David Raffin

From the Summer Squash Festival, reading at the Tortoise Butler Arts Hotel.

Wiener in a Bottle; Questions about Cake; and A Word About My Alma Mater.

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Like Kim Jong-il, I have decided to “weaponize all my plutonium.” Why do I have so much plutonium? Transuranium element fixation?
Possibly. I am attracted to other elements on the periodic table, but the transuranium ones just have that je ne sais quois.
There is something about it.

I don’t know how I got so much of it. There was a time, long ago, when I had as little as none at all. Then I received some as a gift. I picked some up when I was out and about. People gave me more and more of it as I acquired more and more of it.
It started to pile up, filling every nook and cranny.
It’s just lucky that I like plutonium. Some people constantly receive baubles that they care little for or about.
Not me. I like plutonium. And I’m not just saying that to be nice. If you have some plutonium, and you’re not using it, you can always give it to me.

At some point, though I certainly was not lacking for plutonium, having more than I could ever use, I started to dig for it. It was when I was involved in strip mining my back yard that the troubles started. I don’t know which of my neighbors complained. I assume one of them did. Possibly the one with the constantly barking dog or the one with the all night parties. Anyway, that’s when these regulatory people started nosing around. “We’re from the department of energy,” they would say, as if I was supposed to find that impressive. They wanted to know if I had any permits. They were very interested in all the plutonium they could see lying about.
My view is, and this is a view that evolved rather than something inborn, that if you have enough plutonium this negates the need for permits, zoning and other such restrictions.
A man with enough plutonium is not a man lightly trifled with.

And therein lies the problem. If you have enough plutonium, what are you going to do with it? Yes, it’s beautiful and that’s why you start to collect it. Ultimately you are forced to face the question: what are you going to do with it?
The answer is, weaponize it.
It’s the only logical recourse.

Twilight of the Clowns.
A traditional way of life is replaced by another vagabond existence.

In a world gone mad, what is a clown to do?

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This is a better recording of Igor. This is a chapter of the book Rhyme or Treason, from the audio book version I’m currently working on.
Here I do different voices for the characters.

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If I become a zombie, I hope I enjoy brains. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Baby food rarely contains babies. Truth in advertising.

Hyenas laugh at you, not with you. You specifically. True.

Guys shirt says “F*** television.” A weird kink, sure, but it’s his.

I want to make a shirt with a big fly looking at you. Caption: “Eat Shit!”

In times of trouble ask yourself: “What would Paul Lynde do?” The answer lies in the center square.

In times of trouble I ask myself: “What Would Charles Foster Kane Do?” Build Xanadu.

These microsoft bathrooms are painted a shade of green meant to disorient wild animals.

Once I tamed a wild cat. I also have a wild bear experience, not involving a unicycle. Should this be on my resume?

Brother Theodore: “Madam, your untimely laughter is ruining an otherwise exquisite performance.” The first performer who canned laughter.

Did the Wicked Witch of the West teach monkeys to fly or employ only experienced flying monkeys? Flying Monkeys: evil or economic victims?

If you can afford a monkey butler living in a tree is the best. Also, fast getaways via vines. Avoid vine rush hour, naturally.

I have invented the electric fly. Patent pending. Push a button, zip it up. Modern. Convenient. Possibly a danger- gears, motor. Progress!

Chopsticks can be dangerous. Especially when you look at them close. The warning in tiny print on the tip of each one is there for a reason.

Potatoes are magically delicious. Ask a leprechaun.

[ http://twitter.com/David_Raffin ]

This reading took place at Last Word Books in Olympia, WA on June 11, 2009.

Tar Baby ; More than one day in the life of Igor Igoravitch ; Old Clown Day ; No Excuses ; Representations in the third millenium

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Readings from the book Rhyme or Treason: the hard fought illusion of choice.

Summer is the season for yard sales, which is unfortunate since I hardly ever buy a yard.
Some people say the fun is in browsing, that you don’t have to actually buy a yard.

In Europe they don’t have yard sales. They have meter sales. Americans find this off-putting because there are 0.9144 meters in a yard and that means everything is off by -0.0856.

Traditionally the next day everything is half-off, or, in Europe, 0.4572-off.
Some people find this unsettling because all the goods (and yards) are cut in half.

This is like the celebration of your half-birthday, occurring exactly six months after the anniversary of your birth (and frequently, also, six months beforehand).
On your half-birthday all your presents are cut in half. Half-presents are often found lacking in some regard, disappointing. Children have been known to cry.
Those few that do work, however, really come off.

Yesterday (June 4) I appeared on the second hour of the Kill Ugly Radio Adventure Hour on WSU’s KOUG.

I did two readings, Excerpts from the Bush Memoirs & Wiener in a Bottle. We talked about bad jobs and punk rock in Portland.

This is the edited second hour. [Download mp3]

[The Kill Ugly Radio blog is found at: http://uglyradio.wordpress.com/ ]

Jim Bergman once said bicyclists should properly be called “cyclists” rather than “bikers.”

This is good but sometimes linguistically awkward.

I say bicyclists ought to be called “pedallers.”
(Not to be confused with peddlers. Those no good cheapjacks!)

Wearing a hat was once a requirement of civil society. Not wearing a hat marked one as a criminal or a defective. (Not a detective. Detectives wore hats.)

There are various theories about the downfall of the hat as a social requirement in the modern era. One is that, as cars became smaller, the hat became unwieldy while driving. Another is that people stopped wearing hats because John Kennedy didn’t wear one to his inauguration day, becoming the first president to renounce the hat. This has been proven to be an apocryphal tale. Kennedy did, in fact, wear a hat that day. Still, to this day, Kennedy is despised by the hat industry. This fact has resulted in several plausible conspiracy theories which have never been fully disproved.
(It is occasionally noted that, contrary to logic, Lee Harvey Oswald was not wearing a hat when he was, in turn, assassinated; however, his assassin, Jack Ruby, was. The hat in question is a grey fedora.)

It is still legal in the United States to both wear a hat and buy a gun. However, only one of these rights is protected by the constitution and commonly practiced by its citizenry. (Baseball caps don’t count as they are an abomination.)

There are three stages of hat wearing.

Step 1: Man buys discounted hat.

Step 2: Man with hat practices lurking in shadows.

Step 3: Man with hat feigns concern for the hatless.

Please buy and wear a proper hat. It will help resuscitate a dormant industry. It will put more hat-makers back to work. It’s true, they will all be in China; still, you do what you can.

Download my book of shorts, Rhyme or Treason (the hard fought illusion of choice), by clicking my new facebook writer page.

Info on the download is on the wall.

Why are there no funeral cakes anymore? Why is this event not commoditized by the baker’s guild?
Cake is a standard at every other event. Did bakers find it was unwelcome to price gouge on the cake served at a funeral? When funeral cake was discontinued did the price of wedding cake rise?

I understand the Amish still serve funeral cake. They are set in their ways. They still mix it by hand. They make it themselves, bypassing the commercial bakeries altogether.

Was the cake discontinued for lack of choice? Did the mourned get to choose the color, shape, and flavor- stipulating such in a will or codicil, or were these choices thrust upon the mourned by a powerful subset of the mourners? Did someone finally wise up and say, “Who died and made you God?”

Did funeral cake enter disfavor when it was linked, intrinsically, with culinary fascism? Did Mussolini have a funeral cake? Was there enough for everybody? Is that what sullied its reputation the world over?

When Marie Antoinette famously said, “Let them eat cake!” was she talking about her funeral?

My research indicates that funeral cakes may have been somewhat akin to giant cookies. Presumably because it was disrespectful to let the flour rise.
What about funeral pie?
Are cream pies somber enough? Fruit? Pecan?
What about a funeral pudding?
Funeral cotton candy? Made at the funeral in a funeral cotton candy machine?
What about fondue? Which is more appropriate? Cheese, chocolate, coconut, honey, caramel or marshmallow? Again, who will choose?

Milton Snavely Hershey’s body was dipped in chocolate, then caramel, then rolled in coconut. However, there was no dessert served at the reception. He forgot to leave his dessert instructions.

This is not the sort of thing people like to think about. That’s why people die without wills. That’s why people die with wills but failing to stipulate their final dessert wishes.

Today if you attend a funeral and you want cake you are best advised to keep it to yourself. If you stand and say, “Hey, where’s the cake!” people will think less of you.

Do not even think of sidestepping the problem by bringing a cake to the funeral. People may cry.
You don’t want to be known as the one who ruined the funeral.

Men love me. Women Love me. Dogs and Cats love me. Ducks love me.
Certainly you’ve factored the Duck demographic into your calculations?
Shortsighted my friend, shortsighted.
Not factoring the Ducks into your demographic breakdown skews your data.
It leaves out the Ducks. And not just the Ducks, either; but the people with an interest in the Ducks; or, rather, the people with an interest in the Duck’s interest.
Not to mention the Dogs and/or Cats with a Duck interest; and have you ever met a Dog or Cat without a keen interest in Ducks? I thought not.

I am not one of those people who will use the tired phrase, “Some of my best friends are clowns.”
I do not know Justin well. All I know is that he is old. Older, even, than the late Jack Benny. I have met him in the past. Justin, not Jack Benny. He was younger then. At that time he had not yet chosen to be old.
Don’t be fooled. This is a choice. Jack Benny lived more than seventy years while famously never reaching the age of forty. That’s clean living. That’s determination. That’s the power of the will. Perhaps even a triumph of the will.

Justin is better known as Jusby the Clown, as he has made himself available as a practitioner of the sciences. Often he appears without being in whiteface. I applaud this as a blow against whiteface. Accentuating the paleness of people who lack melanin, albinos, is not funny. Whiteface- stop the hate. Still he wears a red nose, mocking alcoholics and Irishmen. Sometimes he wears light whiteface, mocking half-breed albino alcoholic irishmen. Enlightenment is a path.

Many people are afraid of clowns.
Why not? There have been Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Killer clowns not from outer space, and, if I am to believe Jerry Lewis, a clown who was a pawn of the Nazis. And why would Jerry Lewis lie to me?
Whatever the reason, fear of clowns is a common phobia. The technical name is Coulrophobia.
Who would choose to scare children as a vocation? Someone who, in the past, was traumatized by children. Is there a name for a child phobia? Indeed there is. Fear of children is called Pediophobia. It is the leading cause of Adultism.
Think of how horrible it would be to have a phobia of children when you are elementary school aged. This is the future clown. This is the clown past, present, and future- the true clown.

This is why clowns are obsessed with violence. The pie in the face. The squirting seltzer bottle. The squirting fake flower in the lapel. The gun that unrolls the flag that says “bang.” The old plank or ladder upside the head gag. Ultimate Clown Fighting.

This explains the derogatory use of the word “clown” in the English language; for example, “That guy is nothing but a clown!” “Who? That clown?” “What are yous guys doin’ over there? Clowning around again?” “I’ll have the clown fish and a side salad.”

I would not be able tell a young clown from an old clown except for the fact that old clowns live in homes for aged clowns. Clown rest homes.
There the pies are vitamin enriched and the ladders or planks they smack one another with are made of foam. The gun, when fired, unrolls a large flag which says “BANG!” in extra large type. Ultimate clown fighting is prohibited.
Is that any kind of life?

Occasionally circuses will participate in a charity event known as “Old Clown Day.” This is a day, usually occurring during what is known in the industry as “the slow season,” when participating circuses raffle off old clowns. Winners leave with an elderly clown. They are then responsible for the care and feeding of the retired clown.

OCD is often seen as the industry’s way of copping out on a retirement fund, leaving the clown at the mercy of the public. Critics charge that OCD is just the method circus bureaucrats use to wash their hands of aged and less productive clowns.
Statistical data shows that while winners, especially small children, are initially enthused by their new family companion, it is commonly a matter of weeks before the clown gets less attention, is walked seldomly, and is often left to its own amusement. You can sometimes see these clowns staring out of the window of a house. When they are left in the backyard too long they similarly stand outside the house, staring in through the window.
So sad, clown.

“Our American Cousin” is a terrible play. Abe Lincoln took the easy way out… Read it. See if you can make it to act III, scene 2.

Actually he should have walked out. He lasted until Act III scene 2. This is taking politeness to an unheard of level.
“Mr. President, I intend to shoot you in the back of the head.”
“Do what you must, Booth. I never walk out on a play. It’s uncouth.”

Had he walked out he’d be remembered as a harsh theatrical critic. Secondarily as the president who won the civil war.

This is the funniest line in Our American Cousin: “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap…”

Even with the word sockdologizing in it it’s not a funny line.