A Shortage Of Pith

...exists in full swing at my house, so instead I'm posting this attractive photo of my friend John's other friend Boogie.

[photo -John Cook]
Somehow I'm finding out that prints of the drawing behind him exist all over the country -not in abundance, certainly, but in enough numbers to make me wonder how they sprang up like mushrooms.

Pith, once a divine dessert in my life [ living in the backwoods as I do] was always in short supply and I lived in constant search of it -always on the lookout for the droll mail carrier or the cut up who sacked my groceries. Once in a while a true Pithian Knight would materialise and I would be in my glory, sopping up the arcane humor as it came off the conveyor belt, even storing small scraps for later, perhaps to hold in my cheek like snuff for when winter came and all the real jokesters had gone back to the city to write comedy for paychecks, I was left to play straight man to an army of straight men.
Now, because of the internet, I find myself surrounded by a buffet of rabid wit every morning from Kingsbury to Sherman Oaks -urban rancor, southern impishness and enough DC crispy political banter to make the grease crackle in my head.
I always thought that's what I wanted most, during those years of the long cleverness famine. But I was young.
Now it's nice to just hear somebody say 'pass the toast' with no english to it, no particular spin except for the toast passer to worry about whether I have enough butter or if my coffee cup is empty.