Drug Wars

10/4/08
I landed on a steaming piece of tar-mat on the edge of the Dorian Gap at 2300 hours today on what was my first active day of duty in this 40 year long war. Seriously. It’s been 40 years since Nixon first declared that drugs were the problem in 1969 and that we, the imperial, invincible America, would be bringing the fight to the drugs. I hopped off the Blackhawk and quickly fell into formation along with my other FNG’s. That, I quickly learned, stands for Fucking New Guy. Our CO (commanding officer) Col. Pabst, a huge keg of a man, greeted us. He welcomed us to the Colombian Theater and said we had it fucking easy because the marijuana presence here was way lower than what our buddies in Puerto Penasco, Mexico were fighting. There was only one known weed group operating that we, under any circumstances, did not want to cross. Coke and smack levels were about even. Col. Pabst said he’s been down here fighting since “Smells Like Teen Spirit was relevant” whatever that means. The drugs we were hunting move by day, so we were advised to get our asses to camp, aka, the cooler, make some friends and get some shut eye.

I met some of the other guys in the group; there was Bud and Miller, a couple of Joe-six packs like myself. There were some raspy guys named Camel, Marlborough and Virginia Slim. They seemed pretty cool. Then was also Daniels, Bean, Adams, a guy calling himself Magic Hat, this one real ugly guy we all started calling Dogfish Head, and a bunch of others. This guy Adderall was a fucking madman. He reminded me of the coke stories I was told back home something awful.

10/5/08
Our first patrol ended in a disaster. We lost 31 men.

10/6/08
I’ve taken some time out from what I saw. I’m just now able to organize my thoughts into coherent sentences. So much happened so fast in such a short amount of time, it’s hard to process that kind of horror. The fact is, after this all happened, I needed a stiff drink. I needed it like I need to get the hell out of here.

Yesterday we stepped into the bush. We were on a search-and-destroy recon; there were sightings of some keys of coke located 2 clicks from our perimeter. As deftly as one can move in that fucking shitty ass jungle, organized ourselves into position to ambush a small jeep that had a coke driver behind the wheel. He wasn’t moving. The last thing I remember thinking was “…this isn’t right.”

It was a trap. All of a sudden it started raining cocaine. It was like goddamn Berserker Christmas in the jungle. They opened fire on us, lighting up the whole place. Some guys fell instantly. We fired back wildly. One of the coke guys descended from his hiding place way up in the trees and grabbed Dogfish by the face. His powdery hand pushed way up Dogfish’s nose, and then pulled out again. Dogfish stood there for a second, in the middle of all gunfire and rocket explosions. I could see his breathing getting faster, and faster, and faster. His eyes slowly widening to the size of TV screens. Blood trickled out of his nose. He let out his final sound, a scared, angry yell, before his heart ruptured and his chest exploded.

An enemy rocket landed 10 feet away and blew me into the clearing. I rolled up the jeep and stopped when my head made a metallic smack against the door. Christ it hurt. I was disoriented, not sure of who was what and where I am and when I was. Nothing made sense. I did notice the coke driver of the jeep, the one who led us all into a false sense of security. He was dead. His own buddies killed him just so they can lure us all here.

My men made their way into the clearing, which was the stupidest thing imaginable. Now the enemy could see us and pick us off at their leisure while we stood around with our tabs up our asses.

Those sick fucks. They sent smack into the clearing, just to toy with us. It is still inconceivable to me how those guys moved so slow and at the same time were so fucking hard to hit. I’ve never seen anything like it. Their extraneous body movements seemed to border premeditation; they dodged bullets! They were dodging fucking bullets. One made it up to Bud and pierced his can with a needle. Bud’s eyes rolled back, foam poured out of his mouth, and died before his body hit the floor.

And then things got worse. Weed came here to party.

I now know why Col. Pabst said to look out for these guys. They were the ninjas of the jungle. Against the forest background they could appear, deal heavy damage, and disappear in a cloud of smoke without a trace. It was hard to detect weed. We must have stood out like the loud, boorish Americans we were. There was a lot of hate in their eyes. I think they felt resentful for the way they have been treated in our country over the past 4 decades after living peacefully there for centuries. Never ever give the person you are fighting a reason to fight. That is a fight you cannot win. They let us know exactly how they felt by making it rain lead.

The only one who seemed completely normal was Adderall. He was in his element. “Common you faggots! They’re all around us! Nowhere for them to escape to! Ahahaha!” He was mad. It was hard to hear him over the omnipresent gun fire.

I was amazed at how well the enemy fought for being simple, home grown country bumpkins. The boys and I were all backed by huge, privatized, billion dollar industries. It just didn’t make any sense.

The only way some of us were getting out of there was if we charged the jungle and made our way back to camp. Otherwise we would all die. Col. Pabst lead the way. He immediately got shot; fluid started to gush from the wound. The pressure change was so great that the fluid forced a tap in his head to open and before you could say “last call” his insides were as empty as this war we were fighting. I got drenched in Col. Pabst.

As I was running through the jungle I had Adderall and Virginia Slim by my sides. A stray bullet tagged slim in his butt. Adderall and I dragged him 2 clicks through the shitty fucking jungle at full speed, with him shrieking like a little girl, until we made it back to the cooler.

I got a cold wrap bandage around my head; Adderall got a bigger gun out of the munitions chest; Virginia slim got lucky. We were part of the handful that made it back alive. After a few days, word is we will be getting some FNGs to replace the men we lost. When I heard we are heading straight back into the jungle, I went straight to the alcohol serving station to forget that I'm stuck here for 18 months. I’ve been there ever since.

Lost in the Woods: The GOP

The early spring sun hovered just above the horizon. Soon it would be pitch black; even the moon and stars would be blocked out by the twig canopy of the trees. In the mean time, long, ominous shadows were cast in this remote part of the Appalachian Mountains. They were hiking the trail, but decided an off-beat path was the most direct route to Interstate 66, which would have led directly to Constitution Avenue in Washington.

“Maverick!” Sarah Palin exclaimed. “Isn’t that what they call you, John? Fucking Maverick? Like you’re in fucking Top Gun? Thanks to you we are all gonna die out here. Thanks, John. Thanks a lot.” Palin was constantly stumbling. With every step she took, the heel of her stilettos sank deep into the moist soil.

“Jesus Christ, I thought you knew what you were doing. Did being tortured make you forget all your Vietnam survival training or are you just a senile old piece of mummy shit!”

“Back off,” John McCain started. “You Arctic hillbilly she-wolf. So help me…if you don’t stop your incessant bitching I will end you. Right here. In front of Jindal, Steele and God I will fucking end your life.”

“Yeah I’d like to see your decrepit body just try and”- Sarah began, but was cut short when she tripped over a tree root. She landed face down in the cakey mud. Jindal and Steele rushed over to help her up. John McCain remained inanimate. He loomed over the scene disapprovingly with his arms crossed and neck tie serving as a makeshift headband; its tail caught in the wind. Michael Steele copped a quick feel of Palin’s ass.

“Off me…GET OFF ME YOU NOBODIES!” Sarah was now in full-blown crying tantrum mode. “I never wanted any of this! I used to be in beauty pageants! I was a somebody! But you, you, assholes had to drag me out here! It’s all your fault! Now my hair’s a mess, my clothes and makeup are ruined, my daughters a mommy and everyone thinks I’m stupiiiiiiii”- her rant cut off by her own, uncontrollable sobbing.

“Please, don’t cry Sarah. It’s going to be alright. Everything is going to be fine” Said Bobby Jindal. McCain snorted “this is bullshit” under his breath while Steele remained ominously silent.


“Oh, what the hell do you know, Apu? You sound like a cross between Clarice Starling and Kermit the goddamn Frog. Get the fuck out of my country.”

“Ms. Sarah, please” Jindal pleaded.

“’Oh yehs yehs, verry goot. Verry goot. Yoo dumb fellow, Mr. Obama. Yoo verry verry dumb. I quit your policies. I quit them 1000 times!’ you fucking paki.”

McCain grew tense. “Quiet, the both of you. Shut up. It’s getting dark. We need to start a fire if we’re going to survive this.”

Steele finally found the balls to talk. “Yes, brilliant thinking. True innovation. I agree with and fully support John on this idea.”

“Ok, good. Bobby, come here and give me your matches. We’re gonna clear a pit for a fire and camp around it for the night. Sarah, if you can manage to keep your fucking mouth shut for 5 minutes that would greatly help all of us. Michael, go out and find some fire wood.”

“Heeeeeey,” Steele pouted as his face sank. “I’m supposta be leadin’ this expedition.”

“Just shut up and do it you fucking cracker.”

…………………………………………………

It was day 6 and there was still no sign of civilization. The group was wearing very thin; thin on food, thin on energy, thin on hope. The only things they had an over abundance on were flies, skin rashes and hate. The sun was looking directly down on their heads as they baked in their own stew. The only one who seemed complacent was Steele. He was waiting for sweet release of death, and he anticipated it with a knowing smirk.

McCain was at his breaking point. He’s been in this situation before, holed up in the Hanoi Hilton where desperate men did desperate things. The next move was his, and he made this play before. Through his beady eyes he sized up his comrades. Jindal was lean and stringy, but still full of life. Taking him down would be a difficult challenge. Someone that young and strong would surely serve as a better ally than enemy. For now.

Palin was out like a doped up disco queen, sprawled out over a fallen log, muttering nonsensical half-phrases to herself, completely oblivious to the world around her. Easy prey. But a mildly attractive lady whose body can still put out, and certainly in her present, absent minded condition, would be a very powerful trading tool should they ever make it to the road and barter with a lonely, horny trucker. Better save her.

That just left Steele. Poor, poor, flabby, dopey Steele. He wasn’t even supposed to be here. And no one would ever miss him. He’s an idiot. Just look at him. That bald fucker actually said “bling” in a press conference. The imbecile.

“Pssst, Bobby. Bobby” McCain whispered. “Bobby, this has gone long enough. We need to feed. We need energy to sustain ourselves.”

“Yes, Senator. I agree with your logic. It’s very good logic. But there’s just one little problem: There’s nothing around to eat.”

“Oh I think we can find….something.” McCain stared directly at Steele, who was staring directly at the sun, smiling. Jindal wearily followed McCain’s line of sight to Steele. His eyes widened when John’s plan dawned upon him.

“No…”

“Yes.”

“No, John you can’t be serious.”

“Oh…oh Jesus. Oh Jesus!” Palin was talking in her sleep.

“Serious as one of my heart attacks.” He licked his lips. “Look, you’re new here, so let me explain to you how politics work. The goal is to not to do a great job; the goal is to just do the job. It’s all about survival. That is how this country is run and has been running since 1492. You do what you must to survive in this business. You do what needs to be done.”

The word “business” echoed in Jindal’s mind. “And if that means throwing someone under the bus, you just do it? Moral consequences be damned? Legal ramifications…fuck ‘em?”

“We’ll first off, we’re not just throwing him under the bus. I have nothing but the greatest respect for the tools I use. Think of this as, well, more of a sacrifice. He will be a sacrifice to our party. He goes down so that the rest of us may rise. And shit, son. Consequences and ramifications don’t mean diddly poop when you’re as powerful as us. Besides, he’s not a survivor. He was bound to die on this track anyway.”

Jindal took a moment to soak up everything that’s been said. In this dire situation, no one was safe. He accepted that this was the worst of Murphy’s Law and Natural Selection combined, even though is convictions as an Evangelical denounces both of those processes. He stared at Steele, and Steele stared back, smiling.

“Bling bling, my homies” said Steel out loud.

“Alright,” Jindal whispered to McCain. “You go high and I’ll go low. Still have that Bowie knife Barbra Bush gave you?”

“Right above my Wingtips.” He was referring to the knife holster on his right ankle.

“When I say Go, I’m going to rush him and pin him to the tree. You follow and when you get the chance, slice the pig’s throat.”

“Spill his blooooood!” Palin wailed.

“On my mark…” Jindal started. “Get set…” McCain’s eye involuntarily twitched.

“What’s crackin’, dawgs?”

“Go!”

Unused Facebook Quizzes

The world is constantly becoming more fucked. Obama pledges economic recovery that will not come any time soon. Thai troops cross into Cambodia, thereby starting an international incident. Seven die and nine are wounded in an attack in Afghanistan. And as a sign of how bad the economy is, Japan’s February exports were halved this year.

But here’s the worst thing:

Facebook has a new layout and oh my god it is so ugly and shitty.

It’s as if facebook did everything in its power to become more like its biggest social networking rivals, Myspace and Twitter. Because, hey, fuck originality. The site’s homepage is now a barrage of all the mundane, stupid nonsense status updates your friends manage to squeeze into their incredibly important and busy day. It’s 9:30 AM. How the fuck am I supposed to care, at all, even one tiny little bit, that you “want to be back in bed sleeping”? EVERYONE wishes they didn’t have a job and got to spend all day sleeping in and watching Lost. Welcome to America.

I hate the ubiquitous quizzes that seem to have popped up over night like a bad case of acne. Can they possibly be any more unoriginal and uninspired? They are in the same vein as that “25 things you may not know about me” thing that floated around a while ago that was ripped straight from the 2005 Myspace Play Book. I’m just glad there were some quizzes so bad they didn’t make the grade.

What Type of Nokia Product Defines Your Lifestyle?

The Most Likely Reason Someone Will Leave You

What Are You Born to Do, Circa Europe 1355

Which The Andy Milonakis Show Character Are You?

How You Should Die

The Quiz on Quantum Mechanics

How “Delaware” Are You?

Which Nickleback Song Are You?

BBQ or Honey Mustard?

How Well Do You Know Canadian History?

Fo’ Realz?!

Type Your Full Name, Birth Date and Social Security Number

Which Sexual Fetish Are You?

Which 1977 House of Representatives Bill Are You?

Am I Sitting In Front Of A Computer, Right Now?

Test Your Coke/Crack/Heroin IQ

Back to Nature

Enough conservative bashing. I’m going after hippies today, the filthy, retarded, lazy, drum circle playing, incoherent, hemp-covered tree-gypsies. I can’t wait until this site goes viral. I want to see the look on their crunchy faces when I knock ‘em down a peg. A peg that’s on their ladder made out of fallen branches. And tied together with hemp. And used to hang PETA slogans on a McDonald’s.

I agree with two of their major decrees: don’t be a dick, and “hey hey hey smoke weed every day”. Other than that, I have about as much in common with them ideologically as I do with Mugabe.

One of the biggest pieces of shit made from digested Burt’s Bees products they try to slip by us is The Nature argument. That’s when things are automatically better because they’re from nature. Sorry, “Silver Moon” (real name Thomas Silverstein). Mother Nature is a cross between the mom from Carrie, East German monster doms, and the worst camping trip you’ve ever been on. Nature is brutal. Everything can kill you; weather, lack of food, lack of survival skills, parasitic insects, poisonous plants, brain fungi. Common, a goddamn coconut falling from a tree can kill you.

I’m not saying we should burn every piece of unspoiled land to the ground and turn the world into one big strip mall. I just want to point out what hypocrites hippies are when it comes to living in nature. First, let’s compare the peoples of the world who actually do live in sync with nature; native Indian tribes in the Amazon, pygmy hut villages in Africa, and hillbilly families in the Ozarks. They are all dirt poor hunter/gatherers, superstitious, and raging drunks. (No lie. They all know how to make a bit of the shine. Alcohol is a great way to cope with omnipresent death).

Hippies don’t drink. Hippies go camping in state parks at designated camp sites. Hippies buy their food at farmers markets with money their parents give them as an allowance. Hippies are the sons and daughters of rich white people who were afforded the luxury of rebellion. Hippies love Phish but don’t eat meat, which is great when they tell us which cows we should and should not eat. “Don’t eat cows that have been fed antibiotics!” What? Oh shit that’s right. Antibiotics aren’t natural, but fucking cows dying of bacterial infections are. Nuke the shit out of the meat and your burrito is good to go.

“Don’t eat Frankenfood!” Frankenfood, by the way, is their cute little saying for genetically engineered food. Sorry, I like it when my food is bigger, uses less sunlight to grow and is pest-resistant. Hippies said bye-bye to real academics (re: science) since they discovered pot in 7th grade, so anything involving The Corporations is bad and that includes the evil science super lab Monsanto. So boo genetic engineering! Hell, why not go after dog breeding while they’re at it? Dog breeding is a form of genetic engineering. It’s just way more fun to watch in action.

Of course there can be scores written about how evil and reckless progress, technology, and the industrial revolution are. Duh. But this isn’t about them. Right now, it’s about the annoying tambourine space-clowns known as the hippies and their misguided attempts to save something worthwhile. They’re all heart and no brain. [Wizard of Oz joke]. Fuck them.

Rejected Blog Ideas

First off, I hate made-up words like “blog”. Saying or typing it makes me feel like some middle aged jackass who wears a shirt that says “blogosphere” and regurgitates every single CNN talking point from gay marriage to gay baby adoption (the adoption of gay babies). I fucking hate it and just needed to get that off my chest. Shoot me if I ever get Twitter.

Second, this blog (ugh) is written the exact same way my band The Mildreds used to write songs. We would come up with a title first and then write a song to accompany it. Sure, we would get backed into a creative corner every 5 out of 7 times, but the ones we kept were really different, fun and had a certain, “je ne sais quoi”; a real “what the fuck?” feel to them.

Below are some ideas that could have come to fruition if they were either better ideas or I was a better writer. In all likelihood, both.

Pope Judd Nelson I – An archbishop recounts living and serving under a man who has the ego of the Pope combined with the ego of the badass heartthrob from The Breakfast Club. Stupid, referency 80’s shit “hilarity” ensues. He declares condoms and Airheads to be sins against God.

Have I Got Some Shit to Sell You! – Monologue of a rude salesman attempting to sell useless products of poor quality. Use Billy Mayes as inspiration. Products may include disposable glasses, “Miracle Cream” (petroleum jelly and lard) and books on how to unlock The 8 Trigrams of Successful Stock Market Predicting. All the products are made in Taiwan.

Masturbating in Public Isn’t Cool – PSA style commercials aimed at the 12-18 demographic, trying to detour kids from ruining their lives (and someone’s day). Consider a talking animal mascot in sunglasses who skateboards. “Radical” is said no less than 5 times.

Pre Rapture Ministries Glances into the Sewers of False Christianity – Must include the sentence, “Let’s have a look at what that old devil is up to in his false church(s) [sic].” Consider ripping lines verbatim from West Borough. Design entry to look like Web 1.0 as much as possible. Invent books of the bible and quote them (The book of Danny; Kevin’s big book of Fun; Saxby: War Journal).

The Forgotten Muppets – List of bios and short stories of Muppets that fell by the wayside for their various personal shortcomings (whores, pills, horse racing, etc.). They should be made out of inferior material, like a raincoat and Styrofoam cups. One is removed for assaulting a child on The Muppet Show. One is removed for inappropriately touching Miss Piggy on Muppet Babies.

Trip Report: Full English Breakfast – The meal consists of lard, eggs, sausages, mushrooms, bacon, liver of lamb, black pudding, baked beans, tinned tomatoes, bread, and Stella Artois. All are fried in lard except the Stella. Halfway through I feel sick and trippy; ends with me having violent diarrhea and permanent hypertension. At some point I pass out and see the face of God.

Post-Modern Conceptual Free Jazz Performance Art

What’s shaking brothers and sisters?. The man calls me Peter Johnson, but I dig the handle Jack Happening. I’m gonna lay down some of my soul for you here tonight at Starbucks. So lay back, open your third eye and prepare for the crest of a wave that will never break. Yo, Dean! Lay down a mean beat. Gimme a fat slice!

*a man starts to play the bongos*

Clickety-clack goes the cat on the train tracks of life
a-swish-swishing his tail defiantly
in the face of the bourgeoisie guard dog
that bitch
*snaps fingers twice*

*bongo playing ends*

Cool, cool. Coolsville. Coolio. Cool and the gang. Straight L.L. Cool J. Alright. Now I’d like to be hip to the times and present some of my art pieces. This scene’s about to bust-out, man. This first one is in honor of the great Boondogler-in-Chief. It’s called, “Bush is a Nazi”

See, I used swastikas to represent Nazis. And Bush to represent Bush. Like, it’s all about how Bush is a nazi for all that dicey stuff he did. Right? He’s a drag, man.

Right. Alright. Make no nevermind. This next one is called “Man’s Futility in the Face of the Void; Fuck Willem de Kooning”

The point of this piece is to challenge the square’s mentality on what art is. What I did was erase a Kooning piece. Is erasing another artist’s work a creative act, or is this creative only ‘cause the famous Jack Happening did it? Hey you, the chicky babe in the ugs. Yeah, the real sex-pot over there. You liked my piece, didn’t you?

*silence*

Fine then. I didn’t blow any minds. That’s cool, that’s cool. This’ll get me made in the shade. I know this will. It’s called, “Am I Blowing Your Mind?”



*someone shouts "too blurry!*

Alright. Fine. I’ve got one last thing for you all: a performance piece. It’s called “Fuck You, Starbucks Open Mic”

*takes off beret and places it on the ground*

*shits in beret*

*chucks shit filled beret into the audience*

*turns around and gives double back middle finger salute*

Peace out, Daddy-O!

Ghost Hunting

I went to college in Williamsburg, Virginia. The place has some history. Colonial history. The white man, and even some Indians, have been dying there for centuries. And I’m talking about horrible, horrible deaths: dying while giving birth, a horse kicks to the head, small pox, malaria, and straight up genocide. It’s all so very quaint.

A famous murder that happened there occurred in the 60’s. At a prep school that is literally right next to colonial Williamsburg, a white janitor took 2 little black boys up to the school’s attic, held a faux trial (I think they were accused of being black) and then tortured them to death. It was Mississippi Burning meets Hostel meets the Nuremburg Trials.

And let’s not forget my alma mater, The College of William and Mary, the technically oldest college institution in America (fuck you, Harvard). The place once had the highest college suicide rate in the country, but now we’re number 2 (thanks, Cornell).

On top of all that, Williamsburg has a big retirement community, about a million graveyards, its own ghetto, which is literally, on the other side of the train tracks, and an abandoned mental hospital. The point is, Williamsburg is spooky. The place is enshrouded in a very charming cloak of death.

Every Halloween my friend Greta and I would get drunk and/or high and go ghost hunting. I miss that.

Luckily for me, there’s quite a haunted little place in NOVA that has some history. Before the area exploded with commerce, this region of the country was mostly farmlands that were used as battlefields in the Civil War. Which brings me to the Peterson Farmhouse.

The Peterson Farmhouse was erected in 1863, laying 10 miles northeast of Manassas. Old man Peterson was a Scots-Irish farmer who loved to regularly drink, beat his wife and molested his two daughters. Confederate troops would stop at the farmhouse, and for a small fee, use his wife and daughters at their discretion. One of his daughters, Emily, didn’t survive the war. She died under “mysterious circumstances”, but they say she was buried in the cellar. Years passed and the abuse continued until 1875. That’s when they say the ghost of Emily came back and murdered her whole family. The family’s bodies were found some time later, rotten and mangled. It wasn’t until 1933 when another farmer family bought the land and moved in. Now here’s the spooky part: the exact same thing happened. Drunk Scots-Irish farmer, abused family, dead daughter, more abuse, dead family. Then for a few years the house took on a few new roles. For a while it was a local morgue, a safe house for murderers, and a satanic church.

And guess what? The house is still there. Yup. It’s true. Only now a strip mall is on top of it. To be specific, a PetSMart (the one in Tall Oaks shopping center across from the Red Robin, next to that place where you can buy pool tables).

For my journey I brought along with me a tab of acid and a bottle of Thunderbird wine for company. At 11:30 PM I fell through the ceiling tiles of the PetSMart, dropped the acid tab and set off. Let’s find some fucking ghosts!

11:50 PM
Holy shit I am off! I knew I was descending into the spirit realm. Strange voices keep calling out to me. Towards the back where they keep the bags of cat litter I see a small girl. It’s Emily! She’s a glowing white image of a girl in a nightie. I hazard a greeting.

“’Sup?” She blankly stares at me. I look around for some sort of offering. Ghosts love offerings. I pick up a dog collar and put it on. It symbolizes identification and unwelcomed restraint.

“See? I’m down” I say. The little girl turned into a 15 foot, wolf-headed demon made out of blood and corpses. It lunged for me. I scream and run towards the door, leaving a trail of piss behind me.

12:45 AM
Everywhere I turned, there was a creature waiting to devour my soul. This world spinned and churned, engulfing me in all the pain and sorrow of existence.

“Turn back, now!”, the fish burble in their high pitched, aquatic voices. “Turn back!”

“I can’t! I fucking can’t!” I am trapped within the mouth of Hell, and I am forced to bear witness to all the horrors that await deeper inside the pit. Men were butchering men like hogs. Children were used as objects and then discarded as such. I saw a cat shit in a box.

2:00 AM
I was sealed within a burlap sack, surrounded by shadowy figures inside the corrosive, dark stomach of a giant beast. The figures loomed overhead, their will be my mercy. They were plotting what would be the first delightful torture in an infinite series of pain. I lose all control. Something within my mind snaps and I found myself climbing up the esophagus. Higher and higher, towards the hole in the ceiling I fell out of. I fell again. I fell and landed on my back. Everything went quiet. I no longer heard the demon chirps. I no longer heard what the iguanas were thinking. All I felt is a searing pain on the back of my head. I looked up. I saw God. I reached out and try to touch God’s big, wet nose. And then everything went black.

9:30 AM
The sun was shining through the sliding glass doors of the PetSMart. I woke up with the manager and two Fairfax County cops looming over me. An ambulance was outside. Waiting. A couple of animals were freely walking around, including 2 dogs, 9 cats and a tarantula. There was human shit everywhere.

“What the fuck happened?!” mustachioed cop # 1 asks me.

“Ghosts” I reply.

Mensa? More Like Mensuck, Amirite?

There’s a secret cabal of people in this world that would make the illuminati and freemasons shit their pants. Instead of relying on bloodlines and whatever nonsense hazing rituals that go on in frat houses, Mensa has only one requirement for joining: you need to be in the 98th percentile of intelligence. Illuminati’s Johnny Hemophiliac or David Pissdrinker of Skull and Bones aren’t really kicking ass in the brains department (Mensa members know where a brain’s ass is). But they are lucky. Remember in the first sentence I used the word “would”? I snuck into a Mensa meeting and I must say, the 25 people who run the entire world don’t have to worry about anyone muscling in on their turf.

These meetings are a joke. What’s the point of all this brain power if all you do with it is pontificate about NOTHING and make terrible puns in a library conference room? Shit, build a bomb and hold the east coast hostage or something.

It’s true; you need to be smart to enter a Mensa meeting. You just don’t need to be a fucking genius. Here’s how you sneak in. There are two ways:

1) Go to Google. Type in “Mensa ID card”. Send it to your photoshop expert friend. Have him touch it up with your pic and info. Print it out. Laminate it.

2) Show up to a meeting wearing nice clothes; think Eddie Bauer casual business. BS your way in. When speaking, don’t use contractions.

These meetings were a complete load. Here are the minutes.

7:33 PM: The meeting officially starts 3 minutes late. There are 20 of us sitting at a table in a room meant for maybe 8. A middle aged man who looks like he’s never kissed a girl, aka, John Mark Karr, suggests we call ourselves “tardines”; one person sorta chuckles. He meant it to sound like a combination of “tardiness” and “sardines”. I wonder if he realized it sounded more like a retarded person being ironic by making fun of other retarded people.

7:40 PM: The fat guy in the room (which one? har har) keeps asking where the “brain balls” are. His 5-year-old-at-Disney-Land giddiness erupts into audible squeals when the group is finally presented with a box of donut holes. Relax, dude. They’re just Entenmann’s.

7:45 PM: The key to not being found out is to shut your stupid, inarticulate mouth up. We start playing word games like anagrams, palindromes and “observational haiku” (no using your fingers!). I’m asked if I have any palindromes. I say no, but I do have a new tongue twister. They all seem dully impressed with Dog God. Then someone notes that Dog God is indeed a palindrome and we all have an “oooooh shit” moment together.

7:56 PM: I write on a napkin, “Damn, there are a lot of uggos here.” The woman to my right turns to glare at me. I add, “They smell like cat piss and BO, too.”

8:08 PM: It is now intellectual time. Someone stands. It’s a fat, hairy guy wearing jorts and a t-shirt that says “friends don’t let friends derive drunk” with a picture of fucked up math equations. He is a grown ass man named Jimmy. Today is apparently his turn to decide this meeting’s lecture topic. He chooses “The Role of Women in Society”. Okay. Immediately he starts off with a tirade about the 17 year old girl working the counter at Starbucks. I’m not really listening but I know it has something to do with him being a creepy, lonely, ugly, fuck. He then suggests that we as a society should reverse women’s lib. and go back to the good ol’ days of arranged marriages where the most desirable men (i.e. men with high IQ's) are the ones who can make the most money and therefore should be paired with the most desirable women (i.e. hot Starbucks girl). It’s not selfish because their pairing would benefit the western world as a whole. I try not to laugh.

8:55 PM: At around 8:45 I am asked to read back the minutes from today’s meeting. I do. I read them everything you just read. I am asked never to come back again. I go out to my car and write up this last minutes report on the hood.

Stem Cells and the Quest to Clone Hitler

The president used his political swagger this week to overturn a ban on stem cell funding, which naturally pissed off the conservative crowd. I’m glad he did. For starters, it really pisses off the conservative crowd; it’s the debate about abortion raised to the power of irony [stem cells = abortion^irony]. And the arguments! I read something like this on CNN’s message board:

“All stem cells will accomplish is killing a Jesus so we can clone another Hitler.” – NObama, Gainesville FL

I think the odds are stacked heavily against getting a Jesus Christ and favor winding up with another L. Ron Hubbard. Also, why is cloning Hitler such a bad idea? I think it’d be great! Let me explain.

For you to understand this position, you first need to know the history of stem cells.

They were discovered quite accidently by Nazis. Dr. Olaf Bouhler was performing routine experiments on Jewish prisoners in 1941. In them he was extracting the fetuses (feti?) from pregnant women 4 months prematurely to see how much dynamite a woman’s body cavity could hold. The pregnancy detritus, aka, the fetus, was simply discarded.

After a long, hard day of being a colossal asshole, Dr. Bouhler was about to leave the lab when he realized his pocket watch, a keepsake from his father, was missing. Could he have accidently dropped it? In “the bin”? The bin was more or less a dumpster for the fetuses (feti?). He looked in, but he didn’t find his watch. Instead he made the discovery of a lifetime: a human ear. It was a fully formed, adult, (left) human ear covered in fetus mucus. Later tests would prove that the mucus was a mixture of viscous fluids…and stem cells.

Immediately, the potential for stem cells was recognized. Word of the discovery made it all the way up to The Fuhrer. He commissioned one the greatest history’s mysteries of WWII. A process to ensure Hitler would be able to personally rule the Third Reich for the next 1000 years. It was known as Operation: Hitler Beyond.

After months of preparation, the experiment was ready. Into a giant crucible went 1000 Jew fetuses (feti?). The concoction bubbled and pooled, separating out the useless cells and leaving nothing more than 9 gallons of pure, steamy stem cell goodness. Mmmm mmmm. It was finally poured into a mold of Hitler. Soon, his new body would be ready. Soon he would have the body of Adonis, of Atlas, of God Almighty himself. The cells stirred. They took form. For days they reacted until finally, it was completed. Hitler raced to the lab where he discovered his brand new, 7 foot tall…human ear.

The 400 million dollar project was immediately terminated and then Hitler pulled a Kurt Cobain (or Cobain pulled a Hitler. Whichever).

Which brings us to the present day. Now we can actually clone Hitler! Why is this a good thing?

‘Cause he’s a dick!

Let’s clone Hitler…and beat the shit out of him. Every day. His life would be one great, big Spanking Machine. When he wakes up in his cramped, pest infested studio apartment in the Bronx, his alarm clock is a punch in the face. He shall never touch food that isn’t covered in spit. Thousands of school children will empty their classrooms and form a sea of kicks to the shin every time he steps out into the day.

It’s not like he’ll be just as powerful as he was in the 40’s. You really think another Nazi wave will sweep through? Have you seen Nazis these days? Go rent American History X. They’re all a bunch of inarticulate troglodytes who can’t even find Israel on a map. Plus, why would they follow Hitler after we tattoo the word “PENIS” across his forehead?

I think it’s a great idea. The best benefit though would be world peace. Can you imagine how well world leaders would get along if they took a break from negotiating to smack Hitler around with a hickory paddle?

“Well, Mr. Medvedev.” *whack* “We may not see eye-to-eye on,” *whack* “who lays claim to the oil deposits in the Arctic,” *whack* “but I must say,” *whack* *whack* *whack* “at least you’re no Hitler.” *whack*

“Jes. I am havink agreement with you.” *whack*

What a glorious world. Let’s bring on the stem cells and clone our asses a Hitler.

18th Century Hardcore Porn

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Movin’ Pictures: Watchmen

Here’s my dilemma. Writing movie reviews should be funny. That’s priority number one. If I watch a bad movie, a real piece of shit, like, oh I don’t know, Valkyrie, then my job is easily accomplished. “This is a piece of shit. Here are examples of its shittiness. I would rather do shitty act #1 than watch Valkyrie, etc.” On the other end of the spectrum where immortal films like The Dark Knight reside, my job is just as easy. All the jokes are gay jokes about me wanting to blow everyone involved in the creation of the film. Simple.

Aside from Dr. Manhattan’s uncut, electric blue dong flashing across the screen multiple times, I don’t really know what to mention that’ll be funny. I feel that I am lucky to be part of a small group of people who were in just the right spot to see the film. See, I never read the Watchmen comic. I cheated. I read the entire Wiki article; I knew just enough not to be lost, but not enough to be pissed about continuity issues. It also didn’t hurt that I’m a huge geek and love superheroes.

The movie is never as good as the book. Ever. Come on, karate kid. Find one example where this isn’t the case and waste me. Jurassic Park, Dracula, Horton Hears a Who; even if the movie was fantastic, the book was better. So there’s no point in comparing the movie to the book unless the two are radically different. Watchmen drew from the best graphic novel of all time and was more or less faithful to it; the changes that I noticed seemed logical and fit well. In fact I would argue the movie ending fit a little better than the comic book ending.

I think I stumbled onto why the movie is getting the reviews it’s getting on RottenTomatoes

Acting: It was all very solid, but nothing mind blowing aside from Rorschach. By far the best acting and character in the film. Watchmen also had a Richard Nixon that was so bad it made the hairs on my neck stand up. It was so shitty that I wanted to immediately punch him.

Special Effects: Very cool and well done, but you can’t pound a script with a CGI hammer and expect it to turn into a diamond.

Script: (read the third paragraph again)

Directing: Look, I got a C in filmography, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about here. But I will say that for the most part, the directing was neither spectacular nor offensive. It had a good feel and look, but, I don’t know, it just wasn’t great. The best part, unfortunately, was the opening credits that are right after the first scene. That and Rorschach are the best parts of the movie. Done.

Maybe, the problem was the source material. Maybe Watchmen was just too ambitious of a project; something so vast and complex that a single movie could not do it justice, even if the running length is 2 hours, 43 minutes. Maybe I should just stick to reviewing shitty movies.

I give Watchmen 8/10 corgis. Go watch it.

The ABC's of Work, Part 3

Retirement
You did it! You’ve reached the [tasteful] end of your job! Now you can spend the rest of your life on a boat in Boca Raton with your neighbor, the insurance salesman from Cleveland who fronts the regional Minutemen project and charters fishing trips. Oh sure, the first time you land a Striped Marlin/a floating oil drum raft loaded with Cubans, you say, to yourself, “this is it, I did it. I’m ‘livin’ the dream’,” but something happens. Little things start to remind you what it was like being a productive member of society; a crying Cuban child reminds you of your weekly paycheck, a bucket of chum reminds you of your boss. Then you realize just how worthless you are. Now who’s going to re-spool bobbins in the textile factory? How will those Margaritaville t-shirts ever get made without you? You go back to beg for your job but some puissant kid named Bobby took over Mr. Giuseppe’s job and he thinks you’re a crazy, old derelict. Which you are.

Sick Leave
We get maybe a week off with pay a year in this country. Christ, what are we, horses? Do the doctors covered by my HMO carry a shotgun?

Taxes
Europeans don’t bitch about taxes even though the percentage of their paycheck goign to taxes is high enough to shit off the moon. Know why? Two reasons: 1, the biggest expense we as Americans pay on average, health care, is free to them. Two, they haven’t created a disproportionate wealth gap from the rich to the middle class through tax breaks. Argh, the rich! *shakes fist*. I may sound sarcastic here, but common. Poor people don’t write and pass tax reform laws. Rich assholes do. Do you really think they would pass something detrimental to themselves? Of course not. They have no morals. Hell, half of them like to travel to Africa and shoot elephants for fun, so the idea of them looking out for the little guy through trickle-down economics is the biggest scam since Ozymandias.(Sorry, I just saw Watchmen).

U R FUN-E LOL
People over 50 just discovered how fun the internet can be, so somehow, they have the exact same mentality as 9 year olds who also just discovered how fun the internet can be. Pff. N00bs. Casual e-mail jokes from co-workers are as cringe-worthy as hearing your parents say “crunk”.

Vacation
Saying how little you get in a year is becoming redundant, so I’ll just focus on where and when to spend your precious 2 weeks. You’ll want to go when everyone else goes. Try to convince them to take an extra week without telling your boss. I mean, he can’t fire you all, right?

Right?

As far as where is concerned, save up the money and go here. Ignore the fact that the site is totally web 1.0

Water Cooler
“Hey, did you see what happened last night on 24?”
Um, no I didn’t. I actually don’t watch too much tv. I’m always out after work with friends or-
“That’s strange. You’re strange. So how ‘bout that Obama, eh? Bailouts, man.”
Well-
“It’s pretty crazy.”
Yeah, it is. The-
“Only a…” [*looks around*] “nigger. Am I right?”
What?
“You know.”
No, I don’t know.
“Common, man. Niggers. They’re ruining this country.”
…
“Why, just the other day…”

Two hours later he walked into HR and I never saw him again.

aXidents
“If something goes wrong, blame the guy who can’t speak English. Ah, Tibor. How many times have you saved my butt?” – Homer Simpson

Your Company
Did you know that the company you work for is YOUR company? You own it! Just like how servants work for THEIR master, you work for YOUR company. This sense of ownership is liberating. That’s what’s so great about living in this day and age. People are now starting to own their foibles and faults. Take a lesson from the 600lb man. He owns his obesity. He goes on camera, well technically people push him in front of one, and goes, “That’s right, I’m a big fat asshole who’s gonna die in two years, but while I’m here I’m going to party my asses off. Suck my dick!” And so we should be with our companies. “That’s right, motherfuckers. I sold my soul to a corporation that makes child-sized land mines for a 6 figure salary. Suck my dick!” Always end with “Suck my dick”, or “Suck my clit!” if you’re a woman/hysterical.

Zesty Chicken
You can’t have regular chicken. No no. The last thing you want is something as bland as your work environment. You need to switch it up. Something fresh. Something exotic. But not too exotic. You want something with the moxy taste of Wishbone Italian dressing with the familiarity of chicken. Wait! Wait. What if…you put the dressing…on the chicken? Do I dare dream?! What an unholy union! Forbidden…yet alluring. Yes…yes! Ecstasy! I wonder what this would taste like on a bed of lettuce. My God! It’s a chicken salad, but zesty! ZESTY CHICKEN SALAD! In my heart rests a spark of the divine, burning forth the fires of creation! “Assistant, bring me a hamburger bun! I have an idea.” If this works then…I am! I AM A GENIUS! ZESTY CHICKEN SANDWICH! Every working man in this great land shall hail me as a GOD. No…just God. I…am…GOD!!!

-Inner monologue of the guy who invented zesty chicken, circa 1987

The ABC's of Work, Part 2

Internships
My heart goes out to everyone who has one of these shit jobs. It’s work that pays you in experience. No no no…fuck money. Who needs it? What I want is to bust my ass doing all the horrible tasks no one else wants to do here just so I can leave this place, go somewhere else, and do the exact same thing for minimum wage. You’re the lowest of the low. Even if you’re a paid intern that works 40 hour weeks, you still don’t qualify for health benefits. The janitor and the boys in the mail room laughed at me when they found out. [read this paragraph, then read all the other times he’s mentioned how little work he does for the company he is basically ripping off, and then feel sorry for Mark. I dare you – ed.]

Japanese Men
The life cycle of a Japanese man is as such: If a boy is born into a rich family, he is groomed until the age of 30 when he takes over his fathers company that makes carbon rods for Hello Kitty dolls. If a boy is born into a poor family, he goes to school where he learns to live under stress that could unnerve an air traffic controller. He then get’s a shitty office job. All men work 15 hour days, 6 days a week, and are in loveless relationships. There is also no privacy at the office; it is much more efficient to supply one big table for everyone instead of springing for desks. So when management gets a letter from the government saying Japan’s population is declining and everyone at the office gets an email telling them to go home and fuck their subservient, emotionless wives, the collective shame is palpable. This nation of Willy Lowmans stay at their job until 97 (retirement age) and then they go off and die under a bonsai tree or something. These are the third hardest working people on earth, only behind Mexican laborers and coal miners. And they know how to make a great Hello Kitty doll.

“Keep Your Hands Off My Food!!! Thank You!!!”
Easy, Cathy. No one wants to eat your left-over Healthy Choice tuna and Mexican wild rice casserole. It smells like something one of your many, many cats would eat. Get something decent like cold pizza or a piece of cake and then you can worry about me pulling a Jesse James in the kitchenette.

Lost and Found
I suppose this isn’t limited to just the work environment, but none the less it’s a great place to pick up some free meds or a butterfly knife.

Manager
The manager. Mr. Manager, to you. The Boss Man. The one responsible for dolling out work and paychecks. He is Pharaoh and you are his slave. I never realized it until now but every work environment is a little ad hoc society. That society happens to be feudal with a caste system in place. If you ever had a shitty job and contemplated stapling your manager’s ears to the wall because of his relentless stream of bullshit then you de facto know the entire history of the French Revolution. It’s time for a workers revolution.

Oh man. See man, like, the MAN, he’s tryin’ to keep us all down, right? And like, by keeping us in the dark, he can bamboozle us out of stuff, man. He’s pullin’ the blinds right over our eyes, man! It’s the natural order, man! The MAN’s keeping us down! I can’t access any socialist websites at work! You know why? It’s the MAN, man! Ever notice how you can’t spell MANAGER without first spelling The MAN? It’s a freakin’ conspiracy! I tell you, this is one cat who ain’t getting caught! I’m blowin’ this scene, man!

I just channeled my inner 60’s hippy radical and honestly, I’m not surprised he didn’t have anything interesting to say. I’m just glad my boss isn’t reading this.

Nobody Cares
Hey guess what? Nobody cares. Nobody cares that the new clients are from the same nowhere town in Michigan your boring, uninspired ass is from. Nobody cares that the weather is supposed to be partly sunny instead of partly cloudy. Oh, your daughter made the 4th grade honor roll? Well, that’s a completely different story. Nobody gives a shit. Worst of all, nobody cares what happens to you in your personal life, even if it’s affected by shared circumstances at work.

Note: all of this does not apply for the following professions: fire fighters, military figures, and astronauts.

Office Space
It’s scary how accurate this movie is at times.

Pay Check
The best part of any job is the reward. As Thomas Jefferson once so eloquently stated; “Get money, fuck bitches, smoke trees.” Wisdom. Once you start earning a regular paycheck you start develop strange feelings. It’s like puberty all over again except this time you start having funny thoughts about stuff like insurance premiums and tax codes. “What if…what if…I’m actually…a fiscal conservative?!” Discovering something like that would be a million times worse than finding out you’re gay. Far more traumatizing.

Quitting

We all have our ways of quitting. Some are respectful; they give their manager a 2 week notice, a good reason for leaving, and give thanks for all the opportunities they had. Some have the decency to keel over at their desk before retirement and deny their spouse pension checks. Others leave a burning paper trail in their wake as they strut down the halls butt-ass naked, flipping everyone off, screaming “take this job and shove it!” and grabbing female ex-coworkers titties. You only get to quit a job once so make it count.

The ABC’s of Work, Part 1

Fuuuuuuuuck. I don’t want to do this. Not right now, not today. I’m still hung over and the last time I checked, Snapple’s Asian Pear Green Tea is no substitute for tomato juice and charcoal…pills or whatever. I don’t fucking know. I’m at work. God I hate work. Why can’t I be in bed? I can do my job just as well there. Work sucks.

Does this sound like you? If not then you are one of the 0.00047% of people who love their job. That’s a statistical impossibility. Therefore, no one loves their job. In conclusion, you should be thinking of what I said in the first paragraph every day for the rest of your life.

There’re some things about work you should know.

Applying
What a hassle this part is. Just because 1 convicted sex offender thief who cheats on taxes got hired, now everyone under the sun gets a FBI personality profile made with a cavity search on the house. Shit, what happened to just firing someone? And the interview portion! Every question is secretly laden with enough high school pep rally belongingness to smother a cult. “Why do YOU want to be a member of the Orbital family?” Because I can’t find work as a ditch digger. Because your rival company Teletron is full of dickless, nutless faggots. Because I like monies. Gimme monies.

Bring Your Child to Work Day
Formerly the sexist “Bring your daughter to work day”. My mom always got stuck with me. She used to manage clothing stores that tailored to high-end fashion for women. Not the most appropriate place for a little boy whose hobbies included Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and fire. Every time, she would stick me in the back room with a TV, some videos, and a McDonald’s lunch. And all day I would sit there, occasionally walk back and forth, and daydream. Sometimes I would draw or doodle on whatever piece of nonsense lying around that was disposable. I was always alone. Completely alone.

I must admit that Bring Your Child to Work Day adequately prepared me for a job in the real world and I say this without a hint of sarcasm.

Customers
“This job wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fucking customers” – Clerks

What, I gotta wake up at 7:30 and deal with people? Despite the gross insensitivity of what I’m about to suggest, this is a little trick I developed where you can fuck with customers, be totally incompetent and lazy, and everything will be completely fine. In fact the customer will be really appreciative and smile at you. Here it is: pretend to be physically handicapped. Not mentally. Physically. And be really cheerful, too.

See, no one gives a shit about Johnny Healthybody because he’s too stupid to get a real job. But if you’re little Timmy Sickwell, well then God bless your sweet, sweet, underdeveloped heart. When I worked at a bakery, I used to get shit from bitchy yuppies for pronouncing crescent “cre-sahnt” instead of the uber-french “cweh-saah!” This one time, just to fuck with people, I started walking on the side of my right foot, hunched my left shoulder up, and curled my left arm into a weak little T-Rex arm. Some dude asked for a loaf of rye sliced. Normally it would take me 45 seconds to do. This took 5 whole goddamn minutes. I couldn’t have been slower or intentionally fucked up his order worse. The bread was all rustled, the bag was sloppily tied closed, and it took far too long to prepare. The guy looked at me right in the eyes, gave the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, and said, “Thank you! You have a terrific day!” Hey you too, buddy.


Don’t Dip Your Pen in the Company Ink
I hate this phrase because it makes us sound like we are all writing memos with quill pens about the conference room schedule changing like we haven’t invented fucking electricity yet. Or it sounds like 19th century bankers would go around shtooping every co-worker, who were invariably dudes, since that was before women’s lib and the death of euphemisms. How about “don’t fuck co-workers”? Or better yet, “don’t fuck people you really shouldn’t fuck if you’re not willing to deal with the consequences of a psycho you created in an enclosed space that you can never leave”? Yeah, that’s much catchier. And it applies to high school, too.

The Economy Sucks Shit Right Now
CNN reported today that almost 700,000 jobs were lost in the month of February, the single most jobs lost in a month so far. What the hell?! How can there be so many? It’s the shortest month of the year! The market is toxic. If no one can find a conventional job soon then something tells me there will be a slight rise in demand for movies about bank robberies.

Fantasizing
I wonder what it would be like to hook up with the hot girl, or the girl who looks like a hot chick swallowed a bathtub. Or even Dianne. She’s got that whole, bossy, bitchy, librarian thing going on. What if she marched up to me one day, grabbed me by the collar and was like, “Now.” So she leads me to the supplies closet…and we are just going at it. Like we’re 15. Not like fucking or anything, but just making out really, really hard. We’re just 2nd-basing the shit out of each other. And then it all abruptly stops. She shoves me aside, marches out of the closet and doesn’t even look at me until about a month later when this whole episode repeats itself.

This is how I get through my day. I think of this stuff constantly.

Go-Getters
I hate these guys and their shitty attitude. They’d fit right in on the screen of some soviet-era communist propaganda film about meeting grain-harvesting quotas. “Work! Work ‘till you tire! And then work some more!” Hey assholes, unless you work on commission you’re not getting paid extra. You’re making the rest of us look bad and hate you. The fact is the system is so broken that my job actually encourages me to be lazy. My 3 bosses don’t need me to bother them every time I finish whatever meaningless, repetitive task they just gave me. I got fired, aka never asked to come back, from one job because I finished, literally, a week’s worth of busy work in 2 hours. Nothing points out the weakness of the job you hold by showing just how easy any idiot can do it. Are you trying to lose your job? Then stop working. Duh.

Human Relations

The guidance councilors of the work world. Every job has one. At a construction site it’s some guy named Joey who yells whenever a fight breaks out “shut the fuck up and quit bein’ dicks, ya fairies!” At my office, it’s an entire department devoted to making sure no one touches each other or declares that they will touch each other or hints at declaring that they will touch each other. So, in conclusion, human relations exists to ensure that there aren’t any.

How I Got This Scar on My Face

There’s no better look for a guy than a big, hideous scar scrawled across the face.

I’m not kidding! Unless your nose is completely removed or you’re a burn victim or something, scars are like permanent manhood badges of honor that seriously don’t look bad at all. Here’s an example. Let’s take contemporary actor Philip Seymour Hoffman:


Alright, alright. Let’s give him a facial scar.


Whoa! Now that’s a man who lives hard! That’ll do, Seymour. Tear up those Oscars. Stomp the yard.

But what’s his story?

All scars have a story behind them, but beware. There’s a fine line between having your face mauled by a bear and that time a ceiling tile at the sewing store came loose and hit you in the face while you were looking at floral patterns. Here’s a quick list of no-no word combinations you should refrain from saying when people start asking how you became such a badass.

“Well, I was strolling through the meadow when all of a sudden…”

“My mother…”

“I reached down to find my missing Cher mixed CD when I looked up and saw a truck…”

“My porcelain teapot was boiling so much that it was rattling back and forth…”

“Those office cubicles have really sharp corners…”

“I was super scared…”

“That was the world’s meanest little snapping turtle…”

“My seaweed rap dried out and burst into flames from the hair dryer…”

“I’m sorry…”

“I should have been home instead…”

“He was right…”

“I cried…”

Woah. I Missed Black History Month?

That is absurd. How can this be? I understand missing other esoteric race-based holidays like Irish Appreciation Week or Hug A Chinamen Day, but common. Hasn’t the press noticed the man living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave? I’m pretty sure brutha is MAKING black history, for-realz.

Oh yeah, that’s right. The press was too worried on whether or not Barack Obama was bipartisan enough when passing his stimulus package. That was waaay more important to focus on that rather than the fact our economy is sinking into the ocean.

You can see how we all lost sight of black history month. To make it up to…someone, I’m going to regale you with my own pieces of personal black history.

Tigra “Blue” Coleman
I went to middle and high school with this guy. Tigra is the fucking mayor. Everyone knows him and likes him. He’s in a million bands, produced some sort of escort service for Redskins players at one point, and can “school anyone at Halo.” He taught me another word for “fuck” was “pole”. “That bitch would pole all of us,” he once said. Get it? ‘Cause your dick is like a pole rod. One time in middle school he fell asleep in english class while everyone was reading Huckleberry Fin out loud. When someone inevitably said nigger out loud, Tigra shot up and was like “Who the fuck said that?! Who said that?!” The teacher said, “Tigra, it’s in the book.” Tigra was like “oh” and then fell back asleep. I think Tigra has a brother named Damoses or Dajesus. I forget which one. Like I said, Tigra is the fucking mayor. Oh yeah, he calls me “Gold” which I think is cool.

Seaton Smith
Probably one of my favorite local comics in the DC scene. Fuck, I won’t even try to make a joke here. I’ll just let him be funny for this blurb. Oh yeah, and he’s a totally normal and reserved off stage

Michael Jackson
A few summers ago, 3 friends and I went camping on the Appalachian Trail. The ride home is only an hour or so long, so we decided to put in a Michael Jackson Greatest Hits CD (THANKS, Josh, you shmuck) and listen to the whole thing. Sure, Thriller and Beat it are great, but have you heard his turds like Where Is My Childhood and Scared of the Moon? I guess those were made when he was white, so its all good.

Um…I think that’s it. Oh yeah, Fredrick Douglas, MLK, Jesse Owens yadda yadda yadda.