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• MOTHER NATURE: IT'S HER OR US
  I've had it with the fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and the rest. We're in a battle for survival with Mother Nature, the enemy with the cute name. And I, for one, am ready to fight.

• THE REAL JULY FOURTH
  The Founding Fathers and probably everyone in 1776 agreed that it was dumb to pay tax to England. That little island, 3000 ocean miles away, couldn't provide any services to the colonies, so in a war, they couldn't supply enough forces or logistics. Explorers were coming back every day and by all accounts America was B-I-G. All that was needed was 1) to come up with a slogan and, 2) to make an agreement.

• IT PAYS TO BE NORMAL
  I’ve always felt like a normal person trying to be different. My older brother Peter was an odd person trying to be normal. Younger brother John had it worked out: a normal person trying to be normal.

• Fly Envy
  When you're a kid you don't need to know a lot. Which is just as well because you're not that swift at picking things up. We're talking here about a species that takes years to learn how to go to the bathroom.

• I'll See Me in Court
  Things have changed, joke-wise. Used to be you could get a laugh at the expense of almost everybody. Now you can't even make fun of endangered species.

• Bury em Early
  The highlight of my youth was meeting two of New York's heros: Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford. Confident, successful athletes a boy could idolize. My recent vision of them was on TV: gray-haired, wrinkled old men barely able to carry "the Mick's" coffin.

• I'LL TAKE ANYONE
  As a teenager, I always wanted the "perfect girl". As a young man, I ended up living alone--women I met were always too much this or too little that. As time passed, I noticed my standards were continuing to go up... while my qualifications were going down. The long run had started to become the short run.

• Cairo Buffalo and The Beyond
  Some people have all the luck. They have mystical encounters in their sleep, they have sexual experiences in their shower. Great composers write music through them; they can channel art with their feet. They go to a psychic, their lives gets straightened out.

• OF INVENTION NECESSITY IS THE MOTHER
  I hate people who are always saying "If only I...", and "I should have...", and "I wish I..." You couldn't have, you wouldn’t have, you didn't.

• Bad Haircut Depression BSD
  I know you've felt it. Everyone I ask immediately understands. Everyone comments on the hat.