Hello, Diary: It’s Me, Ken Bone
Hello, Diary!
It’s me, Ken (Bone) (I know you’re busy, so I like to remind you of my last name!). Today I found out some very exciting news: my brother Joseph’s apple orchard is abuzz because actor Val Kilmer visited today. This is the most exciting thing to have ever happened to my family, and I made my very tall daughters thank the good lord in unison for this blessing. Thank you, Val Kilmer, for making apple orchards relevant again.
Love and kisses,
Ken Bone
P.S. I am going to be at the presidential debate! My wife Barb says I had better get my adult acne under control, but I am an unashamed American male.
Diary, hello! Ken Bone, here, again (birth name is Kenneth, but you could have guessed that. My apologies for condescending.)
My wife Barb Bone (Ken and Barbie!! I know!!!! This is why I proposed.) is growing very nervous about my impending appearance on the presidential debate. I think it will be fine. I am going to wear my Power Sweater to the event—the same sweater I was christened and lost my virginity in.
Here are some questions I’ve been working on for the big night!
Presidential candidates: have you heard of my brother Joseph’s apple orchard? If not, did you know that his apples are certified organic and, in this Bone’s opinion, healthy to boot?
Presidential candidates: can one of you explain to me what vaping is? I heard my adult son Bill talking about it on the phone with his buddy the other day.
Presidential candidates: I used to work in a coal mine. Do you know how I can become a commercial actor instead?
Presidential candidates: I think I heard Donald Duck say a racial epithet to Daffy Duck during my most recent weekly viewing of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. What are your thoughts on this?
This is going to be great.
Deepest love,
Kenneth Bone
Diary, it’s Ken!
My tall daughters tell me I should call this a journal or, more accurately, a pile of damp napkins swiped from a Denny’s, but I say phooey! It’s a diary, and that’s that.
The presidential debate is tomorrow, and my wife Barb is getting nervous. She thinks my questions are “beside the point,” and that my nephews are “encouraging me to ask the Donald Duck question to ‘troll’ me like they do on Reddit dot com.” I trust Barb implicitly, ever since the day we met at my brother Joseph’s apple orchard, where she told me my boxers were visible above my khakis. I love Barb. She is my soulmate.
So Diary, let me tell you this. I am politically engaged as heck. I’ve voted in every mayoral election since I turned eighteen, and sent a basket of apples to every winning candidate. I am the proud father of my adult son Bill and my two tall daughters, who have all at various times in their lives refused to come to work with me on “Bring Your Kid to Work Day” because I am embarrassing. I don’t know who I’m voting for yet, but you can be dang sure I’m not ruling out Bart Simpson as a write-in.
My sweater’s ready from the dry cleaner….gotta go!
Love,
Ken Bone
Diary,
It’s the big day. (It’s Ken Bone, by the way.) My mother, also named Barb Bone (crazy!), called me today to remind me of my father, Kenneth Bone Sr.’s final words in 2002 after succumbing to a twenty-year battle with gout, the disease of kings. Here is what he said:
“Ken Bone, Junior, not Senior, that’s me, and I’m dying, there will come a day in your life where you’ll have to make an important wardrobe choice. When that moment comes, you’ll have the perfect outfit. There it will be, hanging in your closet, seamed perfectly, a real stunning ensemble. You’ll take this outfit off the rack, ever so gingerly, strip yourself nude, and realize that it doesn’t fit anymore. The shirt is too tight. The legs are too short. You’ll realize that what you’ve hung in your closet is a suit tailored for a five-year-old boy. Instead, you will wear a stupid red sweater and everyone will dress up as you for Halloween.”
Haha, Dad! What an idiot! Glad he’s dead.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Bone (the living one)
Diary,
Ken Bone here. My red sweater and rectangular frames are turning me on as I look into my own rearview. I’m in the parking lot preparing for the debate, listening to my Tina Fey audiobook. She is an inspiration, in my opinion.
As of this moment, I am still an undecided voter. I cannot be tied down—just ask Barb, who had to pursue me for four full years before I rolled my eyes and said, “I guess, babe,” after she came to see me in the community production of Bye, Bye Birdie! three nights in a row. Although I was only nineteen at the time, I played the father.
Back to now. Do I look too good? I don’t want to cheat on my wife, but if another woman looks at me without that confused expression on her face, I’ll have to. My adult son and very tall daughters will be so disappointed. What if Hillary Clinton calls me handsome? I’ll get so bashful I’ll have to vote for Gary Johnson. What if Donald Trump makes direct eye contact with me? Will he be able to hack into my bank account through my retinas? My great-aunt posted a news story onto the Facebook that said he could do that. Who is Gary Johnson?
I’m ready.
Diary,
Kenneth Bone, Jr. here (Kenneth Bone Sr. died fourteen years ago). Just got out of the debate. I don’t have much time to write, because I just made my wife Barb climax for the first time since the conception of my adult son Bill and I’m having a panic attack. More soon!
Regards,
Ken Bone
Diary,
Just woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night. Donald Trump did make eye contact with me. Should I cancel my debit card? My brother Joseph called and asked if I can do an autograph signing at the apple orchard tomorrow afternoon. As if I’d be anywhere else on a Monday afternoon! Whenever I get down about things, like elections, or my tall daughters getting even taller and moving away, I think of a plump, round McIntosh apple. No, not the computer, you goof! A Macintosh from my brother Joseph’s apple orchard, shined on my denim jorts, ready to be bitten into until my gums bleed. Isn’t that nice?
I think it’s nice.
Diary,
Ever since I appeared on national television, I can’t stop cumming and making money.
The debate was last night. I asked my question. Barb was right when she said that being an undecided voter made viewers frothy at the loins, because recent college graduates keep sending pictures of their naked breasts to my LinkedIn page. Crazy!!
My tall daughters say I am a “me-me” now. People have started sending me long letters about how I am a national distraction from the inevitable end of days. My brother Joseph’s apple orchard is swarmed with business, which is all that matters to me.
I guess I’ll take this opportunity to answer the question many young women have scrawled on their bare breasts here, Diary, cause why not? I still do not know who I am going to vote for. Good luck locking down this lion mountain (this is a metaphor for me, Kenneth Bone), because Daddy’s got some strong opinions on energy policy and pantsuits.
Diary,
Ken Bone, celebrity, here. I already have a Lenscrafters sponsorship, quit my job (flipped a table and everything!!) and pissed on my dad’s grave. My adult son Bill says I’m out of control. My impossibly tall daughters say it won’t last. My wife Barb seems to be pretty into the whole thing and has been sending naughty texts to Jimmy Kimmel.
The way I see it, there are a few reasons America has fallen in love with my soft body. The first option, of course, is that I deserve it, and am a deeply fuckable man with family values who can’t be tied down to one candidate. Maybe, like James Corden’s assistant wrote to me, I am the third party candidate everyone’s been waiting for.
And then there’s the second option, one I heard my brother Joseph and my adult nephews whispering about as I argued with an apple tree at the orchard this afternoon. My brother Joseph, always my greatest champion, seems to think that I am being utilized by the nation as a momentary distraction, a calm before the inevitable end of days, a reason to smile in the midst of a disastrous election cycle that leaves voters without hope and options, caught in a feedback loop of thinkpieces and deep-seated political deception, sending a nation that used to pride itself on openness into a close-minded hellhole. Ken Bone, my brother Joseph surmised, turning over a Granny Smith in his hand, is not a man, but a societal tool who will be forgotten and lost in the news cycle as the urgency of this head injury of an election reaches its climax.
Jealous!
Famous forever,
Kenneth Bone
Jamie Loftus is a comedian and writer. You can find her some of the time, most days at @hamburgerphone or jamieloftusisinnocent.com.