Stink Pig of the Valley

My friend Paul, he’s an awful, awful guy, and lot of people hate him with good reason, but I don’t.

I could auto-complete the jeremiads and phillipics contra-Paulam as well as any

My brain’s not broke.

Exemplum: Paul’s rude, Paul’s cruel, Paul’s crude, Paul’s yen’s to rule will not be brooked

And yet he is ineffectual, akratic, petulant, weak & whiny, stinky, sweaty, and briny

He dresses poorly and abuses prescription medication and has not called his poor elderly parents in Sioesset in forever.

But he is entirely free of the sort of backstabbing relentless obsequiousness that is like a perpetual, soul-grinding background hum these days

Everywhere? In my line of work? I think everywhere. It’s probably a consequence of the huge income disparities in America these days

You have these fortunatos running around and you need a stiff backbone not to kiss their asses. You need to know who you are. I know who I am. But a lot of folks, don’t know who they are. You could spend a lot of words trying to figure that one out. How could you not know who you are? I mean if you don’t know that, what do you know? Who could you be? Deep stuff. But as to why — early childhood stuff, mostly.

But most are finding a ring to kiss, no doubt. And you can’t blame them, or you can, but I don’t.

Cause nobody’s got healthcare, or very few. We need money, la, we need money. For love, for children, for a “nice day”, we need to GET PAID. Praise the Lord! Mommy, mommy!

Anyway Paul’s not like that.

He’s not my best friend, but he’s my friend.

I will spend an evening drinking, complaining, and watching the Rockford Files with Paul and stumbling home not feel guilt at having wasted one of my precious evenings on Earth.

Rather I’ll be like — ah, that Paul. What are we gonna do with you?

Poor me, what am I gonna do with me?

Paul I may not have your backbone but

I’ve got your back.

But as for his sister Marcy?

If I may make at a parenthesis here in case any of the Garoogian’s might be giving the old Search Engine a spin and find this piece.

No thanks.