My Nose is Healing Quite Nicely My Doctor Says

I told a woman recently that she looked a lot like actress Anne Hathaway but without the same lovely eyes and smile.

BILL

Living The Life of Willie

I’m not saying my life has been devoid of trouble or anything but about the biggest disappointments I’ve endured have been those times when I feel a sneeze coming on and it gets derailed by a sudden interruption.

BILL

How Much Do I Like To Eat?

I think all pie chart presentations should be done with actual pie.

BILL

Scientists Label It "Selective Hearing"

There are thirty separate muscles within each ear of a cat.

All but one of these completely ignore you.

BILL

Perhaps My All-Time Favorite Non-Fiction Book Quote:

The state watches impotently as its culture, beamed in from the coasts, becomes coarser and more offensive by the year. Kansas aches for revenge. Kansas gloats when celebrities say stupid things; it cheers when movie stars go to jail. And when two female rock stars exchange a lascivious kiss on national TV, Kansas goes haywire. Kansas screams for the heads of the liberal elite. Kansas comes running to the polls. And Kansas cuts those rock stars’ taxes.

Thomas Frank (born and raised in Kansas) from “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” (2004)

Serenity Now!!!!

In light of the fact that author Sue Grafton’s latest novel is entitled – per her ingenious alphabet marketing scheme – “W is For Wasted,” I fear she is so dreading naming her final novel with the letter “Z” that she will soon find herself at AA.

BILL

Silver and Lack of Talent

Former Los Angeles Raider linebacker Matt Millen once bragged how a sign in the Raiders’ locker room read:

Raider Rule #1: Cheating is encouraged.

Raider Rule #2: See Rule #1.

I always thought Rule #2 should read: We acknowledge our inability to win within the rules of the game, so – in the spirit of the losers we know ourselves to be – see Rule #1.

BILL

My Recent Interview With Paul McCartney

BILL: Paul! Great to have you here.

PAUL: It’s great to be had.

BILL: You mean like… “fooled?”

PAUL: Never mind.

BILL: OK, so what was it like being a member of The Beatles?

PAUL: Can you narrow that down a bit?

BILL: What was it like being a Beatle?

PAUL: Well, it had its highs and lows.

BILL: Lot of highs from what producer George Martin had to say.

PAUL: To quote Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes: “Jolly joke.”

BILL: Thanks. I thought so. So let me ask you: What was your favorite Beatles album?

PAUL: “Let It Be.”

BILL: And why is that?

PAUL: Because it was the last one.

BILL: Things were that bad near the end, were they?

PAUL: Let’s just say I was glad when it was all over.

BILL: You know, I have to say, my favorite Beatles song is “The Long and Winding Road” which you wrote and sang, but which was altered quite a bit by Phil Spector. Much to your disappointment.

PAUL: The strings, harps and horns, you mean?

BILL: Yeah, I love that arrangement.

PAUL: Well, you’re an idiot.

BILL: (laughing) Who would ever think that a guy who stuffed a gun into a woman’s mouth and blew her head off could write such beautiful music?

PAUL: Who would ever think “The Catcher In the Rye” could inspire someone to shoot John?

BILL: I remember having to read that in high school and wanting to shoot myself. Does that count?

PAUL: How did you get this bloody gig?

BILL: Change up! What was your reaction the first time you heard Yoko Ono sing?

PAUL: Is that what you’re calling it then?

BUILL: Ouch! Seriously though.

PAUL: Honestly? It sounded like an owl being tortured. It sounded like… like…

BILL: Like a blackbird singing in the dead of night?

PAUL: Like a blackbird being tortured in the dead of night.

BILL: You and John had a peculiar songwriting credit method in that you shared credit despite each of you frequently writing songs separately.

PAUL: I often get asked about this and here’s a good hint: When I’m singing the lead that tends to indicate that it was a song that I wrote. When John was singing that was probably a song that he mostly wrote.

BILL: And what about when Ringo was singing?

PAUL: That usually meant that John and I had been drinking.

BILL: Well, that explains “Octopus’s Garden.”

PAUL: Actually Ringo wrote that, though if I recall he was quite pissed at the time. Me mum rather fancied that one.

BILL: Well, she’s an idiot.

PAUL: She was actually. Dumb as a post really.

BILL: I noticed George Harrison creatively has done, like… nothing for years now.

PAUL: That’s probably because he died over ten years ago.

BILL: He did??

PAUL: Good Christ, I’m going to kill my publicist.

BILL: Wow. John is dead. George is dead. Your wife Linda is dead. Now you’re going to kill your publicist. Granted, it’s a track on Charles Manson’s favorite Beatles album, but are you sure it wasn’t you and not John who wrote “Happiness is a Warm Gun?”

PAUL: That’s a low blow, mate.

BILL: Speaking of low blows, got any good groupie stories for me?

PAUL: You’re an idiot…

(McCartney leaves.)

BILL

I Too Am STEAMING Over The New Miss America!!

Not because of her Indian ethnicity (which enrages the racist rubes out there). I just think she’s plain ol’ butt ugly. BILL

In 1975 I Visited The Jolly Rancher Factory in Colorado

Everywhere I looked were jovial men in worn jeans, leaning back in chairs with their steel-toed boots pointed high, spitting tobacco juice onto the wooden floor while regaling one another with amusing tales of water and grazing rights, wolf infestation and the like.

It was one of the most unsettling experiences of my life, one from which I doubt I’ll ever fully recover.

BILL

It's "The End of The World" As I Knew It

I’ll concede this might be the smoking gun that many seek proving I’m an idiot, but I would argue that a veritable cache of weapons exists if one looks hard enough.

While sitting in a restaurant recently Skeeter Davis’s 1963 hit “The End of The World” was playing and it finally dawned on me that she was singing “Don’t they know it’s the end of the world” instead of what I thought she was singing from the time I was a little boy “Don’t say no; it’s the end of the world” (which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever but – hey – I was a child).

There is no joke here. It’s just that a half century long error is kind of amusing…

BILL

PS – She hated being introduced during gigs as “Miss Skeeter Davis.” (OK, I guess that counts as a joke.)

Why does the sun go on shining
Why does the sea rush to shore
Don't they know it's the end of the world
'Cause you don't love me any more

Why do the birds go on singing
Why do the stars glow above
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when I lost your love

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was
I can't understand, no, I can't understand
How life goes on the way it does

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye

Why does my heart go on beating
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye

Why does Bill keep sending emails.
Why do these eyes of mine cry
Don't they know it's the end of the world
It ended when you said goodbye

Doobieous Choice

A buddy of mine suggested I have some fun and “roll a fattie” last weekend. Now I’m being sued by an obese man for injuries sustained.

BILL

Damn Hoaxers...

NEWS ITEM: Tons of carbon and methane lie under the Arctic tundra, trapped in ice. The frozen ground, called permafrost, covers nearly a quarter of the Northern Hemisphere.

Global warming is thawing patches of permafrost, releasing carbon dioxide and methane — both greenhouse gases — into the atmosphere. An airborne NASA mission called CARVE (Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment) is tracking the gas emissions to better estimate their impact.

"Permafrost soils are warming even faster than Arctic air temperatures, as much as 2.7 to 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit in just the past 30 years," Charles Miller, a research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said. "As heat from Earth's surface penetrates into permafrost, it threatens to mobilize these organic carbon reservoirs and release them into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, upsetting the Arctic's carbon balance and greatly exacerbating global warming," said Miller, principal investigator for the five-year mission.

Hey, Dear, Clean Out The Ear Wax!!

She went out with me because she thought I was one of them Rhodes scholars but then done up and bolted from Clem’s Rib Shack when I said I was a road kill scholar.

BILL

I Want a New Job

Now that he’s no longer a pop star, singer Huey Lewis should become an anchorman, just so he could close out each broadcast with “This has been Huey Lewis and The News.”

BILL

From Our "You Are Not What You Eat" File:

The American Psychological Association today announced that it will label as a sign of mental illness for any person to prefer plain M&Ms over peanut.

(For once I agree with them.)

BILL

Yes, The Film Was Great, But I Loved The Novel Even More!

In fact, I’ve read “Life of Pi” 3.14 times!!

BILL

Hey, I'll Admit It, I Too LOVE Baby Pandas!!

And they go great with mashed potatoes! BILL