Baby steps to gettin' healthy

I used to eat 2, sometimes 3, sticks of butter every day.

Then the last doctor I talked to told me it was bad for me. I think 'You're gonna die in a couple of weeks' were his actual words.

So I cut out the butter.

Now I'm satisfied with just a tub of 'I can't believe it's not butter' every couple of days.

And, y'know, I really do have trouble believing it.

My chest hurts...

And it was going so well...

Ever suddenly discovered that something you thought was completely wrong, and found out that you were an asshole? I did.

I never ask women out. Look in most dictionary's and you'll see my picture next to the entry for 'gutless bastard'. I don't know why, but when I think of putting myself out there, I immediately find myself right back in ninth grade. I gain weight, I feel pimples cover my face, and my voice takes on this tone that makes the Squeaky-Voiced Teen from the Simpson's sound like Robert Mitchum. It's sad. Very sad. And emasculating.

But this one time, I did it. At work no less.

I was behind the counter, at a copy shop on a beautiful Wednesday, and she came in, looking to fax something. A little chatting, a couple of corny jokes, commiserating over the fact that her fax wouldn't go through, all in all a nice couple of minutes. She said her name was V (Thomas Pynchon stole that from me), and she was new in town. So on impulse, I mentioned that one night every week during the summer, there was a free movie in a park downtown. I went almost every week, and maybe she'd be interested in coming along...? And V said yes.

On the appointed day, I met V at the shop, and we caught the train uptown. We got there early to stake out a spot, grabbed some food from a local shop, and hung out, chatting, until it was dark enough for the movie to start. Good times. The conversation was smooth without any of the uncomfortable pauses that are the usual hallmarks of my dates, and our senses of humor seemed to mesh pretty well.

Right before the movie started, V said she was going to run to the public restroom so she wouldn't miss any of the show, and headed out into the gathering twilight.

She never came back.

The previews rolled, and then the movie itself began. Stalag 17, as I recall. Not my idea of a date movie, but it was free, I was poor, and sometimes you just don't get to choose. I sat there, people packed in on every side, growing more and more incensed as the time ticked by. Jesus, she must have secretly hated me! She'd even abandoned a lighter and half a pack of smokes. Just broke and ran. Well, fine, I fumed, fuck 'er. Bitch.

Anybody see where this is going?

I sat through the entire film. Didn't get any joy out of seeing Peter Graves get killed, needless to say. But screw it, I was going to see this film all the way through to the last credit.

After it was over, I headed out into the night. On impulse, I hit a payphone and checked my messages. If you think there was a message from V, you are incorrect.

There were two messages from her. The first explained that V hadn't kept track of where we were sitting, and couldn't find her way back. The second was left about twenty minutes later, and, in a disappointed tone of voice, V said that she kept getting yelled at to sit down, and was heading home. Guess she hadn't abandoned her cigarettes, after all.

I did call her then, but I don't seem to recall being very contrite, or apologizing at all, even. V was less than enthused, herself. And we never spoke again.

This all happened about five years ago. I swear to god, it didn't occur to me until about a month ago, I mean really hit me, that I should have gone looking for her. It never even crossed my mind, not once. Nor did being actively sorry, or explaining my thought process to her, maybe turning it into something we could laugh over. Not for five years.

My friends tell me I'm smart, but I know better. I look back on how I screwed up then, and how it took five years to figure out what I should have done, and I know the truth: I'm the King o' the Maroons.

One of those times

I tend to do pretty stupid things when I get angry. That's one of the main reasons I work hard to contain my anger. When I was just starting school, I was forever getting into trouble for bouncing blocks off of other children's heads, and suchlike.

This particular incident happened while I was in military school. My parent's enrolled me there about halfway through my freshman year of high school, after a run of failed classes. If you're interested in seeing what my school looked like, rent 'The Omen II'. I found it perversely appropriate that a film about the Anti-Christ was filmed at my school. To anyone considering military school for their child, I recommend taking a good long look at the monkey house of your local zoo. That's pretty much what your baby will experience, but with more weapons and less with the flinging of the feces. Mostly.

Anyway, it was near the end of my second year, and it had been a long one. The school was getting ready for the annual federal inspection, during which actual military fellows walked through the school for a few hours. I suppose they wanted to make sure no students were being beaten, or kept in cages and suchlike. The inspection, which occurred every year, involved a frenzy of cleaning, and added even more pressure to an atmosphere already tense with the need to get this shit over with, already, and get the hell out of school for the year.

My freakout came on a weeknight, a day or two before the inspectors arrived. I don't really remember what the catalyst was, but something, a fellow student tearing apart my carefully ordered locker, another stupid assignment by a section leader who hadn't gotten off his ass all day, a recalcitrant bed sheet, set me off, bigtime.

I'm a lover, not a fighter, and don't like getting hit, so instead of beating the crap out of whoever was responsible, my rage-maddened eye fell onto my bunk. It was a warm night in late spring, and my window was open, and how to dissipate my rage suddenly crystallized. The bunk had to go.

And go it did. I grabbed the mattress, knocked my startled roommate out of the way with it, and stuffed that son-of-a-bitch out the window, letting it fall the story down to the ground.

By the time I had the metal bunk frame about halfway out the window, my roomie's half frightened, half amused yelps had drawn a crowd. As I recall, most of them seemed rather amused, and some were cheering. When the raised window dropped down unexpectedly, one of them rushed past me and held it up, so that I could continue ejecting the frame unimpeded. By this time, I was a little winded, but the frame only needed a little work to send it dropping out of sight. I assume it made some noise when it landed, but everyone was yelling too loudly for me to hear.

My company commander came in. He looked at the open window, at the other babbling students, at the space where a bunk should have been, and then at my red, sweaty face.

"You threw your bed out the window?", he said, not even sounding surprised. I nodded.

"You freaking out?" As he said this, I saw him calculating how crazy this might get if I was truly going nuts. He could have taken me, no doubt, but nobody would have come out unhurt.

"Not any more.", I said, chest still heaving.

"Go get your bed. And don't do that again. Really."

So I went outside and carried the mattress and frame inside and back to my room.

I did feel a lot better.

Idea, and a bit more

So, I decided to try a new commercial venture. I'm going to market my own scent, for men and women.

It'll be made from a base of unrefined crude oil and choice, finely minced hobo, and each bottle will have just a splash of holy water, to make it Jesus-tastic. Christ-rific. Whatever.

It will be named, 'Stanque, by Carter'.

On a related note, I shared this particular idea, which is the beginning of a comedy bit, with my friend Sarah. She was quiet for a second, and then said, "The holy water... doesn't make sense."

My brain kinda locked up over that. The crude oil and diced homeless were perfectly fine, reasonable as can be, but the wheels came off with the holy water?

Confusion, thy name is Sarah.

Come with me on a little journey...

I'd like you to take just a second, and contemplate God. Doesn't matter which one, just pick one you like.

Now, take a second to contemplate the mystery of our existence, and the majesty of the universe in which we find ourselves. Try to capture the scope of it, from the smallest particles through the vast spaces that comprised most of the reality we call home. Include the wonder that is you, and the people you love, the ones you don't like, stretch back to consider all members of the family of man, and those that will follow us. Add in the uncountable number of other creatures that share our home, the variety of the plant and animal life, the beauty of the natural processes that make it possible, from the shift of tectonic plates to the growth of crystals. Consider time itself, stretching billions of years both in front and behind us. Contrast our smallness and beauty. Savor it for a moment. Really try to picture it all, the whole of existence in it's nearly infinite variety.

Now turn your mind back towards the concept of a creator. Picture the being capable of beginning, and, if you have certain beliefs, guiding to this very day everything that we know is, was, and shall be. A being (Male, Female, Black Lady with a Marmoset, what have you) of power and insight that we can hardly dream of. All-knowing, all-loving, all powerful, and everywhere. Omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omnipresent. Imagine this being looking down upon their creation, picking out the spot that is our galaxy, the mote that is our solar system, the speck that is our lovely little planet.

Now picture that being becoming angry, saying "Fucking fags!"

Does that make sense to you?

Sigh...

So, I got new shoes for Christmas. Two pairs. Now I have an alternative to my squeaky boots.

But the new shoes, they squeak as well.

I think I need to come to grips with the fact that I may have squeaky feet.

The Virgin Mary, She weeps.

Just freakin' weird, that's all I'm saying

So I was watching TV over the weekend, and on The Soup I saw a clip where a dude claimed that even though he'd been having lots of sex with another dude, he wasn't gay. The dude in question justified his non-gayness with this line:

"When me and Whitney found out we weren't brother and sister, we had sex all the time."

What I love about that line is that only on daytime TV would that not be a show stopper, y'know? I mean, in any situation you can imagine, you'd need the person in question to back the hell up and give a lengthy explanation about that particular statement. Also, if you aren't familiar with the particular show this line came from, you really can't say for sure which show it was. This line could have been spoken on just about any daytime show for the past fifteen years, at anytime between about 9:30am and 3:30pm. Could have been Geraldo, or Dr. Phil, or Jerry Springer; Could have come from any soap opera ever made, might have come from The View, even, or the midday news.

The line did in fact come from a soap opera, Passions. Passions, for those who don't know, specializes in story lines that are straight up bat-shit crazy, even by the admittedly lax standards of detergent dramas.

Man, I love this country.

A little quick on the draw

So, I was talking to Hasty, a couple of days after I'd accidentally fired a 9mm round through the ceiling of the apartment in which I was staying.

"Yeah," Hasty drawled, "You mess around with guns long enough, somethin' like that's gonna happen."

"Really?" I said, sounding a bit testier than I should have. Hasty was trying to make me feel better, after all. "Something like this ever happen to you?"

"Yeah, but when I did it, it was with a shotgun. Blew a pretty big hole in the roof."

That shut my ass up.

Nerdcore, bitches!

I'm gonna be a Nerdcore rappper (The extra 'p' is for pimpin'). The great thing about making a statement like, 'I'm gonna be a Nerdcore rappper', is that it's such a freaking dorky thing to say, and therefore plays right into the whole idea. I just love that.

Anyway, self-amusement aside, I've been getting into MC Frontalot and a couple of other Nerdcore dudes. Frontalot kills me. He's got a song and video out called 'It is pitch black', which can be found on Youtube. The chorus starts with 'You are likely to be eaten by a grue', and if you don't get that reference, the song is gonna confuse the hell out of you. Nevertheless, I urge you, all three people who might read this missive, to do a little listening, as the guy actually has skill even if you don't follow the subject matter. I got no idea what the hell Busta Rhymes is talking about, but he sounds great. Same with Frontalot. MC Chris and MC Hawking have some good stuff, too.

So me and my buddy Blake are gonna pursue this, in addition to the amazingly original and funny comedy we're gonna do as Bad Puppets. Look out for dweeb rhymes from Oculus And Dactylos (I'm Dactylos, just so you know). We're gonna be kicking out fat beats behind songs about Nicola Tesla, Charles Fort, and the Emperor Norton.

Y'all better reconize!

Bored? Well, a little...

So... what would Amish porn be like?

A wood carving of a woman without a coal-scuttle bonnet? A man and a woman holding hands?

Send in your idea's!

These boots are killin' me...

I like these boots. Big black Army combats, steel-toed. They make me about an inch taller. I've been wearing them for more than a month now, so they're broken in and not giving me blisters anymore. The only boots I have left that were issued to me by the Army. The only footwear I possess right now, actually. They're insulated for winter wear, too. They are great boots. But...

They will not shut up!

Every other step, the right one squeaks. No matter how I plant my foot, they issue a loud half-farting sound. And they fuck with me. Sometimes the left boot joins in. Sometimes the right one stops, just long enough for me to think, 'Hey, maybe they finally...', SQUEAK! Damn you, boots! Every time I walk into the local college library to check my e-mail, the squeak cranks up the volume so that people with headphones are looking around, trying to see who's cutting the cheese with such metronome-like regularity. Cute college chicks give me The Look. It's all I can do sometimes to keep myself from looking down and screaming, 'SHUT UP, DAMN YOU! SHUT! UP!'

I'm telling you, these boots are lucky I don't have any choice about wearing them.

Got some time to kill?

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all/

Oh, my friends. If you don't know about Craigslist's best of, you are in for a treat. I pride myself on being pretty well informed, especially about the sites I like, but I just found out about this little gem. Thanks for that, Sarah.

It is a hoot, my friends, a HOOT.

I've been lucky so far...

In that no one has been around with a video camera when I've done really stupid things. Like the time I scraped off a rear-view mirror on my parents car because I hadn't noticed the pole I was backing into. Or the uncountable occasions I have tripped on steps, or accidentally spit while talking, or almost knocked down a chandelier while putting on a coat with too much enthusiasm. Don't ask.

I say this because lately I've had access to a computer for long periods of time, and I've found myself spending a lot of it watching YouTube, seeing clips of people doing stupid things and hurting themselves. I can't help it. It's just so wonderful, seeing all of the things bored people do, usually guys, usually young, that end up damaging them. Not permanently, mind you. I'm not chuckling to video of kids mistakenly chopping off their arms or anything. But some of it's pretty close. And it's all 'there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I' kind of stuff, things I can see myself taking part in without a thought, and then wondering why the hell my arm's suddenly going off at an odd angle. I suggest these video's to anyone, just because you'll spend a couple of days being a little more careful about even the simplest tasks. This stuff could happen to any of us, really. It could be me doing that.

Except for the kid who dropped a lit firecracker into his pants, just to see what would happen. He's an idiot, pure and simple. Lucky for the rest of the species, I don't think he'll be able to breed.

What a cute little guy...

The kid made eye contact with me from about a block away.

He was part of a double line of pre-school kids walking down the street, and was standing next to the teacher bringing up the rear, holding her hand. As we walked towards each other, the little dude held my eye.

I was about 19 at the time, had a full beard and long hair, and I was wearing a green, Indiana Jones-type hat and a big ugly green coat. He kept looking at me, and I kept looking at him.

As we drew abreast of one another, he turned his head slightly to address the teacher, but still kept a watchful eye on me.

"Does that man have a gun?", he asked in a piping voice.

I almost fell over laughing, and didn't stop for the rest of the day.

A new VA hospital...

This new hospital is starting to creep me out. It has something to do with the muzak that's piped in all over the building. It's not really muzak, it's just instrumental versions of songs that Bobby Darin and Petulla Clark would sing.

Something about waking up at 7:00 am in a Veteran's facility and hearing 'The Girl from Ipanema' just strikes me as odd. The people are as nice as they were in the crazy house, and just as helpful, but the music is still kind of off-putting.

By the way, my mom hates it when I talk about having been in the 'crazy house'. So, please, if any of you talk to her, use that expression, or some other nickname for a psych ward, as often as possible. I love my mom a lot, but she is very funny when she's angry.

No time...

I was gonna post something new today, but I was looking at video's of guys hurting themselves on YouTube, and my favorite show, Hiroki Fleishmann, Ninja Accountant, is starting in a minute...

Sorry...

Raising your own Pizza Box Tree

The Pizza Box Tree is for people who don't want to be tied down to the responsibility involved in keeping a plant alive. It's non-organic, and quite easy to make, relying as it does on a person's natural laziness, and actually does grow.

What you do is, you get an apartment near a pizza place, near enough so that you can pick up a couple of slices in a box every couple of days. You stack the empty boxes in a corner, until they are too high to add another box without standing on something.

Then you need to spend the next couple of months using the stack of boxes as a kind of open air filing cabinet. You stick notes, important paperwork, and correspondence into the gaps between the boxes, far enough so they will be held firmly but still able to stick out a bit. Eventually, you will end up with a thick bodied tree in that corner, with foliage, or actually 'foliage', of various colors brightening the room.

If you're into the bonsai thing, you can make sure that larger paper is near the top, and smaller paper near the bottom, for a more naturalistic and harmonious canopy effect. One tall friend of mine had his Pizza Box Tree set up near his desk and phone, and would always add 'foliage' while sitting down. This gave him a tree that had it's 'foliage' all at about stomach height, with the 'trunk' rising bare above it. He ended up with an interesting effect we dubbed 'Martian Penis'.

Remember, your Pizza Box Tree should reflect you. Don't let anyone else tell you what your Tree needs, or that it's unsanitary. The bugs are all part of the great Circle of Life, after all.

Enjoy!

In Fond Memory

Marcel Marceau died recently.

And on that day, the world was just a little louder.

Robert Goulet has also passed.

Will Ferrell was reportedly inconsolable.

A man of rare quality, indeed

At the peremptory request of a large majority of the citizens of these United States, I, Joshua Norton, formerly of Algoa Bay, Cape of Good Hope, and now for the past nine years and ten months of San Francisco, California, declare and proclaim myself Emperor of these U.S., and in virtue of the authority thereby in me vested, do hereby order and direct the representatives of the different States of the Union to assemble in the Musical Hall of this city on the 1st day of February next, then and there to make such alterations in the existing laws of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which the country is laboring, and thereby cause confidence to exist, both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity.

It was with this proclamation that Joshua Norton became Emperor Norton I, Dei Gratia monarch of our fine nation, and protector of Mexico, in 1859.

You say you didn't know we had an Emperor. Well, now you know. I first ran across mention of him in Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shaw's Illuminatus Trilogy back in high school, but the book was crammed with so much weirdness I don't believe good Joshua captured my attention. Later, while reading Neil Gaiman's superlative comic work, The Sandman, I came across a story called 'Three Septembers and a January', which had the Emperor as it's focus.

You can learn about him on Wikipedia, which has a link to a fine site that collects his proclamations, even the forged ones, from the years of his odd reign. The introduction is especially worth reading, and makes the cogent point that the Emperor Norton could only have existed in an egalitarian state such as ours. Here, in the land of the free, a man is truly able to be Emperor, if he wants to be. When the Emperor was arrested by a young policeman of San Francisco, to be incarcerated for psychological treatment, the people of the city expressed outrage, and Police Chief Patrick Crowley released him quickly and gave a formal apology. Chief Crowley observed of the self-styled monarch "that he had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line."

That is where my personal affection for the Emperor comes from. Joshua Norton apparently developed delusions of grandeur after losing his fortune speculating in rice, but far from attempting to live out the life of the average monarch, this gentle man spent his days walking the streets of his adopted city, inspecting the cleanliness of the streets, the repair of public buildings, and the uniforms of the constabulary, who, following his arrest and release, would salute him as he passed. He was a beloved figure, known for being accompanied by his two dogs, Lazarus and Bummer. He would also give out Imperial currency and bonds to pay debts, which are now collector's items, and the fine restaurants he ate at would place plaques at their entrances, reading, 'by Appointment to his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Norton I of the United States'. They say he once stopped an anti-Chinese mob from committing harm upon their targets by standing in the street between them and reciting the Lord's Prayer, head bowed.

You'll never find a better emperor anywhere in the history of the world.

Here's to you, my emperor, Joshua Norton, Norton I.

In the before times...

In the long, long ago...
There was once an ancient sage
Who thought of his home
As his clothes.
One day
Visitors came
And found the sage naked.
The sage was asked,
'Why are you naked?'
And the sage asked in return,
'What are you doing
In my pants?'