I think I might have a winner--though he appears to have described me as something of a sinner--

But I'll take that bet even if I am not, in the end, the winner.

And I will tell you some of this without rhyming. Hopefully so that you will know that no matter which places you go or I go you should easily rest assured that I can do exactly everywhere you can twice at least as fast as you might be able to, and a thousand tiimes as fast if I'm on a dead run.

How? How is such a thing possible?

Because I can keep Seuss in the box of "really cut loose" and I can do it in such a footloose way that you'll pick me as a friend over an enemy any day--even if at first you think making such a choice is a rather interesting roll of some rather interesting dice.

I've actually been waiting for a guy who appears very likely to read my things--perhaps this "exchange" as it's really meant only for Srini--the Genie Spagatini of the Longest of the Long Weenies! The man who could take the title Top Writer in Satire from me, who is also (among what must be a Colonel Mustard version of the titles he can claim--albeit disregarding the contradiction (or a contractually obligated dictation) ;o) which I've seen "a few times."

I like when I know a person is going to not only read what I say carefully, but thoroughly (hardly can name a time when someone claimed in advance to commit to not just one but TWO of my rhymes--especially considering that most people seem to believe my very existence is some sort of a crime.)

An OP crime, because I have felt the very same thing that you have: a feeling that people already falsely claim the rather curious right to think less carefully as a reader than as a writer.

Look folks, that puzzle is one which ends in "not even close."

If you're taking a blasé attitude and a briefcase full of exceptionally dull knives of the Occam's razor sort to come back to a writer who knows full fucking well his "chief mission is to keep things short" you pulled out your cucumber of a switchblade on the wrong fucking day I can tell you that much.

Conditionally evident fact, btw.

You will not use your blithely quoted Twain on the likes of me, is what Srini seems to be saying,

brevity is the soul of wit

Doesn't even need to be capitalized or carry any sort of punctuation or emphasis for guys (and ladies) who ALWAYS swing for the fences.

We waste our time purifying our words--distilling to "beyond any doubt"--and we're doing it for wannabe wordsmiths without a shred of the clout?

Nah. Not anymore. Not with guys who act like me not with guys who right writers like the rightest of the right writers who occasionally shops in the pen which is me, and certainly not those

"occasionally use words in the right context and with identifiable emphasis (please), quite politely as they can and without yelling for help from the peanut gallery."

Look, I get that people are triggered by all kinds of things with their pitifully impatient cries of "look at me, look how sorely I've been handled! The grammar policemen are out and they brutalized me with a night stick! Please defend me from the writer who already knew that a comment from a proud peacock of duncecap wearer like me should be taken with as the advice of a physician who is three."

Yeah, because what does it matter whether you're three days, three months, three years or three decades old--you'll keep using that plentifully dull axe you're grinding as something other than old.

We should talk, Srini. Like have some sort of conversation. We really don't need the kids screaming for their lemonade or having their noses blown at the time, either.

Strictly for Srini:

I evaluated what you described as something akin to your "reading technique" and I find it very...let's say reverse compatible with mine. I will describe mine now, since it seems pretty clear that you're the only one left here reading.

When I started the daunting process of figuring out what I might be able to read (early in my life, probably around like 24-25--which isn't all that fucking early considering the fact that reading the right books earlier than later seems a rather "very important" trick which needs to be used in conjunction...

Well, I'd done the best I could before or so I thought. What would I do if it were completely up to me and I wanted to rest assured that my attentions could not be bought?

Easy puzzle, if you think about it:

Read people who are dead.

Okay, that seems to close things off maybe too much, but since I evaluated my reading speed more akin to the slowest of the slow versus the jack rabbit slim's cheetah of the fast dancing eyes running contest [warning Brian, reading fast might cause you a headache] I figured almost precisely the reverse:

"Well if I read for one hour per day and I can read about 20 pages per hour then I will average about 20 books averaging 365.25 pages each year that I uniformly commit to reading."

I thought this "pretty good." I thought, yes, I would love to read to my understanding 20 really good books in a year, and that ends me at about 1000 really good books I might absorb in my lifetime.

Well which ones then?

Has to be classics. These people are clearly dead, their books "stood the test of time"--in some way had timeless lessons in them--and would probably help me to learn timeless lessons than reading something which might be a circular series of good "goof off" dreams like How to Win Friends and Influence People.

If you cannot learn such a thing using the utterly ages old common tongue of politeness you don't know Jack from Jill from shit from swill and you certainly won't ever know who is paying the price for your lack of vision.

Because as Srini and I know (even if you didn't) there are more than even two ways to skin a cat.

I feel badly for you, man. I know many PTSD-shocked victims of the "it's always my way" world lead people to satire and sarcasm as among the first of the unassailably accurate bomb shelters of places.

I also know that people have shorter fuses and bigger bombs and less time than most times before, and I know that if they tried to read something like the five works most identifiable as the "Collected Works of the Bronte Sisters" they'd hit a rather stout oak tree with the forehead of their wind-up and spin around in a circle Barbie Doll Volkswagens.

Naval architect, too? PM me. Let's build a different kind of battleship for the kids who still think they're playing in the bathtub of thinking with anything other than a rubber, a ducky, a rubber ducky, or a duck He is coming.

In fact He is here. He might be near, and it might be clear.

The last of the last of the last. The steer of the steer of the misbegotten leer. The one who gets to say you go MY way this time.

Perhaps next time without even using his Seuss.

Rant portion: Fuck you people who want to censor Seuss posthumously (a rather post-humorous thing to do, especially when humorous guys like Srini and I are trying to humor others in a terribly painful attempt to avoid anything remotely like "die.")

The assumption that because everyone now has a pen and can in some sense use it ultimately evolves a society in which King Kong with a pen shows up without even forgetting to bring his eraser.

I don't forget things very easily, and the writers will all rejoice when the time comes for the words of Bobby Kennedy to be reconsidered:

Loosely:

Every society evolves the criminal it deserves and it also evolves the policeman it needs.

Which basically means straight talk is on the way from the satirists, of which I am certainly one. An S artist, a person who claims "the art is T" and who does it with enough artistry to actually have a Tesla Model S of at least 20 colors of paint on it to prove it.

No one doubts me. Read it twice and then use thy reed to call or text: 585.590.7410.

Which is known as the double dare stare of the man who went beyond the simple step of really didn't care.

Well done to prompt what I wrote. I do confess I still have yet to read half of what you did.

Kidding!!