O my god, I need sun. Now.

The first year I lived here in Puddletown, the effect of the sunless winter was negligible. I had been warned about its ill effects, but after the bloodless and desperate winters I’d experienced in the Northeast, I figured the Willamette Valley would be a piece of cake. Last year, it was. This year, I’m ready to claw through the wall for some solar warmth. It’s like my fingers and toes never get completely warm. I feel like that nemesis of Superman’s who would curl up into a fetal position every time the sun went behind a cloud.

There was a Saturday Night Live gag commercial (they were always my favorite) where Chris Farley has a cold, and complains to his wife. She recommends the latest breakthrough in cold-fighting technology, Hibernol. She hands him a five-gallon bucket of this green stuff and he guzzles down. It’s supposed to cold cock you (damn that’s some fine-ass malt licker) all winter long, so by the time you woke up, not only was your cold gone, so was the winter.

I want that stuff so bad right now I can taste it.

Without ultra-violet radiation, I find myself less motivated than ever. “Not you, Scott! How could you be even LESS motivated than usual?!” you’re probably asking yourself. I haven’t brushed behind my bottom teeth for weeks. I had uncooked rice and a raw potato for dinner last night. I’m lucky if I can bring myself to wipe every OTHER time I go. It’s getting bad.

Most people don’t know that humans need the sun to survive. Sure, we need it to grow stuff and to tell time, and to charge that huge bank of hippie solar cells to gather enough energy to heat a cup of stick-tea, but exposure to sunlight on our skin allows our bodies to metabolize vitamin D, a very important nutrient. This nutrient is provided by many of the things we eat, and is also fortified in breads and dairy products, but without sunlight, vitamin D is not “bioavailable” (absorbable). Experiancing a vitamin D deficiency, a person can develop depression, psychosis and eventually psychotic dementia. The native Alaskans (Eskimos, Inuits, whatever you wanna call ‘em) describe a common occurrence called Pibloktok (pih-blok-tok). Because the winters are so harsh, and the long cycles of sunless days, occasionally someone would just simply lose their minds. These episodes would play out almost identically person to person, generation to generation. The individual in question would throw open the entrance to their tent, and begin running around the village like their ass was on fire, screaming like a banshee. They would then, in a fit of dementia, tear off all their oily seal-clothes and charge around, waving their hands and yelling. The really neat thing however, is that the villagers are supposed to completely ignore it, and pretend it’s not happening. The assumption is that some wily demon had possessed their fellow villager, and if we ignore it, it’ll just go away.

So, just a notice to all you non-Inuits, if you see me running down the street stark naked, screaming like little girl and waving my arms around, pretend I’m not there.

He walked onto the road at eleven A.M., on the first of April. He had three cans of soup, an extra pair of jeans, a tattered copy of The Old Man and the Sea and the Swiss Army knife his grandfather had given him on his twelfth birthday. He’d learned how to make a bow from the limb of a chicken tree, that day, but he and his brother could never perfect a single arrow. They would always careen off target by yards, no matter what kind of wood they’d used, now how they labored to straighten its shaft. This escapade made him doubt very much the stories he’d loved as a child, of hordes of Indian braves raining arrows upon the advancing cavalry.

He planned on walking, but planned on no particular destination. He remembered a scene from a movie he’d seen years ago, but with no whiskey pint close at hand, he snatched an empty Pepsi bottle from the side of the road, and spun it on that thin yellow line that marked the lanes, like a little girl’s sleepover game.

South is where it pointed. South, he thought. South sounds nice. As he took the first step towards the closest thing to a destination he’d had in years, he smiled and tucked his thumbs under the straps of his backpack. He thought about the photos he’d seen of the home in Key West where Ernest Hemingway lived with his army of six-toed cats. He thought about the plantation houses that Walker Percy wrote of, he thought of Camino Real and A Streetcar Named Desire.

Hemingway stuck with him, however. The sour-faced, bearded man that had seen war and death and true human putridity, and wrote words of beauty and faith and hope, even if they were thickly veiled with the dank of human malfeasance. Drinking Cuba Libras and fishing for marlin, much the old man himself, both in love and desperately afraid of the sea from which he’d made his life.

He never thought of himself as a hitchhiker, and never thought he’d bring himself to it, but as the Jeep Wrangler approached, he felt his thumb extending outward and a smile crossing his face as it slowed and stopped. The girl driving was no more than twenty-three, pretty and sandy-blonde. She asked if he needed a ride and giggled at the obviousness of the answer. He opened the canvas passenger door with the wrinkled plastic window, and threw his backpack in the rear seat as he settled into the dusty bucket seat. She yanked the Jeep into first gear and gunned the engine with a jolt, sending them careening down the warm country lane.

The marvelous thing is that’s it’s painless. The first words of The Snows of Kilimanjaro echoed in his head as he heard her speak. She never took her eyes off the road, she rather gazed at it intensely as she described her journey. She had asked his name, but never waited for the answer. She simply went off on a tear about her husband, her best friend, and the duffel bag next to his that comprised all of her worldly possessions. She spoke of sex and deceit, the way Hemingway would have, as if they were inseparable; two sides of a well-worn coin. She apologized and asked where he was going. As far as you’ll take me, he said. She looked in his eyes for the first time and smiled.

He couldn’t get the word “homecoming” out of his head. As he drove the familiar country roads and wooded lanes, a trip he’d made countless times when he was dating Melissa Frederickson at the state college, he contemplated its significance. He thought about the photos he’d seen when their boys came home from the European theatre, and the parade of heroes they’d had down Main St. His grandfather returned with a paralyzed arm and the admiration of every man woman and child in that town. He thought about the homecoming of Marshall Dickson, after he’d quarterbacked the high school team to the state championships, but splintered his knee in the fourth quarter, you’d never have known the Gents of Jefferson High hadn’t won, except for Marshall with the casted and elevated knee, waving from a red convertible.
He thought about the homecomings his town had seen, and wondered how his would be. He hadn’t seen Main St. since his first Congressional run, the last speech he’d made before the citizens soundly agreed to charge him as their representative in Washington. He’d won that seat twice since then, and hadn’t shadowed Main St. in almost ten years. He gripped the steering wheel as he tore through the turns, took his foot off the gas when he noticed he was driving too fast, and then he smiled. He remembered that Melissa Frederickson was the Homecoming Queen their senior year in high school, the year that he’d lost his virginity with Brittany Mathers, and the year his grandfather had died. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his tweed jacket, trying to focus on the empty, blurry rural route.
He knew he wasn’t worthy of the memories he possessed; his life in that town was too wholesome to have been his own. Perhaps, it was someone else’s life he was remembering. He didn’t know how they would receive him when he finally got there, fearing and expecting the worst. He was prepared to fly through town, sign the papers, collect his father’s irreplaceable items, and leave. Perhaps he didn’t even have to eat while he was there, but his stomach was already rumbling at the thought of one of Mel’s pasties. For the first time in a very long time, he was afraid.
His station wagon took the final turn and blew up the leaves around the sign that Gil Mason had built in 1932, the hand-carved wooden sign that swung from rusted chains and had the names of hundreds of young lovers carved inconspicuously into the base. The sign that reads, “Welcome to Milton, Make Yourself at Home.” The tears were coming now; he sniffled and scolded himself for being the blithering fool he’d always thought himself to be. He pulled the car to the side and fished around the floor of the car for a tissue. He blew and wiped, like an old woman at a funeral, and giggled at himself. His eyes cleared and focused and he stopped to look at a splotch of color not ten yards in front of the car. He turned on the wipers to scrape away the drizzle that had begun to fall and saw a sign hand painted onto a piece of lumber, nailed to a stake driven into the shoulder of the highway. In deft script, it read, “Welcome Home Chuck.”

I saw a great commercial a few years back. It was a public service announcement by the government of Singapore, picturing a young, nubile Singaporean woman walking the streets, being visually assaulted by man after man. As she walks by, you see a guy in a business suit pause in the middle of a phone conversation and stare wistfully. She passes a construction site, and the banging and clanging ceases momentarily as each guy in those nifty navy-blue overalls stops to trace her curves with his eyes. The escapade proceeds for the better part of a minute featuring crossing guards, street-booth chefs and cab drivers all gaping at her pleasing shape. The commercial ends with the phrase, “If women paid as much attention to their breasts as men do, we would have beaten breast cancer by now.”

There have been many scholars (mostly men, oddly) that have attempted to put a reason behind the male’s obsession with those jiggly fun-bags that the fairer sex has attached to their rib cage. Freud thought it was Oedipal, in that the breast-mindedness is supposed to be a throwback to our early stages of development when we received passive comfort as we were nursed by our mothers. Masters and Johnson take another perspective with their simple contention that breasts are the most easily identifiable zones of arousal, in that erect nipples and full, swollen breasts betray the same level of sexual excitement as a “full-on robot chubby.”

Funnily enough, and very much off the point, there are many cultures where breasts are viewed as being about as erogenous as an elbow. Carolyn Latteier, in Breasts: the Women's Perspective on an American Obsession, says that when anthropologist Katherine Dettwyler "told women in Mali that Americans think breasts are sexually arousing, they were horrified," and amused: "'You mean men act like babies,' they shrieked, collapsing in laughter."

In any case, we like boobies. I know this thesis is not going to get me that doctorate in behavioral science from MIT, but this my own friggin’ blog and I’m allowed to state the obvious.

I was in the Portland airport last week, meeting some friends flying in from New York to show them all that the city of roses, rain and Tonya Harding had to offer the wayward traveler. As a force of habit, I always arrive at airports far earlier than I intend to, even when I’m not flying out, I always arrive a full hour earlier than necessary. I think it has something to do with the fact that I really like airports. I like the bustling crowds, I like finding a quiet corner and reading a book, I just like the way they feel. The feeling is rooted in an association I have with airports in that I’m generally there when I’m going on a trip, and I only go on fun trips.

So I’m wandering around PDX, people-watching as I love to do, waiting for the status of their flight from Detroit to display on the screen (I told you I was early) and out of the corner of my eye, I see something that makes me stop in my tracks. It was a young woman, perhaps 25 years old, very much enjoying the massage chair outside the entrance to Brookstone. The pulsing rhythms of the chair were massaging the arch of her back in such a way that her shoulders were being pushed forward right, then left, then right, then left, etc. So, for all the world to see (or at least all those boarding for the flight to Albuquerque) this woman was shaking her major-league yabbos with gusto, eyes closed with a look of ultimate pleasure on her face. I was transfixed, not only by the sight beholden, but by the fact that there were about ten other guys within my field of vision that were having trouble not stepping on their own tongues.

Back and forth, back and forth. I almost expected her to start doing that awful porn soundtrack, “oooh, baby, yeah, that’s sooooooo good!” It didn’t take long before the gaggle of guys with the x-rays eyes started their motors again and went on their merry ways, certainly counting the singles in their wallets on their way to one of the many exotic dancing clubs offered in this great town.

Once again, off topic, I’ve heard tell that Portland has more strip-clubs per capita than any other place in the United States. To those that believe that, I suggest a trip to Providence, Rhode Island. I’ve also heard rumors of a place here in town called “Xotic Tan” where a lonely, (and admittedly pasty) guy can rent a room with a pretty girl, where she performs an erotic strip-tease while the gentlemen receives a treatment from one of their top prefessional quality tanning beds. Strange, but true.

Every morning when I put on my pants, one of my cats will inevitably make a grab for the dangling belt. It’s irresistible to them; much like boobs are to men. We can’t help it, and you have no right to think less of us for merely caving to our own nature. You’ve got plenty of other reasons to think less of us, individually, without having to pile that on as well. I think Steve Martin put it best in the film L.A. Story, “I could never make it as a woman. I would just stay at home all day and play with my breasts.”

You’ve been awake for hours, and are already beginning to feel the day slip away. You put on your coat that reeks of cigarettes and scold yourself for not quitting. You walk down the stairs, onto the cracked and trash-ridden streets, and go to the convenience store on the corner. As you pour scalding coffee into the Styrofoam cup, you remember an incident only days earlier when you heated a pin under the flame of a cigarette lighter and pierced a blister on your thumb, a blister your got when you touched a pot of boiling pasta. Single-serve packets of cornstarch and powdered whey, single-serve packets of white sugar, coffee that’s so hot you can’t taste it anyway.

You count the cracks in the sidewalk and momentarily consider scavenging for aluminum cans for extra cash, and somehow see your dignity getting in the way. You smirk at the idea. You sip the nuclear coffee and hope you don’t have to heat another pin and pierce a blister on your tongue. Single-serve discomfort.

You try to remember all the things you promised you’d look up at the library today, and can’t remember a single one. Your right shoe squeaks, not because it’s old, but because it’s so poorly made and the canvas has scraped off the inside, causing your heel to rub on smooth plastic.

They won’t let you into the bookstore anymore because you never buy anything, and you once tried to steal that copy of Gulliver’s Travels. You see the shop approaching as you contemplate that horrible turn of events, when you cried as the store manager picked up the phone to dial the police. A sip of not-quite-so searing hot coffee and you flip up the collar of your coat as you pass the window, even though it’s not cold.

The schwarma stand three blocks away is already busy and the sweet smell of unidentifiable meat with garlic and onions causes your stomach to churn and rumble, and the burnt coffee funk in your mouth to turn sour. You can actually feel the little glands in your mouth begin to pump saliva under your tongue, but you don’t want to swallow, for fear it might get worse.

You walk into a movie theatre lobby and head straight into the bathroom and spit into the sink. You look deeply into your eyes and are simultaneously convinced that you are both beautiful and vile. You exit the bathroom and are glad to see the smell of fresh popcorn does not exacerbate your condition. Single-serve satisfaction.

As you continue to count the cracks and sip your now lukewarm coffee, you ignite a cigarette and it seems to help assuage the vertigo you are beginning to feel. You take a seat on a park bench and dig into your satchel for your current paperback. You forgot to mark your place again, before you went to sleep, and you must randomly flip through the book looking for familiar words and phrases from last night’s adventure.

Frustratingly, it seems your eyes will not cooperate and your legs become itchy with jitters, your arms and shoulder restless. You get up to again, burying the paperback in your satchel once more. You think about the mouse your found in your oven once, and how you were off frozen pizzas for weeks, not just because you didn’t want to have to see it again, you didn’t want to kill it by turning the oven on. Then you think about the cat you had as a child, and how she once given birth in your lap while you were sleeping, the mewling of the kittens waking you in the early morning to warm moisture, making you think you had wet the bed in the night. There were five of them, six if you count the stillborn, but you never do.

The freezing cold coffee tastes like the rim of an ashtray and you trash it in a curbside bin, fearing the acid tang might remain in your mouth forever. You find another park bench, and this time your limbs allow you respite to engage in your tattered book, but now your mind is reeling, and your stomach sour. You think about all the books you’ll never read, about all the pleasure you’ll be denied, just because you could never live long enough to read them all. Contemplating all the masterpieces sitting on the office shelves of their disappointed authors, never to be published, and even the multitude of stories not yet committed to paper, make you sad. Single-serve discontent.

You think about time wasted working shitty jobs, worrying about money, worrying about love, cleaning, eating, fucking, shitting, shaving, and everything else. Even if you had all that time back, you could never read them all.

You stand and walk, keeping a rhythm with your breath and your feet, exercising physical control, concentrating on your heart beating to soothe the buzzing between your ears.

You fumble for your keys, and open the heavy oak door that stands at the entrance to the lobby of your building. You unlock the door to your apartment and think calmer thoughts of peanut butter and honey and fresh cold milk. You sit at your desk and begin to type, hoping the day has not gotten away from you.

As a Secular Humanist, I believe that tecnology can never solve humanity's problems, it can only work to make our lives easier which can, in turn, allow us more time work to solve those problems ourselves. That being said, I am, as I type this, sitting in my backyard, enjoying Portland's unseasonably warm early spring weather, drinking a Sierra Nevada Pal Ale, blogging to no one in particular, listening to Brian Wilson's Smile, and burning a copy of Deadwood: Season One on DVD, all on my new laptop. I might also add that I still have 88% battery life remaining.

I love technology.

Is there such thing as a Secular Technologist?

The irony is, of course, that the post in which I chided the sick fucks that would search for such filth, has caused three separate hits to this site from twisted sex-perverts searching Yahoo for “Muniz naked.” For curiosity’s sake, I went to Yahoo and ran my own search using the same terms, only to figure out exactly where in the order of hits this site appeared. My eyebrow was raised instantly upon seeing a site entitled, “Shirtless Frankie Muniz Fan Club.” Now this I gotta see, so I clicked.

The poor, pathetic, aged computer I use here in the office was instantly bombarded with pop-up after pop-up of “Asian Sluts Who Drink Piss!” and “Dutch Girls Must Be Punished for Having Big Boobs!!” and various other things I cannot bring myself to recollect. My computer got so bogged down with all this crap popping up over and over again that the whole thing froze and I lost the marketing letter I was typing only moments before.

Do you see what you have cost me, “Shirtless Frankie Muniz Fan Club?”

I knew that pitting myself against this gang would bring only suffering and regret, but I never knew how much.

I might also add that if you run a search on Yahoo with the terms “HOW TO DETERMINE HARNESS OF ROCKS THROUGH FINGERNAILS,” mine is the first site to appear. (note that the word “hardness” is missing the letter “d.”)

I’ll bet this is how Faulkner attracted fans.

And on a note of masturbatory self-aggrandizement, (come on, it’s Friday afternoon and the wife and I are going to Bagby Hot Springs this weekend, I’m in a saucy mood.) I would like to thank Small Flightless Bird for listing this sloppy excuse for self-expression as one of their favorite blogs, and in their words, “possibly the best blog ever.” Apparently they haven't bothered to read much of this crap, but I'll take it where I can get it.

For the first time ever, I get the unsubstantiated feeling that someone, somewhere out there is reading this drivel. To you, I say, have a nice weekend, sex-perverts.

ce•leb•ri•ty

Pronunciation: (su-leb'ri-tē),
—n., —pl. -ties for 1.
1. a famous or well-known person.

In 1809, Lord Byron wrote the seminal work of his lifetime, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, and was catapulted into history as one of England's great satirists. English Bards... was written specifically in response to scathing reviews his previous works had received in a Scottish newspaper, and it was this antagonism that fueled the mischievous satyr within him. When this work of retribution was met with open appeal and huge success, Byron was overwhelmed. He is quoted in Memoranda from his Life, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

The only problem with being an instantly successful and celebrated satirist, in Byron's view, was that he was, ranked on par with Shelly and Keats, a Romantic poet.

The lesson here is that "celebrity" is out of our hands. It is, by it's very definition, mob-rule. Byron was a great poet, but it was his satire, encompassing a small fraction of his work, that represented the commercial success of his living years. Fame is hoisted upon celebrities by the non-famous, there's no better proof of that than the doughy kid from New Jersey (previously know as the "fat Dutch kid.") If you haven't already seen it, I suggest you crawl out of that spider-hole, shave your beard and take a look. This dude recorded a video of himself bobbing and jiggling like a like Star Jones Reynolds on the Tower of Terror, to the infectious beat of a Romanian pop song. This video somehow managed to make it onto the global ridicule circuit (a.k.a. the Internet) and it was an instant hit. I mean, even this doofus knew about it. This video has seen record downloads and emails (if such a thing can be accurately tracked) and even been featured on CNN, ABC and most recently, in the New York Times.

It's funny, it's cute, it speaks humanity's cross-cultural love of music ("All music is dance music," according to Afrika Bambaataa) and frankly, people like to make fun of people that do the same things we all do, but just don't have the forethought to keep it in front of the bathroom mirror. Celebrity, albeit minor, has been thrust upon this guy by the unwashed masses because that's how celebrity is obtained: through thrusting.

There are those that think that all celebrities are talentless, vapid, overpaid, self-centered, "it's time for my dog's acupuncture," shit-bags, just check out HOPE and Kid Protocol. For the most part, unfortunately, they would be right. One of the biggest reasons the resentment for these people is so palpable, is that their celebrity status is handed to them like Excalibur from the hand of the Lady of the Lake, and suddenly they become elitist, Scientology-believing, coke-sniffing, political activist assholes. For the most part, they seem to have forgotten that their fame is a gift from us, the plebians of the world. Without us buying their records, going to their concerts, watching their movies, or television shows, they'd be sucking mud like the rest of us. Of course, there are also those that, no matter what a celebrity does, his or her innocence will be shouted from the rooftops by some group of squish-head fanatics.

The concept of "celebrity" is so nebulous that it can hardly be defined more succinctly than "a well-know person." The things that draw the world's attention making that person a celebrity vary so greatly, they can rarely be fully understood, much less predicted. Just look at Paris Hilton and the amateur porn escapade that most people have never seen, but everyone knows about.

According to the NYT, the 19-year-old Gary Brolsma (fatty-fatty-boombalatty) is not too happy about all this attention his gelatin-like antics have received, and would like it if everyone just left him alone. Good luck with that one, Gary. According to Andy Warhol, you've still got about eight minutes left, I would suggest you enjoy them while you can. While taking out the garbage, Gary's grandfather, a Hungarian immigrant, was approached by a reporter and asked about his grandson's distaste for recent events, "I don't know what's wrong with him," he replied.

Gentle readers, the winds of change swirl about our dazed and tousled heads, and change we shall undertake. Yesterday, I listed my Toshiba laptop for sale on Craigslist. “But why?” you have certainly, by now, gasped in quiet desperation. I’m done with it, done with it all. The spam, the pornography, the viruses, the shoddy, intellectually vapid political blogs, the pornography, stolen intellectual property, internet dating, “god loves you” chain emails, “god hates you” chain emails, dancing pickles, the pornography, “furries,” penis enlargement and, of course, the pornography…. I’m done with it all. I am officially exiting the Internet, stage right. No more advertisements for cheaper pharmaceuticals, no more pop-up banners for websites playing to my wanton desire to urinate on horses, no more emails from family member with animated GIFs of waving flags and acrobatic teddy bears, no more.

I’m free. I’m finally free.

Okay, that’s not true. I’m selling my laptop because I’ve been eyeing this SWEET Averatec 6000 for the last few weeks and the price is almost too good to pass up. I mean it’s got everything: 15” screen, Pentium 4, 3.0 GHz, DVD burner, AND built-in wireless. This thing is two generational improvements away from being able to get tomato sauce stains out of my jeans WHILE stimulating me to full climax. If things keep on their current track, I’ll be able to fly back to Boston and marry this damned thing.

I undertook the painstaking process of writing a truthful, if slightly embellished, but altogether very convincing post on CL. I listed all my computer’s wonderful qualities; it’s rugged exterior, it’s reliable moving parts, and the fact that the douche-bag that sold it to me opted for the “thank you sir, may I have another” four-year extended warranty, of which there are six months left.

As I clicked the “post” button, I almost heard my little Toshiba sigh. I was heartbroken, and I placed my hand upon the little tyke and comforted him, assuring that he would go to a good home, and would never be used for the purposes of evil, like burning Phish CDs or watching Vin Diesel movies. As my caressed my old friend, I thought about the sleek, sexy magnesium-alloy casing of the Averatec, and had to turn away to wipe away the drool with my sleeve.

I went into the office this morning and opened my email box, expecting a flood of messages, like Santa in “Miracle on 34th Street,” from people lined around the block to provide a caring, loving home for my companion, for the paltry sum of $500.00. I was greeted with only one. His name was Jason, and his brief correspondence read thusly:

“would you be interested in trading for a ak-47?”

I was stunned. The wad of bran muffin I was chewing fell directly into my lap.

Does Jason have a few extra assault rifles around, prompting him to scour the local bulletin boards for opportunities to barter with them?? Or, perhaps, he’s a hardened criminal who has decided to give up his life of violent, AK-47 related crime, and commit to a life of web-design or creative writing…

Putting aside the ridiculousness of someone trying to give a total stranger an illegal firearm in exchange for a notebook computer, the part that really scares me is where he makes reference to “a ak-47.” Certainly, basic grammar is probably beyond your average purveyor of Russian made machine-guns, but somehow this minor infraction of MLA standards troubles me endlessly.

He would spend most nights taking Polaroids of his erect penis. From every conceivable angle, in every available light source and with any inventive background, he would snap photo after photo until the floor of his small apartment was carpeted with tiny, white-bordered squares, many still in the process of giving their images life. He would then work until the wee hours of the morning sorting, arranging and categorizing them according to quality, clarity and aesthetic feel. After morning toast and coffee, carefully compiling the best of the photographs, he would don his coat and muffler, and proceed to the public library only blocks from his apartment. He would slip the photos, randomly, into books in the children's section, all the while trying to hide, not just his giggles, but the growing bundle in his trousers.
I would meet with him on Tuesday afternoons, in the park near that very library. We would sit on the bench and he would tell me things about the people that went by. This woman has had sex with over four hundred men, he would say. This man eats because he want to die, he would say. This woman... he paused. I had never heard him pause before. I looked to see his face in awe, his eyes becoming milky and moist. She has never known true pain, he said. He turned his stricken face to mine, And she has never know true love, he said.
She carried herself like an aged thing, but had the hands of a much younger woman. She strode purposefully through the park, almost awkwardly at times. In passing, in seemed as if she was deliberately avoiding the sunshine; the very treat that brought so many to the park that day. As I watched her, I realized she was the first one I had ever really seen. The others I had only given passing glances, but gazing upon her I knew she was the first I had ever truly noticed.
He truly believed that when it rained while the sun was shining, it meant the Devil the devil was beating his wife and these were her tears. He also believed that the world was a tree and that God was a squirrel, hoarding nuts for the inevitable emptiness of winter. He believed that he had a machine inside of him, but could not determine its purpose.

We're all smart, right? I don't mean the swish-wristed, intelligence relativist,"No one is smarter than anyone else," "I'm OK, you're OK" -mentality bullshit, but we all posess a modicum of intelligence, right?

A grand fear of mine as a younger lad, was that as I grew older, I would come to reliaze that my notch on the door frame of brain-power would be far lower than I had imagined. The relativity of it all placed my fears somewhere between "College Drop-Out"" and "Guy That Puts Bologna in the VCR." It seemed to me that all I had was my blisteringly razor-sharp intellect. Sure, I had very supportive parents that still tell ne how impressed they were with my retention of "Black Beauty" (which I read in fourth grade), but what if they're just slightly stupider than me?

I would apologize to my folks for heaping my insecurities on them, and insulting them to boot, but no one reads this silly Blog, so why bother.

This frightening scenario has been playing on my mind of late. The questions abound: What if I'm not that smart? What if the kernel of intelligence I do claim, is just a charade, doomed to shatter the moment I first conceive to insert deli meat into a major household appliance? It all get significantly worse when I consider the possibility that truly intelligent people don't question their intelligence. Does the very act of pondering the truth of my self-conceived acumen make the contention true?

I praise Jeebus that there aren't enough hand-wringing weenies like me to make a singinficant market target. If we did, I'd would be one of the suckers dialing the number on my screen for the latest and greatest in brain-enhancing pills, creams, salves, juices, eye-drops, hats and support-cups.

This whole self-absorbed worry session is obviously steeped in my personal insecurities, but hell... what isn't? I sometimes wake up in the middle of the night wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life?

Scratch that.

What the hell will I have accomplished when my life is over? It's the inevitable conclusion of truly embracing secular aethism; it's empowering, liberating, self-actualizing and incredibly scary. You realize, after it's all said and done, that you alone are responsible for the content of your life's accomplishments, and that you don't have the cushy convenience of a second chance.

Ironically, the concept of intelligence is so subjective, that I should be able to think myself into near cultish delight about the squishy gray blob between my ears. Unfortunately, a side-effect of the self-empowering, "I am my own God" business is that if, in this equation God is you, one must deal with the fact that God is not just imperfect, He's so fucking incompetent that he can't remember to put the cap back on the toothpaste.

I don't really know what to say about this. I just don't know.

This will be the last post regarding that pathetic whale-beast, not only because devoting so much attention to her self-abuse is making me sick, but mostly because yesterday was my last day. That's right I quit. Not just because of her, or that horrible, vile, troll-manatee lovechild with the nebulizer, but because all of them together (including the fat whore that yelled at me for coughing, that woman with the moustache that wears silk, pirate blouses and always says "ding-dang," and the condescending office administrators).

In any case, I only want to share what I think is an occurrence of note. Last Thursday, some of the folks in the office ordered out for lunch. After Cynthia (that's her name) begged and screamed for a few minutes, the group acquiesced to her request and decided to go to Don Pedro's, a shitty Mexican place on 82nd Avenue. She got fish tacos. On Friday, the same thing happened. She got fish tacos. On Monday, it happened again. She got fish tacos. In case you don't know, a fish taco is merely a wad of fried fish (read: fish sticks) stuck in a tortilla. It was Tuesday, when she was eating her third fish taco, that I asked, "Cynthia, since last Thursday, how many fish tacos had you eaten?"

She paused.

She began to count on her fingers; both hands.

She looked me in the eye and said, "eighteen."

Apparently, I hadn't taken into account that she had some over the weekend. I turns out that on the previous Saturday, she had taken her breakfast, lunch, and dinner at Don Pedro's, and then dinner on Sunday. She eats four tacos in a sitting, the errant two were devoured Saturday at lunch.

Once again (says the circus ringleader) this is all entirely true, to the best of my knowledge.

On Wednesday, my last day, she got fish tacos again.

“Why are you depressed, Alvy?” asked the doctor. “Tell Dr. Flicker. It’s something he read.” said his mother. Alvy’s head lolled depressingly around his shoulders. “The Blogosphere is expanding.” “The Blogosphere is expanding?” asked the doctor, somewhat skeptically. “Well,” said Alvy, ”the Blogosphere is everything, and if it’s expanding, someday it will break apart and that would be the end of everything!” Alvy’s mother began to scream and gesture excitedly, “What’s the Blogosphere got to do with it? You’re here in Brooklyn! Brooklyn is not expanding!”


My friend publishes a website, pontificating into the howling void of the Blogosphere about his life and interests. It’s a sad hobby, but if it gets him though the day, it’s fine with me. He has this neat site tracker that allows him to track, not just site hits, daily averages and from what IP addresses the hits come from, but keeps a running tab of the internet search terms that punt people to his site. His site somewhat revolves around movies (as does his sad, pathetic life), so it was no surprise to me to see on this last many, many search queries including the terms “nude,” “naked,” “ or “xxx.” Jennifer Aniston, Blanchard Ryan, Matt Damon, these names made appearances again and again.

Frankie Muniz?

That’s right, someone, somewhere, probably typing one-handed, wanted, for whatever reason, to see “Malcolm in the Middle” naked. This disturbing fact begs several questions:

1. What kind of twisted sex maniac wants to see a 19-year-old, male, television sitcom actor naked. We’re not talking about David Duchovny (of whom nude images do exist; actually quasi-nude, his naughty bits are covered with a teacup). We’re talking about Cody Banks, here.
2. What makes this fiend think that these images might actually exist? Does Frankie Muniz really seem like the kind of guy that is regularly approached by publication begging him to strip for the enjoyment of their readers? Does he seem like the sort of actor who would agree to have such photos taken?
3. The randomness of Frankie Muniz is strange. Sure, Jessica Beil posed for Playboy, but she’s HOT! Is it really worth the precious seconds required to search for existence of naked photos of “Boner” from Growing Pains?
4. Who the fuck is this person and what happened to you as a child? If you happen to be reading this, please contact me as soon as possible. Please, show me on the doll where they touched you.

Show of hands....Who wants to see my wedding tackle?

Lately, I've been feeling as if blogging, in and of itself, has become a detriment. I seem more occupied about the subject of the next blog than the subject of my next story. The reason I began this blog was simply to have an outlet, a bulletin board in the void of the world. It's purpose was to have an external "inbox" to store ideas and force me to work them out into cohesive tales. I never intended for anyone to actually read it, and thankfully that much has held true. However, blogging is fun, even if (perhaps especially if) no one ever reads this crap.

In an effort to kick myself in the pants, I been poring over virtually everything I've written since 1995. This is the first time I've ever undertaken this task, and it proved far more laborious, embarrassing and contemplative than I ever imagined. Frankly, I don't know what the hell was wrong with me. I had it all; a nice house, a semi-cohesive family, a car, a hot girlfriend (who, I might add, is now my hot wife), tons of great drinking buddies, and few great friends. Why the hell was I so depressed all the time!? Seriously, some of the stuff I came across sounded like Edgar Allen Poe's death hymn as read by Emily Dickinson. I must admit, however, while I was rather obsessed with science fiction, some of that stuff was pretty original. I'm not sure I could even duplicate that kind of originality now. Turns out drugs do make you more creative!

But then it occurred to me; the reason I began writing was because I was depressed, and writing made me feel better. Obviously, most of the stuff I put on paper would be dismal because, at that time, I only wrote that shitty, shitty poetry when I was feeling dismal.

I would simply like to take this opportunity to thank my parents (thought they'll never read this...) for doing well by me. You were both incredible, if slightly overly concerned, caregivers and I thank you for all that you sacrificed to ensure that myself and my brothers always had everything we needed, and most of the stuff we really wanted.

I love you both, and really miss you right now.

That being said, I wanted to share something I found. I had (and still have) a huge problem of finishing stories. Sometimes there is a neat phrase, or collection of words, or a feeling I just have to convey, bouncing around in my head and I have to put it on paper just to exorcise the demon. The result is a Herculean pile of paper (scraps, sheets, wads and otherwise) with which to contend. They never get fleshed out into stories, not just because I always get sidetracked by another, equally catchy phrase or idea, but because I'm a lazy piece of shit.

If anyone would like to help me with this massive problem of tree-killing clutter (this is directed to all my terrifically wealthy family members that don't read this blog, or even exist), you can get me the one thing I asked for, but didn't get for Christmas. I want it so bad I wanna throw up. The Dana.

This bit is juvenile, but I like the feeling because it's common and identifiable. To all the folks that don't read this blog, I thank you for your non-patronage. Your lack of support is what's really gotten me through these last few months.

The music faded and stopped. The DJ came on the microphone and announced the end of the evening. A muffled groan came from the dance floor as people began to clear off to collect their jackets, handbags and dates. Debts were paid off, and dance floor romances ended as they had begun; wordless stares into slightly bloodshot eyes.
One-night stands began and all night binges ended with a call for a cab or a suicidal fumble for the car keys. The last bit of alcohol was consumed, and, in the back alley, those who overestimated their own strength spilled more onto the concrete. This crowd of people, packed into a small, dingy room for one night of self-defiance and deprecation, finally began to quiet. As they began to disperse, like a single cell breaking apart from the inside in an effort to grow, the noise settled and the lights began to shine brighter than ever before.
The bartenders poured the last drinks, and the dealers moved into the parking lot to make their last sales. Hookers hooked and users used, but now they would have to go elsewhere. The night, the creature that it is, had been fed and was now bloated and lethargic. The true identity of those who survived, fishing in their pockets for their last cigarettes, or other fixes, seemed to hit them hard in the face with that first blast of cold air, the scent of fresh sunlight doing battle with the smoke and sweat.
The night itself was bedding down for its’ daily rest and it’s followers, the order of the night, the church of after hours, rescinded to their alternate selves, their mild-mannered identities, just to get some sleep. Their bones will still cry out for release, though. They cry to be set free, into the underbelly of the weekend.

Okay, this just isn't funny anymore. This began as an amusing way to fill the gaps in my work day. Now, I'm just depressed. This study is officalliy over, not just because I just quit my job, but because I'm beginning to feel a bit like P.T. Barnum. Please keep the "Jumbo" refernces to yourself.

However, for posterity, I would like to make a final analysis.

RAMEN IN NOT A FOOD, YOU FAT, IGNORANT SLUT!

I feel much better.

This poor dear has lost her battle with weight, depression and that giant Twix bar that runs her down in her dreams. I pity this woman. I feel guilty for pitying a woman whom I've seen eat sunflower seeds off the carpet. I'm really fucked on this one.

I've decided to include a few notations of the things she says during the course of the day. I feel they would provide a unique insight into her anthropoidal eating habits.

I remind you, these notations are in no way exaggerated or imbellished to make them funnier. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.


January,12 2005

8:06 AM ***Her husband packed her lunch today. She opened the plastic grocery sack to find a package of pork Top Ramen and a Ziploc FULL of hard candy.***
8:09 AM ***“I’m hungry” ***
8:14 AM Coffee with Swiss Miss cocoa powder
8:17 AM ***”I’m starving!”***
9:02 AM Pork flavor Top Ramen with Taco Bell hot sauce
9:26 AM Reese’s peanut butter cup
9:50 AM ***”I don’t feel so good. I ate too much.”***
10:08 AM Watermelon flavor Jolly Rancher
10:25 AM Grape flavor Jolly Rancher
10:49 AM ***went home complaining of a stomach ache***

January, 13 2005

8:03 AM Small coffee with both “French Vanilla” and “Mocha Java” flavored non-dairy creamer, chocolate chip muffin (I don’t know the serving size, but the muffin is about the size of a softball.)
9:47 AM Pork flavor Top Ramen with hot sauce, handful of peanuts in the shell
11:09 AM Banana (first fruit!!)
12:23 PM Unidentified candy, “Tropical Fruit” flavor
2:42 PM Twix candy bar(s)
2:43 PM 2 day old doughnut (I’m not kidding, it was wrapped in a tissue in her desk.)
2:46 PM Cheetos (1.2 oz. package)

January 14, 2005

8:48 AM Coffee with Swiss Miss hot cocoa powder.
9:18 AM Nestle Crunch with caramel, handful of “Cream Smoothie” Skittles (eew.)
11:57 AM Pork flavor Top Ramen with Taco Bell hot sauce and MAYONNAISE!!
12:12 AM Diet Pepsi
2:16 PM Twix candy bar(s)

January 17, 2005

9:18 AM Coffee with Swiss Miss cocoa powder
10:54AM Pork flavor Top Ramen with Sriracha
11:56 AM Baloney and mayonnaise on white bread (okay, she bragged about this one: bread, mayo, baloney, kraft cheez, baloney, cheez, mayo, baloney, cheez, mayo, bread. The sandwich is about two inches thick. This is not a joke.)

I declared this study over when, after pestering everyone in the office for hours about where lunch was coming from, I actually saw her devour FOUR fried fish tacos, smeared with mayonnaise she brought herself. She then began to pontificate on the many uses of this fine condiment, divulging that her absolute favorite is corn on the cob dripping with mayo.

I don't know what disturbs me more; the fact this woman seeks ways toincorporate mayonnaise into virtually every meal she takes, or, upon review, discovering that, over the course of this laborious study, she comsumed two non-processed food items, and that assumes you would count Iceberg Lettuce as a serving of vegetables.

If I had to choose one thing that made me want to vomit most, it would be the coughing. Those rasping, phlegm filled hacks; those body convulsing expulsions of lung butter that we, here in the office, so enjoy every six minutes or so.
Or perhaps I’d go with the smell. That odor of stale, urine filled ashtray mixed with the ungodly aroma of what I can only imagine is the Alaskan malamute you so often dote about. I was walking by your workstation last week, you were out with bronchitis, (again) and as I passed your desk, your stench smacked me in the face like a brick. My eyes began to water AND I ACTUALLY DRY HEAVED.
But who can forget the way you look? The giant, tent-like cosby sweaters, the stirrup pants, the billowy leather jacket that surely, in a previous life, was most of a herd of cattle, or at least the interior of a minivan. Your shoulder length, bleached, stripped and thinning hair,; those pompous and dramatic bangs, looping and dangling on your forehead like a writhing sea cucumber.
Your skin tone varies so greatly, how could I choose which one I hate the most? Most of the time its’ color is a tepid, jaundiced yellowish-gray, indicative of your regular diet of processed meats, corn syrup and nicotine, or perhaps a tapeworm. You must certainly rue the day you accepted a job on the second floor of a building with no elevator. When you emerge from that stairwell, your skin tone falls somewhere boiled lobster and the flaming stay-puft marshmallow man. You clutch your knees for support and wheeze until your beet-color fades, and you try to forget the daunting eighteen steps that just kicked your gargantuan ass.
And do you think you garner any sympathy when you whine about the state of your bone structure? Do you think any of us believe that, if you weren’t plagued with a bad back and knees, you’d be running marathons or something? How the fuck do you think you got there in the first place?! I mean, fuck! I can think of car frames that have to support less weight than your unfortunate frame!
And we can’t forget your attitude, now can we? We can’t leave out the fact that you do nothing but talk shit about everyone else in the office. Sure, it’s my bad luck I have to sit within ten feet of you, but nowhere in my contract did it state I would be forced to listen to you flap your gums, to an equally corpulent sack of crap a mere thirty feet away, about how no one in this place does as much work as you!
I almost forgot about the banana bread. You know what I'm talking about. The banana bread you brought to the potluck last Christmas, going on and on about how late you were up baking the night before. That’s right, the banana bread no one ate because tasted like a wet dog. After the Christmas party, you could see plates scattered around the office with untouched slices of that vile bread on each one. I actually remember you saying that imitation banana extract tasted better than real ripe bananas. This must be true because you showed up to work clutching a fucking BANANAS FOSTER CAPPUCINO FROM 7-11!! What species are you!? From what cesspool did you escape to torture me?!
Today, however, you’ve outdone yourself. I was focusing on my computer monitor, trying to forget you were even there, when I heard what sounded like a gas-powered generator coming from your cubicle. I slowly turned and saw you with an oxygen mask on your putrid face. A FUCKING NEBULIZER!? The droning sound of the thing was literally shaking the walls of you cubicle, but as it’s held together with masking tape, that’s not surprising. What was really weird, no one else was looking! You were violently sucking vaporized water from a machine that sounds like a shitty old lawnmower, and no one seems to notice!
Just when I though you couldn’t disgrace yourself any further, you turned off the machine (my ears ringing) and proceeded to stand up, coughing and wheezing as those last alveoli in your lungs, clinging to dear life, tried so hard to pass oxygen into your bloodstream, you slipped on your giant leather coat. YOU STEPPED OUT TO HAVE A SMOKE!
I don’t revel in your impending demise, I just hope I don’t have to smell you.

Happier New Year? 

It’s been said the only time a man can think with true, unmitigated lucidity is the thirty seconds immediately following an orgasm. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that a man’s body, the walking sperm-gun that it is, allows the occupier (namely, the brain) a brief moment of reality before it reloads the cannon, so to speak. This is what alcoholics refer to as a “moment of clarity,” a point in time wherein all is seen as it truly is, all is known as it truly exists, and all truths are self-evident.

This is complete bullshit.

I know this to be complete bullshit because it was during that very time, huffing, puffing and experiencing, what I thought to be, a instant of unchecked vision, I made the decision to join this damned fool idealistic crusade (as my uncle would say) and hereby currently find myself locked in the trunk of a 1978 Camaro careening down Route 66 at nearly the speed of sound, pursued by at least a dozen obnoxiously loud law enforcement vehicles, several pick-ups full of well-armed civilians, and what I can only imagine is an FBI helicopter.

Both literally and figuratively, fuck.

Happy New Year 

Her name is unimportant. Her girth is estimable. Her desk sits approximately four feet from mine, and while I like her, she has the eating habits of Marlon Brando in Wonka's Chocolate Room. I've been meaning to do this for months, but hadn't the chance until recently; we lost a big client and my workload has decreased significantly. I have to look busy, right?
When I began this study, I originally considered tracking, by the hour, her insanely variable blood sugar level, gaugung by number of giggles, guffaws and snorts, charted against the number of groans, complaints and personal insults muttered under her breath. This proved far too laborious.
Some might say it was unfair to begin this anthropological study during the holidays, but I assusre you, gentle reader, that this catalog represents a very normal and regular feeding schedule. I am, also, not intending to deride those of you that choose never to consume fruits or vegetables, or anything born of earthen soil, but what the hell is wrong with you people!? Would an apple friggin' kill you!?
But I digress. I have attempted to list the approximate the serving size when I thought it important. Items enclosed in *** are occurences of note, and items enclosed in ( ) are merely editorial comment.

December 30, 2004

8:19 AM Russell Stover’s Peanut Butter Turtle
8:28 AM Almond Joy, Coffee with Swiss Miss cocoa powder
9:19 AM Hershey’s Kiss
9:35 AM Cigarette break #1
10:10 AM Chocolate/ caramel covered macadamia nuts, Coffee and Swiss Miss #2, Cheez Nips (3-4 oz)
10:35 AM Cigarette break #2
12:48 PM Cup-O-Noodles with Taco Bell hot sauce
1:08 PM King Size Nutragous bar, Chocolate Rice Krispie treat, Diet Pepsi
1:12 PM Jerkied “Beef Nuggets”


January 3, 2005

***Note: For Christmas, her fiance’ gave her tickets to a basketball game, Blazers vs. Clippers. She is not a basketball fan.***

8:14 AM Double-shot mocha with whipped cream
9:57 AM “Cool Ranch” Doritos (1.5 oz )
10:09 AM Knotts’ Berry Farm Raspberry Shortbread Cookies (2 oz package)
10:21 AM Diet Pepsi
11:02 AM “Big Meal” extra-large Cup-O-Noodles (it’s twice the size of the original, I didn’t know these existed.)
11:57 AM Plain M&Ms (1.69 oz package)
2:14 PM Microwave popcorn (Butter Explosion!!!)
3:19 PM Twix candy bar(s)
3:44 PM Small stack of HoneyMaid graham crackers
3:47 PM Candy cane

January 4, 2005

8:29 AM Small regular coffee
9:02 AM Cup-O-Noodles (chicken flavor)
11:03 AM Baloney and mayonnaise on white bread
12:10 PM Coffee with Swiss Miss cocoa powder, Candy cane
12:38 PM Handful of shelled peanuts
12:49 PM Piece of Dentyne Ice gum (which she admits to swallowing)
2:10 PM ***Complains of stomach ache***
2:11 PM Hershey’s Kiss
2:44 PM ***Histrionically complains of being hungry, and scolds herself for eating too much***
2:45 PM Candy cane
3:43 PM Palmer chocolate bell

January 6, 2005

8:41 AM Small coffee, Snickers Marathon energy bar
9:18 AM Bagel with cream cheese
9:44 AM Candy cane
11:16 AM Cup-O-Noodles (chicken flavor) with taco bell hot sauce
11:48 AM Chicken taco, tortilla chips and salsa ***first vegetable: iceberg lettuce**
1:58 PM Mini Reeses peanut butter cup
2:23 PM Mini Reeses peanut butter cup
2:43 PM Mini Reeses peanut butter cup
***she jokes, “I should eat some chocolate every time I type something.”***
2:46 PM Palmer chocolate bell
3:10 PM Ranch flavored sunflower seeds (once again, I didn’t know these existed.)

The future os this study is in peril, as my employment may change soon. If you wish to donate to support this study, I accept personal checks, and Visa/Mastercard donations.

If you're one of the many mouth-breathing squish-heads that believes this tripe, I have great difficulty apologizing because this is one of the funniest damned things I have ever read. I love you James Randi.

It seems to happen to me about one a year. I get sick of my job, I psyche myself up by reading the classifieds (“I could be vet, right? Oh, they mean war vet….) I sit down to update the ol’ resume, and all hope is dashed to the ground when I discover how woefully unqualified I am to even be holding the job I currently have.

It’s starts wonderfully, with imaginings of being everything from a massage therapist to diesel mechanic. Nurse’s assistant, insurance salesman, construction worker, sous chef, housekeeper, the ubiquitous “customer service specialist,” canvasser for Greenpeace (scratch that one.), marketing, healthcare, food, WHERE DOES IT END?

And this only includes the jobs I can identify. What the hell is a journeyman?

Oh my, Santaland is hiring. I know I’ve already ripped off the entire errant humor thing, shall I be so callous?

The resume is always the worst. Objective: To obtain an entry-level position in an exciting and professional [fill in the blank] firm, group, or organization with real potential for advancement and future career opportunities. What bullshit. I want $14.50 an hour doing anything that doesn’t involve putting my hand into anything alive, and even that is negotiable. Experience: Medical billing. Shoot me now. I may as well have gotten a shitload of experience weighing elephant testicles. Sure, it’s a skill that’s in demand, but there’s a reason no one has ever heard of it. When I moved to Portland I told myself, using these word exactly, “I would rather dig my eyes out with a spork than go back into medical billing.” Three weeks of unemployment was all it took until I was going crazy at my ocular cavities with a plastic spoon/fork. Education: This is about the time I erase everything I’ve already written (using the backspace, character by character, I'm very dramatic that way) and then begin to write a worthless stream-of-consciousness explication of how I'm feeling, fully intending to put it in my blog, knowing full well no one is going to read it. I need a drink.

Okay, I'm back. Ice quietly tinkling in a tumbler of scotch, I realize I’ve already lost my train of thought. Am I really this pathetic? My mind turns to the filthy crab pot that’s sitting in my backyard waiting for a scrubbing, the dvds that have to be returned by midnight of last night (don’t forget honey!), the library book that is literally months overdue (current fines: $16.85, I get email alerts), the myriad of blogs, humor columns, political notations and jokes that lay, incomplete, on computer disks around my office, my god there’s even an article about Darwin in this month’s National Geographic that I haven’t even finished!! What the fuck is wrong with me!

Check it out, fuck is an accepted word in this fucking word processing program! Fucking, shit ain’t that a doozy! Fuck all fuckin’ shit hell damn fuck ass bitch. Shit, they’re all acceptable!

An hour of my life is gone and all I’ve accomplished is a page of text that, in the miniscule chance it graces someone’s computer screen, I deeply hope they will not tell me.
(slurp)

I love scotch. Actually love is not the right word, the word “love” is so abused by pop culture that I will invent a new word, “lurv.”

I lurv scotch.

The worst part is, for something I love so much, I know next to nothing about it, mainly because I could never afford really good scotch. I can’t afford it because I don’t make enough money. I don’t make enough money because I have a shitty job. I have a shitty job because I never finished college. I NEVER FINISHED COLLEGE BECAUSE I WAS TOO BUSY DRINKING SCOTCH!!

My friend Neil is an engineer at Ball Aerospace in Colorado. That’s right, he’s a rocket scientist. My friend Jess is a panty designer for Victoria’s Secret and travels the world extensively, currently residing in Hong Kong. Meghan is a staff graphic designer for a huge metropolitan glossy in Boston. Luke is an accountant with a big firm in New Orleans. Ben is a teacher in L.A. Joe is a brain surgeon. That’s right, a brain surgeon.

I need another drink.

I think I may have identified the problem.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

(slurp).

“Are you in high school?” I was somewhat thrown off by the question. When I think of myself as a high-schooler I picture a wavy, pitch-black mullet and braces on my bottom teeth. Images of the bushy, carefully manicured sideburns (also dyed black) that just barely extended past regulation length. We could go so far as to mention the bright red Converse tennis shoes, at least two sizes too large, but we haven’t the time.

“No, I’m not in high school.” Introspective pause. “Do I look like I should be?” This was a trick question. ”I don't know. It’s just that the only people I know as big as you are either grown-ups or are in high school.” He was six years old, so some slack must be given, but that hurt. I pictured myself floating in the gelatinous void between high school and adulthood. Without a tether of some kind, I would simply sink into the nothingness and be lost to the world forever. No one would notice, after all, who reads this crap? This train of thought, inevitably led to my questioning, not just what the hell I’d been doing for the last few years, but what the hell am I poised to accomplish in the very brief time on planet Earth. The tears were beginning to well at the corners of my eyes.

I could have taken a seat next to the boy, and begun the lengthy explanation about why I decided not to join the Peace Corps, but frankly didn't want to have to explain the unique relationship between the Playstation 2, gin and how an organization's Nazi-like adherence to deadlines can lead down the path of self-destruction and low personal expectations. I was saving that speech for the Scared Straight crowd.

I started imagining this very child, crying and lamenting all the horrible crimes he committed against society. Apologizing for the horrible things he'd said to his mother, admitting to a room full of fellow “troubled youth” that he stole candy from his grandmother’s jar, even after she'd said he'd had enough. In a low, mouse-like voice, he would divulge clandestine activities involving the Iranian government, yellowcake uranium and vast sums of money in diamonds and Venezuelan oil futures. I would sit next to him, lightly touch his shoulder and admonish him for betraying his country and his grandmother, and then forgive him, knowing that my word of repentance and hope were his life line. The hot lozenge of a good deed well done would swell in my chest, and it would feel good.

Shortly after that escapade, had it been allowed to continue, I would have realized that “Scared Straight” speakers are always in prison (or worse) and generally have had to do very bad things to get a gig like that. Fortunately, I was rudely interrupted.

“Don’t you think it's weird that ALL kids want to be grown ups and ALL grown ups want to be kids?” This conversation was going downhill and fast. I was poised to make one of those extremely loud sarcastic responses I give to people at parties like, “Yeah! And why do all children seem to think I want to talk to them?” but thought better of it. All I could muster was, “If high school or adulthood are my only choices, then I'm going to have a drink.” I began thinking about the bottle of Dogfish Head 120-minute Pale Ale I'd had in the fridge for the last year, waiting for just the right occasion to open. Masturbatory depression exacted by a pre-teen seemed just the right occasion.

He looked me directly in the eye,” I'd like to drive a car and have a dog, but I can see why being an adult is not all that great, what with taxes and all.”

Biking downtown, I’m smiling and waving at all the wonderful people I know. Without warning, a drunk, behind the wheel of daddy’s new Bentley tears around the corner and connects. I’m thrown several yards, tattered and bloody, but miraculously I survive. There is no permanent damage, but the injuries will require a lengthy hospital stay. “It’ll be paid leave, of course,” Cal tells me. He and Julie come by almost every day, Julie’s cooking (which has significantly improved) spares me from the hospital cafeteria. The settlement is substantial, on account of all the witnesses. Between the big screen projection television and that laptop I always wanted, my recovery is speedy and I am escorted from the hospital clutching the new great American novel, publisher’s lined around the block, salivating for the rights to my inspiring story.
Julie had been pressuring me to go with her on some sort of vacation. The problem is she can’t think of a single place to go. I suggest Mississippi and receive an interesting look. She suggests Florida. I counter with Mexico. She parries with Canada and I twist, and thrust with London, but she’s on top of that with Amsterdam. We eventually call it a draw and decide on Bangkok because once we were in the grocery store and saw a book of Asian recipes. On the cover was a plate piled with bright red, boiled creatures resembling giant armored, multi-legged telephone receivers. The caption read, “Pepper Crab, Native to Thailand.”
Randall’s uncle Jake runs a pawn shop in Biloxi. We pack into Finn’s nineteen eighty-seven Chevy van, a.k.a. “Van-Halen,” and we drive down, Julie, Randall, Finn and I. Julie was none too happy about my including these two but the only was we were able to afford the trip was to stay Jake’s beach house, which required Randall, and Finn had the van.
Shortly after entering Biloxi, Beachfront Blvd. driving east, one starts to notice a pattern. On your right, the view of the Gulf of Mexico is obstructed by casinos, one after the other, for miles of Mississippi coast. On your left, opposite each casino is one pawn shop and one church, usually Catholic, directly across the street. This situation seems to me to create a sort of win-lose scenario. Or rather a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” mentality. Conceivably, a person could come to Biloxi, lose every dime they have, sulk across the street and pawn the watch, ring, antique armoire, etc. Brimming with new-found wealth, and a the need to “win it all back” so the Mrs. never becomes the wiser, that person could dash all the way back to the Blackjack table before their rum and coke goes flat. After losing it all again (and perhaps repeating the cycle several times over) this person could, head drooping in a free drink haze, enter the house of God and repent it all, fully admonishing themselves of any wrongdoing and beginning life anew with fresh perspective and joy. They could do all this, and never have to travel more than a block.

Oh puh-lease! This is akin to "I'd rather be slapping wife-beaters," or "I'd rather be dismantling puppy-crushing machines." This perfect example of masturbatory expression is what makes me want to slash some tires. Precisely how does one "smash" Imperialism? By writing your ass-hat Congressman? Not on your life, we trust representative democracy as much as we trust Dick Cheney in a Wal-Mart smock! The answer is Organic Gardening!. That's the way to put the power to the Proletariat!
My friend Meghan, when travelling the treacherous streets of Boston, will often spit on the cars of inconsiderate motorists. I was very tempted, but apparently it's become all the rage in France.

“Doc prescribed these pills for the pain, but my stomach is so small now, I can't swallow them”

Joey had his stomach stapled six months before. These days, his stomach can only hold about one ounce of fluid.

“So three times a day, doctor's orders, I drop a pill into a few ounces of Budweiser with one packet of Equal and let it fizz for a minute. Some kind of chemical reaction dissolves the pill it’s pretty neat.”

Joey smiled and drank the concoction. Visible behind him is a photo of he and his brother when they were featured in Discovery magazine six years ago. Joey and Richie are well known in the circle of amateur astronomers since their discovery of a new comet. They named it Mildred, after their mother. In the photo, Joey is perhaps three times the size of his brother, his exaggerated belly nearly touching the floor.

“My wife couldn’t believe the doc prescribed three beers a day, she even called him to make sure I didn't hear that dumb shit from the bartender at the VFW hall.”

Joey fought in the Korean War. He was active duty for twelve days before his platoon was ambushed by Chinese troops. He was shot twice in the abdomen, one bullet grazing his lower spine. The hormone treatment he received in Hawaii after his surgery is what he claims caused him to start gaining weight. He peaked at close to six hundred pounds.

“Then I told her the doc prescribed pussy three times a week, but she wasn’t buying it.”

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I have added a feature to this site wherein you, the unfortunate victim of my literary drivel, can respond with words of icy criticism. At the end of the newer entries in this blog, there are now "comments" links. Simply click on the link, and it will allow you to respond to a specific posting that I have made and you, for some reason, have read.

I look forward to hearing the different ways you all can structure the phrase "unprecedented failure," but I have faith in your collective creativity.

As always, I can be personally ridiculed at mandalore84@msn.com
 

I wish you all a safe, fun and thoughtful Independence Day.

"The arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties being with one mind resolved to die free rather than live slaves."
-Thomas Jefferson, 1775

There would be nights when I would lie in bed staring at the ceiling desperately hoping for something terrible to happen. I would imagine a drunk teenager swerving down the street, left and right, left and right, finally losing control, jumping the curb and plowing into the front of my house. My home, destroyed, the teenager, dead at such a young age, but me having emerged from the rubble miraculously unscathed. Of course my cat would also be unharmed, having been nestled quietly under my bed sheets.
I would then finally take stock and begin anew. I would become the lone force for change in my life, and become the independent person I always knew I could be. Then I usually trail off into becoming a superhero through some strange genetic experiment, or perhaps some stray radiation.

The furniture store where I work basically sucks, but it gives me nights free to write. One of these days, I’m going to start writing. Instead of giving me a raise every year, my boss gives me a case of beer, which I gladly accept, because every year I barely expect that. Low standards and expectations make for a more satisfactory life. When I ask for a raise, I get a keg, so I’m known for having the best parties on the block.

Unfortunately that's not saying much, as my neighborhood is awash with young professionals and stay-at-home moms. Kids three and four years younger than me VP-ing corporate offices whose bathrooms I’m not fit to soil. They’re reasonably good people, as long as you don't catch them between 8 am Monday and 5 pm Friday. Sometimes I think they work so hard simply so they can have the best funeral in town.

I live with two guys, Randall and Inferno. Inferno likes to be called inferno because that’s his handle in some Internet hacking group called GOTHIC. He likes to describe himself as some keyboard jockey, but mainly what he does with the banks of humming machinery in his room is pirate video games to be freely downloaded by pimply teenagers around the world. Randall works at a coffee shop.
Our lives here at 123 Buena Vista circle peak at the mundane. That peak is characterized by the long list of toeheads the three of us keep as companions. None of them really has any sort of allegiance to any one of us, and some of them we can’t even remember who assimilated them into the group. There’s the guy with the curly hair that is obsessed with discovering the secret ingredient in coca-cola and blackmailing the company. Then there’s the girl whose entire wardrobe, including bags, hats, shoes, fingernails and pet bird, are aquamarine. Then there’s the wrestler. As one can see, few of them even have names anymore. Except the wrestler, we all call him “bitch-school.”

My mother moved away years ago, and left me the house. I had to take in roommates to afford keeping it. She married a shoe salesman from Bend, Oregon and they moved to Chicago. I think she still feels guilty about leaving, but guilt was a great talent of hers and she has to do what she can to keep in practice. My father lives with his third wife across town and is currently at the tail end of an incredibly nasty mid-life crisis involving a motorcycle and spray-on hair. He calls about once a week trying to entice me over to his house with the prospect of cheap beer and over-cooked meat. Of course I go every time.

Inferno’s parents came to visit once. They drove all the way from Cleveland in an RV that resembled the international space station. Silver air stream, solar panels, and approximately the size of Montana. They were both retired police officers and had decided to road trip around the country till they both were dead, by the looks of them; they had another couple of hundred years. They showed up on our doorstep at eight AM on a Sunday morning. Unfortunately, we had had a particularly nasty party the night before. The police showed up and knocked on the door responding to noise complaints. When there was no answer, the officer opened the door to discover myself, my roommates and many guests dancing the Macarena in the nude.

I awoke to the knocking in my skull only moments before the space station docked in front of the house, effectively blocking out the sun. Swimming through the beer cans I opened the door. They asked for Finbar. Finbar? I asked. Finbar O’Connell, they said. Any relation to Inferno O’Connell? I asked. One and the same, they said, uncomfortably processing “inferno.”

They didn’t stay long. They took us to breakfast and gave Finbar a check. His mother cried. The meal was uncomfortable because not much was said. Randall and I knew he hadn’t seen his parents since he moved away years before. One got the impression that some things had happened that no one was ever going to hear about.

I work four days a week at “Crazy Cal’s Home Furnishings.” I stain things, both intentionally and not so. The name of the store is not a play on his low, low prices, Crazy Cal is really crazy. He was in ‘Nam, deep in the shit. He drinks like Mickey Rourke in barfly, but at times tends to remind me of Dennis Hopper in blue velvet. It’s really creepy when he goes off on warm beer. He’s a much easier fellow to get along with when he’s drunk, I guess that’s what makes him an alcoholic. He’s come to a few of my parties, but he has to get really tanked to get up the nerve to make social calls, so he’s only there for about an hour before he passes out or gets grabby with aquamarine girl. His daughter runs the store, pretty much, but he still outsells the rest of his own sales team. When he gets into that groove, the man’s a wizard.

Tonight, a stray meteor shower demolishes half of my neighborhood, forcing me to take the role of leader and rallying the statewide effort to rebuild and comfort the families of the tragically lost. This, of course, is abandoned when I realize that the only people in the neighborhood whose names I even know are the Jacksons across the street, and the crazy bird lady down the block. And the only reason I know the Jacksons is they are the ones who constantly call the police about our parties. They also filed a civil suit against Randall when he spelled, “FUCK YOU” in their lawn with weed killer. Of course, there was no evidence he was involved because the only witness was too far away to determine whether was spraying the lawn or just pissing. He did allot of that too.

My cat hates it when I daydream, she knows I’m awake and concentrating on something and it’s not her. She is not a loud animal by any means, just spiteful. Nothing is sacred, no shoe, no article of clothing, no piece of electronic equipment spared from the scratches, vomit or urine. This also makes the conquest of writing quite a challenge. I’m currently working on apiece about an alien technology that’s found buried deep within the earth and the mayhem that ensues when the greedy American government tries to harness its awesome power. I told Finn about it and he accused me of plagiarism. I, of course told home he was fucking retarded. He then forced me to watch the first three episodes of “Robot-Tech,” a Japanese cartoon circa nineteen eighty-five. He was right. So I pissed in his hamper.

Since the three of us had moved in, we had been playing pranks on each other. I think it all started when Randall got totally trashed and ran into my bathroom, took my toothbrush from the cup on the sink and proceeded to scrub his right nipple. In retaliation, I pawned his stereo for the rent money he owed me. Things escalated, as they always do, to the point where shit was beginning to appear on shower curtains, and creamed corn in sock drawers.

“It’s fun until someone loses an eye”

The proverbial eye got lost when Randall, destined to begin the escapade, doomed to end it, was arrested attempting to “borrow” a horse from a ranch outside of town. He told me through the bars at county as fin was getting the bail money together that King Leer, the horse, was to be installed into my Volkswagen Rabbit to be discovered by me the following morning. Randall has hence sworn off tequila in all its forms.

I had only heard about Julie for the first year I worked at Cal’s. She only came in on Friday’s to balance the books, make orders, pass out checks, and make up the schedule. I don’w work on Friday’s and frankly was afraid of the kind of child Crazy Cal woyld raise. After Cal had a minor stroke, she quite her job at the Sizzler to come over full time. I often assumed that the only reason we started dating was that I was the only guy there even remotely her age, other than Gill “The Worst One-Armed Salesman in the Universe” Monahan. I also often assumed that the only reason I accepted her offer for a date was that she was the only girl I knew outside of the menagerie of mouth-breathers that shuffled in and out of our house.

We went to the sizzler on our first date. I was totally broke and hadn’t eaten anything all day; I ate so much that night that I got sick during the movie afterwards. I blame her personally because when I got back from the buffet table, my plate piled high with pieces of various animals; she virtually challenged me to eat it all. So I did. And then another. But it was the combination of Foster’s and obscene amounts of soft-serve that did it. We were asked to leave and we didn’t even get a refund. The movie sucked anyway.

Randall’s brother owns a gas station near downtown. He comes over every couple of weeks to get away from his wife. This guy is the poster boy for the unhappy marriage. One day he was ironing a shirt while watching basketball on the television. She came in and asked him why he was using her iron. He said because she had left his at her friend’s house. She asked him not to use her iron. He yanked the cord from the wall, and the plug ripped off. She then took the cake she had made for him and threw it out the window. It was his birthday. He ended up with us that night. Randall wanted to get him a hooker, but we couldn’t get enough money together, and none of us knew where to find one. Aquamarine girl was not interested, not even for one hundred seventeen dollars and eighty-seven cents. And sixty of it was money we stole from the “new TV fund”

The only television in the house was donated to us via the trash dumpster by the family that used to live in the Jackson’s house. Full of vacuum tubes and about the size of a Buick, it seems more effective as a table than a television. Finn actually scaled the roof one day and spliced the neighbor’s cable and hooked us up to their bill. It only took about three weeks for a guy from the cable company to show up. Strangely enough, it was between the hours of ten AM and five PM. I opened the door in a pair of boxers, clutching a gallon of orange juice. I was alone in the house, and that Demi Moore movie “Striptease” was playing in the back. It was during a particularly lurid scene. He was a young kid, maybe twenty -two. I opened the door and saw him staring at the wire running from the neighbors, straight through the doorway, which stood between us. He started laughing. I started laughing, we laughed together.

I know there are no milkmen anymore, and I also understand that his being a milkman has no significance either way, but that’s just how it’s going to be. A deranged and disgruntled milkman, sick to his core with the likes of two percent, whole, skim, and the unholy of chocolate, sprays machine gun fire into the crowded food court at the mall. One hundred plus are wounded, eighteen dead, but myself, quietly munching on food court pad Thai, beyond all odds am uninjured. Oh, hi kitty.

Julie and I went out again, this time I made sure to eat at some point during the day before we went to dinner. I chose the restaurant this time, an oyster bar on the south side of town. She’d never had oysters before, and after one (with perhaps a bit too much horseradish) she threw it up along with the two beers she had previously. Two for two. We did end up sleeping together, though. The precarious architecture of my house makes for interesting sexual encounters. I have the largest bedroom, on the second floor. Finn has the room next to mine, and Randall lives in the room on the first floor, the one that was added to the house when I was eight and my grandmother came to live with us. She died in that bed, Randall doesn’t know, we’re thinking about waiting till his birthday.

The combination of old wood and the toilet paper that was used to insulate the house, the way Finn told me once was, “Dude, when you fart in there I can hear what you had for dinner.” Instead of muffling the sounds coming from a particular room, the structure of the house actually amplifies the noise. Worst of all, Julie turned out to be a screamer. Don’t get me wrong, I like ‘em loud, but it’s just not something you want to have to explain to the police officer who has already been there three times in the last two months, and has seen you naked before.

My high school English teacher, sophomore year, was a squat, fat Canadian that never could speak enough of the virtues of those worksheets included at the end of each chapter in our “English text book.” The book was about eight hundred pages and included excerpts from what it classified as “the great American novels.” A Farewell to Arms, The Awakening, Moby Dick, and the like. I remember somewhere around chapter four, entitled “American Literature of the Forties and Fifties.” which conveniently left out Ginsberg, Kerouac, Boroughs, and even Kafka, included an assignment. Write your own short story. The book said that the essence of good story telling was to write what you know. That one still baffles me, especially as I sit at the computer screen, drooling quietly as it laughs at me. Fear of a white screen. What did Asimov know about robots? What did Roddenberry know about space travel?

Alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems. I have compiled a list of the worst drinks to ever pass these young lips. Needless to say, the drinks on this list will change as time progresses, but there's nothing more adventurous than a broke high schooler looking for a drink. I hereby present the first five of the bullets I have taken for you all, so that you might not have to suffer.

No. 10... Scotch and Root Beer (dubbed The Beatle) House party, 1995

I know it doesn't sound that bad, in fact legend has it that this was the favorite draught of John, Paul, George and Ringo during their time in Hamburg. I, however, was not on the verge of super-mega-stardom and my standards were certainly much lower. I found myself at one of those house parties where I didn't know anyone, and no one wanted to know me. A sly escape upstairs brought myself and a troupe of fellow rejects to the host's father's study. Perhaps, one would assume that a man that drives a brand new BMW M3, and owns a 3200 sq. foot house would have better taste, but all there was to greet us was Passport brand scotch. If you're not familiar with the brand, go to you local liquor store, find the scotch section, and look around your feet. Perhaps even pony up the $2.99 for the bottle, have a swig, and give the rest to Mr. Smiley that lives next to the dumpster and pees in his hands. You'll get a thumbs up!

No. 9 Margarita Schnapps (brand name Cactus Juice) Mardi Gras party, 1996

This is in fact not a cocktail, but deserves an entry in it's own right. Sure, everyone's got an "oh-my-god-never-ever-again" tequila story justifying why they can't imbibe the stuff. And I'm sure there are lots of you out there that have a few "schnapps" stories to delight, but how many have "tequila schnapps" stories? The substance itself tastes like alum, with an aftertaste of rotten citrus fruit and ass. It comes in strawberry too.

No. 8 Vodka and Metamucil (dubbed Russian Drain-o) Rice festival, 1997

What can I say, pickins were slim. Rice festival is the harvest celebration in my hometown. It was three o'clock in the morning and there was nothing left to drink. This left my pal Mule and myself in somewhat dire straits. After some preliminary searching, we came up with a metal canteen filled with rubbing alcohol that was hiding behind a pound of bacon. This later turned out to be vodka. Unfortunately, the refrigerator gave us no means to tame the demon called Dobra, so we turned to the pantry. The only option I could see was a can of Metamucil. Mule, however, voted to pulverize the bottle of Flintstone vitamins. Which would you have chosen?


No. 7 Plain Old Vodka and Milk. (dubbed the I'm a Friggin' Idiot) Christmas party, 1997

This one would have garnered a higher ranking, but it was not I who drank it. Her name was Erin and she was hosting the party. There was beer and wine abound, but Erin, being the malcontent that she was, wanted a cocktail. She proclaimed to the uninterested room, "I'm going to make a White Russian." In went the vodka, in went the milk, but the Kalhua was nowhere to be found. She puzzled for a moment, "It can't be that bad..." you could almost see the bubbles above her head say.

The suspense was killing me.

One deep gulp was all it took, as all 95 lbs of her were already "nicely irrigated with horizontal lubricant," as they say in the west of Scotland. To this day I am amazed at the retching sound that came from so small a person. She turned red and made a break for the sink, and did one of those things where her legs kicked like she was being eaten by a crocodile.

No. 6 Blackberry Schnapps with a Natural Ice "back." New Year's Eve, 1998.

Once again, this is less a cocktail than it was a wholly unpleasant experience. Those of you not familiar with the concept of "back," it is the phenomenon wherein you have a beer in one hand and a spirit in the other. The idea is to sip the spirit and beer interchangedly, thus saving money by not drinking straight spirits, and saving your liver for better days to come. Essentially, it's "double-fisting" with a unique purpose. At this annual celebration, I found myself in a beggarly state, so was reduced to panhandling for my new year's booze. We were able to wreck ourselves effectively with a 12-pack of "Old Natty" and a bottle of "Black Haus" my pal Thomas produced from the trunk of his car. Having never tasted this substance, the foul stench and sickly-sweet mouthfeel seemed appropriate for what some call "The Schnappster" (ding!) It wasn't until much later, and most of the bottle, that he admitted that he'd found the schnapps on the bottom of a slimy, bubbling green swimming pool in which he had been dared to dive. My favorite euphamism for vomiting is still one that I heard that night from the other side of the bathroom door, technicolor yawn.


No. 5 Tequila Rose (brand name Tequila Rose) There is no date, because this substance deserves no place in history or memory.

I record this fetid concoction only as a warning. The primary ingredients of Tequila Rose are tequila (distilled in the bowels of hell), sweet condensed milk (squeezed from the udders of Pestilence itself) and artificial strawberry flavoring, manufactured, no doubt, somewhere in New Jersey. The initial flavor of this tincture is not unlike the sensation of licking a nine-volt battery, surprising, but not entirely unpleasant. But then, when it's tricked you into swallowing it, it starts to work on your insides like a pork taco purchased on a Mexican boardwalk. When you read the ingredients, the first question you might ask is, "How come the milk doesn't curdle?" The answer is, it does, only it waits until it reaches your digestive system, and then trashes the place like a Dartmouth boy on Rush Week.

Thus concludes my reliving the worst memories of my impressionable youth. Tune in next week, maybe by then I can unlock the secret doors and plumb the information about numbers six to one. The names are there, but the details are fuzzy...

Ask anyone in the know, and they'll tell you I can form my own opinions about things. Normally, I would never do anything like this, but a gentleman here in Portland has nailed modern, angst-ridden, west coast Constitutionalism like he's was getting paid for it (which he's not). I don't agree with everything he says, but no one should ever agreee with everything another person says, right? His name is Link Hoggthrob and he deserves a few minutes of your attention. Let the truth set you free.