Read Online A Load of Hooey by Bob Odenkirk - Free Book Online

for jumping and shouting “Hooray!”
    But I found a Jackson Pollock today!
    It was under the stairs, behind some chairs.
    It had been there for years, we were all unawares.
    In a spare space a-clutter with old brooms and dustbins,
    in rurally rural old rural Wisconsin!
    At first I’d no idea, unsure what I’d found,
    some old thing worth nothing, thought I—
    nothing world renowned…
    But now I know it’s a Pollock and here’s how I know—
    all the splotches of paint are placed there just so.
    They “pop” and they mingle to coax forth a mood,
    they tell you a story, they force you to brood,
    upon their deep meaning, there’s just something MORE there
    than just splotches of paint that are going nowhere.
    So I know it’s a real one—
    a top-notch big deal one—
    the kind that will hang in a Met or a Getty,
    and when I know what it’s worth, will I sell it?
    You bet-y!
    But how will I prove it? There’s no autograph,
    I might show it to everyone and everyone will just laugh.
    I have searched for a fingerprint or a hair I could test,
    to prove that my Pollock is ol’ Jack at his best.
    I can’t find a one, not a single damn follicle—
    but I know if I did it would surely be Pollockle!
    Oh, relax, I am certain, no need to get colicky,
    the experts will swear that my Pollock is Pollocky.
    So, what was it doing in Grandmama’s storage?
    Forgotten before I went out on my forage?
    Let’s just say Grandma wandered, she roved and she mingled,
    before she was married, back when she was single.
    Famous names, it was rumored, she’d befriend and be-met,
    she was the toast of New York,
    and the belle of ’gansett!
    (A side note: my Pollock was swaddled in paper,
    with typing upon it I’ve just begun to decipher.
    Some absurdishy prose about night and its mother
    signed by a Kurt Vonne-something-or-other.)
    But if finders aren’t keepers,
    if that’s not enough,
    to prove provenance and stop all the guff—
    listen here, final proof is coming your way,
    and you won’t put a roadblock in my big payday.
    Grandma knew there’d be doubters, second-guessers, and pros
    who would line up to back up each other’s big “no’s.”
    A line of art experts, a doubt promenade!
    So she wrote very clearly for whom it was made—
    In the corner the dedication: “Bobby O., 2nd Grade”!

Famous Quotations—Unabridged

    â€œ Know Thyself . Come on. Hurry up. We’re waiting. Oh, forget it.”
    â€”Socrates

ABS
    Y ou are probably wondering where I got these amazing abs. They’re so ripply and rock hard, they’re difficult to fathom. If I were a character on a reality show about me and my middle-aged acquaintances, I might be nicknamed the Conundrum, in reference to these abs of mine. See, the abs don’t match the visage. My perturbed, puffy face sets you up for a blubbery gut. But then you see these abs, stacked like bricks, clearly delineated, and you have to ask, “Does he work out for two or three hours a day, or does he just work out all day?” Or perhaps you think I purchased them from a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills. My secret is simple—dynamic tension! Constant dynamic tension. Tension that is tense, and dynamic, and never ending—the best kind of tension there is! I have analyzed each ab and where it draws its tension from so that you, too, can get the abs you’ve always dreamed of!
    The ab on the upper right is taut and sinewy thanks to middle school. Specifically, the effort of trying to get my two kids placed in a top-notch middle school. Filling out forms, attending open houses, prepping for interviews, taking the entrance exams—it’s a lot of work, and I am there every step of the way, standing behind them, leaning over their shoulders, looking down (that’s what tightens the ab), swallowing hard (also good for the ab), and clenching and