"The War Prayer"

As we continue our adventures In Iraq, and our own are killed and killing, I thought we might bow our heads and recite Mark Twain's humble beseeching to God:

The War Prayer

"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.

Amen.

Catch Phrases For 2007!

My annual gift to the world is to help humanity become better at...well, whatever the hell they want. I actually have very little to do with humanity. I don't like them much, the bastards have always kept me down.

However, I do like to add new catch phrases to our common lexicon, and this year is no different. Except for different phrases, a different year, and also this is the first time I've offered this up to you.So, get what you can out of it, because I'm not too happy with you, anyway. You all didn't appreciate me last year as much as I calculated you should. But, listen. You ain't perfect. God knows.

NEW CATCH PHRASES FOR 2007 BY JOE POSTOVE-not copyrighted
1:These chocolates are making me horny!
2: All you bastards are stealing my lunch!
3: These shoes are making my feet itch!
4: You can drive my car, but only the brake!
5: These nudists are making me blind!
6: These pretzels are making me thirsty! (stolen from Seinfeld without permission)
7: These chunks of stool are crowding my toilet!
8: The butter on my bread has shoe polish mixed into it!
9: The mohel has cut off too much!
10: These Jews Harp's are making me Orthodox!

Enjoy my catch phrases, and be sure to join me back here next year, when I parade around in my new rain hat.

Joe

Larry (Bud) Melman RIP

Larry (Bud) Melman of the Letterman Show died earlier this week. In later years, because of a copyright dispute between CBS and NBC he used his real name Calvert DeForest.

He of exotic, yet uncertain physiognomy, and a countenance of perhaps a deer in the headlights, Larry (Bud), as I will always know him, was not what many have described him as; a regular guy pushed into irregular situations for laughs.

Everything about him was uncommon. A face that could draft notice as extreme as Beelzebub stealing candy from infants, or as innocent as a towel boy at a two cent pay toilet. He knew what he was doing. He was not, as it may have seemed sometimes, the amatuer act pushed onstage at the last minute because the headliner didn't show. One cannot post indelibly upon my mind, forever and ever, as he has, and be a shnook.

He played one beautifully.

Joe Postove

On Writing

I enjoy writing some.

But I really do it to keep my fingers limber for other activities.

Like Chisenbop.

Einstein On Pay Toilets

It was revealed today, for the first time, that noted physicist and philosopher Albert Einstein installed a pay toilet in his home in 1951. During his lifetime, Einstein entertained many notables in the arts and sciences. One day, while plunging some shit out of his toilet, he discovered that many of his guests had figured out how to jerry rig it to make long distance phone calls. Al called the first person he could think of, J.P. Getty, who already had a pay stall in his house, for advice. Getty told Einstein he didn't know how people could make phone calls through a toilet and slammed down the receiver, flush with excitement that a genius had called him.

This was a rather odd occurrence, in that Einstein had only the finest people as guests in his house during this time. People like Bunny Wilson, Abe Vigoda, Dorothy Kilgallen and even posher folks like Zsa Zsu Pitts and Tallulah Bankhead (who would sit on the toilet in his study and regale him for hours about the seedier side of show business) would stay weekends and even longer, if they couldn't get a cab. So the great scientist was befuddled by all this.

Once the workmen installed the toilet and word sprawled like a fine disease that can only be spread by such talk, Einstein's house became less of a salon for the chichi, and more a place to have a picnic lunch, as the poorer folks closer in town would come around with their dimes in hand and baskets filled with food. Al would stand with a stopwatch, making certain that no one tarried in their duty.

He realized that this action had cost him the friendships of many who he treasured. But he also knew that sometimes doing the right thing can bring unforeseen consequences. Einstein spent the rest of his life trying to figure out how to call long distance through a toilet.

Joe

Dreaming Of Dean Martin

I don't normally talk about dreaming about men. Except he-men like Tony the butcher or Strangler Lewis. If I ever dream about them, I'll post it, then run, far away, hide, and look and see if anyone is calling me a fairy. And I know that most people don't like to hear about others dreams. They're too boring, and blah blah. But this one will excite you!

This morning while performing my morning plop plops on the pay toilet down the hall from my apartment (it says on the door "all kinds of shit 10 cents"...so what else should I do? Use the free toilet at the pancake house? They force you to buy a pancake before toileting. So, go to hell pancake house!) I was thinking about my dream last night about Dean Martin.

Dean and I were standing outside my Dad's old locksmith shop (we were in really deep Metro-Color too. Seems kind of gay, but this is Dean Martin we're talking about) and a bus passes with another Dean Martin sitting near the back. I looked at my Dean, and he was still there, so I went with it. It's not impossible to have two Dean Martin's in one dream. It doesn't mean you're some kind of repressed homo.

My Dean said I should make fun of the Dean on the bus. Give him the business, call him names to see if I could get him to cry. I did, to my regret. As the bus pulled away, Dean (on the bus) was balling like a child, and although I don't know what I said, the first Dean said that I had done a good job, and that he was proud of me.

Goddamn Dean Martins! It was a fun, colorful dream, until I began to feel bad about making the bus Dean cry. I'm not usually like that. But the ass Dean Martin thought it was pretty funny. I'll not soon dream about any Dean Martins again!

Post script: After all this, Dean said that Marlon Brando was making a film across the street and he wanted me to see if I could make him cry too. I guess Dean Martin had the power over me, because I started to where Brando was filming with the intent of taunting him until he cried.

Thankfully, I woke up then. And went down the hall to my toll toilet to contemplate the whole thing.


Joe Postove

Have A Pap Smear Today!

Today is "National Pap Smear Day" (or "Schmear" as they call it in New York) and I want to encourage our women readers to go out and get one. This is an important thing and you must understand that...even though...ok, I don't know what a Pap Smear is. Just jot that down in your book there of things Joe does not know.

OK. Now tell me, is a Pap Smear a procedure where some type of medicine is applied to the ladies "pap", or does the doctor smear "pap" onto the lady (with her complete cooperation) to alleviate some kind of dire condition? This is an important day, and, girls...take it seriously. Have your ??? smeared with a half a gallon of pap or smear your pap today. You'll be glad you did. And, truthfully, I don't think it makes that much difference. But I am not a doctor.

By the way, there must be a male thing that we can take off on. Like...like, say a coffee enema. Why would a man waste good coffee on THAT? And are you allowed to add cream and sugar to your most personal of enemas? Now the men and women are even.

JP