Overhead at Table 4: Wife Asks Husband a Question

Have you ever cheated on me?

No.

Are you sure?

Do erotic dreams about Salma Hayek count?

Yes.

Well, shit.

Overheard at Table 2: Surviving Armageddon

Billy: So ...

Joe: So ...

Jim: Yup

Bob: Survived Armageddon yesterday.

Billy: Yup.

Joe: Yet again.

Jim: Like always.

Bob: Yup.  Like always.

Billy: Good thing too, I s'pose.

Joe: Always a good thing when Armageddon doesn't happen.

Jim: Would be better if it was never threatened at all.

Bob: Now where would be the fun in that?

Billy: S'pose you're right.

Joe: Yup.

Jim: Yup.

Bob: Wonder what tomorrow might bring.

Overheard at Table 1: The Overwhelming Violence of the Ungodly Aggressor

 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/26/hegseth-prayer-violence-pentagon

 

The main problem with Hegseth reciting this prayer (other than it shows that he has no original oratory but must live off the words of others) is that the context is wildly different.

When that prayer was first uttered, the USA had already been at war for four years, and they were about to attack a small island that they knew was heavily fortified and would be defended to the death.  They were sending young men into battle knowing full well that the casualty rate would be 50-75% if they were even able to take the island.

Hegseth repeats this prayer for the US military forces that have attacked a sovereign nation that poses no credible threat to the country.  Additionally, the US military in no way faces the kind of casualty rate that it expected and suffered at Iwo Jima.  

Additionally, WWII, the Pacific conflict in particular, was a response to an unprovoked attack by Japan. In the modern scenario, the USA is Japan and Iran is the USA.

And yet, here is Hegseth, praying for "overwhelming violence" - when it is the USA that is the aggressor and holds the militarily superior position.  

That's an obscenity in the eyes of God.

But, I must say, that when he asks for God to "break the teeth of the ungodly" then everyone in the USA better start looking for an orthodontist.

 

 

Overheard at Table 3: A Group of Witches

H: What is a group of witches called?

M: A PTA?

H: No, a coven.

M: Oh.

Overheard at Table 3: James Baldwin "Nothing Personal"

Nothing Personal

James Baldwin 

 

More of an extended essay than a "book" per se, this writing was originally published along with some artwork that a friend of Baldwin's had completed to go hand in hand with the words, but the editor and preface writer found this essay profound enough to present in book form, without the accompanying art.

I wish I could write solely about the essay, but frankly, the preface and the afterword overshadows the magnificent perceptive writing by Baldwin, by attempting to apply what he wrote in 1964 after the death of Medgar Evers to the Trump presidency of our present day.  They attempt to ascribe some sort of prescience to Nothing Personal; in effect, making it very personal ... to them.   

This dilutes the work itself, which speaks to a much more universal theme of the overall American character: our self-loathing, our inability to be truly honest with ourselves and our past, our inability to articulate what it is we truly long for.

While I write this, I think perhaps, then that the words written by the preface writer and the afterword are perhaps integral to that book, or that edition, to be more accurate.   Their words are not as brilliant or as thought-provoking as Baldwin's, and it is easy to see who, of the three essays in that tome, is the true master storyteller, who is the true master of thought.  It is Baldwin, and the others merely try to use Baldwin to defend the point that is emotionally painful to them in the here and the now.

But these times will move on.  They will change.  And if anybody reads this particular edition of Nothing Personal one hundred years from now, they will find that Baldwin's essay still holds some inspirational message, whereas the writings that bookend the essay will seem like antiquated rantings.

 

 

 

Overheard at Table 1: Arm-Wrestling Eight-Year-Olds

"What always got me about Charlie Kirk was that he - like Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro - always went to debate college students.  19, 20 year olds ... people who are not known for their rationality or decision-making abilities.  So of course these guys who are all jacked up trained on bullshit rhetoric when they are talking with emotional screaming hyenas look all good for their clips that they send to their followers, but seriously, Kirk debating college students is like me arm-wrestling an eight-year-old.

"I'm kind of a wimpy guy, but even I can take an eight-year-old in arm-wrestling."

Overheard at Booth 4: What I Said During Menopause

Wife: I can't be held responsible for anything I say during menopause.

Husband: But you've been menopausal since the COVID year.

Wife: Or even before.

Husband: I'm not really comfortable with this.

Wife: Oh!  Well, I am so glad that YOU aren't comfortable!  Nice that it's all about YOUR feelings.

Husband: Shit.  Walked right into that one.

[photo by Mike Sutter]