..:S...P...I...D...E...R...B...I...T...E...S:..

Thursday, September 25, 2003

"Whenever it was taken outside,
officious persons were always pointing out
that it was in danger of being left behind."
-Edward Gorey, The Beastly Baby

"What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness."
-Nietzche



FICTION:



What's Worst?



Jason drove past a dead baby on the side of the road.

He drove on for a few more seconds, until he slowly realized what he'd seen. His foot eased off the gas and he stared in his rearview mirror, engine revving down. He looked again, there was nothing back there now, except the vanishing point.

He turned down the stereo. Not too much though. He didn't like to turn it down. He tilted his head and wrapped an arm around the headrest on the passenger seat. He crossed the wrong arm in front of his body so his hand could still hover above the gear shift. He was driving slow enough to count the lines on the road between heartbeats now. Jason's head leaned so far over that he could smell the speaker buried in there. The smell was good. Metal, wires, and the scent of an overheated electronic burn. He thought about when he put the speakers in. It was three summers ago when he performed the operation, when he was finally tired of driving alone.

The balance of the music in Jason's car was always all the way to the right, and all the way to the front. Not just because he had only one speaker that worked. Because it was the only speaker that he needed. When Jason first got the car, he wanted to install speakers in the headrests. He did it by himself, and that was probably a mistake. He gutted the cushions like an angry child who couldn't find a girl to play doctor. One who walked off alone, head down and pouting, then found a willing teddy-bear to play surgeon instead. He made the speakers fit even though they really didn't, then he black-taped everything tight. With the speakers inside the cushions were too hard, and they had too many sharp corners for him to ever rest his head on again. They were loud though, magnets that close to the skull made even his small speakers thump and buzz enough for Jason to think it was worth all the effort, the wasted time, the summer night sweat and all the mosquitoes drawn to his dome light and his neck while he worked.

How often would I ever need to rest my head? I don't drive that far at once, never in a straight line. And how often do I sleep in the car? he shrugged. Might even save my life one night if I ever drive too long.

Then, one night after a good song, the driver's side blew. Now, with one speaker ruptured, the music was popping and sparking so much he had to switch the balance all the way to one side. One would be enough though. He didn't have enough money to replace them, and he couldn't see ever cutting them open again even if he did.

Jason had wrapped at least seven rolls of black tape around those headrests.

That meant forever.

And after a year of driving around his slowly widening spiral, with no one, nothing to do and nowhere to go, he got used to the music over there on the one side. Vibrating under his arm. It felt comforting. It was warm and good. One more year and he was even talking to it. Nothing crazy, just thinking out loud really. That's what he told the noises coming out of the speaker.

"Was that really a dead baby back there? No freaking way." He titled his head, rolling it around on his shoulders until it cracked, then he leaned over again to the speaker. His eyes never left the rearview mirror. He was down to about 10 mph. No cars.

"A dead baby. Not just something pink. I know that's what I saw. Please, let that be what I saw." He said that last part almost to himself for once. He leaned over even more, the fuzz on his ear tickling the seat. "I should go back, huh? I know it wasn't an animal. There was no blood, no fur. Nothing red, just pink. That means no one threw the baby out of a car. I'd be driving next to it for miles, if that was the case. What the hell? Should I go back?" A couple seconds went by, about ten white lines sliding under the car while he thought about it. He leaned
over again and explained.

"You know, there's something to be said about someone who sees something horrible like that and just keeps on driving. Doesn't even phase him enough to go back. I know what you're thinking, it's not that I don't want to touch it or see it up close or something. I just don't give three shits."

He turned the stereo off. It was stuck in the static between stations anyway. Sometimes he left that on, even turned it up. He enjoyed the soothing vibrations of a song in the crook of his elbow, and sometimes the static felt just as good. Now his head was straight again, foot ready to bury the gas and forget what he thought he saw. Then he thought of something else. Suddenly he had both hands on the wheel, both arms locked, both feet on the brake, radio back on.

What if someone else sees it too? What if someone thinks they found it first? Jason went back for the baby - fast - without even turning the car around.

When he got to it, he opened the passenger door, stretched across the seat on his stomach and stared with the car rumbling under his body. The music had drifted into static again where he'd stopped. He wanted a song, only he couldn't move the car forward to find one. It was right there, right by his tire. He stared with his head in his palms, shaking slightly (he told himself it was the low idle from the car). It was a baby.

No flies, no blood, no smell, nothing. he thought. Just dead.

"No bugs. No red. No rot. Nothing bad. Just dead." Jason mumbled.

He thought about rolling it over to see if it was a boy or a girl. Then he decided he liked not knowing. He looked at the smooth pink head and suddenly thought about drawing three lines on the back of its scalp. Then he'd never have to turn it over. Three lines, two eyes and a mouth and he could pretend he found an alien instead. Now that was a dilemma, he thought. What would I rather find on the side of the road? A dead baby or a dead alien? Alien. Live baby or a dead alien? Live baby. I'd be hero. Dead alien and I might end up right next to it, in a lab in Area 54. Wait, it was Studio 54 and Area 51. . .

Still, I wish it was an alien, Jason told himself. I won't turn it over.

He picked it up fast (even though his hands were quick, he noticed the weight and thought of stuffed toys left outside to soak up rain) and dropped it hard into the next seat.

"Damn it's heavy. That must be how it died," he explained to the static. "First, someone lost it, maybe while they were changing a tire, and when it got left alone, there was no one around to stop it from putting things in its mouth. And everyone knows a baby on the road will eat rocks all night if no one is around to stop it . . . "

He trailed off as he noticed something else in the gravel as he was closing the door. He leaned out, reaching out slow so his back could crack. It was a toy. Or it was a toy once. It was smashed now, run over, and Jason couldn't figure out what it had been. He knew what it was supposed to do. Rattle. Babies liked things that rattled. It was a toy that rattled, burst open, all the popcorn kernels that had made the noises scattered in a star pattern around it. He thought maybe it was homemade, sewn together from some old stuffed animals, Jason couldn't understand what animal it was now. Too many eyes, too many ears, he thought. Something tightened in Jason's chest, something about the toy was affecting him in a way the baby didn't. Jason shook his head hard, like a dog that got thrown in the pool, and slammed his car door. He figured the chest pain was just from being down there at exhaust level, fumes getting him sick or something.

He clicked the volume knob off, then reached over and strapped the baby in while the hiss of the static faded away again. He didn't want it rolling over on his side of the car when he took a hard turn (he still remembered how important it was to stay on your side when two boys were on a long drive). When he clicked the seatbelt he noticed that he'd sat it down in the seat the right way, carefully, like any child. Must have been distracted by the toy, he thought. He didn't mean to do that. Right before he pulled back onto the road, his eyes had taken a snapshot of it before he could stop. It was a boy.

"So what?" Jason played with the rearview until the road was gone and only the sky was visible, then he drove on. He wanted it to get darker and it never did. Jason tried to decide what to do. Even though the radio was off, he was still thinking out loud. It was too quiet if he didn't. He leaned down and kept whispering to the dead speaker.

"Hey, here's an old one, what's easier to unload? A truck full of bowling balls? Or a truck full of dead babies? Don't know? Dead babies. You can use a pitchfork." Jason sighed, feeling satisfied. He imagined how jaded he would sound to someone who was in the car with them, watching and listening. Again, he wished that it was dark outside. "That's sooo nasty . . . "

He leaned down closer, past the speaker, but tilted his head so he still wasn't looking at it. He'd squint and see the toy instead, whenever that snapshot of it came back. His shoulder strained at that angle, then cracked loud. He'd never leaned down that far when he was thinking out loud. And the cracks shouldn't hurt.

"Where did you come from? No one threw you out of the car. You'd have been a little red comet if that had happened. You run away? Someone have you, right there? No, there's no cord. You imagine that? Some girl pulls over to have a baby and leave it behind, only she forgets about the cord. Then, miles later, she gets pulled over cause the cops see the baby bouncing behind the car. That's a worse ticket than not having it in the car seat, ain't it?" Jason's smile dropped a little. "I should take you to the cops now."

An hour later and Jason was still driving. He was in no hurry to give it up. He told himself that he'd done nothing wrong. He just wanted to carry it in to somewhere, and have someone take it to a lab, cut it in half, count the rings, and wonder what the hell he was doing with it for so long. He wanted someone to scratch their head and ask him why he'd been driving around with a dead baby. He wondered if he'd get on TV, symbolizing detached youth everywhere or some shit. This was right up there with leaving a baby in the garbage. No, this was worse. Nobody ever did what he was doing. He'd be the boy who drove around with a dead baby, telling it dead baby jokes.

The radio was still off, and he was still leaning down to it, sometimes just cracking his neck slowly from side to side, sometimes thinking out loud:

"What's worse? Killing a baby, or just driving around with a dead one like it's nothing? Hey, yeah, what's worse?!? Remember those jokes? The "what's worse" jokes? Okay, what's worse, fifty dead babies in a garbage can? Or one dead baby in fifty garbage cans? That's a tough one, ain't it? I wonder what someone would say if they heard me right now?" Jason's eyes got wide. "Holy shit! I wonder what someone would say if I took you to a movie! It would have to be a drive-in though. I'd get in trouble if I carried you into a theater, especially if it was rated 'R' . . . " He tilted the rearview, not to see if anyone was in the backseat listening to him, but so he could pretend someone was. "Hey! What's worse than finding a dead baby in the backseat of your car? Realizing you fucked it!"

He wished for a train or a red light and he couldn't find one. Something so he'd have to slam on the brakes just once. He leaned down and unhooked it's seatbelt without looking. He wanted to hit the brakes while he was talking to it, then act shocked when it bounced off the dashboard. He thought that would be funny . . . as . . . shit. He drove on.

There were no cars. No one, nothing. He wondered if it was the end of the world. He pushed that thought away and clicked its seat belt back across its body. He couldn't imagine finding a dead baby, then having no one to show it to. He had another idea. What if the cops found out he went through a car wash before he brought it in? They would be confused, suspicious as hell. Maybe they'd think I was washing blood off my car? Jason drove faster, looking for a car wash.

He needed one, and he wished so hard . . . he found one.

It was one of those crazy car washes where you drove through the mouth of a monster clown or something sinister, then came out between the teeth of something else. A dragon or a dinosaur, whatever the graffiti artists that worked there came up with between cars. He was still outside of town when he found it, and that made the mechanical gorilla out front even more bizarre. It was painted green, holding a bunch of old sunken Valentine's Day balloons with the number five and a dollar sign written on each one in black marker, spinning around and tilting and creaking on a rotten cable spool where you could see the wires running out the gorilla's toes.

It stood there grinning through green teeth, waving you in. There were no cars going in or coming out. No cars.

Car washes were scary enough when you were little, Jason thought. Children must shit their pants every time in this freakshow.

He looked around as he pulled in, he didn't see the gang of boys that were supposed to be wiping the cars dry and he was disappointed. He wanted someone to look down into his car, ask him a question or two. He found a box for the money at the opening and put a five dollar bill in the slot. The slot was painted up as another clown, and the money slot was the tongue. When Jason slammed it into the box the noises it started making caused his heart to jump. Then a handful of quarters were rattling into a metal bowl the clown's hands were holding. There was a
sign below it:

"Five dollar wash and wax. Old arcade change machine. Leave the quarters or we won't let you out! Sorry, they're ours now."

The garage door rolled up and when the huge tongue retracted all the way, a flashing green light beckoned him inside. Jason crept forward into the mouth.

"Now, I know babies get scared in car washes," Jason whispered soothingly. "I used to. Sorry, I'm not going to close your eyes though. I heard that dogs go bonkers inside these things too. Hey, that reminds me, what do you give a dead baby for its birthday? A dead puppy!"

There was a jerk as the wheels found the right spot in the tracks and the machines took over. There was another thump under the car and the green light turned red. Water started trickling down as the mouth closed behind him and the car was pulled the rest of the way inside.

"Did you like the movie? Other babies were screaming in there. Not you! You weren't scared. Candy made you sick though. Now we got to wash the car. We'll do the outside first."

Jason stifled a laugh, some of it made it out his nose. "Taking a dead baby to a movie. That would be some funny shit. Car wash is good enough though. And dead baby jokes to a dead baby?! That's nuts. I'm hardcore." He leaned down to it and raised his voice to be heard. The water was pounding full force now.

"You ever wonder where dead baby jokes come from? Or where dead babies come from! Just teasing. Anyway, who comes up with all those jokes? Maybe you really need a dead baby around to get the ideas going. So you're not worrying what a dead baby is really like. I'll try that.

Hey! Why did the dead baby cross the road? Don’t know? Cause it was nailed to the chicken! Yeah, I know. I said I'll try to come up with my own joke later. Remind me, Junior."

The car lurched and he sat back up straight. Then he stopped completely. There was a wet slap as an octopus of purple fingers came down on his windshield. They squirmed there for a second, then lazily dragged themselves up and over the car, leaving a steaming white trail behind them. When two huge green scrubbers started slowly moving up and down his doors, his heart skipped and he panicked, bringing both feet down hard on the brake. He sighed and scratched himself hard behind the ear in disgust. He'd done that before. For some reason, whenever those scrubbers moved past the car, he always thought he was moving, instead of the machines. Every time it happened he hit the brake like a dumb shit. He cracked every knuckle that he could, happy no one saw him do that.

The soap started spraying from somewhere. Jason looked down at his arms, watching the pattern change as foam and water marbled the light across his skin. He moved the rearview again, to see how that light looked on his face, his eyes. Then he saw the toy again. Before he could try to imagine what animal the rattle had been, there was the blur of a tire flashing over it, the popcorn kernels bursting, dancing, then rolling away. Another tire through his mind and the popcorn on the road danced again. Then another tire. He blinked his eyes hard to make it go away. Something didn't sound right outside in the wash. Something rattled that didn't rattle before. He looked out each window until he found it. The antenna on his car was getting hammered by an angry green scrubber. It was bouncing back and forth too hard, bending too far, wiggling dangerously fast. Jason sighed; he'd forgotten to unscrew it before he went in. And even though he hadn't seen the sign, he knew neither the clown nor the gorilla would be "responsible for anything lost or broken." He wondered what they would say if he rolled down the window after he drove out and said, "Your goddamn evil-clown car wash scared my baby to death! You owe me a new antenna. At least!"

The scrubbers were up and spinning on the windows now, pounding away at the glass and filling the car with flickering light and vibrations. He never saw them move up to get the windows like that before, never that high. And the sounds of the wash seemed too loud all of the sudden. He clicked on the radio and put his arm around the speaker in the headrest. All white noise and static. He searched for a song and stopped tuning when he heard the beat of some music trying to get through. He turned it up and leaned over again, eyes on the assault on his antenna so he wouldn't be tempted to look at the baby.

"You know, I remember more jokes about killing babies, instead of jokes about dead babies. Here's one. What's red and squirms in the corner?" The scrubbers surrounded his car, he hadn't counted them, but he was sure there was more of them now. The antenna was stuck between two of them. "A baby playing with a razor. What's blue and squirms in the corner?"

The antenna was being slapped around even harder. A third one came over to spin against it. The antenna was making a new noise now, a whine under the splashing and the rattle. The beat was barely audible on the radio, static was taking over again. "A baby playing with a garbage bag. What's green and doesn't squirm in the corner?" The antenna shook and wiggled so fast, it disappeared into a chaotic blur of chrome, water and suds.

The metal was screaming. Jason thought he heard the sound coming through the speaker too. “Same baby! Three weeks later!"

It snapped.

Dead air on his radio. And now the static sounded wrong, like AM instead of FM. Seconds passed. Then minutes. His car wasn't moving. It was still being washed though, more than five bucks worth. He'd been inside too long. He played with the knob, even though he knew he was cut off and nothing would come in without that antenna. Jason was worried that the beat he'd heard before it snapped was just the sounds of the wash. He worried that the music had been replaced with the beat of these machines without him realizing it, and that's what he'd been tapping a foot to the whole time he was inside. Maybe even earlier, miles away, when he first found the song.

Is it possible to hear a car wash through your radio? he thought. Why not? If it was loud enough, maybe. I swear I heard a hockey game once that wasn't being broadcast. No one believed me though. So how did I know it went to a shoot-out and had six fights? And how did I hear a fight in the parking lot after the game? Cause it was loud enough, that's why. It was angry enough for my antenna to hear. What if a new one won't do that?

He found some static that sounded okay to him and left it there. Then he turned it up to a roar. He stretched his right arm behind his head to pop a joint and crack his elbow, then he wrapped it back around the headrest. He leaned down to talk to the speaker, instead of the baby, only to jerk his arm back as if he'd been burned. Jason had heard something strange. He crawled into the backseat and squinted through the foam to see if someone was working on getting the tracks on the wash moving again. Maybe they've been busy fixing something, loading soap, blowing up balloons, feeding the robot monkey, hosing the geek, some kind of carnival maintenance outside, like when you're stuck at the top of the Ferris wheel forever, he thought.

The car started shaking violently. He wiped the fog and checked every window. He couldn't see anyone outside. He climbed back into the driver's seat and looked into one of his side mirrors, adjusting it so he could see the scrubbers down beating on his wheel. He wondered if they would blow his tires if they scrubbed in the same place long enough. He figured anything could cut through anything if it tried long enough. He remembered a picture he saw once after a tornado. A sock monkey had been stuck half in and half out of tree trunk, it's soft head buried in
the wood. He couldn't figure out how a stuffed animal could put a hole in a tree.

Maybe if something was spinning fast enough, he decided.

That's what's going on in here . . . anything could happen then.

He leaned back over, not sure whether he was talking to the static or the baby.

"What's worse than running over a baby with your car? Getting it out of your treads."

Jason glanced around, sure he'd heard someone whispering over the thump of the machines and the blast of the static. He ran his hands through his hair, feeling the sweat slick it back behind his ears. He scratched his scalp hard in frustration. "Don't like that one? Okay, why do babies have soft spots on their heads? Don't know? So you can carry them ten at a time. You know what?" He squeezed the speaker in his arm. "I don't like those kinds of jokes. I think the 'what's worst' ones are best. I mean worse."

A strange smell made him glance down before he could stop himself. Someone's baby needs changed, Jason giggled. Then he thought he saw it staring at him before he could close his eyes. Mouth open too. He jumped back and put both hands on his window, pressing his nose against the glass. He wished he would have looked right away, back there on the road, then he would have shut the mouth and the eyes, or saw if they were open. Then he'd know if anything on the baby had changed.

He tried to distract himself by wondering which he'd rather have shut, if it had to be one or the other. What would be worse? he wondered. Open eyes or open mouth? At first he thought the eyes. Now he wasn't so sure. He was thinking that the open mouth was where the smell was coming from. What about the sound?

He looked at the numbers glowing green on the dashboard. He couldn't remember what time he'd entered the car wash. He didn't know how long he'd been inside. Something about all those machines might be affecting the clock. Or maybe it was the heat and moisture and pressure of the water, like a storm over the Devil's Triangle. He figured it wasn't just UFOs that screwed up all those instruments. He was sure that it was too long though. How long could you be stuck in a car wash without someone noticing, he thought. Is there anyone out there? He wiped away the steam of his breath and squinted out through the water and bubbles again. He thought the washing stage should be done by now, at least. He thought it should be time for different machines to come crawling over, he knew they were out there, he could hear them. He crawled into the backseat and looked out the back window. Between the rhythm and spin of the scrubbing wheel bouncing up and down his trunk, Jason could see some light, and then, past that, the road.

He thought the clown's mouth had closed behind him. He had to keep wiping away his breath to see, and he told himself that maybe a car was going by outside the same instant his hand cleared the glass. Still, no one, no cars, nothing.

Back in the driver's seat, he closed his eyes and sucked in his breath and held it, as if he was decompressing a spaceship. Then he pulled up on his door handle and cracked it open. Hot needles of white water peppered his arm. He started to lean out when one of the green scrub-wheels suddenly lurched towards him and slammed his door shut. He laughed and tried to open it again, it stopped against the scrubbing wheel and bounced violently under his hand. The noise of the wash was impossibly loud. His head aching with the sounds, he leaned his shoulder against the door and pushed. The door was open only inches now, vibrating so hard he bit his tongue. He put all his weight against it, got a few more centimeters, not even enough for a shoe to hold it open. He pushed so hard he knew his face was changing color at least twice, and he thought for a second that he was going to shit himself. He thought about a video he saw once where a woman was giving birth and defecated on the baby. It had made him sick, made him think of the woman as just some animal. The door slammed shut. He was suddenly worried that fighting the door might mean he'd be found in the car wash with shit in his pants. He stopped pushing and forced himself to relax. All the windows, all the mirrors, even the chrome on the radio knobs were fogged now. He couldn't see the spinning machines surrounding the car anymore. He started working slowing and controlling his breathing, so that all the glass would clear, so he could see a little further, so that he could work on getting out.

"You know what you never hear?!?" Jason screamed to the baby over the static and the bashing force of the wash. "You never hear someone make up a joke. Just like you can smell the skunk on the road and you never see it. Just like you hear the tires squeal and never hear the crash. We know the stork sometimes brings dead babies. Don't you ever wonder where the fuck the jokes come from?!" For the first time Jason forced himself to look directly at it. It's eyes and mouth were looking at him, just like he knew they would be. It was worse that he'd thought. He stared at it, hard, until the baby blurred and faded away. Jason knew that always happened if he stared long enough, but he told himself it was the steam in the car that took the baby away.

"Let's make a dead baby joke! Right here, right now. It'll pass the time until someone sees us. Now, how do jokes usually start?" He blinked and the baby was back in his head, behind his eyelids. He waited until it faded. "Um, a dead baby walks into a bar . . . shit!" Jason slapped himself upside the head and vigorously scratched the back of his neck. So much sweat flew off his face that he stopped scratching and jerked around, thinking the door had come open.

"That won't work will it? Remember, the best ones always start with the words "what's worse". I once heard this little girl telling dead baby jokes and she kept saying the words "what's worst" instead. Perfect. Maybe we should do that too. So, what's worst? Driving over a baby on the road or . . . or . . . getting the baby out of your . . . " Jason stopped. "Fuck, I already did that one! So what! We'll just make it worst!"

Even though the baby stayed blurry, he was seeing the busted toy instead. " . . . or getting the baby off the hood ornament . . . " Jason tried to make the toy go away. He almost crossed his eyes trying not to blink. " . . . or digging the baby out of the grill . . . " The toy was still there. He saw the toy in the road, rattling every time a tire flashed over it. " . . . or running out of baby before you get it with all four wheels . . . or getting it out of the lawnmower blades . . . or having to start the lawnmower again after it stalls . . . or . . . I don't know . . . getting it out of your . . . your . . . your . . . " Jason closed his eyes. He heard a voice trying to break through the hiss of static. At first he thought it was an excited announcer giving the blow-by-blow of a fight in a hockey game somewhere. You never see a fight in overtime. Then he thought it was singing. Then he realized that it wasn't a song. It sounded like crying.

"What's worst? Driving over a baby on the road, and getting it stuck in your grill? Or picking up a baby off the road, and getting it stuck in your head?"

Jason reached out and clicked off the radio. It was time to go.

Jason leaned back in the driver's seat and pulled the gear shift down hard. His foot stabbed the pedal and he straightened his arms, waiting for the crashing and sparks and sunlight as he broke through the mouth and splintered the tongue and bouncing and scraping his car out into the road. Nothing. He pushed the gas down flat, then so hard he felt the peddle start to bend to the curve of his foot. He heard the engine screaming with all the power it had. He wasn't moving. Are my wheels off the ground? Let me the fuck out. I didn't take your fucking quarters.

He tried to remember what had happened when the red light flashed on and the wash first pulled him in. There was no way it could be holding him up with his wheels off the ground. There was something very wrong. He was getting out now. He leaned back in the driver's seat even further, grunting and honking the horn with his sneakers, walking his legs up and over the steering wheel onto the glass. Then Jason started jack-hammering the windshield with his heels. He kicked hard, then harder, then faster, hearing the rubber on his shoes squeaking and watching the crazy patterns they were drawing in the fog. He thought of a kaleidoscope, one that he'd had and loved as a boy, a toy that he just had to break open. Two rolls of black tape couldn't fix it after he finally saw what was inside. Nothing really, nothing like what he seen through the hole. He tried filling it with sand and bugs and screws and apple juice and marbles and even after all that work, it still never worked again. He shook the image out of his head and pushed the muscles in his legs faster and harder.

His feet kick-started a spiderweb of cracks between the steaming bubbles on the glass and his frantic squeaking heels. He imagined a spider on the outside of the windshield, trying to spin a web while he was driving down the road, faster and faster, trying to find enough road without curves to blow it off. In his head he saw a spider still hanging on, while his speed and wind tried to get under it and tear it loose. His ankles ached, one of his shoes slipped and a flailing knee turned the radio back on. Static and voices, singing and crying rose up from the passenger seat and Jason hit the windshield with everything he had left. Finally, his legs locked straight behind the knees and both feet went smashing through the glass.

Breach birth, he thought, as his hands came up to protect himself. Careful nurse. Don't let the cord wrap around it's neck.

A snowstorm of glass cubes splashed his crossed arms and showered his face. The sounds of the wash roared and the hot water dragged the broken glass across his nose and forehead. A sharp corner stung him above an eyebrow, then another under a nostril. He fought the urge to wipe them away, knowing that would make the cuts deeper. He pulled his feet back and tried going through head first, eyes pinched closed, ears getting the worst of it. His shoulders got stuck, and he sliced through his shirt working free, grinding glass into skin as he strained and contorted his body to widen the hole. Eventually it was big enough to squeeze through. And as he stood outside the car, watching the machines dancing and spinning around him, seeming to keep their distance, seeing the pink water pooling on his dashboard under the jagged hole, feeling the blood and foam running down his neck, he never even thought about what that would look like. He didn't care if someone saw him or not. The clown's mouth opened for him and he stepped out into the sun.

Too late, the doctor muttered. Stillbirth. It’s been dead for 9 months. Jason thought. I don’t understand it either. Sometimes they just keep growing, like a dead man’s fingernails

It was only when he saw the boy on the ground outside, gray rags wrapped around his arm, frozen in a yawn, stretched out in the grass-angel he'd worn down, with headphones covering his ears, slowly sitting up on his elbows and realizing what he was seeing, that Jason understood. It was only when he saw the boy squinting and pulling the headphones down to his throat, picking dirt and stones out of the skin on his arms, checking his watch and shrugging with a what-the-fuck? that he knew his car was coming out of the clown's mouth right behind him, safe, on the tracks, windshield shattered, yet shiny clean and on time. It was only then that he knew his car had been in neutral the whole time he was gunning it, trying to get out. That's when he went back for the baby.

This time, when he walked out through the scalding foam and stinging needles of hot wax, with the baby tight against his chest, soft head under Jason's chin, dead skin sticking to his neck, covering the open eyes and mouth with a protecting hand when the blast of the last machine of the car wash came down, feeling the tiny rubber wheels on the hose run down the back of his neck and the hot wind blowing and burning the water off his ears, this time Jason started to feel like himself again when he stepped out into the sun.

What's worst? Finding a dead baby on the side of the road? Or wanting to?

And even if he was only holding a broken toy he'd found on the side of the road, even if it wasn't a dead baby, even if he'd never been stuck inside, Jason imagined how strong he looked. Even if he had only gone back in to get the antenna.


-© 2003 david james keaton

::: david - 8:38 PM [+] :::
...

"Are you a Mexican, or a Mexican't?"
-Johnny Depp in "Once Upon A Time In Mexico"

"I designed a uniform for the Army once. Green leather with a row of brass buttons along the side. And a gold football helmet. They rejected it of course. Goddamn it was beautiful..."
-George C. Scott in "Patton"


Back from Toldeo. saw that movie. good shit. ended up defending it to the people i gathered to see it. i think they were being too critical. i initially was frustrated but now that i think back, the cool stuff in that movie outweighed the problems.

bad stuff:

- ten too many characters and a plot i didn't give two shits about
- lack of Salma
- no references to Once Upon A Time In The West or Once Upon A Time In America even though he clearly liked those titles.
- the fake ass wire-work in the church (at least there was no CGI)
- nobody trying to catch a fly in a gun barrel, as seen in the fantastic opening credits to Once Upon A Time In The West.
- the lack of great songs like the Desperado soundtrack
- no good villain
- no scene with Tarantino taking a bullet in the grill while he's yappin'

cool stuff:

- "Clash of the Titans" lunchbox
- drugs hidden in an eye-socket
- the abuse of Cheech's corpse
- two words: matador
- "I'm With Stupid" T-shirt
- electric guitar/shotgun
- Johnny Depp's third arm
- the line, "then I have no choice, but to kill you all"
- the bad guy running around snarling through invisible man bandages
- Depp "restoring balance" in the kitchen
- the fact that Bandaras' name was "The"
- when "The" shotgunned the guy that was already falling to his death
- the last 15 minutes with Johnny Depp that i can't reveal because a surprise like that is fucking gold, let's just say it's times like that when i have hope that movies can drop their pants and all the rules and do whatever the fuck they want. raise your glass, here's to Spy Kids money.

and now, inspired by the car i was stuck behind for an hour in a construction zone, a new feature on this site:

Patriot's Corner!

today's installment. the American flag. our flag is fucking stupid looking. our flag is one of the least creative things i've ever seen. our flag is awful. our flag looks like a 5-year old designed it. it's a fucking embarrassment. and it looks even worse on your car. worse than your football team's flag flapping on your antenna. the colors of the American flag are horrible. the stripes look like a candy cane. the stars look like those grade school stickers you accumulate when you draw a turkey with the outline of your hand and/or wipe your ass correctly (trivia note: Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national symbol. probably because they were fun to chase around giggling on a warm summer night when you're flirting with your slaves) seriously, our flag looks so weak that i always expect one side to be blank.

so yeah, it's time for a new flag. i can't stand to look at this one for another second. maybe we can just use that first one. remember that one? the "Don't Tread On Me" flag? looked like the Metallica Black Album cover? much much better. dude. it can't be denied. our flag is awful. Russia's with the hammers? very cool. even Japan's is better and that's just the bouncing red dot from Karaoke videos and that tampon commercial. and you know what Mexico's flag has on it? a three-armed Johnny Depp. how can we compete with that?

i am working on a new flag for us right now. all green, and in the middle, a fist squeezing a big-ass 8-ball. or better yet! it could be like a stack of flags, so when the wind blew em they created one of those stick-figure flip cartoons. the images would, of course, be like all the flip cartoons you drew in your library books and hymnals, a violent little morality tale with falling rocks or explosions or masturbating dinosaurs that reminded us how dangerous the world can be.

::: david - 11:33 PM [+] :::
...

"One problem about relating things in the first person - the reader knows the narrator doesn't get killed."
- Boy's Life - Robert McCammon

what the hell was i going to say when i sat down here? i swear i had something important but Porky's was on TV and they were tearing down the bar and i turn back around to the blank screen and now i forgot.

oh well. time to ramble. okay, here's an annotation to my "why i write" post. my mom read it and had some corrections. she said that she didn't remember them putting me in a desk in the hallway to draw a clown but she did remember them talking me (and some other children) to the parking lot (?) to sit down in front of the car of our choice and draw the front end. that's even stranger than my version. she said that the animals i drew on the blackboard had impressed someone because of the correct perspective and sizes of the animals in the background so i was told to draw the front end of the car to see if i could duplicate that same kind of awarness with the perspective. i guess most kids always draw cars from the side and maybe they flounder when the headlights are a just a couple feet from their face. anyway, i remember something about drawing a car. i don't remember the other kids though. still sounds kind of ominous. i mean, who knows what kind of affect that can have on a child. my car chase obsession was one result. what if those other kids are designing crash-test dummies, reading too much J.G. Ballard, collecting Dale Earnhart T-shirts or maybe one of them is the dude in Jackass who stuck the Hot Wheel up his ass. could be a class-action lawsuit in here eh? ("ladies and gentlemen of the jury, watch as my client get an erection as soon as the opening credits of Mad Max begin...") Perspective she said. Makes sense. "Vanishing Point" is at the top of my unreleased DVD want list right now.

speaking of Vanishing Point, road trip to Toledo tommorrow. can anyone suggest some driving music? i'm not leaving until 4 so i'll honestly go get some new music if someone recommends it with some passion.

more Chuck news. just read that the names in "Diary" were chosen from a nationwide contest where people sent him their names to be put in the book so he didn't have to waste time thinking of them. i tend to randomly flip through my copy of "35,000 Baby Names" when i'm stuck. that book still raises an eyebrow when someone notices it on my desk.

saw something very cool on another site. Wood mirrors, trash mirrors and a roomfull of flashbacks. The dude's name is Daniel Rozin and his art projects are cool as hell. he makes a "mirror" out of wood and little servo motors that tilt some wooden tiles to reflect light and create an outline of someone who passes in front of it. it's hard to explain but the video on the site shows how it works. he also does this with hammered pieces of trash, and some silver balls that are pushed in and out of tubes. fascinating stuff. he also has a room where you enter with a flashlight and illuminate different stages of his life. his "flashback" room is a great idea and his explanation...

"everyone knows how to use a flashlight and what to expect of it, and the flashlight in this experience performs as one would expect it to, apart from the fact that the flashlight emits no light"

...is interesting enough to inspire all sorts of fiction. i'm stuck on a project right now actually. i'm currently trying to talk myself into writing my first first-person story. i've always been opposed to writing in the first person for several reasons. some i can't explain. it just always feels wrong, like i'm cheating. like i'm not working hard enough.

now Porky's is over and some dudes are building a dunk-tank out of garbage. what's up? is all the good TV being used up tonight? i'm two for two! i'm going to hit a random button on the remote and see if i don't get the hat trick. ready...

no bullshit. i just clicked on the History channel and the narrator is talking about Nobel inventing dynamite. i've always heard about that ("the Nobel Peace prize is named after the guy who invented what?") but never heard the whole story. i have to watch this. wow. "Porky's," two guys constructing a dunk-tank, and the history of dynamite. TV won't get this good again so i have to give it both eyes and ears right now. they just said that the first bomb was dropped during a demonstration from a Wright brother's airplane. it's as if planes and bombs were squeezed out of the same womb, connected forever. it's like the mechanical fly Fishfry was talking about. you just know it flew into a metal spiderweb.

also, in honor of her Private Hell that she just posted, here's a little joke i've always liked:

dude goes to hell and he's getting the tour by a demon. the demon opens a room and inside are a bunch of sinners standing waist deep in shit. the new guy is thinking, "that's nasty, but i really thought it would be worse..."
then the demon whistles and yells, "Okay, breaks over! Everyone back on your heads!"

::: david - 10:30 PM [+] :::
...

"Your ass is just the other end of your mouth."
-"Guts"

"Did anyone out there feel sick? Fuck yeah!"
-Chuck Palahniuk (after reading "Guts" at U of Pitt)

"I need that like I need teeth in my asshole."
-more "Guts"


okay, this was an interesting evening. check this out. and to build suspense early, let me reveal that the climax of this story involves piss, shit, blood and bees:

so i went to the Chuck Palahniuk's reading at the University of Pittsburgh last night and i saw some things i hadn't seen before at one of these things. actually i saw some things that would be rare anywhere in the world, not just in a college auditorium.

i got there on time even though i'm still a stranger in a strange land. this was thanks to my navigator, i'll call her "B," who works with me at my new job and used to attend Pitt and gave me a quick "this was my life" tour of the campus and the city. dude. anyone ever been inside Pitt's Cathedral of Learning before? incredible. the classrooms have these crazy carved wooden desks and tables and thrones and even the students' chairs had dog's heads (!) carved into them. those rooms are amazing to look at and i'm thinking i could (to quote Chris Rock here) "get my learn on!" in a place like that. but yeah, we got there on time, and that's rare as fuck with me, and we walked in the doors of the Alumni Hall right past the table where a real live Chuck was autographing some of his tiny little books. i glanced at him quick, only seeing a Cheshire Cat flash of teeth as he smiled for a picture with a student and we hurried inside to make sure there were seats left. first, we found a good spot on the floor, but then saw there was a balcony and decided to try our luck up there. this was a good move and i'll explain why in a minute. up in the balcony we killed some time people watching, and there was a good angle of Chuck from where we were sitting. he was framed in the doorway and i don't think i would have noticed if the girl to my left wasn't text-messaging a description of him into her phone. my version: crisp white shirt, sunburn, toothy grin. reminded me of Christian Bale in American Psycho.

so eventually he takes the stage, crowd goes wild, and he tells some anecdotes about his family. then he whips out his story. he mutters an apology (?) about what's to come and people are a little confused at that. until the story starts.

the less i say about his short story "Guts" the better. i think you people should read it, if only because it's got to be some kind of milestone in literature, partly because of readings like Tuesday night. if anyone wants to read it, he said it would be in the February issue of Playboy so there you go. however, there's no way it's going to have the same impact on the page that it did out loud, in a twitchy sweaty room full of college kids.

the story sort of starts out like a darker version of "Jackass," (and i'm thinking he's got to be a fan of Steve-O and the boys) he talks about greasing carrots and jamming them up his ass, he talks of hideous infections caused by candlewax chunks inserted into urethras, he talks about embarrassing moments during the most creative masterbation incidents he can think of. he talks about the horror of getting caught and, at first, it's like Marquis De Sade meets Judy Blume. then things escalate fast.

and this is where my tour guide "B" bails out on the reading. she nudges me and says she'll meet me outside after it's over. are you serious? i ask her. afraid she is. for a flash i'm disappointed and slightly irritated that anybody's WORDS could be affecting her like that. frowning i turn back to the reading and lean forward as it approaches it's morbid climax. here's a teaser: it involves prolapsed intestines and a boy's attempt to chew through them. it's fucking nasty and funny and that's when i hear this thud! behind me in the balcony.

i turn and see some girl drop down and i figure she just sat down hard. i turn back to the show.

then comes the second THUD. louder this time and i have a perfect view of this particular girl keeling over right by the rail. at first i thought it was going to turn into some flash-mob hijinx but it was real. not really a "scene" though. just the concerned friends of these two girls whispering and pushing their way down the stairs for help, the words "I'll pay you five bucks for your bottle of water!" is audible, some heads turn. and then the security guards are pushing their way back up the stairs. it was over fast and only a couple rows by me in the balcony saw what had happened.

then he's finished and Chuck's thanking everyone for "enduring" his new story and suddenly, as if remembering a good joke, he gleefully asks, "anyone get dizzy? anyone pass out?" people in the balcony start yelling excitedly and pointing around where those two girls dropped and now Chuck's almost hopping up and down. "how many! how many!" he yells up at us. "Two!" someone answers.

Chuck's pumps both arms up high, fists in the air like he just sank a basketball at the buzzer.
"Fuck YEAH!" he yells. "Sweet! That makes a grand total of TWENTY EIGHT!!!"

he goes on to explain that people passing out has been a problem with this story for his entire book tour, and that his publishers have asked him to please stop reading it. and that someone puked all over themselves at the last one and started screaming, and that this, sadly, will be the last reading of "Guts" in public. apparently 28 was the number he was shooting for. must mean something to him. how old is anyway? Is he twenty-eight?

so yeah. Chuck knocked some people the fuck OUT. i can't deny what he did. and i wouldn't have believed it if i hadn't have seen it happen right next to me with my own eyes. and while the story was picking up momentum to it's grusome last page, and i watched people turning their heads as if it protected them from it, squinting and hiking their knees up into their laps, i do remember thinking something like "damn. what does it take to gross me out any more? is it even possible?"

i mean, i could recognize that the story was supposed to be disgusting, but i wasn't disgusted by it. does this mean it was wasted on me? have i desensitized myself to the things i love by indulging in too many horror films and splatterpunk novels and goofy shock-rock music? seriously, i might have cauterized those taste buds forever. i felt a little left out when everyone was groaning and giggling and i was thinking "what could he say to make me sick?" he could have pulled out a straw and put one end up his nose and one end in his mouth while he was reading and i would have wanted more. he could have sucked on that straw until his head deflated and i would have shrugged it off and waited for the next trick. and he didn't do any of that. he just had words in his arsenal.

but there was an impact. people swaying and grimacing with the story, nervous laughter to remind themselves it was all just a joke. and the THUDS at the end? his words had power and i felt a little guilty that i might have been angry when "B" sneaked out because apparently she wasn't the only one that was smelling and tasting and touching that story. i just thought it was funny. and as an exercise in nastiness, a complete success. hell, i'll even admit that there was a point to it all. something about how someone would rather their son really was suicidal, rather than just fucking up and killing himself by trying to hold his breath while he jerked off. and some of the lines in that story were instant classics. still, if that piece of wetwork couldn't make me sick, nothing can.

nothing? i really don't think it can be done. i honestly don't think there's any words in any language that could have a physical effect on me. nothing i could see or hear either. smell and taste yes, that could make me sick. touch? maybe. i know that i flinch as if i smell something that isn't there when i have to retrive anything from a toilet or garbage disposal so maybe touch. but words? images? sounds? nope. can't be done.

in case no one understands, i'm throwing down the fucking gauntlet here. please. can anyone out there make me sick?

okay, i'll admit the one thing i saw on a page that did have a physical affect on me. i was doing my lifeguard training and we were going over the manual and it showed where to tie off the arteries on different parts of the body for different wounds. and in the book were black and white drawings of little dudes with gashes and holes on their heads and legs and arms and, even though the drawings of the people were crude, the injuries were detailed as hell. and bright red blood spurting out of them. the only color on page after page after page was bright fire-engine red. and i stopped listening to the instructor and kept turning pages until i was into the next week of reading. finding the nastiest sketches and staring until everything got a little fuzzy.

i still don't think i would have passed out, and if you stare at anything long enough it will fade away, even if it's just a toenail, so who knows what would have happened if i hadn't blinked. what's my point. i don't know. maybe i'm saying that the Lifeguard manual is more effective than Chuck's fiction. no, i will admit that his story was impressive. however, i do think that the Lifeguard manual was longer than any book this guy has written. seriously. you should have seen all those bushy-tailed college kids clutching those tiny little copies of his books. FUCK ME his books are small. and don't give me that "quality not quantity" shit either. you only keep repeating that phrase because it kinda rhymes. if it don't fit aquit this motherfucker.

oh yeah, get this. when he was done Chuck had a box of goodies that he passed out to anyone who asked him a question. santa hats and cat masks and baby bottles and crowns. it was pretty funny. bless his heart, he made an effort to come up with some decent answers to some stupid questions. some kid asked how long it took to write Fight Club and he said that the idea and the story that became the book (Chapter 6) was conceived in the two hours of downtime he was waiting on truck parts at the garage he worked at. later i told "B" about the toys and stuff after i found her outside and she seemed sorry she missed that part anyway. still, i can't blame her for reacting like she did. tangent - when we were driving downtown and she was pointing out all the places she used to read and eat between classes she said something that i thought had a lot of truth to it. she said that she ends up missing things only after she's moved on and she couldn't believe that she didn't appreciate those days at the time. i could tell she was having a flashback moment and i love being around people when that happens to them. i know her observation is something that should be obvious and we should learn to recognize the good times when they're happening and it's probably on a t-shirt somewhere but still, it's very true and i've felt the same way about every stage of my life; larvae, pupae and imago.

here's my theory though. After the thuds but before handing out the toys, Chuck explained that he'd heard stories about how Charles Dickens used to read a tale of a hanging to crowds and then count how many people fainted and he said he never believed it. (No fucking way!" is what Chuck said) i think this reveals alot about the origins of "Guts." even though he didn't come out and admit it, i'm thinking that this story was really the same experiment. and like Young Frankenstein he was thinking, "IT....COULD....WORK!" i'm thinking that reading was a laboratory type situation. now that i think about it, it was VERY hot in there. i'd like to know if someone was messing with some climate control.

if i'd have heard someone whisper "When he scratches his nose, release the bees!" then i'd be real suspicious right now.

okay, morals of the story:

1.) Chuck E. Cheese tore it up. i'm bright green and jealous again so i'll get lots 'o writing done this week.

2.) nothing can make me sick unless i smell it, squeeze it or put in in my mouth.

3.) gotta have three. uhhh. okay. my books are bigger than his. my dick too.

4.) okay, one for the road. this a lesson that i learned after watching an old western the other day:

the saying, "that's no way to treat a white man!" is a phrase that gets a different reaction today than it did in the 60's.

::: david - 6:54 PM [+] :::
...

"We're getting the band back together."
-The Blues Brothers

"They called us the Oreo guitar section..."
-The Funk Brothers (from the movie Standing In The Shadow Of Motown)



it's true. no bullshit. after 5 long years, after studio tantrums that left more than one of us singing through a nosebleed, after self-distructing and being scattered to the far corners of the globe (or, at least, northwest Ohio), the three members of the funkiest band this side of 70s is getting back together. originally formed on a whim in the back room of a small independent bookstore in Toledo Ohio in 1999, "The Bucketmen" took the Midwest by storm. With Matt "Diamond Dog" Desmond on bass and vocals, me ("Papa Wah-Wah") on fretless bass, spoons and harmonies & Tom "Professor Gentle" (aka "Rated PG") Gilmore on double-bass (and recently bongos), we turned the town into a smokin' red-hot funk inferno, not unlike the paint-job Clint Eastwood administered to a town called "Hell" in High Plains Drifter.

To get some idea of the Bucktmen sound, put on Prince's Black Album, the soundtrack to Across 110th Street, The Commodores "Brickhouse" and Rush's concept album, 2112 and play them at the same time. now take a speaker and stick it down the front of your shorts. Then an ice cube down the back. did you do that? you're halfway there.

now it's time for the comeback you never thought would happen. After only two summers of road gigs and open-mic nights, the most damage done in a two week slash-and-burn bar-hopping rampage that earned the headline, "Not Since Sherman's March To The Sea..." in one of the local music zines, we left a cult following in our wake that still keeps the homefires burning to this day. Well my people, your prayers and crossed fingers paid off. Inspired by the crippling blow dealt to the music world with the rapid-fire deaths of Warren Zevon, Johnny Cash and John Ritter, we've decided it's our duty to carry the torch until it burns our white fingers black.

What was initially simply going to be my road trip back to T-town for the premiere of "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" has snowballed into an event rivalling the Eagles "Hell Freezes Over" tour. The Bucketmen will play a week long series of guerrilla shows and tail-gate parties until a final Saturday night unvieling of the lost "Funk Odyssey" songs on the shores of Lake Erie. If anyone wants their perception of white-boy funk forever altered, stop on by.

Directions: just head for Crane Creek beach (off Route 2, email me for a detailed map) until you see the lighthouse in the distance. then tip your head slightly to the left for maximum reception and follow those low bass-slapping sounds to the source of the funk! the funk is your guide. the funk is your beacon.

the funk is like A Balloon On The Mailbox Of The Last Birthday Party At The End Of The World. see you there funky junkies!

p.s. bonus! for the fans! Here's the complete catalog of Bucketmen recordings (and the songwriter who had the muse dancin' on his head that day). pick any six for a create-your-own CD experience. i'll burn you one for 5 bucks each. I know, six songs don't sound like much but keep in mind these tunes average about eight to eighteen minutes. and an eight layin' on it's side is infinity baby! hey, i just wrote another song! oh yeah, if you downloaded some of our old Buckeyboys or Bucketbabies demos already that's fine. just remember our bootlegs will sound like shit cause funk doesn't stick to the tape when you're dancin'!

====================

The Bucketmen!
(aka The Bucketboys formally The Bucketbabies)

-with Matt "Diamond Dog" Desmond on bass & vocals, Dave "Papa Wah-Wah" Keaton on fretless bass, spoons & vocals & Tom "Professor Gentle" (aka "Rated PG") Gilmore on double-bass and bongos. sound like a lot of bass? it is.

The Songs:

"If God Made Something Better Than Funk, He's Keeping It For Himself" - dd

"One Must Suffer For The Funk" - pg

"Funkaholics Anonymous (The First Step Is Admitting That You're Funky)" - pww

"Millenium Funk (Y 2 Crazy!) - pww

"If The Funk Did Not Exist, It Would Be Necessary To Invent It" - dd

"Not Too Funky To Whip Yo Ass" - pww

"We've Traced the Funk, And It's Coming From INSIDE The House!" - pww

"Eco-Funk (Save The Wah-Wah)" - pww

"If Being Funky Is Wrong (I Don't Want To Be Right)" - pww

"(C'mon C'mon) Let's Get This Party Started (Yeah, Yeah)" - dd

"Funk Shui (This Room Ain't Funky Enough)" - pww

"If You Give To the Funk, The Funk Will Give Back Double" - pg

"This Is The House That Funk Built" - pww

"Funk Odyssey: Chapter One" - pg

"Hidden Funk Song (Are You Crazy? Funk Can't Hide!)" - pww

"So Funky Our Mom Hates Us" - dd

"Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Crazy Nights" - dd

"Funk Doctor (When Did You First Notice These Symptoms?)" - pww

"We Know The Funk Like The Back Of Your Ass" - pww

"Who Wrote The Book of Funk? (Philosophical Mix)" - pg

"Cop Killers (Can Be Funky Too)" - pww

"What Is Funk? This is Funk...Times 3! (For The Ladies)" - pg

"What's That Guy Doing!?! (He's Crazy!)" - dd

"Funk Paradox (If I Weren't So Funky I'd Die, and If I Died I'd Still Be Funky)" - pww

"In A Crazy Mixed Up World (Funk = Sanity)" - pww

"If That Band's Funk Then I Quit" - pg

"Existential Funk (Because We Can)" - pww

"We Don't Need You're Stupid Rules (Man)" - dd

"Skoool Zone (Slow It Down For The Children)" - pww

"Phat Phunksploitation" - pww

"Whip It Up For The D-D-Double Funk" - pg

"Existential Funk II (Because It's There) - pww

"Love Theme From Deliverance (Wah-Wah/Bass-Slappin' Duel)" - pww/pg

"U.F.O. (Unidentified Funky Object)” - pww

"The Good, The Bad, and the Funky" - pww

"You Not Crazy (We Crazy!)" - pg

“U.F.O. II: Car Stereo Gone Crazy! (Funk Abduction)" - pg

"Triple Funk Is For Fags (Don't Be One)" - pww

"Double Funk Till I Die" - pww

“U.F.O. III: Midnight Probe (Finding The Source of the Funk)” - pww

"Who's Crazy? (We Are, Thank You)" - pg

"My Wah-Wah Peddle Is Broken (The Day I Die)" - pww

"Funky Junkie Halfway House" - pww

"Existential Funk III (Because You Can't) - pww

"Octa-Funk? (Not In My Lifetime)" - pww


-epilogue: for collectors, obsessives and completists only:


bonus tracks, hidden songs and live workouts
(previously unreleased):


"Yeah, We're Funky, But We Gotta Eat"
- pww (hidden song off "Double Funk = Twice The VanDamage!")

"Funk Means Different Things To Different People (But It Shouldn't)
- pg - (live bootleg/2001 Ohio State Fair)

"Funk Vampire (The Funk Can't Come Inside Unless You Invite It)"
- pww - (digitally remastered, sort of, from the lost "Funk Odyssey (Funk Will Find Its Way Home)" recordings)

::: david - 8:02 PM [+] :::
...

"You know that there picture? Could you draw another one? You know what i truly like is lions. but not no lion in a jungle, a lion in a castle."

"I think i see what you're getting at, he's like an archetype of certain male aggressive power-"

"Huh? Now i don' t want a picture of the lion fucking her but the lion could fuck her if he wanted to..."

-Stephen Hunter Dirty White Boys



Why i Drew/Why i Wrote/Why i Write:


When i was about seven i started drawing. i was doodling before that, but eight was about the age when you could identify some things, when eyes started popping up in the middle of the squiggles. In third grade, i drew a bunch of animals all over the blackboard and when the teacher saw what i’d done, she brought other teachers into the room and they all stood there wide-eyed and staring. Then a couple of days later, this teacher took me out of the classroom and there were these men i'd never seen before. They had a desk set up right there in the hallway (i seem to remember it being in the middle of the hallway, but i'm probably wrong) and they handed me some crayons and a piece of paper and said, "draw someting." i got all freaked out and wouldn't do it. Mostly because i assumed that the desk, alone there in the middle of the hallway, would be mine from now on.

i'm not sure what happened afterwards (the whole scene was probably just other teachers trying to encourage me or something, but i was a dramatic kid and it all seemed very sinister back then) although i remember being kind of a celebrity among the teachers in my small school after that. i drew things for other kids, i came up with variations on those games you played by flicking your pencil, i drew a series of comics called "Galactic Grapes" and the "Bionic Banana" fighting villains like the "Treacherous Tomato" or the "Wicked Watermelon," or (gasp!) even themselves (when the grapes were outside too long they became "Retched Raisins") and i even managed to trade some of these homemade comics for some lunch money. Eventually, through a special program, i was able to spend time outside of class using rubber cement, cardboard and some staples putting together a sticky little collection of all these comics. i was back in a desk in the hallway again, alone this time, and now i wanted to stay out there. i had special permission to work on this comic book as long as i wanted and i managed to drag out it’s massive construction for weeks.

My parents started to encourage me too, buying me various art supplies and books on drawing. Then my mom took me to my great-grandmother, who was herself an artist, making some extra money painting animals and landscapes, to see what she thought of my skills. She put me down in front of some canvas (where’s the paper? i thought), handed me a piece of charcoal (where the pencil?) and gave me a picture of a lion to sketch (what does that mean?) and she walked away. i'd never done anything like this before, and i sure didn't understand how you "sketched" with a dusty little stick, but i tried it anyway. i moved in with my nose about one inch from the picture, held the stick all wrong in my fist, and went to work. And after about an hour, i had charcoal all over my hands, up my arms, in my nose, and about half a lion finished on the canvas in front of me. My great-grandma came in (my mom was still outside, trimming grandma's hedges or something i think) and she looked at what i'd done, making suggestions, showing me how to hold the stick, showing me how to turn the stick, how to rub and smear the picture into a more realistic lion. And in the process, she drew the ear and nostril onto the other half of my picture. Then she went outside again and in another hour i was done. My mom came back with her and they were stunned and proud and going on and on at how good that lion looked. i wasn't so sure. Then my mom took it to downtown Toledo and stuck it in some kind of art show sponsored by my dad’s job. i saw it down there and noticed they’d fucked up the title card, calling it "lion and charcoal" instead of "lion in charcoal.” Nobody bought it and eventually it ended up on the wall in our house.

i drew a lot of things in the next couple years, and i won a bunch of art shows at school up against clay bird nests and construction paper trains and glitter turkeys 'n shit. Still, most of the stuff i drew were spaceships and monsters. And everything i drew had to be something i was looking at (i never could draw anything from memory). i would start out with something off a book cover, then i'd draw something else off another book cover, then i would try to make them fight. But it never looked right, the monsters were posing for the cover, not doing battle, so when i forced guns and chainsaws and swords into their hands, they were facing the wrong way. And their arms looked like they wanted to do anything but fight. Can you believe it? Monsters that wouldn't fight?

Everyone was still all impressed, teachers wanted me to draw things on their blackboards (but i never could do that again, because there was nothing to look at up there but a black wall; i'm still not sure how i did it that first time) and the ribbons stacked up for a while. Then i realized i wasn't that good at it after all. i would look at that damn lion that i'd sketched years ago and all i could see was the ear and the nostril that my great-grandma had done on her side of its face. Her lion ear and lion nostril were so good, that i wanted to crack the glass and bury it somewhere (did i mention that my mom spent two hundred 1978 dollars to frame the thing) or sometimes i’d consider cracking it open in order to change my ear and my nostril to match hers. So i stopped drawing. Oh yeah, one more thing, my great-grandma showed me how to sign my name to it, and she put this swirl around the two D's in my signature that looked better than the whole damn picture. it was never really my name that was on it
after that.

i guess i didn't stop drawing all at once though, i just started doodling again instead. No more pictures of squirrels and cats from magazines that looked . . . a lot like the pictures in the magazines. instead i'd draw little scribbles that didn't look like anything at all. And it was real easy to get them to fight. i started making long violent comic strips and passing them around the school. i made some short violent comic strips and stuck them in our shitty Jr. High school newspaper. i did some real nasty ones that only a couple of kids got to see. Then the balloons above their heads got bigger and bigger (seriously, it was just like Crumb's brother in the movie Crumb, except my talk-balloons didn't end up filling the page by the end, squeezing out his cartoons, and i didn't go fucking bonkers and kill myself, when i saw that movie i got a chill) and eventually the story got more important than the drawing. And not just because i knew that all those cartoons i drew without looking at anything . . . didn't look like anything. i started to write some stories without any drawing at all, but they were like the real nasty cartoons i'd done, and the shitty little newspaper wouldn't print them (violent cartoons OK, violent storiesnot OK).

i remember two of those early stories very well. One was called On The Beach and it was about these giant sandcrabs that killed people on the beach under the shadow of the Davis Besse Nuclear Power Plant. My dad worked there whenever they did their refueling.

And the first story i wrote was about these special spiders that injected eggs into the bottoms of your feet when you stomped on them. Of course, who the hell would stomp on a spider with bare feet? Guess what the story was called? That’s right. Even though is was more like a spider sting than a spider bite.

i started getting into this writing thing after that story. i started a book in high school called The Justice Cycle about some vigilante kid killing someone with a post-hole digger (my dad was building a new deck on our house at the time) and it seemed like i could do anything i wanted in these stories. There was nobody i knew around that had any interest in it, so it seemed like i was the best again. i would look at other artwork and know that they had more skill than me, but when i read other people stuff (even though i was young and arrogant and not ready to admit that i wasn't understanding quite a bit of what i was reading) i would think, "fuck this shit, i can do this, why aren't they fighting? why aren’t they arguing?" and i'd think, "this sucks! why did he do that? why didn't he do that? why didn't she hit him?” Seemed like the only writing that i’d admit was good was when Tom Sawyer ran away and pretended he was dead so he could go to his own funeral. I was upset i didn’t think of that first.

So i'd write stories where everyone would do what i wanted them to do. everything they stopped just short of doing in books and movies. i guess it's as simple as that, i started writing because i wanted characters in other books and stories to do what i wanted them to do. i wanted that punch, revenge, or spit in the face. i wanted to write what i wanted to read. Still liked writing about spiders though. sometimes flies. sometimes both. And i never looked at anything i wrote and saw an ear or a nostril that i didn't do. An ear and a nostril that i knew would always be better than mine.

Once, i called attention to that lion's ear (the nostrils were harder to tell apart, and by then it seemed more symbolic or something if i just dwelled on one thing instead of two). it was a couple years ago when i finally pointed it out on a day when my mom was moving the lion to the end of the hall. i said "you know, when you were outside that day, i did that ear and grandma did that ear." Like it was some big fucking confession or something. She just did what moms do, she said, "Oh, well i like your ear better." Liar. Later i got into watching movies, and my stories turned from things i wanted to read, into things i wanted to see. Not sure what's next. Maybe i'll grow out of wanting to see them fight. Haven't yet though.

::: david - 9:44 PM [+] :::
...

"My shit's fucked up? i don't see how.
You see, the shit that used to work?
It don't work now..."

-Warren Zevon 1947-2003


He died Sunday and i didn't hear about it until this afternoon. i've been listening to him since Jr. High, got all of his albums except The Envoy (impossible to find) and Stand In The Fire (a concert record that isn't half as good as Learning To Flinch) his new album, The Wind, i haven't cracked open yet. not ready for it. Warren Zevon and Nick Cave and Tom Waits are my big three, my triple threat, my hat trick. it's all about the lyrics for me and these guys are the kings.

so this is bad news. other people can talk about his life and his legacy and i'll just quote some lines from his songs that i can remember. words from songs that my life has attached meaning too. maybe later i'll go through and say where and why. so here you go. it'll be just a taste, whatever i can remember without stopping my fingers. if they're wrong, that's too bad cause that's how i remember them. it's not like he's going to correct me:

---------

"Buddy's real talent was beating people up, his heart wasn't in it but the crowd ate it up, from pee-wees n' juniors 'n midgets 'n mites, he must have racked up about 600 fights..."
-The Hockey Song (a bootleg until...)

"She's so many women, but he can't find the one who was his friend. and he's hanging on to half her heart cause he can't have the restless part..."
-Hasten Down the Wind

"You said you were an actress, yes i believe you are..."
-The French Inhaler

"Blood on my hands and my hands in the till, down at the 7-11...we contemplate eternity under the vast indifference of heaven..."
-The Vast Indifference of Heaven

"I can saw a woman in two. Just don't look in the box when i'm through..."
-For My Next Trick I'll Need A Volunteer

"Well, he's dreaming about an intruder or two, and the promise of burglar blood. He's yearning to chew on a gangster tattoo and to hear the proverbial sickening thud. If you come calling he'll be mauling with intent to main...don't knock on my door if you don't know my Rottweiler's name..."
-Rottweiler Blues

"You didn't want her hanging around...so you drove off and left her there...because..."
-You're A Whole Different Person When You're Scared

"He took little Suzy to the Junior Prom, and he raped her and killed her when he took her home, excitable boy they all said..."
-Excitable Boy

"Patty Hearst. . .heard the burst. . .of Roland's thompson gun. . .and bought it."
-Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner

"They say love conquers all, you can't start it like a car, you can't stop it with a gun..."
-Searching For A Heart

"When the light came up i caught a glimpse of you, and your face looked like something death brought with him in a suitcase...another pretty face...looked so wasted..."
-The French Inhaler

"She don't have time for love, can't she see i'm burning up, burning down, burning out. She only sleeps on planes..."
-Suzie Lightning

"Better stay away from him, he'll rip your lungs out Jim!"
-Werewolves of London

"Well i met a girl in West Hollywood and i ain't namin' names, she really worked me over good she was just like Jesse James...these young girls won't let me be..."
-Poor Poor Pitiful Me

"Saturday night i'd like to raise a little harm, i'll sleep when i'm dead..."
-I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

"Don't the sun look angry through the trees, don't the trees look like crucified thieves."
-Desperados Under The Eaves

-"Took a little vacation! Spent it down Root Canal!"
-Ain't That Pretty At All

"When the sky is gray, the way it was today, i remember the times i was happy..."
-The Vast Indifference of Heaven

"With their fingers on their triggers, knee deep in gore..."
-Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner

"After ten long years they let him out of the hole, and he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones, excitable boy they all said."
-Excitable Boy

"...twenty seconds left and the puck took a roll and suddenly Buddy had a shot on goal, the goalie committed and he picked his spot, twenty years of waiting went into that shot. Buddy jumped up and the Fin did too. and cold-cocked Buddy on his followthrough..."
-The Hockey Song

"We made mad love, shadow love, random love and abandoned love..."
-Accidentally Like A Martyr

"I went home with a waitress, the way i always do. how was i to know, she was with the Russians too..."
-Lawyers, Guns and Money

"Big gorilla at the L.A. zoo snatched the glasses right off my face, took the keys to my BMW and left me here to take his place..."
-Gorilla You're A Desperado

"Grandpa pissed his pants again, he don't give a damn, brother Billy's got both guns drawn, he ain't been right since Vietnam..."
-Play It All Night Long

"The night was cold and rainy down by the borderline, i was riding out to meet her, when a shot rang out behind. as i lay there in the darkness with a pistol by my side, Jeanie and her father rode off into the night."
-Jeanie Needs A Shooter

"I called up my friend Jerry on the phone, i said i'm afraid to be alone, cause i got some weird ideas in my head...about things to do in denver when you're dead..."
-Things To Do In Denver When You're Dead

"When they asked who was responsible for the death of Du Ku Kim, he said someone should have stopped the fight, told me it was him. they made hypocrite judgements after the fact but the name of the game is get hit and hit back."
-Boom Boom Mancini

"How are you going to make your way in the world when you weren't cut out for working and you just can't concentrate...and you always show up late..."
-The French Inhaler

"I'm going down to the Dew Drop Inn to see if i can drink enough, there ain't much to country livin', just sweat, piss, jeers and blood..."
-Play It All Night Long

"First words i ever heard were, 'Nobody move and nobody gets hurt...'"
-The Long Arm of the Law.

"I'm very well aquainted with the seven deadly sins, i keep a busy schedule trying to fit them in...i'm proud to be a glutton and i don't have time for sloth, i'm greedy and i'm angry and i don't care who i cross..."
-Mr. Bad Example

"I met a girl at the Rainbow Inn, she asked me if i'd beat her...i don't want to talk about it..."
-Poor Poor Pitiful Me

"I got a .38 Special up on the shelf...if i start acting stupid i'll shoot my self..."
-I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

"Still waking up in the morning with shaking hands, and i'm still trying to find a girl who understands me..."
-Desperados Under The Eaves

"...the big man crumbled but he felt alright, 'cause the last thing he saw was that flashing red light."
-The Hockey Song (finally released in 2001)

---------

thanks for the old shit. i'll miss the new shit, brother.

::: david - 8:30 PM [+] :::
...

"Don't everybody like the smell of gasoline?"
-Outkast

last night i ate swordfish for dinner. up until then, i always thought punks tried to catch swordfish so they could mount them on their wall and pretend they wrestled something dangerous like a shark. you know, cause it's big and blue and could stab someone. but do they stab anything? maybe if it was shot out of a cannon. point is, i now have a better reason to hate anyone who would waste a swordfish by hanging it over a fireplace. cause they taste freaking great. i love seafood anyway but this shit was goooood. hey, i wonder how seafood tastes underwater? is that how it was meant to be eaten? i'll try that next time i go swimming. i might never come back.

speaking of seafood, there was an interesting debate over at fishfry about blogging and narcissism and i'm sorry i missed it. so here's my two cents. of course i'm commenting after everyone took the football and went home but oh well. i miss the boat like that sometimes (i also just bought a cd by this new guy called 50 Cent. i think i'm the first! two cents, fifty cent. funny how the mind works) anyway:

right now in my life my conversations on the internet are more thoughful and conducive to creativity than all my conversations out in the world. partly that's because i moved, but i've also heard from others that i'm hard to approach and maybe some of you are too. so i'm thinking Timer's right about how conversations with friends are more rewarding offline, however i believe that quality conversations with strangers offline (at least for me) are as rare as a good horror movie.

course this begs the question: what defines "strangers" and how long do online friendships/correspondences last? i mean, i had some childhood friends that i laughed, cried, bled and learned to ride bikes with and i can't even remember what their faces looked like now. are online correspondences eventually replaced with flesh and bone and forgotten? do people keep these dialogues up until they find a real live doppleganger to take the place of what drew them to certain online opinions and websites? and speaking of learning-to-ride-a-bike: are these blogs just "training wheels" between changes in your life? a friend of mine commented about how much i was typing on the website since i moved and he said that he did the same thing when he moved to Chicago because "i didn't know anyone either," and that made me stop and think, is that really why i'm doing it? do circles of blogs slowly deflate and drift apart and run out of gas too, just like those boys and girls with whom you built forts and built rockets and played with fire (the smell of gas still reminds me of one kid in particular) and kept secrets that you swore you'd take to your grave? is that the problem with these things? no secrets? are secrets what make friendships 3-D? or is it something in the eyes and the face when you're having a real conversation that the blog lacks? they say you're eyes increase in size and dialate to react to those conversations signalling physical changes in the other person as well. is it just physical then? i'm new to the blogging thing so someone tell me, how long until you run out of gas, especially if you can't smell it?

and what exactly was in that gas tank?

::: david - 3:34 PM [+] :::
...

"as you know, the id wasn't meant to be starved."
-Deadsy

check out spiderfrog! he can hop miles at a time. kids take note: all it took was a couple generations of pesticides to create a tiny little superhero!

the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writer's Series is bringing Fight Club boy Chuck Palahniuk to town on the 16th. i think i'll go listen to him to see what kind of voice he's got. on the page he sounds like an angry young man but in person you never know, he might have a Mike Tyson voice or something. it's dangerous to listen to an author speak, as i learned when i listened to the audiobook of Stephen King's "Drawing of the Three" when i drove from Toledo to New York.
with Chuck we'll have to see. also Rick Moody's coming here. i heard him read at Bowling Green once. he was good. James Patterson's coming too, who i don't read, but i'm glad to see a genre writer mixed in with the usual "literary" bunch.

speaking of, i was in a book store looking for books by George Pelecanos and i saw King Suckerman with (say it ain't so!) a new cover. the cover on the shelf is all brown and stately and serious and could be mistaken for fucking Arthur Conan Doyle. the one i got? Bright key lime green, we're talkin' radiation green, pink lettering, and a picture of a kid sporting two essentials: a gun and a giant afro. who are they kidding with that new cover? you got to judge a book by it's cover, you know? even the blurbs reveal the new ambitions. the new blurb: "those in the know read Pelecanos" the old blurb: "Jive, juice and a whole lotta justice!" god DAMN i hate when you can see the fucking strings.

anyway, at least i got a book reading event to go to. i need reasons to get into the city. exploring has stopped lately with this job.

and Chuck? dude. what's up with these tiny fucking books you keep writing? i was worried i wouldn't get your new book "Diary" read by the day of the reading since i haven't bought it yet and i pick it up the other day and it's so small i thought it was a road map. i'm thinking, hmmm is this tiny thing actually like a treasure map to the book "Diary?" is it like an interactive thing? do i have to dig it up, or find it hidden under a bed like a real diary? nope. cracked it open and apparently it IS the book. huge margins, short chapters, lots of white space. i don't want to sound green again here but dude, i wrote more than that yesterday between push-ups. as a matter of fact, i had to stop writing because i was buried under a pile of papers like The Cask of Amontillado. i had to draw a map to find my way out. maybe i should have tried to get the map published like you did.

the Pittsburgh paper calls him "a daring young new voice in fiction." he's good but hey, what about me? i probably started typing around the same time as him...hell, maybe even the same day. but he gets to be the young new voice? why can't there be two. it's like the wheel. you know that a shitload of people invented the wheel all over the world that never met. that's why you don't hear about the inventor of the wheel, there were too many cavemen riding around on unicycles to pin it down. it's the same with the "young new voice." it's happening everywhere. you need four wheels to make a car, so there's at least four of us! pubilish my shit! I'll cut your grass! I'll snake your toilet!

sorry about that. hard to keep the envy in check. added a new link over there on the left - As Above - a site originally found by Occult boy that turned out to be sweet. he put a zombie infection simulator on there and a tabloid (home of the Bat Boy!) decided to use it for a story ("Scientists Have Created a Computer Model of Zombies Infecting Humans!" he's the "scientists") since it was a slow news week. apparently not a slow news week at Fox however, my friend Mark alerted me to this warning. he said he saw it on Fox but i found it at the home of the Bat Boy, where all good things come from. also it looks like another alien was arrested for D.U.I.
and that's not an illegal alien, Hudson.

midnight epilogue: just read Diary. i hate to say this (mumbling, eyes darting around, nervously scratching at a stain on my shirt) but that book is pretty goddamn good. Chuck's description of the muscles of the mouth (especially the "sneer muscle") to open the book was excellent. of course, i did a 5-senses-in-the-car (smell a skunk but don't see it, hear a crash but don't see it, etc.) opener for my story "Ride" about a week ago. i'm just sayin'... and the first chapter of my book is, no bullshit, longer than Diary. i know it says 240 pages but if you eliminate all the white noise between those one page chapters and big type and big margins you'd get about 150 tops. that's a story, not a novel. i know i know, can't i just admit the fucker wrote a good book? yes. i admit it. he did. he's good. he's got skillz to pay the billz and right now i don't.

the jealousy is burning so hot as i type this that anyone reading it later should be able to put their hands to the screen and still feel the heat coming off the glass.

::: david - 12:42 PM [+] :::
...

"Dying to cheat! Can't cheat! Can't wait to cheat! Can't cheat!"
-Chris Rock

who's the mofo who finished The Thing for PS2? me! that's who! i was tempted to jump on some cheat websites for the answers when it didn't seem like the game would end. i was so close to looking up the codes. Dying to cheat! but i didn't. i valued my relationship with that game too much to cheat. and i finally finished it. at the end a grizzly little computer game Kurt Russel shows up with a sideways cowboy hat on, just like in the movie ("you really want to save those crazy Swedes?") and he flies me off into the snowstorm. *sniff* i heard on the commentary to the movie The Thing that the crew put that cowboy hat on Russell as a gag and he went with it. MacReady was the man. the kind of man that wouldn't appove of this videogame, if his poor-sportmanship displayed in the opening chess match of that movie is any indication. of course, he didn't cheat! he'd already lost. shit. now i need a new game to play.

hey! speaking of cheating!

friend of mine, we'll call him "J," met a girl back in Toledo years ago, we'll call her "K," and i never really liked her. something about the way she transformed herself in what J seemed to want, even though the pictures all around her (soon to be "their") apartment told another story. and she kinda blamed me for every irresponsible thing J did, even though my girlfriend at the time blamed him for every stupid thing i did. the truth lied somewhere in the middle. well, he dumps her once, then gets back with her cause he's bored and used to having her around. then she sees him slipping away again and decides that they need to move to Colorado...oops. i forgot the names have been changed. i mean, they need to move to "another state." so i stopped by while they were packing up and unknown to me J had gone out the back door down to the dumpster and she buzzed me up thinking i was him coming back in from taking out the trash and there she was with spread-eagle on the floor with her own foot up her...wait, sorry. that didn't happen. no this is 100% true shit so let me back up. she buzzed me up and i come walking in saying "where's J?" and there's boxes everywhere and she looks at me all serious and goes, "he left me again. thanks asshole." and i don't know what to say, thinking she's serious, so i mumble "uhhh. really. sorry to hear about that..." and i start backing out when J comes up the steps and says "what up dude?" and she laughs and says "got ya!" it was kind of funny and i have to give her a little credit for thinking on her feet like that but it illustrates how we felt about each others influence on J and it turns out, that gag was the last time i saw the bitch.

so, recently, J starts calls me up and says he found out she's fucking someone else. After all those years (and moving like 5 times away from everyone he knows) she's got to "find herself." translation: reinvent herself to fit with this new guy. fucking vapid worthless twat. THEN i start hearing about how her new boyfriend is talking shit to J, calling him on the phone and saying he's going to kick his ass etc. and she's apparently in the background laughing and thinking this is funny. funny? cheating on my boy and letting this new cocksucker talk shit because all J's friends are ten states away and they think they're immune??? she thinks that's funny? guess what Kelly? oops. i mean "K," you know what i think is funny? i'll tell you what i think is funny:

awhile back when you thought you guys were doing great, J went out and got something he wasn't getting at home. or maybe he was just sick of the same dead fuck. either way, i got an interesting phone call back then from J and i'm going to transcribe it for her and y'all right now. kids, sisters and moms please cover your ears:

first there's this message on my machine from J all giggling saying, "gotta tell someone about this and i can't use the computer cause she'll see it, when will you be home?"

and i call him back and get him back on the phone and he's all:

"duuuuuuuuuude, got some STRANGE! get this, i'm at work (he works in a bar in a hotel) and there's this girl there for a convention. and i talked to her a little bit and waited on her and we talked about her job as a PR person for a mining company. and i tell her about hiking and being "at one with nature" and ask her about what she thinks about mining diamonds. she says that she thinks it's ridiculous because they can be man-made without seriously damaging the environment but no one ever bothers to do it that way. so dude, i'm all excited because DUDE she works for a mining company and she agrees with me about diamond mining! so i buy her drinks for a couple hours and i notice that she's not leaving. she ends up staying until i get off work and we talked about her job and where i'm from and pretty soon we're back up in her hotel room where i start fucking the shit out of this bitch. she tells me that she hasn't been fucked like that in a long time even though she has a serious boyfriend at home in Canada that she's been with for years. and she's fucking HOT. you ever have someone fuck your dick, up on her feet on top of you like the guy riding the bomb in Dr. Strangelove...

i say, "there was this time-" and he cuts me off.

"but this bitch is going at it dude, you just don't understand..."

at this point i ask him what she looks like.

"she's cute, very curvy but cute (take that for what you will) and while she's working on me...dude. dude. dude. i decide to stick a finger up her ass...

(WARNING! INVADER SECTOR TWELVE! this is where the story takes a turn and becomes high art)

J: "she starts saying 'oh my god, what are you doing?' and i'm cramming my finger right up in there like i'm scratching a stack of lottery tickets and she's like, 'oh GOD, i can't believe that feels that good. it shouldn't, no one has ever done that, i'm embarrassed but that feels GREAT' so i say to her: 'Well, if you think that feels good, you're going to LOVE this...' and i flip her over on her back and DOINK! jam my dick up her ass. she's all squirming around and then gets into it saying the same stuff, 'i can't belive that i like this. this is so embarrassing but i really love this, no one ever did this before...yap yap yap...' and i end up fucking her 'till about four in the morning. and then...."

at this point i ask him where K's at cause he's talking so loud i think he's gonna get busted and he says:

"i don't know, she's inside, who cares. i walked outside with the phone..."

me: "she's home??? right now?!? are you fucking crazy?" he goes:

"don't worry about it. so anyway i'm-" he stops suddenly and i hear his girlfriend saying something in the background and now I'm holding my breath thinking i'm in trouble too. then i hear him saying to her: "hey honey! no i'm sorry. i didn't make food yet...c'mon hon, we'll just go get something. i'm sorry (smooch) i'm sorry, baby..."

the voices are muffled for a moment and i stop to let the phone sag and i look outside my window where a woman is pushing a baby carriage and she pauses to smile at a butterfly fluttering past, and when it stops to land on her finger i smile to myself at the beauty and innocence of the world...then suddenly J is back on the line:

J: "...SO I'M CRACKING THIS ASS FOR HOURS DUDE! it's in-fucking-credible. and when i finally leave, i sneak out thinking i can't have her looking me up or i'll get caught so i don't leave a name or anything. on the way home, i stopped at a gas station to wash my face since it looked like a glazed donut so i could sneak back in the house. but dude. dude. dude. now i've been thinking about her for three days, but when i went back to her room the next night and she was checked out. i called her town and i have the number for the company she works for. i won't call her cause i'm with K and i don't need that kind of bullshit but i just can't stop thinking about it. i mean dude, she's cool. You know why? Think about it. She's a PR person for a mining company and she totally agrees with me about the enviromental distress caused by........" fade out as he excitedly repeats things a few times.

you know what? this shit ties together even better than i thought. now that i think about it, Jerry oops, i mean "J," is looking an awful lot like R.J. MacReady these days. seriously. switch the dynamite with a bong and THIS is what the fucker looks like right now.

i say, "what would Kelly think if she knew. no wait, imagine the boyfriend of this girl you were with. the guy who sent his little princess off to her seminar with a tender kiss at the airport and she comes home fucking REAMED by the Rocky Mountain Ass-Marauder."

and we start cracking up re-enacting their reunion when he discovers his little sweetheart is acting "different" somehow. nothing major. just some little things he starts to notice around the house. like when she brings a beer to him IN HER ASS. or losing the remote control then he finds it IN HER ASS. or there's a trail of dog food on the floor and wait a minute! it's leading TO HER ASS. poor Canadian bastard, but he really should have been taking care of business instead of just watching hockey.

then on the other end of the phone i suddenly i hear K come outside and he's acting like we're talking hockey:

"uhhhhh, Red Wings have stacked that team like Colorado did back in ninety-nine and i think they need to stack some defensemen up against...." and that's pretty much the conversation.

anyway, the story was better when he told it 'cause it was a little scary at the time, her creeping around 'n all. however, now it makes me feel better to relive it when i know he's feeling bad about K fucking around on him. because, you know what? he was actually hurting when she left him and sure, okay, he fucked around but i wasn't talking about HIM cheating. and this isn't a double standard. i'm just friends with him. not her. i'm not here to judge him. i'm not talking about him. i'm talking about that cheating fucking chameleon bitch who took my friend to the other end of the country so he'd stop dumping her worthless ass every two months. fuck her and i hope she reads this because you know what "K?" every one of his friends that you met way back when has already heard this story, and more, from me and i'm even thinking of putting it on Christmas cards and we laugh at you whenever we stop to think about it. and by the way, i'll be in Colorado soon and if i hear a peep from your "new man" playing Prince Valiant and making gutless pussy-ass phone calls to look tough in front of you, or he brings 3 more of his little goombas to talk smack out in jerry's yard...well. i will stop short my snowboarding vacation to stop his fucking clock (warning, Discovery Channel male chest-puffing ritual comin'. Crocodile Hunter voice: "look at the colorful display of plumage!) and there won't be any of that weak-ass phone tag he seems to enjoy so much. it will simply be a beating of fucking biblical proportions. If the Russian in Rocky 4 happened to see what i was doing, he'd stop hitting Apollo Creed and yell, "enough! make me sick! remember glasnost!" and if by some miracle i DO stop punching him in the fucking face for a moment to adjust my balls or have a sandwich or something, i might let J stick a finger in his ass when it's over.

hope you enjoyed that a fraction as much as i did. i know i sometimes censor the anal sex in the pornos that i record to send to my friends to hide under the noses of their girlfriends with stickers like "Runaway Train" covering the actual title. it's more incidental that on purpose, i just tend to fast-forward past that when i'm recording. doen't interest me that much. any anal sex i've attempted was the equivalent of trying to stick my dick under a door Either i inadvertantly censor that stuff or (for a prank) i'll edit scenes from hirstute early 80s porn in with the sheared 'n waxed 2000 porn so when my friends are watching one of these movie all the sudden POW! these chicks seem to grow a giant thatch out of nowhere and ruin their erection. however, if this particular story was a movie? i would have to leave all the ass-action in. something about J's little tale (dare i say, fable?) brings a tear to my eye (and a tear to the ass), it's kind of heartwarming sure. but with a message, too. and if it WAS a movie, i'd already have a name for it:

"Diamond Mining & The Rape Of The Environment"

::: david - 12:52 AM [+] :::
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