The Man In The Moon

The man in the moon is a cowboy

Ever since I smoked that rope.

The man in the moon is a cowboy

And the moon is a cantaloupe.

Gotta pair a pantaloons in the gravy

But the chicken upstairs is not home,

And I think I’m gettin’ kinda lazy,

Here on the range on the home.

~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius

~ © All Rights Reserved

My Garage

This here’s Stretch Coyote talkin’ at ya.

Sooner or later, a guy has gotta do what a guy has gotta do.

Anyhow, that’s what my domestic partner in wedded bliss, Petuda, said to me last Sunday as I stood contemplatin’ the cavernous and multifaceted abyss that is my garage.

She thinks it’s about time for a garage overhaul, a suggestion that kinda’ makes me shiver all the way down to my thermal boot socks. Had it not been for her gettin’ clunked on the head by my stuffed mongoose and cobra tableau, I suppose I could have avoided the garage cleanin’ subject altogether.

The innards of my garage are kinda’ like the throbbing, pulsating mass of my subconscious — somethin’ I am fearful of tinkerin’ with, lest it upset the primal forces which so far have left me relatively free from global concerns.

Among the assorted petro-plastic paraphernalia I cannot bring myself to either use or discard are mementos of a life I left behind 29 years ago in Waco, Texas, where I was trained for a promising career at the local asbestos factory. But wouldn’t you know it, this bunch of guys in iron lungs got together with some government researchers in space suits and lowered the ceiling on asbestos — The Fiber of the Future! So I hightailed it down to Southern California in search of somethin’ deep at the heart of life’s mystery that I have yet to find at a price I can afford. I no longer have room for my beehives or much else in my stucco-covered, pre-war hovel, so my garage is as stuffed as a wild warthog in a chocolate shop.

What with America in a giant compost pile of economic uncertainty, the state of my garage makes me think we all could probably do with a lot less. Do I really need this electronic barking key finder anyhow? I can’t help but ponder that what these here yuppie-ti-yi-yo-yos need most is the simple life of shuckin’ cowpeas on the front porch in the hot summer sun. They need to swat bugs with a fly swatter. And such.

Anyhow, I have yet to embark on the quest of the tidy garage. I’m still kinda busy workin’ out the philosophical implications of it all, even though Petuda is a hankerin’ for me to get on with it. I am tryin’ to convince her that our garage is kind of like her meat loaf surprise: It ain’t too pretty, but it satisfies somethin’ mysterious, deep in the pit of my soul.



~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius
~ © All Rights Reserved

It's The Little Things

This here’s Stretch Coyote talkin’ at ya.

Sure, hunger, disease and war seem pretty dang important, but there’s a bumper crop of little things what drives me loco.

How about them guys on the freeway who climb right on your fanny even though you're already goin’ 80 miles per hour? And when they finally get a chance to pass you up, they swerve into the next lane like a busload of nuns late to a Billy Graham concert, cuttin’ off some poor-slob commuter who slams on the brakes and spills his scalding cup a’ joe on his personal nether regions.

Or how about dog barkin’? There's a whole bunch a’ crazy canines out there what wake up my neighborhood just cuz they wanna be the first to pee on my grass and make a deposit on my flowerbeds.

And aint you ever had one a’ them waitresses who keeps askin’ you all through dinner if everything’s OK? You're sittin’ there with your mouth full of Yankee pot roast when she comes out a’ nowhere askin’: "How does everything taste?" as if you could do anything else but shake your jowls in mock appreciation.

Then by the time dinner is done you can't get your check cuz now the waitress has disappeared. She’s out in back of the restaurant on her marijuana break, getting so high she don’t realize a half hour has gone by.

Meanwhile, you’re listenin’ to the "Theme From Shaft" playin’ through a little speaker in the ceiling while other restaurant employees skillfully avoid comin’ within cannon range of your table.

I could go on.




~ Stretch Illustration by John Sherffius
~ © All Rights Reserved