Thursday, September 22, 2016

Can You Cut It As a Curmudgeon

If you have "The Portable Curmudgeon" on your nightstand for quick reference, you may be able to make the cut.  I've kept one in more or less easy reach for at least twenty years and there's some dayum funny stuff in there ... well, you may think so if you're a curmudgeon.

Something, possibly marriage, cured me of reading books in the terlet but this one is a great choice because you can open it anywhere and read something twisted every time.  Whether that will assist your business in the terlet is anyone's guess but at least there will be something to read.



Sample from TPC:

"No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds it was human nature."

- A.A. Milne

That was the same author who wrote Winnie the Pooh.  How can it be Winnie the Pooh ever thinks of Jack the Ripper but that's bear nature, I guess.  After finding the honey it's time to stab some hookers.


If you can stand the presence of another human in your company for more than two consecutive minutes, we know two things: you're definitely not George Carlin but you might be a curmudgeon.

Carlin said, "It may surprise you to know ... I like people."

It may also surprise you to know I also like people ... I just have a problem with dumb asses and don't even think about telling me you don't:  oh, sure ... dumb asses are great.  I could talk with them about Donald Trump all day long.

Oh, so that means you must support Hillary Clinton, right?

No and I don't support binary thinking either.  Get the fuck out of here, dumb ass.


Calling someone a 'dumb ass' often isn't enough and that's the situation for falling back to the TPC reference.

"I did not attend his funeral but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved it." - Mark Twain

We don't have any particular use for George Clooney ... but neither does anyone else because he has reached that remarkable state of celebrity in which is name is worth more than his services.


Insulting has become so banal of late and 'motherfucker' has great immediacy and directness but there's no variability so it has no legs.  Using it more than once only sounds ridiculous so any protracted bout of insults won't work out so well.  When the surest sign of intelligence is plagiarizing the writings of people smarter than ourselves, it behooves all of us to find suitable references for insults and the TPC permits stealing them from the smartest people in the world.

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