Record shopping friday continues to be my favorite friday of every month. Today was no exception and I picked up some good stuff which I am listening to now.
godheadsilo- Share the Fantasy
John Coltrane- A Love Supreme
Sun Ra- The Heliocentric World of Sun Ra
Shellac- Terraform
“Do you love me as much as you did when we got married?”
“Yes.”
“Do you love me even MORE than you did when we got married?”
“Yes.”
“Can we spend more time cuddling together on the couch?”
“Yes.”
“Did you enjoy dinner tonight? I know you hate meatloaf.”
“Yes.”
“Will you clean out the garage tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like it if I got out a dildo and started fucking you in the ass with it tonight while you’re pumping away at my bored, jaded, body that barely pays attention to anything I say?”
“Yes.”
“Are you even LISTENING to me?!”
“Yes.”
“I FUCKING HATE YOU!”
“I love you too, Hon.”
The big man in the trench coat sat down on the far end of the bus stop bench and Joe was trying his hardest not to stare. The big man’s head was covered in scars and aging cuts, and he had a fresh guaze eye patch covering his left eye. His breathing seemed heavy and labored. He was smoking a cigar. There was a rolled up newspaper next to him that he would periodically unroll and skim through while taking drags off the cigar.
Joe was trying very hard to not look at the man. Not only was the man’s appearance grotesque, but he was also about six and a half feet tall. He looked as large as a grizzly bear and the scars covering his head did little to further that image.
Joe continued to steal glances, amazed at the ugly specimen sitting on the end of the bench. The man was profoundly ugly, that was for certain.
‘Hey guy, could you stop staring at me?’ the big man finally asked.
‘Oh, I wasn’t staring, I was just-’
‘Just knock it off, please? No need for excuses.’
‘But I wasn’t-’
‘Please, just let it go.’
Joe swallowed. His throat was very dry and now he was very nervous. The big man was now skimming the career section of his newspaper and had just extinguished the remainder of his cigar. Joe was forcing himself not to look, but it was difficult as he was now even more interested in the big man than he had been before.
‘Hey guy, you know anything about jobs around here?’ the big man asked Joe.
‘I know they’re hard to find right now.’
‘Yeah, no shit.’
The big man flipped through the paper some more. Joe felt like he was holding his breath.
‘No one wants to hire an ex-con these days.’
He rolled the paper into a ball and tossed it into a near by trash can.
Ex-con?
Now Joe was even more nervous. He’d made the man angry moments earlier, and thought that maybe the job conversation could serve as an ice breaker between them. Instead, the big man just seemed angry again.
‘What kind of work are you looking for?’ Joe asked.
‘Any place that will take me, really. I ain’t picky.’
‘What did you do?’
The big man’s face turned red. He looked as though he was ready to burst a blood vessle. Joe readied himself for damage control.
‘I’m sorry, that’s not my business.’
‘No, it’s ok. I suppose I should be ready for people to ask me that. It’s the scars, isn’t it?’
‘Well, you said you were an ex-con and then those scars- yeah it was the scars. I really didn’t know what to think.’
‘It’s ok. It’s just a little embarrassing and I don’t talk about it all that much.’
‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to.’
‘No, it’s ok. I’m going to have to tell anyone who hires me anyway. I might as well get some practice.’
‘Ok.’
‘Ask me again. Ask me what I did.’
Joe breathed in. The big man in the trench coat smiled, and was looking Joe right in the eyes.
‘So what did you do?’
‘I flashed old ladies in the park.’
Suddenly, it was very quiet. The wind blew and some crickets chirped. Joe didn’t know what to think or say to his new friend.
‘Yeah, I’d sit by the fountain in this big coat and show old ladies my pecker. Sometimes they’d faint and I’d rub it on their cheeks for good luck.’
Joe stared blankly. His head was starting to hurt.
‘How’d you get all the scars?’
The big man started laughing.
‘For starters, my arresting officer. He took it upon himself to teach me ‘what a disgusting piece of shit’ I am. The others are all from the big house, mostly. People found out what I did and they really let me have it.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah man, it wasn’t pretty. Or easy. But I learned my lesson and I’m never gonna flash an old lady again. Or rub my pecker across the face of an old lady who’s fainted.’
Joe looked at his watch. 8:15. The bus was late. How much longer would he be stuck at the bus stop talking to this large, ex-con, ex-flasher?
‘It’s strange, man. You flash old ladies and go to jail for it, and the other guys in there, they treat you like a faggot.’
‘I’m sorry, I-’
‘A midget made me his bitch. Do you know how embarrassing that was?’
Joe was staring. He could feel his eyes growing bigger and he was running out of ways to feign interest and stave off horror.
‘How did that happen?’
The big man started laughing again.
‘I’m in the laundry one afternoon, when all of a sudden, I get busted across the knee caps with a pipe and hit the floor. It hurt like a mother fucker. Anyway, while I’m lying there, I see the guy who hit me. He’s only four feet tall and covered in tattoos and he looks like a mean son of a bitch. Then he hit me over the head with the pipe and I blacked out. So he could do whatever to me, you understand? I woke up in the infirmary with a broken tail bone and twenty-seven stitches in my ass.’
Joe was completely mortified. He didn’t even know what to say about this.
‘Jail’s a strange place man. Don’t ever go there.’
The big man relaxed back into his seat and sat quietly. Joe was going over all of the new information in his head. Hell of a first impression. That was for sure.
Joe was trying to picture the look of horror on the old women’s faces when the big man popped open his trench coat near them. He was also trying to picture how terrified the ones who actually fainted must have looked.
Joe chuckled to himself. Just thinking about how many times the guy must have done that, enough times to land a jail stretch, seemed very funny to him.
It was about that time that Joe and the big man were joined by an old woman with a cane. Joe stood up and offered her his seat. It was around that time he noticed how uncomfortable the large man was now that the old lady was there.
He kept playing with his hand, fumbling away at his fingers. He was visibly sweating and his breathing was getting faster and faster.
Joe tried to fill the silence.
‘Lovely day out today, isn’t it ma’am?’
‘Oh yes, lovely,’ she said.
The big man was shaking his head and muttering things to himself.
‘Where are you off to, today?’ Joe asked.
‘Oh, I’m going to the drug store to pick up some prescriptions. And then to the post office to get some stamps.’
The big man was sweating even more. Joe looked at his watch.
‘I wonder where that bus is?’
But it was finally too much. The big man stood up and let loose a wild animal howl. He beat his hands on his chest and tore his coat open to reveal that he was wearing a bra, a pair of women’s under wear, stockings, and a garter on his right leg. The entire outfit looked straight out of the Victoria Secret catalouge.
Joe and the old woman stared, completely speechless.
‘Sorry folks, I’ve got places to be!’
And just like that, the big man was gone, leaving Joe and the old woman at the bus stop waiting for their bus.
‘Today’s really not your day is it sport?’ The old woman asked.
‘Why do you say that?’ Joe asked.
She stuck a snub nosed revolver in his face. Joe’s eyes got bigger.
‘Call it intuition. Now stick ‘em up.’
Joe shook his head and lifted his hands in the air. The bus rolled up to the stop. It was 8:32 AM. The day was still just beginning.
He was thinking about the 52nd street bus stop and the free lunch at St. Mark’s, as the cars whizzed by his 4 x 4 slab of pavement. It had been several days since he’d been hosed off and several months since he’d last shaved. Not that it mattered.
No one really cares about how good you look these days.
And though, looking past his hand he could still see the floaters and tracers of years gone by, he wondered if maybe he could clean up a bit.
He remembered blotter paper and an intense feeling of terror. Also an intense feeling of bewilderment and a little bit too much excitement and newness to everything. His palms were sweating. He stopped.
The city was a jungle and he, while far from a hunter, was not entirely prey either. Perhaps he was a scavenger, sent to stumble his way into food every day. A lowly kind of existence, certainly, but comfortable regardless.
Two men walked by. They averted their eyes. They could still smell him several feet after they’d walked past. They did not pity him. They did not fear him. They just wanted to ignore him.
And we’re all looking for something to ignore anyway. Those little insecurities we’d like to imagine we didn’t have. That tight place in your wind pipe when your breathing becomes labored and you clench and unclench your fists until it all goes away. It’s nothing you don’t instinctively know already.
We’re all the same person when you get down to it. We just have different outcomes. But we’re all white bones and red blood. That can’t be changed.
We’re the bum on the street corner and the executive in the office on the 67th floor. We’re the chef in the kitchen and the patron in the dining room. We’re all server and servee, for what it’s worth. A whistle here and there is worth a song in a few hours.
Behind the wheel of the car or in the passenger seat, we’re all on a sinking ship. The real question of it all is when you’re getting off and if you get a place in the life raft.
He sat on the street corner stretched out and comfortable. No complaints from this man, no sir. Life can hand you lemons and you can drink lemonade- mix with three cups vodka, one can beer, and let it sit for a few minutes in the fridge.
Up on the 67th floor, an executive shot himself in the temple. His office window was painted red from the back splash of blood. The papers on his desk were scattered on the floors and his secretary, who had just brought him a cup of coffee screamed at the top of her lungs for ten minutes straight- undiminishing.
On the street corner, our friend the bum scratched his ass and yawned. It was almost time to walk to St. Mark’s for soup, a shower, and a shave. Maybe a shit too. His head was still a mess of floaters and tracers. He grinned and walked on.
Another day. Another outcome. All the same people.
He was standing at the podium with a revolver pointed directly to his temple, and the cameras were trained directly on him. This was a ratings blessing for the major news networks and all programming had stopped just to watch the story unfold.
He had fourteen different microphones trained on him and they were all waiting for him to speak, or atleast explain what was supposed to be going on.
A bead of sweat ran down his nose- the halogens had been pointed on him for better lighting (a courtesy extended to the viewers at home). He wiped away at it and unfolded a stack of yellow legal tablet pages with one hand. The gun was still on his temple.
He looked toward the microphone, and revolver still resting against his head, he spoke:
‘I have something I’d like to read to you.’
The cameras zoomed in on him and a hush went over the crowd. Back at the network headquarters, the suits were tallying up numbers and figuring out their ratings. This was a wet dream come true.
He cleared his throat and began.
‘The following people have cancer: Michael Eisner, Julia Child, Michael Jackson, George Brett, Nolan Ryan, Mick Jagger, Ringo Starr, Pat Sajack, Regis Philben, Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Mickey Rooney, Darryl Hannah, Drew Barrymore, Carrot Top, David Letterman, Leonard Nimoy, James Dickey, Hunter S. Thompson, Cher, Donovan Leech, Michael Chiklas, Courtney Cox-Arquette, Dan Hedaya, John Belushi, Adam West, Diane Keaton, Bill Murray, Jennifer Aniston, Robert Redford, Anne Murray, Miles Davis, Natalie Cole, Barbara Streisand, William Shatner, Jiminy Cricket, Princess Di, Hillary Clinton, Ben Affleck, Nora Jones, Henry Rollins, Margaret Thatcher, Strom Thurmond, David Allen Coe, Mary Tyler Moore, and Stephen King.’
He took one step back and pulled the trigger. A flag that said ‘bang!’ shot out of the end of the barrel and stabbed him in the forehead. He hit the ground a little bruised, but far from dead.
No one knew what to say or what to make of the things he had said. And even if they did, they wouldn’t begin to know how to explain them to other people.
It was suggested that they just take his words at face value, even though they were clearly insane. Many people spent the next few weeks psychoanalyzing every single action and word that he had spoken. The fringe culture turned him into a religious icon.
One lobotomy and a life long sentence to an insane asylum later, he had only one word to say:
‘Jello.’
And no one questioned his authority ever again.
As Americans we get to witness certain ways of losing weight becoming more popular than others on a fairly frequent basis. I’m sure all of us remember being bombarded with Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig commericials during everything from the Saturday morning cartoons to the Super Bowl.
But there’s a new trend in dieting right now that’s become very, very, apparent. And of course, I’m talking about the low-carb menus that have taken over every restaurant from sit down and fancy ones to your neighborhood McDonald’s.
Now, I’d like to point out the relationship between the different books on carb counting (which I have not read) and bacon.
The idea behind carb counting is that you can reduce the amount of carbohydrates you’re consuming and not gain as much weight. Since all of our favorite things make us fat, we have to cut down on them or buy reduced carbohydrate versions of them to appease the almighty diet gods. That’s pretty fucked up. This is the same idea that engineered Rolling Rock Green Light and Michelob Ultra.
Anyway, let’s cut to the chase. There’s only one thing keeping me from calling this entire diet bullshit and that’s the amount of bacon that this diet involves.
Have you even glanced at the menus? They’ve cut bread and potatoes out and added on an entire side of bacon to make up for it. Double Bacon burgers served on crackers instead of buns. Bacon wrapped broilers. An entire tortilla stuffed full of roast beef with some vegetables for padding and 2 pounds of bacon wrapped around the entire tortilla.
Ok, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but read over the low-carb menus. I’ve never seen so much bacon outside of a truck stop. It’s unbefuckinglievable.
I guess it’s time for a recap now:
Thank you very much.
“You married, Manny?’
‘No way.’
‘Women?’
‘Sometimes. But it never lasts.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘A woman is a full-time job. You have to choose your profession.’
‘I suppose there is an emotional drain.’
‘Physical too. They want to fuck night and day.’
‘Get one you like to fuck.’
‘Yes, but if you drink or gamble they think it’s a put-down on their love.’
‘Get one who likes to drink, gamble, and fuck.’
‘Who wants a woman like that?’
There’s an amazing storm outside right now, and I’d have to say I’m a big fan of it. I like thunder and lightning and rain a whole lot. Driving home in it was fun. I was listening to Jawbreaker and singing along at the top of my lungs, the only car on the highway for most of the drive. It was relaxing.
I don’t actually have anything to write about today. I went out last night. Brother’s and a show at Studio 906. Hung out with Jillian. Got very drunk. Saw lots of art work, some good and some awful. Somehow I got up this morning around 10, after going to bed a little before 4 am. No hangover either. It was nice.
Play list:
David Cross, It’s Not Funny
Mission of Burma, On Off On
Miles Davis, ‘Round About Midnight
Faraquet, The View From This Tower
The fingers are frantically typing all about and the things that we say we don’t even listen to anymore. Whatever comes out will suffice.
Mornings. Noon. Evenings. Swings. Graveyards- it doesn’t really matter since it’s all the same story twenty-four/ seven and we’re all waiting on the happy ending (retirement?).
Is this what you expected life to be like? Offices are totally unnatural and against all of our instincts. How can you survive in an enviroment where survival skills have become as obsolete as the next upgrade?
Let’s sing a song for the hermits, and bums, and the others who haven’t given in. I envy them- better men than I.
Let’s sing a song for ourselves; damned to the air conditioning, the name badges, and the time clock, all knowing students of the water cooler are we.
We’ve become schooled in health and car insurance and paying our bills on time. We’ve been degreed in mortgages and car payments and doctors of self medication.
It’s a cycle to be trifled with.
‘Thank you for calling, how can I help you today?’
‘Fuck you for calling, how can I hel- oh fuck it.’
It’s not always like that. Somedays are worse than others and you can hear it in my voice and tone. When I say ‘thank you’ it’s a snarl of a voice. I hope they can feel it.
Today was one of those days.
Phone trees. Headsets. Customer service. It’s a business casual nightmare that no one really understands but keeps grinding away at day in and day out.
Forty hours a week. Eight hours a day. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Twenty six standard paychecks.
Let’s sing a song for the hermits and bums and the ne’er-do-wells, all much happier than we are. Drink another and god bless.
And god damn too. God damn it all. I’m counting the minutes and always waiting. There is hold music in my head and it sucks. Why is that? How is that?
Ray Conniff can fuck goats in hell. Lord knows he’s been doing it in the back of my mind. Barry Manilow and Perry Como are there too, bending them over backwards, while Neil Diamond nails two at a time out back.
What a carnival.
I’d like to go home soon, but I don’t remember where home is.
Home is where your rump rests, but that doesn’t do you much good if you can’t relax. And I understand you appreciate my service and I’ll continue to hold, I guess, because it’s not like I have any other fucking choice.
Clocked in, clocked out. Strung in, strung out. Even throwing my arms up in the air and sighing doesn’t begin to vent the frustration or the agitation I’m carrying around.
I’m writing this on company time. I hope you’re reading it on company time.
It’s five minutes until the end of my shift on a tuesday night. I lost my mind eight hours ago.
MCharlesYohe: haha.. no i just stumbled on this while reading about the third porn star being infected with aids
IAmBillLatham: a porn star got an STD?
IAmBillLatham: no way!
MCharlesYohe: heh
MCharlesYohe: 3 of them
IAmBillLatham: man, you’d think fucking hundreds of different people for money would be a clean and clinical operation.
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