I got my hands on the forthcoming edition of "Best American Non-Required Reading," which, for my money, is one of the top Best American offerings. It's edited by my old McSweeney's boss Dave Eggers, who recruits a bunch of insanely productive and intelligent Bay Area high school students to select the contents. In Dave's intro (which follows Sufjan Stevens') there's a collection of three poems having to do, naturally, with Ed Asner.
The most disturbing is excerpted here, purely for journalistic reasons:
"Bathing Ed Asner"
By Greg Ames
I snatched the rubber duck
from his hairy, wet fist
and in a cruel voice
instructed him to quit
fooling and to sit down
dammit in the tub.
"But I didn't ask for your help,"
Asner whined, sulked, and slapped
the murky water with his puckered palms.
"Well, that's pretty much beside
the point, isn't it?" I said.
"I'm here now, helping you, so stop
making trouble for me, Lou Grant."
"Don't calle me that!" he said.
"Well, then, lift up your arms,"
I whispered in his ear,
"and let's swab out those pits."
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I hope you're all sufficiently weirded out.
