Category: It’s All About ME

Oh, it’s going to be a shortish entry tonight, because I’ve been out debauching. Well, nerd-debauching; I went out with some friends and played bar trivia. And, incredibly, WE WON!

As the bespectacled geeks who Frink around the weird server room might awkwardly exclaim, “W00t.” Our team o’ five took in $175, so I was basically handsomely paid to go out drinking and eating terrible bar food. Get the special of the night: “3 tacos for 2 bucks!” Are you kidding me? I just won over thirty bucks! GIVE ME FORTY-FIVE TACOS, STAT!

The categories were . . . meh. Let’s see: War (they named a battle, you named the war); Beer (slam-dunk); Science and Math (in which we had to calculate a fucking kilometers to miles conversion, no mean feat even when you haven’t been drinking); Lead Singers (audio trivia; they played the song, you named the lead singer–and one guy on our team knew who the fucking yowler was for Steppenwolf, unbelievably); Geography; Americana; 20th Century History, and Acronyms (did you know that RADAR stood for “Radio Detection And Ranging”? Neither did we.) The one they left out at the last minute, which outraged me and this other total nerd was Books You Haven’t Read. Fucking bastards. I’ve read Infinite Jest and A Brief History of Time and The Corrections and Gravity’s Rainbow and all that shit; it’s what I did growing up while I was having no sex. I was ready for them to bring it on, but they gave me the old sandpaper handjob.

But no matter! WE WERE VICTORIOUS! It was the Lead Singers category that put us over the top; they coughed up seventeen songs and we got sixteen of them, including Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister. We did unfortunately miss Jack Russell from Great White, because we all thought it sounded like the dick-in-zipperesque frightened caterwauling of Vince Neil. Those hair metal bands were all grown in the same vat anyway and have since all been deconstructed into constituent parts and then painstakingly reassembled into next year’s shambling zombie models for the upcoming Tom’s of Finland calendar. All that’s left is for the technicians to craft ghoulishly veiny penis replicas to shove down their leather pants, as years of sopranic shrieking have left their original unfortunate members shriveled and miserable from diverted blood loss.

And since I have just creeped myself right the fuck out, I’m going to bed. Thirty dollars richer. W00t. Glavin. And the hey hey hey I won.

Virus 1: What’s up?

Virus 2: Nothing.

Virus 1: Want to go fuck with Skot?

Virus 2: Yeah!

Skot’s Immune System: Hold it right there, you bastards!

Virus 1: Up yours.

Virus 2: Get lost!

Skot’s Immune System: Sorry to bother you. Go right in.

[The viruses throw a house party at which several million guests are in attendance. The viruses insist on playing “Cheeseburger in Paradise” at high volume.]

Brain: Jesus God. Jimmy Buffett attack! I must void stomach contents!

Stomach: We’ve got nothing down here but ramen noodles and whisky anyway.

Liver: Don’t even talk to me.

Viruses: HEAVEN ON EARTH WITH AN ONION SLICE!

Small bowel: They’re making me twitchy.

[The rectum does not say anything, but mewls softly in his dread.]

Esophagus: We’re all suffering, people. I’m getting gang-fucked by these lymph nodes up here. Jesus, back the fuck up!

Lymph nodes: We can’t help it! We’re just big-boned! Talk to brain!

Stomach: Brain? Yeah, he’s a help. ‘More beer and cigarettes!” That’s all that guy says.

Lungs: Great, more cigarettes. Just what me and heart need. What the hell is rectum crying about, anyway? We’re the ones who get nailed.

Rectum: Dude, do you have any idea what goes on down here?

Viruses: I’M JUST A CHEESEBURGER IN PARADISE!

Brain: Oh, this is horrible. Hands! Beer and a cigarette! Now!

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.

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.

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.