I’d lost the bid to install the Chelsea Center Elementary School butterfly garden, so with sunhat in hand I faced the Gardening Hiring Committee of the Senatorial Gardens Retirement Villa for the associate gardener job.

The meeting was chaired by old Senator Gaseous. He raised his gavel, dropped it, and called a five-minute recess to retrieve it. He called the meeting to order, but was immediately interrupted by Senator Jaundiste.

“I object to the Chairperson’s patriarchal assertion of authority,” she wheezed.

“You are out of order,” the Chair wheezed back, peering mole-like down the conference table with an educated guess as to who had spoken. Senator Gaseous had already promised the Senatorial Gardens Federalist Tea Time Book Club that he would vote for me, and read aloud from a prepared statement. “Mr. Raichu, you are a gardener of unimpeachable reputation. We have before us website testimonials from dozens of satisfied customers who have lauded you for your green thumb, your artistic eye, and your professionalism. To quote from three: ‘The passion flowers are so pretty!’…’He finished on time.’…’He brought donuts once!’ These testimonials speak volumes, Mr. Raichu.”

“Thank you, Senator.”

“It is I who should thank you. Senatorial Gardens would be honored to employ a gardener of your outstanding qualifications — qualifications which should be obvious to any non-senile member of this committee. In that regard, I yield the floor to Senator DeMagog.”

“Mr. Raichu,” said the acerbic ex-senator, knitting his brow like my high school principal when I was caught taking geranium cuttings from the botany lab, “allow me to read a statement attributed to you in the Best Buds Garden Center customer newsletter of July 15, 2018, and I quote: ‘Invasive plants are a real problem in this neighborhood.'” The senator removed his glasses with the triumphant air of a prosecutor poised to destroy a witness. “Is it fair to say that you consider native plants more desirable than the hardy species that you so derisively dismiss as ‘invasive?'”

I turned to my partner, Gina, for a whispered conference.

“I’m not sure that’s a fair characterization of my views, Senator. I was talking about the harm invasive plants cause to — ”

“I’ve heard enough!” gasped the senator, his nurse immediately cupping an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. “I’m voting no on this monster!”

“Hardly a surprise,” interposed Senator Longtuthe with a bitter laugh, “considering that the Senatorial Gardens newsletter quoted you just yesterday as saying ‘Appointing an avowed social conservative to this post would endanger the values our community holds dear.'”

“Senator,” I interjected, “that’s ‘soil conservationist,’ not ‘social conservative.'” With a smile I thought winning, I added, “I live for good soil.”

“The witness is out of order!” screamed Senator Selfreiteous.

I checked my phone. A load of fairy-tale lavender had arrived at Home Depot. Sweet.

“The Chair recognizes Senator Bloviateur.”

Senator Bloviateur plumped a 400-page tome in front of me. “Be so kind, Mr. Raichu, as to open the Bylaws Of The Senatorial Gardens Retirement Villa to page 214 and read into the record Section 87(A)(2)(c)(iv).”

“‘In selecting landscape designs,'” I read, “‘careful consideration shall be given to the ability of new landscape elements to harmonize with existing physical structures.'”

The senator removed his glasses — they all had that riff — and leaned forward as if to kill a newly trapped gopher. “And what is your interpretation of the word ‘harmonize,’ Mr. Raichu? Do you give it a strict construction, or are you a good person?”

I’d been warned this was coming. “I suppose it refers to the idea that plants should look good with the buildings. The colors and shapes and sizes and so on.”

The senator harrumphed with self-satisfaction. “I see. And if residents were to propose a planting scheme that you, in your wisdom, considered inharmonious in terms of ‘the colors and shapes and sizes’ of the plants, would you be willing to install such a scheme?”

I looked helplessly at Gina. “I’d rather not comment on hypothetical planting schemes, Senator.”

“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” the senator sneered. “But the people of this villa have a right to know how marginalized plants would fare if you were appointed associate gardener.”

“Senator, I’m really trying to understand, but by ‘marginalized plants,’ do you mean border gardens?”

“Enough! You are making a mockery of these proceedings! And I cannot, in good conscience, risk appointing a man like you as assistant gardener. My vote is no. A thousand times, no!”

I peeked at my phone. Tomato starts were on sale at Lowe’s.

Senator Gaseous tapped the gavel with all the strength of Montgomery Burns. “It’s obvious that there’s nothing more to do here,” he wheezed. “We all announced our decisions before the hearing anyway, so let’s just vote, and maybe we can make last call for dinner at four.”

I passed by one vote. But when Senator Gaseous offered congratulations, I replied, “Thank you all for the honor, but I’ve just received a text offering a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become the head of leafblowing operations for We Blow, Inc. So as we gardeners say, I’m just gonna make like a tree and leaf.”

“A joke that corny shows contempt for this body!” shrieked Senator Selfreiteous.

And with both of her points, I had to agree.

Status update: Jon Sindell is feeling sad.

What can you say about the death of Kendrick beyond the tired old “three face-balls gushing tears” I’ve just posted? I’ve been thinking about this ever since receiving a pop-up notification of Kendy’s death — and I thought fast, frankly, so I could post this eulogy before any of you attention-hounds beat me to it! LOL Don’t down-thumb me, guys, I know this isn’t the time for lolz! I’m just trying to ease the tension that is surely affecting every one of us, whether Kendrick classified us as a Close Friend, an Inner Family Member, an Outer Family Member, or a mere Acquaintance. Whatever Face Class we belong to, I know every one of us gathered on my wall today feels blessed to have known Kindrick the way that we did.

On reflection, though, it really does seem fitting that we should share a few lolz on this solemn occasion, for Kendrick himself was a merry prankster, one who gave every person here seconds of joy with his humorous “bon mots,” as I think he called them (he definitely called them “B.M.’s” once, that I’m sure of. I gave that classic Kensterism a “laugh-till-you-cry” emoji). I also think I remember him posting one or two really funny “drunken Buddhist” jokes, and I will never forgot the great day when K-Dog posted an uber funny video of a cat in a pirate costume walking the plank — I got 67 likes when I shared it to my wall! And if Ken-nebunkport dropped the occasional eff-bomb during one of his infamous “Bad morning, guys!” freestyle rants, who among us didn’t just smile and say, “Oh, well, that’s Kendrick!”

He was a bon vivant, too, Special K. The K-Hey Kid loved good food, which we saw pictured on his wall many times when he was eating with people who weren’t us, and he loved music, and some sports, and several other popular pastimes. The man played hard with the money he earned from working hard, undoubtedly, at some job or other serving others some particular way.

Oh, I could go off in a thousand directions talking about KK — but none seems to capture the essence of the man. Message me ideas? LOL.

The fact is, though, I have an idea. As the Bible says, or The Wizard Of Oz, you’re not measured by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others.

And K-Kong was loved by others, no doubt. You could see it, I think, in the big happy smile of some red-headed boy of nine or ten, in a green ballcap (I think), when he posed with K-Mart at Disneyland — or Great America? — in front of a statue of Walt Disney, or was it the Drop Tower? You just can’t fake a smile like that! A smile that showed that the red-headed boy most likely loved his presumed family member. Another time there was a girl of about fourteen, with a different colored ballcap, who had a forced tight-lipped smile in a picture taken at a different amusement park, who clearly loved her dad or uncle or close family friend, once you adjusted the size of her smile for her teen angst. But the real proof of how Kendrick was loved is found in the heart — i.e., the countless cartoon hearts that people posted to show their love for his love of the presumed family members who stood next to him in amusement parks, smiling with presumed love for him.

And Kendy was every bit as good a friend as he was a presumed family member. I’ll never forget how Kendrick was there for me several times when I needed support. I remember one crummy day when I felt really bad about something, a fight with a coworker or an annoying household disaster, and Kendy was the first person to post a sad-face emoji. Anyone can post an emoji, of course. But what made this special, the reason it captured Kendrick’s spirit so well, was that he posted so promptly you could tell he didn’t stop to think, “Hmm, should I show sympathy? I don’t know, did Jon show sympathy for me the last time I posted a bad-news status?” No, Friends and Acquaintances, that was not Kendy’s way. The Kave Man I knew was there for me on a reliable intermittent basis, whether up-thumbing a puppy pic, liking my opinion about some political controversy, or recommending a Mexican restaurant when I was out of town once. Friends like that do not come around every day! Or, anyway, not every hour. There was only one Kendrick on my Face list (I have two Rodericks and a Henrik, believe it or not), and the man will be missed.

The man will be missed.

(P.S. If any of you need to post a eulogy the next time a Face-Friend dies, feel free to cut and paste this one).

Join us on the set as Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Karl Marx rehearse their lines…

Groucho (in lovelorn fashion to corpulent, wealthy dowager): I can see you now, bending over a hot stove when I come home from work. But I can’t see the stove!

Dowager (batting eyelashes and smiling demurely): Do you really mean to suggest, Professor, that you wish to marry me?

Karl (enraged): Of course he would like to marry you, decadent capitalist pig! He has been indoctrinated by his overlords of the ruling class to believe in the decrepit bourgeois institution known as marriage as part of their cynical scheme to keep the masses from dedicating themselves to the collective good!

Harpo: (honks horn at Karl, goofily grinning)

Karl (to Harpo): And you, half-witted stooge of the ruling class, make light of the deprivations of the proletariat by affecting ragged attire to achieve a puerile comic effect!

Harpo: (flutters eyelids and leans lovingly into Karl)

Karl: Get off me, you stinking bum!

Harpo suddenly recalls that he has a smelly fish in his overcoat. He produces the fish by the tail, screws up his nose in disgust, tosses it aside, and places a clothespin on Karl’s nose.

Karl: Idiot! Are you too dense to comprehend that the proletariat can scarcely afford fish because the exploitation of the fisherman’s labor, which the capitalists call “profit,” renders the price of fish exorbitant? That’s an obscenely expensive sturgeon!

Chico: Atsa right. I hadda remove my whatchamacallit (points to abdomen), but the sturgeon was too expensive.

Karl (strikes his forehead with the flat of his hand): You ignoramus. Don’t you realize that the capitalists deliberately keep you uneducated so that you will remain unequipped to comprehend and overthrow the injustice of capitalism?

Chico: Well I dunno. The nun, she say I’m pretty good with my catechism.

Karl (red in the face): Capitalism, not catechism! Cap! Cap!

Harpo nods eagerly and sets a baseball cap on Karl’s head.

Karl (throwing the cap on the ground in disgust): I shall not wear a hat associated with a sport with which the American ruling class keep the proletariat diverted from their true purpose of uniting to overthrow the capitalist system.

Harpo allows the point to sink in, brightens, and sets a top hat on Karl’s head.

Karl (furiously removing top hat): Nor shall I don the ostentatious headwear of the plutocrats!

Groucho (musing): Well, I don’t know. At least it distracts from that baboon on your chin.

Karl: Baboon! I’ll have you know, dummkopf, that this beard was my constant companion as I toiled through the years in the British Museum Reading Room, formulating the labor theory of value. It sustained me through many a long, lonely, weary and, yes, hungry hour!

Harpo, using sleight of hand, extracts a hunk of cheese from Karl’s beard.

Karl: Keep your grubby paws to yourself, peasant! (turns to Groucho) This long beard, sir, is the sign of a superior intellect, of a man of great learning!

Groucho: You could’ve fooled me — I thought it was the sign of Rabbi Pinsk. Do you know Rabbi Pinsk, from Minsk?

Karl: Certainly not! Organized religion is the opiate of the masses!

Chico (shaking finger, smiling): Naw, you no fool me. Mass is for Catholics.

Harpo seizes Karl’s muffler and wraps it around his head like a nun’s headdress.

Karl: Thief! That’s my property!

Groucho (thoughtfully stroking chin): “Property is theft, property is theft.” Now where have I heard that line?

Karl (snatches muffler from Harpo): That does it! I’m through! Namesakes or not, you bourgeois boobs are nothing more than ignorant stooges of the ruling class, in mindless thrall to your capitalist masters! I leave you to chafe in your unseen chains! (Karl storms off the set)

Groucho (to his brothers): I thought he’d never leave. Where shall we eat, boys? The Brown Derby?

Harpo nods eagerly, and the three sons of poor immigrants race to the studio lot, where they enter their late-model American luxury cars and drive off to enjoy a gourmet meal of grilled sturgeon with a mushroom and thyme reduction.

Good evening, literature lovers. It is my honor to introduce the famed authors who will read their work tonight in an evening unique in the annals of annals.

Our first reader, WALT WHITMAN, is the poet of the body and the soul, and what is in them is as much in him: the stevedore with his hearty “Heave ‘e’ yo!”…the wagoner with his bulging biceps…the spinster in her chamber, penning poems by the oil lamp’s glow; as well as the whale that rendered the oil; and the harpoonist with his mighty thighs; and the krill swirling in the leviathan’s gut; and also the gut. The krill, the oil, the gut, the harpoonist, all spill out of me — wait, how did I get here? That’s him, not me! He, Walt Whitman, is the poet of the body and soul! Of each several body and each several soul! Sing glory hallelujah, world without end!

EDGAR ALLAN POE, our second reader, must not be thought mad, though his pen drips with fantastic terrors never seen before, severally induced by the Fiend Intemperance, the spirit of Perverseness, and the demon that preys on the melancholic soul. Edgar loathes neither black cats nor ravens, but, frankly, that egomaniac Whitman gives him the fantods.

emily dickinson is at Home tonight, yet far from Home — and has “consented” — better, in Truth, to say “relented” — to her Poetry being read by a bolder Spirit here in her stead, one whose Constitution can abide the Presence of the Abominable Poe.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN has written innumerable spoken-word pieces that charitable commentators have hiked up as “orations.” One of these was a flash hybrid piece that Abe read at a Pennsylvania battlefield to honor the Union war dead. Though Abe is amused by the legend that he penned the piece on the back of an envelope, he thinks postcard prose could well be a thing. A melancholy optimist, Abe seeks through his writing — against the odds, it seems — to arouse the better angels of our nature.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS is the author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. That’s slave, people! He hasn’t the time to write dandified bios!

HARPER LEE wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. She also, it would seem, wrote Go Set a Watchman, or a draft that she left in a drawer somewhere with some dried-up Jujubes and a spelling medal. Where’s my water! I can’t swallow this horse pill! Who are you? Sign what? What sequel? What mockingbird? If you see a mockingbird, shut the damn window! Atticus who? What Scout? I’m not in the Scouts! Oh, why can’t everyone leave me alone!

That summer RAYMOND CARVER rented a little house on the north coast with a drinking buddy named Gus. Ray, Gus said. You should write now. Right now? said Ray. Well, Gus said, I mean, write. Write now, or write later. Ray said, Write what? The window was cracked and a breeze came in. It tasted like salt. I don’t know what, said Gus, and waved his hand like he was shooing a fly. Gus had a box of old dry Hydrox cookies from the Safeway. Eat one, he said. Alright, said Ray. It’s a small, good thing.

Where J.D. SALINGER lives or what he does besides writing are none of your damn business.

ARTHUR MILLER married Marilyn Monroe. Have you seen a picture of Miller? Have you seen her? In scaling such prodigious matrimonial heights, the scrawny bespectacled playwright foreshadowed the dreck film Revenge of the Nerds by thirty years. MILLER also wrote The Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, which won major awards, he supposes — but good god, Marilyn!

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD distilled the incomparable milk of wonder into words in The Great Gatsby. He drinks incomparable-milk-of-wonder laced with bootleg bourbon nightly.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY writes lean, supple prose and drinks whiskey straight, unlike that Ivy League pantywaist Fitzgerald.

NORMAN MAILER wrote The Armies of the Night and The Naked and the Dead. He’ll knock Hemingway’s block off if the drunken bastard drops his left.

A hey and a ho and a hey nonny no, how ya doin’, how ya doin’? Nice crowd, lovely crowd, beautiful crowd — zounds, now I know why they call ’em “groundlings!” I’ve seen ground mutton fairer than these faces!

But I should talk, I should talk! Oh I’m ugly, very ugly. By the rood I’m an ugly knave. Even as a child I was ugly. One look at me and Oberon tells Titania, “On second thought, you can keep the changeling!” I tell ya, none accordeth me respect.

Ken thee who else is ugly? I can’t say out loud, but her name rhymes with “Clean Ebizeleth.” Have you seen that kisser? No wonder she’s “the Virgin Queen.” No jack would touch her with a ten-foot stave!

O, but I’m the ugliest one of all. And not just ugly, I’m fat, too. In troth I’m fat. “Fair round belly with good capon lined.” But I’m no Falstaff. Marry, he’s a fat one. Plump Jack’s so fat, when he sits around the tavern, he sits around the tavern!

Alas and alack, no laugh at all! What is this, a comic interlude or Juliet’s wake? I get more laughs when I talk to a skull! “Alas poor Yorick, I’m dying out here!” Even Horatio’s biting his thumb!

Speaking of dying, I pray let me tell thee, that sad sack Hamlet is one melancholy Dane. Have you seen his inky cloak and customary suit of solemn black? “Hey kid,” I ask him, “who gives you your fashion tips, Lady Macbeth?”

O, he’s a mad one, that Hamlet. “See yon cloud that’s shaped like a camel? Methinks it looks like weasel. Or like a whale.” Hey Prince, something’s rotten in the state of Denmark — and I think it’s your mind! Cut off the meds, Polonius, please!

But I jest, Hamlet’s deep, very deep. He peruses me down the length of his arm, his doublet all unbraced, and says, “You should be as old as I am if like a crab you could go backward.” “Kid,” I tell him, “get some new material! That offal smells like a bawdy house jake!” So he punches me through the arras! And I got one big arras, I’ll tell ya.

Verily, man respecteth me not. No, nor woman neither. Take Lady Macbeth. O, she’s a hot one. “Take my woman’s breasts for gall,” she says. “Take my woman’s breasts!” So I reach out to grab her, and she cries to Hecate, “Unsex me now!”

No jot of respect is accordeth me. “Unsex me now,” I hear that at home. Many a night and oft, upon the Rialto — our bedchamber — I tell my wife, “Hearest thou the nightingale, my dove?” And she says, “No way, knave, it’s the lark, herald of the dawn,” and shoves me out the door! Then some Romeo climbs in the back window! No respect is accordeth me at all.

Even my children give me no respect. The other day, I’m making out my will and dividing up the royalties to my movies, records, all my work, and I say to my daughters — three lovelies, such princesses — “Come give your papa a great big kiss to see who gets the most opulent third.” So I pucker up — and Regan plucks her own eyes out! No respect, no respect at all.

In sooth, you’ve been a wonderful crowd. I’ll be here all week, if Queen Liz doesn’t slice off a pound o’ my flesh and feed it to the dogs of war!

The rest is silence — just like my audience!

[exit Rodney]

One morning Gregor Samsa awoke from a bad sleep to discover that he was a pimply, scrawny kid in a cube, so he put on a bug suit to freak out his folks. ~ Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

Two plus two equals four. ~ George Orwell, 1984

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, unless ’twere called privy or something — eeew, gross! ~ Juliet, Romeo And Juliet

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Chew on that and blow your mind. ~ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Gatsby gulped down the incomparable milk of wonderful cows raised on wholesome Kentucky bluegrass. ~ Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby

And so we beat on, like boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into seasickness. ~ Nick Carraway, The Great Gatsby

Atticus always said that you never really know a man until you walk around a while in his shoes. Just standing on Boo Radley’s porch was enough to make me check my shoes for roaches and my head for chiggers. ~ Scout, To Kill A Mockingbird

Call me, Ishmael! I miss you big time! ~ Moby Dick

Isn’t it pretty to think that generations of English teachers will demand that their tormented students find profundity in the last line of this book, knowing they can find none themselves? ~ Lady Brett Ashley, The Sun Also Rises

I don’t feel like going into all that David Copperfield crap about what a lousy childhood I had and all, unless your definition of childhood includes ages thirteen through sixteen — in which case I am really gonna unload. ~ Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye

I saw the best minds of my generation, he said. And the drug–addled egotists swallowed it whole! ~ Allen Ginsburg

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again — and realized they’d been goosed with a cattle prod. ~ Animal Farm

Great! One ring to rule them all — and in the darkness, I can’t find it! ~ The Lord of the Rings

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to miss the jokes. ~ George Santayana

You et too, Brute? So what’s with the steak knife? ~ Julius Caesar

Give me liberty, or give me a favorable capital gains tax rate. ~ Patrick Henry

Seven-and-one-quarter-dozen years ago, our Fathers brought forth a new nation conceived in liberty and stuff — here! Right here, on this very continent! ~ Abraham Lincoln

You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool — wait, it’s America in 2016? Never mind. ~ Abraham Lincoln

“A house divided against itself” is my second favorite koan, right after “The sound of one hand clapping.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

A Spectre is haunting Europe, but fear not — that dashing British chap, Bond, is on it. ~ Karl Marx

Religion is the opium of the masses, whereas the Gothic novel is the sedative of the elite. ~ Karl Marx

Buena suerte, Zapata. ~ Zapatistas

Those who cannot remember the password are condemned to retrieve it from a drawer full of clutter. ~ George Santayana

We have nothing to fear but a continued erosion of public confidence in the banking system, labor-management violence, class warfare, widespread hunger due to unwise soil management practices, race riots in our cities, a Bolshevik style revolution as in Russia, or the rise of fascism as in Germany and Italy. And fear itself, duh. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

I return from Germany bringing peace for hours at a time. ~ Neville Chamberlain

I have nothing to offer in the way of pecuniary contributions to the war effort due to a temporary illiquidity of assets resulting from wartime conditions, but I’ll gladly contribute all of the blood, toil, tears and sweat I can. ~ Winston Churchill

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, roughly four-fifths of the way to the end of the beginning, more or less. ~ Winston Churchill

Never have so many owed so much to so few as a result of the rapacious Labour Party’s confiscatory tax policies ~ Winston Churchill

BRB ~ General Douglas MacArthur

An iron curtain has descended across the continent, calling Slavic taste in design squarely into question. ~ Winston Churchill

We must never negotiate out of fear, but we must never fear to negotiate out of doors in good weather. ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

¿Es posible, no? ~ United Farm Workers

Those who cannot remember the past are likely products of the American educational system. ~ George Santayana

“I have a dream that one day all of God’s children — and, yes, of course, all children of atheists — and children who are atheists themselves — a dream that all of God’s children — and all atheist children — and, of course, all children of any sexual orientation whatsoever, including ones I haven’t heard of yet…and, naturally, all differently abled children…and all abled children, to be sure — Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, black men and white men — and, yes, absolutely, black women and white women too — and red men and women, and brown men and women, and yellow men and women — I have a dream that all of God’s children — and all atheist children, and all… ~ Martin Luther King

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall and plant a rose garden. Yes, of course red. A water feature and statuary would be nice too. ~ Ronald Reagan

Those who cannot remember the past are the majority of modern voters. And I’m pissed. ~ George Santayana