A homeless man stepped off
the bus with a box,
Set it down on a bench and
took his shoes off, then
Tied the shoes by their laces
to his belt loops.  He
asked if I was Nebraskan
and for a dollar.

I had one of those childhood memories that pops up out of nowhere pop up at work this morning. Keef and I were talking about this redonkoulous Slate magazine article and he weighed in with this:

[09:45] Keef: i want my kids to fucking read
[09:45] Keef: I don’t care if it’s Li’l Hitler that finally gets through to them
[09:46] Keef: DADDY WHAT IS DA FIRD WIKE?

I agree. But the childhood memory that popped into mind was purely tangential of that conversation. However, it’s hilarious.

I must’ve been 6 or 7- probably 6- I was young at the very least. My family was visiting my Grandparent’s house in Bartlesville, OK. My grandparents didn’t really ever have a movie collection full of movies that any sane person would want to watch. My Grandmother had, at one point, every Hallmark Hall of Fame movie ever produced on VHS and Rogers & Hammerstein musical. That was their entire collection. There was nothing there that a little boy was really going to be buck wild about. Especially a little boy who lived and breathed Star Wars and He Man.

I remember the musical the Sound of Music because of that house. It seems like it ended up on the television every time we were there. I hate that fucking musical a whole lot. I don’t have much love for the Von Trapp Family’s plight, Fräulein Maria, or the heroic “look the other way” Holocaust era Catholic Church Nuns. I hate that fucking musical because it’s pounded into my head. I hate it because I recall parts of it here and there throughout my life when my mind goes wandering and no amount of trash television, booze, medication, music, pop culture, etc. has removed it completely from my brain. There is a part of my brain that will always contain the Sound of Music and I cannot, for the life of me, kill those brain cells. I’ve been trying for years. I suppose I will carry “Do Re Mi”, “Climb Every Mountain”, and “Getting To Know You” to the grave in the back of my mind. Goddamn you Rogers. Goddamn you Hammerstein. Goddamn you. Goddamn you. Goddamn you-

Anyway, I’m getting off subject. Sorry about that.

Back to my story. I loved the villains from He-Man and Star Wars when I was a kid. The villains were always the best part. They were the reason there was a conflict. They had cool costumes and neat weapons. I liked the Storm Troopers in Star Wars. I liked the white armored suits. I liked the blaster guns. I liked Boba Fett the bounty hunter for the same reasons. I liked Darth Vader. The good guys in the movies seemed to not nearly be as cool looking or as well outfitted for action. Sometimes when I’d be lost in imagination I’d imagine myself in one those white armored suits with a blaster gunning down Ewoks in a forest. It was the same thing with the He-Man characters. Skeletor was an amazingly cool looking evil dude.

I’d had a good career of rooting for the bad guys behind me already when I was at my Grandparents house having to watch the Sound of Music instead of actual entertainment. Clearly, to my six year old mind, the Von Trapp family was not where it was at in that movie. The kids wore lederhosen and dressed like a bunch of Pollyanna twats. They got forced to sing stupid songs and perform those stupid songs for an audience of hundreds.

But then, all of a sudden, these bad guys with guns and military uniforms showed up.

You can probably see where this is going.

I mean, really, the Sound of Music didn’t get interesting until the Nazis showed up. Out of nowhere there was suddenly the off chance that this singing family might get swatted out of existence like flies on walls. I could go wander off in other rooms of the house for the first VHS tape, but when the Nazis showed up, flies in the Von Trapp family soup, I was there.

Plus, they looked sort of like the Imperial Officers in Star Wars.

Anyway, my Grandparents had a sort of craft room/workshop space in their garage that they’d set up with paper and crayons and stuff when my sister and I came to visit so we could make things. While everyone else was in the living room watching the first part of the Sound of Music, I was at work in the garage making myself a Nazi Officer costumer to wear into the room. My goal was the recreate the scene where Rolf, the messenger boy, indignantly stands up to Captain Von Trapp and heils Hitler.

I guess I thought it was going to be received as one of those cute little kid things that makes grown ups want to take your picture or give you cookies or something. I don’t know what I was thinking. But I do remember making an arm band complete with swastika, several medals of some sort, a little hat, and a pistol out of cardboard. It was a good looking costume, I thought.

I remember walking into the house and meeting my mother in the kitchen before I came across anybody else. I had my paper medals and armband on. I had my paper cap. I got into character and tried out my role for it’s first reaction. I marched right up to my mom and enthusiastically thundered “HEIL HITLER!” and gave her the straight arm salute.

The look that came across my mother’s face has only been repeated at a few times in my life. It was an utter look of horror. It was white-faced-face-of-death-just-seen-a-ghost shock and confusion. Her reaction was very far from the reaction I was expecting. I got dragged by my shirt collar back out into the garage. I got spanked and then lectured. For years after that, my mom would go ballistic if I so much as drew a swastika, even if it was in the context of Nazis getting their asses kicked. There were no treats. There were no photos. There was no glee.

That was how I found out that Nazis actually were more than just bad guys in a movie.

Sometimes I’ll be sitting around in my apartment, or riding the bus, or walking to the convenience store or something like that and out of nowhere maybe two or three words will crash into each other and I’ll have an idea for a song or a story or something. It’s how I generally come up with some of my best stuff- totally random & accidental- but it seems to work.

Anyway, I had one of these events yesterday afternoon.

I was watching the “Clan of the Cave Bear” courtesy of Netflix when two words that don’t usually go together rear ended in my head. I immediately came up with an idea for a logo for these two words, but we’ll get to that in a minute. My immediate reaction was “that would be a great name for a band”.

I probably won’t ever be able to use this band name. That’s a little bit of a tragedy, but I don’t believe that I play the kind of music that such a band name would be acceptable for. It just screams loud screeching guitars and machine gun snare drum blasts and screams instead of actual singing or lyrical content. That’s all beside the point though because what I’ve really been meaning to getting around and saying I’ve been putting off for the whole of this paragraph. Might as well give it, it’s own paragraph anyway:

CHRIST PUSSY.

Yeah, that’s the name. CHRIST PUSSY. That’s the kind of thing that years of public schooling, working, and hobbying have made me able to come up with. I can’t design buildings, teach children, make lots of money, lead humans, etc. But I can come up with CHRIST PUSSY.

CHRIST PUSSY’s logo consists of a hand facing outwards. In the center of the palm is a vagina instead of stigmata hole.

I called my friend Dan (the Bassturd) up to do a little bit of research for me.

“You have the internet at home,” I mentioned to his answering machine. “See if the band name CHRIST PUSSY exists.” This is all a bad recollection of whatever I actually said. All I remember was that I said CHRIST PUSSY three times.

Anyway, Clan of the Cave Bear ended, I stuffed it back in the Netflix envelope, and Keef & his Dad showed up and we went and had lunch at Player’s and then headed to the Radio station so Keef’s Dad could narrate some more of his audio memoirs. The day continued and quite honestly, I’d almost all but forgotten about CHRIST PUSSY until I got home and checked my answering machine.

I guess at this point I should mention that I’d just gotten finished hanging out with Barb, Keef, Keef’s Dad, Melanie, and Dan. Dan didn’t mention CHRIST PUSSY at all the entire night and neither did I. Several hours had passed and he’d in fact, left this message before we’d come and picked him up.

“I looked up that name you asked about on the internet,” he said. “uh, I couldn’t find anything under…those…uh…words….yeah…” and then it abruptly ended. He sounded very confused. Maybe even scared. I guess CHRIST PUSSY isn’t really the kind of thing you expect to find on your answering machine. But then again, if I’m calling your phone you might want to be ready for it anyway.

Greetings potential investors. As I’m sure you are aware, animated family movies are a good way to make money. Especially if you can tap the direct to video, Christian family, market. That is not to say that the movie theater is also not a lofty goal to aim for. In fact, with the right team, we might be able to do both.

What I’m presenting you with today is a potential animated feature film, currently without a working title, but all about a lovable, wacky troop of Orphaned Animal/Children and their exploits. It’s sort of a cross between Oliver Twist and Huckleberry Finn- maybe with a dash of 8mm and the Terminator tossed in to spice things up for modern children.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Characters
PETEY an anthropomorphic orphaned cat-child
SUSIE an anthropomorphic orphaned pig-child
ORPHAN CHORUS several anthropomorphic orphaned animal children
Fagin Faggot “ANDY” the G-Rated-Animated-Family-Movie version of what a child pornographer is like
RICH WHITEMAN a wealthy man who controls everything and spits on orphans
WHITEMAN CHORUS a collection of politicians, bankers, businessman, and other assholes who tell everybody else what to do
NIAGRA JIM a Car Hop at a 3 Star hotel who is friend to the orphans

Plot Summary
Petey, the orphaned cat-child, runs the streets of Buffalo, New York looking for a family to call his own. In some sort of mysterious accident, his family was taken away from him and euthanized. Petey is friends with Susie, who’s parents went to work for a butcher and were never seen again. Together with the orphan chorus they live tribally as a family on the streets. They make money by making movies with Fagin Faggot “Andy” that he sells over the internet. When Rich Whiteman and the Whiteman chorus start running Buffalo, the orphans decide that they’re going to trek to Canada to escape. Niagra Jim helps them build a raft and they head North on the Niagra River with the Whiteman Chorus hot on their heals.

Potential Songs
No Bedtime (or Mommy or Daddy)- Petey’s big introductory number.
Let’s Put the “Fun” Back In Orphan- The Orphan Chorus’s big number about sticking together and working as a team
Here’s How You Present -a song from Fagin Faggot “Andy” on how to act in his movies

As you can see it still needs some work. But I’m sure that what I really need first is some money. Then I can complete the work. Y’know?

I like to write about dreams a whole lot. I’m fascinated by them. I’m amazed at the weird shit that my brain creates while I’m sleeping and the weird shit that other people’s brains create as well. I’m amazed at the weird scenarios I’ll dream myself into.

This is a guided tour of my nightmares. Or at least partially is.

I have nightmares. That’s not special. You probably have nightmares too. The amount of terror present in them varies. Sometimes they’re utterly fucked up and horrible and sometimes merely just uncomfortable & unpleasant.

I have nightmares about three different places a whole lot.

Nightmare location #1: Timothy Lutheran Church, Council Bluffs, IA.

Oh Timothy Lutheran- you helped me become an atheist and for that, I have to say “thanks”. I mean that too. The world I learned about inside of this building confused the living shit out of me as a kid and growing older and joining a more rational world has been wonderful. Though it’s been nearly ten years since I set foot inside of you, I still occasionally wake up in the middle of the night frightened of things that are not actually happening inside of your building. I’ll walk through your dark little halls and nooks and crannies and wake up not feeling quite right. Perhaps I’m being chased. Perhaps I’m being shouted at or put down. The details are not important. This is just a nightmare location in my sleep.

Nightmare location #2: Abraham Lincoln High School, Council Bluffs, IA.

Oh ALHS. It’s been 8 years since I graduated from you and still your halls haunt my dreams and fuck up my sleep. Generally the dream will begin that for some reason I’m being forced back into your halls because I fucked up somewhere along the line or something and now have to attend High School again. These are never really fun dreams. I’ll be stuck taking tests or listening to lectures or getting assaulted one way or another by nameless dream creatures that occasionally resemble people I used to know. Most of my friends seem to have high school nightmares from time to time as well. Perhaps some day I’ll forget all about you.

Nightmare location #3: 240 Zenith Dr, Council Bluffs, IA- the house I grew up in from birth to age 13

I don’t know why this house is the one that shows up in the nightmares, but it was never the second house my parents owned. This house though (second only to the house my Mother’s parents lived in, in Bartlesville, OK) is a constant location in nightmares as well. I actually have a lot of pleasant memories of this house. I was a little kid in it. There was a big backyard and a lot of people in the neighborhood who I got along with well. Yet, it still serves background for the sites of some very horrible dreams. I’m sure when I dream of it, it’s a lot bigger than it really was. It always appears in the same dimensions it had when I was six, except I’ll be my current age in the dream.

I don’t really have any specifics for this blog. This isn’t a blog about the events of nightmares- I tend to usually forget dreams after waking and only the really good ones ever stick out. But I can remember locations. And here are a few of them.

It’s amazing where you can end up at following a few well placed phone calls at the right times and places. Case in point, Keef called the Austin Beverage company on the 4th of July in hopes that they could tell us where to locate DRANK Anti-Energy Drink at. DRANK, by the Innovative Beverage Group Inc. of Houston, Texas was recently released onto the market and has been a sort of minor (if not entirely incidental) news sensation.

While not the first grape flavored, soda-esque drink to induce coma (”Purple Passion” anyone?), DRANK is the first of it’s kind in that it is entirely non-alcoholic and contains legal ingredients. While tasting of generic grape soda it also contains valerian root, rose hips, and melatonin, as well as several B vitamins. It’s name references a grape soda/codeine cough syrup cocktail that has achieved a level of notoriety in southern hip hop, as well as being the cause of death for both Pimp C and DJ Screw.

The makers of the anti-energy drink would simply urge us that “when life comes at you fast, just remember to ’slow your roll’ with DRANK.” DRANK’s website, filled with some of the funniest sloganeering known to man, eschews the benefits of slowing one’s roll in very colorful and pointed language. The moment I learned of this product, I knew I’d have to give it a try for review purposes. Too many of my friends live outside of DRANK’s immediate market.

So there we were at Austin’s own Planet K- Keef, my friend Melissa (visiting from out of town!!!), and myself, all ready to purchase some DRANK. I was surprised to learn that Planet K was in fact a head shop. I ride a bus past it two times a day and have for over a year. I was under the impression that Planet K was pizza/arcade establishment in the vein of Chuck E Cheese or Mr. Gatti’s or something to that effect. I had no evidence that Planet K was in the pizza/arcade business, but that’s what I thought they were. Go figure.

There’s no shame in being wrong though when it comes down to it. If I hadn’t have been wrong, I probably never would have heard this little bit of advice from the helpful Planet K clerk:

“If I have more than one of these I feel all medicined out.”

Noted! Ah, what the hell, anyway? I like to think of myself as a medicine enthusiast and don’t take such reviews lightly. I bought two cans of DRANK. Intending to drink both of them in one sitting, I figured I’d learn what this clerk considered “medicined out” to feel like. That way I could compare and contrast. That kind of thing. Utterly scientific and sterile aside from the part about “slowing your roll”.

“Warning,” read the sides of the can. “This product may cause drowsiness. Not recommended more than 2 servings within a 24 hour period.” Each can contains two servings. I was planning on double dosing, but not immediately. Both cans went into the refrigerator and stayed there until Sunday afternoon.

Like I said, my friend Melissa was in town on vacation, so we had a lot more important things to attend to than sampling DRANK and SLOWING OUR ROLL. We saw some fireworks, saw Hancock, took a tour of 4 different Hill Country BBQ joints with Barb, Keef, Corrie and Andrew, and saw Gravy Train!!! at Mohawk. We also drank a pretty fair amount of alcohol and I wanted my DRANK testing to be pure and unadulterated by such obvious variables.

But all good things come to an end and finally I found myself alone in my apartment again on Sunday. I had a blast seeing Melissa and hope that her sampling of DRANK on her own time is maybe more successful than my sampling was. At the very least M, if you’re reading this, don’t drink both of them at the same time. I’ll get to that in a moment.

I should probably start by saying that I honestly didn’t expect anything to happen when I consumed my DRANK. Considering there was no codeine present in the beverage and merely questionable “herbal” ingredients like Melatonin, Valerian Root, and Rose Hips, I was not expecting to get anything off the beverage. In fact, I slammed both of them, waited 20 minutes, decided I’d never drink Grape Soda and again and wrote a very different first draft of this blog. While waiting for side effects I watched a little bit of the movie Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, paused the DVD player to write a scathing review, finished said scathing review, and continued my movie.

Fast forward two hours on the alarm clock. I woke up at 6 pm on my couch confused. I have absolutely no recollection of sleep overtaking me. I don’t know exactly what the side effects of DRANK were or how quickly they hit. One minute I was sitting there watching Ghost Dog eat ice cream with the guy who only speaks French and the next minute the DVD menu was looping on my television screen and I felt like I’d passed out on cold medicine, only DRANK did fuck all for my sinuses.

So I guess DRANK works if falling asleep on the couch is your end goal. I thought I was going to be telling you that it was a total bust, but it definitely did not provide me with an ounce of extra energy. In fact, it helped me take an afternoon nap and there’s very few things in this world that ever cause that to happen. It knocked me the fuck out. I won’t say I slept like a baby- I didn’t wake up crying- I slept more like your Grandfather probably did, sitting upright in front of the television.