3.23.2026 – tried one, that was it

tried one, that was it,
said on landline, and that is …
the way it will stay

Adapted from the story, Record-setting Big Mac eater underwhelmed by McDonald’s new Big Arch burger by Ramon Antonio Vargas, where Mr. Vargas quotes Donald Gorske, who has eaten nearly 36,000 Big Macs on Mr. Gorske’s reaction to trying a Whopper.

Mr. Vargas writes: “I tried one – that was it,” Gorske said on his landline telephone. “And that is the way it will stay.”

So the guy likes and has the receipts to prove it, the Big Mac.

Gotta love a guy who stands by his favorite, only has a landline telephone and, as Mr. Vargas writes, “politely asked why his opinion on something such as the Big Arch was newsworthy.”

In his 1987 book on the history of the Netherlands, An Embarrassment of Riches, Simon Schama tells how the Dutch were the world leaders in Government, Commerce, Military Power and the Arts and were poised to take over the world but being Dutch with their sense of community, allegiance and manners, they were content to just stay home instead.

As if to say why was their opinion on running the world … newsworthy?

And that is the way it will stay.

Donald Gorske in 2011 eating merely his 25,000 Big Mac at a McDonald’s in his home town of Fond du La, Wisconsin. Photograph: Patrick Flood/AP

3.21.2026 – happy restaurants

happy restaurants
still exist, don’t go often …
like a local church

Adapted from the article, Applebee’s and Ihop unite – will new ‘dual’ restaurant tempt back US diners? by Adam Gabbatt where Mr. Gabbatt writes:

Perhaps the truth is that some Americans have been guilty of indulging in nostalgia over patronage when it comes to Applebee’s and Ihop: people are happy these restaurants still exist, in the same way they are about a local church, but they don’t actually go that often – also like a local church.

I am reminded of the last lines of the movie Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

The family of Ricky Bobby included his estranged parents, girlfriend and children are standing out side the Talladega Superspeedway when Reese Bobby looks around.

The movie closes with this bit of dialogue.

Reese: I gotta say things are pretty much perfect right now. And it’s makin’ me kinda of itchy.
Ricky: What’d you say we all get thrown out of an Applebee’s?
Reese: Yeah that’d probably do the trick.

Maybe we all need to go get kicked out of Applebee’s again.

And a local church.

Yeah that’d probably do the trick.

3.20.2026 – boxes on beach are

boxes on beach are
empty shake ’em nails loosen
they have been somewhere

Adapted from the poem Sand Scribblings by Carl Sandburg in Smoke and Steel as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.

The wind stops, the wind begins.
The wind says stop, begin.

A sea shovel scrapes the sand floor.
The shovel changes, the floor changes.

The sandpipers, maybe they know.
Maybe a three-pointed foot can tell.
Maybe the fog moon they fly to, guesses.

The sandpipers cheep ‘Here’ and get away.
Five of them fly and keep together flying.

Night hair of some sea woman
Curls on the sand when the sea leaves
The salt tide without a good-by.

Boxes on the beach are empty.
Shake ’em and the nails loosen.
They have been somewhere.

This is special to me today as I know the boxes on the beach are empty.

They are empty because we emptied them.

We know they have been somewhere, because we filled them and moved them to the island … were we now live.

Got to go ride my bike to the NEARBY beach and scribble in the sand.

3.19.2026 – know it’s happening

know it’s happening
teleporting is no fun
just go with the ride

Adapted from the article, Top US Fema official claims to have teleported to a Waffle House before by Dharna Noor where Ms. Noor quotes Gregg Phillips, who has been picked to lead Fema’s office of response and recovery saying:

“Teleporting is no fun,” he said “You know it’s happening, but you can’t do anything about it, and so you just go, you just go with the ride. And wow, what just an incredible adventure it all was.”

When you don’t have to make stuff up, what chance does fiction and humor have?

3.16.2026 – always same story

always same story
always kids and nothing you
can do about it

Adapted from the passage in the novel, The Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth where Mr. Forsyth writes:

Behind him they lit up a weird spectacle which could have been drawn by Dor6 in one of his blacker moods. The floor of the aircraft was carpeted with sodden and fouled blankets. Their previous contents lay writhing in rows down both sides of the cargo space, forty small children, shrunken, wizened, deformed by malnutrition. Sister Mary Joseph rose from her crouch behind the cabin door and began to move among the starvelings, each of whom had a piece of sticking plaster stuck to his or her forehead, just below the line of the hair long since turned to an ocher red by anemia. The plaster bore in ball-point letters the relevant information for the orphanage outside Libreville. Just name and number; they don’t give rank to losers.

In the tail of the plane the five mercenaries blinked in the light and glanced at their fellow passengers. They had seen it all before, many times, over the past months. Each man felt some disgust, but none showed it. You can get used to anything eventually. In the Congo, Yeman, Katanga, Sudan. Always the same story, always the kids. And always nothing you can do about it.

The dogs of war is a phrase spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, of William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar: “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war.“