If you have a cell phone, fuck you. I have one and fuck me, too.
As long as they have existed to annoy me, I have had this intense, almost irrational hatred of mobile phones. For years, I gave all my friends shit about being enslaved to their little plastic pieces of shit, because they were constantly talking or texting to the point of it screwing up our time together. They were too distracted to pay attention to our real life conversations thanks to their attention-sucking toys. You can see the same shit happening in bars everywhere. There will be people at tables full of people not talking to anyone because they’re texting away like a bunch of monkeys with typewriters.
But recently I betrayed my noble, decade plus anti-cell phone cause. I sold out. Not only did I break down and get a cell phone, I have been text messaging so much that I’m fighting a constant ongoing battle with my inbox to keep the messages deleted so that yet more can come to distract me.
By the way, who is the genius that had the idea to limit most phones to only a couple of hundred incoming and outgoing texts saved anyway? Fire that stupid asshole immediately.
It’s ironical that I have become the phone-using cliché I always railed against. It fills me with intense self-loathing every time I text and have to press the 7 button four times just to get a damn “s”. But I have to be honest and admit that texting beats talking. I can’t hear on my piece of shit phone anyway and I’ve always been better at writing than talking. Still, the slowness of the process is totally fucking annoying. Stuff I can type in like half a second, takes at least a minute or ten.
Yet I keep doing it.
Until the big Paducah Ice Storm in ‘09, I’d never even owned a cell phone. I was one of the lone holdouts and I raged against mobile technology every chance I got. I hated cell phones with every single atom of my blackened and embittered heart. Then a stupid ice-covered limb knocked out my land line and I needed a phone that worked because I had to go out of town for my job. I’d been thinking about getting a cell for road trips or emergency situations, like my motorcycle or car breaking down in the middle of nowhere. My initial plan was to barely ever use it.
When I got my phone I made sure to get one that didn’t have a keyboard.
“I’ll never text,” I swore. “Fuck texting and everyone who texts! I will only use my phone for emergencies! Fuck cell phones and the horse they rode in on!”
And, for about a year and four months, I did exactly that. I barely made any calls and the only time I texted anyone was my friend Sean in Brookport who had such shitty mobile reception that the only way you could get through was to text him. If he tried to answer, he would just lose the signal so text messages were the only way to reach him. I sent maybe ten total texts in that time period and I used the phone to talk only on the rarest of occasions.
And then I fell off the wagon completely.
A couple of weeks ago, while on my vacation, I was getting texts from several different women because I’m newly single after a two year serious relationship and, apparently, that’s how the ladies like to communicate these days. I was getting a few from some guy friends, too. So I thought, what’s the worst thing that can happen? An extra ten dollars on my cell phone bill? I’ll just start answering some texts with texts and everything will be fine.
In the past when I’d gotten a text message, I had always either called the person sending it or ignored them completely or yelled at them for texting me.
I texted everyone back and then it just completely snowballed. It created a monster. In a matter of mere days, I had nearly 100 dollars worth of fucking texts on my bill with more coming in all the time and more going out because I wasn’t going to not respond. I was looking at, quite possibly, a 500 dollar cell phone bill for one month.
If cell phones were sex, I went from being a virgin to a burnt-out old porn star in a matter of days.
And the scary, awful truth of it all is this: I found out that I actually like texting. Not the actual process of texting itself, that’s where all the self-loathing comes from, but I like reading them and I like writing them. I like coming up with funny text messages in my head. I’m a writer and now there’s a way I can interactively write every waking moment of my life no matter where I am.
One thing I do differently than almost everyone else I know is I use nigh perfect spelling and grammar in all my text messages. I capitalize and punctuate. I’m trying to start a revolution in texting where no one uses shit like LOL or TTYL or U for YOU or 2 for TO. All the extra button pushing is probably unnecessary, but it looks better, it’s easier to read, and I’m a pedantic asshole. You should do it too. Someone has to save the English language.
If the me of three years ago saw the me of today, I’m pretty sure he’d just go ahead and commit suicide in shame and disgust, but the me of today is way fucking cooler, smarter, and sexier than the me of three years ago, so fuck that uptight Luddite asshole.
And just because I have unlimited texting, doesn’t mean I love cell phones. I haven’t completely sold out. They’re just a means to an end and I still hold a special hate for other people’s phones and in the right set and setting I downright fucking loathe them. I saw Iron Man 2 with this self-absorbed redheaded chick that dated me for about five minutes and, when she saw the on-screen warning telling people to not use their mobile phones to talk or text once the movie started, she asked me, “Why does it say no texting? They don’t make any noise. They won’t bother anyone.”
Thirty minutes later, I could have given her an answer, as the stupid bitch in front of me started texting and the light of her phone shined directly in my face, completely distracting me from the movie I just paid thirty fucking bucks for. I wanted to kick the back of the stupid bitch’s chair as hard as I could, but I didn’t because I was still trying to make a good impression on the redhead that I was with since it was our first date.
Instead, I quietly seethed and hoped her cell phone would one day give her a fucking brain tumor.
And even though I will shamefully and painfully admit to enjoying texts from people when they’re not sitting in a movie theater or at their friends’ houses ignoring everyone while they play with their stupid ass phones or trying to kill me on my motorcycle as they text and drive, I can honestly say that I hate my own LG Shine with a passion that is pure and right and true. Like I wrote earlier, I can’t hear shit on it. I rarely even notice the bastard phone even ring because the ringer isn’t loud enough. And it is almost always on the verge of dying. It has the battery life of one of those big 80’s jam boxes that people used to carry around on their shoulders like idiots.
I don’t know. Maybe I bought the wrong phone.
Despite my love/hate relationship with cell phones, especially my own, they aren’t going anywhere. They’re omnipresent. Within five minutes of leaving your house you’ll see some idiot texting and driving.
Like the future, the texts just keep coming. And I keep answering them. They reproduce exponentially. They have a life of their own. I delete them and delete them but there are always more. They are relentless and unyielding and they will never stop unless I quit responding or throw my phone in the Ohio River.
Our cell phones eat up our attention, our time. Our imaginations. We think we own them, but the truth is, they own us. And we are all their willing slaves.
And my cell inbox just filled up with texts again while I wrote this.
I hope at least one of them is pertaining to a future blow job.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Fuck You For Not Smoking
I like to smoke. I don’t really care if you don’t like it. I like to smoke when I drink. I like to smoke a lot. I like smoky bars full of people fucking smoking. Drinking and smoking and having a good fucking time where there isn’t a single asthmatic child, or any child for that matter, in the whole damn building.
Since April 1st, 2007 no one in Paducah has been able to legally smoke a cigarette indoors in any bars, restaurants, or hotels within the city limits. The city wide smoking ban wasn’t decided by area voters but by a few city commissioners that decided second hand smoke was killing people and needed to be outlawed for the greater good.
Area bar and restaurant owners got the big fuck you from the city commissioners when their input on the ordinance was ignored, and they watched their business revenues plummet. People opted to drink and eat at home rather than suffer the hassle of smoking outside. Some area bars compensated by setting up beer gardens and outdoor areas for smokers, but they're useless when it's cold or raining outside.
Studies stating business revenues are completely unaffected by smoking bans have been rolled out in the propaganda war on smoker's rights, but anyone with half a brain knows that on a night when it’s below freezing, people who like to smoke and drink are going to stay home where they can do both at the same time.
You may not be aware of this, but the first nation-wide smoking bans took place in Nazi Germany back in the 1930s and 40s. Hitler was a vegetarian and an avid non-smoker who thought that all Aryan Germans should be in perfect health and able to reproduce to make enough little Nazis to rule the planet. The Nazi scientists concluded that women who smoked were less likely to bear children because of the effects of premature aging and loss of physical attraction which they linked to smoking. So they implemented bans all over Germany banning smoking in many public places.
The initial effect of the smoking bans was a nearly doubled increase in the amount of tobacco consumption across Germany because apparently the master race loved to light up after dinner or sex or with one of their yummy German beers and they didn’t like being told what they could put in their bodies by Hitler and his Nazi cronies.
After the end of World War 2 many of the leaders in the Nazi anti-smoking campaign were executed, as they rightly should have been, and smoking then went on to rise to bigger, greater heights in Germany than it ever had before fueled by opportunistic American cigarette manufacturers that saw gold in them there hills. The German people freed from the fascist Nazis could once again put that sweet poisonous smoke in their bodies if they wanted to because they were, after all, their bodies.
And all was right with the world.
Except now in present day America smoking bans and bans on unhealthy ingredients such as trans-fats have become the rule rather the exception in states, cities and counties all across the nation.
We defeated our enemy only to eventually become them.
Or, at the very least, we seem to think that whole smoking ban idea the Nazis came up with sixty plus years ago was really awesome and not at all fascist. No, really. It’s not. Just stop thinking, shut up, and breathe in that guy’s BO at the table next to you that you used to not be able to smell when it was all smoky in here and your sense of smell was dulled. We were missing out on so much before we got this sweet smoke-free air.
I’m not going to assert that smoking isn’t bad for you because that would be completely insane and obviously a lie. Smoking is bad for you. It’s really bad for you. It’s a vicious fucking addiction and I wish I’d never started and that I did not enjoy it as much as I do. It can give you lung cancer, a heart attack, impotence, and all sorts of nasty shit. There are so many health risks involved in smoking that you likely need to be mildly insane just to keep doing it or to even start in the first place.
And I will be the first person to admit that tobacco companies are operated by completely evil assholes with a body count that puts every war in the history of mankind to shame and every member on their board of executives is going straight to hell when they die.
But the primary reasoning behind the current smoking bans isn’t the dangerous side effects on the people that are actually smoking, but rather the effects of the second hand smoke on the non-smokers around them. The real problem with that line of reasoning is the overwhelming lack of evidence that people actually get things like lung cancer and die from second hand smoke. It probably isn’t actually good for you to breathe someone else’s smoke, but it’s probably not good for you to breathe exhaust fumes the whole time you’re driving either. It’s probably not good for you to get totally jack-hammered on Saturday night on cheap booze, but it’s still your right as a free citizen of the United States of America to drink as much of that particular poison as you want as long as you don’t get behind the wheel of a car or beat your wife. And, hey, it’s also a lot of fun being drunk.
When we were kids we breathed everyone’s second hand smoke like people had for thousands of years before us, and we didn’t even notice or care. Sure, there were probably some kids with asthma that suffered for it, but the vast majority of us were completely unfazed and physically unaffected. We’re not all dying of lung cancer or keeling over from heart attacks. We’re fine. Or we used to be.
I will concede that smoking bans in certain places like hospitals make sense. I don’t have to be a fan of that fascist ideal to understand that from a logical stand point you don’t want sick people breathing smoke. There’s a time and a place for everything including smoking.
And that time and place is in a bar.
It’s a scary world when things that have been part of our social traditions for thousands of years vanish overnight, and very few people care. We’re not that far away from prohibition of tobacco, and, unlike illegal drugs that actually get you high which people will never quit buying because their lives skullfuck them with boredom, cigarettes will become a thing of the past.
The last time someone thought that a little nugget of fascism would be a really swell idea was alcohol prohibition. And, hello, organized crime! We’ve been going through a second prohibition with drugs since Nixon was in office, and that war is also a miserable failure. Where there is demand, there will always be supply.
Our government can ban everything that is bad for us and take away every freedom we ever took for granted in the process. But they will never change human nature.
I’m not smoking just to look cool right now, or because it helps me focus when I’m writing, or because I’m a filthy nicotine addict.
I am smoking because I still can.
Since April 1st, 2007 no one in Paducah has been able to legally smoke a cigarette indoors in any bars, restaurants, or hotels within the city limits. The city wide smoking ban wasn’t decided by area voters but by a few city commissioners that decided second hand smoke was killing people and needed to be outlawed for the greater good.
Area bar and restaurant owners got the big fuck you from the city commissioners when their input on the ordinance was ignored, and they watched their business revenues plummet. People opted to drink and eat at home rather than suffer the hassle of smoking outside. Some area bars compensated by setting up beer gardens and outdoor areas for smokers, but they're useless when it's cold or raining outside.
Studies stating business revenues are completely unaffected by smoking bans have been rolled out in the propaganda war on smoker's rights, but anyone with half a brain knows that on a night when it’s below freezing, people who like to smoke and drink are going to stay home where they can do both at the same time.
You may not be aware of this, but the first nation-wide smoking bans took place in Nazi Germany back in the 1930s and 40s. Hitler was a vegetarian and an avid non-smoker who thought that all Aryan Germans should be in perfect health and able to reproduce to make enough little Nazis to rule the planet. The Nazi scientists concluded that women who smoked were less likely to bear children because of the effects of premature aging and loss of physical attraction which they linked to smoking. So they implemented bans all over Germany banning smoking in many public places.
The initial effect of the smoking bans was a nearly doubled increase in the amount of tobacco consumption across Germany because apparently the master race loved to light up after dinner or sex or with one of their yummy German beers and they didn’t like being told what they could put in their bodies by Hitler and his Nazi cronies.
After the end of World War 2 many of the leaders in the Nazi anti-smoking campaign were executed, as they rightly should have been, and smoking then went on to rise to bigger, greater heights in Germany than it ever had before fueled by opportunistic American cigarette manufacturers that saw gold in them there hills. The German people freed from the fascist Nazis could once again put that sweet poisonous smoke in their bodies if they wanted to because they were, after all, their bodies.
And all was right with the world.
Except now in present day America smoking bans and bans on unhealthy ingredients such as trans-fats have become the rule rather the exception in states, cities and counties all across the nation.
We defeated our enemy only to eventually become them.
Or, at the very least, we seem to think that whole smoking ban idea the Nazis came up with sixty plus years ago was really awesome and not at all fascist. No, really. It’s not. Just stop thinking, shut up, and breathe in that guy’s BO at the table next to you that you used to not be able to smell when it was all smoky in here and your sense of smell was dulled. We were missing out on so much before we got this sweet smoke-free air.
I’m not going to assert that smoking isn’t bad for you because that would be completely insane and obviously a lie. Smoking is bad for you. It’s really bad for you. It’s a vicious fucking addiction and I wish I’d never started and that I did not enjoy it as much as I do. It can give you lung cancer, a heart attack, impotence, and all sorts of nasty shit. There are so many health risks involved in smoking that you likely need to be mildly insane just to keep doing it or to even start in the first place.
And I will be the first person to admit that tobacco companies are operated by completely evil assholes with a body count that puts every war in the history of mankind to shame and every member on their board of executives is going straight to hell when they die.
But the primary reasoning behind the current smoking bans isn’t the dangerous side effects on the people that are actually smoking, but rather the effects of the second hand smoke on the non-smokers around them. The real problem with that line of reasoning is the overwhelming lack of evidence that people actually get things like lung cancer and die from second hand smoke. It probably isn’t actually good for you to breathe someone else’s smoke, but it’s probably not good for you to breathe exhaust fumes the whole time you’re driving either. It’s probably not good for you to get totally jack-hammered on Saturday night on cheap booze, but it’s still your right as a free citizen of the United States of America to drink as much of that particular poison as you want as long as you don’t get behind the wheel of a car or beat your wife. And, hey, it’s also a lot of fun being drunk.
When we were kids we breathed everyone’s second hand smoke like people had for thousands of years before us, and we didn’t even notice or care. Sure, there were probably some kids with asthma that suffered for it, but the vast majority of us were completely unfazed and physically unaffected. We’re not all dying of lung cancer or keeling over from heart attacks. We’re fine. Or we used to be.
I will concede that smoking bans in certain places like hospitals make sense. I don’t have to be a fan of that fascist ideal to understand that from a logical stand point you don’t want sick people breathing smoke. There’s a time and a place for everything including smoking.
And that time and place is in a bar.
It’s a scary world when things that have been part of our social traditions for thousands of years vanish overnight, and very few people care. We’re not that far away from prohibition of tobacco, and, unlike illegal drugs that actually get you high which people will never quit buying because their lives skullfuck them with boredom, cigarettes will become a thing of the past.
The last time someone thought that a little nugget of fascism would be a really swell idea was alcohol prohibition. And, hello, organized crime! We’ve been going through a second prohibition with drugs since Nixon was in office, and that war is also a miserable failure. Where there is demand, there will always be supply.
Our government can ban everything that is bad for us and take away every freedom we ever took for granted in the process. But they will never change human nature.
I’m not smoking just to look cool right now, or because it helps me focus when I’m writing, or because I’m a filthy nicotine addict.
I am smoking because I still can.
Monday, February 02, 2009
What Global Warming?
This was written last Wednesday when things were at their worst here. I didn't get power back in the Fortress of Solipsism until last night, Sunday, which was nearly a week after this all started. More than 100,000 homes in Kentucky are still without power.
This is how the world ends. In ice.
December 21st 2012 came early in Paducah, Kentucky.
Right now I’m living through what the governor of Kentucky has called a state of disaster. And I certainly wouldn’t disagree with him. Because it is.
A massive ice storm blew into Kentucky (as well as a few surrounding states) and wiped out pretty much all of the power in the areas where it hit. The only reason I’m able to type this is because I’m in one of the few places in Paducah, in Western Kentucky even, with power, the office building where I work.
Not only is the power out but most of the phone lines and internet are down as well. If you need to call the cops for an emergency you can’t. The phone lines aren’t working and neither are cell phones.
And the roads, Jesus, the roads are downright anarchic.
Driving home last night was like driving through downtown Beirut. Paducah looked like it had been pummeled with bombs. Power lines hung windshield level and huge tree limbs and even whole trees lay across the roads, all caused by the weight of accumulated ice. At times I didn’t think I would be able to make it home through the natural disaster obstacle course, made even more deadly by the fact visibility was low due to everything being ominously dark and rainy.
Here’s something you probably won’t notice until it isn’t there anymore, because I didn’t. Street lights make it a lot easier to see at night. When they’re not working in a place where you’re used to having them it’s hard to even find familiar landmarks.
For me it was like driving through a war torn area in the fucking Twilight Zone.
That feeling has not changed except for the fact I’m not driving.
I don’t know if Kentucky is on the network news or not right now, because I haven’t been able to watch TV due to the whole not having power thing, but I’m betting it is.
Let me tell you what it’s like to live through this shit. Last night when I did manage to make it home by taking several detours, I entered a dark and cold house with no power. I sat down and lit a candle. The only sound I could hear as I watched my breath in the candlelit air was the sound of trees cracking and huge crashing noises as giant limbs fell and hit the ground and, at times, my house and garage. And it kept happening over and over. It was spooky and at times, when it actually did hit the house, downright terrifying.
It’s not really a sound you can go to sleep to easily.
So I had the brilliant idea of going back to work where there was power and heating and no huge trees falling apart above my head. This involved navigating the maze of death back to work, made easier by the fact I’d already driven through it once and knew what to avoid, which was mostly just roads with trees around them.
I made it back to work without dying and just as I was walking in the power cut off. I cursed God for not existing and giving me someone to blame for this crap, but the power kicked back on after a few minutes and I was saved from boredom, paranoia, and fear by distraction.
I spent the next few hours in the comforts of modern man, heating and powered lights and computers and The Wire. I was of course without the internet as I am now even as I type this. I miss the internet and World of Warcraft and piracy and all things good in the world.
The bad thing about going back to work to enjoy all the stuff I didn’t have at home was that I eventually had to go back home because I didn’t really want to sleep at work. The road maze back home at 4 AM was made even worse by the fact that not only had more power lines and tree limbs fallen making roads I’d driven on earlier impassable, but it was snowing so visibility was even shittier than it was at midnight.
I could have been intelligent and just gone to my parents where there was at least heat from their gas burning fireplace and kerosene heater, but I chose the stupidity of braving out the cold in my own home while the giant tree hanging over my house disintegrated and threatened to fall all through the roof on me all night. Like I said earlier, this was not an easy sound to go to sleep to. When I finally did go to sleep I’d wake up to that familiar sound, like tiny gunshots going off, as the limb snapped followed by the inevitable crashing noise as it either hit the ground or shook my house.
And for whatever reason having home owners insurance is not really comforting as your house gets destroyed by a tree and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.
I heard my phone line snap at one point, though the power line seems to have escaped the carnage so far, except for the fact it’s laying in the yard still attached to the pole and my house, with three huge limbs on it. The power line to my garage was snapped as well.
Somehow I finally managed to sleep through the chaos and cold for a few solid hours only to wake up today to more limbs on my house and garage, my neighbor’s new wooden fence crushed in several places by tree limbs from my yard, and three inches of snow on the ground as if the ice just wasn’t enough.
I never thought there would be a time I preferred work over my own house, but this is apparently that time. Why go home? I can’t think of one good reason except to feed my cat.
Tonight I plan on sleeping at my parent’s house even though they’re almost out of kerosene, because at least they have a natural gas fireplace that isn’t going to run out. Oh, did I mention that Paducah is currently out of gasoline because the two gas stations that had power are now out and having to get the police to turn angry people away? We’re also out of kerosene as well. They’ve also stopped all open gas stations from selling diesel fuel to anyone except city trucks involved in the emergency clean up and repair effort.
Another thing I nearly forgot to mention because there’s so much crazy shit going on right now is that the governor of Kentucky has issued a statewide curfew. No one is supposed to be out driving after dark. I have a letter from my work place to be out after dark because I work for a financial institution that must remain open so the few places that are open can do their banking and credit card stuff. I’m sure the main reason he’s issued this curfew is because of the possibility of looting. This place is a looters and criminals wet dream right now. The cops are too busy dealing with the chaos of the storm to deal with anything. It’s not really a pleasant thought knowing no one is watching my house right now. My neighbors have been acting more and more like they’ve lost all touch with reality.
This is from one day without power.
Can you imagine how people here are going to be after seven to ten days of this which is what I’m hearing is going to happen?
Think I’ll go smoke one of the last cigarettes I can even get since there’s no place to get any more.
This is how the world ends. In ice.
December 21st 2012 came early in Paducah, Kentucky.
Right now I’m living through what the governor of Kentucky has called a state of disaster. And I certainly wouldn’t disagree with him. Because it is.
A massive ice storm blew into Kentucky (as well as a few surrounding states) and wiped out pretty much all of the power in the areas where it hit. The only reason I’m able to type this is because I’m in one of the few places in Paducah, in Western Kentucky even, with power, the office building where I work.
Not only is the power out but most of the phone lines and internet are down as well. If you need to call the cops for an emergency you can’t. The phone lines aren’t working and neither are cell phones.
And the roads, Jesus, the roads are downright anarchic.
Driving home last night was like driving through downtown Beirut. Paducah looked like it had been pummeled with bombs. Power lines hung windshield level and huge tree limbs and even whole trees lay across the roads, all caused by the weight of accumulated ice. At times I didn’t think I would be able to make it home through the natural disaster obstacle course, made even more deadly by the fact visibility was low due to everything being ominously dark and rainy.
Here’s something you probably won’t notice until it isn’t there anymore, because I didn’t. Street lights make it a lot easier to see at night. When they’re not working in a place where you’re used to having them it’s hard to even find familiar landmarks.
For me it was like driving through a war torn area in the fucking Twilight Zone.
That feeling has not changed except for the fact I’m not driving.
I don’t know if Kentucky is on the network news or not right now, because I haven’t been able to watch TV due to the whole not having power thing, but I’m betting it is.
Let me tell you what it’s like to live through this shit. Last night when I did manage to make it home by taking several detours, I entered a dark and cold house with no power. I sat down and lit a candle. The only sound I could hear as I watched my breath in the candlelit air was the sound of trees cracking and huge crashing noises as giant limbs fell and hit the ground and, at times, my house and garage. And it kept happening over and over. It was spooky and at times, when it actually did hit the house, downright terrifying.
It’s not really a sound you can go to sleep to easily.
So I had the brilliant idea of going back to work where there was power and heating and no huge trees falling apart above my head. This involved navigating the maze of death back to work, made easier by the fact I’d already driven through it once and knew what to avoid, which was mostly just roads with trees around them.
I made it back to work without dying and just as I was walking in the power cut off. I cursed God for not existing and giving me someone to blame for this crap, but the power kicked back on after a few minutes and I was saved from boredom, paranoia, and fear by distraction.
I spent the next few hours in the comforts of modern man, heating and powered lights and computers and The Wire. I was of course without the internet as I am now even as I type this. I miss the internet and World of Warcraft and piracy and all things good in the world.
The bad thing about going back to work to enjoy all the stuff I didn’t have at home was that I eventually had to go back home because I didn’t really want to sleep at work. The road maze back home at 4 AM was made even worse by the fact that not only had more power lines and tree limbs fallen making roads I’d driven on earlier impassable, but it was snowing so visibility was even shittier than it was at midnight.
I could have been intelligent and just gone to my parents where there was at least heat from their gas burning fireplace and kerosene heater, but I chose the stupidity of braving out the cold in my own home while the giant tree hanging over my house disintegrated and threatened to fall all through the roof on me all night. Like I said earlier, this was not an easy sound to go to sleep to. When I finally did go to sleep I’d wake up to that familiar sound, like tiny gunshots going off, as the limb snapped followed by the inevitable crashing noise as it either hit the ground or shook my house.
And for whatever reason having home owners insurance is not really comforting as your house gets destroyed by a tree and there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it.
I heard my phone line snap at one point, though the power line seems to have escaped the carnage so far, except for the fact it’s laying in the yard still attached to the pole and my house, with three huge limbs on it. The power line to my garage was snapped as well.
Somehow I finally managed to sleep through the chaos and cold for a few solid hours only to wake up today to more limbs on my house and garage, my neighbor’s new wooden fence crushed in several places by tree limbs from my yard, and three inches of snow on the ground as if the ice just wasn’t enough.
I never thought there would be a time I preferred work over my own house, but this is apparently that time. Why go home? I can’t think of one good reason except to feed my cat.
Tonight I plan on sleeping at my parent’s house even though they’re almost out of kerosene, because at least they have a natural gas fireplace that isn’t going to run out. Oh, did I mention that Paducah is currently out of gasoline because the two gas stations that had power are now out and having to get the police to turn angry people away? We’re also out of kerosene as well. They’ve also stopped all open gas stations from selling diesel fuel to anyone except city trucks involved in the emergency clean up and repair effort.
Another thing I nearly forgot to mention because there’s so much crazy shit going on right now is that the governor of Kentucky has issued a statewide curfew. No one is supposed to be out driving after dark. I have a letter from my work place to be out after dark because I work for a financial institution that must remain open so the few places that are open can do their banking and credit card stuff. I’m sure the main reason he’s issued this curfew is because of the possibility of looting. This place is a looters and criminals wet dream right now. The cops are too busy dealing with the chaos of the storm to deal with anything. It’s not really a pleasant thought knowing no one is watching my house right now. My neighbors have been acting more and more like they’ve lost all touch with reality.
This is from one day without power.
Can you imagine how people here are going to be after seven to ten days of this which is what I’m hearing is going to happen?
Think I’ll go smoke one of the last cigarettes I can even get since there’s no place to get any more.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Free Cigarette Day For Kids!
Because I’m a huge nerd, I play this online game called Ikariam. It’s kind of like Age of Empires meets Civilization only without all the graphics as it’s a browser based game that you can play anywhere where you have the internet. It’s basically just building cities and armies and fleets and going out and fighting other players and killing their troops/fleets and taking their shit Viking style. It’s pretty simple.
So in Ikariam players are broken up into groups called alliances. The alliance I’m in is called Crown of Thorns which is pretty damn funny considering the fact that I think Christianity is a kooky superstition and all. It’s nothing personal against Christianity really. I think all religions are just superstitious craziness, cause, you know, they are.
I guess because the name of the alliance is Crown of Thorns (though usually just called Thorns as to avoid having people think we’re pussies who turn the other cheek) one of the members took it upon himself to combat all the vulgarity in the alliance circular message system with DAILY BIBLE VERSES. I guess he got offended because the day before several of the other players kept changing their names to dirty filthy porn star names and kept sending circulars to show off their new names. Plus on any given day there’s usually a fair amount of swearing that every player gets via the circular message system from other players in the group, usually because they’re pissed off about losing a battle. The swearing is kind of expected in a war game.
But bible verses? No fucking way. Pushing your superstitions on me when I’m smarter than that? Pushing them on everyone else who wants to just blow off a little steam playing a game? Fuck you, buddy.
Because I am a force of nature online, I am, of course, not just a member, but part of the leadership of Thorns in Ikariam. (Like every other game I play, but let’s not mention my ego here. Thanks.) I immediately fired off a circular rant about how swearing is better than Jesus. Though I think it was probably a little more diplomatic and eloquent than that because I’m not just a member; I’m one of the people who can kick people out just for pissing me off. As a leader I have to set an example and show poise and dignity and all that bullshit.
And then I get a response from someone else in the alliance that made me realize the Bible and Christians aren’t the only things trying to ruin the world for me.
“What about the children? What about the kids playing Ikariam, Smotlock? My 11 and 12 year old play and I don’t want them seeing a bunch of porn star names and profanity.”
Then another person said, “Yeah, my kids play too. I don’t want them reading filth.”
How about this for an answer?
Don’t let them play. Don’t kids already have enough to do that they can just leave one childish game to the grown ups? Jesus, I thought since I didn’t have any kids I could live my life the way I wanted to. I could drink and smoke and swear like a fucking sailor. I could rampage through my adult world with glee and not worry about being a corrupting influence on children.
But you people keep on popping out kids and you don’t want to baby-sit them so you let them hop online to a very adult world, and you want us to monitor ourselves for their benefit because you’re too lazy to? You want us to watch your kids for you?
I am not your baby-sitter. I do not like kids and I don’t really want to be around kids. So how about this? You either monitor what they’re reading online or keep them off the internet until they’re 13 and pretty much know all the swear words already.
But, honestly, if your precious little prize doesn’t already know most profanity by the time they hit third grade, they’re not paying much attention. Back in the days before there was an internet to blame for everything we all learned how to swear at a very young age and we learned from other kids, our parents, and R-rated movies we weren’t supposed to be watching.
And, I don’t know about you, but it did not warp my psychological being to hear words like fuck and goddamn and pussy.
You people who spend so much time trying to shelter your children from reality, all you’re getting is seriously maladjusted kids. They’re in for a very rude awakening when they inevitably do grow up (if they ever grow up) and see the world for what it really is.
And it is not a Disney movie.
Goddamn, you people lie to your kids about Santa Claus and Jesus. You lie to them about reality itself and I’m the bad guy because I write the word fuck on the internet?
I’m not saying it’s cool to show your kids porn. I’m not saying don’t shelter your kids at all, because that’s crazy. There is an obvious amount of sheltering that you do for kids that’s just common sense.
The real problem here is that people love their kids so much they don’t know when to fucking stop. They’re lessening everyone else’s lives for the benefit of a kid that probably doesn’t give a shit about swearing on the internet, because they’re likely not reading it anyway.
It’s kind of like how these idiots want to put labels on everything. They’ve been trying to put warning labels on books for years, because they’re afraid Little Johnny is going to stumble across a Stephen King book in the library and be damaged forever. And the truth is anyone with any intelligence at all knows that kids read things based on their maturity level.
And then there's child-safe pill bottles and lighters and car windows and everything else that's been changed for the sake of children, stuff that isn't for children in the first place. Things that have been changed just because parents apparently couldn't keep lighters and bottles of pills out of their kids hands, because they're too busy being horrible parents.
I know your kids are the light of your life, but I don't even like them. They are the dark of my life. And I do not want to exist in the little child-friendly bubble you are creating for them and everyone else in the process.
What about the children? Nothing, that's what.
They're your fucking problem not mine.
So in Ikariam players are broken up into groups called alliances. The alliance I’m in is called Crown of Thorns which is pretty damn funny considering the fact that I think Christianity is a kooky superstition and all. It’s nothing personal against Christianity really. I think all religions are just superstitious craziness, cause, you know, they are.
I guess because the name of the alliance is Crown of Thorns (though usually just called Thorns as to avoid having people think we’re pussies who turn the other cheek) one of the members took it upon himself to combat all the vulgarity in the alliance circular message system with DAILY BIBLE VERSES. I guess he got offended because the day before several of the other players kept changing their names to dirty filthy porn star names and kept sending circulars to show off their new names. Plus on any given day there’s usually a fair amount of swearing that every player gets via the circular message system from other players in the group, usually because they’re pissed off about losing a battle. The swearing is kind of expected in a war game.
But bible verses? No fucking way. Pushing your superstitions on me when I’m smarter than that? Pushing them on everyone else who wants to just blow off a little steam playing a game? Fuck you, buddy.
Because I am a force of nature online, I am, of course, not just a member, but part of the leadership of Thorns in Ikariam. (Like every other game I play, but let’s not mention my ego here. Thanks.) I immediately fired off a circular rant about how swearing is better than Jesus. Though I think it was probably a little more diplomatic and eloquent than that because I’m not just a member; I’m one of the people who can kick people out just for pissing me off. As a leader I have to set an example and show poise and dignity and all that bullshit.
And then I get a response from someone else in the alliance that made me realize the Bible and Christians aren’t the only things trying to ruin the world for me.
“What about the children? What about the kids playing Ikariam, Smotlock? My 11 and 12 year old play and I don’t want them seeing a bunch of porn star names and profanity.”
Then another person said, “Yeah, my kids play too. I don’t want them reading filth.”
How about this for an answer?
Don’t let them play. Don’t kids already have enough to do that they can just leave one childish game to the grown ups? Jesus, I thought since I didn’t have any kids I could live my life the way I wanted to. I could drink and smoke and swear like a fucking sailor. I could rampage through my adult world with glee and not worry about being a corrupting influence on children.
But you people keep on popping out kids and you don’t want to baby-sit them so you let them hop online to a very adult world, and you want us to monitor ourselves for their benefit because you’re too lazy to? You want us to watch your kids for you?
I am not your baby-sitter. I do not like kids and I don’t really want to be around kids. So how about this? You either monitor what they’re reading online or keep them off the internet until they’re 13 and pretty much know all the swear words already.
But, honestly, if your precious little prize doesn’t already know most profanity by the time they hit third grade, they’re not paying much attention. Back in the days before there was an internet to blame for everything we all learned how to swear at a very young age and we learned from other kids, our parents, and R-rated movies we weren’t supposed to be watching.
And, I don’t know about you, but it did not warp my psychological being to hear words like fuck and goddamn and pussy.
You people who spend so much time trying to shelter your children from reality, all you’re getting is seriously maladjusted kids. They’re in for a very rude awakening when they inevitably do grow up (if they ever grow up) and see the world for what it really is.
And it is not a Disney movie.
Goddamn, you people lie to your kids about Santa Claus and Jesus. You lie to them about reality itself and I’m the bad guy because I write the word fuck on the internet?
I’m not saying it’s cool to show your kids porn. I’m not saying don’t shelter your kids at all, because that’s crazy. There is an obvious amount of sheltering that you do for kids that’s just common sense.
The real problem here is that people love their kids so much they don’t know when to fucking stop. They’re lessening everyone else’s lives for the benefit of a kid that probably doesn’t give a shit about swearing on the internet, because they’re likely not reading it anyway.
It’s kind of like how these idiots want to put labels on everything. They’ve been trying to put warning labels on books for years, because they’re afraid Little Johnny is going to stumble across a Stephen King book in the library and be damaged forever. And the truth is anyone with any intelligence at all knows that kids read things based on their maturity level.
And then there's child-safe pill bottles and lighters and car windows and everything else that's been changed for the sake of children, stuff that isn't for children in the first place. Things that have been changed just because parents apparently couldn't keep lighters and bottles of pills out of their kids hands, because they're too busy being horrible parents.
I know your kids are the light of your life, but I don't even like them. They are the dark of my life. And I do not want to exist in the little child-friendly bubble you are creating for them and everyone else in the process.
What about the children? Nothing, that's what.
They're your fucking problem not mine.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
My Ego Is Bigger Than Your Ego
I guess I should introduce myself. I am Smotlock to the internet, Shane to my friends and family.
A couple of weeks ago my old online journal/blog of over five years bit the dust along with everything else at Journalspace.com. I lost five years worth of my own special brand of insanity, translating into over a thousand pages of random stuff and nonsense. I also lost thousands of comments from readers (for the second time) that once meant a lot to me. Well, some of them anyway.
I hadn’t really been writing on Journalspace much lately, but it was always nice to know that any time I wanted to look up something I’d written in the past, I could just click over to the site and do a search within my own blog to find it.
I had this Blogspot journal up from way back, probably the first time Journalspace looked like it was about to go belly up. It always seemed on the verge of collapsing under the weight of the site owner’s ego. Or perhaps my own.
So for the time being this is going to be the place where you get to hear me whine about the shit I loathe and rave about the shit I love, when my allergy to effort is not flaring up.
I’ll probably be moving some stuff that used to be on the old Journalspace site in the hopes new readers will find it here for the first time on a real blogging site. Although, realistically speaking, blogging has been a dying fad since 2004 and I doubt very many people will ever read this. Nor do I care if you want me to be completely honest.
I just really like hearing myself speak.
My old Journalspace blog got over 250,000 hits in its five year lifespan. I know that’s not a lot compared to the really popular sites that get millions of hits in a week, but for a tiny backwater place like Journalspace it wasn’t too bad. I think only a handful of online journals on that site got anywhere close to that number.
While I’m bragging about past accomplishments, from 2003 to 2004 I consistently had the most read blog on Journalspace. That said, being famous on Journalspace was a lot like being famous on the moon. No one still knew who the fuck I was and I didn’t get rich and get lots of groupies. I only got a few groupies and I remained poor and unloved by the masses.
But now I’m here on Blogger where the potential audience is far greater than anything I ever had on Journalspace.
I will say this about this site. I really love the term followers.
Follow me, internet.
A couple of weeks ago my old online journal/blog of over five years bit the dust along with everything else at Journalspace.com. I lost five years worth of my own special brand of insanity, translating into over a thousand pages of random stuff and nonsense. I also lost thousands of comments from readers (for the second time) that once meant a lot to me. Well, some of them anyway.
I hadn’t really been writing on Journalspace much lately, but it was always nice to know that any time I wanted to look up something I’d written in the past, I could just click over to the site and do a search within my own blog to find it.
I had this Blogspot journal up from way back, probably the first time Journalspace looked like it was about to go belly up. It always seemed on the verge of collapsing under the weight of the site owner’s ego. Or perhaps my own.
So for the time being this is going to be the place where you get to hear me whine about the shit I loathe and rave about the shit I love, when my allergy to effort is not flaring up.
I’ll probably be moving some stuff that used to be on the old Journalspace site in the hopes new readers will find it here for the first time on a real blogging site. Although, realistically speaking, blogging has been a dying fad since 2004 and I doubt very many people will ever read this. Nor do I care if you want me to be completely honest.
I just really like hearing myself speak.
My old Journalspace blog got over 250,000 hits in its five year lifespan. I know that’s not a lot compared to the really popular sites that get millions of hits in a week, but for a tiny backwater place like Journalspace it wasn’t too bad. I think only a handful of online journals on that site got anywhere close to that number.
While I’m bragging about past accomplishments, from 2003 to 2004 I consistently had the most read blog on Journalspace. That said, being famous on Journalspace was a lot like being famous on the moon. No one still knew who the fuck I was and I didn’t get rich and get lots of groupies. I only got a few groupies and I remained poor and unloved by the masses.
But now I’m here on Blogger where the potential audience is far greater than anything I ever had on Journalspace.
I will say this about this site. I really love the term followers.
Follow me, internet.
Monday, January 05, 2009
Paranoid, But Not An Android
Just a few days ago I was standing in the same place on the planet as Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Colin Greenwood, and Phil Selway. You might know them better as Radiohead. You know, that band that wrote that song “Creep” you play along with on Guitar Hero or Rock Band or whatever it is you kids play today because you can’t figure out how to play a real guitar so you play with flimsy plastic toys instead.
Yes, I got to see Radiohead and you didn’t. You may hate me now.
Or actually you might hate Radiohead now, and that’s okay too because they do have some pretty wanky, “look at how artsy and avant garde we are” songs that make me want to throttle Thom Yorke only I’d feel really bad afterwards because he’s a tiny, tiny person and could probably be beaten up by children.
But, come on. Fucking Radiohead, man. In Noblesville, Indiana of all places.
And the show was something close to glorious. The all-encompassing sound. The lights with the huge suspended tubes hanging from the ceilings. The video screen behind them that Thom Yorke used to comical effect. The enthusiastic yet respectful crowd that loved them even though they didn’t play “Creep.” (And probably never will if you know anything about Radiohead.)
In fact, they mostly played In Rainbows. And I didn’t even care because I like In Rainbows. That’s the difference in a band like Radiohead and Pearl Jam. I listened to the last Pearl Jam album one time and never listened to it again. I’ve listened to In Rainbows repeatedly. Granted, I probably wouldn’t have listened to In Rainbows if they hadn’t given it away for free (or whatever you wanted to pay for it) prior to its physical release on CD. Mostly because Hail to the Thief was a pretty boring album. But also because I don't like paying for music.
But they came back from an irrelevant album and made one that’s relevant. And also a very clever marketing scheme to get In Rainbows to debut at number one on the US sales charts. Of course, it wouldn’t really matter if it wasn’t full of good songs, which it is, in this not so humble critic’s opinion. I really love the song “Reckoner” and I’m not sure why.
It was sublime to hear it live.
And they played “Street Spirit (Fade Out).” That’s one of my favorite Radiohead songs from my favorite album The Bends, which I also consider one of the best albums of the nineties. They also played a very loosey-goosey version of “Just.”
For the fans of the more popular Radiohead songs, they played “Karma Police,” but I really wish they would have played “Paranoid Android” instead. Not because I don’t like “Karma Police” but only because I like “Paranoid Android” better, as it wasn’t overplayed due to its length and general difficulty. “What’s thaaaaaaaaaaaat?”
In fact, the show was so good that I wasn’t even angry about the eight dollar slices of pizza, ten dollar beers, and forty dollar concert t-shirts that I didn’t buy. Although I would have really liked to have the one that said “I’m Trapped Inside This Body And Can’t Get Out.” Nor was I angry about the 106 dollars I had to pay for two tickets or the 43 dollars worth of Ticketmaster surcharges. Okay, I’ll admit still being bitter about the surcharges which could have nearly bought another ticket. (Albeit a lawn ticket after the surcharges.)
I did buy myself and Shauna a couple of the ten dollar tour posters, which was probably just sheer consumerism on my part since I have a couple of other tour posters from other bands that I’ve never framed and hung anywhere. They sit rolled up in a closet somewhere. But this one is Radiohead so maybe it’ll end up on one of my walls as a memento of this place and time. (Now that I think about it I should really hang the Silversun Pickups poster from last year that I got signed by the entire band and the singer drew a penis on it to show how much he loved me.)
I think the thing that really surprised me the most about the concert was the fact that there were no drunken annoying people around me yelling out song titles, heckling the band, or just being generally annoying. I don't know why I find that surprising though since it's Radiohead and they don't really attract the jock factor that most rock bands do, mainly because if you have an IQ lower than 120 you just don't understand any of their songs. In fact, the row I was in barely had any people at all, which was odd considering the entire lawn was filled to capacity, as were most of the seats, except in our section which was almost dead center. The only thing that invaded my space the whole show was the smell of some super hydro skunk bud which I noticed was coming from a fifty or sixty something balding upper middle class guy directly behind me. Not really the person you expect to see when you look around to see where the smell is coming from. It smelled so great I nearly spoke to a stranger to say, “Take me to your dealer.”
Other than the Indiana state police pulling out and following me for several miles on Interstate 70 and then nearly running out of gas because there were no gas stations, it was pretty much a perfect day.
I wish you could have been there, but since you weren’t here are some pictures from the show that I didn’t take because I’m too lazy.
I don’t really need pictures. It’s all in my head.
Yes, I got to see Radiohead and you didn’t. You may hate me now.
Or actually you might hate Radiohead now, and that’s okay too because they do have some pretty wanky, “look at how artsy and avant garde we are” songs that make me want to throttle Thom Yorke only I’d feel really bad afterwards because he’s a tiny, tiny person and could probably be beaten up by children.
But, come on. Fucking Radiohead, man. In Noblesville, Indiana of all places.
And the show was something close to glorious. The all-encompassing sound. The lights with the huge suspended tubes hanging from the ceilings. The video screen behind them that Thom Yorke used to comical effect. The enthusiastic yet respectful crowd that loved them even though they didn’t play “Creep.” (And probably never will if you know anything about Radiohead.)
In fact, they mostly played In Rainbows. And I didn’t even care because I like In Rainbows. That’s the difference in a band like Radiohead and Pearl Jam. I listened to the last Pearl Jam album one time and never listened to it again. I’ve listened to In Rainbows repeatedly. Granted, I probably wouldn’t have listened to In Rainbows if they hadn’t given it away for free (or whatever you wanted to pay for it) prior to its physical release on CD. Mostly because Hail to the Thief was a pretty boring album. But also because I don't like paying for music.
But they came back from an irrelevant album and made one that’s relevant. And also a very clever marketing scheme to get In Rainbows to debut at number one on the US sales charts. Of course, it wouldn’t really matter if it wasn’t full of good songs, which it is, in this not so humble critic’s opinion. I really love the song “Reckoner” and I’m not sure why.
It was sublime to hear it live.
And they played “Street Spirit (Fade Out).” That’s one of my favorite Radiohead songs from my favorite album The Bends, which I also consider one of the best albums of the nineties. They also played a very loosey-goosey version of “Just.”
For the fans of the more popular Radiohead songs, they played “Karma Police,” but I really wish they would have played “Paranoid Android” instead. Not because I don’t like “Karma Police” but only because I like “Paranoid Android” better, as it wasn’t overplayed due to its length and general difficulty. “What’s thaaaaaaaaaaaat?”
In fact, the show was so good that I wasn’t even angry about the eight dollar slices of pizza, ten dollar beers, and forty dollar concert t-shirts that I didn’t buy. Although I would have really liked to have the one that said “I’m Trapped Inside This Body And Can’t Get Out.” Nor was I angry about the 106 dollars I had to pay for two tickets or the 43 dollars worth of Ticketmaster surcharges. Okay, I’ll admit still being bitter about the surcharges which could have nearly bought another ticket. (Albeit a lawn ticket after the surcharges.)
I did buy myself and Shauna a couple of the ten dollar tour posters, which was probably just sheer consumerism on my part since I have a couple of other tour posters from other bands that I’ve never framed and hung anywhere. They sit rolled up in a closet somewhere. But this one is Radiohead so maybe it’ll end up on one of my walls as a memento of this place and time. (Now that I think about it I should really hang the Silversun Pickups poster from last year that I got signed by the entire band and the singer drew a penis on it to show how much he loved me.)
I think the thing that really surprised me the most about the concert was the fact that there were no drunken annoying people around me yelling out song titles, heckling the band, or just being generally annoying. I don't know why I find that surprising though since it's Radiohead and they don't really attract the jock factor that most rock bands do, mainly because if you have an IQ lower than 120 you just don't understand any of their songs. In fact, the row I was in barely had any people at all, which was odd considering the entire lawn was filled to capacity, as were most of the seats, except in our section which was almost dead center. The only thing that invaded my space the whole show was the smell of some super hydro skunk bud which I noticed was coming from a fifty or sixty something balding upper middle class guy directly behind me. Not really the person you expect to see when you look around to see where the smell is coming from. It smelled so great I nearly spoke to a stranger to say, “Take me to your dealer.”
Other than the Indiana state police pulling out and following me for several miles on Interstate 70 and then nearly running out of gas because there were no gas stations, it was pretty much a perfect day.
I wish you could have been there, but since you weren’t here are some pictures from the show that I didn’t take because I’m too lazy.
I don’t really need pictures. It’s all in my head.
Safety Is The Death of Liberty
Fire safe cigarettes are the stupidest idea ever. I don’t know if you’ve heard about these things yet, but here’s the deal: Because a few idiots didn’t know how to put out their cigarettes before they passed out and as a result burned down their houses and killed their families, we all get to smoke cigarettes that taste like shit and make your throat and head hurt.
But they are "fire safe" meaning they go out on their own if you aren't smoking them anymore.
Not only did we not have a choice about switching to fire safe cigarettes, they didn’t even bother telling anyone. I was smoking these things for a couple of weeks and wondering why I didn’t enjoy smoking anymore. I was putting out cigarettes that I didn’t finish and I fucking love to smoke. I just thought they were stale or something. I also noticed I was getting headaches but didn’t attribute it to the cigarettes, because, why would I? I have been smoking for years and never gotten headaches. Seriously, headaches from cigarettes?
So imagine my lack of surprise when I’m reading a local news story out about the spiffy new ingredient they’re including in all the cigarettes in Kentucky that is supposed to make them go out after several seconds of no inhaling.
Mostly people were complaining about the taste, but a few people mentioned headaches.
It turns out that these yummy new cigs that everyone is raving about became a state law on April 1st. They’re also state law in Illinois, New York, and several other states in the nation. By next year they’ll be state law in about seventy percent of all US states.
If you’re wondering if your cigarettes are “fire safe” and haven’t noticed the fact that a brand you used to enjoy started tasting like ass, just check above the bar code for FSC. If that FSC is there you are smoking a glue that has been proven to cause tumors in rats.
But, hey, it keeps drunk people from killing children with house fires. Or at least that’s what the chemical is supposed to do, make them fire safe. Even though they are, in fact, burning leaves.
Actually, from all accounts they don’t work so well. They don’t go out in 10 seconds like they’re supposed to. They seem to burn just as long as the old ones. There’s already been at least one fire attributed to a fire safe cigarette.
And I guess that would be fine if you like having an especially toxic chemical added to your already toxic chemicals, but not only are they not fire safe, they have a propensity to burn the fuck out of you while you’re smoking them. Little bits of the fiery glue sometimes fall off the cigarettes and land on your finger. I know this, because that was the other thing I noticed was different about my cigarettes recently. I’ve had my fingers burned from smoking more times recently that I have in the entire fifteen years I’ve smoked. From what I’ve read, fire safe cigarettes also have a tendency to lose their entire cherries which then fall onto your couch or carpet or lap. Reportedly, there is already a lawsuit in California involving a fatal car crash caused by the smoking cherry of a fire safe cigarette.
Simply put, the things don’t work. They do not make fire safer, because that’s kind of the person’s job with the fire in the first fucking place.
Not only don’t they work as intended, they’re also making a lot of people sick. Do a Google search for “FSC cigarettes” and read for yourself. There are plenty of first hand horror stories to make you quickly realize just what a bad idea this really was. Even if only a fraction of the stories are truly caused by fire safe cigarettes it’s entirely too many.
Yet, like the smoking bans in public places this was never something anyone was allowed to vote on. And at least with the smoking bans most people knew they were coming. Most people that are smoking “fire safe” cigarettes don’t even realize a dangerous chemical has been added to their product.
And I know it’s rather ironic to talk about cigarettes making people sick since that is typically the end result of years of smoking. But the key word in that last sentence is years. There are some really sick people who’ve only been smoking fire safe cigarettes from a few weeks to a few months.
If you wanted to make a whole nation of people quit smoking what would be the easiest way to do it?
How about killing them?
Just think of all the money they’ll save on long term health care either making people quit who can’t smoke their poisoned smokes or killing the people who can’t quit.
To the government that thought this was a really good idea, I say this:
Fuck you. You put poison in my poison. I will smoke your poison and laugh.
Then die.
But they are "fire safe" meaning they go out on their own if you aren't smoking them anymore.
Not only did we not have a choice about switching to fire safe cigarettes, they didn’t even bother telling anyone. I was smoking these things for a couple of weeks and wondering why I didn’t enjoy smoking anymore. I was putting out cigarettes that I didn’t finish and I fucking love to smoke. I just thought they were stale or something. I also noticed I was getting headaches but didn’t attribute it to the cigarettes, because, why would I? I have been smoking for years and never gotten headaches. Seriously, headaches from cigarettes?
So imagine my lack of surprise when I’m reading a local news story out about the spiffy new ingredient they’re including in all the cigarettes in Kentucky that is supposed to make them go out after several seconds of no inhaling.
Mostly people were complaining about the taste, but a few people mentioned headaches.
It turns out that these yummy new cigs that everyone is raving about became a state law on April 1st. They’re also state law in Illinois, New York, and several other states in the nation. By next year they’ll be state law in about seventy percent of all US states.
If you’re wondering if your cigarettes are “fire safe” and haven’t noticed the fact that a brand you used to enjoy started tasting like ass, just check above the bar code for FSC. If that FSC is there you are smoking a glue that has been proven to cause tumors in rats.
But, hey, it keeps drunk people from killing children with house fires. Or at least that’s what the chemical is supposed to do, make them fire safe. Even though they are, in fact, burning leaves.
Actually, from all accounts they don’t work so well. They don’t go out in 10 seconds like they’re supposed to. They seem to burn just as long as the old ones. There’s already been at least one fire attributed to a fire safe cigarette.
And I guess that would be fine if you like having an especially toxic chemical added to your already toxic chemicals, but not only are they not fire safe, they have a propensity to burn the fuck out of you while you’re smoking them. Little bits of the fiery glue sometimes fall off the cigarettes and land on your finger. I know this, because that was the other thing I noticed was different about my cigarettes recently. I’ve had my fingers burned from smoking more times recently that I have in the entire fifteen years I’ve smoked. From what I’ve read, fire safe cigarettes also have a tendency to lose their entire cherries which then fall onto your couch or carpet or lap. Reportedly, there is already a lawsuit in California involving a fatal car crash caused by the smoking cherry of a fire safe cigarette.
Simply put, the things don’t work. They do not make fire safer, because that’s kind of the person’s job with the fire in the first fucking place.
Not only don’t they work as intended, they’re also making a lot of people sick. Do a Google search for “FSC cigarettes” and read for yourself. There are plenty of first hand horror stories to make you quickly realize just what a bad idea this really was. Even if only a fraction of the stories are truly caused by fire safe cigarettes it’s entirely too many.
Yet, like the smoking bans in public places this was never something anyone was allowed to vote on. And at least with the smoking bans most people knew they were coming. Most people that are smoking “fire safe” cigarettes don’t even realize a dangerous chemical has been added to their product.
And I know it’s rather ironic to talk about cigarettes making people sick since that is typically the end result of years of smoking. But the key word in that last sentence is years. There are some really sick people who’ve only been smoking fire safe cigarettes from a few weeks to a few months.
If you wanted to make a whole nation of people quit smoking what would be the easiest way to do it?
How about killing them?
Just think of all the money they’ll save on long term health care either making people quit who can’t smoke their poisoned smokes or killing the people who can’t quit.
To the government that thought this was a really good idea, I say this:
Fuck you. You put poison in my poison. I will smoke your poison and laugh.
Then die.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Pants on Fire
Joseph Seahorn would tell you anything except the truth.
He would tell you how he served in Desert Storm and how he killed lots of camel jockeys. He would tell you about his rich elderly relative that was going to leave him millions. He would tell you about all the celebrities he’d stumbled across and met in a variety of nightclubs in dozens of cities that he’d never really seen.
Joey, as his lack of friends liked to call him, was a compulsive liar.
He didn’t lie out of any sort of maliciousness. He simply did not know how to tell the truth. He’d been telling people outrageous lies since boyhood and he relied on his storytelling abilities to get people to give him attention.
Even disdainful attention is still attention.
Joey had one of those faces that you forget about five minutes after meeting him. Not because he was particularly average looking but because you wanted to forget ever meeting him. His problem was not just the fact that he lied all the time, but that anyone more intelligent than a brain-damaged ten-year-old could tell that he was lying.
Not only did he lie, but also he always told elaborate lies that he would lose track of mid lie. And he always looked guilty of something. Some people suspected that maybe when he wasn’t making up badly-constructed lies Joey was off somewhere doing something illegal.
Once after being told about the time he wrestled a crocodile in Florida, his younger brother James confronted him after years of angry silence.
“There aren’t any crocodiles in Florida, Joey,” Jimmy said, his face slightly flustered. “Florida has alligators. Why do you always make up these ridiculous lies? Everyone knows that you’re lying and they just don’t want to say anything. You know that right?”
Joey looked at his younger brother incredulously.
“Don’t tell me there aren’t any crocodiles in Florida,” he said with a smirk. “You’re not the one who almost lost his leg wrestling with one. I can’t believe you don’t believe me, Jimbo.”
“Goddamn, man. Crocodiles are in Australia. Florida only has alligators. Don’t you ever watch Animal Planet? The Discovery Channel? How about doing a little research if you’re going to tell massive lies?”
Joey’s face looked flushed as he said, “Then it escaped from a fucking zoo. This was a crocodile, man. Just ask Billy Davenport.”
“Billy hates you,” his brother shot back. “In fact, almost everyone hates you because you’re always telling lies. You’ve never wrestled a crocodile. Or an alligator. You’ve never put your life at risk. Ever. Dude, I’m your fucking brother. I know what you’ve done for fuck’s sake.”
Joey stood up enraged, his fists clenched. His own little brother calling him a liar in his own living room. What had the world come to?
“I should kick your ass, Jimmy.”
“You should sit down and shut the fuck up,” his brother responded matter-of-factly. “I’m trying to help you out here.”
“By calling me a liar?” he shouted.
“You are a liar.”
Joey hovered over his seated brother menacingly. His little brother sitting in his favorite chair. His motherfucking recliner. Calling him a goddamn liar.
“Get the fuck out of my house before I kick your ass,” he screamed right in Jimmy’s face.
Right at that moment the last thing he ever expected was Jimmy’s knee planted firmly in his crotch with alarming force. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he got. Excruciating pain soon became his reality and he collapsed like a paraplegic on his brand new carpet.
Through a haze of pain he glanced upward to see his brother standing over him.
“Wha--?” was all he managed to get out before his brother’s foot met with his ribcage. Again with excessive force. The remainder of what he was going to say came out as an airy, pained wheeze.
“That’s for all the times you beat me up and tore up my toys,” Jimmy said.
Joey was petrified to see that Jimmy looked happy. He hadn’t seen his kid brother look this overjoyed since he’d gotten a train set for Christmas when he was seven. The very same train set that Joey ended up destroying out of the kind of meanness that only children are capable of.
At that moment, Joey’s alcoholic wife appeared at the top of the stairs overlooking the living room. Stephanie Seahorn had consumed her usual ten rum and cokes before bedtime and was mad as hell to be wakened at seven p.m. by shouting from downstairs.
“What the fuck are you two assholes doing down there?” she screamed in a shrill voice, her words slurring more than slightly. “Some of us are trying to fucking sleep.”
“I’m beating your worthless husband’s ass,” Jimmy responded. “Go back to bed and shut the fuck up.”
She nodded and walked back down the hallway to her bedroom. She hated her husband anyway. So after a shot of vodka in her bed she laid back down and slept better than she had in years.
After a few more well-placed kicks, Jimmy left his brother lying writhing in pain and left the house. But not before taking all of his brother’s beer and weed.
Later that night, Jimmy, after drinking twelve beers and smoking five joints, died when his small Toyota truck ran head-on into a semi-truck loaded with Budweiser beer. The semi driver, who the very next day won a ten million dollar Illinois state lottery jackpot, was completely unharmed.
Joey died of internal bleeding alone on his living room floor. His last thought was about the time he rescued one hundred people from the collapsing World Trade Center.
Stephanie found Jesus, gave up drinking, helped numerous unfortunate people through selfless charity work, and died as a result of undetected breast cancer five years later.
After Stephanie’s untimely demise, the leprechaun who lived under the stairs of the Seahorn house killed his nemesis, Stephanie’s pet cat Amen. He enjoyed almost a year of free reign over the abode before the next group of humans moved in.
He would tell you how he served in Desert Storm and how he killed lots of camel jockeys. He would tell you about his rich elderly relative that was going to leave him millions. He would tell you about all the celebrities he’d stumbled across and met in a variety of nightclubs in dozens of cities that he’d never really seen.
Joey, as his lack of friends liked to call him, was a compulsive liar.
He didn’t lie out of any sort of maliciousness. He simply did not know how to tell the truth. He’d been telling people outrageous lies since boyhood and he relied on his storytelling abilities to get people to give him attention.
Even disdainful attention is still attention.
Joey had one of those faces that you forget about five minutes after meeting him. Not because he was particularly average looking but because you wanted to forget ever meeting him. His problem was not just the fact that he lied all the time, but that anyone more intelligent than a brain-damaged ten-year-old could tell that he was lying.
Not only did he lie, but also he always told elaborate lies that he would lose track of mid lie. And he always looked guilty of something. Some people suspected that maybe when he wasn’t making up badly-constructed lies Joey was off somewhere doing something illegal.
Once after being told about the time he wrestled a crocodile in Florida, his younger brother James confronted him after years of angry silence.
“There aren’t any crocodiles in Florida, Joey,” Jimmy said, his face slightly flustered. “Florida has alligators. Why do you always make up these ridiculous lies? Everyone knows that you’re lying and they just don’t want to say anything. You know that right?”
Joey looked at his younger brother incredulously.
“Don’t tell me there aren’t any crocodiles in Florida,” he said with a smirk. “You’re not the one who almost lost his leg wrestling with one. I can’t believe you don’t believe me, Jimbo.”
“Goddamn, man. Crocodiles are in Australia. Florida only has alligators. Don’t you ever watch Animal Planet? The Discovery Channel? How about doing a little research if you’re going to tell massive lies?”
Joey’s face looked flushed as he said, “Then it escaped from a fucking zoo. This was a crocodile, man. Just ask Billy Davenport.”
“Billy hates you,” his brother shot back. “In fact, almost everyone hates you because you’re always telling lies. You’ve never wrestled a crocodile. Or an alligator. You’ve never put your life at risk. Ever. Dude, I’m your fucking brother. I know what you’ve done for fuck’s sake.”
Joey stood up enraged, his fists clenched. His own little brother calling him a liar in his own living room. What had the world come to?
“I should kick your ass, Jimmy.”
“You should sit down and shut the fuck up,” his brother responded matter-of-factly. “I’m trying to help you out here.”
“By calling me a liar?” he shouted.
“You are a liar.”
Joey hovered over his seated brother menacingly. His little brother sitting in his favorite chair. His motherfucking recliner. Calling him a goddamn liar.
“Get the fuck out of my house before I kick your ass,” he screamed right in Jimmy’s face.
Right at that moment the last thing he ever expected was Jimmy’s knee planted firmly in his crotch with alarming force. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what he got. Excruciating pain soon became his reality and he collapsed like a paraplegic on his brand new carpet.
Through a haze of pain he glanced upward to see his brother standing over him.
“Wha--?” was all he managed to get out before his brother’s foot met with his ribcage. Again with excessive force. The remainder of what he was going to say came out as an airy, pained wheeze.
“That’s for all the times you beat me up and tore up my toys,” Jimmy said.
Joey was petrified to see that Jimmy looked happy. He hadn’t seen his kid brother look this overjoyed since he’d gotten a train set for Christmas when he was seven. The very same train set that Joey ended up destroying out of the kind of meanness that only children are capable of.
At that moment, Joey’s alcoholic wife appeared at the top of the stairs overlooking the living room. Stephanie Seahorn had consumed her usual ten rum and cokes before bedtime and was mad as hell to be wakened at seven p.m. by shouting from downstairs.
“What the fuck are you two assholes doing down there?” she screamed in a shrill voice, her words slurring more than slightly. “Some of us are trying to fucking sleep.”
“I’m beating your worthless husband’s ass,” Jimmy responded. “Go back to bed and shut the fuck up.”
She nodded and walked back down the hallway to her bedroom. She hated her husband anyway. So after a shot of vodka in her bed she laid back down and slept better than she had in years.
After a few more well-placed kicks, Jimmy left his brother lying writhing in pain and left the house. But not before taking all of his brother’s beer and weed.
Later that night, Jimmy, after drinking twelve beers and smoking five joints, died when his small Toyota truck ran head-on into a semi-truck loaded with Budweiser beer. The semi driver, who the very next day won a ten million dollar Illinois state lottery jackpot, was completely unharmed.
Joey died of internal bleeding alone on his living room floor. His last thought was about the time he rescued one hundred people from the collapsing World Trade Center.
Stephanie found Jesus, gave up drinking, helped numerous unfortunate people through selfless charity work, and died as a result of undetected breast cancer five years later.
After Stephanie’s untimely demise, the leprechaun who lived under the stairs of the Seahorn house killed his nemesis, Stephanie’s pet cat Amen. He enjoyed almost a year of free reign over the abode before the next group of humans moved in.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
Blind
Later there is thunder and the smell of exhaust. There is darkness and the sound of my own heart beating as though it might burst. There are mumbled conversations between faceless men.
I am blindfolded and bound in the back of what I’m guessing is some old piece of shit van. The same van I thought looked suspicious about an hour ago. If only I’d kept up my guard, but I was distracted. I was thinking about her.
“You’re going to dig your own grave,” one of the men says and laughs.
“Get fucked,” I spit.
Something hits me hard in the face. I’m guessing it’s his boot. There is a blinding flash of pain and the taste of my own blood. One of the other guys laughs. This is all just fun and games to them, but a couple of my teeth feel loose.
“You fucked with the wrong guy, dead man,” another voice says. “You should know better than to cross Big Bear.”
Big Bear. That evil motherfucker with the gay ass nickname. There was nothing cuddly about this asshole. I told her we shouldn’t do business with him. He had a reputation for reveling in the pain and misfortune of others. But she said he had the best offer in town. We could make ten times our investment, she said. She was always good at talking people into things, especially me.
“He’s going to enjoy killing you slow,” says the first voice with obvious enjoyment.
"You mean killing me slowly," I say just to feel superior to these drones and I feel something kick me in the ribs. It takes me a couple of minutes to get my breath back.
Goddamn you, Felony.
But this is all later and every story has a beginning. I guess this one starts with the day I met her.
She was all peroxide and tanned flesh. She couldn’t have been more than eighty pounds soaking wet. She couldn’t stop talking and I couldn’t figure out if it was because she was high or manic or both. She was the type of girl I avoid like herpes. But something about her fascinated me.
I met her at Rick’s. I was going to score a little crank for the weekend. Most of the people who hung out at Rick’s were addicts whose whole lives revolved around their drug of choice. Rick could get just about anything, but mostly he sold stepped-on coke and decent crystal meth. I’m sure the cops had been watching him for ages, but were just waiting to catch him with a big bust. I always felt like I was being watched. But that’s normal for someone high on speed. Paranoia is just part of the buzz.
There were the usual suspects when I walked into Rick’s house. The whole place smelled like one big ashtray and burning chemicals. People were sitting around smoking crystal meth and talking incessantly. I just wanted to get my shit and get the fuck out of there before I got sucked into their world and ended up spending the whole weekend on one of Rick’s couches staring at the walls.
Rick came into his living room talking to some girl I’d never seen before, the one I just described. She comes up to me and hugs me like we’ve been friends for life. I wonder if she’s on ecstasy or something. I really hate people who do ecstasy. I don’t understand why anyone would want to love everyone.
“Jack,” says Rick. “This is my friend Felony. She’s from California.”
I guess that explained the tan. I’d thought maybe she was one of those trailer park girls who spend a lot of time in tanning beds. There was an orange tint to her that I attributed to fake sun, but maybe it was just the fact she was pumping her body full of chemicals every single day.
“Rick’s told me all about you,” Felony says.
I’m surprised to find myself liking her voice. My first impression of her wasn’t really a good one.
“Did he tell you that I hunt criminals by night?” I ask.
Rick laughs and takes a hit off a glass pipe that someone hands him. A couple of other guys chuckle too.
“What? Like Batman?” she asks.
“Just like Batman. I even have a cape.”
“What kind of criminals do you hunt?” she asks me taking the pipe from Rick and hitting it.
“Drug addicts,” I say and everyone laughs.
She just looks at me like I’m some sort of puzzle that needs solving. You spend a lot of time with junkies and you’ll find it’s rare to meet one that’s interesting beyond being crazy. Then again, who isn’t crazy that spends days on end geeked on speed?
“I like you,” she says and smiles a smile yellowed with cigarettes and crystal and probably coffee. Somehow her grin is beautiful just the same.
She hands me the pipe and I hit it. I feel the chemicals rush through my brain and the world around me comes to life with clarity and my thoughts become razor sharp. It’s funny how drugs can make the most boring things instantly exciting. I guess that’s why we spend so much time doing them. Sobriety is okay and all, but getting high is fucking great.
An hour later and Felony and I are fucking in Rick’s bed. His room smells like dirty socks but I don’t even care. We’re going at it like caged beasts fucking to remember freedom and I wonder if this is the girl I’m going to marry. It’s a crazy thought that comes out of the blue, but I never let go of it.
Not even now after she took the money and the drugs and left me alone to die at the hands of Big Bear. Not even now after she fucked all those junkies behind my back.
I guess this is what it means to love someone. But I can’t help feeling like the biggest sucker in the world.
I am blindfolded and bound in the back of what I’m guessing is some old piece of shit van. The same van I thought looked suspicious about an hour ago. If only I’d kept up my guard, but I was distracted. I was thinking about her.
“You’re going to dig your own grave,” one of the men says and laughs.
“Get fucked,” I spit.
Something hits me hard in the face. I’m guessing it’s his boot. There is a blinding flash of pain and the taste of my own blood. One of the other guys laughs. This is all just fun and games to them, but a couple of my teeth feel loose.
“You fucked with the wrong guy, dead man,” another voice says. “You should know better than to cross Big Bear.”
Big Bear. That evil motherfucker with the gay ass nickname. There was nothing cuddly about this asshole. I told her we shouldn’t do business with him. He had a reputation for reveling in the pain and misfortune of others. But she said he had the best offer in town. We could make ten times our investment, she said. She was always good at talking people into things, especially me.
“He’s going to enjoy killing you slow,” says the first voice with obvious enjoyment.
"You mean killing me slowly," I say just to feel superior to these drones and I feel something kick me in the ribs. It takes me a couple of minutes to get my breath back.
Goddamn you, Felony.
But this is all later and every story has a beginning. I guess this one starts with the day I met her.
She was all peroxide and tanned flesh. She couldn’t have been more than eighty pounds soaking wet. She couldn’t stop talking and I couldn’t figure out if it was because she was high or manic or both. She was the type of girl I avoid like herpes. But something about her fascinated me.
I met her at Rick’s. I was going to score a little crank for the weekend. Most of the people who hung out at Rick’s were addicts whose whole lives revolved around their drug of choice. Rick could get just about anything, but mostly he sold stepped-on coke and decent crystal meth. I’m sure the cops had been watching him for ages, but were just waiting to catch him with a big bust. I always felt like I was being watched. But that’s normal for someone high on speed. Paranoia is just part of the buzz.
There were the usual suspects when I walked into Rick’s house. The whole place smelled like one big ashtray and burning chemicals. People were sitting around smoking crystal meth and talking incessantly. I just wanted to get my shit and get the fuck out of there before I got sucked into their world and ended up spending the whole weekend on one of Rick’s couches staring at the walls.
Rick came into his living room talking to some girl I’d never seen before, the one I just described. She comes up to me and hugs me like we’ve been friends for life. I wonder if she’s on ecstasy or something. I really hate people who do ecstasy. I don’t understand why anyone would want to love everyone.
“Jack,” says Rick. “This is my friend Felony. She’s from California.”
I guess that explained the tan. I’d thought maybe she was one of those trailer park girls who spend a lot of time in tanning beds. There was an orange tint to her that I attributed to fake sun, but maybe it was just the fact she was pumping her body full of chemicals every single day.
“Rick’s told me all about you,” Felony says.
I’m surprised to find myself liking her voice. My first impression of her wasn’t really a good one.
“Did he tell you that I hunt criminals by night?” I ask.
Rick laughs and takes a hit off a glass pipe that someone hands him. A couple of other guys chuckle too.
“What? Like Batman?” she asks.
“Just like Batman. I even have a cape.”
“What kind of criminals do you hunt?” she asks me taking the pipe from Rick and hitting it.
“Drug addicts,” I say and everyone laughs.
She just looks at me like I’m some sort of puzzle that needs solving. You spend a lot of time with junkies and you’ll find it’s rare to meet one that’s interesting beyond being crazy. Then again, who isn’t crazy that spends days on end geeked on speed?
“I like you,” she says and smiles a smile yellowed with cigarettes and crystal and probably coffee. Somehow her grin is beautiful just the same.
She hands me the pipe and I hit it. I feel the chemicals rush through my brain and the world around me comes to life with clarity and my thoughts become razor sharp. It’s funny how drugs can make the most boring things instantly exciting. I guess that’s why we spend so much time doing them. Sobriety is okay and all, but getting high is fucking great.
An hour later and Felony and I are fucking in Rick’s bed. His room smells like dirty socks but I don’t even care. We’re going at it like caged beasts fucking to remember freedom and I wonder if this is the girl I’m going to marry. It’s a crazy thought that comes out of the blue, but I never let go of it.
Not even now after she took the money and the drugs and left me alone to die at the hands of Big Bear. Not even now after she fucked all those junkies behind my back.
I guess this is what it means to love someone. But I can’t help feeling like the biggest sucker in the world.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Up, Up, And Out of My Fucking Way
Going to the comic book shop is a lot like going to a porn shop. There aren’t any women and there’s always some weird smell assaulting your senses. It’s usually musty and a little dark, so you can’t see how they haven’t cleaned the place up in the ten years it’s been open. The only real difference in the two is that instead of DVD boxes and magazine covers of big-breasted naked women, dildos, and blow-up dolls lining the shelves, you have comic books with drawings of big breasted women and action figures for grown men.
More and more, I’m finding myself wanting to get into the comic book shop and get out just as quickly as possible. I try not to speak to anyone because the person who runs the local comic book shop says things like, “I’m really loving the new Space Ghost. I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t know it was gonna be THIS good.”
Seriously, fuck Space Ghost. I liked it when I was a kid, but even then I knew it was as corny as Iowa.
And then there’s the one nerd with the bottle thick glasses who asks me the same question every single time he sees me, all creepy like he’s trying to pick me up or something, “So, what comics do you collect?”
If there was a glory hole to suck superhero dick in the bathroom this guy would never leave the place. “Oh, Green Lantern. Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Give it to me, big guy. Come in my mouth.”
He’s like that pervert who follows you out of the porn shop when you’re just there to get a movie to take home and masturbate to in private; only he’s there to pick up some other lonely desperate guy and do some serious cuddling, so he follows you into the parking lot and propositions you.
If I were to tell this nerd what I read, and I did make the mistake of doing that the first time he asked me, he would look at me all confused. “Sleeper? Promethea? Planetary? Don’t you read Green Lantern?”
It’s like I speak a different language than the other nerds who frequent the comic shop. I listen to them talking sometimes while I’m perusing their shitty selection of books and when they’re not talking about the WWE, they’re talking about comic book characters like they’re real. The last time I got into a serious discussion about who would win a battle between the Hulk and the Thing I was twelve years old. I think that’s the last year I bought action figures, but I can’t be certain of that.
These days when I talk comics, I talk about the creators. I talk about the craft. I discuss shit like the quality of the artwork and the writing. I don’t give a flying fuck about Wolverine’s latest fight with Super Gonorrhea which his healing factor cured in less than two minutes. That doesn’t interest me. But if you want to talk about Joss Whedon writing the X-Men, I’m more than willing to talk about that with you.
And, yeah, that makes me a huge geek, but that’s okay, because I have a girlfriend and I don’t smell like I haven’t bathed in a year.
This one guy I work with, he’s into comic books. He’s around thirty years old and I try so hard to get him to read the good stuff. I bring books like Sleeper: Out in the Cold to work and hand it to him and say, “Here, check this out. Tell me what you think about it.” He brings it back to me after about five minutes and says, “I don’t think I like this.” Then he goes back to reading Thundercats and Transformers and playing with his GI Joe action figures. And I’m not making this shit up.
I mean, Jesus, what is wrong with these fucking nerds? It’s no wonder these bastards never get laid. It’s okay to geek out on the stuff that makes you all nostalgic for your childhood. I do it sometimes myself. But my tastes have really evolved over the last decade or so. The stuff I like is mostly written for adults, not children. That goes for everything from books to film to comics. Sometimes you have to grow up.
Here’s a little pointer for you nerds trying to get lucky on a date. Hide your fetishistic love for Star Wars. Girls don’t give a shit. They never did and they never will. Sure, they might enjoy watching the movies because Harrison Ford was hot twenty years ago, but they don’t want to spend more than say five minutes talking about which lightsaber battle was the best. They want you to talk about them. That’s all you have to do to get in a girl’s pants. Talk about her, not your comic book collection. Make her the center of your universe, at least until you get laid. Either that, or just ignore her. Girls hate being ignored.
Back in high school I never could figure out why girls didn’t want anything to do with me. I didn’t smell bad. I wasn’t completely unattractive. What didn’t I have that every other guy had? Now I’ve finally figured out it wasn’t what I didn’t have, but what I did have. I had comic books. I was always reading a comic book in class. No wonder no one ever fucked me.
After I graduated I discovered drugs and the girls started coming in droves. So there’s another pointer for the nerds. Keep a steady supply of weed and/or cocaine and you will get laid no matter how ugly and dorky you are. Sure, the quality of girls is questionable, but at least you’re not beating off to Penthouse Forum and pictures of Kitty Pryde anymore.
But I jest. This piece was supposed to be about how much I hate the local comic shop. It was supposed to be about how I want to wear a disguise every time I walk in so no one will recognize me and I’ll be able to make my escape from, “Hey, man, have you read the new Wolverine?” But I have a short attention span, probably from reading too many fucking comics.
I love comics and I love superheroes. I really do.
But I swear to Christ, I’m going to going to beat the shit out of the next guy who I see reading Green Lantern. He’ll thank me later.
More and more, I’m finding myself wanting to get into the comic book shop and get out just as quickly as possible. I try not to speak to anyone because the person who runs the local comic book shop says things like, “I’m really loving the new Space Ghost. I knew it was going to be good, but I didn’t know it was gonna be THIS good.”
Seriously, fuck Space Ghost. I liked it when I was a kid, but even then I knew it was as corny as Iowa.
And then there’s the one nerd with the bottle thick glasses who asks me the same question every single time he sees me, all creepy like he’s trying to pick me up or something, “So, what comics do you collect?”
If there was a glory hole to suck superhero dick in the bathroom this guy would never leave the place. “Oh, Green Lantern. Mmmmm. Mmmmm. Give it to me, big guy. Come in my mouth.”
He’s like that pervert who follows you out of the porn shop when you’re just there to get a movie to take home and masturbate to in private; only he’s there to pick up some other lonely desperate guy and do some serious cuddling, so he follows you into the parking lot and propositions you.
If I were to tell this nerd what I read, and I did make the mistake of doing that the first time he asked me, he would look at me all confused. “Sleeper? Promethea? Planetary? Don’t you read Green Lantern?”
It’s like I speak a different language than the other nerds who frequent the comic shop. I listen to them talking sometimes while I’m perusing their shitty selection of books and when they’re not talking about the WWE, they’re talking about comic book characters like they’re real. The last time I got into a serious discussion about who would win a battle between the Hulk and the Thing I was twelve years old. I think that’s the last year I bought action figures, but I can’t be certain of that.
These days when I talk comics, I talk about the creators. I talk about the craft. I discuss shit like the quality of the artwork and the writing. I don’t give a flying fuck about Wolverine’s latest fight with Super Gonorrhea which his healing factor cured in less than two minutes. That doesn’t interest me. But if you want to talk about Joss Whedon writing the X-Men, I’m more than willing to talk about that with you.
And, yeah, that makes me a huge geek, but that’s okay, because I have a girlfriend and I don’t smell like I haven’t bathed in a year.
This one guy I work with, he’s into comic books. He’s around thirty years old and I try so hard to get him to read the good stuff. I bring books like Sleeper: Out in the Cold to work and hand it to him and say, “Here, check this out. Tell me what you think about it.” He brings it back to me after about five minutes and says, “I don’t think I like this.” Then he goes back to reading Thundercats and Transformers and playing with his GI Joe action figures. And I’m not making this shit up.
I mean, Jesus, what is wrong with these fucking nerds? It’s no wonder these bastards never get laid. It’s okay to geek out on the stuff that makes you all nostalgic for your childhood. I do it sometimes myself. But my tastes have really evolved over the last decade or so. The stuff I like is mostly written for adults, not children. That goes for everything from books to film to comics. Sometimes you have to grow up.
Here’s a little pointer for you nerds trying to get lucky on a date. Hide your fetishistic love for Star Wars. Girls don’t give a shit. They never did and they never will. Sure, they might enjoy watching the movies because Harrison Ford was hot twenty years ago, but they don’t want to spend more than say five minutes talking about which lightsaber battle was the best. They want you to talk about them. That’s all you have to do to get in a girl’s pants. Talk about her, not your comic book collection. Make her the center of your universe, at least until you get laid. Either that, or just ignore her. Girls hate being ignored.
Back in high school I never could figure out why girls didn’t want anything to do with me. I didn’t smell bad. I wasn’t completely unattractive. What didn’t I have that every other guy had? Now I’ve finally figured out it wasn’t what I didn’t have, but what I did have. I had comic books. I was always reading a comic book in class. No wonder no one ever fucked me.
After I graduated I discovered drugs and the girls started coming in droves. So there’s another pointer for the nerds. Keep a steady supply of weed and/or cocaine and you will get laid no matter how ugly and dorky you are. Sure, the quality of girls is questionable, but at least you’re not beating off to Penthouse Forum and pictures of Kitty Pryde anymore.
But I jest. This piece was supposed to be about how much I hate the local comic shop. It was supposed to be about how I want to wear a disguise every time I walk in so no one will recognize me and I’ll be able to make my escape from, “Hey, man, have you read the new Wolverine?” But I have a short attention span, probably from reading too many fucking comics.
I love comics and I love superheroes. I really do.
But I swear to Christ, I’m going to going to beat the shit out of the next guy who I see reading Green Lantern. He’ll thank me later.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Flash From the Distance
The way I see it everyone could use a good punch in the face every now and then. It’s repressing all of this aggression that creates the real monsters. People don’t get into violent movies because they’re peaceful little grass-eating bunny rabbits. Deep down, we’re all killers. We’re all animals.
If it was between you living and me, I could live off of your corpse for a week.
My head is vacant like a retard’s stare. There’s some girl in my bed. She is looking at me like she expects me to say something.
Go away. Leave me alone. I don’t know you.
I need a cigarette and a memory.
I never really had any fantasies outside of ones about relationships that actually work. I’ve had a lot of those fantasies. There are several women who will never speak to me again as a result of my overworked imagination.
Then there’s Audrey. She was everything I ever thought a woman could be, and I was disappointed just the same.
We are walking through the woods at night. It’s pitch black and we’re moving with our hands out, stumbling like two blind people.
I stop for a minute and listen to the world.
Are you there, she asks me
I’m right here.
Don’t leave me, she says.
I am standing at an airport watching her walk away, knowing it will be the last time I ever see her. I’m trying so hard to put this image in my mind so I won’t forget it like I do everything else. All of the things that really matter slip away and I’m left with trivial facts about cultural minutiae.
I wish I could cry for just once in my life, but I don’t feel like crying. I feel like beating someone up. I feel like ruining someone’s day. I feel like driving a car bomb into a mall.
I want to grab Audrey and say to her what she said to me in those woods, but I just watch her go.
She turns around and smiles before she is swallowed into a sea of people.
You want me to cook you breakfast, the stranger says. I make a good omelet.
There’s nothing in my fridge. Go away. Leave me alone. I don’t know you.
I’m not hungry, I say. Thanks. I have to leave for work soon.
It’s okay to lie when you don’t want to be the asshole you really are. The truth is I haven’t been to work in weeks. I don’t even know what day it is.
I watch this girl get dressed. She’s not beautiful, but she has beautiful eyes. She has small breasts and long legs. I can see why I brought her home. She looks a lot like Audrey. Every girl I like looks like Audrey.
I’m sure last night I was telling her everything she wanted to hear, but right now I just want her to leave so I can go back to sleep. I’ll say anything to fuck you, but don’t expect me to like you in the morning. Don’t expect to like me.
You’ll never be who I want you to be.
If it was between you living and me, I could live off of your corpse for a week.
My head is vacant like a retard’s stare. There’s some girl in my bed. She is looking at me like she expects me to say something.
Go away. Leave me alone. I don’t know you.
I need a cigarette and a memory.
I never really had any fantasies outside of ones about relationships that actually work. I’ve had a lot of those fantasies. There are several women who will never speak to me again as a result of my overworked imagination.
Then there’s Audrey. She was everything I ever thought a woman could be, and I was disappointed just the same.
We are walking through the woods at night. It’s pitch black and we’re moving with our hands out, stumbling like two blind people.
I stop for a minute and listen to the world.
Are you there, she asks me
I’m right here.
Don’t leave me, she says.
I am standing at an airport watching her walk away, knowing it will be the last time I ever see her. I’m trying so hard to put this image in my mind so I won’t forget it like I do everything else. All of the things that really matter slip away and I’m left with trivial facts about cultural minutiae.
I wish I could cry for just once in my life, but I don’t feel like crying. I feel like beating someone up. I feel like ruining someone’s day. I feel like driving a car bomb into a mall.
I want to grab Audrey and say to her what she said to me in those woods, but I just watch her go.
She turns around and smiles before she is swallowed into a sea of people.
You want me to cook you breakfast, the stranger says. I make a good omelet.
There’s nothing in my fridge. Go away. Leave me alone. I don’t know you.
I’m not hungry, I say. Thanks. I have to leave for work soon.
It’s okay to lie when you don’t want to be the asshole you really are. The truth is I haven’t been to work in weeks. I don’t even know what day it is.
I watch this girl get dressed. She’s not beautiful, but she has beautiful eyes. She has small breasts and long legs. I can see why I brought her home. She looks a lot like Audrey. Every girl I like looks like Audrey.
I’m sure last night I was telling her everything she wanted to hear, but right now I just want her to leave so I can go back to sleep. I’ll say anything to fuck you, but don’t expect me to like you in the morning. Don’t expect to like me.
You’ll never be who I want you to be.
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Excuse Me, But What Planet Is This?
I’m standing in T-Mart. It used to be Minit Mart, but they went bankrupt, so now they’ve just dropped the Mini. It kept the new owner from paying for a new sign. You can still see the old letters, covered in duct tape and plastic, like no one would notice. It’s too bad the buyer didn’t have more money. Maybe he could have corrected the fucking spelling and called it Minute Mart.
There’s an old woman in front of me trying to write a check and she’s moving like she can’t remember what name she’s supposed to sign. There’s a young black guy, mid-twenties, with a shaved head bugging the clerk about Lotto tickets.
“What’s the payoff?”
He’s looking around like he wants someone to say the wrong thing to him.
Behind the counter a couple of Indians, a guy and a kid act like they have all the time in the world. They’re moving in slow-motion and talking to each other in their native language. They’re both clean-cut and well-dressed, unlike the customers here. The people waiting in line look like they just stepped out of some homeless shelter with a wad of cash for lottery tickets and cartons of Doral cigarettes. The Indian kid is counting money laid out across another counter behind them. The money is stacked like he’s playing Monopoly. It’s sitting in front of boxes of cigars.
The clerk is trying to run this old lady’s check through the machine and the hostile black guy says in a loud voice, “You gonna give me my change for my tickets, man?”
The clerk says, “You haven’t paid me yet.”
Eternities pass and I’m still just standing here, stuck in this moment in time in this low-rent convenience store with half empty shelves and a bunch of people just staring off into space. It’s like in that episode of the Outer Limits where the pilot got knocked out of time and everyone else became these living statues. It's almost funny.
I always try to make some moments last, but the only one’s that do are always the worst fucking ones.
Some old guy is talking to himself behind me. He looks like he’s about two hundred years old. He’s just a skeleton with some liver-spotted skin stretched over it and he smells like a bedpan. I’m trying my best not to stare.
I’m starting to get paranoid. Actually, I started getting paranoid about two minutes after I walked into these florescent lights and it’s only getting worse. Something is wrong with this place. This isn’t how people act. They’re moving like damaged machines. They’re trying to do their routine but they just stop in the middle of it and reboot.
I just wanted a pack of cigarettes. I think about leaving but now the Indian guy is giving the old lady a receipt to sign. Things are moving along. Soon I’ll have my cigarettes and I’ll be able to get the fuck out of here. But now the old lady is confused. The Indian guy doesn’t even notice because the black dude who’s trying to pull some lottery ticket scam is asking him another question. The old man behind me cackles.
“What’s the most I can win?” the black guy asks in a loud voice and looks around to see if anyone wants to say anything about it.
The kid is still counting money behind the counter. I’m wondering how safe it is to have piles of money laying around when you’ve got a group of homeless people waiting in line and some of them look seriously fucking insane. The old man laughs at nothing again and then coughs like he’s going to keel over and die. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did. A fat white guy with a beard standing at the back of the line lets out a loud “Whoo hooo!” The clerk and the kid stop talking for a minute and smile like his redneck yell makes perfect sense.
I’m thinking about running now. But if I leave, I might have to go through this in some other store. It could be even worse. I wish this was just some random incident.
So I wait.
The old woman is moving. She turns back around, confused and walks off clutching her crumpled check. The black guy says, “Give me six Pick Threes and seven Pick Fours.” He may as well be talking in a different language at this point, the clerk and the kid still are. They’re talking and they’re laughing about something. The kid is still counting all of that money.
I finally get to the counter and the clerk is ignoring me. I say, “Put that money in a sack and give it to me or I’ll fucking kill you.”
He says, “Excuse me, sir?”
I say, “I need a pack of Marlboro Lights.”
There’s an old woman in front of me trying to write a check and she’s moving like she can’t remember what name she’s supposed to sign. There’s a young black guy, mid-twenties, with a shaved head bugging the clerk about Lotto tickets.
“What’s the payoff?”
He’s looking around like he wants someone to say the wrong thing to him.
Behind the counter a couple of Indians, a guy and a kid act like they have all the time in the world. They’re moving in slow-motion and talking to each other in their native language. They’re both clean-cut and well-dressed, unlike the customers here. The people waiting in line look like they just stepped out of some homeless shelter with a wad of cash for lottery tickets and cartons of Doral cigarettes. The Indian kid is counting money laid out across another counter behind them. The money is stacked like he’s playing Monopoly. It’s sitting in front of boxes of cigars.
The clerk is trying to run this old lady’s check through the machine and the hostile black guy says in a loud voice, “You gonna give me my change for my tickets, man?”
The clerk says, “You haven’t paid me yet.”
Eternities pass and I’m still just standing here, stuck in this moment in time in this low-rent convenience store with half empty shelves and a bunch of people just staring off into space. It’s like in that episode of the Outer Limits where the pilot got knocked out of time and everyone else became these living statues. It's almost funny.
I always try to make some moments last, but the only one’s that do are always the worst fucking ones.
Some old guy is talking to himself behind me. He looks like he’s about two hundred years old. He’s just a skeleton with some liver-spotted skin stretched over it and he smells like a bedpan. I’m trying my best not to stare.
I’m starting to get paranoid. Actually, I started getting paranoid about two minutes after I walked into these florescent lights and it’s only getting worse. Something is wrong with this place. This isn’t how people act. They’re moving like damaged machines. They’re trying to do their routine but they just stop in the middle of it and reboot.
I just wanted a pack of cigarettes. I think about leaving but now the Indian guy is giving the old lady a receipt to sign. Things are moving along. Soon I’ll have my cigarettes and I’ll be able to get the fuck out of here. But now the old lady is confused. The Indian guy doesn’t even notice because the black dude who’s trying to pull some lottery ticket scam is asking him another question. The old man behind me cackles.
“What’s the most I can win?” the black guy asks in a loud voice and looks around to see if anyone wants to say anything about it.
The kid is still counting money behind the counter. I’m wondering how safe it is to have piles of money laying around when you’ve got a group of homeless people waiting in line and some of them look seriously fucking insane. The old man laughs at nothing again and then coughs like he’s going to keel over and die. It wouldn’t surprise me if he did. A fat white guy with a beard standing at the back of the line lets out a loud “Whoo hooo!” The clerk and the kid stop talking for a minute and smile like his redneck yell makes perfect sense.
I’m thinking about running now. But if I leave, I might have to go through this in some other store. It could be even worse. I wish this was just some random incident.
So I wait.
The old woman is moving. She turns back around, confused and walks off clutching her crumpled check. The black guy says, “Give me six Pick Threes and seven Pick Fours.” He may as well be talking in a different language at this point, the clerk and the kid still are. They’re talking and they’re laughing about something. The kid is still counting all of that money.
I finally get to the counter and the clerk is ignoring me. I say, “Put that money in a sack and give it to me or I’ll fucking kill you.”
He says, “Excuse me, sir?”
I say, “I need a pack of Marlboro Lights.”
Monday, January 03, 2005
A Letter of Concern
Mr. Drunk Redneck Sitting In Front of Me At Donnie Darko- Director’s Cut,
Why have you shown up drunk at a movie you couldn’t understand sober?
Isn’t the Bar With No Name serving your buddies right this moment?
Isn’t there a Home Improvement or Billy Bob’s Great Outdoors rerun on that you could be watching?
This isn’t a movie that was written for drunken assholes who never learned how to keep their big fucking mouths shut during a movie. It wasn’t written for guys in non-ironic trucker hats who snuck in a pint of Kessler and a liter of Big K Cola, who have to get up to take a leak every fifteen minutes and announce it to their significant other and four surrounding rows of people every single time. It wasn’t written for the guy who can’t go two and a half hours without four “smoke breaks.”
This movie was written for pretentious assholes like me. People who know what symbolism means. People who have read Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time. Most importantly, a movie like “Donnie Darko” was written for people who know how to shut the fuck up in public.
Mr. Drunk Redneck, I know after seven shots of cheap Tennessee bourbon, you are under the illusion that you’re in your living room and not in a crowded theater with people all around you. But the fact remains, you’re not.
Sitting directly behind is you is me. I’m what you could call a ticking time bomb. I’m someone who’s just waiting for anyone to fuck up enough that I can pound my fists into their skull repeatedly until they stop moving. And, I hate to say this, Mr. Drunk Redneck, but right now that person is you.
I’m sorry that your mother and father didn’t beat you into submission when you were a kid, because from your behavior, it really seems like it would have done you a lot of good. But I’m not one of those people who believe that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
So Mr. Drunk Redneck, I want you to know that I’m sincere when I say that I think I could teach you something about manners. Unfortunately for you, you don’t come off as someone who can be taught anything through simple logic, but I will say that you do seem the type who could learn something from being kicked repeatedly in the cranium.
So, don’t hold it against me, sir, when I knock that dirty John Deere cap off of your head to reveal your ten dollar bad haircut from Fantastic Sam’s. And don’t hate me for shoving that forty-ounce of Busch beer that you slipped into the theater right up your corn-loving ass. It’s just that no one ever taught you anything about common fucking courtesy or culture, and I want to enlighten you in the only way you’ll ever be able to understand.
I hope you take this to heart and know that this hurts me more than it hurts you, mostly because you’re too drunk to feel anything and my fists are fucking killing me from pounding your thick skull. I think I might have even broken a toe from kicking you in the ribs so many times.
I only do this because I care.
Sincerely,
Smotlock
Why have you shown up drunk at a movie you couldn’t understand sober?
Isn’t the Bar With No Name serving your buddies right this moment?
Isn’t there a Home Improvement or Billy Bob’s Great Outdoors rerun on that you could be watching?
This isn’t a movie that was written for drunken assholes who never learned how to keep their big fucking mouths shut during a movie. It wasn’t written for guys in non-ironic trucker hats who snuck in a pint of Kessler and a liter of Big K Cola, who have to get up to take a leak every fifteen minutes and announce it to their significant other and four surrounding rows of people every single time. It wasn’t written for the guy who can’t go two and a half hours without four “smoke breaks.”
This movie was written for pretentious assholes like me. People who know what symbolism means. People who have read Stephen Hawking’s Brief History of Time. Most importantly, a movie like “Donnie Darko” was written for people who know how to shut the fuck up in public.
Mr. Drunk Redneck, I know after seven shots of cheap Tennessee bourbon, you are under the illusion that you’re in your living room and not in a crowded theater with people all around you. But the fact remains, you’re not.
Sitting directly behind is you is me. I’m what you could call a ticking time bomb. I’m someone who’s just waiting for anyone to fuck up enough that I can pound my fists into their skull repeatedly until they stop moving. And, I hate to say this, Mr. Drunk Redneck, but right now that person is you.
I’m sorry that your mother and father didn’t beat you into submission when you were a kid, because from your behavior, it really seems like it would have done you a lot of good. But I’m not one of those people who believe that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
So Mr. Drunk Redneck, I want you to know that I’m sincere when I say that I think I could teach you something about manners. Unfortunately for you, you don’t come off as someone who can be taught anything through simple logic, but I will say that you do seem the type who could learn something from being kicked repeatedly in the cranium.
So, don’t hold it against me, sir, when I knock that dirty John Deere cap off of your head to reveal your ten dollar bad haircut from Fantastic Sam’s. And don’t hate me for shoving that forty-ounce of Busch beer that you slipped into the theater right up your corn-loving ass. It’s just that no one ever taught you anything about common fucking courtesy or culture, and I want to enlighten you in the only way you’ll ever be able to understand.
I hope you take this to heart and know that this hurts me more than it hurts you, mostly because you’re too drunk to feel anything and my fists are fucking killing me from pounding your thick skull. I think I might have even broken a toe from kicking you in the ribs so many times.
I only do this because I care.
Sincerely,
Smotlock
Friday, December 31, 2004
The Fire Never Understands The Spark
The city is deserted. It’s just you and me and the ghosts. We are walking hand in hand. The night is cold and quiet. I can see your breath when you talk.
You say, “Do you think we’ll always be this happy?”
I say, “No. We’ll be even happier.”
You know I’m full of shit, but you don’t call me on it. We don’t get many moments like this. Right now nothing is wrong with the world. Tomorrow everything will be different, but tonight we are inseparable.
You lean against me and hold me just as tight as you can. You put your cold nose against my neck and you laugh. I smile and squeeze you until you squeak.
Overhead the moon reflects the light of an unseen sun. The stars send their song from millions of light years away.
I find myself wishing I could capture this. In a few weeks, it will just be another memory. You will be gone and I’ll be alone with everyone. But there’s nothing that will do this any justice. No song, no story, no fucking poem will ever make anyone feel what I feel right now. There’s just no reproducing this.
There are some things you can’t hold onto. They fade away like shadow and mist.
I tell you I love you and I mean it more than I’ve ever meant it. You look up at me and smile.
You say, “I could marry you.”
We sit down on a bench by the ocean. A cloud passes over and we are shrouded in darkness. We listen to the sound of the water splashing against the sand, too big to ever be held completely.
I put my arm around you and hide my face in your soft hair. It smells like fruit.
You say, “How much do you love me?”
I say, “Oceans.”
A gull cries in the distance. A cold breeze blows across the empty beach. The clouds roll past and I see your face in the moonlight. Goddamn, you are beautiful. I wonder how someone could be so fucking beautiful.
You kiss me and I am lost forever.
You say, “Do you think we’ll always be this happy?”
I say, “No. We’ll be even happier.”
You know I’m full of shit, but you don’t call me on it. We don’t get many moments like this. Right now nothing is wrong with the world. Tomorrow everything will be different, but tonight we are inseparable.
You lean against me and hold me just as tight as you can. You put your cold nose against my neck and you laugh. I smile and squeeze you until you squeak.
Overhead the moon reflects the light of an unseen sun. The stars send their song from millions of light years away.
I find myself wishing I could capture this. In a few weeks, it will just be another memory. You will be gone and I’ll be alone with everyone. But there’s nothing that will do this any justice. No song, no story, no fucking poem will ever make anyone feel what I feel right now. There’s just no reproducing this.
There are some things you can’t hold onto. They fade away like shadow and mist.
I tell you I love you and I mean it more than I’ve ever meant it. You look up at me and smile.
You say, “I could marry you.”
We sit down on a bench by the ocean. A cloud passes over and we are shrouded in darkness. We listen to the sound of the water splashing against the sand, too big to ever be held completely.
I put my arm around you and hide my face in your soft hair. It smells like fruit.
You say, “How much do you love me?”
I say, “Oceans.”
A gull cries in the distance. A cold breeze blows across the empty beach. The clouds roll past and I see your face in the moonlight. Goddamn, you are beautiful. I wonder how someone could be so fucking beautiful.
You kiss me and I am lost forever.
Thursday, October 07, 2004
The Signal
We pull into the motel parking lot just as the storm begins rolling into the city. Over the flickering sign that says Vacancy, I watch dark clouds illuminated by lightning within as the world around me rumbles. It hasn’t started raining yet, but it's on its way. The breeze coming through the rolled-down window smells like some ancient sea.
Dane says, “You know who really sucks? Green Arrow. I mean, here’s this guy surrounded by fucking Superman and Flash and Wonder Woman and the green Martian guy with basically the same powers as Superman...”
I say, “Martian Manhunter.”
He says, “Yeah, him. I mean, you’ve got all these people with the powers of fucking Greek gods and shit, and then you’ve got a dude decked out all in green with his cute little hat and a goddamn bow and arrow. He doesn’t have any special powers or anything. Even his girlfriend in the fishnets has the sonic scream thing. But this guy, he’s got nothing.”
I say, “What about Batman?”
Dane flashes me a look as he flicks his cigarette ashes through the crack in the car window.
“What about him?”
I light up a cigarette of my own and say, “Well, Batman doesn’t have any powers. He’s no better off than the Green Arrow. Superman could flick his fucking pinky finger and shatter his skull. He’s just a guy in a suit.”
“Yeah, but it’s a cool fucking suit. I mean, if you had the choice to go to a Halloween party dressed as Batman or Green Arrow, which one are you going to choose? Batman’s suit looks all menacing and shit. Green Arrow looks like a fucking faggot. Plus Batman’s a detective. What’s Green Arrow? A flaming liberal? There’s no comparison.”
I take a drag and say, “But he’s still just a guy in a suit. And don’t you think wearing that cape would get in the way in a real fight? At least Green Arrow won’t get his ass stuck in a revolving door.”
Dane says, “Dude, we’re talking about fucking comic books here. None of that shit applies in the real world. In the real world, the government would’ve either killed superheroes for being freaks of nature or they would have kept them a big secret and used them in special ops. You can’t apply real world shit to comics.”
I say, “Then why can’t someone wear a green suit and be a bad ass with a bow and arrow?”
Dane says, “Because it’s gay. This is a world full of super-powered villains, not fucking Sherwood Forest. What are you, a fucking Green Arrow fan?”
I say, “Nah. I always liked Hawkeye better. At least he pissed off Captain America all the time.”
Dane says, “Yeah, too bad he’s dead.”
“Nobody ever stays dead in Marvel comics except Captain Marvel and he died of cancer.”
Dane says, “And Bucky.”
“Fuck Bucky.”
We’re sitting in the usual spot in the parking lot waiting for someone to signal us with the lights. We’ve been coming to the Egyptian Motel for a couple of months now. Everyone’s favorite drug dealer, Eddie the Eel always gets a different room each day because he’s paranoid. I mean, he’s a drug dealer. In his line of work, it pays to be paranoid.
If you aren’t paranoid, you’re fucking stupid.
I don’t know how long we’ve been talking but it seems like it's been longer than usual. The Eel is a greedy bastard and he never makes us wait long. I like that about him. Most drug dealers dick around with you, just making you squirm like a fucking worm on a fishhook. But not the Eel. He’s quick and efficient. Everything always goes smooth as silk.
I finish my cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. In low volume on the radio a deejay is talking about thunderstorm warnings, so I turn the station. I fucking hate bad news.
Dane lights another cigarette and looks over at me, “Think he’s in there taking a shit or something.”
“Was just wondering that myself,” I say lighting another one of my own. I reach into the backseat floorboard and pull a beer out of the cooler. I pop it open and throw back half of the beer in a few gulps.
Dane says, “Thirsty?”
I say, “Nervous. You know I’m always paranoid.”
“Who isn’t in this business? It’s a shame everything good is fucking illegal, isn’t it?”
“What about comic books?”
“Dude, have you ever gotten laid because of comic books? If comics got you laid they’d probably make them illegal, too.”
“Guess you’re right,” I concede and finish off my beer.
In room number twelve a light flicks on and off quickly two times. This is pretty unusual because the signal is three times. Eddie the Eel’s always been adamant about that. Both of us wait for the light to go off and on again, but the light stays on.
“Do you remember what two times means?” Dane asks me taking another drag off his cigarette and blowing smoke out of his nose.
“I didn’t know there was a two.”
“Back when we first met Eddie. He told us that three times meant come to the room and two times meant something else.”
“Maybe it means he’s high and forgot to do it three times. I don’t remember him saying anything about two times. Let’s just go to the room, man. I’m ready to get stoned.”
I start to get out of the car and Dane grabs my arm.
“Wait a minute, man. I don’t like this.”
“Dude, nothing is fucked here.”
Dane flashes me a look as he flicks his cigarette out the window. “Don’t start quoting Lebowski, asshole. You know that annoys me.”
“That’s what I live for. Annoying you. Listen, man, let’s just go get the drugs and get the fuck out of here before it starts raining. There’s no two times signal. Eddie’s just high or something.”
“Fuck it. You’re right. I mean, what would fucking Captain America do? He wouldn’t sit out here in the car wondering about being cautious. He’d just go charging in.”
“Number one, Captain America wouldn’t be buying weed and, number two, he has an indestructible shield.”
“Don’t get all logical on me, man. Let’s just go get the pound and get the fuck out of here.”
We roll up the windows on the Chevelle and get out of the car. I light another cigarette and Dane follows suit. Normally, we’d probably be more cautious, but with the storm and the fact we’d been out of weed for a couple of days and people had been bugging the shit out of us, we wanted to get this done.
We walk up to the door of room number twelve and Dane knocks. We wait about a minute and no one answers. Now this is really fucking weird. The Eel never turns away money. Ever. Not unless he thinks you're a cop.
I whisper, “The fuck is going on here?”
Dane whispers back, “How the hell should I know? Think I should try the knob?”
“What and get shot in the gut by a paranoid drug dealer when you come walking into his motel room? Go right ahead.”
Dane tries the door. “It’s unlocked.”
“Captain fucking America, right?”
Dane opens the door and his face freezes. I see a bunch of people in the room that look like cops. The first thing I do is bolt, but I notice cops are coming out of the adjacent rooms. We’re so fucked. I think about making a run for the car, but looking back I see that they’ve already grabbed Dane and he has the keys, so I change direction and head for the woods across the street. I hear people screaming for me to stop and what sounds like a gunshot, but maybe it’s just thunder. Cops don’t shoot unarmed men in the back, do they?
Everything’s happening so fucking fast. I feel something heavy hit in me in the back and the next thing I know I’m eating loose gravel and some big guy is trying to wrestle with me on the ground. I manage to kick him in the guts, but by that time two more guys are on me and my face is planted in sharp little rocks.
Something told me that tonight was going to be a shitty night.
Dane says, “You know who really sucks? Green Arrow. I mean, here’s this guy surrounded by fucking Superman and Flash and Wonder Woman and the green Martian guy with basically the same powers as Superman...”
I say, “Martian Manhunter.”
He says, “Yeah, him. I mean, you’ve got all these people with the powers of fucking Greek gods and shit, and then you’ve got a dude decked out all in green with his cute little hat and a goddamn bow and arrow. He doesn’t have any special powers or anything. Even his girlfriend in the fishnets has the sonic scream thing. But this guy, he’s got nothing.”
I say, “What about Batman?”
Dane flashes me a look as he flicks his cigarette ashes through the crack in the car window.
“What about him?”
I light up a cigarette of my own and say, “Well, Batman doesn’t have any powers. He’s no better off than the Green Arrow. Superman could flick his fucking pinky finger and shatter his skull. He’s just a guy in a suit.”
“Yeah, but it’s a cool fucking suit. I mean, if you had the choice to go to a Halloween party dressed as Batman or Green Arrow, which one are you going to choose? Batman’s suit looks all menacing and shit. Green Arrow looks like a fucking faggot. Plus Batman’s a detective. What’s Green Arrow? A flaming liberal? There’s no comparison.”
I take a drag and say, “But he’s still just a guy in a suit. And don’t you think wearing that cape would get in the way in a real fight? At least Green Arrow won’t get his ass stuck in a revolving door.”
Dane says, “Dude, we’re talking about fucking comic books here. None of that shit applies in the real world. In the real world, the government would’ve either killed superheroes for being freaks of nature or they would have kept them a big secret and used them in special ops. You can’t apply real world shit to comics.”
I say, “Then why can’t someone wear a green suit and be a bad ass with a bow and arrow?”
Dane says, “Because it’s gay. This is a world full of super-powered villains, not fucking Sherwood Forest. What are you, a fucking Green Arrow fan?”
I say, “Nah. I always liked Hawkeye better. At least he pissed off Captain America all the time.”
Dane says, “Yeah, too bad he’s dead.”
“Nobody ever stays dead in Marvel comics except Captain Marvel and he died of cancer.”
Dane says, “And Bucky.”
“Fuck Bucky.”
We’re sitting in the usual spot in the parking lot waiting for someone to signal us with the lights. We’ve been coming to the Egyptian Motel for a couple of months now. Everyone’s favorite drug dealer, Eddie the Eel always gets a different room each day because he’s paranoid. I mean, he’s a drug dealer. In his line of work, it pays to be paranoid.
If you aren’t paranoid, you’re fucking stupid.
I don’t know how long we’ve been talking but it seems like it's been longer than usual. The Eel is a greedy bastard and he never makes us wait long. I like that about him. Most drug dealers dick around with you, just making you squirm like a fucking worm on a fishhook. But not the Eel. He’s quick and efficient. Everything always goes smooth as silk.
I finish my cigarette and put it out in the ashtray. In low volume on the radio a deejay is talking about thunderstorm warnings, so I turn the station. I fucking hate bad news.
Dane lights another cigarette and looks over at me, “Think he’s in there taking a shit or something.”
“Was just wondering that myself,” I say lighting another one of my own. I reach into the backseat floorboard and pull a beer out of the cooler. I pop it open and throw back half of the beer in a few gulps.
Dane says, “Thirsty?”
I say, “Nervous. You know I’m always paranoid.”
“Who isn’t in this business? It’s a shame everything good is fucking illegal, isn’t it?”
“What about comic books?”
“Dude, have you ever gotten laid because of comic books? If comics got you laid they’d probably make them illegal, too.”
“Guess you’re right,” I concede and finish off my beer.
In room number twelve a light flicks on and off quickly two times. This is pretty unusual because the signal is three times. Eddie the Eel’s always been adamant about that. Both of us wait for the light to go off and on again, but the light stays on.
“Do you remember what two times means?” Dane asks me taking another drag off his cigarette and blowing smoke out of his nose.
“I didn’t know there was a two.”
“Back when we first met Eddie. He told us that three times meant come to the room and two times meant something else.”
“Maybe it means he’s high and forgot to do it three times. I don’t remember him saying anything about two times. Let’s just go to the room, man. I’m ready to get stoned.”
I start to get out of the car and Dane grabs my arm.
“Wait a minute, man. I don’t like this.”
“Dude, nothing is fucked here.”
Dane flashes me a look as he flicks his cigarette out the window. “Don’t start quoting Lebowski, asshole. You know that annoys me.”
“That’s what I live for. Annoying you. Listen, man, let’s just go get the drugs and get the fuck out of here before it starts raining. There’s no two times signal. Eddie’s just high or something.”
“Fuck it. You’re right. I mean, what would fucking Captain America do? He wouldn’t sit out here in the car wondering about being cautious. He’d just go charging in.”
“Number one, Captain America wouldn’t be buying weed and, number two, he has an indestructible shield.”
“Don’t get all logical on me, man. Let’s just go get the pound and get the fuck out of here.”
We roll up the windows on the Chevelle and get out of the car. I light another cigarette and Dane follows suit. Normally, we’d probably be more cautious, but with the storm and the fact we’d been out of weed for a couple of days and people had been bugging the shit out of us, we wanted to get this done.
We walk up to the door of room number twelve and Dane knocks. We wait about a minute and no one answers. Now this is really fucking weird. The Eel never turns away money. Ever. Not unless he thinks you're a cop.
I whisper, “The fuck is going on here?”
Dane whispers back, “How the hell should I know? Think I should try the knob?”
“What and get shot in the gut by a paranoid drug dealer when you come walking into his motel room? Go right ahead.”
Dane tries the door. “It’s unlocked.”
“Captain fucking America, right?”
Dane opens the door and his face freezes. I see a bunch of people in the room that look like cops. The first thing I do is bolt, but I notice cops are coming out of the adjacent rooms. We’re so fucked. I think about making a run for the car, but looking back I see that they’ve already grabbed Dane and he has the keys, so I change direction and head for the woods across the street. I hear people screaming for me to stop and what sounds like a gunshot, but maybe it’s just thunder. Cops don’t shoot unarmed men in the back, do they?
Everything’s happening so fucking fast. I feel something heavy hit in me in the back and the next thing I know I’m eating loose gravel and some big guy is trying to wrestle with me on the ground. I manage to kick him in the guts, but by that time two more guys are on me and my face is planted in sharp little rocks.
Something told me that tonight was going to be a shitty night.
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
Nature Wants To Kill Me
On Sunday, I decided to take my nature-loving girlfriend, Ptiza, to one of the local natural wonders. To put it mildly, I’ve never been a huge fan of the so-called Great Outdoors. There’s a reason we lost our fur millions of years ago. Give me a computer, air-conditioning, a pack of cigarettes, a large quantity of beer, and a bed to pass out in and I’m content, but I figured if Ptiza, who’s happy both in the bustling Big Apple and out in the middle of a bug-infested forest, is going to be stuck in this one horse town, I could at least show her some of the things in this area she might enjoy.
A few weeks ago we went hiking through the Land Between the Lakes- a huge nature preserve nestled between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley- where I promptly got eaten alive by blood-sucking chiggers. It’s a fun little hike but there isn’t really much to see except a bunch of trees, a man-made lake, and a few squirrels.
This time I opted to take her to the Garden of the Gods in Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. Garden of the Gods offers what many profess to be a breath-taking view of forest and rock formations. The sandstone rock formations with names like Camel Rock, Anvil Rock, and Devil’s Smokestack are the modern reminders of an ancient sea which once covered most of Illinois, western Indiana, and western Kentucky. According to one website, “For millions of years ancient rivers carried sand and mud to this sea where it settled on the shoreline. Over time, the weight of the sediments turned them into layers of rock, thousands of feet thick. At Garden of the Gods, the sediment layers were more than 20,000 feet thick, or about 4 miles deep. Eventually uplift occurred that fractured the bedrock, exposing it to nature’s erosive forces. Since that time, windblown sand, rain and freezing and thawing actions have worn down the layers of sediment, creating the marvelous rock formations”
After spending a couple of hours driving around Southern Illinois trying to rattle my drug-stunted memory enough to remember how to get to the Garden of the Gods, which I’d only been to a couple of times years ago, I ended up stopping in a ghetto convenience store in the tiny Southern town of Golconda to ask for directions. The corpulent, two-toothed cashier gave me half-assed directions and after putting some more gas in the car so we wouldn’t run out of fuel in the middle of Bum Fuck Egypt, we were off again.
Thirty minutes later propelled by blind luck, I found the road to the Garden of the Gods, and we pulled into a heavily populated parking lot. You don’t expect to have trouble finding a parking place in the middle of Shawnee National Forest but, believe me, it happens. Apparently, a lot of other really bored people had the same idea I had.
The first thing I noticed when we got out of the car and headed towards the quarter mile circular trail that showcases the splendor of this natural wonder was the smell of human fecal matter.
“What’s that smell?” I asked my darling girlfriend.
“I dunno,” she said.
“Smells like shit.” I said.
Ah, nature. You gotta love it, right?
Anyway, after stopping off at the culprit causing the awful smell, a building resembling a public restroom only without the benefit of running water, so it was actually a giant outhouse with a big hole in the ground full of all the other tourists piss and shit and their little insect friends which swarmed around the toilets, we gaggingly made our way down the cobblestone trail to the wonder of nature that awaited us. Thankfully, the smell vanished as we made our way a little farther down the trail.
To our left we saw the first rock formation. A rather small one in comparison to the ones we would see, with no view at all. So we trudged up the side of it for a minute and stood there. I told Ptiza that she hadn’t seen anything yet and we made our way back down this small rock formation. Ptiza was wearing hiking boots, so she scampered down the small rock like a little mountain goat and was already heading off down the trail. I, on the other hand being the nature hater that I am, was ill-equipped for this venture and was wearing a pair of Vans. Where she was sure-footed, my Vans slipped out from under me as I made my way down the rock. The next thing I knew my foot twisted as it slipped and I was falling with nothing to grab onto. Luckily, there was a small tree at the base of the rock which broke my fall as my upper arm slammed into it with all the force that a two-hundred pound body in free fall could muster. It wasn’t a nice cushioned stop to say the least and somehow my wrists had gotten bloodied on the way down as well.
Ptiza rushed over to comfort her fallen man and besides a bruised pride and upper arm and several minor scrapes, I found I was still in working order. So I soldiered on so she might see some of the grandeur of Southern Illinois.
Needless to say, from that point on I was a little apprehensive about traipsing around on the giant rocks. Especially since, after the first one that I’d fallen off of, the drop was a lot steeper, by literally hundreds of feet on some of the bigger rock formations overlooking the view. While Ptiza scampered about on the rocks like the mountain goat she was apparently descended from, I made sure each step was carefully calculated to not include me falling to my doom.
But the view was gorgeous, as much as nature can be gorgeous to me, hampered only by the fact that there were too many loud and obnoxious people there ruining the serenity of its natural majesty. We saw the giant rock that looked like a cock, aka Devil’s Smokestack. We saw the other giant rock that supposedly looked like a camel. And we saw a bunch of other rocks that looked like, well, big fucking rocks. These rocks all overlooked a huge valley of trees covered in leaves that were just starting to turn into a brilliance of varied colors in accordance with fall. If you really loved nature, this would be the place to see, except of course for all the people being people and mucking it up.
After about twenty of minutes of crawling about on the giant rocks and enjoying the view with the sun blazing in the west, we made our way back up the cobblestone trail and past the foul-smelling public restroom to the car and made our way back to the creature comforts of the Fortress of Solipsism where booze and air-conditioning and the internet awaited our return.
On the way home, we saw a bevy of deer, including to Ptiza’s delight a little baby deer. And, lest I forget, some little baby goats. We also saw some of finest and most alarming examples of redneck living, not to mention a whole lot of Bush-Cheney signs littering the yards of the ignorant and uninformed. Pope County, Illinois, where I nearly lost my life at party once, is full of fine upstanding rednecks that will kill you just for being different.
Once home, I crawled onto the couch with the blessed a/c blasting and turned on the droning sounds of television and popped a doctor-prescribed Lortab to deal with the aches and pains from my massive fall while Ptiza checked her e-mail and the latest posts on the Lebowski Fest forum.
The absolute best thing about nature is the fact that we don’t have to live in it.
A few weeks ago we went hiking through the Land Between the Lakes- a huge nature preserve nestled between Kentucky Lake and Lake Barkley- where I promptly got eaten alive by blood-sucking chiggers. It’s a fun little hike but there isn’t really much to see except a bunch of trees, a man-made lake, and a few squirrels.
This time I opted to take her to the Garden of the Gods in Shawnee National Forest in Southern Illinois. Garden of the Gods offers what many profess to be a breath-taking view of forest and rock formations. The sandstone rock formations with names like Camel Rock, Anvil Rock, and Devil’s Smokestack are the modern reminders of an ancient sea which once covered most of Illinois, western Indiana, and western Kentucky. According to one website, “For millions of years ancient rivers carried sand and mud to this sea where it settled on the shoreline. Over time, the weight of the sediments turned them into layers of rock, thousands of feet thick. At Garden of the Gods, the sediment layers were more than 20,000 feet thick, or about 4 miles deep. Eventually uplift occurred that fractured the bedrock, exposing it to nature’s erosive forces. Since that time, windblown sand, rain and freezing and thawing actions have worn down the layers of sediment, creating the marvelous rock formations”
After spending a couple of hours driving around Southern Illinois trying to rattle my drug-stunted memory enough to remember how to get to the Garden of the Gods, which I’d only been to a couple of times years ago, I ended up stopping in a ghetto convenience store in the tiny Southern town of Golconda to ask for directions. The corpulent, two-toothed cashier gave me half-assed directions and after putting some more gas in the car so we wouldn’t run out of fuel in the middle of Bum Fuck Egypt, we were off again.
Thirty minutes later propelled by blind luck, I found the road to the Garden of the Gods, and we pulled into a heavily populated parking lot. You don’t expect to have trouble finding a parking place in the middle of Shawnee National Forest but, believe me, it happens. Apparently, a lot of other really bored people had the same idea I had.
The first thing I noticed when we got out of the car and headed towards the quarter mile circular trail that showcases the splendor of this natural wonder was the smell of human fecal matter.
“What’s that smell?” I asked my darling girlfriend.
“I dunno,” she said.
“Smells like shit.” I said.
Ah, nature. You gotta love it, right?
Anyway, after stopping off at the culprit causing the awful smell, a building resembling a public restroom only without the benefit of running water, so it was actually a giant outhouse with a big hole in the ground full of all the other tourists piss and shit and their little insect friends which swarmed around the toilets, we gaggingly made our way down the cobblestone trail to the wonder of nature that awaited us. Thankfully, the smell vanished as we made our way a little farther down the trail.
To our left we saw the first rock formation. A rather small one in comparison to the ones we would see, with no view at all. So we trudged up the side of it for a minute and stood there. I told Ptiza that she hadn’t seen anything yet and we made our way back down this small rock formation. Ptiza was wearing hiking boots, so she scampered down the small rock like a little mountain goat and was already heading off down the trail. I, on the other hand being the nature hater that I am, was ill-equipped for this venture and was wearing a pair of Vans. Where she was sure-footed, my Vans slipped out from under me as I made my way down the rock. The next thing I knew my foot twisted as it slipped and I was falling with nothing to grab onto. Luckily, there was a small tree at the base of the rock which broke my fall as my upper arm slammed into it with all the force that a two-hundred pound body in free fall could muster. It wasn’t a nice cushioned stop to say the least and somehow my wrists had gotten bloodied on the way down as well.
Ptiza rushed over to comfort her fallen man and besides a bruised pride and upper arm and several minor scrapes, I found I was still in working order. So I soldiered on so she might see some of the grandeur of Southern Illinois.
Needless to say, from that point on I was a little apprehensive about traipsing around on the giant rocks. Especially since, after the first one that I’d fallen off of, the drop was a lot steeper, by literally hundreds of feet on some of the bigger rock formations overlooking the view. While Ptiza scampered about on the rocks like the mountain goat she was apparently descended from, I made sure each step was carefully calculated to not include me falling to my doom.
But the view was gorgeous, as much as nature can be gorgeous to me, hampered only by the fact that there were too many loud and obnoxious people there ruining the serenity of its natural majesty. We saw the giant rock that looked like a cock, aka Devil’s Smokestack. We saw the other giant rock that supposedly looked like a camel. And we saw a bunch of other rocks that looked like, well, big fucking rocks. These rocks all overlooked a huge valley of trees covered in leaves that were just starting to turn into a brilliance of varied colors in accordance with fall. If you really loved nature, this would be the place to see, except of course for all the people being people and mucking it up.
After about twenty of minutes of crawling about on the giant rocks and enjoying the view with the sun blazing in the west, we made our way back up the cobblestone trail and past the foul-smelling public restroom to the car and made our way back to the creature comforts of the Fortress of Solipsism where booze and air-conditioning and the internet awaited our return.
On the way home, we saw a bevy of deer, including to Ptiza’s delight a little baby deer. And, lest I forget, some little baby goats. We also saw some of finest and most alarming examples of redneck living, not to mention a whole lot of Bush-Cheney signs littering the yards of the ignorant and uninformed. Pope County, Illinois, where I nearly lost my life at party once, is full of fine upstanding rednecks that will kill you just for being different.
Once home, I crawled onto the couch with the blessed a/c blasting and turned on the droning sounds of television and popped a doctor-prescribed Lortab to deal with the aches and pains from my massive fall while Ptiza checked her e-mail and the latest posts on the Lebowski Fest forum.
The absolute best thing about nature is the fact that we don’t have to live in it.
Monday, September 27, 2004
The World Is My Ashtray
Right now I’m burning off seven minutes of my life. After I finish with this seven minutes, I’ll light up another cigarette and take care of another seven shitty minutes of old age. And I will love it just as much as this one.
I love smoking. All the cool people smoke. Me, Johnny Depp, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, Denis Leary, Bill Hicks. Okay, so Bill Hicks died in his forties, but that’s only because he quit smoking. And he died of pancreatic cancer, not lung cancer or a heart attack. That was his body’s big “fuck you” for all of those smoking and health nut jokes he told. You want to quit and be a huge hypocrite? Okay, bam, you’re dead. And, sure, Denis Leary quit and lost his sense of humor and started making movies like “Dawg.” But Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is pushing eighty and still inhaling Pall Malls like a dying man sucking on oxygen in a crashing plane. He knows what I know. Quitters never win.
If you’re not smoking you should be.
It’s like Denis Leary said back when he was still funny and not putting fifty percent crappy music filler on his comedy albums.
“Smoking takes ten years off your life. Well it's the ten worst years, isn't it folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair, kidney dialysis, adult diaper fucking years. You can have those years! We don't want 'em, alright?”
My grandmother has spent the last seven years wasting away in a nursing home, unaware of who she is and who her family is. When I go see her, she doesn’t have a clue who I am. She can’t get out of bed because her hip keeps breaking. I love my grandmother dearly, but I don’t think that’s living. That’s why I’m smoking for my health. So I never have to go through that. When I keel over of a heart attack at fifty something like my grandfather did, I’ll still be a virile and cognizant bastard. And I’ll have a big fucking smile on my face because I never had to wear Depends. People will remember me as a force of nature rather than some frail, brittle-boned old man with translucent skin.
Don’t let anyone tell you that smoking makes you look old either. That’s bullshit. I’m thirty-five years old and look younger than most non-smokers. It isn’t smoking that makes you look old, it’s growing up. I mean look at Johnny Depp. Look at Brad Pitt. Do either of those guys look forty?
If anything smoking keeps you young. Colonel Depp hasn’t aged a day in the last twenty years and that’s because he smokes.
What? You think I’m making this stuff up?
Back in the fifties Rod Serling would smoke in his intros for Twilight Zone. That’s how fucking cool he was. He was from our grandparents’ generation where all the men worked eighteen hours and smoked four packs of cigarettes a day. They did us all a huge favor and died young before they could drain Social Security dry.
Not our generation. We’re making all of these fucking smoke-free environments. We have some sort of complex where we think we’re going to live forever if only we eat right and quit smoking and quit drinking and quit having any sort of fun what-so-fucking-ever. In some places, like California and New York City, you can’t even smoke in a bar anymore. In a goddamn bar. Bukowski is rolling in his grave right now.
We’re a selfish, weak-willed bunch of assholes that have let the non-smokers make all of the decisions for us. Those same non-smokers who drive gas-guzzling SUVs that burn through petroleum and pollute the fucking environment like there’s no tomorrow, screaming, “Second-hand smoke kills! Second-hand smoke kills!”
Because it’s okay to kill the world ecology as long you’re not indirectly killing people.
And what’s so bad about indirectly killing people? That’s one of my favorite reasons for smoking. That makes me want to smoke more. It makes me want to blow smoke in the face of every baby on the planet.
Bill Hicks said it best about non-smokers when he said, “Obnoxious, self-righteous, whining little fucks. My biggest fear is if I quit smoking I’ll become one of you.”
The only thing worse than someone who’s never smoked is someone who’s quit smoking and points that out to you every time you light up. You know what, asshole? That was your choice to be a goddamn quitter. I don’t quit anything. Here, have some second-hand smoke, you fucking Benedict Arnold.
Sure, there are some drawbacks, but even the drawbacks can be a plus. Your teeth will turn yellow and everything you own will smell like an ashtray. But when you smoke, you don’t smell any of that anyway. Every nasty smell that every non-smoker has to suffer through, you’re automatically exempt from, including your own cigarette smoke. And you can always get your teeth bleached like I did. I have whiter teeth than a lot of coffee-drinking non-smokers. Now there’s an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Who can love coffee and not smoke?
For that matter, who can love beer and not smoke?
There’s nothing better than throwing back beer after beer and chain-smoking a night away. It’s sublime. It’s one of the reasons mankind crawled out the muck.
It’s okay that I wheeze like an eighty-year old man, because I look fucking great when I’m smoking a cigarette. No non-smoker will ever look as cool as I do sitting here writing this right now.
Even the coolest fictional characters smoke. Where would Marla Singer be without her chain-smoking? Tony Soprano never looks more menacing than when he’s lighting up a big fat Cuban cigar. Wolverine smokes. John Constantine smokes.
So, kids, take my advice and start smoking.
It’s like Dennis Hopper said in Waterworld.
“You’re never too young to start.”
I love smoking. All the cool people smoke. Me, Johnny Depp, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, Denis Leary, Bill Hicks. Okay, so Bill Hicks died in his forties, but that’s only because he quit smoking. And he died of pancreatic cancer, not lung cancer or a heart attack. That was his body’s big “fuck you” for all of those smoking and health nut jokes he told. You want to quit and be a huge hypocrite? Okay, bam, you’re dead. And, sure, Denis Leary quit and lost his sense of humor and started making movies like “Dawg.” But Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is pushing eighty and still inhaling Pall Malls like a dying man sucking on oxygen in a crashing plane. He knows what I know. Quitters never win.
If you’re not smoking you should be.
It’s like Denis Leary said back when he was still funny and not putting fifty percent crappy music filler on his comedy albums.
“Smoking takes ten years off your life. Well it's the ten worst years, isn't it folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair, kidney dialysis, adult diaper fucking years. You can have those years! We don't want 'em, alright?”
My grandmother has spent the last seven years wasting away in a nursing home, unaware of who she is and who her family is. When I go see her, she doesn’t have a clue who I am. She can’t get out of bed because her hip keeps breaking. I love my grandmother dearly, but I don’t think that’s living. That’s why I’m smoking for my health. So I never have to go through that. When I keel over of a heart attack at fifty something like my grandfather did, I’ll still be a virile and cognizant bastard. And I’ll have a big fucking smile on my face because I never had to wear Depends. People will remember me as a force of nature rather than some frail, brittle-boned old man with translucent skin.
Don’t let anyone tell you that smoking makes you look old either. That’s bullshit. I’m thirty-five years old and look younger than most non-smokers. It isn’t smoking that makes you look old, it’s growing up. I mean look at Johnny Depp. Look at Brad Pitt. Do either of those guys look forty?
If anything smoking keeps you young. Colonel Depp hasn’t aged a day in the last twenty years and that’s because he smokes.
What? You think I’m making this stuff up?
Back in the fifties Rod Serling would smoke in his intros for Twilight Zone. That’s how fucking cool he was. He was from our grandparents’ generation where all the men worked eighteen hours and smoked four packs of cigarettes a day. They did us all a huge favor and died young before they could drain Social Security dry.
Not our generation. We’re making all of these fucking smoke-free environments. We have some sort of complex where we think we’re going to live forever if only we eat right and quit smoking and quit drinking and quit having any sort of fun what-so-fucking-ever. In some places, like California and New York City, you can’t even smoke in a bar anymore. In a goddamn bar. Bukowski is rolling in his grave right now.
We’re a selfish, weak-willed bunch of assholes that have let the non-smokers make all of the decisions for us. Those same non-smokers who drive gas-guzzling SUVs that burn through petroleum and pollute the fucking environment like there’s no tomorrow, screaming, “Second-hand smoke kills! Second-hand smoke kills!”
Because it’s okay to kill the world ecology as long you’re not indirectly killing people.
And what’s so bad about indirectly killing people? That’s one of my favorite reasons for smoking. That makes me want to smoke more. It makes me want to blow smoke in the face of every baby on the planet.
Bill Hicks said it best about non-smokers when he said, “Obnoxious, self-righteous, whining little fucks. My biggest fear is if I quit smoking I’ll become one of you.”
The only thing worse than someone who’s never smoked is someone who’s quit smoking and points that out to you every time you light up. You know what, asshole? That was your choice to be a goddamn quitter. I don’t quit anything. Here, have some second-hand smoke, you fucking Benedict Arnold.
Sure, there are some drawbacks, but even the drawbacks can be a plus. Your teeth will turn yellow and everything you own will smell like an ashtray. But when you smoke, you don’t smell any of that anyway. Every nasty smell that every non-smoker has to suffer through, you’re automatically exempt from, including your own cigarette smoke. And you can always get your teeth bleached like I did. I have whiter teeth than a lot of coffee-drinking non-smokers. Now there’s an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Who can love coffee and not smoke?
For that matter, who can love beer and not smoke?
There’s nothing better than throwing back beer after beer and chain-smoking a night away. It’s sublime. It’s one of the reasons mankind crawled out the muck.
It’s okay that I wheeze like an eighty-year old man, because I look fucking great when I’m smoking a cigarette. No non-smoker will ever look as cool as I do sitting here writing this right now.
Even the coolest fictional characters smoke. Where would Marla Singer be without her chain-smoking? Tony Soprano never looks more menacing than when he’s lighting up a big fat Cuban cigar. Wolverine smokes. John Constantine smokes.
So, kids, take my advice and start smoking.
It’s like Dennis Hopper said in Waterworld.
“You’re never too young to start.”
Thursday, September 23, 2004
My Balls Are Bigger Than Yours
I have bigger balls than Maddox.
I used to have a lot of respect for everyone’s favorite pissed off pirate and his self-proclaimed “Greatest Page in the Universe.” I used to read his entries and laugh out loud. And even though he’d gotten lazy lately and started posting boring bullshit like “Video Games You’ll Never Play,” I kept reading, hoping he’d return to some of his comedic greatness. Then I read the biggest blow to his credibility, his latest entry about Websense. Man, I really liked that idea. I really liked it back when I wrote about it two fucking months ago and called it “Fuck Websense in the Ear.”
Maybe a few of you will remember the entry. It was a poignant, touching piece with veiled threats of burning down Websense’s corporate headquarters. It was about how Websense deemed my site “tasteless” and I went into one of my trade-marked angry rants about “who decides what’s tasteful and what isn’t.” Because we all know Websense and its employees are the ultimate purveyors of good taste in the business world.
One part of my entry, I talked about how I’ve blocked anyone from Websense from ever reading my site. I thought that was a nice touch of irony. Obviously, Maddox thought the same thing, as he copied the idea and called it his own.
Thanks for ripping me off, Che Guapo. Next time, can you maybe come up with your own ideas?
I know it sucks to be blocked by Websense. Like I said, I was there. But, unlike Maddox, I had the nerve to call up their corporate headquarters and bitch at their employees. You know, the ones who actually make the decisions to label sites things like “tasteless.” I argued that my personal thoughts being deemed “tasteless” was an insult to my own very moral viewpoints which are expressed in everything I write.
And even though one of the Websense employees that I spoke with said he actually agreed that I was “tasteless”, two days later my site was removed from that category. I’m not sure if my threats had anything to do with it, but I’ve always found that people respond well to threats. And this didn’t seem to dispute that fact.
This is why you can all read my site at work and school and at your local public library, but a lot of you, those of you with Websense baby-sitting your impressionable little minds, can’t read Maddox. It’s not because he’s any more “tasteless” than I am. It’s because my balls are bigger.
I fought The Man and I won. Maddox just whined and accepted defeat. Sure, he threw out a few good insults, but they’ll never be read by a bunch of his readers because he couldn’t do what I did and defeat those evil corporate cock-sucking thought police.
I can’t read the Misanthropic Bitch or Maddox at work anymore. (Though with the frequency both of them are updating, it’s not like I’m missing much.) But I can read the genius of Smotlock.
And that’s because I am better than both of them. I defend my readers’ rights to read my free fucking speech to the bitter end. This country may be turning into a fascist version of Disneyworld, but I will never take it lying down.
I’m glad you’re all so fucking gracious about it and everything. Thanks for all the comments on the last entry. All fucking six of them. It’s good to know all of this writing isn’t in vain. You ungrateful fucks can all go read Maddox when he updates in about two months. I’m sure he’ll have some crappy children’s art you can enjoy or a movie review that basically says “this sucks.” Or maybe he’ll have another topic he stole from me. You never know.
Now go fuck yourselves. I’m going back to writing my novel, you goddamn ingrates.
Tell me how great I am or go read the ongoing chronicles of the cutters.
Because I don’t have time for your fucking apathy.
My ego will never allow it.
I used to have a lot of respect for everyone’s favorite pissed off pirate and his self-proclaimed “Greatest Page in the Universe.” I used to read his entries and laugh out loud. And even though he’d gotten lazy lately and started posting boring bullshit like “Video Games You’ll Never Play,” I kept reading, hoping he’d return to some of his comedic greatness. Then I read the biggest blow to his credibility, his latest entry about Websense. Man, I really liked that idea. I really liked it back when I wrote about it two fucking months ago and called it “Fuck Websense in the Ear.”
Maybe a few of you will remember the entry. It was a poignant, touching piece with veiled threats of burning down Websense’s corporate headquarters. It was about how Websense deemed my site “tasteless” and I went into one of my trade-marked angry rants about “who decides what’s tasteful and what isn’t.” Because we all know Websense and its employees are the ultimate purveyors of good taste in the business world.
One part of my entry, I talked about how I’ve blocked anyone from Websense from ever reading my site. I thought that was a nice touch of irony. Obviously, Maddox thought the same thing, as he copied the idea and called it his own.
Thanks for ripping me off, Che Guapo. Next time, can you maybe come up with your own ideas?
I know it sucks to be blocked by Websense. Like I said, I was there. But, unlike Maddox, I had the nerve to call up their corporate headquarters and bitch at their employees. You know, the ones who actually make the decisions to label sites things like “tasteless.” I argued that my personal thoughts being deemed “tasteless” was an insult to my own very moral viewpoints which are expressed in everything I write.
And even though one of the Websense employees that I spoke with said he actually agreed that I was “tasteless”, two days later my site was removed from that category. I’m not sure if my threats had anything to do with it, but I’ve always found that people respond well to threats. And this didn’t seem to dispute that fact.
This is why you can all read my site at work and school and at your local public library, but a lot of you, those of you with Websense baby-sitting your impressionable little minds, can’t read Maddox. It’s not because he’s any more “tasteless” than I am. It’s because my balls are bigger.
I fought The Man and I won. Maddox just whined and accepted defeat. Sure, he threw out a few good insults, but they’ll never be read by a bunch of his readers because he couldn’t do what I did and defeat those evil corporate cock-sucking thought police.
I can’t read the Misanthropic Bitch or Maddox at work anymore. (Though with the frequency both of them are updating, it’s not like I’m missing much.) But I can read the genius of Smotlock.
And that’s because I am better than both of them. I defend my readers’ rights to read my free fucking speech to the bitter end. This country may be turning into a fascist version of Disneyworld, but I will never take it lying down.
I’m glad you’re all so fucking gracious about it and everything. Thanks for all the comments on the last entry. All fucking six of them. It’s good to know all of this writing isn’t in vain. You ungrateful fucks can all go read Maddox when he updates in about two months. I’m sure he’ll have some crappy children’s art you can enjoy or a movie review that basically says “this sucks.” Or maybe he’ll have another topic he stole from me. You never know.
Now go fuck yourselves. I’m going back to writing my novel, you goddamn ingrates.
Tell me how great I am or go read the ongoing chronicles of the cutters.
Because I don’t have time for your fucking apathy.
My ego will never allow it.
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