Categories
Confess

I Loathe the Able-Bodied

I work–or rather, “don’t work very hard”–in a 20-story office building. I am on the 20th floor. This of course necessitates many rides up the elevator, which affords me (nice, stable me!) many opportunities for the unnecessary hatred of my fellow man.

For example, I was just on my way back up from lunch (read: cigarette), cruising along happily in my own unoccupied car when bing! I stop at 15. An apparently healthy young woman enters the car bearing the Atlas-like load of one manila envelope. She pushes a button.

Bing!

She gets off on 16.

HEY! You freaking baked potato. You couldn’t handle one flight of stairs? This irritated me greatly, so I tackled her from behind and put her into an excruciatingly painful wrestling hold called the Estonian Milkshake of Agony until security hauled me off of her and clapped me in leg irons.

Not really. But I wanted to. Jesus. She must be a charter member of the Society of the Apparently Legless.

Other thing that burned my less-than-asbestos ass re: the able-bodied today: following completion of burning-stick-of-lunch, I wandered back over to the front door of the building. There is, nicely, a big button with a handicapped symbol on it so that people on crutches or in wheelchairs can whap it, and the door will open automatically for them. Like I say, nice (and, in a cancer care facility, pretty useful). So I’m walking up to the door, and a nice, young couple of kids are at the door and they hit the door-opening button.

Now really. Reach out with your wonderful, youthful arms and open the fucking door for Christ’s sake! You have so many years to come in your future that will be filled with helplessness, infirmity and despair. Do you have to usher them in with such eagerness? So I naturally took out my boot knife and stabbed them in the eyes. Then I stood bestride their fallen bodies and screamed to the skies, “I CLEANSE THE WORLD! I AM PURE LIGHT!” until security came and hauled me off.

Not really.

Categories
Home Improvement

Lawyers and Houseflies Make My Life Sexier

So I smoke cigarettes. Hey, where are you going?

Oh, well, for those who didn’t run screaming, I smoke. But not in the apartment, for a few salient reasons. One, it kind of makes everything smell after a while. Two, it tends to cover everything you own in a thin film of ick. And third, my apartment manager would nail my scrotum to a chair and then evict me and then nail some innocent passersby’s scrotum to a chair just to work all the way through her anger.

So I smoke outside, which isn’t too raw. I have a little covered stairway that I can smoke in, with a little window. I can enjoy the view out of my little window, and watch the lawyers working out of their home opposite my place. I will not be hiring these lawyers any time soon, as I cannot help but notice that they leave their computer monitors on all the fucking time. When they split, turn out the lights and slink into their gleaming fuck-you cars, there are their monitors, burning away. Oh, no screen savers either. Just angry, livid monitors, left helplessly on, feeling their pixels burn out one by one, for no reason at all. It seems to me kind of like tying your maid up every night and pointing a halogen lamp into her face. Jesus, you dumb fucks! Turn off your monitors! At least get a screen saver! Is that privileged information you’ve got blasting out photonically into the night? Perhaps I’ll buy some binoculars find out why you’re suing your HMO, gentle reader (they’re not buying the “erotomania” argument, dude).

Another little perk I get from smoking outside–this is a recent development–giant, ghastly houseflies. Our apartment was evidently built on an Ancient Native American Septic Tank or something, because these lovelies really put the “super!” in “supernatural.” For one thing, they are clearly intelligent. They know exactly when I am opening the door. I imagine them huddled outside, chattering: “T minus five seconds until the big pink thing opens the portal. Then we zip inside and look for dead stuff and crap on it. If we don’t find any, just crap anywhere. Christ, I love this job.” The other creepy thing is, they are utterly untroubled by spider webs. I know this because I don’t mind spiders, and I let a few set up camp in my little smoking window area precisely so they could catch flying beasties. Not these putzes. In the Spider World, these guys are France. The flies are so huge that they fly into the webs, kick a bit, and they’re gone. Then the spiders run out, see their ruined, flapping webs, see what amounts to the week’s groceries gracefully flying off, and then run back inside to watch pretentious, porny art flicks and complain about the mushroom harvest.

So smoking clearly has its trade-offs. On the one hand, I have to deal with Brobdingagian super-insects, and even worse, I occasionally have to see lawyers. But on the other hand, I do get to smoke. It all works out.

Categories
Triple Word Score

My Fantasy NFL Players Have Imaginary Conversations

Steve McNair: AAAAAAAHH! AAAAAAAAAH!! AAAAAAAHHH!

Donovan McNabb: AAAAAAAARRRRGHH! OH SWEET CHRIST!

Christian Fauria: You not scream. I catch ball.

Steve McNair: AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! I CAN’T WAIT TO PLAY, I’M IN SO MUCH PAIN! THIS IS THE BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD! SWEET AGONY! AAAAHHHH!

Isaac Bruce: Wha . . . what happened? We . . . I . . . we used to be so good . .

Jerome Bettis: AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH! AAAAAAAAHHH!

Plaxico Burress: Anyone got some hand grease? For my hands? I’d like to make my hands greasier.

Ed McCaffrey: This is the worst team I’ve ever been on. I’m going back to the fucking hospital.

Jamal Lewis: Does anyone even notice me anymore? I’m right here, guys.

Christian Fauria: What? Who you? Get us sandwiches.

Jamal Lewis: But . . . oh all right.

Isaac Bruce: . . . we were good once, right guys? You remember . . . just a year ago . . .

Donovan McNabb: AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAH!

Steve McNair: AAAAAAAAHHHHH! OHHHHHH! MORE! MORE PAIN, LORD!

Jerome Bettis: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! AAHH!

Sebastian Janikowski: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! AAAAAAAAAARRRGH!

Ed McCaffrey: What the fuck is up with Janikowski? He’s not hurt.

Plaxico Burress: No, he’s just fucking nuts. Check him out–he’s eating Icy Hot.

Sebastian Janikowski: GERK! MRAGGAH! ERM!

[Fin]

Categories
It's All About ME

There is a Thing Lodged in My Skull

Tonight starts the last weekend of performances for the dinky little cabaret I’m doing. I will dress up in my finest and in a couple hours I’ll be strutting across the stage belting out (to the extent that I belt, which is minimal; my technique might more accurately be described as Sans-A-Belt) lyrics like this:

I’ve got a tiny little pot

A little pot with tiny bells

A magic nose who sniffs and tells

And all of this we made ourselves

To entertain the princess

Ah! Ooh! It sings and dances too!

A veritable hit parade

To which your guests can promenade

While they sip their lemonade

And eat their blintzes

Seriously. Go ahead and get that cocktail you’re suddenly craving. I’ll wait. Yes, I’ll be right here, humming the ineradicable goddamn song about dancing cookware that will never, ever leave my head.

In fact, bring me a cocktail too. Make mine a double.

Categories
Our Wacky Government

Today I Mock the Infirm

Today, with much fanfare, Strom Thurmond turned 100 years old. I was reminded of the Simpsons episode where they had a newspaper story about Burns, and the subhead read “Credits long life to Satan.” Did you see the Marylin Monroe impersonator who sang him “Happy Birthday”? And did you see him reach out and grab her as if she were a giant turkey leg? Poor bastard.

And of course I say “poor bastard” because I feel for the guy. Mostly I feel vague hatred, because he’s such a vile old wallet of a man. He’s a steak from Denny’s left forgotten under the broiler and then absentmindedy dressed in a waiter’s revenge of pork fat, lemon juice and graft. Now, it is, of course, easy sport to make fun of this guy any more. Thank goodness. In an age where spin and doubletalk increasingly insulate politicians from good old mean-spirited cock-twisting just for the fun of it, old Strom still makes it easy for jerkoffs like me: he’s never done any single good thing in his political life, so I can have at it, and it requires virtually no effort.

Thank you, Strom. Thank you for being such an awful person. I’ll never forget you, no matter how hard I try. Because I’m pretty sure that someday, someone will name a fucking airport after you.

Categories
Visual Club

Only Pansies Don’t Watch Lots of Television

TV Guide listings I’d kind of like to see:

CSI: Omaha

Everybody Loves Emo Phillips

NYPD Blue Cross

Fox’s Cavalcade of Self-Loathing

The Manx Show

Candid Cameroon

Grungebob Flarepants

Malcolm in the Middle East

Where in the World is Chloe Sevigny?

The Amazing Racist

Categories
It's All About ME

You Should Come Outside and Hurt Yourself With Me

Smokers help each other delude themselves. I thought about this the other night when someone at the theater came up and said, “Wanna smoke?” with a big smile on her face.

The wording is deceiving. It’s spoken as if the asker is making you some sort of fabulous, generous offer. If she had come up to me and said, “Wanna beer?” there would have been a whole different meaning: she would be offering me a beer.

Not so with “Wanna smoke?” We all know what this really means: “Would you like to come outside and keep me company while I smoke? I will not, however, be providing you with a cigarette, so bring your own. C’mon, you’re a sad addict like me! You know you want to!” While we all understand that, for some reason, we still feel the need to couch it in a different sort of language.

So, you know, it’s really got me thinking. Mainly, it’s gotten me thinking that right now I’d really like a beer and a smoke.

Categories
Nickels and Dimes

Grasping Bastards Want My Money

If you are like me and have rotten, destructo-credit, let me give you a small bit of advice:

Never, ever pay off any of your old debts. Assume that good old Thoreau was dispensing advice, and maintain your steady-state life of quiet desperation. Because terrible things happen once you start taking care of those old debts.

Things like, well, you didn’t remember all of those old debts. But they’re there. And there you are, sucker, actually taking some responsibility and paying off somebody. You fool. Now there’s blood in the water. You’ve basically raised a giant flag to the disgruntled lenders of the world that says, “HEY, I MIGHT NOT BE A FUCKING DEADBEAT AFTER ALL! WHY NOT CALL ME UP RIGHT NOW AND DEMAND THE MONEY I OWE YOU! PERHAPS YOU’D LIKE TO KICK ME IN THE BALLS TOO!”

Of course, you might not be as stupid as me. This is devoutly to be hoped. But if you even suspect yourself of having near-me levels of dumbitude, heed my warning. Don’t pay those old debts. Scurry about like a starving rat. You’ll be much happier. I can’t believe these bastards want my money that I rightfully owe them. It just burns my ass.

Categories
It's All About ME

So You Want to Make People Vomit

Tonight some friends and I opened a show (in the unlikely event that anyone who doesn’t know me is reading this, I am a stage actor). Just a two-weekend silly little cabaret thing–I have three bits total. No biggie.

One of the actresses was heroically performing with the stomach flu. She’s really sweet, and if you, say, felt like stabbing her in the ribs for some reason, she would probably apologize for nicking your knife blade right before she died. She certainly wouldn’t be so crass as to bleed on your shoes.

So she was a little under the weather. And here are the various (totally unintentional, but hey) ways I inadvertantly tortured her tonight:

I wandered around the dressing room eating a very pungent hot pastrami sandwich, mouthing inanities such as, “Come to me, bread and meat and cheese!” It should be noted that the sandwich also had oil and vinegar on it for that special added “I am raping your nose” effect.

As she was sitting around innocently watching the acts, I stepped on her bare foot with my leather shoes. She couldn’t even scream, because there were performers doing their thing. So instead she hissed, “I kind of hate you right now.”

And finally, the coup de grace. While backing my car out of the lot, I ran over her incredibly adorable small child, who was playing with G.I. Joes and flexing his dimples. When we were done unpeeling his remains from the tire treads, he resembled a spectacularly unsuccessful lasagna. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and say, “Aren’t I a stinker?” And we all had a good laugh.

Okay, so the last one isn’t true. But I kind of felt like it might be in the cards. Some nights one should just stay home.

Categories
Wishlist

Today I Think of Death

Don’t ask me how this happened, but I just caught myself spacing out. I was fantasizing about how great it would be if the film director Kevin Smith was walking down the street, just maybe eating a hot dog or perhaps talking to someone else I hate, and then, without warning, a huge moving carpet of earwigs would swiftly consume him. He’d have only time to scream, “Oh my god, earwigs!” before succumbing, and one of his arms would weakly wave above the carnage, Hollywood-style, before it went down into the roil. Then the earwigs would vanish suddenly, and there would only be a pile of gleaming, untalented bones.