If wars were won or lost on the strength of the number of times a nation's citizens used the word "awesome" as a superlative, we would win every war. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sarte said "Hell is other people."  Here are the transcripts to prove it.


[Ring! Ring!] Ooops.  Sorry, I meant [Elephant Walk Ring Tone].


Sarte: Hello? Who's this?

Simone:      You know who it is! Simone de Beauvoir.  You want to have lunch or what?


Sarte:   G-d no!  That sounds awful!  It sounds like hell!

Simone:  Sarte! You're such an asshole! Why do you even own a telephone?  I'm hanging up!


[Click!]


[Star Wars Theme Ring Tone].

Sarte: Oh for the love of...Now what!?  Hello?  Who is this?


Greta:     It's Greta Garbo.  I just called to tell you that I want to be alone!


Sarte: Well, I want to be alone, too! Other people are hell!

Greta: Well, alright, then!

Sarte: Well, alright, yourself!

Greta: I'm hanging up.  I shan't call you again.

Sarte: I should hope not! Other people are hell! Hello?  Hello?  Gee, I can't believe she hung up.

[Click!]

[It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp Ring Tone].

Sarte: Are you kidding me with this, already!?  Hello?  Who's there!?

U.S.:  It's me, Ulysses S. Grant. I called to tell you that war is hell!

Sarte: What are you  talking about!?  Other people are hell!

U.S. Well, what do you think war is? War is people condemning other people to hell.

Sarte: Other people are hell.  

U.S.:  That's what I said!

Sarte:  No!  That's what I  said.  You said " war is hell. "

U.S.: Well war is hell!

Sarte:  You're giving me a headache.  Thereby proving my point.

U.S.: I'm hanging up.

Sarte:  You're too late!  I already hung up!

[Click!]

[Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard Ring Tone].

Sarte: Simone was right.  I should have ix-nayed on the elephone-tay! Yeah?  Who's there?

BM: It's me, Bashar al Assad and I have  Muammar Khadaffi on the line.  Say hello, Muammar. 

Sarte:  What do you want? I was in the middle of thinking about sticking my head in the oven when you called.


BM: When you said that other people are hell, did you have us in mind?

Sarte: Actually, I had my family of origin in mind.  But come to think of it, you two pretty much are the poster boys.

BM: Well did you ever think about T-shirts?  You know like, "Life is Good"   only different.

Sarte: You  two should take your act on the road.  Seriously.  You crack me up!

BM:  One more thing, is hell capitalized?


Sarte:  Only in Hell.

BM: AWESOME!  See, Muammar!  I told you we spelled it right!

[Click]

Sarte:   "Awesome?"  How infantile is that? U.S. was right.   War is hell.  But so are other people.

[Springtime for Hitler Ringtone]

Sarte: Sarte, here.  This call is being monitored for quality assurance.

BM :  It's us, again.  We need a place to live.  Can we stay with you until some lunatic government grants us asylum?

Sarte: Nope.  Sorry. Policy.  I can't live with other people.

BM:  Why not?

Sarte: Other people are hell. And the thought of people like you is so hellish, I can't even bear it.

BM: Well, we were gonna come over.  But now I guess we won't.

Sarte: Awesome! 

THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THE HIYLH PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN HAS NOT CRASHED AND BURNED; THE BAD NEWS IS THAT WE CAN SAY THIS ONLY BECAUSE IT NEVER GOT OFF THE GROUND.

MEMO

From:  the HIYLH junior staff (or what's left of it)

To: The person who calls himself the "campaign manager" and makes sure all the pencils are sharpened and at the ready. 

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We have market-tested this draft speech and nobody died.  We are confident that, among all the drafts we have prepared, the following draft speech stands the best chance of resonating with someone. In the spirit of full disclosure, we should add that the following draft is the only one we have prepared. (Note: we recommend with the strongest sense of urgency that this speech NOT be delivered in a falsetto sing-song).

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My fellow citizens and people with fake I.D.s.,  I am going to tell you the bare-naked truth. I am eminently unqualified to be president or to hold any elective office whatsoever. In this, I am no different than any of the other candidates.  But I am the only one who will come out and say it. You can always count on me to tell you the unvarnished truth.  I don't know what the capital of Khazakhstan is,  for example.  My familiarity with the Stans is a little light.  I admit it.

You may ask where I stand on the big issues of our time.  And that is fair. I will never shy from any question. Especially that one. Where do I stand on the big issues of our time, you ask?  I stand athwart them. That's where. I'm not afraid to say it.

I don't have any skeletons in the closet. I do, however, have some shirts shoved up into a corner that I haven't been able to reach for about 14 years. In matters of sartorial splendor, don't get me started.
 
Sometimes I hear voices in my head.  Not the lofty voice of the Creator urging me to do great things for the Nation.  It's more of a nasally, high-pitched kind of whine telling me to feed the cat.  For all I know, it may very well be the cat. I don't think this is an impediment to serving.  Millard Filmore was said to have heard voices in his head.  Voices telling him to feed the cat.  He did just fine as president -- even though his name was Millard. Sounds kind of like a duck. Go ahead and fact-check that.  I dare you.

This country is in a pickle.  It's also in a mess, a spot, a jam, a funk, a downward spiral, and a heap 'o trouble. But we are an extraordinary people. We still believe in Fahrenheit. That is why illegal aliens from all over the world risk their lives to come here.  Because they live in countries where nobody has any idea what the temperature is. 

On my very first day as president, I vow to have a really big party and appoint all my friends to be secretary of the treasury and ambassador to Monaco and Sergeant-at-arms, and yeoman of the bowman. On my very second day as president, I am going to take a golf lesson.

Jobs.  Jobs.  Jobs. I have no idea why I just said that.  The other candidates say it a lot. But how many of them say this?  Personal Day.  Personal Day.  Personal Day.  I'm the only one. Go ahead and fact-check it.  I dare you.

Friends, it's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.  But before we do, we will have to roll up our sleeves again.  because no matter how much we roll up our sleeves, they keep falling down. It's annoying as hell. We are prepared to work with long sleeves if need be. Even if they dip into a sink full of soapy water now and again.

 Our best days are still ahead of us.  Our worst days are still behind us. Casual Fridays are to our right. Hump day has to sit at the kids' table. Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. 
  
When I look around this great country of ours, I mostly see the backs of other people's heads, because, by the time I get there, all the good viewing spaces are already taken.  And that is, fundamentally, why I want to be President.  Sure, to help people and what not.  But mostly, so that I don't have to wait on line. No other candidate will tell you that.  I just did.

Go ahead and fact-check it.  I dare you.

Together, we can't do any worse.

We're pretty sure we know EXACTLY what happened here -- and that's a fact!

THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT PEOPLE WHO CLAIM TO KNOW THE "SHOCKING TRUTH."

I like rain, cats, and dogs.

And when it's raining cats and dogs, I like taxi drivers who speak English and have change for a $100 bill on a $7 fare.

I like it when the person in front of me gets kicked out of the "10 Items or Fewer" aisle because the cashier counts each egg as an individual item.

I like it when I don't have to go to the circus and look at clowns.

I like it that so many are impressed by the fact that I can speak only one language.

I like getting the kinks out of the no-kink hose.

I like it when the birds don't bestow their good luck omens on my head.

I like letter carriers who have mastered the art of matching the address label on the envelope with the actual number on the mailbox.

I like swag. Even though nobody has ever given me any. or an award for anything. or a free upgrade. Why do you suppose this is?

I like elderly people on an overcrowded subway who give you a look that can only be interpreted to mean: "don't get up and offer me your seat. My doctor wants me to stand for a really long time on a crappy old train that jerks to a violent stop at every station."

I like being able to read people's minds and not getting charged for it.

When they start charging for mind reading, I'm going to read something else.

I like kitties who are always satisfied at any given moment.

Do you know any?

Some endings just leave you hanging.

I hate that.

HONK IF YOU LIKE HONKING AWARDED COVETED AAA RATING BY STANDARD & POOR'S (WHICH GOES TO SHOW WHAT MORONS STANDARD & POOR'S ARE).

CURRICULUM VITAE

Objective: To pass judgment on the fiscal habits of others while failing to follow my own advice.

Education: I'll say! Everything I need to know, I learned when I saw how S&P profited handsomely from its spectacular miscalculations about Enron, Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, and the whole subprime mortgage market debacle.

Experience: You mean with tanking credit? Let me put it to you this way: I've been around the block a few times.

Skills: Very, very good with a shredder.

Awards: The Kenneth Lay Shredder Award (runner up).

References: You wouldn't get them; they've very obscure -- randomly Yiddishkeit, you might say.

Hobbies: Gaming the system; systematically playing games with other peoples' livelihoods; sending anonymous "Tweets" to arbitrage traders in the middle of the night (but always with my shirt on); eating "fancy foods" and doing what I choose! (Gut Shabbos, Kathie Lee Gifford!)

Fetishes: Having a recurring bizarre fantasy that economic policy affecting the well-being of over 6 billion people shouldn't be the provenance of an incompetent corporation that has the chutzpah to show its face after making a 2 Trillion Dollar mistake.
 
Availability: Call me. If it goes right to voicemail, I'm on the other line with Moody's (or maybe Fitch's).




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and speaking of incompetent morons, tell the U.N. to stop the massacre in Syria.

If your body's cells regenerate completely every seven to ten years, is it legitimate to claim that you are not liable for the debts of your younger "selves" who are not even the same selves as you? Please say "yes."

When we look back at our youthful indiscretions, we laugh at them, unless, of course, they happened last night, in which case, the situation doesn't seem all that mirthful. Twenty seven years from now, conditions will improve, as most of the witnesses will have moved on with their lives or at least forgotten your name. Also, there's plastic surgery.

A politician once famously said (or is it said famously?): "When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible. Now I'm just irresponsible." He didn't really say the last part, but it's a good line. Selective memory is the best kind to have (it's right up there with the "good" cholesterol).

Would you rather remember things the way they actually were or the way you wish they could have been? We thought so. That's why Rembrandt and Vermeer were invented.

If you are like me, you are always doing the dishes and thinking of a stinging retort that you should have lobbed at the class putz during a volley of puerile insults in a 7th grade schoolyard. Because these inspirational thoughts arrive some decades after the contretemps in question, their usefulness is generally not readily apparent, or ever.

Some people see things the way they are and ask "why?" Others see them as they once were and ask "why couldn't I have thought of that then when it might have done some good?" It's easy to spot the households where this sort of thing goes on during the dinner clean-up. One of the spoons in the silverware drawer is preposterously shinier than all the others. Distracted drying.

You've heard the phrase "youth is wasted on the wrong people." It's something alte kakers say. Young people tend not to share this sentiment. Why should they? They don't believe in sharing.

If there were just one thing in your life you could take back, what would it be? For me, it would be having asked the immediately foregoing question -- the opening paragraph of a thousand self-help trade paperbacks. Now it's too late.

Well, it's time to get ready for bed. It's one of my least favorite parts of the day. There's the whole standing-in-the-doorway-calling-the-cat-for-a-half-an-hour-while-he-crouches-in-the-bushes-in-the- dark-3-feet-away-pretending-not-to-hear-me-just-because-he-can thing. That routine sure is getting tired. But given the size of his brain, I guess that's the most we can expect from the likes of him.




HEY! That's what I should have said to that asshole, Earle Cornbluuth, when he called me a "fake" in the 7th grade.

Yeah, that's what I should have said.

Whatsa matter? Can't you read the sign on the door?

Please tell our staff if anyone in your party has an allergy to spelling "its" as a contraction to indicate a possessive. Consuming raw or undercooked ideas may cause a government to form.

Somewhere along the way, some enterprising restaurateur hit upon a solid plan to take the patrons' minds off their disappointment in the mediocre fare -- cutsey names for the restrooms. It started in some seafood shack in Atlantic City or Brighton Beach or Old Saybrook or some place like that. You know the kind of place I mean -- where everything is breaded and deep fried in oil - even the coffee. The owner must have reasoned that a nautical theme in the necessary room would excite the imaginations of the diners so that they could fancy themselves sailing the seven seas on the Jolly Roger, instead of merely pushing the over-battered shrimp around on the blue plate special. And that, children, is the story of how the men's room came to be called "Buoys" and the women's room became "Gulls."

It didn't take long for this ridiculous practice to spread like wildfire. Soon, there were water closets all over the land with names like "Captain," "Galley Wench," "Kings," "Queens," and so forth. This was bad enough, but the trend soon outgrew the pedestrian confines of the minds of its creators, and certain establishments with a decidedly bohemian stripe became bolder, experimenting with such designations as "Othello" and "Desdemona" or "Mars" and "Venus." Pretentious to be sure, but still capable of guiding all but the semi-literate.

After reports of an alarming number of faux pas, and in a nod to this last-mentioned demographic, some victuallers resorted to the tried and true pictogram. But never content to leave well enough alone, the avante garde hijacked the process and made the images ever more obscure and confounding: Is that a woman with a small purse or a man with a large wallet? Chaos reigned.

You would think this would have chastened the cabal responsible for comfort station signage. You would have thought wrong. Emboldened by their own peculiar interpretation of artistic license and public-be-damned attitude, the degenerates who make their living designing the outsides of bathroom doors in brasseries were off in ever more bizarre directions. In this brave new world, any efforts at the representational were cast off in favor of the abstract and metaphorical.

Needless to say, such a sad state of affairs transformed the average perplexing social situation into the outright awkward. Recently, in one such instance, clumps of teenage boys were spotted outside an eatery's refreshment center whose door was bedecked  in kabuki masks -- the delineations of sexual features blurred beyond all recognition. To a man, the huddled adolescents sported a look of puzzlement and mild post traumatic shock. Meanwhile a young woman slouched in a corner opposite, sobbing quietly into a cocktail napkin.

How were they to know?

The prevailing order is a shanda, certainly, but there seems no chance of reversing it. For now, we have to endure the arrival on the scene of a motley crew who fancy themselves a new breed of surrealists or dadaists. In plain terms, things are out of control.

I mean, if the hostess directs you to a long, dark corridor where one door has a cigar box glued to the front of it, and the other is decorated with a tortoise shell, what the hell are you supposed to do with that? Life is hard enough as it is. It's gotten so it just isn't safe to go out, anymore. And people in war zones thought they had problems.