Hank's Hepcat Hideaway

2006-02-26T08:22:00.000-08:00

In middle school, a group of us boys were standing around talking about guy stuff. Someone would say something like "Yeah, don't you hate it when your balls itch?", or "Don't you hate it when your dick almost gets caught in your zipper?" and everyone would relate to it and laugh and fun was had by all (notice I didn't use the term "male bonding", which is just about the worst term ever. Guys hate it when you use that term, because it completely negates the very action of being a guy by adding some wimpy psychological element into things).

One guy speaks up and says "Yeah, it's kinda like those hairs that grow on the end of your dick."

We all turned and stared at him for a minute as he tried to look for a friendly face to laugh with, which he never got.

I was reminded of this after a similarly awkward event that occurred in my Black Literature and Aesthetics course, which is just as lame as it sounds. The teacher is dispassionate about any course material and nervous about her job. Even though she's black, she's afraid to use the word "nigger", replacing it with the words "racial epithet" when we read over it in class. She needs to be fired for her denial of reality.

Anyway, a white girl was asked to read the dialogue from some white guy at the first NAACP convention in like 1910, during a debate over whether black literature should make blacks look cool and smart, or whether they should use stereotypes to do some creative trickery. This was interesting, except the girl who was reading it got very, very nervous and even though the passage used the words "negro" and "nigger" she kept stumbling between the two at every instance, making a jumble of "niggero-I-mean-nig-I mean-negro", which no one else seemed to acknowledge but me. After she was done, I exchanged glances that I, too, felt her pain under the oppression from the black man and him keeping us down with his stupid guilt and quest for reparations. It's all about words, and we're losing the battle right now.

While we're talking about race-I-mean-nig-I-mean-racial epithets, I learned the other day that the word "jew", alone, offends some people. I used the word and a girl started speaking up for me to stop using "that word". I asked her what I'm supposed to say instead of jew so I don't hurt her feelings, and she said "I dunno, 'person of the jewish faith or race' or just 'jewish person'."

So let's just brush up a bit:

"Jew" has one syllable.

"Person of the Jewish Faith" has seven syllables.

I explained to her that she was a fucking moron if she thought I was going to linguistically detour around common terms so that she doesn't feel bad about her society or that she isn't more ethnic and can't share suffering with people. Likewise, I am fine being called a "mic" or even "Irish stallion", those terms don't affect me because I. am. strong.

the joke's on you

2006-02-24T13:32:00.000-08:00

There's a guy on campus named James that delivers mail to everyone in their departments, labs, or wherever. He's not a very smart guy, which can be seen through his socal skills. Allow me to explain.

James learns a new joke every day that he tells to everyone that he delivers mail to. They are nice, clean little jokes such as:

Q: Why did the chicken cross the playground?
A: To get to the other slide!

This seems quaint and cute and a nice little detail of everyday life, but life simply isn't always a fucking Norman Rockwell cartoon. James chooses to complicate things a bit.

First of all, he will NOT leave your lab or office until he tells you the joke. Also, he won't tell you that he even has the joke to tell. So you have to sit there awkwardly, wondering why he doesn't leave. He just stands there watching you work, staring. Eventually you remember to ask him if he's heard any good jokes lately, at which point he tells you, absorbs your forced laughter and continues on with his deliveries.

However, if you are, let's say, new to the department and don't know this guy, you're in for some fun. James will stay there and stay there, and hopefully someone who knows the situation will walk by and glance in, asking James if he knows a good joke and relieving you from the awkwardness. Otherwise, he will stare and stare and stare while you try to look as busy and occupied as you can, or try to find an excuse to leave the room.

This, I feel, is a complex allegory that James places on the world. Like some kind of genius Batman villain, his pseudo-superpower (oh wait, Joker is already taken. shit.) is jokes that he dispenses on a regular basis, while playing a joke on everyone and punishing them for being scientists that actually do things for society, while he is stuck moving boxes all day. Rather than a roaming simpleton, James is a diabolical madman, bent on destroying scientific research as we know it! We have to plot something to stop this man, once we can figure out a way to make him leave the room so he doesn't hear us.

2006-02-22T05:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are going to be watchmakers, here's something nice to make you smile.

holy shit

2006-02-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a while. Graphic design, any digital art, gaming, you name it would/will be very different with this. I want one tomorrow.

Multi-Touch Screen

2006-02-16T19:35:00.000-08:00

Hopefully I won't form a habit of just linking to shit instead of being original, but these negro mimes sure do love Jesus!

2006-02-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

"Roller blade-ing & meeting new friends are the things to do in Eastern Europe." -Tatjana

Thanks for the inside scoop, Tatjana! I'll be sure to roller-blade and meet new friends with you and the rest of the gang at DownSyndromeDolls.com!

dammit dammit dammit

2006-02-16T19:23:00.000-08:00

Ok, granted my death metal band rules 666 times harder than any other, this one has a pretty great website, one that will be difficult to 1-up. Mouse-over the skull to make it scream.

how to be a great parent

2006-02-14T16:35:00.000-08:00

In high school, a buddy and I decided there were some things that we would definitely do once we had kids someday. Here are a few I can actually remember:

1.) Make their middle name "Fucking" (i.e. "My name is Josh Fucking Rankhorn), so that way they seem really serious and intense and no one will fuck with them, and your kid will turn out tough and cool.

2.) At breakfast, act like those parents from the cereal commercials who are all stupid and curious about the cereal in question. Say something like "But how DO they cram all that flavor into that little O?" or "So why do you kids EAT that stuff then?" and allow your kid to come up with some total wiseass response like "Get a CLUE, Dad! Pshht!" or "Because I'm a KID, that's why!" Then act like they totally zonked you with this response and that you're really confused by saying something like "Whaa?!" and doing a double take. This will boost their self confidence.

3.) On Christmas, stand outside their window dressed like Santa Claus and rev a chainsaw and just stare and laugh hysterically into their room. Keep standing there for a while, as a reminder that Christmas isn't about Santa, but is about Christian love and values.

idea i had in my sleep last night

2006-02-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

Need some Valentine's Day flowers for your sweetie? Paint a shitty likeness of the Virgin Mary in some random obscure place around town. Then just sit back and wait for the Catholics to find it. When they start putting flowers (and necklaces and candles other dumb shit) under it, take your pick of their stuff, give it to your sugar-angel-biscuit-pop, and you're on a one-way trip to Romance City, my friend!

just a little FYI, you guys.

2006-02-13T05:42:00.000-08:00

All of the Ricky Gervais shows can be downloaded here, via the annoying RapidShare thing that only millionaires use. Grumble.

Point is, you can get them and keep them and burn them and listen to them in the car and be really happy about yourself.

2006-02-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

Today on ESPN there was a bowling matchup in West Virginia between two guys named Rash and Scroggins.

So, yes, there are some people worse off than you.

If you're in need of something new and pretty...

2006-02-12T07:53:00.000-08:00

Maybe I'm shallow. Maybe I'm naive. But just maybe I'm in touch with what appeals to me and I'm just cool with that. No matter what it is, I love really creative and engaging advertising that uses art to kick ass all over the place. Graphic designers are doing very cool things that are worth attention simply for their value as an artistic medium.

One of the best places to find graphic design at its best is Communication Arts. They ought to have it at Barnes & Noble, but I know that good university libraries have it stacked away somewhere.

As for music, someone gets paid good money to find music for those ambient car commercials or entirely-too-cool Gap ads, or the quirky/supposed-to-be-funny ones. Often, they deserve this good money. You can search Limewire (or whatever it is you are using these days, you scamps!) for 'commercial' and turn up a few great ones, classics being. Otherwise, a good place to get started is 'boards, which tries to keep track of this sort of thing. For starters, the one with the sting-ray has a great tune. Check it.

Love and Hate on a Dinner Plate: The Evolution of the Food Network Celebrity Crush

2006-02-07T14:02:00.000-08:00

Whoever stated that the quickest way to a man's heart was through his stomach was slightly premature in his (or more likely her) statement. My logic in saying this can be demonstrated in watching Food Network and one of its bevy of hottie food chefs: You may look at the food and start drooling, but a bodacious TV ass will distract you from even the most delicate of frittatas. Clearly, the booty has superiority over the torte, the gazpacho, or even the GameDay Chip Dip.

How one sufficiently surveys all of the dames on Food Network is, in itself, a phenomenon of hormones and gastronomy combined. The food truly does contribute on some level (though sometimes only in a supporting role) to the personalities, presentations, and hotness of the lady chefs themselves.

When I first started watching Food Network, the woman that stood out was Rachael Ray. She's petite, cute, and got an ambitious and welcoming personality that, I believe, are meant to be the homing signal to the Food Network celebrity crush and to attract otherwise uninterested male audiences. See?

Sadly, Rachael is a mere stepping stone on our path because of one feature: her tremendous Italian mouth. She flails her arms, gabs about random shit, uses her stupid euphemisms, and eats. And eats. And eats. This is making her ass get noticeably bigger, which we know because the camera doesn't follow her ass around the kitchen at a dog's-eye view anymore.

There's a terrific Rachael Ray drinking game here, which I'd love to play some time.

Moving on from Rachael, we have the queen bee, Giada De Laurentiis.

She is my current favorite and has been holding strong in that position for quite a while now. She gives the camera an expression like she wants to take it out back for a tumble in the hay, right after she bends over to pick up some badass pasta out of the oven. She doesn't have catch phrases, she doesn't have lame ass hand expressions, just concise, focused, well-meditated hotness. She hosts parties with other young, fun people that are obviously supposed to be better than I am, and with food better than I am supposed to eat. But who cares, I didn't want to go to her stupid party anyway!

As smokin' as Giada is, other women fit other points in life better than she is, at least based on age anyway. After her we have the "trophy wife" of Food Network, Sandra Lee.

I call her the trophy wife because she hosts a show on shortcuts with food, and seems pretty static. You know what you're going to get with this one.

Interestingly enough, while doing "research" for this post, I stumbled upon a hostess who is from my hometown of Crossville, TN. Incidentally, Kelly Deadmon is way fine. I wish I could say more, but don't know enough about her and can only give her an Honorable Mention for my list.

When I am her age, I wouldn't mind being married to someone like Paula Deen.

She isn't my present object of desire, but one I could picture being so 30 years from now. Not to be confused with Ina Garten, Paula is charming and southern, reinforcing this reputation with mannerisms and slang from at least 40 years ago. She used a word the other day, something like loblolly (something at least that distinct), which made my eyebrows raise. Yes, she's actually that southern and they actually gave her a show. Anyway, she be cool and her burgers look pretty tasty, too. So she's on my list.

Ina Garten, however, is not.

Everything she cooks has about 6 pounds of butter and 14 gallons of whiskey in it, which she cooks in her house in Nantucket for her jewy little husband. Then they go walk on the shitty New England beaches and eat her food in a thermos. She hosts little parties that are only attended by other wives of rich men; women whose husbands are at work and they have to find some way to spend their time and money. Ina is starved for 1.) cholesterol and 2.) jewboy's paycheck.

She caters to the wealthy audience of the network, best demonstrated by her image. She often says things like, "Oh, so today I wound up with this three pound tuna steak" or "so here I am with all of this filet mignon and I feel like making something for a brunch that Brenda is hosting...It's going to be just wonderful for the get-together tomorrow morning." She is shown driving to her local market (not a grocery store, you white trash punks) in her brand new black Mercedes sedan. I will say her theme song is better than Giada's or Paula's, but in no way does she back it up with anything besides pride and pretentiousness.

Some foods on your plate are the ones you go right to. They get you excited and happy and hold your attention with their taste and personality. Food Network hostesses are no different. Food doesn't have boobies, though.

dumb

2006-02-06T14:00:00.000-08:00

One day, I met a guy on top of Mt. Sherman in beautiful Colorado. While standing up there at over 14,000 feet, he handed me a card for his website, which he explained was really, really funny and terrific. This was a lie.

The lesson was that if life takes you to the top of a mountain, whether figuratively or for real, and some douche is at the top of that mountain ready to give you his web address, don't waste your time and just enjoy the view.

COLORADO GUY

it's about damn time

2006-02-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

Finally, someone in the federal government is doing something, anything, to help us recover from the Katrina disaster.

Sing along with Hank with the FEMA For Kidz Rap!!!

Don't worry, the lyrics are included on the site so that you aren't once again stranded by FEMA for not having lyrics, too! Clearly, they've learned a lesson that they won't soon forget. Kudos.

Let's take a closer look, though. Notice how they mention that they've "got a few tips", though they never mention exactly what those tips are. Hmm.

Also, this song is secretly brilliant for revisiting rap's beginnings. I say this because it just raps about how cool FEMA is, nothing more, nothing less. This is a tribute to the days when rap was about how good the rapper was at his job, as well has how outstanding his shoes were. Clearly FEMA assumes the audience has a knowledge of rap's history, and in doing so builds respect in its listeners. Also, the ambiguous music in the background suggests that disasters are always looming, keeping the listener in perpetual fear and anxiety for disasters to strike at any moment. Excellent idea. Children should be constantly scared of hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, constantly in disaster position wherever they go.

Thanks, FEMA.

can't a fella catch a break?

2006-02-01T11:00:00.000-08:00

Another child's death rattles NY agency

"Investigators believe 4-year-old Quachaun Brown died Sunday following a beating by Jose Calderon, who later claimed he was angry because he thought the child caused a television to fall over, police said."

Well shit, what choice did he have? The kid knocked over the damn TV, what was he gonna do, sit back and just take it? Kids these days, they know no bounds, you have to show them what they can and cannot do. You have to give them boundaries. Shame on you, NYPD.

Yahoo! News Photos presents: Latest Sign that Things Generally Aren't Going Well

2006-01-30T20:58:00.000-08:00

I stole this one from Dale (sorry, Dale), but adding this to the blog has been on my mind, and how better to start it off than this totally cool animal abuse?

Feel free to caption these, by the way, because I know I'm going to!

how not to be original

2006-01-25T10:26:00.000-08:00

Something I’ve noticed lately that deserves attention (and ridicule) is the cliché conversation. There are many of them out there, and right now I can only think of two off the top of my head, but they are basically a conversation or perhaps a monologue that people have entirely too often, arguments and reinforcements that are so outdated and stupid that they aren’t worth having ever again by anyone. Ever.

The first was first pointed out as cliché by Stella, which I regard as one of the funniest entities in humor and comedy today. Their show on Comedy Central was highly censored, which arguably hurt their effectiveness. Either way, here’s my shitty memory of the conversation in question:

Guy 1: So, do you believe in God?
Guy 2: I dunno.
Guy 1: Like I believe in something, you know?
Guy 2: Right, yeah.
Guy 1: Like I don’t know if he’s an old man with a beard (they share a small laugh)…
Guy 2: Right, like he might be a gas cloud or who even knows but I think that something is up there!

Yuck.

Another example is one I’ve heard so many damn times that it puts me in kill mode as soon as I hear it.

Guy 1: Languages can be totally misleading.
Person unfortunate to serve as audience to Guy 1’s verbal excrement: Yeah? Give me an example.
Guy 1: Like with French you can say something totally disgusting but it still sounds romantic and beautiful. Like “(something in French, said with a dramatic, passionate, soft tone)”.
Person:Well what does that mean?
Guy 1: It means “Did you throw up in the toilet this morning?”
Person: -feigns laughter-
Guy 1: But German is the exact opposite.
Person: -chuckles-
Guy 1: You can say anything and it sounds like you’re cussing someone out: “ACH BRACH UN STEICHEN BRACHEN STEIN FRACHEN!”
Person: But you’re saying something nice but it sounds like it’s mean! Ha ha!
Guy 1: Heh heh, yeah. -sort of pissed that the other guy caught on so fast and he couldn't say it himself-

Let this serve as a notice: You are not funny if you say this. If you say this, you are stupid. Now no one else has to tell you and you can get on with your life by trying to rebuild your now-destroyed integrity.

So like I said, there are more examples of this, so if you can think of any let me know and we can collectively laugh at others' monotonous excuse for conversational endeavour.

cry josh cry

2006-01-24T05:49:00.000-08:00

This story halfway reads like an Onion article. There's an air of sarcasm in every quote in this story, in which everybody wants to make the big baby stop crying (read like the stereotypical bully would when trying to pick on the nerdy kid in far too many movies). I especially got that feel from the superintendent's quote at the end that they'd try and make Josh comfortable.

The real story here is that Josh is a great big blubbering vagina. He's got the Bill Clinton "I'm-sorry-but-will-you-please-stop-asking-questions-regarding-that-woman-I-didn't-get-a-blowjob-from face, probably on his way to play X-Box, holing himself up in his room so his teacher cannot get "revenge" on him.

Josh is probably drawing wizards, imagining dialogue from his teacher:

"That's it, Josh. Go home to your PRECIOUS BRONCOS. John Elway can't save you now, even with his fiery touchdown pass of vengeance. What? What's that? No, Josh, don't destroy me and Principal Karczewski with your Level 5 Bronco Blade! It's a "Mile-High" avenging force of justice! NOOOOOOoooo!"

2006-01-23T19:40:00.000-08:00

I cannot figure out what the big deal is with Windows Live Local. It's like Google Maps, but a little more jerky and less graceful, and run by a less charismatic multinational conglomerate. If you can figure out the answer to this myth, please enlighten me in the Comments Bar.

In other news, people in my hometown (99.9% caucasian) are still struggling with their reality and trying to find ways that they can turn into the Yankee suburbanite dystopia from which they came.

good news

2006-01-19T19:52:00.000-08:00

The Hideaway is finally under the surveillance and searchability of Google. That means if you search for "totally cool badass awesomeness", you'll always be able to find your way home, hepcats.

yow!

2006-01-18T18:03:00.000-08:00

Either you love advertisements from the 40's and 50's, or you're another goddamn communist.

An Education in Farts

2006-01-16T13:18:00.000-08:00

Growing up, I had some pretty bad teachers. One, for instance, would time us to three seconds at the water fountain. If we had to take a bathroom break, she would take it out of our recess time. Once, she threatened to take away recess for the rest of the year if we kept talking. We kept talking and she stayed true to her deal.

Another teacher, in fourth grade, ran the study hall for students who didn't bring permission slips for field trips. There, I sat in her class with her miscreant, apathetic, and ignorant students. I tried reading or drawing, but a girl at my table held up a crude sign that said, "HEATHER FARTED", and laughed and pointed at the girl next to her. "Shut up, shit." replied Heather in response to the sign. "You girls STOP that right NOW", said the teacher, and the girls put the sign down and resumed jiggling in their giddiness. I hung my head and pretended not to notice.

My fifth grade math teacher always challenged the students to figure out simple arithmetic in their heads faster than he could. Since we were in fifth grade, we weren't as good as he was and he would always chuckle in self satisfaction afterwards. One time he mentioned the novel Moby Dick, and two students giggled. He stopped everything and asked them what they were laughing at. They shrugged. We sat there for ten minutes while he stared at them, trying to get them to say that "dick" is a funny word. They never did, so he cancelled our reading/game period that afternoon.

In kindergarten, my teacher (who I later heard was an alcoholic, which makes total sense in some ways) would give us a daily nap time. If we slept, we got a sticker. My best friend could hypnotize himself into falling asleep instantly, while I never could. Kindergarten teachers must love their job because of this nap time, because everything is serene for about an hour. My teacher took advantage of this period and made one of the students give her a neck rub during nap time while she graded our papers. Everyone but the girls hated doing this, so teacher/teacher's pet relationships were quickly determined. We hatched a plan to retaliate, and during the time one day we tied her shoes to her desk. This same teacher later gave us a paddling for drawing a naked woman, a decent one at that, on the back of a worksheet. She got another teacher to witness the sentence, but I thought she was doing it like "Hey, check this out. I'm totally going to wail on this kid's ass." I didn't like her much after that.

In sixth grade, we had a teacher who was "just a bitch", as my dad explained to me. Both of my brothers had had her before and she did the same thing to them. After leaving her class, she immediately forgot my name, out of spite of my creativity and self worth. She taught General Science, and for entirely too many illustrations used her MRI results she brought in from her doctor visits. We could see the details of her brain and head while she pointed out the different parts of the brain, nasal cavity, the mouth and throat and eyes. It never occurred to anyone why she actually had so many x-rays of her coconut's interior. During some student presentations one day, she closed her eyes and sat for a good five minutes silently. Someone whispered that she was asleep, after which she leaped up and said, "I am NOT asleep, unlike the rumors that CASSIE is trying to spread!" Cassie, needless to say, was disproportionately punished.

Different points in time, though, allowed the trickling of some very special people into my education. The substitute teachers of Cumberland County were really something. We loved getting these people into the rooms with us, not only because of their ignorance to our schedule, but because they were so fucking interesting and laughable.

In high school, there were so many to choose from. The same nine or ten people substituted regularly for all teachers, and they were all gems. Mr. Lovingood was gay. We all called him Mr. GoodLoving, and he was frequently made to cry and run out of the room. There was another whose name I never knew, because I was too distracted by her amazingly strange appearance.

We called her Quay Quay, because she was always trying to be an Indian (woo-woo, not red dot). She had a mullet that she called a "wedge" haircut, and wore those shitty black t-shirts with a picture of a sad looking Indian mixed with a coyote howling, a full moon, and an eagle thrown in for kicks. She had dreamcatcher earrings, and brown tinted glasses. She would pace around the room and use that stuff that makes "smoke" come from your finger tips, citing it as Indian magic. If you told her that she wasn't an Indian, which she was not, she would hiss like a cat and scowl at you. Best of all, though, she would draw portraits of Indians that looked like they were done by an eight-year-old, giving them to people around the school and doing her best to get a reputation as the resident Indian. She told everyone about ghosts that lived in her house, and how they didn't do much of anything but walk and poke about the house at random times. They were pretty boring ghosts.

In geometry class, we once had a guy in his late twenties wearing a suit. We asked him about what he was like, and he said "Well basically, gospel music is my life." He went on about how he like to sing gospel music, produce it, probably jerk off to it. Someone said, "I don't like gospel music very much." The teacher stood up, and shouted over the desk, "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?! YOU WANNA GO?! LET'S GO PUNK, LET'S DO THIS!" We didn't say anything else.

Elementary school had the best substitutes, though, because they felt superior to the children, probably some kind of satisfaction they couldn't get elsewhere. Miss Combs, for example, tried to fool us fifth graders. She weighed at least three hundred pounds, and had to do the characteristic sitting stance of someone that fat, wherein you have to spread your legs so your gut can hang between them. She had a yankee accent and talked during the whole period about what we kids were learning these days, and what our real teachers were like. She tried to make us laugh by dumbing down her humor to what she thought could match our pitiful IQ's, but wound up sounding like she was retarded. Miss Combs farted mid-sentence and was totally busted. Instead of ignoring it or playing it smooth, she blamed it on a boy on the other side of the room who was reading a book. She then made fun of him for farting and tried to get us to join in. "What's the matter, did you have to let one rip in the middle of class? Ha ha! Hey everybody, Chris just farted! What a dork!" A girl then looked at Miss Combs square in the eye and said, "Miss Combs, we know you just farted. Why can't you just admit it?" "I didn't fart, huh huh huh." said Miss Combs as she looked about nervously.

The queen of substitute teachers, though, was Miss Bilbrey. She was the mother of a teacher at the school who herself was in her mid-fifties, and Miss Bilbrey was about 85. She made this face at all times, even at rest:

This woman had been an elementary school teacher until they told her to go home, at which point she became a substitute teacher and started right where she left off. She was crabby, cantankerous, and stubborn. More entertaining, though, was her drowsiness. Bad things happened to Miss Bilbrey in her sleep. She once fell asleep in class and was stapled to her desk. Another time, the students took her purse and put it above the ceiling tiles. Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, but I only tripped the woman (on accident, but isn't it more interesting to end the sentence there?). She would always come in and tell us to start on our "readin' and writin' and lessons!" She was a total stereotype which we, children raised by television, immediately realized and were overjoyed with. It was like watching a cartoon old woman walk around and talk, a Nickelodeon hologram lady sent from Orlando, Florida directly to us.

Yes, it was people like Miss Bilbrey and those mentioned above that have made me who I am. They provided the margin of error in the teacher's population that makes students into more interesting, character-driven, and well-rounded individuals, and for this I really am kind of thankful. Had I gone to a better school, I wouldn't have so many laughs at other people's weirdness, but I also wouldn't have seen what I might turn into if I didn't work hard in school. Some of these folks, for all I know, may have been planted by the Superintendent of Schools to teach us a "life" lesson that our regular teacher could not have done. They may have been instructed to say "Duhh, I love methamphetamines and those damn video games. When I was in elementary school all I did was fail spelling tests and talk during study hall. I didn't share when I was a child. I love teen pregnancy. Duhhh. But look how I turned out. Duhh."

But then again, I probably would have laughed at them all the same.

PSA

2006-01-14T14:31:00.000-08:00

Necrosatanica has a new re-release of our epic, Neopentagramiticon. Here's the playlist.

1. NECROSATANICA - Foreskin Shadows (1:46)
2. NECROSATANICA - Procession of Suffering (1:31)
3. NECROSATANICA - Opening of the Rift (In Hell) (0:15)
4. NECROSATANICA - Pain Train (2:13)
5. NECROSATANICA - Procession of Angelic Suffering (2:08)
6. NECROSATANICA - Blood of a Thousand Cunts (1:23)
7. NECROSATANICA - Endless Drone of Damnation (3:49)
8. NECROSATANICA - Tsunami Song (2:05)
9. NECROSATANICA - Bladerunner (1:15)
10. NECROSATANICA - Satan the Dark Lord (You Will Worship the Prince) (0:43)
11. NECROSATANICA - Satan, He is a Dark Prince (1:23)
12. NECROSATANICA - Story of Man (Pt. 1) (4:08)
13. NECROSATANICA - Runnin' Through the Forest (Pt. 1) (1:22)
14. NECROSATANICA - Runnin' Through the Forest (Pt. 2) (2:14)
15. NECROSATANICA - Jubilant Suffocation (3:32)
16. NECROSATANICA - Story of Man (Pt. 2) (2:30)
17. NECROSATANICA - Infinite Tribulation Simulation (4:13)
18. NECROSATANICA - Negro Satanica (2:36)
19. NECROSATANICA - The Song of Love (1:38)
20. NECROSATANICA - Ghost of the Damned (Marty McDaniels) (3:50)
21. NECROSATANICA - I am the Wind (The Legend) (5:54)
22. NECROSATANICA - Don't Forget the Pink Tuxedo (2:08)
23. NECROSATANICA - More Cheeba? (1:38)
24. NECROSATANICA - Final Epic of the Judgement of the Demons (End Times) (5:40)

http://www.necrosatanica.com/

2006-01-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

I think an excellent collection to have would be the pre-made championship t-shirts for the losing teams in sports. When I was a kid, I saw a Braves World Series Champs sweatshirt in Big Lots, although the Braves had lost that year. My dad and uncle laughed at it, and I didn't realize that it had been made in advance, so I wondered for a while what kind of caveman made that stupid shirt.

Of some relevance, Where Are the USC Championship T-Shirts?

yay, sports

2006-01-12T17:12:00.000-08:00

"Ow, watch it, fucker!"

Tennessee basketball is the only sport for which I would call myself a die-hard fan. When I was a kid the team was always bad and had cheap tickets to games. My dad would get season tickets because basketball is fun, and we'd go every once in a while. Good times.

This is turning out to be a good season, though, largely due to our new head coach Bruce Pearl, whose bobblehead doll was dispensed at the Georgia game, which was last night. It was the best turnout I've ever seen for a men's basketball game, with something like 22,000 people there. It was nothing like when I was a kid, with few people there, the team screwing up, and the drunkest and loudest man in the whole arena sitting right behind us, sharing with the team (even at exhibition games and preseason crapfests) gems such as "Get the ball", "Way to pass it to the other team", "Go", "Shoot the damn ball", "Goddamn", or my personal favorite, "You're a fuckin' disgrace."

But no, the Vols are doing fine this year, and if they keep things up, could be on their way to the playoffs, which would make Knoxville very happy.

But in the midst of all of this optimism, a peculiar and humorous phenomenon is emerging. UT is a football school. It just is. But last night at the basketball game, the student blocks were full and supportive, but without direction. If you've seen really good basketball on TV (i.e. Duke, UNC, probably Kentucky), you see student sections who have a solid repertoire of chants, dances, songs, hoots, and any other number of obnoxious things to do. We don't have that. Sure, we say "Sucks" really loudly when they call the roster of the other team out and do the newspaper thing, but other than that, we're sort of lost. When something happens, most people scream and cheer, but then look around at everybody else for a cue or something to due uniformly. How funny.

Q.E.D. : Go Vols.

looks like someone has figured out a way to photograph my nightmares

2006-01-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

Zydeco a Go Go: the deep south through a t-shirt perspective

2006-01-08T17:27:00.000-08:00

For New Year's, my friend Paul and I took a trip to Louisiana. Yes, we saw Katrina damage, and yes we saw obnoxious abortion protest, and yes, we fought gators with bowie knives after diving out of our fanboat full of crawdads and Tabasco sauce.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

We had gone down because I have some family there, and because it is nice to get out of Tennessee when possible. The trip wound up being cautious because of rampant intestinal influenza (or maybe just too much gumbo, hoowee!) which made us go through a lot of Germ-X. For New Year's itself we had a Bottle Rocket War which I lost because of a shoddy fuse on some Jumping Jacks*, leaving me with a decent burn on my hand.

A couple of days later we headed to New Orleans. Most of the buildings didn't look too bad, but had suffered sever damage on the interior. Bourbon Street provided all that it usually does including a t-shirt that says "I stayed in New Orleans for Katrina and all I got was this lousy t-shirt, a new Cadillac, and a plasma TV", another saying "Katrina gave me a blowjob I'll never forget." At the Cafe du Monde, an old oriental lady was my waitress, and when giving the total she said "Seven dollar even, baby", winking at me. Sweetheart, that doesn't work. I almost ralphed my beignet and cafe au lait, which would be a damn shame.

The French Quarter was up and in full effect, but the drowned parts of town weren't going anywhere. They were bad. All of the cars were put under the interstate overpasses, and most of the houses were in the process of being gutted. Esoteric FEMA shit was sprayed all over the fronts of the houses, mostly involving pet rescue. If you are from East New Orleans, sorry. If you are not, I know where you can get a bunch of free stuff.

We stopped at Popeye's for some fried chicken on the way out of town. Man, did this rock. This was the blackest place I'd been in a long time. People's cellphones kept ringing, and all of the ringers were rap songs like "Shake your Laffee Taffee" and other shit rap. Leaving town, I rode as passenger and had some time to reflect on some questions.

1. If you wore a shirt that said "I love niggers", could people really get mad at you? I mean, you love them, right? What's the big deal?

2. Is there a shirt that says "Don't blame me, I voted for Pedro"? If there isn't, we should do all in our power to prevent it. Its proliferation of a long-dead joke will choke my retinas and make them fall out.

3. The people in N.O. all seemed to feel royally screwed by the government. I'm not just saying that because of the other t-shirts that reflected this opinion, but by all the interviews, conversations I've heard, and the faces of the people I saw sifting through their former neighborhood. Most of the people haven't moved back if they're even going to in the first place, making a surreal atmosphere of a big city with few people.Everyone there has realized by now that there are sections of that town that they're just going to have to say that it was fun while it lasted.**

*Some kids at the bonfire kept referring to these as Nigger Chasers. Or maybe that was the bottle rockets. Either way, it doesn't matter because they had nigger related nomenclature for just about every kind of firework imaginable, such as Nigger Bombs, Nigger Jumpers, and so on.
**Or maybe not that much fun based on Master P lyrics, but you get my point.

Let's hear it for codeine

2006-01-08T17:11:00.000-08:00

The surgery went fine. I wish that I had a picture of the x-ray to show you, but let's just sum it up by saying that all of the nurses said "Ooohh", and shrugged at me when they saw it in the examination room. What a bunch of bitches.

After that, I was moved into a different room, where a tremendous needle was put into my arm and with saline and glucose. Another thing was put into that one, with something very magical inside. This was my first confrontation with general anesthetic and hopefully my last. I did not like this stuff. I remember coming out of it, however slightly, midway through the procedure, because I could hear the doctor plinking and rooting around in there. Then my big boobed nurse woke me up. My stepmom took me to get a Frosty, brought me home, and took care of me, and I had no clue what was going on. I really did not like having a near total lack of control, especially when I wound up with a lap full of Frosty due to a numb jaw.

Let me tell you, I like a fuckin' Frosty. Just not four of them. My diet for a few days was limited to them, along with painkillers and water. My first real meal back was grilled out, which rules the school. Do not take solid food for granted, because someday it may be the best friend you've got.

2006-01-04T08:53:00.000-08:00

I'm getting my teeth yanked out today and am a little scared. One of my wisdom teeth is growing in sideways and rams into all the others, leading them to be upset and socially anxious. My main concern with all this is that they're going to have me be awake for the duration of the procedure. Granted, yes, I'll be on enough drugs to send me back in time, I just hope that I don't remember what they do and have nightmares or something like that. That and the pain. Surgery I am not accustomed to and don't want to occur frequently.

In addition to this I can't eat anything all day before I go, because if I do I might puke all over the surgeon, and he isn't somebody I want to piss off. I once sat in and witnessed this procedure done on someone else. When the tooth is too unruly to just come out on its own, they stick a chisel down in the middle of it, hammer it into the tooth, and twist. It makes a crunching, popping sound. When this sound was made in the OR, all of the other doctors and nurses winced. The shards were then pulled out with relative ease.

2005-12-25T14:15:00.000-08:00

While we're in the mood for some more Jesus, why not consider the Roman Catholic Church? I've been thinking about just saying I'm Catholic. I'm not going to actually go on with the rest of it, kind of like getting more respect on a Sunday afternoon if you dress up like you went to church, but didn't actually go and sit through it.

The thought bounced around my brain yesterday when I went to my mom's church. It is in a small rural community called Big Lick, and is just about the most picturesque church you've seen. It's laughable how much it looks like an L.L. Bean catalog or Tennessee tourism commercial. I was attending the night service for Christmas Eve, which was two hours long. The service was standing room only, which was nice because that church deserves such positive attention. Everybody and their extended families showed up, equipped with screaming, sugar-filled children. God, those fuckers got annoying.

Moving on, Catholicism. First of all, you have the chicks. You just can't beat 'em, they're amazing. Second of all, if you could get married in a big cool cathedral and surround yourself with big flashy hokum all of the time. You could attend mass, but I don't really know what that would be like since I've never been. Most of the Catholics I know don't go to mass every often, so they couldn't say shit about me not ever going, which I would plan on happening. The architecture is undeniably impressive.

Among the bad aspects, you'd be absorbing responsibility for centuries of shitty ideas, dogma, theology, murder, and other stupidness. I took a class on the history of Western Civilization (required) where two thirds of the class were on how poorly managed Christendom was. There were massacres than we even know about, and the ones we do know about were pretty gruesome. If you want to feel happy about the age we live in, look some of it up on Wikipedia some time.

So help me weigh the possibilities of this. I'm hoping it will open doors instead of bite me in the taint, though the latter is possible for reasons unforeseen.

2005-12-22T14:57:00.000-08:00

There are certain songs, I've found, to actually lower the IQ of a party. A few that come to mind are:

1. Bob Marley
2. Jimmy Buffet
3. "I've got friends in low places"
4. "I love this bar"
5. Any other song that completely cops out and uses a final chorus with a room full of other shouting people, wherein there is intended resemblance to a really good bar. This is so weak it makes me want to kill when I hear it, also as much as Nelly* does.
6. "Bohemian Rhapsody", obviously.
7. "Run-around", a song so saturated into our social conciousness via radio that you can spot the most stupid (or possibly nervous) people at the party because they are the ones bobbing their heads and singing along. Same thing with that Blind Melon song.
8. Weddings: Chicken Dance. No no no.

If you have any observations on this, please add them, because Hank is at home for a few days and is distracted by TV, pie, beer, and pie, and forgets about his Internet obligations. Patience.

*What the fuck is wrong with this person. First he writes "EI", which was sonic barf, then later follows with "Air Force Ones". Singing about shoes worked when Run DMC did it, but since Nelly tried it, not so much. Now he has possibly created the worst song of 2005, the one about girls who want guys to smile so they can show them their "grill". That's right, their nasty ass gold teeth. Fuck off, Nelly, you and your posse are worthless. When the revolution comes, you'll be first against the wall.

Blind With Rage

2005-12-15T05:45:00.000-08:00

Recently a website has come to my attention, one that makes you stop and think, "How the hell did I wind up here?" That's the great thing about the Internet, each click is a new decision and a new road to head down. And with a snap, you can wind up back in a safe place. But I digress.

The site I found was CuteOverload.com
It is something that was bound to be created. We all knew that it was a matter of time before women would discover the Internet, and that this is the kind of thing they would do with it.

I looked through it, and found many exhibits of animal abuse and other stupidness.

Here are some of my favorites:

Another genetic monstrosity gone wrong, the evil half amphibian/half kitten had to be put to death before it had its chance to wreak havoc on humanity. (Seriously, what an attention whore. I wonder if this cat knows how stupid he looks right now.)

This cat loves boobs.

OK, granted flying rodents are kinda cool, but perhaps in another context than flying at your damn face.

After this, there is just blatant animal abuse. This chipmunk whose face has been stuffed looks like something off Rotten.com instead.

They aren't even hinting at anything than animal cruelty with this one.

"I...can't....breathe..."

"If you're going to ACT like a bitch, then I'm going to TREAT you like one!"

These cats do a pretty weak coffee impression. Idiots.

Touchdown. Well, it would be if a stupid kitten weren't doing the signalling.

This one is hiding to get out of a beating. Think again, Mr. Peek-a-boo.

Pshh. This lazy ass deer will do anything to get out of work.

This cat was promptly fired from its job as bagger at Wal-Mart when he showed up drunk.

2005-12-13T23:03:00.000-08:00

I try not to link too much with this blog because there are others out there who do it more often and with more skill and fervor. However, when I do link to something, trust that it's worth a glance.

Another article from Slate, making you wonder why you never thought of this before.

Our creepiest genetic invention, the dog.

Hank Rankhorn/Buck Truck Update!!!

2005-12-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

I had a dream last night that I was Buck himself, sitting at the counter of the Weird Waitress. She sang her self titled song, then burst out crying because her life was so sad and fucked up. The kicker here is that the permeability of my subconscious to highway albums of dejected misery is what's really fucked up.

I need to find a hobby.

2005-12-12T20:35:00.000-08:00

I've found a podcast that's quite enjoyable. Ricky Gervais, the boss from The Office, has conversations with a couple of other guys that are interesting. The guy they keep saying is so stupid seems pretty inventive and clever to me, the kind of guy whose conversations you wish yours were like. Which brings me to the point that sometimes you wish your conversations with friends over drinks were just way more clever, not like they really are. I mean, why can't you assholes just be smarter?!

the name game

2005-12-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

Some people are just meant to have a nickname. I worked with a guy once who was pretty big and bald, but at the same time really friendly. When I had met him, he had gotten drunk the week before and carved an X into his shoulder that made a disgusting scar. On top of that his name was Ronnenbaum. Basically, you could come up with any cool nickname for this guy you could have wanted to. We used Striker, the Baumer, Slick (because of the baldness), Blade, Flyin' Ryan, all of which aren't bad nicknames.

Some people are on the other end of the spectrum and are prone to bad nicknames. In elementary school I knew a kid whose nickname was Fjord, like the geographical phenomenon prevalent in Scandinavia. His friends had been sitting in geography class no less, when they had to learn the terms isle, strait, fjord..."Oh my god, fjord. What a stupid word. Hey we're going to call you Fjord from now on." He laughed a little and didn't think anything of it, because as far as he knew, people couldn't claim a nickname that quickly or with such little effort. He was wrong. We still call him Fjord to this day, though I'm not sure if he hates it or what.

I never had a nickname growing up, besides the time my cousin called me "dickweed" when I was four years old. I turned to him, looked him in the eyes very intently, and clarified the situation, stating "I am not a dickweed." Actually, as a camp counselor, I did have a kid who called me Boner Washington, but I just told him to shut the fuck up and go back to bed before I had to come over there and shut him up for him. Boy, I really dodged a bullet there!

What I can distinguish between the two phenomena here is that people who look or are named like cartoon characters are those that are more likely to acquire nicknames, be they good or bad. People want their lives to be like the movies, and nicknames make them feel like they're part of a gang. So let's say a group of boys decides they're going to give out nicknames to one another. I hypothesize only the fat kid, the rat looking kid, or the smelly kid will have a good chance of keeping their names. The normals are off scott free.

What are the worst nicknames you've ever heard? Tell me, I'm intrigued.

White Line Fever

2005-12-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

To me, no other culture is more indiginous to our Americanness, to our robust, Western, enterprising spirit than trucker culture. Music, hats, bumper stickers, mudflaps, license plates with Taz on them, all of these are manufactured just for the guys that spend their lives hurtling down the interstate every damn day to God-knows-where, U.S.A. There are people working specifically to keep these people entertained.

Travel centers with a Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut Express, showers, a convenience store, and an arcade with the naked lady game are all to be found at least every 100 miles or so, accessible almost exclusively from the highway. These people do not care that you are looking over their shoulder as they take a damn break from the ol' highway and enjoy some video gin rummy that rewards with pictures of a topless pinup from 1991. They could not care less that you are weary of their presence as they look too long at your girlfriend as you both walk across the parking lot to the Travel Center to get coffee and to pee. They do not care that you are disgusted by their fractured and slangy language or creepy looks as they exit the bathroom. All they know is that some people aren't cut out for life on the road the same way they are.

And those people are you.

Truckers have their own hidden niche that few more than fellow truckers appreciate and respect. But here are some examples of those that do just that.

My first exposure to the laughably esoteric trucker culture was a chap by the name of Boxcar Willie. In his overalls, travelin' hat, and standing next to his big rig, he was perched on the cover of an album my family purchased many years ago. Truck Driving Favorites was an album that I remember well.

My stepbrother and I made fun of it both lyrically and comically, giving little slack for the lifestyle presented in its words. It contained some gems such as Teddy Bear, wherein a crippled kid whose trucker father had died was always talking to truckers on the CB radio and explaining his story to draw sympathy. Then all of the truckers pulled off of the interstate, came to his house, and took him for rides in their trucks. Then the mother came on and said thanks to everybody. The end.

Another one was Convoy, which was about some badass truckin' motherfuckers who decided that they would rebel against...um...The Man. Actually, I'm really not sure what point they were ever trying to get across, but they do it by just not stopping for gas and caralling 1,000 of their fellow truckers into just driving somewhere. The Army tries to stop them, can't, gives up, and the truckers eventually split up after they feel better about themselves and deliver their loads as usual.

If you're going for truly underground trucker entertainment, the Internet can provide where others can't. I'm talking about Buck Truck. His songs are most readily available here.

*****NOTE: LISTENING TO THE SONGS ABOVE WILL GREATLY ASSIST YOUR FURTHER READING PLEASURE. IT WOULD BE A DISGRACE FOR YOU TO GET LOST IN YOUR TRUCK DRIVING MUSIC EDUCATION, AND I WOULD FEEL PRETTY GUILTY. THANKS.*****

Buck Truck is his own man. There are no hip-hop beats or rhythms to his music, just regular country twangyness over a distinct Casio cacophony. The depicted cigarette is really a waste of ink, since the rhasp in this man's voice is so prevalent. His songs include Buck Truck, The Weird Waitress, How'd I Get This Way, Too Old to Truck, Elvis Once Drove a Truck, and more. In these he analyzes different aspects of trucking. He looks into man's origins at the career, preferred culture, common personalities encountered in trucking, and the super slab (that's street talk for the highway for all you four wheelers out there). Mr. Truck goes deeper still, perhaps without intention. He addresses the emotional, mental, and social plight that strikes the trucker on a day to day basis.

Take, for example, How'd I get this Way? In this song, he starts out with "Hey trucker? What are you doing" in a calm, eerie, focused tone. He does this to replicate the noticeable voices that truckers sometimes hear, in order to get their attention. After this, he delves into the basics of trucker beginnings, which is mainly because his dad did it and his dad before him. So based on this, if you aren't a trucker then you probably aren't going to be one later on.

An intriguing psychological specimen is entitled The Weird Waitress. Brother Dale has this to say on the song:

In Mr. Truck's world truckers, in comparison to waitresses, are rich people, or at least they consider themselves to be, since their jobs enable them to patronize and enjoy the friendly services of the waitresses, who are ostensibly poor enough to be grateful for the opportunity to serve. In fact, this socioeconomic disparity between who she is and how she acts, may be what makes the weird waitress weird. Her insouciance and nontraditional attitudes toward her clientele define her; the archetype of the trucker in relation to a liberal female is shocked into submission, as in when he accepts the cheese pizza, and when he is stunned into silence by her witty retort after he tells (pleads with?) her to give him a break.

Truckers are royalty at truck stops in the same way that blackjack players are royalty at the blackjack table, but on a smaller scale, and women on the cusp of homelessness are going to suck dick even if it's for five bucks. At the heart of my analysis is that it's in a relative way that truckers are rich, but importantly, this does nothing, psychologically on either side, to diminish their clear dominion over the lowly waitrons at the bean pot.

But then, I don't listen to Buck Truck because of his ablility to envision truckers' collective social identity as a renegade, speed-crazed vagabond, pushing a smoking death machine to its limit at the edge of reality itself. I like Buck Truck 'cause he keeps it simple.

Buck continues his ego-lifting, jargon-filled propaganda with Elvis Once Drove a Truck. The thesis of this song is that there aren't boundaries in trucking, but if you "hold on to what ya got", you can be like Elvis Presley, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and others.

So why all of this self uplifting dialogue? One could stand back and be realistic, saying "Because they're normal people, Hank, and normal people get depressed and blah blah blah" and make other sensible remarks. But seriously, how many careers are there that have albums to remind them that they shouldn't make a false move, run off the road, and take the lives of innocent motorists? Not very many. I guess it is because there are few careers wherein you spend so much time with your thoughts. These fellows must share a common sadness as to their future and toil. Perhaps they feel that there isn't enough of a point to their labor and their time, which piles up mile by mile in the logbook at the end of the day. If you were a trucker, would it be more depressing that you think your work is fruitless, or more that the only kind of entertainment christened to your job is Buck Truck or Boxcar Willie?

With that, I thought that it would be only right for me to make my own contribution to the pool of ideas, because these guys need a break (and not the kind that the desperate/weird waitress is asked to provide). Dale and I were once barreling down the road and almost got run off the road by an eighteen-wheeler, which inspired a new and fresh piece of trucking Americana. As we continued our trip we created the multiversed power ballad presented here. I leave you with The Trucker Song. I would like to say, though, that the lyrics alone do it no justice, but if you want to hear it (which you surely will because it is the greatest thing ever) then email me and we'll work something out. While you're flying down the highway, maybe this will make that heavy load a little lighter.

Enjoy.

Well he hasn't had sleep in many moons so he's running people over like water balloons
Well he don't give a damn about the load he lugs 'cause he stole his nephew's prescription drugs
Well he's trying to keep his rig between the lines but it's kind of hard to do with a broken spine
Well his knuckles are white and his eyes are red 'cause it's been two weeks since he went to bed
Well he's been fired and it's time to leave so he's selling his ass to Bruce and Steve
He's got a trailer full of cattle and an itchy crotch so he eats a big mac while he makes them watch
He does twelve lines of coke just to stay awake, three states ago he disconnected the brakes
If you don't move over and let him pass he's gonna drive that truck right up your ass
Well his wife's been cheatin while he's away, so he does a half gram of coke a day
He drives four hundred miles on a head full of speed but it still won't fulfill his aching need
Well he don't give a damn where he goes any more he just pushes that pedal down to the floor
Well he don't give a damn about the highway patrol and the ninth gate of hell is eating his soul
He keeps a gun in the cabin in case he sees a cop cause he'll do anything to keep from having to stop
He keeps driving like hell in his big ass truck just running people over 'cause he don't give a fuck
Well his nose is bleeding and his pupils are big so he keeps on driving that bad-ass rig
He's done so much meth his head's about to explode but he's got to keep hauling that heavy load
When he dies and I know he will he just wants to be strapped to the grill
Well he's running out of bullets from shooting dogs but he don't put it down in his truckin' logs
He tries to hold it in but it's leaking out that's what being a trucker is all about
Well he's going real fast 'cause of too much speed and he needs to slow down so he smokes some weed
Well his axles are broken and his wheels are shot, where he's goin he done forgot
Well there ain't another exit for a hundred miles but he don't give a damn 'cause he's pukin' bile
Well he's goin' real fast around a dangerous curve 'cause the methamphetamines have fried his nerves
Well he's scarin' hitchhikers and he don't know why so he asks his puppet mordecai
Well you can't see fear in his bloodshot eyes 'cause he don't give a damn if he lives or dies
Well he passed the weigh station at the county line 'cause he don't give a damn about the fine
Well he ain't been in love since he don't know when but his hooker is stayin at the shoney's inn
Well he'll run your ass right off the road 'cause he don't give a damn if your car explodes
Well his load is shifting and his knuckles are white, he's a bat out of hell screaming throught the night
Well he's on qualuudes and percodan so you just can't stop this truckin' man
Well they took his license in Arkansas but he don't give a damn about the law
Well he dropped of his load at the fifteenth gate and he's starting to hallucinate
Well, fifth gear is the only one he knows 'cause he don't give a damn about drivin' slow
He don't give a damn about following rules, like those sissies in trucker school
He's got a heart infarction and his lungs won't expand and his aorta's blocked but he don't give a damn
Well he don't give a damn about the radio, just the voices in his head saying GO GO GO
Well the other guys on the old CB stopped talking to him in 1993

I post, YOU decide

2005-12-08T09:31:00.000-08:00

Guy landing in track and field sand pit, or special effect for The Mummy sequel?

Mother Was Wrong, I Am Somebody!

2005-12-06T17:46:00.000-08:00

So maybe I can come out from under the porch to accept my caption contest award from Wrapped Up Like a Douche.

2005-12-06T17:19:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine was sitting in her business lecture, and at the end of the class the professor asked if anyone would be interested in performing a role playing business simulation for extra credit. She groaned out loud and the guy next to her said in his most seductive, testosterone choked rhasp "What's the matter, you don't like role playing?"

Needless to say, she threw up in her mouth a little bit.

Why do people think that relationships work like a porno? This is what you get for watching hours and hours of BangBus or Queen of Farts. How many people apply to be pizza delivery guys, plumbers, lifeguards, cable maintenance dudes, preachers (I saw this one once, dude totally scored!), male cheerleaders, personal trainers, pool boys, and landscapers with the idea that women will walk up to them, give them the ol' please-oh-please-can-you-help-me-I-don't-know-what-to-do, and carry on with some hot slut action? I'd say at least 80%.

What happened to doing things the old fashioned way? Bathing, getting gussied up, turning on some P.M. Dawn and laying it down right? For old fashioned honky-tonkin', just ask the masters (might have to scroll down, the top looks obnoxious). THEM bitches be so old fashioned that...um...well you know where I'm headed with that. Oh, snap!

2005-12-03T15:23:00.000-08:00

A woman at Wal-Mart had a cellphone with a ringtone that sounded just like the portable phone from The Big Lebowski. I was jealous, of course, but when I noticed she was purposefully ignoring the incoming call, I walked up to her and said, "Your phone's ringin', dude!"

I would've pissed all over myself had she said in a frustrated tone, "Thank you Donnie," but she just looked at me funny, turned her buggy, and fled.

I would like to think that she reacted that way because of her disgust in Americans' constant impersonation of popular culture and the saturation of media into our collective psyche. Even more so, I'd like to think that she was a devout fan of The Big Lebowski, and that my mediocre impression of the late Donnie was completely sub-par and unworthy of her time or appreciation. However, life isn't always what you want it to be, and in all likelihood this woman just wanted her batteries, toilet paper, cereal, hammer, celery, milk, or whatever the fuck it was people want at Wal-Mart, and without my obnoxious observations on her screening of phone calls.

I'm probably unrealistic here, but if she were perturbed for the reasons I'd hoped for, she'd be better off in general.

I'm an individual, just like everybody else.

2005-12-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

2005-12-03T12:11:00.000-08:00

Despite a steep lean to the left, Slate.com has some great writing on politics and culture. Yet another article worth checking out is this one regarding the Left Behind series. Realistic, observant, somewhat sarcastic.

How to end the world on a budget.

caption contest

2005-12-01T19:52:00.000-08:00

Because I'm in a picture-y kind of mood.

breakup letter to iMesh

2005-11-30T07:05:00.000-08:00

Dear iMesh,

I wrote this to you to tell you that this just isn't working out. I know we got off to a great start, and before we even knew it, we got to the peak of our relationship. I would ask for a song, you would get it, and you wouldn't give me the bullshit "COPYRIGHT" warning that you did with certain, obviously illegal, copies of songs. It didn't take long for us to completely forget about that pesky pirating thing and things were perfect. But, baby, things change.

When you made all of the awesome songs that I had inaccessible because of "License Required", I felt hurt. No longer can I hear "Oh I Think Dey Like Me Remix Ft. Jermaine Dupri" without popups and skipping to the next song. What happened to us? It's like you don't even know me anymore, God knows I don't know you. It seems like you only listen to that bastard, RIAA now. You don't even hear me. You're not listening right now, are you?! What happened to the application that I love. If I were an unrealistic, profit-oriented agency, then would you listen to me? Well maybe you can get the RIAA to make you breakfast, you son of a bitch. Shit.

OK, I'm sorry, let me finish. I just want to say, don't be mad. Don't hate me for doing this. Someday you'll find someone else, somebody you can fuck over just like you did me, and you're gonna be happy. You're gonna be just fine, OK? We can still be friends and soon you're gonna forget about silly ol' me. Heck, I hear about you all the time! What choice do I have? Ha ha! See? You're smiling. Hey. HEY. Look at me. . . There you go.

Well, thanks for what we had. It was beautiful once, but it's time to move on.

Sincerely,

Hank

your input, whoever you are.

2005-11-29T15:53:00.000-08:00

Is it relatively safe to use these "release candidates" for Firefox? I don't see how much improvement could be done to the application, but I do know that I'm hesitant to put anything to further destabilize my computer, so if you know anything about this, please post a comment.

band review: Blasticus S.S. Blastica

2005-11-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine, Wes, is a person who is instinctively a rock star. He intrinsically throws out the air guitar and screams things like "FREEEOW YOW YEAH!" So what choice did I have when he told me that his band would be playing the day after Thanksgiving? A person of this calibur of rockingness is, without a doubt, a show in himself.

Before them was a band with some name like EverFold or EverKind or some shit like that. The lead singer was stocky and tried desperately to sound like Green Day. Oh, and he tried to rock and failed. These people did not rock and brought shame to the verb.

Then Blasticus S.S. Blastica showed up and things were different. People actually approached the stage and danced when they came up. Even through they were projecting DVD extras from "Titan A.E." behind the band, they still played some pretty cool stuff. Their sound wasn't unlike Primus, not silly but somewhat unorthodox. They were instrumental, so the songs were continuously occupied by some kind of solo or well-pressed line of musical dialogue.

Their solos were really pretty good too. Their bassist seemed well versed in his trade, and Wes rocked pretty hard too. The production guy sucked and fucked up the frequencies between Wes's transitions from distortions and regular (sorry, I don't know the terms. so sue me.), making some of his lower range non-discernable to the ear. That and one could tell he sucked at life otherwise by all of the recorded between-band music. He'd play something like Limp Bizkit and walk in beat with it, making his oh-fuck-yeah-this-shit-is-awesome kind of thug face. What a bitch.

They played a song called The Pirate Song which was terrific. I wish I could put a soundbyte of it up here, but the gist is that it reminds one of pirates going around on a creaky boat, pillaging and kicking ass. It is unpredictable, fun, and cool. You'd like it.

In short, I'm going to get one of their t-shirts because that is what I consider my greatest compliment to a band. The only other bands which I would get t-shirts for are Boards of Canada, Radiohead, Morcheeba, Beck, and Necrosatanica*, so Blasticus S.S. Blastica is joining a worthy crew. Check them out.

*The death metal band I was in during high school. We rocked six hundered and sixty six times harder than any other band in existence. I played electric triangle (I think), but never really showed up for practice much, so I just sort of beat-boxed and fell into sync with the others. Our first release, Neopentagramiticon, was quite delightful. Since then, there have been a few reunions including one very prolific one, so if any former band members are out there we should arrange another one soon.

food glorious food

2005-11-27T22:05:00.000-08:00

People will go to great lengths to get food. They will go to even further lengths to get cheap, slightly tainted food at discount prices. This demand for bargains and price blowouts is as innate as our protective and sexual instincts, something that anthropologists have documented since man's origins. I like to think it is synonomous with scavenging. Some may consider this the action of an "omega" personality (opposite of "alpha", where one would be picking up leftovers of others in the group or foraging and barely getting by), but I think it is the action of awesomeness.

This is why I love the UGO. Not read "You, go!", it stands for the United Grocery Outlet found in Crossville, Tennessee. Wonder what happens to the food in the back of those wrecked trucks on the interstate? Wonder what happens to those runt cattle or the dogs that never shut up? Wonder what happens to all of those kids they can't get anybody to adopt? How about all of the conditioner that people never buy or that was stolen to sell for cocaine? Well wonder no more.

Their meat is cheap. It most certainly comes from the previously mentioned sources, or is black market god knows what. This place is one, at most two steps above dumpster diving, which I am not above trying. Organic food is expensive but worth it when you can get it. The organic food store in Knoxville is supposed to be a pretty good place to dumpster dive, because they throw away excess dried legumes and other stuff that is non-perishable, therein remaining pretty safe. I'm afraid it isn't already someone's turf. So if any of them motherfuckin' hobos want to rumble again, I'm bout it bout it.

With discount meat, cereal, frozen shrimp, generic anything (yes even cheaper than before), loud Mexican children, and more stale chips than you can shake a stick at, the UGO has it all. They even have a kid in the front of the store who depressingly plays fiddle for money*. What more could you ask for? Really, answer me that. I dare you.

*The kid plays Rocky Top like a pro and avoids gospel music. This is cool because he isn't selling out to the Christian ethos and getting cash for playing certain hymns/religious songs. Also, Rocky Top is cool because, um, it just is.

i need help

2005-11-22T11:50:00.000-08:00

finding out more about teaching English abroad. If there is a way to do this for a 6-7 month term, that's the one I need, and if I can do it without spending $5,000, that'd be cool, too.

shaba daba hoo ha dibby bibby bop

2005-11-20T20:36:00.000-08:00

The other day I got the inclination to look for the best trip-hop albums that there were, because

1. All of the new music I was listening to that I really liked was stuff that I found out later to be labeled "trip-hop" and
2. I figured that somebody else, whose opinions were accessible via the Internet, was a greater authority on the subject and could point me to some sources of aural contentment.

Jesus Christ, was that a good idea.

But before I go on, I need to clarify something. "Trip-hop" is a pretty lame moniker, but is the one that the powers-at-be (possibly some stoner German DJs from 1994) have labeled it. I'd say it's something more suitable, a word that sounded like "oogashamanow" or "boppitydamnskip". Naming things in a manner similar to singing in skat is pretty fun, I should do that more often. Hey! How about the title? Whee!

Moving on...Since then I have found a multitude of the best music I've heard. Putting on my headphones, I fit into this music like a glove (why yes, I am poetic, thank you). It is right-brained, groovy, creative and chill. An aspect that is nearly required for the genre is a sultry female vocalist, which turns up the sex level to 11. Some groups sample more than others, some incorporate hip-hoppy beats than others, some are minimalist, some suck. Hank wouldn't lie about this, so here are some that do not suck:

Morcheeba
Portishead
Thievery Corporation
Massive Attack

Finally, though they aren't described by the formentioned genre, Boards of Canada is the most right-brained assembly of music you will ever hear. If circadian rhythms had a sound, it would be Boards of Canada. They rule so hard that I'm going to get their t-shirt. There are other groups that are decent, but that I'm not convinced of yet, so I'm not mentioning them. Why? Only the best for my readers. My helpings are hefty, not hasty.

wherein i exercise my right to use asterisks and cross references to neurostimulants

2005-11-20T20:08:00.000-08:00

Today I picked up a highly recommended book from the library. It took a long time, since the English Literature section had been recently reorganized, but it looks like it will be worth it nonetheless. I searched and searched through the stacks, moving around people "studying" in groups and in carrels.* Amid other stupids who can't write their way out of a paper bag was the Wodehouse, all grajillion things he wrote. And slightly pulled out from the rest, standing a little taller, and with a bright blue cover, was Cocktail Time. I opened it and found that the pages were well worn and dog-eared, and knew that this copy had been enjoyed by someone . It even had the classic book smell which made me smile. Books do not easily attain an ethos, at least as far as I know, but this book had one.

Other books that I know have such a quality are ones that I already know the history of and know for sure how terrific they are. They are mainly Richard Scarry and Where's Waldo books from when I was a kid, as well as some one hit wonders like Wind in the Willows, Millions of Cats, Dinotopia (the others weren't as good as the first, accept it), the Childcraft Encyclopedia volume about bigfoot and other mysterious UFOs and stuff, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark 1-3, Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and anything else I could find to freak myself out or pacify myself. Looking back, I had good taste in literature as a kid.

So I step down and yield the soapbox to you: what's your favorite childhood book?

*Hodges library is pretty stupid, for the most part. Accomplishing anything in there is like studying in a WWE arena complete with lasers, fog, and rockem' sockem' extravaganzas. People ignore any rules regarding respect and noise pollution. The only thing it is good for is stopping through to check your e-mail, getting Starbucks coffee**, or meeting for a group presentation. I like to people-watch and know the spots around town to do this. They also happen to be the best places to meet women. They are the park and the coffee shop. Go now, because if you don't I will.

** (*) Starbucks is brewed by Lucifer himself. On top of being a highly prolific, caramel glazed, cream covered conglomerate, it also chocks its coffee full of caffiene. How much you ask? A "grande" (ooh, Italian! Mama mia!) cup of coffee has roughly 600 mg of caffeine in it. I know what you're thinking: "Awesome". But that's too much because it quickly desensitizes your nervous system to the substance so you have to have more to have the same effect. Moderation makes it work, National Geographic doesn't lie. So fuck you, Starbucks.

(*) Can you asterisk under another asterisk? I'm not sure, nor do I know that even this reference is down with the MLA. Tough shit because I'm a rebel who don't take too kindly to rules, whores.

random

2005-11-15T16:04:00.000-08:00

1. When I went into a bathroom stall today, I noticed the usual territorial markers, senseless insults, and offers for sexual satisfaction on the walls. But on the toilet was the brand name "AMERICAN STANDARD" written in gray near the handle. When I pressed the handle, it flushed with an excess of noise and water, a ten second vortex of obnoxious stupidness. Does this say that we Americans suck at making toilets, or is it trying to pay homage to our internationally recognized and immutably loathsome personality and culture?

2. Nascar's big man gets a huge suspension for a traffic infraction, while it took a congressional kick in the ass to get baseball to actually do something to big galoots who do drugs and give a bad name to role models in this country. I say: yay, nascar; I might get around to being interested in you some day, after a lobotomy or something. Sure you just drive cars, but you have some kind of solid ethics system that apparently doesn't fuck around.

3. The songs I find stuck in my head every day are best described as "stupid". Examples being the Stella theme song, Message To You Rudie, and Camel Walk. Am I stupid? That or maybe my brain is just so big that I have to purge it throughout the day with random bullshit.

4. Idealogues plagued campus today, spreading faster than the avian bird flu through a crowd of chinks. Dick Cheney came to dedicate something that politicians would dedicate, and one of UT's finest street preachers was out in a plaza. Both men drew impressive crowds and impressive jeers from the people. When people did this to Cheney, they got kicked out. When people did it to the street preacher, it was because his analogy involving an extension cord had gone wrong and he forgot his line. I felt kind of the sorry for the guy (the preacher, not the VP), but then I remembered he was telling me what to think and I pointed and laughed. Dick.

2005-11-06T21:26:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to those of you who have just been accepted to medical school (you know who you are).

somebody smack Nathan Lane

2005-11-05T19:15:00.000-08:00

I opened up the NY Times webpage and the first thing I saw was this picture:

Nathan Lane is so goddamned annoying I can hardly stand it. When he isn't prancing around, he has a simply precocious little grin all the time, as if to say "Oh posh, what mischief shall I get into next?"

Nathan, I bid you a big Hakuna Matata (that's "no worries" in case you've forgotten), because you'll have plenty of worries when your schmucky flamboyance loses its popularity. But hopefully you will have taken up as a dominatrix or transvestite by then. Good luck, buddy.

you don't get this in molecular biology

2005-11-04T10:21:00.000-08:00

I'm currently taking a class called Writing Fiction Workshop. In it, we all write short stories, and then everybody else workshops it and tells stuff that could be done to make it better. So far, I've been pretty impressed with some of them, especially compared to my last English writing workshop course. Most of the stories in it read as follows:

Josh and I went out behind the shed and smoked some pot. It was awesome. Then, the cops came by and we ran into the woods. That night, Chris and Matt showed up with some beer, and we drank it in the high school parking lot. It was awesome.

So you can see how it isn't hard to improve upon this. My current class, as good as it is, has included some real stinkeroos as of late. The stinkiest of the stinkerellis is one called "Him", which was a ghost story (the only one for a reason) about a kid going to a haunted mental hospital and contracting a ghost that makes him kill everybody. It uses lots of exclamation marks! and makes obvious that the ghost is shouting at everything! and leaves nothing to the imagination! It features characters named Officer Dave and Officer Marty, police who do nothing at all besides get in the way of the killer's mysterious rampage.

The story finishes in a foreshadowing tone wherein the murderous ghost moves into the useless narrator. Is this a sequel I smell?

I got up and looked around. No face, Yes! Then I heard it, "I am here with you know Maggie! Your brother was bad; will you listen?"

Don't Stop Believin'

2005-10-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

“We’ve been up here for twenty minutes!”
“Most kids would love to be up there for that long. Don’t be such a wimp”, Cloyd replied with a smile.
“But you’re the carnie!” replied Matt, who was turning purple.
“Well shit, if you’re going to start using names then I guess you two can just get off.”
The Ferris wheel rotated slowly until Matt and Marty could get to the ground. They left promptly, stomping Cloyd’s feet as they passed through the gate. Cloyd winced at the pain and hopped around on his other foot. Children passing by laughed at him, men and women snickered. He groaned, lit another cigarette, and checked his watch; finally it was time for his break.
His striking features were given to him by his addiction. Dark, tanned skin, his thin frame, and his deep coarse voice were accessories to his passion for tobacco. Sad, almost jaded brown eyes looked out from underneath his yellowed Dale Jarrett cap.
“Didn’t used to be like this,” he thought, “I didn’t get stomped this much.” Things were different earlier in his career. Fresh on the job, Cloyd worked for the smiles and the laughter sometimes even letting people onto rides without enough tickets. His enthusiasm and pride got more people onto the rides and moved the lines more efficiently than any other carnie. He could go whole nights without someone vomiting. He knew how to time increases in speed depending on who was going to be on that round, and gave winks to girls when making sure they were buckled in. He had been a man made for his job.
As he wandered along on his break, Cloyd wiggled his sore toes inside of his Lugz and took a slow swig of his Tab. “Probably had it coming. Oh well.” he thought. Things were getting as low for him as they had at this job. He had tried dating the weight guesser, but she was too critical. The pony handlers tried to cheer him up with free rides ever so often, but he felt pitiful by them trying to help. He thought the freaks were looking at him funny but it might have been part of their bone structure, he wasn’t sure. The world wasn’t on his side anymore. He felt all alone at the carnival now.
There were four minutes left before he had to be back. He looked up, hoping one or two stars might be visible over the funnel cake signs. Not tonight.

Matt and Marty found their way along the midway, past the games and concessions to the where the other rides were. Matt was chubby and covered in freckles, and Marty wore a red buzz cut on a head that was too big for his skinny frame. At nine and ten years old respectively, the brothers were already thrill seekers who knew their territory and where to find excitement. It was the Crazy Dance they were after, no exceptions.
Running the Crazy Dance, Pauly stood with a glazed look on his face. He stood kids next to the height-meter and kicked out those who didn’t meet the requirement. He took tickets without a word, and glanced at everyone with the dull stare of a dairy cow. At the women, he gazed a little more intently. He gave everybody the creeps, even the other people running the ride. He was an overbearing person in every way, from his array of body art to his greasy long black hair, he was just too much for anyone to handle. Once he was done letting people through, he walked over to his booth and got on the microphone.
“OK guys, I know you’re here to party so let’s go ahead and kick it up a notch.”
The ride started with Rock You like a Hurricane playing at an absurd volume.
“Yeah. Alright, if you’re ready we’re gonna take it up even higher.”
A low whine began as the seats on the ride whipped around each other in a pattern that was all too similar to churning digestive muscles. Lights flashed quicker, wind blew from the ride, bolts squeaked, and braces rattled. It was a beautiful cacophony of American indulgence.
“Alright crew, now I’m not sure if you can handle the Crazy Dance! Do you wanna go faster? If you wanna go faster, I wanna hear you scream!”
Of course, they screamed. There wasn’t much mystery to any of it.
Matt and Marty basked in the glory of the ride as they looked on from the midway. Their cotton candy covered jaws hung open as they stood in the long line. Matt clung to their tickets tightly, hypnotized by the lights. Marty looked around periodically to make sure his parents weren’t around. They weren’t allowed to get on the Crazy Dance, thus the decoy of the Ferris wheel while the folks were near. For a little while they were free to roam.
As they ride ended and people got off, it was time for Matt and Marty to get on. When they got to Pauly, he stopped them. They weren’t tall enough, he said as the boys’ faces fell. They had to think quickly.
They slipped in as Pauly stepped into the booth. They got belted in with an elderly couple who remarked at how handsome they were and the ride started. It was everything they dreamed it could be.
As they got off, Pauly spotted them. He started onto the ride but slipped in vomit, making a loud sound as he fell onto the platform. The spectacle made people laugh, but it made Matt and Marty start to run. They disappeared into the crowd as Pauly cursed at them and all the people who laughed. It was humiliating.
Word around the proverbial campfire spread quickly, and soon the whole staff knew about Pauly’s incident. The midway was closed and the booths and rides were dark now. Staff picked up garbage and moved trash bags they turned in money.
Tobacco went down easiest next to the generator behind the freak tent. All the carnies knew this, so you could find one or two there at any hour taking breaks, momentarily escaping the tedium of the hot summer night. The white noise from the generator combined its shadow provided the best shelter from the gaudy midway. Cloyd stood alone without a word, smoking and looking at the dewy grass. Pauly and his cronies approached and joined him. They lit cigarettes, and mumbled about their day.
Cloyd continued to stare into nothing and didn’t consider the nearby conversation until something caught his ear. Pauly had been complaining about the prior incident.
“Yeah one of them was real fat and had freckles and the other had a red buzz cut. They snuck onto the fucking ride behind me. Hell, little bastards were too short to begin with. Then they made me fall in somebody’s puke. I think it used to be a snow-cone because it’s blue. Goddamn this shit doesn’t wash out easy.”
“What were they wearing?” asked Cloyd.
“Blue shirt and yellow shirt. You didn’t see them did you?”
“I think so, they were on the Ferris wheel earlier.”
“Well if they come back you let me know, got it?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“And that’s not all. I saw them spray painting on the back of the trailers. But I told the boss about it, and if they come back I told him what they look like.”
The rest of the men reacted with mutters and draws on the cigarettes, but Cloyd was curious. Cloyd and Pauly didn’t like each other. Their personalities had conflicted ever since Pauly tried to blame Cloyd for losing the key to the Himalaya last year. Since then, Pauly had been overbearing towards Cloyd to the point where Cloyd had become passive and submissive towards Pauly’s demanding personality. There was always some tension between the two men, and it had worsened as Pauly’s buddies joined in with helping to poke fun or make life a little harder for Cloyd.
Once the other men had left to finish cleaning things for the night, Cloyd went to the trailers to have a look at the vandalism. “FREEBIRD”, “BIG TITTIES”, and “69” were poorly sprayed across the walls of the trailer in hot pink. Cloyd groaned and shook his head.

At home, Matt and Marty were elated. The last night of the carnival was the next day, after that it was leaving town. The climax of the entire fair was that night, including fireworks, music, and the ultimate: the Monster’s Ball. This was a show featuring the “most disgusting freaks in God’s America”. According to the advertisements, they were going to “shriek in horror, then cry in disgust of the monstrous deformities before their eyes.” What could possibly be better than that? They’d already met their previous goal of riding the Crazy Dance, so this was all that was left to do that summer. After that, they could die happy.
Their parents didn’t find out about the Crazy Dance, so there wasn’t a reason not to drop them off for the last night. They arrived early as the sun was just beginning to set. Very few people were there besides families with small children and old people. The fryers were still warming up. The carnies running the games were optimistic and aggressive. It was going to be a magical night.

Cloyd was working the Gravitron that night, the scourge of all rides. Not only did it produce the most vomit, it was the closest to breaking at any moment. Since the SuperLoop disaster in 1999, Cloyd knew that they were due for another any year. He just hoped it didn’t happen on his watch. The crowds began to increase in size and the time began to pass more slowly as people kept coming off looking sick. Then he noticed the two boys.
They were killing time, waiting for the show to start and occupying themselves with fried god-knows-what. He signaled them to come over, but Marty just stuck his tongue out and Matt scowled. After a moment, they came over.
“What do you want?” asked Marty.
“We’re not getting on anything that you’re running. You’re just going to try to make me sick again.” Matt said.
“It’s not like that this time. Listen, did you two spray paint on anything last night?” said Cloyd in a tone that the boys weren’t expecting.
Marty was confused. “What are you talking about? Is this about the Crazy Dance thing? We can explain-“
“Don’t tell my mom, please, please, please-“
“Look, shut up. Did you guys do it or not?”
Matt and Marty looked at each other. “We didn’t spray paint anything.”
“Do you know what ‘69’ means?” asked Cloyd.
The boys stood with a blank and perplexed stare.
“OK, nevermind. Look, I gotta go. It’s my break, I think.” Cloyd lit a cigarette and walked off.
“Wait, what does 69 mean?” yelled Matt. Cloyd turned around.
“Um, just… Um. This … thing. Not interesting at all, don’t worry about it. Ride the Gravitron now.”

The two boys instead rode the Dragon twice, until it was time for them to head to the show. They went into the tent early, even while people were still outside watching fireworks. Soon they’d be face to face with the ugliest, most foul beings known to exist. They’d watch everyone in the audience throw up at the sight of it all. Old people would faint, babies would cry, the freaks would moan with rehearsed anger, and it was going to be bliss.

Pauly, who was assigned to the Whack A Mole, stood smoking and persuading people to come and give his game a try, because it was “better than all the rest” and it was their chance to win, “for real this time.” No one cared about the game to begin with, but Pauly’s “Hell-Raiser” tattoo and lack of enthusiasm probably didn’t help to enthrall the masses either. With no one playing the game, he asked one of his buddies to cover him while he went to the restroom.
The man in charge of the Monster’s Ball told Matt and Marty to wait outside the tent since things weren’t ready to begin for another hour. He had to physically remove the boys, and when he did they wound up outside the tent right in front of Pauly. As he left the fairground men’s room, he stopped. As they shared a brief moment of alarm, the first fireworks exploded before he chased them along the midway. They passed around and through the still crowds of onlookers, among the smells of sweat, sugar, pizza, vomit, hot dogs, disinfectant and cigarette smoke. The carousel spun as parents waved at their children on board. More Human than Human blasted from the Crazy Dance while the line grew. All of the carnival lights were a blur with the strobe of fireworks glowing from above. But tonight was not about sensory over stimulation; it was about seeing those damn freaks.
Matt and Marty had the clear advantage over Pauly of not being chain smokers. After gaining a considerable lead on him, they got into the Haunted House. Sitting in their car, they unlatched themselves halfway through and stood in the dark among the decaying, repetitive props.
“Marty, where are we?” asked Matt.
“I’m next to Dracula, you’re next to the Crypt Keeper.”
“I want to stand next to Dracula, I don’t like the Crypt Keeper.”
“Fine, you big baby.”
The boys switched places and shortly other people passed through. Many were couples making out, others were sarcastic teenagers. No one noticed the boys, though a couple of times they tried to jump out at people. Dracula and the Crypt Keeper were just too good at drawing attention.
“Do you think it’s safe?” Matt eventually asked.
“Probably, it’s been a little while” Marty replied.
They came out of the haunted house in an empty cart passing by. As they exited, Pauly was waiting for them at the end. Another friend of his ran the Haunted House and had tipped him off as he was panting and coughing by. As Pauly grabbed the two boys by the collar, a voice made him turn around.
“Pauly, what are you doing?” It was Charles, the fairgrounds manager, who had been patrolling the midway. As the man approached, Pauly released the boys and nudged them towards him.
“These are the two I was talking about, Charlie. Them’s the two that ran onto the ride and vandalized the trailers.”
“We didn’t vandalize anything” said Marty.
Charles looked at them with a suspicious glare.
“So you saw them do this then?”
“Yep, right before we closed last night they were out back there.”
As Pauly began the story, the kids got scared. Cloyd, walking and smoking with purpose, spotted the scene outside of the Haunted House. He made eye contact with the boys who were nervous. As he approached, Charles noticed him. “Oh, hi Cloyd. Looks like we found those kids who spray painted the trailers.”
“Oh you did, did you?” he replied, blowing a grey cloud of smoke.
“Yep,” said Pauly, leaning closer to the boys, “and they aren’t getting away with it. Not after humiliating me like that, you little assholes.” Matt and Marty coiled back as they smelled Pauly’s odor of lawnmower exhaust, the one that only an experienced and accomplished smoker can attain.
“Well we can’t put up with that, kids. You’re going to have to leave now. I’ll go call your parents”
The boys were shocked and terrified. They were going to miss the Monster’s Ball; their summer would be nothing without it. Plus they probably wouldn’t be allowed back next year. This just couldn’t be happening.
“But we-“
“Can it” blurted Pauly.
They looked at Cloyd, who was nervous himself. Pauly was staring at him, shaking his head. Cloyd hung his head, looking at his feet. It didn’t matter, he thought. These kids were just going to go home, no big deal. So what if they had their summer ruined and missed out on the best freak show spectacular of their lives? So what if they walked away from the fair that summer sad and disappointed? He knew they didn’t vandalize the trailers, but they’d get over the loss, wouldn’t they? Besides, it wouldn’t be worth the trouble to say anything. Pauly and his friends would give him shit every day for the rest of the season.
But perhaps it was that Matt was starting to cry or that Marty was losing hope, or maybe it was Don’t Stop Believin’ playing on the Crazy Dance that inspired Cloyd to finally butt into the conversation.
“Pauly, you’re full of shit. You spray painted the trailer. The cans are sitting next to your car right now.”
“What are you talking about? They did it” Pauly said.
“There’s paint on your hands right now, shithead.”
He was right, there was paint on his finger and thumb.
“Dammit Pauly, what were you thinking?” said Charles who was just wanting to get on with the night.
“Uh, they did it. I saw them.”
“Get out of here, Pauly. I’ll call you and let you know when you can come back.” Charles said.
“You fucking narc,” Pauly replied to Cloyd, “you did it again didn’t you? I thought we were supposed be friends now but I can see you’ve still decided to be an asshole to me. Well I can be an asshole too, just you wait.”
Pauly made tried to flick his cigarette onto the boys and missed. He purposefully bumped into Cloyd on his way off, after which he tripped gloriously over a bucket and into the bumper car floor. A group of cars manned by smaller children spotted him from the other side and immediately came over, roughing up Pauly, bump by bump. The operator didn’t notice for several minutes, unfortunately for Pauly.
Charles thanked Cloyd for the heads-up on the whole incident and left to go patrol the rest of the fair. The two boys were ecstatic, though, thanking Cloyd, forgiving the Ferris wheel incident and any other transgressions. They desperately needed to leave to still see the Monster’s Ball, but they gave the rest of their tickets to Cloyd. They gave recommendations on rides, shook his hand, and scurried down the midway.
Cloyd, meanwhile, was due back at the Gravitron a long time ago. He didn’t go back immediately, though, the night was going too well to just go right back to that crap. He strolled for a few more minutes enjoying the sights and sensations.
He rode the Juggernaut and the Tilt a Whirl, just for old time’s sake. They weren’t as fun as they used to be, but hell, they were still fun in their own rite. Cloyd felt comfortable on them, like they were old friends that he was meeting for the first time in a while. More than anything, he was happy that he could make someone happy at the carnival. The boys’ smiles nestled into his memory. He was beaming as he got off the rides. He got back to the Gravitron, where his relief guy was perturbed. He gave him some money for a Coke and thanked him genuinely. He then went to the gate and faced the line.
Smiling, he got people on and off the ride, winking at the girls, timing to prevent vomit. People got off dizzy but still coherent, the goal of any good carnie. The line got longer and busier and time passed quickly for Cloyd. It was what Cloyd had been trying to find again.
This called for a cigarette.

guarantee yourself as a badass

2005-10-27T15:06:00.000-07:00

The greatest television programming I've ever seen was about the worst rodeo accidents of the pro tour. It was even better than it sounds; guys got hurled through the air and stomped into the ground like they were chew toys. The guys on this video made part of me feel shameful for not having tried bullriding or rodeo, but another part of me that 1.) I've already ridden some horses, and most of the times I did that it wasn't very much fun because I was doing my best to keep the horses from killing children and 2.) I would have to lose a lot of self-respect before making physical contact with those bulls. Playing the role of Drunk Guy at Rodeo Wearing a Cowboy Hat was a role much more suited for a chap like me. Yow!

Amazingly, the show kept mentioning a certain bull over and over again.

Meet Bodacious. Tell me this fucking thing doesn't look a character from Doom (or Dante's Inferno for that matter).

How many animals have DVD's made about how evil they are? Cujo, Moby Dick, maybe a couple more, but they weren't even real. Pshh.

something nice to make you smile

2005-10-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well, not really. Actually this is completely disgusting, to the point where people around you will ask what you're looking at (consider that a warning). Scroll down to see the sickest mouse I've seen so far. This is apparently what the Mib gene is good at preventing, because this mouse had hers chopped out. This thing was literally a fuzzy ball when I found it, couldn't do anything. I'm amazed that all of this had fit inside of her interior. The orange part is coming out of the liver and spread into the intestines, producing blockage and all kinds of metabolic madness.

2005-10-23T12:23:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, I changed the comments bar. If there was anything really profound or terrific on there that you would like remembered and archived forever, please accept my apology.

unaware

2005-10-18T22:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a portrait of a guy I know, an uncomfortable girl, and a friend who wishes it were all over.

Gross (note the capital G)

2005-10-17T21:24:00.000-07:00

I was under the impression that certain kinds of mating patterns were more common to, say, possums, than human beings. But when you're so fucking crazy that the words "labial reconstruction" no longer have meaning, you can shoot out as many fucking humans as you darn well please!

Take, for example, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar.

(Hey, I wonder if they do requests. If so, I want to hear "Living Dead Girl", "Flies on my Dick", or maybe "They're Coming to Take me Away, Ha Ha".)
They and the small army they are constructing for themselves are living happily in Arkansas. Michelle is a walking uterus. Her vagina is the shape of a baby, just plopping them out onto a conveyer belt; further down the line they'll recieve their suit, tie, bible, a harmonica (or whatever instrument God tells them to play), and a sandwich for the road. And they're gonna like it.

In case you hadn't noticed, all of their names start with the letter J. That means that sooner or later, on kid 115 or so, they're going to completely run out of J names and start resorting to Jrichard or Jstephanie. Better yet, start numbering them, you damn loons. Those kids, especially the older ones, are getting really, REALLY tired of hearing their parents having sex like rabbits all the time. How do they sleep?

Also, I can't imagine having this many mouths to feed. They must line them up in a trough or keep them in kennels. Are they going to start a colony somewhere? Are these children going to be raised to start an elite squad of ninjas, or just an annoying band of solicitors? Is this some kind of welfare plot to take my money? Who knows? More importantly, who knows how to stop them before they're out of control?

clearchannel killed the radio star

2005-10-17T20:17:00.000-07:00

In K-town, we're pretty much down to two radio stations that are independently owned, as far as I'm concerned anyway. If they were the only two stations in town at all, I would be completely fine with that. WDVX and WKVL, I salute thee. The title of best ever, though, belongs to 89.3 the Current in Minneapolis. It is the best. Ever.

2005-10-05T16:45:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite like a good contractual obligation record.

wild and crazy kids

2005-10-05T05:53:00.000-07:00

When I was a camp counselor we had to chaperone the dances for all the little girls and boys. To avoid the risk of the kids becoming uncool, we, the counselors, chose the music for the dances. Once, though, we decided to let the oldest campers (who were like 16 and 17) choose the music. They fucked it up so bad; they were unprepared and what music they did have was terrible. They even chose the shitty theme that was "Funky Movie TV".

Their fucking up reached its pinnacle when they slipped a song onto the playlist that completely shouldn't have been there. I don't mean "Magic Stick" or shitty rap or heavy metal with a ton of cuss words. I mean a song that dance etiquette hasn't even considered. They started playing "Mad World" by Gary Jules. It is one of the more sad, suicidal songs I can possibly think of.

So we had this giant room full of 8 year olds slow dancing to "Mad World" with a scared and confused look on their face. That song is not for people under 15, and these little kids (just now dipping their toes into the social agenda of life) were just thinking this was part of going to dances, was slow dancing with your best girl to really creepy suicide rhapsodies. Some of the more socially concerned ones had a look like, "Yeah, no big deal. I dance to suicide rock all the time, losers. Whatever."

"...the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had..."

2005-10-04T18:20:00.000-07:00

Music, in general, would be better if every person sang like the guy from the B52's or the guy that sang "The Monster Mash".

oy

2005-10-04T05:45:00.000-07:00

This summer, when I lived in Minneapolis with my bro, my room was next to an alley in which trash bins were stored. Once a week, the trash truck would show up at about 6:00 in the morning, and make the biggest damn racket you can imagine. It was laughable. Really, the only way you could cope with it was laughter because these guys sounded like they were trying to wake you up by banging shit together and keeping their truck in that alleyway as long as they could.

Now I live in a relatively quiet part of Knoxville, but one that is also pretty close to the interstate. Not too close though, as there is a big hill between me and it so traffic is unheard. However, there is contruction on a hill across the street from my window. There are the characteristic sounds of heavy equipment that the alleyway trash guys made me accustomed to, especially the "BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP" of the truck backing up. Only difference is, the men start constructing at roughly 5:30 or 6:00 every day now. That BOOPing sound drives me insane in the membrane, thanks partially to my insomnia as it is.

It's gotten to the point where I want to walk outside in lay down in the mud in front of the bulldozer in my bathrobe and demand to talk to someone from the city. Then one of the foremen will come out and we'll argue before the Earth is destroyed for a hyperspace bypass.

This Guy Sucks.

2005-09-30T05:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, you've read this before, and that guy certainly sucks.
But let me take you on a trip to my Western Civilization 241 Lecture, where one guy sucks even more.

This is Kyle, who sucks.

Kyle gives the professor a hard time, and sits there making up his own free spirited commentary the entire time. This wouldn't be so bad if one didn't have to listen and write intently during the whole lecture, so this guy gets to be a tremendous pain in the ass. He always says shit to his friends (very loudly) about how stupid the professor is, when in fact the professor is way more intelligent than Kyle can understand. Here is an example of the drama that is this lecture.

DR. GRANT: If you look up on the projector, the red spot on the map is where Mesopotamia was during this time period.
KYLE: Pshh. Where? Pshh. What a tree-hugger.
REST OF CLASS'S THOUGHTS: Where Mesopotamia is, you retard.
KYLE: Pshh. Fuck.

After careful consideration, here is what I've derived as his thought process:

If I am critical, I am rational.
If I am rational, I am able to reason properly.
If I am able to show such discernment, I am intelligent.
If I am intelligent, women will have constant sex with me.
Quod Erat Demonstratum, Dr. Grant is unqualified to teach/exist.

I got this picture of him off of The Facebook, which is a social networking thing where you expose yourself to entirely too many people at your college. His previous one was as good and I wish I would've thought to post it. As he updates, I'll update to you all with love.

2005-09-29T13:14:00.000-07:00

My roommate's girlfriend works for the football data collecting people, and was on this bus.
She said she was scared shitless, but the other players on the bus were unfazed by it. Said Gerald Riggs, "Oh, this happens every time. Don't worry about it." I guess that when you're big in sports, a lot of people must hate you.

insanity at its finest hour

2005-09-25T20:18:00.000-07:00

************************************************************************************
DISCLAIMER: THE VIDEO LINKED BELOW IS GROSS AND NOT SAFE FOR ANYONE AT WORK OR WHO BREATHES FOR THAT MATTER. However, if you don't watch it, the rest of the post is irrelevant. Let's continue...
************************************************************************************

Watch this.

Now that you're done watching it, sit back and think about how before you died, you finally got to see a man masturbate with shit all over his hands for the sake of entertainment.

OK, I know what you're thinking. Who is this guy? Why does he seem to have pica? Are these kinds of antics habits of his? Well calm the fuck down and I'll tell you.

He is the one and only GG Allin, and I am convinced he did so much heroin that the part of his brain that controls sound reasoning became offended, put on its hat and stepped out never to return again. He was the lead singer for GG Allin and the Murder Junkies. He did stuff like the above video nearly every time he performed. One of the best accounts of his concerts was when he "stuffed a live mic up his ass, climbed the lighting trellis, and kicked a hole in the ceiling while pissing on the stage below."

If this doesn't spell "great concert experience", I frankly don't know what does. As long as there is no imminent threat of exposure to GG's feces (hey that rhymes, maybe it was a song of his), then I don't see any point in leaving. His concerts turned from Punk Rockfest to Let's See What the Human Body is Cabable Of, each time a new adventure in learning. The educational value alone was worth the seven bucks it would cost to go to one of his shows.

My question, though, is what was the highway that this man followed to reach such delirium. Whatever road it is, the authorities should board it up and make a detour around it, never to be seen again. One of the signs on this metaphorical highway could have been his artwork, an example below.

This picture is titled "Blood, Shit & Cum" and is most likely just that. That's GG Allin for you, he delivers what he promises.

GG's road ended after a heroin overdose a few years ago. This disappointed many of his fans, because apparently he had promised to commit suicide onstage by lighting dynamite that was up his ass. He was a man ahead of his time; a simple, closed-minded time that couldn't accept a man with dreams of screaming and bleeding on his surrounding objects. What is wrong with us? How long must we hate and discriminate against beautiful souls that just want to express themselves? Sure, it's a terrible health hazard and detrimental to the fabric of society, but who are we to judge? You should be ashamed for looking down on this noble creature.

So this post goes out to you, GG, wherever you are. You're probably looking down on us now, hurling shit at us and walking over in the corner to think things over with poopoo on your face.

boredom + photoshop = blog post.

2005-09-21T19:03:00.000-07:00

One of the Internet's heroes, for those of you who don't know him, is Bikerfox. Possibly one of the coolest (or so he thinks) of dudes, Bikerfox was once really fat and now is not. Because of this he is a self-proclaimed fitness guru and even has some hazardous way of getting off of his bike really fast.
He also has a gallery of pictures of himself, in which he poses and shows off his awesomeness. This is not only a testament to how little a right this guy has to be vain, but how horrible a glamour photography studios can be. You can see the shitty tile for chrissake. Basically, these pictures are awesome. But I wasn't satisfied. Bikerfox, you're simply too modest, so I took the liberty of editing your pictures so people could see the real, inner Bikerfox.

I have a hard time competing with whoever came up with this though.

On My Way to Hollywood

2005-09-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

I'm minoring in English and have to fulfill certain course requirements to accomplish this. Writing fiction is my preferred kind of classwork, but I also wound up in a screenwriting class just for giggles. It's taught by this almost-flaming gay guy named Larson. He teaches the class with the point of getting the screenplays we write into Hollywood someday. Now, I'm not the kind of guy who wants to shatter dreams or anything, but based on what I've seen, the material coming out of undergraduate public college students in the Southeast isn't too hot right now. I guess it's a motivational technique, but still, don't get people's hopes up TOO much. The class is half normals like me and half fat people who want to be Charlie Kaufman.

W'vee started out the class with informal exercises involving two people per group, randomly assigned together. I got paired with a deaf woman. She has an interpreter, and therefore has to sit in the very front of the class so he can set a chair in front of her to sign shit out. He's kind of wierd/artsy and has a strange mullet-like haircut I've never seen before. Since we were paired together and she can't go anywhere else in the room, I'm forced to sit between her and the podium of the gay professor, so I am squeezed way too close to him.

I feel sorry for gay people, so when the poor bastards check me out I just take it as a compliment. This guy isn't much different, except he uses me in examples entirely too much, does little flirty shit, and generally makes things uncomfortable for everybody. Ain't cool. I am forced to keep my eyes away from him and not smile at his jokes, so he'll get some kind of hint that I might be there to learn how to write stuff and nothing else.

One of the first exercises we did with our new partners was a "Trust Walk". For those of you who don't know what a trust walk is, it's where one person has their eyes closed and the other guides them around so they don't hurt themselves (then you instantly develop a rapport with them, becoming best friends who write incredible screenplays, or so the professor wanted it to seem). My partner was missing her sense of hearing, so when he was telling us what we'd be doing, hopefully she didn't read my mouth with I mumbled, "Oh shit."

She started out guiding me around. This part I didn't foresee being so bad because at least I could hear her telling me what to do. But the problem lies in her deaf person manner of speech. Deaf people speak in a loose, shrill, nasal falsetto voice that's pretty goddamned hard to understand if you can't see their mouths. "Stop" sounds like "STHAWPH!" and "Turn right" sounds like "HURR EYET!". I kept running into shit and tripping down stairs the whole time for my fifteen minute half of the Trust Walk. She would laugh, "HI YI YI YI!" while the interpreter would fake laughter mixed with empathetic groaning for me.

For her turn, we came up with a system of arm squeezes and yanks. I had to put her hand on the rails and try really hard to keep her from flipping out. She really didn't like what was going on at all and kept tripping on nothing. Her interpreter got really anxious when the professor first described the exercise too, and when we were doing the whole thing he explained to me, "This shit really sucks for deaf people." He and I had this conversation while guiding the woman around with her eyes closed, so I'm pretty sure she didn't know what we were talking about.

The next time the class met, I went to the back before we got back together with our partners to put off sitting so close to the professor again. When he told us to pair back up, the deaf woman was quizzical as to why I didn't sit down next to her in the first place and said, "I HOUGHT YHOU DIDN'T WIKE MHEE."

"She thinks you didn't like her," said the interpreter.

"NO, I JUST DON'T LIKE SITTING NEXT TO THAT GUY," I said, nodding my head in the direction of the professor who was preoccupied with handing out some brightly colored handouts with a page of the Men in Black screenplay on them. "IT'S NOT YOU I SWEAR TO GOD. YOU ARE NICE."

She just forced a smile at me, then turned and started watching the interpreter who at this point was busy signing the innuendo-filled quips from the professor, who was still distributing materials.

We then started an exercise in which I played a man whose car had broken down in front of the woman's house, and I desperately needed to use her phone. Her objective was to act skeptical and not let me into her house, in other words just make it harder for me, pretty standard conflict type stuff. But instead of giving any room to act this shit out, she just pretended to open the door, said, "HAHT DO YHOU HANT?!" and slammed the door in my face. She didn't do anything else, thus making me do all the work and she just smiled sarcastically at me. What a dumb bitch.

Now she just acts perturbed all the time and we get nothing done. The professor now likes to say stuff like ass or fart or stinky, just to turn and watch the interpreter's sign for the word. Perhaps the moral here is not to piss off the deaf, because in losing their hearing they gain an acute laser mind vision that sees ways to make your life more difficult. Maybe it is act really conscientious as to not piss off any women. Or it could simply be don't take a fucking screenwriting course for christsake.

quick thought

2005-08-31T12:18:00.000-07:00

One of those classic films that everyone has wet dreams thinking about is Breakfast at Tiffany's. In case you are unfamiliar with the movie, it features the antics of a psycho bitch whose name I can't remember. In essence, she wishes she were rich but isn't, so she lies all the time and is pitiful until she can trick some other dude into giving her more cash. Then Jed Clampett shows up, leaves, and that's the end of the movie amidst a bunch of talking.

Every person I know who likes this movie shares the absence of rational thought in common with the main character.

i love people

2005-07-31T22:32:00.000-07:00

Here is the complete text of the best conversation I've ever had via instant messaging. Nothing previous to this has been left out, and never have I mentioned a post office, ever:

GIRL: wow thanks for telling me what time the post office closed the other day-i appreciated that
ME: what?
GIRL: shut up
ME: what the hell are you talking about
GIRL: QUIT YELLING ! why don't you mind your own business !

No dice.

2005-07-31T10:17:00.000-07:00

Unless you're retarded, you remember DonkeyLips from Salute Your Shorts.

Michael Bower has since tried to turn himself into something else, but sadly has failed. What's worse is he probably thought this was going to work.

Here he is takin' it to the streets.

Feelin' kinda sassy

Based on the last two pictures, may seem hardcore or rigid, but he's got a playful side, too

Mr. Lips, your plight is one shared by many child actors and one you cannot overcome. You're donkeylips. If there was something I could do to help, I would. Porn might work out, or going around telling kids not to do drugs. Other than that, you could sell cars or cellphones or something like that. Denial is never good, nor are those shoes.

Info-matic (not especially funny)

2005-07-30T20:02:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago, I had a very informative day. I learned about a kind of grass that emits a protein that makes the balls of a kind of vole bigger. This in turn makes more voles, which eat a kind of shrew that eats the grass. The grass lives and the voles have big ol' balls, everybody wins (except for the shrew). Evolution is so neat, and proves its neatness every day. Something that astounds me all the time is the denial people have for evolution, and their one-dimensional perspective when it comes to how things came to be.

When I was a kid ( so many of my paragraphs start out like that), we used to get books from Klutz press that were centered around having fun as a kid. They had great ideas on how to piss off adults and play childish pranks, and do crafts and magic tricks and all kinds of great kid stuff. They put out science books too, because science is really fascinating and kids should be allowed to realize this. Such a science book by Klutz was called Explorabook, which had a page on evolution. It briefly explained things using a picture of a monkey and a picture of Tom Cruise (har), but my dad wrote on it:

"Note: this page is not true. Love, Dad"

I know why he did it, but it wasn't a good fight to have gotten himself into. Most kids have an easier time with evolution because it's just really cool, while biblical origins of the universe are wordy, boring, and full of rules and dialogue. I myself don't like listening to speeches about how fucked I am for being who I am and thinking what I think , so I don't think kids are going to be much better at it than I am.

Another thing I learned about on the radio that same day I spoke of was religious extremism. There was an interview with a guy who had spoken with suicide bombers who had failed at their missions for various reasons. He described one man in special detail since he had been really affected by him. He said the guy was almost sociopathic, and was completely detached from everything. He was so immersed in religion and so ready for the next world that he "was already dead."

Having given up on planet Earth, he was going to kill as many people as he could and go home to his 777 virgins in the sky. This disturbed me, that a person could remove himself from reality like that, and have his frame of thought be in a place completely unlike a normal person's. It was like the last day of school for him before summer break, and all he had to do to go home and play in the sprinkler was to kill the class hampster and run out the door. His imaginary way out was so real that he operated under a different dimension's parameters while still here.

I then thought about how I knew people who were in a similar frame of mind, but who were obviously far less militant. Sure, the above person's situation is not normal, but his kind of judgements are quite near those of people I've known. These people have saturated their consciousness with religion or other dogma so deeply that they do not have but the last remnants of a personality. They have a glazed over look in their eyes as if high, a far off expression in front of a mind taken away to the afterlife. They're the zombie kids on TBN and the ones celebrated in Jack Chick comics. They have nothing much interesting to say because they don't think on their own at all anymore. These people who are "already dead" no longer belong on the planet and want to go to their own some place else. I'd wave them goodbye if I could because I feel at home here.

It takes a certain kind of person to achieve this, a certain kind of blind, naiive passiveness. They are not only the same kinds of minds that can become suicide bombers, but also the same kind that join cults or PETA or sit at home scared by whatever Rush Limbaugh tells them to be scared of. Maybe they need to be sheepish and be told what to do, but since they're so immersed they are far more impressionable and this can turn in a very bad direction given the wrong circumstances.

I make no generalizations with this, saying faith is entirely bad, which it is not. It is really, really important in the best of ways for a shit ton of people. I have friends who would be bad places if it were not for their faith. What I am saying is there are people who are so emotionally and mentally vulnerable that faith is just a bad idea. They turn into suicide bombers and make their kids into suicide bombers to follow right after them. Islamic extremism is, in itself, an evolved form of religious extremism that Christianity has not encountered. To me, there is not a lot of difference between these two sons of Abraham, just that the guns, germs, steel and time have turned one into the radical bullet party that it is now considered to be. As a consequence, the normal people who need and use faith and who try to exhibit the principles of it are left to take the brunt of the criticism since they're the only ones who haven't strapped C4 to themselves yet.

On that same informative day, there was a show about a guy who was being recorded helping his Grandpa out on his 100th birthday. In the scene recorded, he's helping the old man get dressed:

Man:"Hey, Grandpa, you got your jacket? It's right there. Looking good."
Man's Grandpa: "GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE, GODAMMIT! GO, GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

Hank doesn't like Anne Geddes or Anything She Represents

2005-07-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

Besides Asians, the biggest cause of overpopulation in the world today is Anne Geddes. Looking at her photography makes women want to force their husbands into making more children in the hopes that their baby will wind up in as precarious situations and poses as Anne would put them in if she had the chance. Women are probably lined up outside of her door trying to give her their babies so she can do embarassing shit to them for money. Here are some examples of Geddes' stupidness:

Most people use cradles, Anne. You use whatever is laying around and happens to be in emotional lighting. The one laying in the roses looks particularly uncomfortable.

Celine Dion loves all races, regardless of whatever shit is growing out of their back.

Gives new meaning to the term "Africanized" bees.

Baby calendar, or the Island of Dr. Moreau?

This is what it must be like in Thailand.

This one looks like an M.C. Escher tesselation. Except, you know, stupid.

This kid apparently wasn't cute enough to be dressed up like a cat or put on top of a giant tulip, so he hangs his head in shame. First thing he should do is get some work done on those big ears of his.

Better throw that'n back, my old fisherman friend.

"Chirp chirp! I'm a nasty-ass bird, swimming with disease!"

This kid will never go hungry.

Apparently someone was too old but insisted on coming to the photoshoot anyway. Attention whore.

Anne is probably trying to make a point here, but not getting anywhere.

This kind of muddiness happened to me at scout camp, but we didn't hug and hold hands like this and no one took that sort of pictures either. I feel sorry for kids like these that have to do shit that their weirdo moms want them to. They could be playing baseball or playing video games or killing dogs instead of being dragged into this.

Buy a bigger table next time. Or you could just put some clothes on the kid and put him in a real bed. Retards.

No comment.

See? This one is pretty defining: the more babies, the better. Girls love babies so much that they wish they could go in this picture and just toss these little dudes around all day because they're just that great. Maybe somebody should start waking all these babies and get some damn work out of them.

Anne Geddes is estrogen run amock with a camera nearby. Sheesh.

Dear Hank....

2005-07-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

Dear Hank,
What if there was a chinese guy a hundred feet tall?
Sincerely,
Penelope Cosgrove

Great question, Penelope. Lots of people are tall. Whites, blacks, even mulattos. Some kinds of people, though, are very predictable in their stature, including the Chinese. People say they're the biggest population on Earth, but they look pretty short to me. Ha! Seriously, may god never damn us with a one hundred foot tall Chinese guy. Let's put on our thinking caps and pretend he did...

1. Yao Ming would suddenly feel very inadequate, shutting himself in and eventually resorting to suicide.
2. He would sell out to a shitty Chinese buffet and stand out by the four-lane waving for people to come in.
3. He'd probably eat a lot of Chinese food, but that joke is a little easy so I'm just going to skip it.
4. He'd build a lot of railroads in a short amount of time, kind of like a chink John Henry

So to sum up, Penelope, the change in the world due to this hundred foot tall Chinese guy would be so inconcievably radical that we would just have to kill him to avoid destroying ourselves.

Captain Hank is a regular contributor to Hank's Hefty Helpings, as well as badass extraordinaire and author of his own series of pre-teen mystery novels. If you have a question for Dear Hank, send by e-mail to gumbobiscuits@gmail.com.

from hell to hell-arity!

2005-07-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

When you're in a truly weird or shitty situation, corresponding emotions go from anxious to apathetic to pissing yourself with laughter. Perhaps standards for what is weird or strange may change throughout life, but you should still experience them. I hope I am never desensitized to where nothing catches me off guard and break out into laughter, because I'll feel blue about it.

I once went to Taco Bell for some delicious treats from south of the border. The wait was really long despite few customers, so apparently someone was screwing up in the back of the kitchen. Working at the food-construction zone was a deaf guy. He wasn't just your normal, run-of-the-mill quiet type. He was a show-off and wanted to entertain everyone in the busy restaurant. Problem was, he wasn't very good at it and simply made things even more uncomfortable. His jokes mainly consisted of wiping his brow with a "WHEW!" look on his face and then smiling and waiting for us to laugh. We didn't. Then he would pretend to yawn, and pretend to throw down his taco gloves in a fit of rebellion. Still no response from the audience. If he had stopped his scampish mimery, I might have had my double decker tacos a little sooner, and not had to stand near the counter with my reciept listening to "Private Dancer" by Tina Turner. Sweet Jesus is that song horrible.

So there we stood as the anxiety grew and grew and I just started laughing. The deaf guy thought I was enjoying his show so he stepped up the intensity even more. This made everybody else really mad that someone had encouraged him, so they all gave me really mean looks as my food was finally called. Fuck everyone.

Worse is when this kind of situation goes from fear to laughter, and you are then afraid that your laughter is going to get you killed. I worked as a City Maintenance Technician for my hometown in Tennessee, and is tied for the worst job I have ever had (see previous post "together, realizing potentials"). You know how dads drive along and say to their kids, "See that guy? If you don't go to college, that's what you'll be doing with your life,"? I was that guy. I had to weedeat in highway medians all day long during one summer, while my friends with much better jobs drove by saying, "Hey, whatcha doing?" I would then flip them off, because friends don't make fun of friends for making terrible decisions.

I worked with several people, some college students like me working for the summer, and some worked there year round. These two groups didn't mix very well. We stayed pretty polar the whole season, so sometimes we were forced together for the sake of simply getting more work done.

One man we had to spend considerable lengths of time with was Henry. He had an obvious anger problem, and was probably pretty lonely judging by all the talking he did. He was also a poorly maintained diabetic who loved cigarillos. Henry was a tractor driver, until the day he was relieved of that position for running over a mechanic who sat in his chair in the break room. This is true. After that, Henry was one of the underlings like us, so we had to get used to his constant, tense presence. His best story, though, was how he was "run off the road" by a Greyhound type bus. He pulled over and got his pistol out. Then a different (but same style) bus drove by and he started shooting at the back of it, trying to blow out the engine.

So since Henry was so possessive of his break room chair and all other work involved commodities, we decided to get a laugh by toying with this face. First, we put a salt shaker on the table right in front of his chair, and sprinkled a pinch of it on the table, too. An hour later, we found the salt shaker broken in half on the other side of the room. Then we took his vest and moved it from one part of the truck to another, and were going to see what happened next. This was a bad idea. Henry started screaming for his vest and did something that gashed his fragile skin open on the back of his hand. We laughed, oh god why did we laugh. "Where is it, godammit!"

"Oh, here it is. Oops.", we said as we pulled out of a pile of dirt and rocks. He didn't think it was too damn funny.

This same guy would sit with us in the truck, avoiding work, and talk about basically everything he could describe with words:

"Now my daddy's cousin, they don't know what killed him. Now I think it was the stab wounds. And my brother back in '84, he died in a wreck. He's just out drinkin'. Just like that fella that was in all them movies. Damn movies. I used to rent so many movies down there at that Short Stop Market. Buster's it used to be called. Every day I'd rent up about five or six of 'em, take 'em back the next day and get six more. I seen every movie they had down there. I used to be get them porno tapes. But I got so damn bored by it, it's the same damn thing every time. Then I used to rent up them horror movies. Hell my neighbor came over with his wife and she got so scared she started screamin' and what not to where he hit her and kicked her out and..."

You can see how this begins to reach critical levels pretty fast. I began to laugh and Henry got mad, and so the circle of life went, around and around.

In retrospect, these people may have been crying out for help, or something hidden and significant. If they did, though, I was probably trying not to make eye contact or wondering how I was going to empty my bladder without anyone noticing. Life is hard like that.

Silly Business 3-D

2005-07-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

Once in a while you see something that is initially acceptable/great/hilarious/comforting, but upon further investigation is indicative of something more dark and deceptive. An example of this is an ongoing project pursued by my stepbrother Carlos and myself for the last eleven or so years.

Garfield is a fat and furry feline created by Jim Davis in 1978, and is not funny. We took the initiative to modify this cartoon, inserting homosexual innuendo (which evolved to explicit acts) and absurdist humor. Allow me to begin with a sample:

Noticable characteristics include Jon's repeated changes of physical state, inexplicabe bowtie and drinking problem, and Garfield's homonid morphology and speech capability. It may lead to hilarious consequences, but you have to consider the source for a moment. No ganja went into the production here, just hours and hours in a stuffy United Methodist church.

The church in question was primarily attended by old people, which is fine. Statistics show that old folks' church attendance, spirituality, and the like all contribute to a longer life span which makes complete sense to me. Go for it, old dudes. The problem arises when a church where these are the only members envelopes different demographics that do not fit in. Enter Hank and Carlos. We sat in Sunday school and in church every week and I'm proud to say we kept our personalities intact. We made light of every boring thing we could and were damn good at it. There was enough nervous laughter, strange potluck food, forced conversation, and awkward silence to make one lose hope. Garfield cartoons were the result of our oh-so-necessary coping.

Actually, they didn't begin there. The first one ever was a picture made at home of Garfield looking dissatisfied (as usual, that old scamp! Ha!) looking at the reader saying "My dick and balls fell off, must be a Monday."I showed it to Carlos, who laughed, and returned with a picture of Garfield with his dick going over his head and going back up his ass. Not to be outdone by each other, we wound up making a booklet called Garfield's Funniest Outtakes. It was pretty fucked up. The real extension, though, did come on Sundays at church. Our preachers were usually bad and not interesting so we drew, naturally. When things got settled in we would grab a stack of paper and just churn those babies out. If something odd or funny happened, it was integrated into the Garfield universe. We'd give them to each other at the end or when no one was looking and giggle and sweat as quietly as we could manage. Itchy hot church clothes, visiting families with hot daughters, lame guest preachers/groups all added to the tension and requirement for obscurity.

Here is an oddly poetic example Carlos made from a template in the children's church bulletin:

About the pastors for a moment: The preacher when we first got there was a fat lesbian named Jan. Her coming there made a lot of people leave and there were few remaining members. She was replaced by Jim, who was pretty decent but had frequent guests come in instead of doing sermons. This meant a lot of drifting weirdos preached to us, like Clown Communion. This was two people, truckers, who went from church to church dressing up as clowns and doing a mime act. The husband did most of it, where he first did motions of regaling and happiness like saying "Yow! Wow! Yay, yippee!" with his face and arm motions. He picked up a piece of bread and cradled it like a baby. You know, like Jesus. Duh. Then he got really sad and broke the bread in two. He pretended to cry. People in the congregation cried too, but they weren't miming. After Jim, there was Fay. She is a nice woman, but has her limits of tolerability. Once she decided that all the kids in the church (me, Carlos, and three other kids about 5 years younger than us) should bring their musical instruments in and play music for the whole church. She called us up early in the morning before church and we were told to bring our musical instruments, which were a trombone for me and a saxophone for Carlos. The choir director was put in charge of this and she didn't want to do it anymore than we did. To get back at Fay, we played all non-Christian songs: My Dreidel, She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain When She Comes, and Skip to my Lou. We practiced for about 20 minutes until Carlos said that we "should stop now because I don't want it to be any better than this." During the performance we couldn't stop laughing and would purposefully place little blurts and squeaks in with the music to make it seem "cute" for the old folks. Everybody was pissed off we didn't play Christian music but we didn't give a fuck. The monkeys did their little dance for their entertainment, so they could just screw off. Also, if Fay saw you look at your watch during her sermon, she would extend it for another fifteen minutes. Not cool.

So this is the kind of shit we put up with via Garfield cartoons, and it worked really really well. Garfield would fuck somebody and say something stupid, problem solved. Odie would eat someone's balls, therapy finished. It was great. And you can really see it looking through them.
In this one, we can tell Carlos had a book report on William Faulkner:

(I've chosen not to display the homosexuality-riddled cartoons because the picture server would kick it off, so poo on them. )

We just weren't satisfied with such few characters to use in our cartoons despite having plenty from real life to choose from. Here's some of the ones we made up, among many.

Marfield-Garfield with bigger manboobs and long, blonde hair. Garfield killed him.
Jarfield-Garfield trapped and suffocating in a large jar
Numberfield-surrounded by numbers of various fonts
Nigfield-black
Farfield-Garfield who is just really far away and waving
Futurefield-several variations, pretty much Garfield in a cool future space suit
Garfieldoux-Cajun Garfield
Grarfield-the name we came up with for the whole project to avoid copyright infringment
Benny-a filthy, raving lunatic bum who befriends Garfield and the gang

Cartoons were fine and good, but why stop there? Why not make movies of your very own? Well we sure as shit did just that. We started out with a number called "Silly Business" where Garfield eats some lasagna, Jon yells, "GARFIELD" and they all dance. "Silly Business 2" featured Garfield drinking Drano, throwing it up, Odie eating the vomit, and Odie's brain shooting out of his skull (awesome, I know). Life evolves, and should Garfield, so then came "Silly Business 3-D", featuring an all clay cast of characters. The plot was mainly the characters standing, yelling, and falling apart on the table. A piece of paper that said "the end" on it surrounded by rainbows signaled the end while folk music played in the background. The Garfield Silly Business series will be on DVD in stores across America soon!

Garfield is now primarily generated by computer now, but the point stays the same.

Tradition holds true, and Garfield abides.

Amen.

2005-07-14T18:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.

i remember...

2005-07-14T18:26:00.000-07:00

Back at South Cumberland Elementary, we used to go to the library once a week to check out a book. The following week, we had to return it when the librarian called out our name and the title of the book we had checked out.

The librarian was a total bitch. In order to embarass her, my friends and I would check out the stupidest sounding books just so she would have to announce it.

Example: "Chris Brown; Hefty's Hot Air Balloon in the Land of Pickles...Josh Burgess; Darla's Dream Come True..."

The best was the Space Cat series, including Space Cat on the Moon, Space Cat and the Kittens, and Space Cat goes to Mars. We checked these out all the time, and I actually read one once. It was awful. Space Cat and his astronaut master/friend went to a planet with bubbles and caves and plants that could take on the form of other matter. Then they came home. Space Cat apparently recieved all recognition for the discoveries and the astronaut did not.

The library was full of similar books published in the 1960's and 1970's, about children overcoming yada yada and being awesome for something typical. Some books made me hate reading, which were the prairie model of children's books. These were meant to instill a sense of respect for how hard life used to be, how thankful we should be to be alive when we are, and were a reason to be quiet while teacher had a headache.

People back in the day had to go to market a jillion miles away, and would take a week to buy shit for the farm. When you finally got back your daughter had disentary and the mule was dead. This says to me not that you're a hard workin' man with dirt on his hands, pioneerin' for a dream that's just over the horizon. It says you should have stayed in South Carolina and fished. Life on the farm was lame, and I wanted to play Mario Bros.

But I digress.

I spent most of my library time checking out "Bigfoot" and "Bigfoot Across America". I must have checked those books out, especially the first, twenty or so times. They were great, including first hand accounts of people who encountered bigfoot, or who were even abducted by them. They explain why no one can find him and his origins. They include grainy, inabsolute photography and pictures where a brown blob was frantically trying to run up a hill. In addition to this book was one about all forms of supernatural phenomena across the world such as the Loch Ness Monster and the Mothman. Mothman was so fucking scary because he would jump on your car and try to come in through your windshield, or try to break into your house through the windows. Nessie couldn't do shit.

Sexual intercourse was an unstoppable force at South while I was there. The library had a giant dictionary that was always, and I mean during my entire 9 year tenure at that school, on the page with "sex" on it. Always. When the classrooms got the internet (and were thereby dubbed "21st century classrooms" by the powers at be), they did not have any kind of protective software. This was AWESOME. My best friend and I figured out a system to look up porn that everyone else knew nothing about.

On the Macs, we would have a "safety window", through which we surfed stuff like video games, online encyclopedias, and information on our book report on dinosaurs. It didnt' really matter. What mattered was that we had a smaller window that we would use to navigate the fledgling internet porn industry. "Lara Croft nude" was my first porn search, I distinctly remember this. We would sit in the back, all alone, for half the day and everyone just thought we were quasi-dorky. Little did they know how awesome we truly were and how envious they should have been. One of our teachers was so cool that, while she knew (or strongly suspected) what we were doing, she still let us do it. How great is that.

We eventually started saving our greatest hits to a floppy disk. One day we hit the jackpot and filled up an entire disk, but my friend thought it was wrong to save it. He erased the disk while I begged out loud for him not to. The next day he was smacking himself, because he had discovered an extremely important lesson in life: be strong through times of morality. We laughted when he came up with that way to put it because it was completely true. From that day forward we made fun of as much people as we could and climbed our way to excellence.

shit damn ass balls fuck damn butt hell screw

2005-07-09T14:50:00.000-07:00

I just took a test for 8 straight hours. Do not get between me and whiskey right now, or the consequences shall be dire. Sorry for the shitty post, crew.

It was a day like any other

2005-07-08T16:26:00.000-07:00

This morning my future sister-in-law woke up and found her bike had been stolen, and whoever stole it left their small, shittier bike with "L.A. Edition" written on the side of it. That way, you can show people your Western class and charm as you ride around.

THEN we find our back window had been opened, though not entered. All of this happened while we were asleep in the adjacent rooms.

We suspect a Mexican did all of this because 1. they passed up a much nicer bike next to my brother's fiancee's, and 2. a few years ago my brother had his bike stolen by a Mexican dude while the bike was in the exact same spot in the house. Dale spotted the guy a day or two later and asked him if he needed work. They both went to a bar Dale worked at with an enormous Hispanic bouncer, who Dale told to ask the guy where he got the bike. So Dale got his bike back, but I think it was stolen again later, I'm not sure.

I've nailed up another board across this window so no one can enter without really really wanting to. Phase two will be a booby trap, preferably spikes of some kind.
Dammit, now I have to put Punji sticks out to keep spics out of the house. I hate this fucking country.

On the way to the post office, I was followed by a rambling bum, and a transvestite was walking out of our house as I was walking in. I also found out a girl I go to school with was injured in the London bombings.

Sheesh.

Latest Nationwide Traffic Safety Campaigns

2005-07-06T09:25:00.000-07:00

Click it... or Ticket!

Booze it... and Lose it!

Pay Toll Fare... or Get the Chair!

Failure to yield right of way... and Never See the Light of Day!

Shoot Up and Drive... and We'll Burn you Alive!

Allow Vehicle Inspection... or Recieve Lethal Injection!

Pay for your Citation...or Face Castration!

Turn on Red... and Your Kitten is Dead!

Drive in Bounds... or be Fed to the Hounds!

How to Create Your Own Army

2005-07-03T21:55:00.000-07:00

There was a time long ago, when my reality was basically at a reverse of what it is now. Skinny now, I was once a porker. Now ready to take on bears and ligers, I was unsure of things pretty much of the time. Family life was rocky with the abrupt introduction to a group of soon-to-be relatives (my now stepsiblings who are some cool cats), and things are more or less leveled out. Also, I do not spend my time being the vent for the rage of redneck martial artists, while back in the day this was how I passed much of it.

I did not fit in at the studio, and for many reasons. As a chubby, nearsighted 12 year old, I didn't like the idea of having to run laps down the side of the highway and then forcibly meditating in the front yard of a trailer with drunk white-trash neighbors yelling and laughing at us the whole time. But that's just one of those things that everyone goes through in life, I thought, that everyone had to go through at some point. Just like everyone has to dig glass out of their feet, or find some way to stop peeing blood, or pull their larynx back out after somebody pushed it in practicing a move called "Passing the Horizon" on me in class.
Just the facts of life, fat boy. Get in the game.

All in a day's work for Scott, sensei and (probably self declared) 6th or 7th degree black belt. This was a man who didn't take no for answer and got what he wanted. The only problem was that what he wanted was his own army of prepubescent boys who could yank your spine out and sacrifice it to him. He trained children to finish off their attackers, usually by death but sometimes by simply pulling out their eyeballs. One move protected against someone grabbing your shoulder, but constituted a broken back, a shattered humerus, and loss of coherent speech for the dastardly villain who dare try it. I hope no little boy's grandmother slipped up a little too quietly from behind to get their attention, because some of those little fuckers could do some damage.

If you were to just step up to the dojo, you'd see lots of trophies, mirrors, and excited hillbilly kids with rattails kicking many things, principally other hillbilly kids. You would presume that this was one of those evil karate schools because of the black ghiseveryone had to wear, like someone who would be taking on the underdog cool karate dudes in a Disney movie. You would be exactly correct in this presumption. They weren't evil, just ignorant to advanced human emotion and thought like benevolence, charity, goodness, and not sucker punching children.

The routine as I came to know it started out in the first class with lots of punching imaginary criminals and going through some sort of gauntlet called the "Sidewalk of Death". Really. This was where we had to be blindfolded and walk down the line of the other students in the class, and then one of them would grab us in a very specific, prepared hold and say something like "HIYASAHHHT!", at which point we had to react with one of the handy and devastatingly powerful self-defense technique that we were taught earlier on. I didn't know any of these at this point, so I had to make shit up as I went along and basically did my best imitation of Ryu from Street Fighter 2.

"Heh heh, good job," the instructors said as I shamefully stood back in line in my tight, tight beginner's ghi. Then the sons of bitches decided to teach some more moves, with Scott the centerpiece of the demonstration. Kenpo is a karate with lots of little swipy, choppy moves to it, like playing the bongos or something like that. What it lacks in power it makes up for in showmanship. So Scott goes to the front with one of the other instructors as the bad guy. While Scott basically does ballet around the guy, the other instructor makes lots of faces that said "Ow, I really didn't see this coming!" and "Youch! Your crane stance has really gotten the best of me!" How dumb.

Each class was usually something like this, with lots of extended periods of meditating to Pure Moods. I must have listened to "Sail Away" by Enya and "Return to Innocence" by god knows who 75 times. Meditating was hard when you sat like they wanted you to, on your knees. Holy mother of fuck did this hurt. Also, Scott would tell tales of people who really knew how to kick some ass, including a guy who supposedly punched a bull that was running at him and its horns fell out of its head. One night he took a group of his best students and went to another dojo to start a fight with them. Nobody ever mentioned how this turned out.

At the beginning and end of each class we had to pledge our allegiance to the ways of Kenpo through the Kenpo Creed:

I come to you with only Karate! Empty Hands!
I have no weapons!
But should I be forced to defend myself! my principles! or my honor!
Life or death!
Right or wrong!
Then here are my weapons!
Karate! EMPTY HANDS!
KIYAAA!...

At this point the instructor clapped and we bowed like monks in a heap on the ground. How degrading.

Scott loved this shit. Even more so, he loved expressing his rage towards his class. Problems with his wife could be dealt with on a nightly basis via 35 people, young and old*. Simply longer periods of time in the "horse stance" that in no way resembled a horse, or about 100 extra rounds of "Chinese Corkscrew", which sucked. Another option was pushups. When I first started out there was an instructor named Bo who I am convinced is in jail somewhere. He just has to be. One night he made me do a ridiculous amount of pushups, getting on the ground and yelling/laughing, "Go boy, go boy! Do it, you ain't done!" I stopped where I was and I said "Bo,
I can't do anymore pushups. I'm done now." Bo was unhappy, but didn't say anything. He was possibly high and thought I was Duke Nukem or a talking chimp.

My stepbrother was more adroit at getting out of these especially shitty classes, saying he felt sick or whatever it fucking took. After a round of face-to-face pushups (because it would arise competitive instincts and make you an ass-kicking machine, of course), I yelled at him "HIYAAAAHSAAAHHT! I BEAT YOU!" Nobody was supposed to talk though, so he and I had to do extra. Sorry, dude. Also, he was cool enough not to lose his cool when Scott said to him "Did you order a cup yet? I bet you need an extra small! Aaaahahaha!"

To summarize, Kenpo sucked because of:

1. Pushups
2.Somebody stealing $100 from my stepbrother
3. Standing in the painful karate stance
4. Cupchecks, especially when your parents would not buy you a cup**
5. Pagan worship of a guy whose trailer is next door
6. The ballsweat smell in the men's bathroom

After an anticlimactic end, my tenure at Crossville Martial Arts was over. I started the gentlemanly game of tennis and really enjoyed it. I was no longer fat, which I owe to Scott. I also owe him a stick to the nuts and $600 in property damages after smashing his trophies through the window (Not really, but that would be pretty awesome. If anyone wants to do that, let me know). In retrospect, there are some things I learned from Scott Padgett. Not only moves like "Japanes Stranglehold" and "Opening the Cowel", but that if you want your kids to get exercise it would be cheaper and less traumatic to throw them in a fucking bull ring. That or meth.

*Many of the adults that took these classes had some serious problems. They always came in talking about their failing custody agreements and how they don't see their kids much, or how awesome Van Halen's 1986 tour was all the time. They thought Scott was a really together guy, mentally and emotionally. One dude said "KENPO POWER!" after every punch he threw in practice, even though the instructors told him not to.

**We had to stand in that damn stance again, in a big line while Bo and his nightstick went down the line. The "thock-thock" got closer and closer, and when he came to me Bo and I shared a glance that made it clear that my scrotum was open territory. "pip-pip" is the best way I can describe the sound, though the feeling wasn't so simple. I'm not saying Bo and his stick had a field day on my balls, but he did give them enough of a thwack to grant him a place on my shit list.

2005-07-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

I changed the comments to haloscan for greater ease for all of you. Yes, I just care that much. On the other hand, all the other quotes are gone. But I'm sure you'll all come up with new wit and charm to display for us all!

Also, I don't know what the trackback thing is or how to turn it off. Insight may be helpful. You dudes rule.

all set

2005-07-03T07:20:00.000-07:00

Yes, we all hate that phrase. But it does describe my new situation with my new computer and I'm reasonably happy so far. It's a Compaq and is pretty with its glowing lights and ambient hum. The only thing is that it's really slow sometimes and other times is fine. It's enough to drive a homeboy insane in the membrane!

that aside...

2005-07-01T14:09:00.000-07:00

I would like a consensus of whether Garfield (or "Grarfield" as he is now known) ought to be addressed here or should that be lain to rest as representative of a screwed up era.

Thoughts and suggestions? Gracias.

technology sucks big donkey dick

2005-07-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

Hey gang.

Just found out yesterday that I have to get a new computer and this will not be cheap. I will do my best in these circumstances to not effect the awesomeness of my written word here. Please be patient in these times of struggle.

Also, if you have a free computer, mail it to me.

-the management.

together, realizing potentials

2005-06-22T15:10:00.000-07:00

i needed a job really bad at the beginning of this summer. i found one with a company called CollegePro, which is a residential exterior painting company, and whose motto is the title of this post. they hire college students to paint houses during the summer and, according to Cory Johnson , "make some good money this summer!"

you can tell a lot about Cory Johnson by sitting and talking with him for a while. for one, he's young and wants his franchise of CollegePro to do well and make him money. that's all fine and good. also, he's got the body type where you can tell he's lost in excess of 75 pounds, the kind of thin but droopy body that you see on people like Jared from Subway, or other people who have had stomach stapling or something like that. another thing is that Cory is very sophomoric. he's pretty straightforward with his business ethic, but still wears his cap backwards and gives a shiteating smile a little too often for him to be trusted. oh, and his dorky haircut.

during the interview this man told me that i'd be making at least 8.50 an hour, but probably somewhere around 15-16. yay for this. i take the job, show up all ready-roo at 8:30 the next morning. turns out, they made me work 12 hours my first day on the job. i asked to leave early and went home to wash all the nasty ass banana-cream colored latex paint off my filthy body, and they looked at me like i had lobsters crawling out of my ears. i came home, dehydrated and hypoglycemic, and my brother told me that this job sucked and i deserved better. being optimistic, i assumed things would get better.

the next week we started work on a woman's house just doing the trim and gutters, that kind of thing. she had beautiful little gardens all around her house, which were all in pretty close proximity since she lives in the city and properties are in close quarters. she took a lot of pride in them, and we fucking destroyed them. she was nearly in tears after what we had done. we dug our shit ladders all in them, and crushed them with dropcloths. we broke the gutters, and formed a mudpit in the back. we spilled paint from the trim all over the actual sides of the house, then tried to rub it out before anyone would notice, thereby making it look even worse. we ruined this poor woman's house. i was the only person who seemed to care.

everyone else just wanted to 'beat the budget', which is an exclusively CollegePro term. this means that if you finish a job in less time than allotted, you get extra money. this is ALL the people talk/care about. neither of the jobs i helped to complete were even finished in the time they allotted, so no extra money was made. shit.

on top of this, Cory wanted us to go 'cold-calling' once a week, in which we went knocking on doors for a couple of hours, trying to get people to get free estimates to get their house painted. we had to do this until we got one then we could go home. nobody mentioned this in the job description so i was pretty goddamned pissed when told i had to do this. i hate bothering people, it's like telemarketing but face to face. blechh.

one person treated worse than me was a guy named Pete. according to Pete, Cory had walked up to him on the street and said "Do you like making money?", to which pete said, "Yeah!"
Pete was made to do the worst jobs at the most nauseating heights, and was always looked down upon by the others. pete wasn't a particularly smart fellow, but work work work he did. he's just like Boxer from Animal Farm, with Cory as Napoleon and me as the badass who flips everyone one off as he drives away.

so as we finished up the second job, i told my supervisor Ken (who is just as feminine looking as his name implies, and who had earlier told me that this job was indeed not a good way to make money but more of a way to prove something to yourself which is totally fucking gay) that i got another offer which was more flexible and better for my MCAT studying needs. i told him how well it pays, etc., and he seemed a little hurt because of what poor decisions he had made, as did all of the other guys whose job was to screw over college students. may they burn.

a couple of days ago, i finally got my paycheck from CollegePro. for getting sunburnt, clogging my drains with latex paint (from the brushes they made us take home to clean out), nearly falling 20 feet off a shit ladder, and listening to more 50-cent than one man can handle, i got paid the minimum allowed by federal law: $5.15 an hour.

with this check came the CollegePro newsletter, just one way that CollegePro tries to form lasting relationships between painters and make lifelong friends out of the CollegePro family! Sounds like propaganda, no?

inside i found success stories of awesome painters and jobs, including one crew who went above and beyond the call of CollegePro duty:

"...As they were working on the home, they noticed that there were multiple bird houses on the property, and the birds kept "dive-bombing" the crew while they were working! While some may have found this frustrating, it gave this crew an idea...They decided that the birdhouses could use a little makeover! The crew bought a quart of paint and repainted the birdhouses for the homeowner. Great idea!"

what kind of Nazi-youth are these people? what wonderful kind of meth are they taking to get through their day, getting shit on by starlings for low pay? is it the paint fumes, or is it the lead paint chips? there must be some kind of underground railroad to get people out of CollegePro, and this newsletter must be code for escape routes, much like those songs were for slaves back in the day.

the conclusion here is that CollegePro is for CollegeSchmoes. i have a much better job now that pays four times as much as that one. i work for Chet who is cool as shit, and who gives a damn as to whether i like my job. hooray.

a hanksclusive: Best Pathetic Pet Sites Extravaganza

2005-06-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

sure, these animals are waiting for you to turn around so they can shit all over the carpet just like any others, but you should definitely make websites about them.

BROWNIE AND NEWMAN'S PET PARTY
unfortunately, the kegstands were not reported here

ANGEL YORKIES*NEWS
it's clear that the music is what won me over on this, but i stayed for the shameless pet embarassment.

i mean, if you think about it, these are dogs like all others. deep down, they want to kill, fight, fuck, howl, and run around in packs fucking shit up like all other dogs want to do. but the can't, because centuries of precisely planned, European, sissypants dog sex has made them what they are. i bet that every time they look in the mirror, a piece of their soul dies. if i were one of them, i'd start from scratch and hook up with that slutty neighbor dog to feel like a MAN for once.

Zoe the smooth fox terrier.
a dog with excellent typing skills, Zoe looks like she's ready to kill. also, the shitty .gif at the bottom informed me that dogs like carrots. the internet is full of useful information. something i'm still wondering, though, is why this site has had so many visitors.

dog halloween costumes: how to make sure your dog will never get laid again.

similarly, cat hats. the cartoon cats at the top sure seem to carry a better attitude than the rest on this page, maybe because they aren't real and don't have to live day after day of psychological torture. however, it looks like these cats live somewhere in Asia, so they probably have the choice between this or being eaten.

disclaimer: gross

2005-06-13T12:56:00.000-07:00

i have a proud habit which many people might find wierd, which is this: whenever i meet someone with an interesting or gross enough occupation, i ask them what's the grossest or funniest thing they've ever seen. here's what i got.

a doctor whose career spanned 45+ years

1. the baby who was born completely without a head. just some bone and shit sticking out, otherwise rounded off. it was obviously dead.

2. baby with 'cat's cry' syndrome, a genetic disorder involving a deformed face and vocal chords (probably among other things), and a resulting cry that sounds like a cat's shrieking cry (i'm thinking something like the stock audio sound used when somebody scares a cat on TV. call me generic if you must.)

3. the third thing was more of a testament to what a badass this guy was than gross. he was working in an ER back in the day and a guy who was in a car or motorcycle wreck came in with every little tube in his neck sliced open from a poorly place piece of sheet metal. he fixed all of it with the exception of his saliva gland which had to excrete externally to his neck, but that's fabulous considering the circumstances. the guy came back later on just to shake the doctor's hand. *

a cattle farmer: small differentiation

The time a cow with two uteruses gave birth to babies from each. more wierd than gross, i suppose, but still, blechh. that and the time a sheep was born without a head. there was no bone sticking out with this one, just a round bullet shape. i don't want to see this.

a plumber. this is headed exactly where you think it is. turn back now.

he was working on a septic tank with it completely exposed, just a big hole full of "groceries" (as the people in the biz call it), plus mud and whatever else. when i picture this i see a far grosser counterpart to the pit creature that boba fett falls into and dies in Return of the Jedi.

it had been raining that day, and the banks of the hole were all muddy. one of the assistants, in some cruel, cosmic joke, slipped. he then slid down the bank and fell head first into the...doo.

ok, imagine this. he's fallen head first into it, so now he's upside down in crud. he then has to invert himself in it in order to escape while facing direct exposure from a host of evil, evil microbes. Steve-o on Jackass would not do this, and Steve-o clearly has a lot of hate for his own well being. this guy did not have such self-loathing and he had to go through this. anyway, he got turned right side up and screamed for help from the other plumber guys. they couldn't help because they were pissing themselves with laughter.

i know there are more in my memory, but i can't recall them right now. feel free to throw yours in the comments. more importantly, ask people on your own and throw them in, too. teamwork, gang.

*now that i think about it, this guy deserves his own post. more later.

list

2005-06-12T16:04:00.000-07:00

hey everybody who reads this. sorry i haven't posted in a while but now i've found a really good reason to. i'm going to start doing something now, partly because it's a good thing to put on a med school resume and partly because it'd just be so rockin'. McSweeney's Internet Tendency, which is probably the top writing site on the Internet, accepts stuff from people that's funny enough and i'm going to try to get some stuff on there within the next year and a half. think i can do it? you'd better, or otherwise i'll make you feel really guilty for being unsupportive. i'm fragile.

list 1. Reasons why Dolly Parton would be a better Secretary of Labor than Elaine L. Chao

"Buddy Baxter's Bandstand USA" at Dollywood is clearly superior to "Get Back to Work or Your Children Will Starve" at Chaowood

Dolly can bench 280

"I will always love you" by Dolly is way better than "Shake a lil' something" by Elaine

Chao has made a career out of having big hooters

this is pretty preliminary, suggestions are appreciated.....

magic happens everywhere

2005-04-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

this morning in the UC i went to get some coffee and a donut (chocolate covered Bavarian creme, no exceptions), which i love. there are three basic types of people who work in dining services nowadays: the quietly mentally-handicapped, panicky managers, and sassy black women. one of these groups hates their job with a passion and does nothing but make this evident. guess who.

today, though, there was a new type of person which i found surprising. intrigued by the new fauna, i looked to see what his role in his new setting was, which was making up songs out loud while wiping things off.
one little ditty went,"swing low sweet CHARIOT, amazing oh my looord! gospel songs from the southern SOOOOOUTH!"

he then started laughing and looking for other people to laugh with, but only found a disgusted and unsupportive coworker making Whoppers. the black women at the register stared with contempt. they could say nothing, just as i can say nothing when thugs drive by on their 22's bumping to C-Murder. i smiled, took my donut, and enjoyed the melodies.

fallen soul in tv's gaping maw

2005-04-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight I tried sitting down in a lounge at the library to eat dinner and watch TV, simple enough. Little did I know, one of TV's zombie-like worshippers had already taken control of it, and probably would have started frothing at the mouth and fighting me off with a club had I tried to change it. The cause of this obsession was of course American Idol, the show that lets you call in and show that you are stupid and have the statistics to prove so.
American Idol had consumed this woman. When Ryan Seacrest asked "Who will make it past the final eight tonight?", she responded to him saying "Nadia's going to win! Who do YOU think is best? Don't you think Nadia is so pretty? And just look at her skirt, she's the bomb!" Expecting me to say something, she must have been let down by my lack of knowledge/interest/retarded obsession for such excrement.
People passed us by, she the TV and me, looking at us like one does a group of winos screaming for change. I tried to show them that I felt the same way, and that I was once like them. But I had been associated with the blind stupidness that was this woman's life, and to the rest of the world I might as well have been cheering, too.