RETURN OF THE LISTED LISTS

FROM THE DESK OF DAVE MATTHEWS
“Lift up your dress a little more/ Show off your reason for being to me.”
“Sneak up that skirt a little more/ I want to make sure you’re not a dude.”
“Pull down those jeans a little more/ Reveal your no-no special place to me.”
“Blow wind up that dress a little more/ I think your underwear is sheer.”
“Get out of that car a little more/ I just need one more photo.”
“Pull up that skirt a little more/ No, just a little bit more/ There.”
“Take off your pants a little more/ I would like to see your vagina.”

SHORT-LIVED CARTOON ANIMALS
Delicious Duck
Average Life-Span Mayfly
William Henry Harrison Hedgehog
Death Row Dog
Otto, James Dean’s Talking Car
Oopsies, The Mouse Who Flirts With Mobster’s Girlfriends
Cherry, The Girl Locked in the Fridge

BACK IN THE DAY

When I tell people I’m 72 years old, they don’t believe me. “No one’s that old!” they guffaw, but it’s true. I am the oldest man alive, at 72 years. And I’ve seen and heard and been through everything there is to have seen or heard. Or been through.

When I was growing up, my favorite TV show was, “Murder, She Cave-Drew.” My uncle invented fire, but he was beaten to the patent office by a young Benjamin Franklin.

As a kid, I once got in trouble for playing Freeze Tag in a construction site. My brother and I were chased down the hill by these huge Teamsters with glowing eyes, pitch-black capes and yellow hard hats. That construction site is better known today as Stonehenge.

When I was a teenager, I was known for my delinquency. I once sucker-punched Saint Francis of Assisi for “allegedly” keying my Thunderbird. Sure, everyone thought he was so nice, but I knew the real St. Francis, and he was a grade-A creepo. He thought he was the cock of the walk, the penis of the prance, the shlong of the shimmy. But I knew that was all just a clever ruse to get canonized. And it worked! Which is why I say to Saint Francis, up your nose with a Bible hose!

My first real job was removing the arms from sculptures during the Renaissance, which was surprisingly lucrative, but work dried up once the sculptors just started using lepers as models. But soon after, I was drafted to fight the Factory Uprising in the bloody Industrial Revolution. Though we came to a peaceful conclusion, I still have trouble being civil to warehouses.

And the women! I’ve lived and loved with the greats, including Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, Mata Hari, J. Lo, Gertrude Stein, Yvonne De Carlo, Mary Magdalene, Secretariat, Mon Mothma, and Sherlock Holmes’s sister. I’ve been called a cad, a sham, a sharpie, a shmoo, a rover, a rambler, a festiva, a jag-off, a slag-off, a cutie-pie, a kewpie doll, a rubber tarzan, and a liar. And I’ve never been married- twice. And I’m a happy man, though some nights it gets lonely in my mineral waterbed.

That’s how it goes when you’re as 72 years old as I am. You’re left with nothing but your memories. Your misty, frosty, foggy, water-colored paint-by-numbers abstract expressionist memories. And yes, I may not feel as young as I used to, lo those many centuries of 72 years ago, but I’ve lived and I’ve loved and I’ve laved and I’ve louved. And who else can say that? I ask rhetorically. And rhetorically you reply, No one, old man. No one.

THE THINKER! A STAGEBOUND COMEDY SKETCH FEATURING SPEX & 2 TONS

(At the Radicool Pizza Temp Agency. 2 Tons enters hurriedly, desperate for temporary employment. Spex is a French job placement employee par excellence.)

Spex: Bonjour, et welcome to the Radicool Pizza Home For Temporary Job Placement and Jellybean Tastery. And how may oui be of assistance toward vous?

2 Tons: I need a job. My grandfather is about to lose his Vanagon to the repo men if I don't score some major buckage, pronto!

Spex: D'accord, let me zee what is available immediatement so you can more queeckly, how you say, score some major buckage pronto.

(He turns to his computer.)

Spex: Le tap, le tap, entrez. Ah! We do have a job available for immediate employ.

2 Tons: I'll take it! What is it?

Spex: Tis at ze downtown Casio Bar.

2 Tons: Casio Bar?

Spex: Oui, it's like your American Piano Bar, mais avec a casio keyboard for cheaper stage representation.

2 Tons: But I can't play piano! I can type 96,000 words a minute, create excel PowerPoint spreadsheet document macro mail labels and do assloads of data entry, literally. But I've never known and will never know how to play piano. Never!

Spex: Monsieur, you misundercomprenez. You do not neeeeeed to play ze how you say piano.

2 Tons: F-shew! That's a relief.

Spex: You will neeeeeed to play ze how you say keyboard.

2 Tons: But-but-but-but!

Spex: But-but-but-but nussing! You will be naturellement, I swear upon my Frenchyness.

2 Tons: Well, if you say so.

Spex: Je me dit a peut etre chaud. Now, allons y!

2 Tons: Thank you! Thank you!

Spex: But of course.

(2 Tons wanders over to the other side of the stage where the keyboard is. He plays extraordinarily poorly.)

2 Tons: I write the songs, I write the songs, I write the songs, I write the songs, I write the songs, I write the songs, I write the sooooooooooooooooo (breath) ooooooooooooooooongs!

(He runs his finger haphazardly down the keyboard. Plays sporadically, then finds the demo button and pretends to play. Spex, as a patron walks over with a drink in his hand. 2 Tons doesn't notice at first but when he does he turns off the demo and they have a bit of a staring competition.)

Spex: Penny for your thoughts.

2 Tons: I think I'm in over my head.

Spex: That's pretty impressive for such a tall drinka scotch. Well, here you go.

(He drops a penny into 2 Tons's tip jar. 2 Tons looks at the penny and gets an idea. Information Society's "What's On Your Mind" begins playing. He places a Thoughts sign on his tip jar. Ike reenters as a different patron.)

2 Tons: Penny for my thoughts?

Spex: Don't mind if you do.

(Music back up as 2 Tons elaborately mimes talking and Spex elaborately downplays listening. Music fades back.)

2 Tons: And I think about bleach, how it makes your whites whiter but smells like high heaven, and airline food, am I right? Well, that's about it.

Spex: Very intriguing. How much do I owe you?

2 Tons: Well, let's see.

(He counts on his fingers and pulls out a calculator, crunching numbers. Crunch!)

2 Tons: At a penny per thought, that's $675.

Spex: Do you take a check?

(Music back up. 2 Tons removes the keyboard and stands. Music out.)

2 Tons: And seriously, orange? That's gotta be the minority of colors. Only a freaktard would have orange as their favorite color, right ladies? Maybe as their favorite fruit. Nobody ever asks about your favorite fruit anymore. What is up with that?

(Spex, an emcee, enters.)

Spex: All right, let's give it up for The Thinker.

2 Tons: Thank you, I've really made you think by making me think. Pay it forward, all y'all!

(They retreat to the corner.)

Spex: Thinker, you really raked in the dough tonight. Sweet Joey Christmas, you are an overnight sensation!

2 Tons: Speaking of overnight, I wonder how much money is in that jar.

Spex: Now why did overnight make you think of money and of jars?

2 Tons: Give me a penny and maybe you'll find out.

Spex: Come on, how about a freebie for a friend?

2 Tons: I don't even know you. We literally just met like two minutes ago.

Spex: Man, you changed, Thinker. It used be about the art of the thinking and the people you would think around. Now it's about the Almighty Penny.

2 Tons: Are you finished?

Spex: Yes, now what do you have to say for yourself?

2 Tons: Give me a penny first.

Spex: I knew it. You're too far gone. Good-bye, Thinker.

(Spex exits.)

2 Tons: Look at me. This morning I was so desperate to save my grandfather's Vanagon I took a job as a keyboard player in a Casio Bar. And then suddenly, I was thrust into stardom, being paid untold cents to provide my slightly skewed worldview. And what do I do with it? I alienate the only other person I've ever met. All this Thinking has gone to my head, and it's turned me into a monster who ruins lives pennies at a time. Curse you, copper coin! No wonder Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in cold blood.

(Spex reenters as the Grandfather.)

Spex: Grandson! I've been looking all over for you!

2 Tons: Grandfather! Am I too late?

Spex: First I checked the bedroom, then I checked the closet, then the garage, then the kitchen, then the attic, then the living room, then the bathroom, then the half-bathroom, then the basement. Turns out you weren't in the house!

2 Tons: I heard all about your Vanagon and ran to the nearest Temp Agency and Jellybean Tastery I could find to score some major buckage pronto and save your beloved van-wagon combo. Then I was suddenly famous and blew all my money on drugs and women and the gee-gees and top hats and one-sheets and popsicles. Will you ever forgive me?

Spex: I don't know- can I think about it?

(They both laugh a whole lot.)

2 Tons: Okay, this sketch is over.

Spex: Yeah.

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