I came across this particular ad for match.com and decided that I needed to take the time to prove myself as a person who can write advertisements.

Oh come on, lady. Everyone has killed every goldfish they ever had. They might as well sell you a little coffin with the fish, because it’ll last longer than the fish ever will.

Now it’s your turn. Right click, save, and make a larf or a funny or whatever you want to call it.

Let’s talk about the number four.

Four is a very simple number. You can count it out on your fingers, provided you have all of them. Four is the smallest composite number- meaning it is a positive interger that can be divided by another number than one or itself. Four is also an even number.

I want to talk about four because last night a man assigned the value of Four American Dollars to my life. I was walking home from my friend Jason’s apartment and as I turned the corner at 24th and St Marys by the covered bus stop, a big black hand I had not noticed wrapped it’s four fingers and thumb around my throat.

‘GIMME YO’ FUCKIN’ MONEY!’ my attacker said.

He didn’t know that I only had $4. He probably thought I was strapped to the gills with big ass bills. I had $4 in my front pocket from a night spent drinking beers at O’Leaver’s. Four pictures of George Washington.

I didn’t bother with a police report. I am still living and without that particular $4. As I was drunk, I didn’t feel like even trying to talk to a cop about looking for a guy who tried to choke me and was bleeding out of his nose like a geyser. Additionally, my attacker unfortunately bears a description that could fit many of the people in my neighborhood. He was about 6′ 2′, 230 lbs, black, and probably loaded up on crack. His eyes were blood shot and almost jaundiced looking- he didn’t have whites, that is. He had yellows. He was wearing a baggy maroon hoody and had a mustache and close cropped hair.

‘Remember what I said? Don’t be the victim.’ -Forest Whitaker as Lt. Jon Kavanaugh; The Shield

He was quite effective with choking me and I have some really nice/awful looking bruises along my neck right now. Choking or not- I’m still a scrapper when I have to be and I kicked his legs out from under him and took him down on the ground. Generally my ‘flee’ instincts would have been kicking in before my ‘fight’ instincts would, but, for cryin’ out loud, the son of a bitch was trying to kill me. He rolled me over onto my back and put a foot on my chest. He took his hands off my neck and checked my left pocket for cash. He found my $4. He took his foot off, but was still leaning over in front of me- probably counting out the $4 in the streetlight and realizing how much effort he had wasted on nothing. This was to my advantage

That was right when I finally had enough room to roll back my legs and kick him directly in the face. Jesus, it was awful. I could hear the impact as my foot connected with his nose. It sounded wet. Wet with a crunch at the end.

‘MOTHA FUCKA!!!’ My attacker shouted.

‘FUCK YOU!’ I shouted back at him. ‘FUCK YOU!’

There was blood running down his face like a waterfall now. I had to come home and clean it off the bottom of my sneaker. I can earnestly say that I hope I broke his nose. It sounded like it. It looked like it. He ran off with my $4 and I picked myself back up and walked the remaining few yards to my apartment building. There were no cars or other people to be seen.

ADDENDUM added 9/28/06 @ 8:51 PM

All afternoon long I’ve been finding myself having stronger realizations about this whole experience. Suddenly millions of nagging thoughts keep coming into the old head about what could have possibly happened. What if he’d been armed? What if he’d started a fight after I kicked him- that was a risky touch and I wouldn’t advise doing it. Brawn for brawn, muscle for muscle, that guy was a lot bigger than me. I’d have been in the hospital if he didn’t get back to the original plan of offing me.

Jesus Christ- some twisted motherfucker’s version of reality includes choking random people at a bus stop for spare change. That really, really, really scares me. A lot.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

ADDENDUM added 9/28/06 @ 10:40 PM

I’m changing my mind about filing the police report. I’ve gotten a lot of good e-mails and advice from people today. I’ve been freaked out more and more about the whole thing as time has passed. I am really a lucky son of a bitch. Really lucky.

ADDENDUM added 9/29/06 @ 10:33 AM

The Police Report has been filed. I feel a little better, I guess. Chin up, William. Bad things happen and so do good things.

From: .

To: bill.latham

Date: Sep 27, 2006 12:51 PM

Subject: RE: Pizza Issue. [T2006092300AJS010Z2198574]

Dear Customer,

Thank you for writing. At this time we do not have a mailing list, however, I will forward your comments on to the Quality Assurance Department.

Customer Product Support

From: Bill Latham

To: ‘RedBaronCustomerService@redbaron.com’

Date: Sep 27, 2006 1:12 PM

Subject: Re: Pizza Issue. [T2006092300AJS010Z2198574]

Thank you, Red Baron.

I appreciate yr promptness. I’ve had some sleepless nights this last week and it all started shortly after that pizza I wrote you about.

Take last night, for example. I was walking from my neighborhood to the Brother’s Lounge in Omaha, NE. It’s about 16-20 blocks of walking when I do that, but I don’t mind so much. Anyway, while I was walking this guy asked me for a cigarette. I outsized him completely, so I wasn’t so worried about getting attacked by him. He gave me a quarter for the cigarette. Please remember that detail. He gave me a quarter.

‘So man, you need anything?’ he asked. ‘Some crank? Some weed? Some pussy? I got pussy too.’

I thanked him and said ‘no thanks, man.’ He was an entertaining salesman. He made three sales pitches. I don’t remember the exact words, due to multiple beers at the bar shortly thereafter, but each time he made it really clear that he was selling CRANK, WEED, and PUSSY.

Finally I got away from there. It looked and felt hopeless for a few minutes.

It all started with that pizza, Red Baron. The whole world is turned upside down. There’s only one thing that might resolve all these problems, Red Baron- coupons. Coupons for free pizzas. You’ve got ‘em and I want ‘em…I assume. Let’s talk coupons.

Yr Humble Servant,

Bill Latham

Omaha, NE

From: Bill Latham

To:.
Date: Sep 23, 2006 5:36 PM

Subject: Pizza Issue.

Dear Red Baron,

I’ve never written you before, though I’ve been a fan of yours since I was five or six. I’ve eaten a lot of frozen pizza in this world and while some people like their frozen pizza with expensive price tags and names like ‘DiGiornia’ & ‘Freschetta’, a lot of us think Red Baron is where it’s at.

I feel the need to let you know what a big fan I am of yours before I write very seriously about the most disapointing frozen pizza I have ever purchased.

I’d just gotten home from work and I was cracking open a beer and getting ready to light up a doobie when I realized that my cigarette lighter had died. This is not my complaint with you- don’t worry. I’m working on a strongly worded letter to the Bic company about that issue. I don’t blame you for the tapped out lighter, Red Baron. That wouldn’t be fair.

I walked up my block to the local ‘grocery’ store. I write ‘grocery’ with quote marks because it’s really more of a liquor store. The establishment’s name, however, is ‘ALL NATION GROCERY’ and it’s located right, smack, dab in the middle of the industrial ghetto in Omaha, NE quite near my apartment. There is no produce section. There’s some frozen foods and dry goods and what not, but for the most part they stock loads of cheap booze. I get my Pabst Blue Ribbon there in 24 Oz. Cans for $1. It’s a great little shop.

Moving right along- they also stock Red Baron pizza.

Remembering the doobie I had failed to light, I realized that I was going to need something to eat. I also remembered that the ‘ALL NATION GROCERY’ stocks your particular brand of pizza and I went and picked one out. I got Canadian Bacon. I like Canadian Bacon quite a bit. I’m not sure why, exactly- but I do prefer it to regular bacon. I paid for the pizza, some lighters, got a couple tall cans of beer, and walked on home.

When I came home I opened the pizza. It was frozen. Very frozen. Maybe even too frozen. It took a little longer than the recommended 22 minutes to even get in eat-worthy shape. The Candian Bacon was sliding around loosely in the packaging also ice solid. They looked like the pucks from a table hockey game. The crust of the pizza had also cracked at a crescent moon shaped angle. I took the solid pieces and set them on the oven rack and then arranged the hockey puck like slabs of Canadian Bacon shaking my head. Things looked grim. I didn’t know what to do.

25 minutes later, the pizza has cooled and I am enjoying it. Sure, the packaging was flawed as hell and someone kept their freezer too cold- but the meal is what counts and it’s delicious. Bravo sir. Well done.

I guess what I’m getting at, Red Baron, is could I get some coupons, please?

Thank you,

Bill Latham

Omaha, NE

The circus is in town again.

My more-PC friends tend to hate the circus. They site animal cruelty and ownership as supreme evils and injustices. They don’t see a celebration of wonder or magic. In fact, they get a little bit upset if you even try to convince them that the circus is completely amazing. I still try though, but I digress.

See, my more-PC friends and I don’t see eye to eye on the circus. The circus ain’t the circus without the animals, Bubba! That’s the way it goes. There must be elephants, camels, lions, tigers, and bears- oh my.

The circus is an old form of entertainment and time honored tradition. It surpasses the carnival the same way that hand potted dinnerware surpasses paper plates. It’s all based in skill and movement and it’s meant to totally overwhelm all of your senses in exotic sights, painted faces, acrobatic feats, and towering beasts parading around a sadistic little bastard in the middle of it all that they call “the Ringmaster”.

The circus is an American institution like baseball, mom’s apple pie, and the electric chair. It focuses your attention, warms and fills you up, and shocks your senses with 2000 volts of wonder and excitement.

A man in a canon!

Tight rope walkers turning cartwheels!

Lion tamers dancing the dance of death with Simba, the king of Lion Kings! Watch the moves! They glide away so coyly!

‘You ain’t a tease, are you? ‘Cause I’ll cut your face.’ -Chrisopher Walken, Pennies From Heaven (1981).

Next, there’s the issue of the clowns. Many of my generation hate the clowns like my parent’s generation hated communists or Jews or Blacks. They shriek in horror about being shown the movie “It” as a child and then being taken to the circus by sadistic freak parents who were trying to reduce them to bedwetting cowardly freaks who were so scared of their own shadows that the site of a man with a painted on face gives them visions of complete horror instead of- say- Burning Man or something to that effect.

These fears are misplaced. Besides, Pennywise wasn’t really a clown. He was a spider- a big fuckin’ spider.

A legion of spiders emerging from a tiny car isn’t as impressive as it is creepy. But picture this: a clown car in a crash and as the paramedics arrive they keep carting out clown after clown after clown injured and on stretchers. Oh it’s a dark vision, but I find it funny as hell.

I had a dream, as it were.

I’m thinking about words to a song that my Grandma sang me as a boy:

“Oh I went to the Animal fair.

The birds and the bees were there.

By the light of the moon a big baboon

Was combing his auburn hair.

The Monkey he got drunk.

And sat on the Elephant’s trunk.

The elephant sneezed and fell on his knees

And that was the end of the Monk.”



I’ve never witnessed such an event, but I am waiting for it. I have no doubt in my mind that it will spell curtains for the Monk either.

Perhaps what terrifies my more-PC friends about the circus is the spectacle behind all of it. It’s a time honored tradition, folks. It deserves your respect and attention. It’s a rare form of entertainment and you can go watch what someone does for a job. Just think about that: Someone’s job is tight rope walking. Ain’t that great, bub?

Open your eyes and go see the magic.

Pop on over to samizDADA and check it out. It’s a new project that Keef is working on. You can read a story I wrote here.

The next time you’re in Joslyn

if you ever go there, that is- do me a favor and take a walk into the fountain court area.

While you’re in the fountain court area look up

at the plexiglass ceiling tiles that cover the lights.

Make note of how far away from the floor they are.

I got to walk across the metal girders that hold those in place today

to clean off all the gunk on the inside of them. There is no catwalk in the ceiling;

just inch and half pieces of solid steel and girders

that are about as wide as my two shoes sitting side by side.

Just one step on the plexiglass or one

stumble/slip/hard fall and I would have tumbled to my death below-

perhaps only shielded by the legion of elementary school students that Lewis & Clark Elementary shipped into the museum today.

It wasn’t so bad though.

It was incredibly cool

and inside of the ceiling you don’t really realize

how far down you could possibly fall.

Totally not blazed.

Drunk kids in a bath tub.

Photos by Daniel Knapp

Kevin Green is a guy I had the privelage of working with when I was in my first couple of years at West. He was my all time favorite co-worker at the place and it was never the same when he had to leave. I still see him from time to time and we have beers or we send each other long ranty hilarious e-mails.

I got one of them from him yesterday and it was about how he had just taken his kids to see the movie ‘Nacho Libre’ starring Jack Black. I have not seen this movie yet and I may still end up seeing it because I am a glutton for pain. Hey, I went and saw X-Men 3 long after 1) it came out and 2) my friends all told me it was a stinking pile of shit. It certainly was. I went into it with no illusions.

Anyway, the best part of trading long ranty e-mails with people is the quotes that you’re able to pull from them. I think these are absolutely golden and I had to share them with the world.

Here are some of Kevin’s thoughts on ‘Nacho Libre’:

‘All the posture shots of Jack Black were of the waist and usually from behind, so the audience was forced to spend 2 hours with their noses buried

deep in his ass. My nose was in his back side for so long that by the end of this movie I felt like a midget towel boy in a cheap Turkish bath. The only way I made it thru this alive was because my kids were with me, and I realized how badly they would be scarred for life if they had to watch their own father slit his wrists to escape this movie.’

‘It is very seldom for me to pray for a movie theater massacre but by the half way mark I was ready to start one if no one else did.’

‘The only laugh in this whole adventure was the chuckle I got from the ticket taker when he saw the movie I was going to followed by the snide little smirk he had as he said ‘enjoy the show’.’

‘I must at this point add that I saw this movie for a buck fifty. I bring this up because you all know how everyone has that saying “for a buck fifty it wasn’t bad, but boy if I paid 7 bucks for it I would have been pissed’. If I had paid 7 bucks for this I would have burned the movie theater to the ground, sown the land were it stood with salt, and proceeded to gather up a Planet Of The Apes hunting party to hunt down, kill and scalp everyone involved in its making.’

‘So I think I will tuck my kids into bed, explain to them that there is no God, and no heaven, and that hell is here on earth and they just sat thru 2 hours of it. Somehow I think they will sleep better with that than the image of Jack Black’s lumpy ass in tights.’