{image: Mingus at the Five Spot, NY, 1958}

there’s a guy here
i don’t know how this guy got
this table

but anyway there’s this guy
white
translucent skin
dark jacket dark pants nice shirt
tie
red pompadour

sits at this table not more than 18 inches
from Mingus’s bass
nursing the fifth bottle of beer
and the 9th ninth cigarette

this guy
a foot and a half from Charles
working hard on stage
this guy
looks a lot like Phillip Philip Seymour Hoffman
incidentally

but this guy
he doesn’t give two shitz about
the genius working within arm’s distance

no

this PSH pseudo-replicant
is babbling away about
the most useless mundane garbage you can ever imagine
a relentless barrage of static
invading the ether

i don’t know who he’s talking to
but
i wish Mingus would just break his double bass
over this ginger pompadour’s dumb hard head

like a rock star
smashing his guitar

or

Keith Moon destroying his kit

some people
are just
lousy
parasites

Aspired Expirin—The Literary Issue

Congratulations, Bud! You are now the proud owner of our inaugural literary issue. So what’s next? Well . . . get to it!

In This Issue:

Homer and Cervantes on cross-country road tripping on oul’ Route 66 with half of Billy Burroughs’s brain in a jar in the trunk

Dante on “a cold day in Hades”

Hemingway on dating women: how many days you should wait after the first date to call

Melville on sittin’ and fishin’ on the dock of the bay

Dostoevsky on cereal serial [izing] a long-ass book

Tolstoy on Shakespeare: “I tell you what, he despised those mother******* actors”

Austen on dating apps and swiping left on dudes with mullets in this day and age

Dickens on the importance of always being polite when asking to have seconds

William S. Burroughs on heroin

Joyce on everyone

Mailer on Joyce on everyone (BREAKING: fistfight ensues!)

Kerouac on writing books on toilet paper rolls

Chaucer on saucers—the flying kind. Is there intelligent life out there? “You damn skippy,” he says

Bukowski on delivering mail and packages on time

Schulz on peanuts: boiled vs. roasted; salted vs. unsalted

Oral Roberts on Aural Learning and its seven characteristics

Aspired Expirin—Issue 17

{image: a boneless onion}

In this week’s issue:

80,000 Modern Soldiers vs. 8,000 Tyrannosaurus Rex
We rolled the probability dice to see what would happen if you pitted a crapload of well-armed humans against some of the fiercest animals that have ever graced our history. Yes they have teeny arms and can’t “drop and give you twenty,” but their teeth make up for that. The real everything everywhere all at once is here, not at the movies. Mayhem, blood, guts, and various other stomach-churning detritus laying around ensues on page 16.

Did ABBA Have an Oil Contract with Russia That Was Violated?
Or did their longtime manager simply stumble klutzily right out of that 25th story window last January. Our intrepid investigating team of Jolly Dodger and Crusher Bennet bring you the bizarre details on page 33.

Be Your Own Pet
Let’s talk turkey: those “emotional support animals” are more of a pain in the posterior than anything else in your life. All the incessant barking for often times no reason at all, the three-times-a-day walks, the regimented feeding of special food pellets that cost more per 7-oz. bag than a kilo of saffron, grooming/cutting nails, vet bills, not to mention the ever-flowing pounds upon pounds of poop you have to scoop weekly are more detrimental to your mental health than going into the office after a 3-year mandated pandemic hiatus. Why not turn the tables around on these insufferable creatures who rob you of your time, money, and sanity and become your own emotional support animal. Oh yea, mama likes her some proper grooming, mhm. See how to go about the transformation on page 12.

Touring Europe in a Wheelbarrow
We catch up (easy to do, given the mode of transportation) with former butcher and Studio 54 bouncer Cordell Pan, who has undertaken a lifelong dream of crusin’ for a bruisin’ through the Oul’ Motha Continent in the popular 2nd century Han Dynasty vehicle of choice. “The trip through the Chunnel was like eating bean soup out of an old shoe,” declares Mr. Pan. For this and more enlightening and colorful anecdotes, turn to page 47.

KISS: Was This All a Misunderstanding?
Paul and Gene dish it, cold of course, starting on page 8.

Martha Mitchell Hangs Up
We call her several times a day just so we can get the receiver slammed in our ears. Particularly amusing are the comments that precede the hang-ups, especially with calls after 4 p.m.

And finally, we are proud to introduce our first-ever comic strip created and drawn by all women, which will be appearing bi-weekly in Aspired Expirin: “Rocket Pam.” Follow along with our brave cosmonaut as she explores points beyond our solar system with her trusty South American aardvark, Mr. Chow. The inaugural co(s)mic fun starts on page 66.

Next week: we sit down over a few six-packs of “Natty Bo” with ChatGPT and shoot the breeze for a few hours while we await our delayed flight to Mexico for our scheduled tummy tuck. Also, Biden coyly but aggressively signals to Xi that he may be ready to talk soon. Tune in to see the bizarre hand signals and hear the chilling guttural sounds for yourselves.