SLAMS!

Greetings, folks!
     Last week, for Mother's Day, we were pretty sweet and nice. 
This week, things are going to be different.  Mother always told
us that if you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all.  This
week, we'll be meeting a great many folks who never heard that.
But all of us have, at one time or another, wished we had a
comeback to someone who had offended us.  Modern life can be
pretty stressful and it's nice to have an outlet for frustration
that is relatively harmless.  Try this out on the next counter
guy at McDonald's who gets your order wrong:

     " ... knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats; a
     base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three suited, hundred
     pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily livered,
     action-taking knave; a whoreson, glass-gazing,
     super-serviceable finical rogue; a one-trunk inheriting
     slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good
     service, and art nothing but the composition of a
     knave, a beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir
     of a mongrel bitch; one whom I will beat into a
     clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of
     thy addition."
                       - Kent of Cornwall to steward, in
                         Shakespeare's King Lear

     Too wordy?  Well, we could always fall back on the classics. 
Try this Arab curse:
          "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest
          your armpits!"
Of course, if worse comes to worse, we could always fall back on
actor Ed Asner's pithy commentary on the always-pompous fellow
actor, Charlton Heston:
               "Scumbag."
It does leave you with the impression that Asner was less
respectful of Heston than he might have been.
     Thanks and the highest respect this week to SUNFUN
contributors: Jerry Taff, Kerry Miller, Carol Becwar, Timothy
McChain, Laura Hong Li, Larry Sakar, Peter Adler, Naomi Ogawa. 
Time for the insults -- just be glad that no one said these
things about you!
     Have a Great Week!

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     "Defensively, the Red Sox are a lot like Stonehenge.  They
     are old, they don't move, and no one is certain why they are
     positioned the way they are."
                            - sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy on the
                              Boston baseball team

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  U. S. President William Howard Taft (noting that a crowd was
  making noise while he was trying to give a speech):
     "I have been talking for a quarter of an hour, but there is
     so much noise that I can hardly hear myself talk."

  Someone from the back of the audience:
     "That's all right, you're not missing anything."

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     "[Movie directors James Lane and Donald Jones] couldn't
     direct lemmings off a cliff."
                            - critic Doug Brod in Entertainment
                              Weekly

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     "I saw the play under the worst possible circumstances: the
     curtain was up."
                            - playwright George S. Kaufman
                              reviewing a play

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     "Burt Lancaster!  Before he can pick up an ashtray, he     
     discusses his motivation for an hour or two.  You want to
     say, 'just pick up the ashtray, and shut up!'"
                            - French actress Jeanne Moreau

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     "She has a face like a well-kept grave."
                            - description of Member of Parliament
                              Shirley Summerskill

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     "She resembles the Venus de Milo: she is very old, has no
     teeth, and has white spots on her yellow skin."
                            - German poet Heinrich Heine 
                              describing an acquaintance

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     "As a work of art, it has the same status as a long
     conversation between two not very bright drunks."
                            - book critic Clive James on
                              the book "Princess Daisy"

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     "I can still remember the first time I ever heard Hubert
     Humphrey speak.  He was in the second hour of a five-minute
     talk."
                            - Ex-president Gerald Ford

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     "From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down,
     I was convulsed with laughter.  Some day I intend reading
     it."
                            - book review by comedian Groucho
                              Marx

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     "The covers of this book are too far apart."
                            - review by writer and critic Ambrose
                              Bierce

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     "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly.  It should
     be thrown with great force"
                            - book review by writer Dorothy
                              Parker

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     "Let's be blunt.  Yesterday's 'Evita' is today's
     'Velveeta."'
                            - cheesy comment on Madonna, as
                              described by fashion critic Mr.
                              Blackwell

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     "There's nothing wrong with southern California that a rise
     in the ocean level wouldn't cure."
                            - novelist Ross Macdonald

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     "Critics are like eunuchs in a harem.  They're there every
     night, they see it done every night, they see how it should
     be done every night, but they can't do it themselves."
                            - Brendan Behan, Irish author

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     "A gourmet restaurant in Cincinnati is one where you leave
     the tray on the table after you eat."
                            - anonymous

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     "If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live
     in Hell."
                            - Civil War general Phil Sheridan

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     "[Comedian] Chevy Chase couldn't adlib a fart after a
     baked-bean dinner."
                            - airy dismissal by talk show host
                              Johnny Carson

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     "You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in
     the navel of a fruit fly and still have room enough for
     three caraway seeds and a producer's heart."
                            - radio star Fred Allen

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     "Being attacked on ethics by Al D'Amato is like being called
     ugly by a frog."
                            - Democratic National Committee
                              chairman David Wilhelm

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     "[Attorney Roy Black] represents people who can afford him. 
     You're basically innocent until proven broke."
                            - Miami prosecutor Michael Band

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     "Rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing
     people who can't talk for people who can't read."
                            - Frank Zappa, musician

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     "Eddie Dean's latest [film] is in black and white rather
     than color but the improvement is hardly noticeable: you can
     still see him."
                            - review of the movie "Hawk of Powder
                              River" in the New York Daily News

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     "I don't get why anyone takes this guy [action actor Steven
     Segal] seriously.  With his soft chin, black-shirted paunch,
     and ponytail ...  Seagal looks more like a schnorrer* at a
     Hollywood party than like the toughest man in creation."
                            - critic John Powers

     [ * schnorrer is Yiddish for freeloader ]

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     "I didn't fire him [General Douglas MacArthur] because he
     was a dumb son-of-a-bitch, although he was, but that's not
     against the law for generals.  If it was, half to
     three-quarters of them would be in jail."
                            - President Harry S Truman, quoted in
                              the book "Plain Speaking"

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     "History buffs probably noted the reunion at a Washington
     party a few weeks ago of three ex-presidents: Carter, Ford,
     and Nixon -- See No Evil. Hear No Evil, and Evil."
                            - Senator Robert Dole (R-Kansas)

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     "The Nixon Political Principle: If two wrongs don't make a
     right try three."
                            - writer Laurence J. Peter

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     "Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed."
                            - columnist Ralph Novak on the
                              singing of Yoko Ono

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     "Good taste would likely have the same effect on [shock
     jock] Howard Stern that daylight has on Dracula."
                            - television journalist Ted Koppel

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     "They couldn't pour piss out of a shoe if the instructions
     were written on the heel."
                            - President Lyndon B. Johnson on the
                              Association of American States

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     "[Marilyn Monroe] was good at playing abstract confusion in
     the same way that a midget is good at being short."
                            - critic Clive James

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     "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part
     that is good is not original and the part that is original
     is not good."
                            - writer and critic Samuel Johnson

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     "He doesn't know the meaning of the word fear.  In fact, I
     just saw his grades and he doesn't know the meaning of a lot
     of words."
                            - college football coach Bobby Bowden
                              on one of his players

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     "Some fellows get credit for being conservative when they
     are only stupid."
                            - humorist Kin Hubbard

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  Lady Nancy Astor (to Winston Churchill):
      "Winston, you are drunk."

  Churchill:
     "Indeed, Madam, and you are ugly, but tomorrow I'll be
     sober."

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  U. S. Postmaster General James F. Fay's proposed response to a
  person who wished to have their picture on a postage stamp:

     "We cannot put the face on a stamp unless said person is
     deceased.  My suggestion, therefore, is that you drop dead."

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© 1998 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.