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

Saturday, December 30, 2006

"If we don't hurry, you'll get a bad horse."
"All horse are bad."
- "Wolf: A False Memoir," Jim Harrison

"When he's around, nothing adds up!"
- terrible, inappropriate tagline to "The Minus Man"


what up people. anybody left around here? been awhile. couple of holidays i skipped, couple of concerts i missed, couple of people i didn't see. couple relatives are mad at me for it. got my first grades from gradual school. all A's and........one A minus. let me get this out of my system real quick: in spite of this A minus being better than 90% of all my grades up until grad school, it makes me extremely angry. something about that minus is infuriating. i'd rather get a B or a C+ than anything with a minus. the minus is like saying "you didn't quite get what i'm giving you" whereas the C+ would say "i'm adding this little symbol after the letter to show that you're actually better than the fuckup you presented in class." know what i mean? but this class was a head-scratcher anyway. first of all, in this workshop, a bunch of people that got A's without that minus didn't write much of anything. turned in old shit. missed some classes. kissed some ass. sold their soul. what did i do? turned in 60 pages of NEW shit while working on another story and a script outside of class. about 190 pages of workable material in one semester. everyone should have done the exact same thing. i hate to sound like Thom Jones here but, seriously, do they really want to write? at this level they should have fucking stories pouring out of them, but the vast majority of what was turned in had the distinct smell of having been workshopped before. like years ago. like back in high school. see, i can smell that old shit a mile away, dude! who are they kidding. (time out. i love it when my cat shreds my taxes while i'm typing! go ahead you little maniac. didn't need those forms or anything) anyway. i'm writing like a madman, and this is what you should be graded for, not for how well you can pretend to meditate or doodle with crayons. yes, we meditated and doodled with crayons in this graduate-level class. true story. but you know what? when i wasn't making fun of it, i actually worked harder on the crayon nonsense than the people without the minuses, too! teacher would say, "draw how you feel about your writing." (which of course means nothing) and people would draw a bunch of sunrises and stick figures. i drew (no bullshit) the dude across from me with dreadlocks and a highly detailed Spartan helmet (two things he didn't actually have), an exact replica of the class meditating while ten versions of me pulled the fire alarm, a bunch of eggs frying on an architect's drafting table (not sure that that was all about) and, of course, myself crouched under a car wreck collecting gasoline in a cracked frisbee with some post-apocalyptic critter dropping out of the exhaust. and they drew...shit with smiley faces. what the fuck. and when we got more vague instructions like "present something before your particular workshop," (?) i spent a bunch of time carving a goddamn pumpkin with something to symbolize everyone's stories while everyone else...brought in cookies. actually the muted trumpet on that pumpkin was from a tattoo Caroline had, not her story. and, to be honest, i carve a pumpkin every year so i can't really complain about that. but anyway, crayons or no crayons, i was way ahead of that class and that minus still bites my ass. i was going to get all my classmates a copy of the movie "The Minus Man" as a protest, but as a stress-relieving joke it was too expensive.

so i skipped Christmas for the first time this year. i was going to go to Toledo but at the last minute locked myself inside and finished my western. it's done. did i say it was done before? then i lied. i can't be trusted. but i can admit that i lied back then because now i'm telling the truth. i swear that now it's done. i know no one gives a fuck but it i worked hard on this thing. i used this calendar as inspiration and had to get it done before i threw it away. i feel good. 130 pages, which isn't bad since i was trying to keep it down to just 90 pages this time (the first draft of the prison movie cracked 180 making it the worst miniseries ever) by giving all the characters three days to live. because when there's no water, yo, you got a countdown better than any ticking timebomb! so, if you get a chance, it'll be posted Monday. check it out if your bored. pretend you're watching a movie. even if you don't like westerns, it's the western to end all westerns. every myth exploded! every cliché overturned! every payoff delivered! every line crossed that nobody every crosses! horses treated with little or no respect! bible quotes used with and without irony! a hero who hates horses? every single character punished in some way!!! also made a bunch of soundtracks and gave them to some confused friends and coworkers. and i've immediately started on another script! since i'm trying to do every genre of film (and so far i've got a prison movie, a killer-on-the-loose movie, and now a western) i thought i'd tackle.......the buddy-cop movie! i think that'll be fun and easy to do since all through the 80s i probably saw hundreds of movies like that. but anyway, i stocked up on Raviolios and Little Debbies and didn't come out of my apartment for like 30 hours. and that's what you have to do to finish shit sometimes. and bam! finished it. i'm so riled up after finishing it that i can't stop saying the word "finish." i'm so worked up that i want to punch a horse in the mouth right now. so, now i got to catch up on some movies. i picked up a movie channel and watched a bunch of stuff. All bad. "Clerks 2," bad. "Superman Returns," bad. "Domino," bad, although Tow Waits popped up in the desert with busted fingers. "Freedomland," bad. "Underworld Evolution," bad. "Flightplan," so far, so bad. "Brokeback Mountain," average at best and NOT a western as advertised. how the hell is that a western? there's not a single gunfight, hanging, and, most importantly: no fucking villian! without a villain, you're not a western! and, actually, you're barely even a movie. but "Brokeback Mountain" is just this love story thing. it's like the fucking "Notebook" or something. it's like Cartman predicted long ago "gay cowboys eating pudding." okay, i'll admit there's some decent acting and what's-his-name beats the shit out of some bikers with fireworks over his shoulder and that was cool, but everyone kept saying, "it's the first gay western!" of course, maybe they weren't refering to the homosexuals in the movie and just saying it's the first gay western, not the first gay western. ask Eminem, only he can detect subtle differences in inflection when that word is used. but nope, it ain't no western. some horses and cattle but would you call "The Last Picture Show" a western? of course not. i know this for a fact 'cause i absorbed soooooooo many westerns leading up to the completion of this script. don't believe me? okay, just for kicks, here's what i watched in the last couple month in the order that i can remember them:

"Dead Man" ("looks like a goddamn religious icon" squash! boot crushes skull!)
"Django Kill" (hero comes to town dragging a coffin full of fun!)
"Fistfull of Dollars" (gets better and worse over time)
"Quigley Down Under" (just gets a little worse)
"Duel in the Sun" (best ending to a love story ever, excellent crazed preacher)
"Geronimo" (very underrated. best line "i was aiming for his head!")
"Heaven's Gate" (insanely expensive, piss-yellow-looking masterpiece)
"The Proposition" (very "Pat Garrett" ending, best music in a western ever)
"The Missouri Breaks" (say it again! waking up Brando by cutting his throat! mornin' dude!)
"Kill Bill 2" (lots of hardcore neo-western stuff in this actually, especially the burial)
"High Noon" (not really "real time" like everyone claims, but decent)
"Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" (first third is so fucking perfect)
"The Three Burials of Melquaides Estrada" (should have had twelve burials. see below...)
"El Marichi" (old news but it still makes you believe you could make a movie, too)
"Way of the Gun" (even more western stuff in this than "Kill Bill 2." perfect final 20 minutes)
"Quick and the Dead" (rips off "Once Upon a Time in the West" but has plenty new shit, too)
"Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" (of course. so heavy that your TV will actually slump forward)
"Last Man Standing" (he's not the last man standing, which unforgivably fucks up the ending)
"Tombstone" (Val Kilmer, baby. so many people love him in this for good reason)
"Ox-Bow Incident" (my dad's favorite movie. i did a report for school on this. without crayons)
"Yojimbo" (only watched half the other night actually. got distracted by "Scanner Darkly")
"The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (best mythbusting that doesn't involve Mentos and cola)
"Extreme Prejudice" (no "prejudice" to be found, but a villain squeezing a scorpion! sweet!)
"Young Guns 2" (decent knife fight between LaBamba and Arkansas Dave)
"Wild Bill" (another absolutely perfect first third then turns average. gunfight in wheelchairs!)
"Pale Rider" (ax handle party! who brought the snacks! "hell followed with him")
"The Wild Bunch" (of course! eeeeeeeeeevil children open the door for us)
"Ballad of Cable Hogue" (of course! huge inspiration with the no-water thing in mine)
"Outlaw Josie Wales" (not that good, except maybe when he keeps spitting on the dog. maybe)
"Desperado" (it's like the greatest music video of all time)
"Once Upon a Time in the West" (do i even need to say 'of course'?! first Oscar given to a fly)
"The Searchers" (i'm "searching" for more scenes in it as good as Wayne blinding that corpse)
"The Unforgiven" (another mythbuster that gets better and better and better and better)
"One-Eyed Jacks" (keep seeing this in grocery stores for a buck)
"Maverick" (waste of time. decent villian, stupid psychic poker games, good hanging. too smug)
"The Left-Handed Gun" (got to love that little girl laughing at the dead man's boot! slap!)
"Blue Velvet" (not a western but i needed a good villain to remind me how to introduce one)
"Ride the High Country" (bought it, put it in 5 times, still haven't watched it. just like "Amalie")
"Red River" (watched it in class this semester. i was the only one rooting for Wayne)
"Wyatt Earp" (dull as flies fucking, except when he throws the 8-ball)
"Silverado" (goofy, smug Hollywood horseshit, only watched it 'cause it was on cable last week)
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (worst western I've even seen. started smug fake shit)
"Hud" (got to love Paul Newman NOT sticking up for the guy who stuck up for him)
and a whole bunch of "Deadwood" episodes (Swearenger is quite simply "the shit")

um. i think that's it. did i say "The Proposition?" that, too. how about all those flies on everyone's backs at the whipping? wow. and how about about "The Three Burials of Medquaides Estrada"?? maybe i was just in the mood for it, but that was some great stuff. i'm thinking the only reason that got no attention is because who's gonna remember a title like that? see, THAT'S how you imitate Peckinpah. many inspired moments in this flick. him pumping anti-freeze into the mouth of that corpse? lighting its head on fire so the ants won't eat on it all night? that's right out of the "Head of Alfredo Garcia" playbook. but three burials ain't enough. how about an burial for that horse that bites it falling off that cliff?? people never have the balls to fuck up a horse like that. and how about them digging up that body with the high school football game in the background? all great great images. and how about that last line of the movie out of left field like that?? as soon as he said it i thought, that would be a perfect place to roll the credits and POW. credits.

yeah, i soaked all those flicks, man. these days i see dust and hooves every time i close my eyes to sleep. at this point, i'm ready for a dose of "48 Hours" and "Tango & Cash" and "The Hard Way" and even "Dead Heat" (zombie buddy-cop movie!) to flush the westerns out of my brain. need some hard-boiled, racially insensitive wisecracks and heated debates during high-speed pursuits to take over my dreams instead.

hey, speaking of muted trumpets up there, this dude's a big Pynchon fan...and one of the founding members of The Bucketmen. He has his own blog now. my boy, Diamond Dog, aka Matt Desmond is up and running with a suprisingly professional looking page. little pictures, clearly stated opinions, easy-to-read fonts, and the amazing ability to make me homesick for horrible bars like Rocky's and overpriced record stores like Boogie. you'd think he'd been doing this blog this all his life instead of waiting until everyone else started to quit. dude, i'm not saying that you took forever to finally force your opinions on others, i'm just saying this:

you know how in some movies they establish that it's the distant future by doing that gag where they show a sign in the background saying "Jaws 9" or "Rambo 12" or "Halloween 99?"
well, guess what? "Rocky 6" is in theaters. that's all i'm saying.

oh, yeah. Matt, know how i was complaining on your comments about someone calling Nick Cave a one-trick pony? well, i found a funny web site that truly IS a one-trick pony. i stumbled across it when i was looking for a video of a dude getting fucked by a horse, a video clip that was described to me at a party last night by a friend with these very serious words: "it ruined the rest of my day." i should have listened to him. but this blog that i found instead surprised a laugh out of me in the middle of a rainy afternoon.

"Flightplan" is on right now and this flick blows. trying to be all "Lady Vanishes" and crib from the master. not a chance. and this plane is the size of a fucking aircraft carrier. why even have the action take place on a plane if it's going to the largest plane in history? if you need to isolate your cast, then isolate them. if you're going to make the area that big, don't pretend it's a plane. they might as well be trapped on an island. these dumb shits ripping off Hitchcock just don't even try anymore. wait! hey, did any of you kids see "The Matador?" actually, that movie was great. reminded me of "Sexy Beast." not plotwise or giant man-rabbits or anything, just the tone of it and its small, successful ambitions. nailed it. plus, whoever made that movie gets big bonus points for the first use of an Asia song without being ironic or a smartass who can't admit they really like the tune (example: "40-Year-Old Virgin") when no one's in the car with them. They actually crank "Heat of the Moment" during a suspenseful scene and i got chills, i swear. i ain't scared to say it.

::: david - 1:44 AM [+] :::
...

"A plague on both your houses!"
- sassy dude in "Romeo + Juliet"


I take it back about Slayer's "Christ Illusion." in spite of an incredibly promising album cover that featured a bizarre bloody amputee jihad Jesus thing (?) the music contained inside is a bit...thin. maybe it's my headphones. i have always intended to upgrade my headphones, so maybe that'll fix it. as it stands now though, "God Hates Us All" is more fun, even without "Christ Illusion's" cute hot-air skull balloons (??)

so, on the radio i had fun playing quotes from "American Movie," "Life Aquatic," and "Anchorman" and combining them with random songs to see if something profound emerged.

sometimes that happened. as with "Steve, we think you've got Crazy Eye!" segueing into Gnarles Barkley's "Crazy."

sometimes it didn't. like with Mike in "American Movie" saying "that's a wicked ass toenail, dude!" followed by Tori Amos' "Ireland."

and sometimes it was just perfection, as with the "Samual Jackson Beer" skit off the Chapelle show ("they ate me!") followed by another "Jurassic Park" quote ("It's a Unix System!") then BAM! right into the song "Jackson" by Johnny Cash and his mistress. couldn't ask for any better combination of music and movie quotes.

gonna make that a regular feature since i've played to death the cds that Steve sent me in the 3:00 am feature "CDs That Steve Sent Me." lots 'o fun. except for the middle cd player sticking and fucking up two intros. and the computer was stuck on artist ID's ("hi! this is Billy Corigan! when i'm not taking the instruments out of my bandmates hands and insisting i play everything, i listen to WYEP where the music matters!") so i had to fumble with it a minute to set up the next program at 4:00.

speaking of smashing pumpkins! i played a shitload of 'em that night, and i tried to get people to name their favorite method of destroying their post-Halloween vegetables. nothing too mind-blowing, but a guy did tell me about how he wore a hollowed-out pumpkin as a makeshift Halloween mask and how disgusting it was. and how, at the party he went to, someone punched him in the face to cover his head in a nice explosion of pumpkin guts. as far as me smashing my pumpkins, i actually tried to set mine free down the Ohio River, still lit, in what had to be the most suspicious midnight riverside ceremony in history (hello, officer!) but it flipped over and the candle went out immediately. the best one was years ago when i slammed dunked one in a nearby basketball hoop...yep, still lit! okay, it wasn't really a slam dunk. more of a stumbling, fucked-up layup. but it still went in. can't say the same about any lay-ups i attempted in Jr. High. did i ever mention that our basketball coach actually coined a term with my name in it to show other team members what NOT to do? he called it having "Keatons on the feetins" and it meant that you got so excited about actually touching the ball, that you took two or three steps before you dribbled. some people call that "traveling," Coach Bartowski called it "Keatons on the feetins." of course, if i'd actually touched a basketball during a game, i might not have excitedly taken those three steps in practice, but i'm not bitter. i took out all my aggression on Sega's "Mutant League Basketball" anyway.

that quote up there from "Romeo + Juliet" (note the plus sign, that's your clue that yes, it's the Decraprio remake because the particular quote is screamed up at some storm clouds instead of just Mercutio whispering it before his death) is a tribute to the midterm elections and the ousting of some smug fuckheads from their comfortable jobs in both the Senate and the House. gotta love it. i just wish we'd quit hearing about this bipartisan, working-together bullshit. i want some punishment. payback. take the low road. you weren't elected to "reach across the aisle." make no mistake. you were elected to punish. get it done or the world will forget about Democrats all over again.

anyone watching "Dexter?" fuck the "Sopranos." i might have to get Showtime to keep watching that show. it's freakin' great. it wobbled a bit in the 3rd and 4th episodes as it tried to figure out what to do with its cast. and it's still a "Suspect Zero" rip-off without the annoying psychic "projecting." but this last episode was much fun and shenanigans. Dexter got ambitious and killed someone's wife along with the killer he was killing (madness!) and ended up having to run around his own police station covering his tracks and waiting for a 6-year-old to complete an artist sketch of him. very much like "No Way Out" actually, which ripped off "The Big Clock" which was also ripped off by Denzel Washington's "Out of Time," which also took place in sun-soaked Miami, i think. so the rip-offs come full circle, dude! and all this killer killing? what happens when someone finally kills a killer killing a killer! will they all cease to exist like "Back To the Future II" when Marty's met himself? all that math hurts the head. lets get high and watch "Primer" again! Marty!! actually watching "Primer" stoned might have made it make a little more sense. too bad i passed out before someone handed out the answers.

check out Rolling Stone last month for an article finally exposing the humor-free Dane Cook for the annoyingly unfunny fuckhead he is. ("Where's the Jokes!?" i think it's called) i was waiting for a backlash on that douchebag for a long time. now how about a backlash on that stupid "Stranger Than Fiction" movie? even though it's not out yet. but if i can judge a Slayer cd by its cover, i can judge this movie by it's preview. first off, the title's fucking lame and obvious. i can almost imagine some wide-eyed moron saying it all excited in my face ("get it! cause, like, truth is stranger and fiction!") second, this weak-ass plot was done in the 80s starring John Candy in a fucking soap opera or something. anyone remember that? AND, it tries to look like a wacky but profound Charlie Kaufman movie in the preview, making it the first official immitation. kind of like "Two Days in the Valley" was the first Tarantino rip-off. and "Footloose" was the first "Flashdance" rip-off. however, "Footloose" was way better because it had 25 music montage sequences AND a cop scraping Bacon's chin with a Quiet Riot cassette (a cassette?! what the fuck is that?!) after he says "is there a law against loud music!" yep!!! i always imagined Kevin getting tasered at that moment:

"is there a law against loud -- AAAAAAGH! Jesus Christ! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

anyway, what the hell was i talking about? oh yeah. "Stranger Than Fiction's" gonna suck. it's a Charlie Kaufman movie for people too stupid to watch Charlie Kaufman movies. fuck 'em. and now to completly destroy any movie credibility i might have been striving for:

i want to go see that movie "Harsh Times."

not just because it said "from the writer of 'Training Day'" (real sweet) and not because of the line in the preview, "I'm a soldier of the apocalypse!" (real stupid), but because the preview reminded me of the 5 minutes "British/American Psycho" boy was in the "Shaft" remake and running amok. of course Samual Jackson ate him for lunch, ("they ate me!") AND his defeat was so weak it almost seemed like an afterthought in that movie, but he was fun while he lasted.

the western's almost done. i know no one cares but me, but i feel these updates help keep me motivated. and i made a soundtrack for the script for anyone who wants to sit down and read it in one chunk. i'm trying to make a one-sitting reading of the script the exact length of this soundtrack. for no good reason except it's fun to do. and it'll be a good substitution when the script never sells and the movie never gets made. but it WILL be done this month. i just have to fix some shit.

i'm making all sort of cds like crazy these days. who wants one? is this illegal? i forget. okay, i'll make cassettes instead.

::: david - 12:06 PM [+] :::
...

"It’s good to work, Jerry. but it’s also good to play.
The Ant and the Grasshopper...
Once upon a time there was a grasshopper.
All summer long, the ant worked hard.
The grasshopper playeded the violin...he danced.
Winter came. The ant grew fat.
The grasshopper, he grew cold.
The grasshopper ate the ant."
- "Things Change"

"Everyone I love is...dead."
- Type O Negative


i was listening to the new Hold Steady tonight (finally had a chance to soak it all in) and it's good. real good. it truly is their "Born To Run" finally with all that piano and big guitar solos (i like the hockey organ a lot too) but this is my one complaint (since Matt already covered the "less lyrics" thing) i don't think he's reminiscing enough on here. i think that he's been hanging around the kids too much, maybe getting a little too popular. and anyone who's talked to any "Boys and Girls in America" these days will understand that they ain't really got shit to say. sure there's some real cool parts that sound like great drunken musings. however, back in the day, my teenage friends' drunken musings usually sounded like this:

"dude. dude. i drank 90 fucking beers."
"okay, you drank a lot, but come on. 90 beers?"
"Dave, why do you have to be an asshole?"
"dude, why do you have to exaggerate? yes, you drank more than anyone in Northwest Ohio drank tonight. you win. you're the big winner. why cheapen your victory?"
"how do you know i didn't drink 90 beers? why would you be counting my beers? what the fuck's wrong with you that you'd pay so much attention to what i do? huh, Dave?"
"we didn't buy 90 beers, fuckface. there's no way you drank 90 beers."
"you know, i hate drinking with you. when you need your ass kicked, let me know."
"how about now?"

at this point Jerry would attack me and i would pin him to the ground and dump a box of cereal or a potten plant on his head. wait, did i say "Jerry?" i didn't mean to be so specific. hold on, now that i think about it, it was always you, wasn't Jerr-Bear? for anyone not familiar with Jerry, he's since moved to Denver, but his greatest hits sometimes pops up on this blog, like right here.

anyway, what was my point? oh yeah. that dialogue up there doesn't make for the best song. actually, maybe it would. but the music on the new Hold Steady is better than "Separation Sunday." i will give them that. maybe if they combined the two.

okay, to be fair to Jerry for slandering him up there, i'll offer up one of his better moments:

back in high school, Jerry got obsessed with the Beatles song "Day Tripper" and he would sing the chorus constantly but change the lyrics to reflect his thoughts for the day. therefore the lyrics...

"it took me so long to find out...but i found out" would then become:

"it took me so long to get head...but i got head" or
"it took you so long to fuck a dog...but you fucked a dog" or
"it took me so long to take a shit...but i took that shit"

and so on and so on. this went on for weeks.

what other music did i just get? just bought My Chemical Romance "The Black Parade" because i'm a sucker for a concept album every time. and it had cool artwork. and it's good. it's just as gay as Queen and sounds just as great as Queen when you play it loud. they sound like a young Queen, like their first three albums that rocked before they got bogged down in disco. yes, it's hard not to get annoyed with the little simpering emo boys, i'm sorry "screamo" boys, however, if you just think of them as the greatest chick band ever, you're all set! loud in the car is best for this cd. did i say that already? speaking of, this leads me to another topic from the other night. a friend of mine was complaining how she can't find any assertive males, or any guys out there these days that will "be dominant." well, it's no wonder when apparenly at a concert these days (insert sound of grumpy old man rattling a newspaper whenever i say "these day") you can catch sight of a thong sticking out of back of some dude's black jeans. i mean, that's the new shtick, the latest style, right? didn't they already do that though? just like Charlie Murphey said on the Prince Hollywood story, "in the 80s, the dude that looked the most like a bitch got the most ass!" so, if we're going to continue to buy these sad-eyed, scrawny, ennui-soaked boys' music, we got to pay the price by having the new crop kids immitate them. and don't let the Geico commercials fool you. cavemen are out these days. speaking of commercials, if you want to combine two flavors like that old Reeses commercial where the guy with the chocolate bar stumbles into the guy with the peanut butter jar (and why was that fat fuck eating fistfulls of peanut butter out of the jar??) then you should listen to Type O Negative!!! it's good October music. lots of mopy, brooding, Burtonesque behavior mixed with a healthy supply of musclebound, lunkheaded idiocy. imagine if one of these recent androginous eyeliner bands worked out like crazy, got all huge on the free weights, then played their gloom rock to a packed crowd of little darklings. they'd come across like a bunch of dickheads, of course. they'd start making fun of the drama in their songs about halfway through. and they do! and i love this crap. lots of green and black. that's what the album covers look like and that's what the music sounds like. judge an album by its cover, dammit. green and black. see, they aren't just in all black like those little gloomcookies! they're green, too! that's the color of jealousy, anger, the dominant macho behavior you're secretly craving right now!

i'm listening to "World Coming Down" as we speak while I watch "The Outlaw Jose Wales" with the subtitles on. it's a minor Eastwood western, and the first 49 times he spit tobacco juice on that dog's head were funny. but the 50th time seemed kind of cruel. gave me an idea for my western though. which is the whole point.

here's some rapid fire music reviews:

-The New Cars "It's Alive": suprisingly rockin' live album from 1/4th of The Cars and Todd Rundgren. the two new songs suck though

-The Killers "Sam's Town": first three songs are decent then skip straight to song 10 ("River Wild") which makes it almost worth the 10 bucks.

-Outkast "Idlewild": their worst, which only makes it better than all other rap cds

-Pete Yorn "Nightcrawler": cool vampire (?) song that sounds like "Simonize" (his other good song)

-The Raconteurs "Broken Boy Soldiers": good, i guess. i never feel like listening to it though

-Nick Drake "Bryter Lyter": better than "Pink Moon," not as good as "Five Leaves Left"

-Slayer "Christ Illusion": good album cover

-Muse "Black Holes & Revelations": stupid album cover

whoa! i want to grow a beard like that grizzled fucker! crazed Confederates running amok on my TV right now. i could grow a beard like that. i'm going to. starting...now.

hey, here's the new booth at the new station. last show went decent. not too many callers. although one of my old bandmates, one of the original founding members of The Bucketmen did do some drunk dialing that night. can't fault Diamond Dog though, he was only 48 hours out of rehab. the theme that night was requesting songs you'd want played at your funeral. 97% of drunken Pittsburgh wants Johnny Cash played at their funeral. that or "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." a lot of them wanted that one, too. but i think you'd better have died in a shipwreck if you play that. i mean, what if you choked on a peach pit, then had that played at your funeral? you'd look kind of silly dead in your coffin wouldn't you? unless you filled the coffin with water and put some little boats in it. check out Clint with the rain coming off his cowboy hat. that makes me want to get rained on right now. and have a name that sounds like "clit."

and here's my pumpkin this year. i carve one every Halloween. this one is based on the short stories of my classmates in my writing workshop. i took it to class just like i did with my ant farm in 4th grade. too bad that ended in tears.

i need orange juice. i'm going to the store. if i don't come back to this tonight, just remember:

how do we know green to you is green to me?

i came back. here's another side of the pumpkin by request. and i was hoping some of you would tell me what song you'd want to (not) here at your funeral.

::: david - 11:59 PM [+] :::
...

"Just got back from vacation! Spent it down Root Canal!"
- "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" - Warren Zevon

"You figure out how to thrive in the world."
- Adaptation


anybody awake? watching some movies. listening to music. finally a day off. bought a avacado but it turned out to be hard as a rock. and guess what? you can't eat those things like an apple. just got real thirsty about an hour ago and had to cross the bridge to satisfy my craving for a strawberry/banana type drink. everything was closed except Sheetz. god bless 'em. also tried their car wash since i never went through one at 4 am. it's kind of spooky. i enjoyed it. i paid for the longest wash, turned up the music and drank my strawberry/banana smoothie thing while crazy robots washed my car Jetson's style. so let's talk music, books, and movies to get my fingers loose. what else is there to talk about anyway?

the new Showtime series "Dexter." anybody see this? i thought it was real good. even though it's a HUGE rip-off of the movie "Suspect Zero." here's the similarities in case anyone doubts this even for a second. both have a serial killer...killing serial killers. both have an omnious, unseen uber-killer who stays ahead of the law (and Dexter) by doing his killing and insanity and feces grafitti in a big refridgerated truck. uh...and more stuff i can't remember right now because it's late. however, in spite of the blatant theft, the show's got the right tone to it. happy Florida sights and sounds with jet skis and aliigators and parties, mixed with wisecracking cops and a dark, deranged hero voice-over. very cool opening credits sequence, too. it's like this violent breakfast montage. and the first three episodes have set shit up nicely. maybe needs an snappy opening song though. like "Sopranos" and "Entourage" have, instead of just the unmemorable theme music they got right now.

finally bought "The Proposition." it's the Nick Cave western. i've been watching it in 10-minute lumps since i'm barely here these days and the TV's never on, but i'm savoring every lump. imagine walking past a nice big piece of coconut cream pie and taking a quick bite each day. for a month. see, you can make that slice last forever! if a piece of pie actually lasted a month, i mean.

picked up the new Killers cd because all the neagative reviews compared it to Bruce Springsteen, and, if there's one thing that sucks me in every time, it's bad reviews about someone trying to go all "Springsteen" all the sudden and get in touch with their inner "Thunder Road." a perfect example:

Prince. "Little Red Corvette."

a song with more car/fuck metaphors that Springsteen's entire double album "The River" (which i think has no less that 427 songs about cars on it) and it's a song that's complelely critic proof. who doesn't like that song? i'll wait.........no one? see, that's what i thought. another example, Meatloaf. maybe not. did i say that out loud? oops.

also got the new Hold Steady album, but i haven't had a chance to listen to it yet. everyone's gushing about his lyrics again, but we'll see. it's gonna be tough to beat Primal Scream's lyric-of-the-year off "Riot City Blues":

"got caught giving head to a priest, the fucker choked on his rosary beads..."

to the three people that asked, the western script "Pigiron" will be done this month. i figured out a way to make a bunch of progress real fast. i have calendars in each room for no good reason, and i was changing them all (three months forward since i forgot i had 'em) and i realized that i'd gotten this antique gun calendar specifically to help inspire me to work on the western script a loooong time ago. so, since i saw there was only two months left on it before it would get tossed in the trash, i took it down and went through all twelve guns on each month and thought up back stories for each one that combined the actual facts of the gun in the photograph with some crazy folklore bullshit that i made up. then i made a main character in the script lay out all these guns to use one each month, sort of like his own calendar, and explain to his son something about each gun because you gotta have that scene in a western right? right?! example:

"This is February's gun. This is the first
.44. It was first made in 1870 and called
the “Model 3 American.” This weapon was was
a prototype where the firing pin rotated
instead of the cylinder. No more guessing
what chamber had a bullet in it, if you
were one of those boys that liked to spin
it after loading. This particular gun
killed 27 people...all during games of
Russian Roulette."

radio show going well in spite of a complete lack of listeners lately. the only time anyone called is when i was asking about anyone seeing the exclamation point on the news headlines on TV that screamed "Plane Strikes Building!" and how, if you turned up the volume, they were carefully explaining that it was NOT a terrorist attack. which of course begs the question, why the exclamation point? like i was saying on the air, i can't remember the last time CNN had an exclamation point on a headline. even if they said something like:

"Man Stranded on Deserted Island...Eats Own Head."

period. even with that headline, which could probably use some extra punctuation, they'd STILL use just a period. but this time! they! just! had! to! do! this! how obvious is that scare tactic? anyway, i tried to have people think of songs with exclamation points in the title because all i could think of was Hold Steady's "Hornets! Hornets!" couple people woke up and stumbled to the phone and/or stopped crouching ominously in the corner of their bedroom flipping their light switch on and off to actually call and request some music. so it wasn't all bad. just need to take more sugar and caffiene with me next time.

hey, if anyone wants to give it another chance, i finished a new revision of long rambling story "Flies on Shit." it was workshopped, succesfully i guess. some people surprised me by tuning right into the frequency of the story, and some people surprised me by being confused about the most obvious stuff. and, even though it's a little off subject, some people in that class really surprised me by turning out to have not developed a healthy sense of humor at this point in their life. never mind when someone tells you they aren't easily offended. that's almost always bullshit. turns out they're afraid of words just like the rest of them. tragic. anyway, the best thing i got out of the workshop was a name change. now it's Sharks with Thumbs. and very likely it'll be the first chapter of a new book. i think i'm ready to put the last book under the couch for now. it didn't get published, probably because of the wacky structure of it (yeah, right). it jumped around from the '70s to the '90s and bounced between the fiction of the story to the "true" stories that the characters kept telling. some exerpts i stuck on the site, but the majority of it has only been seen by people i've never met, which sucks because i wasn't there in their cubicle leaning over their shoulder when they opened the envelope, hurrying them through the parts that embarrassed me, and making sure they slowed down where i thought it got good. here's the contents page before i bury it in the yard, er, i mean, stick it under the couch:

ROADSPORTS & ROCKFIGHTS

Table of Contents

I. Road (March, 1975)
2..........Driving
13.........Flying
21.........Spying
36........Ride The Ride
50........Glass Car Crash

II. Last Rock Thrown (True Stories, Part I)
72.........Rock Wasted
79.........Shades
89.........What’s Worst?

III. Bad Sports & Blood Sports (Summer, 1999)
105........Suckerpunch
149........Skinned Knees & Scratched Basketballs
188........Good Games & Grass Stains
288........Nosebleeder

IV. Last Rock Caught (True Stories, Part II)
313.........Lying
319........What Are You Thinking?
329........Overtime

V. Sword (October, 1975)
338........Fighting
363 .......Squirt Guns & Firing Squads
383........Crying
392........Keep Your Elbow Up

the last agent to read this book said she was all into it, but her boss wasn't a fan. which would be fine, if, by him not liking it, he had NOT stopped anyone else from getting a chance to not like it, too. but look at the contents page up there. is that really so confusing? good or bad, i can't tell. but don't tell me something's confusing. that's the only thing that's not my fault. seriously, that wouldn't be so hard to follow, would it? the 1975 stuff is the boy and girl and how they met, the 1999 stuff is the stories of their three sons and all their nosebleeds and hemophelia and fucking up in high school sports, THEN surrounding that are all the stories (urban legends, "friend of a friend" stories etc.) that they've told other people, but written as if those stories were the only things that actually happened in the book. of course, by feeling the need to explain it at five in the morning suggests that subconsciously i do realize the structure is flawed. maybe that's why the apparent effect of reading my novel is kind of like a trip to the dentist. which would be fine if it was Bill Murray's trip to the dentist in "Little Shop of Horrors." But maybe it's more like "Marathon Man."

but enough about the old book. working on the new book! and because it's new, i can declare it's the best thing yet, goddammit. even if it's not. the section i'm on (which will stand on its own as a story like every good chapter should) is "Calling All Eunichs!" the title of an imaginary buddy/cop flick i made up. by the way, the exclamation point is in the title, not my sentence. i've decided to use the car chase list i made years ago and change all the movie titles to fake ones (for example, "Mad Max" becomes "Mad Mex," a goofy Mexican version of that series) and i'll use this list as sort of as a framing device. this way i didn't waste all that time making that list back then. in fact, i plan on cannibalizing a lot of this website for parts. why not. since the new book is in first person AND present tense (which one professor seemed to think i could not sustain for the length of a novel) i think some of these posts would fit in pretty well. the voice in the book might just have to be my voice (or the voice of an asshole, like it usually is on this site) after all, and if somebody could hopefully mistake that for a complicated fictional creation, so be it! gonna use the fist fight list, too. some of those movie titles are harder to change to imaginary ones though. why change the titles? because it's fun.

whoa. birds are chirping. got to try to sleep.

::: david - 6:38 AM [+] :::
...

"White man, black woman...black baby!"
- Public Enemy


THE SUBWAY CHRONICLES

Chapter Six:

"...and three white-chip cookies, please..."


i thought i'd never have a run-in at this place. for some reason i thought they were above all that. maybe it's because of all their vegetables instead of those rolling clouds of grease, maybe it's the confusing name of the joint. i don't know. but i feel i should call it "The Subway Incident" instead, since i thought it was the only episode of its kind, but you know what? you rewind the tape far enough, you'll see that there's enough little crimes commited under those baseball caps throughout my visits (stale bread, rotten tomatoes, closing early) to warrant a place under the title "Chronicles." apologies to the people that got an earful of this story already at the grad school party. so here's what happened:

i had been eating the same Wendy's turkey-and-swiss sandwich every day for about two weeks before i bit into one of those and there was so much mayonaise that it burst from a crack in the bun and filled my mouth like i was in a gay porn. that was so gag-worthy that i still shudder when i think about it, so i had to go further down the road on my lunch break for some new food. and i don't like doing that. i like expending as little thought and time as possible on my lunch so that i can try to get some reading or writing done before i have to go back to typing. and it's tough finding something decent within a reasonable distance. it's like that episode of "Magnum P.I." when they're in T.C.'s helicopter and they keep watching the gas gauge to allow them enough time to fly back or else they'd crashland in the jungle and turn on each other like "Lord of the Flies" in nine minutes, 7 seconds like people in movies usually do.

but there it was! connected to a drive-thu beer outlet (warning sign?) a Subway sub shop happily waiting for my money. not too much time left, so i'm almost running through the door and, shit, there's a line. but wait, i look and it's not really a line. it's like five kids somewhere around 9, 10, or 11 years old, just kind of wandering around the counter chattering to each other like kids do. two are getting food, the rest are just fucking around and wasting time. i start to get annoyed with them because i'm in a hurry, but i'm fighting the urge. not because these children are black (that detail is very important later, however) but because i have found that if i make an effort to only get angry at people who get angry at people in situations like that (like the inevitable "tssk"ing, pinch-faced old bitches who wish to Christ they could discipline someone else's crying child) i discover that i'm much more tolerant of kids jackassing around.

or, at the very least, i've found that by only getting mad at people who get mad at people, i cut down on the people that irritate me by at least half.

so i'm watching these kids change their minds twelve times about their sandwiches and inching forward at starfish's pace. but no one's there to be mad at these kids but me, so my impatience starts to focus on them. i finally get to order my food, way later than i'd hoped, and just as i'm gritting my teeth because of this constant swirl of giggling and activity around me at the register, something happens that changes everything. i'm asking for a cup to get some ice water, and the guy behind the counter says (kind of laughing because he just said the exact same words to one of those kids): "you get your ice at the machine, and we'll get your water back here." i'm like, "oh, okay. whatever," and right as i turn around, one of the little girls in the mob says to me,

"you want me to get your ice for you?"

i'm shocked and pleased by this. when i thought about it later, i figured that the "you get the ice, we'll get your water" policy was probably created because people kept getting whatever drink they wanted for free. so maybe she's used to the indignity of not being trusted at a frigging faucet, or maybe she felt bad about how long they took to get their food in front of me. point is, i'll never know why she did it because i was like, "yeah, okay." and she's quickly filling my cup up with ice and handing it back with a smile and then she's gone. suddenly i'm in a great mood, all my anger at these little punks has vanished completly.

"thanks!" i say. and i really meant "thanks." that's one of those random acts of kindness, goddammit. i'm in such a good mood that i decide to get some cookies, too. what the hell, why not? i can eat all this food on the frantic drive back to work. when i need to be, i'm like an octopus eating and driving and changing cds at the same time.

"and give me three of those cookies," i declare, pointing to the case.

"you mean the chocolate chip ones?" the dude asks.

"no, the white chip ones. the ones with the nuts in them." i say proudly.

and even though i don't know these guys, i want to laugh and share the irony of the contrast of my earlier irritation with the kids to my racially-charged choice of cookies. but, of course, none of that shit sounds rational out loud, and my mood's gonna change real fast. all the kids are now outside, and the bell on the top of the door has finally quieted down, and suddenly there's a charge in the air behind the counter. there's one guy in a red shirt behind the two in the green shirts, and i can see the wheels turning in his head as he debates whether to make some smartass comment about those kids. looking at me, somehow he must be trying to guess whether i'd appreciate a joke, and i can see him getting up the courage to open his mouth. oh shit, i'm thinking. please don't let one of these assholes make some racist comment about those kids. i keep forgetting that this state is ass-backwards a lot of the time when it comes to that subject. and i know it's coming. it's like an audible turbine whine building in the air around us. i just want to get my change back fast so i can get my food out of there before someone says something racist while smiling at me like i'm in on it. that would ruin my lunch. seriously. especially after that little girl got my ice for me.

i've finally got my change in my hand and turning around when the fucker says it.

red shirt: "the funny thing is, they all probably have kids of their own!"

i glance back and he smiles at me. of course he does.

motherfucker. i barely have time to eat this sandwich in my car on the way back because of how much time it took to get it, and now i'll be bothered by this for the rest of the day. is it because i'm some civil rights crusader? no. it's because that kid got me ice cubes.

i sit down and unwrap the sandwich at one of the tiny wobbly tables. you ever eat in a Subway? it's like eating on a real subway. i don't really think you're supposed to eat inside the place. it's way to small. you're all scrunched up on a square the size of a postage stamp, staring directly at the staff the entire time. i force myself to do this while i eat my turkey sandwhich because i figure by the time i get to the cookies, i'll be angry enough to actually say something to the guy in the red shirt. i figure if i don't say something by the time my sandwhich is finished, i'm a complete pussy who is afraid of three idiots in matching baseball caps. and what's up with those caps anyway? i stare at them while i eat. they look like the sorriest baseball team in history. all soft and pasty, covered in food stains. what kind of team is covered in fuckin' food stains? i'm trying to imagine the Subway baseball team running onto the field and it's making me laugh. i have to concentrate to get angry again. and i can hear that they got a TV in the back. every so often the dude in the red shirt goes back to watch some game and comes back and comment on it. i'm thinking, "look at you with your mustard stains on your shirt and your stupid fast-food cap. you never played a sport in your life. why are you watching one?"

and what's up with that red shirt? does that mean he's a manager? was there such confusion telling the manager apart in the Wall Street pandamonium of a typical Subway afternoon? is it so hard to slowly make a sandwich on a conveyor belt without color-coding the three employees? maybe if you get three whole orders going at once, they bump into each other too much and start getting confused about whose sandwich they're on. maybe if there's four subs going, they need to call for backup and have two red shirts, two green shirts, and then they alternate the sandwiches, assigning them odd and even numbers so that all hell doesn't break loose back there.

wait. nope. he's the manager. one of them just asked him if he had to count something. "red shirt" does mean manager. anyone remember what it meant on Star Trek?

i'm down to my white-chip cookies, but i'm thinking that's way too symbolic to eat any of these cookies without saying anything. what kind of story would that make? the only food more metaphorical that i could be eating would be black olives. which, it turns out, were on the turkey sub i just ate. anyone remember that riff Eddie Murphy did on black olives? "why are the green olives in a jar and the black olives in a can? why they got to lock up the black olives?!"

i'm way past when i was supposed to be heading back to work, so i force myself up to finally say something. but they're all back in the back somwhere, watching whatever game they got on. i imagine it's a game of horseshoes. or checkers. no, probably not. probably some major league sport that's 80% black.

i stand there for a minute feeling stupid because there's no one at the counter. i jingle my keys. nothing. another minute. cough a little. nothing. eventually i go to the front door and open it and close it real quick so that the bell goes off. one of the green shirts wanders out thinking i'm a new customer.

me: "where's the other guy?"

green shirt: "who?"

me: "your boss. the one in the red shirt."

green shirt: "oh, scott? he's not the manager." he turns to yell, "hey, Scott!"

i actually can't remember his name. but we'll call him Scott for now because it's funny. it was one syllable name like that. that i do remember. but wait. now i'm utterly confused. how is the guy in the red shirt not the manager? i forget all the devastating things i was going to say by the time he comes out because of my confusion about their shirts. the green shirt goes back to the TV.

red shirt: "can i help you?"

me: "yeah. you remember those kids that were in here?"

red shirt: "yeah."

me: "you remember what you said?"

red shirt (confused): "uh, no."

me: "those kids, those little black kids that were just in here. two of which were only half-black, by the way."

i'm not sure what kind of proof i was offering with that fact. i frowned as soon as i said it.

red shirt (real confused): "what?"

me: "those kids. they were fucking around and making noise and you make some fucking comment when they left."

red shirt (face changing): "uh, nooo, i didn't say anything."

me: "yes, you did. you don't remember what you said like 10 seconds ago?"

red shirt: "it wasn't me. hold on..." turns to yell back to the missing green shirts. "Hey, did either of you -"

me: "whoa. dude. i'm talking about YOU. You're the one who said it."

a green shirt comes up to join him.

red shirt: "did you say anything to those kids that were in here when -"

me: "hey, Scott. listen to me. it was YOU who said it. how can you not remember this? you thought it was fucking funny like 10 minutes ago. you said, 'i'll bet they got kids,' or 'i'll bet their kids have kids' or something like that."

red shirt: "no, i didn't say anything."

i realize at this point that Scotty is fucking gutless. he's denying this in front of one of his boys that had laughed when he said it. how's he going to bring this up later when they're both alone? i'll never understand people that don't back their shit up. and the other green shirt must be listening, too. but he doesn't even come out of the back. gutless all. i now realize they're either scared of losing their jobs or of me, so i get up in Scotty's face. at least as close as i can over the wilting farmer's market of grey vegetables. the sweaty little bastard smells like a combination of onions and ass. now, i know they work with onions all day, but i don't see an "ass sandwich" on the menu anywhere. because i probably would have ordered one at some point. back to the story:

me: "you're going to deny that you said that shit? you make me laugh. you know, if a bunch of kids are fucking around, then get mad at them, but why do you think you can say that racial bullshit to a roomful of people (what "roomful?" okay, i was exaggerating) and it's okay?! i mean, i know we're close to the bible belt down here, but you need to join the fucking 20th century. keep that shit to yourself next time."

red shirt: (all twitchy) "i'm sorry if you thought you heard something. i would never make a racial comment -"

i violently throw my cookies away in the trash behind me in what is quite possibly the weakest civil rights prostest in the history of our country.

me: "you're going to keep telling me you didn't say anything?"

Scotty just stares at me. probably trying to figure out if i'm half black. i almost shout, "what are you looking at?! i'm German/Native American/Irish, motherfucker!" but, of course, besides that making me sound like a mental patient, it really misses the point, you know?

the three of us stand there for about a minute. Scotty starts to twitch and stutter and sweat onion rings again.

red shirt: "hey, i'm sorry that you thought you heard -"

me: "fuck that. deny it all you want. you're all scared about your job, like i'm going to tell your manager or something (as if i could ever find the fucking manager with the shirt confusion! what does the real manager wear anyway? black and white stripes? and a football helmet?!) but i could give a fuck about your job. i'm just saying something to YOU because you said that shit, and you're such a pussy, you make a joke and can't back it up."

red shirt: "i don't know what you're talking about."

this is all so completely unsatisfying, i can't believe it. i can't believe that i actually put my new glasses in my pocket because i thought i was going to end up grabbing someone, or someone grabbing me, over a counter. i guess that's why they always say, "deny, deny, deny." gutless as it is, it really gives the other person no room to maneuver.

i turn around to leave.

me: "watch your fucking mouth next time."

weak, i know. but that's all i could say. nothing in the bag. out of ideas. late for work. nothing left in the tank. but, at least the kids weren't there when i said all that, i think to myself as i drive back. saying everything after they left makes it more noble, i tell myself. because it wasn't some kind of grandstanding, you know? but, of course, i'm talking about it right here, right now, so i'm a complete hypocrate. anyway. while i'm admitting to you how unsatisfying that encounter was, i'll add three more points to make my motivations even more suspect.

first: i keep saying i wanted to say something to that guy because that little girl got me ice cubes. i honestly think it had more to do with the fact that i was in the middle of typing the captions for "The Tuskeegee Airmen" that day at work.

second: halfway through the turkey sandwich i knew that no matter what happened, of course i was going to say something, simply because it would make a good story. and that shit's easier than actually standing up for something.

and third: i didn't throw away all three cookies. i quickly ate one before i got up from the table.

::: david - 3:07 PM [+] :::
...

"He picks up a bus and he throws it back down."
- "Godzilla" - Blue Oyster Cult


Drunk as fuck. how drunk? let me ask you this: how the fuck can i drive home this drunk and pass like 9 cops and they don't do shit? what do i have to do for someone to get me off the fucking street. pull me over, goddamnit. i'm so fucking drunk that i drove past my apartment about 20 miles, jumped a curb, turned around and got home about 3 hours after i left the bar. this bar is only about 30 miles from my house. the sun shouldn't be coming up as i get home. why have i been driving all night? because i'm drunk and fucking lost. do your fucking job you piece of shit. stop my ass and get me off the street. i dare you. i wonder if i might be the most skilled drunk driver of all time. i've gone how many years without a DUI? ever? this is a real problem i think. because this can't be healthy. the only thing worse than me typing this up while i'm fucking hammered is how i'm now grabbing one of my cats that's sniffing my leg and i'm agressively petting it as it waits to be released. this is what would happen to one of my kids. if i had one. i would stumble in the door all loud and drunk, wake up the entire household, then loudly explain to my child (or cat) all about life and hipocracy and pat him on the back too hard and send his ass to bed full of drunken wisdom. you know, there should be a place where i can pull over, like a pitstop or something, when i'm this drunk so that i can buy a family to abuse and frighten and keep awake until dawn. it would be like a toolbooth with a person sitting there ready to sell me a weary family unit all ready for my rants about religion and whatever grad student i want to bounce on my dick. why doesn't someone get on that shit? you know, i'm out tonight, drinking with these people, and i'm thinking how funny it would be if every female in the place was sitting on my fucking face. i really wasn't thinking that. i just want to give these new people something to read if they stumble across this page. is this wrong? then i don't want to be right! about everyone sitting on my face i mean. see, earlier, i stopped it this bar between classes (when i was sober) and this waitress started talking all about it being her first day and how she's just started school at Pitt and blah blah blah. and then she noticed this huge stack of papers half in my hamburger and said, "wow, what's that?" and i said it was my short story and she said, "did you write all that?!" pointing at the huge stack of papers, and i said "no, this is 7 copies of the same story, that's why the stack is so big" see, i'm cutting her slack at this point because she's real cute. and she's like "wow." so i say, "do you read a lot?" knowing the answer before she opens her mouth. and, of course, she says, "no." and, to me, it sounds like she just said the words, "no, i don't like to wipe my ass much." so fuck her. tired of these cute dumb fucks. no more of that. too much shit to do these days. that's the new rule: if you don't read then stay the fuck away from me. that's all there is to it. and one more thing, if you're a cop, you make me laugh because i just drove Mach 3 through residential neighborhoods drunk off my fucking ass and you never pulled me over. what do i have to do to get your attention? that cop at the four-way stop about 15 minutes ago? dude, you didn't think there was anything suspicious about the asshole singing Neil Diamond at the top of his lungs and taking that sharp turn on two wheels? weren't you thinking it was weird that i was slowly putting on some gloves and a motocycle helmet like i was preparing to race you? get your fucking head out of you ass. it's probably best though. if some cop did pull me over and gave me a drunk test, i would do everything precisely as he'd want (because the best drunk (driver) in history must also be the best drunk tester) then i would write "i was drunk, shithead" somewhere in the back seat of his car when he was handing by my license and apologizing for the inconveniece. later i'd send him a videotape of my microwave coughing up black smoke behind me (nope, you can't make popcorn when you're fucking drunk!) here's the thing, officer. i got like 8 drunk uncles, so it's hereditary that i can drive so well while intoxicated. that's why, even though it took two hours to drive 30 miles, i still drive like Steve McQueen in fucking "Bullitt." i may be lost, but i can still drive dammit! so fuck you. it's for your own good though. i think that i could probably take a cops gun away from him and smack him in the head with it. i mean, what's his training again? they aren't fucking ninjas. just some asshole with a gun. just like i said about that guy in the band. take away his guitar, what do you got? just some asshole. officer, i will take your gun from you and put it upside your head. you would deserve it for not stopping me from driving home after like 14 beers and 4 shots of Tequila. keep our roads safe, goddamnit. i must now eat everything in my apartment. hold on. okay. i am now out of food. cookies and pickles are the best 4:00 am combo in history. i'm happy to be a part of that discovery. i'm like those British fuckers from "Mountains of the Moon" except instead of finding the source of the Nile, i combined chocolate and pickles to make the greatest snack ever. one more thing, officer: what's it like sucking cock behind a Burger King billboard while i drive by drunk out of my fucking mind? didn't that radar come back reading "90 mph, Drunk as Fuck!" in bright red digital letters? jesus fucking christ. who do i have to blow in this shit town to get pulled over? here's a tip you rent-a-fucks: if you're at a red light and the guy next to you quickly puts his seatbelt on, cracks his knuckles, tries to start the song "Sweet Caroline" over again three times (even though it's on the radio) just to sing the intro once more while staring intensely into your eyes like one of those acoustic guitar crooners that annoy people at parties...he's fucking drunk. i'm just trying to help you here. and please taser my ass because, if my heart doesn't explode, i think it would be funny to make Godzilla noises and stomp toward the cop in slow motion while he frantically squeezed the button on his stun gun. i'd pick up a toy train and throw it back down, just like the song said. wait, that was bus, right? i'll go get the cd right now. i need more food. hold on.

::: david - 3:43 AM [+] :::
...

"The dog barks but still the caravan passes by."
-old Arab saying


whoa. it's been awhile hasn't it? i finally feel like staying up late enough to type something on here. been busy as shit lately. grad school started up, and here's proof that i walked my ass off the first week trying to figure out where everything was. luckily, i'd watched enough of a certain television show back in the day to know just what to do in that situation. only missed one or two steps.

classes are good so far. trying to talk one professor into letting me turn in a story twice as long as the page limit for a writing workshop. i don't have anything shorter and i hate having to wait for my turn to come around again for my classmates to read the second half of something. this always happened in undergrad, too. everyone would be stretching their fonts and widening their margins to try to get enough pages, while i was always doing the opposite. whatever i turned in was on both sides of the paper, tiny single-spaced text, with a margin about the width of a mosquito. and it would be about 10 pages too many anyway, and i could tell that no one read the damn thing because they were mad that it was so long. anyhow, i'll turn in half if i half to, but i get the feeling that this group might actually like the story and wouldn't mind the extra reading. it's a new story that i'll post here after i clean it up. about a 50 pager. lots of driving and fake movie quotes and fake action movie titles. Name of the story (and also of a nonexistent buddy/cop thriller in the story) is "Calling All Eunichs!" it's a direct sequel to "Flies on Shit," and even though no one will believe me because i said this about "Flies on Shit"...it's the best thing i've done.

oh yeah! speaking of, i actually felt like a real writer, i mean, "author" for a whole evening! i had to do a reading in front of a bar load of people as part of my graduate school requirments (aka "hazing") and, in spite of dreading it for a week, and trying to think of ways to get out of it, it went extremely well. i read my story Swatter (simply because it was the shortest, recent thing i had) and the crowd really seemed to like it. i got lots of applause and laughs, and when it was done, there were even some strangers coming up to me and introducing themselves and saying how much they enjoyed it. they seemed to think i was this established literary type. suckers! little did they know that about five hours earlier i was crushing 10 fig bars into a ball to munch on while watching "Big Trouble in Little China."

and, you know what? i was all worried that this particular story wouldn't go over well at all. hell, if i'd have known this story was so entertaining to a crowd of strangers, i'd have tried to write more stories where a guy punches a girl in the face through a screen door in the last scene!

and one really good thing from it all is, because i read that story out loud for the first time, i found all sorts of things to change and fix, and now it's a little longer, of course! actually, during the reading, i changed stuff as i went along because i could tell, right before i would read a sentence into the microphone, that the line wasn't going to work, and i'd quickly change it. now, if i could read all my crap out loud to an audience and quickly revise that stuff at the same time, i might have stumbled on to the most quick and effective form of revising yet. so, yeah. that went great. i was in a really good mood for like 72 hours. i'd even do it again without dreading it so much...if i had another short story short enough.

also met this Chuck Kinder guy at Pitt that everyone gets all excited about. apparently he's the guy that Chabon based the "Grady Tripp" character in "Wonder Boys" on. this is the book that supposedly gets thrown in the river at the end of that movie. i'm still partial to the scene when Garp fights Bonkers for the pages of his story. i've also been told that Kinder's book is actually about him and Raymond Carver's shenanigans throughout the 70s. i wasn't sure i'd cross paths with him so quickly, but first i had a lively western discussion with him on the email, and then i went to a party last weekend at his house. at about 3am i ended up in his living room where he was holding court with about 10 swooning female grad students and he jumped up and started drunkenly pulling an invisible gun and telling me he was "ready for me this time!" and we talked westerns again. and the guy knows his westerns. appreciates "Dead Man" and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" and "Once Upon a Time in the West." i ended up giving him a copy of the soundtrack to the western script i'm working on (almost done) and he seemed genuinely excited about it (most people just brought alcohol to the party) but i'm really looking forward to his class next semester, and a meeting with him Sunday about working on Pitts' literary journal, Nidus. that'll do for now, even if i don't get to drive around with him and a dead dog in his trunk.

oh yeah, i also have a "women in film" class that is going to be very easy and a lot of fun. and there's about five little old ladies that sit in the corner and chatter away all excited to be in school, and i like listening to them. and i can't wait to hear what they say about some of the crazier movies on our list. we already watched "Strange Days," that cheesy James Cameron-lite movie from the 80s (because it's supposed to have strong women leads? uh, right), and even though it's a hard-R rating, the little old ladies were joking around about it when it was over. i'm honestly more interested in what these little old ladies are going to say about "Alien" (sweet!) or "Marnie" than what the cute young idiots in the back row are thinking. and the professor was assigning everyone a movie to do a presentation on the other day, and i ended up with......"Alien!" how about that shit?! i had to hide my Alien keychain under my desk as i faked a sigh and was like, "yeah, i guess i can do that movie for my presentation. sure hope i can rent it somewhere." meanwhile i can't decide which of the THREE version i own to actually do the presentation on. if anyone around here knows me just a little (fingers about an inch apart) they'd realize that assigning me the movie "Alien" is kind of like "forcing" a dog to bark at a passing car.

last two radio shows went well. thanks to whoever listened online. the locals don't seem to be calling as much. maybe it's goes with the phases of the moon. that reminds me, sorry the days got screwed up Aza. i definitley could have used some more sober listeners. i mean more, sober listeners.

i had an incident at Subway two days ago, and i was going to sum it up here real fast. But since i almost had another one today, i guess i'll have to start "The Subway Chronicles" instead. coming soon. i'll post it this weekend. it's a good story, and a true story. full of anger and racial tension and white-chip macadamia nut cookies.

what else? oh yeah. i finally got a new car. two transmissions later, i finally got rid of the Cavalier that had been mercilessly beaten into submission by these lovely green hills. i always wanted a black car and now that i have one, i have to wash it all the time, dammit. and, as you can see, it sure doesn't help when, every time i go to Toledo, i keep driving through massive clouds of mayflies twice as big as my car and only slightly smaller than my balls.

::: david - 3:10 AM [+] :::
...

"Let's drink to our legs."
- "Jaws"

come on. is tickling really abuse? there was a movie on the other day (or maybe it was a dream i had) and one of the messages seemed to be that tickling is a very aggressive thing to do. and people have been saying that forever, almost as much as that "rape is power" nonsense that started in the 80s. when you tickle someone, or their kids, they get all mad and sternly explain that it's a form of abuse. you know what? anyone who thinks that tickling is abuse has never been punched in the fucking face. that's what you get at my house for spilling paint on the garage floor! did i stutter?! just kidding.

i got tickled when i was a kid and it didn't traumatize me. flashback noise! what childhood scars DID i pick up? let's start in the garage with Bender. nope, actually, the only violence that i can remember ever happening in my dad's garage was when my brother and i were being chased home from the mudpit (where we went fishing for bluegill every day) and these guys in this pickup truck were tearing after us on our bicycles after one of us made some smartass comment to them, and i got to the house first, started pulling down the garage door and my brouther comes flying up the driveway at Mach 3 and POW! the garage door catches him in the head and scrapes him right off his bike. his bike rolls in without him and falls over, wheels still spinning. he's stunned and laying in the driveway, and those guys in the truck were like, "oh shit, he's dead!" and they took off. Floyd (yep, his name's Floyd) woke up after a couple seconds and ran in the house screaming his head off. i think i got in trouble for that. i don't remember.

hmm, lets sidetrack a bit. how else did i accidentally injure my older, more athletic brother? oh yeah! chipped his front tooth twice. once on an Etch-A-Sketch. he was laying on the bed playing with the Etch-A-Sketch and i threw a Nerf football at him and the Etch-A-Sketch bashed him in the mouth. after a couple seconds he went screaming down the stairs. i think i got in trouble for that. then, after his tooth got fixed, we were skating on the frozen field of water (it wasn't even the beloved mudpit, it was just this neighbor's field that would flood over and then freeze) and he wiped out and broke that same tooth. actually, now that i think about it, i don't think i had anything to do with his broken tooth that second time.

what else happened to him? i remember when he sliced his hand open on a weight bench and his middle finger was hanging off. my aunt was babysitting and she violently yanked me off the toilet to take him to the hospital. now THAT was traumatizing. and i think he broke his arm (or was it his elbow?) i broke my arm worse, though. and he broke his nose. but we both broke our noses. couple times each. my nose breaking was much more dramatic. his nose got squashed when he slipped during a basketball game, but mine got knocked around my head like Daffy Duck after a shotgun blast after i got the ever living shit beat out of me over this stupid girl back in 11th grade. that was the first and last time i ever got my ass kicked. i quickly learned the art of the cheap shot. that's a long post for another time. too many injuries to dwell on just one of them. my nose is still very crooked though. maybe i'll try to find a straight-on picture to illustrate this later. okay, enough about Floyd's scars! what else did i do to myself?

-i broke a finger by punching a guy in the helmet during a football game. that wasn't very smart of me, but i was trying to enjoy every second they left me on the field. and that fucker had stepped on my hand when i was on the ground. i don't blame him for this swollen, peanut-looking finger i'm still sporting though. that injury was obviously just the result of my frustration of being stuck on the JV squad. of course, Floyd was quarterback on the Varsity team. but that's fine. because he was having so much fun back then, he doesn't remember any of this like i do. and therefore, my reward is getting to write it down.

-i wrecked my car and my hand went through the windshield. i milked that injury for all it was worth as it happened on the way to school. i left the smashed car (a Pontiac Fiero, which, on impact, reveals that it's fashioned out of Legos) and walked to this house, but the buses all filed by my smoking car and people at school were saying i was dead by lunch time. my high school girlfriend had to leave her math class when she heard the news. can you imagine the attention i got from her after that? i've never been so happy about someone else's misery in all my life. i think i already talked about this (like the last episode of Seinfeld), but i even went back to school that day just to bask in the glory. she was all sniffling at my locker. i had my hand barely wrapped up, and like 2 stitches at the most, but i was acting like i'd just got back from storming the beach at Normandy.

but then these other two other kids got hit by a goddamn train the next day, and one of them broke their leg when the train dragged them about a mile, and no one gave a shit about my hand anymore.

-oh, here's a good one. i was sitting on the edge of one of those above-ground pools and i fell backwards and my leg hit this row of exposed screws where it wasn't quite finished being put together and it punched three big holes in my leg down to the bone. they had trouble with the stitches on that one because they were more like puncture wounds.

-oh! here's a real good one! i had this golf ball, and i was standing on our porch and whipping at the ground over and over to see how many time i could get it to rebound off the roof and floor of the porch (you can see where this is going) and i threw it as hard as i could and SMACK right in my fucking mouth. i think it actually hit the roof, hit my mouth, hit the ground, then hit me in the face one last time for the road. put my top teeth through my bottom lip. it took forever for that to heal. that was last Thursday. just kidding. i think i was nine.

-once, i was running with a stick over these big, broken slabs of highway and i tripped and stuck it through the palm of my hand. another round hole like the ones in my leg.

-i ruptured a disc in my spine by exercising too much and moving boxes at work. ended up having surgery and a month of rehab in a pool. the woman in charge of my rehab developed a severe case of Dave fever. she didn't want to see me get better and kept trying to injure me again so i'd keep coming back. i think she had the crush because all the other people there with back injuries never did anything but wander around like the undead. i would strap all the weights on my body, turn on a Billy Squier CASSETTE and jump in the pool and pretend i was running on the moon. i think they thought i was a mental patient.

-one time i fell about a hundred feet out of this tree at our old house. this huge willow tree had this broken branch at the top that went straight across that we called "The Bridge." and i would climb up there and stand and look at everyone's rooftops. and, of course, it finally collapsed when i was on it, and it dropped me down through about 50 limbs like a pinball. i ended up tangled in a bottom branch, hanging upside down, trying to cry with the wind knocked out of me, with a layer of skin sheered of my left forearm.

-speaking of pinball! we had this pinball machine our dad got us for Christmas, and i was reaching up into it to get the metal balls out and my brother hit the buttons and something in there sliced the top off one of my knuckles. i still have this white line across the bone. i used to lie and tell people it was from someone's tooth who i punched. i still have a picture of that pinball machine in my wallet. right now. ask anyone. and a picture of a cat from three cats ago. and a lizard from five lizards ago. you know why? because every one of them bit me.

you know, if this was the movie "Jaws" or "Chasing Amy" or "Mountains of the Moon," i would have to end my display of scars with a thumb pointing at my chest and the old standby:

"see this right here, she broke my heart!"

instead, however, as a tribute of sorts to my last breakup, here's a camping photo from the last photographic proof of me in a happy relationship (was this a year ago? has it been a year yet?) you'd be better off trying to get a picture of the Yeti than this kind of shot.

and here's a better camping photo for the road 'cause now i want to go camping again. this one's all symbolic.

and, of course, i will tie everything together with a final prelude to my last decent, story-worthy injury...

::: david - 2:37 AM [+] :::
...

"Essentially I'm an animal. So just what do I do with all the aggression?"
- Gnarls Barkley "Just A Thought"

-the problem with people who have a problem with rap music:

they always say "make your own music!" as if they've caught them (gasp!) stealing because they're using samples. what they don't understand is that, just like with white folk music, this was a form of music that emerged for one simple reason...anybody could do it! you didn't need to buy or learn an instrument, you just took the part of someone else's song that you thought was cool, found a way to make it repeat indefinitely, and then talked about your day or threatened people over top of it. this is a completely valid form of expression. however...

-the problem with rap music:

these days it's nothing but samples and no expression. the least interesting thing about this kind of music (with the exception of Outkast) should be the beat you're using, i mean stealing. and your lyrics should completely overshadow what you've stolen because you were in such a hurry for your words to be heard, you barely had time to check the label on that record, and you certainly didn't bother to learn how to program a keyboard. of course, with Outkast they've got both great, insane lyrics, and an equally insane production, but they're the one exception. the vast majority are who i'm talking about, and they are using the lyrics as filler or repetitive bullshit about bitches and money and, instead, only concentrating on making increasingly elaborate keyboard noises to imitate what used to be space-filling breakbeat samples. And it's hard to think of anything else that's a more massive waste of time and energy than immitating what was only there as a stepping stone to letting your voice be heard. there's probably only about three variations of any beat anyway, just like there's supposedly only two variations of any story (man goes on a journey, stranger comes to town) and that's where all the millions of dollars are going today instead of investing in the WORDS. so, if you put this much money into the production, maybe it IS time to buy or learn an instrument, just like the people that missed the point up there were saying all along.

-now, it's not exactly rap, but it's close enough, and i'm here to say that the Gnarls Barkley cd "St. Elsewhere" actually lives up to the hype. at least i think so. in spite of a berzerk production that sometimes overshadows the songs, i think it's great. and it's got those words i was talking about. the song "Just A Thought" is the best on there. haunting lyrics, schizo beat. vocals like a 70s Elton John falsetto, a bass line that i swear came from the song "Seasons in the Sun." good, good shit. and songs 13 and 14, both excellent. and even though you are, i'm STILL not sick of "Crazy." my one gripe, it's way too short to be a project that the Danger Mouse claims he's been working on for three years. AND i would have stripped the sound effects down even further on the rest of the album like they did on "Just a Thought" and "Crazy." 'cause that singer's got the pipes to carry the whole thing comfortably on his back. there's definitely a Marvin/Prince/Outkast thing going on there with him that i had no idea he was capable of when he was rapping back in Goodie Mob. but the best reason to own this cd? because it's actually got artwork on the cover instead of a photo!!! true story! this is getting very rare these days.

-i've been listening to Strapping Young Lad's "The New Black." sounds like the old black to me.

-someone around here must keep having birthdays, as they keep throwing away helium balloons outside this building, so i brought another one up to my apartment for my cats to play with. i figured it would be perfect since the strings hang down where they could chase them around the room, and it would be like someone who never got tired of bobbing strings in front of them nonstop. i had found the perfect toy to channel their midnight feline fury! however, the first balloon got sucked into my ceiling fan when i wasn't looking and the pandemonium that resulted caused my cats to swell up like hairy little puffer fish and slink under the couch. and they've still not recovered. now they consider these balloons the eqivalent of me bringing in running lawnmovers for them to play with.

now that i've blatantly attempted to establish my street credibility with banter about urban beats and the 70s AM radio staple "Season In The Sun," (if you tune in Wednesday night at midnight, i promise to play it sans irony) i am now able to post a favorite image to lighten up the depressingly serious funeral mood around this joint lately with all my rambling about cemetary visits.

this particular photograph of me is the only good to come out of my doomed James Dean's grave rubbing, get-rich-quick scheme road trip.

everyone that was in the car that day is still angry with me.

some more than others.

::: david - 3:05 PM [+] :::
...

“It should be awhile before I see Dr. Death,
but it would sure be nice if I could catch my breath...”
-"Like the 309" - Johnny Cash

“Candy and Ronnie have you seen them yet?
- “Benny and the Jets” - Elton John



NONFICTION:



DIRGE



>i wanted to get on the road by midnight, but i'm stuck at work way later than i intended.

>for my new job, all night i’m typing captions for Discovery channel shows. they look a lot like this actually.

>3:00 a.m. and i’m on the turnpike near Cleveland, listening to Johnny Cash's new cd "A Hundred Highways."

>as i drive, i'm thinking to myself after every bleak song on that album, "wow, how appropriate that i'm going to Toledo."

>i stop to eat at one of those UFO-looking food stations. there's a row of five fast-food counters with no dividers behind the beams that separate them.

>when the employees move around back there, it's like the movies when the camera follows people through a bunch of rooms and the camera goes through the walls right next to them.

>whoa! what's the KFC kid doing walking right through the set where they're filming the "Burger King" movie?! madness!

>the kids should at least switch hats and put on fake beards when they do that. but after a closer look, i see there’s no need for that because they all have three logos on their cap. that’s even freakier.

>back on the road, i pay the turnpike guy and want to ask him what someone does if they don't have money at the booth.

>i forget to ask and vow to myself to find the answer on the way back to Pittsburgh. i've always wondered about that.

>i'm going to call my dad to say when i'll be there, but my cell phone dies for the fifth time.

>back in college when i used to take road trips to Cleveland, on the way back to Toledo there was a rest stop that had a fence behind it where you could creep out with your car, take a dirt road up through some farmer's field, and then you wouldn't have to stop at the last tollbooth to exit.

>it got to where i wouldn't even factor in that five bucks coming back. i'd count on that fence never being locked, driving back with a quarter to my name, and never once back then did it cross my mind i might have to stop at that tollbooth without any money.

>pulling into my dad's house at 5:45. the road in front of the house that seemed so huge when i was growing up looks as small as a sidewalk now. i'm about 3 hours later than he thought i'd be.

>i'd sneak in with the claw end of a hammer like we used to in high school, but that garage door has been fixed for years.

>in fact, everything's different. no stones in the driveway and three security lights pop on like i'm scaling a fence at Alcatraz as soon as i pull in. i ring the bell expecting him to by annoyed but he opens the door in a dazed stupor and goes back to bed.

>i stand in a kitchen that looks totally different and drink some water. i see he's got a fish tank now. sweet. i sit in front of it and watch the tiny snails on the glass. i'm not tired, but i have to try to sleep because the funeral's in like three hours.

>i go into my old bedroom, which has now been converted to a spare room. i seem to be making slightly less noise that a guy wearing a suit of armor doing jumping jacks. there's no carpet on any of the floors any more. wood everywhere and every
movement is loud as hell.

>i lie down on a bed that's way too small and smack the pillow over my face when i realize i forgot my headphones. i can't sleep without music.

>i'm thinking about sleeping in the car and listening to the radio but it's getting light outside and it's too hot. and the noise i would make trying to get out of the house would be deafening.

>i discover that the 1940s-looking radio in this spare bedroom is not just for show! it's actually got a cd player in it. i stick in a calming Nick Drake mix, thinking about what songs were played at Nick Drake’s funeral and finally just start to fall asleep when....

>suddenly it's time to go to the funeral. my dad's in the doorway. i let him say my name one more time than he needs to. i'm totally swimming in nostalgia thinking about him trying to wake me up so i won't miss the bus.

>stumbling to the shower i ask my stepmom where the toothpaste is. she says, "it's in the shower!" like that's completely normal and why did i even ask. she adds ominously, "that's so you can go ahead and spit as much as you want!"

>i try to brush my teeth in the shower, but toothpaste foam running down my groin seems odd to me, so i creep out and brush my teeth in their new perfectly polished sink. when i spit, i find that i can do it completely silent. "when will i ever use this newly-discovered skill again," i wonder.

>i sit over by the fish tank and wait for them to finish getting ready. i tell my stepmom i like the cool little snails.

>i start to tell her how i was reading about “snails not being able to form hard enough shells because of the acid in the ocean from all the factories and how that could screw up a food chain involving more than half of the creatures in the sea and...” she just starts freaking out that there's snails in there.

>"i never put any snails in that tank!" she declares. i say, "don't worry, you might have the last ones if the acid in the oceans gets worse." this fact doesn't make her want to keep those snails.

>she calls my dad over to ask how the snails got in there. we debate it a while. we decide they rode on one of the plants. i tell them that they just eat algae and won't be a problem.

>i have no idea if that's true and picture the fish tank six months later boiling over with snails.

>there's a huge brass snail sculpture the size of a bowling bowl on the floor in the same room as the fish tank. i point and say "hey, look! what are the chances! it looks like you love snails!" she just stares at me.

>on the way to the funeral, i don't even have time to think about my uncle Ron dying because it turns out the funeral home is only two blocks from my dad's house. i forgot how small Millbury was.

>i'm completely unprepared to get out of the car yet. i had at least three songs i wanted to listen to first.

>inside i have about five mini-reunions in various doorways with the relatives that remember me. half ask if i'm a Steelers fan now. i don't have the time to express my true feelings about Steelers fans so i just sum it up with, "if you lived there, you'd be sick of that bullshit in zero point two seconds."

>i compare back surgery and injuries with my uncle Bob. i'm thinking i'm winning until he busts out, "the other day, they went through my leg with a wire to burn a piece of my heart off." i admit defeat.

>my sister finally gets there and i can tell she wants to talk about a lot of things. i sympathize but don't encourage her because few understand our sense of humor and i don't want to start laughing about anything "inappropriate."

>she notices the song "Cats in the Cradle" on the muzak and whispers "this song is completely inappropriate. doesn't anyone know the lyrics?" she's exactly right but i'm trying to think about Ron, and i don't remember too much about him.

>i sit with my dad and wait for my brother. i know he'll be as late as i'd hoped to be, and maybe i can sit with him in the back out of sight.

>i feel small around my dad's seven surviving brothers and my fifty or so cousins. i was so small growing up and they seemed huge, always telling epic fight stories, and i always felt so scrawny.

>i remember my cousin Mike telling me about beating up someone and during the story i looked down at my fist and it looked like a girl's fist to me. i looked at Mike’s fist and it so hairy i thought i’d just had a Sasquatch sighting. i don't see Mike anywhere at the funeral.

>then i do. i've got about 3 feet and 50 pounds on him now. i wonder if he still thinks of me as that skinny little kid frying ants with a magnifying glass while everyone else threw around the football.

>i have hair on my knuckles now. Between the top two knuckles, too, which i’m told only happens in 7% of the population. since a funeral is a good time for a confession, i’ll also say that i have two stray hairs on my left earlobe and other ever more bizarre places. i expect a hair to be growing out of my eye one morning.

>i'm angry at myself for thinking about stupid shit like that, so i go to look at pictures of my uncle Ron all around the casket. now i feel sad like i'm supposed to. Uncle Ron was always good to me.

>near the coffin, there's big board with snapshots all over it. there's a picture of Ron shirtless, next to a boat with a beer and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. he looks like Steve McQueen. no, strike that. he looks like he could kick Steve McQueen's ass.

>i call my sister up to take a picture of the picture with her camera. i see more pictures (those great old ones with the thick white border) of my dad and his brothers as kids. i wish everyone would come up to that board of pictures so we can talk about them. but Ron's family is crying five feet away, and i'm right next to his dead body. yep, there he is.

>there's my brother and his wife, finally. i go talk to him. he's so late he doesn't have anywhere to sit. i want to joke "you'd be late to your own funeral!" but i don't. i go back and sit with my dad and stepmom and watch them unfold some more chairs for more stragglers. then i see a bunch of relatives trying to figure out who the hell i am. i know them all.

>my grandma comes in with my two aunts and my cousin, Little Gary. "little" Gary ain't so little anymore. he's been working out. he looks big to me anyway. peeking out from under his shirt, i can see he's got the same ring of fire tattoo on his arm that my brother has. him and my brother were similar in a lot of ways. lots of sports. i’ve got no trophies or tattoos.

>grandma is 99 and her body doesn't work anymore but her brain is perfectly fine. i love talking to her and i want to go talk to her, but i hate to see her with her head bent down like that and crying. you know, everyone says that no one should outlive their children but my grandma might outlive everyone.

>she had this mean little Yorkie named "Mitsy" that, get this shit...lived to be 23 years old. just died last year. i'm not exaggerating. what's the math on that? something like 400 in dog years? this dog was blind, mean as can be, too. she wouldn't let anyone near my grandma. she'd just sit under her chair in that smoky kitchen and growl.

>and that dog would only eat what my grandma would eat. grandma's eating spaghetti? there's a bowl of noodles down there for that hateful little dog. my point is, that dog must have set some kind of record hanging on past five generations of dogs, but it couldn't outlive my grandma.

>they roll my grandma up to the coffin and stop. my aunt Debbie starts looking around the room. she locks eyes with me and says, "Dude! Come here!" i know it sounds weird that my aunt said "Dude," but she's not a surfer or anything. that's just my name on my dad's side of the family.

>my aunts re-name everyone. my cousin Gary? they call him "Toot." i'm completely serious. he's gonna hit 30 and he ain't "little" anymore and he's still "Toot." it was even on his varsity jacket. my brother Gene? he's "Bean." my mom was "Bird." the list goes on. anyway, i run up thinking she just wants me to say hi to my grandma. nope.

>i'm told that we are now going to lift my grandma's wheelchair so that she can see my Uncle Ron and kiss him goodbye. "holy shit," i'm thinking. Toot grabs one side, i grab another, Debbie's got a wheel, Uncle Chuck's got a wheel and up we go. she's much lighter that i thought.

>a hundred relatives are looking at us wide-eyed. i'm kind of proud actually. i feel big, like i was chosen over all these cousins because of my now-obvious physical strength and solid leadership in a crisis. i have fantasies of defending my grandma from some rival funeral next door that wants to take all our folding chairs.

>the coffin starts wobbling alarmingly on its stand. we're leaning the wheelchair over too far, and i have to keep one arm on the coffin to keep it steady. "this is going to be a disaster," i'm thinking. but to be honest, i like that were doing it. grandma wants to see Uncle Ron's face, and God damn it, we're going to make that happen.

>everyone's straining and the coffin's shaking and the wheelchair's creaking and we've got her in there close, but i hear grandma keep saying "i can't see him." no matter how hard we strain, the angle just ain't working. her face won't get line up with his face. the coffin slides away from all of us leaning into it. "this things gonna crash," i think. i look at him. yep, there he is.

>i'm getting ready to suggest that we pick up Ron's hand or something for grandma to touch instead when suddenly she says "okay, put me down." i guess we're done. did she kiss him like she wanted? i must have missed it. i was too busy keeping the coffin steady. i turn to Little Gary (i mean, "Toot,") and say, "i can't believe that worked." he smiles and shakes his head. he still lives close to all of them and he's seen it all.

>i sit back down, sweat on the end of my nose, and the preacher is up there pretending like he knew Uncle Ron, but he's not doing a very good job. later i find out he was a half-hour late and only looked at the papers handed to him for about 30 seconds.

>i want to tell Ron's son and daughters that i put an "Uncle Ron" in the western script i'm writing, and i want to tell them that this Uncle Ron in the western has a tornado door in his field and all the relatives hide in there because i will always associate tornadoes with my uncle Ron.

>when we were all little, whenever there was a tornado warning, we'd end up at Uncle Ron's house because he was the only one with a basement. the adults would play cards while us kids watched the windows scared shitless. but it was still kind of fun, and the memory is still strong as hell.

>i wish that i was around everyone enough that i would be able to go up there and remind them about the tornado warnings. but i moved away and don’t say much around them these days. so i sit and listen to vague stuff about Ron from a stranger and sign when i hear some prayers that run together and don't sound like much of anything.

>the preacher reads something from Ron's wife, my aunt, Candy (yes, that’s her name. true story) and what he reads is heartfelt and strong, and i feel like an asshole for wanting to read my stuff that only means anything to me. then they play the song Ron wanted his wife to hear. i’m half-expecting “Bennie and the Jets” because of their names, but it’s not. talk about a critic-proof moment. no one would dare think a critical thought about any song played in this circumstance. not even if the song is "Only You." Which it is.

>we head to the grave site. my sister wants to ride with me. i'm the only one parked facing the wrong way, so i have to back out and turn around to get in the procession. my sister is trying to figure out a way to keep the magnetic flag they stick to the car.

>on the way to the grave, we pass a field of migrant workers who are all leaning on their shovels with their hats off while we drive by. i'm so impressed by this show of respect from strangers that i momentarily have faith in the human race again. i tell my sister to take a picture of those workers, but she's slow on the draw and gets a blurry picture right as her battery dies.

>at the grave site, my brother walks up with these huge sunglasses on and i ask him if he's "one of the X-men or what?" he's confused. you see, he played sports while i read comics books. then we’re standing at the grave, listening as they read a sentence from each of the seven brothers talking about Ron. it's exactly the kind of thing i wanted to hear more of at the funeral home. my dad has the best one. his line is about how, when they were kids, Ron took the parts off his bike so that my dad would have a bike to ride. in the middle of the sermon my brother whispers, "oh, the X-men. i get it." later my sister says exactly what i was thinking earlier, "dad's sentence was the best one."

>i go over to my dad sitting on his car. he's upset and he talks about how Ron used to give him and all his younger brothers whatever money he had in his pocket so he could go get stuff. he tells us how Ron would throw him his keys and let him use his car, even though Ron needed it for work because he said my dad was "a good kid."

>my dad's upset and that's tough to see. and my sister's crying because she can't stand to see my dad like that. dad tells another story about how they had a bench-clearing brawl at a baseball game and how Ron had someone by the neck up against the back stop and was punching him in the face. my dad says Ron was the strongest person he knew. he says, in awe, "that kid that Ron was punching and holding with one arm? his feet weren't even touching the ground." i ask my dad why he didn't submit that story for the preacher to read instead of the thing about the bike. we all laugh at that and my dad's not so upset anymore.

>my sister wants to see my grandpa's grave, which is in the same cemetery, so i point it out. my aunt's is next to Ron's, but my grandpa's is off to the side. it's in a strange spot, right next to the garage where all the tractors and stuff are. that always bothered me because, when you go to a grave, you need that wide open space to think about stuff and feel all dramatic. a gravestone right next to a garage full of tractors and bulldozers screws the scene all up. i see other people coming to see grandpa's grave and i think "there's going to be hundreds of Keatons buried out here some day." then i think, “my brother wouldn't know shit about the X-men if they hadn't made movies about 'em.” does he have another tattoo on his arm?

>i pass another uncle and find out that he's got a grandson named after him now. i wonder whether this was because he wanted a son but had three daughters instead, and i wonder how the daughters feel about this. my brother has two daughters, and, the most recent, a son that looks and acts just like him. i see that more and more, where the youngest child is always a boy. it seems like some people stop having kids when they finally get a boy. i think having boys means too much to people.

>on the way home, i think about that scene in the book "Tom Sawyer" where Tom fulfills his dream of sneaking in to listen to people at his own funeral and how he hears his friends and family cry and talk about him thinking he's dead, and how he gets off on it. i used to think that would be great, but now i think i haven't accomplished much of anything, and i would be embarrassed of any vague, harmless things that would be said at my funeral to cover up the fact that i haven't done jack shit.

>i start thinking about cremation as an option. then i start to think "detonation" would be even better. then we're back at my dad's, watching TV, and i tell my sister to go rent us a movie at the corner grocery store. she says she doesn't have any money. i think about how dad said Ron used to give all the younger brothers money all the time and i give my sister seven bucks to rent the movie. i promise her another five bucks if she can get "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" for us to watch. i kept telling my dad to watch that movie whenever he calls, but he never rents what i tell him too.

>i didn't think that little grocery store would have it, but she comes back with that movie and a free bag of popcorn. i would have given her the extra money anyway, even if she had brought back "Capote," the movie she really wanted to watch. actually, that's not true. she really wanted me to watch it. but i told her i didn't feel like sitting through it right now. but i can respect wanting someone to watch something with you that they've already seen.

>i'm all excited for them to watch the movie, because if anyone knows me at all, they know, like i just hinted at up there, that this is one of my favorite things: watching movies i've already seen with people who ain't seen them yet. but 10 minutes into "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" and both my dad and sister are snoring on their couches. i turn off the TV and fall asleep, too. an hour later, my stepmom comes crashing into the house with groceries and loudly asks why everyone’s asleep. at least that's what my sister said happened. i slept through it all.

>when i wake up my dad says my sister walked down to my grandma’s and i'm supposed to meet her there. i change clothes and head over to my grandma's house. i see from the cars in the yard that there's a couple uncles and cousins there, too. i walk in and sit down on the floor of the kitchen next to the fridge like i’m five years old. i can't begin to explain how comfortable it is to sit there.

>i used to sit there for approximately the first third of my life. right there on the floor in that smoky kitchen while the adults stepped over me or affectionately rubbed my head and told some hilariously vulgar story about someone they wronged or wronged them. the only thing missing from that big kitchen table in front of me is my grandma. she sits in a more comfortable chair in the living room now. in a chair that's more like a bed. the smoky kitchen seems weird without her.

>after a while, everyone gathers in the living room and i get them talking about the documentary "Grizzly Man." weeks ago, i called to tell my aunt to tell my grandma to watch it when i saw it was going to be on the Discovery channel. i'm surprised to find that they did watch it. we make fun of that crazy fucker getting eaten and imitate him talking to his bears.

>my grandma falls asleep in her chair, and as soon as everyone sees this, they immediately start talking about how grandma told them that she couldn't see Uncle Ron in the coffin until he turned his head to look at her. what?! they say that grandma said that she "felt so much better once he turned his head so that she could see him" and that's why she stopped crying and told us to put her down. i don't believe in anything remotely supernatural, but i find myself trying to remember which way Ron's head was turned when i was wrestling with that wheelchair and steadying the coffin.

>Little Gary (i mean "Toot") says "that cemetery’s gonna be full of Keatons one day" and i tell him that i was thinking the exact same thing. then someone makes a comment about the "Mexicans in the field staring at the cars all weird" and thankfully someone defends them saying "no, they were just showing their respects." "oh," the other cousin says, still doubtful.

>back at my dad's house, i force my stepmom to get off the computer and my dad to put down the newspaper so that we can all finish watching "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" damn it. and, of course, they enjoy it. don't they know me yet? would i ever steer someone wrong with a movie? my sister finally shows up during the last 20 minutes and rattles her bags during some important dialogue but that's okay. she always does that. my dad and stepmom go to bed and me and my sister kind of get the giggles because we know we're supposed to be quiet.

>me and my sister proceed to snicker and eat every goddamn thing in their kitchen. cereal, old pizza, some cheese popper things in a carry-out box, some spare ribs, strawberries, some nasty cookies with walnuts in them. it's a leftover feast of biblical proportions. my dad comes out to tell us to keep it down.

>she talks about that magnetic funeral flag she wanted, and i tell her that i tried to keep one of those magnetic funeral flags when my aunt died years ago. on the way to her grave site, i realized i was almost out of gas, and i had to sneak out of the line of cars when they turned so that i could go to the gas station. when i went to meet up with everyone after they left the cemetery, i realized i still had that flag, and didn't want anyone to see it and know i didn't go to the grave site. so i stopped my car, took off the magnetic flag, and stuck it down out of sight on the side of a small metal bridge. i try to remember where that bridge is so that me and my sister can see if it's still there.

>i sneak back into their office (my sister's old room, of course now sporting a loud wooden floor, too) so that i can check my email. then i type half the shit you're reading right now. it feels like i'm captioning. my sister comes in and tries to get me to watch some British cross-dressing comedian whose head is as big as his torso. we have to turn it down so low for fear of waking Floyd (yes, my dad’s name is “Floyd,” and my older brother is “Floyd Jr.” that’s what’s known as “dodging a bullet”), all i really do is watch him mince around the stage like a mime. she falls asleep 15 minutes later anyway. while she’s sleeping, she forgets to cover the tattoos that she always hides from my Floyd. they're drawings of tiny little Elton John records scrawled across her lower back. they remind me of the absent-minded doodles you make when you're on the phone.

>i designed a tattoo for myself once, a long time ago, when my college roommate Gary took me with him to get one in Bowling Green. the one i drew was going to be this feather quill with an eagle's claw on the end making a fist. it was supposed to represent writing, but i think it would have been mistaken for patriotism. not getting that tattoo was the second smartest move of my youth. not drinking the homemade beer that me and my friends made in the woods when we were in 6th grade was the smartest. my friend Jeff puked like a human fire hose, and also got stung in the head by a yellow jacket an hour later. bursting into flames was the only thing that didn't happen to that poor bastard that day.

>back in the old bedroom. i think about my roommate Gary some more. i’ve got three friends, two uncles and one cousin named “Gary.” as a kid, I’d write that name as “Gray” instead, which is much more interesting, i try to stretch out on the bed and accidentally knock over something. then i go to get it and knock over something else. it's like trying to curl up in the middle of a fucking domino tournament. it's like i'm simply not meant to sleep in that room anymore.

>i turn on the light and look around. it's so small and at one time me AND my brother were living in there together? unbelievable. i see my stepmom's stack of easy listening/country cassette tapes in a pile in the corner and i sort them all by quality, artist, and year. in that order. then i make a little Stonehenge out of the Elton John cassettes. i know this will drive her nuts. i’m thinking about how Elton John’s old stuff would be decent funeral songs, except for “Benny and the Jets,” but i must have fallen asleep because it's the next morning and apparently my dad needs to start some sort of heavy machinery right next to my (old) bedroom window. i get up and stumble outside, knocking over Stonehenge on the way out. i imagine the real Stonehedge crashing down at exactly the same moment.

>my dad finally stops roto-tilling or building a robot out of aluminum cans or whatever noisy shit he’s doing and walks over to the porch where i’m drinking my orange juice. he mentions that the mix cds i've been mailing him are skipping in his cars. because i'm obsessive about skipage at all times, i whip out one of three cd cleaners i happen to have in my bag for just such an emergency. i clean the cd players in both his car and his truck. my dad gets out the Neil Diamond "12 Songs" cd i sent him last year. he says that he wanted Ron's wife to play "Hell Yeah" at the funeral, but he says he didn't get it to her in time. i say that the fact it has "hell" in the title might not have gone over well with that preacher.

>i look around at all the renovations on the outside of the house and think about how my grandpa had that construction business with all that heavy equipment parked around his house too. i start thinking that maybe grandpa's grave makes sense where it is next to that garage full of tractors. thinking about one grandpa makes me remember the other one, so i pack up to go see my grandpa on my mom's side. that grandma just died last week but they didn't have a ceremony. she was cremated. also my Uncle Dave on that side of the family just died too. he was also cremated. i figure i should pay my respects to that grandpa. it’s been a long time since i’ve seen him anyway.

>at my grandpa's, i see that he has a little Yorkie, too. what are the chances? but his dog's all happy and hyper. i ask grandpa where all grandma’s frogs are now that she died (i suddenly remembered that she collected frogs) so grandpa takes me to the garden and insists that i take this giant blue concrete frog and find it a home. i put it in the trunk. his little dog tries to follow us and my grandpa says, "his name's Hemi! he's a Dodge fan!" while the dog is going ape shit, grandpa shows me a peanut he's glued to a small piece of wood. there's splash of red paint on the end of it that looks like blood. "guess what this is!" he says all smiling. i give up. he declares: "it's an assaulted peanut!" and gives it to me.

>i put batteries back in grandpa's TV remote to turn on the closed-captions and show him what i'm doing at work these days. he tells me that the cable guy took the batteries out so that he wouldn't get his remotes confused. i tell him how we caption everything in capital letters, so when i try to type normal anywhere else, nothing ever gets capitalized. then i tell him how the screen can only hold about three lines at a time, and after 6 months of staring at those three lines on the bottom of the screen, i’m convinced that i’m starting to squeeze my thoughts into thought bubbles that would comfortably fit on the bottom of a television.

>i ask him to tell me one more time why the cable guy took the batteries out of his remote control. i feel the urge to call the cable guy and explain that my grandpa isn't one of those stupid customers that need their shit disabled like that. then i find a documentary on Discovery and say "see that! i typed those words!" he seems interested and has me leave the captions on. not always on, just when he hits the mute button. then he takes the batteries out again. i tell him how my captioning always seems to have an extra words hanging down into the next line. sometimes two words. sometimes three. i tell him that, at work, i dream of my captions slowly covering the screen from top to bottom, filling the glass with a pile of words fighting each other for room to be seen.

>grandpa proceeds to tell me a horrible story about that little dog attacking a mole that got caught above ground when they went camping. he tells me how that dog was shaking the shit out of the mole to the enjoyment of the other elderly campers and i pretend to laugh along with him, hoping for a happy ending for the mole. no such luck. to change the subject, i tell him how when you caption a change of speaker on the screen, you have to identify this with tiny little arrow. i tell him that, with the exception of my lines running over and filling the screen, forgetting to identify new speaker or identifying the same dude over and over is my most common mistake. i tell him that my impulse is to use those arrow whenever the thought changes instead of the voice. i’m pretty sure he’s not hearing anything i’m saying about my job at this point. then grandpa gives his little dog a leather glove and the dog shakes the shit out of it. grandpa yells gleefully, "get that mole!" i can't help but crack up. i love my grandpa in spite of (because of?) his old fashioned sadistic tendencies. i would have rescued the mole had i been there, however. then i leave realizing that i never said the words "sorry about grandma, sorry about Uncle Dave." i never remember to say those things and hope that spending time there makes up for it.

>i drive around a while, then suddenly remember that i saw Captain Beefheart's "Ice Cream for Crow" at a used record store the last time i was in Toledo. i didn't have any money then, but i have a little now, so i drive there to buy it. it would be the worst funeral music of all time. right up there with the soundtrack to “Grease.” inside the store, i see three (?!) copies of that hard-to-find cd and spend a little time swapping around the insides so that i get the best case and booklet with the best disc. i'm starting to feel normal again. the guy at the counter is all excited about Captain Beefheart and tells me a bunch of shit i already know. i let him prattle on as i can appreciate his enthusiasm. i only correct him once out of the five things he gets wrong. however, he does tell me one thing i didn't already know. he tells me Captain Beefheart has a cameo in the movie "8-Mile." i'm immediately depressed as i realize i now have to watch "8-Mile" again when i get home. he'd better be in there.

>the open spaces around Toledo that i once found so empty are oddly comforting. in Pittsburgh i thought i liked all the green and hills when i first arrived, but now i realize that i'm a product of Toledo's dead farms and factories, and to see this far across the horizon feels good for the first time. i drive a lot longer than i was planning to, so i stop to see my friend Mark at Barnes 'N Noble. inside, i witness some customer ask if they have anything by the Beatles. Mark stares at the man for at least 20 seconds before some young employee intercepts the question. i’m tempted to announce that, statistically, Beatles songs are played at 50% more funerals than any other band. maybe that's because there's only 50% of them left. to hide from customers, Mark goes back to his stack of cds and fighting with his "Personal Data Transmitter." the noise of it reminds me of when i worked for B&N in Pittsburgh. Mark tells me he's been watching lot of the TV show "The Incredible Hulk" lately. they're selling the box set there, along with several other shows from my youth. Mark crosses his arms and proceeds to make a very good point about that show: why does Dr. Banner never hulk-out, run over, and discover that it's a false alarm? why doesn’t that ever happen? you know, a girl screams, but she and her boyfriend were just joking around. and then the Hulk's all confused and has nothing to do but scratch his green head and wander off? that should happen at least once, right? he's right, of course. i tell Mark that the opening credits where Bill Bixby's eyes are turning green and he's hulking-out when his tire-iron slipped made me wary as a kid of having to change a tire. would it really hurt that bad if it slipped off the lug nuts? then i see a "Little House on the Prairie" box set right next to it and laugh. the best episode of that show (and i remember this like it was yesterday) was when a tornado destroyed their crops and "Pa" finally lost faith in God. i thought he was going to go on a rampage or something, but, sadly, he started to believe again in spite of his blind kids, rabid dogs, and failure to give birth to a son. they had a tornado door in that episode. i stole that shit for my western script.

>i drive around for an hour looking at people's houses that i knew. i listen to that Johnny Cash cd again. Did i mention that my friend Holly sent me that cd the next day (!) after reading on my web site that i wanted it? how about that? i type the words, and it shows up outside my door that fast!? okay, let's try typing these words instead: "i sure would like some girl to bring me a bowl of cereal and sit on my face right now..." okay, now let me check the front door...nope, nothing. Holly used to live in Toledo, too. she also comes home for funerals. while i’m thinking about it, i put in the soundtrack i made for my western script, trying to figure out where i want to put that Uncle Ron tornado door scene. i think of too many other things i want to change in the script and take out the cd. i listen to "Hell Yeah" and silently agree with my dad that it's a perfect funeral song.

>it's getting real late and i'm not sure whether to stay another night or head back. i call my friend Glen who's in Pittsburgh for the weekend. we had plans, but i don't think i'll get back in time for it to pan out. Glen calls me back an hour later with a trivia question about who sang on some Pink Floyd song. i say to call our other friend Steve, and Glen says that Steve, most likely, isn't aimlessly driving around all night like i am. good point. i remember Steve telling me once that he wants "Comfortably Numb" played at his funeral. i think i told him that the first one to die gets to do that since it's only fair. Glen puts his brother-in-law on the phone. apparently there's $100 riding on the Pink Floyd question. i take the opportunity to tell his brother-in-law embarrassing stuff about Glen instead. i tell him that, in High School, Glen had a car that had a door that fell off whenever you went over railroad tracks. i tell him that Glen's feet smelled worse than any feet i've encountered before or since. i tell him how we couldn't pay attention to the movie "Evil Dead" back in 9th grade because Glen's feet were too distracting. i can't think of anything else about Glen so i tell this guy how i'd smooch on Glen's stepsister at parties when she got real drunk (she was very hot and at least six years older than us. that's right, high-five!) the brother-in-law seems to appreciate the dirt on Glen, but still insists Robert Palmer sang on the Pink Floyd song in question. "impossible," i say. Glen and Steve have kids now. to destroy my credibility with what i said earlier, i will now confess that i want a son that is exactly like me.

>i get hungry and look for some fast food. in line, the girl in front of me has a tattoo that says "juicy" on her arm. i'm thinking about this stupid tattoo so much that i'm not ready to order my greasy breakfast food when it's my turn. i want to ask her, "so, i'm thinking that the only thing that tattoo could refer to is your twat, right?" and she could get all insulted like she doesn't have a sign on her body drawing attention to the state of her crotch. i want to explain to her that i'm going to get a tattoo that says, "hey, everybody, my dick has these weird hairs that grow all the way to the end of it, how freaky is that shit? ask me about it!" okay, that would be a long tattoo. but it would be in that cool old-English script like Tupac's "Thug Life." or maybe i could do it in Chinese so that whole paragraph would just be on like one tiny hieroglyphic. "you silly, silly bitch" i think as i eat two breakfast muffin things and go back for a third. 2:00 am is a hungry time.

>i turn the car too sharply and the concrete frog in the trunk falls over. scares the shit out of me and for a second i think i’ve gotten a flat tire. i imagine my eyes turning green when the tire iron slips off the lug nuts. after 30 more miles, my back hurts from sitting in this car so long and it's hard to catch my breath. i wonder if i should have gone to see my sister like she wanted. or my brother. or anyone else. my cell phone dies for the tenth time. it won't even charge unless you hold it just right and unless the car's running but not moving. i throw it under the seat in disgust. i see a turnpike sign and i decide to head back to Pittsburgh right then. Four more hours and then i’m home. i start to think about songs to play at my funeral. i think the idea of such a captive audience would make it impossible to choose anything except a song that would be funny or confusing. like maybe the Canadian National Anthem as heard through my Atari Lynx hand-held videogame during the opening of the game "Mutant League Hockey." somewhere around Cleveland, i get my phone to charge a little and i talk to my sister again. i tell her that grandpa gave me an "assaulted peanut." she's very disappointed and tells me, "all i got was a ‘quarter pounder’ and a 'cartridge in a pear tree.'" i'm thinking that last one must be a bullet stuck in some fruit or something. One more hour and i'm home. is the sun coming up? check out the color of that sky. for the second time in 2 days, i wish my name was “Gray.” An hour later, when i stop at the last turnpike booth, i remember to ask the guy what happens if the you don't have enough money for the toll.

-he looks surprised, laughs and says, "you fill out a form and pay it later. it just happened, actually."


© 2006 david james keaton

::: david - 11:23 PM [+] :::
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