Things To Say To Your Mom If She Pretends She Doesn’t Know Who You Are

Mothers come in all different stinks and shapes, but the one thing they all have in common is their legal right to your ideas and body. A burden like that is tough for most mares to bare so it’s not uncommon to encounter one taking a well-deserved break by imagining that their spawn does not exist. As their creation, you can either accept this and go find a grandmother to cry on, or you can have a little fun and attempt to get her to crack like those guards in England who aren’t allowed to so much as glance, let alone nibble, at the savoury seeds thrown their way by eager tourists.

Here are things you can say to your mom when this natural phenomenon occurs (usually after a heavy twilight rainfall – beauty breeds beasts eh?):

Excuse me, are you my sister? You look like me, talk like me, and my picture is on your apron.

I studied mothers in university and you’re definitely mine.

I have 10 seconds to live so if you don’t stop being stupid this will be your last memory of me.

Look out behind you, it’s your son. Nope, hahahah he’s right here, it’s me.

What’s for dinner tonight, mom? Oh, this thing again? I see. Guess that means we’re having clams. Great, I love your clams, thank you mom.

Mom, I need your help, so please listen. I’ve been pranking Uncle Robert and for the next phase I need you to ask him bring his good computer over to our house, so stop pretending I am not yours and call your brother.

Lady, you kind of look like me – would you mind pretending to be my mother? I need to show my parole officer that I’m capable of love, even though I’m not hehehe.

I know you love The Matrix, but there’s an easier way to pretend you’re a whole different person: get zits!

 

ESL 101: ‘No guts, no glory’

Welcome to my classroom.

May I see your reference letter? Ah, I understand. You saw my ad in the Wendy’s franchisee quarterly magazine, The Freckler. Did you cut out the coupon and send away for a free glowing wrist chain that will attract my attention far better than a nude wrist would when raising your hand to participate in group discussion? No matter. Please point to the seat you desire, take out your paper and pen, memorize as many things in the room as you can just in case everything disappears and someone asks “Hey, what was in here?”, and let’s get to today’s lesson.

Today’s English phrase we will be exploring is No guts, no glory.

Etymology: I develop a lot of my lesson plans from my mother’s journals because she famously invented the quip “Too soon” but they didn’t contain anything about this phrase. I almost gave up and built a lesson around “fuck you”, based on a recipe toward the back of the journal on how to make “fuck you beef” but then I found an old comic strip circa 2000 tucked into the dust jacket that provided some juicy tidbits. The strip was given to Italian immigrants to teach them effective phrases to yell toward potential employers at the end of botched job interviews and thankfully, “No guts, no glory” was included.

The phrase was coined by a freaky ass kid’s dad. The kid cut open a toad and took out all its stuff and then gave it to his dad for Valentine’s Day. The dad noticed the toad wasn’t very heavy and checked it out and the toad had no guts of course. That’s where he got the guts part. By “glory” he meant allowance.

Made famous by: The phrase escaped the suburbs 20 years later when that same freaky kid told his husband who thought it was so funny. He then told a flight attendant friend that the thing could blow up overseas where toads are considered a fucking joke, so he slipped the fly girl the price of spreading information via air (a silver piece and box of cigars) and the flight attendant dropped it on 5 major cities to kickstart the spread.

Oddly enough it was an army guy in USA, NA who liked the way it sounded and wanted to apply it to his own life. Unlike the silly part about the toad, the guts he’s talking about don’t mean the big wet n chewies inside, but rather the gunk in a tough guy’s thoughts that usually smell a bit like a UFC fighter bungie jumping into a volcano to retrieve BBQd ribs that he dropped because he was busy watching a girl tie her shoes. “Glory” means sports.

Sounds best: These days it’s best uttered quietly under your breath after somebody catches you putting store bought chicken eggs in a robin’s nest because you think it’s cute.

Cheat Sheet: As with every lesson I like to give you something to take home because I know taking notes is hard with all the snails around here. If you’re struggling to remember today’s lesson you can snap a pic of my back:

 

A Poem For St. Patrick 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All hail St. Patrick, the Irish Darth Vader!
One armed with penis, the other? Lightsabre.
While Vader wears black, our good Saint prefers green;
While Pat poos in sacks, Darth poos in machines

All hail Darth Vader, the lanky Joe Rogan!
One worships Sith Lords, the other Hulk Hogan.
While Rogan smokes weeds, our sweet Darth prefers air
While Vader’s head bleeds, Joe’s has no hair.

All hail Joe Rogan, the thinking man’s Bono!
One’s from New Jersey, the other Toronto.
While Bono sings hymns, Joe makes a podcast;
While Rogan’s in gyms, Bono does what he’s asked.

All hail St. Patrick, the killer of serpents!
And cheers to Darth Vader for choking his servants.
Raise one for Rogan, the eater of beef.
A black beer for Bono and the red maple leaf.

 

“Sad Or Rad?” Party Edition

With computers and streams replacing the Bible as the world’s most popular book, it’s pretty hard to figure out how to behave these days. Rather than take a million days to sift through all the HTML in the world in order to figure out who you’re allowed to kill and what you’re allowed to suck, I’ve done it for you in a segment I like to call “Yes or No?” but call it “Sad Or Rad?” instead because it’s technically zippier even though I prefer the straightforwardness of the other one.

This time around I’m going to tell you what to do and what not to do at a party so that your mind is free to fret over bathroom locations and whether the hot fucker curled up under the billiard table even noticed their initials that you ironed into your pants.

Commandeering the record player and using it as a pottery wheel to fashion a cute ceramic record etched with “The Party’s A Hit” by [Host’s Name]”.

SAD – Most parties have a pottery wheel already so why bother making another one?

Spiking the punch with freshly cracked black pepper, Himalayan sea salt and a bouquet garni.

RAD – Generally, parties and punches are under-seasoned.

Grabbing a sock from the host’s laundry and using it as a treat sack by filling it with pantry staples (crackers, nuts, floss, oil).

SAD – If anything you should bring a sock from your own house and the only place you should plunder is the garage for screws and birdseed.

Germinating seeds in the dishwasher at the beginning of the night then opening the dishwater at the end of the night and saying “It’s alive!” like Dr. Frankenstein.

SAD – That’s so dumb, especially the line at the end.

Writing affirmations across the entire length of the toilet paper roll then rolling it back up. Stuff like “Keep shitting, please”, “Way to plop”, “Sink one”, “You’re halfway there”, “If you’re reading this you’re taking one”, “Uhhhh ooohhhhhhh”, “You’re just a human doing your thing”, “The city will take care of the mess”, “That’s your food, dude”, “Wet n wild”, “My other toilet is a mouth” etc.

RAD – The people who poo at parties stick together and your efforts will soon spread positively among their ranks.

Installing a landline and then calling it the next day to say “Hey I did this for you.” to the host.

SAD – Nobody uses landlines anymore so install 5G internet and send an email instead.

Going into the host’s drawers, smelling all their clothes and writing what they smell like on the tag.

RAD – A tag should include this information anyway so you’re doing them a favour.

Pouring your beer into a cup and telling everyone that you’re drinking from a man-made hole.

RAD If you don’t know how to perform magic, this is the closest thing to a trick you’ll be able to muster. If you know magic then this is actually sad.

Heading down to the basement while there’s a dance party in the living room and banging on the ceiling saying “Get off my roof!”

SAD – Who do you think you are, Banksy or something?

Taking a black light and a jar of mayonnaise into a closet and inviting guests inside to for individual sessions.

SAD – Closets are for clothing and secrets and it’s no secret that mayonnaise looks tremendous under black light.

How To Read A Book

What are books? 

Books are stiff magazines that take raw hubris and stamp it onto thin, inedible wafers. There are well over one hundred books ever made.

Each book contains a unique combination of runes that when decoded by a  human sense can do many amazing things but cannot help one achieve everlasting life unless the spell within is effective. Besides spells, a book can tell a story about real or fake people, animals, towns or sports, and can even tell you how much pepper to add to suet to make it palatable to orphans.

How do you read a book?

Books stamped in English are read from left to right. Asking “why?” is like asking why a clown’s nose is red: it’s easy to explain and most people would leap at the opportunity to do so.

Reading English left to right mimics the voyage of the brigantine “Heart Reaper” as it made its way across the equator teaching remote societies an economical new language, while gathering fresh mullet in its holds to feed the insatiable King Cody the Beautiful. Prior to the voyage the direction books were read was up to the reader leading to mass confusion, including the popular misconception that the best way to greet someone was by saying, “Meet Hello, I’m what you aren’t.” Following months of petty arguments aboard the ship concerning the ending of the only book available (the book’s hero, the Runt, did indeed slay the Master Piper), Captain Adam recommended to the Council a standardization that would honour his voyage.

Now to the clowns. The noses we know today were the product of a dispute between two rival factions within a long forgotten circus troupe. One side was confident that round red noses would appeal to children because they resemble apples, the era’s top selling candy. Another felt fashion was the answer and pushed for something pointier. They solved their dispute the way most circuses do: by setting out two piles of sausages representing each choice and having a snake slither to the most attractive pile. Some say one pile was spiked with fresh mint to entice the snake toward the red pile while others claim it’s nonsense created by the losing half to help deflect embarrassment.

A fashionable beak created by the pointies who went on to form a famous fashion house.

A book must first be opened to be read. Bottled up heat within the book’s meat (each slice called a “page”) will escape upon opening. If captured and run though a Thermoelectric generator, a reader can produce enough heat to incubate the egg of a small gull. A book is bound by a spine. Like any mammal, if the spine is severed, the book will perish.

Once you have a book, look at each word, remember it, then move onto the next word. When you see the low dot (a “period”) quickly analyze what all the previous words meant then move onto the next chunk.

What happens if you can’t read the whole book in one go?

If you do not finish the book you must somehow mark your progress so as to continue the next time your eyes need a snack. Some classical examples are:

Whispering the page number to a child and having them remember it in exchange for salt and jacks.

Baking the page number into a loaf.

Tattooing the page number onto yourself or a piece of hard fruit

Associating the page number with something familiar in your life. For example if I left off on page 254, I would link it to my memory of father making me smoke 254 cigars after I flat out refused to go into the family cigar business

What do you do after you finish a book?

If you are able to get to the end of the book, do not worry because there are other books. The one you just read is not the only book. Do not burn the book unless it was bad. Do not eat the book unless it is tasty.

New Song, New Year, New Christmas

Lemme hear you, Canada! Who out there got wires around they wrists hoping someone notices so you can say “It’s for my machines.” Alright, alright cool, I see you freaks and I love you!

Look, I made a new song for the 2019 holiday season and here is the result. It’s supposed to be funny but if it’s not then at least you have a nice little jam full of my signature guitar sound.

The glennmacaulay.com Style Guide

As a respected literary website, we’re always getting submissions from would-be comedians, aspiring scribes, and even railway tramps who’ve abandoned writing tall tales on the walls of boxcars with their own poo, with hopes of entering the digital age. Besides the obvious problem of forcing my scant staff of 57 interns who survive on a stipend of bread ends and unlimited candy canes to comb through thousands of submissions, the biggest issue we face is that very few are formatted properly.

In the past I’ve hesitated to make this style guide public but I recently had to turn down a promising Mark Twain spoof called “The Adventures of Tom Lawyer and Fuckleberry Hinn” because its formatting rendered it unreadable to my audience. To stop this from happening again, and from you wasting time that could be dedicated to planting bushes in funny places, I’ve copy and pasted an abridged version of the complete guide that covers the basics. If you’d like the complete version or if you’re currently working on a novel that you’d like to pitch to our Buck Fumble Books ‘n Calendars imprint, please sent a self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

345 Tree Street
Toronto, ON
O0O 0O1

Numbers

For numbers greater than ten, use figures, not words. If you need to know whether to use feminine or masculine terminology when describing a number, here is a cheat sheet:

1 – girl
2 – girl
3 – boy
4 -boy
5 – girl
6 – boy
7 – girl
8 – boy
9 – ??

To figure out the gender of numbers greater than nine containing one masculine and one feminine number, ask your parents.

If you’re planning on writing a number over 1,000,000,000  you must add an asterisk and corresponding footnote describing why you think there’s a number funnier or better.

Heights, weights, etc.

We use imperial units when talking about people, hens, gravy and anything purple (e.g. “The 12 foot woman snacked on the 40 pound hen while dabbing an ounce of iced gravy on her four inch, dark purple bruise (that she got when one of her students threw and apple at her (she’s a teacher)”).

For everything else we use the Canadian metric system, which is the same as the universal metric system except we have a unit of nothingness called a “nist”.

There is an exception for industry standards, e.g. we would never measure slop in kilograms but rather sacks.

Other

Only use exclamation points if your sentence has an explosion in it, or if you’re me. I’m the voice of the site and can yell whenever I want.

Never use the letter “b” unless you ask me for permission first! I don’t want to get into “hows? whats? whys? and whoas!” of it so let’s just say that it has something to do with what I thought was an empty promise to a woman I loved, stealthily overseen and notarized by a magistrate who held a grudge against my family because our frog farm put their toad shed out of business.

Whenever you use a word that features double letters, you must say out loud “double trouble!” You may be wondering how I’m able to enforce this rule but let’s just say the magistrate and I patched up our relationship. His legal knowledge, combined with strategically placed shrubbery in funny places, grants me the ability to move about this world unnoticed and ready to enforce the rules.

If you’re a freelance writer, please include a small tilde (˜) at the bottom right of every page, in honour of whoever this guy Lance was who apparently went to the slammer in order for writers to pitch stories to whoever they want. I’m not 100% sure that’s what “freelance” means, but the teenager who told me also taught me the code in Street Fighter that gives Dhalsim a Polo shirt and that was true.

And finally, be clear with your abbreviations! Don’t assume I know what you’re talking about. I was once about to publish what I thought was a hilarious diatribe against the hated Nut Bagel Alliance only to realize the author was actually talking about something called the National Basketball Association. I assumed the part about more “three pointers” was simply stating that nut bagel fans should abandon their favourite snack in favour of Doritos. And when they argued for more “slam dunks”, I found myself nodding at the thought of dunking a sesame bagel into a glass of almond milk, which makes way more sense than getting a bagel with almonds on it.

 

Inventions I’d Love To See This Year

Since we’re now halfway through the two thousand and nineteenth year after Jesus got nailed by the Italians, it’s time for me to do two things: Number one, put a fresh layer of cellophane around my tongue so my New Year’s Resolution of not tasting anything all year will come true, thus granting me Jolly Ranchers for life as per contest rules. And two, take stock of everything that’s happened so far in order to formulate a list of inventions I’d like to see invented by the time Santa’s Sack is used, abused, then locked away in the cedar cellar alongside the unlucky elf whom the big man has deemed “unfuckable”. Don’t get grossed out, it’s an industry term for “fatuous”.

As always, this list does away with trite inventions like flying cars, robot worms, and rubber cars. It’s a highly reactionary list to the problems faced by our current world, which is why I’ve made it a mid-year tradition. If you see something that piques your interest and your mom and dad are scientists or money tycoons, please forward this to them because my resources are tied up in maintaining a forest I bought with my own money.

Flying Boat

Climate change has done more than mutate ducks and make the wind taste like iron. Massive floods are devastating human’s favourite terrain: dry land, which has led to the cancellation of several Bog Blasts and Swamp Hops. Things have got so bad that even boats are in danger of being swallowed up by the sea only to be eventually barfed out by volcanoes around the time holding in poo stops being an issue for today’s babies. The only way to solve this besides giving boats gills, which is impossible without the intervention of paragraph one’s Jesus or Santa, is to give boats wings. A flying boat will give us unparalleled transportation during the this new Wet Age, and while we’re up there we can even trawl for gulls. I don’t know about you but I sure could go for eating a different bird this Thanksgiving.

Analog Emojis

There are two parts of “the news”: The first is the news itself. You know, stuff like “Nerd Tries Beef”. The second is the thing that gives you the news, like newspaper, TV show or internet site. If everything is going cool then it shouldn’t matter what mug you sip your news from – root beer is still root beer whether you drink it from a rut or a horn. But thanks to changing technologies and generational divides that have seen the actual adjusted age of grandmas and grandpas rise to well over 200, everyone tastes news a little differently. A very simple way to fix this is to carbonate newspapers a bit by making emojis analog, giving newspaper typers the ability to inject a bit of digital fun into their columns. I’d find it a lot easier to digest a hot slice of Dave Barry if he were able to end each of his pieces with one of these: 😝

“Milp”

This is Milp but not the milp I’m talking about

The name “Milp” isn’t written in stone, it’s more of a placeholder. I couldn’t think of a good name for this invention until I visited a Triple D favourite whose signature drink combines milk and pear, then made thick with the addition of mashed pasta. At that point in my life it was just what I needed and what does the world need right now other than an ancient whale who surfaces after millennia, hums a song for a thousand years and makes everyone cry? The elimination of plastic. Honestly, we’re not going to get rid of plastic unless something better comes along to replace it, and that something better I’ve code-named “Milp”. Milp will have to be lightweight, durable, ductile, not stink, and be able to be eaten once used. On paper this doesn’t sound very hard but keep in mind that humans haven’t invented a new substance since tape. If you’re able to pull this off you can change the name but I’d like to at least be mentioned in the Wikipedia entry.

See you next time,

An Anonymous Oscar Voter Reveals Her Picks

We recently received a typewritten, perfume-soaked letter from a real deal member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences whose New Year’s Resolution was to be more forthcoming. Rather than tell her husband that she’s been using the Instant Pot to sterilize her clarinet reeds, she decided instead to fill us in on her OFFICIAL Oscar picks for 2019. This should give you, the film-going public, an idea of who might win before you wager another eyeball betting on Best Picture based solely on which title sounds most like your last name. Here’s what she had to say:

Hi fans! If the Academy finds out I’m doing this they’ll never let me watch a movie ever again so all I ask in return is to say a prayer for me or leave a little meat out on your porch tonight and I’ll come grab. Full disclosure: I spilled BBQ sauce on my ballot. I tried to let my dog lick it off so I could see it but he ate the whole thing. Here’s what I would’ve picked had that not happened:

Best Picture

BLACK PANTHER
BLACKKKLANSMAN
BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
THE FAVOURITE
GREEN BOOK
ROMA
A STAR IS BORN
VICE

According to Green Book, the black guy and the white guy in it SHOULD NOT be friends, but they were anyway. I absolutely love movies where two guys who aren’t friends become friends beat up guys who don’t like that they’re friends, so this was like a glass of Gatorade after a fuck fest for yours truly.

Best Director

Spike Lee (BLACKKKLANSMAN)
Paweł Pawlikowski (COLD WAR)
Yorgos Lanthimos (THE FAVOURITE)
Alfonso Cuarón (ROMA)
Adam McKay (VICE)

What the Academy doesn’t want you to know is that the award usually goes to the craziest person instead of the one who best manages to tell a bunch of overpaid doorknobs where to stand. The only reason Bob Fosse won in 1972 was because he coated every camera lens in piss ahead of the shoot to give Cabaret the ethereal look that made it a hit. Anyway, this movie is so boring that I can’t believe the guy actually managed to make it without everyone quitting because they were so tired. Shooting a movie in black and white tells the public, “Don’t watch this!” but people did anyway so kudos to Alfonso C. for being so extreme.

Best Actress

YALITZA APARICIO (Roma)
GLENN CLOSE (The Wife)
OLIVIA COLMAN (The Favourite)
LADY GAGA (A Star Is Born)
MELISSA MCCARTHY (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Sometimes an Oscar voter has to let the cosmos guide them and I am no different. In this case, Olivia Colman shares a name with my FAVOURITE mustard and is in a movie called The Favourite so it was an easy choice. Please note that if Claire Foy from First Man were nominated she would’ve got my vote because my first child was a boy, “Foy” rhymes with “boy”, “boys” turned into men, and my first son is named Claire.

Best Actor

CHRISTIAN BALE (Vice)
BRADLEY COOPER (A Star Is Born)
WILLEM DAFOE (At Eternity’s Gate)
RAMI MALEK (Bohemian Rhapsody)
VIGGO MORTENSEN (Green Book)

I never knew Queen did We Will Rock You! I always thought it was the Stones!

Best Song

ALL THE STARS from Black Panther
I’LL FIGHT from RBG
THE PLACE WHERE LOST THINGS GO from Mary Poppins Returns
SHALLOW from A Star Is Born
WHEN A COWBOY TRADES HIS SPURS FOR WINGS from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

Wow, this song reminded me of when I was a young woman and had a tryst with a real deal Moldovan Count. The guy’s bathtub was so big it had a shallow end I shit you not. I made a joke about there no being a diving board, he misinterpreted it as him not having a penis or something and next thing you know I was sharing a hammock with a loose rooster on a steamship headed back to good old U.S. of America.

Those are the only ones I usually vote on because I got a lemon tree in my backyard and honey I’d rather pick lemons than award winners. Plus, giving out supporting acting trophies is like giving James Beard Awards to dishwashers.

Love, Moon Lady (not my real name)

(This picture was enclosed)

Blogrunner 2049

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I know it’s been awhile since my last blog but I caught a nasty case of the whispers last rise and my pod didn’t produce nearly enough silk to buy a LifePak off the Chimes. Don’t worry though, I’m better now and have even found the energy to hunt dust swans again.

I’m currently typing this on the keyboard-tattooed belly of a mind tramp who will use her considerable skills to retain everything I’m writing, then bring the finished piece to the Central Spire for input. It cost me the last of my corn smut but I didn’t think I’d be able to manage to trip myself because lately my hair is very susceptible to any frequency about 30 hertz. Anyway, I have big news…

Would have bad hair day if I went here

…I’m getting married!

I know what you’re thinking: is she a Potter or a Sickling? I’ll get to that in a minute.

We met at a bleeding; myself in line with the other Reds, her a few feet to my right with the Blues. Small talk is common when you’re waiting to get sucked, but I’m not much of a talker so I normally keep to myself and count shards, or take the opportunity to lay out an array and charge my salt filter. My interest in her piqued when I caught sight of the blade she wore on her hip. The shape resembled something that would be adept at gutting the unusual curvature of an infant glass crab’s body. Since I’d been craving some of that sweet crab meat since The Churn, I attempted to strike up a conversation.

“Is that blade for gutting infant glass crabs?” I asked, assuming she spoke Plain but making a gesture with my hands that mimicked a glass crab’s first dance just in case.

Me trying to get crab meat “the old fashioned way” hahaha

I wasn’t sure if it was due to my ridiculous performance or the crystals I forgot to take out of my ears that morning but rather than answer she produced the blade, cut a swath of hair from her left temple, and handed it to me.

“You’ve been marked,” she said in perfect Plain.

I’d heard of this Sickling ritual from traders and poets across the Nine Plots, always assuming it was sex fiction for lonely travelers, up there with Tale of the Moist Herd or Jid’s Honkers. My familiarly with the tradition meant I knew my options: either succumb to the marking and become her eternal field boy or attempt to flee and risk having her hunt me, catch me, kill me, skin me, weave my skin into a diaper for the Prime King’s offspring, and have my meat and innards pulped into an ink to be used for their famous comic strips that satirize races they’ve eviscerated.

I didn’t feel much like running and I was getting kind of bored of trying to procreate through jinxing the hopping apes that lived nearby, so I accepted her mark and was quickly fused to her via a length of goblin vine.

We’ve been together for three floods now! She’s currently allowing me to roam while she gathers cones for the official marking ceremony, and as soon as I’m done typing I’m going to try to find a wedding ring before she re-fuses us for the skiff ride back to her hole. I figure it’s a nice gesture to include some of my own traditions before my independence, language, soul, fingernails, and body hair are stripped away from me as we begin our new life as Niff and Sickling.

Our first pic as a couple 🙂

Which ring should I get?

I could find a snake worm and knot it up but I’m afraid it won’t dry in time. My best option is probably try to steal a pike spring off a SandSki but I only see one at this bazaar and it seems to be guarded by a hybrid who can likely smell my thoughts. Ah well, I suppose I can figure that out later. I see my new darling crawling back this way and if she catches me doing this she might not let me sing my regrets to her pack once we get home, so that’s it for me!

– Mick R.

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