Month: April 2003

Let’s Discuss my favorite links list today. I’d like to point out that the following people are not just figments of my imagination and are important folks who’s stuff you should read. I’ll also tell you how I met them and maybe share a colorful (or off-colorful) anecdote about them.

Keef
Keef is a very special lad to me. He hosts this blog or whatever the hell name you want to call it. He brings me rum with half naked men on the bottle. He once filmed me running across the spillway of the Coralville dam, completely naked save for a good pair of shoes and a gigantic orange foam cowboy hat. There’s a lot of priceless memories that go with Keef and I could probably write 10-12 pages worth of those memories off the top of my head alone. But I want to share the first memory I have of Keef.

I was sitting in the apartment he and Mike shared in Iowa City on my first night in Iowa City, in August of 2000. Keef was out with Irving at the time. Suddenly, while we were watching Kids In The Hall episodes Mike had taped, Keef burst through the door with a gigantic sack full of frozen meats and tossed one to Mike and another to their room mate of two weeks Mike Herman. He was talking sort of like Charlton Heston and Santa Claus and very excited about the gigantic sack of frozen meats. Then he hugged me.

It was love at first site.

Mike
I’ve known Mike for almost two-thirds of my natural life. We went to Elementary school together, then Junior High, then High School, then College… briefly.

Anyway, he’s a pal from the old school days. Gunn School. Gin and Juice and Tupac on the Jungle Gym even. Ok, ok, I’m full of shit. It’s a small, fairly normal, white bread school for kids like me and Mike.

We were also Cub Scouts together. One of my earliest memories of Mike is him reciting a little limerick that involved him slanting his eyes and pointing at body parts. It went something like “Japanese, Chinese, Siamese, Christmas Trees, Look At These” and ended with him pointing at his 8 year old nutsack.

Priceless.

Sara
Sara is the daughter of local celebrity Mike Gronstal. I’ve known her for roughly 6 or 7 years. We were on the Speech Team and Newspaper staffs together. I remember her and Patty Drey arguing politics all day long while I sat off to the side and drew my cartoon strips.

While I don’t have any hilarious anecdotes about Sara, you should still read her stuff. It’s amusing.

Stewart
What can I say about Stewart? Nothing nice, that’s for goddamn sure!

I’ve known Stewart for about 4 or 5 years, since right after he finished Jr. High. He was a very funny kid and still is. He likes to button and unbutton his shirt alot, and he’s recently fallen in love with Southern Comfort

One time Stewart was meeting my room mate and I for dinner and came over wearing a new, used green coat. He came into our living room, stood there for a moment as if to model it off, and walked over to our couch and sat down. He then sat there for a moment before taking the coat off and said “Guess what, I’m going to be a male model.”

We nearly pissed ourselves laughing.

Stewart said “WHAT?!”

Devin
Devin has been a pal since the very early days of Ninth Grade. I found out he liked Comic Books and the Smashing Pumpkins. I was very much a Smashing Pumpkins fan then, and getting out of Comic Books, though I still at that time read a lot of underground titles.

Anyway, we went on to do Speech together and made it to finals at Districts one year while doing Monty Python’s ‘The Bookshop Sketch’. After that we lost all ambition and retired.

One time I saved Devin’s life from an oncoming semi. He was starting to run across a street and not paying any attention. I slammed a hand down on his shoulder and saved his life.

He’s been in my debt ever since. Sunday night I mothered him while he was throwing up in our toilet. Silly, Devin.

Ian
I’ve known Ian for a couple years and they’ve been good ones. He’s a funny mother fucker and hails from Columbus, Nebraska. A town that beats Council Bluffs out on the top ten shitty places to live list (sorry, buddy.)

Ian’s the kind of drinking buddy everyone should have. He leaves me funny drunk voice mails and gets a good dance party started.

More people need Ian as their pal. ‘Nuff said.

Nicole
Next we have Nicole aka NikNak aka The Nak aka Your Wasted Girlfriend’s Spokesmodel. I met her through posting on SLAM Omaha where she decided that we are twins.

So there you have it. She’s my twin.

One time, she needed to write a paper about an important experience in her life, but couldn’t think of one. So I gave her one of mine to use and naturally she aced that fucker!

So there you have it. Twins.

Jillian
Where do I begin? Oh boy.

I met Jillian over my winter break just at the start of 2002. In that time period, she’s achieved status as my favorite person ever. That’s quite an accomplishment. I should give her a trophy of some sorf.

One time we went to the see the best concert I have ever witnessed together. Elvis Costello, in Kansas City.

She’s moving back to Omaha soon and thinks I’m going to get sick of her, but I don’t forsee that being a problem.

You should probably read everything she writes too. It’ll make you laugh, and cry, and smile, and think. And the people around the water cooler will stare at you funny.

Rachel
I know Rachel because of Nicole and too much time spent at the Junction over the summer. She’s an insanely funny girl, and can probably fit in the palm of your hand.

One time we bonded over beers that we stole from the Junction while Pete, the Two Thousand year old bar tender was walking down the street to another bar, at a pace of about 60 hours a Mile. Yes, I am aware how I just typed that. The beers were Pabst Blue Ribbon which the Junction sold for a ridiculous $3 a bottle. Amazingly, they also sold Heinekin and Guinness for the same price. I never drank another PBR in that bar after I realized that.

But that’s off subject. Rachel’s a funny person and you should check her diaryland page out.

Kat
Next up we have Ms. Kaitlin “Kat” Bartik from Iowa City by way of Grayslake, Illinois. I met her last year in an enviromental science class at Iowa.

We shortly thereafter became pals and went to lots of shows together.

Though I have not seen her in many, many months, it’s always good to hear how she is, and what’s going on in her life and whatnot.

One time I made her come to an Abraham Lincoln party when she was thinking about staying in for the night, and she ended up having lots of fun like I told her she would. So there.

And last but not least we have

Bixby
Bixby is a pal from Iowa City who’s in a band with other pal’s in Iowa City. They’re called Faultlines.

They’re good lads all of them. If the others wrote anything, they’d be on here too.

I remember when Faultines came to play in Omaha, Drew and our buddy Dave were playing this game where they had to find the entire alphabet, in order, on road signs, license plates, and things of that nature.

Drew got really bent out of shape. It was hilarious.

And that’s that.

Those are my list of favorite links. You should probably work all of them into your life and center daily activities around them. Thank you.

You can really put up with getting pushed around for awhile. You really can. But eventually it’ll catch up with you. That’s when you get even.

Those were words he’d lived by for quite some time. Now, as he was walking through the Super Wal-Mart, wooden baseball bat in hand, and whacking every man, woman, and child he could find, his philosophy was coming true.

Here was for the time he was hit by a car at age 12 only to have the driver leave the scene before his license plates or a good description could be written down. Here was for all the times Uncle Herb molested him as a boy. Here was for all the shit he put up with at work. It was time for revenge. For every wrong done, one was righted with the swing of the bat and the compacting of flesh.

‘FUCK THIS PLACE!’ he kept screaming at the top of his lungs. ‘FUCK IT! FUCK IT! FUCK IT!’

The words were a mantra for him. They had the ring of a Buddhist ‘om’ or a Krishna ‘haribol’.

As the police surrounded him in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart and crouched behind their squad cars pistols drawn and firing, he flung the bat through the air one last time and hit the Captain of the force directly in the jaw. The Captain hocked blood successively for ten minutes.

He died that day in a hail of gunfire, and that left a lot of people wondering what he was intending on accomplishing.

You might say it was nothing, but it meant a lot to me.

I am a genius.

For proof, download these videos.

Fish Stand 1
(devin/images/042003_fish_stand.avi)

Fish Stand 2
(devin/images/042003_fish_stand2.avi)

I’m obsessed with Wal-Mart. Not because I am a consumer, but because I like to view it as an outsider. It’s a very different world. Some people work, shop, and almost live there. If they sold on property housing, I imagine children would grow up there never knowing anything outside of it’s walls.

Can you imagine that? Generations of children growing up knowing only Wal-Mart and not the light of day. Suns are replaced with neon floor runners and vitamin D is absorbed into nothingness with the hum of flourescent lighting. There ring of the register, the howl of the overhead, and the sounds of busy shoppers would be nothing but a lullaby of sorts.

It’s 3 AM somewhere. I am buying cantalopes and dreaming of the Gulf Coast.

I find that I day dream a lot. I’ll be sitting in my car, or standing in a line, or at work, or out walking and my mind will leave me for someplace else with other people.

My shopping cart is empty and I’m staring down an aisle. My list says “rice” and my stomach says “soon”. My mouth is remembering your lips and the way they tasted, and my hands are remembering the way your hands felt interlocked with mine. They were soft and smooth.

I quit smoking again.

This time I think it’s for good, though I will make no promises concerning that, for fear of eating these very words later on. I want the nails in my coffin to be rail road spikes. I want to die like John Henry. I’m a steel drivin’ man lawd, lawd.

I like going for walks at night in suburbia all alone. I like the way floodlights flash at you as you walk past each house setting off garage mounted motion sensors, illuminating the world like daylight.

At every house it’s the same. Taupe paint, the two car garage, a basketball hoop for junior, a flag on the front porch, and a flood light that spreads like a beacon every other driveway. I was there last night again. It never changes.

“Our house is a very, very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard.”

Will that be me someday?

Will that be you someday?

Will that be us?

Can we atleast get on the same page? I’m lost. I’m confused.

I read the newspapers and magazines when I’m sitting places and waiting. I got an oil change last week and read a few weeks worth of People magazine.

It entranced me for a short time. Ally McBeal and Indianna Jones are having an affair. Micheal Jackson is the worst he’s been in years. Liz Taylor got her cunt tightened again and married for the 387th time.

Celebrity gossip. Celebrity word searches. Lights, camera, action, glitz and glamour.

Goddamn Hollywood. Goddamn actors. Goddamn People magazine.

I’m tired of hearing about people’s lives who I will never meet. The only human interests I have are the ones I know and love and interact with. The only hearts I need warmed are my own and those closest to me. That will suffice. The rest can go to the wind and take flight. I’m out of sympathy and time.

I like being alone. I like wandering and having nothing to do. I like being free of responsibility.

I am surrounded by people. I have things to do. I have many responsibilities.

I bear and grin it and stick it the man every way I can. Clock in, clock out, go home. 40 hours a week, 8 hours a day, and I still haven’t filed for health insurance or benefits.

My prescription is getting weaker and my eyes hurt at night. I eat tums and wash them down with tap water.

I’ll sit on the couch and watch the war for awhile then change the channel in favor of the Mariner’s or the Yankees or something to occupy my mind before I go to sleep.

I’ll drink a beer and go to sleep.

I’ll call but no one will answer.

I want to die like John Henry. He was a steel drivin’ man. He died with his hammer in his hand.

I want to die like Johnny Thunders. He was not a steel drivin’ man.. He died with his guitar in his hand.

I want to die like Mother Theresa. I want to lie there surrounded by my peers and respected by the world.

I want to die like Ted Williams. Remembered for greatness- hated by most.

I don’t want to die though. Not yet. I want to live many years and see many things. And finally down I’ll go with a hammer in my hands.

John Henry was a steel drivin’ man, lawd, lawd. John Henry was a steel drivin’ man.

I talked with my dead grandmother last night. She’s doing well, if you care, and sends her regards. She’s doing well you see, playing Bunko in the great beyond and winning frequently. She hasn’t rolled three threes yet and is really raking in the tupperware and prizes.

She was talking to Buddy Epson the other day and he told her a very off color story. She said she wanted to kill him, but it would have been futile since he’s been dead for years.

Oh Buddy. I hope there’s a hell for bad television.

I hope Gilbert Gottfried spends eternity in it’s Seventh Circle, surrounded by the stars of Mama’s Family, Married With Children, Perfect Strangers, Step by Step, and the Facts of Life respectively.

Tonight I’ll return home, crawl into bed, and slumber off into a dream world.

I hope I see you there.

The light breaks in and it always catches you unaware. Your head is heavy and you’re at your most vunerable as your face is baking and your eyes are shocked at the white, hot, light.

One, two, three, four aspirin later and you crawl out of bed, looking for something to fill the pit in your stomach or atleast mend the hole you keep digging where your heart used to be.

It wasn’t always like this.

You weren’t always living on the edge of greatness and worthlessness. You long for steady, mundane surroundings because, at the very least, they’re consistent.

What is consistency?

What is comfort?

Not the bars. Not the bottle. And finally, most definently, not the girls.

You know the ones I mean- the ones who talk loudly and proudly but have nothing to say. The ones who expect the world, and your soul, and your wallet. The vultures looking for a starved man to scavage, someone to tear limb from limb for the sake of tearing someone limb from limb.

I have four dollars to my name and a joint to pass the night away. I’m no worse off than you are.

I’m no worse for wear.

I’m a working man too. I’m as taxed as taxes and as overdrawn as my bank account. Consider this your notice of insufficient funds, I don’t give a shit anymore.

I care more than you will ever know.

I care more than you will ever let me show.

Whether I learn to love you or hate you is irrelevant, because, in the end I still feel something for you. Hating isn’t so bad, feeling nothing is by far worse.

“What was I looking for when I left?” I sometimes ask myself.

A poetic man would say it was love, while a man of independent thought would say freedom. My mother calls me a failure and my father damns my name. It wasn’t about them. It wasn’t about you. It wasn’t about me.

It just was.

None of my friends make any goddamn sense this morning:

pretzlboy02: thank god you boosted me
TheRobotMonkey: ?
pretzlboy02: you helped me in an attack
TheRobotMonkey: that was pretty nice of me
pretzlboy02: yes’m

MattAtParicom: yay Robert Atkins is dead
TheRobotMonkey: ?
MattAtParicom: Atkin’s Diet
TheRobotMonkey: ?
MattAtParicom: .. High fat diet
TheRobotMonkey: ??
MattAtParicom: nm
MattAtParicom: how are you
TheRobotMonkey: throw me a float here, I’m drowning dude
MattAtParicom: get your organ?
TheRobotMonkey: not yet.
MattAtParicom: !!
TheRobotMonkey: I’m lazy
MattAtParicom: What Happen
TheRobotMonkey: I’m lazy
MattAtParicom: Main Screen Turn On !!
MattAtParicom: sigh.. how lame
TheRobotMonkey: what the hell are you babbling about?
TheRobotMonkey: you’re making as much sense as a Thai Hooker