We Thought Of It First

Citizens, sometimes we of the Collective are so stunned by our own brilliance that it’s all we can do to toot our own horns. Today was just such a day. We are proud to announce our development of the greatest reality TV show never to see the airwaves: “Making People Cry”. Herewith is a glimpse of Things To Come:

Host Garry Shandling: “Hoop-de-doodle, everybody! Welcome to tonight’s episode of ‘Making People Cry’. I’m your host, Garry Shandling. Tonight we’ll be hurting a jerk, a Hooters waitress, a little old lady, and some Cub Scouts. Let’s get this party started!”

Cut to a cantankerous-looking middle-aged man walking down a city street.

Shandling (voice-over): “This is Malcom Hayes. Malcolm is 45 years old and lives in a studio apartment with his cat Mr. Bitters. Malcolm works as a plumber, which mostly involves fishing things out of toilets that should never have been put in toilets.”

Cut to Malcolm in a bathroom with a homeowner. The homeowner is looking sheepish while Malcolm berates him for flushing a tricycle.

Shandling (voice-over): “But tonight it’s Malcolm’s turn to get wet. Let’s watch!”

Malcolm comes home to find Mr. Bitters’ back legs sticking out of his toilet. There’s an exquisitely penned note taped to the lid: “Deer Malcolm, I am sick of ur stoopid stinky hands. I hate u.” Malcolm collapses in sobs at the loss of his only friend. Garry Shandling bursts in, laughing.

Shandling: “Haha! Don’t worry, your cat is fine. He’s watching this back at the studio right now. And to make it up to you, here’s a $10 gift card for the nearest Hallmark store.”

Malcolm: “So whose cat is this?”

Shandling: “Just some stray that no one ever loved.”

Cut to a little girl in a suburban home.

Girl: “Mommy, where is Mittens?”

Flashing graphic on the screen reads “DOUBLE SLAM!!!!” Cut to commercial.

Ascend the Throne, Claim Your Crown, And Declare 2009 “The Year Pork Bellies Had No Future”

Citizens, we cannot begin a newer world until we are done with the old.

This is a world of staid conformist toadery, where lickspittles and Communists of every kind run rampant as though the circus were in town and they’d just been given advances on their allowance.  People seek to dispel their demons with fairy dust concocted by chemists, when the answer stares them in their self-bloodied faces: live well! Live like there’s no yesterday! Live wild and weird and free, like the wind in a dead porcupine’s quills.

We of the Collective have found that opportunity knocks but once before heading down the hall to that guy with the lazy eye and the cookie-crumb-crusted gut. Does anyone want to see that sublime beauty in the arms and on the lips of that slovenly beast? No, of course not. So while there’s still a “Vacancy” sign lit over your grave, get up off the sofa and answer the next time she knocks. Maybe clean the place up a bit – polish the turtles, wax the candles, sharpen the radio. Freshen the pepper in the grinder and grind the good salt for a change.

Carpe that Diem, citizens! You only live once, and you can’t be Sean Connery’s butler. The Hooters Girls aren’t coming to save you from your sloth, and there’s no Chippendales Peace Prize just because you got the high score on “Pac-Man vs. Qbert”. You won’t win the heart of that delicious young man down at the pool by fading into the background behind the wallflowers and discarded Toblerone wrappers.

The future belongs to those who understand and embrace the absurdity of all existence without trying to fondle it. Risk is as illusory as any other certainty: it is a cup of bitter tea that packs on the pounds as fast as pure lard. If you want to run the race, strap on your shoes and step toward the finish line instead of staring down your fellow Wikipedians over the history of “Knight Rider”.

Your destiny is no more than the end of the path you’re walking – there’s no map to mistake for the territory, there’s no prophecy worth more than the quatrains you wrote to impress you tenth-grade girlfriend. Carve the message in every tabletop, tree trunk, and treasure chest you see. Burn these holy words on the inside of your eyelids to flash their hot neon truth at you every instant, waking or sleeping: make your fate.

Make this your year!