Thursday, August 30, 2007

Let "Em Up Easy

Readers of this blog (and the others who have it read to them) may think I'm being too tough on Senator Craig of Idaho in his current homosexual crises.

As a cultural liberal, I personally approve of gay people and believe any two adults who love each other, or want to just have sex through a hole, should not be harassed by the Christian right and other homophobic groups. I shan't contribute to this atmosphere, but will rather just comment on the facts as I see them.

As a straight male I love cha's cha's and couchie's. Gay men love pipe cleaners and tushie meats. Who am I to say that one is superior to another? In this world filled with war, and hate, and desperation around the planet, we should promote love. Love in whatever form it takes.

As long as gays and straights play it safe in this world of STD's and make sure to cover their pigs in a blanket with latex and use plenty of shmaltz when putzing, we have no problem.

So, when I write here about Mr. Craig and his proclivity towards unusual shoe oriented sex, I am not condemning him. Rather, I am just trying to make sense out of a world where just because two men want to make love in a toilet by the light of a recent shoe-shine, we make fun. And point and laugh and make his already hard life miserable.

If you saw a fat man on the street eating cotton candy and drinking Mountain Dew, I doubt many of you would call to him and say "how about all that fat, man? Maybe you should be eating diet cotton candy and drinking water from a hose". We are fairer to our fat citizens than we are to our gay brothers and sisters.

So, whatever the outcome for Senator Craig, I wish him God-Speed, and good luck in finding a nice boy in some pay toilet back home. If he does resign, we only have ourselves to blame. What Larry Craig does in the privacy of his paid for toilet stall is his business, and maybe we should back off a little, and allow him some family time.

More updates as the news gets hotter!

Joe

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Keep Your Eyes Averted

As the Senator Craig debacle gets more debacaly, we here at the blog will keep you up to the minute on events, as they happen.

But we shall avert our eyes, being nice people who don't talk about this sort of thing, unless we are forced to. Like now.

Damn government! Always forcing, never asking!

Joe

Non Gay Republicans Urge Craig To Flush

Several of the members of the "Non- Homosexual Republican Caucus" have urged Idaho senator Larry Craig and "Mr. Potato Head of 1961", as he is known among fellow gay fancy shoe movement Republicans to resign from the senate and skip all the way downtown to the nearest pay toilet to show other gay republicans how to win friends and influence people with nice shoes and what you can do with them.

After his arrest several months ago for rubbing his shoes against those of an undercover shoe policeman in an unofficial gay pay toilet, and pleading guilty in court to disorderly conduct, Senator Craig ( or "Boise" as he is known back home in Idaho where the homosexuals approve of gay shoe sex and pay toiletry) now says he is not now and has never been gay, and pulled his wife out of his ass to prove that he is totally heterosexual and a family man.

After Washington police hosed the shit off of Mrs. Craig, she repeated word for word what her husband had said, and added that he fucks her on a regular basis, but was "concerned" about him wearing his wingtips to bed.

Also Mrs. Craig said that her straight husband was a monster in bed, and she pulled up her dress to show the bruises from his shoes to prove it. "My husband is a total babe, and likes girls and not boys and I have had babies from this man.

The GSA (Gay Shoe Administration) in the meantime has said that Craig has not applied for membership with the group, but said, that from newspaper accounts and blogs, like this one, he has the moves of an old hand at making the moves with his shoes.

Back in Washington, Senator Craig, who has been described as "anti-gay" but not "anti-toilet homosexual" was not available for further comment.

His wife said that today is the day he gets his spit shine.

More on this happening story as Senator Craig gets gayer and gayer.

Joe

Monday, August 27, 2007

GOP Gay Old Party

As Senator Larry Craig steps down from his post in the Romney campaign for making a move in the train station men's room in D.C. (Washington toilets are 10 cents, but I think they charge more if you want to use them for gay sex) one must wonder just how many closeted gays there are in the Republican Party.

He was caught by an undercover policeman, giving gay cues by tapping out some kind of homosexual shoe language, that when you slide your shoes against the shoes of the guy in the stall next to you, you are asking what he's in to. Seems like a difficult way to get a date, but Washington has always had strange protocol.

Craig plead guilty to lewd conduct in a men's room (I thought everything we guys did in a men's room was pretty lewd...I guess this is lewder) and now is trying to back off somewhat, by claiming that his fancy shoe messages were misinterpreted.

That's fair. I mean, how many times have your own shoes slid over into the next stall for perfectly innocent reasons? I knew a guy who used to regularly use the pay stall in the bus station in downtown Norfolk, and would slide his shoes over next door, asking in toilet language for extra candy, if the guy had seen such and such movie, asking for any extra toilet paper, how the other guys dump was coming along, and a whole list of things that were not gay.

Senator Craig may just have been moving his shoe over to his toilet neighbor to see if the other guy had cable. And maybe he could come over some night to watch. Perhaps he wanted to show his partner in shit, pictures of his grand kids, or exchange recipes.

Gee. It could be anything. But I'm gonna go out on a limb here (an arm or leg or something like that, you dirty guy. Put your dirty mind back in its sack) and say that Senator Craig is a closeted homosexual.

But then again he might just like to play footsie. A perfectly harmless heterosexual toilet game of longstanding, that goes back to the pay toilet era of the early 20th century.

Now the question is....who's next in the Republican Party to come out. I'm saying Karl Rove, who is married, but I also hear, likes to wear his nice shoes to the train station in Washington for no publicly explained reason.

That's all the gay news I have for now.

Joe

Friday, August 24, 2007

The Nude Arts

I wanted to write a story. So I needed a subject and a bunch of words. I’d go over to the computer, sit and magically release these words through my fingers into the keyboard, passing them through the hard drive, and out on the screen in order to make a story. I don’t have that here. So you think I’m writing a story about not writing a story, and that’s my gimmick. That’s not a bad idea for a story, but that’s not the one I’m telling today.

You see, I set down a certain amount of time each day to write. Sometimes I polish old stories, other times I sketch out new ideas. Today I come to you nude. As naked as the day I got caught running out to the mailbox when I was twelve, because I was too lazy and fat to put on my pants. It was a rainy day, and no one was home, and my pants were so darn tight I preferred to go about naked when alone in the house.

I saw the mailman drive up to the box in his truck and leave our day’s letters, any one of which could have been an answer to my submission to Mad Magazine. Everyone had gone that Saturday, leaving me luxuriously alone with Dick Clark, a full ice box, and comic books galore to devour as well. Why should I wear my pants? I felt so comfortable in my own skin, and so tightly wound in my clothes, that I never lost a chance to practice my new religion of nudism whenever alone. I was a twelve year old nudist, and proud of it.

Not that I would ever tell anyone about it. Are you insane? I suppose, looking back, that I was not an Orthodox nudist, since I would never reveal my body (even the top) to others. I was fat and unhappy. And the little bit of happiness I could gleam from life was to be able to be alone with my ice box, comic books and television, all the while nude, nude, nude. I hated the clothes that choked me. I hated the choking that clothed my essence. When the others were out of the house, I was King. And when I was King, I was naked. And I was lovely.

I had learned to love myself, even as I was changing from boy to woman to man in the context of the fat that enveloped me. Certainly my bosoms made it difficult at the country club; of which mom insisted I attend pool in the summer. But home alone, I rhapsodized in my nakedhood. With Diet Pepsi’s, peanut butter sandwiches, comic books, and unlimited television in my bedroom, I was the ruler of a vast universe; my naked self, whom God had blessed with a forgiving bent. With no clothes to constrain me, no people to look at me with disgust, and the freedom to pursue my life’s work of comic book reading and television watching, I was the Nude Prince, no…King, I said King earlier, and I’m staying with that. The Nude King! I proclaimed myself, to myself. Certainly reality could interfere if I allowed myself to answer the doorbell or phone. But I ignored them both. I was the Nude King of the Naked World, and I was marvelous.

So let’s make this the story. It’s true and has the added benefit of being nasty because it’s about my nakedness, which I’m sure you believe I should be ashamed of. And I was. But only with the prospect of others seeing my stuff. Alone, I was proud of ability to control my world, as long as others stayed out. Naked, armed with good food, comic books and television, you had better watch out. I was impenetrable. I could not be stopped.

American Bandstand came on at twelve thirty on Saturday and the girls in their tight skirts and sweaters, bumping and grinding, were looking out from the television at me thinking just how beautiful I was. I could dig it. The looks on those girls faces when I would drop my towel or perhaps just wave it in front of me and give them just the biggest thrill was worth ten million dollars. I counted it up. If I were to remain naked every Saturday afternoon for the next fifteen years and do nothing but watch American Bandstand, I would make over ten million dollars. You do the math. Running around naked was not only fun, it was profitable.

My mother was a good cook. And there was always some leftovers still happening in the refrigerator from the previous week’s dinners. Good cold meat loaf, or chicken with rice, or maybe even some steaks still nice and crisp, in a holding pattern in the box, waiting for me to come get her. On Saturday’s I didn’t have to worry about clothing and messing my pants trying to hide food in my pockets, as would be the normal case on a weekday. Weekdays were hard, let’s face it. To stuff meat loaf or chicken in my pockets, so no one would know I was eating extra would often leave me a smelly boy. But Saturdays, alone and naked, with just my TV girls and Dick Clark looking on were different. I could take a plate, like a human being, from the cabinet, and load up on goodies to take back to my room. Who the hell cared how naked I was? Dick Clark didn’t have a problem with it. My girls, licking their lips, I’ll bet more for me than for my plate of delicious food were happy the way things were. No one here was going to ruin a good thing.

Except Bruce. He was my next door neighbor. Pretty fat and disgusting too, he had the distinction of being able to pick his butt and eat an orange at the same time. And we were friends. I liked Bruce and he liked me. But he didn’t understand the concept of down time. And I guess that was pretty unknown to most twelve year olds in 1968. Bruce didn’t realize I needed my solitude. That this was the only day when I could have the entire house to myself. The only time when I could indulge in the nude arts, eat until I exploded, and read comics on the toilet. He just couldn’t understand. So when the doorbell would ring, I knew it was Bruce. Also he would shout my name loud enough so that I do believe that even my American Bandstand girls could hear him. He wanted me to come out and play.

If you are among the chosen few to have read the above paragraphs, and understood the concepts therein, you would know what I mean when I say, “play”. Why in the world would I want to play? You mean catch or watch you pick your butt, or something else really fun? Gad, man! I have an ice box full of personal food, girls on TV who can see me and feel as home with my nudity as I, and comic books enough to choke even the greediest whore. And you want me to come out and play?

Nuts. What could I do? I wasn’t going to be taken away from my delights, so I did what any other all-American boy would do. I would turn the sound down on the television, eat quieter, so that my smacking sounds were held to a minimum, and hope he would go away. And come back some other day. I had a schedule to keep. I would hunch up so that even my shadow could not be seen from outside the house. I knew if I stepped on the floor the wrong way, or moved about on the bed in too fat a manner, Bruce would hear a squeak of a floorboard or the squeal of a bedspring and my entire day would be shot. If nothing else, I was polite, and if I felt Bruce or someone at the front door knew that I was in the house, I was obligated to pull my pants on, wipe the grease from my face, skip down the stairs like some dumb fairy, and breezily open the door with great expectations on my face. I would pretend that I was happy to see the interloper.

But of course I prayed, so hard and with a nod to Jesus (while staying true to my Jewish God) that I could be quiet enough so that Bruce or some other bore would give up and go away. And usually they would. And I could go back to my great Saturday life of unlimited nudity, limitless food, television so intoxicating I thought I was a God, and my wonderful solitude; where I was master of my universe and king of my castle.Try it sometime.

Non-copyright 2007

Joey Postove

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Sebastian Cabot

This past week in 1977 was a great party for those who revel in the deaths of famous people. Though there are not as many of them as there once was, Death Party Rappers still like to snatch us bald-headed when we ain't looking.

On this day, August 22nd, 1977, Sebastian Cabot, one of the great television and motion picture actors of great fat fleshiness, died. And he was barely 60. Most of us remember him as Mr. "French" from the "Family Affair" tv show in the 60's. The story line was simple, Mr. "French" was "Uncle" Bill's butler and lover, when all of a sudden three orphans (his brothers kids or street kids, I forgot) show up on the doorstep of his 5th Avenue apartment.

"French" and "Bill" are quite happy with their discrete housekeeping arrangement when their gay affair is shot through to pieces as they take these kids in. This was the whole show. It lasted for five years of hi-jinks when it was canceled after Mr. "French" was caught with Miss Cissy in the laundry closet ("French" was bi-sexual).

I always liked Mr. Cabot. He was never a major star. He was, perhaps, to Sydney Greenstreet, what Chubby Checker was to Fats Domino. His lovely ability to wear his obesity and still be stylish was to his advantage.

I think he would have been a more successful actor if he had been fatter.

Let us mourn Sebastian Cabot. The last of the little Greenstreet's.

Joe Postove

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Groucho Marx

A few days ago we celebrated the death of Elvis and the fact that I was in Memphis when he died. All pretty exciting stuff.

But Elvis as a cutural icon paled next to the man who died 30 years ago today, August 19th, 1977; Groucho Marx.

Funny? Don Rickles is funny. Me is funny sometimes, when I catch a wave. But Groucho was THE MASTER. He was so far beyond humorous, that he could cut off your balls and make you think he just made love to you. And he could make love to your wife, and make you think he just soaped your back.

Groucho was the master's master of comedy. He was not my favorite comic. Jack Benny will always be my girl. But Groucho's wit was of such sophistication, that he could make even the ugliest piano mover think an insult was a whisper in the ear.

He couldn't dance or sing well, but he could do anything Groucho style better than his betters. Which was better than the tongue at Hillcrest.

And when he died, God said no more of that, and gave the world Robin Williams to consider as genius.

How sad we are.

Joe Postove

There's A New Boy In Town

Back when I used to hang around the Andy Griffith Show website (set on the porch, watch the virtual cars go by, goose Aunt Bee, play jacks with Bob, and other neat things, I met this guy named Al who is a pretty good writer).

Now I ain't sayin' ( I'm just doing this southern shit to keep awake) he's a Joe Postove or Lucius Beebee, but he's got some things to say. And he says them well (although it is in written form, since blogs ain't sayin' things, they are writing things...again please forgive me for writing like a hick. But I ain't for much, see)?

Well I am for much, but that was for the southern folks who set on the porch, and these days wile away the evenings eating bar-b-cue sandwiches, while goosing their sisters, and planning the next gay pride parade around the block...well, maybe not gay pride, but gay hatred and murder parade). I ain't responsible for what happens in North Carolina. What happens in Mayberry stays in Mayberry. Although, and this is just my opinion (whose opinion did you think I had...Mary Pickford's? Jam Jesus...grow up!) I still think Gomer was in love with Opie. But I don't do blue material, so you'll have to find out your dirt somewhere else, you dirty guy.

Read Al's blog. It's on the side, down near the bottom ( A Vagabond's Sketchbook) . Enjoy!

Now I have to run across the street to the gas station where the 10 cent toilet is closing for hosing at 7 o'clock. I'm going to get a diet Pepsi and some nabs too. I won't have any extra, so you'll have to starve tonight.

joe

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Still Dead After All These Years...Elvis Has Pelvised To Heaven

Thirty years ago today, I, my cousin Nedda and her Mom Ron were driving across country to deliver me to my Mom who had moved us out to L.A. And this evening, August 16th, 1977, we stoppped at a motel in Memphis.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't expect this to give you a patented Joe Postove tip top orgasm. But it was also the day that Elvis Presley died, in Memphis. And we were there.

We were a few miles out of town in my Mom's new Old's 98 when an announcer from the old Mutual Radio Network broke in with the news that Elvis had died. Nedda was driving, but she managed to keep control of the vehicle as we each grieved in our own tradition. Aunt Ron was sixty, and Eddie Cantor's death had a more profound effect on her than Elvis'. Nedda was twenty two, and she said it was too bad he was dead, especially at forty two, but he (not her words) didn't really make her cream.

I took the long, rock and roll historical view. I told my carmates, that even though Elvis was not a Godfather of rock, he was perhaps the most important person in rock history. He took black R&B, mixed it with some country, which Chuck Berry and a host of Negroes had been doing for years, put a pretty white face on it, and made it more palatable to caucasion kids and their parents. Look...Little Richard and Hank Ballard, and the other rockers of color, were for the most part, too greasy for Ma and Pa Whitie.

Other than that, I told Nedda and Ron, that I didn't love Elvis either (the great romantic man love that some men had for King), but had a great respect for him, even in his fatness and the years of his shitty movies (not love Elvis, says the crowd? You might as well not love Jesus). The fact that I didn't love Jesus either, made at least a more consistent argument for not drooling over Elvis with all my heart.

I realized most peoples disagree with the above, and the mourning that soaked the now middle aged Elvis shriekers was understandable and expected.

I wanted to go over to Graceland that night to see the grief stricken at the Wailing Gate. But Aunt Ron thought perhaps not, as there would probably be a big crowd, and we could watch the festivities on tv.

But there we three were. In the same town as the newly dead "King". And for years we would brag about it. Lately, however, it ain't impressed too many people. But, today, on the thirtieth anniversary of his death, I wanted to share my close-up view of Elvis leaving the planet.

If he had died just a day later, I think we would have been in Texas. And it would have ruined it for everyone.



Joe Postove

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Because Toby Wasn't There

Roger’s toes slid over the roof of the bank building as he approached the leap to his death. Although he had fantasized about suicide many times, he had yet to take the final step. Now with his feet dangling from the roof as the sun rose on this early spring Monday morning, he considered the seriousness of what he would try to do, if only he had the guts.

Minus the time he spent in the service as a barber, most of Roger’s life had been one boring job after another. And without personal relationships, he ate and watched television. Daytime TV was his passion. Art Linkletter was his idol. Back in 1961 Roger rode a Greyhound bus for 3 and a half days out to Hollywood, just to sit in the audience of “Art Linkletter’s House Party. As a child Roger would feign illness as often as possible, just to be able to stay home and watch House Party. When it came to being sick, Roger could always count on Mother to understand and put him to bed. Even without a temperature. A “severe” stomachache just short of needing an ambulance would almost always garner Roger a free pass to bed for the day. In his life of disappointments, victories such as this were treasured and savored.

Not without a pain in the ass. Father, who had no jurisdiction in the case of whether or not Roger stayed home, nevertheless had the duty of rolling the tv set into his room before leaving for work. And although Roger understood once he was in bed that Father could not force him out, he still had to withstand the evil eye that Father most willingly gave as his commentary on the whole thing. Not said, but so loudly thought, Roger could hear what Father’s eyes spoke as he slowly rolled the portable set into his bedroom. “You dirty, lazy, son of a bitch bastard” was just the beginning of Father’s eye’s resentment of his son’s luxuriating in bed as he went off to ten hours of labor repairing ancient plumbing in city building’s. “I’m gonna come home dirty and smelly and exhausted, while you dirty rat bastard lays there like some crippled fag”. Father’s eye job on Roger would slay him and make him pull the covers up over his head until he heard Father’s car drive away. But it was never enough to shame him into changing. Not just Art Linkletter, but Bob Barker, Queen For a Day, not to mention the soap operas that he and Mother shared later in the day. Perhaps that explained her liberal attitude on stomachaches. She wanted a companion to share the daily trials of Young Doctor Malone et al.

It was only about seven in the morning now. Feet dangling as Roger sat on the bank’s ledge with a picnic lunch. He did not expect to spend all day there, but if lunch time came he wanted to eat. Yet, as he sat there, he began to drink in the unreality of it all. Why was he there? Was he ready to end his life? Roger felt he was perhaps unable to continue to live, and now he was to see if he was indeed able to die. To kick off. To slide from the eleventh floor of this old bank building, and face the unknown quantity of a hard death on a cement sidewalk.

After Father left for work Roger would typically nap until the “I Love Lucy” reruns came on at eleven. Breakfast would necessarily be light since a severe stomachache of his type would allow only perhaps tea and toast. Only when Mother would run out for errands would Roger toddle down to kitchen to load up on breakfast goodies. Foods that would conveniently fit in his robe pockets, such as bread, peanut butter, handfuls of cereal, and cottage cheese, were brought back up to his room, his chambers, his bed as throne, where he would thrust them down his throat before Mother would return from errands. Comic books at easy reach, the television only a foot twist away, Roger nakedly ruled the house. His dreams were, he thought, that of any boy. Of one day staying home all the time, and having a permanent television in his room, to avoid killing blows of Father’s eyes when he would otherwise normally roll the set in. To be completely sequestered with his own icebox, tv, regular comic book delivery, and of course Mother’s companionship when the stories came on. As he drifted off between shows, Roger dreamed of this perfect life and how he might achieve it.

It was nearly eleven now, and no one had noticed Roger’s legs dangling from the ledge. No cops, no secretaries on break, no other suicides on other buildings had noticed Roger on the Bank’s roof. He thought now how lucky it was he had packed his lunch. What good is suicide, unless someone sees you before the fact, and tries to stop you. Roger wanted that of course. He wanted some real meaning to his life, even if it was only the few seconds he would be airborne before the eyes of downtown.


Joe Postove

As Long As You're Wishing...

After doing my route this morning, I stopped at the old 7/11 to pick up my goodies (unlike the phony barber at the circumcision place) for breakfast. I'd had a bootful of xanax last night, and I was feeling rather chummy, so when this clerk (who I don't think ever served time, but maybe had some mental work done) started talking about nothing, whatsoever, I talked back. Usually, as you know, I prefer to growl at my clerks, but prescription drugs are so uplifting.

So I stood there as he rattled off his subjects, then I started asking about the different lottery cards under the glass. The butts who run the lottery here in Virginia think they're pulling a fast one, raising the price on the cards, and lowering the winnings on the grand prize.

It used to be if you bought a 10 dollar ticket, the prize was usually a million or no less than half a million. Now they try to suck us in on these big 10 dollar tickets and pis out a 25 or 75 thousand dollar grand prize. They make all the smaller prizes a little easier to get, but if you're not too stupid, you don't play the 10 dollar cards to win a hundred or five thousand dollar booty. I want my million dollars!

The clerk told me he would give 1/3 to charity, 1/3 to his friends, and 1/3 to keep for himself. I said, as long as you're wishing such good fortune for his friends and his favorite humanitarian causes, why not just wish that they win the money directly, bypassing his loving altruism. I didn't put it exactly like that (he's a nice kid, but stupid) but I think he had a rather indistinct understanding of what I meant, as he gave out a nice belly laugh at my comment.

What I meant, of course, is that even so called "altruism" is a subset of selfishness, although held in a perverted and contorted belief system. Even the altruist, who believes that sacrifice for others is man's highest and noblest duty, wants the recognition and credit for his deeds. That HE is the one who wished you the million dollars and one should look to him for goodness. Didn't he, after all, make all your good things come true? It's all about him, not the recipient.

If the confirmed altruist really cared for the well being of others above his own power, he would prefer that all good things be a result of the achievement, or even luck, of that individual involved. But, no. The altruist is in on the deal for his own glory. At the expense of the free state of the other.

Isn't that too bad?

Joe Postove

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Merv

A very sad story today, the ending of a wonderful life and person, who brought joy to millions over half a century.Merv Griffin died of prostate cancer today, at 82.


He was as different from the others (Johnny, Jack, Steve, Joey, etc...) as he was both accessable and individualistic.


He was not an egghead (I mean that in a good way) like Cavett or Susskind, but rather an intelligent broadcaster who was not afraid to swoon over a guest or ooh or ahh over something particularly interesting.


For 20 years (with a short stay at CBS) Merv made afternoons with celebrities a regular thing in our living room.


Not an intellectual, but smart, he knew what questions to ask, and, perhaps as important, knew when to be discreet.


I remember he was rather amused by the Village People when they appeared on his show in the late 70's. After singing "In The Navy", Merv looked straight into the camera and said "I'm glad we're not at war now".



Wow. Will I miss Merv Griffin.


Joe Postove

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Pancakes House

I had lunch at the local International House Of Pancakes today, and yet again, I did not see one even low level functionary of the littlest of countries. You would think (if you thought like me) that a truly "international" pancake house would have at least the King of Liechtenstein as a greeter or gladhander of some sort to reassure us that we were eating in a swanky place.

No luck. So I sat down and had my usual, the Chef salad and onion rings. I know, of course that the real chef doesn't really make ALL of the "Chef salads" but rather operates in a supervisory manner to insure that the "Chef salad" is served in a uniform and reliable fashion. Don't doubt that those IHOP officials are on top of things and they want you to have a fine dining experience while you plotz in their restaurant.There is a problem, however. I never order the pancakes when I eat at IHOP (I shouldn't say "never" "never", because I will order them when the waitress agrees to smother each pancake between the breasts of her décolletage. I ain't been too successful with that lately). The reason I rarely order the pancakes is that I read that the pancake guy lives in a little shack under the griddle, and that he has refused (on principle, I'll bet) to pay his toilet tax or to make good on the bill for his pay toilet that he has in his apartment.

Normally, when a man or woman refuses to pay the toilet fees incumbent upon us all, I turn my head and express my disgust away from the oncoming wind, but in this case, when the man directly responsible for cooking the pancakes at the IHOP is the miscreant, I defer from ordering what I would expect is their special. So I ate the salad. I spit one bite out to show my solidarity with those fighting the toilet tax and the onerousness of the pay toilet industry.

Joe Postove