Perfect concert

Glamorous rock star

The 200 year old mystery

This woman is almost 200 years old. The signature is fading, as is she, but the subtle beauty remains, even after two centuries of hanging on walls.

Branson sticker on painting

Preview best of all time?

Peter Max Branson sticker

Old woman attacks younger attention whore on stage

Hats to you

T-shirt competition

For 20 years I have been sending my friend t-shirts from various world travels. He's a photojournalist and he sends me shirts from strange places and dangerous areas. Here are my latest shirts.

Drink it down

Good day to read

In much of the world, winter is upon us and it's a great time to not go outside. If that is the problem, here is the solution, an e-book that is both fun to read and a great little detective mystery. Check it here. 

Gun nuts

Yeah, yogurt is good for a body

Running back to you

Country girls are hot

My lesbian dog is nominated for a Grammy

I have been ghost writing a fairly well known professional fly fisherman's life story, for a fee of course. The book, which I call “Dumpsters Overflow” is really one of those lovely stories where a nice guy finds a way to do fun things for a living.

Which got me thinking, my lesbian attorney is up for a Grammy Award this year and she called from Beverly Hills last night, obviously a little tipsy and slurring her words, which are generally slurred anyway, but last night, she was particularly hard to understand.

“Obummercare is ruining California,” she began, immediately, without me even saying hello.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“Is me, Beth, Ima kina drunk.”

“Obvious…”

“An I’m pissed off about Obummercare.”

“Yeah, I got that too.”

“Unner pressure to perform at all the Crammy Events.”

“Did you say Crammy events?”

“Yeah, all week there’s these Crammy events and I was asked to…”

“You did say Crammy.”

“Yeah, Crammy events are scheduled all week.”

“It’s Grammy, Grammy events.”

“I know. Anyway, I was at Ringo Starrs party and these plastic surgery women kept asking me about my nomination.”

“I had no idea you were nominated for a Grammy.”

“Crammy gives awards for all kinds a shit.”

“I’d imagine.”

“‘There’s No Smoking Gun Here,’ it was a series of poems I wrote and recorded while I was in Tuscaloosa.”

“You wrote a book of poems and called it ‘There’s no smoking gun here?“

“Yeah, it was number one of Amazon for 17 weeks.”

“Seriously?

“Yeah, what do you think I do when I am not suing multi-national corporations over workers wrongs?”

“Don’t you mean workers rights?”

“Who cares about workers rights?” She asked, almost drunkenly outraged.

“Someone must.”

“Libbraerals,” she slurred. 

And she hung up the phone. Or the phone went dead, either way, the conversation with my lesbian attorney disappeared. Which was probably for the best. I was knee deep in a chapter of “Dumpsters Overflow” that dealt with the authors first brush with fame when he was fishing on a small lake in California and he rescued Dan Blocker, one of the actors from Bonanza, from drowning. 

I looked at the darkness of my blank phone for a second, and then back to the screen where “Dumpsters Overflow” was glowing and I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. 

Jews love some Jesus

Bachelor takes wiener in the mouth

The reason why I am not competing in the Winter Olympics

To- Vladimir Putin, internet tough guy, gay icon, president of Bosnia (Google that one and find out which province he is actual prime minster of and then come back and fill that in).

Vladimir-

Thank you for hating the gays, I have been in-training for the Winter Olympics for weeks now and all of a sudden you hate on the gays and for whatever reason, I am just going to boycott you now. Thanks. To be honest, I’m not that good of an ice dancer anyway. As you probably know, my family has been an integral part of the Olympics for over 100 years now.

A little history. 

In 1972 my mother, god rest her soul, decided that in good conscience she could not attend the Albanian Winter Olympiad because of the great Mouse Massacre, as I’m sure you are well aware. The so-called Mouse Massacre was indeed a kGB enterprise, using a Disney movie set in a plastic kingdom in Luxembourg to kill and maim thousands of innocent chocolatiers, or something. It got lost in her drunken storytelling, but the bottom line, my mothers destiny to be a gold medal winner was stolen from her. 

As you may have heard, my dear father was in training for the summer Olympics of 1968, but of course tragically he lost both legs on the slalom course. Ironically, he was not even on the slalom course at the time, but that’s a whole other mystery that no one seems to want to talk about. 

Of course my older brother famously held his arm up in defiance at the summer Olympics in Mexico City to protest the over use of avocado and corn tortillas at Olympic Village housing breakfast and lunches. 

He came in seventh in the 100. No one says anything to him, he is a medicare commodities trader in New York City, imagine the family shame.

My first sister began ice skating when she was one year old and everyone knew she would someday win a gold medal. Of course former president Clinton ruined that when he “Lewinskied” the Olympics in ’96. She recovered, but only after  a year in rehab and three years on skid row (in that order, sadly).

My oldest sister missed the Winter and Summer Gay Games of 2000, boycotting because of some sort of misunderstanding as to what sort of “objects” she was allowed in her carry-on luggage. 

I wish it all ended there, but in 1936 my grandfather was the designer of the Azerbaijan Olympic uniforms, which consisted mostly of a garish pink belt and some well worn Nazi leather vests. His insane designs caused my family so much shame that it would be another four years before any family member would take part in the Olympics.

My great grandfather was a long distance runner in the ’40 Olympiad, held in Switzerland. Of course, during those Olympics there was also some war going on and my great grandfather ended up being the only athlete who took part in those Switzerland Olympic Games. Obviously he never actually received a gold medal for the race he won (alone, I might add) but for the longest time he would show off his empty bottle of Switzerland’s best ale, “Smoldenbergen” and declare that this was indeed his gold medal. No one ever believed him, tragically.

Strangely, my great great grandmother was one of the first competitors in the 1896 Olympics in Greece. She was not an athlete, per se, but more of a massage expert, if you catch my drift. Great Great Grandma was quite famous in the Olympic training room and while she did not take home a gold medal, she did leave Greece pregnant with a child who would someday become my great grandfather, born 17 months after those games ended, a long and painful pregnancy if ever there was one.
Luckily that son of her’s would go on to compete at the first no-Olympic games, an absurd sporting event held for the first (and last) time in Paris in the late summer of 1922. If you know anything about history, you will remember that during the summer of 1922 Paris was boiling in the hottest and most humid time in that once great cities history. Great grandpa competed in the three man wheelbarrow and mascara race. He won the plum colored medal, which still hangs obscenely on my own wall as I write this. I say obscenely because those non-Olympic game medals were all created in the image of a vagina, a design from the unknown artist Pablina Pacasso.

So Great Communist Dictator and Unbelievably Gay Icon Putin, I am sorry to say I will not be making it to Sochi anytime soon to compete in what is already being called “The Worst Olympics in History” which by the way, will be surprising because the actual Worst Olympics in History is, of course, the Budweiser Poodle Olympics of 1986, but I won’t bore you with those details.

The worst black president in history

I’m not proud of the fact that I recently took a customer service job with a major cable/internet provider. In fact, I take long hot showers on a hourly basis just because of the scuzzy feeling I get from hearing people who pay ungodly amounts of money for fast internet and digital television and never get much of either.

The good thing is I can work from home and wear nothing while logging complaints and pretending to address the various issues with my new companies terrible service. It was during one of these recent calls where I met and befriended the man responsible for electing the worst black president in American history.

Let me backtrack, I took a call from someone Chicago, I never really know who I am talking to, nor do I care because company policy is always the same, “we are working on your issues and that problem should be repaired in the next two weeks, is there anything else I can help you with?” That is what I have been taught to tell anyone who calls, regardless of their issue. 

My computer screen tells me where the call is coming from and who the registered person is on the other end of the conversation. Sometimes I pretend to speak a foreign language, with a terrible accent, just to piss people off who almost always start screaming, “it’s low paid illegals like you who are ruining this once great country.” I never bother to tell them that I live in Milwaukee.

So there I was a couple of days ago, sitting on my recliner and telling my dog to stop licking his dog sex organ, when my screen lit up with the call from Chicago. I answered and immediately the belligerent idiot on the other end started railing about my new employers incredibly terrible service. 

“I’ve been calling your outsourced off-shore call center for two months and every time I hear promises about increased service and replacement of broken parts and how my high speed internet should be super fast in the next week or so. Guess what? It has never happened.”

I broke in, “well, maybe I can help you with your problem,” I said, matter of fact like.

“What sort of accent is that, are you in Italy?”

“Very good,” I said in probably the worst Italian accent imaginable. 

“Yeah, this is why your company sucks, because even the lowly and idiotic call center zombies are off shore.”

“Sir, I can promise you that we here at (cable/internet provider) will do whatever it takes to get your the fast internet we have been promising you for months.”

“Look, I don’t want to be a dick or anything, but it’s been months and all I ever hear is that you will send out a tech who will increase the speed, or repair something, or some other excuse.”

“Well, this time, I can promise you that we will resolve this problem,” I lied.

Of course, I knew that I was lying and I kind of figured he knew I was lying, but the online corporate training course I had aced demanded that we lie to all people calling in to complain about any of the terrible services my new employer offered.

The Chicago caller continued to document his various calls and the enormous lies he had been told and asked how I was different. I promised everything was being sent to the preparer managers who could deal with his particular issues. There were no managers who would be reviewing anything, of course. That’s about the time he said, “look, I have been frustrated a lot lately because of this stupid Obamacare mess and all I keep thinking is, if not for me, we would still be happily living under the McCain presidency.”

Well, even for me, a new employee more interested in my dogs grooming habits, was caught just a little off guard. 

“How is the terrible Obamacare mess your fault,” I asked, mostly because I was hoping to avoid hearing any more complaints about my new employers incredibly terrible service.

“About 20 years ago I was trying to impress this woman I was trying to get with by pretending to be a liberal leaning, pot smoking, Southside hipster. That was the fall when Barack Obama was first running for state senator and to score points with this hot woman completely out of my league, I stupidly voted for the unknown candidate, thinking there was no way this guy with the silly name would win more that ten or fifteen votes. Of course he won, and sprung from state senator to Illinois senator and finally, tragically, president. It’s really all my fault in some cosmic way and whenever I see another misstep and failed attempt to turn this once great country into a socialist European state, all I can think of is how all those years ago I was foolish enough to help get this all started.”

“I doubt you are solely responsible for the Obama presidency,” I said, with just a slight bit of sarcasm.

“Check the election results when he ran for state senator, he won by a single vote.”

“Is that true?”

“It is, that’s a fact and I am that vote.”

“Well, you sir, wait, did you actually end up having sex with this Chicago hottie 20 years ago, in exchange for electing the worst black president in history?”

“I did not.”

“Then you sir are a disgrace to both you country and your political party.”

“Will you make sure I get fast internet?”
“Now? No way possible. In fact, as I speak I am deleting your account.” With that, I hung up my phone, only to look across my cluttered living room to now see my dog dragging his butt across my recently shampooed carpet. 

Bike beauty

The god hates fags group makes some mighty fine Vines

Crazy dumb people

The world falls apart

Pizza ninja

I’m gluten free, which is super trendy, almost as trendy as being bisexual, but a lot less messy. Which is why it was strange this week when I got online and ordered a PapaJohns pizza and had it delivered. I am not really the type for crappy corporate terrible and unhealthy pizza, but the NFL playoffs had begun and I was too bored and lazy to leave my couch.

There was a knock on the front door and I figured it must be the pizza guy, although in my mind I was sure I had only ordered it maybe five minutes before. I answered and was immediately punched directly in the jaw and I fell backwards. 

A ninja dressed in all black Lululemon workout gear strode in, wrongly thinking he had knocked me out, but in my ghetto neighborhood, you get used to answering the door to a fast punch in the face, so I was already rolling to my left side, shaking my head and getting my senses back. The ninja was taking a moment and getting the lay of my entryway, looking at the pictures of some of my children on the far wall and an original Gabriel St. John framed piece of art right there against the dark pastel wall.

I reached quickly to my left, my hand quietly sliding along the old wood flooring, until I could sense the ninjas achilles heal right in front of me. With a sudden burst, I grabbed and twisted his tendon as hard and fast as I could. Almost immediately he fell to the stairwell, screaming out in agony. 

I got to my feet and he was crawling away. I kicked at his flailing leg, but he pulled that away and stood on his one good remaining leg. Before I could adjust to fully standing up on my own and shaking the cobwebs from my head, his sharp right fist hit me on the shoulder and when I went slowly to block that punch, his left hit me in the ribs and we both could hear at least one of the bones break. 

He smiled. I quickly punched out and into his chest, driving his entire body into the plaster wall behind the stairs. He hit it hard and I put my full weight into what remained of the punch. He cried out in pain, then in one unexpected motion he slammed both his fists onto either side of my head. I fell back this time, landing on my ass. He stood over me, looking down at hopeless  and helpless body laid out sprawled on the floor in front of him, his one good foot stepping precariously onto my crotch. He drew in a dramatic breath. Then he spoke. “Where’s Beth?”

Back story: Beth Libitard is my lawyer. She is a Harvard educated lawyer, brilliant, vibrant, stylish, young and a super sexy lesbian. Plus she’s an Australian Shepard. So there’s that. She leads a life of intrigue and confusing sexual morals. She knows all my secrets, I don’t understand a single word she says, so we get along very well. The fact that she has worked for, betrayed and at least twice killed world famous leaders and banking executives, makes Beth one of the most feared, dangerous and most wanted women on the planet. So, it’s not surprising that every now and then a ninja shows up at my door. I always play stupid, which for me, is not such a leap.

“Beth who?” I asked, trying to not focus on the foot on my left ball and instead on the pounding pain in my head. 

“Beth, the lawyer, she is here?”

“She is here? You ask that like you are Russian.”

“I am Russian, but that is neither here or there. She is here?”

“She is not here, nor there.”

“Where is she?”

“Apparently trapped in a Dr. Suess book,” I said, with a degree of snideness I would have thought impossible with a leather shoe stepping heavily on my package.

Beth had taken the day to work on her Drone skydiving techniques. That’s all true, Beth has been a leader in not only killing people via drone (a skill the president pays her quite well for), but actually hitching a ride on the militaries largest industrial sized drone and parachuting into dangerous war zones to negotiate important deals for some of her clients. 

The ninja in my entryway seemed to grow impatient, his foot felt heavier. “You tell me where she is, we stop playing game.”

The pain was intense, but almost bearable. I laid there, on my own wood floor and I noticed how silent the house was. I had muted the TV when I heard the knocking on the door, thinking I would be dealing with some teenage pizza delivery stoner. So, laying there, feeling the weight of the world on my sac, I could hear a far off whirling noise. In the distance, I kind of surmised I could have left the dryer on, up on the third floor, that could have been the noise I heard. Instead, I looked up at the masked Ninja and I said, “Beth has been working on her drone sky diving techniques, want to watch?”

I could see his face contort as he tried to figure out what I was trying to say and right at about that moment when he seemed to grasp what was happening, the unmistakable sound of a crashing small jet engine grew louder that one could imagine and Beth, riding on top of a beautiful bright pink drone crashed right into my front porch. She stepped off the igniting fiberglass fuselage and walked to a far corner of my igniting porch, grabbed an extinguisher and pointed it at the flames and let loose. Within seconds there was just a gray cloud of dark smoke enveloping everything. That’s when the empty extinguisher came firing through the empty space that used to be my front door and hit the Ninja right on the top of his head, knocking him straight out. His seemingly lifeless body collapsed backwards onto my stairs. 

I stood up, walked past Beth and the mess on the porch and met the pizza delivery driver. He handed my my piping hot sausage pizza and I made my way past the smoldering drone and into my house. 

The PapaJohns pizza was cold and terrible, which is what you always expect from this terrible company. I walked back to my couch and watched some more football, forgetting for a few hours about the smoldering drone, the lifeless ninja and my lesbian attorney, who had scattered upstairs in a rare moment of shame. 

Gangnam style

Breaking Wire

Top film I have yet to see

Buy yourself some e-books

So true. If you received any sort of e-reader machine, you are probably looking for great reading material. Let me help. First, find Branson number one here. It’s a great way to introduce yourself to this NYC detective and his particular brand of crime solving.
Follow Branson in his next book as he gets beaten up trying to figure out why someone is killing people associated with an art show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That’s here. 
Then, you click here and get the latest Branson, where a serial killer just might be off the tracks and killing random people just for the fun of it. Find that gem here. 
Enjoy.

Valentines Day, 2014

Elections do have consequences

Be careful who you vote for, because sometimes the exact person you would never want serving your election needs is the exact person who gets elected.

A small bit of history. On November 5th of this past year I wandered over to out local polling place and voted on a couple of local issues that seemed important to me. Of course, the ballot was littered with all sorts of meaningless offices, supreme court, dog catcher, you get  the idea, that I just don’t have time for. So in most of those instances I wrote my dogs name down and did not give it a second thought.

Then, by complete disregard for any sort of social contract, I wrote my own name down for a position I did not even know existed, I believe it was director of local elections, or something confusing like that. 

Today I got an official letter from the State of Pennsylvania, along with a very official document from the Commonwealth, telling me I am now a Majority Inspector for Election, a four year term. A position I was elected to by, get this, one vote.  

So, of course, knowing nothing about this job and it’s duties means I will soon be running for congress, since that is the only prerequisite for that particular job now days.

Please shut up

I get angry letters

Dear Anonymous Letter Writer

First, I wanted to say I am sorry about those things I wrote about the topic that so upset you, because quite honestly, I did not get the memo that the entire world revolved around you and only you.

As you can probably imagine, I was shocked that I was left out of that particular loop, so I googled your name in search of the official memo, knowing it must be quite famous. Unfortunately, no such memo exists, although if I were you, I’d realize they publish your real name when you make frivolous police reports in your small New Jersey town. 

So, like I said, I would be more than happy to send you all unpublished blog posts before I publish them, to make sure there is never anything that might offend your supremely fine tuned sensibilities, as soon as you can send me that particular memo naming you the person who is in charge of everything.

Until then, do what I do when I find something offensive, either post a public comment, or stop reading and move on.

Thanks again for all you bring to the table.

Hoping to stay in touch.

Matt

Best headline of the day

Walmart Recalls Donkey Meat In China Because It Contained Fox

"Waiter, I believe there's fox in my donkey burger..."

Fox News, staying classy in 2014

Fox News, staying classy in 2014