Hi-Brow + Low-Brow = Uni-Brow

Mrs. Ding Dong Explains "How Hitler Happened"

2011-12-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

I had a teacher in high school named Mrs. Dignon and some of the kids called her Mrs. Ding Dong. I don't remember if I ever did. I didn't dislike her though she was a little flighty. Over the course of the semester her thinking kept growing squishy. She'd lose her place in her lectures and get distracted by longer and longer riffs into her personal worldviews as she endeavored to mold us into upstanding citizens.

One of her rants was against the evils of nonconformism. Sitting there in my spiked leather wrist band and Dead Kennedys t-shirt I wondered if she was addressing her talk to me? She explained that the only way to make sure you were a good person was to be in a good church and the apex of her talk was that we should remember to "not think for ourselves because that's how Hitler happened."

I looked around the room. Nothing. No reaction. I thought of raising my hand and asking if she thought maybe "Hitler happened" because people did not think for themselves? But I did not.

I was pissed though. This was a public high school and even with my C+ in civics class I knew that a teacher in a public high school can't espouse one religion over another or over no religion at all.

A couple weeks later I wrote an essay on the Odyssey. I wrote about how it was a great adventure tale but it also showed the growing pains of a society on the verge of civilization where they will throw off the oppressive yoke of gods and move away from superstitious nonsense and take responsibility for themselves and for each other in a rational civilized world. This change had not occurred by the end of the story but was more than overdue The gods are crazy and swearing allegiance to them was crazier. I probably wouldn't make the same case now but it was a sweet little piece of passive aggressive essaying for a high schooler.

I got a B- on that essay and no notes in the margin at all.

Two months later I got a notice saying that my high school graduation was on hold because I had not turned in my text book to Mrs. Dignon. I showed this to my drama teacher Mrs. Voss who said, "Come with me." We went to the textbook storage area and dug through them until we found mine. I got my diploma.

Four years later, my little brother had Mrs. Dignon and her thinking was even squishier. One of her rants got so disorganized that she eventually fell into some sort of catatonic stupor. The kids asked if she was alright and she said nothing so they quietly left the room, leaving her humming and rocking on her desk.

Two months later my little brother got a notice that his graduation was on hold because he had not turned in his text book to Mrs. Dignon. Perhaps she just did that shit all the time as a matter of course but my read at the time was that her brain was so squishy that she confused my little brother for me and pulled that text book nonsense in retaliation for an essay he never wrote. He actually plunked down the cash to pay for a textbook that he had in fact turned in and was in the racks of the textbook storage. Too late, I told him Mrs. Voss would have found it for him.

I've been following the creationism versus science debates and controversy (though it is not a debate and it is not a controversy). For people trying to push God into public schools, they have weighed their religious fervor versus the American values of freedom and liberty and decided that freedom and liberty have to go. To put creationism in schools you really do have to get rid of the first amendment. To my eyes, liberty is the central value that America is founded on. We are free to worship as we please or to not worship at all.

The war on Christmas rhetoric tends to be one of two types. There's the "It's no big deal" argument that overly sensitive "politically correct" people are just whining about nothing or there's the "It's a really big deal" argument that secular people are FORCING their "religion of science" on other people.

The "it's no big deal" folks say a nativity scene hurts no one and argue that they as a community should have some say in how their children are raised and if they, the whole community is Christian, how can it possibly hurt if the school's decorations represent that?

Here's a real slippery slope. It's as if to say that we can make exceptions to the first amendment by majority vote. We're all Christians so leave us alone to decorate our school as we see fit. And if there is one little kid in the back who is Jewish or Atheist or god forbid, Muslim, that's just his tough luck.

Well here's why Christians might really, really, really want to be staunch First Amendment advocates. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. How would it be if your child went to a school that was, through some quirk of districting, predominantly Muslim? Your kid has to pray to Mecca every day and if he's uncomfortable with it, that's just his tough luck.

And as to the "It's a really big deal" argument - I have a hunch that's why this weird fear of Sharia Law is so potent lately. It's because the people who fear it are in fact doing it, trying to force their religion into the school - and by doing so putting their God above freedom, above liberty and other fundamental American values.

Certainly if parents want their children to have religious based education they can send their kids to a religious school or they can home school them in whatever loopy stuff they want but keeping a public school utterly and completely secular and devoid of religion is the best strategy for religious people to protect their own liberty to worship as they choose.

I'm certainly an advocate of liberty and science but I was wondering if I really have a dog in this fight or not? And I thought back to that batshit Mrs. Ding Dong forcing her loopy religious bullshit on me as a kid and I resented the hell out of it and for reacting against it I was punished by a public servant in power over me and so was my brother. Granted it's a tiny little piece of religious fascism, but is too much to ask for to have a zero tolerance policy to religious fascism?

The Rapture

2011-05-20T19:08:00.000-07:00

Get ready everyone, because tomorrow, nothing is going to happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk3ovpIfSz8

Harold Camping is alarmed that gays are being accepted by "country after country, state after state .. we wonder what is really going on?"

The idea that he's wrong can't even cross his mind, therefore it's the end of the world.

Regarding his church's location near the gay district of Castro he says, "How interesting that God has placed us HERE, right in the middle of the cesspool"

Yes that is fascinating that God placed Harold Camping within easy access of go-go boys, male hustlers and gay porn.

Just go be gay, dude. Seriously. Rather than obsess on gays and let your guilt fire up into apocalyptic fantasies, just move a block and gay it up for your remaining years.

It's the night before the rapture and I'm going to spend it reading Aleister Crowley and listening to Black Sabbath because I want to make sure I don't go anywhere near any god this homophobe douchebag has any connection to at all.

I do kinda wish it would happen though. If in the course of one day, all the people who think of the earth as their temporary housing / personal garbage dump and say things like "drill, baby, drill" were to vanish on Saturday, we could start bright and early cleaning this place up and looking after all of God's creatures, including the gay ones.

The Goofy Black Guy I Don't Know Multiplication Effect

2010-09-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

A while back, I had lunch in the Century City mall and was walking back to the office when someone said "Hey Buddy! How's it going?" I gave a knee-jerk "Good! How are you?" before I'd really taken in who the hell it was. It was a goofy looking black guy and I'm positive I've never met him. But months later, walking the same part of the mall I see a goofy looking black guy I don't know and I wondered if that was the goofy looking black guy I don't know that I know as the "the goofy looking black guy I don't know?" As I'm wondering this, he says, "Hey Buddy! How's it going?" Ah it IS him! I say hi back. This time I really file him away in my mind real good. It's a huge faux pas for a good liberal like me to mistake one black guy for another. You open yourself up for the "What, we all look alike to you?" Fact is, my eyesight is so bad everybody looks alike to me.

So a couple months ago I was walking along and I got some dust or ash or something in my eye and I'm walking along rubbing my eye and it's watering furiously and I'm not really seeing where I'm going and I look up and I'm within six feet of the the goofy black guy I don't know. So I quickly say "Hey Buddy! How's it going?" and then I realize it's not The Goofy Black I Don't Know who I know but some other goofy black guy that I don't know That I Don't Know. He gave a very quick knee-jerk "Good! How are you?" I realize I've just become the Goofy White Guy I Don't Know. So now I'm stuck saying hello to that guy. That's the Goofy Black Guy I Don't Know Multiplication Effect. But at least now I've got it sorted and can easily distinguish the Goofy Black Guy I Don't Know Who I Do Know versus The Goofy Black Guy I Don't Know Who I Don't Know But Know Now.

The first Goofy Black Guy I Don't Know is a fixed entity and I have no effect on him whatsoever. But the second Goofy Black Guy I Don't Know must be on his blog right now writing about the Goofy White Guy I Don't Know who probably says hello to everyone and if the universe shuffles out right, he will see someone who looks just enough like me that the Goofy White Guy I Don't Know Multiplication Effect will unfold

Ah relief!

2006-12-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

One -- that infernal christmas "music" finally stopped

Two -- I'm proposing a new guideline at work for my fellow employees and me --

Bitching only in even numbered hours

We have a lot to bitch about.

But I just can't take it any more.

I'm hoping for a full vote on this when everyone is back and I would love to come into 2007 knowing at least half of every shift will be completely devoid of pissing and moaning.

Don't get me wrong. It was the sound of my own voice that drove me the craziest.

I realized I genuinely had nothing new to offer on any of the topics AND the likelihood of any of them improving is virtually nil.

So stay or go. That's the choice. And if it's stay, then it is what it is.

I've sometimes fallen into the delusion that the law of karma applies to *almost* everyone. When I see people putting pungent badness into the world and *seemingly* not getting any of it back on them, I start to get panicky and afraid and fall into an additional delusion that *I'm* the one that has to do something about it.

And then, after some time, I see the inevitable blow up in their face and I feel embarassed for having gotten so worked up over it.

There was a woman I worked with who was so pathologically nasty that when she walked in the room, it felt like the temperature dropped. A cloud of nausea and awfulness seemed to travel along with her.

But then, I noticed that every now and again, she'd come in here and take a big ol'd nasty psychological dump on us and skitter out the room and I would not only not get upset, I'd find it downright hilarious. The difference was not in her but me.

My feeling was that on those days I simply was not on her frequency. Worse that means all that time I was upset by her, it mean I was ON her frequency.

I'm a fairly decent knife fighter but I don't carry one because the idea of using one for self defense is too intimate. I don't want to be covered in someone elses blood and fluids. Also cops tend to notice that sort of thing.

Well it's the same way with getting into a vibe of really hating someone. You end up covered in their stuff. Really hating someone is too intimate. You end up thinking about them way too much. You do that when you're in love too. When you think about someone a whole lot, you end up putting out all these psycho-para-physical tendrils to them and you end up getting a huge dose of them.

I'm not at all saying I'm never going to get upset at or bitch at anyone any more, no this is not a new age daisies kind of world but I am saying that I'm going to try to be real selective of who I wrap my tendrils around.

Speaking of which, FOUR people have asked me in the past three days if anyone heard anything about Chucklehead.

I think there's a reason.

I think he's dead.

On the one hand ... DUH!

On the other, the building feels different. It doesn't feel like there's a really crazy, drugged out psychopath obsessively thinking evil thoughts about us anymore.

The tendrils are gone.

I know that sounds a little new agey and flaky and stuff.

It's just true.

Bite Me Roto Rooter

2006-12-05T13:57:00.000-08:00

2:15am, I am awakened by incessant and repeated car alarms, a dozen or so. I look out my window and it is a Roto Rooter van parked right outside my window.

Over the course of an hour or so, the alarm goes off every time the repairman comes to the truck to get or return tools. Then he tries repeatedly to start the van, setting the alarm off over and over again. Finally, closing in on 4 am, Karen called the Sheriff's department.

When the deputies arrived I stepped out to tell them what's what, but it was obvious as the alarm was blaring when they rolled up. The RR guy told the deputies he's been on the phone with his supervisor who was telling him how to shut it off but it hadn't been working. (that didn't stop him from trying over and over again)

The deputies tried to shut it off and also failed. They pulled the battery cable and told the RR man to get a tow truck. They said his van would be gone in thirty minutes one way or another, that if he didn't get a tow, the Sheriff's Department would tow it.

About half an hour after that, the supervisor arrived, he plugged the battery back in and tried to see if HE could get it work, treating us to another barrage of car alarms twenty feet from our heads. I opened the window and said "Guys come on, you gotta give us a break." They started the van and drove away with the alarm going.

The time was now 5am.

Ya know ... "Ghost Hunters" was starting to make me like Roto Rooter.

Jason and Grant would have done different. That's for sure.

Cafe Rangoon

2006-12-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

My coworker Richard -- a Chinese National raised in Burma (it figures in the story), devised a way to get a really good pot of coffee at work. He says he shakes the basket, which is true, he does. But he also brews a half pot using a full pot bag. That's where the flavor comes from. I call this brew "Cafe Rangoon" in honor of his adopted homeland. And every day I walk into his office and say "Hey Richard what time is it?" Sometimes he tells me what time it is, but sometimes he catches himself and says "It's time for Cafe Rangoon" -- which is the correct response.

Well, I walked into his office to do our bit and he said he had just poured himself a cup of tea. He said "I am trying to be more Buddhist and drink tea. Coffee is an imperialist drink." I said "You have a good point, let's discuss it in Tibet ... I'm sorry, I mean China." He threw up his hands and said "I can't get away with anything around you!" I told him he wasn't going to get too much traction with the Imperialist round-eye thing with me.

OK, yeah it wasn't that great, but it was fast and it was like ten minutes after a very fast one I had at Borders books.

I was talking to an older black woman (it figures into the story) and she was telling me about her braces and how hard it was to speak with them in. She said "I hear myself speak and I don't know what that is, I know it's not Ebonics but I don't know what it is." I said "It's orthobonics." She kinda crossed her eyes a second and said "It IS! It's ORTHOBONICS!! You're RIGHT!"

So you see what I'm saying. If I sat around for an hour and came up with that, it would be a sad effort. But it was fast, it happened in real time so I think it was alright.

Michael Richards -- Let the Healing Begin

2006-12-05T13:44:00.000-08:00

I think we all learned a lesson here.

Don't do gigs at the Laugh Factory. The audiences won't shut the fuck up.

APB - be on the lookout for ...

2006-11-17T15:42:00.000-08:00

This morning my cat, PussPuss, was walking around on my chest trying to wake me up.

She lost her footing on the comforter and slid, catching a claw and leaving a decent-sized scratch on my arm.

"OW!" said I.

"PussPuss!" my wife said.

In my sleepyhead/dreamtime state, I thought to myself
"OHHH! So that WAS PussPuss walking around my chest ... I thought it was Martin Neubarth."

...

I don't know who Martin Neubarth is but evidently he's small enough to walk around on my chest AND he's got a reputation for doing so.

Voodoo practitioner jinxes Bush

2006-11-16T11:21:00.001-08:00

A renowned black magic practitioner performed a voodoo ritual Thursday to jinx President George W. Bush and his entourage while he was on a brief visit to Indonesia.

President Bush responded that anybody who believes that sort of superstitious nonsense will get what's coming to them in the Rapture.

Dregulation

2006-11-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

I typed that instead of "deregulation"

Funny how some typos are more accurate than the original

Anniversary gifts

2006-10-24T12:48:00.000-07:00

"Traditional 9th wedding anniversary gifts have a theme of Pottery and Willow.A contemporary or modern 9th anniversary gifts has a theme of Leather. The flowers associated with the 9th anniversary are Poppies"

... Looks like it's bondage and opium again this year ...

I can't catch a cold

2006-10-24T10:54:00.000-07:00

This is my second week of ALMOST having a cold.

I'm right on the precipice.

The tension is unbearable.

I just want to get this started so I can get over it.

I'm going to go run through the sprinkler and sit by the air conditioner.

Then I'm going to go through the whole building licking doorknobs.

WHAT A NEATO DAY!

2006-10-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

Golly, I was here by myself with no direct supervision, so I self-started myself into some branding and I got it done in a timely manner.

Because I worked smarter not harder I got it done even though I'm detail oriented.

...

yeah ... I sent in a resume for a job and never heard from them, part of me thinks they might have seen my email, gone to my web page, followed it to my blog and determined I was too much of an anarchist to hire ...

I suppose I should have a sterilized email just for dayjobby things, but man oh man, if anyone takes the time to google me they're gonna have plenty to chew on, yes those are all me, except for the ones about a lawyer in Minneapolis. That's another guy with my name.

I wonder if my stuff has ever bitten him on the ass? Some HR bimbo at a law office with a printout of all my stuff asking this poor lawyer about all these evil fart jokes and anarchy and nonsense.

There was a guy in my school with the same name as me, spelled slightly different but pronounced the same and he was an insane violent cowboy shitkicker and I was perfectly willing to ride his rep a little insofar as it kept me out of fights and as long as I didn't have to do detention for his shenanigans.

They're probably right not to hire me. I'm a shitload of fun to work with but yeah I'm not going to the holiday party or the team-building weekend. I'm not even going to the pantry for birthday cake.

What's wrong with these people?

2006-10-20T14:02:00.000-07:00

I can't believe nobody at work wants to have a conversation about my bowel movements.

I'm not the alchemist I used to be

2006-10-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

Every time I try to turn an alembic full of lead into gold, I end up with a tub full of crystal meth.

joke: -1
vocabulary: +1
final score: 0

This week is FLYING by!

2006-10-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it's Monday already?

Star Struck

2006-09-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

... so I was hanging out last night with Bob, you know, Bob Newhart. And Bob said the funniest thing. I said to him, in my Scooby Doo voice, "RI rove rou Rob Rewhart!" And he said, and you gotta picture Bob saying this, he said "Somebody get security." Isnt' that classic?

Ok, actually, last night after work I dashed over to Borders Westwood cuz Bob Newhart was doing a book signing. I had my copy of his book and the album Button Down Mind. The security/publicist dude said "No memorabilia, he's only signing the book." Oh well. Here's how the conversation actually went

ME
Thank you so much Mr. Newhart

Mr. Newhart
Oh you're very welcome.

DANG! Isn't that great?

When the Dogtown and Z-Boys soundtrack came out, Tony Alva did a signing appearance. And I had an actual conversation with Tony Alva. It went like this:

ME
Hey Tony.

TONY ALVA
Hey.

Fuggin A man, can you believe it? AND there was a little riser you had to step up on to and back down off of, AND I did NOT wipe out either time! Did not drool, fart, sputter or fall down in front of Tony Alva OR Bob Newhart.

Since I moved to LA I've graduated the Second City writers program and UCLA Medical Center's EMT program but my real accomplishments were to not fuck up too horrible in front of Mr. Alva or Mr. Newhart.

It really was a buzz. I love that guy. If the vibe was right and I could crack a joke I was gonna say "I loved you in Snakes on a Plane" but it was not to be.

Talking over celeb experiences I recounted how Martin Scorcese filled me with terror, but when Weird Al Yankovic gave me a "dude nod" it filled me with glee.

I have signed books from Bob Newhart and Carl Reiner.

And the thing is, you can go to used bookstores and thrift shops and actually find signed books in the bin for a buck -- Joan Rivers, Charles Grodin and Henry Rollins.

I don't give a flying fuzz about the ebay value of any of these things. I just like these things from people I like. The Joan Rivers book has an additional layer of fun to it in that the inscriptions leads me to believe the signed book was a gift to a personal assistant and the book ended up at the thrift store. Yeah thanks boss.

Oh I also have a Spalding Gray. That makes me sad.

And some martial arts celebs. Glenn Morris -- he passed away this year so that makes me sad too. Also Stephen K. Hayes and Masaaki Hatsumi -- that's kinda huge. Also George Thompson and Viki King just cuz I took classes with them. And this loony woman who taught a remote viewing course.

Oh and I have dvds of "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies" and "The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monsters" signed by Ray Dennis Steckler.

Ri rove Rob Rewhart!

Porno Shoot

2006-09-21T10:44:00.000-07:00

There's this guy in my neighborhood who is a "Leather Daddy." He's also an accountant. So now whenever I see a group of guys in assless leather chaps leading other guys around on leashes and stuff, I say "They must be accountants."

So Leather CPA asked Sue if she could arrange to let some friends of his shoot a low budget film in the basement of our building. Later he referred to it as a student film and then he said it's a film with, you know ... guys.

Firstly, Sue is not the owner and has no ability to give anyone permission to do anything on the property. But she felt strangely compelled to let this proceed. I can kinda see her point. I also am pro-film, even if it's not my type of film and pro-sex, even if it's not my type of sex.

But she proceeded to raise some of the concerns I would have also raised. If the entire building was all young, gay party guys you could kinda almost just go with it. But it's not. There are older straight men and old Russian ladies as well as young, single straight women, all of whom could potentially be freaked out by this.

Karen and Sue determined this idea is a non-starter

Good, cuz I can predict with virtual certainty how that would proceed.

Someone, probably a little old Russian lady would see an odd parade of people and equipment going in and out of the laundry room and call the Sheriff's department.

The Sheriff's deputies arrive and ask who they are and what they're doing. First thing they say is that Sue said they could be there.

Sheriffs go to Sue, find she doesn't have authority to give them permission and ...

... this could go a couple different ways from here, but point being, this story goes through a beat where Sheriff's are confronting Sue.

This is a no brainer.

Leather daddy CPA's suggestion was to lock the basement door and tell the residents they couldn't do laundry for two afternoons because it was being repaired.

Nobody would believe that.

If they saw our laundry room full of guys in assless leather chaps they'd be thinking "what are these accountants doing here?"

... glad it's over ...

2006-09-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

The anniversary of the Unpleasantness of 2001 makes me as jumpy as a polecat in a speed-sniffing contest.

Pit Bull

2006-09-07T10:44:00.000-07:00

On my way home last night, there were people in street screaming and shit.

So I pulled over to see if there was anything I could do.

A pit bull had just attacked another dog and everybody was screaming at each other.

Nobody was thowing punches so I didn't have anything to do there.

No humans were hurt so no nothing for me to do medically. The injured dog was being comforted by his human and they were taking him off to the vet. I'm not trained to treat dogs and I wouldn't anyway, not one I don't know.

The woman with the pit bull was not trying to escape/evade responsibility.

Lots and lots of screaming. But ultimately nothing for me to do. So I copped a seat on the hood of my car and waited for the Sheriff's department. Once they arrived, I hit the road.

The woman with the pit bull was screaming "my dog has never done this before."

Well ... yeah he has.

Here' s what I'm saying.

If you're a woman and you want to get a dog for "protection" ...

... just move ... seriously ... just live somewhere else ...

Get a dog for love and companionship.

And if you're a guy who buys a dog for protection, be sure to get a matching purse and lip gloss.

When I see these guys with the pit bulls and the spike collars and shit, I always wonder what kind of man lets the dog do the talking?

Hawk and the Apple

2006-09-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

Speaking of Samuel Jackson.

I went through EMT school with this guy named Hawk.

Coolest guy ever.

First of all, he looks and SOUNDS remarkably like Samuel Jackson.

He's a former paramedic who let his certs slip while he was in school to be a surgical technologist and he was picking up an EMT cert for some reason pertaining to that.

You dig? Samuel Jackson as a paramedic. But he's a REAL paramedic.

I came around the corner once and found Hawk standing under a tree, staring up into the branches and holding an apple. Picture this conversation with Samuel Jackson ... unless you happen to know Hawk, in which case, picture it with Hawk.

ME
Hey Hawk, whatcha doin?

HAWK
I'm looking for a squirrel to give this apple to.

ME
I see.

HAWK
Last week, this squirrel was staring at my apple and I tried to tell him "You don't want this. Squirrels don't like apples." But when I showed it to him, he took it from me and ran up into the branches and ran right into a crow. I guess that crow wanted that apple too.

ME
How did that play out?

HAWK
I don't know. I had to go back in to class. My apple this week is much larger than my apple last week. Last week's apple was pretty small. It was a small apple.

ME
I see. The squirrel could actually hold the apple and climb.

HAWK
I was just about to throw this apple as hard as I can against that wall over there so it would smash up into pieces a squirrel could carry. I wound up and was just about to let this apple fly when a woman walked right in front of that wall. I 'm glad I managed to stop that throw, cuz if I'd hit her ... it would have been hard to explain.

Snakes on another plane of existence

2006-08-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

I dreamt I was in a snake movie.

For the first fifteen minutes it was all school and classroom scenes with no snakes at all. The tension was unbearable. We all knew we were in a snake movie but no snakes.

Then my mom (played by a famous character actress) said to me

"Don't move. There are four snakes right up against you."

She then proceeded to dispatch three of them with a frying pan. GONG! GONG! GONG!

"Hey mom, what about the fourth one?"

"Now hold your horses, the last one is really big." GOONNGG!

I then spent the entire night killing snakes with a flat shovel. I was running around the house doing Jackie Chan moves off the furniture and 86ing snakes.

Morning came and I wandered outside and found Phillip Seymour Hoffman standing underneath a roof eve. "Hey man, whatcha doing?" "Shhh." He fired a shotgun at the roof and green liquid started leaking. He fired again and a thirty foot long, foot wide snake crashed through the roof.

Then he, James Woods and I started across the pastures to get to the office of the country doctor. I asked my cohorts "Don't you find it a little suspect that we just spent the entire night fighting snakes and now we're walking across a field of high grass and all three of us are wearing shorts?" They could see my point. I wasn't entirely sure that James or Phillip were entirely cognizant that we were in a snake movie.

At the office of the country doctor, a man stumbled in, said he'd been attacked, puked and dropped dead. James Woods set about to form a posse and go after the man's attacker. I tried to make him understand that the man had been attacked by a SNAKE. But no, he and PSH continued planning a manhunt. I asked "do you SERIOUSLY think the whole snake thing has just sorted itself out?"

At one point, we were leaning against the kitchen cabinets and I asked James Woods "First time in a TROMA movie?" "Yeah, what the fuck? What do I gotta do to get a vegetarian meal around here?" "No kidding right?" The fourth wall was meant to be broken.

I think I also said "Do you people seriously not realize we are in a snake movie?"

It was a great and awful dream and the movie should be made with me, James Woods and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Although it was also at times, me, Roy Scheider and Paul Giamatti.

... this just in ...

2006-08-22T16:13:00.000-07:00

Deadwood is the new Sopranos
Sopranos is the new Saved by the Bell

No one on Deadwood has gone antiquing

... and one MORE Chucklehead story ...

2006-08-18T11:06:00.000-07:00

... if you're just joining us and don't know who Chucklehead is, go to May archives and start with the post called "Looking forward to death (not mine)" Go ahead, it's not that boring. It's a story seething with violence and bodily fluids. That neighborhood of the blog also has lotsa EMT jokes and bits too.

... anyhoo ... Chucklehead ... right, first of all, HOW in the world is he still alive and apparently ambulatory?

Sue got a message on her machine from Chucklehead saying "I'm applying to get an apartment and I listed you as the manager of the building so give me a good reference!"

Sue laughed and laughed and laughed. Yeah, you threatened to kill my dog and I'm going to give you a peachy reference.

Sue screens her calls. She keeps the volume way low and listens to messages later, but she walked in the other day and heard a message being left and heard the word "tenant." She scrambled and picked it up.

Here's a rough sketch of the conversation.

LANDLORD
Hi I'm processing an application for a tenant named Chuckle Head and his roommate. The roommate has excellent credit but I was wondering about Mr. Head. He listed you as the landlord, is that correct?

SUE
No, I'm not the landlord. I'm another tenant. And the reason he didn't give you the landlord's name and number is because he was evicted.

LANDLORD
Evicted, really?

SUE
Yes for two reasons. He was evicted for not paying rent for four months. And secondly the residents of the building did not feel safe with him around and they all signed a petition to have him evicted ... would you like to hear more?

LANDLORD
No I don't think I need to.

SUE
Cuz there's more.

LANDLORD
I'll bet there is.

Yeah, she could have stopped at "he didn't pay rent." Also the landlord mentioned that he was glad she mentioned that the other tenants had problems with him because he said his building was full of really nice people who look out for each other and have a little community. Sue said "we have that here."

OH and while I'm at it, a second unforseen Chucklehead story that I only heard recently, even though it occurred back when he lived here.

I never saw it but I guess outside his door was a whole mass of flowers -- most of which were dead -- and other stuff and in the middle of it was a picture of Ann Margaret. Scrawled on the picture, in Chuckle Head's handwriting, were the words "Dear Chucklehead, Get well soon, I love you, Ann Margaret"

... wow ...

Feminist Horror

2006-08-16T11:42:00.000-07:00

I was talking with my pal Sue the film professor about how horror is a real hot genre right now and she was saying her students are making a lot of horror projects and she's encouraging it. But it makes her dean a little queasy cuz she's still kinda seeing it through an older feminist point of view.

Just because you put a cheerleader on a meat hook does not mean you have a problem with women.

Watch to the end, the only person who lives to the closing credits is a woman. Oh and the sheriff who arrives WAY too late to do any good except give her a blanket and a ride to the hospital.

Ya see? Little Red Riding Hood cannot count on the lumberjack. Sisters gotta do it for themselves.

I do object to the prudish conservativism of a lot of slasher flicks -- cutting up the girl who puts out is not something I can get behind. It's not a good use of resources. Here's what I'm saying, let's dice up the mousy brunette in glasses first and let's let the blonde floozy and the obnoxious jokester live to the credits.

All these "bad" things in these movies ... the woods, sexuality, nighttime, revelry, feminine values, wicca women, herbalists, ethnicity, critters -- these are all VERY GOOD things.

The "good" things in horror movies ... daylight, crucifixes, xenophobic violence, conformism, sobriety, propriety, patriarchy ... yeah, not so much.

And frankly I REFUSE to live in any building that is NOT on an Indian Burial Ground.

I'm not at all sure about this whole Freudian model of story either ... uncovering the past crime puts an end to the current suffering. Oh boo hoo, your potty training didn't go so swimmingly? Wake up and smell the bloodshed.

Aristotle, Freud, Newton. I have never seen the universe work that way. NEVER!
Dali, Jung, Chaos Theory. Way more accurate descriptions of how my day is likely to progress.

Three act structure? What?

"A story has a beginning, a middle and an end."

So does a turd.

... I know this guy ...

2006-08-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

... he asked for a raise because his wife is having a baby and he needs the money ...

... just one problem ...

... you guessed it ...

... no wife, much less a baby ...

... but the news has gotten out and the whole office "knows" about it and he's scrambling to keep up with the whole thing now ... he's going to have to borrow baby pictures and maybe even ultrasounds to bring in ...

pretty screenplayish so far right?

yeah and now he seems like he's got the hots for this girl at work but he can't really pursue it cuz he's "married" and shit ...

ya know ... life has its ups and downs and I have my share of challenges but I hope my life never devolves into a shitty ben stiller movie ...

... and if anyone out there wants to write that story and sell it, be my guest ...

... not only will I not write it, I won't watch it ...

Dear Bono

2006-07-31T11:57:00.001-07:00

I just got back from a week in Joshua Tree.

It reminded me of your album Joshua Tree, which is lovely, thank you for that.

I understand when you were out there, you didn't actualy go into Joshua Tree National Park.

Perhaps you should have.

Perhaps it would have inspired you to write two more songs.

Then you could have cut "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Mothers of the Disappeared."

That would have been better for everyone.

Love,

Jeff

P.S. I wouldn't miss "Exit" either.

i guess he took the tote bag ...

2006-07-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

One more Chuckle Head story.

There are little storage bins in the garage area and Chuckle Head had one.

Sue opened it up to clean it out.

Inside she found

Five cock rings
A tub of vaseline
A book called "How to Improve your Credit Rating"

Which is the package you get if you call in to PBS and pledge at the 75 dollar level.

We get a new boss every six months.

2006-07-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

She sat down with each one of us individually and asked us what we wanted from her as a manager. Each one of my coworkers said "Don't lie to us."

I said "If you're going to lie to us, take notes so that you can tell each of us the same lie."

... music to my ears ...

2006-07-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I got home and a guy was pushing a loudly rattling wheeled bin past my door and window and dumping debris into a bin right under my window. Rattle, rattle, rattle, dump, whoosh.

Man that was great!

It was Gus the hazmat guy removing a bunch of stuff from Chucklehead's place. He sprayed the place down with an industrial disinfectant to let it soak in overnight before his crew comes in today. Then he hauled out some stuff in bags to get a start on it. Today his whole crew will be in to finish it up.

I wish I knew of a school where I could get certified as Hazmat Tech AND Exorcist. This place needs both.

Chucklehead called Sue last week to tell her an important package was going to be arriving for him. This is after Sue told him that she would no longer collect mail for him and that he had ample time to get this handled at the post office. A package did arrive. It was Next Day Express which means he ordered it after the eviction. Sue marked it Return to Sender and sent it away. Then on Saturday he shows up at the building. This is after he was told we'd call the sheriff's on him. Sue didn't buzz him in but told him over the intercom that his package had been sent back and that he had to leave.

I just talked to Karen and she said it looks like the hazmat guys might be done already or at least have all the stuff out.

In other news, I finally put in my ambulance hours for my EMT class. I rode fire calls in Torrance from 9am to 9pm on Sunday. Pretty interesting stuff. Worked with Torrance Fire, Torrance PD a lot and ran one call with LA County Fire.

Just like my instructors said -- trauma calls are dramatic but ultimately not that interesting. Bang, smack, spurt. You straighten stuff out, you stop stuff from leaking and bring them to the hospital. The guys I was working with found the big auto accident we worked to be the most interesting call of the day. Granted it was an exotic feat of high velocity engineering to get those cars into those improbable positions, but the medical calls were more interesting to me. The company I worked with works predominantly fire calls so it's a big fire shop -- everyone I worked with that day was either in, just finished or was just starting the fire academy and/or paramedic school so that makes sense. You work these fire call companies and it's all hose jocks. You work a company that does predominantly interfacility transports and it's all pre-med and nursing students.

Also just like my instructors said, you get called to a convalescent home for a "routine transport" and you find your patient is in extremis and you gotta call in the cavalry.

I saw some pretty sleazy convalescent homes, maybe Chucklehead has a point staying out of them. I'm not sure whose problem he is now, I'm just glad he's not mine.

I'm not sure, what, if anything I want to do with my EMT training. Do I want a rewarding, manly, slightly dangerous but very rewarding low paying job? Or do I want to stick with my higher paying, cushy, safe, stupid, girly, pointless and completely unrewarding job?

I'll say this, at this job, people only shit on me figuratively.

... like you didn't see this coming ...

2006-07-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

Guess who came back yesterday?

He came back to get his mail from Sue and he asked if he and a friend could go through his stuff.

Sue said "No you are not allowed to be here."
"The Sheriffs said I had 14 days to get my stuff."
"No, you had 14 days to get your car."
"Fine, then I'll just send my friend."
"No, anything in that apartment is now the property of the landlord you have no right to be here and no right to anything left here."

Somewhere in here he mentioned that he got a post office box. Sue said "Good, because I'm not going to collect your mail any more. You've had enough time to sort this out with the post office. There's a new tenant and the mailbox key is going to him."

Sue repeated several times that he has no right to be here and that if any of us see him here we will call the sheriffs. He got mad and said "you don't have to keep repeating yourself over and over!" Sue said "Yes, I think I probably do because you don't seem to be getting it."

Sue kicks serious ass. She's one of those people that can say stuff. I suppose I could have roughly communicated the same ideas but there would have been a lot more Ks in the words I chose.

It's been really unfair for poor Sue. We have all been burdened by this but she has shouldered an unfair amount because he focused so much of his wrath and hallucinatory bullshit on her. Just as she was getting tenure, this bullshit started coming down so she went right from the stress of the tenure process right into his shit.

It kinda hits me on a primal level too. Someone is threatening the women folk when I'm not around. (Note: the "women folk" in this case are brilliant, competent and lethal but my primitive brain does not register that) Consequently I am left with a fairly decent chunk of leftover rage. It's like doing security/bouncer type stuff and a fight ALMOST happens. It gets right to the brink and then doesn't happen. You're left trying to re-integrate all that adrenaline back into your system. I feel the same way here. I've had so many scenarios run through my head that involved fire extinguishers, OC spray, my MagLite flashlight and his collarbone, etc. that now I feel jangled by the fight that didn't happen.

Not that I think it's over. He is a profoundly disturbed and angry man. Like my doctor said "dementia PLUS meth? ... get a gun ..."

The professional cleaner also arrived yesterday to take a look. He's seen this exact scenario and he's seen worse. He said the non-porous surfaces -- wood floors, walls, linoleum can be steamed into safety but anything porous -- carpets, drapes, etc. can still harbor hepatitis and will need to be disposed of properly. Even more specialized specialists will have to come in for the medical waste (hypos). He asked how discrete he would have to be and would the neighbors be upset if they saw people in hazmat suits and masks in their building? Sue said no, we know how bad it is and we want to see that. We all said the same thing, we'd be upset if we didn't see the proper precautions. I sure as shit don't want them suiting up inside the hot zone. I want them suiting up in the hallway (cold zone) {we had a hazmat segment in EMT class can you tell?}

Pretty primal stuff. Someone coming around to threaten my pack? As I've said, he never shows up when I'm around and that's too bad because he sounds really agitated and I would love to calm him down with a little pepper spray aromatherapy and then a soothing massage with my MagLite flashlight. (4D cells -- one size too big for the NYPD). Maybe I'll even tickle him with my Monadnock kubotan.

I am sooo sick of this fuckstick, how is it he's not dead yet? What is this a Halloween movie?

chucklehead update

2006-07-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

So yeah he came and got his car and, terrifyingly enough, he drove it away himself.

He left a slightly weepy message on Sue's machine saying he's at a motel in Glendale.

Then yesterday Sue could smell that familiar stench and then another neighbor heard movement in the apartment. So Sue opened the door and found one of Chucklehead's friends in there. He had keys and said he didn't realize that C.H. had been evicted, that he'd been out of town and just had a buncgh of messages on his machine saying he needed help moving.

A couple things in his story don't sound right. He said he didn't see the notice on the door reading "EVICTION" and also he didn't open up the doors and windows while he was working there but actually moved a heavy table in front of the door. My hunch is that he was looking for money, meth or even meds that C.H. had left behind. This guy is kinda perpy too.

So Sue booted him out but was so flustered by the whole thing she forgot to take the guy's keys.

Another revolting development is that Sue saw a bag of hypos in there. They appeared to be unused but it certainly raises the probability of used ones being in there. This apartment is a triple threat now: biohazard, hazmat and medical waste.

Oy this is just the gift that keeps on giving.

It sure was nice to sit by and even go in the pool though.

As for the motel in Glendale, yeah that's comfortingly far away. It's a fairly pricy cab ride. His doctors are all here in the basin, so why Glendale?

My theory: It's near his dealer. I think that's why he's not come through on his promise to check himself into a hospice. He doesn't want to give up using.

Oh yeah, that meth, that's the good stuff, yup. Makes you sexy and smart and a better person. Oh yeah, meth, yup, good stuff.

This really is the gift that keeps on giving. I'm not going to feel entirely comfortable until a professional hazmat crew cleans it up, somebody else moves in, the landlord changes the keys and chucklehead drops dead. Until then I can't help but know that a demented and angry individual is out there smoking meth and having weird angry fixations on my pal Sue and my wife.

Did I mention that meth is good stuff? Yeah, that's the good stuff all right.

... so far so good ...

2006-06-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

... Karen just called and this is what she's heard from the landlord via Sue ...

... the sheriff's department arrived and formally evicted him ... they took his keys and gave them to the landlord ...

... Chucklehead moved a bunch of crap out onto the front stoop and was sitting out there ... his plan was to move his stuff into his car and then call triple-A and have them tow it ...

... tow it where I don't know ... this plan is as rational as any of his other plans ... and he hasn't made payments on the car in months, we're surprised the repo man hasn't gotten it by now ...

... so as it stands, he's either on the front stoop or down in the car port with piles of shit-soaked shit, but point being he's on the OTHER side of a locked door. I doubt very much that triple-A can or will do much for him ... we heard social services would be here when he was served the eviction notice but so far no sign of them ... I have a hunch he's going to be buzzing Sue and/or standing under our window and calling up to Karen with some request or another ... probably to use the bathroom ... that's his MO -- ask for something simple, then it's on to money and other requests ... in fact [pause] I just called to Karen to talk that over with her and she assured me that she will not, under any circumstances let him in the building, much less our apartment ... she says she and Sue just walked the dog and his car is full of crap but they saw no sign of him, figuring he's either gone, hiding behind his car or in the garden on the side of the building ...

... but maybe, just maybe, it's starting to be really over, maybe the women in this building can move about freely, even using the front entrance without fear and perhaps this weekend we can actually get out of our hot apartments and sit by the pool for the first time this year ...

... oh and the landlord saw the inside of the apartment for the first time and no longer has the notion that he's going to send in his employees to clean the place, he says he will get professionals ...

Today might be the day ... again ... maybe

2006-06-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

As far as we understand it, the sheriff's department is coming to officially evict Chucklehead today. You'll recall that he was gone for good the other day? Well he came back last night and holed up in "his" apartment. This morning Sue went over and banged on the door and told him the deputies will be here today and it he should be gone when they arrive. He did his crybaby routine and said his friend had packed up all the wrong stuff. Sue's unspoken comment "You wanted her to take the garbage and leave the furniture?" He asked if he could store some of his stuff in the laundry room and she said "No, after today you will have no legal right to be anywhere in this building."

I suggested that Karen be elsewhere when all this is going down. She was way ahead of me on that. If, in fact, today the eviction is officially served, then at least if we see him again we can call the sheriff's department. Karen was ahead of me on that too, she said if she sees him, she won't even talk to him, but just go in the apartment and call the deputies.

The landlord asked the other day "do we really need to hire professionals to clean the place after he's gone?" Sue said "He's got AIDS and Hepatitis and the place is full of diarrhea."

It might be an interesting day. So interesting I want nothing to do with it ... I still don't get my hopes up. As far as I'm concerned, he's not gone "until I can gnaw on his skull with my very own teeth." Not that I would. He's got Hepatitis and I'm a vegetarian. They really haven't come up with a decent soy skull yet.

Chucklehead might have moved

2006-06-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

He had moving people in yesterday and they moved most of his stuff out. He's under the impression he's being evicted today which may or may not be accurate.

He told Sue the moving guys screwed him over and didn't move all his stuff. He probably didn't pack anything so they probably moved just the furniture. Or they refused to touch any of the stuff that's been incubating in diarrhea.

Then I guess he called 911 and had the paramedics take him to the hospital. Karen's theory: he wanted a dramatic exit (he usually calls a cab). I didn't even notice. Funny, usually I notice the presence of the fire department in my building.

So once again, he seems to be gone but I'm not getting my hopes up.

He turns on the waterworks when he wants something but they dry up the second he realizes he's not gonna get whatever he's after. I continue to feel bad for him, but he's put the entire building at risk. The whole time he was w/o power we were terrified he was going to burn the place down. The apartments around him all have roach problems now. That whole side of the building stinks. Last week he threw up a prodigious amount of ungodly chemicals and medicines and bile in front of Sue's door. He is a biohazard and a hazmat situation.

He wails about how he's all alone and no one will help.

Fact is he had all kinds of friends, family, healthcare and social services people around to help and he drove them all away by being such a nasty prick. And now he wants the neighbors, who he's been just as nasty to, to help him.

Fuck him.

I continue to have nagging thoughts that if I were a better person maybe I'd find a way to help him. But Karen has a point when she says that any help we give him furthers his illusion that he can live on his own which he can't and keeps him from being someplace where he can get help.

... so yeah I feel guilty for not opening my doors to a psychotic diarrhea-soaked asshole.

As Sue says, some people don't die well.

A couple weeks ago, my doctor, who is also Karen's doctor asked after her and I said she's a little stressed cuz of this neighbor. I gave her the thumbnail sketch and my doctor, who specializes in these kinds of patients, suggested we get a gun.

I looked into it and decided against it. Then I figured pepper spray would probably calm him right down but I hesitated cuz I figured by the time it arrived, he'd be dead. Well fuggit, I ordered it. I ordered two - one for Karen and one for Sue. Cute little OC squeezers that go on a keychain. I knew they'd arrive just in time to be useless so I ordered them just to make sure he'd actually go.

We wanted to have a party to celebrate Sue getting tenure, and another for me finishing EMT school. We want to have "Poolside Cinema" where we sit by the pool and watch movies projected up on the wall. But we don't even hang out by the pool while he's waddling around screeching and stuff.

I feel terrible pity for him AND I hate his fucking guts.

Even after his formal eviction I think we'll still see him around. I think he's going to continue to walk out of / break out of various facilities because when he's in them he can't get meth. Our landlord is going on vacation soon and won't have it together to change the locks so I'm sure he'll come back, maybe sleep in the basement and do bathroom things in the sink down there. At that point we can call the sheriff's department and they can actually apply a little handcuff therapy.

I feel like this will never end and yet I also know that one day, very anticlimactically, we'll just hear or see that he is dead and it's over.

And when that day comes I'll raise a glass to him and wish him well wherever he goes. He's a nuisance and a menace and I'm really looking forward to him dropping dead , but I do hope he does better next time around. So long, don't let the cosmic portal hit you on the ass on the way out, shit head.

The Gravitational Wave Detector

2006-06-09T17:49:00.000-07:00

I removed everything from my office on wednesday cuz I figured I was going to quit, be fired, or commit a major felony on the premises and be shot by police.

I sit in the corner and I had some miniature Tibetan prayer flags from one wall to the other and that space felt really empty.

So I took a string of rubber bands tied together that my coworker had crafted and strung them across the corner.

My original intention was that it would serve as a crude measure of the room's ambient barometric pressure -- that the string of rubber bands would slacken and tighten as the atmospheric pressure changed as the weather changed. I neglected to factor in that weather in Los Angeles does not change. Also I remembered there is a device that does this already, it's called a barometer and it is considerably more accurate for measuring barometric than a string of rubber bands.

So now I am using it as a Gravitational Wave Detector.

Traditionally a Gravitational Wave Detector is a set of two intersecting vacuum tubes with lasers and interferometers that record the tiniest, microscopic variances and anomalies in the gravitational field. They are so subtle they can detect trucks rumbling along the interstate dozens of miles away and can differentiate between those vibrations and an actually wave along the gravitational field.

My string of rubber bands thumbtacked to two walls in the corner of my office is considerably less subtle in its detection power.

If the earth were to plummet into a black hole in a cosmic cataclysm that crushed the entire mass of the earth into a microscopic singularity, I believe I MIGHT, during that process, be able to detect some changes in my string of rubber bands.

I will let you know.

Chuckle Head Update

2006-06-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

I guess ding dong was on quite a tear yesterday. He was pounding on everybody's doors demanding money. He threatened to kill their dogs. The Sheriff's department was out I gather. I guess the soothing presence of men with guns had again calmed him down.

He was nowhere to be seen by the time I got home.

Too bad.

I would love to have discussed it with him.

He's awful brave when yelling at women by themselves or at small animals. I'm looking forward to seeing if he has any such notions he'd like to share with me.

Scaring women and threatening animals ... yes ... these are things I'd like to discuss with him at length.

Looking forward to death (not mine)

2006-05-31T11:08:00.000-07:00

There's this crazy mofo lives in my building. He can be a nice guy and he can be a real prick depending on which way the mind blows.

He's in the LATE stages of AIDs and the dementia has settled in. He never had all that strong a baseline of sanity to begin with. Maybe manic depressive? Hard to say cuz he has a history of meth use.

Some backstory bullets.

A couple weeks ago he asked me to take in his mail while he was in the hospital. I said sure. A couple days later a friend of his shows up and tells our neighbor/pal Sue that he had said he had given his mailbox key to some guy and that guy stole all his mail. (no big deal -- but you see it's hard to help this guy)
He was throwing temper tantrums and stuff the other night cuz his power was turned off. I called out the Sheriff's department cuz he was being so irrational. Funny, the bulk of his behavioral problems instantly cleared up when a guy with a badge and gun showed up.
His apartment is full of piles of clothes covered in diarrhea and other substances. He says a friend of his is to blame for throwing all his clean clothes in with the diarrhea clothes.
On temper tantrum night we ended up babysitting him for four or five hours and that was enough. The next day he asked Sue for a hundred bucks to turn his power back on. She said yes but with conditions, that he call Adult Protective Services and accept their help and that he understand that we cannot take care of him. (Karen and Sue were way at the end of their ropes prior to that night, I got there in one night -- he's always banging on doors with imaginary/unsolvable problems)
He was put in a 72 hour mental health lockdown/observation and he was about to be placed in a facility for difficult/dangerous patients but he walked out.
It's closing in on a week and his power is still not turned on, but new furniture was delivered the day after tantrum/sheriff's department night. He was also on the phone calling friends trying to get their credit card numbers so he could go to a hotel in Beverly Hills. He has limos pick him up and drop him off.
I've never been around for it but he sometimes stands in front of Sue's door and screams for 20 minutes at a time. (He never raises his voice in front of me and I will continue to make sure of that ... I've given Karen implicit instructions that if he ever raises a hand to her or Sue or Sue's dog she is to drop him on the pavement really hard ... and she will too)
His family has given up on him, he's been mean to them. Sue's point is that however mean he's been to them, he's been meaner to her.
Our main concern is that he might light a candle and burn the place down. Also he's hallucinating/imagining things -- that's always problematic. He's dying and shit but he's real tall, has a long reach and carries a cane. He also has that meth physique still. I'm fairly certain he's still using, which I can't say I blame him for but it just complicates the matter. He scuttles about the apartment complex at all hours with little tweaky projects.
Karen and Sue often speculate as to what he's thinking. I don't bother. You can't get there from here. They sometimes ascribe dark motives to his moves. Maybe. He is a prick but near as I can tell, at this point he moves and lives like a lizard.

The thing is, he needs to be in a hospice or some sort of clinical setting. He truly cannot take care of himself. He is a danger to self and others, but he is "alert and oriented" and has the legal right to refuse care. And it's a good thing that there's no mechanism in place to just put away inconvenient people. But it's troublesome that the one person who can make the decision is the one who is incapable of it.

Karen says only one person is making the situation worse than it has to be and that's him. I feel bad, but I ain't his mama. He's still refusing to go to the hospital and stay. Our position is that he thinks he can live on his own and take care of himself ... prove it. Friends and family have vanished from the picture. He's refusing help from social services and that put it on the neighbors doorsteps -- us. Well fuck that. I never liked the guy to begin with.

This is tough love, he needs round the clock care and anything we do to prolong him seeking it is making it worse.

What's astonishing is how the three of us really had to talk ourselves into this position and still kinda feel bad ... like we have some obligation to take care of this gigantic fuckstick who lives in our building.

He has not used this time to get his shit together. He's the same cranky, crazy, racist, miserable asshole he was last year but now he's crankier, crazier and smells like diahhrea. He will accrue no good karma from here until the end, it's just a matter of how much havoc he wreaks.

So long, thanks for playing. Do not pass GO. Do not collect liberation from the cycles of woe. Time to press the Karmic Reset Button.

He should have been gone weeks ago if not months ago but man oh man, nasty assholes NEVER die. It's amazing. Nice people cash out FAST, but assholes just last forever.

I kinda see his point. Lie around in a clinic and die? Fuck that. It probably is more fun to wander around all night, selling your AIDS drugs to buy meth, pestering people at the all-night Tai food place and taking gigantic dumps in your living room. "Here you go BOB, this is a LITTLE like a rent check! -- THHPTT!"

My pal Merty, who is a dog, barks really hard at sick and injured dogs. I used to try to ignore that facet of his psychology. Now I kinda see his point.

I'm tired of wondering if I smell smoke or dead body. I've smelled both of those smells enough already. Sue told the sheriffs the other night, we always check in with each other to see if anybody saw him and the day we don't see him, we'll call 911. He's gonna leak, then he'll die, then he'll bloat and then he'll pop. If he pops before they get him out of there, we're all going to have to move cuz that smell NEVER comes out.

Sue says it's worth taking the time to untie all your knots while you still have the cognitive faculties to do so. Then when you lose your marbles you have the goofy happy dementia rather than the angry, frightened dementia -- perpetually troubled by things you can't quite put your finger on and lashing out by habit. If you're gonna shit on your floor, it should be fun.

Arf Arf

I don't think I did this one...

2006-05-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

EMT school wise ass comment

INSTRUCTOR
You need to know the respiratory system like the back of your hand.

ME
How well do we have to know the back of our hand?

Favorite Line from my EMT textbook

2006-05-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

"If your patient is on fire, put out the fire."

I've achieved one of my goals

2006-05-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

I used to be my company's "Go-to" Guy.

Now I'm the "Go fuck yourself" Guy.

EMT Class Wise Ass #2

2006-05-15T22:14:00.000-07:00

TEACHER
And this afternoonm we'll be doing Poisonings and Recreational Drugs

ME
So class is cancelled?

EMT School - and wise-ass comment update

2006-05-10T23:24:00.000-07:00

Yeah I'm in EMT school. I wasn't going to mention it to anyone so as to limit the public humiliation when I inevitably flunk and/or feint, barf and run screaming like a little girl out of class.

I try really hard to behave myself, but shit happens.

Here's one off the top of my head

Instructor
Are there any contraindications to giving your patient oxygen?

Me
Yes, if your patient is on fire.

Here's another

Instructor
And are there any ethnic groups that have a statistically lower possiblity of hypotension?

Me
Eskimos

One of my instructors is a big Buffy fan. I asked him if he would feel any hesitation to treat a wounded vampire. He said no. So vampires are inside our scope of practice. Yes, he said, just do not use wooden hypodermic needles. Weren't wooden hypos all but phased out by the seventies? Yes he said, and be careful using silver bullets around werewolves. Aren't bullets contraindicated in all patients? Yes, he said, bullets are contraindicate in all patients.

He's a groovy old hippie guy so we got us some banter going as you can see.

Some are kinda inside. Like on the first day of labs and I passed a group of students in the hall ready to go do the lab we had just done. They looked a little nervous so I comforted them by saying "Suck the stoma boys, you ain't a REAL EMT until you get stoma juice in your mouth!" They looked a little grayer after that.

While recounting wise-ass stories, here's an unrelated one from a recent meeting with a manager.

Basically he was saying the bankers had said we didn't know how to use a particular piece of software, but I knew that they were the ones who were in fact using it incorrectly so I said:

"Hey you might be able to pound in a nail with a saw. It's their gear, I'll use it any way they want, but you can't tell me it's the smart thing to do cuz I know how to use a fucking hammer."

Damn, good thing I'm in EMT school cuz they should really fire me.

Bad-Ass Dream

2006-05-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

I dreamt I was in the restaurant Kiev in NY. Four guys at another table were messing with me, one of them even put his hands on me.

So I went over to discuss it with them.

The ringleader asked me "Is there someone at this table you'd like to fight?"

I said "all four of you, but I'm starting with him" (biggest guy, foot taller than me) "Go outside and wait for me, right now I'm going to finish my dinner."

I was starting to come awake already, so it's kinda cheating but I added this:

"I'm not going to cheat and use my weapon but if one of you cheats - uses any kind of weapon, or doesn't wait your turn, I'm going to shoot all four of you."

Pretty bad assed eh? It's a compenstory dream cuz I'm such a chickenshit in real life.

Oh and in the second draft I'd cut the whole second part. The scene would end on "right now I'm going to finish my dinner."

Tragic thing is, I'm trying to think who's around who could even sell a scene like that? Lee Marvin and James Coburn are both dead. Sheeit, maybe Ving Rhames?

Who's a good badass these days?

The Pervert Index

2006-03-30T10:45:00.000-08:00

My dentist's assistant is a short woman with big breasts.

When she works on me her breasts often fall on my arm, shoulder, neck or face.

At first, being a gentleman, I was distressed. Here I am, copping a feel with my face. That's not right. So I attempted some subtle squirms to escape.

Dental assistants do NOT want you to squirm.

I was trapped.

And then I realized ... hey what's so bad about this? It's not a lap dance. It's still just a cleaning.

I don't lean in to it. I didn't walk in the door and put my face in her chest. I sat where she told me to and she plopped them bad boys right on me. I didn't ask for it. I even tried to remedy the situation was told to sit still. So I did.

So there it is. I'll say it.

I don't mind the dental assistant's big breasts on me.

I don't think that's too far into the reprehensible spectrum of The Pervert Index.

In fact, it's not a particularly sexual thing. It seems pre-sexual -- being comforted by a big breast while terrible things are happening to my gums.

Dentistry is intimate.

There's penetration and fluids. It's wet. There's swollen tissue. There's euphoria and numbness and agony. And then they take a bunch of your money.

It's like a little marriage.

In that sense I guess it's not too bad she plopped her breasts on me.

No, you're right.

I am a pervert.

The Ring 2

2006-03-13T11:23:00.000-08:00

... ok ...

... so it's a videotape ... and when you watch it ...

... it KILLS you ...

... so to be ok, you have to dupe it and send it along?

...ya ever dupe a dupe on VHS?

... if a first generation tape will kill you, a third generation dupe, on a REALLY GOOD tv MIGHt give you a really bad hangnail -- the kind that turns red and stuff ...

Nasty ways I referred to children

2006-03-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

shitrats
snot monkeys
double-dipping booger pickers

somebody brought their little monsters in,

at least two people will be out sick next week cuz of the mucoid and fecoid chemtrails they left behind

biohazards in jammies

fuck em

I hate em

I don't want to work with penguins

2006-03-07T10:25:00.000-08:00

I LOVE penguins

I just don't want to work with them

At least not in an office.

If we're fishing, yeah I'm all for it, bring on the penguins. I'll even carry their little lunchboxes for them.

Perhaps I should explain.

I used to go the Central Park Zoo and watch the penguins.

If they weren't eating or having their Annual Penguin Sex, they seemed to be limited to two activities in their pen:

1. Swimming
2. Hopping around on the rocks

They'd be swimming around when one Genius Penguin would have a revolutionary idea.

"OH MY GOD!! GUYS! I HAVE IT!!! LET'S GO HOP AROUND ON THE ROCKS!!!!"

Massive chorus of approval:

"HOP AROUND ON THE ROCKS!!! HOP AROUND ON THE ROCKS!! YAY!!! HURRAY!!!Hopping around on the rocks is THE BEST!!!"

After a while of hopping around on the rocks. Some penguin (perhaps the same penguin, some sorth of Shaman Penguin or Tribal Chief) has a startling idea, a new Penguing Paradigm:

"OH MY GOD!! GUYS! I HAVE IT!!! LET'S GO SWIMMING!!!!"

Massive chorus of approval:

"SWIMMING!!! SWIMMING!! YAY!!! HURRAY!!! Swimming is THE BEST!!!"

And it's as if they've never been swimming before in their entire lives.

And so it goes, back and forth.

Well ...

What's hard about being in a particular job and/or industry for say, longer than ten years, is that at a certain point, your personal memory is longer than the institutional memory. And you have to sit in meetings and hear the same 2-4 ideas over and over again as if you've never heard them before.

But here's the kicker -- DON'T bother with saying "Yeah, we tried that before and this is what's going to happen."

Nobody wants to hear it. In fact you'll just make them mad.

Just wait for lunch and Annual Penguin Sex..

I made up a good word

2006-03-06T17:50:00.000-08:00

Coworker makes a disparaging remark about a group of employees here.

Agreeing I say

"Yes this is a particularly chuckleheaded concobulation."

...

ya see I had "chuckleheaded"ready to go, I use it a lot, but as I rolled towards the end of the sentence I started to realize I didn't really have an end (like many of my screenplays) but I'll be damned if I'm gonna throw off my cadence just cuz a word doesn't actually ... exist.

Definition provided by my coworker

Concobulation: noun; an erstwhile flux of prepubescent nincompoops prone to provoke violence

America's Next Top Model

2006-03-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

One of the models said it was important for a model to "leave a legacy."

No worries.

During the show I left a legacy on an old sock.

I'm starting to wonder about coffee

2006-02-23T12:20:00.000-08:00

any drug your boss approves of can't be all that great

... ya know ...

2006-02-14T10:37:00.000-08:00

.. the only thing Clinton ever shot was a blue dress ...

NOW he tells me!

2006-02-13T17:19:00.000-08:00

Advice from the copy room guy:

"If you want to be rich, don't study eastern philosophy."

...spooky...

2006-02-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

... if you listen to that Pink Floyd album The Wall

WHILE you watch the movie The Wall

... it syncs up almost perfectly ...

"That's FLOOR WARDEN Wise-Ass to you!"

2006-02-08T17:15:00.000-08:00

LOUDSPEAKER
"Attention there is a fire alarm on the 28th floor and people will be evacuating to your floor, will the floor wardens please prepare to receive them"

(as a good safety geek floor warden, I head off to the stairwell door to let people in)

PERSON IN THE STAIRWELL
"What floor are we supposed to go to?"

ME
"Any floor that isn't on fire."

... too bad I forgot my goofy orange vest ... oh well, next time...

Blu-Ray can Blo-Me

2006-02-08T10:43:00.000-08:00

I re-bought my album collection on CD.

I re-bought my movie collection on DVD.

I am NOT RE-BUYING ANYTHING ever again.

I REALLY do not need to see Ghostbusters in any higher definition than I do now.

"Four Dead Over Cartoon"

2006-02-06T11:10:00.000-08:00

I think that says it all.

New Word: Cranxious

2006-02-02T15:14:00.000-08:00

Cranky and Anxious

obviously

thought it up at work

obviously

Cranxiety might also work

Government versus Business

2006-02-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

... ya know ...

... if business

...is smarter, more effective and/or more efficient...

...than government...

...

... I'm just not seeing it ...

... I've worked the bulk of my adult life in Fortune 500 companies and have been astounded at the utterly ludicrous, profoundly retarded (and un-profitable btw) ideas endlessly ricocheting around the echo chamber while the Invisible Hands of the Marketplace just seem to Picking Dingleberries ...

... I just don't know that workplaces are run any better than the much maligned post office, university, high school, police department, etc. ...

I just don't know that UPS is any better than the post office

and the ultimate threat "would you want your health care run like the post office?"

well, I'd have some then, in fact, post office delivers to everyone ya know ...

and I'm not saying government is smarter than business, I'm just saying I've never seen proof of it's opposite

what I probably need to do is abandon my romantic notion that we, as a nation will ever stop behaving like children and have a grown up discussion of anything

the irrational, emotional tone of our political noise (I can't call it debate) is the shrill cry of the four year olds with mommy complexes versus the four year olds with daddy complexes

DADDY IS BEST AND HE'S NEVER WRONG!

NO YOU FOOL MOMMY IS THE ONE!

I find Pathological Partisanship embarassing now

When someone starts in on that stuff, I just want to give them their bottle and put them down for their nap.

Line from yesterday's meeting

2006-01-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

MANAGER
I see they've given you smaller phones.

ME
No, they've given us bigger hands.

... we'll see ...

2006-01-20T11:37:00.000-08:00

I know, new tape blah blah. Probably him, yeah yeah.

So ok, he might be alive ...

I was definitely doing that thing I did years ago, when W was gearing up for war and I loudly proclaimed there were no WMDs in Iraq. It was an educated hunch and I turned out to be right. So, yeah, that's what I was doing.

Now ... this tape though ... he mentions further attacks and people being against the war which some people say is proof he's alive at least recently.

Well, back in 2002, before he died in Afghanistan, he knew there would be more attacks. He had orchestrated them.

And as for the comment about people being against the war -- who's to say that's in response to recent polling numbers? It was probably in response to the footage of millions of people protesting the war before it happened.

... you know, back when he was alive ...

I'm not backing down just yet.

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS DEAD.

Osama bin Laden is dead

2006-01-10T16:19:00.000-08:00

He was killed in Afghanistan in 2002.

How come no one else seems to know this?

My Favorite Day of the Year

2005-12-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

I'm counting down the seconds to my favorite day of the year.

December 26

Also known as

The Day the Christmas Music Stops

Skid Marks don't come out of Brooks Brothers

2005-12-13T16:40:00.000-08:00

I went into my favorite stall in the men's room -- everyone's favorite stall in the men's room -- the big ol' roomy handicapped stall and noticed immediately there was no paper.

Before beginning my business in the other stall I put an emergency handful in the handicapped stall just in case someone got stuck in there. I also closed the stall door and hung some toilet paper over the top of the door in the International Sign of No Toilet Paper.

Problem is that I invented the aforementioned International Sign and forgot to inform the International.

So as I'm sitting there I see someone head into the other stall. I break the Dumping Vow of Silence and say "Hey man, there's no paper in there." "Oh is that what this paper means?" "Yes. I'll be done here in a minute."

I hear, to my horror, that he does not leave the restroom but stays right there waiting.

Like I don't have enough stage fright to begin with.

I rushed Act III and then did the paperwork. And when I step outside the stall, who is standing there?

The Managing Director.

I prevented a Partner-Level Skidmark.

I think my raise this year is certain.

Bitches in their 20s

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

I am soooooo TIRED of women in their twenties who are so PETRIFIED of appearing "weak" in the workplace that they overcompensate the other way and act like total bitches.

Every year some fluffy little estrogen poodle in a ponytail saunters out of the dorm into the office and starts in on that shit and they all think they invented it. It rings false in the ear.

You gotta EARN your bitchiness on this planet.

If a woman is at least into her mid forties and her second divorce THEN the bitch thing feels organic. Unpleasant perhaps, but honest.

But when a woman in her twenties tries it, it just comes off as "princess."

"But I want an oompah loompah NOW daddy!"

Brand new sweeping vistas of stupid ...

2005-12-05T11:03:00.000-08:00

I put together a shopping bag with my lunch, a water and a fresh lightbulb for my desklamp at work.

In my black canvas Israeli paratrooper bag I put my calendar, my notebook and my book (Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons).

My trunk is full of bags of books to bring to Out of the Closet (thrift store for AIDS research) so my bags had to go in the front seat with me.

Halfway to work I start wondering if the black bag is shifting onto the white bag, endangering the lightbulb and by extension my lunch. So I look. Not to worry, the black bag is nowhere to be seen ...

...

... DOH!!!

I look in the back seat, nothing. So in the rear view mirror I study the face of the guy behind me to see if he's looking at me like I'm an idiot. No, he's pretty involved in cell phone. So at the next light I put it park, roll down my window and look on my roof. Nothing.

OK ...

Someone did honk their horn back in West Hollywood ... but people always honk their horns ...

So maybe it fell off the roof or trunk on Santa Monica Boulevard, or it's in the trunk or it's back at home.

I really don't remember putting it in the trunk, but I do that completely on autopilot so I coulda.

I think about pulling over and checking. But one does not merely "pull over" on Santa Monica Boulevard (or SR2 as cops call it). When I pull into the driveway at work I think about checking right then, but why bother? I won't go back, no time. So I take the leisurely drive all the way to the roof.

I get out of the car and stand in front of the trunk. It's such a beautiful Schrodinger's Cat Moment. The cat is either dead or it's not. It's clear that I am an absent minded idiot, but what BRAND of absent minded idiot am I?

I open the trunk and the cat is dead. No sign of my bag. I try calling my wife, but my crappy cell phone doesn't work. I actually turn around and check the back seat and the trunk one more time. At this point I realize I am drifting into a little OCD behavioral loop and I tell myself to knock that shit off right now.

Karen is on a big conference call so I leave a message on the home machine. I figure if it's not on the couch, I'll ask her to keep an eye out for it on her way to the mailbox, if it fell off the car on Havenhurst I've got a chance of recovering it. If it got as far as SR2, It's toast.

I've told my coworker the story so he knows not to expect too much of me today.

She just called back. It's right on the couch. So I know exactly what kind of idiot I am. An idiot with no book, notebook or calendar.

But I do have lunch, water and a lightbulb - which at fifty watts, is considerably brighter than me.

Camp Legume

2005-12-01T11:42:00.000-08:00

Lentils are the Rolling Stones of food.

Death Cab for Smoothie

2005-11-30T19:11:00.000-08:00

Someone (a banker) pulled one of those protein fruit smoothie bottles out of the fridge that had been in there WAY too long. It had actually puffed out. And he OPENED it! Doy!

It exploded all over the carpet right outside my office and for the past two days I have been swamped with a smell I can only describe as CORPSE WITH A HINT OF FRUIT.

I have dowsed it with lysol and the cleaning lady came up and scrubbed it with some industrial solvent (I don't think she was actually scrubbing the right spot).

For a while it smelled like FRUITY CORPSE with LYSOL and INDUSTRIAL SOLVENT.

But that has faded and now it's back to just fruity corpse.

Imagine half a rotten cantalope with a dead rat and sour milk in it.

TWO DAYS of it!

New Genre

2005-11-30T11:54:00.000-08:00

I've come up with a term for material that combines incisive socio-political commentary and dump jokes.

I call it

SHATIRE

...

oh never mind

From now on ...

2005-11-29T11:15:00.000-08:00

Any time I don't wanna do something, I'm gonna use the following. I advise you do the same.

EXAMPLE:
"Hey, clean the cat box"
"I think that sends the wrong message to the troops."

AND/OR:
"To be a coward and back out now could cause the cat turds to doubt the resolve of the American people."

This replaces "and the terrorists win" and all variations thereof.

EXAMPLE:
"If you don't blow me, the terrorists win."

One decent line today...

2005-11-28T16:55:00.000-08:00

Secretary: Are you coming to the holiday party?
Me: No, if I go too far from home my ankle bracelet starts beeping.

I'm not sure she got it.

Argh ... and the tragic thing is, that was the best I had all day ...

HBO Rome

2005-11-20T19:03:00.000-08:00

They killed Julius Ceasar.

Huh ... I didn't see that coming ...

Torture Ban

2005-11-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

If any legislator wants to vote against the torture ban, or if the white house wants to veto it, that's fine and they have the right to do that, but here's what I suggest ...

... John McCain shows up at your office with some bamboo and a pair of pliers ...

... twenty minutes later you vote any way you choose ...

Dream

2005-11-14T11:51:00.000-08:00

I dreamt I was a small town sheriff. Our jail hand instituted a cutting edge safety program. For the duration of their stay, we transferred the brain of each prisoner into a block of tofu.

I was standing over an aluminum foil pan with a block of tofu in it when one of the deputies came in and asked my why I was crying?

Sobbing and pointing at a block of tofu, I said "I'm just really worried about this prisoner."

With that, I've reached a decision.

Next cheap-ass horror movie I'm involved with, I'm going to figure out how to make the blood and guts vegan, nutritious, REALLY tasty and completely disgusting looking.

Something about becoming vegan really brings out your inner cannibal.

We all have our slips.

Scrabble Pun

2005-11-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

We played Scrabble last night at my pal Sue's place. I came in last every game.

The highlight was that my pal Carrie and I cracked the same pun at the same time.

We both referred to someone as having committed:

VERNACULAR HOMICIDE

... yeah I know, but the thing is we both said it at the same time ...

... all right ... it's ...

... I don't care, I still like it ...

.... oh never mind ...

Commercials - Rule of Thumb

2005-10-31T10:37:00.000-08:00

Any commercial that features worried old people is trying to sell you a crock of shit.

Words I wish I had the balls to use

2005-10-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

Solipsistic
Bloviate
Insofar
Albeit
Etiology
Demoniacal

Words I'm sure I use wrong:
Corollary / Analog
Tactical / Strategic
Auxiliary /Ancillary

Words I don't use anymore
Nebulous
Cantankerous

Words I made up
Bluggy
Marf

Bush calls for immediate U.N. session on Syria

2005-10-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

Fido preps himself to be wagged..

US, UK teams search quake rubble for Osama Bin Laden

2005-10-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

Ah ....

W's approval rating is finally so low they're gonna go down the fifth sub-basement beneath Bethesda Naval Medical Center, unhook bin Laden from the dialysis machine and put him on a plane, where he will be flown to his family in Saudi Arabia for religious ceremonies and then his remains will be shipped out to be "discovered."

This adminisistration really works your conspiracy theory muscles but it's hard to come up somehing so outrageous that it might not be true.

Hell instinctivley when he said there were WMDs in Iraq I said BULLSHIT. And waddya know? I was right! So let's let this one roll and see how it plays.

Hurricane center: Deadly Wilma eyeing Florida

2005-10-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

The Evacuation Limousines will be arriving shortly.

Cuz 27 electoral votes counts for a lot.

Tunnels under Baltimore Harbor reopen

2005-10-18T15:01:00.000-07:00

Details of unspecified threat remain a mystery

It's not that much of a mystery (see below)

Bush's job rating continues to drop

2005-10-17T18:01:00.000-07:00

New "terror alert" expected shortly

... just occurred to me ...

2005-10-17T13:42:00.000-07:00

I REALLY, NOTICEABLY do not have enough sleep

It's raining

I'm in a dingy gray room

I'm reeling in shock from having just learned a pal of mine from way back when was killed in a car accident right here in my neighborhood.

In light of this stack of negatives, perhaps this book on demonic posession is not the best choice of reading for this afternoon.

I'm gonna set it down and pick up either the new Jon Kabat-Zinn or maybe just keep going with Catch 22

Uck remember the democrats?

2005-10-14T14:15:00.000-07:00

Ya ever meet those people that crinkle their faces when you mention Jimmy Carter?

If you ask them why they think he was such a bad president they mention two things: high gas prices and inflation going up.

... yeah that was awful, in fact it's really easy to imagine right at this second ...

oh and there was some unpleasantness in the middle east and we were not well respected over there at that time ...

then the great James Baker on behalf of Ronald Reagan asked the Iranians if they would just please HOLD the American hostages for JUST A LITTLE LONGER so they would be released under Reagan and not Carter. what a guy!

and don't get me started on Clinton! Whoo boy! Clinton!

Thank God the only cocks getting sucked in the White House now are the executive board of Halliburton.

4 Promises on Harriet Miers

2005-10-13T13:30:00.000-07:00

W promises:

1. She is not an "activist judge"

2. She will not "legislate from the bench"

3. There is no "litmus test" on abortion

4. The very FIRST thing she will do is overturn Roe v. Wade

Memo: New Orleans Police Department

2005-09-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

Please change out of uniform into civilian clothing before looting activities.

Food for thought...

2005-09-28T10:52:00.000-07:00

National Debt Clock
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Cost of War in Iraq
http://costofwar.com/

Ah remember the days of the blowjob scandals?
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/05/26/clinton.economy/

Conspiracy Theory Updates.

2005-09-26T14:38:00.000-07:00

I still can't believe that NO ONE in the mainstream media is running with the stories coming out of Yale and Texas National Guard about the persistent and pervasive rumors associating George Bush with cannibalism.

It reminds me of the time the Village Voice ran a BRIEF piece on how NORML is the last stronghold of the Old Time Bavarian Illuminati and then NEVER touched that story again.

Someone got to someone and FAST.

Oh and btw, it turns out Dr. Seuss and Salvador Dali are probably NOT the same person.

Meeting with Our New Manager

2005-09-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

As an "icebreaker" we went around the table and were to tell a little story about a scar on our body.

I don't know where most of my scars come from. I didn't even know about most of them until my wife asked me about them.

My Scar Story
I was drunk (great way to start a story with your new boss) and came home to find that someone had broken a key in the gate in front of our building. So I climbed the fifteen foot tall gate, scrambled over the iron hooks at the top and dropped down onto the other side.

As I was walking into the building, I felt moisture in my hand. It was blood running down from a wound in the crook of my elbow and it was flowing pretty good. I must have caught it on the iron hooks.

As I walked up the stairs, I shook my hand and decorated the walls of each landing with a little Jackson Pollock plasma splatter. I got upstairs, poured hydrogen peroxide on it, tore a t-shirt and wrapped it around the wound and went to bed.

The next morning I went in to open the bar. The bartender I was working with looked at it and said "You need to go to the hospital." Really? Yeah.

By this point I had used a Sharpie pen to draw a little nose and eyes above the gash. And since it was in the crook of my elbow, I found that by flexing and un-flexing my arm I could make the little wound-mouth "talk."

So I went to see the bar manager, and using the wound to speak to him (in a high-pitched Mr. Bill type voice) I asked "Hey Drew do you think I need to go to the hospital?"

He quickly turned away, almost wretching, and said "YES I THINK YOU NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL!!"

Again in Mr. Bill voice, my wound responded "Ok Drew, Kathy says she can cover it, I'll see you later then!"

"GET OUT OF HERE!"

The emergency room doctor said it should have been stitched up, but it had been open too long and it was too late for stitches and it was gonna leave a big scar. Nobody at the emergency room mentioned or asked about the little face. You ever see that movie "Bringing out the dead" with Nicolas Cage as an EMT? It was THAT hospital so on the weirdness scale, my little elbow wound face didn't even register.

And THAT is the story I told my new manager in my first meeting with her.

IF she ever uses that "icebreaker" again I'll bet she hesitates and perhaps even scans the room first to make sure there are no biker-sasquatch-viking looking beasts like me at the table.

Teambuilding Meeting: Lube will not be provided (or allowed)

2005-09-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

Does anybody else cringe when they hear the word "team" at work?

I've been doing my anal kegels all week to loosen up my sphincter for another "Team Meeting."

This "Outsourcing Model" (meaning everybody is a temp) has some complications built into it.

They want to treat us like temps but they want us to act like employees.

I do my job but I've never, ever, ever, ever been part of a "Team" and any time anybody uses that word I know something bad is coming my way. I'm somehow part of the Change My Schedule/Come in Early/ Stay Late No Matter What My Plans Are Team but I'm not part of the Catered Lunch, Bonus, Raise, or Paid Lunch Teams.

Oodles of buckets of fun

2005-09-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

TWICE in the past two days I've had the pleasure of cutting off a Hummer in traffic - thinking "Hey buddy why don't you just sit there idling a few more minutes burning up that three dollar a gallon gas! Ha HA HA HA HA!"

Yesterday's Meeting Agenda

2005-09-14T19:07:00.000-07:00

Two Items:

1. You guys are in trouble. There have been complaints about you. We won't say who from or what, precisely the allegations are. So you can't defend yourselves against it or get your side of the story in, but take my word for it, you better get your act together (though I can't say how)

2. You guys need to trust us more.

(oh would that I were kidding!)

I will not Podcast!

2005-09-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

I'm not even sure what it is but I saw Invasion of the Body Snatchers and I know pods are bad.

I still don't feel old but ...

2005-09-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

This young guy at work was playing Pink Floyd: The Wall.

I asked him how he even knew about that album.

His response:

"Oh this is my PARENTS' music."

Highlight from today's department meeting

2005-09-13T16:47:00.000-07:00

Boss: We're concerned about you guys becoming too familiar with the clients and losing a sense of professionalism.

Me: Hey if this is about the orgy, let the record show we were NOT the first ones to take our clothes off. In fact, I serviced but was not serviced - Tell me THAT'S not professionalism!

I'm just sayin is all...

2005-09-09T21:08:00.000-07:00

I'm not saying Death of a Salesman isn't a good play.

I'm saying Death of a Salesman IS a good play.

I'm just saying that if, in addition to his other troubles, if Willy Loman had to battle a radioactive squid, it would have been better.

That's all I'm sayin...

Drive Home Haiku

2005-09-09T00:31:00.000-07:00

pass me on the right
beverly hills police car
runs a red light

this always happens
can't remember other one
much better than this

should write this shit down
got a notebook in the car
that's what it's there for

petulant banker
she thinks I'm an idiot
she's probably right

cabins are moldy
bed and breakfasts smell funny
i want a hotel

the kids are alright
a quick one while he's away
quadrophenia

wizard of oz
pink floyd: dark side of the moon
synchronicity

you don't know shakespeare
iambic pentameter
different from haiku

what was the good one?
i still cannot remember
was better than these

left contact lens hurts
always has and always will
kerataconus

vegan lasagna
allergic to tomatos
so what's the red stuff

i'm writing about food
line with seven syllables
i must be hungry

the top of my screen
little icons so helpful
bold italic underline

diner still open
it's too late for fish and chips
nightmares, tummy aches

no that's still not it
tommorow's another day
i should go to bed

how do i do this
save as draft or publish post
hope i get comments

Conference Call Checklist

2005-09-08T23:37:00.000-07:00

Sucking up - yup
Self-Aggrandizing - yup
Wasting Time - yup
Talking in Circles - yup
Making Something Out of Nothing - yup
Pissing Contest - nope, maybe next time

Gotta get out of this place ...

2005-09-08T18:11:00.000-07:00

I've been covering the night shift all summer while a co-worker cuperates and I'm getting way itchy to get out of town. I try to get out of town at least for a day or two every 3-4 months. It's been at least 6.

Here's my ideal. Small town - desert or mountain. A hotel / motel w/in walking distance of a small town with some places to eat AND walking distance to some nature. I prefer hippie / college towns cuz they tend to have vegetarian restaurants, used bookstores and coffee places. Though I also like towns that are kinda half hippie and half cowboy.

Here's the kicker though ... and I think I might be a rarity on this ...

It HAS to be a hotel/motel.

Because I do not like cabins and I hate, Hate, HATE BED AND BREAKFASTS!

Utterly loathe them. Cabins and B&Bs tend to be moldy and dusty for one thing. I much prefer the smell of diluted industrial motel cleanser. I'm just WAY too big for cabins and B&Bs and maneuvering around their tiny furnishings and stuff. I definitely do not want to TALK to other guests or proprietors. All that doily, quilty, stuffed animal, wood pannelling, rough-hewn crap makes me a little queasy and worse, these places are INFESTED with ANTIQUES.

I will take a Holiday Inn any time. Gimme that anonymity, privacy, room to move, functioning shower, generic furniture and blue carpeting, soda machine, coffee maker and a pool. Aaaahh.

Am curious to see what Idyllwild is like but I think I've clicked on "view rooms" on all of the lodging in that town and it's all quilty, shitty, tiny, tacky, nasty crap. Crestline/Lake Arrowhead looks appealing.

But I dunno. Morro Bay and 29 Palms both have Holiday Inns with hot tubs.

Creepy book

2005-08-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

I just finished a really creepy book called Hostage to the Devil - by Malachi Martin.

It's about the possession and exorcisms of five different people. Genuinely creepy, it can really get on you. The possession stories have the ring of truth to them but the underlying causes he ascribes to them got under my skin. One guy was a priest who had been inadvertently exposed to the evils of an anthropology class.

Nature, science, meditation, egalitarianism.

THESE were the corrupting influences that led these people to terrible, terrible suffering.

At one point, one of the guys meets a Buddhist. Quickly I checked the distance between me and the nearest recycling bin - cuz if this book tells me that Buddha is the handmaiden of the devil I'm launching it into the blue container -- figuring it will see the reality of reincarnation when it comes back as recycled toilet paper. Then I will editorialize on it.

But it stopped just short of that. Buddhism came off with a slight air of menace but not quiet "Satanic."

I had just finished a REALLY poorly written book on the same topic and I think the relief of coming across fairly decent writing kinda pulled me into the book. The guy is a biblical scholar and people who really look at a lot of scripture tend to be pretty good writers.

But underneath the well constructed sentences and well worn thesaurus, I started to also detect something else.

You ever talk to a schizophrenic? I mean a real one - clinically diagnosed.

It's really hard on the brain. Their train of thought seems like it's running on the rails but something is askew and they're so convinced and present with what they're saying that you really start to think it's YOU who has the problem.

I think this is the issue with Allophrenia - which is basically you go to visit a friend in the asylum and start acting so strangely they don't let you out. Some clinicians believe schizophrenia is a pheremonal issue and give patients the "sniff test" and swear they can diagnose schizophrenia with their nose. Maybe, but I think the quasi-contagious aspect of schizophrenia is also syntactical in nature. The language of a schizophrenic can burrow deep into your skull.

Meanwhile -- in another tangent -- gin drinkers perfectly mirror this aspect. They don't slur their words so they don't seem drunk. They act like they're making perfect sense but their train of thought is completely derailed.

Gin is liquid schizophrenia.

ANYHOO ... I first saw that schizophrenic syntax in the pages of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics. And there was a subtle but telltale trace of it in this exorcism book. I had initially been charmed by his prose but then started to wonder if this guy had any medical problems that might be manifesting in this book. So I did a search on him and yeah a lot of Christians say he's the bee's knees but there are people out there alluding to some very strange behavior on his part and some of his theories are more than a little off kilter.

The case could be made for this guy Malachi Martin having a psychiatric condition.

Besides that ...

Nature? Science? Meditation? Maybe Buddhism?

THESE are the things of evil?

Ok, why not just add coffee, sunshine, theatre, comedy, friendship, democracy, dry roasted peanuts, kittens, fresh produce and my wife to the list of dangerous satanic influences?

Ultimately, underneath the flowery prose and genuinely creepy stories - some of which might have some truth to them, the book is a boogey man story and one with MAJOR axes to grind.

Maybe cuz I write horror movies I'm a little bit immune to boogey man stories and a little resentful if they arrive with a cheek that is minus tongue.

I'm not saying there aren't things out there beyond our grasp and our perception. I'm fairly certain there are. Whatever I believe, I recognize that my beliefs do not exhaust all possibilities - that I think is the mature point of view.

Next month I'm going out to Joshua Tree. I'm gonna read a Carl Sagan book, listen to some Thich Nhat Hahn dharma talks and meditate out in nature and I will just have to suffer the evil conseqences.