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M. Trosino's avatar

O, Holy Night, Labash!! I don't think a PBS Pledge Week talking head has any less shame - or more moxie, depending on the shade and grade of one's fashionable moral relativism in making judgements these days - than you do when hawking your wares. And you don't even offer any merch like they do, be it cheap, tasteless and useless or otherwise. But at least your musical selections beat the hell out of their "My Music of the (insert decade from 50s thru 80s here)". Or Lawerence Welk's corpse, which they cheerfully keep beating like a dead horse.

Anyway, $2.91 a *day* would be a hell of a deal to be able to inflict *you* on any number of acquaintances of mine as punishment for their voting for a certain former president - again - and helping inflict him on us for the next, um... rest of his sorry, pathetic life I expect. But that paltry price for an entire *month's worth* of said retribution (that's what *he* was sellin' too, wasn't it... retribution, right?) is a bargain I'd not be able to pass up, save for one little thing...

All said acquaintances to whom I'd send you for such purpose are not, shall we say, devotees of the printed word. Most of them are, in fact, mouth breathers, including and especially when they do read something and sound out the words to themselves under their breath, syllable by painstakingly lipped syllable. And at the rate that you post syllables in the form of random nouns and verbs (time wise, not cost per syllable wise - your words actually being pretty cheap in a pretty good kind of way), they'd likely not be through with their Slack Tide #2 before it was time to renew. So, not really cost-effective to inflict you as punishment and retribution. Unless you decide to start posting a picture book edition of the Tide. And even I shudder to think what that might be like.

But I do, in fact, enjoy most of your syllables and do so in a fairly timely manner myself. Today I wedged you in between finishing up Moby Dick and re-reading War and Peace for the second time, it being a timely read 'cause some Rooski wrote it I'm told, and like Vlad and war and all of that, right? And as I always say (well at least I'm sayin' it now), if you need a break from the Classics there's nothing like a little classic Labash.

Anyway, I recently axed some other Substack underperformers from my subscription dance card because they were overperforming in the howling and shrieking categories. So, I'll make you a deal. You promise to remove me from your promotional emailing list (I'd call the FCC about your violating the do-not-call list if this were a phone instead of an email) and stick to the pure, unadulterated-by-capitalistic-realities versions of you and the Tide, and I'll seriously consider upgrading my sub with you to foundling. Which means you'll be helping take care of me instead of vice versa from now on, right?

Failing that, I'll just set that dough I'm saving from no longer listening to those howlers and shriekers aside and earmark it for The Liz Cheney Legal Defense Fund, which just might be up and running faster than anyone can say Il Douche Bag.

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Catherine Valentine's avatar

happy birthday jc!!! this post forced me to pay

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