multicultural influence of the donkey

As we all know, donkeys have been around for decades and have enriched our lives with their ability to carry huge loads and the uncanny 'knack' they have for obtuse cuteness that qualifies them to amuse children and retarded people. The donkey can mate with other donkeys or with horses, donkeys seem to like it that way. The product of a daddy donkey and a mommy horsey is called a mule, while the unholy union of a female donkey and a male horsey is called a hinny. Although either of the offspring of these “relationships” would be totally half-assed, the mule is much more respected in the equine community.

Assertions of genetic espionage and insider trading have been leveled against donkeys almost since their emergence as major players in the burden bearing and needlework industries.

When Charles H. Darwin first discovered donkeys in the Galapagos Islands, he was most impressed by their athletic build and confident stance. When they were offered an all expense paid trip to the Scottish highlands, the donkeys just giggled like little girls and signed the papers. For untold weeks the donkeys roamed the rolling, rocky countryside posing for numerous magazine layouts and getting plastered on the finest single malts. When Darwin realized that his team of donkey supermodels were just getting fat and lazy, he banished them to south america (all expenses paid, of course).

While aboard the Kon-Tiki, they enjoyed the open bar freely, but the blended Scotch was a real disappointment. Everything else was a blur.

When they arrived in South America they began construction of a great land bridge that they would eventually use to start new civilizations on Mars. The depth and richness of science and culture that the donkey race brought to Martian society remains unsurpassed by any of the life forms that populate that planet today.

As for the donkeys that remained in South America, they became oppressive overlords and eventually enslaved all of the native grasses and some of the herbs. When the vegetation of the earth finally had its fill of this oppression, the revolt was great and the entire earth wept, while the donkey hair poultice market boomed.

Blood of donkeys muddied the streets. Terror was $1.95 a box and the boxes were filled to the brim, which was really a great deal if you’re into that type of thing or know someone who is. Much of the terror was bought as gifts for anyone known in the family, yet not in general company of the family except during holocausts and occupations.

Eventually the donkey leader - known to everyone as “wheat” - decreed that the donkeys should no longer be harmed, but become indentured servants to their grassy overlords. Nibble by nibble the donkeys infiltrated the domain of the grasses and eventually overthrew them. The donkeys had learned a valuable lesson from all of this, but they couldn’t remember what it was. And so it has been ever since.

We enjoyed taking this little trip down memory lane, hope you did as well.

the taste of money

Once there was a little man named Everybody. He got a job that took his money to a place called eternity. When he felt like reading, he would fold his hands to mime the opening of a book, but his hands were thin and brittle with poorly designed cover art. The title was a real attention getter though - The Story of our Hands by Everybody Smith. One day Everybody decided that it was time to put his money where his mouth was. Once the money was in the proximity of his mouth, he was able to taste its great power. It was akin to that of a very spicy Thai dish that starts out hot and builds in intensity until you are dribbling and sniffling. Oddly, Thai money doesn’t have the same effect at all. But neither does American food.

That one taste of money was all Everybody needed to motivate him to sell his manuscript.

The first publisher refused to publish the work because it was more than 40 percent digital, and the industry was already in a severe number crunch. The second publisher found the book very handy and suggested that it be used as a doorstop. The third publisher thumbed through the book in a sluggish manner before suggesting a new name, “Everybody’s Handbook”. Everybody in the room loved it, except Everybody. Everybody ran out with his book covering his face, leaving everybody shocked and confused.

While everybody was discussing the possibility of a digital book being published on a single set of human hands, Everybody wrung his hands, and then the phone rang. Everybody rushed back into the room and clumsily picked up the phone with his literal hands. It was yet another publisher asking Everybody to hand the book off to him so it could be developed into a children’s bedtime story called “Show of Hands”. However, everybody had to remind Everybody that they had intellectual property rights to his hands because the work was developed under contract to the place that took all his money. Everybody was crushed, but everybody was overjoyed that they had gotten the upper hand in the situation. There was only one thing Everybody could do, he called his older brother (a lawyer) to help him handle the situation. After days of negotiations, the dispute was resolved. The hands were published (with minor edits) under the title “The Manual”.

Also, our hero - who preferred to remain anonymous - penned his own work. He was able to catapult to success by using the name of his sibling who was more than happy to help. The finished work was entitled “Grasping Intellectual Property Rights in a Digital Age - by Everybody and his brother”. Don’t gag, that’s marketing.

the poem

There once was a poem that was fined for rhyming too much. Had the papers covered the incident, the poem could have certainly benefited from the negative publicity. But everyone knew that nobody would read a newspaper that carried such a story for fear that the poem would be mentioned by name, or worse, quoted. The other poems were saturated with readership opportunities - sitting at the bottoms of newsstands, under newspapers at coffee bars, near parakeets, and even in the minds of the people who thought they loved poetry.

The little poem wept incessantly while pondering its tiresome redundancy, yet it was this same redundancy that made the feelings of the little poem ring false. Short of becoming a limerick and longing to be a children's fable, the sad little poem took its own life by stapling itself to a firecracker. In the true spirit of art, life sprang from death, and inspiration from pain. Love no longer rhymed with above, dove or even shove. In fact, love was entirely missing, which made the whole pile of disfigured prose seem somehow new and true.

A RECENT DREAM

The other night I dreamt that I was a stand-up comedian and electronics salesman at a local furniture and appliance store. Between sets, I would thoroughly hose down the furniture before the next audience would sit down. I could tell I was famous by the way everybody looked at me.

A new audience comes and takes their soaking wet seats and waits for the jokes to commence. I start in with my best joke right away, "...so I said to my wife, 'shut up and get me some toast', and she said to me, 'why do you talk to me like that when you never speak to anyone else that way?' So I said, '...' I said, '...'"

I knew the punchline earlier in the dream, but I just couldn't come up with it. I was too tired to care.

WHY I'M NOT A GOOD NEIGHBOR

I was out in the yard about 3 hours ago and saw a large cloud of black smoke coming from a neighbors yard about half a mile away (one of my closest neighbors). I thought to myself, "I should get in the car and check this out, maybe it's a house on fire".

I went into the house and poured myself a glass of wine and grilled a couple of pork chops. Somehow the fire at the neighbors place made me hungry enough to forget all about my original idea of helping.

I just checked and there's no more smoke over there, I wonder what happened.

shame sucker

Shame erases a carcass of heart, soul and cliche that blend so perfectly, so balanced, so at one with the now, that everything drops from sight but the one so steadily wanting, so inherently errant in aberrant need that longingly, lovingly, lingeringly, yet somehow abhorrently sucks its cling to me in a desperate disparity that folds onto itself in a steaming, shifting, sand-like vacuum that peels back fur, hair and skin in a spastic search for a slab of succulent newness only to find a clean-shaven pick-axe drawing blood from a concrete vine of fire and tangled dreams.

said

You stare back at me in my own special way of making you feel like I feel the way you do when you look at me in my way. You are never far from me and my way of staying close to you and me, when I follow what you’re saying to me just like me. Your every word is mine, like when I’m telling you what I just said and you repeat what I had in mind when I reminded you of when you said what I just said. I’m never far from you, and you never shy of saying exactly what I told you to say or what I already said. When I hear your lyrical voice, I have an image of something better, the words you recited almost perfectly that I already said. And now that you have captured my essence in my own sweet voice, feel free to continue on and tell the world everything I ever wanted to express, but was afraid I had already said.