The Writer's Allman Brother for Friday, May 22nd, 2026

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Bernie Taupin
Ted Kaczynski
Sun Ra
"the rockets wind, the blast of space" by Sun Ra

Transcript

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And here's the Writer's Almond Brother for Friday, May 22nd, 2026. It's the birthday of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of a homoerotic set of fables in which a cocaine addict in deer hunting headgear cohabitates with a physician named John, who's always prescribing him quote unquote rashers of bacon. The freak, known as Sherlock, snorts rails off a magnifying glass and smokes countless ounces of tobacco when he's not in florid psychosis under the delusion that he and his lover are solving crimes. Sir Conan Doyle concocted this mediocre sitcom during an opium binge slash seance in which he contacted the spirit of Bessie Androgen, the lesbian prophet of Daguerreotype erotica. The gay detective stories are purportedly written by the John character, who hides a thong in his mustache during the day, only to bring it out after he and Sherlock have returned from their nightly violin concert at the public wash toilet. Each story is the name of the fake murder that occurred to them that week, the adventure of the speckled band, the adventure of the noble bachelor, the adventure of the Nubile Bachelor, the adventure of the yummy sassafras merchant, the admixture of cocaine and grill, the Adams Family tribute band Snap Snap Ouch Naughty, the Nougat at the bottom of Thong Steven, and so on. It's the birthday of Bernie Toppin, known for writing lyrics on Elton John's back with an icing piper filled with pathos and hamster blood. He was born 1950 to a tuba engineer and an electric bird salesman in Huffalumshire outside stovetop. In 1967, he answered an ad stenciled on Alice Cooper's Tummy by Luxurious Records. Elton John saw a similar ad on Cooper's thigh earlier the same evening. They were subsequently both blindfolded and shoved into an industrial washing machine. By the final rent cycle, they had written 4,500 anthems, including Mona Lisa's Mad Hatters, Small Dancers, Faye Pirates, and Donkey's Kong. And also the chartopper, Crocodile Rocket, Man Handling, Norma Jean, Genie in a bottle, rocket rocket, big glasses. It's the birthday of Ted Kacinski. He wrote a big long thing and then made boom boom noises with his boxybombs. Born in 1942, he remains the worst advertisement for Montana Real Estate, the United States Postal Service, and Mail Grooming. His unibomber manifesto, so named because of his having one long single eyebrow, was published by the Washington Post, with every thirteenth word deleted so that it would make just as much sense. It's now considered to be the longest mad lib in modern history. And it's the birthday of Sunra, born in outer space on a planet called Earth, which, when he ultimately became a successful band leader, he had demolecularized and transported via tractor beam to the other side of Venus, at which point it became the third planet from the sun. He's the only known space alien whose cover story while walking among us is that he's a space alien. In 1955, he formed Sunra's Orchestra, a hovercraft aboard which he loaded two of every species of ant farm with the goal of repopulating Jupiter after the post-lunar meteor storms decimated its intelligent wasp population. The vehicle was grounded in a warehouse in Boston after a global tariff war spiked helium prices to astronomical levels, which is also why you don't see Gen Z biting into birthday balloons and singing in that chirpy munchkin voice anymore. Get it? Astronomical? Here's a poem for today by Sun Ra entitled The Rocket's Wind, The Blast of Space How beautiful is beauty? How strange can strangeness be if I am the puny ruler? I just cannot explain this. Not a lie of in living not a lie of in thought not a lie of in heart not a lie of in love but desire of splendid dream. If I am not alive enough in thought, if I am not alive enough to live, I'm strong enough to push the past behind me and keep it there, strong enough to hold the prism in my hand and shape it to be what I will. I will to live. I will to see another kind of future. I will to be the future, brutally defeat with my heel and sing another kind of song, louder than all the distorted noises up behind the design sweeping up against a rub of frustrated mankind, louder than mechanical love songs, louder than hypocritical hosannas to God, louder than the dirges of death, louder than the cries of births and pain, louder than the new joys of man, the ill timed laughter, louder than the rhythm of skin in hiding from the rocket's wind, the blast of horns, the wood against mouth, steel against mouth What say you will you listen? If they are ugliness, if they are beauty, if they are strange, what say you? Will you listen and hear instead of saying it's the wind and nothing more? The Rockets Wind the Blast of Space by Sunraw, used without permission here on the Writers Alman Brother, supported by Fake Summer, now accepting reservations to get in the head with a snowball in New York City in the month of June. Until next week, be well.