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About
this website
This website is full of my writing and art. Much of it is meant to inspire
the reader to some kind of delightful lunacy without completely losing contact with the ground. Many of the people I most
enjoy talking and hanging out with (either in real life or online) communicate this way themselves from time to time.
I think of them as gifted and damaged. In other words, their humanity shines through in their ability to describe
life in a novel way, and at the same time they damn near come loose from their moorings regularly. Their lives often
seem like they might fall apart. They're wobbleheads, and I mean that with utmost affection and respect. I once put it
this way:
A wobblehead is a thing of great charm and damage. Like
if you were holding a piece of funky candy that was so big it went out into the universe and wobbled around to the music of
the spheres. What if that piece of wobbly candy was in your head? See what I mean? It's a question of, like, how your head
can hold the contents of a circus tent on the inside and be pea-sized on the outside, which makes for some misunderstandings, to
be sure.
So I think of my writing and art in a similar way. When I write or noodle around in
Photoshop I try to bear in mind that many of us are drawn to a certain amount of wobbling in the universe, a large
helping of humane affection, and a healthy fit o' giggles. Myself included.
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A word about Absurd
Every written thing in this website I wrote myself (except where noted)
in the online Café Utne, where I’ve hung out off and mostly on (as Mucky Shultz) since Spring 1996.
The Café is an online set of forums where discussions on everything from childcare to politics to sex to the environment to
you-name-it take place. One of the forums is called “Absurd”, where a sort of anything-goes-but-make-it-fun mindset
is prevalent, and that’s the forum where I’ve spent most of my Café time and where I posted these written pieces.
It was some time in 1998 when the denizens of the Absurd forum
noticed how friendly and family-ish things had become there. And silly, unpredictable, often hilarious. Over the years I've
thought of Absurd at times as a kind of gentle, shimmery and wobbly stream of consciousness in which many of us got on the
same wavelength and just rode it wherever it went. With our ten-gallon hats and hoop-skirts on, of course.
Things change, people come and go, some come back again later.
But the people I’d most like to acknowledge for their part in the conver-sations from which the inspiration for this
website erupted are these: Mike Baker (known as Spanky in various places in Absurd and these pages), Sherry King,
Tanya Bissig (who later became, and remains, my darling, confidant and partner-in-criminy), Phyl Divine (Gaaarp),
Ilene Van Gossen (Sandino), Jay Wilson, Phil Burton (Mu) and Arthur Samuels, (the most senior Absurdite
and recently very AWOL). There’s also Deena Zurek, Snoosh, Scooter, and many others too humorous to mention,
but for now I think I’ll leave it at that. Every one is a sacred wobblehead and has made life in Absurd fun & inspiring.
About the pictures
Many of the pictures
you see in this website are composites of photos I stole from other websites and manipulated in Photoshop, often beyond recognition.
Some of them are photos I or Tanya or another friend took, and they're credited nicely.
Hope you enjoy
Wobbling Through The Universe. Please fasten protective bubblewrap hoop skirts and board the
unicycle from the left, exiting right.
Craig Schroeder
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I ALWAYS FEEL A LITTLE
BLURRY IN THE MORNINGS.
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Lists I've Made And Immediately Ignored
List #1B
1. Download helpful software upgrades.
2. Hoist myself on my own petard.
3. Work on belly
button sketches.
4. Bake cupcakes, burn them, go to bakery and buy some.
Things To Do Before The Drugs Wear Off:
1. Interview The Pope about the breakup
of 3 Dog Night
2. Make little red jackets for the rats at the dumpster
3. Walk into Ohio senate session with a turd on a plate and say, "Who ordered the poo-poo platter?"
4. Call mom and
complain that Glenn's looking at me funny
5. Try out that Pink Floyd-Wizard Of Oz thing
Mark Schroeder's "Be A Health Powerhouse" Dietary Rules:
1. If it stinks, don't eat it.
Things To Dream Of Doing:
1. Shampoo Moose for vet appointment
2. Email rosemary--tell her it's her birthday
3. Apply Krazy Serial Killer
stick-ons to bicycle
4. Think about role of Grandma in evolution of homosapiens last 6 million years
5. Work some more
on belly button sketches
List of people who are going on the bus trip to Loosianna to see my Susie Anna:
1. Polly
2. Wally
3. Doodle
4. Allah
5. Dave
Things To Do Tomorrow Before Mildred Shows Up:
1. Rub the cat down with Corn Husker's Lotion.
2. Find that ping-pong ball I lost 33 years ago in our old house.
3.
Send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Hurricane Floyd.
4. Write a love song to the dust mites in my room.
5.
Run through my hambone part on "Ride Of The Valkyries".
6. Call Mark in Utah and ask him "what's that funny smell?"
Things That Make Me Happy
1. Toy gas stations with clear, tourquoise plastic roofs make me happy.
2. Oatmeal makes me happy. Serotonin makes
me happy, but oatmeal does too. I wouldn't put cigarettes in it, though.
3. Having a head -- now THERE'S a reason to be
happy! Also, not being a tubeworm with the flu.
4. Big lumpy-rumped kitty cats leanin' against me makes me happy.
5.
It always makes me happy when I see Jesse Ventura walking down the street in a big huge diaper.
6. Cigarettes toy with
my feelings!
.
Beans
I have eaten beans
and eaten beans
and eaten and eaten and eaten
beans and beans and beans.
The Hindenburg exploded
in 1938 at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
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Asking A Friend
You call a friend and ask her if she'll help you paint your dog, and she says, "Sure!
I'll be there in 6 minutes!", even though she lives two hours away, and then she shows up at 3:15 a.m. with a loaf of
French bread and says, "OK, I'm ready to mount your hard drive," and you say, "Where were you when I needed you
next Wednesday?," and she frowns and whips out a fish and slaps you with it and it suddenly dawns on you that you're
happier than you've ever been. So you go practice your triangle.
Man, I love it when that happens.
Rainy Saturdays
Are For Fun
1. Take the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
2.
Put them in a large pink room with plastic watermelons hanging from the ceiling.
3.
Put each choir member on an elephant.
4.
No wait, take them off the elephants.
5.
Somebody get rid of those elephants, please.
6. Okay. Give each member a tuba and a can of Silly String.
7.
Now. Get each member to put the mouthpiece up to their mouth and run around the room spraying people with Silly String.
8.
They will giggle through the tubas.
9.
Put about 6 dozen little barking dogs in the room.
10. Call the police on them and run.
MY RINGO & BLUE MEANIE DOLLS, WITH A CARD FROM TANYA. MEANIE NOW SITS ON MY DASHBOARD.
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Chickeneros
Tanya:
Everybody always picks on Tonya Harding! Oh, well, I suppose it's rough when you reach a certain level
of elegance and class - people are aaaalways jealous of you then!
Mucky:
Yeah, RIGHT!
'Scuse me. I'm going out to the barn to milk the chickens.
Tanya:
Okay, but wash them first!
Mucky:
Oh, of course. Warm wash, little bleach. Tumble dry. I always throw a little
fabric softener in, too, to keep the chickens cuddly and smelling fresh.
Tanya:
Do you use those little fabric sheets for the dryer - you know, to keep them
chickens from clinging to your sweater?
Mucky:
Yes, I use Smuggle(TM) fabric softening sheets.
Tanya:
Soooo...they make your other clothes look like you're smuggling chickens under
them? Or do you just take on an air of pure superiority and smugness? Tiring minds want to know.
Mucky:
Well, if you must know, my chickens are all illegal aliens from Mexico. No green
cards, so I pay them under the table. Like this: (Paying chickens the under table) See?
Tanya:
Fascinating concept. Can you pay them behind the sofa, too? Or does that get
too crampy? Trying minds continue in their quest for knowledge (or the next best thing: speculation based on other people's
opinions)
Mucky:
I can't pay them behind the sofa, because there are federal agents back there.
They're behind the fridge, too. Been there. I also tried paying the poor dears under a pile of clothes in my room. Wasn't
long before I could see the binoculars and badges under there. (sigh)
Tanya:
Oh no! The empty coffee cups and donut boxes in my bathroom...you don't THINK...?
Mucky:
Yes. Yes, I DO think. Get your chickens out of the bathroom right away and spray
some Lysol in there.
It's the scent. Federales have that smell of beans and chiles and paperwork and more beans. Plus,
the Lysol makes them tear up when it gets in their eyes, so you can move your chickens out while the agents are crying. Spray
behind the shower curtain, under the toilet lid, in the hamper. Anywhere agents can hide.
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