Thursday, January 28, 2010


J
a, so, dis is der story uf me, a young mensch who vanders arount New York mit dem red hat on mein kupf. So, der is all diese peoples, they really, how you say, pissing me off. Ich bin ein pissed off teenager, if you know vat I’m saying to you? So, anyhow, ich see all these ducks in Central Park, very beautiful, ja. And I am so, so angry at dis and dat. Vy? Vy ist me so wery angered? Because they ist der phonies! They ist der shams. Der phony, phony,phony! All mit der smiling und laughing! Vat ist dis here, 99 Luftballoons? Mein Gott! So, ja, I making up mein mind I’m no more going back to my Pensey school. Nein! Mit more of dem phonies. Sorry to Charlie! Then, you understand, der ist ein carousel, going round unt round. And there ist dis catcher, he’s grabben der kinder auf der rye. So, that’s it. Ja? Now, what you say we dance? Unt an ein, and a zwei Oom pah pah, oom pah pah!


Ken Krimstein has published cartoons in The New Yorker, Punch, The National Lampoon, and The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. His writing has also appeared on McSweeney’s, and The Morning News, and he has read as part of “Trumpet Fiction” at KGB bar in New York City. You can visit Ken at kenkrimstein.com.
Thursday, January 28, 2010

The Real Housewives of New Jersey Book Club

T

HE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW JERSEY have met again around the site of their infamous last supper. This time they are trying to keep an uneasy peace and discuss another popular and infamous book: The Catcher in the Rye.

TERESA: This book was O.K. and everything but I’m kind of pissed off about something I read on the second page.

CAROLINE: I know what she’s talking about. I do. I know. Because I need to look into things. You know. Things. Especially when they are about my family.

DINA: I thought it was stupid.

TERESA: This thing about his brother. On the second page.

DANIELLE: I didn’t get to the second page.

TERESA: Prostitution whore!

JACQUELINE: Let’s not get into this again.

CAROLINE: I have to protect my family from books like this. It’s right there on the second page.

DINA: What’s on the second page? I didn’t get that far.

Danielle puts the book on the table. Everyone stares at it with dagger eyes. The tension in the room is palpable. Teresa picks up the book and starts flipping the pages.

TERESA: Prostitution whore! Right there on the second page! “Now he’s out in Hollywood, D.B., being a prostitute.”

CAROLINE: I don’t like this. Not one bit. And he doesn’t even seem to like his family, except for his sister. How can that be? Let me tell you something about my family, we’re as tick as teeves. And this kid. There’s something phony about him.

DINA: Yeah. He’s a total phony.

DANIELLE: Let me tell you about Holden Caulfield. Holden Caulfield struggled. He was out there, raising his kids and he did what he had to do. You can’t judge Holden Caulfield. You don’t know Holden Caulfield. But that’s just my opinion. I only read the first page.

JACQUELINE: I thought he represented post-war restlessness, coming back to a world completely changed that no longer makes sense but you are forced find your place in that world, even though there is no place for you. Holden is not an adolescent. He’s the representative man.

CAROLINE: Let me tell you something about the representative man. He’s a brick of beef.

“This book was O.K. and everything but I’m KIND OF PISSED OFF about something I read on the second page.”

DINA: This is stupid.

DANIELLE: Holden was never a prostitute. He was struggling through a life. Yes, he made mistakes. Yes, he was slightly derivative of Huckleberry Finn and yes he spawned countless even more derivative novels, but that’s not the character’s issue. That’s Salinger’s.

JACQUELINE: Did you hear about the lawsuit? The sequel to the book?

DINA: That’s stupid. What are you talking about?

TERESA: Lawyer Whore! Suing everyone! If that lawyer thinks he can come up to the First Amendment and strip a writer’s natural right to build or answer other creative works, he’s got another thing coming.

CAROLINE: Let me tell you something about intellectual property attorneys, they nickel their eaves.

DANIELLE: You don’t understand what it is to be an intellectual property attorney. You have no idea what it’s like to be out there, worrying about copyright and intellectual property. Are people using his work for their own monetary gain? Is it permissible?

DINA: I hear he’s a freak.

JACQUELINE: You are a bunch of liars. Salinger’s a great American writer and his retreat from society is necessary to find both inner peace and respite from the din of the American clamor.

TERESA: Phony Whore! Phony Whore! You think you’re better than Salinger or Holden. You sit here judging him!

Teresa slams her hand on the table and then flips the table over. Chaos ensues.

TERESA: Phony Whore! You think you can come in here and judge Salinger. Fucking anti-intellectual whore. Who are you Harold Bloom? Thinking it’s derivative? Fuck Harold Bloom! Canon making whore!

Next week, the Housewives will be reading The Crying of Lot 49.
Spoiler Alert: Dina’s head literally explodes.

During his first year of school, Jeff Barnosky believed that each of his teachers was Bea Arthur in disguise. Especially Mr. Roberts. He lives in Philadelphia, he dies in Cleveland and he questions the true nature of all existence in Toronto. He’s been published in McSweeney’s, Pindeldyboz, Exquisite Corpse, and the late, much missed Haypenny.
Thursday, January 28, 2010

“Rapper 50 Cent will collaborate with a team of writers on a series of novels about life on the streets.”

Variety

The Rapper in the Rye

The Rapper in the Rye
by 50 Cent and J. D. Salinger

If you really want to hear about it, you’ll want to hear all the David Copperfield crap about my lousy childhood and how I was abandoned by my father and raised by my bisexual crack dealer mother, but I don’t feel like going into it. I’m not going to tell you my whole goddamn autobiography. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened when I was shot three times in front of my grandmother’s house in Queens.

I had taken the train home from school, and this lady got on and sat next to me. All of a sudden she said, “Excuse me, isn’t that an Andrew Jackson High School sticker?” She was looking up at my suitcase on the rack.

“Yes, it is,” I said. It did have a corny Andrew Jackson sticker on it.

“Do you go there?” she asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“Perhaps you know my son—D-Block?”

“Yes, he’s in my class.”

Her son was doubtless the biggest wanksta in the whole crumby history of the school. He used to walk the halls squirting people with his Super Soaker, saying that’s how he and his posse rolled in the hood. That’s the kind of guy he was.

“How nice! I must tell D we met,” she said. “May I ask your name, dear?”

“50 Cent,” I told her. I didn’t feel like giving her my whole life story. 50 Cent was how much change I had in my pocket. I like change, but you can hardly buy anything with it.

“Well, nice to meet you, Fifty,” she said. Fifty—that killed me.



* * *



 A Tale of Two Boroughs

A Tale of Two Boroughs
by 50 Cent and Charles Dickens

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of gangsta rap, it was the age of wanksta rap; we had everything before us—endorsements for G-Unit Sneakers—we had nothing before us without a personal book imprint I could sell at Borders; we were all going direct to Queens, we were all going direct the other way to Hell’s Kitchen.

In South Jamaica, a daring burglary by 50 Cent took place on the front steps of the Central Library. Ja Rule was late returning The Ski Mask Way. Rather than put a “hold” on it like a wanksta, 50 Cent decided to get the book or die tryin’.


* * *



What Ho, G!

What Ho, G!
by 50 Cent and P. G. Wodehouse

If you’ve never had a rap sidekick, I recommend that you get one, posthaste. I don’t know how I ever got along without mine—BackWurdz—a brainy sort who always comes up with words when I’m stuck for a rhyme. It happened just the other day, as I was sitting at the breakfast table and burst into verse:

Sound E-Fex, live and uncut!
My style’s like a punch that goes straight to the gut!
I’m better than competitors,
I sure don’t need no editors,
Once you try my flavor,
Ta-dum-te-dum-te-dum.

Even after the sizzling eggs and b. that BackWurdz brought me I couldn’t complete the lines that I hoped to incorporate into a bootleg of borrowed beats.

“BackWurdz, old fellow?” I said.

“Yes, dog?”

“I’m stuck.”

“Indeed, dog.”

“For want of a rhyme, a track could be lost,” I explained.

“What is the word for which you seek an assonant?”
See? The man’s a veritable vocab cornucopia. “Once you try my flavor …”

“Your voice will quickly quaver,” he replied evenly, as if reciting a principle of double-entry bookkeeping.

“Wurdz, you’ve outdone yourself!” I exclaimed.

“I endeavor to give satisfaction, dog.”

Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer. He is the author of The Year of the Gerbil, a history of the ’78 Yankees–Red Sox pennant race. His humor is available on Amazon Shorts. He writes on sports for Flak Magazine.
Thursday, December 10, 2009

Back in 2010

Tone Lōc’s "Where the Wild Thing Is" Grounded by my mom, sent to bed without dinner / So I float my boat in a sea of funky cold medina.
Hallowe'en Rehash My Rejected Submission to Cosmo's Halloween Issue, Entitled "How to Lose a Guy in One Spooky, Scary Night: Halloween Costumes for Those Wanting Out" and What Not to Give Trick-or-Treaters on Hallowe'en Night
Fiction
Tonight's Tasting Menu The flavor of the biscuit, infused with fennel and East European herbs, will be striking, perhaps even shocking, and may remind you of a moment of betrayal in your life. Additionally, it will cleanse your mouth.
Fiction
Aspects of Myself I am Not Going to Change in This Age of Excessive Plastic Surgery My breasts: Because I have already had them enlarged. Six times.
Listicles
Several Hotel Heiresses Less Glamorous Than Paris Hilton From Rio Omni to Amarillo Hojo
Fiction
"Squeeze Me into a Glass and Drink Me: My Tour of New York City Bars After Gourmet" by Ruth Reichl No more Daniel; no molto Mario; no mas tapas: what was I to do now?
So, What Is Not an International Zionist Plot? "So, What Is Not an International Zionist Plot?" by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran
Fiction
Dancing with the Lone Star The opening notes of Strauss fill the auditorium. Famed professional dancer Cheryl Burke makes a spectacular entrance in a Marie Antoinette ball gown, flipping her ruffles to reveal provocative pantaloons. From across the stage former Majority Leader Tom DeLay emerges from the bowels of a V-2 rocket.
R.I.P., William Safire Remembering the conservative wordsmith.
Fiction
The Status (Up)Date Love in the age of social networking.



Hip-Hop Lit: New and Noteworthy Rapper 50 Cent will collaborate with a team of writers on a series of novels about life on the streets.

See Y'all in MMX Y.P.R. will return in 2010.

Black Friday Doorbuster Specials at the Dollar Store! Knockoff brand names at F.D.A.–rejected Chinese brand prices!

Tone Lōc’s "Where the Wild Thing Is" Grounded by my mom, sent to bed without dinner / So I float my boat in a sea of funky cold medina.

Hallowe'en Rehash My Rejected Submission to Cosmo's Halloween Issue, Entitled "How to Lose a Guy in One Spooky, Scary Night: Halloween Costumes for Those Wanting Out" and What Not to Give Trick-or-Treaters on Hallowe'en Night

Fiction
Tonight's Tasting Menu The flavor of the biscuit, infused with fennel and East European herbs, will be striking, perhaps even shocking, and may remind you of a moment of betrayal in your life. Additionally, it will cleanse your mouth.

Fiction
Aspects of Myself I am Not Going to Change in This Age of Excessive Plastic Surgery My breasts: Because I have already had them enlarged. Six times.

Listicles
Several Hotel Heiresses Less Glamorous Than Paris Hilton From Rio Omni to Amarillo Hojo

Fiction
"Squeeze Me into a Glass and Drink Me: My Tour of New York City Bars After Gourmet" by Ruth Reichl No more Daniel; no molto Mario; no mas tapas: what was I to do now?

So, What Is Not an International Zionist Plot? "So, What Is Not an International Zionist Plot?" by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran

Fiction
Dancing with the Lone Star The opening notes of Strauss fill the auditorium. Famed professional dancer Cheryl Burke makes a spectacular entrance in a Marie Antoinette ball gown, flipping her ruffles to reveal provocative pantaloons. From across the stage former Majority Leader Tom DeLay emerges from the bowels of a V-2 rocket.

R.I.P., William Safire Remembering the conservative wordsmith.

Fiction
The Status (Up)Date Love in the age of social networking.

Dan Brown Day! Republishing some of Y.P.R.'s most cryptic and sacrilegious conspiracies.

Fiction
Dunne Done. Upon returning to New York City, I attended a benefit for the Bichon Frisé Society, at the Puck Building, hosted this year by my good friend Liza Minnelli, (who looks better each time I see her); and a good friend of my son Griffin’s, Gwenyth Paltrow, the daughter of my good, old friend Blythe Danner. Many of New York's grande dames were in attendance, as well as a number of up-and-coming young actors, a few regulars from Page Six, and that rascal David Patrick Columbia. It is an event of star-studded revelry and finger food (catered by Mario Batali).

Poems! We've Got Poems! The important free-verse kind, not the fun rhymey kind.

The Robot Speaks of Rivers With apologies to Langston Hughes.

Public Display No P.D.A., thank you.

Ode to the Spork Oh unsung hero of hot lunch

Three Poems Judaism | World Series Tickets | What You Did When Your Wife Left for a Little While to Visit Her Mom in the Bronx

Listicles
Death by Listicle Prom Dates from Hell / Other Ways to Skin a Cat / Alternatives to "Finish Him!" in Mortal Kombat / Expiration by Twinkie / Other Things That Are Killing Me Softly

Listicles
Other Things That Are Killing Me Softly The slow, insidious destruction of the middle class.

Listicles
Other Ways to Skin a Cat Tell the cat that skin is an unrealistic standard of beauty perpetuated by the media and Maybelline.

Listicles
Alternatives to "Finish Him!" in Mortal Kombat "Curtains!"

Listicles
Prom Dates from Hell Formal Wear and Pitchforks

R.I.P., John Hughes Some Good Possible Names for an Emo Band, Inspired by the 1986 Motion Picture Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Yo, Joe! This year, in support of all our troops overseas, we're going with the most patriotic theme we could think of. That's right: "G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero"!!!!!!!!

Non-Fiction
Life Lessons from My History Textbook: Chapter Three, Ancient China Taken directly, copyrights-be-damned, from Chapter 3 of World History Vol. One: To 1800, 3rd edition, Duiker and Spielvogel.

Fiction
Puritan Gravestones!!! Judge Byron Edwards (aged 54 yrs of the age). Who Rid our towne of witches, recognizing Them by their dancing & some-times sleeping in past 4 thirty of the a.m.

Listicles
Broadway Listicles Brutally Realistic Versions of Famous Musicals / How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? / Ways in Which I Would Refer to Sex if I Were a Bawdy Extra in an English Period Drama

Listicles
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Get a restraining order

Listicles
Brutally Realistic Versions of Famous Musicals The Sound of Nazis

Fiction
Breaking Up Is Hard to Do Do you know how I know that you defriended me? Because my other TWENTY-FIVE friends would never do that to me and also I'm not getting your status updates, which I'm sure are fraught with anguish over our breakup—something I'd be happy to help you heal and deal with. I'll bet our make-up sex would be great, too.



 

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