An online column by comics legend Denny O'Neil

There isn't much to add, really. Mari's hit the high points and which among you really want to know about the low points? I could mention all the camera and microphone stuff I've done this year has taught me a lesson that should have been obvious long ago, but somehow --terminal obtuseness? Denial above and beyond the call of sanity?--was not: It doesn't work. Oh, it's fun, at least sometimes, but it doesn't do what one thinks it will. When you look at the tape later, it is as though angels are trumpeting everything that's wrong: the cough drop bumping out your cheek, lending a certain depraved chipmunk mien to the old physiognomy, or the roll of chub around the waist that is nicely evident beneath your turtleneck or the Alfred E. Neuman vacancy in your eyes as you pillage, stomp and plunder the mother tongue in the process of failing utterly to articulate some sorry thought. (Ah, yes, you have conclusively demonstrated your boobery in front of 40 million citizens, how nice.) So appearing on national television does not make you feel clever, or special, or loved, as you might have hoped. The fifteen minutes worth of fame you get is probably as pointless as being married in disguise.

Here's a verse from my new favorite poet, a Fifteenth Century Zennist named Ikkyu:

Don't worry please please how many times do I have to say it
There's no way not be be who you are and where

When I become absolutely convinced of the truth in those words, I think I'll finally have some hold on wisdom.