Utah Gov. Gary Herbert kicks off Days of '47 with cattle drive on Capitol Hill. (Deseret News)

try herding kids, Governor.  that's something that will challenge your temper, your vocabulary, and your faith in humanity.  I took six of my kids on the bus once to get a heating voucher in the middle of winter.  there was no one I could leave them with.  I fumbled with a handful of change and balled up dollar bills -- exact change only, you know; public transportation hasn't made change for anyone since before peanut butter met jelly.  the kids formed a swarm to take over all the empty seats, surging in like the tide at the Bay of Fundy. just as I lassoed one into a seat, another one would break loose and head for the tall timber.  by the time we got to where we were going I had lost most of the utility bills I had to bring along to show to the clerk. they had been trampled underneath the stampede.  she refused to give me a voucher.
now here's the strange thing; on the bus ride back home those same long horned kids were as sedate as granite.  wouldn't move a muscle or let out a whine.  I never could figure that out.  if you can explain it to me, you certainly deserve to be Governor. 

Trump Sets the 2020 Tone: Like 2016, Only This Time ‘the Squad’ Is Here. (NYT)

I've never run for office in my life, so I'm an expert on the process.  the first thing you do is sign up a bunch of like-minded people to hurry around a rented office with lots of papers in their hands.  you must have dozens of constantly ringing phones in the office, with your subordinates rushing to answer them like it was the end of the world.  that's the way I've seen it done in the movies.
then you gotta stand in front of a giant photograph of yourself looking all pompous and important and declaim something generic and easy to chant, like "Better Politics Means Better Lives!" 
I think that's all there is to it.  I might have missed something, but if I did it can't be very important.  these are the main points.  
if you happen to get elected you can expect a beautiful woman, or a handsome man, to complicate things for you -- but the real person to look out for is the cigar chomping fat cat who drips money out of his bulging pockets.  he is what is known as a Vested Interest.  keep him at arm's length.  you should spend all your time working for the Little People.  and I do mean leprechauns -- there's no strings attached to their gold, chum. 

A Prosperous China Says ‘Men Preferred,’ and Women Lose. (NYT)

(Dedicated to @amyquin)



the best year of my married life was when Amy went to work as a Special Ed teacher when we bought our house in Wichita.  I was sick of being fired from job after job for insubordination and lollygagging, so I told her I would stay home and she could go out and get a job.  and she did.  by golly, she did.  a good one, too, with health benefits and free school lunches. she had a classroom assistant.  she had it made in the shade.
meanwhile I stayed home to watch the kids, cook, clean, and exchange banalities with the neighbors about crab grass.  I took a great deal of pride in hanging up line upon line of cloth diapers to dry in the rude Kansas sun.  Amy took the car to work, so I never went anywhere during the day with the kids -- we stayed home and found garter snakes under the porch and they helped me pound flour and eggs into a lumpy mess we called spitzen, for dinner.  our house had no basement, so we looked for rainbows and not tornadoes.
but then one of the students bit Amy on the hand and she had to slap the kid's face to make him let go. Her classroom assistant ratted her out to the principal.  there was an inquiry.  Amy lost her job.  we became itinerant tinkers.

Trump Rallies G.O.P. to Oppose Resolution Against Racist Language. (NYT)

I had a crazy boss, once.  we've all had 'em.  you know, the ones with eyes like marbles.  they're overly fussy about grooming and clothes.  they wear you out with a droning pettiness that leaves a headache just beyond reach every afternoon at four.
my crazy boss kept going on and on about "collecting the lowest fruit."  he couldn't bring himself to praise anyone's work, least of all mine.  he needed to clear the phlegm out of his throat, but kept swallowing it instead.  he gave mean performance reviews.  it got to the point where my sphincter clenched every time he talked to me. 
come to think of it, that place did not just have a crazy boss, but also a frenzied group of crazy employees. They loved to hold pointless meetings, meetings where I sat and watched dust motes jogging near the window, wishing I were dead. we've all been there, right?  the craziness can spread like an oil slick, so you have to get out. and when I got out I never went back to work for a crazy boss again.  I took a course in collage and am now part of the gig economy.             

Beyond the Grave, the N.R.A.’s $56 Million Donor Lives On. (NYT)

(dedicated to @dannyhakim)

then there's this dead guy that keeps giving me money. I mean, whenever the doorbell rings around midnight I know it's this gruesome corpse, risen from the grave, that hands me hundred dollar bills. I've tried to tell him he doesn't need to do it -- I'm doing okay on my Social Security and all -- but it just looks at me with that brown decaying rictus on its face and won't go away until I take the money out of its cold dead hand.  you can bet I spray those bills with Lysol for a full minute.  who knows where they've been.
it all started years ago when I won a contest in Fangoria magazine -- I don't remember the exact details, but there was some provision for my prize money to be delivered by an animated cadaver. I think I'm still supposed to cut off a chicken's head at some point, but I won't do it.  if that disqualifies me from getting any more rancid hundred dollar bills, then so be it. 

Postcard to the President

Rupert Murdoch's son drops $20 million investment on Utah virtual reality company The Void. (Deseret News)

play money is a lot of fun. a barrel of laughs. I mostly use Monopoly money, getting a chuckle out of cashiers when I flash it around. sometimes I pull out a 20 baht bill I got in Thailand, or a 20 peso note from Zion's Bank -- I once filled up a ceramic cookie jar with 10 and 20 peso notes for the grand kids to fish out at Christmas.  occasionally, if I think I can get away with it, I just design my own currency on green card stock, to see if I can get away with it.  I almost did at a Maverick store early one morning.
I couldn't sleep so I got up at 3 in the morning and walked over to the Maverick on Center Street for a bottle of chocolate milk.  the overnight clerk looked so otherworldly and tired that I handed her one of my cardboard greenbacks, which she started to make change for. then she caught on and her weary frown turned into a grimace of hate. people without a sense of humor are the bane of my existence.

Arby’s Has an Answer to Plant-Based Meat: A Meat-Based Carrot. (NYT)

(dedicated to @yaffebellany)



you don't know what you're eating anymore. carrots made out of meat; meat made out of carrots; apples made out of rice; rice made out of wheat; and sugar made out of aphids.  it's so confusing that I've given up eating and planted myself in the backyard, where I absorb nutrients from the soil and am practicisng photosynthesis.
I've shed all my clothes and welcome bees to come pollinate me. they tell me that even their honey is being manhandled by the big food corporations -- they turn it into probiotic, anti-oxidant wafers sold in kiosks at shopping malls.  and I was visited the other day by a mole nipping at my toes who says that cricket flour is being adulterated with cellulose -- he's seen it with his very own eyes.
eating has become such a burden and puzzle that it's time we got the mad scientists to mutate some genes and turn us into trees. Men can be oaks and women can be willow trees. that will take care of the morning commute. and we'll have dew for breakfast.  put THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Julia Child. 

Don’t Scoff at TikTok Influencers. They’re Taking Over the World. (NYT)

(dedicated to @kevinroose)


I, too, have plans for taking over the world.  it starts with training an army of goldfinches to do my bidding by feeding them premium black thistle seed.  once they are dependent on me I will send them winging around the countryside, each one with a little placard around its neck reading "WHO IS EUGENE FIELD?"
this, in turn, will create such an uproar that when I step into the stoplight (dyslexics unite!) I will immediately gain millions of followers who will march on beer halls in Milwaukee while selling my personal brand of sneakers, Toe Benders.
once I am a power to be reckoned with I plan to gather all major influencers on a mountain top in South America, where I can have them photobombed and disposed of -- while I take over their endorsement deals.
from my new power base it is only a matter of time before I rule the attention economy like Franco ruled Spain.  and from there, who knows? I might reintroduce rosemaling . . . 

Did you know that your personal information is available online to anyone with $10? (NYT)

I wanted information on a certain fellow who I thought was telling people my poetry was no darn good. I had nothing concrete on him, just a hunch, from the way he looked at me, that he didn't appreciate my wry sense of humor and referential expertise, and was the kind of guy who would then tell the whole wide world what he thought of my stuff. so I decided to get the goods on him, kinda like a political election where you get the goods on your opponent to blackmail him to drop out of the race. I wanted this bozo to clam up about me, if he couldn't say anything positive. we poets have thin skins.
I paid a guy who knew a guy who had an in with a company that collected data and wasn't too careful about how they got it. I gave him ten dollars, and in return I got a beautiful leather bound dossier that showed that this guy had once been ticketed for public exfoliation, and was banned from Blockbuster Video Stores back in 1999 (reason not given.) His real name, on his birth certificate, is Howard Wainwright Huggins -- but we all know him as Benny Sinclair.  
Now the shoe was on the other foot. I started to casually mention that I had a lifetime membership with Blockbuster Video, and didn't everybody have one nowadays even though the chain was kaput? I also noised it about that I never felt the need to change my name, although it's completely unpronounceable to a good thirty percent of the population. that did the trick. old Howard Wainwright Huggins has left town and was last seen selling t-shirts in Oregon. Eugene, Oregon. Wearing a patched overcoat and sandals. he seems to have shrunk and won't look anyone in the eye.
maybe I was too hard on him.