Fifteen years ago, back in my early days on Facebook, I used to do lists like this all the time. Some I wrote and asked others to try, some were written by others asking me to try.
When I first saw this one today in the Memories section of Facebook and saw that it was 2009, I could only get eight of them. Numbers 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14 and 15 got me, although I felt like I should know 11. It turned out the list was done by my former colleague and current friend Gina Norris, I post it because it’s a really good list and it still stumps me.
Give it a try.
1. “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular.”
2. “I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.”
3. “Wouldn’t this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive? If needy were a turn-on?”
4. “So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, ‘Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know. And he says, ‘Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.’ So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”
5. “You look at that river gently flowing by. You notice the leaves rustling with the wind. You hear the birds; you hear the tree frogs. In the distance you hear a cow. You feel the grass. The mud gives a little bit on the river bank. It’s quiet; it’s peaceful. And all of a sudden, it’s a gear shift inside you. And it’s like taking a deep breath and going, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot about this.’”
6. “I mean, I know you want it to stay ‘pleasant’ around here, but, there are so many things that are so much better, like silly, or sexy, or dangerous, or wild, or brief. And every one of those things is in you all the time if you just have the guts to look for them.”
7. “Get some sour cream and onion chips with some dip, man. Some beef jerky, some peanut butter. Get some Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars, a whole lot, make sure chocolate, gotta have chocolate, man. Some popcorn, red popcorn, graham crackers, graham crackers with marshmallows, the little marshmallows and little chocolate bars and we can make s’mores, man. Also, celery, grape jelly, Cap’n Crunch with the little Crunch berries, pizzas. We need two big pizzas, man, everything on ’em, with water, whole lotta water, and Funyons.”
8. “See? Tell a person you’re the Metatron and they stare at you blankly; Mention something out of a Charlton Heston movie and they’re suddenly theology scholars.”
9. “Snakes. Why’d it have to be snakes?”
10. “There’s no point to any of this. It’s all just a… a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. So I take pleasure in the details. You know… a quarter-pounder with cheese, those are good, the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain, the moment where your laughter become a cackle… and I, I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt.”
11. “Why is it we don’t always recognize the moment when love begins, but we always know when it ends?”
12. “You Made a woman Meow?”
13. “Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?”
14. “Hey! It’s all ball bearings nowadays. Now you prepare that Fetzer valve with some 3-in-1 oil and some gauze pads. And I’m gonna need ’bout ten quarts of anti-freeze, preferably Prestone. No, no make that Quaker State.”
15. “I was at this fancy restaurant having lunch and the waiter brought me my entree. It was a salad. It was Lloyd’s head on a plate of spinach with his penis sticking out of his ear. And I said, ‘I didn’t order this.’ And the waiter said, ‘You must try it. It’s a delicacy. But don’t eat the penis: it’s just garnish.’”