TGI Fridays

“So, how’s work?” I asked without looking. I flipped through my menu, trying to decide what to get. Southwestern Eggroll, maybe? They were good, but made me feel kinda touristy in my own country. Embarrassment's not a very good garnish.

“HUMANITY IS SIMPLY A GRADUAL SLIDE TOWARDS OBLIVION. YOUR LIFE IS SIMPLY PASSING THE EVER WANING HOURS UNTIL MY ARRIVAL. I AM THE ONLY MEANING YOU WILL EVER KNOW. THE GAPING ABYSSE SHALL TAKE ALL YOU HAVE.”

“Good to hear,” I replied. Burger sliders? Or Chicken fingers? “How’s Cathy? You guys still together?”

Death pounded his massive gauntlets upon the table.

“COMPANIONSHIP IS A FEEBLE LIE. AT YOUR MOST INTIMATE, YOUR MOST TRUSTING, YOU ARE STILL ALONE. YOU GRASP WILDLY AT THE SHADOWS TO DROWN OUT THE SILENCE WITHIN. ALL TRUST AND KINDNESS IS A CRUEL FAÇADE.”

I looked up, my mind still on nachos. “When did you break up? You two seemed really good for each other?”

“LAST JUNE” bellowed Death, “SHE SHATTERED OUR COVENANT AND I BATHED HER WORLD IN FIRE. A SWIRLING VORTEX OF NIGHTMARES DESCENDED UPON HER VERY MEMORY. TWISTING BRANCHES OF SCHORCHED NOTHINGNESS ARE THE ONLY REMAINING LEGACY OF THE ONE CALLED CATHY.”

“Well at least you seem to be taking it well.” I said, “what were you thinking of getting? Because I’m kinda feeling like the chili, but the table next to us got the roast beef sandwich, and it smells pretty good.”

“NOTHINGNESS IS THE ONLY TRUTH. GOD LAUGHS AS YOU SCRATCH FOR MEANING IN HIS WASTELAND. HE LAUGHS THAT YOU THINK HE CARES. ONE DAY THE BLOOD IN YOUR VEINS WILL TURN TO THE DUST YOU WALK ON, AND THERE IS NO SOLICE.”

“What’s wrong,” I sighed. Death had been pissy the whole night, and I was pretty sure he was going to make me pay for the meal.

“TGI FRIDAYS IS A MONUMENT TO THE TEDIUM OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. YOU GRASP DESPERATELY AT CULTURAL GIBERISH TO DELUDE YOUR SELF INTO A FEELING OF BELONGING. EVEN THE MIGHTIEST OF YOU WILL FALL BEFORE ME, AND NOTHING SHALL REMAIN. WE SHOULD HAVE GONE TO LONGHORN STEAKHOUSE.”

“Don’t bitch,” I said, “besides, whenever we go to longhorn you just ask to know the cow’s names.”

A waitress approached our table hesitantly. She was the blonde haired kind, still full of spunk before college. Her nametag said Lucy, and her head bobbled nervously as she walked. It was like being served drinks by a shivering puppy. This girl would be tipped well; it was almost unfair.

“Can I get you anything, or are you still deciding?” she asked. Her voice was a series of squeaks that had not yet become a melody. I tried to avoid looking at her chest, considering it a moral grey area.

“I’ll have the Fish and Chips,” I said, smiling. The waitress jotted it down hastily, muttering the words as she wrote.

“And you?” she asked, looking to Death. His titanic frame was totally still, and his form grew darker, as if he was consuming the shadows of the room.

“MAY 12. 2016. ON A MONDAY NIGHT. YOU FEEL NOTHING."

“I’m sorry?” the waitress asked, leaning in.

“A CAR ACCIDENT. THE DRIVER FLIPS HIS VEHICLE, WITH YOU HIS PASSENGER. HE WILL ESCAPE WITH ONLY A MINOR CONCUSSION AND BROKEN BONES. YOU WILL NOT.”

Lucy pulled back from the table, clutching her notepad like a crucifix. Her face was utterly blank. I tried to think of a way to make it look like Death was joking, but that would only egg him on.

“THEY WILL NOT FIND YOU UNTIL MORNING. THE HOT SUMMER ASPHALT WILL OFFER YOUR BODY UP TO THE ELEMENTS, AND THEY SHALL TAKE GLADLY. THE CROWS WILL FEAST WELL THAT NIGHT.”

Lucy squeaked.

“He’ll just have a steak with some curly fries” I said, and ushered Lucy away from our booth. As she bobbled away, Death boomed “FAREWELL LUCY, FEEDER OF MAN AND CROW ALIKE. I LOOK FOREWARD TO OUR NEXT MEETING AS MUCH AS MY ENTRÉE.”

I waited until her blonde curls were out of the sight and turned to Death.

“If you were trying to pick up the waitress, I don’t think you’re doing it right.”

“I THINK WE REALLY HIT IT OFF” said Death, belching green fire from his eyes.

“This is why we don’t hang out anymore.”

“DON’T BE A DICK” Death said, and the booth next to us exploded into a cloud of ash. I sighed, walked over, and took what was left of their drinks.

Mystery!

In that moment, I knew two things. The first was that this was not my living room. This place was unfamiliar to me, completely alien. Also it was very dark, so I was prepared to invest in the possibility that I was in someone’s closet. The second was that I had done horrible, mean spirited things last night. Haunting things, the likes of which still echoed back at me even if there were no actual memories to base them on.

In fact, I only had one solid, dependable memory from that fever dream of a night. I recalled looking down at a bottle of vodka clutched in my hand. The other hand cradled a ball of pills roughly the size of a child’s prostate. I recalled thinking “what’s the worst that could happ-”

Then, darkness.

“Dan” my friend Zach asked, or more accurately moaned from the darkness. Through the spark of him lighting a cigarette I could make the outline of his gargantuan head rocking back and forth in the shadows. He’d been privy to the events of that night and the series of increasingly poor decisions that preceded it. It was extremely likely that he had taken a shit in a trash can earlier that night.

“Yeah?” I answered, my voice a hollow squeak, the sound of an emasculated squirrel.

“Where are we?” he asked. I looked around.

“Well, let’s work this out. I’m just gonna throw this out there, y’know, get the ball rolling: this place has a lot of shelves.”

“It really does” nodded Zach, “Just a shitload of them. I didn’t know you could have too many shelves, but this place does. You couldn’t possibly need this many things.”

“It’s like Prince’s shoe closet up in this bitch” I muttered, “what else?” Zach began flipping through the shelves.

“There’s a lot of medical stuff in here. Tubing, moth balls, bed pans, syringes…… Were we here to mainline something?”

I considered it. This was clearly a hospital, but I felt fine. The only reasonable alternative then was that here to pump something into my neck.

“Do you see windex here?”

“IIIIIIII do not, no.”

“Then no” I said. Zach put his hands on his hips.

“Well fuck me, why are we here?” I looked around, dumbfounded. Also, I was actively trying to not shit myself, but mostly I was looking around. Zach found and flipped the light switch, and a few things happened.

1. I contemplated biting out Zachs’ trachea because screw me with a cat toy I was hung over. Whole new level. It was like some had boned the hell out of my frontal lobe, and hadn’t had the decency to pull out. Needless to say, the light hurt.

2. I figured out where we were. As stated before, someone had clearly knocked up my brain, but it turned out to not be such a bad thing, because we were in an abortion clinic. I was looking at a vacuum clearly designed to be jammed inside a woman.

3. Something much bigger than me let out the exact sound of me and everyone I know dying. I didn’t know that could be a sound before, but it could and it was right behind me. Literally, right there.

Zach turned around first because, and I cannot emphasize this enough, I am a pussy.

“There is a walrus behind us. Only, like a fucked up one. It is a fucked up a walrus.” I turned around now, because the desire to call my friend on his bullshit overrode all my instincts towards survival.

“If by walrus, you mean something other than a walrus, then you are correct.” He looked at me, confused and hurt. It was fantastic.

“That’s not a walrus. It’s a bull seal. Or possibly an elephant seal. Maybe even a bull elephant seal. I’m not totally prepared to take that off the table. Regardless, you’re wrong, very wrong, and should feel bad about it. You’ve shamed your father and made us all weaker with your ignorance.”

“Oh,” said Zach. “What’s the difference.”

“It’s like a walrus, but not. And it’s very bull like. Also there's some elephant in there. And it hates you, because there’s a big, floppy bag of fat stuck to the front of its face. That’s where it stores it’s hate. In the face fat.”

“So its like the John McCain of the animal kingdom.”

“Hyoooooo!” I shouted, “but no, seriously, we’re in very grave danger. “

“Right, right. So, did we steal this thing, or what?”

“Probably. Also, I guess we went to the zoo at some point. I’m kinda mad we can’t remember that.” In my head I reviewed possible reasons for our current predicament. Why was I getting this animal an abortion? Was this many-beast pregnant? Who was the father? Was it me? If it was, then well played drunk-me, well played. Our child would have inevitably been some sort of abomination, and as a father I would have been emotionally unavailable. This was the right thing to do.

“I don’t think it’s yours” said Zach, quite possibly reading my mind.

“It’s a boy seal. Don’t ask me how I know. Also it looks like we carved the word vengeance into the side of it. “

“That’s probably why it’s so mad!” I shouted.

“That’s right Scooby, that’s probably why it’s so mad. Anyway, I guess we were trying to get revenge on the seal? Or something like that, I don’t know.”

I looked at the animal, you know, really looked at it. As it foamed at the mouth, roared wildly, and blasted what I can only imagine to be feces about the closet, I realized what a beautiful creature this animal was. Powerful, yet majestic. Like the ocean itself. Even at my most vile, in the darkest corridors of my pitiful, ugly life, I could never declare a vendetta on such a beast. I didn’t have it in me. Also, this animal was wasted. Like holy shit, you think a sea monster would be able to handle its liquor. Jesus.

“No. Absolutely not.” I said, proud of myself.

“Alright, well in that case, the vengeance must mean that...."

“We were trying to transform it into a machine of cold hearted murder!” We both said in unison. We stood there for a second, smiling.

"Revenge is a dish best served via sea mammal."

“But if we wanted to train this thing to kill people for us, and I think we can say with all certainty that we did, then we would have to give this animal the blood lust. It would have to not only hate, but hunger. Hunger for hearts of our victims, the faces and lungs of our enemies.”

“Right, yeah. We would have to give it a craving for human flesh. And not just any flesh, but the freshest, most pure of it. Of course.”

“Yeah, so then why would we have come to an abortion cliniiiiioooOOOOLY SHIT WE’VE COME FULL CIRCLE.”

Silence. I knew it. Zach knew it. But neither of us wanted to give it that power, that heft of word. It was too severe for us. Luckily, I have no problems writing it: we had been feeding this seal abortions. Little baby fetuses. There it is. Really no big deal when you absolutely refuse to think about it.

Honestly, I only had one issue with the situation; we had absolutely no method of controlling this thing, or getting it to murder Zach’s ex girlfriend for that matter. It knew no fear, no forgiveness, only hatred and pain. I would be feeling something akin to fatherly pride, if not for the fact that my surrogate son was barreling down at me, bloated with the goo of many-child. Zach asked me what we should do. With the bravery of Patton and the decisive nature of Napoleon, I assumed the most basic and primal of combat strategies; I ran the shit away. Zach followed. Then, we tried to burn the place down, got frustrated, and just peed on it a little.

As we walked off into the dawn, Zach turned to me and asked

“What will we do when people find out about this?”

“Simple,” I said, “we’re going to lie. To our families, our friends, and to the police. We’re going to lie like the shallow, gutless men that we are. Right through our goddamn teeth.”

“Awesome” said Zach with a grin, and we were off into the day, with the wind at our backs, and the knowledge that everything would be okay.

I sat back in my chair, smoking a cigarette that no one had offered me and I was quite frankly not allowed to have. I was also smoking it backwards, huffing lungful of mostly filter, but by the time I’d noticed it was too late to stop. I was riding this cigarette all the way to hell. The police stared at me with a cold, unwavering silence.

“You realize you just told us that entire story,” asked officer Mancuso, who was fat. Just picture a fat cop, and you’ve got a pretty accurate mental picture.

“Yup” I said, feeling like a badass. This was like the Usual Suspects or some shit.

“It’s…. pretty common procedure that when you lie to the cops you don’t tell the story of what you did along with your decision to lie. That’s not really something people do. Because we are cops" said detective Redding, who looked like a man have a seizure in slow motion.

“Right right,” I said, keeping my cool, much like a badass would, “Well, while we’re handing out constructive criticism, your good cop bad cop routine could use work.”

“I keep telling you, we’re not doing a routine,” said Mancuso, “We both just fucking hate you.”

“That seal ruined the planned parenthood you idiots left it in,” continued Redding, “It took our officers 47 bullets to put it down. We counted, because each one of them was heart breaking. It was like shooting Forrest Gump, and every time it leaked blood and baby everywhere. Our entire department is in a horrible depression, and one of the officers has gone or record saying that the event ruined his marriage.”

“Of course” I said, putting out my cigarette badassedly. “So do you want me to flip on Zach, or what? Because I can do that. I’m pretty sure he’s on meth or something.”

“No, he talked too. Almost immediately. You’re both going to jail. Pretty much forever.”

Sane

A little something I wrote for fun. A little bit more serious than most of my stuff, but whatever. It's rough (written exclusively at three a.m.) so I'm hoping for a little feedback. Be brutal internet.

“Tell me about Carl.”

“Carl?”

“Yeah, Carl. I’ve heard about the guy. Tell me about him, he sounds interesting.”

“There’s not really much to tell.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true! He’s just a guy. A friend.”

“He’s a crazy friend, that’s what I hear.”

“Who told you that?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does if I want to know whose spreading these baseless lies about a good friend.”

“Can’t say. Sworn to secrecy.”

“On what penalty?”

“Death. It was all very serious. So Carl’s not crazy then?”

“Sane as you or me.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Huh. How boring.”

The jingling of ice on glass.

“This person, did they tell you any stories about Carl? Why he’s so crazy?”

“Just one.”

“Can you tell me? Or is that sworn to secrecy too?”

A stool shifts.

“I heard that Carl likes to read in his apartment a lot. Just sits in the living room and reads--”

“That sounds pretty sane to me.”

“I’m not done. I’m not even through the first sentence.”

“Sorry.”

“So anyway, he sits by the phone and reads, and waits for calls. Apparently he gets a lot of wrong numbers, because he’s got a common number, like 5555 or something. And when he gets one, he answers it and talks to the person.”

“about what?”

“Their day and stuff, I guess. Nothing specific.”

“Right.”

“And anyway, Carls sitting in his living room one day, and he gets a call, another wrong number. Only when he picks up, the voice on the other end asks him to release the hostages.”

“Really.”

“the way I hear it, there was some hostage crisis at the hotel down the street. Some guy tries to rob it and the cops show up, so he takes like 12 hostages at gun point. But when the cops tried to call, they dialed 5555 instead of 5455, and they got Carl. And Carl, real calm, asks if the policeman-“

“Hostage negotiator.”

“Hmm?”

“It wouldn’t just be a random cop, it would have been a hostage negotiator. The kind of guy trained to talk to nutjobs.”

“Right, whatever. Anyway, Carls ask the hostage negotiator if he could call back in ten minutes later. And the guy on the other end starts stammering and stuff and says sure.”

“The poor guy probably though he’d just gotten someone shot.”

“Exactly! So when he calls back in ten minutes, the cops are ready to give anything; gold, a helicopter ride to Bolivia, whatever. They just don’t want anymore bloodshed. And keep in mind, the robber's still sitting in the hotel with a siege of cops outside waiting for the phone to ring. And the cop asks Carl what his demands are and Carl says beanie babies.”

“Beanie Babies?”

“Little stuffed animals. Kids play with them and sad people collect them. And Carl tell’s the cops, he wants the front door flooded with them. To hook up garbage chute to the front of the hotel and just pump them in. And the cops ask why, and Carl threatens to kill a hostage, and then hangs up.”

“But he doesn’t have any.”

“Yeah, but the police don’t know that! They think they’re talking to the hotel robber, who’s turning out to be a raving lunatic. So they get a shit ton of beanie babies from god knows where, and they start shipping them in to the building.”

“How’d the robber take this?”

“He was scared shitless. He gets the silent treatment for 45 minutes now, and suddenly the police start hurling teddy bears at him. He though the things were full of tear gas or something. Comes right out with his hands up screaming.”

“Huh. Sort of saved the day, didn’t he?”

“From the sound of it, yeah.”

“You believe it?”

“I don’t really care if I do; I like the story, and I like the sound of Carl.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Is it?”

“Huh?”

“Is it true?”

“I thought you didn’t care if it was true.”

“No, but I want it to be.”

A chuckling.

“Its hard to tell, with Carl. Facts don’t really stick to that guy.”

“Wow, copout answer.”

“Afraid so.”

“So how’s this Carl friend doing. Still sane?”

“He’s sane. He’s not doing so well, but he’s sane.”

“Why not?”

“He tried to kill himself last week.”

“Holy shit. Why?”

“Not sure. All I know is that he walked into the military base downtown wearing a trench coat and a fake beard. He went up to a group of soldiers and whips open the trench coat screaming “Allahua Ackbar” or something like that.”

“Oh my god.”

“I guess he was trying to get himself shot.”

“They didn’t?”

“Nope. Carls keeps telling people they didn't shoot because he’s white. But I hear he messed up the yell.”

“What did he yell instead?”

“The name of the slug guy from Star Wars.”

“Admiral Ackbar?”

“Yeah that one. I think he watched the third movie the night before or something.”

“See now, that’s crazy.”

“I don’t see how. That all seems perfectly sane to me.”

Shoes clicking, chewed ice cubes.

“You wanna get out of here?”

Parenting

I'm going to be one hell of a father:

Daughter: Daddy?

Me: (poking my head into her room) Yeah sweetie? What’s wrong?

Daughter: (Embarrassed) I…. its dark in here. I think there’s monster. Can I have my night light back?

Me: (Chuckling) Well where do you think the monsters are?

Daughter: (pulling the covers up over her face) in the closet. In the corner behind my dresser. (Whispers) under the bed.

Me: Honey, I want you to listen to me very closely.

(I hug her reassuringly)

Me: Hiding in the darkness is for pussies, sweetie.

Daughter: What?

Me: You’re a 90 pound child, honey. You barely have enough muscle mass to lift an old tire, and you get emotionally upset watching old reruns of Pokemon. Any creature that would hide from you isn’t worth the time it would take to imagine it. That monster under your bed, the one you’re so afraid of? Daddy could snap him like a fucking twig, baby. I will throw him in a full nelson and shove his goofy ass back into whatever pixar movie he crawled out of. All your monsters are gaywads, sweetie.

Daughter: But-

Me: Now a real monster, Daddy’s monsters, they run at you in broad fucking daylight, shrieking to high hell and smelling like they just crawled out of a Vietnam flashback. They look like John Carpenters wet dream, with more rows of teeth than you have ideas in your head, and a huge, jagged erection that only goes away when they murder everything you’ve ever loved. Those monster will eat your children before you’ve even started ovulating, sweetie. And they’re everywhere, because unlike these punk ass monsters under your bed, they don’t need to hide. Do you know why? Because they’re fucking killing machines.

Daughter: O-okay.

Me: Now: do you still need that night light, or would you rather continue living in blissful ignorance of the horrors around you?

Daughter: (looking up) I’m okay daddy.

Me: (kissing forehead) I know you are.

(I begin to leave)

Me: And when do daddy’s monsters come for you, sweetie?

Daughter: Whenever mommy tries to leave daddy?

Me: that’s my girl.

127 hours

Actual Scene from 127 Hours:
James Frankos inner monologue: Holy shit, I've been trapped in this cave for almost 110 hours, with my rock pinned against my right arm! I have nothing to entertain me but this video of two semi naked girls flirting with me, but I can't masturbate or else it'll waste precious bodily resources! Now, about cutting my arm off-"

How that would go for any of us-

Literally any other man: Shit, I've been down here for like two hours. I should jerk it.

The hobo Chronicles

A common misconception is that to become homeless you have to suffer some horrible tragedy; war, mental illness, or financial ruin. That’s not true: it turns out that all it takes is accidentally tipping this month’s rent while trying to pick up the waitress at a hoagie place. In my defense, she was pretty hot, a period and a comma look exactly the same after 2 margaritas, and no I didn’t get her number.

But as they always say, when god closes a door he opens a window. I don’t really know what god opens when he takes your fucking apartment, but I’m hoping it’s nicer than an overpass. I’ve decided to make lemonade (don’t ask what kind) and record my exploits as a recent member of the homeless people so that future generations can…. Learn from it I guess.

Day 1:

Okay, I kinda meant for this to start couple weeks from now when I actually got evicted, or at least after I told my landlord. But none of my douchebag friends will give me a ride home, I guess this “Tony Luke’s Cheese steaks” parking lot is my home now.

But you know what? I’m going to remain annoyingly optimistic about all this. This’ll just help my report. I’m not gonna be the pussy hipster kinda homeless guy that lives in his car and couch surfs. I’m gonna be the all American hobo. Knapsacks tied to sticks, beans eaten out of cans, and a series of secret codes to tell other ho-folks which houses don’t lock their doors at night. I’ve got an overpass to sleep under, a dumpster that is either full of or barely contains food depending on my standards that day, and a hooker that may or may not be alive. I’m feeling good about this.

Day 2:

Okay, being homeless has a bit of a learning curve. And I mean in the sense where the school is really competitive and one of the honors students stabs you in the shoulder while guarding a half eaten ham.

Turns out life isn’t a Norman Rockwell painting, and the hobo code doesn’t actually exist. I guess there’s no honor among people tripping on meth who think that you’re the ghost of their dead grandmother. Who’da thunk it.

On a slightly brighter note, I’m really starting to get used to my new living situation. I shimmied up one of the overpass support beams to escape a pack of surly prostitutes, and found a rich buffet of unsuspecting pigeons, fat, happy, and unsuspecting, like some kind of mystical sky Wisconsin. They were delicious. I’m really starting to like my new place. I stole a dog bed to sleep in, and wrote “stay away” all over the parking lot in some of my knife blood. The bathroom, or lack thereof, was kind of an issue at first, but I solved that eventually. It turns out people are actually pretty okay with you using their cars, if you use a very loose definition of “okay”. Also, the excitement of a car alarm going off actually helps get things moving.

Lets chalk it up: I’ve got shelter, a steady food, a place to shit, and a makeshift security system. It’s what, day two? And I’ve already got a better living situation than most people in New York. Suck it.

Day 4:

Today I declared war on a small fleet of stray cats. For too long, they have encroached on my territory and stolen my women. Emboldened by their fierce leader, who I have named “Snowball”, their attacks have grown increasingly vicious. Also he smelled my anus and reacted poorly when I returned the favor. The time for negotiations has ended. Blood has been drawn (cat blood, though some of mine was in there too) and I the time has come to unleash the cats of war.

I have gathered a military composed of family, co-workers, and people who used to be okay with being referred to as my friends. Their loyalty was bought by a bag of salvaged donuts and a few well placed abductions. Tommorow, we attack their encampment behind the Denny’s on Oregon st. To War!

Day 5:

The attack was a disaster. We suffered massive casualties. Side note: I do not know how to work a Molotov cocktail; Don was totally right about that. God, I’m going to miss the half of him that I didn’t burn off.

But life goes on. Kinda. I have discovered two friends that will remain with me for the rest of my life. The first is a family of raccoons that was attracted by the fish smell emanating from my knife wound. It’s a modest family, but they have adopted me into it almost immediately after I suckled at the mothers’ teat. The father is like the one I never had, his son is like the brother I had but he stopped returning my calls. Their friendship has melted my cold heart and taught me the meaning of love. The second is crack cocaine. I think I like that friend better.

Also Day 5:

Hihowyadoin? I- what? Hey! HEY! That’s not yours Franky! FRANKY! I SWEAR TO- huh? Oh yeah, I ate the raccoons. Why?

Day 6:

Fucking…. Cracks gone. There’s…. none left. Also, Franky took my jeans. I don’t…. I don’t want to do this anymore…… I don’t want to not do crack anymore.

Day 8:

Dan Ludwig! Bouncing back! Technically off drugs! Still homeless! Yeah!

Okay, status update; I had to burn down my hobo cave. Which I guess means I burned down an overpass, bus who’s keeping track. The point is, I’m free! Wind at my back! Testicles blatantly hanging out!

Snowball and his gang had finally moved into my parking lot, forming some sort of biker gang. They’d been getting in my face a little bit, especially after I started moving in on Snowballs woman. So now it’s time to move on. I’m going to wander the streets of Philadelphia! Drink in the culture! This is the city of brotherly love- I shouldn’t be cowering in a overpass; I should be out among the people enjoying the shared human experience. I think I’m gonna swing by the middle school and try to use my rugged hobo charm to get some action.

Day 9:

What did I say? City of brotherly love! At first, yeah I’ll admit it, things weren’t looking so hot. The women (if you squint a little) of the middle school were somewhat off put by my knife would, which had scabbed over and festered into a horrific shoulder vagina, and the school’s health services promptly opened fire on me.

Luckily, in my flight, I encountered a large black man who I can only assume was a doctor because he gave me a fistful of pills. Or not so much a fistful as a clump, or even more accurately, a wad. He was wearing this awesome fuzzy tophat, and had this really sick cane with the handle carved into the shape of a tit. I can only assume that this is how doctors dress when they are also black people. God, that race gets all the fun. He assured me that the pills would help with my wound, and I didn’t question him because he was giving me free pills. He didn’t say what they were called, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say that its 3 milligrams of fucking magic.

13 pages of illegible handwriting, most of which seems to be doodles of giraffes and penisis.

Day 15:

All in all, mediocre day. My new friend Otis told me to show people on the subway my penis, but they did not react as favorably as he’d led me to believe. I wouldn’t listen to him, but he is extremely persuasive, as least as far as talking dogs go. Also new development: My grandpas apparently decided to visit Philly. My enthusiasm for his visit somewhat declined when I realized that he now had the face of a clown and insistently masturbated wherever we went. Also, I’m fair certain my grampas been dead for like, seven years. I’m fairly certain he is a Nazi.

Still possessed by the devil by the way. Not sure how many more of these pills I have to take before that crap stops.

Day Infinity:

They say home is where the heart is. Does that count if you stole the heart from a hospital?

If I was There: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

After being convinced to steal his crazy dads prized Ferrari by his best friend, Cameron freaks out and kicks it out of their garage, which is inexplicably both made of glass and hanging off a cliff. It plunges off a cliff and is utterly destroyed.

Ferris: Oh my god Cameron… Ok, Ok, I’ll take the blame for this, alright? I’ll stay here, and tell your dad what happened. I’ll get in trouble, but-

Cameron: No Ferris.

Ferris: Cameron, you don’t want this kind of heat.

Cameron: No, I did. If I hadn’t wanted this heat, I wouldn’t have let you take the car out.

Ferris looks incredulous, but impressed.

Cameron: I could have stopped you-it is possible to stop the great Ferris Bueller. My whole life, my father’s loved that car more than me. He’s raised me like a museum exhibit, and because of him I can’t relate to people or deal with stress. When he gets back (smiling) my dad and I will just have a little “chat”.

Ferris and Sloan smile, and leave with the feeling that Cameron’s going to be alright.

Ferris: Sloan, I’m going to marry-

Me: You realize that by “chat”, he means “murder”, right? He’s going to murder his dad.

Ferris: (Pause) I don’t-

Me: He is blatantly unstable right now. You watched him flip out at the New York stock exchange. He pretended to drown ten seconds ago. He convinced you that he was in a coma so he could watch your girlfriend undress. He just kicked a car out a window right in front of you. You just watch a kid reenact that whole "mother lifts a car to save her child" scenario, only instead of love, he's motivated by rage and childhood neglect. His dad is going to come home, and Cameron is going to stab his face off.

Sloan: Hey, listen-

Me: Then he's going to have sex with it.

Ferris: I….

Me: But by all means, focus on proposing to your slutty high school girlfriend. That scenario always works out great.

Damage Control: a How to Guide

As a man being digested by a death-spiral of alcoholism and poor life choices, I’ve woken up to some bizarre circumstances, often with little to no memory of how I arrived at them. And they’re not always pleasant- for every time I’ve awoken to find a prepaid masseuse or a certificate naming me a justice of the peace, there have been several where I’ve discovered myself a Jehovah witness or my dick firmly lodged in a magic 8 ball.

Years of dealing with these bizarre situations have made me something of an expert. Do you know how to get a kidnapped rabbi out of your home without him telling on you to his vengeful Jew-god? I do. And now I’m here to help. Here are a few of the most common hangover companions I’ve had to deal with, and not only will I tell you solutions to them, I’m going to teach you how to turn them to your advantage.

Number One: Orphans.

Whenever I go out people always say to me “Dan, I got really drunk last night and adopted 3 orphaned children in an ill advised attempt to impress women. What should I do?”After I finish wondering how these people keep finding me, I always tell them the same thing: the problem isn’t that you have too many orphans, it’s that you don’t have enough. If anything, you should march back to that orphanage and adopt seven more of the little buggers. Try to get British ones if you can- they are the Cadillac of forsaken children.

For each orphan you own, the government pays you a hundred dollars a week- they’re like little walking piggy banks (only not really. Do not turn your orphan upside down and try to shake money out of his back. That is largely frowned upon.) The only obstacle in your way is that orphans require food, clothing, and love- a common misconception that brings down most orphan owners. Your orphans can be clothed with little more than an old t- shirt and a plastic bag (not the see through kind- you don’t want to get arrested), and require shockingly small amounts of love. Their monthly affection minimum can be achieved by a bi-weekly march through the stuffed animal section of a Toys R Us. And did you know that the average orphan can go weeks-if not months-without food? You probably didn’t because I made that up, but it sounds true, right? Just tell them that- maybe the placebo effect works on starvation.

When it does eventually come time to feed your orphans, you can help them build character by making them work for it. If Oliver Twist taught us anything, it’s that orphan’s make adorable little pickpockets. They can be trained to steal anything: money, jewelry, food, and if they get caught, a pair of dead parents makes an excellent get out of jail free card. And when your little child slaves finish earning their keep and you’ve properly skimmed off the top, they have yet another practical application: warfare!

The average orphan is a treasure trove of unexploited combat potential. Their tiny stature makes them ideal for infiltration and quick maneuvering, and the average orphan hand is one of mankind’s most underused weapons. Their long, unkempt, disease riddled finger nails are ideal for gouging an enemies eyes out, and years of desperately seeking parental approval and fearing nuns has given them a vicious pack mentality. When orphans attack in numbers, there’s nary a foe they can’t topple. With just a megaphone, some light military training, and the attitude of an oppressive totalitarian dictatorship, you can shape your adopted family into a tiny strike force to be reckoned with, then turn them against your enemies.

I myself have an entire regiment off tiny assassins stored in my basement for the sole purpose of defeating my next door neighbor Gary Sanderson, who’s apparently doing sooooo great at law school- well you know who else is doing great Gary? ME, BECAUSE I’M NOT HAVING MY EYES GOUGED OUT BY LITTLE ORPHAN CLAWS! MAYBE YOU CAN USE THAT LAW DEGREE TO SUE ME- OH WAIT, YOU CAN’T BECAUSE YOU’RE BLIND AND YOUR DEGREE’S IN COPYRIGHT LAW! MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE FILED A PATENT ON NOT BEING A DISFIGURED FREAK!

And remember, when you’re done with your orphan, recycle them properly- the planet is all of our responsibility.

Number two: Dead Body

Death happens. It’s one of the little poetries of the universe that one of life’s most important moments in when life has ceased to exist, and it’s something that everybody has to deal with in their own way. In just so happens that you have to deal with it immediately, because death is lying face down in your living room in a pool of what you pray to god is just vomit.

The first step is to calm down and evaluate your new post mortality companion (aka rotting meat friend). Is this a family member? A colleague or lover? A hooker? It’s a hooker, isn’t it? It totally is.

That’s okay; I’m not going to judge. The modern hookin’ industry simply does not build streetwalkers like they used to, and as a result, today’s call girl is rather lacking in terms of durability. All it takes is a single strike to the head or the most meager of O.D.s for you to find yourself the evening companion of particularly poorly dressed corpse.

Okay, gameplan- have you ever seen Weekend at Bernies? Yeah, that doesn’t work. Turns out people are really good at spotting dead bodies even if you put on sunglasses. Conventional knowledge would suggest chopping them up or dissolving them in acid, but those things are difficult and expensive. Something as simple as a dead body shouldn’t mean you have to be uncomfortable.

Okay, how do you feel about cannibal- no? You sure? I mean, that would be a good way to save on grocery bills- jesus, fine, I’ll drop it! You’re not making this easy though. Alright, I guess if you’re not willing to get down off you’re “I don’t eat people” pedestal, there are other ways to do this.

Do you hate your neighbors? Of course you do: neighbors suck. Constantly investigating, “smells”, and “odors”, and “horrible, gut wrenching stenches, the likes of which still rouse me from my bed in a cold sweat begging for mercy”. Fuck them. Maybe if they hadn’t created such an atmosphere of suspicion and hostility, Saphire or Crystale or whatever your hooker was named would still be alive! This is as much their dead hooker as it is yours!(Don’t actually think about this, just get pissed off).

In fact, why isn’t this dead body in their apartment? I can’t think of a good reason, and assuming you’re trying as little as I am, neither can you! Lets correct that.

When transporting your dead body, respect is key. This isn’t just any dead body- this is whats her face: a proud, Puerto Rican-ish lady of the night! Use only the absolute finest of burlap sacks in transporting her. While your planting the body, get creative. Smear some of her blood, vomit and inevitable feces around the cellar you dump her in. Don’t just smear a pentagram or write “murder” in big garish letters; you want the people finding this body to believe one of their loved ones is a horrific serial killer- subtlety is the key here. Maybe write a poem in bodily fluids, or arrange the body like it’s in the middle of a romantic dinner. Really, y’know, sell it. Hell, with enough time and hookers, you might even be able to convince them the house is haunted.

Number Three: Japanese man in the fridge

I honestly don’t know how this keeps happening. Maybe it’s some weird drunken misfire between being hungry for Chinese food and missing my grandfather, but for whatever reason, I keep waking up to an elderly Japanese man stuffed in between the milk and my crisper. I can only naturally assume that this is a common occurrence for everyone else as well.

Now, while the Japanese are a very patient, polite people, that inherent kindness has a statue of limitations, and there’s a fairly strong chance that they’ll have a pair of nun chucks on them. Therefore, it’s your first duty to calm this man down and explain to him what exactly is going on in a manner that he can clearly understand- tell him he’s on a game show.

The Japanese love game shows, almost as they love sushi, overpopulation, and hypothetical pedophilia: to the point of being kinda scary. And the terms of these contests are so bizarre and without logic that literally any scenario you could possibly dream up would be not only be readily accepted, but considered fairly dull. The typical Japanese primetime show involves self mutilation, graphic nudity, at least 2 comodo dragons, and will go on for anywhere between 3 hours and 6 days.

Now that your wrinkled far eastern friend believes he’s on camera and is properly afraid of dishonoring his ancestors, you can get him do to anything you want as long as you tell him it could win him 10,000 yen in the lightning round (10,000 yen figures out to something around 20 bucks, so you should be fine). Want him to clean your apartment? Not only will he do it, he’ll do so pretending he’s a school bus. He will drive you to work while singing the entire plot of the 1986 action movie Face Off. He will hold up a liquor store for you while dressed as both Sonny and Cher simultaneously. He’ll even cook you a delicious plate of Lo-mien using only noodles, sesame oil, and your dickweed neighbors missing cat; all you have to do is hold up a stop watch and scream gibberish at him.

Number Four: New Jersey

Listen, I’m not a miracle worker. If you wake up in New Jersey, you’re most likely already dead or insane. If you do keep yourself intact long enough to get your bearings, the rules to survive are the same as those for a zombie apocalypse: avoid major population centers, stay off the main roads, be constantly wary of those around you, and run until you don’t smell rotting flesh anymore. God help you.

Karate!

In my youth, I was trained in the martial arts. Through karate, my tiny doughy body was transformed into an engine of angsty destruction, and my ADD riddled mind was honed into a harmonious aura of calm and understanding (that was riddled with ADD). Or at least it would have been, had I gone to a real karate instructor. Sadly, I went to what’s known as a “Mcdojo”, or more accurately known as “a studio run by a fucking white guy”. So while all my friends were dodging ninja stars, doing bicycle kicks and beating the shit out of Ralph Machio, I was learning how to punch and block. A lot. In various orders and patterns. For 5 goddamn years.

At the time, I thought I was a living weapon; in retrospect, I could have gotten my ass kicked by a dead cat. In fact, there’s only one scenario in which my training would have been even remotely useful:

Bully #1: Alright, today’s the day we attack that kid.

Bully #2: Awesome. I can’t wait to punch the crap out of that kids face.

Bully #1: I know! There’s only one problem- I am horrifically ill. A combination of asthma and muscular dystrophy has ravaged my young body. If this boy resists our attacks with so much as a single well choreographed punch, I would shatter me.

Bully #2: That is horrific timing, because I just came down with polio. I can’t manage anything but the slowest of movements.

Bully #1: Luckily, I don’t expect this guy to fight back at all. Not even a little. And even if he does, I’ve convinced four other bullies to help us.

Other Bullies: Hey.

Bully #2: That is awesome! And they’re all strong, right?

Bully #1: Not really. Three of them have fetal alcohol syndrome; it’s as if their bodies were comprised of pipe cleaners and Elmers glue. The fourth is okay, but he has a crippling phobia of people who go “Yaaa” when they punch. And two of them have OCD, so they insist me mount our attack in a single file fashion, only assaulting him one at a time. They were very insistent on that.

Bully #2: That sound pretty horrible, but I’m nonetheless optimistic! What’s our strategy?

Bully #1: first, we attack from the front, then stop within arm’s length, and take the proper amount of time to get our fists ready to punch him. If he survives that, then you approach him from the left and grab him by the wrists.

Bully #2: but what if he’s able to turn left? And then break my hold with some sort of mystical spinning of the arm?

Bully #1: Impossible! No man can turn left and escape the grabbing of the wrist! It’s been proven by science! And even if he does, he’ll never expect me to attack from his right!

Bully #2: (Gasps) My god, you’re like a tiny Napoleon wrapped in a Digimon t-shirt!

Bully #1: And even if he does manage to foresee my attack and discover my secret weak spot-

Bully #2: -You mean your entire torso?

Bully #1: -Yes, my weak, gnarled torso- then I’ve brought this to shield myself with: a sheet of balsa wood!

Bully #2: Brilliant! Let us begin our attack! (Begins walking) But what if he has learned some sort of martial art that allows him to punch through your balsa wood?

Bully #1: then god help us all.

Other Bullies: why are we doing this again?

Bully #1: I’m not sure. I think it’s that stupid “Gi” he always wears. I fucking hate that thing.

Taking a moral inventory

Jim: Hey Bill?

Bill: Yeah? What’s up?

Jim: Well, we’ve all been talking and we’ve kinda come to the conclusion that-

Karen: We think you’re a bad person Bill.

Bill: Oh……. Is this because I’m producing a Porno about Dr. Martin Luther King?

Off in the distance: -And I say that you will not discriminate on it, not based on its size or its girth, or even its color…….. for it will rock your world just the same!

Jim: That…. May have been a factor.

Martin Luther Fking: Yes, I have a dream- a dream about busting all over those-

Bill: Okay, you guys may have a point.

Laziness

An avid reader of this half-assed excuse for a blog (which is really just a half assed excuse for a website in the first place, essentially making me a quarter assed excuse for a writer) might have noticed that that posts have been a little scarce as of late. although if this thing actually has readers at all, let alone avid ones, they're probably too preoccupied chasing pigeons and aggressively stalking local political officials to notice much of anything. Anyway, the reason for this recent drought of mirth has two reasons:

1. I'm lazy, and my house has tivo.

2. It's summer, and writing is a lot more difficult when you don't have the added motivation of really not wanting to write a term paper.

Anyway, to hold you pathetic bastards over until I can write something to finally get me back on that FBI watch list, here's a film review a wrote a while back for my friends website-calamity.weebly.com/ (visit that shit, the poor bastard desperately needs the traffic).

The Death of sci-fi (kicks so much ass it’s not even funny)

You may not have heard about it, but the French recently won cinema. Yup, we had a good run, but it’s time to pack up our shit, call it a day, and give whatever the French equivalent to Hollywood is all of the money. Because while we were working our asses off trying to make good movies, the French were biding their time, concentrating their entire creative landscape around creating Immortal, a film so retarded that it makes Sarah Palin’s kid look like a neurosurgeon. This film is so stupid, so balls out crazy, so goddamn full of itself, that it’s singlehandedly more beautiful than every Oscar winning film we’ve churned out in the last decade combined. It turns stupid into an art form, albeit one that you wouldn’t really pay a lot of money to hang up in your house. This movie takes the definition of a movie so bad that it becomes awesome, slaps a wig on it, and makes it its’ bitch.

For a good reference of this film that director Enki Bilal (Jesus, is it even legal to name your kid something like that?) has proudly shit into our DVD players, you should understand French cinema. When they’re not making black and white short films about depressed clowns smoking cigarettes, the French like their movies trippy and horrifying. I’m talking about stuff that makes Charlie Kaufman films look like romantic comedies. They film things like City of Lost Children. If you really want to understand Immortal, just picture City of Lost Children, and then rip out your fucking brainstem and replace it with a solid block of every hallucinogen known to man, because Immortal does not give a fuck by European standards.

As I said before, the film is balls out crazy. At one point, an eagle murders a hammerhead shark man with heat vision to save a woman with electric nipples. It just took me thirty seven minutes to type that sentence because I kept having to clean the semen off my keyboard. And don’t think that the scene makes any more sense in context because motherfucker, it makes even less sense in context. This movie takes sense and skullfucks the shit out of it. I would recommend seeing it high, but I don’t want to be held responsible when potheads (all four that will read this) rip out their own brains in sheer confusion. I actually had to watch it three times just to make sure I wasn’t having some sort of stroke.

This is a movie with the philosophy that every scene can be improved by the addition of laser eagles, and if it already has laser eagles then it needs more laser eagles, and you’re an idiot for not already adding a demon shark. This director looks at every moment of his films and asks how he can fit lighting into it, and god help the poor coffee boy who tells him that he’s wandered onto the set of Spiderman 2 and Aunt May doesn’t shoot lighting out of her hands because Enki Bilal will lightning the shit out of him, because physics does not apply to this man.

First of all, the plot is like having a 12 year old explain Blade Runner to you while he’s tripping balls on LSD. It takes place in a vaguely 1984-ish totalitarian future where corporations control everything and genetic modification has become the norm- you know, the fresh original setting that every Sci-Fi movie ever takes place in. Oh yeah, and there’s also a giant pyramid floating over the city. Like, a big, ancient pyramid hovering away in central park. It can’t be very important though, because nobody really seems to give crap. Seriously , if the ancient Egyptians parked one of their monuments over my goddamn city, I think I would fire a few missiles at it, or at least write it a ticket for being double parked.

So Horus comes down from the Pyramid, and I shit you not, the film centers around him trying to get laid. He just sort of wanders around the city trying get somebody pregnant, then possess the body of some Russian dude and starts raping a lady with blue hair. If any of that made sense to you, then call your doctor because your medication has stopped working. And the blue chick isn’t even that pissed about it! She’s just sorta like “did you rape me last night?” and the dudes just like “yeah my bad” and she just shrugs and shows her boobs that have blue nipples for some reason. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that’s the exact opposite of feminism. It’s like the director was trying to lash out at his abusive mother by teaching the men of the world that’s it’s okay to commit rape as long as you think you’re possessed by an Egyptian god. Then the bad guy, an evil red half man- half hammerhead shark (half man- half hammerhead shark! How have you not bought this movie already?) shows up, and shit gets crazy…-ier.

And let’s not forget the CGI. The CGI happens in this movie so randomly that it’s like 1994 computer game threw up into film reel as they were editing it. Random characters are CGI- and not like gods or aliens or anything, just people. All the extras are CGI. Somehow, this movie’s producer couldn’t find enough actors to cast his movie without resorting to generating them out a computer. Do you know how impossible that is? Go outside right now and ask the first person you see if they want to act in your movie. They will say yes.

And the CGi is bad- really fucking bad. It looks like Shrek got Finding Nemo pregnant, but right before the delivery somebody jammed an eggbeater into the womb. This movie looks like George Lucas had an abortion. I could animate better characters on an N64. And they try to make it look less shitty by dressing the live action characters like their CGI so it looks like really lifelike animation. It’s an idea so blindingly retarded that it works for half the movie. I spent the first 30 minutes thinking I was watching the greatest animation of all time before my brain started trying to force its way out of my eyes to escape how fucking stupid I am.

What really makes this movie awesome is that it takes every crazy idea that nerds thought up while masturbating to Linux in their parents’ basement but were never used because they made little to no sense, and uses the hell out of them. You want a future where people get around in cars hanging from a series of cables? Done. You want 15 minutes of a lady with electric hair eating live eels? Done. You want to see random characters explode for little to no reason? So fucking done. You want to see weird Asian prostitute lady? They have three. You want a main character with a magical robotic leg? They did that 20 minutes ago, and they’re a little hurt you even had to ask.

The whole movie is just a giant dogpile of gloriously stupid ideas. This is the ultimate geeky fantasy put onto film, the movie that they’ve been longing for. And you know what? It kinda justifies how shitty you guys were treated in high school.

200 deaf boys- because apparently catholicism is going for some sort of record

You may have heard that a while ago, it was discovered that over two hundred deaf boys were molested by a priest of the Catholic Church (Really, at this point it’s starting to seem like the only difference between the Vatican and the Nazi party is that the people running the Nazi party had cooler uniforms). I like to think that when that news broke, somewhere in the world this happened:

Secretary: (answering the phone) Mark Pinkerton’s office, trial lawyer specializing in sign language- “He speaks for you, even if you can’t hear him”.

Mark: Yeah Carol, it’s me, you can skip the jingle. I’m in on my way to the office now, and I want you to clear my schedule!

Secretary: Okay, it is…. Already clear. You don’t have any appointments for today- or this week. We don’t have any clients for a while actually. Why exactly are you coming in?

Mark: Carol, have you seen the news?

Secretary: I don’t-

Mark: HAVE YOU SEEN IT CAROL?

Secretary: Does ”E news” count?

Mark: Unless E news is talking about how a bejillion deaf boys just got diddled by a member of the fucking Vatican, I don’t think it does Carol!

Secretary: So, I should-

Mark: What you should do, Carol, is call my yatch guy and tell him I’m about to make it rain. But before that, you should get me a yatch guy. And then I want you to call up my father, my brother, my old boss, the loan agents at citizens’ bank, and every other asshole who told me that a law firm specially targeted at the hard of hearing was a poor business model, and I want you to tell them to suck it! Can you do that Carol?

Secretary: I think so? Honestly, I’m not really used to doing work at this job- I didn’t even know the phones worked until two seconds ago. Are you really sure we’re going to make that much money?

Mark: Carol, there are at least two hundred of these little Helen Keller mother fuckers, and each one just learned the sign for “bad touch” from a member of a church who built an entire city out of gold for Jesus. There could not possibly be a more profitable court case if Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch got together to violently gang rape Michael J. Fox and his entire family. We are going to be so rich that you’re going to be able to buy a pair of tits that don’t look some sort of horrific tumor collection was duck taped to you chest. God bless those kids, and each one of their silent, ruined assholes!

Secretary: Well okay, I’ll start making some calls. But for the record, I don’t think you should talk like that when the deaf boys show up.

Mark: Oh what are they gonna do- hear me?

An Open letter to my Last Date

Dear Veronica,

I feel like our date last weekend went really well, and that we had some good chemistry. I’ve tried to call you a few times over the last week, but the fact that the number you gave me is six digits too long is leading me to suspect that you might have given me some sort of fax number by accident. That, or you typed out “metallica rulez” onto the keypad of my phone in between trying to steal it. I really hope it was the fax thing.

Given, our whirlwind romance does not have what could be called the “strongest foundation”. I too, was hesitant to look past our less than romantic meeting, namely me drunkenly answering craigslist ad in which you inexplicably managed to misspell more words than were technically in the request. A chance meeting in cooking class, that is not. But, in my drunken 3 am desperation and your being “tootally Hrny’ I like to think we found a crude yet beautiful connection- for a moment, I was the Richard Gere to your Julia Roberts, the John Cusack to your whoever-the-hell- he-was-in-a-romantic -comedy with, if they were both significantly less attractive and smelled of gin, vomit, and failure.

Yes, I was hesitant when you demanded I meet you in the bathroom of a Wendy’s on the edge of town- not even the Wendy’s itself-just the urine soaked, vaguely rapey bathroom that smelled suspiciously of meth. And yes you were late, by exactly 6 hours and 43 minutes, but I stayed in that poor man’s crack den because I felt that we had shares something special- that and I was still a little drunk and really wanted to see some boobs. But when you showed up, you redeemed all that the moment you walked in- specifically by taking out your vagina. Like, right away. That was awesome- almost awesome enough to warrant overlooking that you had brought your kid. I mean, he seemed nice at everything, but when things got hot and heavy, that wide eyed, cool aid stained face of his became a tad distracting. Though the issue was cleared up slightly when you clarified that he was your designated driver. And as the fluorescent lights of that bathroom glinted of a vagina that I can only describe as “grumpy”, I got the irrefutable feeling that fate, in its mysterious splendor, had brought us together for some deeper reason- beside your stated one of “shutting up and getting all up inside you”.

Where I really felt like we connected was sexually- mostly because that’s really the only thing we did. True, you did start vomiting up what looked strangely like cat hair before we could do the deed, but we did manage to squeeze in 6-9 minutes of hardcore, world class finger banging. Although I don’t think I can legally call it fingering, and it barely fits under the parameters of fisting. I think what you had me do to you was less foreplay, and more me using you as hand puppet. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, I’m just saying that if I’d really tried, I probably could’ve worked you mouth to sing while I drank a glass of water. And I like to think that I did a pretty good job; I ‘stopped being such a pussy” about you clawing at my neck with your long, bobcat like nails, and I even powered through your sons frequently questioning of “why are you hurting mommy” and “are you two going to play the pay the landlord game”-no small task. It was so heartbreaking I almost felt bad hitting him (I figured that if we were about to begin a relationship, I should begin filling the role of father figure to him as soon as possible). Why, I even overlooked the fact that when I removed my arm its skin was stained a deep, charred black- as if the very skins cells themselves had committed suicide.

And then Veronica, you were off into the lingering shadows of dawn, your child driving you home on what I can only assume is a stolen golf cart. You left me only with a kiss, a knife wound, and the vague feeling that your name isn’t Veronica- mostly because your child called you Janet while the two of you were robbing me. But you know, Veronica, I’m not perfect either. I’m young and foolish, prone to pretension and the sins of my generation, and have been told by many that my head is shaped eerily like a 1984 Honda Buick. And I know that if you can look past all that, well then Veronica, I can look past the fact that no matter how many times you say you’re twenty six on a craigslist ad, it doesn’t change the fact that you have 4 fucking cesarean scars and a face that looks like one of the Golden Girls on a crack cocaine binge.

So please, Veronica, call me. Partly because I’d like to see you again, but mostly because I think I might’ve lost my watch in you, and it was a gift from my grandma.

People Should Really Stop Making Deals with the Devil

"... something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it, they were under the heel of the French, uh, you know, Napoleon the third and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the devil, they said, we will serve you, if you get us free from the French, true story. And so the devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.' And they kicked the French out, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free, and ever since they have been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor."

-Pat Robertson, man who is inexplicably allowed on TV on a regular basis, on the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti

The Devil: Gentlemen, thank you for meeting me, sorry for the wait, it’s just been a really crazy week. Europe has just been blowin’ up lately, and well, I have been downright swamped taking care of those crazy bastards, am I right?

The Haitians: Um, it’s no problem.

The Devil: Alright, let’s get down to brass tax, shall we? [Flipping through folders] Lesse, this is the…. Haitians?

The Haitians: Yes sir.

The Devil: Like, the whole Country of Haiti? All of the Haitians?

The Haitians: Yes.

The Devil: Like, not the Haiti Liberation Army, or the Society for the Advancement of Haiti? Just, all the people in your entire country?

The Haitians: Yes sir.

Roul: Well, except for Craig.

Emile: But fuck that guy.

The Devil: And your request is that you want to “get rid of the French”. Oh man, like The French? I totally know those guys! What did they do this time?

The Haitians: They brutally colonized and dominated our entire country, and now refuse us the basic human dignity of sovereignty.

The Devil: Oh man, really? That is totally like them, but you know they stole everything they got from the British, and don’t even get me started on Belgium.

Jean: We want them out of our Country. We’ve had enough of their oppression, and we need your help to finally win our freedom. It is time for a Haiti free of the French.

Emile: To hell with the French swine!

The Devil: Alright, sounds good to me. I have here a standard “Revolution/Armed conflict Assurance” form, just fill it out really quick, and sign here- and here, agree to a few minor conditions and we can start killing some snail eaters!

The Haitians: Huzza!

[Begins filling out the form]

The Haitians: What’s the date?

The Devil: It’s the fourth.

The Haitians: Great and…. Oh.

The Devil: Is there a problem?

Jean: Roul? We don’t have a problem do we?

Roul: It’s no big deal, it’s just, um, this list of “conditions” pretty extensive. Like, 3 pages extensive.

The Devil: Oh all that? That’s just the pull to your take, the yang to this little yang you are requesting. I suppose you could look at it as the price to our little exchange.

Jean: Well what are they?

Roul: Well this first one here is “crippling poverty and economic oppression.”

Jean: Well, that doesn’t sound good.

The Devil: Oh, it’s not. Really, your entire country is going to spend the next few decades poorer than a dyslexic in Vegas, with every major first world country stealing your lunch money whenever they feel like it.

Jean: Oh, well that’s… How poor?

The Devil: I’m talking philosophy major poor.

Roul: Okay, I’m going to come out and say it now: that is going to be a problem.

Jean: Well what’s the next thing?

Roul: let’s see, well there’s “rampant child slavery”, “foreign assassination of our democratically elected leader”, constant tsunami and other disasters, and- what’s this about an earthquake?

The Devil: Oh that? Well in early 2010 your country is going to get hit with this giant ass earthquake, I mean a real doosey, and I’m not going to lie, it’ll pretty much level your entire society.

Roul: That’s horrible!

The Devil: Yeah, a bunch of people die. And then a bunch of celebrities will fly to your country and hand out soup to try to revitalize their ailing careers by looking like they still give a shit about poor people, and a bunch of American politicians are going to try to politicize the whole thing to further their shortsighted agendas, which between you and me are all moot anyway cuz the whole Country nukes itself to shit before the end of 2011.

Jean: Does anybody even help us?

The Devil: Well sorta. All the major religions send missionaries with aid, but they’re really douchey about it, y’know? Like they show up, and instead of handing out food, they start giving out bibles, and they make really snide comments about how “miserable” you people are. And a bunch of musicians that nobody cares about and actors with DUI’s get together to sing a really sad song about the whole thing. So, I guess you could say people “helped” in the loosest possible definition of the word.

Jean: Okay, well that’s (exhales) that’s pretty damn awful. But I mean, at least the French are in the same boat right? They get screwed over pretty hard, right?

Emile: Those goddamn French!

The Devil: Uh, not really, they actually do pretty well for themselves. I mean, you’ll get them out of the country, sure, but after that I think keep going strong from a couple of centuries. I’m actually pretty sure they’re one of those countries exploiting you.

Jean: Seriously?

The Devil: Yeah.

Roul: Is there anything, and I mean anything, else that we should know about before signing this.

The Devil: No nothing really. I mean besides the teensy tiny detail of John Travolta coming to your Country to preach Scientology.

Roul: Alright, you know what? I’m going on the record as being against signing this. We are signing a deal with the devil, and this contract is horrible by those already incredibly low standards, and come to think of it, we probably should’ve brought a lawyer! Why did we not do that?

The Haitians: [uncomfortable silence]

Roul: Does our Country seriously not have a single lawyer?

One of the Haitians: I practice environmental law!

Roul: Oh, go fuck yourself.

Jean: You know, Mr. Devil, I’m going to have to go with Roul- I don’t think I’m really comfortable with the language in this document. Could we do some rewrites or-

[Emile quickly snatches up the pen and signs the contract]

Roul: Emile, did you just sign that?

Emile: Yeah.

Roul: Why?!?

Emile: Because fuck the French, that’s why.