Like The Man Says...

If you try to use booze to solve a problem,
One day you’re gonna discover that you have two problems.1
It’s one hell of a double act.2

People talk about the joy of sex,
But it don’t last nothin’ like shootin’ anvils.3
When they lay you on the table, better keep your business clean.4
If it’s out there, it’s in here.5

Show me a love story and I’ll show you a tragedy.6
Eternal vigilance is where it’s at.7
Some days the shit comes down so heavy
You feel like wearing a hat.8

There aren’t enough Nazis
For everyone you suspect to possibly be one.9
Nothing brings you down like your hometown.10
No one ever said patience was a deadly quasar.11
It is time to get slammed.12

The boss tells you what to do.
But if you want to know how to do it, you got to ask the mule skinner.13
The rules change
And you operate within the new rules.14

You can’t make an omelette.15
You gotta have a gimmick.16
Everybody must get stoned.17
You made me what I am today
And you’d bloody well better be satisfied.18
Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.19
Requiescat.20

1 Dead Boyfriends, David Housewright [source]
2 The Independent, “Like the man says, it’s one hell of a double act” [source]
3 Riverfront Times, “It Ain’t Rocket Science: Like the man says: People talk about the joy of sex, but it don’t last nothin’ like shootin’ anvils” [source]
4 The New York Times, “The Morning Skate: No Summer Angels for the N.H.L.” [source]
5 CMJ New Music Monthly, “Reviews” [source]
6 Winterwood: And Other Hauntings, Keith Roberts [source]
7 Field & Stream, March 1970 [source]
8 Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel, Bill Pronzini [source]
9 A Second in Time, Carole McEntee-Taylor [source]
10 New York, “Urban Renewal” [source]
11 Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs, Phil Freeman [source]
12 Newsweek, “Our Man Goes To The Mat” [source]
13 Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck [source]
14 AutoWeek, “Where there’s smoke; Will Congress strip racing of its tobacco and beer sponsorship dollars” [source]
15 Boys’ Life and Other Plays, Howard Korder [source]
16 A Raw Mix of Carelessness and Longing, Cecelia Frey [source]
17 Weekly World News, “Letters to the Editor [source]
18 The Complete Adventures of Toffee, Charles F. Myers [source]
19 Rabbit’s Feet [source]
20 The Nick Tosches Reader, Nick Tosches [source]

Previously: It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged…, On The Internet Nobody Knows You’re A…, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To…, Reader, I… and What We Talk About When We Talk About…

Elon Green writes supply-sider agitprop for ThinkProgress and Alternet.