Barry Parham's Blog: The Mooncalf Communion, page 29

The Road Home

(well, Route 66, it ain’t)

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For this week’s column, I want to tell you about the road that runs between where I live and my home town. I do this for two important journalistic reasons:

It’s a captivating, rambling snapshot of rural life in the American South Earlier this week, I forgot to write this week’s column

You might be saying to yourself, there’s very little to be said about a stretch of inter-county road, but don’t be too quick to cast stones; after all, you’re sitting th...

New Snow in the Old South

(Bread, check. Milk, check. Brine, che … brine?)

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Late last week, it snowed again down here in America’s Deep South, a cyclical event that occurs with relentless, clock-like precision about every sixty years.

Of course, every time this happens, Southerners have to put up with “You call that snow?” jeers from our northern neighbors, as if comparing snowfall accumulations was some kind of playground peeing contest between eight-year-old boys. (Any respectable Southern gentleman knows...

Breakfast, Allegedly

(Why you should never sit in a booth)

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As a humor columnist, some of my best “ideas” come from readers like you who point me to weird online articles or odd items in the news. I’ll read the article, shake my head for a while in disbelief, get all my locks changed, and scribble off the week’s column.

This week, I was sent one such news story via a Google link, and I was hooked in less than ten words: “It’s unclear when the woman took off her clothes…”

It gets better.

“It’s unclear w...

Taloned Furnishings

(Don’t forget to tip your tulip!)

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Recently, I read about a new hotel in Asia with an interesting twist – at this hotel, you don’t tip the staff….you oil them.

Thanks to a potentially clever marriage of efficiency and technology, Japan now has a hotel staffed entirely by robots. Now, I know what you’re thinking – non-humans make up the staffs of most American hotels, too (not to mention airport security). But the Japanese are doing it on purpose.

Whenever I run across any news from...

Things I Never Do

(My new year’s resolution? 800600.)

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As each new year begins, we tend to look back and reflect on the old one. And when I do that, I can’t help but notice how many times I didn’t get arrested.

It seems like some people – celebrities in particular – make a career out of making bad decisions. It’s as if their contract includes a mandatory stupidity clause, right after the part where they contractually have to stand for hours on rented red carpets in LA and grin at reporters.

Of cours...

A Very Complicated Rock

(Did single-celled life have to share cellphones?)

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Okay, enough is enough. America, we’re facing a cultural crisis that demands action, and so I’m casting a net. It’s time for an intervention, and I’m looking for volunteers. Why? Because scientists who get asked to appear on TV shows are writing their own lines … and this has to stop.

There were two short films that prompted me to commit my resources to this crisis, both of them featured on a website dedicated to nothing but cold...

Abe Lincoln, Rabbi

(History, no. Lunch, yes.)

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Watch your back, everybody. These are dangerous days, and the black helicopters are everywhere. Conspiracies, thick as thieves, roil in the streets, and none more dire than this one out of Texas: in Dallas, a conspiracy museum has been killed.

By a Quiznos.

“Yeah, right,” you say, assuming you’re the type of person who argues with humor columns. “You blame the sandwich shop for taking out the museum? Well, I happen to know better. Quiznos was with me tha...

Pachamama’s Family Reunion

(Maybe deep space isn’t all that deep)

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Once again, mankind, it looks like we may have company. According to the internet, there could be another Earth sulking about on the far edges of our solar system, and you know what horror that portends – inside this one, defenseless universe, there could be two Geraldo Riveras.

Frightening, I know. Mother Nature can be cold-hearted like that.

But that’s what some scientists are saying. (The second Earth part, not the second Geraldo part. I t...

Same Planet, Different Worlds

(Parenting, and other four-letter words)

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One of the more fascinating things about working in somebody else’s office – I mean, besides the discomforting discovery that the people who own the office expect me to show up every single week – is listening to my coworkers who have kids. From my perspective as a career single guy, when I hear these parents talk about life with children, it’s sounds like being trapped in a chapter from Gulliver’s Travels…

…and the Brobdingnagians are losi...

Are You Good Enough For You?

(Well, yeah, she’s a felon…but great hair!)

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Here’s an interesting statistic: These days, one out of every three long-term relationships begins online. (The other two still depend on old-school tactics, like lying in person.)

To get divorced, of course, you don’t need the internet. There’s twenty-seven lawyers just on the cover of my phone book.

I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly getting spam from online dating sites, all promising to hook me up with exactly the perfect sou...