Someone

I left the building with my eyes blank and my face down so people would think I was coming back. Nothing happened as I walked out. No one talked. No one stopped me. I was nervous somewhere someone would see a space where something had changed in a space that should be occupied by someone.

I knew they were watching — I’d been told this. I tried to think earlier who this would be but couldn’t and watched the bodies of the other someones hurry in oblong cycles and somehow make these somewheres their spaces. Maybe these were their space because they were watched like they said they were watched. Maybe the watching has to do with the cycles. Those could be self-sustained. I also noticed the exposed rafters weren’t for architectural style but I tried to enjoy them anyway.

The parking lot was full of places my car wasn’t allowed to be. I’d remembered this in the morning but so many cars were also in these kinds of spaces I had to walk between rows on the ends of my feet trying not to look like I was looking for my car. I walked with my shoulders back like a prairie dog.

Finally, there it was — the evidence all the someones were accounted for. The evidence I’d done my part that morning. The evidence no someones without spaces were doing cycles. The evidence, as Whoever was their witness, they would find me.

But I wasn’t coming back. I, THE someone, had left the parking lot and was walking across a street stuck with champagne-tinted windows divided by landscaping. But what if what a someone in the building said was true? What if they were watching. You got to keep the line moving, you got to keep it moving, man … They’re watching you. From where I didn’t know. But right after he said that I started mimicking the cycles of the someone-elses I could see. I tightened, huffed and exaggerated my movements. Even then, the watchers didn’t come out. All I could see were the other someones in their oblong cycles I was watching in a space like their space for practice. All I could hear were clacks and whirs and circus horns. There was also distant shouting.

I stared at the steel rungs that passed packages to one another and gave me the supplies to practice cycles. What did this building look like without machines in it? It didn’t look like anything. Was it built around the machines like Mike Mulligan’s steam shovel was? Yes. I couldn’t think of anything after that but I thought it was probably best I should. If I only thought about my cycles I would never learn to do them like the someones who did them without thinking. I decided to examine the events of the day. This morning I had breakfast. After that, I … this morning, this morning. This morning I had breakfast and after that I …

I stopped. This is something someone in captivity would think about to pass the time and then I knew I would let my face look like the others who didn’t want to let the watchers make them leave the building without their asking to do so.

And suddenly they were there, about 50 yards away — standing like a man and an angel reviewing a scene from the man’s earlier wasted life. They were leaning close to one another to hear each other speak. They were watching everything.

Then I was on the other side of the street and breaking through a field like I was running through a thunderstorm that stopped three feet from the ground. It was littered. Whir. Then it was yellow. Clack. It broke. Then it was private. But was someone coming? Who was coming? I was a flea, then I was a truck, then I was a wildcat.

No. No one.

I got far enough away from the road and let myself trip and burn into the borgata wheat. The space was flattened like it was pressed with a rake and I twisted over and over and over and over again in it and made it my own.

Then, in my space, I prayed. I prayed for no anyones never anywhere at all.

And the ground or the wheat or the sky or the space raised itself up as the traffic forgot and I opened my shirt, stretched out like a banquet and slept in September.

Plastics

I didn’t get a job I really wanted to get — a job I was in denial about not getting for three days — so, as even a careless study of my life could have suggested, I drove to the grocery store and bought a middle-shelf fifth of whiskey. For my selection, I had the choice of either a glass and plastic container and, instinctively, I went with the plastic option (that sounds like a band name) because I didn’t ever want to be put in a situation where I would have to dissuade myself from licking bourbon-soaked shards of glass. Besides protecting its contents, the manufacturers of Jim Beam also suggest other advantages of a plastic bottle. For one, it’s easier to drink and drive with the lightweight “traveler”, and, in case you’re undecided about getting wasted on your way home from work, they have a famous stock car driver printed on the front as if to say, “How about you put down that pussy energy drink and get it fucking going with this.” I’ll admit I’m somewhat tempted to drink and drive, which is notably more badass than the merely driving while intoxicated, just so I could set that white trash fifth on the dash while I was digging out my licence and registration. “Oh this? Well, officer, I’ll be frank. A man gets thirsty on the road and … I thought you’d be aware of this phenomenon … Wait, are you gay or something?”

Anyway, the plastic bottle worked out well and good for me — well and good except for that inverse funnel thing that makes the alcohol come out slower. I think its marketed as a “built-in pourer” or something. I think you can remove it with “little effort”, but … No, fuck you, pourer. Take your mother hen helicopter parent shit elsewhere. Look, I’m holding this bottle upside-down over a commemorative McDonald’s Batman Forever cup for a reason and you and your goddamn hang-ups are not streamlining the operation.

Look, pourer, I know what I’m doing here. It’s not like I’m trying to interpret the fourth set of numbers on a treadmill or something. Okay, on your treadmill — my parents’ treadmill in this case — you got your speed, your distance, your time and … what’s this? Annual ligament fluctuations per underappreciated neuron receptor? Wait, how can you tell that from my thumb pulse? I’m always hesitant to do that (let the treadmill take my thumb pulse) because I’m afraid the machine display will reveal some horrible misfortune still to come in my life. “… Your second wife’s younger brother will set fire to his back yard and hang himself while awaiting sentencing for that and three unrelated counts of forgery the day after Christmas which will also be the birthday of the pet ferret of Marcello, your first wife’s fiance.” Shit! I didn’t need to know all that now, T-Mill. Hmm, but I wonder if I would finish my work-out after I learned the news. “Well, guess there’s nothing I can do about it now. What’s done is done.”

That last sentence, “what’s done is done”, is one of those aphorisms like “we’ll get there when we get there” which people tend to agree on and write down but that doesn’t really contribute any wisdom to any conceivable problem — particularly the situation at hand. I’m sorry, you’re just confirming the existence of the subject everyone else is talking about. “Well, if you ask me, this is this and that is that.” Oh, thanks. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. But how will I ever find enough parchment on to which I will copy these proverbs? Other examples:

• “I’m just me.”
• “I have to be myself.”
• “I’m only a man.”
• “Well, you’re here now.”
• “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing/ You gotta have something if you wanna be with me.”

More importantly, though, I now have a half gallon of Jim Beam, and they don’t package that shit in plastic. This is a jug of responsibility. My favorite part of the jug of responsibility is its handle which, at some point in my life, I would like to grip as I smash a half gallon of Jim Beam across the face of an oafish attacker. Oh yes, and then I would wipe my nose with the back of my sleeve in satisfaction, like they do in the movies. Besides the jug of responsibility, all I have for my personal defense right now is a red Swiss Army pocket knife which I keep on my key chain. This is the same pocket knife confiscated by guards, irritated by the demands of performing a simple task on a regular basis, as I entered the county courthouse to bribe a public official. You see, I was issued a summons by the county superior court earlier this month for disregarding an automatic traffic signal. “You might want to check this out”, a woman cop in a woman cop copvan said circling the Infraction Deferral Program information on my citation. “It will keep points off your license.” For those of you who don’t have this hot ethical shit in your state, it works like this: instead of paying the $209.50 for my traffic violation, I paid $242 to be part of the Infraction Deferral “Program” so they wouldn’t put points on my licence and make my insurance go up. True, $32.50 isn’t an unreasonably steep bribe for the money I’ll be saving in car insurance, but if I get another ticket in the next six months, I have to pay the $209.50 first ticket on top of the new ticket I’m issued.

As one might expect, being white, non-threatening and middle class, I haven’t experienced the systematic racism and harassment a man who is black, non-threatening and middle class might. But the fact that policemen put you in a situation where you are forced, out of fear, to thank them (“Thanks, officer”) for taking several hundred dollars from you is enough for any reasonable person to despise their local law enforcement. Thanks for what? Thanks for not clubbing me and sodomizing my girlfriend? “Don’t mention it, I do what I can for the little guy.” Terrific. And why, why in all of god’s green bountiful fuck are we still letting police operate checkpoints? Oh, I’d forgotten how completely insusceptible that type of operation was to serious abuse. Never mind how ineffective and unconstitutional they are. Worked well for East Germany.
But what do I know. When a man’s travelin’, he’s travelin’.

Names

I replied to this girl who wrote because she wanted to say hi. So I, thinking I should write something along the lines of “hi” back, wrote something to say hi back in which, consequently, looked something like, “Hi, Michelle, what’s happening…”. When she wrote back, though, she ended it with: “talk to you later. Michal.” I then had to write back “sorry for misspelling your name”, because she had spelled it the right way in her original message. I was slightly embarrassed about the altercation and had to think of a clever way to end the message to ease the tension.

“Don’t worry about it, I get that a lot,” she wrote back. I was relieved. For one, I’m already a horrible speller. Example: I had to look up how to spell the word parentheses three times today. For dos, people in their teens and early twenties (and by “people”, I mean “girls”) are always spelling their names in unnecessarily complicated-ass ways. On occasion, I imagine it’s the parents’ fault. “Well, we want to name our daughter Courtney, but, then again, we also want to give it either a ridiculous or phonetic spelling so people will think that we’re rich. Ah! Here it is: Quartknee.” Fine, go ahead. I really couldn’t give a more disinterested fuck. But, parents, if you must do this, please stop instructing your children to be easily insulted by a mispronunciation or misspelling of this name. “Kwart-ka-nee? Kwar … Kwaaarrr … I’m sorry, folks, I don’t think I’m saying this right. Is there a Q-U-A-R-T-K-N-E-E here?” (girl in front row raises her hand after showing the shocked look on her face to the girls behind her) “Yeah, that’s me. God. And it’s Courtney. Courtney.”

Again, I’m all for/just not opposed to changing the spelling of one’s name. But when most girls go about this, the creative catalyst behind the process seems to be ignited by the question, “How, with the resources available to me, can I make my name more slutty?” And so it goes: Nicole to Nicckie and Mellissa to Missee and Brenda to RiRi and Catherine to Katie or Cadie or Kat. Hey, I like it. It’s just kind of slutty, but I’m down if you’re down. That is, with your name change … And? Eh? … No? No??? Okay, I can respect that. You sure though? … Alright, I got you. That’s cool, that’s cool.

And girls will do the craziest three-holer shit if enough of their friends will tell them that a given action is not slutty. No, but, quite the opposite, just in fun. Or a joke. “Do you know what would be really funny and stupid? … Guess. Guess! … Okay, what if we made out with Cadie? … I know! … Alright, alright. 1… 2… “

But I guess that’s also the wonderful security of drinking, which also, if not moreso, works in the favor of men. “Dude! Who was that asshole who threw the flower pot at my sister last night?.” Tim? Come on, he was wasted. “Wasted? That dude fucking rules!” I’m not sure, but other than the legal actions that are rendered illegal by drinking, consuming alcohol in the likely event of any crime is probably a good idea. That is, if you would prefer a lighter sentence. Let’s see, I’ll go with: breaking and entering, vandalism, trespassing, robbery, domestic abuse, forgery, assault, threats, impersonating a police officer and … yeah, I’ll stand by this: manslaughter.

Anyway, I want to change my name to three asterisks (***), because each of those little star guys has six points so it’d be like some mind-fucking-blowing code for 666. The kids could dig that. And I would be huge if I incorporated a talent into the mix. Wait, what if someone turned it around and … no!!! Alright, that name’s out. Here’s why: when I’d battle rap someone, they would so call me “three asstricks”. Shit, oh well. “Back to the drawing board,” as my grandfather, Dr. Silas T. Drawing Board, used to say.

Smack

I was driving down the city drag past the parking lots of retail stores which, by inter-generational contract, are show rooms for the engines of cars of young men who own engines inside these cars you might not otherwise be privy to see.

Naturally, when the peak of the unmuffled and gigantic lion’s fart crescendo from my 1991 Ford Tempo reached the loose wad of their stunted and undiscriminating senses, they, as was perfectly excusable, climbed beneath their engines in fear and drank in shame the coolant made available to them through their similarly embarrassed automobiles. They drank this, (but who is to judge?), until they could no longer hear the taunting roar of my he-sled remorselessly belly-laughing in the depths of their shallow and demasculanitized souls. They then continued to drink, (again, who is to judge them, who!), until their organs failed and their quivering bodies ceased to support the, at best, innocuous existences previously placing daily demands on their weary and vulgarly-maintained bodies. “I think this is for the best,” one young man wrote his family before he passed. “I think, yes, I think it’s for the best.”

Anywho, it was also about this time that Akon’s giddy Carlton-dance anthem “Smack that Ass” came onto the radio. “I feel you creepin’, I can see you from my shadow,” Akon sings to notify the woman-vampire who, if not already infatuated by the R & B eagle-eye, will find it difficult to reject an early autumn’s ride in exotic automobile. “Wanna jump up in my Lamborghini Gallardo?“ Of course she does. Alright, at this point, Akon has the woman-vampire in the car and, though she may seem naive, don’t mistake her for being easy — not just any slyly worded proposition is going to get this bitch naked. “Maybe go to my place and just kick it, like Tae Bo?” Masterful! Now, I know she seems enticed, but be cautious. Wait for it … wait for it … Now! “And possibly bend you over?” Excellent. Akon, you are homefree as a bum, so there’s No sense in couching your desires in courtesies any longer. Be straightforward with the lady, goddamn you. “Look back and watch me smack that, all on the floor/ Smack that, give me some more/ Smack that, ’till you get sore/ Smack that, oooh.”

“Is this real?” my girlfriend asked. “Is it ever,” I said. “Seriously?” she said. “Yes,” I said. “But we don’t have to listen to it if you don’t want.” She didn’t want. I didn’t want. No one, I would hope, would want to listen to Akon’s bizzaro weepy pervert on-air mangasm. “Oh-oh-ohh-ohhh!” Ahhh! I saw it! I saw his face singing that part — all scrunched and intent.

Well, I tell you what, my excuse for listening to the song was that I wanted to hear if he really did, at one point, suggest returning to his residence and kicking it “like Tae Bo”. Okay, I don’t know what else he could have been saying, but I’m bad when it comes to that kind of thing (i.e. listening comprehension). I’ll tell you what, I was happy as an evangelical with lobbying power when I finally figured out who this “Jacob” all the rappers were referring to was. Still, how can someone who sung about the hardships of prison life write such a bewilderingly gay lyric? ……... Ohhh, okay. Yeah … yeah. Oh, okay, yeah, yes. Yes, I get it. I get it.

As I was hypothetically responding to this hypothetical question from a hypothetical detractor, I, at the same instant, attempted to change lanes. I stress that this was only an attempt because, though I took the strictest of precautions by glancing in my driver’s side mirror, there was a car in the other lane in the approximate space where I wanted to move my car. Due to the inconvenient properties of matter, however, two automobiles cannot share the same space at the same time. Believe me, I’ve tried, and I might have inadvertently tried again with some degree of success if my girlfriend wouldn’t have alerted me that “there’s a car in the other lane … a car IN THE OTHER LANE!”

It’s bad enough coming close to an accident that probably wouldn’t have resulted in serious injury. What’s worse, though, is waiting for the person you almost ran hit to get pissed enough to work up the courage to accelerate and scowl at you as they pass. Luckily, this person had tinted windows, so I didn’t know if there was scowling involved in the process or not. But even as he passed, I felt like yelling something out the window like, “Sorry about almost just killing you! Sorry! Yeah, seriously. Just didn’t see you there, I guess. Could I, um, offer you a gift certificate to a restaurant or something?”

But this guy, whoever the fuck he though he was, didn’t want a masterfully prepared meal from his neighborhood Chilli’s. No. He wanted something else. He wanted not to be driving beside a guy who almost ran into him. Asshole. I realize you may find this hard to believe, but not only did this guy drive around me, he went around me and then pulled in front of me — right in front of me. To make “a point” or something, I guess. “Not driving beside your dumbass anymore,” he shouted over his car shoulder in car language. “Good. Fuck you!” I returned in car angst.

Anyway, the point is that I was going to Borders on a Friday night because I’m an extremely exciting person. Being an extremely exciting person, people are subconsciously and magnetically drawn to meet me at Borders on a Friday night. Sure enough, right there drinking heavily-creamed coffee was a girl I knew from a consumer mathematics class in high school.

Honestly, I don’t want to say there was a debate in my head (where else would it be?) about whether or not to talk to her. That was never an option. Her birthday, after all, was on September 11th, and I was not up for faking bereavement with someone I didn’t want to talk to in the first place.

I did ask myself, however, “Do I hate this girl?” No, I don’t hate her, I thought. I just don’t foresee it desirable to talk to her ever about anything. “Would I be sad if she died?” Yes, I believe I would be sad. She’d be a good person to have a clean chat and a moral outrage with when I was old.

Also, I don’t think it’s her time. Plus, I know I’ll need her around someday to confirm for posterity how devastating 9/11 was for me. “It was horrible, horr-i-ble!!!” I’ll yell at my grandchildren. “But don’t get it in your heads that change is good, because it’s not. Hey. Hey!!! K48T7, I’m talking to you, hot shot. Slow down, why don’t you? Slow down and show some goddamn respect.”

Caught

I like looking down on people who are charged with minor sex offences so there was no way my open schedule and readily available network television access were going to prevent me from watching tonight’s installment of “To Catch a Predator“.

True, over the last several months, I’ve watched nearly every episode that’s aired. But personally I’d like to think it’s not because the first episode I saw featured a guest star who resembled my father. “Oh, he’s coming inside the house, doesn’t suspect a thing, ha-ha. Wait. No. I’m mean, yeah he is but, wait, is that … no … What? No, no. Oh-ho, no, of course not. I didn’t think that, it couldn’t be. I knew that.” However (and just in case), I now watch every episode, because, come on, who wants to hear that shit from a friend? I let Dad know, too. “No prep sport stars on my watch,” I tell him. He knows I’m serious, too. Yep. My internet filter blocks chat rooms containing references to Fall Out Boy lyrics.

Anyway, I’ve written about my disgust with this show before, but I realized if I tell everyone I’m a “watchdog”, I don’t have to stop watching this morally-satisfying and accessibly-packaged lasciviousness. Really, though, and seriously (seriously) this time, this is one of the most unethical pieces of popular entertainment since blackface. The whole operation is cut with alarm, fear and outrage so that you, the average viewer, (see: American mothers) don’t have to own up to what the show is: a sexually-titillating, unsettlingly-hypocritical, morally self-indulgent and wildly-sensationalized perp walk … wherein, the majority of the time, the audience and good-cop-bad-cop smug-ass host Chris Hanson are more guilty of sexual deviance than the irreconcilably demonized “predators” are.
Outrageous! There is nothing more reproachable than soliciting a minor for sex. We must witness the setting of a disproportionately high bond before we can even think about stomaching a commercial break. Anywho, let’s see who’s guilty of what:

• Dudes — Soliciting and arranging to have consensual sex with an underage person (statutory rape); showing up for the meeting
• Dateline/Chris Hansen — Reading (unnecessarily) the graphic conversation of that underage person on national television; encouragement of police brutality; encouragement of public hysteria; entrapment; illegal delay of reading Miranda Rights; perpetuation of misleading language for personal gain; perpetuation of misleading information about predators (never stressing, for instance, that a predator is much more likely to be a friend/family member than stranger)
• Audience/Me — Approving of police brutality; being incredibly proud of selves for not having committed a sex crime; secretly reveling in the sexual conversations of underage girls; not doing shit about shit

I don’t know, maybe they’ve been doing some of this especially outrageous shit beforehand, but the women who were supposed to alert me of said outrageous shit were out during the last episode buying two-piece bikinis for their five-year-old daughters.

“Huh? What outrageous shit?” you may ask. Okay, how about this: four SWAT team members charging a known unarmed suspect with guns drawn and cuffing him face-down on the cement. Oh yeah, and how about shooting one of these suspects with a taser gun who is facing these officers with his hands up in the air? Granted, he ran out of the house after the host told him he was “free to go” and stopped two seconds after the SWAT team order him “down on the ground! down on the ground!”.

What really struck me this time was how insistent Chris Hansen was about reading excerpts from the internet conversations between the suspects and decoys. He never just said, “Well, sir, you may say you just came over to watch a movie, but this sexually-explicit chat room conversation seems to indicated otherwise.” No, Chris knows that we the audience need specifics, really dirty specifics, so we hear in concrete terms how truly perverted these men are. “You ask her if she likes oral sex,” Chris says, “You say you like’d like to do it ‘doggy’ … you say, to this 14-year-old girl, you would like to hear her moan and squeal in a hot tub as you engage in unprotected anal sex.” Then he’d ask these smart-alecky questions just to mock the guy and get the home viewers to shake their heads and giggle under their collective breath. “You say you want to put your ‘thing’ in her mouth,” he read at one point, I swear. “What do you mean by that?” And, in what might have either shocked or delighted Chris Hansen, one guy actually answered. “My dick.”

Obviously what these guys are doing is illegal (and needs to be prosecuted), but is it necessary to ruin their lives because of it? For example, there was a 22-year-old who showed up to have sex with a 15-year-old. This is not good and this should not be allowed, but does this guy — who we learned is also a virgin and maintains a religiously-themed Myspace page — deserve to be known as a pervert for the rest of his devoted and Christ-centered life? And, why why why, why in the fuck does this guy need to be taken down by a SWAT team? A SWAT team. Are you even serious?

Epidemics

The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.”

-George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language” (1946)

I don’t want to be too rigid or unduly exclusive about this, but when I think of an epidemic, I think of, oh, a disease that tours the countryside and tears into metropolises, possibly but not necessarily carried by mosquitoes or vermin, but definitely, yes definitely, killing bunches and boatshits of people. Genetic diseases are also okay. Not okay in the sense that I approve of their existence, but okay in the sense that if shit goes south like a room full of whores, said diseases could be categorized as epidemics.

Maybe some examples based on this extremist paradigm would be helpful. Let’s see, you got your Black Plague, your Spanish Flu, and for a contemporary citation, let’s go with the current AIDS crisis in Africa. Obviously, the distinction of epidemic-hood is not one you want to lure with subsidies and build a stadium for in your hometown. “Go Oakland Epidemics! Sixty percent of our population infected and growing!”

This is also not a distinction you want to fuck around with just to alarm people about some bullshit right/left nanny state legislation your pissed isn’t getting as much attention as those 25 million people “dying” in Africa.

Pffff, don’t they know you’re pissed that a relatively small number of Americans are snorting, smoking and injecting methamphetamines into their bodies? If you don’t involuntarily understand what a threat this is to the fabric of our society, maybe you should get your thumb out of your urethra and open up a fucking newspaper.

• A meth epidemic is sweeping the countryside!
• Meth is afflicting your community and most of the nation!
• Government leaders must root out the meth dealers in our midst!

As is tradition in our country, meth is having its turn as the drug currently perceived to inspire miscreant souls to abandon their children, deflower young women and become hysterically insane to the point of violence. This perception is made possible by a general lack of knowledge about methamphetamines and by well-funded Refer Madness-like propaganda campaign by our government. Sadly, though, all the commericials, billboards and task forces can’t seem to sway these sick people we see plastered along the intersate to stop their vile habit. “Did you see that chick after she used meth? Uh, she probably starved her kid and had sex with a bunch of random dudes.” Christ, it looks like the only thing left to do is treat these bastards like sex offenders. I mean, come on, the thousands of gremlinish addicts living under meth lab shacks often get so “hopped up” on meth that even our police, as incredibly informed and prudent as they are, can’t predict what the untoward menaces will do next. And, could you fucking believe it, some people still want to tell you there is very little evidence to support this well-coordinated panic campaign, even if over 90 percent of meth deaths are alcohol-related. Lucky thing we’ve had the good sense to characterize this thing as an epidemic. We probably wouldn’t have been able to raise awareness and pass all the laws we have without it. I’ll also have to tip my hat to all the politicians and law enforment officials who have been diligent enough to target minorities and poor people for as long as they have.

But the local police, bless their patriotism, will have to haul balls if they want to catch up with all the international health officials who are worried about fat people. According to a recent Associated Press article, the World Heath Organization is describing the global obesity epidemic as a “bigger threat than AIDS or bird flu”. Officials at the organization are encouraging politicians to respond to this epidemic, which is “engulfing the entire world“, in the same way they responded to tobacco. I’m not really sure how that would work out, though, because they only go so far as to prescribe “community-based efforts”. But even that gets unnerving, when you think about the group they’re scrutinizing closest: children. Don’t worry, Professor Andrew Hill has done a little research of his own, because, while he’s sensitive to feelings of those under 12, he, for one, is ready to get down and fucking serious about this epidemic. Here’s the plan: he and others suggest individual districts go ahead and do their research, set up committees and establish a health tsar to get the ball rolling on state-run fat camps for children. Goddamnit, I said don’t worry. This is England so it could never happen in America. Come to think of it, Heavy Weights was pretty a endearing movie and, if I remember correctly, everything worked out alright for those kids. (What else would you expect from the director of Little Nicky and Mr. Deeds?)

Other epidemics you fudgepackers might not have heard about:

• Kidnapping epidemic (Iraq)
• Doctor suicide epidemic (U.S.)
• Golfers taking steroids epidemic (U.S.)
• Childhood allergy epidemic (Worldwide)
• Vandalism epidemic (London)
• Animal neglect epidemic (Iowa)
• Quickie divorces epidemic (South Korea)
• Bark beetle epidemic (Colorado)
• Phishing epidemic (Internet)
• Rugby injury epidemic (South Africa)
• Moral stupidity epidemic (U.S.)
• Lack of adequate legal representation epidemic (Canada)
• Ailing IT-client relationships epidemic (Worldwide)
• Sleep deprivation epidemic (England)
• Cyberchondria epidemic (U.S.)

Cyberchondria? I thought only 7th-grade boys and dirty computer programmers were still into that. Wait, let’s just plug that into the ol’ Wikipedia here… do-da-doo-da-dooo…. What?!? Oh shit, let me read that again … Ah!! It can’t… Yes … Yes!!! Cyberchon–… Ah! It’s true. True! … True, true, true — only too true … Well, dear god, I guess this is the end of me.

I’m infected, infected by the truth.

 

 

Concerts

I don’t like standing, clapping, crowds, yelling or $6 glasses of American draft beer. I am not incited to begin clapping or yelling when someone repeatedly tells me they “can’t hear” me. Look, I know you can’t hear me, it’s because I’m not saying shit. But I’ll tell you what: I’ve got a whole entourage of senior-ranking assclowns waving papery secondhand joints and spilling $6 glasses of American draft beer who, I fucking promise you, would cheer the successful boarding of a commercial aircraft. Not bad? Plus, you are in luck, they just took a hit with their mom or lil’ bro and are elated as hell to discover the likeness of the person on stage corresponds to the image printed on the front of their official “Summer Daze” or whatever gimmick-tour-title t-shirt they’ll wear as a night shirt until they’re 34 and stop only then because their wife will request it and work up the courage in saying so to reveal to them they’ve been sleeping with a guy from work for the last three months but that they’re really sorry and it just happened and, oh, it’s not the shirt, it’s not the shirt.

As romanitized as they are on television and in my own memory, I always forget about how potentially underwhelming and unenjoyable concerts can be. This is probably because I start out with the assumption that I’m going to a sweet-ass rock n’ roll show with some equally rock n’ roll friends. Sure, they’ll be some other people there, I know that, like 19-year-old girls with nice tits and black bras and “it doesn’t count if I’m drunk” excuses in mind. Oh yeah, there might also be a few of those old rock sages with graying beards, Indian stories, and LSD still mixed up in their spinal fluid. But really, it’s mostly a bunch of douche bags who thought this something they should do and love that band’s one song. “Play that one song, wwwwWWHEEWWWWEWWWW!” No, fuck you, stop leaning on me. After three hours of standing, I’m already being staggered by my own fat ass.

And for what you pay for a ticket, I always feel like I should being getting at least some sort of package deal. “What? Thirty bucks just to stand here? Can’t I get like a hot dog and cheese sauce? And one of those baseball tees with the stencil of the apathetic-looking chick on front. Yeah. I’m a medium.”

Most of the time, though, I’m just doing my best to look like I don’t give a shit but could if some asshole even thinks about bumping into me. I also spend a lot of time thinking about shaking the arms of people carrying two or more beers. “’Scuse me, dudes, coming through. ‘Scuse me, oh, ‘scuse me. Thanks. ‘Scuse me, ‘scuse me, scu – BAM! What!? Dude! Dude! What the fuck man? What the fuck?”  I also sometimes try to trip the people who try to squeeze through to the front of the audience after the crowd’s already packed in for the headlining act (did I just say “headlining act”?). They’ll kind of bump you in the back and then apologize and try an alternate sneaky route past you.

That’s why you and your rock n’ roll friends must be united on this front. Last night, my friend Greg and I united against this asshat who tried all manner of sly shit to get past, including rock flattery. “(Bump, bump. Bump, bump.) Hey, what’s going on? You seem like pretty chill guys and I wouldn’t be asking you if I didn’t think you were cool but I got some buddies up a couple rows and just need to get through to get to them, see, they’re right up their (waving generally) yep, that’s them, so if you could…” But that shit wasn’t going to fly with a Rocketeer pack strapped to it. He tried all kinds of sighing and elbow jabbing techniques, but it just wasn’t happening on our rock watch. So he went two people down a minute later and got through almost immediately. Up a few rows we could see him, too. He seemed to be having a pretty good time with his friends and enjoying his superior view. Whatever though. If he had to leave to go to the bathroom he’d know where not to come for sympathy a second time around. I was fairly pissed, though, so when a drunk girl stunned us with a set of elbows and was able to slip past, I threw a trip at her that was kind of accidentally not really a kick to the back of her leg. I felt like a douche bag even though I don’t think she felt anything. Then proceeded to think about how awesome it would be to sit down in an hour.

Honey

I was making peanut butter and honey raison toast for dinner this evening because I had about five pieces of homemade barbeque chicken two hours before the aforementioned meal. However, I didn’t tell anyone about this “snack” because I thought this small dinner portion would look somewhat impressive to my dinner co-participants. Or, even better, I figured they might mistake me for being anorexic. Besides getting me some much-needed negative attention, anorexia is at worst a highly socially acceptable eating disorder. I don’t want to say it’s encouraged (and by “I don’t want to say it’s encouraged” I mean “Our society discourages telling your child, “Be anorexic or I won’t love you’”). Really, I’ve never seen anyone get disgusted with someone who is anorexic — unless being anorexic happens not to make that person skinny. That could get ugly. “Mom, Dad … I’m not sure how to tell you this, but I have a problem with food — with eating.” Oh, sweetie, we know, we know. We — your father and I — just didn’t know how to approach you about it. “Really? Oh my god, you guys are so totally know me and, wow, I love you so much, really. “We love you, too, honey.” I gotta ask you, though, how did you’d find out I was anorexic?” (Pause.) Uhhh, let’s give that a second go. “A second go? What? Wait…what?” Being anorexic, take two!

Anyway, I knocked over a bunch of Tupperware as I was reaching for the honey bear because (conspiracy?) it was on the top shelf and I didn’t realize how light it was. (“Honey bear, have you been working out? Oh my! Flirty little fellow aren’t you? Well, I don’t know, but… Okay, go on … Go on … Uh-huh … Go on … Well, I’ll tell you what, you just meet me in the park with that trumpet mute and we’ll go from there.”) Nothing was hurt, nothing was spilt, but, you bet your vag, there were other people in the room. Needless to say (what does that mean?), they immediately recognized the non-emergency-ness of the situation. I gathered the lids off the floor as nonchalantly as possible, but even without looking, I could feel the rush of their minds jockeying for gratification of the best one-liner. So, fuck it, I just turned around with Mr. Bear and waited with an “alright, guys, I’m a good sport, ha-ha you know me, Good Sport McDave, but, heeyyyyy, let’s not get carried away here, okay? Ha-ha, c’mon, we’re all friends, right? Friendly-friend friends…ehhhhh?”

Well, that tactic worked not at all and they were off: (a) Oooo! (b) Nice one! (c) Smooth work! (d) Dumbass! (e) First day with your new hands!?!?

Not that bad, really, but then there was that awkward silence where you wait for someone to say something but nothing is said and people just make humming noises and repeat what other people have said back to the whole group and laugh and look at the floor or wall and say “Ha-ha, yeeeeah”. And finally, finally, someone introduces a new topic because everyone realizes the jokes have been underwhelming across the board and there’s a general sense shame.

Needless to say (shitass! I said it again), I felt pretty vindicated and, riding that sweetly unwarranted feeling, I invited Mr. Bear back to my place for “private counseling” session. Things went pretty well, I guess, but it turned out he just wanted be friends. You see, he got out of the mood when it came up that I was only into food product dudes and not human dudes. He said the such a stance was insensitive to the whole community and, as a matter of principal, he couldn’t, just couldn’t. He insisted we still be friends, though, and swore he wasn’t pissed or anything. “Perry, I swear to God I’m not pissed at you,” he said. I told him that was fair enough (“Fair enough, Mr. Bear, fair enough”) but that I, in turn, had to respectfully disagree with him. With a little difficulty, I explained my side of the issue and he said I had some good points but, unfortunately, it just wasn’t happening that night. So, eh, we just chilled for a while and ate salt and vinegar chips and drank Mexican beer and watched late night television. At one point, we were watching Ed Norton on the Daily Show, I told him I wanted to be famous just so I could get applauded for directly pointing at strangers in a studio audience. He liked that one and predicted Carson Daily would get cancelled soon.