"Philosophy of Farful"

Trying to control the future is like trying to take the master carpenter's place. When you handle the master carpenter's tools, chances are you'll muss 'um up -- and then, when the master carpenter has a pool party, guess who's not invited.

"Barry?"

I was recently in a convenience store and noticed that my cashier’s name was Barry. This got me thinking: What is the formal version of Barry? Larry is Lawrence, Harry is Harold, but Barry? Nothing. Then it hit me: Barrence.

"I'm A Moron"

I once got "let go" from this job, and I was kind of in shock and my boss asked me if I had any questions and I said " When's my last day?" "Today, Marc, today is your last day," my boss said. It was awhile before I realized how stupid a question that was and also how sad and simultaneously hilarious the response was: "Today, Marc, today is your last day." Brilliant.

"My Bar"

I'd love to have a hip, exclusive bar and have old men as the bartenders; no young attractive girls. And the old men would be so slow and lost. Geez, they'd have trouble getting from one end of the bar to the other.

"Spaghetti Best Western"

"Don't Know Much"

"Message to an Angry, Disaffected 15-Year-Old"

"My Symphony"

When I was 21 or 22, I came up with the idea to write a symphony about my favorite geometric shape, the rhombus. Compositionally, it was going to adhere to the structure of a three-act Aristotelian tragedy, chronicling the rise and fall of the rhombus. Title: “Flight of the Rhombus.” I thought it was a great idea, but not being a composer per se, and not having an orchestra at my disposal, it didn’t seem realistic. Also, the more I thought about it, was writing a symphony about a rhombus worth it? It seemed to be an idea better in the abstract. But something of the rhombus still stirred inside of me, so I wrote this classical piece with a little help from Louis B. Middleton. It’s called “Flight of the Rhombus” because I’m prob’ly never going to, for better or worse, realize that symphony, but for such a crazy idea, it’s pretty cool—I think—that I got even this far.