A quick note...I have been asked to correct the numerous mispellings, grave grammatical errors, and other numerous mistakes that often infest the writings of Joco like plague fleas on a rat. I am MORE than HAPPY to do this! Anything to make MY FRIEND look BETTER!!!----John Thornton

P.S. Jon sometimes makes hurtful claims about me. I really don't think he means anything by them. His people have a long tradition of what might be called "insult humor" (think Don Rickles!) As a member of WASP elite, I find Joco's cultural traditions absolutely FASCINATING, even when I seem to be the target of his always good-natured "KVETCHING"! To me, Joco is just a cuddly old "MESHUGGA"!

August 22, 2007

Here is an exchange that took place earlier this year. My brother, the noted national Magazine Award winning jounalist James Thornton, had just gotten a marvelous piece of writing published in the Play section of the New York Times. Jon explains this to his mother......

So I said to Mother last Sunday: Mom, a Thornton twin has a piece in a sub-section of the Times. A twin has written a piece, Mother.

Mother: What kind of twin?

Jon: One of those Thorntons. The two males. One of them has written a piece, Mother. In a peripheral section of the Sunday New York Times newspaper.

Mother: Were they the Siamese kind?

Jon: I don't think so, Mother, but I've never asked.

Mother: So they're separated now?

Jon: Yes, Mother, quite. One has chosen to live in the outer reaches of Pennsylvania, and the other in section of the New Jersey shoreline that caters to the elderly and retired.

Mother: When they were connected, whereabouts was that? At the head? The chest? (She points down below her waistline, and wrinkles her nose) Or was it down there? Sometimes Siamese are connected down there, although they don't want to tell you about it in the news stories where they are always having big operations and separating them.

Jon: Well, Mother, come to think of it, from their behavior and everything, I think they were in fact joined down there.

Mother: Which one got the balls and which one got the penis?

Jon (thinking): I'm not certain either of them got anything, Mother. I think there's just some sort of mound down there, like on a Ken doll.

Mother: And you say one of them has a piece in the Sunday Times? Not on swimming, is it? I hate swimming stories. Except, Cheever. Cheever had a good one. After Cheever, people should've stopped writing swimming stories.

yrs, JC

August 20, 2007

I received this e-mail from Joco right after he saw this FANSITE for the FIRST TIME!!!!!

You're a genius, and I am your muse. Everything about me, through you, is pure art. I am Dante Gabriel to your Rosetti! I am David to your Mike De'Angelo. Truly, I am Zelda to your Fitzgerald!

You are a funny, talented, anti-semitic man. A funny, funny Jew-hating, Jew-baiting bundle of laughs and talent. I am pleased to have you in the tenth circle of my acquaintances."