I often go back and forth with the idea of having my own children. Some days I'm thrilled with the idea of extending my lineage, another generation of proud people who happen to share my last name. Other days, I gag at the idea of bringing a defenseless child into this world. This is usually brought upon by seeing how other people interact with each other on our shared planet. Do I really want to subject another living person to having to deal with 6 billion dicks, pussies and assholes?
I find myself and the RM sitting down at the local KFC/Taco Bell here in town, and there's a mild circus going on. There's two women, having a conversation at table, completely oblivious to the five or 6 five-year-olds tearing the eatery apart, running amok in the restaurant, jumping on seats, throwing food, and other wise being undisciplined in public.
When I see situations like this, with the kids screaming at the tops of their lungs unchecked and treating the indoors like the outdoors I get tense. I stare and hatred builds inside of me. After many years of living on this earth, I've come to terms with the fact that the public spaces I inhabit do not necessarily belong to me and me alone for my own enjoyment, but to everyone else as well, but some things done in public are just too outrageous for even the most jaded observer.
You child unleashed is one of them.
I can't fully explain how deep my hatred goes for children when I see them just... going crazy for no reason. And yes, I understand the two mothers in this situation are probably on vacation, which means that for the rest of the god-fearing public, we're just going to have to endure the frustration of ridiculous kids ruining our lunches and giving us head aches, because god forbid a mother on vacation lift a finger to discipline a child of their own in public. But my rage is being pushed to a limit where it's likely I will pluck one of these little rug rats by his ears, and punt him through a glass window should he get within grabbing distance to me, is obviously not a concern to anyone but myself and maybe my roommate.
Attention: Your child is not a precious little being who in his heart and soul holds all that his sweet and innocent in this world. No, your child is an unrelenting asshole. Your child is the equivalent of a dickhead at a party who does nothing but blather on, story after boring story about his life, which no one cares about. Your child is an awkward example, and directly in relationship to, your poor parenting and inattentiveness. If you never really planned on having a child, or perhaps thought it was a trendy thing to do because your so-called friends from high school whom you've not been in contact with in over five years suddenly started to squirt them out last year, then the publics' resentment and loathing for you is your penance for bringing to life a sonic, ear splitting bomb in a stroller.
Thanks, you worthless cunt.
This is what I fear the most, in having children someday. I do not want to become the person who no longer gives a shit about whether or not their child is jumping up and down on public furniture or choking to death on a toy from a happy meal. I know my personality, and when I get completely frustrated with an individual, where I can no longer see a potential for change in attitude or behavior, I no longer give a shit about them. If you want to be a little asshole in public, go ahead son, that shit is on you. Fuck it.
My roommate is a prime example of this; I've done everything humanly possible to help him meet girls. I've both torn down and boosted his ego. I took him shopping for outfits, I've literally walked girls, gorgeous young women, to him and introduced them. I've given him pointers, pick up lines, and observational critiques... and yet he still refuses to change his attitude or traits. He assumes that something will just come along and take care of it for him.
Your child is exactly like my roommate - your child is needy and requires someone to follow behind him or her and close cupboard doors after them, wipe their asses, and tell them that their special and unique and no one is exactly like them. Bullshit. Your snot nosed little bastard or bitch, with their Bob the Builder over alls or pink Barbie tiara respectively is just another douchebag in the making. In fifteen years, it's likely that they will kill someone in a drunk driving accident, or fail out of college or go on welfare. They will neglect to pay their bills and hit their wives or husbands.
They'll be despondent and unappreciative to life's little things, and we'll all have you to thank, you cheap remorseless cocksucking uncaring piss-poor lay of a parent. Your genitalia should be revoked, you careless cad.
God help you, should I ever run into you and your brood ever again, because I will probably slit all your throats, systematically, in a way that I have yet to figure out, but give me some time and I will come up with the most psychologically damaging plan I can think of.
Trust me.
Showing posts with label food and drink. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food and drink. Show all posts
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
It Doesn't Say "Stop" Fucktard.
Jim's had a busy week at work, so his posts have been thin at best. We on his editorial staff forgive him. I mean, the less he writes, the less we have to run around fact checking, and the less legal has to do, period.
Anyway, enjoy his rant. -ed.
I hate driving in this ridiculous state.
If you've grown up in New England, outside of Massachusetts, you'd freely associate terrible driving with any car with Mass plates. You see those white and red tags anywhere, even in-state, and you know that there's likely an asshole behind the wheel.
First before I go any further, let me state for the record that I'm a horrible driver. It's because I think every time I get into traffic I'm manauvering around the track at Darlington International Speedway. I tailgate, I don't use my signals, I speed, I make lane changes at the last second. I freely admit to doing these things.
What makes me a hypocrit to a certain extent is that people in this goddamn state do not know how to YIELD. What compounds this fact is that every ten feet on this fucking Hook, there's a fucking rotary.
Let me play out the scene as it typically unfolds in front of me: I'll be driving home from work along this one particular stretch of highway, and I'll be approaching this big rotary. There will be about five cars ahead of me, and I'll look towards the left, where traffic on the rotary should be coming from.
But there's no traffic. Nothing. Maybe a lonely fucking tumbleweed will be blowing across the road, but that it. It looks like some post-apocalyptic waste land.
And yet, I see break lights. I see a shit ton of red lights, lighting up, and the guy out front of everyone, with his MA tags, has come to a complete hault.
IT'S A FUCKING YIELD! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?! IT SURE AS HELL DOESN'T MEAN STOP, BECAUSE IF YOU WERE TO STOP, THERE'D BE A FUCKING STOP SIGN, YOU INFECTED DICK!
So naturally, everyone slams on the breaks and it causes a back up in traffic. It's enough to make me want to go down to the zoo, kidnap a monkey, crack open it's skull, scoop out it's brains with a melonballer, and then proceed to poop into the skull cavity.
The way a rotary is supposed to work is that everyone just... goes. You just enter traffic seamlessly, and then leave traffic when you get to your little exit. You leave, someone else gets on. Granted, this isn't always the case, because large volumes of traffic can hinder the easy off and on of a rotary, but when there's zero traffic, you should just GO.
I see this as a problem too with highway on ramps in this state. Granted, they're ridiculously curved (like my cock) so seeing on-coming traffic is a little tricky, but coming to a complete stop at the yield sign at the end of the ramp is dangerous.
I'm going to be coming in behind you at about 65 mph, my cell phone in my one hand, a Dunk's ice coffee in the other, screaming at my roommate who for the 18th time this month has forgotten to do his share of the dishes, all while getting blown by my girlfriend to a soundtrack consisting of nothing by 80's hair metal, turned up to 11. I'm not expecting you to be sitting there, meagerly waiting your turn to join the fucking circus that is driving in Massachusetts, I'm going to be a Tomahawk Missel and your back end is going to be some Insurgent's asshole.
Just get out there, that's what I do. I come screaming around the corner at a high rate of speed and just say "fuck it." They have breaks, and it's a yield. Granted, I'm supposed to be giving way, but there's nothing there saying I'm to come to a complete stop- as far as I understand traffic laws. And I was a cop.
Anyway, enjoy his rant. -ed.
I hate driving in this ridiculous state.
If you've grown up in New England, outside of Massachusetts, you'd freely associate terrible driving with any car with Mass plates. You see those white and red tags anywhere, even in-state, and you know that there's likely an asshole behind the wheel.
First before I go any further, let me state for the record that I'm a horrible driver. It's because I think every time I get into traffic I'm manauvering around the track at Darlington International Speedway. I tailgate, I don't use my signals, I speed, I make lane changes at the last second. I freely admit to doing these things.
What makes me a hypocrit to a certain extent is that people in this goddamn state do not know how to YIELD. What compounds this fact is that every ten feet on this fucking Hook, there's a fucking rotary.
Let me play out the scene as it typically unfolds in front of me: I'll be driving home from work along this one particular stretch of highway, and I'll be approaching this big rotary. There will be about five cars ahead of me, and I'll look towards the left, where traffic on the rotary should be coming from.
But there's no traffic. Nothing. Maybe a lonely fucking tumbleweed will be blowing across the road, but that it. It looks like some post-apocalyptic waste land.
And yet, I see break lights. I see a shit ton of red lights, lighting up, and the guy out front of everyone, with his MA tags, has come to a complete hault.
IT'S A FUCKING YIELD! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?! IT SURE AS HELL DOESN'T MEAN STOP, BECAUSE IF YOU WERE TO STOP, THERE'D BE A FUCKING STOP SIGN, YOU INFECTED DICK!
So naturally, everyone slams on the breaks and it causes a back up in traffic. It's enough to make me want to go down to the zoo, kidnap a monkey, crack open it's skull, scoop out it's brains with a melonballer, and then proceed to poop into the skull cavity.
The way a rotary is supposed to work is that everyone just... goes. You just enter traffic seamlessly, and then leave traffic when you get to your little exit. You leave, someone else gets on. Granted, this isn't always the case, because large volumes of traffic can hinder the easy off and on of a rotary, but when there's zero traffic, you should just GO.
I see this as a problem too with highway on ramps in this state. Granted, they're ridiculously curved (like my cock) so seeing on-coming traffic is a little tricky, but coming to a complete stop at the yield sign at the end of the ramp is dangerous.
I'm going to be coming in behind you at about 65 mph, my cell phone in my one hand, a Dunk's ice coffee in the other, screaming at my roommate who for the 18th time this month has forgotten to do his share of the dishes, all while getting blown by my girlfriend to a soundtrack consisting of nothing by 80's hair metal, turned up to 11. I'm not expecting you to be sitting there, meagerly waiting your turn to join the fucking circus that is driving in Massachusetts, I'm going to be a Tomahawk Missel and your back end is going to be some Insurgent's asshole.
Just get out there, that's what I do. I come screaming around the corner at a high rate of speed and just say "fuck it." They have breaks, and it's a yield. Granted, I'm supposed to be giving way, but there's nothing there saying I'm to come to a complete stop- as far as I understand traffic laws. And I was a cop.
Monday, July 7, 2008
I'll Take A Hot Cup Of Kharma, With Skim And Light Foam...
Honestly, when your business charges 4.00 USD for a cup of fucking coffee, no matter how fancy your despondent 19 year old employee behind the counter makes it, you're business is in line to get whacked.
Earlier last week, the (vastly inferrior, in my humblest of opinions) coffee chain Starbucks announced that for the first time in the company's history, it was going to close some of it's locations, six hundred to be exact. These closings mean that now Manhattanites will be forced to wait in line for a double mocha vanilla latte for approximately two minutes longer.
If you couldn't tell yet, I have zero fucking sympathy for the Seattle-based coffee chain. With the on-set of a recession, gas prices hovering around what some snobbish prick would pay for a cup of hi-test coffee, and the country continuing to spin around the bottom of the toilet bowl, any one could plainly see that Starbucks was fucking itself in it's Colombian-imported asshole.
According to NYT Business editor Brad Stone, alot of Starbucks' trouble stemmed from piss poor real estate decisions. Apparently, the folks at the helm of the good ship Starbucks thought it'd be a good idea to put locations within spitting distance of each other. You know, just in case the five minute waiting line was too long at one store, you could literally walk across the street to the other location, and wait five minutes over there.
I know this for a fact because I used to go to school in Manhattan's Clinton district, what used to be known as Hell's Kitchen. I would get off the subway at 57th and 7th (Q, R, N, W lines), and hoof it three blocks west and two blocks north. In that span of time, which was usually a fifteen minute walk, I would see no less than five fucking Starbucks. Two more if you counted the two inside the Time Warner building (one actual store on the ground level, another inside the Barnes and Nobles on the third floor.)
Coincidently, this is the trend that Starbucks' Board of Directors wanted to take across the country. According to Stone's article, Starbucks planned to have 1000 unit locations in the state of Florida alone. One thousand fucking Starbucks. Are you serious?!
I'm from a small town in Southern Maine, population hovering around 20K annually. I can think of three Starbucks within five minutes of each other back home. Christ.
So The New York Times' Stone thinks it's the location that drove Starbucks to kill 600 of it's own stores. It's not, though it could be seen as circumstantial evidence that would lead one to believe so. No, it's the fact that people, even the ridiculous Upper East Siders, in their lavish 39th floor 9000.00 USD a month apartments in Manhattan can no longer reasonably spend the amount of money they once were on something as frivilous as coffee. Not when you can go to any deli or sandwich shop or little cart parked on the sidewalk next to a newsstand, and get a cup of regular-ass coffee for a dollar.
All you're paying for at Starbucks is the status symbol. The ability to walk around with a cup in your hand, in a little gay sleeve, that says "hey, I can afford to drop 5 dollars on this cup of bland, watery coffee with some fucking milk foam on it." That's all. In the heirarchy of fucking coffee chains, Starbucks is the fucking lowest. It really is, as far as taste, price, employees, everything; if I had a score card for every commercial chain coffee joint I'd ever frequented, Starbucks would be dead last in all catagories.
You know, Starbucks does serve just a regular cup of coffee for about a dollar, maybe a little more. It sucks. And when you order it, as in "can I just have a plain-ass cup of coffee please?" You get a funny look from the cunt behind the register, a completely filled cup of black shit, and a finger pointing to where the cream and sugar is.
How the fuck am I supposed to work with this shit, Gretchen? You do realize that if I try to add creamer to this ... giant cup of hot blackness, I'm going to spill it all over the place, right?
And it's a horrible, terrible, burnt-to-shit French Roast.
I was subject to Starbucks for the three years I lived in NYC. For some reason, they have about a million Starbucks (also, strangely - just about a third of the people I met while living in NYC worked, or had worked for a Starbucks... weird) in the city, but only four Dunkin Donuts. So when I was pressed for coffee (and I drank a lot more of it then than I do now for some reason) and I coudn't find a small diner or deli, I had to go to Starbucks.
And while waiting in line, I'd sooner be driving a rusty nail through my cheek, to pin my tongue to my opposite cheek.
And you have these people, with their ridiculously long orders to the robot-like kid behind the counter. Some trendy bitch in a fur coat and gloves sounding off what seems like a grocery list than a coffee order:
"I'll take a decaff, skim-only, double foamed, chocolate and vanilla latte with a twist of lemon and a little bit of cinnamon. Oh, a little whip creme too!"
I understand now, why NYC has such heavy restrictions on firearms.
Back to the point at hand though, Starbucks shot itself in the foot by trying too hard. Literally like Britany Spears, Starbucks pushed itself to the point of actual implosion, caving under the weight of it's own celebrity. One could see the backlash from a mile away. How long did you think stupid Americans were going to continue to try to impress each other with cardboard cups?
How long were we going to pretend the emperor wasn't really naked and the coffee really didn't suck?
Earlier last week, the (vastly inferrior, in my humblest of opinions) coffee chain Starbucks announced that for the first time in the company's history, it was going to close some of it's locations, six hundred to be exact. These closings mean that now Manhattanites will be forced to wait in line for a double mocha vanilla latte for approximately two minutes longer.
If you couldn't tell yet, I have zero fucking sympathy for the Seattle-based coffee chain. With the on-set of a recession, gas prices hovering around what some snobbish prick would pay for a cup of hi-test coffee, and the country continuing to spin around the bottom of the toilet bowl, any one could plainly see that Starbucks was fucking itself in it's Colombian-imported asshole.
According to NYT Business editor Brad Stone, alot of Starbucks' trouble stemmed from piss poor real estate decisions. Apparently, the folks at the helm of the good ship Starbucks thought it'd be a good idea to put locations within spitting distance of each other. You know, just in case the five minute waiting line was too long at one store, you could literally walk across the street to the other location, and wait five minutes over there.
I know this for a fact because I used to go to school in Manhattan's Clinton district, what used to be known as Hell's Kitchen. I would get off the subway at 57th and 7th (Q, R, N, W lines), and hoof it three blocks west and two blocks north. In that span of time, which was usually a fifteen minute walk, I would see no less than five fucking Starbucks. Two more if you counted the two inside the Time Warner building (one actual store on the ground level, another inside the Barnes and Nobles on the third floor.)
Coincidently, this is the trend that Starbucks' Board of Directors wanted to take across the country. According to Stone's article, Starbucks planned to have 1000 unit locations in the state of Florida alone. One thousand fucking Starbucks. Are you serious?!
I'm from a small town in Southern Maine, population hovering around 20K annually. I can think of three Starbucks within five minutes of each other back home. Christ.
So The New York Times' Stone thinks it's the location that drove Starbucks to kill 600 of it's own stores. It's not, though it could be seen as circumstantial evidence that would lead one to believe so. No, it's the fact that people, even the ridiculous Upper East Siders, in their lavish 39th floor 9000.00 USD a month apartments in Manhattan can no longer reasonably spend the amount of money they once were on something as frivilous as coffee. Not when you can go to any deli or sandwich shop or little cart parked on the sidewalk next to a newsstand, and get a cup of regular-ass coffee for a dollar.
All you're paying for at Starbucks is the status symbol. The ability to walk around with a cup in your hand, in a little gay sleeve, that says "hey, I can afford to drop 5 dollars on this cup of bland, watery coffee with some fucking milk foam on it." That's all. In the heirarchy of fucking coffee chains, Starbucks is the fucking lowest. It really is, as far as taste, price, employees, everything; if I had a score card for every commercial chain coffee joint I'd ever frequented, Starbucks would be dead last in all catagories.
You know, Starbucks does serve just a regular cup of coffee for about a dollar, maybe a little more. It sucks. And when you order it, as in "can I just have a plain-ass cup of coffee please?" You get a funny look from the cunt behind the register, a completely filled cup of black shit, and a finger pointing to where the cream and sugar is.
How the fuck am I supposed to work with this shit, Gretchen? You do realize that if I try to add creamer to this ... giant cup of hot blackness, I'm going to spill it all over the place, right?
And it's a horrible, terrible, burnt-to-shit French Roast.
I was subject to Starbucks for the three years I lived in NYC. For some reason, they have about a million Starbucks (also, strangely - just about a third of the people I met while living in NYC worked, or had worked for a Starbucks... weird) in the city, but only four Dunkin Donuts. So when I was pressed for coffee (and I drank a lot more of it then than I do now for some reason) and I coudn't find a small diner or deli, I had to go to Starbucks.
And while waiting in line, I'd sooner be driving a rusty nail through my cheek, to pin my tongue to my opposite cheek.
And you have these people, with their ridiculously long orders to the robot-like kid behind the counter. Some trendy bitch in a fur coat and gloves sounding off what seems like a grocery list than a coffee order:
"I'll take a decaff, skim-only, double foamed, chocolate and vanilla latte with a twist of lemon and a little bit of cinnamon. Oh, a little whip creme too!"
I understand now, why NYC has such heavy restrictions on firearms.
Back to the point at hand though, Starbucks shot itself in the foot by trying too hard. Literally like Britany Spears, Starbucks pushed itself to the point of actual implosion, caving under the weight of it's own celebrity. One could see the backlash from a mile away. How long did you think stupid Americans were going to continue to try to impress each other with cardboard cups?
How long were we going to pretend the emperor wasn't really naked and the coffee really didn't suck?
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Crossfire (with Apologies to SRV)
He's walking down a dirt road, a few pieces of strewn garbage lazily scrabbling across the turf before him. He's content, happy, the stress from the past couple of days at work finally easing off of his hard tensed shoulders. He looks forward to getting home, climbing into bed to listen to an episode of 'Mythbusters' or 'How It's Made' while he reads his book about the Westies.
Then, out of no where, there's a heavy thudding BR-RRA-A-A-AATT that cuts through the calm. The dirt kicks up in front of him, he freezes out of shock for a second, and then dives down behind a trash can.
Another burst of automatic gunfire cuts from the other side of the street. A few strays whip over his head, his too-short hair bristles. He clenches shut his eyes, clasps his laptop to his chest (Huff Post or Gmail's been left open on it) and bares down to what's going to be an ugly, long-lasting battle.
This isn't Iraq in case you were wondering (I don't think they have Gmail out there... probably Jihad-mail... rimshot!) this is my apartment. And I've been caught in a wicked crossfire between The Lady and the Roommate.
Something in the back of my head tells me that this was inevitable. The two of them don't get along very well at all, and at the risk of further alienating them from each other, and even me, I'll break down how the other sees their advisory.
The Lady sees the RM as an awkward annoyance, a child that she's been prematurely saddled with. A slob that seldom picks anything up and is a thieving anti-social dullard. He's pathetic and a nuisance. She often wonders how he even made it through bootcamp.
The RM views The Lady as a interloper, the succubus that's robbed him of his best friend and roommate. A point of conflict and contention. What he sees is a house thief who does nothing but plot against him when he's not here, laying traps (or pubic hair) in his room.
(Update: As I was writing this, the RM came back from the store, where I sent him to get me a Snickers with Almonds and an orange Gatorade. When he came back, he burst into my room and started to jabber on in a non-sequitor that involved Alec Baldwin, the film 'We Own The Night' and the letter 'X' , he then placed upon my head the Gatorade and said 'dude, listen to the wind outside, and feel the coolness on your head. Doesn't it feel like a tropical storm?!)
The fact is, I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too. I love having The Lady living here with me, because I don't get to see enough of her during the week to begin with. With her here, it takes away all that lost time where we're traveling to see each other. It's also beneficial to her as well, because we live in such close proximity to her job, that she can walk and leave the car parked. With gas at 4.00+ USD, that's a huge check in the plus column.
With the roommate, it's nice to have him around because he's genuine comic relief, and I feel like I have an obligation towards him as his 'older brother.' But he can be tedious to deal with as well, as he seldom does chores and often parades ugly t shirts he buys into my room for my approval/disapproval (there's really never an 'approval' since he refuses to buy clothes meant for an adult).
These two don't like each other and I don't like having to be the go-between. I hate having to spend a good chunk of my work week counseling my roommate on getting along with my girlfriend, and I don't want to deal with The Lady's attitude towards my roommate, which makes her pissy, which she'll take out on me.
All I want to do is come home and relax, and not feel like I have to be a referee. I did this for twenty-sum-odd years with my parents, and now that I've moved out (again) I see it as wholly unnecessary to do it with two more people I care about.
I think this will be easier to explain to the readers if I break down the latest point of contention: Being that my name is on the lease to the apartment, I take a more ... presidential stand on the happenings of my little two-bedroom country. When I invited The Lady to move in, we agreed that we'd split the rent (Update 2: The Roommate just walked into my room, head partially shaved, to show me the 'upside down vag' he shaved into the front of his forehead. It was a downward pointing triangle. He was also only in his underwear.) three ways, and her share of the utilities would be spent on buying groceries. We all agreed to this, and it was fine.
Then the RM started to have an issue when his share of the utilities came out to 90 dollars for the month. And then when he went to a fit when he was looking for something to make for dinner, and there was nothing he liked.
The Lady and I like organic products, so we shop at an organic grocery store. The RM likes to eat cardboard and other crap of that nature. So I can understand his befuddlement.
"Dude, weeks ago I told you to make a list of shit..."
"Well... will she shop at someplace other than Trader Joe's?" I didn't want to argue with him, because it was a stupid argument to have. And then he launched into a tirade about the utilities. "We're only here half the month, how is it so high?!" I, again, didn't see a point to arguing with him, nor did I feel like bringing up the fact that we've been running the central air a lot lately, as well as the dishwasher... plus he has a huge tendency to leave the living room tv on when he goes into his room, or vice versa, along with the lights.
The Lady has threatened to move out, trying to avoid a nasty confrontation. I've implored her not to, to just talk it over with the RM.
And that's how I get sucked into being the go-between. Why is it, the guy who's always caught in the crossfire is unarmed?
Then, out of no where, there's a heavy thudding BR-RRA-A-A-AATT that cuts through the calm. The dirt kicks up in front of him, he freezes out of shock for a second, and then dives down behind a trash can.
Another burst of automatic gunfire cuts from the other side of the street. A few strays whip over his head, his too-short hair bristles. He clenches shut his eyes, clasps his laptop to his chest (Huff Post or Gmail's been left open on it) and bares down to what's going to be an ugly, long-lasting battle.
This isn't Iraq in case you were wondering (I don't think they have Gmail out there... probably Jihad-mail... rimshot!) this is my apartment. And I've been caught in a wicked crossfire between The Lady and the Roommate.
Something in the back of my head tells me that this was inevitable. The two of them don't get along very well at all, and at the risk of further alienating them from each other, and even me, I'll break down how the other sees their advisory.
The Lady sees the RM as an awkward annoyance, a child that she's been prematurely saddled with. A slob that seldom picks anything up and is a thieving anti-social dullard. He's pathetic and a nuisance. She often wonders how he even made it through bootcamp.
The RM views The Lady as a interloper, the succubus that's robbed him of his best friend and roommate. A point of conflict and contention. What he sees is a house thief who does nothing but plot against him when he's not here, laying traps (or pubic hair) in his room.
(Update: As I was writing this, the RM came back from the store, where I sent him to get me a Snickers with Almonds and an orange Gatorade. When he came back, he burst into my room and started to jabber on in a non-sequitor that involved Alec Baldwin, the film 'We Own The Night' and the letter 'X' , he then placed upon my head the Gatorade and said 'dude, listen to the wind outside, and feel the coolness on your head. Doesn't it feel like a tropical storm?!)
The fact is, I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too. I love having The Lady living here with me, because I don't get to see enough of her during the week to begin with. With her here, it takes away all that lost time where we're traveling to see each other. It's also beneficial to her as well, because we live in such close proximity to her job, that she can walk and leave the car parked. With gas at 4.00+ USD, that's a huge check in the plus column.
With the roommate, it's nice to have him around because he's genuine comic relief, and I feel like I have an obligation towards him as his 'older brother.' But he can be tedious to deal with as well, as he seldom does chores and often parades ugly t shirts he buys into my room for my approval/disapproval (there's really never an 'approval' since he refuses to buy clothes meant for an adult).
These two don't like each other and I don't like having to be the go-between. I hate having to spend a good chunk of my work week counseling my roommate on getting along with my girlfriend, and I don't want to deal with The Lady's attitude towards my roommate, which makes her pissy, which she'll take out on me.
All I want to do is come home and relax, and not feel like I have to be a referee. I did this for twenty-sum-odd years with my parents, and now that I've moved out (again) I see it as wholly unnecessary to do it with two more people I care about.
I think this will be easier to explain to the readers if I break down the latest point of contention: Being that my name is on the lease to the apartment, I take a more ... presidential stand on the happenings of my little two-bedroom country. When I invited The Lady to move in, we agreed that we'd split the rent (Update 2: The Roommate just walked into my room, head partially shaved, to show me the 'upside down vag' he shaved into the front of his forehead. It was a downward pointing triangle. He was also only in his underwear.) three ways, and her share of the utilities would be spent on buying groceries. We all agreed to this, and it was fine.
Then the RM started to have an issue when his share of the utilities came out to 90 dollars for the month. And then when he went to a fit when he was looking for something to make for dinner, and there was nothing he liked.
The Lady and I like organic products, so we shop at an organic grocery store. The RM likes to eat cardboard and other crap of that nature. So I can understand his befuddlement.
"Dude, weeks ago I told you to make a list of shit..."
"Well... will she shop at someplace other than Trader Joe's?" I didn't want to argue with him, because it was a stupid argument to have. And then he launched into a tirade about the utilities. "We're only here half the month, how is it so high?!" I, again, didn't see a point to arguing with him, nor did I feel like bringing up the fact that we've been running the central air a lot lately, as well as the dishwasher... plus he has a huge tendency to leave the living room tv on when he goes into his room, or vice versa, along with the lights.
The Lady has threatened to move out, trying to avoid a nasty confrontation. I've implored her not to, to just talk it over with the RM.
And that's how I get sucked into being the go-between. Why is it, the guy who's always caught in the crossfire is unarmed?
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Best Of: June 2007
This was one of Jim's first "Fear and Loathing" pieces, which is generously ripped off from Hunter Thompson, as far as style was concerned. He's argued that he's paying an homage to the late cultural icon, where as the rest of us on the editorial staff call it blatant plagiarism. Anyway, with Jim out of the office for the next week or so,(work related stuff at his OTHER job...) we thought it would be appropriate to run this old post this weekend because it is La Kermesse back in Maine through Sunday. Enjoy- Ed.
All names have been changed to protect the guilty.*
If you live in Southern Maine, passed through on your way some place else, or are vaguely aware that what some consider to be a suburb of Boston, is in fact a totally different state, you might've heard of the little shin-dig the locals up this way call "La Kermesse."
I don't know what the name means, but I can tell you it's a big French festival complete with rides for the kids, poutine for the people who know what the fuck that is, and a beer tent. The festival itself is preceded by a "block party" on Thursday night, followed by a parade that will open up the fair grounds come Friday afternoon.
Basically, it's an excuse for people to be drunk in public. Not that anyone who lives in the greater Biddeford area really needs an excuse to do so.
So over the last few years (aside from the fact I was living in New York) I've pretty much stayed away from the neon colored orgiastic culmination that is La Kermesse. I really have no desire to see people I went to high school with, whether they're doing better off than me or not, nor do I want to run into the citizens of Biddeford on the whole.
But last night, Thursday June 21st, I found myself smack-dab in the middle of the fray, on the York Street Bridge with some friends, most of whom I didn't even know two hours prior, standing and looking at fireworks through blurry bloodshot eyes, and surrounded by Parliment smoking, stroller pushing, tank-tops-with-skinny-arms having trash. How did I get here? Allow me to illustrate.
I get home from the office at about five, and my pocket buzzes just as I'm pulling off of 95 at the Biddeford exit. It's my friend *John*, a guy I went to high school with and is probably the most genuine guy I know, other than Hokie. He asks if I'd be interested in hanging out, and at first I'm thinking he's putting a card game together, and being broke, I say I'm going to pass.
Instead, however, he asks if I want to go to the fireworks "and shit" tonight. I totally forget that it's the La Kermesse weekend, only passing the giant fucking yellow billboard at the 95 on ramp everyday, twice, for the last two weeks. I say sure, and get a time, and proceed about my evening per usual.
I have dinner with mom which is just pizza out of the box. I manage to burn the roof of my mouth.
I get to John's house a little after 1930 and park in front. He calls from the window to come up stairs and I do so, only to find his drunk younger brother sprawled out across his bed, jabbering on about something. He's dressed head to toe in American Eagle and sports a frat-boy tan. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, because John's busy playing Counter Strike on his computer and his mom is yelling at his brother, who's managing to be at his most incoherent.
Apparently, John's little brother just got home from college for the summer. And he's totally shitfaced.
So that being said, I dig into my back pack and produce a can of PBR and sip on it as I wait to see what's going to happen for tonight. John escorts me out, and his mother calls out that she doesn't want his younger brother getting outside. Dumbly, I stand at the door, with it wide open, as like a cat, the little brother scampers out into the bright wilderness.
We go down into John's basement where he has a pool table, as well as other assortments of entertainment displayed about. It's like your grandparent's rumpus room, if this was the 1970s and people still had rumpus rooms. Or even put those two words together. You know what I mean.
Low ceilings, beer cans littered about, a used and tired looking punching bag propped up against a far wall. The door to get in is never locked and requires a leaned in shoulder to pop it open. We stand around, discussing his younger brother's lack of alcoholic tolerance.
"I told him not to come home. I sent him a text. 'You're shitfaced, mom's home, don't come home'" John says as he works some chalk on to a pool cue. I sip my beer and nod along, thinking back to my kidney destroying first year of higher education. At the time being, John's little brother is sitting, splayed out on the back yard, telling everyone who asks if he's ok that he's in fact, twenty-one years old.
"Dude, you gonna be good?"
"I'm twenty-one!"
"....Ok..."
This brings us to John's other two friends who show up at about this time. *Jerry* and *Dan* know John from college and I guess all play musical instruments together. Dan's a tall dark haired guy who still looks collegate and Jerry's built like a keg, and reminds me somewhat of a guy I went to high school with. Both of these guys are cool shits.
A game of billiards breaks out and John hooks his iPod into a stereo and we take turns talking about stupid shit that guys talk about when they play billiards. Who we've fucked, who we want to fuck, how fucked up we are, how fucking gay something is, how fucking gay you are, and how fucking gay we all are. It's a regular round table of fuck patois.
Suddenly, John's mom appears downstairs, visibly upset. She states that the younger brother has "taken off" up the street, with some female friends of his. She wants him back at the house, pronto.
Allegedly, according to John, his brother started drinking around four in the afternoon when he went to a friend's house, and came back stumbling. He's not much of a guy; he's probably 6' even and 150 lbs tops. Also, he's only eighteen, and although belongs in a fraternity, probably can only muster to hold down four Bud Lights at the most. Also, he probably likes to kiss men (John's words, not mine)
Like an crack army assault unit, myself, John, Jerry and Dan climb into John's Mazda and tear off down the street looking for his brother. It doesn't take us long to come up on him from behind, as he's leading a pack of about four high school aged girls down the hill towards the festivities below. He's weaving all over the side walk, hands out to his sides, head lolling from side to side.
John, who is also a former Law Enforcement Professional, expertly puts the car up on a sidewalk blocking his brother's path from furthering. We all step out of the car as if it was planned. We look like something out of a cheesey cop drama on syndicated television. One of the girls in the pack that was behind the little brother even exclaims to no one:
"Wow, you guys are like a SWAT team!"
You're fucking A right we are, missy.
John makes contact, and Jerry and Dan are quick to block the brother in like a wall of flesh. There's a little bit of a confrontation with a young girl who's obviously on something, but I take her aside and keep a perimeter. The girl says to me "I'm not scared of you guys, my dad's a cop."
"So are we."
"Oh."
With some explanation on my part and some coaxing on John's part, we snatch up his brother and pull off down a side street and get him back home. Where he will pass out sitting on a toilet ten minutes later.
Fast forward to later in the evening. The other gentlemen and I have been playing billiards, shooting the shit (shit patois), and throwing ping-pong balls at water filled cups on a ping-pong table. At some point in the evening, purely due to my inebriated state, I produce my scrotum and announce that I've seemed to have gotten gum on my shorts.
This psyches out Jerry, and leads Dan and I to take the title of Supreme Champions of Beruit, 2007.
John then receives a call from a girl he has some history with, and I encourage him to have her come over. My thoughts are that if she gets here, gets drunk enough, we could probably run a train on her.
Seriously.
*Celeste* shows up about forty-five minutes later, and she's your typical cute college girl. Nothing remarkable or unremarkable about her at all. Cute body, cute face, cute personality. John puts her on "myspace picture duty" as we continue to play Beruit.
Soon after, five strong, we make our way down the hill into the pit of sin, all while glittery explosives go off over our heads. The entire time the five-some is together, we're busting balls, laughing, clutching our stomaches, and weaving all over the road as we walk. People are lined up on both sides of the street, heads tilted skyward as they watch the pyrotechnics from their properties.
Almost as if, years ago it had been planned out, we pass by the sewage treatment plant as the entrance to the lower downtown area of Biddeford, where the "block party" is being held. All around us, carnivale-style games, people, food, etc surround us. The booms and sizzles of fireworks rain down on us from over head. The air is coated slickly with a haze of residual burning Marijuana, and it makes your skin feel greasy. Cheap looking, broken people shuffle their dirty-faced children past us. Each one of them clutching a plastic sword and swinging it expertly at crotch level.
We weave through the crowd and make our way to the bridge. Along the way we, inevitably, come across people we know- high school people, teachers, neighbors, etc. A guy I haven't seen since early on in college, comes up to John and I and puts us both in a head lock and squeezes. He goes on to tell us that the next day is the day he's signing his papers to be released from the Army. I tell him good luck with that.
We get offers to go drink at bars and parties and so on. But the collective mood of the five-some is to march back up the hill to John's, play a few more games of Beruit, and possibly clusterfuck.
Seriously.
We weave our way back through the crowd, heading back the way we've come. The fireworks are over now, with a substandard "grand finale" which lit up the sky like it was day time, and twice as loud, and suddenly I become aware of the increased police presence.
It seems all around us, cops in polos and standard uniforms, with ear pieces for their radios have materialized out of thin air. There's probably a ratio of every three people, one cop. It's startling.
Jerry is probably the most drunk out of everyone, and as we pass some carnivale-style games, the chatter starts to pick up.
One game involves a small inflatable pool filled with water containing rubber duckies. I'm not sure the premise of the game but that's exactly what it is. As we pass by, Dan says to Jerry, something like:
"I'll give you twenty bucks if you jump into that fucking pool,"
Of course, Jerry turns him down. It's going to take a considerably higher amount of money for him to engage in such baffoonery.
"Dude, back me up!" Dan slaps John on the chest and John grudgingly agrees to go in on twenty bucks as well. Now the dare's up to forty.
All eyes turn on to me. I look around, knowing that I don't have even ten dollars to my name, because I just paid all my bills today, I nod absently, and the crowd seems to go wild.
"Sixty bucks dude! Just jump in!" And Jerry still throws up the block.
This whole time, the only voice of sobriety and reason is Celeste's.
"You're so going to get arrested. There's cops all over the place," and this seems to hit home with Jerry immensely.
"Yeah dude, I don't want to get arrested on this dumb shit," He says and starts to balk, heading back towards John's house.
To be completely honest with you, gentle reader, I don't know why I chose the words to say at that particular moment, but maybe deep down, I wanted to see a little chubby guy jump into an inflatable pool filled with little rubber duckies. Maybe my dark side came out of me at that instant. Maybe I wanted to see if he'd get arrested, based purely on my deeply routed curiosity. Maybe I just wanted to call his bluff.
I lean over, touching Jerry's shoulder, placing my lips next to his ear lobe and say this:
"Do this, and you'll be the stuff of legends. People will talk about this for the rest of their lives. People you don't even know, but they're standing there, waiting for you to jump into that fucking pool. You'll be remembered forever. This is your legacy."
And with that, Jerry's eyes glazed over. A slow, goofy grin spread across his fat Donkey Lips lips and suddenly I glanced down and saw that he was standing in stocking feet, his shoes somehow coming off.
You see, men strive to leave a mark on this world, no matter how big or small. We want glory in all shapes and forms. To us we live for the conquest. This is why men climb Mt. Everest.
The psychological erection I gave him proved the jolt he needed. Much to the protest and physical strikes I was taking from Celeste, Jerry turned and started at a good trot towards the inflatable pool, some fifty yards back. We all stood watching in mixed disbelief, drunken grins pasted on to our faces, all of us chanting in unison "he's not really gonna..."
And then, he goes sideways in midair.
That's when I turned away, shocked, scared, knowing he was about to be swarmed upon by a mass of trigger happy Nazi, Nixon-esque Biddeford Cops.
What felt like an eternity passed as we four stood looking at each other. John starts to walk off, turning around only to say "I cant be caught up in this, I just applied to these guys like a week ago. Call me when you find out what his bail's going to be, and I'll come down and bail him. But I can't be here for this."
It's Dan who stands tall on behalf of his friend Jerry, stating "dude, we can't ditch him," and Celeste is quick to agree. Admittedly, my feelings were with John, and I teetered on the edge of staying or going, my vote being the decider.
But then, out of the crowd, as if it was the end of the film "Rudy" our pudgy counter part and La Kermesse Carnivale Terrorist remerges, soaked head to toe, jogging back to catch up with us. A roar goes out, as we collectively welcome him back, slaps on his back, hugs, and "holy shits" had all around.
Jerry ends up scraping his knees, and as he takes a seat by the sewage treatment plant, he retells of what happened:
"I fucking jumped in, and this guy, this guy grabs my collar on my shirt and goes 'you're not going anywhere' and I tried to run, but this cop comes up to me and goes 'do you have three hundred dollars for bail?' and I say 'no sir,' and he asks me my name and I tell him, and that was it." And for as simple of a story as it is, we're all huddled around our new hero in total awe.
"That was some pretty stupid shit," he finishes. He also makes it known that he wants his money ASAP.
We climb the hill back to John's house where things eventually wind down. Jerry and Dan decide to go out to Old Orchard to meet up with some other people to retell the tale of the night. Celeste, expertly deflecting my drunken horny advances, decides to go home ("I've gotta get home," she says "You can come back to my home," I come back with, "it's a home....") and I pick up my bag, wish everyone a good night, and manage to drive myself home without getting pulled over.
...And that's why I don't go to La Kermesse.
All names have been changed to protect the guilty.*
If you live in Southern Maine, passed through on your way some place else, or are vaguely aware that what some consider to be a suburb of Boston, is in fact a totally different state, you might've heard of the little shin-dig the locals up this way call "La Kermesse."
I don't know what the name means, but I can tell you it's a big French festival complete with rides for the kids, poutine for the people who know what the fuck that is, and a beer tent. The festival itself is preceded by a "block party" on Thursday night, followed by a parade that will open up the fair grounds come Friday afternoon.
Basically, it's an excuse for people to be drunk in public. Not that anyone who lives in the greater Biddeford area really needs an excuse to do so.
So over the last few years (aside from the fact I was living in New York) I've pretty much stayed away from the neon colored orgiastic culmination that is La Kermesse. I really have no desire to see people I went to high school with, whether they're doing better off than me or not, nor do I want to run into the citizens of Biddeford on the whole.
But last night, Thursday June 21st, I found myself smack-dab in the middle of the fray, on the York Street Bridge with some friends, most of whom I didn't even know two hours prior, standing and looking at fireworks through blurry bloodshot eyes, and surrounded by Parliment smoking, stroller pushing, tank-tops-with-skinny-arms having trash. How did I get here? Allow me to illustrate.
I get home from the office at about five, and my pocket buzzes just as I'm pulling off of 95 at the Biddeford exit. It's my friend *John*, a guy I went to high school with and is probably the most genuine guy I know, other than Hokie. He asks if I'd be interested in hanging out, and at first I'm thinking he's putting a card game together, and being broke, I say I'm going to pass.
Instead, however, he asks if I want to go to the fireworks "and shit" tonight. I totally forget that it's the La Kermesse weekend, only passing the giant fucking yellow billboard at the 95 on ramp everyday, twice, for the last two weeks. I say sure, and get a time, and proceed about my evening per usual.
I have dinner with mom which is just pizza out of the box. I manage to burn the roof of my mouth.
I get to John's house a little after 1930 and park in front. He calls from the window to come up stairs and I do so, only to find his drunk younger brother sprawled out across his bed, jabbering on about something. He's dressed head to toe in American Eagle and sports a frat-boy tan. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, because John's busy playing Counter Strike on his computer and his mom is yelling at his brother, who's managing to be at his most incoherent.
Apparently, John's little brother just got home from college for the summer. And he's totally shitfaced.
So that being said, I dig into my back pack and produce a can of PBR and sip on it as I wait to see what's going to happen for tonight. John escorts me out, and his mother calls out that she doesn't want his younger brother getting outside. Dumbly, I stand at the door, with it wide open, as like a cat, the little brother scampers out into the bright wilderness.
We go down into John's basement where he has a pool table, as well as other assortments of entertainment displayed about. It's like your grandparent's rumpus room, if this was the 1970s and people still had rumpus rooms. Or even put those two words together. You know what I mean.
Low ceilings, beer cans littered about, a used and tired looking punching bag propped up against a far wall. The door to get in is never locked and requires a leaned in shoulder to pop it open. We stand around, discussing his younger brother's lack of alcoholic tolerance.
"I told him not to come home. I sent him a text. 'You're shitfaced, mom's home, don't come home'" John says as he works some chalk on to a pool cue. I sip my beer and nod along, thinking back to my kidney destroying first year of higher education. At the time being, John's little brother is sitting, splayed out on the back yard, telling everyone who asks if he's ok that he's in fact, twenty-one years old.
"Dude, you gonna be good?"
"I'm twenty-one!"
"....Ok..."
This brings us to John's other two friends who show up at about this time. *Jerry* and *Dan* know John from college and I guess all play musical instruments together. Dan's a tall dark haired guy who still looks collegate and Jerry's built like a keg, and reminds me somewhat of a guy I went to high school with. Both of these guys are cool shits.
A game of billiards breaks out and John hooks his iPod into a stereo and we take turns talking about stupid shit that guys talk about when they play billiards. Who we've fucked, who we want to fuck, how fucked up we are, how fucking gay something is, how fucking gay you are, and how fucking gay we all are. It's a regular round table of fuck patois.
Suddenly, John's mom appears downstairs, visibly upset. She states that the younger brother has "taken off" up the street, with some female friends of his. She wants him back at the house, pronto.
Allegedly, according to John, his brother started drinking around four in the afternoon when he went to a friend's house, and came back stumbling. He's not much of a guy; he's probably 6' even and 150 lbs tops. Also, he's only eighteen, and although belongs in a fraternity, probably can only muster to hold down four Bud Lights at the most. Also, he probably likes to kiss men (John's words, not mine)
Like an crack army assault unit, myself, John, Jerry and Dan climb into John's Mazda and tear off down the street looking for his brother. It doesn't take us long to come up on him from behind, as he's leading a pack of about four high school aged girls down the hill towards the festivities below. He's weaving all over the side walk, hands out to his sides, head lolling from side to side.
John, who is also a former Law Enforcement Professional, expertly puts the car up on a sidewalk blocking his brother's path from furthering. We all step out of the car as if it was planned. We look like something out of a cheesey cop drama on syndicated television. One of the girls in the pack that was behind the little brother even exclaims to no one:
"Wow, you guys are like a SWAT team!"
You're fucking A right we are, missy.
John makes contact, and Jerry and Dan are quick to block the brother in like a wall of flesh. There's a little bit of a confrontation with a young girl who's obviously on something, but I take her aside and keep a perimeter. The girl says to me "I'm not scared of you guys, my dad's a cop."
"So are we."
"Oh."
With some explanation on my part and some coaxing on John's part, we snatch up his brother and pull off down a side street and get him back home. Where he will pass out sitting on a toilet ten minutes later.
Fast forward to later in the evening. The other gentlemen and I have been playing billiards, shooting the shit (shit patois), and throwing ping-pong balls at water filled cups on a ping-pong table. At some point in the evening, purely due to my inebriated state, I produce my scrotum and announce that I've seemed to have gotten gum on my shorts.
This psyches out Jerry, and leads Dan and I to take the title of Supreme Champions of Beruit, 2007.
John then receives a call from a girl he has some history with, and I encourage him to have her come over. My thoughts are that if she gets here, gets drunk enough, we could probably run a train on her.
Seriously.
*Celeste* shows up about forty-five minutes later, and she's your typical cute college girl. Nothing remarkable or unremarkable about her at all. Cute body, cute face, cute personality. John puts her on "myspace picture duty" as we continue to play Beruit.
Soon after, five strong, we make our way down the hill into the pit of sin, all while glittery explosives go off over our heads. The entire time the five-some is together, we're busting balls, laughing, clutching our stomaches, and weaving all over the road as we walk. People are lined up on both sides of the street, heads tilted skyward as they watch the pyrotechnics from their properties.
Almost as if, years ago it had been planned out, we pass by the sewage treatment plant as the entrance to the lower downtown area of Biddeford, where the "block party" is being held. All around us, carnivale-style games, people, food, etc surround us. The booms and sizzles of fireworks rain down on us from over head. The air is coated slickly with a haze of residual burning Marijuana, and it makes your skin feel greasy. Cheap looking, broken people shuffle their dirty-faced children past us. Each one of them clutching a plastic sword and swinging it expertly at crotch level.
We weave through the crowd and make our way to the bridge. Along the way we, inevitably, come across people we know- high school people, teachers, neighbors, etc. A guy I haven't seen since early on in college, comes up to John and I and puts us both in a head lock and squeezes. He goes on to tell us that the next day is the day he's signing his papers to be released from the Army. I tell him good luck with that.
We get offers to go drink at bars and parties and so on. But the collective mood of the five-some is to march back up the hill to John's, play a few more games of Beruit, and possibly clusterfuck.
Seriously.
We weave our way back through the crowd, heading back the way we've come. The fireworks are over now, with a substandard "grand finale" which lit up the sky like it was day time, and twice as loud, and suddenly I become aware of the increased police presence.
It seems all around us, cops in polos and standard uniforms, with ear pieces for their radios have materialized out of thin air. There's probably a ratio of every three people, one cop. It's startling.
Jerry is probably the most drunk out of everyone, and as we pass some carnivale-style games, the chatter starts to pick up.
One game involves a small inflatable pool filled with water containing rubber duckies. I'm not sure the premise of the game but that's exactly what it is. As we pass by, Dan says to Jerry, something like:
"I'll give you twenty bucks if you jump into that fucking pool,"
Of course, Jerry turns him down. It's going to take a considerably higher amount of money for him to engage in such baffoonery.
"Dude, back me up!" Dan slaps John on the chest and John grudgingly agrees to go in on twenty bucks as well. Now the dare's up to forty.
All eyes turn on to me. I look around, knowing that I don't have even ten dollars to my name, because I just paid all my bills today, I nod absently, and the crowd seems to go wild.
"Sixty bucks dude! Just jump in!" And Jerry still throws up the block.
This whole time, the only voice of sobriety and reason is Celeste's.
"You're so going to get arrested. There's cops all over the place," and this seems to hit home with Jerry immensely.
"Yeah dude, I don't want to get arrested on this dumb shit," He says and starts to balk, heading back towards John's house.
To be completely honest with you, gentle reader, I don't know why I chose the words to say at that particular moment, but maybe deep down, I wanted to see a little chubby guy jump into an inflatable pool filled with little rubber duckies. Maybe my dark side came out of me at that instant. Maybe I wanted to see if he'd get arrested, based purely on my deeply routed curiosity. Maybe I just wanted to call his bluff.
I lean over, touching Jerry's shoulder, placing my lips next to his ear lobe and say this:
"Do this, and you'll be the stuff of legends. People will talk about this for the rest of their lives. People you don't even know, but they're standing there, waiting for you to jump into that fucking pool. You'll be remembered forever. This is your legacy."
And with that, Jerry's eyes glazed over. A slow, goofy grin spread across his fat Donkey Lips lips and suddenly I glanced down and saw that he was standing in stocking feet, his shoes somehow coming off.
You see, men strive to leave a mark on this world, no matter how big or small. We want glory in all shapes and forms. To us we live for the conquest. This is why men climb Mt. Everest.
The psychological erection I gave him proved the jolt he needed. Much to the protest and physical strikes I was taking from Celeste, Jerry turned and started at a good trot towards the inflatable pool, some fifty yards back. We all stood watching in mixed disbelief, drunken grins pasted on to our faces, all of us chanting in unison "he's not really gonna..."
And then, he goes sideways in midair.
That's when I turned away, shocked, scared, knowing he was about to be swarmed upon by a mass of trigger happy Nazi, Nixon-esque Biddeford Cops.
What felt like an eternity passed as we four stood looking at each other. John starts to walk off, turning around only to say "I cant be caught up in this, I just applied to these guys like a week ago. Call me when you find out what his bail's going to be, and I'll come down and bail him. But I can't be here for this."
It's Dan who stands tall on behalf of his friend Jerry, stating "dude, we can't ditch him," and Celeste is quick to agree. Admittedly, my feelings were with John, and I teetered on the edge of staying or going, my vote being the decider.
But then, out of the crowd, as if it was the end of the film "Rudy" our pudgy counter part and La Kermesse Carnivale Terrorist remerges, soaked head to toe, jogging back to catch up with us. A roar goes out, as we collectively welcome him back, slaps on his back, hugs, and "holy shits" had all around.
Jerry ends up scraping his knees, and as he takes a seat by the sewage treatment plant, he retells of what happened:
"I fucking jumped in, and this guy, this guy grabs my collar on my shirt and goes 'you're not going anywhere' and I tried to run, but this cop comes up to me and goes 'do you have three hundred dollars for bail?' and I say 'no sir,' and he asks me my name and I tell him, and that was it." And for as simple of a story as it is, we're all huddled around our new hero in total awe.
"That was some pretty stupid shit," he finishes. He also makes it known that he wants his money ASAP.
We climb the hill back to John's house where things eventually wind down. Jerry and Dan decide to go out to Old Orchard to meet up with some other people to retell the tale of the night. Celeste, expertly deflecting my drunken horny advances, decides to go home ("I've gotta get home," she says "You can come back to my home," I come back with, "it's a home....") and I pick up my bag, wish everyone a good night, and manage to drive myself home without getting pulled over.
...And that's why I don't go to La Kermesse.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Buyer Beware
For the longest time I've been a huge proponent of actually paying for the music I download. I understand how incredibly stupid that sounds, when at any given time, day, place even the most inept person behind the controls of a computer (hi dad!) can find and download their favorite hits for free.
I've always had the mind set that you get what you pay for. There's a reason why the shitty "on sale" power drill is on sale, and the Makita is 300.00 USD. The same principles can be applied to Wendys and White Castle, Sony and LG, Disneyworld and Busch Gardens.
These things are better, won't break down on you, won't give you horrible spraying shits that coat the bowl is fecal spatter, and won't make your kids wonder why you're such a dead beat. The extra you're paying for is convienence, the ability to be rest assured that things are going to be ok.
So when faced spending 99% of one dollar to download a song, I don't see it as a huge deal. I've always figured that for the price of a dollar I was not paying for a song, but guarenteeing that what I was getting was a quality download of the exact song I wanted, without some dickweed teenager's trojan virus-laced coding within my copy of Busta Rhymes "Pass The Couvousier (remix.)".
But the downside to paying a dollar for a song off of iTunes is that shit adds up quick. Like the proverbial Lays Potato Chip, you can't have just one. I started to look at my credit card receipt (which I use to download music from the iTunes Store) and noticed that the bulk of my purchases from iTunes was hovering around about 10 to 15 bucks a month. And when you're dropping triple that on gas every two weeks, plus groceries, etc, it's quickly realized it's an unneeded expense.
So I started to ask around about free downloading sites or "torrents." Which ones were good, which ones to stay clear of, etc. The Lady turned me on (...) to uTorrent where you get a host of five or six other torrent sites that feed off of each other through one search. She downloaded it to my beleagured Dell laptop (I also trusted her because she was running pretty much the same programme on her beloved iMac book) and started to rob the music industry at mousepoint.
This wasn't my first foray into the world of illegally downloaded music; as mentioned before I had dabbled in this practice well before the days of iTunes. If you're reading this and are under the age of 21, you probably have no clue that Napster at one time used to be 100% free, and spawned warped and horribly virus-ridden children in the form of Morpheus, BearShare, LimeWire, etc, not unsimilar to how Gaea spawned the Greek Gods by slicing open Chronus's ballsack.
These programmes fed off the "Peer2Peer" networking system which allowed you to download files from multiple people or "sources" at once.
Have you ever been to an orgy? I have (hi mom!), and it's not as cool as you'd think it would be (if that's your thing) because it's literally a clusterfuck. People stepping all over each other, not knowing names or even faces, just literally fucking each other over to get what you want. And as we all know, unprotected sex with multiple people - as in transmitting files indiscriminately - can lead to viruses. This has always been a major concern of mine, on both the literal and figurative fronts.
So I left the "free" world of downloading music (and I say "free" with quotes because really, nothing is free, what you skimp on with cost of a download, you pay for with some Asian nerd wiping your harddrive at the price of 65.00 USD an hour) and started to pay for it. Whatever, it's only a dollar.
And there were considerable advantages to paying for the download: It didn't take literally all day (or multiple days) to finishing downloading a song or album. And when the song or album finished, you weren't left with some piss-poor quality, purposely mislabled, recorded-in-a-basement garage band/wanna-be rapper.
Nothing is more irratating than searching for Ice Cube's 1994 album "The Predator" and coming back with some cock-smoker's own personal rendition of "It Was A Good Day."
All in all I've found that using a torrent isn't that bad. I haven't had a lot of issues with the downloads, only that the reception is spotty and it takes, at it's fastest, up to an hour to download some stuff. I do miss the point-click-download-play function that made iTunes so great, along with the album art, because I'm incredibly impatient and have an ever decreasing attention span.
I'm curious to see if with gas prices going up, will iTunes do something to prevent more consumers from jumping ship as I have? Will they recognize that people in their targeted demographic (which would be iPod owners, which is virtually everyone) pass on filling their iPod in leu of filling their tanks? Someone should call up Steve Jobs and present him with this problem so that we (and by "we" I mean, Me. Capitalized. That's right.) can get the best of both worlds. Either start having gas stations hand out free iTunes gift cards with every x amount of gallons pumped, or Apple can start handing out free gas cards with every dollar amount purchased on iTunes.
It'd be win-win for everyone involved.
I've always had the mind set that you get what you pay for. There's a reason why the shitty "on sale" power drill is on sale, and the Makita is 300.00 USD. The same principles can be applied to Wendys and White Castle, Sony and LG, Disneyworld and Busch Gardens.
These things are better, won't break down on you, won't give you horrible spraying shits that coat the bowl is fecal spatter, and won't make your kids wonder why you're such a dead beat. The extra you're paying for is convienence, the ability to be rest assured that things are going to be ok.
So when faced spending 99% of one dollar to download a song, I don't see it as a huge deal. I've always figured that for the price of a dollar I was not paying for a song, but guarenteeing that what I was getting was a quality download of the exact song I wanted, without some dickweed teenager's trojan virus-laced coding within my copy of Busta Rhymes "Pass The Couvousier (remix.)".
But the downside to paying a dollar for a song off of iTunes is that shit adds up quick. Like the proverbial Lays Potato Chip, you can't have just one. I started to look at my credit card receipt (which I use to download music from the iTunes Store) and noticed that the bulk of my purchases from iTunes was hovering around about 10 to 15 bucks a month. And when you're dropping triple that on gas every two weeks, plus groceries, etc, it's quickly realized it's an unneeded expense.
So I started to ask around about free downloading sites or "torrents." Which ones were good, which ones to stay clear of, etc. The Lady turned me on (...) to uTorrent where you get a host of five or six other torrent sites that feed off of each other through one search. She downloaded it to my beleagured Dell laptop (I also trusted her because she was running pretty much the same programme on her beloved iMac book) and started to rob the music industry at mousepoint.
This wasn't my first foray into the world of illegally downloaded music; as mentioned before I had dabbled in this practice well before the days of iTunes. If you're reading this and are under the age of 21, you probably have no clue that Napster at one time used to be 100% free, and spawned warped and horribly virus-ridden children in the form of Morpheus, BearShare, LimeWire, etc, not unsimilar to how Gaea spawned the Greek Gods by slicing open Chronus's ballsack.
These programmes fed off the "Peer2Peer" networking system which allowed you to download files from multiple people or "sources" at once.
Have you ever been to an orgy? I have (hi mom!), and it's not as cool as you'd think it would be (if that's your thing) because it's literally a clusterfuck. People stepping all over each other, not knowing names or even faces, just literally fucking each other over to get what you want. And as we all know, unprotected sex with multiple people - as in transmitting files indiscriminately - can lead to viruses. This has always been a major concern of mine, on both the literal and figurative fronts.
So I left the "free" world of downloading music (and I say "free" with quotes because really, nothing is free, what you skimp on with cost of a download, you pay for with some Asian nerd wiping your harddrive at the price of 65.00 USD an hour) and started to pay for it. Whatever, it's only a dollar.
And there were considerable advantages to paying for the download: It didn't take literally all day (or multiple days) to finishing downloading a song or album. And when the song or album finished, you weren't left with some piss-poor quality, purposely mislabled, recorded-in-a-basement garage band/wanna-be rapper.
Nothing is more irratating than searching for Ice Cube's 1994 album "The Predator" and coming back with some cock-smoker's own personal rendition of "It Was A Good Day."
All in all I've found that using a torrent isn't that bad. I haven't had a lot of issues with the downloads, only that the reception is spotty and it takes, at it's fastest, up to an hour to download some stuff. I do miss the point-click-download-play function that made iTunes so great, along with the album art, because I'm incredibly impatient and have an ever decreasing attention span.
I'm curious to see if with gas prices going up, will iTunes do something to prevent more consumers from jumping ship as I have? Will they recognize that people in their targeted demographic (which would be iPod owners, which is virtually everyone) pass on filling their iPod in leu of filling their tanks? Someone should call up Steve Jobs and present him with this problem so that we (and by "we" I mean, Me. Capitalized. That's right.) can get the best of both worlds. Either start having gas stations hand out free iTunes gift cards with every x amount of gallons pumped, or Apple can start handing out free gas cards with every dollar amount purchased on iTunes.
It'd be win-win for everyone involved.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Short Fiction: Turn Key Operation
Jim has said on more than one occasion how proud he is of this piece of work, and we're inclined to agree. This short fiction was inspired by a television show he had watched last summer about the booming (no pun intended) tourist industry in Israel, and he took it and ran. It originally ran on his myspace.com blog back in June of 2007. And we're running it here because it's Jim's day off and he doesn't feel like being cooped up in the office in front of his computer. -ed.
At
I bought the bar five years ago from an army buddy who was getting out of
It needed a lot of work; the floors were scuffed and horrible to look at, there wasn’t much in the way of entertainment. There was a small stage towards the back, but the amplifiers were blown out and there was only one tv in the whole place, directly over the bar. I won’t even start on the condition of the bathrooms.
So I spent three weeks, every day, for about fourteen hours a day remodeling the place to my specifications. It took my entire life savings, over forty thousand dollars to get the place the way I wanted it. I put in plasma screen tvs, bought new speakers, new fixtures, hired some new staff, restocked the liquor, bought some new signs and renamed the place from Koffa’s to The Ocean.
And it was a good name because we were in essence right on the ocean. There was a tiny strip of other clubs and bars along the water, and mine now faced out so that during the middle of the day the place was nice and airy, and at night there was a gentle breeze that would blow in through the front double doors. It was literally paradise.
That was until tonight.
It’s
I hadn’t even noticed it, until he mentioned it. I had been clutching a Berretta that I kept behind the bar in my right hand the whole time, the whole hour. My hand was numb, my arm throbbed, my face coated in a filth that consisted of blood, dirt and tears. I tucked the gun into my waist band and walked back inside.
There had been over two hundred people inside the bar when the bomb had gone off. I had been behind the bar, pouring a Bombay Sapphire Gin into a martini glass and flirting with a young American girl, much to my girlfriend Sara’s distaste. I remember pouring the drink, turning to see Sara standing at the other end of the bar, holding her waitress tray, a few empty glasses, apron tied tight around her slender hips. She was shooting lightening into my eyes and I shrugged sheepishly, grinning at her.
She was beautiful, long black hair, 5’6, slender body. During the reconstruction of the bar she had come in in the middle of the day to ask about tabling on weekend nights, she was 19 at the time, I was 27, and I was in love with her.
We dated off and on, mostly on, seldom off. We were always hot for each other, and we would do the most absurd things to make each other jealous. I’d flirt with the young tourists, she’d allow herself to be pawed by the male patrons to get better tips. But even when we were off, I’d always walk her to her apartment at the end of the night. And if we were on, I’d follow her up.
So here I am, standing there, holding a bottle of gin looking at her. She simply shakes her head and walks on over. She leans across the bar and puts her face to mine and tells me that I’m a dirty old man. She’s 24 now, I’m 32, and she pushes her fingers into my receding hair line, and grabs a hold of my short black curls. I smack her lightly on her cheek and tell her that I always knew she loved dirty old men. She smiles sweetly, turns, and struts off back towards the front of the bar where there’s more tables that need tending to.
At about that time, things seem to happen in a lurch, like your DVD is on the fritz. I put the bottle of gin down on the back bar, and turn to look out the big picture windows at the crowd outside. It’s a typical Friday night, the place is an orgy of young faces, laughing, singing, drinking. There’s not a bad seed in the crowd, no one here looking for a fight or to prove themselves a man. It’s mostly tourists and youngsters from the nearby hotel resorts. I let myself smile.
I approach the register to swipe the young blonde’s credit card, when I notice my doorman, Ari stand up from his stool and walk towards someone on the sidewalk. It’s something in his walk, his approach that makes me stop in the middle of what would be an uninterrupted credit card transaction. I stand watching him, and see where his eyes are staring at. I hired Ari on a recommendation from a friend who’s still working in the Mosad, he told me Ari knew his shit, and was looking for some laid back weekend work. I had no problem hiring him. He’s bald, 6’3 and two hundred and sixty pounds, he fills out a black t shirt like a typical bouncer, only unlike a typical bouncer he carries a degree in five different disciplines of martial arts and is the fore most expert in Israeli Krav Magna.
Ari walks up to a small skinny sickly guy in a brown coat. His hair is wet and combed to the side of his head. From where I’m standing at the bar, which is about twenty-five yards from the scene outside, I can see the whites of his eyes. I can see his Adam’s Apple bob in his throat. And just as I’m getting the thought into my head that there’s something very wrong with this, the coat puffs out, like he’s got an air compressor under it. It balloons out from his body and tears. I smell cordite and burning, there’s a flash and what feels like my skull ripping open.
I come to on my back, covered in glass and booze. The bar is on fire, I can feel a rumbling slowly fading under my back, against my spine. I wasn’t out long, maybe half a second. I try to roll over to get on my feet but nothing in my body is responding to the commands from my brain. So I dumbly lay on my back, looking at the far ceiling from between my bent legs.
Sound comes back like you’re turning up the volume on the tv after putting it all the way down. It’s a slow build, first there’s the screams and moans. And then there’s the sound of feet moving. There’s furniture being tipped over, so on.
Finally my body goes into motion. I feel like I’m watching it more than participating. But I feel this need to do something, and then the shockwave rips through my body and brain: Sara. She was right by the door when the bomb went off, oh Jesus.
I turn over and feel every inch of my body reject the notion of moving, but I fight through it, pure adrenaline running through my veins. It’s not anger, but a sense of need. Like being under water and needing air, and fighting to break through to the surface. As I turn over, I’m looking at the Berretta, my nose almost touching the grip as it sits under the register as if it was oblivious to the bombing. I snatch it and push myself up on the bar.
There’s a fog, everything’s wet, people are lying on the ground withering, twisting. Some aren’t moving at all. Some don’t have all their parts. On a far table that’s still standing upright there’s a hand with a wedding ring on it.
The whole front of the building is blown inwards. Paper is all over the place, the floors black and shiny. Cars across the street black, glass everywhere. I clear the bar, clutching the gun and wade through the living Hell all around me. I try not to step on anyone but it’s hard to tell. Ceiling tiles hanging down, insulation on fire, little fires all over the place. I slip and fall down, my hand comes back up red.
Bodies are literally piled on top of each other and it’s hard to tell who’s who and who’s still alive and who isn’t. I call out her name, my voice is hoarse and strained. I can barely hear over the ringing and the people screaming. There’s soldiers outside with Galils and Uzis looking around in a cover pattern. An ambulance is already out front, stretchers already on the ground, people being haphazardly rolled on to their backs and lifted. Fuck a neck brace at this point.
I call her name again, and still nothing. For some reason I’m comfortable accepting that she’s dead. My rationale is that at least she didn’t suffer, hopefully. Hopefully she was close enough to the bomber to be obliterated and isn’t lying under a pile of bodies suffocating and bleeding. God it’s so hot.
Finally there’s a tug at my pant leg and I look down. I see her face, half of it. Her mouth is caked in black, and a rope of spit is between her two lips as she’s trying to talk, maybe say my name. I drop to my knees and grab her up, cradling her head in my arms.
I don’t remember crying, I don’t remember saying anything, just holding and squeezing. Sara’s body is half black, burnt. Her right side is blacked out completely. No hair on her head, just tufts on the left side. Her ear is missing, her eye is shut, mouth doesn’t even look like a mouth, just a twisted wound.
Her right leg is missing, a bloody stump slowly lifting and falling. I shake a little, and she clutches to my chest with a bloody paw. She shudders in my arms, like a gentle cough and her grip gets tighter. God, just hold on, please stay, please.
I lift my head and do as I was taught in the army. I call for a medic, I scream for a medic. I can’t find my voice, it’s buried under all the bodies and debris. I start to cry then, or maybe I’ve been crying all along. I just need someone to help me, help her. The anger then starts to build as she starts to fade.
Finally, a young medic in white runs over and grabs her from me. He pushes me aside and I try to get back to her, get closer to her. I want to tell her I’m not letting her go, I’m not leaving. I can’t find the strength, and I watch them drag her outside, her stump of a leg waving good bye as her head lulls backwards, her burnt face looking up at the young medic in white.
I would later find out that she died on the way to the hospital.
I received a check for two-point-eight million dollars in insurance coverage, and decided that it would be better to just move away. I could relate then to my friend who left
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Advice For Graduating Seniors...
Jim wrote this about two or three years ago for a graduating high school senior he knew. The information within is still useful today, and since he's struggling with putting out his "Bike Week" article, we here at the office felt we should run this instead. -ed.
You’re about to embark on a journey to higher education. You’re on your way to be an Elite, a member of a society of people who have gone the extra mile and succeeded. But it’s not an easy trip, and there’s lots of things out there that you might come across and have no idea what to expect. I hope this book is helpful, but seeing as I’ve not read it, I will give you some advice/insights from my own college experience (I graduated with a BA from John Jay College in NYC in December) which I hope will help you. Good luck!
-Your High School graduation is a big deal. For about a year. Then you, along with everyone you know – parents included – won’t give two shits. Try to find a nice place to put your high school diploma where it won’t get a soda can ring on it.
-College is mostly about learning to interact with your peers, not so much about what goes on in class. Actually, you should spend as much time not doing anything class related.
-That said, wait til the absolute last second to buy your books. If you decide to at all.
-On the subject of books, they’re overpriced and you will never use them. Just because they package a useless CD-Rom with the book, it automatically will cost you over 100 dollars. And when you go to “sell them back” to the bookstore, you get roughly 5% of what you paid. If you need anything out of a book for a paper, might I suggest Google.
-Your roommate, ideally, should be your best friend. He will only become your enemy. Do not ever trust him, or anyone he brings over, ever.
-“Girls? You’re a freshman, so they’re pretty much off limits.” -Jeremy Piven, PCU. That quote is totally true. However, as incentive to stick with college until you get your degree: the older you are in college, even as a sophomore, impressionable young freshman girls will flock to you. Hence, if you’re a Super Senior, 18 year old frosh chicks will literally sit on your hands and beg to be finger blasted by you on a stained futon in someone’s basement. Who’s basement? Like it matters, brah.
-Of course, there are three things you should never be without, ever. They are, in order of importance… Beer: Have plenty of it, because it makes you cool, girls cute, and your roommate’s shitty taste in music, rock. Condoms: they keep you from having to take trips to the campus clinic, unwanted baby’s mamas, and your pubes from falling out. Bottled Water/Brita Filter: It basically reverses all the side effects of the beer and fucking with a condom on.
-You will be expected to write ten to fifteen page papers on a regular basis. Don’t worry about this. These papers are going to be double spaced to begin with, meaning you’re only writing a 5 to 7 page paper. Also, your professors will NEVER read your papers. So the only things you need to concentrate on are the first paragraph and last paragraph, which will introduce your topic and reiterate your topic. Everything in between should be mindless filler/bullshit. It will never be read, don’t worry. Your grade will be represented by how many multi-syllable words you use in the first and last paragraph.
-If you have TAs (Teaching Assistants) and one in particular happens to be a hot chick, do everything you can to sleep with her. And I mean everything.
-You will gain weight. There’s nothing you can do. Accept it.
-Don’t be that dick that brings 6,541,661,484 DVDs to school with him. Your top 5 should be good enough.
You’ll find that girls in college are apt to make out with each other. This is a good thing.
-Being a freshman, you probably won’t be able to have a car on campus, that sucks, but think of the gas money you’ll save!
-Oh, you’ll shit a lot. A ton. I mean, an actual metric ton of shit will come out of your ass. The story will go around that the cafeteria laces its food with laxatives. This isn’t true; it’s actually the plate of French fries you’ve been eating as a meal for the last four months.
-Along with this, you will be constantly sick. Living in a dorm with a bunch of other guys, who barely bathe and masturbate when their roommates are at class and not washing their hands, will cause you to become ill. You can only kill the germs by drowning them in alcohol. Litre after litre of delicious alcohol.
-NCAA Div 1, 2 or 3 sports won’t mean shit to you, but your Residential Dorm Intramural Wiffle Ball League will be everything to you for five months.
I hope these tips help you out. And of course, best of luck.
j.
You’re about to embark on a journey to higher education. You’re on your way to be an Elite, a member of a society of people who have gone the extra mile and succeeded. But it’s not an easy trip, and there’s lots of things out there that you might come across and have no idea what to expect. I hope this book is helpful, but seeing as I’ve not read it, I will give you some advice/insights from my own college experience (I graduated with a BA from John Jay College in NYC in December) which I hope will help you. Good luck!
-Your High School graduation is a big deal. For about a year. Then you, along with everyone you know – parents included – won’t give two shits. Try to find a nice place to put your high school diploma where it won’t get a soda can ring on it.
-College is mostly about learning to interact with your peers, not so much about what goes on in class. Actually, you should spend as much time not doing anything class related.
-That said, wait til the absolute last second to buy your books. If you decide to at all.
-On the subject of books, they’re overpriced and you will never use them. Just because they package a useless CD-Rom with the book, it automatically will cost you over 100 dollars. And when you go to “sell them back” to the bookstore, you get roughly 5% of what you paid. If you need anything out of a book for a paper, might I suggest Google.
-Your roommate, ideally, should be your best friend. He will only become your enemy. Do not ever trust him, or anyone he brings over, ever.
-“Girls? You’re a freshman, so they’re pretty much off limits.” -Jeremy Piven, PCU. That quote is totally true. However, as incentive to stick with college until you get your degree: the older you are in college, even as a sophomore, impressionable young freshman girls will flock to you. Hence, if you’re a Super Senior, 18 year old frosh chicks will literally sit on your hands and beg to be finger blasted by you on a stained futon in someone’s basement. Who’s basement? Like it matters, brah.
-Of course, there are three things you should never be without, ever. They are, in order of importance… Beer: Have plenty of it, because it makes you cool, girls cute, and your roommate’s shitty taste in music, rock. Condoms: they keep you from having to take trips to the campus clinic, unwanted baby’s mamas, and your pubes from falling out. Bottled Water/Brita Filter: It basically reverses all the side effects of the beer and fucking with a condom on.
-You will be expected to write ten to fifteen page papers on a regular basis. Don’t worry about this. These papers are going to be double spaced to begin with, meaning you’re only writing a 5 to 7 page paper. Also, your professors will NEVER read your papers. So the only things you need to concentrate on are the first paragraph and last paragraph, which will introduce your topic and reiterate your topic. Everything in between should be mindless filler/bullshit. It will never be read, don’t worry. Your grade will be represented by how many multi-syllable words you use in the first and last paragraph.
-If you have TAs (Teaching Assistants) and one in particular happens to be a hot chick, do everything you can to sleep with her. And I mean everything.
-You will gain weight. There’s nothing you can do. Accept it.
-Don’t be that dick that brings 6,541,661,484 DVDs to school with him. Your top 5 should be good enough.
You’ll find that girls in college are apt to make out with each other. This is a good thing.
-Being a freshman, you probably won’t be able to have a car on campus, that sucks, but think of the gas money you’ll save!
-Oh, you’ll shit a lot. A ton. I mean, an actual metric ton of shit will come out of your ass. The story will go around that the cafeteria laces its food with laxatives. This isn’t true; it’s actually the plate of French fries you’ve been eating as a meal for the last four months.
-Along with this, you will be constantly sick. Living in a dorm with a bunch of other guys, who barely bathe and masturbate when their roommates are at class and not washing their hands, will cause you to become ill. You can only kill the germs by drowning them in alcohol. Litre after litre of delicious alcohol.
-NCAA Div 1, 2 or 3 sports won’t mean shit to you, but your Residential Dorm Intramural Wiffle Ball League will be everything to you for five months.
I hope these tips help you out. And of course, best of luck.
j.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Hardly A Non-Conformist
So I went to bed last night for a few hours, and in typical fashion I set the timer on my tv for about half an hour, and rolled over the other way to start drifting off to sleep.
Suddenly I was jerked out of my semi-conscience state when I overheard something that I knew couldn't be true.
It was an ad for McDonalds, where the dickhole on tv was like "I'm a non-conformist, I eat at McDonalds!"
....I find this direction in advertising very discomforting.
Ok, first off, where the hell does Mickey D's get off on playing the "non-conformity" card when they proudly advertise that they've served literally BILLIONS of people since their inseption into Main Stream Americana back in like, 1955?
Bitch, your great-grandfather has probably eaten a McDonald's fish sandwich, is what I'm saying.
Has "non-conformity" totally lost it's meaning in today's society? People are so demanding of a non-conformist state, to fight back and bite the hand that feeds them, that it's now spread into the most conformist medium of all, advertising?
The very idea behind advertising is to get as many people as possible to "conform" to one idea or product. This is how companies generate dollars so that the people who work for these companies can drive home in their expensive cars to their expensive houses and get 'luded up on expensive prescription drugs.
In other words, advertisers think we're all sheep. And for the most part, they're right.
Another great example of the non-conformity trend in advertisement is that AARP or ... fucking... whatever Dennis Hopper's shilling for lately. Here's this iconic symbol of perpetual non-conformity in the form of an actor who got his start being the ultimate non-conformist in the film "Easy Rider," telling wisened baby-boomers to conform to a special interest group so they can save on medicine and afternoon movie tickets. All the while there's some catchy 60's pop hit playing in the background, and footage of some graying old guy carrying a surf board across the beach. I can only imagine the numbers of achy-jointed retirees being like "hey, I still got what it takes, I can get out there and show the world I'm not done yet! I won't conform to these standards set upon me by society in general, half expectant of me to slowly and quietly die in my own feces stained boxer shorts with baked beans running down my chin in my favorite Laz-E-Boy! No! I'll give them what-for!"
You and everyone else, grampa.
I'm just tired of this game that advertisers want to play with Americans because they (by and large) think we're collectively dumb bovines being lead to the slaughter floor. McDonald's is probably the most culturally significant icon in America and for them to say their customers (myself included) are non-conformists (all like, 80 billion or whatever) is ludacris. This makes as much sense as them selling customer's fucking salads.
Just stop feedings us lines of shit (both literally and figuratively) and come out and say "hey, if it was good enough for four prior generations of obese Americans, it's good enough for you too," and I'll be happy. It's not like when I was living in NYC that I never saw some skinny hipster kid eating a Quarter Pounder with Cheese...
There is no such thing as a non-conformer anymore. Everyone conforms to the same ideas because there's no new ideas to be had. No one thinks for themselves anymore. We're spoon-fed opinions by different media sources and we align ourselves with which makes us feel more empowered.
The other night The Lady and I were out on my porch drinking scotch and talking politics, which was uncommon, but probably due to our mutual inebriation. She brought up the fact that people no longer have their own opinions and that we collectively do what we're told by whoever. Sadly she's right. People don't take the time to digest information anymore. We're literally traveling down the road to a place where we're told what to think.
I'm serious.
The solution to all of this is that we need to stop not conforming. If the powers that be are happy to let us think we're all special and unique individuals, they'll keep pandering to us as such. If we can prove to them that we're one cohesive body with our own opinions (conforming behind one original idea or belief) we're a harder stone to push, and maybe America can un-stick itself from the toilet it's been trapped on as it tries to finish digesting sixty years of Chicken McNuggets.
Suddenly I was jerked out of my semi-conscience state when I overheard something that I knew couldn't be true.
It was an ad for McDonalds, where the dickhole on tv was like "I'm a non-conformist, I eat at McDonalds!"
....I find this direction in advertising very discomforting.
Ok, first off, where the hell does Mickey D's get off on playing the "non-conformity" card when they proudly advertise that they've served literally BILLIONS of people since their inseption into Main Stream Americana back in like, 1955?
Bitch, your great-grandfather has probably eaten a McDonald's fish sandwich, is what I'm saying.
Has "non-conformity" totally lost it's meaning in today's society? People are so demanding of a non-conformist state, to fight back and bite the hand that feeds them, that it's now spread into the most conformist medium of all, advertising?
The very idea behind advertising is to get as many people as possible to "conform" to one idea or product. This is how companies generate dollars so that the people who work for these companies can drive home in their expensive cars to their expensive houses and get 'luded up on expensive prescription drugs.
In other words, advertisers think we're all sheep. And for the most part, they're right.
Another great example of the non-conformity trend in advertisement is that AARP or ... fucking... whatever Dennis Hopper's shilling for lately. Here's this iconic symbol of perpetual non-conformity in the form of an actor who got his start being the ultimate non-conformist in the film "Easy Rider," telling wisened baby-boomers to conform to a special interest group so they can save on medicine and afternoon movie tickets. All the while there's some catchy 60's pop hit playing in the background, and footage of some graying old guy carrying a surf board across the beach. I can only imagine the numbers of achy-jointed retirees being like "hey, I still got what it takes, I can get out there and show the world I'm not done yet! I won't conform to these standards set upon me by society in general, half expectant of me to slowly and quietly die in my own feces stained boxer shorts with baked beans running down my chin in my favorite Laz-E-Boy! No! I'll give them what-for!"
You and everyone else, grampa.
I'm just tired of this game that advertisers want to play with Americans because they (by and large) think we're collectively dumb bovines being lead to the slaughter floor. McDonald's is probably the most culturally significant icon in America and for them to say their customers (myself included) are non-conformists (all like, 80 billion or whatever) is ludacris. This makes as much sense as them selling customer's fucking salads.
Just stop feedings us lines of shit (both literally and figuratively) and come out and say "hey, if it was good enough for four prior generations of obese Americans, it's good enough for you too," and I'll be happy. It's not like when I was living in NYC that I never saw some skinny hipster kid eating a Quarter Pounder with Cheese...
There is no such thing as a non-conformer anymore. Everyone conforms to the same ideas because there's no new ideas to be had. No one thinks for themselves anymore. We're spoon-fed opinions by different media sources and we align ourselves with which makes us feel more empowered.
The other night The Lady and I were out on my porch drinking scotch and talking politics, which was uncommon, but probably due to our mutual inebriation. She brought up the fact that people no longer have their own opinions and that we collectively do what we're told by whoever. Sadly she's right. People don't take the time to digest information anymore. We're literally traveling down the road to a place where we're told what to think.
I'm serious.
The solution to all of this is that we need to stop not conforming. If the powers that be are happy to let us think we're all special and unique individuals, they'll keep pandering to us as such. If we can prove to them that we're one cohesive body with our own opinions (conforming behind one original idea or belief) we're a harder stone to push, and maybe America can un-stick itself from the toilet it's been trapped on as it tries to finish digesting sixty years of Chicken McNuggets.
Monday, May 5, 2008
The Roommate and The Prostitute from Friendly's
"You eat like a soldier," The Lady says as she sits next to me at the counter of a homey diner in Orleans while I'm digging into a stack of pancakes. I keep my head down as I eat, shoveling food thoughtlessly into my gullet, chewing, sipping coffee, intent on my next delicious morsale, not taking the time to enjoy the one that's currently in my mouth.
I bring this up because we tend to go out to eat alot. It somewhat burns me up that I'll drop a hundred bucks on groceries at ... sigh... Shaw's, and then go drop another 50 on dinner with The Lady and The RM.
So this takes us to last night: We three are sitting at the local Friendly's at The RM's behest and being served by a reasonably attractive blonde. The Lady remarks about how attractive she is to the RM, who is turning red with each passing minute.
A long discussion is had about my RM's lack of balls. We, The Lady and I, keep provoking him to ask for her number and he's still acting like himself, not taking intiative - yet complaining about how he's going to go through life lonely and sad....
It makes for a very tiresome evening meal.
So fast foward to the end of the meal and the RM's all nervous... he asks us, me and The Lady, to step out and get a smoke and we do so. He then mans up and gets the digits from the waitress while forging my name on the receipt. He exits the Friendly's smiling ear to ear, and it seems like everything in the world is right for once.
So again, fast forward and I'm in bed right at that point where you're about to fall into a delightful slumber, when in busts my RM, panic-stricken.
"Dude, I texted that girl..." He says. We had given him explicitly strict orders not to make contact with her for at least the night.
"Why?" As I'm laying face down on my bed.
"Well she text me back," he manuavers around the question, "and told me to lose her number, because we didn't tip her!" I can hear the panic in his voice so I look up, half push up style.
"What? Why didn't you tip her?!" I'm somewhat angry... well agitated mostly, by this news and as well as being interupted as I'm close to sleeping. But importantly, I'm somewhat pissed at the fact that we didn't tip this waitress, because I'm very fond of tipping, and tipping well. So the idea of this waitress (she was a shitty waitress though, had a whole lot of attitude...) going without a tip got under my skin.
"I thought The Lady was leaving a cash tip!" What had happened was that we had discussed seperate bills and a cash tip during the meal, but I just said 'fuck it' and opted to pay for everyone on my card because it was easier. The Lady had taken out some cash to leave towards the tip but I told her to put it away. Hence all the confusion.
So at this point, the RM is up in arms and freaking out. I tell him, rather grumpily to forget about it, "if she's so into the money, then why would you be interested in her at all?" I say from my pillow. He closes my door and goes to bed.
...So I think....
Turns out, right after that, the RM takes off to an ATM, gets twenty bucks in cash, and with a note places it in an envelope and shoots back over to the Friendly's as it's closing. He manages to talk his way inside and confronts the waitress giving her the envelope.
"I threw it in her face," he goes on to tell me this morning, "like an OG would."
She text messages him back shortly there after apologizing for her gold-digger-like first impression and they set up a date for a movie.
Now, what hits a couple of key sour notes in this tale is that, 1) where did my roommate's balls suddenly come in, where he would march back into an closed establishment, and pull of this Jack Bauer-like stunt? Especially without witnesses. And then! And then! I check my bank balance this morning online and see that Friendly's took out 58 dollars from my checking account last night. ...I remember distinctly that the bill for the three of us was 49.00 even. So where did this extra 7 dollars come from?
Either the RM actually did leave a tip (a seven dollar tip seems about on point for what he'd leave) and this entire story is a farse, or the little prostitute took it upon herself to help herself to a tip. If that's the case I plan on filing a complaint with the Friendly's.
Allow me to go off on a brief tangent: Being that service industry folks make like 3.50 an hour, they depend on tips. I understand this, and my heart goes out to the hard working waiters and waitresses that literally slave for customers like me. That's why I try to over tip as often as possible, even when the service isn't what I'd consider up to par. That's the situation we had last night. The waitress, the RM's apparent new paramour was lifeless, sarcastic and unpleasant. I thought her waitressing sucked. She dropped plates in front of us, had very little enthusiasm when taking our orders and had zero personality. All that said, since she was taking care of three of us on one bill, I would've left her probably a ten or twelve dollar tip.
If the case is that she tipped herself, thinking we were cheapskates, she had no right. No tip or gratuity is considered a guarentee. You EARN a good tip, and you do so by being polite, friendly, a little outgoing, etc. I'm not asking her to adorn flair and sing happy birthday songs and stand on her fucking head, I'm just asking for decent service, maybe with a little less sarcasm/spit in my food.
Also, if she told the RM to lose her number, would it be conceivible that she would've deleted his as well? How would she have been able to text him as he was leaving?
So, what's it going to be in the end? I need to sit down and grill my RM about all of this and get down to brass tacks. If he tipped her out I need to know if his whole story is make-believe or not. If that's the case then I'll sit down with him and have a man-to-man about making shit up. If it turns out his side of the story is true, than I know of a local Friendly's that'll have a 'help wanted' sign posted in their front window, very soon.
I bring this up because we tend to go out to eat alot. It somewhat burns me up that I'll drop a hundred bucks on groceries at ... sigh... Shaw's, and then go drop another 50 on dinner with The Lady and The RM.
So this takes us to last night: We three are sitting at the local Friendly's at The RM's behest and being served by a reasonably attractive blonde. The Lady remarks about how attractive she is to the RM, who is turning red with each passing minute.
A long discussion is had about my RM's lack of balls. We, The Lady and I, keep provoking him to ask for her number and he's still acting like himself, not taking intiative - yet complaining about how he's going to go through life lonely and sad....
It makes for a very tiresome evening meal.
So fast foward to the end of the meal and the RM's all nervous... he asks us, me and The Lady, to step out and get a smoke and we do so. He then mans up and gets the digits from the waitress while forging my name on the receipt. He exits the Friendly's smiling ear to ear, and it seems like everything in the world is right for once.
So again, fast forward and I'm in bed right at that point where you're about to fall into a delightful slumber, when in busts my RM, panic-stricken.
"Dude, I texted that girl..." He says. We had given him explicitly strict orders not to make contact with her for at least the night.
"Why?" As I'm laying face down on my bed.
"Well she text me back," he manuavers around the question, "and told me to lose her number, because we didn't tip her!" I can hear the panic in his voice so I look up, half push up style.
"What? Why didn't you tip her?!" I'm somewhat angry... well agitated mostly, by this news and as well as being interupted as I'm close to sleeping. But importantly, I'm somewhat pissed at the fact that we didn't tip this waitress, because I'm very fond of tipping, and tipping well. So the idea of this waitress (she was a shitty waitress though, had a whole lot of attitude...) going without a tip got under my skin.
"I thought The Lady was leaving a cash tip!" What had happened was that we had discussed seperate bills and a cash tip during the meal, but I just said 'fuck it' and opted to pay for everyone on my card because it was easier. The Lady had taken out some cash to leave towards the tip but I told her to put it away. Hence all the confusion.
So at this point, the RM is up in arms and freaking out. I tell him, rather grumpily to forget about it, "if she's so into the money, then why would you be interested in her at all?" I say from my pillow. He closes my door and goes to bed.
...So I think....
Turns out, right after that, the RM takes off to an ATM, gets twenty bucks in cash, and with a note places it in an envelope and shoots back over to the Friendly's as it's closing. He manages to talk his way inside and confronts the waitress giving her the envelope.
"I threw it in her face," he goes on to tell me this morning, "like an OG would."
She text messages him back shortly there after apologizing for her gold-digger-like first impression and they set up a date for a movie.
Now, what hits a couple of key sour notes in this tale is that, 1) where did my roommate's balls suddenly come in, where he would march back into an closed establishment, and pull of this Jack Bauer-like stunt? Especially without witnesses. And then! And then! I check my bank balance this morning online and see that Friendly's took out 58 dollars from my checking account last night. ...I remember distinctly that the bill for the three of us was 49.00 even. So where did this extra 7 dollars come from?
Either the RM actually did leave a tip (a seven dollar tip seems about on point for what he'd leave) and this entire story is a farse, or the little prostitute took it upon herself to help herself to a tip. If that's the case I plan on filing a complaint with the Friendly's.
Allow me to go off on a brief tangent: Being that service industry folks make like 3.50 an hour, they depend on tips. I understand this, and my heart goes out to the hard working waiters and waitresses that literally slave for customers like me. That's why I try to over tip as often as possible, even when the service isn't what I'd consider up to par. That's the situation we had last night. The waitress, the RM's apparent new paramour was lifeless, sarcastic and unpleasant. I thought her waitressing sucked. She dropped plates in front of us, had very little enthusiasm when taking our orders and had zero personality. All that said, since she was taking care of three of us on one bill, I would've left her probably a ten or twelve dollar tip.
If the case is that she tipped herself, thinking we were cheapskates, she had no right. No tip or gratuity is considered a guarentee. You EARN a good tip, and you do so by being polite, friendly, a little outgoing, etc. I'm not asking her to adorn flair and sing happy birthday songs and stand on her fucking head, I'm just asking for decent service, maybe with a little less sarcasm/spit in my food.
Also, if she told the RM to lose her number, would it be conceivible that she would've deleted his as well? How would she have been able to text him as he was leaving?
So, what's it going to be in the end? I need to sit down and grill my RM about all of this and get down to brass tacks. If he tipped her out I need to know if his whole story is make-believe or not. If that's the case then I'll sit down with him and have a man-to-man about making shit up. If it turns out his side of the story is true, than I know of a local Friendly's that'll have a 'help wanted' sign posted in their front window, very soon.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Oh Man, French Toast Sounds Awesome Right Now
I'm on watch and it's just after 1 am. It's this time of night when I'm most vunerable to nodding off in my chair in front of the computer, radios and monitors. It's the balls; it's rough - the harder I try to study my materials for the boats and such, the heavier my eyes tend to get.
I try to stave it off by switching from study materials to something on the internet. I might browse a few stories on the Times website, or redsox.com, or The Onion, what-have-you. I might look up and price out different new cars I've had my eye on... and if it get really bad - and I mean to the point where I actually do nod off for like, ten seconds, I pop out of my chair and get down on the ground and push out as many push-ups I can do before my arms shake.
I'm up to about 100.
Anyway, so I'm sitting back with my manual in front of me for the 47' MLB, my note pad next to that, the Netflix home page in front of me on the screen, when suddenly I catch this odd whiff of something very nostalgia-inducing.
That ever happen to you? You're sitting some place, whether it be on a bus or at the mall or a friend's house and suddenly your memory is jerked by some smell? You just catch a hint of roasting potatoes or something and suddenly you're ten years old eating dinner at your grandmother's house, or you're at a movie theatre and suddenly you get a sniff of camp fire and you remember that one summer you spent two weeks with your best friend at his family's cabin in the woods.
I caught a whiff, just a few moments ago, of my mom's french toast.
I'm a breakfast guy; huge into breakfast, love breakfast foods, I cook a mean-fucking-breakfast, man. But nothing, not IHOP, not Denny's, not McDonald's, nothing, no one, can top my mom's french toast. I remember being as little as four or five and being woken up to the smells of cinnamon-y egg-battered bread frying on a griddle. A fat dab of butter on top of each slice of bread stacked up on a plate and then soaked in a drum of maple syrup. Jesus Horatio Christ, how awesome would it be right now to have a short stack of my mom's french toast?
Wash it down with a tall cold glass of whole milk. Fuck yes.
It's hard to get the point across about how good this french toast is, but I'll try: Imagine you're best orgasm, like I'm talking about the very first time you came. When it happened you had no idea what your body just went through; you were shocked, scared, out of breath, leaking, probably thought you either just A) killed yourself, or B) did something you weren't supposed to do to yourself or C) saw the face of God. Either way, that pulsing sense of euphoria that coursed it's way through your veins from your privates to your brain and back down your spine to your feet was the heaviest and best narcotic you've ever encountered and will ever encounter. The very hint of the sensation of that first bodily explosion is something you will literally spend your life chasing, and it forever eluding you.
That's how fucking good my mom's french toast is.
In other words, I would not hesitate for one second to put a bullet in your face if it ment getting one fucking forkful of my mom's french toast into my mouth.
If it meant climbing to the top of Mount Everest naked to get a bite of that eggy, syrup-sogged bread, I would.
I would sell my soul at KMart prices to the devil himself, for a hot plate of mom's breakfast delicacy.
I would sit through all three "Fast and The Furious" films. Bet your ass I would.
I try to stave it off by switching from study materials to something on the internet. I might browse a few stories on the Times website, or redsox.com, or The Onion, what-have-you. I might look up and price out different new cars I've had my eye on... and if it get really bad - and I mean to the point where I actually do nod off for like, ten seconds, I pop out of my chair and get down on the ground and push out as many push-ups I can do before my arms shake.
I'm up to about 100.
Anyway, so I'm sitting back with my manual in front of me for the 47' MLB, my note pad next to that, the Netflix home page in front of me on the screen, when suddenly I catch this odd whiff of something very nostalgia-inducing.
That ever happen to you? You're sitting some place, whether it be on a bus or at the mall or a friend's house and suddenly your memory is jerked by some smell? You just catch a hint of roasting potatoes or something and suddenly you're ten years old eating dinner at your grandmother's house, or you're at a movie theatre and suddenly you get a sniff of camp fire and you remember that one summer you spent two weeks with your best friend at his family's cabin in the woods.
I caught a whiff, just a few moments ago, of my mom's french toast.
I'm a breakfast guy; huge into breakfast, love breakfast foods, I cook a mean-fucking-breakfast, man. But nothing, not IHOP, not Denny's, not McDonald's, nothing, no one, can top my mom's french toast. I remember being as little as four or five and being woken up to the smells of cinnamon-y egg-battered bread frying on a griddle. A fat dab of butter on top of each slice of bread stacked up on a plate and then soaked in a drum of maple syrup. Jesus Horatio Christ, how awesome would it be right now to have a short stack of my mom's french toast?
Wash it down with a tall cold glass of whole milk. Fuck yes.
It's hard to get the point across about how good this french toast is, but I'll try: Imagine you're best orgasm, like I'm talking about the very first time you came. When it happened you had no idea what your body just went through; you were shocked, scared, out of breath, leaking, probably thought you either just A) killed yourself, or B) did something you weren't supposed to do to yourself or C) saw the face of God. Either way, that pulsing sense of euphoria that coursed it's way through your veins from your privates to your brain and back down your spine to your feet was the heaviest and best narcotic you've ever encountered and will ever encounter. The very hint of the sensation of that first bodily explosion is something you will literally spend your life chasing, and it forever eluding you.
That's how fucking good my mom's french toast is.
In other words, I would not hesitate for one second to put a bullet in your face if it ment getting one fucking forkful of my mom's french toast into my mouth.
If it meant climbing to the top of Mount Everest naked to get a bite of that eggy, syrup-sogged bread, I would.
I would sell my soul at KMart prices to the devil himself, for a hot plate of mom's breakfast delicacy.
I would sit through all three "Fast and The Furious" films. Bet your ass I would.
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