The True and Short Tales of Banknotes Harper
Banknotes Harper was sitting at a cafe with Baudelaire and Dennis Kozlowski. “Banknotes,” Baudelaire said, “I’ll bet you all the money in Gaul that you can’t bring every notary public in the world to crushing orgasm.”
Thereupon, Kozlowski’s face turned ashen. “Pump your brakes, dickie bird,” said Banknotes Harper. “I don’t like to take money from poets. Their money smells like high-interest debt.”
“Just as I thought,” sniffed Baudelaire.
“Fair enough, pantload,” said Banknotes Harper. “You’re on.”
“My God, no!” wailed Kozlowski.
Just then Banknotes Harper’s smith-forged jaw muscles twitched almost imperceptibly, and for the first time since he winked at the raven-haired lady at the corner table some two hours prior, he blinked. “As for what you have tasked me with doing, it is done,” said Banknotes Harper.
“You see,” Banknotes Harper continued, “my sex organ is talismanic and assumes many forms. It is the parcel carrier. It is the intoxicating gas at the dentist’s office. It is the weather.”
“But my wife is a notary public!” meowed Kozlowski.
“Yes,” said Banknotes Harper, “and now she’s a whore, as well.”
“You contain multitudes,” said Baudelaire.
“In exactly one hour,” began Banknotes Harper, “a low-ranking functionary of mine will present himself. You’ll know him by his remarking, in a Tangier brogue, ‘One can’t find a decent haberdasher anymore.’ You are to respond, ‘Yea, verily.’ He will pass to you a series of offshore account numbers scrawled on Lockheed Martin letterhead. All the money in Gaul is to be wired in even amounts to each account. If this is not done by tomorrow at 7 am, all time zones, then I’ll make you into shitty burgers.”
With that Banknotes Harper rose from his seat, flipped the table with his vast erection and then, as though conveyed by an invisible chariot with erotic scenes in mother-of-pearl inlay all over it, glided over to the raven-haired lady in the corner. It was Phoebe Cates. “Lean me against a sidewalk balustrade and make punishing gigolo’s love to me,” she said to Banknotes Harper.
Then Banknotes Harper power-cleaned Phoebe Cates and carried her outside and did as she asked. Between thrusts, he arbitraged.
He had been double-parked since Tuesday last.
Questions and Answers with the Unquestionable Answerman
A curious reader might ask, “Hey, Answerman, do you have answers to my baseball-related questions?”
To which the Answerman might reply, “No. Why do you ask?”
Q: Tom Glavine’s wife, Christine, recently Tweeted a photo of her husband on the phone just as he was receiving news of his Hall of Fame election. Most players would be ecstatic, but Glavine looked stoic. Tell me, have any other players looked so unemotional upon receiving news of their HOF elections?
A: Actually, there have been several. Christy Mathewson was probably the first. Upon receiving news of his election with the inaugural HOF class of 1936, he had been dead for nearly 11 years.
One Is a Genius, the Other’s Insane!
Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night, Pinky: TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD! Read the rest of this entry »
One Childish Possibility for Greg Maddux’s HOF Cap
This has been One Childish Possibility for Greg Maddux’s HOF Cap.
Important Update: Twitter-user to the stars Ryan Dunsmore has graced us with an artist’s rendering of Maddux’s plaque donning such attire. Observe:
Get to Know Brad Boxberger
Get to know new Tampa Bay Ray Brad Boxberger.
He likes running water.
No running water in hotel… Great job @HolidayInn
— Brad Boxberger (@Brad_Boxberger) August 6, 2013
He hates slavery.
Congrats to @Brad_Boxberger on his 1st game with 4 strikeouts in 2 innings! On Team @NFS, he's pledged to #endslavery with every SO in 2013.
— Ethan Batstone (@ebatstone) May 6, 2013
He likes chocolate and bananas.
Breakfast of champions #chocolat #chocolatebanana pic.twitter.com/gexC5UgOZx
— Brad Boxberger (@Brad_Boxberger) May 6, 2013
He hates censorship.
Tell Congress: Don’t censor the web! http://t.co/7e8qBMUd
— Brad Boxberger (@Brad_Boxberger) January 18, 2012
He shops at Kroger.
Nicest grocery store in America http://t.co/2NdgD7rw
— Brad Boxberger (@Brad_Boxberger) October 24, 2012
And, hey, Coca-Cola, give this man an endorsement deal!
I think @CocaCola would taste even better in the arctic cold weather while talking to a polar bear.
— Brad Boxberger (@Brad_Boxberger) February 6, 2012
VOTE: New Ideas for Useless Metrics
Happy New Year! Am I late on that? I don’t care! It’s still January and I still accidentally write 2013 on everything I have to date, ladies included. With time continuing to degrade our bodies year-by-year, I think it’s high time we think about the important stuff again. Stuff like: what can I measure for no reason? Specifically, what useless, trivial, unimportant but highly distracting thing can I measure? Answer: Shit tons. You can measure anything! Except for the impact God is having on the men in your Bible study.
Last summer I created a measure called COOL meant to parody NERD. I prefer COOL to NERD because it makes me laugh harder. I also love myself the most. I once again have the itch to do some measuring. I could maybe satisfy this itch by delving into something meaningful–something illuminating that adds to our sabermetric body of knowledge. But I know, duh, that nothing is meaningful, really, and I’d be wasting my time thinking so. Instead, the closest I can find to meaningful activity is one that will make me laugh, hopefully others, too, if only because I laugh harder when others are laughing. So I must measure something meaningless, or at the very least, something that resembles something meaningful but disintegrates at even the slightest scrutiny. A la COOL.
I generated some ideas for metrics by first thinking of a word in my brain (Brodmann area 47/46, perhaps), any word, and then coming up with what that word might measure were it a metric. You will find these proto-metrics, these seeds of weeds, below. And below them you will have the opportunity to exercise the privilege of voting. I will delicately craft a perfectly destitute metric out of the highest vote-getter.
Read the rest of this entry »
Bats Unknown, Throws Unknown
Advice for young self-made writers of dubious talent and forgettable, sometimes-pleasing web-humor: relax! Producing quality material, especially in such a strangely self-limiting genre, may seem intimidating at first, especially while Masahiro Tanaka is busy killing baseball for weeks at a time. It may appear as though every decent idea you squeeze out of your limited perspective and unimportant personal history might be your last. But don’t worry: if you’re truly destined to be a semi-anonymous content-creator, the Fates will apportion you tiny little pellets of inspiration at random intervals. How else to explain, after a 2.5-year writing career, my recent discovery of this:
Such ancestral bonds might go unappreciated by a Mississippi Matt Smith or a Zach Reynolds. But my sole genealogical heritage belongs to a man who killed cute animals for a living and created a town solely for the purpose of selling their skin. Armond Dubuque doesn’t much of a leaderboard to climb, is what I’m saying.
Discovered: A Ballplayer Named After Engelbert Humperdinck
I will not at this time recount for you the series of considerations and life decisions that led me to conduct a Google search for the terms “Engelbert Humperdinck + baseball,” but know that from this peculiar tree, velvety fruit has been harvested.
Please regard, with tensed hips and phallus, the following passage from Milton H. Jamail’s book, Venezuelan Bust, Baseball Boom …
And here he is, that Enyelbert Soto.
What I’m saying is that there exists a player of this, our baseball named after this, our Engelbert Humperdinck.
What I’m really saying is: Boil me in oil, for Engelbert Humperdinck played baseball.
