Sure, we fought our hardest out there: we just did what we had to do. We don’t ask for a lot of recognition. But when we came back from battle, people didn’t know who we were, what to do with us. We can’t relate to people any more. They’d say, “Go eat something else. Stop going on about it. It’s in the past. Have a baby carrot or something. ” That’s like telling a skydiver, “Hey, Mitch – you’re grounded for life.” It’s like telling a fireman, “Sorry, Red – you just can’t save any more lives.” It’s like telling a matador, “Jose – there are no more bulls.” Once you’ve lashed bacon strips together like a tourniquet above a wound that is inexplicably bleeding sausage instead of blood, then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Then you can say you’ve walked a mile in my applewood-smoked moccasins.

This is my life now. This is who I am. I’ll tell my grandkids about the time, all those years ago, when I fired a slow-motion bacon bullet right at my chest. And they’ll ask, “How did you do that, Grandpa? Did you travel through time?” And I’ll say “No, we didn’t have time travel yet, kids. It’s a metaphor.” And just then, my heart will explode through my chest cavity, drenching those kids with the ruby fruit of my battle-hardened arteries. And they’ll understand. They’ll understand.

House Judiciary Chair John Conyers has placed former Bush political advisor Karl Rove under subpoena. Rove is being brought before the Judiciary Committee to testify about his role in the U.S. attorneys scandal and a number of other matters, including the suspiciously political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don E. Siegelman. His appearance date is February 2. The Associated Press reports:

“I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court, and today’s action is an important step along the way,” Conyers said. The change in administrations may affect the legal arguments available to Rove, Conyers said. “Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it’s time for him to talk,” Conyers said.

Read the rest of this delightful, delightful news here.

It’s money in the bank, if by “money”, you mean “adorable things”, and by “bank”, you mean, “your eyeballs.” And really, with the economic system crumbling around us every day, is the idea of a currency based on general happiness such an awful idea? How about raising pygmy goats in Fort Knox? When was the last time you saw a gold bar jump and twirl its little hooves in the air?

Admittedly, I have a somewhat loose understanding of the financial system, but someone should pitch this to Larry Summers stat.

In related news, everyone should check out whitehouse.gov, and take a look at the rural agenda. Not only is it a lovely website, but the administration has some pretty solid stuff on the list, including helping organic farmers, regulation of emissions from large farms, and anti-monopoly protection for small family farmers. I seriously doubt that much forward progress will be made in the first term (doesn’t hurt to hope a bit), but the fact that it’s on his radar is heartening.

Now, if we can just get my pygmy goat stimulus package on there, we’ll be knee deep in clover. Which my pygmy goat will promptly eat.

Mr. Shepard Fairey does what he does best. Via Towleroad.

(Please do not judge my filthy windshield. When I’m done CHILAAX-ing, I’ll clean it.)

Hey, ladies – the ascot and vest says, “I know which one is the salad fork,” and the stained leather apron says, “And when I cut your corpse up for dinner, I’ll keep things tidy.”

Sometimes it’s important to recognize that all you need to be a true gentleman is a bullwhip, an amorphous tribal/sea creature tattoo thingy on your shoulder, and the ability to go down on fat women for hours at a time.

Screw that G4 private plane bullshit with the pressurized cabin, hot towels and stripper poles. This blue-jeaned bird of prey is flying a Tinkertoy back to his Caribbean island where he’s gonna bang your girlfriend pale.

If you stand up and look at the picture from above, you can totally see the dude’s wang. Go ahead. Try it. (Unsurprisingly, it’s also a black guy with his hands folded. It’s like the Billy Dee Williams Commemorative Russian Nesting Dolls set.)

Pirates were filthy, disgusting rapists and brutes who spread death and disease from stinking port to stinking port. It’s good to see that nothing has changed.

They’re just so in love. It really reminds you of what’s important, doesn’t it?

“Who was the other actress in Cagney and Lacey? I remember Tyne Daly, but who was the blonde? Oh, wait: I remember. Sharon Gless. Hmm. How the fuck did I remember that? I’ve never even seen that show. I don’t even know which one’s Cagney and which one’s Lacey, but I remember that Sharon Fucking Gless is one of them. Hell, why do I know Tyne Daly? I’m sure they’re lovely people and apparently the show was pretty good, but I didn’t watch it. Why does my brain retain that knowledge, but refuses to remember the name of perfectly nice people that I have literally just met, or how to get places that I have been numerous times? Is my brain desperately crafting synapses to make sure that despite my drinking, I will always be able to remember Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly in case I get caught in some sort of trivia-based death match? Thanks a lot, brain. Shit. I missed the exit.”

Seated in his regular seat on the bus, he looked out the window. They pulled up to a stop, where he could see a man with no legs sitting against a parking meter. The bottoms of his jeans, which were cut off below the fly, were covered shut with duct tape. The Most Boring Man in the World was suddenly possessed with the urge to run off and grab the man, throwing him over his shoulder like a backpack, like Chewbacca and the broken C-3PO in The Empire Strikes Back. Then he realized that the man with no legs might not have seen that movie, and might not understand the gesture.

The bus doors opened and people trudged on. A woman with a high-cut lacy shirt and a long flowing skirt sat down next to him. “May I sit here?” It seemed a strange thing to ask after she had already sat down, but he just nodded, and turned back to the window. The bus lurched forward.

“Would you like a banana?”

He turned back to the woman, who was holding out a slightly underripe banana that she’d pulled from a pocket on her skirt. Panic rose in his gut.

“I have tons of these, like I’m a monkey or a chimp who’s escaped from a zoo that’s right next to a supermarket and has been looking through his cage at all the people who are leaving with bananas and thinking, ‘oh, man, when I get out of his zoo, I’m gonna get a nice apartment and fill it with bananas.’ Of course, my reason for having them is pretty simple. I’ve got braces, and when I get them tightened, they’re all I can eat. See?”

Smiling, she showed him her braces. “The thing that really bugs me is that they’re not authentic. I work at a Renaissance Fair on the weekends, and instead of walking around singing like I used to, I get worried that I’m going to affect people’s experience by taking them out of the moment, when they see me in my bodice and chain mail gloves, but then they see my braceface, they’ll be all like, ‘hey, what kind of Renaissance Fair is this? Queen Elizabeth never had braces!’” She made a mock-indignant face like the angry tourists might make. “It also makes eating turkey legs super hard.”

Seemingly having forgotten the banana, she rubbed a finger over the braces. “It really is amazing that people lived at all back then. There were so many ways to die. The black plague, swords, dragons, torture for saying something bad about the Queen–”

“Dragons?” The word jumped out of The Most Boring Man in the World’s mouth before he had a chance to stop himself. He felt his eyes go wide with surprise at the sound of his voice, combined with gratitude that he hadn’t thrown up.

“Oh, yeah. They had them back then. There’s plenty of literature that supports the claim that as late as the 1600′s, there were still large reptilian creatures, some with minimal fire-breathing ability, that were infesting caves and forests all over Europe. It was a real problem, because they were quite hard to kill. That’s why knights had all that armor.”

“It wasn’t for fighting each other?”

“No. They only did that when they were practicing fighting dragons. Or when one of them stole the other one’s woman or livestock. They were very noble.” Her eyes went dreamy.

“What books said that?” His voice sounded creaky in his ears. He should get some of that throat spray that singers use.

“Oh, old ones in Italian and Latin, but the pictures are incredibly real. You couldn’t just draw those, especially if you were a monk who hadn’t been out in the world much. They must have captured and killed enough of them to be able to draw pictures of them. I guess they eventually killed them all.” She sounded sad.

The logic appeared to be pretty bulletproof. He realized that he was having a conversation with a woman that didn’t involve a transaction or an impending physical exam of some sort and it was actually pretty nice.

“Do you wish you could have seen one?” He had to squint into the sun which wreathed her head like fire.

“A dragon? Not a dead one, which is probably all I would have gotten to see if I had lived back then. If I’d seen a live one, I probably wouldn’t be alive long enough to tell anyone. It’s a tough choice.” She thought about it seriously, her tongue fiddling with a chain-mailed cuspid.

The Most Boring Man in the World groped for something in his mind; something he knew he was supposed to do. Then he remembered.

“I like dragons and turkey legs, too. Hello, my name is–” And like a faucet had been turned on, his nose started bleeding.

“Oh my gosh!” The woman pulled a tattered napkin out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Are you okay?”

The bus oozed to a stop. “Oh, this is my stop.” Being polite, he made a move to give her the napkin back. She shook her head. “Keep it. I can get another one. I’m really sorry. Hope you’re okay…” And she was gone.

As if on cue, the bleeding stopped. He knew that would happen. He closed his eyes and pictured being a knight of the Round Table, taming a flame-belching dragon with nothing but a turkey leg and the strength of his indomitable will, like Crocodile Dundee. He would put a golden chain around the dragon’s neck and take it back to the woman’s castle, which would smell like honeysuckle and a little bit like bananas, and he would say in a firm voice, “Gaze upon yon dragon, which I have tamed for you. I did it for you.” And then there would be some unchaste behavior.

The Most Boring Man in the World looked out the window, a bloody napkin stuffed in his nostril. Very quietly, he said, “At least I didn’t throw up.”

Here’s a link to the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp’s website, Newman’s camp founded for children with serious diseases. If you’re so inclined, you can make a donation.