warming Campaign.
You will note, of course, that all my books have very long titles. This is because my research has shown me that people buy more books that have long titles than books with short titles, especially titles with colons in them. As I have learned from long experience, books with long titles take longer to write. So, I am sure my time in jail will be well spent.
Should your FBI agents not find me at the bank exactly at 4 PM (Thank you again, MUNI!), please ask them to be patient as I will be there to rob the bank as soon as I can. I am recognizable by my hirsute, height-challenged physique and white shirt and blue tie. I will also be wearing matching pants and shoes.
I look forward to meeting you and the FBI.
Thank you for your help.
Hugh Lafferty"
And, of course, thank you for your help.
This recent "blog" posting from The New Yorker about a woman who wrote many of her books while she was in prison has inspired in me a very smart and good idea that is sure to help me finish the book I am trying to write now. I would like to share it with you and ask you what you think:
"Dear FBI Director Robert Mueller:
My name is Hugh Lafferty. I live in Emeryville, California. I am also the author of two very worthwhile and readable books: Hate Letters to Stephen Colbert and Paint! The Substance that Covers the Earth!
I am working on a new book called Gravity’s Rainbow: The Prequel Where Tyrone Slothrop Meets Stephen Dedalus. Writing this book is turning out to be a little harder than I expected. (For example, there were no V-2 rockets raining down on Dublin, Ireland in 1914 -- at least as far as I know.)
To overcome the creative roadblocks I have been encountering, I think it would be a very good and smart idea for me to rob the Bank of America on California Street and Kearny in San Francisco, on October 23, 2009 at 4 PM (unless the MUNI bus system breaks down again, in which case I may very well be somewhat late).
Just when I am making my “getaway,” you will arrest me, put me on trial and have me sentenced to Federal Prison for a very nice long stay. This way, I am sure I will be able to finish my book without distraction.
Some (among them my wife Gladys) have suggested that I commit a lesser crime that would result in a shorter jail sentence, such as Blackmail. Unfortunately, it turns out that Someone Smarter and Faster than I got to David Letterman before I did.
In addition, a very long jail term in federal prison would also allow me much more time to finish the many other books I want to write without distraction. Among them are:
When Life is Unfair: Penis Envy from Mozart to Strom Thurmond;
Rip-off! How Cynthia Ozick Stole My Ideas, Changed Her Name to Dan Brown and Made Millions; and
'I Just Wanted to Ride in the Air on a Big Crane': How I Discovered the Truth About Al Gore's Global Warming Campaign.
You will note, of course, that all my books have very long titles. This is because my research has shown me that people buy more books that have long titles than books with short titles, especially titles with colons in them. As I have learned from long experience, books with long titles take longer to write. So, I am sure my time in jail will be well spent.
Should your FBI agents not find me at the bank exactly at 4 PM (Thank you again, MUNI!), please ask them to be patient as I will be there to rob the bank as soon as I can. I am recognizable by my hirsute, height-challenged physique and white shirt and blue tie. I will also be wearing matching pants and shoes.
I look forward to meeting you and the FBI.
Thank you for your help.
Hugh Lafferty"
And, of course, thank you for your help.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Hello Everyone:
Tim Goodman, a TV critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, thinks he is very clever to come up with the idea of combining the concepts of Dexter with Ken Burns’ National Parks documentary.
But I am even more cleverer . . . rer than Mr. Goodman by 1.573 million miles, because, just recently I have completed my very own screenplay I am calling Dexter Meets Ken Burns.
Dexter Meets Ken Burns is about how Dexter discovers that Ken Burns has been using fake backdrops and CG effects in his National Parks documentary. Enraged, Dexter kidnaps Ken Burns, but accidentally assembles his killing room using crumbling plastic sheets and ties up Ken Burns with old used duct tape that has lost its stickiness. After chewing his way through the duct tape and rope, Ken Burns escapes. Dexter must now stop Ken Burns from releasing his next six-part,
12-hour documentary How I Escaped Dexter. Will he do it in time!?
I have already left phone messages with Showtime, Ken Burns and Michael C. Hall, but I guess they are very busy because they have not called back. If we cannot get Mr. Burns to play himself, I am sure Vin Diesel will and if we cannot get Mr. Hall maybe John Hodgman will be available to play Dexter (and as Hodgman is the Smartest Man I Know, I am sure he will accept).
Please feel free to offer any of your casting ideas. Your name will be included on the “thank you” list of the end credits (though Showtime may decide I am asking too much).
Whatever the results, I am very very sure this will be remembered as Hugh Lafferty's Best Idea!
Thank you for your help.
Tim Goodman, a TV critic at the San Francisco Chronicle, thinks he is very clever to come up with the idea of combining the concepts of Dexter with Ken Burns’ National Parks documentary.
But I am even more cleverer . . . rer than Mr. Goodman by 1.573 million miles, because, just recently I have completed my very own screenplay I am calling Dexter Meets Ken Burns.
Dexter Meets Ken Burns is about how Dexter discovers that Ken Burns has been using fake backdrops and CG effects in his National Parks documentary. Enraged, Dexter kidnaps Ken Burns, but accidentally assembles his killing room using crumbling plastic sheets and ties up Ken Burns with old used duct tape that has lost its stickiness. After chewing his way through the duct tape and rope, Ken Burns escapes. Dexter must now stop Ken Burns from releasing his next six-part,
12-hour documentary How I Escaped Dexter. Will he do it in time!?
I have already left phone messages with Showtime, Ken Burns and Michael C. Hall, but I guess they are very busy because they have not called back. If we cannot get Mr. Burns to play himself, I am sure Vin Diesel will and if we cannot get Mr. Hall maybe John Hodgman will be available to play Dexter (and as Hodgman is the Smartest Man I Know, I am sure he will accept).
Please feel free to offer any of your casting ideas. Your name will be included on the “thank you” list of the end credits (though Showtime may decide I am asking too much).
Whatever the results, I am very very sure this will be remembered as Hugh Lafferty's Best Idea!
Thank you for your help.
Monday, September 7, 2009
I Must Forget to Learn How to Read
Hello everyone. I look to the Smartest Man I Have Ever Met for wisdom in everything I say, think and do (unless my wife Gladys says “no”). He always presents me with new challenges. This week he has recommended that readers of his blog forget how to learn to read in order to enjoy the release of his latest publication on shiny laser drink coasters.
I must admit, the notion of forgetting how to read causes my brain to make a rusty crunching noise. I have spent fifty years learning how to read. (In fact, just yesterday, I learned how to spell “sesquipedalian” without chewing open the inside of my mouth. Tomorrow I will learn what it means.)
But that I have to learn to listen to expensive-looking shiny laser drink coasters confuses me even more.
Some months ago, Gladys purchased what she said was the unexsperm—unexpurgled—the complete Bible, including complete text, audio, page-by-page film reenactments, complete annotations, illustrations and concordance, all which, she claimed, fitted onto silvery laser drink coasters.
I put to the coasters to my ear and held them up to the light, but did not hear or see anything. They would not play on my Victrola either, so I decided they were a rip-off and gave all 575 of them away at the local WalMart Starbucks where I thought they would look very nice on the tables. (Gladys became very angry and made me stay in the next four Saturday nights, time I usually spend out in our garden in my towel-cape, Superman t-shirt and underpants conversing with the Mole Men).
It is also very possible that I will need complete, thorough, word-by-word instructions on how to unlearn to read. Is it anything like learning how to stutter? (Tom, my downstairs neighbor, suggests reading Dan Brown might help.)
As always, I look forward to Hodgman’s (and everyone else's) advice.
Thank you for your help.
I must admit, the notion of forgetting how to read causes my brain to make a rusty crunching noise. I have spent fifty years learning how to read. (In fact, just yesterday, I learned how to spell “sesquipedalian” without chewing open the inside of my mouth. Tomorrow I will learn what it means.)
But that I have to learn to listen to expensive-looking shiny laser drink coasters confuses me even more.
Some months ago, Gladys purchased what she said was the unexsperm—unexpurgled—the complete Bible, including complete text, audio, page-by-page film reenactments, complete annotations, illustrations and concordance, all which, she claimed, fitted onto silvery laser drink coasters.
I put to the coasters to my ear and held them up to the light, but did not hear or see anything. They would not play on my Victrola either, so I decided they were a rip-off and gave all 575 of them away at the local WalMart Starbucks where I thought they would look very nice on the tables. (Gladys became very angry and made me stay in the next four Saturday nights, time I usually spend out in our garden in my towel-cape, Superman t-shirt and underpants conversing with the Mole Men).
It is also very possible that I will need complete, thorough, word-by-word instructions on how to unlearn to read. Is it anything like learning how to stutter? (Tom, my downstairs neighbor, suggests reading Dan Brown might help.)
As always, I look forward to Hodgman’s (and everyone else's) advice.
Thank you for your help.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Why I Went Away and My Early Days with Throwdini
Hello Everyone: I am very sorry for my long absence. It happened like this: my wife Gladys mistakenly wall-papered me into our living room wall last summer (Thanks to our youngest child's sharp left eye, Gladys finally caught her error just the other day).
Anyway, now that little mistake has been corrected, I am very glad to be back among you, seeking your guidance (and, of course, offering my own help).
I have just come from the Smartest Man I Have Ever Met’s Web page, where I have discovered that the great and very famous knife-throwing expert, The Great Throwdini, is still performing, because, I am proud to say, I was his personal assistant a long time ago, back in the beginning of his career, when he was just getting started and not very accurate at throwing knives.
Shortly after I started working as Throwdini's assistant, I sprang leaks every time I took a drink, earned the nickname "Scar" and became well known at local emergency rooms. At first, we were known as "Throwdini and His Human Pin Cushion."
Though I had to resign (due to massive blood loss) to this day, I carry very many fond mementos upon my person of our brief but rewarding association to the delight of many plastic surgeons.
Again, I apologize for my very long absence.
And thank you for your help.
Anyway, now that little mistake has been corrected, I am very glad to be back among you, seeking your guidance (and, of course, offering my own help).
I have just come from the Smartest Man I Have Ever Met’s Web page, where I have discovered that the great and very famous knife-throwing expert, The Great Throwdini, is still performing, because, I am proud to say, I was his personal assistant a long time ago, back in the beginning of his career, when he was just getting started and not very accurate at throwing knives.
Shortly after I started working as Throwdini's assistant, I sprang leaks every time I took a drink, earned the nickname "Scar" and became well known at local emergency rooms. At first, we were known as "Throwdini and His Human Pin Cushion."
Though I had to resign (due to massive blood loss) to this day, I carry very many fond mementos upon my person of our brief but rewarding association to the delight of many plastic surgeons.
Again, I apologize for my very long absence.
And thank you for your help.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
I Ignore Celebrities
A recent comment to a post here brags about the poster's practice of ignoring the celebrity blogger.
There is nothing new here for, I, I am proud to say, have been ignoring celebrities for years, with pleasing and positive results.
I have complimented many many celebrities by not speaking to them or otherwise acknowledging their presence: like the time I fled from the sight of Paul Newman standing on top of a truck in Oshkosh, WI (the van looked like it was about to run me over); the time I passed by Glen Campbell in a San Antonio Hotel hallway while averting my eyes like a 19th century servant (though I fell over a potted plant and broke my nose).
And there was the recent event where I proudly averted my eyes while walking right by Barack Obama. Though Mr. Obama had his hand out and was asking something about me voting for him, I nevertheless refused to violate his privacy and ran even faster as he ran after me, calling out "Wait! Wait! Come back!" But I, sensitive to his need for his private space, knew he would regret talking to me, even after he collapsed exhausted on the sidewalk. Fortunately, this time, I did not fall over or run into anything either and so Mr. Obama's privacy remains intact!
My practice of ignoring celebrities has certainly been worth it! I received effusive handwritten letters from all three of the above celebrities (and many others) thanking me for ignoring them!
Thank you your help.
There is nothing new here for, I, I am proud to say, have been ignoring celebrities for years, with pleasing and positive results.
I have complimented many many celebrities by not speaking to them or otherwise acknowledging their presence: like the time I fled from the sight of Paul Newman standing on top of a truck in Oshkosh, WI (the van looked like it was about to run me over); the time I passed by Glen Campbell in a San Antonio Hotel hallway while averting my eyes like a 19th century servant (though I fell over a potted plant and broke my nose).
And there was the recent event where I proudly averted my eyes while walking right by Barack Obama. Though Mr. Obama had his hand out and was asking something about me voting for him, I nevertheless refused to violate his privacy and ran even faster as he ran after me, calling out "Wait! Wait! Come back!" But I, sensitive to his need for his private space, knew he would regret talking to me, even after he collapsed exhausted on the sidewalk. Fortunately, this time, I did not fall over or run into anything either and so Mr. Obama's privacy remains intact!
My practice of ignoring celebrities has certainly been worth it! I received effusive handwritten letters from all three of the above celebrities (and many others) thanking me for ignoring them!
Thank you your help.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
My Secret Agenda!
Congress and the President did a very wise and brave thing the other day by setting spies on me. I can now rest assured that we are all safer, especially from me.
I need watching. I cannot be trusted. I might be a terrorist. How do I know I am not?
“Uh Hugh, what makes you think you are a terrorist?” my wife Gladys asks with that habitual clench of her teeth I so adore.
What makes you think I am not?
Yes, it is true that I was born in this country of western European descent.
But so was John Walker Lindh!
Sure, I attended middle-class schools, populated mostly by other European-Americans.
That is a very suspicious hyphenate! Already, my loyalties seem less than pure. It is but a short step from hyphenates to IEDs; from collecting thousands of Euro-Pop CDs (while forcing innocent American ears to listen to them) and jokes about being unable to type the President’s name to launching an unprecedented rain of destruction upon numberless, harmless Americans!
Right now, unbeknownst to even me, I might be plotting a terrorist attack!
Gladys’ eyebrows disappear into her hair. “And just um, who would you plot against?”
“Whom,” I riposte, waving at the phone book. Lots of choices, right there! Full of people I could be out to get. If your name is in the phone book, believe me, I bear watching!
Just because I am paranoid does not mean I am not out to get you.
Hey, people fool themselves all the time! Take, for instance, my love for all the girls that I really believed loved me back; or who would somehow get around to it if I just slept on their doorsteps long enough and ran in tight perfect circles screaming my head off.
I was crushingly mistaken. And if I am mistaken about things like that, how do I know I am not mistaken about being a loyal American?
At this point, Gladys is tapping her foot, her hands on her hips, staring at the attic ceiling: “Hugh, you are not doing anything illegal! What are you so worried about?”
That is a very very silly question. If you were all paying very close attention to me, you would see signposts to deadly danger all along the way! Consider the following clues:
When I was young, I once got a speeding ticket. I went drunk driving a couple of times. Or was it more? Maybe I drove drunkenly every night, but was too drunk to remember! Or I repressed the memories! Maybe I buried bodies in the basement of every house I’ve ever lived in! I just forgot! I could not handle the truth (as Jack Nicholson said to me once. Really! He did! Right there in the theater!)! Repressed Memory Syndrome! A-HA!
I cannot even be trusted to recall whether I went on a drunken rampage! The heart is a deceitful thing! The Bible says so and all things that are said—not just in the Bible—must be considered true until 100%-plus proven false. Consider the following piece of perfect logic:
You cannot prove the Earth is not flat! It might become flat tomorrow!
(See how the bold font represents my sincere, passionately jabbing finger, the guaranteed clincher to all arguments.)
What a just world it would be if all astronomy and physics textbooks devoted a full 50% of their text to the Flat Earth Controversy! Do not forget, I am only promoting standards of fairness in a democratic society’s marketplace of ideas. But until that rosy day, we will just have to subject the scientists to enhanced interrogation until they confess their lies.
What? It is logically impossible to prove a negative? Like, that is a serious argument? Remember! Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence!
There is always more than we can see. All you have to say is “Barack Obama is a Muslim” and he becomes one. Saying things makes them true. Saying them again makes them more true. (No, sorry, saying things are not true makes them proven incontrovertible facts!)
Even if you lived with Obama 24/7, even if you followed him into the bathroom and the shower and slept right between him and Michelle, you will never be able to prove he is not thinking Secret Muslim Thoughts!
Scott McClellan is fomenting a new plot to bomb America. How do we tell? Because he wrote that book about President . . . President . . . he wrote that book. This leads us to the following True Exact Formula:
McClellan Betrays President > McClellan Betrays Country = McClellan Plots Terrorist Attacks.
A little math goes a long way!
Another significant clue pointing to my future evil-doing: Osama bin Laden and I both have the hots for Whitney Houston!
Unable to counter my arguments, Gladys has crawled out on the roof for some fresh air: “Why do you hate crackpots so much?” I call after her.
I will now conclude my argument with quotes from Two Great Thinkers Who Will Prove My Point:
Ernest Hemingway: “I know now that there is no one thing that is true—it is all true.”
The Amazing Criswell: “Can you prove that it didn’t happen!?”
Excuse me while I wipe the dust of your feeble arguments from the palms of my hands.
Now somebody call Homeland Security! And call Sean Hannity! I have to warn someone about My Secret Agenda, and it might as well be him because everyone (yes, you) believes Sean Hannity!
That will put a stop to me! Once and for all!
Thank you for your help.
(Photo by Gladys)
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