Leaving Arizona

I was pleased and somewhat disturbed by the number of people (three) who wrote to complain about the absence of Talk of the Town during the weeks that I was traveling, yak-like, in the desert of Phoenix. Pleased because it’s nice to be missed. Disturbed because if you long for meaningless babble, it means the voices in your own heads have let you down. If you find yourself pining for the kind of mindless chatter that goes on here, friend, get yourself down to any playground and listen in on what the 10-year-olds are saying. Add a few borderline swear words and it amounts to the same thing.

On second thought, stay away from playgrounds. You’ve got enough problems.

Red Sox

My heart breaks for all of those seasoned fans in their pink hats who have been living and dying with the Bosox since the autumn of 2007. Come here. I have a Louisville slugger you can cry on.

The sincerest form of flattery

Yes, I know I’ve been tooling on Charlie Sheen for a few weeks now. But did that stop me from buying a Charlie Harper-style bowling shirt at a Kohl’s in Apache Junction? Nossir, it did not. It’s a marvelous short-sleeve button up, black with horizontal stripes of white and pale blue. Go ahead and covet it, friend, no one will blame you. Now to complete my Charlie Harper persona, all I need is an abusive housekeeper, a charming stalker and a drinking problem. Charming stalkers may apply at the address listed below.

iPads for kindergartners

Because a 6-year-old who can’t watch YouTube videos on a pleasingly large screen is bound to turn out a serial killer, right? Now, every time I’m walking the street with my tiny iPod Touch, the little snots are going to point and laugh. As if I don’t get picked on by children enough already.

Lewiston Cliff Notes

Desperate to find out what I missed while I was away, I flipped to the Lewiston Police Department’s Facebook page. There I found a woman complaining about finding used syringes all over the city, a man asking if he can use a pellet gun on his property, a man requesting that police tow all cars owned by Bates College people, and a fellow concerned about finding a hundred little bottles of Fireball cinnamon whiskey along Sabattus Street. Frankly, I don’t know how the Sun Journal kept up with this rush of activity during my absence.

Zzzzzt

Quit calling, writing and sending over your henchman to complain to me directly about the downed Sun Journal website. As noted above, I was on vacation when it went kaput and had absolutely nothing to do with it. This time.

Wanna touch my sunburn?

And that concludes the end of sly bragging about my thrilling journey to Phoenix. I’ll be over later to show you my slides, though. Please point your pellet gun the other way and have a bottle of Fireball ready for me.