All Epochs Must Pass

I’ve been locked into a Cubist epoch for the past seven days. At the outset, I was extremely prolific, producing two paintings over the course of two days. Since last Friday, however, I have been toiling away on what I have decided must be the last of my Cubist works.

A floccinaucinihilipilificator might suggest this piece belongs in a dumpster behind an orphanage.

But it doesn’t. It is pulchritudinous. And sublime. And very, very lumpy.

Here is my ‘Late Cubism’ masterpiece, entitled Self Portrait, or also, The Bulge.

Self Portrait, or, The Bulge, by Michael Cedarwood. (2015) Microsoft Paint

 

I Played Star Wars Monopoly As An Anarcho-Communist—And Won

The setting: a wooden kitchen table.

The game: Star Wars Monopoly.

The players: Two greedy cappies (pejorative form of capitalist), and me. I have not seen the Star Wars movies since I was about eight years old, so I can only describe the pieces we used:

One opponent played as an ugly fellow with a sword, the other as the robot that looks like a stumpy penis. My figure was wearing a jacket reminiscent of Dr. Evil’s garb.

I went into the game with a strategy—buy little to no property. My first opportunity to purchase a tract of land was some sort of platform in the Cloud City. Even if I hadn’t been playing as a communist, this was a no-brainer. How safe does a city on clouds sound? Why not just build a home atop a pile of runny cow dung? I passed.

Peter Kropotkin

My next move landed me in the Ewok Village. Now that had a communal ring to it. I shelled out the samolians, or in the case of this version of Monopoly, “credits.” I like to tell myself even Peter Kropotkin would have been okay with that one.

I landed in jail at least six times over the course of the game, leading me to realize my character was some sort of free-thinking anarchist. Though frustrating at first, I eventually realized all that time in the clink worked to my advantage. While in jail, I sat idly and avoided rent charges, while the other two players slugged it out betwixt themselves. Numerous times after being freed from prison, I went right ahead and landed on the “Free Parking” space, the treasury of which was very fat every time, due to penalties and taxes paid by the unincarcerated.

Sometime during all this, I landed on a property adjacent to the Ewok Village, The Forest, which I purchased simply to provide a buffer zone for the community and also prevent the razing of the trees for a galactic equivalent of Walmart to be built.

The next swing around, I found myself in the Throne Room of the Death Star. I picked that one up, and, unknown to the other players, filled it with an unshaven mass of jobless vagrants, in order to give it a sort of “Occupy Wall Street” vibe. The surrounding properties subsequently went undeveloped.

As with nearly any game of Monopoly, an impasse was reached. I, with three properties, accepted an offer for the trinity-completing neighbor of the Ewok Village and The Forest, in exchange for the Throne Room.

I took all the money I had amassed and spread it among the people, promptly erecting four communes on each piece of land. We decided to gladly accept rent from any wayfaring capitalist that came our way, and invest the money in useful things, like hammers and sickles. The other two players, by following the law and not spending most of the game in jail, owned plenty of property, but could only afford sparse development.

Within three turns, both capitalists were bankrupt, with one of them desperately trying to sell me something called “The Moisture Farm” in an embarrassing effort to restore some semblance of wealth.

So there you have it: indestructible proof that communism and anarchy work.

 

Well, I’ve Been Screwed Again

Many years ago, while enrolled in a prestigious technical college, I concocted a brew during my downtime between classes.

The Brew:

Part cappuccino, part energy drink. Named it ‘Enerchino.’ Tasted like liquid garbage, due to the experimental environment it was mixed in. Corporate funding, i.e. that of your Monster, Red Bull, etc., could have improved test versions. So I sent the recipe to a patent company. Never heard back.

Now, next time you’re in a gas station, take a stroll back to the beverage aisle, and a myriad of java-energy fusion drinks you will find. These conveniently achieved popularity about a year after I submitted my idea to that patent company.

There went my first million.

More recently, this past summer, I tried a new avenue of life-improving technology. You see, while still enrolled at the prestigious technical university mentioned above, I overheard fellow students discussing a mechanism called a ‘doob tube.’ It was simple: stuff an old toilet paper roll full of dryer sheets, then when marijuana drug smoke is blown through it, the scent is masked.

The New Invention:

Using dryer sheets and my own underpants, I attempted to create a garment that would cloak the aroma of flatulence, utilizing the same concept as the doob tube. It was impossible to fail. The one-person test group informed me that the odor of my wind was still very much noticeable. A request for the sheets to be sewn directly into the boxer shorts was denied, and the project was shelved. I knew I was on to something though.

A real picture from the Shreddies website.

A few weeks or days or months later, I see somebody post this on Facebook. That’s a link to a product called Shreddies. Shreddies. What kind of name is that. Guess what their product does. They make underwear that filters flatulence.

There goes another million.

So now, back at the drawing board, I sit here drinking a nearly undrinkable beverage that I just made, called CoffTea. It’s coffee and tea mixed together, and it’s revolting.

The Polar Vortex Will Turn My Nephew Into A 35-Year-Old First Grader

As the polar vortex returns to Minnesota, schools are again shutting down for the chill. In order to make kids less dumb, those days have to be made up somewhere, generally at the end of the academic year. However, if we look to Newtonian thought, we can expect trouble in June as well, for the third law of motion tells us that “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”

Come summer, we can expect the complete opposite of the polar vortex—a sort of tropical steamer, as it were. When the time comes to make up the days being missed now, it will simply be too hot for the youth to go to school. By the time the heat blast gives way, it will be well past the solstice.

Why not make up the days then, you may be pondering. I come from a lineage of educators, most notably my Mother. Now, there are three things that teachers love about the job—winter break, spring break, and summer break. Especially summer break. If teachers are expected to continue working into July, we can expect nothing less than chaos.

For instance, every June, it is tradition for my Mother to peel out of the school parking lot, stop at the liquor store, then disappear down into the utility shed until Labor Day. As far as I know, she isn’t even aware of the existence of the time we call ‘July,’ and August lives in her brain as a sort of hypnopompic hallucination, with the opening of September being the first solid grasp of reality after a three month soak in rum and Pepsi.

So now the make-up days have been pushed into what would be the new school year. Mass confusion can be expected here, as many of the students won’t realize that they are still in the grade from the previous year for the first week or so of the new year. By the time all that gets smoothed out, we’re looking at the September holidays—Talk Like A Pirate Day, Mexican Independence Day, Rosh Hashanah, Oktoberfest. Then October harvest arrives, when all the children head to the fields to shuck corn and shave animals. In November, it will be deemed too ‘nice’ out for the kids to be cooped up in school, due to the looming polar vortex of next winter. Throw in all the cancelled days for that, and we’re basically up to January 23rd of 2015, when the whole cycle repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats.

The Philosophunculist Has A Facebook Page Now

We here at The Philosophunculist have always been on the way to selling out. But in order to sell out, you need a buyer. To find a buyer, you need, well, I’m not sure, which is why no one seems to be purchasing what I’m pushing. I blame the economy, mostly, but also teenagers, immigrants, people on welfare, liberals, conservatives, and Canada.

Anyways, back to selling out. I stated, ages ago, on this very Blog, that it was my intent to one day become an eccentric billionaire, or at the very least, a weird millionaire. The warnings have been there. So here it is. This Blog now has a Facebook page.

Picture it as the tiny snowball perched on the top of a hill, ready to be pushed down, sopping up and absorbing everything in its widening swath. At the bottom of the hill, my own clothing line, corporate endorsements, reality television, rehab, indoor sunglasses, and straight cash homey.

Here’s the link. ‘Like’ it. That’s it. You don’t even have to look at it after that.

This is the link to the official Philosophunculist Facebook Page.

Here’s What I Think Of The Royal Baby

How To Get Rid Of A Farmer’s Tan

I was naked the other day and realized I’ve got a wicked farmer’s tan goin’ on. Today, I am concocting an outfit to allow the whiter areas of my body to catch up with the more leathery. Here is how:

-I will get a turtleneck and cut the neck off of it. Then I’ll cut the arms off just above the elbows. The extracted pieces will be worn on my neck and arms to stop them from getting any darker.

-Acquire some tighty whities to cover my buttocks and genitalia. I can’t risk exposing them to sunlight, too much is at stake.

-Get a pair of pants. Any old kind will do. This will be the same as the turtleneck trick. Cut them off just above the knees, and wear the bottom part to cover the lower portion of my legs, allowing my creamy thighs to attain a deep, lustrous tan. My feet will also be left exposed in order to even out the sock line.

-Go outside, and let el sol take care of the rest.

The Harvard Law School Lecture Series

I’ve got a number of unfinished projects on my desk right now. Screenplays, sitcom pilots, a novel, an erotic novella, a few doodles of me slaying an evil unicorn and then saving some lusty broad from a castle tower. And also, this: a rough outline of the first in a series of lectures, an ongoing symposium, if you will, to be delivered to the students of Harvard Law School, when I receive an honorary doctorate degree from that institution, 23 years from now, after accomplishing a to be determined feat.

My first action: in front of a packed classroom in Austin Hall, I will hold up the textbook, Everything You Need To Know About Law, and address the students. “Do you all see what I’m holding in my hand? This book? Take a look. Everything You Need To Know About Law. (I’ll slowly rotate so everyone gets an eyeful, then bring it down, flip through a few pages) A fella could learn a thing or two from this.” Then I throw it over my shoulder, out the window, and say “That’s everything you need to know about law.” Hold for applause. Only then do I realize that I forgot to open the window beforehand. Glass shatters everywhere. No big deal. I tell the most knock-kneed, pock-faced chowderhead to clean it up, and wink at the cute chick in the front row.

I’ll continue: “You probably all want to hear about how I was once like you, a young, eager law student who put his pants on one leg at a time. Eat this guys—I don’t give a wet slap about law, and I don’t put my pants on one leg at a time, never have. The first time I dressed myself I sat on my bed with my pants at my feet. I scrunched the bottom of the pants up to the top, held them in both hands, and slipped both legs through at the same time.”

After that, give them all some bogus writing assignment on why they want to be lawyers, then duck out and play hacky sack on the quad with some major femininas.

Chick-fil-A Will Now Only Serve Meat From Gay Chickens

Dan Cathy, in what may prove to be either a brilliant PR move or an incredibly misguided attempt to appease millions of seething poultry lovers who probably hadn’t even heard of Chick-fil-A just weeks ago, has announced that his company will from now on serve meat exclusively from chickens who were homosexual during their lifetimes.

The company president’s decision was met with anger from PETA, who will never be happy about anything, lukewarm support from poultry farmers, whose businesses will be bolstered or hurt depending on the sexual orientation of their chicken herds, and general confusion from the LGBT community.

“No animal should ever be used for human consumption,” a PETA official stated, not realizing the irony that humans most likely would not have evolved to the level of consciousness necessary to come to the conclusion that it is wrong to eat animals had it not been for the inclusion of meat into their diets millions of years ago.

A redneck farmer, who contracts his birds out to Chick-fil-A, was speechless, and looked more confused than a cow in a henhouse, a pig in a shower, and a horse at a hootenanny.

“Uh…..what? I don’t get it, are we supposed to be happy that they’re including homosexual chickens on their menu, or offended that they are now only slaughtering the gay ones for their restaurants?” a befuddled representative of the LGBT community responded.

Whatever the motive, you can bet your bottom dollar that this exclusive gay-chicken move will only make Chick-fil-A better than ever. That’s according to Dan Cathy, who asks you to ponder this: “Imagine, two roosters just going at it. They are both masculine, powerful, and dominant. The strenuous sexual battle betwixt them will result in more of a struggle, therefore a harder workout for each bird, resulting in a leaner, healthier cut of meat. I’m getting sweaty and hungry just thinking about it.”

This reporter, not satisfied with one-sided answers, took it one step further — what about the meat rendered from lesbian chickens? Cathy looked thoughtful for a moment, then replied, “Well, Michael, that’s a damn good question. A damn good question. While less physical than the male of the species, a lesbian cut of meat can be counted on to provide what is lacking in their penised counterparts — tenderness, juiciness, and an all-around aura of love. And that’s what we want people to experience when they eat at a Chick-fil-A restaurant — love. But not weird, ishy, homosexual love.”

When asked what the homosexual chicken community thought of this development, a local gay chicken was very tight-beaked, yet its body language betrayed the fact that it was thinking deeply about something, but what? Is it that chickens, regardless of sexual orientation, have no marriage rights whatsoever? Was she planning an escape? Was she thinking of what was going to happen in the henhouse later? Or perhaps there was no cerebral activity there at all, her brain a veritable ball of goop due to years of the inbreeding and harsh conditions that make up today’s corporate chicken farms.

Whatever the outcome, I’m still not sure what Chick-fil-A is or how to pronounce it.

 

 

 

Conspiracy Theory: Are Hormel And Hanes In Cahoots?

Have Hanes and the Hormel Foods Corporation been secretly in cahoots with one another? It looks as though the seemingly disparate industries have no plausible reason to cross paths. Well, looks like I prematurely shot my wad and based the whole premise of this article on some brash assumptions that had no basis in actual fact. Sorry to have wasted your time.

Oh wait, there is one point I forgot to make. Let’s take a quick look at both companies.

Hanes: An apparel company well-known for their socks, T-shirts, and undergarments.

Hormel: Producer of SPAM, Dinty Moore, and a variety of other foods, most notably Hormel Chili. I have an extremely hot tip from a trusted culinary insider that the meat used in this chili is just “good enough” to not be made into dog food. Interesting. Low-grade meat is notorious for its blindingly quick layover in the human digestive system. More notorious yet is its even hastier, comically-explosive-bat-out-of-hades escape from that digestive system.

Do you see the link? Why else would the nutritionally bankrupt products of Hormel be kept on shelves, unless they were serving a higher, more sinister purpose than simply gratifying the quivering gullets of the drunk, the poor, and the drunk poor? Picture the stereotypical consumer of a can of Hormel Chili — it’s a grizzled man in a beater and tighty-whities, shoveling that slop into his mouth like an immigrant coal stoker in the boiler room of an early 1900’s cruise ship.

I posit that Hormel is a multi-tiered puppet enterprise of Hanes, who is using the constant onslaught of almost-dog food blemished shirts and soiled underpants to create sales in an impoverished demographic that would under any other conditions hang on to their clothes if they weren’t covered in revolting meat stains and fecal matter.

Before you go out and buy that next pack of private delicates or can of lubricated swill, remember: you are a mere pawn in a high stakes game benefitting an over-paid fat cat who wants you to sit on your couch and sh*t your pants.

Investigation in process: is the upholstery industry a fringe benefactor of the Hormel/Hanes conglomerate?