Month: May 2026

“I’ll never trust a cannibal,” muttered Tex, and then spit tobacco. “They’re so mealy mouthed.”

His horse, Prince Albert, pawed at the dusty road. Tex was a repressed heterosexual. He had named his horse what he named his horse because there was a saddle involved, and bouncing, and friction, and the name took Tex to a happy place.

“Nope, should never have trusted her. She woulda said practically anything to get her hands on my family jewels.”

“Neiiighhhh”

“Yup, those ARE some bright jewels, Prince Albert. I ain’t gonna lie. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. No need to hide any jewels. Except from someone who wants to eat your heart.”

Tex looked out at the usual majestic vista. The horse came up and commenced to lick his ear.

“Naw, I know you want my sarsaparilla.”

“Neeiiiiigggggh”

“But ya see, the last time, you went at it like it was broth. And you got drunk. Yer snores shook the canyon. Ever try to motivate a drunk horse? It’s harder than escaping from a whole buncha cannibals.”

Tex hung his head and sat on a rock. It suddenly felt a bit cooler, and so he looked up again to see where the shadows had come from. Nope, no one would ever believe this. The horse was standing on two legs, and casting a nice shadow, too.

Tex stared warmly at Prince Albert, who held his gaze. And then, Prince Albert said, in a Boston accent, “Blessed ahh the pure in heahht.”

“Gosh darn!” averred Tex, slapping his boot, “That was beautiful, brother.”

“Blessed ahh the Red Sox, for they shall hit it outta the pahhk.”

Tex frowned. “Perhaps. Perhaps.” And then a silence descended.

“Tell me this. Got any crackazz?”

“Sorry. Not today.”

“How about chowdah?”

“I wish,” murmured Tex.

“Gimme some nuts, then.”

“My friend, I don’t have what you’re asking for.”

“You’re a wicked shitty liahh. What about these nuts?”

It was at this point that Tex realized everyone around him was a cannibal and he should never share his phobias with anyone, even horses. He broke into a run.

Which is why the Sheriff of Randall County tells everyone to this day about the cowboy who thought he could outrun a horse.

Yes, I’d like to open a bank account. My name is Pufff Adder. Three fffs. Two dds.
Imagine if Puff Daddy and Black Adder had a baby.
No, it’s not short for anything. Is Penelope short for something? Is Raminagrobis short for something?

Of course, I submit to a background check. I also don’t mind a body cavity search. I have excellent dental records. If you don’t believe it, you can bite me.

No, there’s no need to call Security. I admonish you, I am an intellectual chap, and think of things that would astonish you. You seem very nervous. Is there a law against rhyming in a bank?

Please, take my money. It’s very heavy. I’d rather not carry it all around with me. Yes, exactly. It’s in the big metal box that set off your metal detectors. It’s kind of heavy metal, if you put two and two together and add up to four. No? Asking too much?

One more thing. My money is only mine. It is not affiliated with any terrorists, nepo babies, bitcoin aficionados, people who want to put Elon Musk in space, people who want to put Hilary Clinton in jail, people who believe in the Fifth Beatle, the Twelfth Imam, the Return of the King, the sanity of Kanye West, that diamonds are forever, that the Big Bang is not forever, people who don’t have a Taylor Swift era, people who smoke crystal meth, people who drink Liquid Death, people who have sex with cattle, those who are easily rattled, and those whose brains are addled. If you only have five senses, why would I want to grow my money with you? Open your third eye, and open my account, yesterday!

Are you not hearing me? Did you see how much money I have? I’ll even take a savings bond james bond, some options, swaptions, futures, and forwards, not to be too derivative. You really don’t want my money? Man, I tried really hard today to match my tie to my suit. I think I see the issue. Your vault isn’t big enough for my dough. I guess I’ll go back to my yacht with all this. But I’m gonna need a bigger boat.

It was 6:00 in the morning. I had just finished the first part of my bakery job, the leavening was done. Finally, all the fucking leavening was done, and we can all get baked. I took this opportunity to open the cash register and take out my bong. Rings of smoke soon floated up to the ceiling of the bakery.

Also, floating near the ceiling, was Leviathan.

“Holy shit!” I snorted, “it’s Leviathan!”

He looked like a long, thin, scaly, impregnable snake. A randomized, chaotic, cold-blooded beast.

“I can read your mind, you know,” bellowed Leviathan.

I hadn’t thought of that.

“And because I can read your mind,” he continued, “ I’m very sad”.

“Why?” I thought, but loudly, because he could hear me.

“I’m sad because there’s nothing interesting inside your head.”

“I can take constructive criticism,” I murmured, and hit the bong again. “How about a singalong? Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea…”

It was at this point that I usually admitted that I didn’t know any of the other words to the song. Smoking ganja all day every day can do that to you. There must also be benefits to lighting up 24/7, but I can’t remember any of them. Which tracks.

As I thought through all of this, the level-headed Leviathan had continued to sing. He did indeed know all the verses to that song. Maybe because he did not smoke blunts. How can you light up a spliff in the depths of the sea or in the heights of the Empyrean heavens? I could hear Job asking questions of the Lord, and then the reverb, with booming bass, for the thoughts of the Lord are very deep. As noted in Psalm 92.

“Leviathan, where is my levity?” I asked.

Leviathan was flying around, doing loops in the air.

“Don’t you have more baking to do?” he inquired.

“Yes, I will just go check the ovens and see if I can get a rise out of those buns.”

“Good,” he said. “Try not to get a yeast infection.”

I shuffled off into the next room to check on some croissants and garlic knots. They all looked lovely, so golden brown. My frazzled brain knew that it is easy to have leverage on a bagel—anyone can make them flip, turn them into snitches and narcs—but a croissant, oh, a croissant is suss. A croissant can’t be leveraged that easily. You need to find a way into the heart of the croissant. And if you get that far, and if you can make a croissant cry buttery tears, it will follow you around forever.

Back through the door I came. Leviathan transfixed me with a sad stare.

“Leviathan,” I whispered, “you look like you want to eat me.”

“Child,” whispered Leviathan, “it is you who are going to eat me. At a big banquet at the end of times. As seen in the Talmud.”

“Oh yes, Tractate Bava Batra.”

“How did you know that?”

“I have no idea!” I admitted.

“In the mean time, since you can’t eat me, there are scones.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “and cannoli, and focaccia”

I turned to my bong, and wanted to light up again, but couldn’t find my lighter. Good old Leviathan, he opened his jaws and belched flames in my direction. I got a good buzz from that. He singed my man-bun a little bit.

Joseph O’Malone was in search of something “sticky”.
Really, he wanted to spend some time doing something that he could market to himself as “life worth living”.
Sure, lots of people around him thought of Joseph as mellow. That was just a word that Joseph couldn’t really feel.

Here he was, burning the Michelin tires, crossing a great distance. Over the course of this journey, he would camp in the middle of open fields, in a forest, in a cave, on a beach, and stuff that was natural like that.

Lucky Joseph, he could look up at the night sky. Except when he was in a cave. On all other nights, he could look up at the night sky, listen to the maudlin cry of the whippoorwill, or the hum of the silence of the world, see the mauve vibrations. Joseph didn’t know that the color mauve was the French word for the mallow plant, which itself was that color. And still, the sky was of a beauty that he couldn’t buy for all the bitcoin in the world.

Driving from Michigan to Michoacán was indeed very far. And yet, not since he was in the womb had Joseph felt wrapped in the world like a tortilla.

“Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?”

Kevan Khachartourian breathed in through his mouth and out through his nose and stepped into the New Spitfire Grill. A sign inside, written in Russian, proclaimed “Welcome to Primorskii Banquet Hall!”

Kevan himself was Armenian, born in Iran, and his parents had scooped him up and fled the country in 1979. Since then, they had run this restaurant in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He sighed. Time to hurry up and get ready before the Russians arrived.

There were bags of walnuts to shall and crush and puree. There were bottles of wine to chill. Georgian wine. Kevan was not Georgian. But all the Russians really cared about was that one walnut and pomegranate and chicken dish, which they believed was Georgian, not Persian.

Both Russia and Iran had colonized Georgia. Persia had grabbed bits of Georgia from 1555. Sadly for them, since Muslims are not supposed to touch that famous wine. The Russians took over in 1801, ostensibly to protect the Georgian Christians from the Shiite Islamic empire, but also to get drunk on the wine.

There was a knock on the door, and the sound of someone talking twice as loud as they needed to. Kevan opened, bowing and smiling, wearing a ridiculous fez with a tassel.

“Dobryy Vecher!” he proclaimed to the customers, also talking twice as loud as anyone needed to.

The Russians always filled the restaurant on Saturday nights. They had no concept of current events or geography. Kevan’s father had put a world map on the wall in the 1980s and had not bothered to change it. Maybe the Russians thought there was still a Soviet Union, like on the map. If he informed him of the fall of the old U.S.S.R., they might become quite irate. Or, to the contrary, if he told them about Putin’s plans to reconquer everything….

At least there was one good thing about the Russians. Now that they felt they had really made it in America, they tipped well. This was a skill that was completely unnecessary back where they were from. All Kevan had to do was pretend to be one nationality pretending to be another nationality, and they would reward him for it.

Kevan supposed it could be worse. If another person died from a nut allergy, it would be bad for business. The whole thing had been hushed up by the community. Something along the lines of, he could not eat nuts, he was not really Russian. Kevan dreamed of getting out of this place. Running away to Portland, Oregon, or even to Portland, Maine. It didn’t matter.

Why do fires blaze all over merry England? No, it’s not a celebration. It’s those damned Vikings again! They’ve been threatening to do this for a long time, but now it’s 1016 and they finally did it.

Saint Blithe would never have let this happen. She was all right. But we didn’t make her the Queen. That would have been too easy. That would have been a blessing. The way God Blessed Texas.

We did not have Saint Blithe in charge because we chose her relative, Æthelred the Unready. Can you imagine going on a date with Æthelred the Unready? Hey, Æthelred, I’m in the mood, did you bring protection?
No, woe is me, I am unready!

Because of the strength of its leadership, England did get fucked by the Vikings, who were led by Cnut. Cnut would fuck anything.

Anyway, Saint Blithe lived out her life in the quiet, blasé precincts of Norfolk. Her son did even more all right. He was named Saint Warstan, and he could talk to animals. Imagine, everybody else was fussing and fighting, and this dude was good vibes only with lambs and pigs. Don’t ask me, it’s the Catholic Church that can verify what the animals told him and vice versa.

But, in Vatican documents recently declassified, we see the following parable:

L: “Saint Warstan?”

W: “Yes, Leonardo di Capria,” for that was what he called his friend, the billy goat.

L:“I just wanted you to know something.”

W: “You go first.

L: “Oh my gawd, you’re so nice. No, you.”

W: “You’re the best, shaggiest, softest friend I ever had.”

L: “You’re the Goat.”

W: “Well, obviously, you’re the Goat.”

L: “Stop. I’m dead.”

W: “Leonardo, why do humans fight?”

L: “Saint Warstan, with the exception of you and your family, all the humans I know are sheep fuckers. And as a goat, I hold space for them but in a rich sort of simultaneous paradox, I just can’t with them.”

W: “Nor could I. I talk to those sheep all the time. They’re always so traumatized.:

L: “Do you think we should be worried about this King Cnut guy?”

W: “Can’t be any worse than the last Viking invader, King Svein Forkbeard.”

L: “Well, that sounds like a terrible human being. But a good wrestling name.”

W: “Time for my afternoon nap. No. More. Politics.”

L: “Gosh, you’re the best human ever.”

And they napped until the cows came home.