If all the world is a stage, then I know a few people in need of acting lessons.  Not that they are bad actors, only that they try to act out a tragedy when this play we call life is a comedy.  I think that some people need to take dancing lessons too, but this is a philosophy we will discuss at another time, for all the world is a rave and I forgot my xtc.  If you’re not up on your drug lingo, just pretend that this is an allusion to the musical group, for we know not what we seek on the mortal coil of insubordinate maledictions of the ethereal plane and whatnot, not to mention those metaphysical maxim doohickeys and the regressions of past schticks and thingamabobs.  But if there were someone to teach us all about those things for which we care not, there would be no finer tutor than Professor Guido Phineas McNally Graham, Ph.D., D.D.S., O.B.Y., G.Y.N., B.S.A., B.S., P.B. MAX, B.A., U.C.L.A., and last but not least, A.S.S.  Professor Guido says that in order for one to truly enjoy all the treasures life has to offer, one must be on the same level; that is to say six feet under ground.  Not that life isn’t worth living, but can anyone say that they wouldn’t rather be dead than to hear about Roseanne Arnold’s sex life?  Perhaps that statement is a little out of line, for someone in this very room that thinks Roseanne is a sexy hunka hunka burnin’ love-bacon.  So much more is the sorrow of our society.  Where is the justice of it all?  It leaves me rather lethargic.  I enjoy lethargy and several other viruses that have found a home in my body.  You might say that my body is a temple.  Or you might say that my body is a half-way house.  Either way, the tenants are happy.  I don’t charge much rent, nor do I complain about large parties.  I’ve only upset them once, and that was by taking Penicillin.  I had to.  I had a toothache.  Speaking of half-way houses, I want to work in a half-way house for girls that have a problem going all the way.  I guess I’m just a caring type of person.  I just like to help people.  I am a people person.  In fact, sometimes I am so many different people they put me on Thorazine.  N.B.C. wants to buy the rights for a movie of the week.  They say it might be as big, if not bigger, than the Amy Fisher story.  Who in the hell is that?  Thorazine, oh dear, sweet Thorazine, I know thee well for are you not here for me in my hour of need?  Are you not the one who makes my heart glad to beat as if for one and not the multitudes of my personalities?  Are you not the one who makes the voices in my head fade, ever so slowly, until there is nothing left of them but a quiet screech?  Screeching like an English teacher’s nails on the blackboard of Hell that is my life.  And that is why I stand here with my fistful of bloody words, my deeds undone and therefore unpunished, for one cannot punish for a thought of a deed sinister, now can they?  And if there are any among you who would wish to visit punishment upon me, what are you doing later tonight?  Pardon me if I decompose before you, but you wouldn’t want me to die first, would you?  Whoa, where did that come from?  The farthest reaches of my Thorazine and Penicillin and Prozac and Advil ridden mind could not have conceived such a notion unless…why unless some other narcotic had been introduced into my system.  Oh yeah, there was that half gallon of Methylethylmonosodiumiodidebromatedpolygalvanizedoxyacetylenediribonucleic sewer water.  You know, it’s got that alluring aroma of propane and pheasant guts.  Wow, what a punch.  It can even make Shasta taste good.  Two, tiny, yellow, psychotic.  I suppose that now you are thinking that I am condoning the use of drugs.  Yeah right.  Like you guys need me to condone your bad habits, like you guys show up here just to hear one non-sensical guru of illogic, like the only reason you guys come to this fine coffee establishment unequaled by any other art-fag wanna be type of place is to hear me rant and rave.  I am not hacking on people, it’s just that the arrogance of bohemiamism is a stifling thing.  I walk in there in my bright red bell-bottoms with the gold lightening bolts shooting in their glittering way across the butt (both pockets, not just one).  I am not a poser of the somewhat fashion elite, with my gold chains (I lost count how many I am wearing, but they weigh in at around 34 pounds), my paisley polyester rayon blend shirt with the words emblazoned on the back of it “Elvis is King” (that is the message I bear), but it is the fake mother-of-pearl snaps that are the real eye-catcher.  The six-inch elevator shoes that I’m wearing (not because I’m short, mind you.  After all I stand at a gigantic 5’2 3/8” and weigh just under a petite three hundred and twenty pounds) have actual goldfish in their soles.  The alternative people don’t accept me.  They stand and stare like I am some kind of circus geek, and it isn’t because of the freshly bitten off chicken head I have grasped lightly between my lips, either.  Ah, but then there’s Joe’s.  Brave patrons beware, one never knows what is in that iced cappuccino, or the lattes or that there coffee pot, and how hard do you have to squeeze an Italian before he actually spews soda?  These questions and more we should ask ourselves, for there are many wonders beneath the stars and above the farthest reaches of Hell, and a free triple mocha for the writers of this here drivel would be one of the aforementioned wonders.  Before I continue, I think Joe deserves a nice big round of applause.  The windows may not be fogged, and Gretchen might still be here all the way from Delaware, but Joe is the driving force, the chariot master, the glue which holds the raveled and frayed ends of our mad mad existence together.  Well, enough of that crap.  On to serious business.
 And now for something completely different.
 It’s time for Blinky’s Fun Farm!  “
Hey boys and girls, it’s story time at Blinky’s Fun Farm!  Who’s going to be the lucky child to sit on Blinky’s lap and dig for gold pocket watches?  Oh, deeper into that left pocket Johnny boy, deeper!  Oh, that’s it, yeah, that’s it.  We’re going to cut to commercial now while I get cleaned up…err…that is, while we get ready to read letters from parents.  See you soon!”  Well, at least Pee Wee Herman only played with himself.
And on today’s show, Where Are They Now takes a look at Gary Hart and Geraldine Ferrarro.  Last seen together publicly during the 1994 presidential election, and having failed there miserably, they have gone their separate ways.  Ferrarro has lately been working very hard on getting her Master’s Degree in Astrophysics at the Berkley Institute for Well-Endowed Boys and paving the way for the new organization Women in Government, Women in Space (WIGWIS).  She has also been credited with rescuing 237 people from a brush fire in New Guinea, but she was not available for comment.  It took some time to track down the other subject of today’s show, Gary Hart, but the hard working crew here at Where Are They Now finally caught up with him at a national business franchise, one concerned with making the world unified through Capitalism.   He has several large plans in the works, but could not describe them.  When asked for a comment, he was quoted as saying, “Would you like fries with that?”
A line, a line, my Kingdom for a line!  I wish I had something to say.  Something poignant and yet quite profound.  A few words that will leave you spellbound in their omniscience.  Something like OOH EE OOH AH AH, TING TANG WALLA WALLA BING BANG.  There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you all, by the way.  Thank you for listening to this.  Anyone that can sit politely through the trash spewing off this paper much like a certain oil tanker that had it’s little accident not only should consider themselves in need of severe psychiatric help, but are just flat-out weird in the bargain.  Which comes down to this.  A complete stranger came up to me one night after one of these little sessions of Psychobabbling and asked, and I quote, “Why do you do it?  How can you have the balls to get up in front of people and make a total idiot out of yourself and drag the name of your friend and honorable co-writer through the mud, not to mention poor Joe and the business that he might lose because there are some people that don’t think that your particular brand of humor is funny?”  I replied, as politely as I could, “Get off my back, mom.”  All the world is a stage, and yes, I can play the court jester very well, thank you very much.
Why are Oranges?  Why are Grapes?
 Why are Ferns and why are Apes?
 Why are Lemons and why are Limes?
Why are Pennies and why are Dimes?
Why do people need to know
Where hows and whys and maybes go?
There are some things that man was not meant to know.  This is one truth that I have discovered after all my endless questionings of the stars and the moon and a baboon’s ass, as well.  I think the baboon’s ass put it best when it answered (Bronx Cheer).  Welcome to the Monkey House.  Welcome to my nightmare.  Welcome to where time stands still.  Welcome to Burger King, may I take your order?  Where a kid can be a kid, until he grows up and must spend the rest of his adult life acting immature like as if he were some sort of…oh I don’t know…a Psychobabbler?  Where is the fine line between maturity and infantilism?  I can’t really see it without my glasses, it’s pretty blurry.  Or is it my own denial that there can be such a thing as immaturity that blurs that line within my own head?  Or was it those damned cheese sticks I had for dinner giving me heartburn again?  Who shall ever know, for there are some things man was never meant to comprehend.  God damn, that’s a cop-out if I’ve ever heard one.  Like processed cheese through the nozzle of an aerosol can, these are the days of our lives.  I like Cheez Wiz, but what wine goes with Cheez Wiz?  Probably any wine that is cheaper than unleaded gasoline.  Cheez Wiz has many unsung uses besides the obvious use as a gourmet food.  It can be used as a sealant.  A friend of mine once sealed all the gaskets in the engine of his car with this miracle product and once my mom ran out of wallpaper glue and this wonder of processed dairy product was a more than adequate substitute, except that the fumes of Cheez Wiz are more mind bending that the sum of illegal drugs out there in the audience.  This fantastic by-product of science ranks in the achievements of man almost as highly as WD-40, and we all know how much fun that was as a kid.  I still maintain that it has taken six million years of evolution to come up with the end all be all of human invention, the glow-in-the-dark Band-Aid.  What could be more useful than this imaginative little wonder?  Not only does it stick out like a sore thumb in the light, but you can also show off your wounds in complete darkness, too.  Ah, modern science.  What would you do for a Klondike Bar?  Would you shoot yourself in the head with this police issue .38 special?  Well of course you would.  Would you slaughter your own mother with a potato peeler?  Without a doubt.  But would you give up your chance to be on Oprah?  Not in a million years.  Dinosaurs never really existed.  Aliens came and planted those skeletons here to see what kind of theories us silly little humans would develop about them.  They busted several guts up there when Jurassic Park hit the big screen, believe you me.  They’ve got to give us credit on one point though.  If nothing else, we’ve got imagination.  How else could one explain organized religion?  Now is the time where I would like everybody to give Joe a standing ovation, or at least a cerebral hematoma.  Thanks once again to Joe for keeping us off the streets and making America safe for average people that would be so blinded by our brilliance that they would call the cops and have us incarcerated on some trumped up charge like loitering with intent.  Now this is the last piece of advice that goes out to anybody who thinks it applies to them.  Don’t get so caught up in acting that your forget your lines.