A Thanksgiving for Fork

The Parade





The Eating

The Best Things in Life Are Free

Most awesome thing said by a panhandler in the subway: "Life is short. You're not gonna live forever. And you can't take your money with you. So give it to me."

He got MY imaginary quarter, I'll tell you that.

Taking Requests!

Almost finished with the forthcoming 'A Forkulele for Christmas' album but I still have time to do a couple more songs. Any requests? Is there a Christmas tune out there that you've just gotta have to make your Christmas merry?

Let me know ho ho!

Stop Going to the Gym

So I've been hitting the gym a lot lately.

I'm taking this new class that's supposed to be the "next big thing" in fitness. It kicks your butt. You lift logs and stuff.

And in the three weeks of taking the class and upping my protein and caloric intake, my body has undergone a nice little change that makes me glad I bought a couple of muscle shirts the last time I was at the Gap.

Or...I WAS glad.

I'm in a staged reading of Henry V at Well Ain't We Fancy Shakespeare Company. There are lots of fun, goofy, clowny roles in the show.

But I'm not playing any of them. No, they put me in the role that, if Kenneth made the movie version today, he would have probably given to Orlando Bloom.

It's the first time in a VERY long time I've played a Shakespearean character who wasn't a loveable misfit full of quirks and gags. I find myself puffing my chest out more. I glower through furrowed brows. I breathe heavily so as to appear earnest and worried.

Meanwhile, the five guys playing the clowns get all the laughs. And I have to yuk it up as Henry's whiny cousin.

And it's all because I just HAD to wear one of those Gap muscle shirts to the friggin' audition.

So let this be a lesson to all of you. If you want to have fun in this life, stop working out. Enjoy your skinny arms, your flabby gut, your saggy bottom. Because it is those things that will make you quirky. And you'll get cast in the flashy comic roles. And the audience will love you.

Meanwhile, those of us with shirt-straining pecs and biceps are stuck playing lame-ass soldiers.

LOLcats: Do Not Want

Since a lot of you don't know what the LOLcats are, I've decided to post some periodically. They're pretty much funny pictures (mostly of cats) with silly captions that are meant to look like the cat, with its limited grasp of English grammar and syntax, got to a computer and typed it up.

This one is particularly useful. And popular! Don't be surprised if you put a plate of chopped liver before this Fussy Fork and he shoves it away saying, "DO NOT WANT!"

Hey, that sounds like some kind of protest/campaign slogan. I can just imagine mobs of cats hitting the streets with signs and banners, chanting, "DO-NOT-WANT! DO-NOT-WANT!"

New York Winter

There's a problem with wintertime in New York City.

You bundle up in three layers of clothing so you won't freeze to death on your way to wherever it is you're going to...

And when you get there, they always have the temperature set to Volcano Heat. And there you are in three layers of clothing.

All My Sons

I saw the new Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's brilliant American tragedy All My Sons tonight.

I sat in my chair at the Shoenfeld Theatre, gripping the armrests, rolling my program, fiddling with my pencap...completely and utterly spellbound. Spellbound by this play--this play that I was supposed to have read in college I don't know HOW many times but never did. Dianne Weist's understudy was good! John Lithgow was positively wrenching! The production, in fact, was so superb, it made me question my place in this big, dumb thing we call The Theatre. It really did.

But as I sat there, another thought passed through my mind. One that eclipsed all the others.

Here was I, watching this play on a drizzly New York fall night...

And somewhere...out there...




Tom Cruise...is REAL.

That's all any of us were thinking! Oh my gosh. That kid is married to Tom Cruise. And she's RIGHT THERE. She's real. He must be real too.

I mean--do you guys see what I'm saying here? If Katie Holmes is real--and she is, I SAW her--then THAT means somewhere out there, there really IS a short, dreamy, sexually confused Scientologist movie star who made that cute girl give him a baby named Suri and jumps on couches and thinks medicine is bad.

I mean...he's not just some image on the Talky Box anymore. He's a real person that you can touch.

And once you come to terms with that, you have to ask, What does he DO?? If he's REALLY REAL, does he do really real things? Like, does he send her flowers to every performance? Does he call her up after every show to ask how it went and make small talk? Did he run lines with her in Beverly Hills? Did he offer up criticism of the play's fictional family, suggesting, perhaps, that these are the sorts of things that happen to people who take aspirin and don't follow Lord Xenu?

It boggles the mind.

gChat

Me: Dude, Guy. I'm serious. We NEED to be in shape so we can run away from Big Government when it starts coming after us. AND we need to be ready to help the Rebel Alliance by acting as rooftop couriers when the Fairness Police hit the streets. I mean, seriously.

Guy: that's right. well. i might have to be the guy in the computer hub
that monitors everything. you can do the running

me: Cool! We need to give you a cool name then. Like Zip. Or USB. Something that sounds like a computer term.

Guy: i can install computer viruses in the O-copters and stuff

me: YES!!!!!!! So what's your code name? Zap? Trig? Piper?

Guy: Trig?

me: I like Trig.

Guy: like Trigonometry?

me: YES! But it's cool because it's like Palin's baby! He's the baby of hope! You're so Trig. Like the maths.

Guy: so what's your name?

me: Well, we could use my porno name. Rex Cherryhill. "Get out of there Rex!" Or Jake Fortune. That's my pirate name.

Guy: i thought you said no to the erotica

me: Wait...no surnames. Just first names. Well, the girl in 'Mirror's Edge' is named Faith. I think it's supposed to be some sort of metaphor. So maybe we should do something like that?
Rex is king, right? Wait, no! Pax!

DUUUUUUUDE!

"Pax! Get outta there!"

That's pretty rad.

Guy: Pax and Trig?

me: Yeah! But we need someone else.

Guy: yeah

me: I think three is good. Like, you can be the computer guy, I can be the runner, and someone else is like, the spec-ops. You have to have a spec-ops.

Guy: but who?

me: We may have to use Dann Bang. Because we could just use his name because it's already awesome.

Guy: but he's with the enemy

me: WHAAAAAAAAAT?!

Guy: he's an o-bot

me: That's SO TRAGIC IT'S PERFECT! He TOTALLY double-crosses us!

Guy: hahaha

me: "Bang! --HOW?!"

"Sorry Trig. I needed the scratch!"

"But you can't! What about the Fairness Police?--Obamalosi?"

"I never cared about those guys! I was just looking out for number one all along!"

DAMN BANG!

Guy: YES DAMN BANG!

me: "Trig! Trig, this is Pax! What's going on there?"

"It's--it's Bang! He's double-crossed us! He's gone O-gue! (like rogue)

"What?! Are you sure?!"

"I've got the gunshot wounds to prove it!"

"DAMN BANG! I'll get him for you! What are his coordinates?"

"He's destroyed all my equipment--it'll take hours for me to get this up and running again--but I planted a tracking device on his iPhone!"

"Sweet! I'm on my way!"

CHAPTER END

Guy: of course the villain carries an iphone

me: Yes. Apple is expensive. And villains have lots of money from their various capers. Wait. No. WE have the capers. The villains use the Fairness Police to get their Apple products.

Guy: right and google gave all the information to the gov't
so we can't use them

me: Does this mean we have to use Yahoo?

Wonderful World

If you don't want this song forever ruined for you, don't watch this video.

Funny

A buddy of mine observed that, with Obama's victory, it is the Democrats who will become targets of ridicule and satire out of sheer necessity to fill the void left by George W. Bush.

I just didn't realize it would happen so soon!


Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

A Word of Caution

Okay. It's over. Christmas came and we didn't get a Nintendo game. We got a bulk package of 8 Jumbo-Size (equal to 24 regular rolls!) Ultra Strong Charmin toilet paper instead.

I'm fine. We'll hold our heads high and move on. After all, that's why God invented birthdays.

That said...

I can abide a lot of things.

But if you want to talk trash about Sarah Palin...MY Sarah Palin...do so at your own peril.

I mean it. My ire is up and this s#it will get very real very quickly.

The Cachinnator is a good, hard working leader in Wackytown. The work he's done there has transformed the city. And he posed for a publicity photo without knowing his zipper was down.

My mother is a good, hard working leader in the Cackalakee state government. She fights every day to protect the poor people of her state. And she did a television interview without getting the chance to touch up her make-up first.

Sarah Palin tried to play nice with Katie Couric and walked away having said a couple of dumb things--oh yeah, and she doesn't think we should kill babies. Does that mean she's anti-intellectual?

Does this mean my mother is anti-pretty?

Or that the Cachinnator is anti-pants?

No. It means they're people. And if you spend two minutes with them, you know that they are GOOD people. They have worked very hard to do the right thing. When they speak, they speak with courage and conviction and with a desire to make their communities better places. You look at their character and know that they are the GOOD GUYS.

The Cachinnator has been smeared by people in his town who have accused him of being one of the "racist, rich Wackytown elite". My mother has been exposed to the same sort of blind hatred by ignorant people who think she's "inexperienced" and "overpaid" for the twelve hour days she works to protect her very attackers. Likewise, Sarah Palin has been blasted by people (friends included!) who think she's a dizzy airhead and the "anti-woman".

You may not agree with everything they've done. You may think they're fools. You may think they're stupid. You may think they have funny accents. Welcome to America. That's your right.

But it's also my right to say that if you should be so desirous as to imply that they are bad people, stupid people, ugly people, greedy people, pornographers or spin-masters, BE FOREWARNED--you will find yourself on the receiving end of a very, VERY pointy Fork.

Forkulele Friday: As We Stumble Along

Just thought I'd move this post back to the top in case some of you missed it the first time. It's a song from my favorite show, 'The Drowsy Chaperone' AND it's the first Forkulele song to be recorded with a tenor ukulele! Sounds nice huh?

As the lead character in the show says, this is a "little tune to carry with you in your head...for when you're...feeling blue..."

I thought this song was rather appropriate given what happened and where we are all headed. This Forkulele song is specifically for those of us who may be a little disappointed and even a bit frightened for our country. As you go about your business today, if things seem bleak, just hum a few bars of this song. It'll help! Honest!

As always, click here to go there!

The Difference

I've made an important discovery.

This...



is not the same...

as this.



Unfortunately, the bulk size package of Mega-Jumbo Ultra Strong rolls is what's sitting in my bathroom right now. Which means I'll be stuck with the red ones until June of 2009.

Unless I put em on the curb for a homeless guy.

Is that cruel?

Some Final Shots

Why do I need to say it when it's already been said so well?

My man, Mark Levin--oy gevalt!

and...

from yesterday's New York Post--this pretty much sums it up:

Americans go to the polls tomorrow for what will be their most critical presidential choice in a generation. Not since 1980 has the contrast between the candidates been so stark - or the dangers of a wrong selection more worrisome.

Early on, The Post endorsed Sen. John McCain's presidential candidacy, citing his lifelong record of service, his courage and his clear grasp of the problems and threats facing this country.
Since then, the subprime-mortgage crisis and Wall Street's woes have supplanted national security as the campaign's principal issue.

All the more reason, frankly, to cast a vote for John McCain.

Barack Obama's record is as devoid of substance today as it was when his campaign began. Behind his soaring eloquence lies a tissue-thin resume and some disturbing personal associations.

Moreover, he and his running-mate, Joe Biden, represent a Democratic Party overly obligated to special interests like trial lawyers and rapacious public-employee unions.

Even as the economy is being rocked, Obama advocates a fundamental rewriting of the tax code that - far from cutting taxes for "95 percent" of Americans, as he promises - would dramatically raise tax rates, coupled with $650 billion in tax-credit-driven hikes in entitlement and other spending.

And that is likely just the starting point - with the Nancy Pelosi-Harry Reid Congress pushing hard to enhance the handouts while raising taxes further and slashing defense spending.
It is, in fact, on defense and national security that the differences between McCain and Obama are especially clear.

Simply put, McCain gets it - and Obama doesn't.

McCain, for example, knew that a pacified Iraq was critical to victory in the War on Terror. Obama, despite campaign-driven rhetoric, seems barely to believe that the war needs to be fought.

To be sure, Obama's election as America's first African-American president would be a huge historic milestone.

Moreover, he has undeniably created a genuine sense of excitement among his supporters, many of whom were previously uninvolved in the political process.

All that's to be admired.

But these times demand genuine, tested and principled leadership and experience - of the sort that John McCain has demonstrated in a lifetime of public service.

As Obama's opponents during the primaries - including Joe Biden - repeatedly warned, the presidency is no place for on-the-job training.

Nothing that has transpired over the past several weeks makes us any less certain that John McCain has what it takes to be a successful president of the United States - and that Barack Obama simply does not.

We urge Americans to pull the lever for McCain tomorrow

Watch the Birdy!

What a classy guy!

This Guy

Holy crap. This guy is fantastic. He's a conservative talk radio guy in New York City. Set some time aside this weekend to listen to this.