Build Date: Sat Jun 13 19:20:10 2026 UTC
THE INTERNET IS A CURSE!!!!!!!!! wrought down upon my head like a plague of locusts.
-- The Compulsive Splicer
Sing Us This Song, Piano Man
2019-03-30 19:35:41
A better retirement idea for William Martin Joel.
In July of 2018, well-known ivory-tower resident, Billy Joel, jokingly told The Vulture about his idea for a retirement show:
“The stage is a living-room set: couch, TV, coffee table, food. And there’s bulletproof glass between me and the audience. Then I come out and lay down on the couch. I grab the remote and start watching TV. The crowd after a couple minutes goes, “Fuck this,” and starts throwing shit at the glass. I’ll have created a bond between me and the audience where I know they will never pay another nickel to see me again.”
What a bunch of narcissistic bullshit. He’s also wrong. As demonstrated by heavy-metal has-beens, Kiss, who are on their latest ‘No Really We Mean It This Time’ retirement tour, he has an exit, to which he can do a comeback tour, and people will pay top dollar via Ticketmaster to see him.
To this end, I would like to make the following proposal to Mr Joel: when the day comes when you are ready to retire, book Madison Square Garden. Book it for the entire day. Start the show at 1:00pm sharp. Take the stage, answer audience questions, share stories about your life, years on the road, jokes, bring up friends & family; the whole works.
Then, around 6:00 pm, play your songs. Play all the favorites: both yours and those of the audience. Play them with all your heart and soul. Play them with pure emotional intensity that every single person will have wave upon wave of tears of happiness.
As the final song is being played, a sheet with a bullseye target slowly and quietly descends. You stand up, walk over to the sheet, stand in front of it, take your final bow, say your final thanks, then take out a hidden sawed-off shotgun, put the barrels in your mouth and pull the trigger.
Afterwords, a professional auction team takes the stage, gathers up all the skull fragments, brain matter, and sops up all the blood into vials, auctioning off everything they can (the proceeds going to the Make-a-Wish Foundation) until all that’s left is a naked, mulated corpse, waiting to be immediately buried in Oyster Bay.
So, waddya say, Piano Man? It’s memorable, all the proceeds will go to a great cause, and you will retire in a way that will be so memorable, people will talk about it, for decades. It’s a win-win!
And the best part? There’s no way you’ll be able to do a hacky comeback tour. The end will truly be the end.
Come Billy! Play us this one!
T O P S T O R I E S
America's National Recording Registry Inducts Culturally Significant Artist - Weezer!
America's Library of Congress calls them "defining sounds of history and culture" and "audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage." Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Weezer! (More...)
The Crossroads are real and The Blues is a place; The enduring myth of Robert Johnson (More...)
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
About 14 years ago when I was on a road trip and stopped in Seattle, I was invited to a party. At this party there were these little tiny glasses sitting in a flat-bottomed bowl of ice. Thin cylinders about an inch in diameter and 4 inches tall, with thick glass at the bottom. Into these were poured frozen AKVAVIT... also known as the water of life. (More...)
Hooray! At long last, a NEW Spocktail of the Week! Kid-tested, mother-approved! (More...)
A Blast from the Past! Pao Tzu goes over and under the crucial variables in the production and consumption of Salvia Divinorum. A must read for psychonauts of all stripes. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
My dear and close friend, Porn Maven Shannon Mariemont, sent me a titillating message the other day about her new project: the PornOrchestra. Her desire, at most, is to reinvent the porn soundtrack and, at least, to receive a cease-and-desist order like all her cool friends did last year. (More...)
