Idle Chatter
The back-of-the-rag humor column for Chatter magazine.No Toppling
When they finally enter the mainstream of American life in a couple of years (in not-so-American-sounding kindergarten), my eldest children will discover that at least one of their daddy’s favorite words does not fall so readily from the lips of others. That...
Amen Comin’
Hey, kids! You know what's better than vacation? Vacation with the Bible! And do you know what's better than vacation with the Bible? Vacation with the Bible in a school-like setting! Yay! Vacation Bible School! Wait! Don't run away! We have several flavors of paste...
What Type of Idle Chatter Fan are You?
Note: For the May 2011 issue of Chatter magazine, the staff produced a type of choose-your-own-adventure thread that led through the editorial. In keeping with this theme, my back-of-the-mag column became a flowchart. Because flowcharts are trendy these days and I'm...
Interview with a Dead Guy: St. Patrick
----- In preparation for the green pancakes and hooligan dodging that ensue every March 17, Chatter sat down with St. Patrick himself to discuss his eponymous holiday, the truth about leprechauns and why clover is his least favorite "herbal remedy." Chatter:...
The Kung Fu Grip of Love
Merry C-Word!
I hate the holiday season. Wait, where did my ironic quote marks go? Okay, found 'em: I hate the "holiday season." Back in the olden days of the early 1970s, the holiday season was a catchall phrase denoting Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day – in other words,...
Reuniting and I Feel So-So
Age is relative. And not just in the Einsteinian astronaut-traveling-at-near-light-speed-returns-home-to-find-his-twin-brother-is-now-his-grandpa way. For example, given predicted advances in robotics and super glue, I'm probably only one-third of the way through a...
It’s the Great Punk’n, Charlie Brown!
Halloween is once again upon us. For the supremely ill informed out there, Halloween is a quasi-holiday for which not even the government shuts down – a riddle, wrapped in a bite-size Laffy Taffy, inside a Milk Dud. In other words, nearly impenetrable with...
Gird Thy Loins in Polyester
It’s September in Texas. That special time of year when everyone undergoes mass hypnosis to convince themselves that any temperature under 89 degrees Fahrenheit qualifies as autumnal, and high school football erupts across the Texas plains. Ah, Texas football....
The Sound of Schoolishness
It always started just after the Fourth of July. The incessant thrum-thrum-thrumming of what are correctly termed cicadas, but what my family, in honor of John the Baptist, called locusts. (Although we never ate them with honey. Or without.) “Hear that?”...