muchogroucho.com

By Mucho Groucho

Anyone who has been following my essays and public journaling knows that I am at the crossroads of middle age with a lack of direction not even a cosmic GPS could help me with. I am somewhere between candidating for a Nobel Peace Prize and delivering pizza. Since my car gets lousy gas mileage, and the registration on it has been suspended I am counting on the Nobel Peace Prize.

What the heck – Obama got one and so did Jimmy Carter. When I read that even Yasser Arafat received the prestigious award, I knew that I would be a shoo in. But as the season of rent is drawing near again, I once more searched high and low, in this case Craigslist as the low, for any potential gig to get me through another month while waiting for the Nobel Committee to finally take my call.

I happened upon a Craigslist ad that read as follows:
Speech Writer / Public Speaker wanted to address Brooklyn Community College Graduating Class of 2011. Speech must be inspirational, motivational and memorable.

I went to Brooklyn Community College for 2 years in my early twenties. It’s a beautiful campus located right on one of Brooklyn’s most famous and only beaches. The dunes are constructed with recycled plastic upon a hidden garbage dump covered in layers upon layers of sand and some say there are more bodies floating in the water there than fish. It is also not far from Coney Island and when I used to drop my college sweetheart Magdelena off nearby late at night I waited in the car as she crossed the street and entered her complex known as “the projects.” I would lock my car doors and cower at the sounds of “snap, crackle and pop,” the gun-fire heard from a distance thanks to the Puerto Rican gangs that contributed to the ambiance of evenings there. I wish I were nicer to Magdelena and would have been had she not prevented me from losing my virginity for so long during our 3 year on and off courtship.

As far as inspirational, motivational and memorable goes I can only say that I am not the most positive thinker applying for this lofty assignment. When someone holds a glass in my direction and asks the famous riddle of whether it is half full or half empty, my response is to shudder thinking that it will fall out of the person’s hands, crash to the ground causing the broken shards of glass to hit a major artery resulting in me slowly bleeding to death. At least he will get his answer regarding the balance between the positive and negative charges of life. So will my speech be inspirational and motivational? No, but I guarantee my speech will be remembered long after I am whisked away by the Brooklyn police who will violently throw me head first into the back of their patrol car.

So here goes:
Young ladies and gentlemen, the graduating class of Brooklyn Community College 2011: as an alum of these hallowed grounds, I am honored to address you here today and christen you all with a speech that will launch you into young adulthood like the champagne bottle that was used to launch that great and mighty ship the Titanic. These past two years of disciplined study has prepared you for the rest of your lives. You may hold your heads up in shameful pride as you enter the world as community college graduates armed with Associate Degrees in fields as diverse and necessary as Philosophy, Sociology, Secretarial Skills and Liberal Arts. Your way is limited as you move toward the void.

You are entering a world where your generation is the first in decades expected to earn significantly less than those of your parents and even their parents. With inflation factored in you will probably make less than the average worker in China who will soon own this country. I am envious of the challenges you are faced with as you become indentured servants to countries like China and Japan who upon redeeming the debt owed to them by our country will in essence own America. As you make deliveries for Chinese and Japanese Restaurants in your little motor scooters, remember to hoard some of the morsels of rice you are allotted so that you may make it last longer than how your masters intended.

Your esteemed generation holds high the greatest of the great with talents and genius of the likes of Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, “Lindsey” and Snooky. May you aspire to be even greater than them who walked before you clearing the way for your own mediocrity to shine forth like a dull, dying star in a galaxy of suns.

In conclusion, I implore you to press on to fulfill the destiny and calling before you keeping in mind that if you don’t your tuition is non-refundable. Launch yourselves as mighty rockets using the knowledge imparted to you from these hallowed halls where Jimmy Hoffa is believed to be buried, as the fuse designed to propel you into oblivion. Go forth now and as the Steppenwolf song “Born to be Wild” urges: explode into space! Like a true nature’s child, you were born, born to be wild, you can climb so high – you never wanna die! Thank you.

by Mucho Groucho aka Michael Cohen

CNN iReport asked for stories about Alzheimer’s so I sent them an essay I wrote about my Dad. It was noticed by a CNN producer who interviewed me and back linked my original essay to her own story.

This is a painting of my Dad I did in tribute of his Spanish ancestry. He would always tell us how his forefathers were from Spain but escaped to Greece (where he was born) during the Spanish Inquisition.

Check out the CNN story and my original iReport:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/30/alzheimers.violence.caregiving/index.html

My Original iReport:

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-571966

As I write this, my father is in a locked down section of a hospital. The police were called when he became violent with my mother and they brought him there. He is suffering from Alzheimer’s and is in the middle stages of this insidious disease. At 80 years old he wants to get divorced from my Mom, (which is a glimmer of sanity actually) take half of their extremely humble assets and move to Israel where he was brought up. He is paranoid that everyone is conspiring against him and that my mother is trying to take his money. He is starting to make Charlie Sheen look rational. There is no psych ward in the hospital he is in and they are waiting for one to open up at another. I was going to go today to visit him and was informed that in this unit, no visitors are allowed. I have to admit that I was a little relieved because I just don’t know if I can face this or face him in the state he is in. He is coherent and responsive but he is just not all there.

I am naïve and tried to reason with him. I said: “Dad, you have Alzheimer’s. You need to take your medication and anti-depressants and stop with all this moving to Israel stuff. Stop being angry and just enjoy the rest of your life. You don’t have the money and you can’t do it on your own.” He got angry and said “nonsense, you are brainwashed by your mother”. Better than Scientologists I thought, but I didn’t respond. I gave up, realizing that there is no reasoning with someone in his state of mind.

A very close friend of mine lost his mother several years ago to Alzheimer’s. When she passed, he did not seem that broken up to me and being the jerk that I am, I asked him about this. He said: “to me, my mom has been gone for over a year or so.” And now I am beginning to understand, because my mourning has just begun and he is still alive.

My dad was a workingman. First he was an ironworker for many years, then he drove a taxi and for a time he worked both jobs. When we go back to the old neighborhood, we can still see traces of the work he did around the house we lived in. The iron fence he built, and remnants of the steel basketball court he made for us in our backyard that made my brother and me popular with the neighborhood kids. He also took us cool places like Palisades Amusement Park, The Statue of Liberty and the neighborhood beaches. He took us slot car racing, to zoos and a myriad of parks. In many ways I feel that my parents were pretty ill equipped to raise me and I basically raised myself. I never really got any good advice from my dad. His best attempt was the constant mantra “don’t forget to change oil in your car”. I also suffered from depression my whole life and he was always telling me “how I just need to keep busy.”

I realize now that how ridiculous that always sounded, there is something to that because when my wife moved out in August taking my daughter with her I sunk into depths I didn’t think were possible and I got out of it by just being so distracted and busy with this blog!! The accolades and LOLs I have been receiving have been pure medicine, and have yielded better results than a hundred bottles of Prozac. Yeah, busy is good!

My sister is his favorite kid and to him she is still a kid even though she is blank years old. I would tell you her age but she would kill me! He was always so doting with her with a love that I could now appreciate having a daughter of my own. I love my 4 year old “buddy” more than anything in the world and I am glad for the time she is still spending with Nono (grandpa) when we go to see him. I hope those times are not over and great advice isn’t everything – love is! Anyway I am just going to tell her to Google everything. After this incident it is really sinking in that I am losing my dad. I feel that my mourning has begun. All the resentment over stupid things is falling by the wayside and al I can think about are the good times.

I miss you dad and I’m gonna miss you much more. Thanks for the advice. I am changing oil in my car every 2,000 miles. Ok, I lied: every 3,000 miles! I love you Dad.

According to various news outlets, actress Reese Witherspoon wed her agent Jim Toth in a small ceremony in Hollywood today.

According to a prenuptial agreement signed by the two, Toth will receive the traditional 15% of all wedding gifts, 15% of the value of their home and he will receive 15% of alimony she gets from him if the couple divorces.

According to CNN, a 71 year old woman in Eugene Oregon claims the Post Office lost 6 metal tins containing 1,800 joints of marijuana prescribed to treat her symptoms of glaucoma.

We tried to reach the postmaster general but Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” was playing so loudly we could not understand his response. We believe he is quoted as saying: “Hey man, finders keepers losers weepers!”

By Mucho Groucho

Times are hard as they say and although I have a business, the stress I feel after every completed gig, the strain wrapped in the question of “will I ever get another gig”, has brought me to a terrible realization. I will need to take the advice of the great Doo Wop group the Silhouettes who in the mid fifties proposed the following words of wisdom only the Dalai Lama could aspire to today:
Yip yip yip yip yip yip yip yip,
boom boom boom boom boom boom
GET A JOB!
If I left off one yip or boom I hope you will forgive me and attribute it to the anxiety I am experiencing during these troubling times.

As I previously stated I am an entrepreneur, which is another way of saying “I’m broke”. Had I described myself as a “businessman” you would know that I was about to ask you for money. My entrepreneurship began at age 13 when I took over the newspaper route for our vacationing paperboy who upon his return was appalled at the state of his business, which was left under my care. It seems I could never get the count straight and the NY Daily News was always happy to send me more papers than I actually needed to satisfy my run. Between that and the mother of a friend who vowed not to tip me until the window I shattered during a bad throw was paid for, I was broke. It took 10 years for him to bring the route back to a place where he made a profit. I still receive threatening calls today from the mom whose newspapers I stopped delivering because of the window. Hey, no tip, no paper!

I don’t know what’s more stressful, not having any money or looking for a job. Although I have many interests I have no marketable skills that I can think of. I flunked out of college and never received my B.A. I majored in film production but my real area of expertise was hemp-ology: the study of marijuana. My independent studies were known throughout the campus of the college I attended, which because of legal reasons my lawyer tells me I should not mention. With one whiff I was able to tell you the type of pot you possessed and whether it was any good. I checked monster.com but I haven’t found any listing asking for this skill I possess. Their loss. They can go on smoking inferior weed if they like.

Qualifications are unfair and hold way too much weight. I believe I would be an excellent cardiologist for example. Why should some simple education and experience prevent me from trying? My real talent is making people laugh. I write comedy and sometimes perform. Unless Lorne Michaels is reading this, I would probably have more of a chance performing open-heart surgery than getting a gig as a comedy writer but if you know Lorne please show him my work.

I suffer from fatigue so in addition to having no earthly skills that are worth paying for, I need to nap for a couple of hours every day in the afternoon. How do I explain this on job interviews? I will need to ask potential candidates whether they have a couch in a quiet room.

Instead of trying to respond to classified ads for jobs that I know I have no chance of getting, I decided to place my own classified ad in the NY Times:
Position Sought: comedy writing, nap taking, negative thinker seeks a rewarding career that will utilize my gifts. I am not a team player but have the goods to be able to pretend to be one. Please inquire with a wake up call between the hours of 2:00 PM-5:00 PM but not before 2:00PM please. Thanks.
Please G-d, let Lorne Michaels read this!

This weekend I read somewhere that we were supposed to change our clocks again and I felt good that after 40 something years, I finally remembered that little “Spring ahead, Fall behind” expression so I knew which direction to go and I was ready.

I read that at 2:00AM on Sunday, Spring ahead commences. I think of 2AM as “night” not morning (lets be honest, so does everyone) so in my limited brain, (limited because of all the fun I had in the 70’s), I understood that I was to Spring ahead on Sunday night, 2AM. I always remember doing this on Sunday so it seemed right. Then on Saturday morning, at 12:00 Noon (real morning for Saturday) I experienced the chaos we all anticipated on Y2K. It was Y2K combined with 2012 which according the Mayan calendar is supposed to be a doosey for us in the apocalyptic sense of the word. The end of the world does not seem so bad when compared to loosing an hour of sleep.
When I woke up on Saturday morning, every clock in my house displayed a different time. The ones automated said 12:00 PM the others read 11:00AM. So I adjusted them all. I “Sprang Ahead”. Now I had clocks that read 12:00PM and others that now read 1:00PM. I was confused and decided to make dinner in case I might miss it later.
For two weeks after daylight savings time there is certain verbiage used to express what people are “really” thinking. Here is an example of what a post DST conversation sounds like:

“What time is it?”
“2:00”.
“What time is it REALLY?”
“1:00”.

So we all know that the new time we are recognizing is false as a matter of fact this whole practice is a fallacy. This has ramifications that go beyond just the time.
If I can’t trust the clock how can I really trust the calendar? Who the heck says February should only have 28 days in it? Greedy landlords who want their rent sooner; I bet it was their idea in the first place! How can I trust that other little calendar song that we’ve all been brainwashed with:

30 days hath September, April June and November all the rest have 31 except for February which stands alone.
By:
Anonymous Landlord.

I am surprised they didn’t get away with having 28 days for every month. This will be revisited during the next Republican administration.
This year I refuse to recognize Daylight Savings Time. I’m going with the time it “really” is. What do I need a longer day for anyway? Longer days are for happy people, rich people! If I were rich I would also like days that never end and I would bathe in hundred dollar bills all day. As for me? I can’t wait for the day to end so I can go to sleep. Now I am REALLY tired! I lost a whole hour of sleep. 60 minutes (if even that can be trusted).
I am posting this as a warning to anyone who makes an appointment with me until the Fall. I am operating on “real time” not Daylight Savings Time. You better take that into account if we are scheduled to meet or if we have any kind of appointment. This also includes: doctors, dentists and anyone else. I’m putting you on alert and to my landlord: next year you’re getting your rent on February 31.

The Daily Mail reports that in a photo session recently, a tattoo on the thigh of singing sensation Britney Spears was seen by the public for the first time.

Upon further magnification of the tiny tattoo it was determined to be an expiration date of January 12, 1990 and retailers were forced to remove all of her cds and other Britney items from their shelves. One store keeper commented: “Well, public safety is always the number one concern and we felt that this would be best for everyone.”

In an interview with CBN yesterday, Newt “anti-Christ” Gingrich the yet to be announced Republican candidate and possible GOP front runner made a startling claim regarding his infidelity during his marriage to wife number 2 (he is up to 3 and counting). “There’s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate.” “I just love America so much.”

In an interview today Bill Clinton was furious with himself and was quoted as saying: “Damn!!! Thats good!! I wish I thought of that!!” Clinton is considering another run for the presidency now that Gingrich made it possible to run and still be a scoundrel. Politicians everywhere are expected to jump on this bandwagon and confess their improprieties and rumor has it that all of the candidates will partake in a reality game show with Dr Drew titled: “Candidate Confessions” where the candidate voicing the most sincere sounding confession gets to be president.

According to London’s Daily Mail, new old pictures of Eva Braun were recently discovered in the U.S National Archives. She often posed nude for the frisky Fuhrer who frowned on the foolishness of such folly. Here is a never before seen photo of Hitler’s fraulen posing nude behind a carefully placed umbrella:

Hans Lufenshrafen, the worlds oldest living nazi and a former boyfriend of Eva is quoted as saying: “She vas a peach!! I will never forgive heir fuhrer for stealing her from me but I guess all is fair in love and world domination and besides, he drove a nicer car than me: a convertible mercedes with leather interior and a great stereo. The bastard!”

Donald Trump was signing autographs outside the Ed Sullivan Theater yesterday before his appearance on Late Night WIth David Letterman when the frisky ghost of Michael Jackson caused him to have a “hair malfunction” as a practical joke. The white gloved one’s ghost can be seen in the bottom left of the frame of this shot. Trump laughed and commented: “He got me again! Last week he gave me a wedgie while I was eating dinner at Le Cirque with Melania. I just jumped up out of my seat!! I love Michael, he is really a kid even as a ghost”.

Dear Chuckie,

First of all may I just say I am a big fan and I love the movie you did with your brother Elio where you guys played two garbagemen. I almost peed in my pants it was so funny. Very, very under-rated movie. I am sure in the years to come it will be viewed as a cult movie like “Battlefield Earth” another very, very funny cult movie.
I know that you have extended your hand to Lindsey Lohan recently to give her advice and it prompted me to do the same with you my son.

I have been reading about the tough time you’ve been having because of this Jew fellow, and I want you to know that I am with you. I too am the victim of a Zionist plot to oust me from my role which has also been boring for me too, but now I want it back. I heard you make 20 million dollars a week. Just so you know, thats the amount of change I use to play the slot machines in my presidential palace.

In case you haven’t heard, I will be needing to vacate my place of residency asap before they burn it down and all my gold melts. I was thinking perhaps while you are on this hiatus that you would consider putting me up in your Hollywood Mansion. We can be like the two brothers you play with that Jew actor- the one who cries? If we can find an appropriate kid we can pretend to be in our own show: “Two and a “Half anti-Semites!”

I hope to hear back from you soon. I hope to hear back from you VERY soon. As a back up I will now be writing to Mel Gibson but I would much rather live with you.

Thank You,

MG

His Excellency Almost in Exile

In an elaborate internet scheme bilking visitors out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in admission application fees, some crafty crooks created a website for a fake University that doesn’t exist. To top it off, they lifted pages from a University that DOES exist using their color brand and content.

Upon hearing of this crime, which pales in comparison to the amount of tuition ACTUAL Universities charge, a doctor at Cleveland Medical Center halted triple bypass heart surgery he had been performing on a patient and left the ER screaming “I’M NOT REALLY A DOCTOR??!! I”M NOT REALLY A DOCTOR??!!” The gentleman received his medical degree from the school by taking classes on line for 6 weeks.

Air traffic controllers received a communique from a UFO traveling at speeds of over 6000 miles an hour yesterday in Siberia. The supervisor in charge of the overnight shift, Leonard Koninsk is quoted as saying: “I kept hearing some female voice, as if a woman was saying meow-meow all the time.”‘ Konisnsk then tried to lure the aliens by leaving a huge bowl of milk and some catnip at the front door of the command center. Russian authorities were stunned when in the morning the bowl was almost empty and several dead mice were left in gratitude for the controller’s gesture. MEOW!!

Photo by Eric Fennell

Ratings of The Oprah Winfrey Network have declined dramatically and are 10% lower than the ratings of Discovery Health, the cabler she replaced. Discovery Health was the network that brought us that memorable classic show: ” The World’s Oldest Conjoined Twins”. Sources close to Winfrey (not Stedman!) revealed that she recently bought the film rights to use as a vehicle for a wacky, traveling “buddy” movie which will star the mega sensational superstar and her best friend Gail. Oprah is a 50% partner with Discovery on the Network and Oprah is so worried about her finances that she recently let Gail pick up the tab at Starbucks for two double Frappuccinos. Concerns over her emotional state have caused Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil to intervene on her behalf which resulted in the highest rated special to date on the OWN. A special appearance by Dr. Drew Pinsky on loan from VH1 made the audience swoon until a fight broke out between Dr. Drew and Dr. Phil when Pinsky mocked Phil by singing the Beatles song “I am the walrus…goo goo ga choob..”. They both had to be removed from the studio and taping was abruptly halted when Dr. Oz began weeping bitterly like a young school girl.

Scientists have come up with a mathematical formula that valued our world at over five thousand trillion dollars! Upon hearing this figure, China immediately offered an insulting, lowball bid explaining that since 72 percent of the Earth is covered in water they should get a discount of at least that much and also because Iceland does not have very good “curb appeal”. They also deducted the amount owed to them by the United States and suggested that NASA make the necessary preparations for colonizing the moon as soon as possible. America has been handed an eviction notice by the world court but when the sheriff’s office came by to personally deliver it our government shut off all the lights in an effort to pretend that we were not home.

Americans have sent their first contingency of advisors to aid and encourage the Libyan protestors: NFL football fans!! Chet Everett of Athens Georgia was one of the first to arrive and had this to say:

“well, since the season is over and we didn’t have much of anything else to do since we’re all unemployed, we decided to bring our face paint and help the Librarian people in their quest for democracy. We are proud to serve our country and set an example to our Liberian friends that with enough face paint and tom foolery you can get the attention of the whole world and maybe a few cheerleaders!”

Muammar Gaddafi issued a statement this morning thanking the Academy Award Ceremony for allowing him to take a day off from being in the “minds eye” of the public. It was reported that Gaddafi watched the broadcast alone in his bunker, transfixed by the fanfare and suspense of who would win best actor and actress and which picture would receive the Academy Award. “This is the first year in a long time they got it right”, he said by telephone today. “These Coen Brothers are so over rated. As long as those Zionists are in the race no one could win. I thank allah their piece of sh*t, “True Grit” was not nominated. I hope everyone continues the festivities for another few days to give me a chance to figure out my next move. Thank you.”

Lady Gag, pictured here after a day long make-over, received good news today as she was told that she would be the godmother of Elton John’s adopted son Zachary. Gaga promised not to refer to her self as the child’s “fairy god mother” because that is a role Sir Elton wishes to keep for himself. He has the wand and the financial backing, as anyone in the free world knows, to deliver on any wish the child can possibly think of.

Also found were dirty dishes, a sponge, and an empty bottle of “Joy”.

Tsukaba, Japan

Japanese scientists introduced the first silicone based, ultra-realistic female robot at the technology convention which was held here earlier today. The robot’s inventor Hiroshi Ishiguru of Osaka University was quoted as proudly saying: “she can do most anything a real woman can do – talk, walk, sit, stand even read. The only thing she can not do is parallel park a car. We have not been able to crack the code on that one yet.” The inventor was ecstatic when a colleague discreetly informed him that even real women have not yet mastered that task!