Time for Quality.

** RING! RING! **

ME: Hello?

VOICE: Hi, it’s me, the unrelenting forward motion of time.

ME: Oh, yes. We have met.

TIME: Could you spare a moment to take a quick quality assurance survey?

ME: …

TIME: You’re not that busy.

ME: Yeah, fine.

TIME: Great! On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being absolute certainty and 1 being full-blown denialism, how certain are you that every moment of your existence is leading unflinchingly toward your own death?

ME: I mean … 10, I guess.

TIME: Great! Would you describe your existence as more like that Toy Story 3 scene where everyone is getting pushed toward the incinerator? Or more like the act of falling to the floor un-movingly when a child enters the room?

ME: Um. Five, I guess, just straight down the middle?

TIME: I see, I see. That’s not what most people usually go with, but okay.

ME: Can I ask, what exactly is being assured by this survey?

TIME: Well, you know, time has existed a long time, but it is only relatively recently - for us - that we have had conscious, sentient beings to toy with. Most of existence we’ve been dealing with planets and space dust, micro organisms, that sort of thing, so the opportunity to get real time feedback is still pretty novel for us, so we’re just trying things out.

ME: You keep saying “us" as in plural … are there other kinds of time?

TIME: Oh sure, but you don’t want to get into that! It will break your adorable little biological brain.

ME: Oooooookay.

TIME: Moving on. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being total transcendence and 1 being soul paralysis, what is it like for you to wake up on a Monday morning?

ME: Did you say “soul paralysis”?

TIME: Hm, not familiar with that one?

ME: It sounds terrible …

TIME: I’m told it is quite bad.

ME: Well, I guess, I mean, maybe a 6 … I don’t like waking up on Monday morning, but compared to the lives most people have lived, I probably shouldn’t complain. All I do is log into a computer and do work for 8 hours … it isn’t the most rewarding thing, but probably it is pretty far away from soul paralysis, if I really think about it. And I’ve kind of accepted that most of life is being bored frequently.

TIME: Yeah, that’s why we invented forgetting. You should be thankful for that one.

ME: You invented it?

TIME: Could you imagine if you had to actually remember how much of your life you wasted? Watching TV or waiting for water to boil, that kind of thing?

ME: I guess that would be a lot to have to confront, existentially, I mean.

TIME: So, last question!

ME: Okay.

TIME: Do you want to know how much time you have left?

ME: Excuse me?

TIME: Yeah, how much you got left on the shot clock, as it were?

ME: You’re asking if I want to know when I’m going to die?

TIME: Exactomundo.

ME: … Well … no, I guess I don’t want to know that.

TIME: Suit yourself. It doesn’t really matter anyway.

ME: How do you mean?

TIME: To us, I meant.

ME: Oh, I see.

TIME: Well, thanks for taking the time — wink wink — to talk to me today. If you ever need to get in touch with us, just walk outside at midnight, point at the moon and scream.

ME: Will do.

TIME: Have a good rest of your day.

ME: You too, thanks.

*** CLICK.***

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Pinkos.

Did you know that in the early 20th Century three states passed laws that margarine had to be pink?

Margarine is an artificial butter substitute and it is white when extruded from the factory. It is dyed yellow to more closely resemble butter (which itself is often dyed yellow to more closely resemble what you think butter looks like).

The milk and butter lobby (“BIG BUTTER”, as I and I alone refer to them) got laws passed in 32 states that regulated and restricted the dying of margarine (read: not yellow). Only South Dakota, Vermont, and New Hampshire required that it be pink because obviously their state legislatures were filled with old timey Tammany Hall types who were as hilarious as they were sadistic.

Eventually the Supreme Court got involved and in their famous case, “I Can’t Believe It’s a Supreme Court Caliber Case v. Can You Even Fucking Believe This Is a Supreme Court Case” ruled that BIG BUTTER needed to stop wasting the Supreme Court’s MFing time.

Despite the SCOTUS ruling, the state of Wisconsin kept its anti-margarine dying laws on the books until 1967 because … let me check my notes. Oh yes .... because no one actually gives a shit what color the margarine is in Wisconsin. Like literally, I bet that after the Supreme Court ruling there was a meeting at the FBI that went something like this:

INT. J EDGAR HOOVER’S OFFICE. DAY.

FBI AGENT

So we have been hearing rumors that Wisconsin still doesn’t have yellow margarine, despite the Supreme Court ruling. Should we send some people up there to …

J. EDGAR HOOVER

Get the fuck out of my office.

FBI AGENT

But I just …

J. EDGAR HOOVER

No, seriously. Fuck you.

FBI AGENT

But the Supreme Court …

J. EDGAR HOOVER

My next meeting after this is about actual fucking Soviet spies. KGB assassins and shit. And you’re bringing me this broke ass, weak tea non-yellow margarine bullshit? And anyway, isn’t Wisconsin in Canada? How gives a seagull’s fuck in winter about Canadian butter. Are you embarrassed right now you asshole? Because you should be.

FBI AGENT

I’m … going to go now.

J. EDGAR HOOVER

Goddam right you are! Jerk.

END SCENE

I don’t have transcripts for any of that, but I have put in a FOIA request, just in case.

*** Please tune in next week when we examine legislation regulating what percentage of your toothpaste can be accidental insect parts. ***

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An Old Pearl.

I have had a little but stuck in my brain all week. Something stuck in my craw. I had not been able to put my finger on it. It was like when you have a word on the tip of your tongue, but it never seems to come. I have had an idea, or a memory down there in the folds of my brains, like a little pearl down in the gray pink meat of an oyster, but I just couldn't quite figure out what it was.


Well I just realized what it was. JUST NOW! this is literally happening in real time!


So what was stuck in my craw? It was a fake short play I wrote in 2011!!!


It is reposted below.


The more things change, the more they stay the same

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Scenes From an Italian Restaurant.

Some of you may know that I have a background as a playwright and that from time to time I like to dash off short plays for fun. Well, here is a short play re-imagining a conversation/lame publicity stunt which recently took place between Sarah Palin and Donald Trump. 

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Scenes From an Italian Restaurant 
a short play 
by james bezerra 

ACT I SCENE I A man and a woman and the man’s disastrously bad “hair” sit at a table in a pizzeria. The woman is former Alaska Governor and current media-whore Sarah Palin. The man is former and current and perpetual media-whore Donald Trump. The hair is of an unknown composition. The three quietly eat their pizza slices. 

TRUMP: Hey Sarah, remember when we were politically relevant? 
PALIN: I don’t know what that word means. 

CURTAIN. 



Fin! 

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