There's a Christmas Party in my Pants

Christmas is upon us. It’s been approaching for some time, but we’ve all tried to wish it away, plug our fingers in our ears and hum “The Monster Mash” to keep ourselves from having to deal with it, but it didn’t work. Christmas has been stalking us for months, in the form of “The Little Drummer Boy” as sung by Jewel on the local iPod shuffle station,and it’s been tracking our scent with it’s festive nose with signs that read “Chrismuss Trees 4 Sale” on 82nd Ave.

And now, it’s found us.

Christmas is upon us, indeed.

And after it’s ripped apart our flesh, swallowed our brains and chewed on our entrails, it’ll calmly stroll away, leaving bloody footprints, leaving our mangled corpse to the hungry carrion birds, content for another year.

Okay, I still haven’t got all my shopping done, I’m a little tense. Frankly, I wish I could just bypass this whole Christmas thing and get right to New Year’s Eve. Now there’s a real holiday. Why can’t there be more booze-related holidays? Trying to limit my serious bingeing to New Year’s Eve, July 4th, President’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Flag Day, Boxing Day, and Isaac Aasimov’s birthday just gets harder each year.

But I digress.

The OTR Institute is here to help all those unfortunate whelps that may find themselves in the same perdicament as I with our first annual OTR Institute Gift Buying Guide. This guide will allow you to give the unique gifts that people always talk about when you’re not around. The kind of gifts that ensure it will find it’s way to the back of the closet in the bathroom, and virtually guarantee that you won’t even be invited next year, so you won’t have to worry about buying another gift! Think of the money you’ll save!

So without further ado:

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The OTR Institute 2005 Christmas Gift Guide for the Unique of Mind and Limited of Imagination:

The Electric Marshmallow Toaster ($19.99)



There are numerous products available on the internet (several of which appear on the 2005 OTR Gift Guide) that engender a response like that of our rock n’ roll “chaos theory” professor Dr. Malcolm in Jurassic Park. “You were all too busy trying to find if you could, you never stopped to think about whether or not your should.”

The Electric Marshmallow Toaster from Wiching Fish is a perfect example of this mentality. It would seem the creators of this fine product saw the four foot long hickory stick, used effectively to this end since the invention of the marshmallow, was seen as too cumbersome and graceless, causing them to opt for a more technologically superior solution.

Favorite quote from product description: “As seen in Wired magazine!”

The Peter Potty ($39.99)



Frankly, children scare me. The responsibility, their helplessness, their dependence on you as an adult, all of this terrifies me. Not as much, however, as their fluids. And perhaps, the only thing more fearsome than their actual fluids, are the bizarre plastic things people construct to store them: that’s right I’m talking about the potty.

The potty is a thing of the past, ladies and gentlemen, I introduce The Peter Potty!

The Peter Potty is a urinal for your young boy. Now he can go just like daddy, all over the floor!!

Favorite line from the product description: “…as parents fight against super-absorbent diapers…”

Urban Asshole Notification Cards ($7.50 for a box of 10)



Imagine that you’re walking down the sidewalk in a large, metropolitan area. You pass the exit from a parking lot, and get your ass bumped by a fuck-wad in a brand new Audi TT roadster that wasn’t even paying attention.

My pal Meghan would simply spit on the hood. If you, however, are not inclined to spit, or perhaps the dry, winter air has robbed you of that wonderful revenge juice, you would casually reach into your pocket to withdraw a piece of colorful paper, make a few scribbles with your trusty pen, and hand the driver of that car one of these.

“Congratulations, You’re an Asshole…. Let’s Discuss Why.”

Favorite line from the product description: “Assholes rarely know why they are the way they are…”

The Poops-A-Daisy ($18.95)



Do you ever read those disturbing new stories about some family’s loving cocker spaniel turning on the youngest kid for a reason no one can identify. Now we know why.

The “poopsadaisy” is like a fanny pack for your dog’s neck. What goes in the fanny pack? You guessed it, POOP!

You try and tell me that you wouldn’t snap and bite someone’s face off if they made you walk around with a bag full of your own shit tied around your neck.

Favorite line from the product description: “The Poopsadaisy’sTM patented two-pocket design will safely hold the dog's 'business'”

The MP3 Breast Implant (Price Currently Unavailable)



Admittedly, this one is still in the works, but the idea of a breast implant that plays my favorite tunes is simply too alluring. You gotta wonder if the storage capacity will be associated with the cup size…

Favorite line from the product description: “…pleasing alternative to the iPod selector wheel…”

The Dream Helmet ($29.95)



Have you ever wanted to be entirely sure that everyone on the plane you’re with thinks you’re an asshole, retard, or worse? Well, then have I got the product for you!

When a pillow or a strategically placed blanket just won’t cut it, and you’ve got thirty dollars just burning it’s way out of your pocket, you need The Dream Helmet!

The Dream Helmet is a specially designed moron-indicator and sleep aid guaranteed to provide you with the best sleep you’ve ever had on an airplane. And if you play your cards right, you may get free pudding and some flight wings form the helpful crew!

Favorite line from the product description: “The Dreamhelmet... is worth its weight in psychotropic drugs”

Poop Freeze ($8.95)



What is it about pet owners that seem to attract the most bizarre and disguisting produtcts?

You ever reached down to pick up a fresh pile of dog poop, only to have it squish in your hands like so much jello pudding?

Introducing Poop-Freeze! This patented and secret blend of aerosol, CFC’s, liquid nitrogen, herbs and spices allows you to freeze that poop, making it safe and pleasant to handle, no gloves required!

Favorite line from the product description: “a specially formulated aerosol freeze spray that, upon contact, forms a frosty film on dog poop”

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I hope this first annual OTR Institute Gift Guide had been helpful and informative. I wish you all the merriest of all possible Christmases, and the happiest of all possible New Years.

Also, if you're looking for gifts for that special prostitute in your life, may I recommend www.whorepresents.com.

And if anyone is still banging their heads about what to get for me this year, in thanks for a supendous year of editorial blitzkrieg here at the OTR Institiute, I’ve still got many empty spots on my Christmas List.

But please, no more ties.

We're Talking Baseball...

I have a friend named Tommy Stive Gomez. No, that’s not a typo, his middle name is really Stive. Believe me, he’s not Scandanavian. Why his middle name is Stive is a story for another time.

My pal Tommy has a problem: He hates being sick. He doesn’t just hate it, he haaaaates it. He loathes it with a passion. He hates it, not just because being sick makes you achy, sniffly, and feel like shit, he hates it the most because some random outside force, namely the organism that is infecting his body, is dictating how he’s supposed to behave. Go to bed, his body says. Have some soup and chill, his achy muscles and stuffy nose beg of him. Tommy will hear none of it.

Now, Tommy is your average guy, he likes to drink a cold brew with some pals, occasionally raise some hell, but he’s just like the rest of us, he has his limit, but not when he’s sick.

When Tommy gets sick, he gets resentful. He hates the fact that he’s not supposed to go out and get drunk, and stay up all night and smoke opium out of a rusty spray paint can, so that’s exactly what he does. He drinks, he smokes, he has unprotected sex with parking meters. He does it all, just for the purpose of showing that microscopic, non-sentient organism he can.

It may not even be what he WANTS to do, but since his body is trying to tell him not to, and he’s knows he shouldn’t, he knows he should bow to the will of his disease and get some sleep, he’s gone get tore up.

Sometimes I feel that’s how the City of Portland handles its budget meetings. They know they shouldn’t, hell the almost can’t, but they’re gonna just cuz they’s not supposed to.

In case you guys haven’t heard, the City of Portland, “The Rose City,” the ever-so-ironically-called “City that Works,” is trying to woo the disenfranchised Florida Marlins to its moist shores. While words cannot describe how bad an idea this is, I’ll certainly try my best.

I’m not a big fan of sports in general, and four years of living within earshot of Fenway Stadium, baseball ranks pretty low on my list. (I once asked a guy in a NY Yankees jersey why he was peeing in the azaleas in front of my apartment complex, and he turned his half-opened eyes to me, pointed to his stream of kidney juice and said, “This is what I think of Boston!”)

Despite my own personal reservations, the City of Portland, a city I’ve grown to love and hate with equal fervor, simply cannot afford to build a fucking baseball stadium, end of story. And since everyone likes lists so damned much, I’ve compiled a list of reasons why:

1. The $15 million aerial tram that OHSU convinced the city to build three years ago, has become a $40 million dollar tram before ground has even been broken.

2. The City of Portland, in all their wisdom, has seen fit to pay for the campaigns of all Portland City Commissioners. A cost, I might add, imposed upon the city taxpayers without so much as a single vote from the public. Ironcially, it’s called "Voter Owned Elections."

3. Portland Public Schools is spending million of dollars to build a new school at the Columbia housing projects, EVEN THOUGH private parties offered to build the school FOR FREE!



4. Instead of paying the same property tax rate I pay, the owner of a $700,000 downtown condo in the swankiest area of town, The Pearl District, only has to pay about $200. You want to tell me Bush gives tax cuts to the rich?

5. In Portland’s decadent commitment to be as much like a cheeky European, limp-wristed, vertical-stripe wearing, no bathing, nancy-pants couture city as possible, they’ve ripped up downtown, and installed a comically ineffecient light-rail system that moves less than %1 of Portland commuters for about $100 million per mile of track.

6. In reference to item #5, the city is also trying to structure downtown to be more “pedestrian friendly,” which is another term for “car un-friendly.” This action, which has burdened already struggling businesses with enormous taxes, has further decreased the amount of people that go downtown to do ANYTHING, leading to fewer businesses downtown, more vacant office space than Portland has seen since the 70’s, and less income for the city.

7. For fuck’s sake, Multnomah County has yet to even open the BRAND NEW JAIL they just built, even though the other jails in the area are so full, convicts are being “matrixed out” at a rate not seen in history.

8. Bending over and grabbing the ankles for the wacked out environmental-nut-job mouth-breathers that stalk the streets of this city, Portland decided to pay TWO TIMES the amount a normal roof would cost, to cover the Portland and Multnomah County Building with a special, granola-based, soy-derived, hippy roof.

9. Portland is still paying for the renovation of PGE Park! A park that no one ever fucking goes to!

11. Portland has COUNTY FUNDED ACUPUNCTURE CLINICS!!!!

10. Whoever wants this fucking stadium, you get the money together and build it your goddamned selves.

OTR Institute Sociological Survey #2

Which do you think is creepier?



A) The hair
B) The teeth
C) The eyebrows
D) The earrings
C) The fact that this person is a municipal employee
D) The way his eyes follow you as you move around your
computer monitor

Read the story here...

Come All Ye Faithful

“It is happening again…” – The Giant.

I knew it was only a matter of time. We all knew, really. With the amazing ability of the human mind to convince itself of any foregone reality, it will continue to happen until we get Budweiser to stop using poison dart frog juice in their wort mixture.

Ladies and gentleman, if you needed, here it is. Proof of the existence of God. Well, maybe not of God,, perhaps just of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, that guy that claimed to be his son.

Jesus of Nazareth, a.k.a. Jesus Christ, The Messiah, The King of the Jews, The Lamb of God, The One True Light, has made his presence known. He has pierced the veil between our worlds, and delivered a message of hope to his flock, in these troubled times.

And where else in the world would The Great, Merciful and Benevolent Lord Jesus, who sits at the Right hand of God, in all his splendor and glory and forgiveness, and fruit bats and breakfast cereals, make his presence know, but in Texas. And where else in Texas would he choose to convey his message, seeing all the corruption in the churches, and synagogues, and temples, and old folks homes and public schools and pizza parlors and trailer parks, but on the tailgate of a 1992 Ford Ranger pickup. Forest green, of course.

Jesus Christ, the savior of mankind, he that was born to die for the sins of man, he who has redeemed us and allowed us to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, has, in all his wisdom, made his face known to the faithful, and they rejoice.



Of course, they don’t seem perturbed by the fact that no one knows for sure what Jesus looked like. None of the 150+ “pilgrims” seems particularly concerned by the fact that this image really only vaguely resembles the western cultures’ iconic image of Jesus, the one we routinely see on hologram key chains and collectible plates.

But the truly unfortunate thing is that no one seems concerned that this really isn’t the image of Jesus Christ. They are so blinded by their faith, they are willing to ignore the undeniable truth, staring them in the face like a mud stain on the back of a truck.

That’s a picture of Destro.



Destro, high in the pantheon of G. I. Joe villains, in all his wisdom and glory, has finally chosen to make his presence known. By revealing his face on the back of this truck in Texas, he is reassuring us, in this troubled time that we need not fear. We needn’t fear Islamo-fascism, nor Communist China, we need not even fear invasion from outer space.

We must only fear the iron-fisted rule of Cobra.

These are, indeed, the end times. Soon we will witness the other signs of the apocalypse: Cobra Commander’s serpentine hiss will be heard over the loudspeaker at a very important Manchester United football game, Tomax and Xamot will be spotted shopping for matching Skechers at the Filene’s Basement in Cleveland, and finally The Baroness herself will run for Water and Sewer Commisioner of San Miquel County, New Mexico under the Green Party ticket.

Didn't you always assume the end of all life, freedom and happiness in the world would somehow involve the Green Party?

Repent, ye infidels. Abandon your puny hopes of salvation from that pathetic group of do-gooders, G. I. Joe. Not even they, with their wicked-cool gadgets and unquenchable desire to “do the right thing” and “knowing is half the battle” can save you now!

In the name of the Emperor, the Commander and our Serpentor Lord, Amen.

The Unbearable Coldness of Onion Rings

I love humanity, but I hate people. It seems no matter how incredibly disappointed I become in the actions of some of the humans on this planet, some other depressing story hits the news wires and I sink just a little lower. That group of guys that beat their neighbor’s daughter’s pet pygmy goat to death with sticks to sell the meat for cocaine, the Muslims that successfully won a lawsuit to ban Winnie the Pooh piglet dolls from their workplace, just about ANY news story involving Ingrid Newkirk. And list just goes on. A few more stories like those and I’ll be officially applying to be a member of whatever species Jackie Stallone is.



But funny factoids, everybody loves them. Especially, it seems, if they’re not true. Like the urban legend that the day of the Superbowl features the highest number of domestic abuse complaints, or that the day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year.

Well, here’s a little factoid for you people, and you can take this one to the bank.

What day of the year features the highest number of calls to 911 Emergency Dispatch?

The day after Christmas.

Why the day after Christmas, you ask? Well, grab that mouthpiece and start squeezing that stress pillow because I’m about to tell you.

Everyone wants to test out their new cell phones, and apparently, that’s the only number they can skim off the top of their pointy little heads.



The abuse of the most important emergency service in this country has gotten a bit out of control. Just do a preliminary search online and you’ll find endless stories about people calling 911 because the guy that cleaned their carpets at the car wash left muddy footprints on the back seat, or some guy was yelling at his dog. I even found a story about a man that called 911 and asked them to connect him to Switzerland. I also found a story about a woman that called 911 and asked for the police to go by her ex-boyfriend’s house and see if there were any cars in his driveway other than his own.

I know these people don’t read this blog. Frankly, I’m certain these people can’t even read. But for the love of all that is true and right and reproducible in a controlled laboratory environment, you people have got to stop! It gets worse every year, which is no surprise, because more and more people get cellphones each year. Is this really the only number you can think of? Holy fucking shit!

As if the New Orleans Saints weren’t enough, a woman in Thibodeaux, LA decided to further shame the state of Louisiana by calling 911 in response to the life-threatening emergency of being served cold onion rings.

So spread the word everybody. When you get served cold onion rings, get cut off on the highway, stub your toe on the edge of your dresser on a cold morning, find a pile of cat puke on your bathroom floor, or notice the guy at Burger King handling the lettuce without gloves, try to keep your hand away from the cell phone. If you get cornered by Jackie Stallone, though, you call that number.

I always really hate it when bloggers blog about not having enough time to blog. It seems so self-centered and egotistical, as if the world is waiting with bated breath for your mind-numbing analysis of the most recent Spyro the Dragon video game or latest presidential speech.

What I hate even more, however, is when bloggers blog in apology for not blogging, imagining their handful of readers gnashing their teeth and pulling their hair for lack of their quasi-weekly retort on this week’s episode of “Lost.”

As they say, you always become what you hate.

My life has been a mess lately. I’m very busy doing spy-type things all over the state, and frankly my duties involve visiting the houses of far too many nefarious individuals shaking and sweating as they recount their obvious lies of injuries and loss. The funny part is when I ask them if I can take a photo of their injuries, and they lift up their shirts, point to a virgin patch of skin and remark, "Healed up real nice, didn't it?"

My lovely wife and I have also been busy in preparation of the final arrival of Luke of Useless and Pointless Knowledge and his beautiful wife Lindsey. Their lumpy, oversized, squishy, basketball shaped kitty will be tucked under their arms when they arrive. I can only hope his presence hasn’t increased their gas costs too far over the projections.



In any case, I’m working on several great pieces that feature the boundless humor, scathing insight and gratuitous laughs at other people’s expense that all five of my readers have come to love. Especially you, Mom.

Tomorrow, however, I have to drive to Bend to photograph the floor underneath some woman’s refrigerator. If you’re luck, maybe I’ll post those photos.

"Oh, I Have Slipped the Surly Bonds of Earth..."

"...Put out my hand, and touched the face of god."

Last week, I drove to Madras, OR to perform an inspection of the scene of a traffic accident.. The collision occurred on highway 26 between Warm Springs and Madras, in the treacherous and unnerving twists and turns of the highway as it climbs out of the Willamette Valley, headed towards the High Desert of Central Oregon.

The highway features no shoulder on either side, opting for a direct drop of about 3,000 feet on one side and the impressive presence of a sheer rock face on the other, only about three feet from the edge of the road. The highway twists and turns and grades up and down, until I found myself at the location of the collision, mile marker 110.

Immediately off on my right side, I found a very convenient turn off where I could park and have plenty of room to do my investigation. I was measuring this, photographing that and generally trying to figure out what the heck happened (and debating whether to pee in that empty Mountain Dew bottle) when I turned around and saw this.



Now you just try and tell my I don’t live in god’s own country.

For a boy from the flatlands of Louisiana, it still amazes me that the Earth is capable of such things.

From my house, If I head west, in 2 ½ hours, I’ll be on the beach. If I head southeast, in one hour I’ll be in the mountains. If I go a little further, I’ll be in the desert.

I would like to officially tender an open invitation to anyone interested in seeing this beauty first-hand. You get your ass up here, and I’ll take you to Highway 26 Westbound at mile marker 110 and let you gaze upon the wonder of Mount Hood, as seen from the south side.

I would also be willing to do it in exchange for some skiing lessons.

Doesn't "Shame Flute" Sound Like a Gay Metal Band?

Until about the 16th century, before the age of large, modern prisons, public humiliation was often used by local communities to punish minor crimes and sinful acts. Imprisonment, while it certainly existed, was usually reserved as a form of coercion rather than chastisement.

The tools of public humiliation show the limitless expanse of human imagination, especially when combined with the conviction of divine province and having way too much time on your hands, which priests and busybodies invariably do.

Various “masks of shame” can be seen in museums across Eastern Europe, each depicting the wearer's transgressions: pig masks for slovenly and unkempt men, dragon masks with long ears and flicking tongues for gossiping women, even “dunce masks” for dim-witted children. Giant rosaries, weighing as much as 20 pounds, were forced upon the necks of people that did not meet the requirement of compulsory church attendance, and fools and braggarts had sit upon the “donkey of shame,” a rocking mule made of iron, in the village square while the other villagers hurled insults and probably rotten vegetables.



Public humiliation was not only a form of punishment, but also a manner of entertainment. Two women who habitually quarreled were strapped into a “quarrel violin” together in the center of town and only allowed release when they’d settled their differences. Needless to say, these exchanges provided endless entertainment to the other villagers.

My favorite, however, is the “shame flute.” Unlike the other implements of humiliation, the “shame flute” was not used as punishment for sins, but was a shame reserved for bad musicians.



Exactly what qualified someone as a “bad musician,” I haven’t the foggiest, but the item is a flute-shaped object with a set of nasty prongs attached to the top and mean looking loop at the mouthpiece. The “flute” was hung around the offender’s neck and his fingers locked into the prongs, and he was then forced to parade around town enduring the jeers of the villagers.

Suffering and humiliation, much like violence, is part of the human experience, and when it’s absent, people will subconsciously seek it out. From “rubbernecks” that slow down traffic on the highway for the chance at seeing some poor slob getting frisked by a highway patrol officer to the morons that invariably gather outside courthouses to shout insults at has-been celebrities when they get nabbed for distributing child pornography, these people reflect the wanton desires with which we all contend.

What better way to appease these deep-seated desires than in the privacy of your own home? The success of “caught on tape” shows are evidence that watching a grown man get hit in the crotch by a bat-wielding four-year-old provides the same catharsis as throwing rotten turnips at the local gossip hound.

There is no better example of the ingrained human need to see others suffer and be humiliated than the success of reality television. Watching some asshole who hasn’t showered in twelve weeks eat a rat on national television, all for the prospect of a million dollars, gives the viewers what they really want: suffering and humiliation.

The Biggest Loser, America’s Next Top Model, Fear Factor, The Apprentice, The Surreal Life, The Swan and countless others are shows, when you strip away the stupid games, the backbiting and ad spots, that are focused on exposing the flaws and ultimately humiliating the contestants, all for a shot at a great job, expensive plastic surgery, or a whole lot of money.



In Japan, instead of rewarding knowledge, ther game shows punish ignorance with electric shocks and dumping contestants into tanks of live eels. Do you think people watch that show to see who knows the annual rainfall of Kobe? One popular program, a show called Ironman, is truly all about pure physical pain. The contestant that can endure the most, wins. The first round features about one hundred men in an Olympic-size swimming pool, underwater, breathing through straws. The host of the program walks around the pool with a bag of cayenne pepper, tossing shovels full into the water and into the straws of the contestants. If you stand up, you’re disqualified, and it only gets worse from there.

Reality television in America has reached its crescendo and is finally on the wane. For the first time in almost five years, the majority of the programs being touted by the major networks have actually written by human beings and don’t feature anyone eating rats (although I heard Keifer eats a severed toe in a Turkish prison in season 5 of 24).

I never liked reality television, except for Fear Factor (something about a Playboy Bunny in a tank of stinking, gelatinous lampreys makes me feel warm inside), but I could always respect it. The greatest aspect of a capitalist society is that it’s not only profitable, but morally right to give people what they want, and what they want is humiliation.

The reason this part of our primitive brain is so starved is because of the lowered standards and political correctness that surrounds us. We all see it in our public schools. It’s not fair to humiliate Billy with a failing grade because he’s a junior in high school and thinks Napoleon Bonaparte was a really great movie (GAWD!) No, Billy’s not stupid, he’s just “differently-abled!”



You know what, Billy’s a fucking moron! Billy once tried to piss in some guys’ gas tank and got his dick caught in the vapor trap!

In a recent poll, high school students across the country agreed that if the standards and expectations put to them by their teachers and parents would increase, so would their productivity.

Liz Beattie, a former teacher, went before the British Teacher’s Association suggesting to have the word “failure” removed from the school system, in favor of the far less demoralizing phrase “deferred success.”

Oh, give me a fucking break.

Of course Howard Dean thinks it’s a good idea, that fucking ponce.

Success and failure are part of being a human, just like the violence and the humiliation and the bizarre sexual tendencies towards squirrels. To live on the planet Earth requires that you deal with assholes, that you be responsible for your own actions and that you use your fucking blinker when you change lanes.

You like reality television because you like to see other people suffer, especially really pretty people. You like making fun of Billy because he’s a fucking moron. Don’t deny your own nature, and don’t be ashamed of it, except for that squirrel thing, that’s just weird.

"Those obstinate questionings, Of sense and outward things..."

OTR Institute Sociological Survey #1:

This is a question aimed at anyone that’s slept in the same bed with a member of the opposite sex. Nothing against homosexuals, I’m just fairly certain my little brother doesn’t read this blog anyway.

Question: Who sleeps closer to the door of your bedroom, you or your significant other?

(please specify sex.)

If there is a specific reason for this arrangement (i.e. security, closest to the alarm, he smells, etc.) please enlighten us.


Kindly submit your answer to the "Comments" link below.

The Ultimate Prey: Mankind

It’s always startling when the bizarre ideas of science fiction authors become reality. It’s been said that Arthur C. Clarke predicted modern cellular communications, first in his 1945 concept paper “Extra-Terrestrial Relays,” and again in his 1968 novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. In Runaround, published 1942, Isaac Asimov envisioned the basic tenets under which artificial intelligence would be designed, the “Three Basic Laws of Robotics,” and he’s even credited with coining the term “robotics.” It took years for Robert Heinlein to find a publisher for his first novel Rocket Ship Galileo (1947) because most critics believed that a manned expedition to the Moon was simply too outlandish, even for science fiction.

As a kid, when I first introduced to the works of these great masters, I was always flummoxed when I’d flip back to the first page and see when the book I was cradling in my hands was first published. “The Big Three”, however, were not the only sci-fi authors I read, Larry Niven, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, Douglas Adams, Kevin Anderson, Timothy Zahn, William Gibson and others also found their way into my hands. My memories are filled with the bizarre scenarios, technology and predictions for the future of mankind of all of these lunatics, each one crazier and seemingly less likely than the other. William Gibson, however, has a track record.

In 1984, Gibson published Neuromancer and made a splash in the science fiction world as being the first book to win the Hugo, Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards in the same year. Neuromancer became a short-lived best-seller, and copies of his only other published work, a book of short stories titled Burning Chrome (1982) also saw an increase in sales. Burning Chrome featured the only work by Gibson that’s yet made it onto the big screen, it was a beautiful and frightening tale of danger and regret that was urinated upon by the executives of Tri-Star and pounded into a steaming pile of celluloid, Johnny Mnemonic, a film which, after I spit on the floor at it’s mention, I will not reference again.

In the story, Johnny is a “data smuggler” who’s dumped a large portion of his brain (ironically, his memories) to install a wet-ware hard drive, enabling him to safely transport sensitive data undetected. As the story opens, we discover that Johnny has been loaded with more data than he can handle, but the guy that’s got the decryption code is looking to make him dead. Johnny falls in with a dangerously cool bodyguard named Molly that thinks she knows someone that can help Johnny get the information out of his head before the synaptic leakage does permanent damage.

'Navy stuff,' she said, and her grin gleamed in the shadows. 'Navy stuff. I got a friend down here who was in the navy, name's Jones. I think you'd better meet him. He's a junkie, though. So we'll have to take him something.'

'A junkie?'

'A dolphin.'

He was more than a dolphin, but from another dolphin's point of view he might have seemed like something less. I watched him swirling sluggishly in his galvanized tank. Water slopped over the side, wetting my shoes. He was surplus from the last war. A cyborg.

He rose out of the water, showing us the crusted plates along his sides, a kind of visual pun, his grace nearly lost under articulated armor, clumsy and prehistoric. Twin deformities on either side of his skull had been engineered to house sensor units. Silver lesions gleamed on exposed sections of his gray-white hide.

Molly whistled. Jones thrashed his tail, and more water cascaded down the side of the tank.

'What is this place?' I peered at vague shapes in the dark, rusting chain link and things under tarps. Above the tank hung a clumsy wooden framework, crossed and recrossed by rows of dusty Christmas lights.

'Funland. Zoo and carnival rides. "talk with the War Whale." All that. Some whale Jones is...'

Jones reared again and fixed me with a sad and ancient eye.

The cool idea here is that this dolphin, Jones, had been equipped with a device that would allow him to pinpoint, intercept, and manipulate the data from the computers on enemy warships, right through the hull. The Navy trained the dolphins, and kept them under control by hooking them on smack.

Is it the strangest thing you’ve ever heard? Then check this out:


Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 [dolphins] could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing.

Here I am, a wayward scuba diver, careening through the underwater world I love so much and enjoying the little fishes that rub on my legs like a lonely kitty when her owner gets home. It’s quiet, and serene and I’ve finally been able to put the images of my destroyed home in Gulfport to the back of my brain, and just enjoy my hobby. Oh look, it’s a bottlenose dolphin! These mighty kings of the sea are so majestic, how I relish their hospitality and playfulness! That is, UNTIL THE MOTHERFUCKER SHOOTS ME IN THE NECK WITH A POISON DART!!

There are armed, military trained, and possibly mentally unstable dolphins patrolling the Gulf Coast of the United States. We have a problem here.

But, like any great news reporter, we have to look past the story being told, no matter how huge, and find the story that’s not being told: What other species have our military armed with deadly weapons? Where have their twisted minds, obsessed with killing taken them and their bizarre experiments?



Can we expect to see chimpanzees swinging from tree to tree with Uzis tucked into Army issue belts? Have they recruited grizzly bears for the sole purpose of installing missile launchers on their hairy backs? Can you imagine the devastating power of a swarm of angry bees, each drone and worker carrying a tiny little rifle?

Hamsters with nun-chucks, pigeons with bazookas, cows packing nuclear arsenals in undisclosed stomachs… the possibilities are harrowing.

When next you see someone you don’t recognize walking a badger in your neighborhood, you should think twice. Was that a knife you saw, clutched in that squat creature’s paw? Perhaps you’ll never turn your back on your dog ever again, perhaps you’ll sleep with one eye on your fish tank, perhaps the next time your cat draws blood during a rousing game of “eat my hand,” you’ll wonder if it really was an accident.



You’ll wonder where little Chairman Meow was those few weeks he went missing last year, and why he came home smelling of whiskey and shoe polish. Why did he watch that Army football game so intently last week, when all this time you thought he was a Utah fan?



Where did this little bottle of chloroform come from?

God gave to man dominion over the beasts of the Earth, and it would seem they intend to take it back. Ironically, they have convinced our greatest military forces to give them the skills and weaponry that they will use to destroy us.

The squirrels have already begun the offensive, with guerrilla tactics and night raids on unsuspecting Americans.



The evidence is everywhere, will you take up arms against the neighbor's dog?

The Only Post On the Internet Featuring Sontag, Schroedinger, Socrates and NASCAR

In 1966, Susan Sontag, writer and activist, wrote a profoundly important essay about art in the 20th century. “Against Interpretation” postulated that interpreting the deep-seated meaning and value of a work of art not only diminished its value, but that the act of interpretation utterly negated the act of expression. Her point, not unlike the theory of Schroedinger’s Cat, in that the act of explication, interpretation and analysis destroys the potential of true expression in the same way the act of opening the box, not the poison, results in the death of the cat. To measure is to destroy potential. “The function of criticism,” she wrote, “should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”

Susan Sontag was a nut bag, but she was a smart nut bag. She saw the value of the mystery, the purpose of simple expression, and saw life and art as some would interpret the artistic endeavors of the Impressionists: hurried glances, blurred, remnant images of moving, breathing life. To analyze is to stifle. To interpret is to categorize. It’s enough to simply say what it is, who the fuck are you to say what it means?

Socrates said the unexamined life was not worth living, and there are loads of people that say he was pretty smart (except, perhaps, in his choice of beverages). What he meant was that without constant revision and re-evaluation, one can never know for certain the endeavors one undertakes are worthwhile, important or “right.”

The question remains, however, doesn’t an individual, within the confines of reason and law, personally determine “right?”

I think the logic of Sontag should apply, not just to the evaluation of art and expression, but also to the subject of art itself. If art imitates life, can’t the same quantifying structures be applied to both?

Our society is filled with self-important, egotistical asshats, sitting on their cedar decks, sipping Cape Cods and chomping on pita chips smeared with olive tapenade, saying with no reservation that anyone that hasn’t read Joyce's "Ulysses” does not posses a life worth living. These are the same folks that think Harry Potter books are “annoying” because EVERYONE talks about them, and keep talking about “the children.” These are the very ones that make vague political statements like “can’t wait for ‘08” in polite conversation, assuming that every person in the room MUST agree with them, right?

You must agree, you read “Ulysses,” haven’t you?

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The mystery of the world is in the visible, not the invisible.” – Oscar Wilde

On Friday, September 30th, at 6:30 P.M., I will be boarding Delta Airlines flight 297 to Salt Lake City. After a two-hour layover, I will board Delta flight 1231 to Cincinnati. Once there, I will rush down the hall of terminals of domestic flights, hoping to catch flight 5119 to Birmingham, which arrives at 8:00 AM on October 1st. Armed with my Gameboy Advance SP sporting “Zelda: A Link to the Past,” a fresh Dinesh D’Souza novel, and possibly a wayward issue of “Hellblazer,” I will undertake this endeavor for one purpose: NASCAR.



The simplest pleasures in life include beer, pizza, whiskey, a little more beer, probably some boudin and watching a bunch of bombs on wheels careening down the Talladega Super Speedway turning left after left after left, with family and friends. To be in a stadium filled with thousands of screaming gear-heads, eating chilidogs and comparing beer bellies, this is catharsis; this is a life worth living.

No pretension, no assumption, no delusion.

So fuck those assholes. Tell them they should take a page from Susan Sontag’s book, and stop worrying about living “right,” and just get on with living. Then tell them “Ulysses” was a stream-of-consciousness pile of drivel and make them lie and say they got through it all. Then tell them they’d get more pleasure out of “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” because the only reason they don’t like Harry Potter is because they didn’t read them first, and they think they’ll look like chumps reading book two while everyone else is on book six.

"Return to Normalcy," and Other Phrases I Hate.

In fourth grade, my science teacher was Mrs. Gay. (I know, this is endless fodder for a ten-year-old. The really unfortunate thing was that she had an overweight son named Jude that played air-guitar A LOT.) The only thing I remember from that science class, aside from the fact that she pronounced the word “urine,” “YOUR-EEN,” was a pearl of wisdom she shared with us idealistic children. “There is nothing you can think,” she told us one day, the reason why eludes me, “that has not been thought before.”

This was a supremely harrowing and life-changing bit of information. When the truth of that statement socked me hard in the gut, like Joey Ivy had done only a year before, my perception of life and the possibilities of my future took a sudden and cataclysmic turn. I was returned to that moment when I read Fight Club years later, when Tyler was explaining to me that I was not a beautiful and unique snowflake, and I was never going to be famous.

I don’t know what to do at this point. I have so many things to say, but it’s all been said before, by people more involved, more informed and more articulate than I. The news coverage is more and more overbearing, and I find myself less and less interested because they never say anything new. I can only find solace in the fact that all of my family are safe and dry, and many are helping in the recovery. It’s sad to think that New Orleans, a place so close to my heart, will most likely never be the same place I remember, but then, I never spent much time there at all, so perhaps the place I remember never really existed anyway.

I feel no obligation to write anything about the hurricane, the subsequent disasters or the relief operations. I have no desire to congratulate those sacrificing so much to help, or even to expose the opportunistic shit-bags that want to blame this on any one person for the advancement of their own twisted ideologies. Except this once: Fuck you, Phil Busse. If I see you on the street, I’m going to kick you in the neck and put dog poo down your non-branded, non-sweatshop, boot-cut, $80.00 American Apparel corduroy trousers.

Is it time to laugh again? It feels like it’s been so long. Since my “brief departure” to, once again, defer to my betters, things have really taken a turn for the worse, and spirits have been way down, here at the OTR Institute. We, the team and I, fully intend to rectify that solemn situation. There is perhaps no better way than to regale you with the world’s funniest joke:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.

He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"

Okay, so now you’re nice and warmed up, right? What’s next? Shall I point you towards a great story about the testicle-cooking championship in Zagreb, Croatia?

Or shall I mention that there is a 100-square mile “bulge” growing in intensity in southern Oregon. (note: this is most likely unrelated to the child-care facility recently opened by former Portland Mayor and admitted "suffer unto me the little children" enthusiast Neil Goldschmidt.)



No?

Nothing?

I admit, it does seem a little strained.

I tell you what, take one of these, and I’ll call you in the morning.



* “When they slick their hair back, they look nine!”

A phenomenon I encounter so often, as certainly do so many other folks that write and paint and draw and "do" to exorcise those cathartic demons, I find myself humbled to my hands and knees by my betters. Those true writers, wordsmiths and artists that can speak my sentiments far better than my feeble talents will allow.

Reprinted without permission from one of the greatest columnists in the United States, a man that knows and feels more for my homeland than perhaps I am capable, Chris Rose:

Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.

By Chris Rose

I got out.

I'm mystified by the notion that so many people didn't even try, but
that's another story for another time.

We left Saturday, my wife, kids and me. We went first to Picayune,
Miss., thinking that a Category 3 storm would flood New Orleans and knock
out power, but that we'd be dry and relatively comfortable in the piney
woods while the city dried out.

Sunday morning, of course, Katrina was massive red blob on our TV
screens, now a Category 5, so we packed up and left again.

We left my in-laws behind in Picayune. They wouldn't come with us.
Self-sufficient country folk; sometimes you can't tell 'em nothing.

We don't know what happened to them. My wife's dad and her brother and
their families: No word. Only hope.

Like so many people around the country wondering what happened to those
still unaccounted for; we just don't know. That's the hardest part.



If you take the images you've seen on TV and picked up off the radio
and internet, and you try to apply what you know to the people and places
you don't know about, well, the mind starts racing, assumptions are
made and well, it consumes you.

The kids ask you questions. You don't have answers. Sometimes they look
at me and though they don't say it, I can see they're wondering: Daddy,
where are you?

My 6-year-old daughter, she's onto this thing. What is she thinking?

We spent Sunday night in a no-tell motel in a forgotten part of
downtown Vicksburg; a neighborhood teetering between a familiar
antiquated charm and hopeless decay. Truth is, it called to mind my
beloved New Orleans.

Most of the folks in the hotel seem to live there permanently and it
had a hard-luck feel to it. It was the kind of place where your legs
start itching in the bed and you think the worst and you donÂ’t want your
kids to touch the carpet or the tub and we huddled together and I read
them to sleep.

Monday morning, my wife's aunt told us they had a generator in Baton
Rouge. As Katrina marched north and east, we bailed on our sullen little
hotel and drove down along he western ridge of the storm, mostly alone
on the road.

Gas was no problem. We had catfish and pulled pork in a barbeque joint
in Natchez and the folks there - everyone we have met along our
three-day journey has said the same thing: Good luck, folks. We love your
city. Take care of it for us.

Oh, my city. We have spent hours and hours listening to the radio.
Image upon image piling up in your head.



What about school? What about everyone's jobs? Did all our friends get
out? Are there still trees on the streetcar line? What will our economy
be like with no visitors? How many are dead? Do I have a roof? Have the
looters found me yet? When can we go home?

Like I said, it consumes you as you sit helplessly miles from home,
unable to help anyone, unable to do anything.

If I could, what I'd do first is hurt the looters. I'd hurt them bad.

But you have to forget all that. You have to focus on what is at hand,
what you can reach and when you have three little kids lost at sea,
they are what's at hand and what you can reach.

I brought them to a playground in Baton Rouge Tuesday afternoon. They'd
been bottled up for days.

Finally unleashed, they ran, they climbed, they fell down, they fought,
they cried, they made me laugh, they drove me crazy; they did the
things that makes them kids.

It grounds you. You take a breath. You count to ten. Maybe - under the
circumstances - you go to twenty or thirty this time.

And tonight, we'll just read them to sleep again.

We have several books with us because - and this is rich - we brought
on our evacuation all the clothes and things we planned to bring on a
long-weekend trip that we were going to take over Labor Day weekend.

To the beach. To Fort Morgan, right at the mouth of Mobile Bay.

Man.

Instead of that, I put on my sun tan lotion and went out in the yard of
the house where we're staying in Baton Rouge and I raked a massive pile
of leaves and limbs from the yard and swept the driveway.

Doing yard work and hitting the jungle gym on the Day After. Pretending
life goes on. Just trying to stay busy. Just trying not to think. Just
trying not to fail, really.

Gotta keep moving.

See WWL for more photographs.

Katrina: You Bitch

I’m sitting in front of the computer/television/radio/interocitor like the rest of America, waiting for the latest news. I know all this information, to which I’m hopelessly addicted with no chance of recovery, is the very thing that’s causing my feet to stomp and my scalp to itch in nervousness. Despite it all, however, I find myself in awe of humanity in its calmness and its kindness.

With enough warning, most people simply packed up the things they couldn’t replace with mere money and headed north, bound for hotels or the homes of family and friends. They too are glued to all available forms of media, waiting as if the perky weather girl on channel 10 will say, “As you can see here, the home belonging to Mrs. and Mrs. Sonnier in the Irish Channel is just fine.” If anyone panicked, we didn’t hear about it.

Of course there will be idiots, there always are. We’ll have our Falwell-style idiots claiming divine retribution against “The Big Easy” for letting women bare their breasts, men to consume beverages of an intoxicating nature, and for allowing Vinay to roam the streets unencumbered. You’ll also get your standard jihad-screaming loonies claiming a different kind of divine retribution for allowing women to drive cars and smoke cigarettes, listen to rock music and touch chicken feet on some holy Tuesday afternoon, or something stupid like that. The worst of all, because they'll get thrown onto the pile of bad science of global warming, global cooling, and other undecided stuff that gets far too much credibility with far too little evidence, will be the moonbats that see this disaster as evidence of the failure of the President's environmental policy, as if five years of GWB in the white house has caused the Earth to start breaking shit in retribution for so many people voting Republican. Oh, and we can’t forget the assholes: the looters, the crooks and the profiteers. News reports are already hitting the wires of people breaking into Winn-Dixies and department stores around the city.

Did you know the three top-selling items when people are preparing for a hurricane?
1. bottled water
2. beer
3. strawberry pop-tarts



Despite the idiots and assholes, most people, the ones you won’t read about, will simply leave and hope for the best. They are, like me, reading “hurricane blogs” and watching the television at the same time, though in Portland (as I’m sure is the case with the rest of the country) the news coverage is hyperbolic compared the stuff I can read on the local news wires. “New Orleans under 28 feet of water? Find out at 10 o’clock, only on FOX.”

It seems people are more likely to panic at a soccer riot than a genuine disaster, natural or otherwise. When the shit hits the fan, humanity, by and large, puts aside their differences and starts picking up the pieces. After September 11, 2001, while Palestinians danced feverishly in the streets in celebration, Americans lined up to donate blood and write checks to the Red Cross. When the tsunami hit southeast Asia, the United Nations bickered about who was going to pay for it, while U.S. Army helicopters flew in food and water and private American charities, whose contributions to the cause outweighed the donations of every other country on Earth, began preparations to rebuild the devastated villages.

Humanity is amazing in that it can so easily become a force for purposeful and positive change in times of crisis, especially Americans.

Chin up, y’all. Our hopes and manifestations are with you, and I’m just glad to know that my own family and friends are safe. If you have the time and the scrap to spare, donate a few dollars to help those affected by the disaster. Look here for a list of charities and aid organizations already mobilized alongside our National Guard to provide shelter, food, and water to those in need.

Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

Human beings are violent creatures, much like most of the other creatures on Earth. While there are those among us that feel we’ve finally begun to assuage this tendency from our species, the instinctual basis for this characteristic is far from gone. Everything from a granny pinching her disobedient grandchild to the tactical missile strike on an insurgent outpost in Mosul, force is, and will be for a very long time, the most effective and realistic punishment and deterrent we have.

In many ways, however, violence, in its more mundane forms has been minimized, if not eradicated, from our daily lives. The paddling a of a disruptive student, the flogging of a heretic in the public square, and the tarring and feathering of witches, has all fallen by the wayside of history. Unfortunately, the basis for these actions, the pure unadulterated anger from whence these actions came, has not been addressed. Sure, folks don’t get whipped in public anymore, but where does all that public anger go now ( aside from a crazed mob stampeding on innocent women and children for a cheap laptop)?

Human anger and violence is a necessary component of the human experience. We are emotional, irrational at times, and ultimately capable of extreme acts of brutality. This fact has not and will never change, no matter how many peace vigils you attend, burning candles you clutch to your peace-loving bosom or how often you vote for the Green party. Even Ralph Nader certainly has to fight the urge to raise his fist in anger when a well-spoken person in a smart suit starts talking about “free markets” and “consumer choice” and other “founding principles of the greatest and most successful nation on Earth” gobbledygook.

So where does all this aggression go, in this peace-loving 21st century? Aside from the drinking, most of it falls squarely on the shoulders of those that most deserve it: retail customers.

Don’t pretend to be shocked. Don’t pretend you’ve never done it. Don’t pretend you’ve never been tempted spit in that club sandwich, or slip Visine into that Cosmo with a twist (even though the rumor that Visine ingestion will cause the hot poops is a total myth). We all worked retail at some point in our lives, and all of us have experienced customers that made us drop the popcorn scooper on the floor a few more than times than usual, and then rub it on our junk a few times for good measure.

A friend once told me about working at an upscale restaurant on Boston’s swanky Newbury St. strip. He was waiting on a table of obnoxious middle-aged women, all going on about the diets they had all recently started, how much money they’d spent that day and how they’d love to have the duck but it would go straight to their thighs. After the meal, they wouldn’t leave, and kept asking my friend to bring them pitcher after pitcher of water, “Do you have Fiji? No? Evian then, maybe fill half the pitcher with ice, and can you cut some lemons? Not those on the bar, those have been out all day, can you cut come fresh?” They just kept drinking water, positively gushing about how good it was for you and how they ALL drank at least ten glasses a day, while everyone in the restaurant rolled their eyes in unison. That afternoon, these four women drank eight pitchers of water, but what they’ll never know is that pitchers 3-8 were painstakingly filled from the toiletbowl in the men’s restroom.



LaChania Goven called her cable company to complain about poor channel reception, but was transferred back and forth between customer service reps and was eventually disconnected. When she called again, in a real tiff, she was transferred to a rep that only spoke Spanish, a language LaChania does not understand. What she did understand, however, was when she got her cable bill that following month, and it was addressed to “Bitch Dog.”

“”I was like ‘you gotta be freaking kidding me.’” Said Govan, 25. “I was so mad, I couldn’t even cuss.””

LaChania has subsequently cancelled her service from Comcast.

In a related story, People’s Energy of Chicago has been sending bills addressed to Jefferoy “Scrotum Bag” Barnes for almost three months. The odd thing is that Jefferoy has never made any complaint against his energy company. Needless to say, Jefferoy is currently consulting with an attorney to see if he’s entitled to any monetary damages, though I can’t imagine how he would be.



In defense of all the schleps that pour our coffee, sling our eggs and mix our drinks, they put up with a lot from the jerks they’re duty-bound to serve, and they deserve the right to vent their frustration once in a while. We’ve all been in that position, and many of us still are. So don’t cause a fuss when the dessert-spoon you get has been all snotted up. Don’t make a scene when your cheeseburger arrives as more of a “feces-burger.” You probably did something pretty bad for your cell phone bill to be addressed to Luke “Has Sex with the Corpses of Farm Animals” Sonnier, and it’s way better than a punch in the face.

Fucking Update

The town of Fucking, Austria has released another statement to the English-speaking world: Good luck stealing our Fucking signs, now!

Do the Residents Call Themselves "Fuckers?"

The concept of profanity is one that has always interested me greatly. The fact that a word, a sound or combination of sounds that symbolizes a meaning, can cause offense, simply because of the pleasantries of a particular society, is simply astounding. Discussing the subject with my boss, an Englishman hailing from Liverpool, he volunteered a supremely nasty English euphemism for poor, unwashed and generally disliked foreigners: wogs. The word derives from the heady days of Queen Victoria’s grand British Empire, when a single woman ruled over nearly a quarter of the human population and %33 of the Earth itself. This era of unprecedented imperial expansion, know ironically as “Pax Britannica,” was also marked by Britian’s subjugation of numerous “less-advanced” races and peoples for the purposes of physical labor. Today, we call these unfortunate souls “slaves.”

The poor bastards were required, with the help of British technology (mainly the muskets pointed at their backs) to build the infrastructure needed to make the land they called home worthy of forceful suppression by the British Empire. While on the job, these workers were sometimes required to wear green jackets with the letters “WOG” written in big white letters on their backs, meaning “Worker of the Government.”



Thankfully though, much like the employees of the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, free range was given as to what kind of shoes they could wear.

When Crispin, my boss, was explaining this interesting bit of history, he seemed to flinch each time the story required him to say the word “wog.” This term is so offensive, and caused him such discomfort, that he eventually started referring to the word as, “Well, you know.” In an effort to communicate the gravity of the word, he said, without a moment’s hesitation, “It’s sort of like the American word “nigger,” but a little worse.” Despite my best efforts, the surprise of hearing my quaint English boss say the word “nigger” caused me to flinch, while it caused Crispin no discomfort at all.

The word “wog” means nothing to me, much like the word “nigger” means nothing to Crispin, much the like the word “fuck” means nothing to a Japanese person, while the word “kusottare” means nothing to the rest of us. (Except, of course, I had to ask a Japanese friend for a bad Japanese word for the sake of this blog entry.)

The concept of profanity is clearly arbitrarily defined not just by cultural traditions, but also by fashion and modern culture. One of my favorite television programs of all time is Penn & Teller’s “Bullshit!” The reason they named the show “Bullshit!” is not just because it’s patently offensive and bound to get some attention, but also because it perfectly communicates the attitude of the show and its hosts regarding things like Feng Shui, UFO abductions, recycling, PETA and even profanity. Another reason the show is called “Bullshit!” is because of Harry Houdini.

Houdini, later in life, committed himself to debunking the modern fad of the séance and the charlatans that claimed they could communicate with the “other side.” That’s right, this parlor trick has been around for about a thousand years before John Edwards and James Von Praagh. Houdini, on a well-publicized quest to expose these frauds as the thieves and liars they were, called their claims “humbug.”



Did you flinch? Of course you didn’t, because the word “humbug” isn’t offensive, at least not to us. In Houdini’s time, saying “humbug” was about as bad as saying “horse shit!” in a room full of grannies at tea-time. Sort of gives you a new take on Ebenezer Scrooge, huh?

The concept of the “profane” varies from country to time period to language to ethnicity, except for swinging your cock in public like it was a dead chicken, that’s considered “profane” pretty much everywhere. So why get offended when someone on television says “poop chute?” Why get up-in-arms when a billboard has the word “snot” written on it? Come the fuck on, people, it’s time to lighten up.

Assholes.

In Austria, there is a town called Fucking. As best the elders of this small village can remember, their community was founded by the Fuck family, and the suffix “-ing” was added, as it commonly was, to signify it was as settlement. Their small town is frequently visited by tourists from the English-speaking world, driving up from the nearby city of Salzburg, simply to take photographs in front of their municipal signs. The city of Fucking has recently issued a public announcement: Please stop taking our Fucking signs.



At the end of the article where I read this amusing story, the following appears:

“…when someone asks them [the residents of Fucking] where they come from they are a little ashamed to say it."

Residents of two other Austrian communities, Windpassing and W**k on the Lake, suffered a similar reluctance, he added.”

I get “Windpassing,” and frankly, that’s pretty funny. Who doesn’t love a good fart joke every now and again? But what the fuck is “W**k on the Lake?” What naughty word are they omitting from their article? Week? Work? Wonk? Can anyone think of an offensive word in the English language that might fit?

Heck Is For People That Don't Believe in Gosh

In an effort to deeply and profoundly offend, not just my readers, but the general public as well, I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon and acquire a tasteless t-shirt. While the visage of Che Guevera on my chest would be of ultimate affront, I’m going for more of an outward offense, and I’m frankly concerned that his scraggly beard would cause my chest to itch.
I’ve narrowed down my choices to the following four designs, and I need your help to decide which is mot likely to make strangers form a mob to burn me at the stake. I’m not merely looking to offend, I’m looking to get a law passed against whatever I wear. (Although, with the hippies and busybodies of Portland constantly trying to make all our lives “better through legislation,“ that may be easier than I would like to admit.)



Having a laugh at the disabled has always been a standby for the patently offensive, but I think this particular design takes it a few labored and shaky steps too far. That’s why I like it.



Cancer, always a crowd pleaser, but combined with the humorous thrill of child abuse, you arrive at a joke funnier than the sum of it’s parts. I think I’ll especially enjoy the looks of joy, and then the squinted eyes of derision only moments later. Cancer makes me laugh.



This is a style of humor known as the “double entendre.” I’m afraid, however, that the intricacies of French comedy will be lost on most people, but at least will still have the hilarity of cancer to fall back on. Cancer still makes me laugh.



This one, even I must admit, might be a few yards out of bounds. I mean, sure, cancer is funny as all get-out, but starving children? Let’s just say a shriveled, malnourished boy from Zimbabwe won’t be making an appearance on Saturday Night Live anytime soon, unless they can really play up those flies around his nose and eyes. Now that shit’s funny.

Please cast your votes for the most personally affronting of the bunch, and if you have a spare moment, check out T-Shirt Hell, they’ve been on a mission to offend for years now.

Wookin' Puh Nub...

A police officer was strolling down the sidewalk on his late night beat. He came around the corner to see a man on his hands and knees, shuffling around under a street lamp with his face inches from the ground. The man was wobbling and smelled of liquor, and was even heard to hiccup every now and again. The officer approached the man and said, “Good evening sir. May I ask what you’re doing?” The man looked up at the officer and said, “I’m looking for my *hic* car keys…” and went back to the job at hand. The officer, perplexed, asked, “Well, where did you lose them?” The man straightened his back, pointed towards the pitch darkness to his right and said, “Oh, about three blocks that way.” Even more confused, the officer asked, “Why are you looking for them here?” The man cocked his head at the officer and responded, “The light’s much better here.”

Today, Governor Ted Kulongoski of Oregon has signed into law a bill that will require the citizens of Oregon to obtain a doctor’s prescription in order to get any product containing pseudoephedrine, which includes the most popular heretofore over-the-counter cold and allergy remedies like Sudafed, Benadryl and Claritin-D. The purpose of the bill was to curb the manufacture of methamphetamine in the state of Oregon, of which cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine are a necessary ingredient. The state house and senate, ignoring the usual laments of “government overstepping its rights and responsibilities” from the unwashed masses, overwhelmingly passed the bill. One lawmaker (who remains conveniently unnamed in every report on the bill) even referred to opposition to this bill as “ridiculous.”



Governor Ted Kulongoski sucks. Governor Ted Kulongoski sucks badly and has been really bad at virtually everything he’s done since being elected, all with the aid and abettance of the Oregon legislature. It was less than a year ago that the Governor signed into law a bill that required drug and grocery stores to keep products containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter, forcing citizen such as myself to spend twenty minutes with Ray the cashier pointing to the box of Sudafed four feet away saying, “No, that one. No, that one. Higher… two to the left. Not that one, THAT ONE!” and then filling out a registry with my name and address, just in case Steven Wu wants to call me at home to wish me a quick recovery from my crippling head cold.

Ted’s last little plan obviously didn’t work, and only made the purchase of fairly common and benign cold medicine much more trouble than it was worth for the average, law-abiding citizen. All of us in the minority here in Oregon, that is, with functioning frontal lobes, said as much, but Ted’s not a quitter. He came up with this last plan about six months ago, and we all thought it was a big joke.



We’re not laughing anymore.

Unfortunately, methamphetamine IS a problem in Oregon, and if Ted wants to be re-elected next year, he’s got to pretend to be doing something about it without looking like a “hawk,” a.k.a. someone who believes in arresting criminals when they commit crimes. Ted is like that drunk looking for his keys under the street lamp, sure the problem is way over there, namely meth being manufactured in Mexico, slipping through our porous national border, but he’d much rather be trying to solve the problem here, where the light’s much better and he can get brownie points from his constituents for “cracking down.” The problem is, however, the real “cracking down” is being done to folks with allergies and sinus infections who now have to switch to another drug that might be less effective, or pay their doctor $75 for a visit to get $2.99 box of pills.

Government sucks. Government sucks badly. Government is really bad at virtually everything it’s supposed to do, and even worse at the stuff it has no business doing. The founding fathers of this great nation saw government as a necessary evil and formulated a document, only the second of its kind in the world, which was legally enforceable and designed, first and foremost, to limit the power and breadth of influence of the federal government. This concept is known as “Federalism.”

Government never gets smaller, just ask the citizens of Multnomah County about the income tax that was supposed to expire last year. Without real outrage from the citizens of Oregon, this bill will remain law, even if the limited manufacture of meth in this state remains exactly the same. Government is like a destructive toddler, when it fucks something up, it’s always us adults that have to make sure it gets fixed, invariably at our expense, after all, government has no money of it’s own.

What’s next? If this bill has no effect on meth in Oregon, will Ted ban hydrogen peroxide? Will he limit the amount of iodine or ammonia someone can legally purchase at one time? Will Ted launch a campaign to make pressure cookers and camp stoves illegal in the Pacific Northwest?

Ted Kulongoski has the best of intentions, but is a moron because he actually thinks this will work. The legislature of Oregon are assholes for passing this law, just going to prove how out of touch representatives are with their own constituents, even in a small state like Oregon. Unfortunately, the liberal majority here in The Beaver State, like liberals across the globe, will invariably see a problem, no matter the nature, turn to the government and ask, “What are you going to do about it?” thereby empowering government to grow bigger and impact the lives of more and more citizens with half-baked schemes like prescription over-the-counter drugs, which are happily passed into law despite the lack of even the tiniest shred of evidence that the plan might work.



This summer, in an effort to reduce the amount of electricity used by the populace, the Japanese government dumped the equivalent of millions of dollars into an ad campaign playing down the importance of dressing formally at the office. The logic they used was: People dress more casually, less energy is used for air conditioning. What was unforeseen, however, was that sales of dress clothing, specifically neckties, would suffer accordingly. The biggest necktie manufacturers in Japan are formally protesting the ad campaign, and even threatening to file suit against the government for damages incurred. In response, the Japanese government has decided to dump several more million dollars into a study to determine any impact on businesses their campaign might have, and pay losses accordingly.

It’s not a coincidence that The United States of America, the greatest, wealthiest and most successful nation on Earth, is the ONLY nation on Earth that features a Constitution that works specifically to limit the power the federal government can exercise over the states of the union, and the citizens therein. Government is bad for you and should be taken in very small doses. Vote Libertarian.

Hopefully, the Most Offensive Post Ever

Aaaah, back in the proverbial, digital saddle. In case you were wondering, I passed my stupid class and, after 20 minutes (of my given 105 minutes) in an eerily quiet and solemn testing dungeon in Tigard, OR, I passed my stupid test. That’s right, certified, after many hours of training and studying, by the oldest and most tireless nemesis I have: The State.

I was driving to the office this morning, after almost two weeks absence, knowing full well that a blog was very much in order and trying to snare an idea from the buzzing hive that is my brain. At a stoplight, I saw what I consider to be the ultimate in limp-wristed self-expression. Desperate to articulate their political and social opinions concerning current events, but unwilling to permanently mar the paint job on their new Subaru, this douche bag TAPED a bumper sticker into the rear window of his station wagon. This miserable ass-hat feels so inclined to expound on the news of the day, but apparently isn’t brave enough to scratch his paint job, or perhaps wants the option to drop the subject when he drives outside of Portland (read: into the real world). But this subject is tired, and frankly I don’t care anymore.



Then, when I arrived at the office, I check my good pal’s blog only to be linked over to another blog where the author is pontificating on the worthlessness of a series of young adult books he’s never even read, seemingly, for purpose of dropping names like Joyce and Fitzgerald, as if most of us weren’t required to read the two in high school. Shall I retort further than the few words I felt compelled to leave on his site? I think not. At least, not yet.

I thought perhaps I’d make addendum to my completely not-sarcastic entry about my endless love for capitalism and the “virtue of greed” by adding a few more bizarre products I’ve collected over the last few weeks, like Spray On Mud or Liquid Ass or the ever-popular Banana Guard. But perhaps that subject is best left unresurrected.



Unfortunately, as I scan the news wires, there is no news with any humorous potential, except for the woman who fell out of her car on the highway while hanging out of the open door, attempting to hock a lugie onto the asphalt. Even that, however, warrants little more than a brief chuckle.

On The Rocks has been around for over a year, now, and I recall all the fondest feelings I’ve had while acting as Chairperson and CFO of the OTR Institute have been when you losers, my readers, have gotten really angry and started bickering like crazed geese. Granted, these outbursts are mostly warranted because they follow revelations that I felt compelled to bring to your attention, like how both god and racism are both mostly figments of the imaginations of people best poised to profit from their existence.

What patently offensive remark can I make now, in order to churn the shit and get you hornets moving in this mid-summer heat? Shall I make a highly unsavory and offensive comment about homosexuals like, “Wake me up, before you ejaculate on my face!”?



Shall I rail on about pretentious assholes that think everyone that hasn’t read Metamorphosis (Kafka or Ovid) should be dragged out of their pickup trucks, mesh hats politely removed from their unwashed heads and shot in the streets like dogs? Shall I take it in the other direction and endlessly scorn the sponge-heads that proclaim audio books as “just as good as the real thing,” while somebody chews their food for them and fucks their spouse on their behalf, following up with a full written (or possibly recorded) report on the experience?

What’s it take to get you people going?

How about this?

Means Testing

Okay, seriously, I thought the purpose of requiring state licensing of drivers was supposed to weed these people out and keep them off our busy streets, armed with several thousands of pounds of steel.

On the Lam

In response to the ceaseless barrage of endearing emails from my exclusive (read: virtually nonexistent) base of readers, I would like to explain my recent hiatus from OTR. Much like Luke over at Uselees and Pointless, I've been in class, learning about current insurance policy in order to pass a state licensing test. Since Monday, I've been forced to rise an hour and a half earlier than normal, drive almost forty-five minutes to Portland's exceptionally lame suburb of Beaverton, and sit with a roomful of middle-aged women who want to sell insurance. I have no interest in selling insurance, I just have to take this class.
Since Monday, I've revisited many things I thought I had left behind permanently, all of which I hate. Some are more surprising than others, given my situation, but no less annoying.

1. I hate traffic. If I wanted to sit in traffic for upwards of an hour a day, I would live in Tigard and get to enjoy the tax benefits of living outside the greasy grip of the Portland City Council and the many other municipal thieves that comprise "Little Beirut." I suppose I'm spoiled that since I've moved to Portland I haven't worked more than a few minutes drive or bike trip from my place of employment, and I intend for that luck to last.

2. I hate cliques. Even among the thirty-three people in my class, and even though we've only been in session for four days, two completely separate "cliques" have formed and battled for turf more than once. The first is comprised of three younger, sassier, color-matched and dyed-of-hair miscreants with fires in their belly and seven children between them. Let's call this first group the "Cryps." The second contingent is one middle-aged, bespectacled women with equally dyed cioffs (but for entirely different reasons) constantly chattering up the successes of their progeny to people they won't ever see again after next Tuesday. At all times armed with extra-large decaf vanilla lattes from Starbucks and cell phones that apparently are unable to be silenced, they glare like monarchs over their their bifocals like demonic librarians. We'll call them the "Bloods."
The main point of disagreement between these rival gangs is the temperature in the class room, which I might add is in a 50 x 35 room in the rear of a strip mall. At any given point during the day, depending on who has the current upper hand in the ridiculous turf war, the temperature in the room will be somewhere between "meat locker" and "Turkish bath house." The most dramatic change always takes place over lunch because, while the classroom is empty, one enterprising member of either gang will steal into the room for the sole purpose of adjusting the thermostat, treating us to the mumbled complaints of the rival group for the rest of the day, or until they send one of their own to turn the tides while the class is out on the afternoon break.

3. I hate strip malls. This particualar aspect of capitalism had always been lost on me. They are unsightly blights on the landscape and always seem to house businesses that no one patronizes. This particular strip mall boasts a Curves (read: quasi-gym for the hopelessly obese interested only in parting with a monthly fee,) a sports bar I wouldn't partonize with someone else's money, and a department store full of slob-art and stuff even the Chinese won't manufacture, for fear of damaging their national reputation for export of quality goods.
Although, I am typing this as I sit in one of the best teriyaki places I've ever enjoyed, which, believe it or not, offers wi-fi connectivity.

4. I hate school. I always have. I often assumed that my current level of maturity and blistering intelligence would lend itself well to any academic pursuit, should I choose to return to school, but I still find myself zoning out, nearly falling out of my chair in sleep, and doodling stick figures dying horrible and imaginative deaths, much like I did in the geology class I took with Luke in college.

Not to mention that my mood is none improved by the fact that I'm tired, hung over, and sore from the night out I had with Luke and our old pal Doogs, and the subsequent fight I had with Slash from Guns and Roses, which left me with a gaping, beer bottle shaped hole in my skull.

This class sucks, it's boring and I want to go home. My only joys are teriyaki chicken and being able to get up and go to the bathroom whenever I want.

In any case, all you loyal fans of the work we do, here at OTR will just have to wait a few more days until I can get back in the saddle. For now, stop emailing me worried requests about my health and well-being and go read Useless and Pointless, he's done with class for now.

"In Spray Paint Veritas"

It’s been said we’re all allowed three vices, what was never made clear, however, is what happens if we exceed that allotment, abuse one particular vice to great excess, or pick a vice so fucking weird people don’t want to be seen with you in public, like dwarf-tossing or audiobooks. When people speak of “vices,” however, they are usually referring to intoxicating, addictive or commonly abused substances that really aren’t good for you. I would list among my vices single-malt scotch, deep dark chocolate and the occasional incendiary tobacco product. My pal Luke would probably list coffee, cigarettes and an almost fanatical interest in ice cream (but not with nuts, on the ice cream, I mean).

Meet Patrick Tibetts. Patrick was arrested a few days a go on charges of “abusing harmful intoxicants.” Can you guess what old Pat was huffing?



You guessed correctly, my good friend, Patrick was inhaling gold spray paint. The man was collared at the Bellaire’s Dollar General Store in Bellaire, Ohio as he attempted to purchase several more cans of the glittery stuff, slurring his speech and coated with a thick layer of paint on his hands and face.

When I’d read that Tibetts was arrested for his actions, but that he had not been driving or even really bothering anyone, I became a bit irritated. While I was greatly amused by the sight of this dipshit glittered like he’d been chewing on Liberace, I believe that any adult has the right to put any substance into his or her body for whatever purpose they might deem worthy. All intoxicating substances, including even the “hardest” of drugs should immediately be legalized, or at least decriminalized, and barring anyone endangering the lives of others while under the influence, users of these substances should be left to their own devices and not have their own governments telling them what they can and cannot do in their free time. The more I thought about it, the more I became incensed at the idea of this pathetic, lowlife pile of human excrement not being able to BUY gold spray paint and squirt it up his nose, if that’s what he wanted to do! Upon further research, however, I stumbled upon the fatal flaw in that idealistic utopia of mine, a flaw my wife, an employee of the local district attorney, routinely brings to my attention: Tibetts is a violent man.

Pat Tibetts has been arrested numerous times by the Bellaire Sherriff’s Department, and spent many nights in that jail cell. He’s been taken in on assault, domestic violence, drunk and disorderly and numerous other charges, all while under the influence of some kind of inhalant. What I routinely forget, in my endless rants about the flawed criminal justice system and the amount of municipal, state and federal money spent on jailing people for possession of controlled substances, is that virtually every one of those criminals in custody has a rap sheet as long as my arm. While one can see the statistics regarding the number of people in jail for drug possession and lament the idiocy of some poor guy getting shoved in the back of a squad car for a dime bag in his pocket, this scenario is so rare, it’s almost laughable.

The majority of people in prison for possession have extensive histories of distribution, racketeering and many include violence related to their drug use and sale. While a prisoner’s conviction may read “possession with intent to distribute,” what is not included on that sheet is the four hundred times he’s been before a judge and a jury since he was seventeen, the convictions of domestic abuse, child endangerment, assault and even attempted murder he’s received in the past and either pled away or was “matrixed” out of the justice system. The society I would like to envision where everyone gets to do what they want behind closed doors is, for all intents and purposes, a reality. If Pat Tibetts had never gone to the general store to purchase more spray paint, he would never have caused the store clerk to phone the police. If Tibetts didn’t have a history of violent crime while under the influence of “Rust-Oleum,” the police probably wouldn’t have arrested him, most likely opting to set him in the drunk tank until morning. If the people incarcerated for possession every year didn’t have files as thick as Chinese phone books, the vast majority of them would never find themselves behind bars.



My opinion holds fast, however, if only slightly adjusted. The audacity of my government to tell me I can’t grow a plant in my backyard or cook a crystal in my kitchen for the purposes of my own private enjoyment in my own home is infuriating. If the “War on Drugs” were ended today and the black market that spawned these criminals here and abroad dismantled, the crime rate in this country would plummet. Philip Morris would start manufacturing marijuana cigarettes and suddenly the shady guy in the Lincoln over on MLK Blvd would be out of business.

The lesson here is that if you huff spray paint you’re an idiot, but you probably won’t live long enough to be a real nuisance to anyone except the management of the local hardware store. Whatever your vice is, you should be able to enjoy it freely without the molestation of the government, provided you don’t endanger anyone else. If Luke were to attack someone on the street under the influence of several pints of “Moo-llenium Crunch,” the charged peace keepers of the city of New Orleans have every right to arrest him and give him several good doses with the taser and the bean bag shotgun. Luke, however, always enjoys his ice cream quietly on the couch, with only Lindsey to stalk when that mad sugar rush / ice cream headache hits and he turns thirsty for blood.

He’s got that look in his eyes, Lindsey, run! Grab Mojo and run!!!