Overheard at Booth 2: Sneezes

Blows my mind.  My wife, see, you know how tiny she is, right?  She's this totally cute adorable, TINY little woman, but when she sneezes, man, it's like the house is gonna come right off the foundation!

Then the other day, I heard my boss sneeze.  Now, my boss is this huge woman, physically built like a linebacker,  We're talking Klingon size.  Nice lady, sure, but just physically powerful.  Heard her sneeze in her office and it was like a newborn kitten.  Like, "mew.  mew.  mew."  

It just goes to show, you never can tell, right?

Overheard at Table 4: TV Remote

My parents always had a television remote, sine the time I was old enough to walk.  Know what it  was?

Me!  That's what it was.  I was the damn remote.  My dad would say, "Go turn to channel 6!" when he wanted to see All in the Family, and other times he'd say, "Run over there and turn it to Channel 2!" when Sanford and Son was coming on.

So yeah, we had a tv remote in our house - years before everyone else!

Open Letter to Young Earth Creationists

First, let's define Young Earth Creationists.  They are those who believe that the earth is literally roughly 7,000 years old, defining years in our human time frame, from the perspective of time as it passes on the surface of the Earth.

Second, most YECs also define Adam and Eve as two physical human beings, such as the same way that one's grandparents or parents were physical human beings.  (Hold on a second, don't jump to conclusions).

Third, YECs have a tendency to attack other followers of Christ, believing that if other FoCs do not believe in Young Earth Creationism, then they are not saved, and will be cast into Hell instead of spending eternity with God in Heaven.

If this describes you, then this open letter is for you.  If these three points do not describe you, then this letter is not directed to you.

Let's begin:

First, the problem with YEC is that it relegates God to the constraints of our time-line.  God is outside of time and is not constrained by it.  2 Peter 3:8, Psalm 90:4.  Therefore, to say that the earth is 7,000 literal "our" years is simply incorrect.  One day could have been millennia.

Second, what God allows us to know:
Matthew 11:25 God hides things from the learned.
Deuteronomy 29:29 Secret thing belong to God.
Isaiah 55:8-9 His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
Matthew 13 - Mysteries are cloaked in parables.
1 Corinthians 2: 7 We speak of the things of God in mystery.
2 Timothy 3:16 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is usefulfor instruction, for conviction, for correction,and for training in righteousness, 

 In none of these passages, nor anywhere else, does the Bible say that one must believe that every single word is literally true or else you are going to Hell.   Because here is the truth:

Proof.  Therein lies the problem.  Proof.  One man's proof is another man's malarky.  One reason why atheists refuse to acknowledge the existence of God is that they demand proof on their terms, according to their understanding.  Thus they will never have the proof that they need because nothing will live up to their standards.

The converse is also true: to demand that everyone believe in the literal interpretation lies on our limited human mental understanding of what "literal" is.  It's arrogant, because it implies that you have something that others don't.

Now, you are wondering what I believe: Creationism or Evolution.  I believe in both, and in neither.  Just like Jesus Christ is fully 100% God and fully 100% human, I believe both theories are simultaneously true.  I believe that God created us and is still creating us.   I also believe that both theories are creations of the human consciousness and thus are fundamentally flawed.

That paragraph will most likely infuriate both atheists and YECs alike, but that's all right, because Jesus Christ called us to love Him with our whole mind, and to spend all our lives thinking about Him and His mysteries.  I believe that He planted these mysteries not to confuse us or send us down rabbit holes, but to focus our attention on Him, constantly, daily.

Lastly, on a personal note, the main problem with Young Earth Creationism is that it does not demonstrate humility, meekness, or charity.  You do not show love.  You attack atheists and other Christians alike.  You impune other people's belief systems without truly engaging in honest debate.  This technique demonstrates a rigidity which only belies a true weakness of faith.  Also, most importantly, it does nothing to further the message of salvation through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

So, I understand any YEC who is still reading this letter is probably saying, "Verble's going to Hell!" but just know that you are not the arbiter of my faith, Jesus Christ is and Him alone.  Yes, He will either say to me "Well done good and faithful servant" or He will say "Depart from Me I never knew you" but that is not for you to judge.
Romans 14:10
James 4:11
Matthew 7:1
and a host of others.

A follower of Christ dedicates his life to furthering the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. Salvation does not come from arguing constantly about every scrap of scripture.  It comes from an honest, true, humble, meek and intimate relation with the Creator of Everything.

I know I will not have changed your hearts, but I do hope that I have said something good about my Lord and Savior.

Thank you for reading,

Verble Gherulous

RIP Guy Clark

Guy Clark performs "The Cape" at the Zen and Tao Acoustic Cafe, which, at the moment of recording, was Marathon Recorders in Nashville TN.

Overheard at Table 2: Limp Celery

Lucky Moran: So last night my wife and I are making veggie stew, and she asks for the celery, so I pull the celery out of the fridge and I hand it to her and you know what she does?   She takes it like she's about to chop it up, then she says, "Wait, this celery's old."

Otis Redwing: Old celery?

Lucky Moran: That's what I said.  "What do you mean?" I said, and she says, "Look at this.  Celery's supposed to be firm, thick.  Stiff." And she starts shaking this celery in my direction, and saying, "this is limp.  Flaccid.  This celery is useless.  Absolutely useless if it's not hard."

Otis Redwing: Oh God man are you going with this where I think you're goin'?

Lucky Moran: And this limp celery is limping around my face, and she's saying, "Well, I guess I have to use it.  I'll just chop it into little pieces."  And finally I say, "OK OK I'm sorry I'm not 25 any more! Things wear out, OK?!"

Otis Redwing: Speak for yourself.

Lucky Moran: She pauses for a moment, then she tries to tell me that's not what she meant.  But she meant it all right.  Maybe not consciously, but oh she meant it!

 

Overheard at Table 3: Kids These Days

Writer 1: Four Dads.

Writer 2: Four Dads?  What?

Writer 1: New plot arc.  The twins can have four dads.

Writer 2: Megan gets married two more times?

Writer 1: No, we have Jacob turning gay and marrying some guy.  That'll give the twins their bio dad and a step dad.  Megan's already shacking up with Jaime and we know he's pansexual.   So basically he demands that Megan have a sex change so that he can have sex with her as a man.

Writer 2: Why would he want to have sex with her as a man?  Why can't he just go out with other guys.  She's already OK with his wanting to do everything in sight.

Writer 1: Yeah, but he wants to try monogamy.  So he wants Megan to trans into a man so that he can fulfill his homosexual desires.

Writer 2: So he's going to make her - what? - trans back and forth?

Writer 1: Yeah, something like that.

Writer 2: Jaime's all twisted.  Why doesn't he just trans into a woman for Megan?

Writer 1: That's what I was thinking for next season.  Megan likes being a man so much she doesn't want to go back, so Jaime transitions into a woman.

Writer 2: and then at some point we have the twins looking at each other, shaking their heads, and saying "Kids these days!"

Writer 1: Exactly!  The parents are the kids and the kids are the parents.   People love that shit!

Overread at the Counter: Suite for America

Suite for America

I am the Mississippi Gulf and the Arizona Highway, Portland

Maine and the Nebraska Plain, I am Tabasco sauce and the Black-Eyed-

Peas in a pod, I am the path not taken and the trail well-trod,I am

the far horizon and the lost weekend.

I am the mercury in your blood, roiling poison through your lungs,

the patchwork Tertullian nightmare seeping into your skin.

I am the handlebars on your daughter’s backside,

vroomvroom sugar daddy, lup-lup-liciousnutricious

there’s nothing more delicious than

sweetsweet sin.

But sin has been reclassified as a lifestyle choice,

and choices are never good or bad, they merely have

unexpected outcomes, but it’s

all good.

I am good, I am the good to the last drop

killer of serial killers, cooking meth in the basement

to provide for my family once cancer kicks my bucket.

I am the bucket list and you are on it.

I am the tail end of Haley’s comet, I am the

shale boom and the mountaintop removal

all to bring you the finest in shit-filled streams and cell phone chargers

and air conditioning but damn your electric cars,

I am the congested highways and the clogged veins

syrup and strains and whips and chains

let your Rhianna do the talking,

your fingers through her hair become your fist in the air,

I am the residential nightmare, the gunshots at night,

I am the seventeen year old black boy walking home with

some Skittles and my hoodie is the bulls-eye that the

nightwatchman targets.

I am the neighborhood watch that blames the black

president for racial tensions.

I am the falling apart at the seams.

I am the weeds, the skunk crank that settles in the backseat of your

brain, filtering the intensity of the world down to a soft slush,

I am the ping pong ball sized tumor in your spine

that will send you out into the streets of Galveston

if you are paperless, if you are

not supposed to be here, if you

are less than deserving

of my hospitals and my laser surgical tools,

I am the great inhospitable tower of Coke

parading over the justly deserving and the languidly

insane.

I am the arcane madness of my invisible enemies.

I am Monsanto, the seed that your farmers no longer own.

I am the grease under your fingernails, the sweat on your skin, I am

the rains and pours which adores the whores you are so fond of coming

in out of the rain,

I am the summer rain and the winter storm, I am Tornado Alley and

I am the Gulf Coast Hurricanes, I am the storms that butcher your

GullaGulla Islands down to your Florida Keys, the winds that brought

Coney Island to its knees, I am the

snowfall that crushes the roofs of your upstate New York homes,

I am the mangled trees standing in Central Park.

I am the scorched earth of your Texas desert, I am the rolling Ozark hills,

hiding the secrets that no one will ever know, I am the rainbow warriors that

took over Eureka Springs, I am the San Francisco valley and the Bay Area

and the last gasp of the Death Valley Joshua Trees.

I am the last drop of water from your disappearing snowpack, watching

Los Angeles county dry to wicker straw, becoming tinder for the last great

fire that will sweep all of Southern California into the briny sea.

I am Las Vegas and Compton, Beverly Hills and Tuscaloosa County,

I am Whitehead Bay and Puget Sound, I am Clear Lake and Beulah Falls,

I am the Everglades and Cleveland, I am Ferguson Missouri and I am

Syracuse Kansas.

I am the crumbling bridge that kills a trucker as well as a mother of three.

I am the pothole that tears up the undercarriage of the rusty Honda Civic

I am the miles of smooth highways and the forgotten back roads

I am the small towns withering in the sun like weeds killed by a healthy dose of Round-Up.

I am the diner where the drug traffickers eat a meal, pay off the sheriff and drive on toward the

nextmetropolis lacking anything resembling a super

man.

I am acquittal.  I am rebirth.

I am the silver bullet, the golden spoon, the paper plate.

I am the never early and the always late.

I am the heavy metal hip-hop Rap bastard squeal and I

am the subsidized school lunch meal ticket

I am the last bell and the dying cry of the “all aboard”

I am the Civil War reenactment and I am the Stars and Bars suspended on

the inside of the garage, whose floor is littered with Castrol and empty half-crushed Papst Blue Ribbon.

I am that which will send you out crying into the Oregonian snowpack,

one lonely car trapped in winter, leaving behind your wife and newborn baby,

they will survive on breast milk while you will disappear into the snow

that will bury you high in the Willamette Forest.

I am the Grand Canyon and the Cadillac Ranch.

I am the angry white man, the devil in the closet,

the dirty girl trying to stay clean, I am the homeless woman

cast out of the back of a moving Toyota Corolla onto the curb

in front of the free clinics of L.A.

I am the queer spook at the back of the fifth grade class, I am the she-male

in gym, threatening to stab that little bitch white Latina who my friends

said called me a dyke during passing period.  I am the finger bitten off during

a town hall debate over universal health care.  I am the six year old girl shot while

crossing the street, I am the three-month-old baby and the coffee mug death blow,

and I am the eleven-year-old who looks at the shattered skull and splintered mug, then

goes downstairs to

make myself a peanut butter sandwich.

I am the late night start-up and the morning dinner conversation, the megapixillated

teen drunk on death and car crash at $49.95 per game, wandering though terraformed landscapes

with the voices of strange boy-men in my head, I am the gun and the laser, destroying the aliens who have come to drain the world of water.

I am the vanishing snow pack, the dying glacier, the last icicle on the roofbeam.

I am sunshine though the leaves, the last breath of summer on a new day.  I am the lilt of autumn and the quiet hope of winter, I am the purple-nurple mountains and the fruited majesty, the cream in your coffee and the chocolate in your peanut butter.

I am the needle and the spoon,

the stove-top meth boil while the pre-schoolers nap in the next room,

I am the yowling Baptist mother screaming about those lazy blacks on welfare

and getting abortions while my daughter sleeps with her forensics teacher and my

husband bangs AA in the bathroom stall at midday, while I pile on the pills and the pounds

and take my son to the soccer game and spend the time texting my sister about

how we’re gonna have to put dad in a home.

I am the fat black man selling cigarettes on a New York streetcorner and dammit man, I can not breathe.

I am hands up, don’t shoot, give a hoot, don’t pollute.

I am the number of licks it takes to get to the bottom of a Tootsie Pop.

I am Jonathan Winters and Robin Williamsnanu-nanu hatch me from an egg and watch me

grow backwards, I am the imagined Normal Rockwell never-was Jesusland where

men were memes and women were Venus and children were always happy and beaming,

I am the delight at the sight of the open eyes of a newborn baby,

I am the kitten that you rescued from a cardboard box in the Wal-Mart parking lot.

I am the accountant writing bad poetry when he needs to get those cost reports done.

I am Soylant Green and the Stepford Wives, I am your Snoop Dog and your Limp Biscuit and the

smarter-than-Ezra fifth grader asking the civics teacher, “Who are we mad at and why?”

I am the thousand miles of pristine Alaskan wilderness, awaiting

your oil rigs to rape me like a drunken frat boy.

I am your lingering doubt, the traces of your racist

thoughts which you have sublimated into

xeno-hatred and sends you hiding inside

The Book

you’ve never read.

I am your arrested development, your colorless night, your plastic bag bans and your urban blight.

I am the memory of the click-clack paddywhack steam trains along the trestle bridges that

bend under the weight of the rust of time,

I am tomatoes grown in Florida,

where tomatoes are not supposed to grow,

I am the cannabis plant under the lamplight in eastern Colorado

waiting to be taken across the line into Kansas

smoked by some fourteen-year-old in the basement of his ranch house.

I am the Muslim with the prayer mat in his cubicle,

the Christian on her knees in the bathroom, praying no one will see,

I am the back seat of your mother’s car,

the memory of last summer’s shooting star,

I am the tweet under the sheets and the meat on the grill

at every backyard barbeque and every wagging flag

I am railroad ties and lag nuts, I am streaming streams of text

and snapchats that disappear in seconds,

I am the screenshot that captures the dead body of my high school

classmate that I just killed with a screwdriver through the brain,

I am the seeping madness like the water on your basement walls.

I am the final call, the empty mall, I am the depth of doubt and the nagging pain

the sinus headache, just behind the eye, I am Asperger’s and Lou Gehrig , I am

wheelchair ramps and the reinforced suspensions on the ambulance, I am the emergency clinic

dotting every street corner, the drug stores side by side in the strip malls, I am

your delicious sickness that is your bragging right in the office, I am your blood that turns to

water and the sugar that turns your veins black I am the amputation of your foot because you

won’t stop eating those fucking Twinkies and greasing your guttywots daily with a Big Mac followed by a Quarter Pound chaser,

I am the embolism that strikes you down at the age of 47, leaving behind the fractured wife and the ambivalent children, I am the alcoholic grandmother and the coke-addled Judge I am the pedophiliac high school teacher and the necrotic social worker, I am desolation and the abyss.

I am the lost budget and the booty call, the be-all-end-all down at the local mall, I am the downloadable app that everybody has but that no one ever uses, I am a carbonated soda and iced-fruit juices.

I am the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the San Francisco Gay Pride, the Boston Marathon (bombing and beyond), the Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Galveston, Mobile Alabama.   I am the fortunate Sons of Confederate Soldiers and the Daughters of the American Revolution, I am come rain and come shine I am a $7 bottle of wine, I am the mist of the Twin Towers the fine dust settled in the lungs slowly digging and coughing up blood in Central Park.

I am the injection well, the baby

sealed up inside the wall, with the house set on fire.

I am the Ludlow Massacre, the Shirtwaist Factory Fire, I am sex and gasoline.

I am the hydroelectric plant that lights your cities and kills the river,

I am the neon oasis in the desert, the queer shoulder to the grindstone,

I am fast and furious, bi-curious, and somewhat spurious.

I am the Millennial, the Gen-X,

whYne

&

Zee,

the Lost Generation, the Baby Boomer, the last gasping wheezing breath of the so-called Greatest Generation, I am

this point in time,

the depreciation of the past and the care naught for the future, I am whatever new color crosses my eye, I want what I want and I want what you have, my friends are my friends only so long as they make me happy, tickle my sleeve, cuddle my knees, and make me feel all goggly-wattly underneath the sheets,

I am the myth of the welfare mom buying steaks and smokes with her WIC card, I am the fable of the street-corner beggar who pulls down 80k a year, tax free (now that ain’t right, no SIR! the restuvvusgotta pay Uncle Sam his blood money!)

I am the land of milk and honey, the land of Cher & Sonny, the easy smile and the firm handshake, I am the microwave oven and the shake-n-bake, I am Easy Rider and Rambo, Captain America and Billy the Kid.

I am the uber-connected Millennial stripped of empathy except for the abstract transgender bathroom.  I will meet my friends for beers at the beach while the inner cities burn with twisted metal and carbohydrate fumes. 

I close my eyes and press my hands to the glass.  

Let the statue of liberty walk into the sea with stones in the folds of her robes, I can’t bring myself to care.

MR

2015-2016

Overheard at Table 3.: Suicide Note from the Earth

Suicide Note from the Earth


Nothing depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow.

Sorry
folks,

I'm audi.








MR
2016-0517

Overheard at Table 3: Taco Bowl

Cinco DAY Mai-oh!  DAMN Verble that's a cool holiday.  Did yew SEE that there Donald Trump guy with his big 'ol taco bowl!

HEH!  That was shore a goofy lookin' picher of him, doncha think?

And what was that little post alla 'bout?  "I love Hispanics' ??
What, was he trying to say that his taco bowl was made out of REAL HISPANICS?!

Ha!  What an eejit!

Overheard at Table 2: Trump v Cameron

A big man with a bad comb-over spews through pursed lips: "I hope to have a good relationship with David Cameron, I think we can have a good relationship, but it's up to him.  I don't think we're going to have a good relationship, because there's a problem, and this problem with our relationship is that he does not have his tongue in my rectum.  I don't know why he won't put his tongue in my rectum, it's a very nice rectum, very nice.  A big, beautiful rectum.  It's already got a lot of tongues in there.  Putin's tongue is in there.   All of the Republicans who are smart guys - I mean the smart guys, not the nasty guys - all their tongues are in there.  I think David Cameron's tongue will be in there too, if not by the convention then definitely by the election.  Then there won't be any more problem."

Overheard at the Counter: Asshats and Circus Clowns

Niall Carter: So basically one of the two main political parties just got schlonged, what with Trump riding in and slaughtering every semi-rational alternative option.

John Steppenwolf: Sure looks that way.

Carter: This is going to be a LOOONG year.

Steppenwolf:  Me, I'm worried about the years to come.   Trump's set the tone.  From now forward, every person running for President is gonna haveta be both an asshat and a circus clown.

Overheard at Table 1: Talking Tigo Speer

Keiko Rajo was saying to a friend, "And I am so stoked to finally get the chance to meet Tigo Speer.  He is just the most amazing TV producer in the world, man.  Have you seen 'Kids These Days' ?  That's him, man, that's his show.  It's amazing.

"I heard that Tigo Speer has completely become hermaphrotidic.  Like, he has completely broken down the barrier between what cisgenders think of as 'man' and 'woman' - wow, just to be in the same room with Tigo would be such an effin' honor!"

Overheard at Booth 3: Will Farrell New Movie?

"Heard some right wing DJ on the radio talking about a new movie about Ronald Reagan.  Guy sounded a little bent out of shape that Reagan's going to be played by Will Farrell.  He was saying that Farrell was going to be playing Reagan as having Alzheimer's and being totally unable to remember people's names during the 1984 campaign.   I looked at the radio and said,

"'Oh.  So it's a historical pic.'"