When BARBIE© hit the market in 1959, she cost $3. But don’t be fooled by the low sticker price. Adjusted for inflation, that’s $29 in 2020.

Which reminds me.

The SDNY has been making some threatening noises about a certain other Barbie’s inflated invoices to her Daddy’s GREAT AMERICA SUPER-PAC for so-called ‘consulting fees.’ Mister Cyrus Vance seems to think that’s improper. Actually, it’s worse than improper. It’s a felony, although given the insane fuckery of the Trump years, I’m not so sure it’s even a misdemeanor anymore, or anything more serious than a parking ticket.

Now your conventional Barbie©…

I’ll admit to creep-stalking my Ex on Facebook.

When she came back into my head, I decided to use the memories as model for the protagonist in one of my novels-in-progress and, as characters often do, she literally wrote herself into the story. I always Google the names of potential characters beforehand, kind of like a title search before buying a home. You want to know who might hold a lien on the property before committing to the purchase, though it’s not like Natasha herself ever belonged to me, or to anyone.

The most worrisome thing is that there are…

My late uncle was chief surgeon of a major American hospital. Nonetheless, he spent a few hours of his precious afternoon sitting in the first aid room at the city’s racetrack. It wasn’t for the paltry salary. Any junior doctor or nurse could have done the job. He did it because his connections among the racing elite were making him rich. He knew beforehand which horses would win and which would not. Life is like that.

I’ve entered a lot of literary competitions during the past 30 years and, believe me, they’re all rigged. Some have published my submissions off…

President Barak Obama once suggested that the so-called American democracy is, in practice, a single party system. There’s no qualitative difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. Two squads from the same team toss the football back and forth while there’s only a single, ever-elusive goal post.

Like in the world of professional sports, the players are wealthy and the only ones who ever stand to lose are we plebs who throw money at them and, when things really heat up, kill one another. That’s why we’re dumbasses.

“That’s your husband’s shotgun in the trunk, right?”

“Well, yeah. I guess. He uses it for target practicing on toilet seats with the boss’s picture inside. No way he can miss.”

“Go fetch the gun but don’t touch it with your hands.”

Natalie went to the open trunk. She slipped her hands inside the loose cuffs of her blouse then gingerly lifted out the long-barrelled weapon.

“Okay, what now?”

“Bring it over here.”

Mister Enrod retrieved the dead officer’s leather gloves from his gadget belt and slipped them onto his own hands. He took the shotgun from Natalie.

“What’re we…

I was walking down a busy street yesterday. Some guy — a total stranger — walking next to me on the sidewalk wasn’t looking where he was going. Instead, he was watching a YouTube video on his smartphone. I don’t know for sure, but it could very well have been this one:

At the first pedestrian crossing, he plunged straight into traffic. Luckily, I managed to reach out and grab his arm, hauling the perambulating zombie out of harm’s way as a speeding car swerved dangerously close, narrowly preventing manslaughter. He likely would not have heard the gunshot that killed…