I am ready. I am able to dispense with stupendously bad advice only one date late because:
1) I had a spasm of productivity.
2) I am holding an ice-cold root beer.
3) I am caught up with laundry.
So, I shall once more be dispensing stupendously bad advice.
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CC asks: How can I sing if I’ve lost my voice?
Dear CC: You need to buy an iLarynxTM. Download songs to your iLarynx. Then carefully open your throat with a sharp, sterilized knife. Note, I cannot stress this enough, this self surgery is dangerous without proper sterilization. After the iLarynx is safely and comfortably placed in your throat, sew up with a thin thread. The color of the thread should match the color of your skin. I would also like to recommend purchasing the thread before performing the surgery. You only have maybe ten minutes before you lose consciousness due to loss of blood. It’s doubtful you’d be able to get to the store and back in time, especially if there’s some oaf with thirty items in the ten-items-or fewer line who also insists paying with exact change.
If you forgot to download songs to your iLarynx before surgery, may I recommend downloading songs via Wifi? If you don’t have Wifi, I suggest getting the service. Making a small hole in your throat to attach a cable from your computer seems like a false economy.
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RAS asks: I’m going on the Atkins diet. Should I put my dalmatian dog Trotsky in charge of the shopping because he likes protein and fat?
Dear RAS: Absolutely, as there apparently little evidence that the low-carbohydrate Atkins diet does anything useful at all. It would probably be safer to follow Claude Akins’ diet. Unfortunately while a superb, forceful actor, Mr. Akins never got around to publishing a cookbook. So, by default, you’ll have to follow the example of your dog and who doesn’t like dogs? Also, there is an elegant simplicity in a dog’s diet of meat which you don’t even have to cook if you don’t want to. (A side benefit of not cooking is saving money on a stove.) And don’t forget dog biscuits. Dog biscuits are so hard that they naturally grind away any plaque on your teeth. No plaque, no dental visits and who likes to go to the dentist?
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MA asks: Should I look under a toadstool for some grub?
Dear MA: It’s a lot better to look under toadstools for grub than at the toadstool itself as toadstools are often poisonous. Mushrooms look a lot like toadstools, but are not directly poisonous. Mushrooms are, however, yucky and icky beyond belief. Indeed mushrooms are quite possibly the fungus of the Devil. Do not, do not, eat mushrooms. If you do, your soul becomes his and you will go to Hell for all eternity. Enough said.
So you should instead look under the toadstool for sustenance, but what would you find there? A few twigs perhaps. A roly poly, if your lucky and are a meat eater. However, rolly pollys are best eaten at a sushi restaurant, where its taste is only displayed to its greatest advantage by a trained chef. And do you have a rolly polly sushi bar near you? I think not.
Far better than a rolly polly is the magnificent taco. The taco is God’s food and possesses magical, healing properties. Go get yourself a taco and be satisfied, healthy, and virtuous. Perhaps there’s a taco shop right around the block from you. If you live in northern Greenland, you’re screwed.
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JL asks: What should I do to earn some quick cash? *GULP*
Dear JL: You are so close to having a great idea. Everybody loves Seven ElevenTM’s Big GulpTM. Indeed soft drink sizes keep going up and up. One soda cup at a convenience, a hard word to spell, got so big that you had to hold onto two ropes to carry it. Clearly there is a big interest in drinking big sodas. However, most people are unable to drink that much soda. But we would pay big interest in watching people try.
So simply form your own Big Soda Drinking League (BSDL.) Collect corporate sponsorships. Let their money come rolling in. In the meantime, before the season starts, go into training by drinking ever and ever larger amounts of soda in one sitting. Go for the gold. Excelsior! That or pole dancing.
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TLH asks: Should I adapt Paul De Lancey recipes to be vegetarian friendly?
Dear TLH: Absolutely, any recipe by Paul De Lancey is fantastic. The easiest way to make his recipes vegetarian friendly is start with a recipe that’s already vegetarian. This is the sort of thing that seems obvious only after someone says it.
Alternatively, go to the store and buy vegetarian substitutes for various meats. Some of these substitutes are good, some are okay, and some taste like soap. They are, however, uniformly expensive. How expensive? You’ll have to take up robbing banks. Be careful, though, about serving vegetarian substitutes to law enforcement. They’ll take it as a sign of you living way beyond your means and start investigating you.
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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