Politicizing Pizza: Passion, Propaganda, and Patriarchy. Pfffft!

The distributor sent us the wrong boxes last week. He said it was because they were out of the blank white ones, but it was probably really because my boss is somewhat of a blowhard, and the guy was sick of his shit. So we got this:



As if that wasn't awesome enough, one side of the box says this:



And one side says this:




And, lest we forget who we're referring to, the third side has this to say:



How does the distributor get the freedom, the wherewithal to send to a restaurant, that may or may not have political leanings, these patriotic boxes? How is it that we must stand by, and not only accept, but use these cardboard rectangular pieces of propaganda? How can it be that my boss, while maintaining the status quo of the American Dream by owning and running a successful small business, be overtly opposed to this message of nationalism, if only because it interferes with his blank canvas to paste coupons for Tuesday night on the top of the boxes, and still do nothing about it? I couldn't begin to surmise the answer. Imagine my shame when I had to hand people this box. Imagine my greater shame when their eyes lit up in recognition of someone, or some business, that feels the same way they do- that their country is the BEST! "And that's really such a rare feeling, these days especially."

How does this happen? What happens in life that makes it possible, and profitable even!, to print these boxes, these boxes that house nothing but what later turns into shit, yes, actual human feces, and nothing is said about it? How the fuck did they do it? I found my answer later, when I opened the pizza I brought home and looked at the inside flaps of the box:

Then, nothing.

In what would soon turn out to be a really shitty night, my first delivery today was to a neighborhood that I often refer to as "suck." I'd been to this house before, and luckily did not have too many negative connotations with the place. Chances are I probably got a decent tip out of a delivery that I would have normally assumed to be a stiff waiting to happen. I remembered this guy, too. This house. I wasn't sure why. Then, when I got to the door, I remembered. This guy was fucking weird. Maybe weird's not the right word. Afflicted, damaged, ruined, all come to mind. For some reason, I got it into my head after the first time I delivered to him that he was a veteran of one of our fine olive branches of the military. I don't know what gave me this impression. However, I do know that he had not one, but two, NRA stickers on the outside of his screen door. One was old and faded, and one was newer and fading. He'd probably paid his dues in the last two years at least. He also had a tattoo of a small cross on his ring finger, right where a ring might go, had he been married. Perhaps he was, after all. Not all people commit to each other with gold and diamonds. Did I mention that he looked exactly like a melting Christopher Walken with a pony tail?

Something had happened to this at once young (probably mid-thirties), yet insufferably old man. He shuffled slowly to the door, struggled with the lock, and verbal communication was a clear strain on his body. When I handed him his pizza and awaited payment after stating the total to him, he looked at me puzzledly. I waited. Sometimes you have to let things sink in with people.

Then he laboriously raised his right hand and made the international sign for writing, by which I mean he carelessly flicked his wrist back and forth a few times with a loose fist barely clinging to the wet paper towel that was his flesh.

"I gotta... sign.. something?"

"Oh, sorry, sir. You have to give your credit card information to the store when you call to order. I can't take a credit card here."

"Ohh..man.. that's gonna screw.. me."

"Well, if you want, you can just sign this receipt and give me the credit card number, and I'll just have 'em run it when I get back to the store."

He hesitated, understandably. I wouldn't give my credit card number to some guy on my front porch.

"Umm..."

"Or, you can just call the store and give 'em your credit card number, and they'll sort it out."

"Okay... okay."

"Okay. Yeah, just call 'em whenever you can and they'll take care of it. But I guess go ahead and sign this now, and we'll just staple it to your credit card receipt when we run it."

"Okay."

I felt pretty sorry for this guy. I looked at his overflowing mailbox, and remembered seeing the same sight last time I came here: bunches of bills piling up from various banks and credit institutions. Here was yet another of this dead nation's bastard sons (Thanks, D4).

When I returned to the store, I asked my boss if he had called yet. He said, "Who?"

"The guy on Coleman I just delivered to. He was supposed to call you with his credit card number. He didn't call?"

"No. Someone called, but it was a wrong number."

"Yeah, then that probably wasn't him," I replied. I love being a dick. "I'll just call him."

You can probably guess the rest. I called him a number of times, only to get his answering machine. I left a message the first time I called, but after that I just hung up when his slow, sad message crackled through worn out tape into the phone line.

My boss, from the very beginning, had doubted this man's intentions to pay for the pizza, and I told him that it's a tragic fucking day when a man can't even trust an ex-Marine. But, as the hours passed, I began to wonder, too. I knew we had delivered there before, and I know he paid with a credit card. What was going on here?

Running through all possible scenarios in my mind, I finally came to the conclusion that this man had probably already blown his brains all over the wall behind the computer which sat on a sagging aluminum folding table which served, however modestly, as a desk. That had to be it. He ordered so much food: a pizza, a salad, a piece of cake, a six pack of soda. Why so much food? It must have surely been his last meal, of course!

I imagined him suiting up in his full military regalia, just like in that movie A Few Good Men. I think that's what it's called, anyway. The one where the guy gets all suited up in his clean navy uniform and completes the task by putting a well polished chrome 9mm into his mouth and just going ape. But in this guy's case, it probably would've just been a dirty old army jacket that reeked of weed and cheap wine. His right shoe would've had to have been off too, so he could use his big toe, with that yellowed, cracked, and peeling nail of his, to pull the trigger of an ancient one shot shotgun that his step-grandfather not so much gave him, but that was kind of just left there after the old drunk had driven his rusty Ford into the oncoming traffic of a convoy of 18 wheelers just outside of Longview, Texas in 1972.

A few hours and a half-dozen unanswered calls later, I had a delivery going to a house just a few streets away from him. I asked my boss if he wanted me to stop by to see if I could collect payment.

"Sure," he said.

Well, if you're gonna be that enthusiastic about it, then fuck it, what do I care, I thought. But then I remembered I got stiffed, seeing as he made no payment at all, and so now it was personal.

While it was overcast and gloomy when I arrived there the first time, now it was just plain dark. Dark, muddy, and cold. I slooshed through the front yard, not seeing any of the puddles that were formed by a constantly shifting earth. I smiled to myself in thinking that his foundation is probably so fucked, and was warmed in the good fortune of knowing that mine is only kinda fucked.

There was only one light on in the house, and it was not the living room light. The soft glow emanated from a bedroom (computer room?) off to the right of the main living area. I knocked on his door my standard five times: not too agressive, but I definitely do mean business. Nothing. I waited an extra amount of time, remembering his drawling, dead man's walk. Three to four minutes later, I knocked again. Six times now. Louder, more urgent. I also maneuvered my body in such a way that I was not directly facing the front door. Instead, I had my shoulder facing the front door. Also, I moved away from being in front of the door. I also positioned myself so that I would not be in front of the living room window. I wasn't sure why at the time, but I am now.

Minutes later, after an awkward amount of waiting, I became sufficiently weirded out by my current station in life, and began walking quickly back to my running car. I had my hand in my pocket on my cell phone. I wasn't sure why at the time, but I am now.

As I reached my car, a feeling of control and security came seeping back into my consciousness, and as I opened my door and began climbing into the seat, I looked back at the house contemptuously and muttered, "Asshole." Which is precisely when, since I wasn't paying attention, my hat flew back, as if I had hit the brim of it on the top of my door frame. Clearly, I had overshot my landing while coming up with the brutish insult I just assaulted the nearby air with.

I reached back to re-position the wayward cap, now heavier than before. I sank into my seat, and instinctively pushed in the clutch, with a leg that had never shaken like this before, like the leg of a newborn calf. I began driving, my neck much warmer now, yet cold with the breeze from the open window. I couldn't stop my eyes from rolling backwards, and my ears, though mostly burnt and gone, wouldn't stop ringing.

The Story of B.

What a novel name for a blog posting! Hmm..




This is my cat, Bert. Bert is the most affectionate cat I have ever been personally involved with. Many of my friends could attest to this claim, to be sure. It may have to do with the fact that before he was owned by me, he was owned by the ailing father of Adam, the ex-guitar player for the math rock phenoms known as Butterknife, who at some point in time went to the hospital for an extended stay due to, well, medical problems, I suppose. I do not really know. Guess I never really thought to ask. What an asshole I turned out to be. To prove this claim, I will effortlessly continue telling my story with absolutely no regard for Bert's previous owner. Did he die? Is he still sick? I don't fucking know. Why don't you go ask him?

It so happened that Bert, our fucking hero, was somehow sequestered into the garage at this man's house for literally months when the man went to the hospital. I am not sure of the exact length of time, but I remember the term "six or seven" being thrown around, and quite loosely, I might add. I do not know how he survived. Presumably, Adam went over there once a week and emptied a bag of Meow Mix into a dusty old metal dog dish that was put back into service when someone was too lazy or inconsiderate to get Bert his own bowl, which incidentally is how many pets define themselves, they'll thank you to know. Surely Bert must have had to eat around the dried and dirtied crickets legs that always seem to end up floating in water bowls and collecting at the bottoms of food containers. It's amazing that crickets can ever jump, being as frivolous as they appear to be with their legs.

Maybe once a month Adam would take the litter box that was cracked in the middle and sort of half-cautiously, half-carelessly dump it behind a bush in the backyard and kind of kick at it from the bottom until the big clumps of urine mache would come unglued from the box, and fall to the ground slowly, like a giant tree falling from the forest canopy. Maybe there was no litter box at all. Why don't you ask the garage? Alone in his prison of old chains, containers of bonemeal, piles of nails used as a paperweight for ancient, yellowing pornography, what did Bert do, there in the dark? Amidst the maddening hum of a barely working freezer (they call it an "icebox") that housed nothing but venison steaks and cartons of Dorals, what happened to Bert?

For one thing, Bert became very co-dependent on his next owner, me, and, once he trusted me and those closest to me, became the most affectionate cat in the land. Sure, it's an endearing quality that stems from a life of tragedy, but I think both parties are satisfied with the outcome. He gets an owner that doesn't torture him (except for the few times that Steve and I raced him and Poe, Steve's cat, around the apartment by putting socks over their heads- they'll back out of 'em for hours!), and I get a cat that comes when I call him.

But during his bid upstate, Bert developed a problem. It's true. He can't help it. He is compelled to eat plastic sacks. He also likes licking deodorant from armpits, turpentine from stained jeans, and ink from dirty palms. It is a compulsion, a curious feline drive likely developed from his tenure as an unwilling garage dweller. He tends to only go after the sacks when he is hungry, which is any time there are not at least three pieces of Deli Cat in his food bowl. This usually occurs in the early morning, and it is quite often that I awake to the sound of rustling plastic, look around blearily and yell, "Bert!" This sends him tearing off under the bed. He also commences to tearing when he has to poop and he knows I know. Understandably, he is very self-conscious about his defecating habits.

But, often I will return home and find waiting for me what appears to be a shining, white turd. It is not a turd, however. It is vomit. It is the vomit from a cat whose stomach, as much as he wants it to, will not digest manufactured plastic products. This does not keep him from trying, though.

More than likely, this affliction may have been what kept him alive lo, those many months in the garage of a dying man. And he should be revered for his bravery during that dark age. But I fully expect to walk into my room someday after work and see this:





At least he will have died a hero. Oh wait, no, that's hobo. Heroes don't eat trash. Bums do.

P.S. If I get any comments about cat litter or cat boxes on this post simply because a few key words were mentioned that alerts your blog reader that I might be interested in your shitty business, I will personally murder my own cat. How's that?

My curiously queer internet friend, Kyle.

Below is a series of emails traded between myself and a gentleman on myspace. This gentleman must have stumbled across my webpage, and being a man of the gay persuasion, felt it necessary to email me, as my profile says that I am gay. It also says a number of other things about my personal statistics that are not only untrue, but (I think) hilariously satirical! If one were only to match my profile information with the pictures I have posted on my profile, they would soon see the obvious divergence between fact and artistic license. You too, will soon see what I am referring to. This clearly did not matter to my new admirer, however, as he immediately shot me a quick note, blind to every glaring incongruity that is present in my information, as soon as he saw that my sexuality read "gay." Perhaps the possibility of new and unfamiliar cock excited him so much that he failed to see the forest for the trees full of straight, satirical me's. As a male, I suppose I can understand- oftentimes we do not think when we act, especially as concerns sexual issues. He is not to be blamed for trying. Our correspondence has not been edited at all. I will continue to update this blog with any future communiques between my new friend Kyle and I.



----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: kyle
Date: Dec 13, 2005 11:10 AM

Gay and from Fort Worth I see. Do tell.


love - kylzies


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: Jonathan
Date: Dec 13, 2005 3:12 PM

Hello Kyle-
Sorry, I'm not gay. I am also not a pacific islander, nor am I 8'11" with the muscular physique of a body builder. In addition, I am also not a Scientologist with a Post grad degree. Furthermore, I do not make over $250,000 a year in my occupation as a boner. I barely make $20,000 in that job. Many apologies, but you are the victim of an elaborate ruse. I hope this doesn't mean that we can't still be friends.
Sincerest regards,
Jonathan


----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: kyle
Date: Dec 16, 2005 1:15 PM

Gay or not, you WILL be mine.


----------------- Original Message -----------------
Dec 16, 2005 7:58 PM
Subject: RE: RE: RE: Hello

You've got moxie, kid. I'll give you that. Keep it up, and you may just find a place for yourself in this crazy world. It just won't be inside my asshole.

Fondly,
Jonathan

www.jonathansalmanac.blogspot.com



Here's what my new friend looks like.





You can visit his site on myspace here.

You can visit my site on myspace here.

Nonsensical Dream. OR "That just means you're unsure of the future, you miss the past, and you want to be seen as a good person." Yeah, yeah.

So, Rebecca and I were at an amusement park. She really wanted to go on this roller coaster- one of these wooden numbers from days past. Rickety and bumpy- not too scary, in the modern roller coaster sense of the word, but scary nonetheless, for its own reasons. Like, 'this thing could collapse at any moment,' or 'why the fuck is that guy smoking so close to this thing?!' I didn't really want to, but not for any real foreseeable reason; I'm just a big puss. Anyhow, she convinced me too, and so we did.

As the rows of cars ascended the sharp, gear-grinding track, we surveyed our surroundings. I noticed we both felt strange. At least I thought I did. I could have sworn I detected a strange look on her face, too, but that's probably just my own paranoia.

We shot down the first hill, everything normal, everything fine. Then, a strange turn. I surely didn't remember this from last time. Did she? I turned to look. She seemed apprehensive, cautious, scared?

Another unfamiliar turn. A sharp grade increase. Where were we? A slow, foreboding left turn at the top of the coaster. I looked off and down to my right at the dizzying tops of the park's poorly landscaped and young, grease soaked trees as we approached the final descent of what was turning into a strange ride altogether.

That was when we noticed a wooden caution sign, complete with red stripes and circles with stripes through them indicating a no-pass zone, right where the last hill should have been. Oh, it was still there, to be sure. But we wouldn't be gracing it with our metal wheels. No. Instead, we veered left, where one would not expect to veer when riding a familiar coaster. I had time only to shoot Rebecca a furrowed, pensive glance, noticing the same unsure look on her face, before we careened down a new and uncharted track on this heretofore dependable and entertaining family ride.

This drop was more drastic than before. We hadn't any time to catch our breaths at the newly forged bottom of the hill before we saw what lay ahead of us- the end of the track. We each inhaled quick breaths of goodbyes as we sailed off the end of the track and looked down and below at the desert of dead grass underneath the barely spinning wheels of the coaster car that yearned for a good oiling.

And then- connection with track again. Yes, the track had been out, but our momentum flew us onto the remaining portion of the track that had not been removed, or just recently added. We were saved, but had we ever been in danger?

Soon, I found myself in a nearby room with Bruce Willis. Tensions were high, and the niceties that had surrounded our meeting with the group across from us were quickly wearing thin. We noticed a great deal of fear and apprehension in the face of the young woman grouped with an obviously seedy element, in the form of two mid-twenties men clad in leather jackets and pock-marked faces. Apprehension and fear were not the only things we noticed in this young woman's face. She also had a number of knotted ropes jutting in and out of her face, which at the onset of our interaction seemed simply like a new fad, but which we later determined to be a method of torture. We surmised this to be true after the criminal element she was associated with told us of their intentions to make her star in a snuff film.

One might well imagine that I was shocked, but in knowing that, one should also speculate as to just how fucking pissed off Bruce Willis was. It was determined between the two of us that the scum that was to perpetrate this heinous act of violence must themselves be killed. In reality, it was probably Willis' decision, as that is the kind of person he is, and besides, there was this really dramatic shot from underneath his face, about chest level, that, with the effective overhead lighting shadowing his darkening visage, truly indicated his intentions to stop this travesty. I probably just went along with it.

We took in hand dully sharp shrands of glass that simply appeared before us, and, with everyone else absent that had been there previously, set to work murdering this scourge, this would-be snuff film producer. It was no easy task, murdering this fellow. Many hacks were made at the base of his neck before our goal was accomplished. Why, we even had to massacre a small, scruffy dog that was present in the room, presumably to leave no witnesses.

The deed was done. It was just then that Paul Goetz's ex-girlfriend, Julie, walked into the room with what appeared to be a niece or nephew of some sort. Bruce Willis, of course, was nowhere to be found. Having accomplished his heroic feat, he must have returned to Hollywood to await more benevolent missions. I grew fearful of being discovered in my violent act, no matter how justified it may have been. I attempted to act cordial, as I had not seen Julie in quite some time, and I did not want her to think me a cold blooded killer. Her eyes and expression betrayed a suspicion that made me fearful of having to murder her and her young companion as well, so I did my very best to allay any doubts that may have been racing through her mind at that crucial moment.

I stroked the dead dog, bloody coat and all. I felt fortunate when the dead canine began re-arranging itself, as if annoyed by my petting it while it slept, in an effort to portray to the unfamiliar company that everything was fine, normal.

I owed a good deal to that dead dog, and I knew it.

Mocked Mood: A boss.

I've been trying to come up with a reason to use this hilarious play on words as a subject for something for quite a while now, and I think the following should suit the subject well enough. My friend Nick just got a job at the same pizza place I work at, and he called me a few nights ago to tell me about having just finished reading the delivery driver's manual. Of course, the first thing I replied to this information was, "You actually read that shit?" I admit that I did look over it when I was first handed it as well, but I certainly didn't read all 26 pages. Boy, was I dumb. I have no more to say on the subject, really. I will allow a few excerpts from the manual to speak for themselves.

On Arriving Prepared.

"CLEAN CAR. Good image builds tips. Also, clean windows and headlights can make for safer driving."

"STRONG SPOTLIGHT. Some drivers find that a spotlight helps in reading numbers on mailboxes and porches."

"WRIST WATCH, or clock in your car, that's set to the same time as the clock in the restaurant. Used for computing delivery time."

"NON-COMPANY JACKET OR SHIRT in the car. If you're involved in an accident, it may be helpful to remove your company shirt and hat (also the car sign) to avoid bringing attention to yourself."

On Safe Driving

"Drive calmly and with positive feelings. Driving with tension or anger can increase the chance of an accident. Leave personal problems and tension outside the car. ...Also, if you play music, listen to slow, relaxing music- not hard rock- as slower music promotes calmness and safe driving."

On Impressing Customers and Earning Tips

"Do the extra, nice gesture."

"Compliment something. If a child or pet comes to the door with the Customer, say something nice about them."

"Give their pooch a pet treat. The beloved family Fido is always a part of the delivery transaction (about 40 percent of pizza buyers own a dog). After handing a Customer the food, but before they give you payment, offer them a dog biscuit for their excited canine. This is a major tip-builder. HINT: Carry the biscuit in a plastic baggie- as it looks more sanitary and appealing."

On Receiving Payment

"NOTE: Many customers will tip after receiving their change. So, don't try to force a tip by stalling and fumbling with coins. It only angers people and causes them to withhold a tip."

On Basic Safety

"Glance at the back seat before getting into your car, to make sure no robber is waiting."

On Invitation to Come in from Customer

"For security and liability reasons, you should never step into a Customer's residence. If someone invites you to come in, say, 'Thank you. It's very thoughtful of you to ask me in, but the company requires that I stay outside.'"

On Additional Precautions for High Security Delivery

"When sidewalk conditions allow, RUN from your car to the Customer's door. A running person looks purposeful and in-control, which discourages robbers. It also leaves less time for a robbery. In conclusion, don't appear lost or scared, but act confident and like you know what you're doing. Robbers don't like approaching confident-looking people."

"After you've completed the sales transaction, say to the Customer 'Would you watch me to my car, please.' Customers are willing to do it if asked. Then RUN to your car."

Not like a flash of light or a black hole sound. Just gone.

Recently, I went to pick up a friend from his home, which he claims is in North Richland Hills, but is actually in Euless. But that point of contention, which comes up quite regularly in driving to and from his house, is not relevant to this particular tale. Mark is known, amongst myself and the rest of his bandmates, not to mention the rest of his friends, probably, to really have a knack of making one wait around for quite a bit of time before leaving to do whatever task it is that people like us may have on their minds at any given time. Yes, like a good prom date before the spiked punch and misplaced rebellion, Mark makes a soul wait. Whether it's to finish watching a five hour marathon of "The First 48," or simply to "wrap up a dooket," as he often quips, know that, upon entering his house, even if you have, and iterate, a dire urge to leave, you are bound to be in his house for at least fifteen to twenty minutes.

I've learned to accept and embrace this trait of his. I don't mind, generally. Usually by the time I'm at his house, it's well past any time I have to be anywhere important. Plus, sometimes he'll pass an unopened beer, bum me a cigarette, or put on a David Blaine special. The evening I speak of now was not vastly different, though he did seem a bit more anxious to leave, as his mother was talking to him. An understandable motivation, to be sure.

Well, I thought we were leaving, as that is what he told me as I exited his house and headed to my car. I reached the door to my car, and turned to realize that he was nowhere to be found. I assumed he had just gotten caught up on his way out, presumably by his mother, so I climbed into my car and put on the CD-R that he had just burned for me that contained The Urchin and some really rare Dillinger 4 songs. You see, sometimes you also receive nice gifts for picking Mark up. It's always a surprise.

Needless to say, these songs were enough to keep my attention diverted from the fact that it was beginning to be an unbearably long time since he had informed me that he was ready to leave. Perhaps he knew of this particular eventuality that he presently found himself in, and that the CD he had just given me would quell any bitching I might passive-aggressively toss in his direction when he finally did show up. Nonetheless, I did notice the slow, exponential increase of time passed without Mark in the passenger seat, and for just a moment, I grew anxious, looked impossibly around in the inked forest of his poorly lit front yard, and impatience began to crystallize around my frontal lobe. I even considered leaving him at home, stuck with only his mother and her admonitions of his alcoholic tendencies when he asked to use the car, if only to prove a point that it is very rude to keep one waiting so long. I was ready to go, boy!

It was at that very moment that he opened the door and climbed into my car. In all my impatience and anxiousness to espy where he might be, I failed to see the exact person I was looking for walking right up to my car. I made no comment on his tardiness, even though he was not really tardy, as there was no predetermined time for him to be present in my automobile. We began talking about the songs on the CD, and he regaled me with many snippets of information about these bands that I simply did not know! It was glorious.

And then, a queer thing happened. My cell phone rang, and as I checked the caller ID, I noticed that the call was coming from Mark's house, where we just left not three minutes before. I thought it might be his mother, so I answered the phone somewhat tentatively, with the radio turned all the way down:

"Hello?"

"Where the fuck did you go," a male's voice asked, with a lilt of curiosity, but moreso,with an air of annoyance.

"Who is this?"

"-the fuck do you think? MARK, stupid."

I turned to look at Mark, who looked in turn at me with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Who is this," I asked again, with somewhat of a laugh in my voice. I figured Kevin must have showed up at Mark's right after we left and was playing an hilarious prank!

"Are we practicing or not?"

Mark's impersonator was beginning to sound more like Mark with every passing syllable.

"Uh, yeah, MARK. We're on our way to practice right now."
To my right, Mark looked at me with as screwed up a face as one can surely muster, and quizzically said, "Huh?"

"Look, you comin' back or not?"

Shaken, but not stirred, I turned to Mark in what seems now like slow motion, and. Handed. Him. The. Phone.

As soon as he put the phone to his ear, he was gone.

When I arrived at the practice space twenty minutes later, so did Mark. He climbed out of my car.

Completely rare and totally improvised Rise and Shine song!

This one's from the vaults. Forgive the poor audio, but alas, that is the effect the vault has on things. The lyrics to this lost gem are below. Enjoy it now, for soon it will be gone forever. (The vault is in the process of being repossessed.) THIS IS AN AUDIO POST. If you cannot see the "Play this Post" button, it is directly underneath the lyrics to the song on the left. Just move your mouse around a little until you get the pointin' finger. You know, the finger that points you to rock. There's also probably a faint grey box around the link, too. Get in touch with me if you can't play the post.

"Meat is murder. Dairy is rape. Don't mind a rapin' now and then (Don't mind if I do!). Of course, I'm only jesting. (I don't participate.) I just communicate.. through m'songs(and my-). Don't touch that animal- it's not what you think!(It's a fucking human being! It's flesh and blood..) Well, it's not a human being, but it's flesh and blood. That is true, I think.(It's a human being!)It's flesh and blood. But don't kill it! No, not tonight! Not for anything. Not for anything tonight! Not for any..thing... tonight. And I see you walking- around. Got an animal in your trap, well, I don't *garbled lyrics -ed.* now. Mama, tell me why animals gotta die! So you can eat- blood- on your teeth. Mama, tell me why your tongue is(red)- coated in blood- (On your teeth.)."

At least they had something to cook with. All we get is brain cancer.

Cell phone Customer #1- So, yeah, of COURSE I was, like, NO, I'd never fucking do th- hello? Buddy? You there? Buddy?

Cell phone customer #2- Do what? Hello?

Cell phone Customer #1- Hey. HEY. CAN YOU HEAR ME?

Cell phone customer #2- You'd never do what? Hello?

Cell phone Customer #1- HELLOICAN'THEARYOU. CAN YOU HEAR ME? IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, I CAN'T HEAR YOU. CALL ME BACK. GOODBYE.

Cell phone customer #2- Hey. I can't hear you. Call me back. Oh- hello? Hello? Y'there? Aw, fuck- *click*

Cell phone Customer #1- He- ..oh. *click*

FIVE MINUTES LATER

Cell phone customer #2- Hello? Can you hear me?

Cell phone Customer #1- THERE you are. What happened?!

Cell phone customer #2- What do you mean? What happened to you?!

Cell phone Customer #1- Nothing! Your phone just cut out in the middle of my story!

Cell phone customer #2- Not mine! I could hear you just fine, saying hello and stuff.

Cell phone Customer #1- I could hear you too! It wasn't my phone, I had five bars.

Cell phone customer #2-Me too. I had SIX.

Cell phone Customer #1- Oh,wait... So did I. I just always forget to count the littlest one, 'cause it's always there.

Cell phone customer #2- Yeah.

Cell phone Customer #1- Anyway, sorry about that. What were we talking about?

Cell phone customer #2- I don't know.. Did you turn your phone off or something?

Cell phone Customer #1- No. Why?

Cell phone customer #2- 'Cause when I tried to call you back it just went straight to your voicemail.

Cell phone Customer #1- That's what happened to ME when I tried to call YOU!

Cell phone customer #2- No way!

Cell phone Customer #1- I swear to God!

Cell phone customer #2- Then I guess we must have been trying to call each other at the exact same time!

Cell phone Customer #1- That is so fucking WEIRD!

Cell phone customer #2- I know!

Cell phone Customer #1- Well, sorry about that. Fucking cell phones. Anyway, what were you about to say earlier whe-

Cell phone customer #2- Did you get my voicemail?
______________________

2.7 million years earlier

Australopithicus afarensis man #1- Then Gog see great mammoth in clearing, and raised giant rock over he-

Australopithicus afarensis man #2- What that?

Australopithicus afarensis man #1- Me not sure. What happened?

Australopithicus afarensis man #2- Me think fire went out again.

Australopithicus afarensis man #1- Man, that weird. Me was just talking, and me could see, then all of sudden, me could not see anymore!

Australopithicus afarensis man #2- Me know! Me was looking and listening at you, then you gone! Me can still hear you, but me cannot see you!

Australopithicus afarensis man #1- Me too! You must not prayed and sacrificed to great heat spirit again.

Australopithicus afarensis man #2- No! Me did! Me figured you not prayed!

Australopithicus afarensis man #1- No, me pray today when great heat spirit was above Gog's head.

Australopithicus afarensis man #2- Me pray when spirit was at treeline.

Australopithicus afarensis man #1- Fire weird.

Australopithicus afarensis man #2- Me know.

Why wireless internet and laptop computers are a bad idea.

Below is an excerpt from a draft of an ill-fated blog that I never finished the other night. I have no idea what I was writing, and all I remember about it is that my eyes were closed the entire time I was writing it. It is a bad idea to attempt writing while sitting in your warm, comfortable bed. What you are about to read is so bad, it even looks fake. But it is not. It is real. Send your shame c/o Jonathan Pool to my p.o. box. My email's already full.

"and anuyway, i was drunk.. i don't thikn you have any right to sit there, as if you were some sort of hight and mighty magistrate tper of person, in a medieval cour t or something, handing down the fucking charges and penalties as if i were some petty fucking thief that stole a lit candle from the window of some old broad that clearly left a vurning candle, not to mention a sasparilla pie burning right in front of her house in sindow that any passing hungry and night blind person coul've seen, would've seen, and stolen, nay bottoerf lihhy. yhr lihting like i burned the magna carta on arbor day or somethnig, man. lay off bro. that's all i can say,..man.let's take muey sleep nowkkeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiphooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhioo--"

Someone kill me.

Aww, I hate m'self.

Yesterday at work, I decided to take a break from the dull monotony of doing nothing while waiting for a delivery to come into being, to offer itself unto me, and I stepped out the back door of the pizza place into the dismal alley, surveyed the abandoned/condemned houses directly behind our building, and decided to have a cigarette. To be honest, the cigarette is the only reason I went outside in the first place, as it was fucking cold out.

While smoking, I decided to place a call to my girlfriend on my cellular phone. While smoking and speaking to my girlfriend on my cellular phone, I decided to stand on a cinderblock that was next to the short three step staircase that leads to the back door of my place of employment. While smoking, speaking to my girlfriend on my cellular phone and standing on a cinderblock next to the staircase leading to the back door of my place of employment, I began to think about loggers, and the fanciful life they must live in the forest- cutting down trees, being so close to nature, drinking extra-frothy beer out of pewter metal steins that are as big and heavy as the axes they wield, keeping giant blue oxen as pets, and the good hearted and lively competitions they undoubtedly come up with to keep themselves entertained during their long tenure in the woods. Games such as log and axe throwing, spear fishing, thinly veiled homoerotic wrestling, and logjamming. I think that's what it's called. No, not the porno about loggers (what an hilarious joke! huzzah! ..fucking idiot. -ed.)- the event, the activity logjamming. It's that thing where there's a log in the water, and the loggers run in place on the log, spinning it under their feet, and see who can stay on the log the longest. I'm pretty sure that's called logjamming. One thing I know about loggers is that they love logjamming. I can almost hear, feel, their hearty guffaws bellowing through the woods into the nearby village, awakening all the children in fear of what must surely be a spectre or ghoul in the dark, foreboding forest.

So, while smoking, speaking to my girlfriend on my cellular phone, standing on a cinderblock next to the staircase leading to the back door of my place of employment, and thinking about loggers and the fanciful life they must live in the forest, I began to fancy myself a modern day logger- one of a more urban nature, mind you. Peering down, I slowly began pushing the cinderblock underneath my feet forward ever so slightly, just to get an idea of what it must be like to be on the river and logjamming with great friends and even greater enemies, even though I was in a dismal alley on a structure that is probably the furthest shape one can get away from a log. Are there degrees of separation for shapes? If so, I would imagine these two things could probably be the bookends on the spectrum and no one would put up too much of a fight about the choice. Soon- too soon, I realize now- I became quite comfortable with my balance on my urban log, and became a bit more cavalier in my attempts at blazing a trail for the new sport "blockjamming," as I have termed it. Patent pending, fuckers.

Then this happened.



And this, too.




Then the world exploded and everyone died.

You judge. You judge me based on your horrid, horrid jealousy.

It's tea for me tonight. And tea for me last night, too. No alcohol, not tonight. Not last night either. I haven't left my house since I got back from Oklahoma a few days ago except to go to work and band practice. Why? It's not because I'm boring, I'll tell you that much right now. No, it's because I'm sick. Not really sick, but the kind of sick where you think you're getting sick. It all started when I went to Oklahoma..

Ah, to get away for a few days- fresh air, a change of scenery, leaving behind the hounds of hell that catapult through the house at all hours of the night and early, early fucking mornings. It's always nice. Leaving behind the foul stench of the Trinity River and the orange overturned bowl of pollution that domes the D/FW sky is simply refreshing. The sweet, cool breeze from the Oklahoma hills shocks the senses like a sharp cheddar, or a stout wine. Or a sponge filled with asbestos. It's poison!

Let me explain. I live in filth. For those that know me and have been to my house on some sort of regular basis, it will come as no surprise to hear that a common question upon entering my house is, "When did you get robbed?" You see, besides having three dogs who can come in and out of the house as they please since our foundation is fucked and whose natural penchant is to kill squirrels and rats and tear them apart on my kitchen floor, couch, or kitchen couch, and having a roommate who, by his own account, is a total slob, there's me- a roommate that really doesn't care too much for social graces, and so therefore doesn't really care if there are melon rinds and tripe lining the hallway. I don't care if anyone sees it - I didn't make the mess. Hence, I will not clean the mess. My own room is not particularly disgusting, most of the time. Sure, there's always clutter- piles of clothes here, stacks of papers there, the occassional cat shit when I don't stay on top of cleaning the litter box, which is admittedly too often.

The point is, and this is not a decision that was conciously made- it happened organically- mine is what some might call a punk house. In fact, I've been to squats that were less filthy. Can't say it bothers me too much. I'm kind of into it, actually. Were it not for my sweet, gracious and mildly OCD-about-cleanliness girlfriend, this place would probably never be clean.

I say all of this to posit a question. How is it that I, a person who actually kicks up more dirt and germs when I walk into my house, showers maybe once a week (on a good week), and spends most of my time in seedy bars and even worse rehearsal rooms, manage to stay relatively healthy most of the time, even while being a smoker, keeping odd, irregular hours, and subsisting on a majority of junk food? Why, were we to believe all the Purell commercials, I should've been dead a long time ago!

I think my body has adapted to the grime, and let me tell you something, people. When it all comes down, and we're foraging for food and hiding in sewers waiting to stab some guy in the calf as he walks by because he's got a piece of edible food in his hands, and there's a man walking around with a 9mm handgun offering to shoot you in the head for the meager price of a piece of bread (read Flan by Stephen Tunney to fully appreciate this reference), guess who's gonna be around a negligible amount of time more? Me, that's who.

More than anything, I have a sneaking suspicion that leaving my filthy house and my filthy city to go to a clean city, and an even cleaner house to sleep in is really what got me sick. All that clean air, no dust in the pillows, no cat hair on the towels, that really did me in. It was all I could do to drag myself out of bed to get to work today and inhale spray glue and burning fabric fumes at the screenprinting shop.

It's those little things, though, that really start to make you feel better. My cough is already fading, and my phlegm is clearing up from a dark green to a light yellow, which is good. My girlfriend told me so.

What's this stupid pond metaphor all about?

What a stupid fucking picture. You should be ashamed of yourself, Urshel Taylor. This picture, to me, embodies the stupidity of Thanksgiving, and what it means to people who refuse to see the past staring back through its shallow, watery grave, as we modern day narcissists stare at the surface of the pond and pat ourselves on the back for a history well done. But, Brendan Kelly said it best, so here it is- the best song about Thanksgiving ever written. Maybe not, but at least for my current purposes, yes, it is.

"Third graders holding hands. Indians and Pilgrims celebrate their newfound land. Tried to teach me that at school. Make the white race look superior, that's always been their rule. Now I can't believe we celebrate Thanksgiving as a holiday of unity and peace. If I had my way, we'd all dress in black, and Daddy would serve up the white meat. 'Cause genocide is nothing to celebrate. Extinction don't deserve a parade. Well, we perpetuate those lies with the turkeys that we buy. I tried explaining to my mom, but she's too afraid to admit to herself that her race is a killing machine. Take a look around your town and who do you see? The Native American's surprisingly absent in his own indigenous land. Do you want to know why? It's 'cause we killed them all. It's not that hard to understand. Yeah, so I go to college, and you know what I learned? That 80 million people were killed by my grandpa, your grandpa, and all of their friends. They bleached out our continent but that's not the end. The last full blooded Aborigine died a century ago. If it's possible, there's a place in the Southern Hemisphere with a history even worse than our own. No one finds it peculiar that a tropic island is full of people just like you and me. 'Cause Australia's a piece of shit floating in the Pacific bouyed by the blood of the Aborigine."

Yeah, take that, Australia!

Bagmen and Basketball.

"..No, I played guard. We were pretty good that year. We won state the year before. Yeah, we had this short Irish kid on the team that was the star, even though he couldn't have been more than 5'2". Hmm? Oh, 6'3", 6'4", depending on which shoes I'm wearing! Haha. Yeah, I don't know, Irish people are just short. In fact, that year we went to Ireland to play a tournament, and we just KILLED all the teams we played. I'm talkin' like 140-6. Every time. We played like seven different schools all over Ireland. But it seemed more just like exhibition games. There was no table showing what place we were in, or who we were gonna play next, no Round Robin, nothing. We basically just drove around and beat the shit outta these short Irish teams. I was pretty good friends with the coach that year, and at some point I asked him, "What the hell are we doing here, Coach J? This ain't even a challenge at all! That's when he told me that he was a bagman for the IRA, and he brought us over to Ireland to deliver hundreds of thousands of dollars- in cash- to 'em. The schools were just drop points. We were the alibi!"

The above is a paraphrased conversation that I eavesdropped on recently. Crazy, huh?


God bless 'em.

It's mine!

I did it. I've bested my ebay foes, and acquired...



...a stupid ass jacket that I paid $40 for. This would have been a mitzvah had the Stryper Zippo that I was really vying for not been greedily snatched from under me at the last ebay second. I have sworn my vengeance, however, and vengeance will be mine. I'm gonna swoop the fuck out of that Stryper hog. He won't even know what hit him. At which point I'll be stuck with more useless Stryper crap. But, let it be known across the land- I will spend every dime I have to exact revenge on the one who has slighted my honor! I will not stand to be disrespected, and have the privilege of owning a severely ironic lighter taken from me in such a cruel, heartless way. Prepare to be disappointed. (I was talking to myself in that last sentence.)

Sparrows: Nature's Freedom-Givers.

A few years ago, I had a job at a movie theatre in Southwest Ft. Worth, a place I affectionately referred to as "Murray's Theatre," as the projectionist there was, and incidentally still is, my friend Ryan Murray. In fact, he was the reason I got the job there in the first place. I was in college at the time, and still under the delusion that I would not always be employed at such low-level, low wage jobs, and so therefore took the job none too seriously. Not that I don't do the same now, it's just that back then I had less to worry about financially (i.e. no rent, no car payment, no three kids to feed, and no three d.u.i's to pay off), and I wasn't under any stress about getting fired. I took numerous days off, for various reasons, and was met with very little resistance from the general manager, a quite old for forty 5'2", balding shell of a man. Were one to look back at my schedule requests from that time (I'm sure this information is easily attainable from the corporate offices of AMC.), one would find such reasons for being off as "Building Pirate Ship," and "Going on Tour." Oddly, the former happened, but not the latter. At least, not at that point. I may someday revisit the Pirate story should anyone be interested. I digress.

The job at the theatre was not so bad. Okay, yes it was. It was horrible. Initially, I took the job because I was told that I could train to become a projectionist. That would be a sweet job. Of course, one cannot just become a projectionist, one must work behind the refreshment counter for a time, one must truly immerse oneself in the essence, the tao, of a functioning movie theatre to truly understand what it means, what it is to wind celluloid film through metal spools and past hot lightbulbs! You fucking dumb grasshopper. Regardless, I held onto hope, and put in my time as a refreshment server. "S'let me get this straight- because no one else has EVER asked for this before. I understand that you invented this brilliant technique- you want me to fill the popcorn halfway, right? Mm-hmm. Then apply butter? Then fill the rest of the bag? And then one more shot of butter? So the butter's evenly dispersed throughout the whole bag? Good sir, I am in your debt."

I got pretty good at the job, rarely stole money from the register, and even learned how to switch the bags of syrup for fountain drinks in the back so I could make the suicide drinks for the kiddies that utilized Twizzlers as straws. Why, I even worked there long enough to help train a crew of newcomers in the way of the concession stand. How long had I worked there? A month? Three? I don't remember, though I do know it was long enough for me to convince a new hiree that one of the initiation processes for working at a movie theatre is to have a drink of butter soda, a concoction I learned about from my friend Nick, who had also spent a good deal of time working for the theatre industry. Butter soda is nothing more than soda water (generally found right next to the Sprite button) with a few pumps of movie popcorn butter sprayed into it. It should be noted that hot grease instantly congeals when sprayed onto a cool beverage. It should also be noted how disgusting it tastes. Another fun thing was to have the new hirees wandering around the lobby watering the plants. The plastic plants.

But, as it usually does, humiliation of others soon grew tiresome, and I found it harder and harder to force myself out of bed on those early Saturday mornings for employee meetings that I knew were completely pointless and trivial, and I tried my hardest to find a way out of them. What could they possibly have told me? How to upsell a frankfurter? Fuck that. People buy hotdogs when they want a hotdog. Namely, when we're out of nacho cheese.

And so, it happened early one fateful Saturday that this very interior dialogue was traipsing its way through my likely cobwebbed mind, and as my unwilling eyes felt the sunlight prying at the four hours of sleep that preceded it, my ears became the catalyst that would truly be my Prince Charming, that which would fully rouse me from my slumber. I slept with my window open during that time, so I could hear the birds in the morning, so I could feel the breeze across my neck as I slept, so I could pretend that I was connecting with nature somehow. The birds in the trees directly outside my window were particularly loud that morning, and I remember being quite upset at first, until I realized that they had in fact woken me up when my alarm had failed to, and, had they not, I would surely have been late to my important movie theatre meeting! I simultaneously thanked and cursed the birds, and lay on my back in my bed with eyes closed, waiting for the sun to pierce my eyelids enough to force me onto my feet when- a louder bird than the rest. 'What was that? Oh, nothing. I have to get up. I gotta be there in 45 minutes. Goddamnit, why do I have to go to this stupid-' Wait. 'What the fuck did that bird just sa-' Wait. And right there is where my mind was made. The moment that I literally smiled to myself, agreed, pulled the sheets back over my head, and went immediately back to sleep. People, you can believe me or not, but I heard the bird directly outside my window sweetly sing, "Sc-ree-ew it! Sc-ree-ew it!" I never went back to the theatre. Except to watch free movies.

And then, for a few years, nothing happened. I did things, acquired debt, and found roommates.

Until yesterday, when I exited my room to get ready for work. I walked into the living room, and there, on the window sill, was a friendly sparrow, flapping its wings maddeningly against the glass frame in a futile effort to escape its climate controlled surroundings. I wondered what path this creature must have taken in its short life that could have put it in such a dangerous position, what with the three dogs that live herein that pride themselves on killing things in the yard and playing with said things on my couch. The dogs had already begun the hunt, and I knew it was only a matter of time before this creature's bones were crushed and its feathers strewn about my bathroom floor. I noticed the door to the backyard was opened, so I corralled it as best I could towards the kitchen, and eventually it flew out on its' own accord, with the dogs in-tow, and I quickly shut the door.

Five minutes later I came back into the living room, and there it was again, in the same spot I had found it not ten minutes earlier! This time I have no clue as to how it got in, and the dogs were more determined than ever to murder this helpless, yet by all rights, stupid, creature. I put the dogs in the backyard, and began trying to lure the bird out of the house with a broom. This was no easy task, as it became more and more clear that the bird simply did not want to leave. I must say that I would love to have a live-in bird, if I knew that I would not walk out one morning to find a beak at my feet. So, determined to save the bird from itself, I began an epic struggle with the broom to rid my house of the winged magnificence. Eventually, I did, and went about the rest of my morning with no mishaps or wacky adventures. I left for work, and about 45 minutes into an hour drive, I realized that I was missing my cell phone. Panicking, I searched my car at 75 mph to no avail. My means of communication was gone. There was nothing I could do. When I arrived at work, I talked to my girlfriend on my boss's cell phone, and asked her desperately if she could find my wayward phone by calling it with her cell phone when she got to my house. I received a call a short while later informing me that she had indeed found it by the very place that I had had my struggle with the squatting sparrow. Relieved that I didn't have to worry about trying to contact 200 people for their phone numbers, I went about the rest of my day with much less on my mind.

You see, for a while now, I have received much undeserved grief from my friends for my constant use of a cell phone that was given to me for business purposes- one that I don't even pay for. I shrugged off their annoying banter-"Sorry I have more friends than you. Fuck off." But, after just one day of being untethered to that which has, in truth, made my life much easier over the past year, my memory rushes back to the days that I never had a cell phone, and as much as I wonder now how I ever got along without it, I distinctly remember a time when I thought about how I could ever get along with it.


I shall never forget my savior sparrows, and a special place lasts in my heart unto this day for their spirits to nest, so long as they don't use the kind of trash to make the nest as their living counterparts do, like Big Mac wrappers and condoms.

Poop suicide. Microwave oven. These are not bad song lyrics. Not as in these song lyrics are 'not bad,' these are not 'bad song lyrics.' Get it?

To wit: I had a dream the other night in which I was participating in a wedding of some sort. Not as the groom, mind you, but someone in the actual wedding party. That information is pretty inconsequential to the story, anyway. Who cares? The point is that I was at a wedding. But the real point is that not only was I at the wedding, rap superstars Eminem and Will Smith(a.k.a. The Fresh Prince) were also in attendance. I'm not sure if you know, and to be honest, I'm not sure I know, but I believe that Eminem has much disdain for Will Smith and his rapping career, as I have heard some quite disparaging comments about Will Smith's street cred in some of Eminem's songs. Perhaps this is why, in my dream, they were not friendly towards one another, even though we were presumably all there to celebrate the union of sacred matrimony of our good friends. Well, leave it to narcissistic pop stars to make everything about them, huh? Can't you take a day off, fellas? Gee willikers! Anyhow, it wasn't long before Eminem and The Fresh Prince got into a dust-up, an ol' fashioned roustabout, a fist fight. Well, seems Fresh Prince, in a fit of rage, perhaps not only towards the shock rapper Eminem, but towards himself at his realization that, yes, perhaps he had lost some of that original street flava that catapulted him to the vast success he has today- what with fighting robots and using his gigantic ears to sail around the world sans motor- proceeded to fight dirty. To literally hit below the belt, immediately rendering Eminem immobile, and thereby ending the scuffle that could very well have been the pop fight of the year! As you might imagine, Eminem was quite upset, though at the time, no one in the dream knew it. In fact, we thought the commotion was over, and soon I found myself at another part of the wedding, in a kitchen, standing with the bride and Will Smith. Oh, we were having a joyous time, and the conversation was lively and vivacious! This quickly changed as we soon became aware of an extremely angry Eminem, who said, with an air of crazed satisfaction in his voice, "Oh god, I'm so happy this just happened." We turned to look, and on a pantry shelf, Eminem had espied a 9mm handgun, and reached over, picked it up, and leveled the piece at our friend Will Smith's face! Terror! Abject fear! The worst was yet to come, however. Seems Eminem takes getting a square punch to the nuts pretty fucking personally, because at this point he informed all of us that he would not be shooting Will Smith, which brought a brief moment of respite to all parties concerned, until he, in the very next breath, informed us that Will Smith would be shooting himself. Not only that, but he was to blow out his own brains with his head inserted into a nearby microwave. I'm not sure if Eminem did this as a further token of disrespect to the Fresh Prince(there is much in the hip-hop world that I am not privvy to), or just to keep the inevitable mess under some sort of control. And to top it all off, in order to humiliate us all, the grave act was to be performed in simultaneity with the bride and I.. shitting our pants. The Fresh Prince was given the gun. On cue, the bride and I... well, the bride and I shit our pants, okay? What else were we supposed to do?! Don't you dare judge me and fictionbride! Then Fresh Prince shot himself in the microwave and died, I guess. Our attention had been immediately diverted as we shit our pants, which stands to reason, as I'm sure shitting one's pants is quite disturbing. But the disgust one might feel as feces rolls, drips, or pours down one's leg after an in-pants shit is not what distracted us from the poor prince's untimely(and frankly, stupid) demise( why the fuck didn't he use the gun on Eminem? My brain is a moron.). No, we immediately noticed, as we each looked between our legs, that we were shitting onto a giant pizza! Capital! I began commenting on the bride's poop, noting that it looked not at all unlike the mole sauce we have at my place of employment. We began laughing and chatting, and the dream sizzled away, back into the ether...

And then last night I dreamed I cut off both of Big E. Small's arms and accidentally killed him. I think he's already dead, though. In real life. I don't know how he died. Shit, I barely knew the guy. I couldn't even name one of his songs. Lay off. Am I on trial here?! Am I free to go or not?!

Weep, sad woman. I can tell that your sacrifice is supreme.

An old man died at the opera today. No, not on stage. You could say he died on life's stage, but that's just being melodramatic. And dumb, frankly. Besides, he didn't even die. Well, he could've. I, of course, didn't go to the hospital with his family after they carted him out of the theatre on a stretcher. I sat back down and watched the rest of the opera. That's why I went. To see the opera. All's I know is one minute, we're waiting for Act II of La Triviata to start, and the next, bam! Some old guy bites it, and ladies start swooning like mad! One old biddy was particularly perturbed that her opera Sunday had been interrupted. She possessed the snoot of a rich cartoon woman. She was surely "old money," and the life of luxury afforded her an air synonymous with the way she treats her money: spent. Zinged her good, huh?

Luckily, this unfortunate mishap occurred just after the first act in a four act number, so it didn't take long for the crowd to settle back into the good spirits they arrived at Bass Hall with. I mean, as good of a spirit as you can hope for when the end of the opera showcases the death of the main character, the heroine, the scorned lover, the ultimate martyr, the fucking HEART of the damned opera! So sad. At any rate, it didn't stop the standard standing ovation at the end.

It should be noted that audiences of live theatre of any sort are also playing a role. Perhaps an even more challenging one than the ones performed onstage. It is a rare occurrence in human interaction when 500 or more people can be completely silent for 3 1/2 hours. Not to mention curbing all basic mammalian urges to cough, sneeze, fart REALLY loudly, or, y'know, move. I sure do love italics. They write the best operas.

As the mighty fall asunder, So also must we.

It's nearly impossible for me to write while listening to music, but for tonight, I feel that it is completely apropos and necessary for me to do so. It is nearing four a.m., and I must go to sleep immediately, as I am to go to the opera in the early afternoon tomorrow. I am listening to Stryper right now. I went to a Stryper concert tonight. Why, I even had a backstage pass. I've paid my dues. I didn't pay to go to the show. I get what I want, when I want it. That's what happens when you live life the way I live life. Tonight marks the second time I've seen Stryper. My friend Scott and I saw them in 2003 at the same place that we saw them tonight. So much can, and rightly should, be said about Stryper. Scott is a greater fan than I ever was, but to be fair, he is a good five years older than me, and therefore had a chance to be more into them in the 80's than I could have been. I must thank my father for introducing me to the band that I would, a mere twenty years later, attend in concert and heckle in a drunken stupor during a prayer in a concert venue where 1,100 people were completely silent. Let's see Motley Crue do that. This happened in 2003, the first time I went to see them, but this year, as they closed out the show with a nearly ten minute prayer, I did my best to heckle them and break the awkward silence that, upon further review, was only awkward to me in my slightly inebriated state. People: I warn you! For your own happiness, for nostalgia to truly remain nostalgic, I beseech you: DO NOT go to see bands twenty years after you liked them initially. This may be an obvious point, but believe me, please. You WILL be disappointed. Sure, you'll be impressed that they can play their instruments so well, but then you'll remember- "Oh yeah, they've been playing the same fucking songs for TWENTY years. They goddamn better be good at their instruments!" I saw Stryper for the first time in 2003. I saw them again in 2005. Tonight. What a fucking bummer. We met the band, too. I made fun of the new bass player (not Timothy Gaines, the REAL bass player for Stryper) for playing a five stringed bass. T.G. never would've done that. That's what we fans call him. T.G. That stands for Timothy Gaines. He's not in Stryper anymore. I also reminded Michael Sweet, the lead singer/ guitarist for the band that I met him and shook his hand in 1993 at a mall in Tulsa, OK when he was touring Christian book stores to support his horrible solo album which housed the hit "All this and Heaven too." Surprisingly, he didn't remember me. That's why I hate rockstars. So pretentious. So quick to forget. Life is a series of disappointments. I couldn't even swindle any squares out of their $25 Stryper shirts for my backstage pass, which I told them afforded them more liberties than the 'meet 'n greet' wristband they received for purchasing the awful new Stryper album for $20 at the show. If you think I'm lying, you're a damned fool. I have no shame. I also do not have $25 for a t-shirt. Schmoozing the merch guy didn't help either. So, I'm listening to a "best of" Stryper album that I downloaded when I came home tonight. It's the only thing I could think of to make myself feel better. People get old, people. Let the memory live where it is. Don't try to raise the dead.

Leaves of Death, Feet of Fire.

Truly, delivering pizzas is not for the faint of heart. Had you said this to me a mere two years ago, I would have laughed in your stoned face and told you to go buy a fucking CD player if you were that upset that Phish doesn't get any airplay. But, after having willfully immersed myself into the belly of this easy money beast, I have come to the conclusion that, while superficially, it is a blow-off job with many perks likely only attractive to those with such a devil-may-care attitude as the one that I possess(or, shall I say, possesses me?), there are certain elements that you, the delivery pizza consumer, are not privvy to. I shall regale you with a tale that happened to me, not but a week ago.. Your ears, sirs:
It happened that I, whilst still quite unfamiliar with the territory covered by my new job's delivery area, found myself in a quite hilly, near mountainous!, area of Ft. Worth, TX, that I freely admit I was wholly unaware of. The houses in this particular neighborhood are not at all like the plebeian dwellings that surround my house, but indeed, those of modern magistrates, powerful witches, and deadly knights! These, of course, are the very places a pieman wants to be, as more often than not, the residents here are quite generous and giving with their tips. They are known, truly, to throw their money around as liberally as they throw their dicks around secretaries, or their wives down stairs. Beware, however! These same people do not run their lives on the same time that you and I, the sufferers, do. No, theirs is a life of leisure, and while you must grant them extra time to get to the front door of their imposing abodes, you must also know that waiting five minutes at the door of one of these gas-lit-front-porch-light residences is never out of the question.
And this, friends, is the position I found myself in that very night. Holding the pizzas in hand, I marvelled at the intricate wood and metal work on the expansive redwood door. I glanced behind me, shielding my vision from the softening sunset, occassionally searing my eyes as the weeping willows across the street swayed ever so gently in the warm, southwesterly breeze, allowing the sun brief moments of sadistic pleasure. I momentarily watched the illegal immigrants in white painter's uniforms sweep paint chips, rake leaves, and cut blades of grass. I think one of them smiled at me. 'Brothers in arms,' I thought aloud. I turned again to face the door, beginning now to tap my foot impatiently to the rhythm of the song that was stuck in my head, progressively louder, and louder still, as though my tappings might call to attention the gluttons inside my presence outside, as a beaver's tail to impending danger.
At that moment, had I been a comic strip, there would have been a panel of silence, me simply standing there, growing older, followed by the same panel- only this time, an asterisk would have been placed directly above my head. A brief thought alit in my wandering mind. I heard a sound behind me. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a sound. What if...?
I turned around. I am not deceiving you, good people, when I tell you, in truth, that the very thought that raced for but a mere second through my head was exactly the scenario that I now found my very self in! Alas! My car was rolling away, driverless, down a hill, towards a sports car, towards a jail sentence! Truthfully, at first, I did not believe my eyes. Verily, I thought, 'This isn't happening. I'm just imagining this. I just had this thought. I'm just seeing things. It'll stop on its' own. It's not stopping on its' own. It's actually gaining speed. Fuck. Should I throw down the pizzas to make this situation more dramatic, or should I just set 'em down, 'cause it won't take that much extra time to just, kinda, gently set 'em down than it would to raise them up over my head and slam 'em down or throw them dramatically over my shoulder into the door as I run down the driveway? I should throw 'em. Nah. Well...' I bent down, compromisingly dropped the pizzas from about knee height and raced down the driveway to my aberrant vehicle. As I reached the street, I noticed hundreds of small, yellow leaves that lined the edge of the street by the curb. I noticed them because just as I reached my ever-accelerating car, I slipped on this demon foliage and was nearly pulled right under my car, leaving my legs and torso open to a tire thrashing I was not, am not, ready to receive! Luckily, my catlike reflexes saved me yet again from a severe accident involving moving vehicles and tires with my blood on them (see Oahu Excursion: The Standard Issue Chronicles. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1999 pp. 129- 146)), as I deftly grabbed the top of my open door, and effortlessly slung my adrenaline infused body into the driver's seat, and yanked up the emergency brake that, while engaged, was not in full enough activation to contend with the grades of the land in this particular neighborhood.
The car was stopped. I jumped out of the miscreant scourge of technology a mere thirty feet from where the adventure had begun, though it felt like thirty miles. I ran back up the driveway to the house, making note to jump over the river of greased leaves, and filing a snapshot of the arbor-spawned would-be-murderers into my memory banks for future cautionary warnings to loved ones, and hopeful non-warnings to people I despise. As I arrived back to the steps of the front door, I heard children and man fumbling with the lock of the wooden gate to wealth. I bounded up the three faux-cottage cobblestone steps and picked up the pizzas just as the door opened, and just before their eyes took in any information that might make them think that anything might be awry in the perfect world, made moreso now by the delivery of gourmet food, served by a bearded master of cunning, that they have surrounded themselves with. I collected payment for the products I delivered, as well as a somewhat frugal three dollar tip, and made my way back down to my vehicle, smiling. Just as I opened the door to get in, I slipped on those goddamn leaves and smashed my shin right into the doorjamb of my car.

Myths debunked.

It may not work on humans, but I determined tonight that you can, in fact, scare beings out of having the hiccups. I performed this miracle on my dog, Story. She, while being angry that I frightened her from her apneatic slumber, appreciated the fact that she could resume, nay, begin peaceful rest without the overwhelming, burdensome task of attempting reprise from the taxing chores of caninedom while presenting herself as an open target to any passing, I don't know, starving mountain lion or drunken narcissist. She ignores me now, but I think she'll love me again tomorrow. When I hold her food above her face in a plastic baggie and make her beg for it. For, like, three hours.
However, upon further thought, I must say that I have indeed scared a human out of the hiccups as well. When the usual BOO!'s and loud noises failed to work on my boss Chris one day, at some point I calmly turned to him, looked directly into his eyes, and said, "You will always be in debt, and you will die alone." It worked. He committed suicide later that evening.