On Moustaches, The New Constellations & Lemonjellicals

"I said flap flap shorty."

As a kid, I always thought that Botulism meant a clinically significant pattern of flubbing -- or "botching" -- plans, tasks, events. I regularly flubbed a few things. Therefore, I thought I suffered from severe Botchulism. I heard that I could die from it; I still flubbed a few things; I kept quiet about these deliberations. Similarly, I kept quiet when my jr. high school took field trips to those terrariums or planetauriums or dinosauria rooms that had the T-Rex rotating domes. I never perceived the constellations the dude with the clicker told us to perceive. Instead of Orion, I saw a crouching prosecutor wielding a baggie of crack. Instead of Pegasus, let's say, I saw an Englishman howling "Cor blimey, me Piles itch me so!" In retrospect, I think it's high time that our constellations get updated, anyhow. I've seen the constellation "Metabolism," up there, in the winter sky, all bloated and whatnot. I've seen the constellation "When Millionaires Sadden," up there, in the summer sky: It is linked by those four summer stars: Birch, Crotch, Butch, Klatsch. The four autumnal stars -- Moustachio, Pistachio, Pastiche, Microfiche -- form the constellation "Lemonjellical," while those same stars, in the springtime sky, form the constellation "Mediocrity: A Personal Voyage."

What the heck ever happened to Moustaches? I don't mean a mustache. I mean moustaches. Used to be you'd open a book and someone, in a uniform with epaulets, would be twirling his moustaches while fingering a blunderbuss, and don't get all double entendre-ish on me; fingering used to be a g*ddamn good word; used to be "one could shoot one's wad at the track" and that would mean exactly what it's supposed to mean. Anyway, those days are gone -- clearly. To our detriment. We're left with, in part, Cell Phone Nation. Caller 1: Hullo? Caller 2: Hullo? Caller 1: Hullo? Caller 2: Yeah. Caller 1: Where you at? Caller 2: Yeah. Caller 1: Hullo? Caller 2: Here. Caller 1: Yeah. Caller 2: Hullo? Caller 1: Hullo? Caller 2: Hullo? Caller 1: Yeah. Or, if you prefer, The Heart. I'm not going to knock Hallmark. I'm not going to knock second grade teachers or rainbows or hair ribbons or cropfields or aunties coming home from a scare. I'm not going to knock straight rhyme. I am, however, gonna knock the so-called "real poets." Each of you "real poets" are hereby entitled to five heart references in your entire oeuvre, your entire "sheath," and one of those must actually represent the medical heart, which I define as the muscle or organ that pumps the blood, chumps, to our oxygen-ass capillaries, damn it. Am I right?