Allow me to describe the cork-board shrine that hangs over my desk, because I can think of nothing else to talk about today. (Other than: Johnny Carson died over the weekend — how terribly sad. Did anyone see Craig Ferguson’s ten-minute Carson eulogy on The Late Show last night? It was a tad awkward, considering it was coming from a Scottish dude who’d never met the King of Late Night and who has only been a talk-show host for three weeks, and the new Craiggers did ramble on a bit. But ultimately I think it was a class act, and it further proved my theory that Scottish people are the nicest in the world.) The board proudly displays most of the ephemera that I have ever deemed to be funny, cool or, as the kids say, sweet. So we have:

–A postcard from my friend DJ Philly Phil of a man in a white butcher’s apron leaning proudly on his food cart. The cart says: Brud’s Hot Dogs.

–Baseball cards of my favorite Tigers in various kick-ass poses: Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Jack Morris, Kirk Gibson and Lance Parrish. Also tacked up is a photo from the Detroit Free Press of Trammell and Whitaker’s final game together, in 1995, as well as a photograph of Tiger Stadium, snapped by my friend Dave Egner during our haj to the doomed structure in its final week in 1999,

–Images of Michigan State Spartan basketball super-legends Steve Smith and Mateen Cleaves, and a trading card of Coach Tom Izzo.

–Promo postcards for Caddyshack, with Bill Murray face-to-face with the gopher, and for the band Tenacious D, in which the portly duo is trumpeting a product called Explosivo, the Once-a-Month Detergent.

–A photo of Ian Curtis smoking a cigarette that the New Musical Express put on an Ace of Spades playing card; and a postcard of Joy Division, circa 1979, reading “Here Are the Young Men.”

–Many TV images: a Three’s Company trading-card sticker; a “Meet Me at The Regal Beagle” bumper sticker; a sticker featuring all of the Fat Albert characters; the cut-out heads of Richie, Potsie and Ralph Malph from Happy Days; a portrait of Colt Seavers, aka Lee Majors, from The Fall Guy board game; a cardboard placard featuring the image of Bobby Hill from King of the Hill bearing the words “Texas Sausage,” which I stole off a buffet stand at the Fox breakfast at the 1999 Television Critic’s Association in sunny Pasadena, California; and finally, possibly the greatest image ever found by yours truly: an advertisement, circa 1998, for a cable-access program entitled The Caribbean Comedy Hour featuring a smiling Jamaican wearing earmuffs.

–A flyer for the Tour-Thru Tree in Klamath, California, which my friend Rico and I drove through in 2001, accompanied by a life-size cardboard cut-out of Mr. Spock.

–A photograph of the “‘That Emphatically Takes the Biscuit’ Board,” the bulletin board that hung in the offices of the Michiganensian, the University of Michigan’s yearbook, where I worked during its award-winning year of 1992-93. The board sported various images of Ensian-staff in-jokes and exploits, including a photo of DJ Philly Phil, Greg E. and myself taking a whizz on the school rock; a photo of a meatball floating in a toilet, taken by Greg E. at my behest for the section of the yearbook I edited; a menu from Ann Arbor’s much-frequented Fleetwood’s Diner that I graded one drunken evening, circling its unbelievably high number of spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors (e.g. “omelette” is spelled four different ways); and the photos of our three favorite graduates: a dude with a mullet, who is wearing a hockey jersey and baseball hat; a guy who we refered to as “Buckskin Boy” due to his unfortunate choice of coat; and a cheerful dickwad wearing a seersucker suit and a cowboy hat.

–An Evel Knievel trading card (“The Evel Wheelie”), and cards featuring Darth Vader (aka “The Awesome One”) and a Stormtrooper (aka “Soldier of evil!”).

–A strip from The Family Circus that I have pasted up to remind myself that no matter how bad it gets, at least I’m funnier than The Family Circus. In it, Mommy and Jeffy are looking at a spelling book. Mommy says, “…and this is ‘U.'” Jeffy asks, “Me?”

–An advertisement, snipped from Time Out New York, of the Rigpa Spring Retreat (May 24-29, 2000) at which guru Sogyal Rinpoche, a tiny, smiling, well-dressed Tibetan man, gave a lecture on Wisdom & Compassion and the Path to Enlightenment.

–Also on the board, hanging from various thumbtacks are tiny plastic monkeys, a small stuffed monkey with google eyes, a John Kerry pin, and a laminated ticket for New Order’s “Temptation” concert at Manchester Evening News Arena in December of 1998.

Do you like my board?

WHY I’M ANGRY TODAY

This post took me over an hour.