Good Manners Are Everything

It was during my many years as a manure salesman when I learned the true value of a firm, heartily pumped handshake, a belief that, anyway you cut it, passes the smell test.

BILL

Tinder Mercies

Having openly despised Yosemite National Park for quite some time now, words can scarcely capture the heartwarming joy I feel as I watch acre after acre of it burn away to ash. Hey, I’ll admit it, I’ve been hard on the climate change deniers of late, but this time I’m sending a hearty shout out their way, knowing as we do that scientists predicted increasing drought conditions would lead to frequent and more intense brushfires, much like the one we’re seeing in Yosemite. So thank you, climate change deniers! And what say we all join together now and chant: Burn, baby, burn!!!

BILL

Ruining The Four-Minute Miley

And remember, kids, if you’re not that musically talented: sex it up!!

BILL

Chicken of Curry

NEWS ITEM: July 9 marked the first anniversary of Savannah Guthrie replacing Ann Curry on "Today," and the numbers suggest that the change hasn't been kind to the show, which has been losing ground to ABC counterpart "Good Morning America" lately.

EDITORIAL: I told them to go with someone older than Ann Curry. Not younger! Idiots….

BILL

Bill re Bills

So I’m cashing a check and when the teller counts off the bills one of them has a big brown splotch on it. “Now there’s a case for money laundering,” I said innocently. Next thing you know I’m talking to the Feds!

BILL

Hey, I Admit It, I LIKE San Diego's Mayor Bob Filner

He makes me feel so, well… normal.

BILL

Now That's Just COLD!!!

A girlfriend once broke up with me and was so happy about it she named her chain of stores after our breakup: Smart & Final.

BILL

Three Solutions In Search of a Problem

Inspired by North Carolina’s Republican governor recently signing into law legislation intended to ban already illegal voter fraud (when no such problems exist) and the GOP’s ongoing efforts to prevent Sharia law (less likely to occur than finding Jimmy Hoffa), I have started a petition to ban Martian law. I’m sure – no matter one’s political stripe – that none of us would ever want to find ourselves under the tyrannical jackboot of Martians. So let’s cut the little green men off at the pass with preemptive legislation. Who’s with me?!

BILL

A Message From Cate Blanchett:

Hi Everybody! Just wanted to say how excited I am that Bill Bekkala has already made it known that I will win the Oscar for Best Actress on March 2, 2014 for my performance in “Blue Jasmine,” a film in which – and on this the critics agree – I might be just about as crazy as Bill.

CATE

Don't Play It Again, Sam

Following an eighteen-hour operation, a surgical team at an undisclosed New York Hospital today reported that they have designed the perfect filmmaker, having successfully removed Woody Allen’s obtrusive love of jazz.

BILL

Hoaxer Stuff

NEWS ITEM: The year 2012 was a terrible time for the planet, according to a new report by the American Meteorological Society. Edited by scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 2012 State of the Climate report revealed that Arctic sea ice reached a record low, while sea levels and greenhouse gases from fossil fuel burning hit all-time highs last year.

(Look, ma, no editorial….)

BILL

A Much Tighter Gettysburg Address (Abe Could Be a Tad Wordy)

Eighty-seven years ago our great grand dads started the U.S.A., born in freedom and dedicated to the deal that everyone’s equal.

Now we’re stuck in a terrible war, testing whether we, or any land made like ours, can last. We meet on a big battlefield, a chunk of which we want to dedicate as graves for those who died so others don’t. It is totally fitting that we do this.

But, seriously, we can't dedicate, consecrate, or make this ground holy. The brave guys who fought here already did, and way beyond what we could do. No one will remember what we say here, but it sure won't forget what they did here! Either way, we have to finish the job the noble soldiers I mentioned earlier started. We are to be dedicated to the work left — that from these honored dead we really devote ourselves to what they died for and firmly resolve that they won't die for no reason - that the U.S.A., by God, shall again be born free - and that government of, by, and for the people, won't go extinct.

BILL

Hey, I Smashed a Porch Spider Once Too You Know!

Seriously, I don’t know what the big deal is. James Dean made only three more movies than I have.

BILL

Not So Happy Anniversary (Yes, I Have My Serious Side)

In light of the fact that on this date in 1945, Hiroshima was destroyed by the first wartime use of an atomic bomb, I thought I’d plug my novel, “City of Seven Rivers.” The story, set in 1995, is about a Marin County junior high student who suspects that Myron Hunter, the 74-year-old recluse next door is in fact Arden Hennessey, former bombardier on the Enola Gay. The boy’s suspicions counter the widely held belief that Hennessey, whose postwar success as a painter would nearly be undone by unrelenting guilt over the death and destruction he himself unleashed upon Hiroshima, leaped off the Golden Gate Bridge on the 10-year anniversary of the bombing. There are some reviews on Amazon/Barnes & Noble (none of which I wrote….)

BILL

PS – Anytime anyone suggests that the scenario I’ve written about didn’t actually occur I remind them that Jack and Rose weren’t really on the Titanic.

http://www.cityofsevenrivers.com/

(Forgive the plug, but if I don’t do it who will? And if you’ve read it, feel free to post a review at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. And tell a friend. Thanks.)

I Am, Like, So Hung Over Right Now!

Last night I played a drinking game with a bunch of minors. We downed a shot every time one of them used the word “like.” The game barely lasted a minute.

BILL

To Forgive is Human; To Electrocute Is For The Dogs

Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick has “forgiven” teammate Riley Cooper for recently using the N-Word, resisting his initial impulse to electrocute someone whose performance had so disappointed him.

BILL

New Gold Standard for Denial of Personal Responsibility!!

Embattled San Diego Mayor Bob Filner – and, oh, it breaks my heart to have to call him a Democrat - is asserting that his untoward behavior toward women is due to the city having neglected to give him sexual harassment training.

This trumps in mind-boggling temerity his earlier request to have taxpayers pick up the tab for his legal expenses.

BILL

PS – Mere hours after I wrote this I was proven wrong, for yesterday, Ariel Castro, convicted of imprisoning three women in his house and raping them repeatedly for a decade, blamed his actions on a sex addiction, his former wife and even the FBI for not thoroughly investigating the abductions.

Time To Clean Out The Ear Wax

I thought she said "You have a seriously sexy ass."

What she actually said was: "Seriously, you're a sexist ass!"

BILL