Category: culture

Loud Man’s Disease

by doitalldadyear, posted in culture, entertainment, family

How loud was Do It All Dad? For starters, when seeing Aerosmith live in Las Vegas two summers ago, with close seats to the stage before a mask muzzle was designed to kill freedom of speech forever, his incessant hollering and wooing made lead singer Steven Tyler shoot off retaliatory hate stares of disgust in his direction which screamed, “Somebody shut this loudmouth Jew up, already. This is my showcase career retrospective, not his. I didn’t blow millions on blow and almost derail my stadium-selling-out career in the seventies to have this big-headed putz project louder than me (without a microphone, Joe Perry, or a state-of-the-art sound system working in his magnifying favor, either).”

            There was also the time Do It All Dad saw Dice in a casino in Arizona with his younger brother, only for the Dice Man to single out the loudmouth Jew and yell, with exasperated force, “You’re an asshole!”

            And all he was doing was laughing for a long time, all the time, prior, while sporadically yelling, “Dice Lives, holla, thank you very much.”

            Dice was so flummoxed by Do It All Dad’s laugh, a throaty roar, that he beelined into his nursery rhymes prematurely, way ahead of schedule, to get the fuck out of dodge a hard 45 minutes into his set.

            Then, there was the time when Do It All Dad saw Bon Jovi at Mohegan Sun with his daughter Matilda (fairly up in the nosebleed seats this time behind the stage, yet his bombastic, rocket-fueled voice still managed to get under Zebra Print’s skin as the old-school long cowboy from Jersey projected a damning ‘you ain’t shit’ thousand-yard stare toward Mr. Loud Man’s Disease’s general direction as he sang along with rockstar-blasting authority, “Bad Medicine is all I need.”  

            Do It All Dad didn’t just piss off living legendary comedians and hall of fame rock star front men with surefire, unintentional precision. His omnipresent Loud Man’s Disease enraged his normally English-dour, future father-in-law over a dinner at his home in Delaware only two minutes after grace, compelling him to bark out, in depleted, drained-already disgust, “He’s more talkative than the other one.”

            ‘The other one’ being the gentile mute from Indiana whom his daughter was engaged to before his daughter found her real deal partner in love, this time (at least for the time being).

            The major issue now was Do It All Dad’s loud man disease causing his son, Art Show USA, to develop all-consuming migraine headaches, leading his son to sport a permanent PMS face until he started to take up mainlining extra-strength Tylenol, again.

            And Do It All Dad’s son was tough. How tough, you ask? Well, when Art Show USA required stitches for tripping on top of an empty IPA glass on the ground and had to wait 1000 lifetimes in the emergency room so the other doctors could serve all the first-in-line dreamers in attendance, the doc gave Do It All Dad two options:

            “Either A) Authorize the doc to use an anesthesia which would take twenty minutes to kick in, or B) To stitch up his son the spot, as his gaping gash continued to open wider than Octomom after Push 5000.

            Do It All Dad chose B, only for the doctor to say, “Your kid is tough.” Do It All Dad inquires, “Indulge me, doc: how tough?”

            Doc says, “One time, there was this black kid from Brooklyn.”

            Do It All Dad says, “Sold already, Doc. Thanks for giving my son tough guy bragging rights, for me to derive vicarious pride from ’till my last dying breath.”

            But how was Do It All Dad going to solve his Loud Man’s Disease, exactly? Would triple masking even get the job done, after getting his tonsils taken out for an extra safe precaution, too? Would Do It All Dad become a eunuch monk, despite already feeling this way, at times, from being a Stay-At-Home Dad and bitchy underling until his comedy writing career achieved blastoff, already? Would Do It All Dad seek out a Voodoo Doctor in Washington Heights to cure his Loud Man’s Disease by changing his pigmentation to ESL Asian?

            What could Do It All Dad do to prevent his son from receiving any more debilitating headaches in his presence again?

            Finally, Do It All Dad devised a cure-all solution. He’d buy his son a pair of Bose noise-canceling headphones to wear in his presence and would teach him fucking sign language. Because native New Yorkers were made to be heard.

Michael Kornbluth

Dreaming On Past COVID

by doitalldadyear, posted in culture, entertainment, faith

Dear God,

I’m dying of Covid-19 alone, allegedly, yet I don’t think smoking two packs a day of Turkish blend, extra-wide Camel cigarettes fended off my surging lung cancer, either.

            I’ll never forget how top-of-the-world scrumptious that Camel extra-wide tasted after losing my virginity to Katie King in the Cape. If there was ever a reason to take up smoking again, so I could enjoy sucking face with my summer wind love, who enjoyed her Camel extra-wide smokes even more than I did, it was for my sweet darling, always inhalable on-the-spot, pitch-perfect southern belle.

            The always-magical chills down my spine were induced from mere memories of walking, hand in the hand, throughout Main Street in the Cape with my dear Katie King.

            Especially, they came from knowing how my bitch roommates at the time hated how the Jew boy from New York who’d struck a summer romance with such a striking, statuesque gentile from North Carolina who ended up graduating Duke as a double major in three years flat.

            Oh yeah, that’s right—one of those girls went to McGill in Canada, which was a safety school for stoners obsessed with free healthcare and Justin Trudeau’s purple-specked socks. So, it looks like I’m the one who came out on top of Katie’s perfectly plump, never-draggy or dumpy 36D tits.  

            So, my parents, younger brother, friends, and ex-girlfriends can’t visit me, but I’d sure love to kiss the never-annoying, always-pleasantly-plump-on-top Katie King, again.

            The last time I kissed her was when I surprised her while driving cross-country to California for my last semester of college, with an aching in my heart. She was more than a friend of mine. Lord, Katie was a guardian angel who, as you know, was sent down from Heaven to make me a true believer in the power of prayer and modern-day miracles, which benefited my love life immensely, for a change.

            I remember praying to you alone on the beach in Cape Cod’s Kennedy country during the summer when the Fugees broke big, finally giving me a woman to cry about in my heart after our romance came to a sudden, crashing end.

            I said, “God, I love Hair Metal ballads because they’re hopeful songs full of longing, and I always longed to have a real-life girlfriend to walk hand in hand with at Rye Playland and to win stuffed animals for, as I drained more basketball shots from way downtown with effortless, in-the-zone, choke-free ease.”

            You’ve always provided me with divine intervention and comfort, Lord, so I’m not going to fret against my dying of the light this late into the 9th inning, with me going up against Mariano Rivera with a five-run lead at the new Yankee Stadium (otherwise known as The House That Gentrification Built).

            Gentrification, Lord—you know, liberal talk for less black people. I wouldn’t have written that A-plus joke gem without your divine-powered assistance, as usual.

            Has my sadness-enshrouded heart weighed heavily on my weepy, hurting inside soul in synagogue for years on Yom Kippur, knowing that it’s another year where I ask for another shot to be a productive, functioning member of the Jewish race versus another schmuck in a headset who’se been fired more than a Palestinian slingshot?

            I’m also not going to bitch about certain friends or family members not always being there to consistently support my comedic ambitions, which lead me to killing the Montreal Comedy Festival, thanks to your steady, unrelenting support in me doing me, all the way.

            Those friends came to my bringer shows in Manhattan at the New York Comedy Club when I was an average nobody putz because they believed in my potential—which you always have, Lord, back when my pursuit of getting a lady laugh-off for long time, all the time, began.

            My parents raised me in the snuggle-soft confines of Westchester County. I performed well at high-paying jobs which were no labor of love, either.  Plus, acting like an excessively obnoxious, supremely spoiled, entitled twat never felt right to my labor of laugh lust-pursing heart, either.

            You made me grow up and become a man in LA when my parents cut me off, forcing me to overcome a debilitating stutter as an IT headhunter, cold calling through the Los Angeles Journal Book of Lists like a man possessed to be a pushover putzy no more.

            I got to sing Karaoke in the valley and perform high-kicking windmills to Baba O-Reilly, proving to myself I was meant to strut my stuff and sing the gift of comedic song on stage for a living, one day.

            Should I order Chinese for my last meal, to earn myself social justice righting props on Twitter, instead of insisting how those bio-chemical warfare-starting commie bastards have resisted investigations into the origins behind the Wuhan lab originator of the virus, more than Aquafresh?           The only time I ever feared dying was from weed-induced panic attacks, thinking that I’d stop breathing because I was being a degenerate Jew who again was bound to lose his gift of gab sooner or later.

            Dying semi-alone, through Zoom, doesn’t appeal to me much, Lord. I say semi-alone because you’ll always be the bursting source of light in my laugh-loving heart, come rain or shine.       Also, I prefer to say goodbyes to my parents, friends, ex-girlfriends, and younger brother through emotive, giving letters like this, which touch the soul far deeper than any belabored, drawn-out Zoom call could while our new Chinese slave masters monitor our every last show of vigorous, in-your-face emotion.

            Dying prematurely at forty-four bites works only if you never got to fall in love or get to be cool like Neil Young, and blares with rollicking empathetic flourish like no other, on Rocking In The Free World. I’m positive that song gets plenty of play in stage performer heaven—which I wouldn’t mind having entry into, knowing that Lou Reed could use some added some levity, up there, from time to time.

            This can happen next time he showcases the insufferable gall to insist on charging Billy Idol for the privilege of recording with him while waiting for his man, Marlon Brando, again off-Broadway, upstairs for A Streetcar Named Desire, now that’s he’s love with the act of on-stage creation, again.

            I’m not worried about being a pseudo-homo that prevents me from being embraced by your loving light in the afterlife. Desmond Child isn’t dead yet, but there’s no way a loving God would damn the writer behind Livin’ On A Prayer to endless agonizing hell. That would be on par with forcing him to act like he enjoys hearing the Fleet Foxes live in front a log cabin on his one ordained night out for his birthday in homo performer hell, year after year.

            Thanks for the thrill of killing, and for the heart-soothing memories involving my dear Katie King, oh sweet Lord.

            Dear Katie King, the magic fairy dust beneath my wings, who took me to the other side of the earth, where us oh-so-fortunate, cosmic comedic perfectionists roam.

            All the bombing in life was worth the thrill of killing at the Montreal festival, especially with my dear Katie King in attendance in the front row to make love to my soul with her oceanic blue blasting eyes again, conjuring memories of our last departed goodbye kiss when she said, in the Cape, “I never knew someone could make me so happy, before.”

            I do. It’s you, Lord. All the great good in my life stems from your miraculous handy work on my behalf. I must make you laugh more than yenta-breath Seinfeld ever did, to be blessed with such infinite beauty in my life, because, like your other star creation, Billy Cox, Jimi Hendrix’s old-school paratrooper buddy sings with Number 1 soul brother authority at the Fillmore East New Year’s Eve in 1970, “With the power of soul, anything is possible.”

            Being blessed with the funny Jew bone, which you gave the obsessive drive to develop to the best of my God-given, ability helps, too.

            I’ll love you forever Lord, for my summer wind, Katie King, and for making such an out-of-this world beauty beautify my life with such a majestic, soul-tantalizing sweep that summer wind dreams are made of.  

All My Love,

Michael Joshua Kornbluth

Kosher Klaus Sushi

by doitalldadyear, posted in books, culture, fiction

Once upon a time, there was a Kosher sushi chef prodigy, Art Show USA, who opened Kosher Klaus Sushi on Christmas Eve in 1994 before the Internet became mainstream and Asian elite Yelpers went hog wild.  Kosher Klaus Sushi was located in the heart of Scarsdale Village, and earned immediate rave reviews in the Scarsdale Inquirer from local food critic Debbie Wasserman, who described Art Show’s mind-blowing specialty roll creations as, “Orgasmic before they reach the back of your throat good.”  

            What made Art Show unique, outside of his unmatched imaginative heft and juggling sushi knifework at the bar, were his God-given star-powered looks, which commanded legions of groupie Yentas to schlep from the far reaches of Long Island to wait in line in the dead of winter just to catch a glance of the new age pretty boy/badass sushi chef through the window, cranking out one swoon-worthy, inhalatory sushi specialty roll after the next like his signature one, Living On The Edgemont Edge, which had smoked salmon, cream cheese, capers, and caramelized shallots throughout, to inject an extra special loaded lift.   

            Every day, Art Show USA would sharpen his sushi knives together (made from Israeli steel, used in bulletproof vests made for their special force’s unit, Mossad), which would woo with sparkly, dazzling delight as patrons at the Kosher Klaus Sushi Bar gave impromptu standing ovations throughout.  

            Art Show USA was a 6 foot 4, spikey blond-haired, blue-eyed, lean, mean, sushi-slicing machine who made Tom Cruise (from the movie Cocktail) look like a stumpy, homely hobbit hipster hack, in comparison, regardless of whether he kept his rolled-up-sleeve button shirt tucked in or not.   

            But, one day, a bunch of rowdy Irish wiggers entered Kosher Klaus Sushi to track down a hot yenta breath from Syosset, Long Island’s Rachel Weinstein, who rocked swinging booby beauties (36 Ds, to be exact), who was also a solid 5 foot 9, making her mountable from behind, standing up (assuming you weren’t a stumpy Irishman, unlucky in the height department).   

            Rachel was a full-lipped, Sephardic Persian, tan, busty beauty. Even Roger Waters from Pink Floyd would pulverize her fetching snatch until he was comfortably numb.  The leader of the wigger Irish pack was Liam O’Reilly, who sported a Newport cigarette tattoo on his esophagus (which scared off most, but not Art Show USA).

            Art Show USA got a black belt in judo by the time he was 13, for his Bar Mitzvah. For Art Show’s Bar Mitzvah Party, he played ‘Siamese Dream’ by the Smashing Pumpkins on the guitar with his feet and teeth.  So, Art Show USA never sweated the prospect of losing a fight or a girl to an Irish wigger moron from Long Island, who thought that stamping a permanent Newport cigarette tattoo on his esophagus was a bright idea, regardless of whether it ensured him a truck driver job for Killan’s Red or not.

            Liam and his crew of Irish wiggers came down from Long Island to start a fight with Art Show USA because they attended the same high school as Rachel Weinstein, and only had eyes for inhaling her whole. Plus, they weren’t enthralled with Rachel wearing an underground-circulated hoodie with a picture of Art Show USA on it, who was sporting an American flag bandana and a Star of David gold necklace around his neck, showcasing well earned, non-banking-job-related bling.  

            Liam cuts the line with his Irish wigger posse and bursts into Kosher Klaus Sushi like Mark Wahlberg on the set of SNL after Andy Samberg did a sketch about Marky Mark talking to farm animals. He bum-rushes the sushi bar and says, “Hey, faggot. I’ll kick your ass right now, to show all your groupies what a pretty boy faggot, gay pussy bitch you are in real life.”

            Art Show ignores Liam’s Alpha Dog attack. Liam jumps over the sushi bar to strike. Art Show does a lookaway kick to the middle of his forehead, which sends Liam flying into the ceiling fan, which knocks him out senseless.

            Art Show USA says, “Alexa, play ‘Jump Around’ by House of Pain.” Kosher Klaus Sushi erupts into an instantaneous jubilee and Jewish pride pounces the air, inspiring Rachel Weinstein to flash her tits at Art Show USA as the entire restaurant throws their gold necklaces (with Stars of David’s on them) in her general direction, in honor of all those sweet, harmless Jewish boys who were never taught to defend themselves like the Hebrew Hammer, Bugsy Siegal, or Art Show USA.

Michael Kornbluth

Slut In A Straight Jacket

by doitalldadyear, posted in culture, fiction, writing

David Kornbluth just finished sucking on the balls of his college roommate at NYU and felt ultra-gay about it. He looked at the mirror, thinking, “Why did it taste right in my mouth but not right now? Why am I feeling a sense of self-imposed gay shame regret after releasing in my normal 2 seconds flat prior?  I still haven’t lost my virginity, so I don’t know what I’m missing out on otherwise. Did I enjoy slobbering all over the girl in Israel at the Kibbutz who was a solid 7.9 by ultra-hot Israeli girl standards, to the point where her face resembled a wet mop, because I had no form of kissing style or technique to draw from just yet? Yes, but I’m not jerking off to fantasies of clanking teeth with her again and feeling up her non-existent tits either. Instead, I get way more sexually aroused at the thought of grabbing my roommate’s cock that’s tucked away neatly in his jeans under his tighty whities, before I suck on his salty, tasty balls again. After I’m done licking my lips at the thought of playing footsie with him again, naked, in his parent’s bathtub, next time they leave the city for an early Hamptons retreat. I used to blow off homework to watch the Cherry Pie girl video for months at a time, how did I ever come to this?”

Now, David Kornbluth, a 19-year-old freshman auditions for America’s Top Shocker at the college radio station, who grew up listening to Howard Stern before he came out as weird, weak Howard, who failed to give his longtime fans sustained stiffage of any kind. For his audition, David Kornbluth recruited a Jewish sex therapist who used to work as a Transvestite Worker to pay for her PHD in Psychology from Columbia prior. David Kornbluth propositioned her after hearing her give a guest lecture in his freshman psychology class called, “My Favorite Sexual Deviants”, that framed famed homosexual artists such as William Boroughs, DH Lawrence, Oscar Wilde and Mario Cantone as brave souls who lived out their fantasies despite so called claims of them suffering from a far-left mental disease. His exact pitch was, “Dr. Ballstein, I have a chronic masturbation problem and bisexual leanings and I’m interested in you hearing your real thoughts on my sexually obsessed leanings while I interview you on our local college radio station at NYU. It’s a mock, audition interview. So, I don’t have the Sex Talk radio host job yet, but with you in my corner, I think it’s a promising start, for good things to come.”

Dr. Ballstein is flattered and impressed by David’s pseudo developing confidence for only a college freshman at NYU and says, “Sounds splendid, I’ll get dressed up extra nice.” David Kornbluth says, “You could also wear a nice pair of white jeans, if you’d like.”

Now, the audition interview is in session with Dr. Ballstein, and David Kornbluth gets this party stared. “So, Dr, Ballstein, are you born with homoerotic urges or are they only activated when someone else pushes you in that direction, like suggesting you jerk each other off to Scandal in the Mansion before the Giants game on Sunday?”

Dr. Ballstein says,” Famed scientist Alfred Kinsey wrote a book called Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and claimed that no one is really 100 percent straight or gay while famed writer Gore Vidal said, there’s no such thing as gay, only “homosexual acts.” Or like Lenny Bruce said, after a man has been holed up in prison for 20 years, “He’d do mud.” 

David Kornbluth says, “Do you think I plastered my teen room walls with pictures of half-naked Hair Metal Gods like Sebastian Bach from Skid Row and the king of cock rock Vince Neil in his tight leather pants, because I longed to be them or in them?” Dr, Ballstein says, “I think it means you’re attracted to a more feminine, pretty faced type.” David Kornbluth doesn’t know what comes over him, never coming close to broadcasting his homosexual desires to anybody, let alone on the radio for the entire NYU campus to hear, regardless of it just being an audition or not and says, “Yeah, but I got a jerk bud at school, and when I’m sucking his balls before the Giants play and in between commercials, I’m not thinking about his highly defined cheek bones or pencil thin lips either.” Dr. Ballstein says, “So you’re a sucker for balls, join the club.” Life sucks without them in your mouth for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I agree. If you’re going to fag out, might as well go all the way. “Which reminds, me, I wore those tight white jeans that you requested. See anything you’d like? I haven’t squeezed into these bad boys in years, they’re literally bursting at the seams, especially around my zipper part.”

It just so happens that David’s freshman roommate overheard this beyond steamy audition interview, which drove him into a crazed rage, to the point where he greeted him back in the dorm room with a kick in the nuts, before smashing his Nintendo Wi console on his head which cracked in 2, yelling, “That’s the last time, I’ll be touching your balls ever again, DICK.” Now, David Kornbluth was sent to a mental hospital in Westchester Country for his shock jock antics after his roommate called his parents to tell them their son is a lying fag who deserves to be locked up in a loony bin to electroshock the lying, scheming fag out of him once and for all. His parents abided in a NY minute.

10 years gone, David Kornbluth is still in the mental hospital, yet his popularity as their own in-house shock jock continues to rise. The electroshock therapy, which David derided as Shock Jock Treatment, only made him gayer about being perceived as a freaky, deranged, wild man fruitcake, especially when laughing at his own jokes on air again like the time he launched his pilot show at the mental hospital and says, “Welcome to Homosexual Talk, I’m the hilarious gay friend you never had, otherwise known as America’s Top Shocker although if my parents acknowledge my existence over dinner with their friends ever I’m Slut In A Straight Jacket, Challah, thank you very much.” 

Michael Kornbluth

Reference Check Girl

by doitalldadyear, posted in business, culture, entertainment

Once upon a time, there was a high-energy, constantly-red-in-the-face, yet easily excitable IT agency recruiter in his early twenties from Long Island, Patrick Dublin, who worked for a small staffing agency above Madison Square Garden called Unicorn Staffers.

            Unicorn Staffers specialized in recruiting and placing Unicorn UX Designers, who also did the nitty-gritty back- and front-end coding. They made billion-dollar apps and various new age tech startups come to life, blessed with visionary founders brilliant enough to avoid sexual harassment charges at work by creating in-office innovations such as designing a panic-free, jerkoff-safe space bathroom.

            So, security never had to escort you from the building, legs first, from the bathroom stall, only to knock your head against the mildew-lined walls one more time before hearing the security guard croon, in his best Tom Petty voice, “You don’t come around here no more.” 

            Since the era of #METO began, Unicorn Staffing had to conduct more rigorous background checks with ex-girlfriends for the Unicorn star studs they represented who couldn’t control their urges to whip it out during a Zoom call, despite the Head of Application Development from South Wales, Australia trying to manage unwanted sexual harassment claims at work in a post-virtual meeting, COVID-controlled universe gone cagy nuts by addressing his team of developers and designers with, “Welcome, all. Now, if everyone is going to feel safe during this Zoom meeting, let’s raise all our hands high, where I can see them.            “Please don’t be such a knee-jerk reactionary cunt about it, you Jefferey Toobin wannabes at the New Yorker; thanks.” 

            Sexual harassment was a dirty secret infesting the tech startup world today, even among the biggest tech company in the world, Google, despite most of the employees being too busy banging out to code to actually hit on girls at work while sporting their yenta noise cancellation headphones, in the first place.

            Plus, your typical software command script at Google (or elsewhere) wasn’t “Massage my carpel tunnel, ho.”

            Now Patrick the IT Recruiter is conducting a background check with a 25-year-old, chesty Digital Marketing manager, Lisa, based on her LinkedIn profile picture. She used to date his star candidate (who was awaiting a verbal offer of 145K for a new permanent Creative Technologist Director position with a cannabis lifestyle startup, Budranker.com, from Oakland, CA, that was looking to expand its online digital magazine division here in NYC. It was targeted towards working, functional pothead millennial mousketeers).

            Patrick takes a deep breath, loosens his tie a tad, and gets ready to call Lisa, the Digital Marketing Manager for Hip Hops, a new multi-level old-school hip-hop gastropub club in the East Village. He wants to talk about the extent of her past relationship with his star candidate, whom he’s very proud of connecting with after LinkedIn banned him from the site for sending too many failed connection requests before he enrolled in a Spam A Lot Less Sales Seminar offered by a former power ballad songwriter-for-hire-turned-Life Career-Coach, Michael Rocker.

            Patrick calls and says, “Hi, Lisa. This is Patrick Dublin. I’m an IT recruiter for Unicorn Staffers, and I’m calling you about Max Diesel, who’s being considered for a top Creative Technologist Director position for a cannabis startup, Budranker.com.

            “Can I ask you a couple of quick questions about your relationship with Max, in the past?”

            Lisa says, “Yeah, we only hooked up once after meeting at the Windows Expo in downtown LA.

            “It was right around the time Microsoft bought LinkedIn. I was working as a bartender hostess at the event before I met the CEO of Sierra Nevada at that same event, before becoming their Digital Marketing Manager, after I started riffing while making some drinks, insisting that Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA blows all other IPAs out of the water.          “Then I crafted their sentimental-laced campaign for the 30-year anniversary of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, calling it “the pale ale that gets stale.”

            “I conceptualized the guerilla marketing campaign for printing a bunch of bar napkins with love poems on them in honor of first loves; my personal favorite being, “I fell in love with you from the start. You’re my favorite valentine etched on my heart. You made love spill out of me like overflowing treasure. The idea of pounding you again gives me non-stop pleasure. You were my first love, when I didn’t know what that meant. All I knew is that we’re heaven-sent. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, You Never Got Over Us, Did You?

            “So, Max starts flirting with me after I snagged the business card for the CEO of Sierra Nevada, and said, “This is my impersonation of merger talk between Dr. Dre and Eminem after Microsoft paid 4.5 billion for LinkedIn: ‘Hey, Slim, Microsoft paid 4.5 billion for LinkedIn. Eminem says, ‘Worrdddddddddd. LinkedIn lamer than ever yoh.’

            “Personally, Max had me at ‘Hey, Slim’, because he dropped his voice low enough to pull off a semi-decent doctor impersonation.

            “Hey, did you know Hitler’s birthday is on 420? Puffing the bong to more Tuff Gong never felt so wrong. I haven’t felt this betrayed since Sly Stallone snuck Mel Gibson into Expendables 3.        “So, to answer your question, I hooked up with Max on the dance floor sky bar in West Hollywood later that night, but then Frans Drescher from The Nanny caught his interest, and I never heard from him again.

            “He left me a business card and said we should stay in touch through LinkedIn, which I’ve never got over, completely, especially knowing how I got interested in hooking up with Max only after he dumped on LinkedIn in the first place.”

            Patrick finally interrupts Lisa, trying to be as diplomatic as possible, afraid of blowing his potential nine-grand commission tip in the making, and says, “Well, Max thought enough of you to list you as reference for ex-girlfriends, to a conduct a background check to assess his sexual harassment factor risk at Budranker.com.

            “Did Max ever touch you on the dance floor too aggressively, at the Sky Bar?”

            Lisa says, “Hell no. I’m the one who shoved his hand up my skirt. I told him my panties were packed in my purse and we could go skinny dipping at this house in the hills that my friend was house-sitting for. It’s next to Roman Polanski’s old house (he’s a serially underrated rapist compared to Cosby, in my book. I still don’t understand how they pulled the Roseanne show off the air, yet have no problem showing ads for Ambien between replays of the Cosby Show, on syndication on Nick at Night).”

            Patrick says, “You’re really funny. Why are you doing wasting your time doing digital content marketing for a living?”

            Lisa says, “I’m too sexy for stand-up, Patrick. Sara Silverman and Chelsea Handler twenty years ago were never in my league of looks.

            “Also, I don’t see myself posting endless naked pics of myself, like Chelsea Handler, with another book in hand to showcase my social justice warrior-reading credo to downplay the world from my tits’ sagging popularity in the process, either.”

            Patrick says, “So, if Budranker.com called you tomorrow to ask you if Max was a sexual assault liability in the making, what would your response be, exactly?”

             Lisa says, “That all depends on you, Patrick. Do you like old school hip-hop like most old school wigger Irish dudes from Long Island?”

            Patrick says, “How do you know I’m from Long Island?”

            Lisa says, “I already looked you up on LinkedIn. You’re cute. Why don’t we wrap this interview up at Hip Hops, later tonight?

            “I crafted the playlist. I’m playing only old school rap, myself. It’s flush with songs by Biggie, Nas, and even Snoop. Who cares if Snoop’s brain hovers a notch below Porn Hood Hell?” 

            “My exact measurements are 36d; my pic on LinkedIn doesn’t give my balling beauties justice.”         Patrick thinks to himself, “I better learn how to code, because that safe space room to get my whack on can’t come soon enough.”

Michael Kornbluth

Fancy Fingers

by doitalldadyear, posted in culture, entertainment, humor

Once upon a time, there was a famous jazz pianist known as Junky The Pianist, who suffered from imposter syndrome. He played with all the biggies of his day in the 1950s and was on the cover of Time Magazine once (one less time than Duke Ellington).

            Jazz critics sucked up off his classical pianist training background; yet Junky The Pianist failed to feel good about his artistic heft after a depressingly dreary vision on extra-strength heroin one night, home alone in his Queens apartment in far Rockaway Beach.

            (This would’ve forced Miles Davis to face the audience, for a change, and stare down the motherfucker who dared to throw his jazz record masterpiece Kind of Blue out the window, too.)

            Junky The Pianist hunches over a pile of his own brown tarred puke, takes off his glasses, and rubs his eyes again, to make sure that what horrific vision he saw (on what was most likely pure, real-deal heroin) was actually true. Yes, it was.

            In this vision while on mind-melding H, a so-called Stay At Home Comedian Podcast Host in 2021 was filming a video on a strange mini-tablet device, of his son tossing Junky The Pianist’s prized jazz album, Heroin Hell, out the window into the frigid February snow with absolute relished glee to be finally rid of such horrible trash, forever. On the video, Junky The Pianist recoils from repeat visions of the kid throwing his “horrible” jazz record out the window, hoping it would break on a tree, after the little one admitted to liking jazz, prior, which made him more putrid sick in his stomach than ever before.

            Now Junky The Pianist wallows in the lowest form of self-pity, looks up to his leaky, decrepit, light flickering ceiling, and asks God, in the most dejected, harrowing way, “How can you like some jazz, but not my jazz piano masterpiece?”

             The Junky Pianist drones on, adding, “Who cares if I’m a white boy in glasses who looks like he should be a furniture salesman from Fort Lee, New Jersey?  

            “And how dare this so-called Stay At Home Comedian proclaim, “Best 20 bucks I ever spent” after his carefree son flings my jazz masterpiece into the yard as if it was another frenetic Herbie Hancock hand job record, knowing that the jazz critic at the Village Voice called my jazz piano masterpiece “heroin hell” and “melancholy magic.”  

            Junky The Pianist hears a loud thump on the door. Landlord screams, “Rent is due, Junky. How can you be on the cover of Time Magazine but not afford your rent in a rent-controlled apartment, motherfucker? I’ve seen those fancy cats you roll with, like Miles Davis. Well, guess what: you’re not Miles Davis. So, you’re in no position to turn your back on me, motherfucker.         “Look, Frank Sinatra is doing ok, singing songs from the great American jazz songbook. So, instead of composing more piano jerk music for jazz critics who still live with their mothers, why don’t you compose some fruitcake songs you can sell to Broadway, like Cole Porter or those those fancy schmancy Gershwin brothers, for a change? At least they dress nice and look the part. You look like a junkie furniture salesman from Fort Lee, Jersey. But, hey, you wear glasses and play at all the hip jazz joints downtown, so I’m positive you’ve got some brains cells left, to use more wisely.”

            Junky The Pianist pukes out a lung, this time. Landlord leans his ear closer to the door, this time, and bemoans, “Fight or flight, Junky: what will your destiny be? I get it. You’re most likely a closeted homo. I’ve heard you cry yourself to sleep singing ‘The Man I Love’ whenever Ella Fitzgerald is on the radio again.  

            “So you can’t hold hands with your imaginary lover throughout McDougal Street after a show at the Village Vanguard—whoopty freaking do. I’m positive you can get plenty of privacy at the Plaza with Cole Porter, or get some sin-on-sin loving behind any old dumpster behind any old Broadway theatre dressing room, too.  

            “Innovate or die a broke, boring junkie, fancy fingers. I don’t know why I waste my breath.”  

            Junky The Pianist musters the strength to crawl over to his piano, with no other furniture around, collapses on the dusty hardwood floor, and dies of a heart attack to avoid heroin hell one second longer, on the spot.

            His landlord paid for his casket and the remainder of his funeral expenses. Months later, Miles Davis visits his gravesite in Rockaway Queens, alone, and places a rock on his Jewish tombstone, and says, “Jazz rock is the new groove now, Junky. Sorry for turning my back on you when that junk started to ruin your fancy fingers at an accelerated rate, to where you couldn’t tell if you were playing meditative jazz or elevator music. on really slow acid, that takes forever to kick in.     “Regardless, your sound helped mold my best-selling masterpiece, Kind Of Blue. Having Train on the record with me, in charge as the bandleader to rein in his self-indulgent stroke sessions, didn’t hurt the overall marketability of the record, and made it more palatable for uptight white boy devil lawyers at Columbia Records to digest, too.

            “You played in a gorgeous, hair-tingly way on my birthday during a jam session on Milestones, which I’ll never forget. Sorry about cutting out your work, on that track. I couldn’t have a furniture salesmen from Fort Lee, New Jersey outshine me on my own shit, Junky.”

            Miles reaches into his camel skin coat pocket to grab Junky’s abnormally thick black glasses, places them on his tombstone, and says, “I got these from your landlord after I learned you’d passed. I can’t believe I was listed as your only emergency contact when I was still on the junk, too.

            “Your landlord told me to “innovate or die.” Then I recorded Sketches Of Spain during my drying out period, which represented my new lease on life, Junky. And I’ll always have your junky ass to thank. But boy, could you play. And I am fucking jazz.

            “And Miles knows best—even your homo ass all the way down in heroin hell can see that.”   

Michael Kornbluth

The Headless Headhunter

by doitalldadyear, posted in culture, entertainment, fantasy

Once upon a time, there was a journeyman headhunter, Zevon Zappa Kornbluth, who wasn’t much of a rainmaker. He was more of a trickler. He placed copywriters with major ad agencies along Madison Avenue with middling success, only for Don Draper to qualify these candidates even further if they got the past the initial phone screen with zero bullshit, cold-as-ice gentile inquiries such as, “Tell me, again, why you haven’t been fired more than a Palestinian Sling Shot, because your portfolio shows less promise than Jimmy Carter’s solar panel-powered weed plant in the White House’s new greenhouse garden.”

            It was 1976. Boston broke big with ‘More Than A Feeling’, and Peter Frampton jammed with Jimi Hendrix’s trippy, metal-type finesse on Frampton Comes Alive in your daughter, again, (assuming she looks like a less-big-backed Brooke Shields, with eyebrows that don’t take up her entire face, either).  

            Zevon was married only a year, yet his relationship with Mellissa wasn’t filling him with ‘She’s The One’ crooning vibes anymore, especially since blowing her hubby became a once in a lifetime event, like Haley’s Comet or Joe Namath seeking a shrink for depression, or Reggie Jackson sweating the dry-cleaning bill for his mink coat (assuming that George Steinbrenner refused to pay for it out of sheer winning, dependent spite alone).

            Every day, Michael would cold call creative directors in Manhattan to get them interested in copywriters who grew tired of working as freelance writers for Esquire because Norman Mailer had a monopoly on all the good Ali articles—or they grew tired of more short story rejection letters from the New Yorker, who sucked off John Updike’s short stories because he made their editors come across as less boring and annoying than usual. (If only Gore Vidal’s personality and erudite edge could’ve rubbed off on John Updike through sheer osmosis).

            But, one day, Zevon was running late for work after one too many bourbons at a strip club in Times Square called Honeysuckle Divines. He lit a cigarette on the subway path, totally oblivious to his surroundings, and before he knew it, a Metro cop smacked the cigarette out of his mouth with such force, he accidentally knocked him over and down to the subway track before the Lex line knocked his head right off from his perpetually tense, growl-heavy internalized neck.

            The problem is, The Headless Headhunter was really looking forward to his best friend Ari’s bachelor party at Honeysuckle Divine’s in Times Square the following night, which is why he was there in the first place, to scout some local stripper talent he could recruit to talk his best friend out of marrying his finance, knowing he could do better and was settling for the meh new thing.  

            More importantly, The Headless Headhunter knew what a sigh-heavy, living hell his life had descended into once he allowed his parents to push life-ruining decisions on his behalf, such as who to marry, what job to take, and when to make up with his younger brother again, thereby losing all enviable sense of righteous, self-assured, pissed-off rage (whenever he felt duly entitled to feel that way without any guilt-imbibed, parental interference to make him second guess his innermost guttural instincts again and again.

            For example, Zevon was a struggling recruiter who normally didn’t hit his monthly quota and was always coming from behind, so he didn’t have enough money to buy his future wife an engagement ring, and only got one after his mom pressured him to do so, assuring her he could pay her back after the wedding. This felt more forced for him than the time he’d tried taking it up the ass with a strap-on from his girlfriend (later, wife), only for him to question whether something extra was missing from this relationship, if this added stimulation was necessary for him to get excited about going through the motion of pulverizing her slippery snatch on her birthday again.

            Now the bachelor party is in motion, yet Ari isn’t in the most festive mood, since his best friend Zevon (now known as The Headless Headhunter) was just decapitated by New York’s closest version of a bullet train. The Headless Headhunter is in the bathroom but doesn’t know how he ended up there; and in front of the mirror, he realizes he has no head as he overhears some dudes in the nearby bathroom stall talk about seeing Kiss at MSG as ‘King Of Nighttime World’ blares in the background.

            One of the Kiss fans in the bathroom stall whips out some coke and says, “Dude, you got to take off your Gene mask if you want to do some of this blow.” The guy with the Gene mask on flings it over the bathroom stall, landing it smack in the middle of the sink, which The Headless Headhunter grabs with zero hesitation and throws over his headless head to see if sticks (and it does).  

            The Headless Headhunter bolts from the bathroom and bumps into a stripper with tits which are so humungous, they almost knock him on his ass from their sheer force of jiggly might alone.    Stripper says, “Watch where you’re going, Gene. I thought you had a show at MSG tonight. Is it true, what they say about your tongue?”

            The Headless Headhunter decides to play along in his Gene Simmons character and says, “Yes, I can tongue my own balls if I were into that sort of thing, but I’m only into licking up Playmates and groupies who I can bang standing up, with my chosen people blessed, circumcised love gun.

            “To blast with gunky-filled fun all night and every day, too, is pushing it.”

            Stripper says, “I’m only working tonight, for a bachelor party. It’s normally my night off. I had to scalp my tickets to see your band at the Garden tonight, Gene. Can I call you Gene?”

            The Headless Headhunter says, “Let’s stick to Love Gun Master, for now. But do me a favor—give the bachelor Ari more than a lap dance. Give him every reason why getting married to his fiancé is the worst idea than Neil Young starting shit with Lynyrd Skynyrd.

            “She wants him to abandon his dreams of becoming the Jewish Bob Newhart, and he’s blessed with the funny Jew bone, too. Also, she’s already moaning about having to constantly walk on eggshells around him, acting as if she’s the helpless Olympic athlete during the Iran hostage crisis.

            “His finance is a gentile, too, so there’s no way she’s going be Kosher with raising their kids Jewish, either (which he’ll bang out by mistake because he got stoned again to Lenny Bruce records, forgetting to ask her if she were on the pill).

            “Plus, I met his future English mother-in-law, and she’s less original than a Kiss cover band with a Gene Simmons character, who Crazy Glued on a prosthetic tongue because he thought it was a bright idea. He was on too much acid, one night, despite me never doing any drugs, ever.

            “Last, his fiancé has zero tits, which offers Ari zero sustained stiffage one year into the relationship, already. I just hate the idea of Ari losing his edge to become another ordinary sales rep selling pharmaceuticals for a living because his future CFO father-in-law can make a phone call at Johnson and Johnson on his behalf.”

            The stripper says, “I’ll ride his joystick off for you, no problem, Love Gun Master. By the time I’m done with this fiancé, he’ll be drained dry ’till Yom Kippur.”

             The Headless Headhunter says, “That’s funny. Only through you can I finally call myself a rainmaker.”

Michael Kornbluth

Regaining That Cuddling Feeling

by doitalldadyear, posted in culture, fiction, happiness

Before Daddy says his final goodnight, his magical pitch-perfect daughter says, “Daddy, what do you do after you put me to bed and tell me what to dream about?”

            Do It Dad gets a tad huffy, cagy in response to his daughter’s innocuous inquiry, and snaps back with, “I squeeze in some me time, alright.”            The reality is, Do It All Dad loved tucking in his firstborn in his old office, which his daughter took over after her baby brother Samuel was born— way more so than hearing his younger brother bemoan, over the phone, how their Dad is no longer into him as much because the old man was burnt out upon hearing about his youngest’s non-stop pity party, knowing he had a cushy restaurant manager job in the city now and was happily married, allegedly when other family-run generational restaurants had become obliterated forever in a post-COVID constrictive universe gone wild.

            At the same, tact was never Do It All Dad’s younger brother’s forte. For example, after his second child was born, Art Show USA, his younger brother, calls Do It All Dad and says, “Hey, bro, congrats. Figured I’d call you while taking a piss.”             Do It All Dad, always quick with a snappy one-liner, replies, “So glad you could squeeze the call in between doing more bumps of coke into your late thirties, only hearing the last call from the bathroom stall.”  

            Now, Do It All Dad wasn’t a drug-free monk. Even after becoming a father of three, he took a daily hit of pot downstairs in the garage at night, which was a reward for posting another short story on his blog or from performing a new chapter piece from his upcoming book The Koshterarian Comedians on his Do It All Dad Year Podcast, which he would listen to after a puff of his cherished green. He knew it made his material come more alive, in addition to chilling him out after another day of banging out more sheets of comedy gold in his relentless pursuit to become the star voice behind the remote work revolution and earn some book advance money sometime this millennium, so he could continue to grow closer to his kids and God on the Stay At Home Comedian front, yeah, yeah, yeah.

            Still, Do It All Dad knew that cocaine was the most overrated, soul-sucking drug of all time, which played the main role in getting his father addicted to Ambien, knowing how much his younger brother’s ongoing cocaine incidents, including getting arrested, stealing money from their ATM account, being shipped off to boarding school for it, going to rehab, and fucking up every new golden restaurant manager opportunity played no role in Pops becoming the deepest sleeper in the world anymore, either.

            Do It All Dad had always resisted telling his parents about his younger brother’s drug woes. However, whenever he did alert them to his younger brother falling into a dark hole of a druggy abyss with no flicker of light in sight again, little bro would resent his big brother’s intervention. This was despite him knowing that only their father could put the fear of God into his little brother during another predictably dark dive into pity party played-out land, again.  

            Do It All Dad also knew what a manipulative, lying cunt his younger brother could be as a result of being a cokehead for more than two decades in a row and counting. So he was more sensitive than most about the residual damage early teen drug use can cause in families, which never ceases to tear the trusting, binding fabric between family members with relentless precision at the seams.

            So when Do It All Dad’s nurse wife started pushing melatonin gummies on his precious Bashert daughter, he got tense immediately because he didn’t want his daughter to develop an addiction to any drug or sleep-inducing vitamin (despite it being all natural—whatever the fuck that meant, because nothing felt natural about a mother drugging her daughter to sleep).

            Knowing of his dear Matilda’s effortless, warm, sparkly glow made Do It All Dad feel most alive in her presence, come rain or shine. She wasn’t some deadweight conversationalist snooze who was better off forced to bed prematurely before she bored everyone else to fucking death in the family, in the process.

            Now Do It All Dad was applying for freelance writing jobs to keep his marriage together, because the endless sheets of comedy gold banged out for the wild enjoyment of his Do It All Dad Year audience wasn’t paying off the mortgage any time soon, either.  

            Today, he even applied for a Sleep Niche Marketing Copywriter position which sells sleep masks, and fired off an email to his potential hiring benefactor that read like this: “I’m a great fit for this role because I have vested interest in promoting any sleeping aid which helps my daughter go to sleep without it feeling like the Neverending Bedtime Hour.

            “Plus, I hate my wife pushing melatonin gummies on my daughter because it’s a gateway drug for Ambien, and I don’t need my daughter to sleepwalk into my room at night, only to ask me again, “What should I dream about, Daddy?”

            ” I can only say: ‘Dream about dunking over your younger brother while farting in his face so many times, before the idea loses its forceful funk forever. 

            “Lastly, I’m a creative, funny writer who loves to sell. Like the late great Joan Rivers used to say, ‘Can we talk?'”

            Matilda, Do It All Dad’s daughter, didn’t enjoy Mommy pushing melatonin gummies on her or her younger brothers, either, knowing that she didn’t see her mama nearly as much at night, compared to Daddy. Plus, nothing screams ‘leave me alone already’ than the automatic pushing of melatonin gummies at hard seven, every night.

            Little did mama know that Matilda, similar to lipsyncing grace in her parent’s house, was also pretending to swallow the gummy before spitting it out in the trash soon after. Matilda has been doing this routine for almost a whole year now, so her tolerance for melatonin gummies was at an all-time low. This got freaky for her fast, one night, when she forget to spit it out because it was a new brand of melatonin gummy dipped in eucalyptus oil from the faraway hinterlands of the Aussie outback, which had been taken over by Chinese big pharma companies looking to expand past the market for muscle-soothing Tiger Bomb, which is the Aussie football team’s cooldown lotion of choice.

            Mama got a good deal on these gummies on Prime Thursday, and couldn’t resist. For some reason, these melatonin gummies were real creepers and didn’t kick in until far later, after Dada tucked in her two younger brothers to sleep.

            Mama was downstairs watching the Great British Bakeoff while Dada read to his daughter from their Weird But True book about a ghost tale from upstate New York. This triggered a pleasant stroll down memory lane when Dada said to his daughter, who was resting her head on his chest, “You were conceived in upstate New York—outside of Cooperstown, NY, in a cornfield, to be exact.

            “It was the 4th of July weekend, and Mama and I were there to see a Further show (which was the new version of the Grateful Dead). The show was only twelve miles away from the Baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, which is why I’ve always called you an American-made beauty from the start.”

            Daddy gets inspired and asks Alexa to play ‘American Girl’ by Tom Petty. Then, Matilda runs into her room to grab her favorite new American Girl doll, Layla.

            Once Matilda re-enters the room, American Girl’s eyes looked more tweaked than usual and she says, “Daddy, do Layla’s eyes look bigger than normal?”

            Dear Dada says, “Nothing out the ordinary. Layla still freaks me out whenever I catch her in the bathroom watching me take a piss. I’m just playing—I’ve never had Layla check me out in the bathroom, but you know what I mean.

            American Girl Dolls can be creepy realistic, making Chucky look like a harmless Cabbage Patch Doll, in comparison. Then, again, I was raised on Garbage Patch Kids trading cards, so you’d think I can handle an American Doll batting her eyelashes at me with such pronounced real-deal feeling.

            “Also, it’s hard to feel like your own man when you’re Stay At Home Dad, Matilda, which is another reason I want you to stay clear of all gateway drugs while your brain is developing, especially in high school. I don’t want you taking any pills besides aspirin; got it?

            Now Mama receives a notification every time I make another questionable purchase, before Mama texts me, “Hey, babe, so how was Bride of Chucky?”

            Matilda says, “I have a confession to make, Daddy. I took one of Mama’s new melatonin gummies by mistake tonight (meaning, I forgot to spit it out later than usual), and I think I’m hallucinating since feeding my head with melatonin (which my body produces naturally, from concealed darkness, last I checked on Google).”      Do It All Dad says, “Let’s put a sleeping mask on Layla so her eyes flickering eyes don’t freak us out as much.”  

            Matilda says, “Why don’t we just close all the curtains and snuggle? But no guided mediation music, please.”

            Daddy says, “I hear you Matilda. Trying to sleep off the acid to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony in my freshman year college was the worst idea of my life. At least we don’t have any distracting, flickering black light constellations to contend with, in here.

            “Just know that you’ll always be the light of my life, and if there’s one person on this earth who doesn’t require any form of chemical-induced enhancement to make your magical way of being any more spectacular than you already are, it’s you. You’ll always have me and God in your heart, no matter what.”

            Matilda says, “Daddy, what should I dream about?”

            Do It All Dad says, “Castles made of melatonin gummies. Before Daddy eats them all to cure his loud man’s disease, so Mama doesn’t get freaked out as much from me blaring too many ‘holla for challah’ chants during my next Do It All Dad Year Podcast, whenever she is home.”          Matilda says, “I love the loud you, Daddy. So why don’t we make the castle out of diet cokes and some hidden Adderall pills, instead—not that you need it. I don’t care that you’re naturally louder than Busta Rhymes at a midnight showing of Higher Learning.”

Michael Kornbluth

The Mozzarella Man

by doitalldadyear, posted in books, culture, writing

Pizza isn’t everybody’s favorite food, because the universe loves melted gouda. Nobody today is waiting online to inhale entire pizza pies drenched in smoked cheeses like gouda unless you’re a hardcore Dutch dude from Amsterdam in lower Manhattan on holiday because working Europeans get five weeks of a paid vacation and have nothing better to do than try the new gastropub in town, Crackers and Brews, which offers state-of-the-art mini pizzas on in-housemade crackers, to leave more room inside for the perpetual IPA poundage soon after.

            Mozzarella will always be the most popular cheese in New York, because you’re not melting sharp Vermont cheddar cheese on a Veal Parm hero in NOHO, either. Mozzarella is the king of NY cool dominance. It’s like Laurence Fishburne and Westley Snipes in New Jack, all wrapped up into one.

            “Am I being too talky again, boss?”

            Boss says, “There’s no practicing schtick in the dressed-up mozzarella-hawking game off St. Mark’s Place, especially knowing you can practice your routine at a plethora of open mikes throughout the East Village and Brooklyn, and that ANTIFA hasn’t planned to take over, yet.

            “In your own spare, non-billable time, you can continue to make jack shit, spewing semi-coherent streams of thought that never amount to as much hilarity on mountaintops as you might think.”    Talking Mozzarella Stick says, “Alright, boss, I’ll stick to the script and only ask girls who pass me by, ‘Have you ever been sticked by Big Buster before? Because, you know, I have, but his name was Dave from Long Island, not Big Buster.

            “This reminds me of a fat white rapper who had no role models to emulate, really. Beastie Boys always rocked, skinny jeans dragging off their ankles and shit. Vanilla Ice always opted for the flaptastic, fly guy silk sweats. Anthrax was the backup thrash metal band for Public Enemy on Bring The Noise, and their scrappy and skinny, yet muscular, metal white boys from Queens, the former breeding ground for Dee Sider from Twisted Sister, Nasty Nas, Black Sheep, and Third Bass.

            “I know the list is a greatest hits one that keeps you guessing who’s even bigger on the list, next.

            “Art Garfunkel, the angelic-sounding Jew, and Paul Simon both hail from Queens, which stings the Republican gentile who’s jealous of creatively successful Jews and who didn’t take the Bernie Madoff route. I totally get it.

            “But, to round out the list of all-time great artists from Queens, you also have to include the consistently funny and transcendent Cyndy Lauper while also giving a loving, gushing shoutout in honor of showrunner and comedic writer, ball-busting great Doug Ellen behind Entourage. He made the legendary show on HBO infinitely cooler than Wahlberg’s producer name credits it, on it.     “Doug Ellen is the funnier, cooler version of John Favreau until he started to produce, direct, and write every episode, it seems, for the first season of Mandalorian, asshole.

            “Look, I think John Favreau deserves a shot to reimagine Boba Fett’s backstory for Disney just for teaming up with Vince again on Made, alone. Even more than Richard Linklater, for making Dazed and Confused the pitch-perfect film to come out my senior year in high school among my old school pinko brethren buds of old.

            “But still, asshole, if you’re creatively competitive at all, you know that John Favreau directed Elf, all the Iron Mans, and wasn’t too shabby in Rudy or PCU, either.”

            The big boss in charge of founding and running Mozzarella Man says to his mouthy, unknown, unrepresented wannabe standup comedy star, “If you love John Favreau so much, then write your screenplay about being Vince Vaughn’s non-successful twin brother, because you look like him in a pre-good-living, insomniac fashion; and leave me out of it, already.” 

Michael Kornbluth

Tofu The Terrible

by doitalldadyear, posted in cooking, culture, fiction

Matilda Singing Rose Kornbluth was in no singing mood today. Every day, she’d wake up singing, ‘Good Day Sunshine’ by the Beatles even if she had gotten up at the crack of dawn again, or decided to work in Norway away from her mom and dad throughout an entire darkened five-month winter as a 9-year ski model for Northface; knowing that in a post-Corona universe, she was used to doing remote learning away from school, anyway.

            But this drab Thanksgiving morning was different, because she had to act thankful for eating Tofurky Roast again (despite the spirit of Tofu The Terrible terrorizing her dreams since she’d described soy dogs, in her school lunch cafeteria blog, as “Rubber dog link nosh toys.”

            But how could Matilda Singing Rose Kornbluth act grateful for eating a Tofurky Roast since her fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Right, made it clear how the Native American indians weren’t responsible for teaching the Pilgrims how to turn soy milk into white blocks of semi-firm bricks of soy, with higher levels of estrogen to feminize John Smith’s sturdy stock of sailors.

            Also, Thanksgiving this year, post-Corona, wasn’t feeling particularly festive, knowing that Matilda was suffering from PTSD from wearing all of those Corona masks to death. Matilda was now having nightmares of being terrorized by the masked man Tofu The Terrible, who ruined every favorite meal she’d dreamed of.

            For example, if Matilda had just won the gold medal in the Hardcore X Games for Equestrian Riders within the Under 10 Years age bracket, having to complete jumps through rings of fire with an occasional baby dragon on her tail, she’d normally celebrate with her best friend Shannon (in her dreams) over their favorite treat of jellybeans at a sleepover party, soon after.

            But now, all that appeared in her dreams were pasty, slimy soybeans in the place of jellybeans, because Tofu The Terrible was punishing her for calling soy dogs, on her cafeteria food blog, “Not good enough to pass for rubber dog toys.” And Matilda hated pet dogs because they ate dog food with minced horsemeat inside.

            Matilda had always been a hardcore vegetarian loyalist, yet she’d greatly offended the spirt of Tofu The Terrible, a ferocious Chinese vegetarian warrior from the Ming Dynasty who even got Genghis Khan into Mapo Tofu over jasmine rice, a fiery dish loaded with super-scary Sichuan spice.

            The smell from the ground-up Sichuan peppercorns would make most grown men cry, making their lips tremble in fear at the prospect of having to try one more bite, knowing that Genghis Khan would be hoarding all the Sake rice wine for any temporary relief for themselves, soon afterwards.

            Matilda was convinced that she’d never enjoy the food she loved in real life again (such as her Dad’s fried Icelandic cod in a barbeque aioli) without tasting anything but mushy dog drool, instead.  

            Now it was time for everyone at the table to give thanks for Thanksgiving. Matilda had been dreading this from the start. She was consumed with nightmarish visions of Tofu The Terrible ruining all her favorite foods in her dreams and in real life, such as her Dad’s star side dish creation, Caramelized Cauliflower Potato Gratin, combining cave-aged gruyere and raclette cheese from the Swiss Alps, which injected the dish with an extra scrumptious, creamy, fresh finish.

            Matilda’s dad, a Stay-At-Home Comedian Author, podcast host, and self-taught semi-gourmand chef, can tell that his daughter was dreading her turn to participate, and says, “Matilda, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is Tofu The Terrible ruining the taste of your jellybeans again?” Matilda perks up, shaken out of her petrified, frozen comatose state, and says, “How did you know about Tofu The Terrible, Daddy?”

             Matilda’s dad says, “I helped you launch your own lunch cafeteria blog on WordPress, remember? Your last piece, Tofu Brownie Blues, was about how Tofu The Terrible threatened to shred everyone’s masks at school, unless the Brownie Girls started selling his special batch of Tofu Brownies at the next school book fair, instead.”

            Matilda says, “Do we have to eat the Tofurky Roast this year?”

            Dad says, “No, try this veggie Barbeque Pita, instead.” Matilda takes a reluctant bite, but is moved by her Dad’s gesture of goodwill. She says, “Yummy, Daddy.”

             Her dad says, “I fried up cubes of semi-firm soy inside that bad boy. The sautéed onions and peppers keep the memories of mushy dog toy food at bay.”

             Tofu The Terrible was dead, in Matilda’s head, and she started singing again while giving thanks and praises at Thanksgiving, singing, “Soy Dogs still suck, Tofu The Terrible too; but you’re no longer so bad, since my Daddy came to my rescue.”

Michael Kornbluth