Barry Parham's Blog: The Mooncalf Communion, page 33

Yell It With Flowers!

(What is Mylar, anyway?)

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Last week I bought a $24.99 flower arrangement for $101.85.

Don’t be jealous. Not everyone can manage their finances as shrewdly as that. I have a gift.

Admittedly, I was out of my league from the start. As you can imagine, single guys don’t spend a lot of time at the florists. Bachelors do a brisk business with florists, but not single guys. What’s the difference? Bachelor is a condition, a transient state. Single guy is a decision.

Bachelors are still lo...

Florida’s Invisible Shepherd Problem

(Could be worse. Ask Utah.)

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Fortunately for human civilization…well, what’s left of it…it appears NASA has nearly invented the Star Trek warp drive. Soon, we’ll be able to board a starship, yell at that “Scotty” guy, leave Earth at Florida turnpike speeds, and go live somewhere hostile and unearthly, like the Crab Nebula, or Dallas.

And not a moment too soon, either, because Earth is in trouble: the loonies are naked and the rabbits are stoned.

We’ll get to the bunnies in a bit. F...

Pictures in Search of a Caption

Reviews were mixed for Denzel’s upcoming biopic, “Billy Dee’s Incontinence” As the street dance wound down, John Travolta began to get desperate “Okay, tattoo master.” grumbled Dennis Rodman. “Let’s do the tongue. This gonna hurt?” History tells us precious little about Louis Armstrong’s “blue water period” It quickly became apparent that the Cargo Pants ‘R’ Us hiring manager would need to keep looking Fortunately, the Coen Brothers opted for Arizona, rather than sticking with their first f...

Future Chicken

(Cosmic yawns, Korean studs, fragile frogs. Just another week.)

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Here are some actual headlines. Well, to a point. As Garrison Keillor once said (and I paraphrase): Truth, for a storyteller, is a good place to start. But truth won’t get you all the way home.

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NEW POLL: 3% THINK U.S. CONFLICT WITH ISIS GOING “VERY WELL”

According to a recent poll conducted by two high school sophomores, the majority of Americans think we are losing ground in the global war on te...

Shrimp Knuckles

(WARNING: this article may contain Nobel Prize spoilers)

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Everybody loves a scientist. They create stuff we depend on, they generally pose no threat of stealing your girlfriend, and those function-first corduroy pants they wear make funny noises when they walk.

Scientists are a unique breed, with peculiar habits:

They love to sort stuff. (I once dated somebody who sorted my books by height. I forget her name now…in fact, I forgot her name then — immediately, somewhere between C an...

Idaho. Come See Our Dirt!

(Welcome to the United States of Mind)

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Here’s a gallingly nosy question: How do you feel? That may be the almost-most useless question in the English language, right after “Would you like to pay more taxes?” and “Wanna watch a few more Adam Sandler movies?”

Most of the time, thankfully, “How do you feel?” generates just one response. “Fine.” Answering “How do you feel?” with “Fine” is practically a reflex action, and Congress should probably make that the law. Because sometimes th...

Persia vs. the Peter Principle

(Thanks to US diplomacy, we’ve now got Iran right where they want us.)

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The Event: Last day (not really) of the US/Iran Nuclear Negotiations

The Location: Lausanne, Switzerland

The Players:

Iran the formerly United States of America the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) representatives from a few other countries that were included despite being both non-Muslim and geographically irrelevant uninvited members of the media that snuck in anyway caterers, courtesy of (and ve...

When Anchovies Ruled the Earth

(Sorry…no trophic trophy for you.)

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For all you chest-thumping hunter-gatherer types out there…all of you, be ye male, female, or one of the two dozen other boutique genders…I’m afraid I have some bad news. According to a new study, homo sapiens has been officially out-predatored.

By an anchovy.

I’m referring, of course, to an online article recently posted by everyone’s favorite go-to source for light reading, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), that zany group of madcaps who...

America’s Least Wanted

(It’s people like this who give crime a bad name)

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Criminals. Let’s face it: when we think about the great ones – Al Capone, Pretty Boy Floyd, Bonnie & Clyde, Congress – publicly, we all tut-tut such bad behavior, but privately? We can’t get enough. Well, except for Congress.

This month, the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List turns 65. Imagine that: for sixty-five years, millions of Americans have been studiously ignoring the ten surly mug shots in that famous document that we’ve all seen,...

Guardians of the Guy Galaxy

(Somebody’s gotta do it.)

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Here at the American Institute for the Preservation of Guys and Other Endangered Species, we’re always on the lookout for new hazards. We have to be; after all, we work for an organization whose mission is to try and protect guys – a moderately challenged life form consisting of upright bipeds (more-or-less) whose last words, all too often, are “Hey y’all – watch this!”

It’s a thankless job, working for the Institute, especially during our quarterly motiv...