Land World!

There is a place under the sea, somewhere under where the Bermuda triangle is, called Land World. It is a theme park. When people disappear in boats and planes sometimes they end up there (sometimes they were drunk and just crashed). It is a bubble. Like in that movie The Abyss. In the bubble there are rooms in which they have air, and in those rooms they have bugs, rodents, dogs, dancing bears, and people. If you are a shark, or a whale, or a fish, or a squid, you can go to Land World with your children. You can walk with the dogs. You can show up at 2:15, 4:30, or 6:15 when they feed the humans. This one shark mom let her stupid ass sharklet reach through the bubble and this human punched the sharklet pretty bad. Some people thought it was sad but mostly it was considered hilarious, at least on the internet.

This was the idea I had last night. It seemed a hell of a lot funnier then. Now it just seems like a scenario for that one-panel Far Side rip-off they run in the Post.

i'm sorry, dogs and cats I love

I lied. I was in a pissy mood and I took it out on you, dogs and cats. I like plenty of both of you kinds of animals. I guess the thing is I hold you to the same standards as a human. If you are a dog or cat and you are a dick, then I will probably think you're a dick and not like you. If you are a dog or cat and you are cool, I will think you're cool and I will like you. I will love you, even. I love a cat named Cooper, for instance, and I love a dog named Bua. I love them. I admit it. I loved a dog named Rufus who died. I cried when Rufus died. I lied. He died. I cried. I'm sorry I lied. I love you.

don't think ill of me...

...but I'm pretty sure I just plain don't really like dogs, or cats. It takes such a big heart to be a man, to be a man who tries to love and to be open to love. My heart isn't big enough to let some annoying-ass non-human creatures get all up in my face in there, especially when they also make me sneeze. No, I ain't gonna kick 'em, but no, I ain't gonna love 'em. Especially when they're dicks, too. Fuck an animal who's a dick.

Don't think ill of me. I love you.

If I were God (the famous one)...

Dogs in alleys would have no vocal cords, and there would be no fucking god damn pidgeons. Also I would still be sleeping.

the fabled catbird seat

St. Louis native John Goodman was the first person I ever heard refer to "the fabled catbird seat," talking to his character's brother in Raising Arizona. Well, that's not really true. I most likely wasn't paying attention when I saw the movie, and I never really heard it until a friend kept saying it and I asked what it was. I had a vision that looked something like this:

My friend had no idea what it meant. Hmm, I thought, this is the exact reason the internets exist. So I looked it up, and had to amend my mental image:


Turns out the catbird is just a kind of bird in the South that tends to pick really high branches to sit on, according to this little investigation. The phrase may have originated down south, but it's currency in the north was assured by none other than legendary Brooklyn Dodgers broadcaster Red Barber, who heard it playing poker (which does sound to me like the perfect time to use it) and added it to the list of colorful phrases that so endeared him the public (here's a nice discussion on that).

Here's where it comes full-circle for me. I first (maybe) heard the phrase from John Goodman, a hometown hero from my current hometown. It's entirely possible that John Goodman first heard the phrase from famed humorist James Thurber, a hometown hero from my ancestral/fake hometown of Ohio, who wrote a short story called "The Catbird Seat" (cliff notes here) in 1942.

Turns out The Catbird Seat is also an indie record label/podcast/review site, a rabble-rousing political intrigue & exposé site, and even the personal web log of a youth minister's wife and mother of two. One thing is clear: wherever it came from, this phrase is here to stay. In a world such as ours, what with its neverending panorama of rising and falling idioms, with phrases flashing in the pan for just a year before they fade from favor and consciousness, "the catbird seat" is truly sitting in the fabled catbird seat.