Month: September 2025

Scene: a call center. Top Secret-looking, maybe soundproof or below ground. Two desks and phones. Two agents.

Both phones ring. FredRico and JahJohn pick up.

FredRico: Hello Federal Burro of Investigation do you consent to be recorded? Please hold.
Puts phone receiver on desk.

JahJohn: I’m telling you, Hoffmann is the expert witness.
Into phone.
F-B-I. Hold ya horses now.
Puts phone receiver on desk.

FredRico: Hoffmann? I knew it! What’s he coming to testify about?

JahJohn: Not my department.

FredRico: But you’re the head of the department.

JahJohn: Ah yes, still, he’s the expert, you see?
Picks up phone again. Into phone
How may I direct your call? You have an anonymous tip? I’m writing it down.
Yes…Ibn Batuta Gets The Blues.
I will pass that along.

FredRico: Thanks for your patience.
Writing
I see….The Negro Speaks of Joan Rivers.
Thank you. Have a nice day.

They both hang up.

JahJohn: Not worth our time!

FredRico: We should be preparing for Hoffmann . What’s his E.T.A.?

JahJohn: Whenever he feels like.

FredRico: You must know!

JahJohn: And I’m not telling.

FredRico: Fine, be that way. What shall we do, then?

JahJohn: You’re asking me? Don’t you have a flag to capture?

FredRico: Our only hope is a jump to a higher level of understanding.
staring at phone
Ring, phone, ring!!!

JahJohn: I need to take a pee break. By no means read the secret file from Hoffmann’s first deposition, which is on my cubicle pod desk.

JahJohn walks off. FredRico looks both ways, then opens the file. A flush is heard. FredRico quickly closes the file and acts as though he had been working.

JahJohn: I have returned.

FredRico: Fast. Taking a leak the leak-proof way.

JahJohn: The Bureau trained me well. Hey, wanna see some of the secret file on Hoffmann?

FredRico: If you think we should?

Synergistically, they put their hands on the file, reminiscent of using a Ouija board. In tandem, they open the file and “randomly” select a page.

JahJohn: Hoffmann is so deposed. “I did observe through my neighbor’s window a girl who was not a girl because she was a robot. How did I arrive at this conclusion?”

FredRico: That’s what I’m wondering.

JahJohn: “She looked like a girl. She bowed politely to visitors, and walked around the house and did some of the cleaning. And she sat at piano and played a mean Mozart.” Skip some of this part. It seems technical.
FredRico: How can you tell?
JahJohn: Because I dunno what means “pizzicato” and “sforzando”. Let’s see… “One day I observed her walking and becoming very jerky, like a clock winding down. Then I noticed the big gear sticking out of her upper back, ticking away like a metronome.”
FredRico: What do you make of this?

JahJohn: If Hoffmann didn’t exist it would be necessary to invent him.

Phone rings. FredRico picks up.
FredRico: Federales, Como puedo ayudarte mi amor? Let me write that down. The former dictator who is on the run. Yes. He is in hiding at a roadside motel called Mondo Pizarro. Yes, we will conduct a full search of South America.

Phone rings. JahJohn picks up.
JahJohn: F…. You know it! Just a moment while I write down your valuable tip-off.
Writing down, pausing to hear the caller and read back
In this day in 1799 in Upstate New York, an ecstatic group called the Movers [Ceaseless Divine Motion Society], formally split from the community of the Shakers [United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing], (just as they had in turn split from the Quakers). Fortunately, they all remained “friends”.
Hangs up

FredRico: Hoffmann’s wife also went on record as follows: “If word got out that we knew what we knew, I would also be required to testify. But if I did, well let’s just say I would refuse so as not to inseminate myself.”

JahJohn walks over to read the file, to make sure he heard correctly.

JahJohn: I’m thinkin’ we’ll be in the same boat, the more of this we ingest.

FredRico: On the other hand, what if Hoffmann invented something that would make us unremember stuff?

JahJohn: We must try to find it. I place myself in charge of the next section.

FredRico: Might as well. If there’s no E.T.A. for Hoffmann, we could be waiting a long time.

JahJohn reads from file.

JahJohn: “On a shelf there was a little guy in uniform. He was no toy but really alive in every way. The king of the mice didn’t like this. They fought. But the little guy was smarter, because he had an army and he knew how to point his phalanx in the right direction. Needless to say, this gentleman, from the School of Hard Nuts, prevailed.”

A beat. FredRico takes this opportunity to bring the file to his desk. He reads, not noticing anything else happening in the room.

FredRico: Opposable thumbs.
A beat
That’s why.

JahJohn:
Pacing
This is making me paranoid.

FredRico: Did you hear me?

JahJohn: Bro, how can you think of opposable thumbs at a time like this.
Moves rapidly around the room

FredRico:
reading
Oh, so you did hear me.

JahJohn is seen looking under tables and in hard to see spaces. He stands up, holding an open Swiss Army Knife.

FredRico: Got a funny way of showing it.

FredRico now sees JahJohn, frenzied, walking around with knife at the ready.

FredRico: I didn’t do what you think I did.

JahJohn: I don’t know what you’re thinking.

FredRico: Well at least we’re on common ground. Shall we get back to work?

They sit at their desks. Both phones ring and are answered.
JahJohn: Hello, FUBU, I mean F-B-I. Yes, about the operation we are running. I will take notes. What is the operating system? PEMDAS. Can you spell it? ThanQ. The issue is that it’s exponentially harder to use than the last one. Even on a slope intercept operation like this one.

FredRico: Federal Byu– yes, your holiness. I’m sure we can get the ingredients before your visit. I will take note of how to make a, what did you call it? A benedictus fructus margarita. Mango juice. Prickly pear. Holy water, aqua vita aged 20 years. And a little umbrella just like Saint Anthony thought he saw in the desert. Agreed, we need a substitute for the devil’s elixir. Did you just sneeze there? In any case, god bless you!

They both hang up.

FredRico: Still no Hoffmann.

JahJohn: Wait a minute.

FredRico: Been there, done that.

JahJohn: Perhaps he’s putting us on.

FredRico: As in, his file will make a clear case for why he isn’t coming.

JahJohn opens file and reads.

JahJohn: “Some things have been private and under control for the longest time. I will confide that my love of singing never leaves the shower. Can you relate? My joy in going to a casino is only diminished if I gamble. It was that way for years. Until the man with the red eyes looked at me. I tried betting on roulette once, and I won, and I won again. I started to feel compelled to keep playing. With all the money I won, I persuaded a much younger woman to be my wife. She consented, although occasionally she spoke to me about the boy next store, who joined the army and was never heard from again. We were happy for a long time, as far as I could tell.”

FredRico: Is that it?

JahJohn: Of course not. “One day, as I sat at the card table, a young man sat with me and proceeded to win hand after hand. I bet more, and lost everything. He then revealed himself to be my wife’s childhood lover, and offered one last bet. Would I wager my marriage on a game of cards? I did, and lost my wife to this phantom lover.”

FredRico: Those are some odds.

JahJohn: That reminds me of the call I got from a very happy gardener. He told me to hedge my bets.

FredRico: Is he really not coming?

JahJohn: You mean the Devil, Jesus, or Hoffmann?

FredRico: Yes.

JahJohn: We need a strategy.

FredRico: Could we call him? Go to his house?

JahJohn: He’s under our protection, though.

FredRico: Can’t we make an exception, for our own sanity?

JahJohn: But the protector of my friend might be my foe meaning he might not be for real. Know what I’m saying?

Phone rings. FredRico picks up.

FredRico: F-B- I agree, lovely weather for this time of year. An anonymous tip? Please go ahead. The buzzard is hungry. Keep calm and carrion. Oh, I see what you did there.
Click
Hello?

JahJohn: Listen, man. In this file, Hoffmann himself elaborates as follows: Mozart would write out an overture which was already in his head.

FredRico: So it was already gelled in there like the tip of the iceberg?

JahJohn: Lettuce hope so.

FredRico: I think I can dig it. Why should Hoffmann come in to testify? When is there time?

Both phones ring and are picked up.

JahJohn: Thank you for your tip. The APEX supermarket has a predator?

FredRico: Hello. I agree, whenever I’m in Zurich I simply must have the cantonese food.

JahJohn: From your breathing, you sound like an Apex predator!

FredRico: What’d you say about my momma? Zurch you!

They both hang up.

JahJohn: Back to Hoffmann’s file.
Reads
“Yet another conspicuous wierdo moved into town. College friend of my first wife, Viola da Gamba. I’m jealous, or at least I was. He makes his own violins, has dinner parties where he plays them once. Then he destroys the instruments.”

FredRico: But why?

Jah John:
Reads
“I don’t know why. What is he trying to find inside the wood? The secret origin of music? Why keep doing new things? Why can’t he constantly repeat himself, like the rest of us?

FredRico: Great question, but is that all of it?

JahJohn:
Reads
“Of course, there’s more! He has this daughter with a heart condition and he doesn’t let her sing ever. But there’s a violin he does play more than once, because it’s as good as or better than his daughter’s singing voice.”

FredRico: Anything else?

JahJohn: Yes. I predict tragedy so I’ll stop reading.

FredRico: Geez, Hoffmann. There’s a word for that, when you treat women interchangeably with musical instruments.

JahJohn: Metonymy?

FredRico: Misogyny?

Both phones ring. They pick up.

FredRico: Of course you have a tip for us. Go ahead.
Writes
What do you wake up in the morning and eat during a camping trip in the deep, dark woods? Breakfast of Champignons Aha. Thanks so much.

JahJohn: Hello. I don’t know? What’s the opposite of “out of whack”?
pause
“In fine whack.”
That describes me. Thanks for calling.

JahJohn: Well, let’s keep reading.

FredRico: My turn
Takes file

JahJohn: Think you can handle it?

FredRico:
Reads
“Memoirs of an Educated Young Man, who is an ape.”
I mean, there’s a picture here, you see.

JahJohn: How is this relevant?

FredRico: To what?

JahJohn: The big idea, which is the foundation of the case.

FredRico: Well, who knows how we’re going to comprehend the “Idea” – which I capitalized there.

JahJohn: I see what you did.

FredRico: Without supporting testimony.

JahJohn: Fine.
Reads
“I am an ape who cares, who writes letters. I am a huge nerd, very cultured, a connoisseur of good tailoring. How did I get this way? I love to tell. One day, a coconut fell and hit me on the head. The swelling! I did not enjoy this one bit! And yet…my brain commenced to grow rapidly. Soon, I could walk on two feet, speak, and compose music. If you know anything about music, then we both know the meaning of ‘primo amoroso’, ’coloratura’, ‘falsetto’, and the 7/8 time signature.”

FredRico: I am not as smart as this ape.

JahJohn: Telling you, music is serious!
reads
“The thing I have learned lately: at a party, I tell people about the opera I’m writing and everybody respects me. By the way, I’m not writing an opera.”

FredRico: How do we know, that someone who learned something we don’t know, is actually smart?

Phone rings. FredRico lets it ring.

JahJohn: Pick it up.

FredRico: If it’s genuine, they’ll call back.

JahJohn:
finally picking up the phone
Hello, Club Fed. Anyone there?

FredRico: What happened?

JahJohn: Couldn’t hear anyone on the line. Must have waited too long.

FredRico: Or we could hire dogs to listen in on the line.

JahJohn: Seriously!

FredRico; Because dogs are more sensitive.

JahJohn: I know that! And again with the animals.

FredRico: To my mind, Hoffmann is making fun of us.

JahJohn: The ape is making fun of us.

FredRico: Hoffmann wanted the ape to make fun of us, you ass!

JahJohn: Explain.

FredRico: Most people open their mouths and nothing worthwhile comes out. Just look at the calls we get here.

JahJohn: So what you’re saying is, this ape stuff is in the file to test if we’re…what’s that word?

FredRico: Philistines.

JahJohn: That you. You have a mega vocabulary.

FredRico: It’s written in the margin. Although actually I’m not sure where the word comes from.

JahJohn: I read somewhere there was this rich woman Phyllis Stein who didn’t know about art. So we call people like her “Philistines”.

FredRico: Good enough for me!

Phone rings. JahJohn picks up.

JahJohn: Thanks for calling the F.B….I’m fine, Madame Chairperson, how are you? Did you call a few minutes ago? Well, sorry for that.
Takes notes
This is a secure line. Mum’s the word.

FredRico: I thought bird was the word.

JahJohn: I will definitely let him know he is sexist. Good bye.
Hangs up. A beat.
I lied to you. We do have a phone number for Hoffmann.

FredRico: Where is this coming from?

JahJohn: I’m sensing you feel we’ve gone too far. The only chance of this world having meaning is with Hoffmann’s explanation.

FredRico: Yes, but, he is in witness protection?

JahJohn: I know where to call.

FredRico: Yes!

JahJohn: Do we agree we can’t wait for him to call us?

FredRico: Let’s do it.

Dials

JahJohn: Putting it on speaker phone.

Phone rings. Then, we hear hold music. It is Schubert’s Kreisleriana. The piece is based on a
character by Hoffmann.

FredRico: Who has elevator music on their secret bunker phone?

JahJohn: This is Schubert!

FredRico: It’s making me more anxious.

JahJohn: How long do we hold?

Sound of someone picking up on the other line.

FredRico: Hello. F.B.I. here.

Click

FredRico: One last look in the file.

JahJohn: It’s all yours.
….

FredRico:
Reads
“This is the story of a woman in Paris who knew people’s jewelry was getting stolen, especially folks on the way to meet their lovers and give them jewels. She said, ‘a lover who is afraid is not worth being a lover’. Then this lady, who was kind of a detective, realized the stolen jewels around town were made by a craftsman who was proud of his work and didn’t want people to have them. She received an invite to his studio, went to see him and found out he had just been murdered. It was the apprentice’s fiancée, the jeweler’s daughter, who told her this, because the apprentice was locked up on suspicion of the crime. Did the apprentice have a motive? Yes, the apprentice confirmed that the jeweler had always been on a quest to make better and better things. Upon his inviting the lady to his studio to give her some fine jewelry, the apprentice did not want the lady to be robbed. The apprentice knew his master was a thief, but wanted to marry his daughter so kept silent, until he knew someone he also cared about was going to be attacked. Even now, he will not confess what he knows about his late master, since the daughter would be upset. Is it OK to do something bad to stop someone from doing many bad things?”

JahJohn: Damn! Call back!

He dials. Phone rings, then click.

FredRico: I think he doesn’t want to speak to us.

JahJohn: Well, it’s a more general rejection of the F.B.I., not us per se.

FredRico: At least it answers the question, is there a Hoffmann?

JahJohn: It might.

FredRico: Hmm.

JahJohn: Maybe Hoffmann is on a transcendental idealist quest.

FredRico: By which you mean?

JahJohn: He is so busy looking for justice, and art, and stuff, that he no longer speaks our language.

A beat

FredRico: What do we do now?

JahJohn: We stay at our desks and wait for anonymous tip calls.

FredRico: I see today as an example of Romantic irony.

JahJohn: Is that like – that time you got stood up on a date?

FredRico: Hoffmann is deposed. He says, this is all the truth I feel comfortable telling right now. I acknowledge both the joys of this medium and also its limitations. If you want real joy, try art. Your vision of the universe may last a minute, but what’s wrong with that? This is my rough definition of Romantic irony.

JahJohn: They didn’t train me for things like this. Maybe he’ll call us.

FredRico: Perhaps.

Blue Flower song by Dr. Octagon

END

They are all such small fry! Or is it small fries? No time to debate. The plural of moose is moose, and fascists are on the loose. But, if fascists were on the lease, would you run and hide like meese? Even small fry are a pain in their fat, fascist ass. Into the fray! At BK, you can have it your way! you can be straight, you can be gay. This ain’t Chick Fil-A!! En garde! What am I, chopped liver? Your dad’s a hamburger! Your mom smells like a pizza. But only I stole the Mona Lisa. Some say I’m repetitive and derivative. Translation: pretty groovy. I truly think all guys are good-natured. When I rushed Omicron Mu Gamma, I had to choose a born again name, so I picked “Fratboy Slim”. I dated a girl who was 4 foot 9 and had a blacklight poster stuck to her ceiling that read ” Women who think they’re equal to men lack ambition.” I used to lie on her bed and look at it a lot, especially when we did reverse cowgirl. Her antifascist ass was definitely close by me, but hard to see compared with the poster, which shone like the Ten Commandments. How did she get that poster on the ceiling? Could she fly? Was she a witch? Peanut brittle may look frail, but it can kill you, depending, like, on what the nutty professor says. My grandma used to say, don’t judge a book by its cover, but that was in the 20th Century, and what even is a book? I hear there was even a phonebook, and before you could call you needed the number but like before that you needed to know alphabetical order. Ain’t nobody got time for that! If it was useful, like designed for real life, you and I might have asked for like a size queen phonebook. Just arrange all the entries by cock size, and it’s a buyer’s market. These are the things that keep me up all night.

Operation Canard was well underway when the press found out about it.
The Daily Beast thought perhaps Operation Canard was a decoy, which is funny sort of since it actually means “duck” in French.
But whatever was thought, it paled in comparison to the scope of incompetence. I mean, for fuck’s sake, if you’re going to lie, just lie!
For the administration to suggest that women should take Midol for headaches when they think the things their husbands say are dumb. That was updated advice instead of taking Tylenol as birth control.
The administration had banked on tricking women into getting pregnant and increasing the population. All it had to do was stay in power for the next 18 years and 9 months and those children would vote for them.
That was a big old overestimation of the administration’s popularity. Also, that assumed that any of those folks could find a voting machine unless it smelled like a McDonald’s.
There were already new medical textbooks ready to hit the shelves so that the Gen Z population didn’t get more freaked out than it already was. For the purposes of this generation, the “birth canal” would be remarketed as the “love canal”. Those in charge of this department were not aware that Love Canal was the name of a Superfund site. Gen Z was not aware of anything, it was hoped.
The President was caught escaping down the river in a canoe. It was a shame he had such tiny hands. Heading out from Watergate, it was indeed slow going. As the canoe capsized again and again, he tried to step in the same river twice, which, someone should have mentioned, is a big philosophical no-no.
To further problematize the complicated scenario, the President was rowing with his White House guard dog, whom he had affectionately named “Chickenshit”. Every time the canoe flipped, Chickenshit locked his jaws on the President’s testicles. This was the reason the President was dragged into Canine Court. The Judge noted that feeding such non-nutritious food to a dog was an example of neglect. The President vowed to appeal this matter to the Kangaroo Court. Although, when he stated this, it was in a much higher voice than usual.
Write to Writing Goddesses

“Cold Hawaii”

written by Roddy MacInnes
directed by John Noel
featuring Claudia Conte Buenrostro, Mark Loewenstern, & Ed Malin

The Wicked Bitch of the North was melting.

We were all sad to see her go. Who else would, by means of a crystal ball, tell us what stocks to buy? Who else would brew the potions, and spill the tea?

If only the Bitch had got vaccinated.

Yeah, that had been a blind spot of sorts.

Her arch-enemy, the Kanye of the West, was quite vocal about how dumb this was.

As another adversary, the Kanye of the East, clarified, most vaccines were developed by that race of creatures with the big noses and there was obviously a conspiracy so why be stupid? Get immunity first and kill the motherfuckers later.

As the crowd of inbred dipshits watched the final suffering of the Bitch, they failed to observe the molten lava streaming from the volcano towards their homestead

A big bird smelled the scent of incineration, signaled to her chicks, who were molting, snapped them up in her beak, and took off for the safety of Tax Shelter Island.

Down at The Kwik Mart, a pizza delivery guy was buying.$75 worth of scratch-off lottery tickets.

Before failing to win, meaning every single card, he would state the odds. He should have worked in finance. He could have been famous. They would have called him The Direwolf of Wall Street. At least then he would have been saved from being dead, which is what was about to happen to the whole town.

Down on the corner, the drug dealers were drinking malt liquor. Being that high, they would feel the least pain in the coming moments. But the sad philosopher knew he was better than they were, because what authentic life does not contain suffering?

Flap flap went the wings of the birds over the high cliffs. Every once in a while, they would poop on the scientists, which, at these altitudes, was quite acidic and corrosive. It’s OK, for this reason, they had developed poop-resistant flak jackets. At least up here, these mostly fearless men could be safe from everything else. It was cold. It was February. Some of the dudes were freezing their big balls off. Ah, but it was big balls that had gotten all of them in such trouble. You see, a messed-up virus was circulating among the rest of the human race. At first, there were scattered reports that were kinda hard to believe. A housewife had started to nuzzle her husband one night, and had proceeded to tie him to the bed and fuck him to death. This began happening with greater and greater rapidity. And, worst of all, it happened towards the end of the football season. Those who played professional football barricaded themselves in their stadiums and always wore full armor. Especially that variant of the chastity belt called the athletic supporter. Other, lucky men hid in caves or on mountain peaks. The rest of the men were largely exterminated. Apparently, this didn’t need to happen. A Japanese sexologist wrote a seminal study declaring that if these men had been able to find the G-Spot on the regular, these women would have been less likely to be understimulated. Another more intuitive theory was not posited; there were just not enough lesbians to go around. How this had all happened was even less clear. A scrawny young man named Cletus, once deemed too scrawny to play for any of his school sports teams, had become distrustful of humans and instead became a judge for a most prestigious dog pageant. He and the dogs were sympatico. He was chill with the Chihuahuas. He bullshitted with the Shih-tzu. With terriers, he was positively Terpsichorean. So was it really a surprise that one day, in the overnight of the dog days of a summer dog-a-thon, he “screwed the pooch”? Sadly, this was no euphemism. He let loose on a dachshund named Hortensia. Bad choice. Hortensia was so, well, tense, not to mention inbred, that when the Intel human chose to play hide the sausage, the dog exploded into a million airborne pieces. Some of these blood particles floated through the air and landed on women with compromised immune systems. It just clicked for these women that all these restrictive sexual practices (breeding sex never for pleasure) ought to be turned back on the men. Which meant even the nice ones, like chess players, who spend so much of their lives in the world of a game where the Queen has the most power of movement. “Is there not a flop house for me?” bemoaned a Nobel laureate in marine biology, so was 60 years old and had only just learned how to spell clitoris. Oh, sad old boys! Always looking up, never down. It’s OK. Fear no more the heat of the sun.

It was that time of the month. You know, the time when I really wanted some sex.
It was the busiest of times and it was the slowest of times, because there’s nothing rational or productive about me as an adult devoting all my energies to pursuing sex. Engels may have challenged Marx on this point, but he was a bottom anyway.
I must have been on my B game, because this quest brought me to four houses, all of which started with a B. Once through the door, I and everyone else started crying for joy. No wonder they call it Blear House. All the emotions tend toward purging, and all eyes are full of tears. It was like Zeno’s paradox. Everyone held space for everyone else, so no one could get close enough for sex, but it’s the feelings that count.
How relieved I was to arrive at Bleat House. I cracked the door and saw couples smearing goat cheese all over each other. Was it aromatherapy, or some offshoot of silent disco, but not silent because of all the bleating? In any case, I decided feta was not a good lubricant, and walked away.
Next stop was Blood House. Naturally, this was dedicated to donating plasma. It was a bit exhausting, though I did experience a long line of tiny pricks. A nurse in a very short lab coat brought me fresh juice of blood red oranges. I hope someone, somewhere, benefits from having my life force put in them.
At long last, I arrived at Bleak House. There was a one-question screener: “Are you a lawyer?” I knew what this meant. Everyone was getting fucked in this place.
As I felt beatified by this belated bliss, a moral burned in my mind.
Don’t be aggressive. Don’t be sharp. Don’t be flat. Just be natural.

Our entire civilization huddles in the shadow of the foreskin.
Whispers from ancient pottery are a grim foreshadowing of doom stemming only from thoughtless neglect.
How can we save ourselves from the grim reaper?
He laughs at all of us as he proclaims:
Never cut off tomorrow what you can cut off today!

Abraham was circumcised at age 90. Is he a jolly good fellow? That is the question.
That must have hurt. Back in the day, they didn’t have CBD gummies. Your choices were: pray or curse.

Just cut that shit off. Nowadays, we have other types of accessories for the penis.
You’re just adding one more place to clean, or god forbid, a place for germs and you could give someone a yeast infection. Don’t be that kind of douchebag!

The field lies fallow. This year, we will harvest neither cucumbers nor zucchini. There is not an eggplant to be seen growing in the entire land. In the sky, no one knows where the drinking gourd is. The laborer is in pain, sitting in bed holding his groin. The surgeon may have cut off a little too much. Don’t disrupt the agricultural cycle. This man will have to be buried, and you will trim the grass on his grave. How much easier if you had done that trim when he was a baby!

The writing was on the wall. Men will always have fewer nerve endings down there than women. Why make it worse by keeping that flip flap thing? What are you, a bird? A naked mole rat? Can you not go buy a hoodie If you want to wear a hoodie?

Yes, you can call me a Debbie Downer. In fact, I am a professional race car driver. I do not need to have to peel something off of my stick shift every time I change gears. I hope you follow, and take the necessary steps.

Too much garlic fell
In your cauldron, dearest one
Sorry if I fart

As tonight we light
Candles in that special shape
And ask for the help

Of a higher power
Or a lower some would say
Power schmower, right?

Tough to say we tried
Threw ourselves on the mercy
Of Satan and yet

I just had to be
The one who farted a lot
Fire and brimstone

Yes, in one fell swoop
Life and dignity erased
Gas incontinence

For as we all know
Veggie farts always offend
Mephistopheles

Yell for justice or
We always scream for ice cream
And we sigh alone

Laughing at trouble
Farting at the devil in
The palest moonlight

Lucifer he sniffs
Murmurs, “yo man that’s foul”
Flexes his wing things

Terror swells in me
The miasma of Brooklyn
Swirls more smellily

And away he flies
Smiling like some Totoro
As he springs aloft

For even a being
Evil, Lord of Hell itself
Likes to breathe fresh air.

The Court Martial began. Magnolia Flowerblossom Summerfield was to held in contempt.
“You have broken the cardinal rule of our nudist colony,” the magistrate fulminated.
“Flagrantly broken them,” echoed the bailiff.
“You were supposed to be in flagrante delicto, and yet, you chose to wear clothes.”
“I was trying not to be too flagrant,” she said falteringly.
“Everyone knows we here at Bain de Soleil Ranch go to great lengths to prepare our Midsummer Festivus.”
“Great, foreboding lengths,” echoed the Bailiff.
“Didn’t we braid the floral garlands? Didn’t we mull the wine? Didn’t we fill the bird feeders? Didn’t we dice the watermelon?”
“So nice we had to dice it twice,” echoed the Bailiff.
“Please, your Honor,” fumbled the Defendant.
“And yet, when it came time for the main event, the traditional Jell-o Wrestling Classic”
“Oh, sacred tradition! Oh contest that molds character,” echoed the Bailiff.
“We found, after your victory, that you had participated wearing NUDE TIGHTS!”
“How do you plead?” asked the Bailiff, anticlimactically.
“Guilty but I have an excuse,” foundered the young woman.
“Oh do you? Did we raise you that way? We are strict nudists! That’s a red flag!”
“We’re flexible but not that flexible,” echoed the Bailiff.
“Your Honor, may I approach the bench?”
“Defendant may approach, but please keep in mind that object are closer than they appear.”
“Your Honor, for your ears only, I must come clean. There’s a reason I didn’t want to get Jell-o all over my bod.”
“Come clean, is it? As I’m sure you’re aware, the winner of each match gets licked clean by the opponent who is vanquished.”
“I know, Your Honor. And believe you me, when the person you’re Jell-o wrestling is your fiancé, getting a tongue lashing is no big whoop.”
“So what is the problem?”
“They break out in a rash every time they touch cherries!”
Under his wig, the Magistrate had a Shaking My Head moment.
“So, if I understand you correctly, you wanted to be licked clean but also to spare your counterpart the allergic reaction to our all-natural, famous cherry Jell-o.”
“That is my humble wish. Cross my heart. I stand before you naked.”
“We all stand before each other naked. At least we do now. You may return to the penalty box.”
The Bailiff cleared his throat. “Has Your Honor decided?”
The Magistrate banged his gavel. “I have been made aware of some extenuating circumstances. The Defendant will not be exiled. She will be flagellated until she shakes like a bowl full of Jell-o. But we need not keep the court in session. She may be dismissed to go home and self-flagellate.
The gavel was banged. The Defendant was released. The Bailiff rose.
“Oh no,” moaned the Magistrate, “you’re not going anywhere. I want you to take this gavel and do some meat tenderizing.”