Just a thought.

Wilmington, North Carolina, February 2006. A beautiful place in a time that is slowly becoming beautiful. But there is something fundamentally wrong with it that makes it far more pleasing to be viewed from where I am on my perch seven whole levels of parking above it all. Or perhaps from below ground. One of the underground sandwich shops or bars. Just not ground level. Too many mannequins. Too many plastic sets of eyes. There is a strange comfort in the fact that from here I can only see the ground in two spots: directly below me, and at the corner of the block where the building is too small to obstruct the view. I have been trying to find a metaphor to describe the buildings from this viewpoint. Perhaps a close-up of grains of sand left on a plate after the meal is long gone.

I don't know. I don't even know what I am talking about. Does this make sense?

People with cigarettes look like lightning bugs during mating season. There are only four buildings taller than the one that I am standing on now. One of these is the tower near the Wilmington terminal of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge. From my understanding it houses nothing but the elderly. An eleven-floor structure that seems to be a not-so flamboyant salute to Florida.

New to Blogger

Well, I just finished retrospectively posting a bunch of blogs containing stuff that I have been writing since September. Since I don't really know what else to say about it, just go read some of them. While you do so, I think I will go get drunk and sprint through public spaces. Enjoy.

Can't wait for the water to boil.

It was saturday night at the Gypsy. Bellydance showcase. I had arrived somewhat early and decided to have a beer or two. Moments later I was multiple levels of inebriated and Marcy was asking me to help remedy a problem. The problem, as I would soon and abruptly find out, was the fact that the water in the toilets of both restrooms was flowing with the same ease as blood through the aorta of a man who has treated bacon as a condiment for six decades. I was handed a $20 bill and sent off on a mystical scavenger hunt for Draino.Standing in the cashiers line at Food-Lion, holding two large bottles of Draino and still reeking of someone else's beer that was spilled on my pants leg, one of my naturally occurring hallucinations manifests itself. I looked up to see the large, reflective window at the front of the store bowing out as if it was trying unsuccessfully to run away from the building. It seemed to notice me watching as it promptly snapped back into place with all the innocense of a child who has been caught with his hand in a cookie-jar/hooker.Reality slapped me in the face via the inquisitive rent-a-cop who stands guard during the late-night money exchange. "Cold out tonight, huh?"
"Oh yeah man, I can barely feel my fingers." At which point I emphatically raised my two bottles of Draino in an awkward gesture effectively killing any hope that the cop may have had of further conversation. The conversation's death-rattle came as a subdued and puzzled "Yeah..." on the part of the cop as he turned to return to his post.
Now what was I doing here in this place? A grocery store. Late night. And I am standing with two large bottles of Draino. What was I supposed to be doing? I looked around for clues and found a long line of unhappy people looking at me expectantly. 180 degrees later and I am face to face, exchanging currency with an apathetic cashier. I recieved my change and left that damn place. It was too bright in there.
Back at the Gypsy I was forced into another encounter with an elderly homeless man who had wandered up to hang out. I had had a small run-in with him earlier:"Hey man, where ya going?"
"Just going to Food-Lion man."
"Why are ya going there?"
"To get Draino. We have a bit of a toilet situation." That statement of mine obviously had a negative effect on the group of female college freshmen behind the man but it was nothing compared to what they were about to hear.
"Well, what are ya gonna do with it man? You aren't gonna kill anybody with it are ya? Cuz I heard about this one guy who forced a hooker to drink a bottle of Draino in the back of his car and it killed her. You aren't gonna kill a hooker are ya?"
So, while returning from Food-Lion I could see the creepy bastard from a distance. And while reality was a completely different story, in my state of mind there was no way around him. I tried to stagger past without him noticing me but I was unsuccessful. He told me that I was not going to live very long and that he wants me out of his town. I was in a hurry and had no time for that so I made it known and walked inside to my watery destiny.
Once inside I began the ugly business of heavy drinking while plunging a public toilet and holding the door open with my foot so that I can watch the bellydancers. Somewhere around beer number four Lauren took the stage with her python, Eve. It was a thing of immaculate beauty. If you have never seen bellydancing, my dear reader, I strongly encourage you to do so. It is an incredible art that perfectly highlights the difference between something being sensual and something being just sexual.
By the end of the showcase I had successfully multi-tasked as I was drunk and the toilets were flowing free once more. I had also somehow been roped into another conversation with that nut-job from before. This time he offered me dry grits from a plastic bottle that was obviously not meant for grits.
"Hey man, ya want some grits?"
"No thanks dude, I don't really like grits."
He seemed somewhat shocked and offended. "Oh MAN! I love grits!" He said it with the same inflection that is normally reserved for talking about a woman. "One time just I couldn't wait for the water to heat up so I just ate them like this."

Not all used car dealers are glorified prostitutes. But most.

I am not sure what it is about being a used car salesman that causes you to carry over your business demeanor into everyday life. At my job I encounter far more of them than any human being should have to deal with. Take this one sitting in front of me for example. He is in his mid-thirties. Has a grin so plastic that it could only charm Barbie. Every hair glued perfectly in place. Even his laugh sounds like a lie. His jovial attitude is the farthest thing from heart-warming. This is a man fueled by dirty money. Every sentence that exits his mouth should be punctuated by the "cha-ching!" of a cash register. He feels the need to sell not only his cars, but himself as well to the rest of the world. People are a hard sell. We are all lemons to one extent or the other. He knows this about himself and thus, the smile of desperation.I wonder if that damn smile relaxes when he sleeps. He has been led into a corral by a bastard of a shepherd called The American Dream.Most likely from a middle class family, he was the kid who, in elementary school, would commandeer the pencil sharpener and charge a service fee to those poor souls whose pencils were point-deficient. He then slid through college on the lubrication caused by his own slime trail bursting out of the other end of the higher education system with all the pomp and celebration of a stubborn bowel movement. He was then immediately snapped up into the "professional world" at a dealership owned by the father of one of his fraternity brothers where he enjoys what he calls "success through charm" but what his customers call "just buying the damn car so he will leave me the fuck alone."He attends the back-yard barbeques of neighbors that, coincidentally, are trying to find the right car for little Susie at the right price. He will bullshit with the neighbors about the BTUs of their new gas grill until the topic of the car arises. He won't catch onto the fact that that was the sole reason why he was invited. Or maybe he will. I don't think it really matters. It will end the same either way. They will strike a deal. The neighbor will seal it with a reluctant handshake. Our injection-molded protagonist will walk away smiling and the neighbor will sprint inside to say several dozen "Hail Mary"s and vigorously wash his hands with 6M hydrochloric acid.

Kids these days will grow up withered.

So I was in the bank a few days ago. Standing in line and watching the spokesman for the Bush administration peddle a fresh batch of tripe to the country. The volume was very low and those of us in line only a mere four feet away from the screen could not make out any of the words. So we were trying to piece together the context using the scrolling messages below the spokesman. The elderly woman behind me got it at the same time I did. She was old beyond description. White hair. Wrinkled skin that resembled the surface area of a Slim-Jim. A prime candidate for the revival of the California Raisins commercials.
"Oh, its just talking about Bush's surveilance thing." she said. "I've got nothing to worry about, I never say anything bad."
If it wasn't for the fact that she had a small child next to her I would have kept my mouth shut. However I did not want that child to grow up in submission to every money-hungry, sadistic, seemingly labotomized cowpoke of a facist president that this country is forced to endure. I broke my silence.
"Well, don't you think that they might abuse that power?"
She was obviously and understandably taken aback by my statement. "Well, if you stay straight you have nothing to worry about."
There was no arguing with her. She was stuck in her ways like cows that walk the same path through a pasture until there is nothing but a six-inch wide strip of bare earth. There was no changing that without inciting a stampede which I did not feel was appropriate in from of the child.
But the seed was planted. Or, at the very least tossed out onto fertile soil.

An inspirational poem.

This is a poem I wrote recently out of sheer boredom. Its not really directed at anyone in particular. Its mostly just a collection of things that I have said to people in the past. Its a motivational piece with subtle undertones of perseverance and triumph.

The Immortality of Hope

When you order "No Onions" at a drive through I hope they give you extra.
And I hope they are diced so that some get buried in the cheese and you can never pick them all off.
I hope the remote is always a little too far away.
I hope theres a glare on the screen during the day.
I hope you can never get that picture to hang straight.
I hope you get hit on by some guy whos not.
I hope a car backfires and you have to try to play off the fact that you thought you were shot.
I hope something screws up your good mood.
I hope you accidentally piss off a waitress and it makes you nervous about eating your food.
I hope a homeless man asks you if you have some money to spare, and you say "Yeah" but when you look in your wallet, all you have are twenties.
I hope the guy at the register is low on change and has to give you all pennies.
I hope your alarm clock malfunctions and you are late for your court appearance.
That reminds me, I hope you have to go to court.
I hope the guy in line in front of you smells funny.
I hope the drink machine wont accept any of your money.

Its a work in progress. Suggestions are welcome.

Carwash heathens.

Sunday mornings. I wake up and try to piece together the vague recollections of the night before. This time it was something about bellydancers. And fire, I remember lots of fire. Every Sunday I do this while attempting to mold myself back into something remotely human. Recognizable at least. Then I trudge to work. Along the way I always stop to get breakfast at one of the millions of generic fast-food restaraunts along the way that each peddle their own abominations of the same concepts. The people lodged in the tiny windows of these places conjure up a mild discomfort inside of me. They are always far too chipper to be working a minimum wage job in the food service industry at 7:30 on a Sunday morning. Its as if they have been supressed to the point at which they finally snapped and have formulated some ill-concieved plan for vengeance. On several occassions I whole heartedly expected to hear the catterwalling of firetrucks once I had put some distance between me and the soon-to-be pile of rubble. I will never be that upbeat at work before 10:00 AM mostly because I have no ill-will directed at my management. So instead I sit behind the register of the car wash with a bitter blend of fatigue, apathy, and the longing to be elsewhere smeared across my face as I await the inevitable parental shit-storm that always accompanies occassions in which children are allowed to read our greeting cards. As a car wash, I dont know why we have greeting cards, let alone the kind that we have. The kind that are perverse simply for perversions sake. These cards do, however, provide me with endless hours of entertainment. I sit back and watch as helpless souls wander precariously close to the vertical, rotating column of seemingly harmless cards and then are sucked in like moths to an incandescent street light.
It always happens the same way and yet somehow, the whole ordeal never loses its comedic potency to me. They wander over, immediately drawn to the shiniest and most colorful thing in their field of vision which is usually a birthday card which paints an all too graphic picture of the effect that seven decades of gravity has on a pair of breasts. They pick up the card and study the front with an expression of blissfully ignorant optomism. The card is then openned. The face drops. And a pessimist is born. I am not sure who creates and distributes these cards. I am certain somewhere in Arizona a very imaginative and industrious sadist is rocking back and forth on the hind legs of his chair cackling and giggling with the utmost glee.
Sunday brings an interesting pattern of customers. A steady stream of sinners but with the occassional onslaught of saints who just left some church where they payed God not to punish them for their sins. Of course, the logical thing to do after some holy lip service that was intended to make up for the fact that you are a shallow, materialistic bastard is to go to the car wash and get your Escalade polished. I am convinced that not only love, but religion and hipocrisy are blind as well, and that the latter two are born of the same unholy womb.
I like this job because of the variety of people I encounter. They all drift in, pay, then sit around for about twenty minutes which gives me time to observe them. Some simply sit outside and smoke like a California brush fire. Others sit quietly inside and nervously fidget the entirity of their stay and I wonder if they are like that constantly. Surely not because most of them are at least fourty years of age and if they had lived their entire lives in such a high state of tension then I am certain that some important artery would have burst like a sewer-main by now resulting in an impressive aneurysm that possibly would have even injured some bystanders. Some customers come in and are obviously products of dogged battles against the psychiatric world. Visibly fatigued from years of fighting the stigma of insanity, these customers pay, then grab a newspaper, calmly walk to an empty seat, and begin to tenderly ask their six-year-old children if they would like to hear the obituaries.

Social injustice treats.

So today in the lab, my boss looks at me and says:
"So, for the meeting tonight, I am gonna bake some cookies for you guys. They are gonna be chocolate chip but they are gonna have some white chips in them too. Is that ok?"
To which I replied:
"Yeah man, I am down with your civil-rights cookies."
And this got me thinking. Wouln't it be great to open a whole bakery based completely around this concept. You could call it "Discrimination Confections" or something like that.
Prejudice pastries.
Affirmative action scones.
You could even expand the idea a bit. Have a cake shaped like the Louisianna Purchase. Call it the Manifest Destiny Cake.
"Hey, Timmy, what did you get for your birthday?"
"Apartheid Brownies."

Hitler loves him some biosphere.

Ah, January. When college students slither out from under their rocks, try to mask the scent of ethanol, make themselves roughly resemble humans and wander back to campuses all across America. It is a time full of peril. The spring semester. The last chance to pull up the GPA that you have been whittling away at for the past five months. Wincing from our first exposure to sunlight in roughly a month we stagger into the classroom and take a seat awaiting a member of a peculiar species known as "professors". These individuals are always far too jovial for being in front of 80-something half-closed eyes which leads me to believe that they feed off of it. That somehow they have figured out a way to metabolize and derive nutrition from apathy.
My personal favorite from last year was Dr. Liping Gan. Straight from Bejing she boasted an extremely impressive sounding list of what I believe were credentials although it sounded eerily like what they yell at you when you walk in the door of Super Buffet. She showed up to class one day near the end of the semester and she had a stick. No one knows why she had a stick. Then she hit herself in the face with it.
There is a chance that this semester her title of Weirdest Professor will be taken from her by a man who teaches ecology. I cannot remember his name right now, mostly because while he is talking I am able to think of nothing other than his shocking resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The only thing that sets this man apart from Hitler is the fact that he has a full moustache instead of that idiotic patch that Hitler had that made it look like his nose kind of skidded into place on his face or that he shaved around the shadow of his nose. He is also slightly chubbier than Hitler. Hes like a well-fed Adolf. Today he demostrated the line on a graph by flattening his hand and extending it out in front of his body at a nearly 45 degree angle.
Thus begins another semester.

Way back from Santacon 2005

Last night was the 2005 Wilmington, NC Santacon. An idea that arose nearly 10 years ago. I am not sure what the exact origins or backstory of the event are but I am certain that it involves a creative mind with a van and lots of hard drugs. It is an event of pure hedonism and confusion, the idea being to collect as many people with Santa suits and slow survival instincts as possible, throw them all in vans with lots of alcohol and run amuck in a city.
As the night began, I had just gotten off work. I had nearly forgotten about the glorious night ahead of me and therefore had only a few hours to locate a Santa suit. After hours of fruitless driving, cursing, and homocidal thoughts in the crowded isles of department stores, I finally ended up with a pair of red sweat-pants, a matching sweat-shirt, a hat, a bag of cotton, and a stapler. After twenty minutes of stapling and more cursing, the collaboration of my mind and hands had produced a crude, grim semblance of Ol' Saint Nicks attire. Three attention deficit children working in a room lined with TVs each playing a different episode of Barney could have done better. But I was late and had no time for such frivilous accessories as accuracy.
On the way to the Gypsy, where all of the Santas were to meet, I wondered how in the hell I would ever be able to talk myself out of a ticket in the event that I should get pulled over. Upon my arrival I was greeted by one of the most confusing sights my eyes had ever had the pleasure of taking in. Thirty or more flamboyantly dressed, jolly, fat men all standing outside of a bar, removing their cigarettes only to slam back a beer. This is surely the true meaning of Christmas. We were all to assign ourselves Santa Names by applying a Santa name tag. Since I was wearing enormous aviators I could have pulled off Ted Kazenski Santa, and because of the fact that my proverbial "bowl full of jelly" consisted of a bookbag worn backwards that was hanging out from under my shirt as if I were in labor, C-section Santa was also a possibility. However because of the shoddy state of my suit (the cotton was falling off leaving diseased-looking patches of fur everywhere) the decision was narrowed down to Mange Santa, Rabid Santa, and several other delightfully offensive disease-laden names. Seeing as how after all of this deliberation I no longer had a full fur lining I finally settled on Prepubescent Santa.
The event was kicked off by a foot-race to the liquor store. A fitting beginning seeing as how the remainder of the night would be spent by us drinking the products of this race out of Windex spray bottles and various other house-hold cleaning product containers. Once all Santas were carrying brown paper bags and looking sufficiently homeless, we loaded up into two vans, only one of which had seats. Since I ride in a car that has seats all the time I decided to change it up a little bit and ride in the paddy-wagonesque seatless van. Sitting on the floor of a seatless van with around 10 other people all dressed like shitty, dollar-store knockoffs of Santa is quite an experience. Its like being in the openning scenes of some Guy Richie movie and you are about to steal some diamonds or something. Or like you just tried that and are all now being hauled back to the police station.
Our first stop was the mall. By this time I had had some Windex and a few shots of straight Popov. We used a back entrance and burst triumphantly into the mall right behind the professional Santa. After a few sprinting laps around Santa we were escorted out by mall security. While most of us were waving at people in various stores who had that open mouth smile on their faces that seemed to say "I dont know whats going on, but it makes me happy" as the nearly fourty half-drunk Santas were escorted past them, Urban Assault Santa was politely educating the guards on what Santacon is. Once in the vans, the guards continued to lecture us on how we just confused the kids because we are all obviously dopplegangers of the highest caliber for the 'real' Santa. One guard then proceeded to claim that the Mall Santa has the right to sue us. Obviously this was a bullshit claim because if I could get money for every weird fucker that comes into the car wash I would not be working there anymore.
We then proceeded to the next destination on the Santinerary, Rossi's. Rossi's is an upscale piano-bar near one of Wilmingtons richest neighborhoods. In route we began to love a new sport. Van surfing. The idea is for a Santa to stand in the middle of the van without touching the roof or sides and try to stay up for as long as possible while Marcy slams on brakes randomly and drag-races other cars at stop lights. The games difficulty level is raised if the Santa is currently trying to embibe Windex. It is a thing of beauty that rivals the Pyramids, the Roman Aquaducts, Tootsie-Roll Pops and nearly any other of mankinds great accomplishments that you care to name. Once, at Rossi's, Mrs. Santa Slut wasted no time in trying to flirt with the piano player. We were greeted warmly by the bourgeois in much the same way that a jovial homeless person is treated just about anywhere. Santas drank, Santas danced, Santas sang, Santas crammed twenty-deep into a limo that did not belong to us then all filed out of the vehicle which, from a distance, I am sure looked like some very high-class, circus performance. During all of this we noticed that a photographer from the Star News was following us and we accepted him into the herd and eventually gave him a Santa Suit.
Urban Assault Santa: "Where are we going next?"
Bash Santa: "Pure Gold."
Pimpta Clause: "Strip club!"
Our arrival was not joyously accepted. The strippers and the management did not take kindly to our moto for the night: Santas Dont Pay. So to avoid a Santas Vs. Strippers brawl we left.
Several minutes of surfing and drinking Windex later we were back at the Gypsy to drop off Santas and pick up a few new ones. I wandered in to find Nate and some of his friends. I told him of the debacheries thusfar while drinking Oxyclean. I missed my mouth on several occasions and the Vodka-Koolaid mixture left reddish splotches on my beard so for the rest of the night I looked like a Santa who slid down a chimney, encountered a dog, and bit it out of self-defense.
Our next destination was a private party somewhere in the vicinity of the intersection of 2nd and Anne Streets. There was much drinking and confusion. An oldies band was playing a variety of hits from the 60s. I never dance out of sheer ineptitude, however, the Windex was flowing due to several generous sprays from Urban Assault Santa so I grabbed a girl and hit the floor swing-dancing. She was laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation and so was I. I apologized for the fact that I can not dance:
Prepubescent Santa: "Sorry, I can't dance at all... and I am half-drunk on top of that."
Girl: "It's ok. I can't dance either and I am completely drunk."
So at the conclusion of that statement I did the logical thing and spun her. We held the height of the extension momentarily before I spun her back in and held her close. I looked at her and it took her a moment before she regained her orientation. She smiled that same open-mouthed smile as the people in the mall and just as her eyes met mine, I dipped her. She laughed an extremely drunken laugh and staggered away to sit down. I, on the other hand, moseyed over to the snack bar and tried out all of the cheeses before being handed two beers by some random Santa and being told "We are about to leave. Help finish these." A phrase that would be repeated throughout the night.
The night began to slowly devolve after this point. We went to a The Rox, a dance club that many of the more grunge/hippie santas were not really in to. We did however get some amusement out of watching Kung Fu Santa walk around in his own little psychodelic world looking at the light show. From there we went to Ibiza, the gay club downtown. They, much like the strippers, did not take kindly to our chant and so we went to Slice of Life. Pizza was eaten, beer was consumed at an incredible rate of speed. Then on to The Whiskey, Tango du Chat, and Cape Fear Wine and Beer where our night ended in a soggy van-surfing venture back to the Gypsy.

My philosophy on love.

I think that humans are innately selfish. Its natural. Its a survival response. You are selfish even when you give because deep in your mind you hope to get something back. Tangeable or not. Love is a product of our society where survival is a rare issue. Love is when, for once in your live, you stop being selfish.

They now seel good karma at Hardees.

My car is fixed. I did it without taking it to a dealership and it cost me $70.
The other day i went to Hardees for breakfast. I ordered and drove around to the drivethrough window. As I was waiting for my beef/soy/god-only-knows-what-else burger a rather large pear-shaped woman on the other side of the glass began to clean the windows. She cleaned the inside with relative ease however to do the outside she attempted to reach her massive arm between the panes of glass and wipe them from inside. Needless to say this resulted in an awkward display of thrashing that was reminiscent of the cheesy post-mortem twitches found in some low budget action movies. Seeing as i was one the outside and could easily reach the areas that she was desperately flailing at I offered my services:
"Do you want some help with that?"
"No, but thank you honey! *turns to fellow coworkers* GIVE HIM SOME HOT FRIES!"
I left with a large order of fresh fries, as opposed to the small order of gelatinous sticks that they usually pawn off on people trying to use their student discount, a large drink, and two free cinnamon raisin biscuts. Karma man... karma.
Anywho later on me and Michelle went to Fort Fisher. While we were there i kept seeing all of these burn-out marks in the gravel parking lot. Like people were getting pissed off and flooring their cars as they left. Who the hell goes to the beach and is unpleasantly surprised? "THERES SO MUCH FUCKING WATER!!!"
I also saw one of the saddest things that i have ever seen. In the food court of the mall. There was this little asian woman who was giving out free samples of orange chicken for "Ming Tree" restaraunt. I walked by her and she held out the poultry particle and looked at me with these big puppy-dog eyes that seemed to say "Prease take the chicken. Prease." It was the saddest thing ever. And she was stereotypically short too so all i could do was envision her trying to get something off a top shelf "Prease get this down. Prease." I also imagined her offering a small piece of chicken to Shaqueal O'neal and him getting confused and just eating her instead and leaving the sample piece of chicken lying in the middle of the food court floor. The cook behind the buffet of Ming Tree would then simply go back to the back and open a closet which contains hundreds of sample-women. He would rummage through them in search of one with the latest expiration date.

Slack jawed yokles, GM and Wal*Mart

Someone told me today that they had seen this problem with Chevy Cavaliers before and that i will cost about $1000 to fix. Considering all the other problems that my car has, it is barely worth $1000. So technically my car might be totalled. I plan on fixing it myself for less than $75.
As Americans we are being raped repeatedly by companies like GM and WalMart. They make shitty, unreliable products because they know that we are so stupid that we will not only buy the products, but that we will go back and give them more money to fix (or most likely replace) the product when it breaks.
Fuck our society.
I have had experience working on motors. I grew up on a farm. I worked on trucks and farm equipment. I know what a vehicle needs to go down the road and cars today are build with so much extraneous bullshit under the hood simply to deter the do-it-yourselfer from screwing multinational corporations out of $200. Its ridiculous. And all of the new car-tracking technology that has recently come to light is simply another rapist in our societal gang-bang. Car companies have instilled a fear in people so that no one will buy a car unless it has all of the papers detailing every oil change and tune-up the car has ever undergone. This does two things:

1) Facilitates a need to take your car to the dealership and plunk down a good $30 every 3000 miles for something that you could easily do with a driveway, rag, jack, wrench, $10 and 30 minutes.

2) Causes a shortage of "safe" cars (ones that have all of these records of each time the owner was taken advantage of) therefore encouraging more people to buy new cars instead.
Its a very well orchestrated and, quite frankly, beautiful scam. I envy the minds of the geniuses that concieved such a thought. They have created a society of people that needlessly throw money at them and it is all just viewed as normal; as OK. No one notices that something is wrong. It is bullshit that is so blatant that no one seems to smell it. It is just the status quo.
WalMart makes a TV. Overseas. Using laborers that it pays much less than our minimum wage. The TV is then shipped over here, some modifications or finishing touches may be added to it so that it can proudly wear the tag that denotes that it was made with pride in the USA. This then attracts a congregation of mullet-adorned yokles that will then buy the TV and take it home to put between their Dale Sr. commemorative plates. They will enjoy the TV for perhaps a year or two and then it will break. Instead of realizing that a TV should last longer than that or attempting to fix it, it will simply be trashed and they will return to the very same WalMart and buy a new one.
And no one even notices.

Hell Month revisited.

I have come to the conclusion that my life never really gets any better or any worse. Its just that it keeps getting more ridiculous on both extremes.
I have been having re-occuring dreams lately that all deal with me being a revolutionary of some kind. I have always felt this desire. I dont know. I have always sided with the under-dog. I have always felt the urge to start fires. Not arson mind you, that was a metaphor. This simply isnt a good time to have this kind of personality. Our generation is far too apathetic. No significant revolution will start in the near future. No one cares. I was born 35 years too late. I am a chronological mishap. A mistake.
On a brighter note, my car sucks. This is old news. The low coolant light stays on. I went to turn on my interior lights one day and the switch went right through into the dash. My power outlet doesnt work. My radio changes stations randomly. The first two settings of my fan dont work so now i am left with just "off" and "high". The newest and most flambouyant failure thusfar began on the way back from thanksgiving which i mentioned in a previous blog. My dim lights decided to go into early retirement and now they have somehow talked my brights into doing the same. I examined the loosely organized engine bay today and found that the problem is being caused by the fact that my battery is dripping acid onto a cluster of wires and has eaten a whole through them. This explains all the warning lights which i have come to ignore because my car cries wolf more than an indian at the zoo. The most recent manifestation of this was a series of seemingly unrelated warning lights and gauge malfunctions on my dash that made it seem like my car was either getting into the christmas spirit or making an attempt at disco that rivaled all of the worst parts of the late 70s.
On top of all of this, my bike has also taken ill as the seat-post clamp now has a tendency to become loose at any moment. The effect of this is a horrid noise when i ride in the standing position. This noise can be silenced by sitting on the seat however this results a frightening vibration and wobble that gives the illusion that i somehow have Parkinsons Diesease that is limited to my ass.
As of earlier today i am done with physics or "the physics" as it is called by my first generation asian-american professor who has about as much of a grasp on the english language as she does on what barbeque is. The highlight of the semester by far was when she showed up to class one day and had a stick. No one knows why she had a stick. Then she hit herself in the face with it.

Poetry Night and Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving was suprisingly decent. My family forgot about me for nearly an entire day and it was wonderful. I watched TV which i havent done in a long time and now i remember why: Fitness Celebrity John Basedows nightmarishly small head.
It was a pretty standard holiday. I had to explain to my grandmother what a bong is and my aunt and uncle brought to the feast a "free-range, organic chicken"; a phrase that all too accurately describes a pigeon. On the way back, my low beams stopped working so i drove the remaining hour and a half with my high beams on, pissing off everyone on the road. This was the highlight of my Thanksgiving.
Last night was poetry night at the Gypsy. The dark, smoky ambience of building makes it the perfect place to regurgitate the most painful bits of your life for the amusement of others. So that it exactly what i did.

Sunday Register

"I sit and watch them drift in.
They give me their money, I put it in the register.
I nurse my hangover.
At 12:00 they all flock in and glare at the still drunken heathen behind the counter.
I give them their change as their Escalade rolls out of the wash looking shiny and new for them to head back to church with their condemnations of me and their carefully calculated 10% that they use to pay God not to punish them for being just like me."

Every Relationship

"You are the lottery ticket that i hold.
I hold it regardless of the fact that it has already lost.
I hold it because i like to remember that i once had a chance.
You are the smoke that curls from my lips.
I once held you in the most intimate way.
Now you drift away as i watch you dissapate."

After the Gypsy closed, a few of us headed back to Bash's place. It is an industrial building that resembles a grain silo that some pranksters tipped over so the owners just slapped a door on the bottom and started charging rent or perhaps a midget airplane hangar. The rest of the night/morning was spent throwing around comedy ideas and doing improv with the various hoola-hoops and juggling items that were lying around. The inside of Bash's apartment looks like where circuses go to die.

Going back to relive my non-existant childhood.

Well, today is the day that I must make my reluctant voyage back home. I will return. My hair will be critiqued. Family will ask why I dont shave regularly and I will be tempted to ask why they dont take their medication regularly.
Thanksgiving day I will make a short stop at my fathers familys celebration where a few years ago it was implied that I was a pedophile because I was dating a girl two years younger than myself.
I will then continue on to visit with my mothers side of the family. A twenty mile drive that I do not have the money for. I will then be scrutinized by a new group of people however this time in a much more light hearted and jovial tone. The Lewis side of my family consists of people who very closely resemble the description of Santa Clause; jolly, fat, and with type 2 diabetes. At this point I will enjoy the one good aspect of going home. Free food in large quantities. I will gorge myself homemade maccaroni and sauteed turkey until the tryptophan finally kicks in and gives me the peace and serenity that I will need once my uncle gets on another long rant about how you can tell if a cow has enough nitrogen in its diet by the color of its shit and the force with which the excrement exits the animal.
I dont fit in with my family. I do not aspire to be a farmer and Myrtle Beach S.C. is not my idea of high society.
The most dredded aspect of home i guess would be the utter lack of distraction or reprieve from those with whom i share genetic information. Every town in the area is just a "Main street" surrounded by a small ring of houses and shacks. These towns were built around the staple crop of the area, tobacco. I feel sorry for these people because they have little education. They have no knowledge of the world outside of north-eastern South Carolina. Then without warning the government started charging them to grow their crops. Then told them that they could only grow a certain amount. Then began to call them murderers for simply doing the only thing that they have ever known. Riding through these towns is a particular kind of distant depression. Seeing the block where Daniels Wharehouse used to be, now occupied by a couple of shards of broken brick and a sign that hopelessly begs for someone to buy this land even though most are scraping just to get by, brings back a tiny bit of nostalgia for and era that i despised to begin with.
Hearing my mom bounce back and forth between sanity and an all-out psychotic episode is no fun either. Well, i guess it COULD be fun if it wasnt for the fact that shes my mom. Its like watching an episode of "Threes Company" except imagine that all the characters are being played by my mom.
I would look forward to seeing my pets but i have the two most mediocre dogs ever. They have no defining characteristics. They never get excited, tired, happy or sad. We do have a new one however that i have only met once and i think that she is retarded. I threw her a milk-bone and she ran into my parked car. If it wasnt for the fact that i know my neighbors cant afford it i would think that they were hopping her up on cocaine at a constant.
Anyway, the time has come for me to get food and try to absorb enough civilization to hold me over while i drive down dirt roads and have to pop quick U-turns to avoid the slumbering redneck camped in the middle of the road with a plastic lawn-chair, a shot-gun, and a nearly empty case of beer. Good day to you all.

When ya gonna ring it? When ya gonna ring it? PART 2

For the second installment i shall begin with what i believe was wednesday night.
My associate calls me and informs me that we are destined to journey forth to Firebelly. I love Firebelly but whenever i am there there are always strange happenings in the midst. There is a reason that you have to walk downstairs when you enter Firebelly and that reason is the fact that Firebelly is just a little closer to Hell than your average bar. We arrive at Firebelly and my associate orders his food. It is then my turn to order and i, being in an altered state of reality due to heavy drinking and no sleep during the week, decide to throw my taste-buds a curveball and arbitrarily point to an item on the menu. Even a word as vague as "item" is still a little too specific for the culinary cocktail of various shapes, colors, and textures that i was about to consume. After a minute or so of careful scrutinization i deemed it edible and promptly inhaled it in the same manner a small child takes medicine; one fell swipe, no breathing. I remember then looking at the menu and reading the description of what i had just eaten "You'll never see anything like this again". This is an empty promise because Firebelly has no jurisdiction over my nightmares.
My associate then pointed out that the once manageable group of middle-aged drunkards behind us was growing. They appeared to be reproducing at an exponential rate. It occured to me that it could be a side effect of the alcohol. That perhaps when these creatures came into contact with whiskey it caused the same kind of reaction that Mogwai have to water. I glanced about the area in search of mucus pods but none were found. A few minutes later we were surrounded by the foul beings. Throwing back vodka shots trying desperately to give the voices in their heads that say "You can still have fun. You have nothing to regret. You didnt leave the stove on." the upper hand in the schizoidial war that was so obviously ebbing and flowing back and forth behind eyes that are more glazed than a Krispy Kreme uniform at quitting time. I felt like fresh meat hanging in a butchers window. I thought at this point that this night will not end before i am hit on by a middle-aged recent divorcee. Reality has a twisted sense of humor and constantly punishes me for speculating about future events.
At one point a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the wife from The Cosbys walks into our area. She takes a seat next to my colleague and initiates drunken conversation. He informs her of the similarity he finds between her and Claire Huckstable and she says, mildly offended, that she has heard that before. My associate informs here that he meant no offense by that statement and that it was actually a compliment because Felicia Rishad is a very classy woman. Five minutes and a proposition involving breast milk later i am staring at Claire Huckstable as she purges behind a wall just past Brandon who is blissfully bobbing his head back and forth while singing "Im thinkin' about my doorbell. When ya gonna ring it? When ya gonna ring it?".
During this entire ordeal there is a very drunk, very old man who has made himself at home directly across the table from me. The whole time that the matriarch of the Cosby family was trying to seduce my associate this old man (came rolling home) was staring with the abstract perversity that only an old man can conjure up. He had no upper teeth which caused a peculiar phenomenon; when he smiled (which he did often) there was nothing there to stop it so his mouth would just continue on its upward path until it encountered his nose. Eventually Claire left, as did my colleague momentarily leaving me with Shanna and this old prospector who promptly offered Shanna his wallet. Thats right, not some money, his entire wallet. And told her to go buy herself a drink. Shanna obliges leaving me alone with this all-to-happy elderly gentleman who begins yelling incoherent things about Vietnam to me from across the table. Between the music and the surrounding crowd i could only pick out certain words in what he was trying to convey to me, although i am not entirely sure that it would have made sense anyway and i regard myself as lucky for not hearing most of it, so i began to try to humor him by simply nodding and giving as much of a sincere chuckle as possible at the end of each sentence. This seems to work as he continues to smile that metaphysically big smile and tell me stories that in my mind revolved around bath-tubs and epsom salt. Then he finishes one sentence in particular to which i give my usual nod and smile but this time it seems to anger him. So in an attempt to appease him (i did not want him to be mad because given the worlds current population there is about a 1 in 7billion chance that this man is the Hulk) i begin frowning and shaking my head with great enthusiasm. At this point my associate returns and asks me to come play pool even though there are no open pool tables.
We then trek down to the market downtown to buy Brandon some cigarettes. The cashier looked like a thought that had been rejected by Andy Warhols mind.
On the way back to the bar we walked slowly hoping that, much like a bad odor, the high concentration of 40 somethings had diffused into the surrounding area. While crossing Market street we make it to the median and stand there while a stereotypical ditsy-looking blonde makes a U-turn around us. She had her head out the window and a look of saddened confusion on her face. My guess was that half-way through the trun she contemplated the fact that she was making a U-turn but SHE was doing it which to her would make it an I-turn and her brain started to hurt.
The next night we went to the Juggling Gypsy where i decided that i was only going to drink one beer. The weeks debacheries had caught up to me and certain parts of my body were on strike. This was not to happen though because of all the free beer that i inherited when people had to leave suddenly. At some point i began playing guitar and this thirty-something hippie woman approached me, complimented me and began to tell about how she used to play guitar but she could never do a barr chord because she had tiny hands. As if i wouldnt believe her had she just left me with this verbal statement she held up her hand and said "See your hand is a lot bigger than mine. Go ahead, put your hand there. Put your hand there. PUT YOUR HAND THERE." I think i got hand-raped. The rest of the night was a very relaxing blend of music and alcohol. I did however see a drunken teddy-bear.
I love you all.

When ya gonna ring it? When ya gonna ring it? PART 1

I awoke today with the painful realization that the human body is not meant to withstand what i had been doing to it. There was also the lingering truth that i would never again be able to enjoy The Cosbys in its original splendor.
It has been a strange week. It began innocently enough with a man asking his pre-teen daughter through a strong lisp if she would like him to read her the obituaries and now i am down a total of $450. Different aspects of this week have all blended together to form one large weird-memory-cassarole.
There is far to much clarity in retrospective vision.
Sometime earlier in the week i remember a drunken late night rendition of Hamlet. I was reading several parts as was Erin. Reading Hamlet drunk is an intense self-analytical experience. For example, i found out that when i drink i become illiterate. My associate had been celebrating his irish heritage and was in no shape to read so the job fell upon me. I have never been able to read aloud. One might as well ask me to diffuse a bomb or give a sponge bath to someones great great aunt. I never really know where or how to start and even when that part is taken care of, the rest of the experience proceeds slowly and painfully.
At some point later in the week my associates car was legally stolen by Earls Towing Service in whom i can find aspects of both ninjas and naziism. Earl has aparently been working in some dank basement over the course of the last few decades slowly perfecting the most quiet tow-truck ever. Earl is a classy fellow. Any attempt to describe him physically would be futile considering that i have never seen the man in the daylight or standing up. Since i have only seen him sitting down and at night it is only safe to presume that he is some sort of paralytic vampire, which kind of makes me pity him to a certain extent because aside from midgets he would never be able to reach peoples necks. He would have to persuade them into bending down and from what i have observed, Earl is about as charismatic and subtle as those beligerant Wal*Mart greeters that always yell something at you that is supposed to sound happy but there can be no happiness in Wal*Mart so it just comes out as a hollow cry for help. He makes a living by sneaking in and taking the second largest investment that you will ever make then charging you to get it back. I have never understood why he is so sneaky about it. If i were legally allowed to steal cars i would flaunt it.
But i digress.
Anyway, my associate has to work in the morning and has no money to get his car back from Earl (hereafter referred to as #1NASCARFAN) so i decide to let him borrow some money. I decided that i would pay with my credit card so that i would have until the end of the month to either figure out a way to get the money back or fake my own death. At this point we discover that #1NASCARFAN has not only gone up $15 from his previous price of $80 but that it also has to be in cash and in exact change (if anyone reading this knows anyone that works for the IRS they would have a field-day with #1NASCARFAN). After hours of thinking of ways that we could get cash through my credit-card at 10:00 PM me and my associate embark on an epic journey through hell itself. We go to Wal*Mart. I approach a cashier and ask "If i buy something with my credit-card can i get cash-back?" she then informed me that she could only provide me that service if i pay with a debit card. So i walk to the always peppy and upbeat customer service department ask if they gave cash refunds. I was then asked what the item is, to which i reply "Umm... TV?" and they then tell me that they can only give me store credit destroying my original scheme of buying a TV with my credit card and walking straight from the register to customer service to get my cash refund. My goal was to perform this action fast enough so that when i arrived at customer service it was still the time printed on the receipt. "Sir... you bought this... now?"
Anyway, i have no luck with my credit-card so i end up just going to an ATM at which point i find out that my apartment complex held onto my rent check and cashed two of them at once. I now have $350 less than i thought i did. The ATM only dispenses these little slips of paper that we often exchange for goods and services in increments of $20. So now we have to go find change. A convenience store would do nicely. As we approach the store my associate jokingly suggests a robbery; something that you should never do to a man who just lost $450. I chase away these thoughts as we enter the store. The guy behind the counter asks the required "How are you guys doing tonight?"
"Pretty fucking bad."
"Wow, that was blatant. Whats wrong?"
"My friends car got towed."
"Where?"
"Brookstone village."
"EARL!"
At this point another customer walks up and immediately joins the #1NASCARFAN bashing. Yes, #1NASCARFAN is possibly the most hated man in Wilmington.
So, now that we have change it is time to go pay #1NASCARFANs ransom. We park on the side of the road in front of #1NASCARFANs (hereafter referred to as "Earl" because i am hung over and that is much easier to type) business and wait for him to arrive. Meanwhile i stare in silent amazement at the hundreds of "NO PARKING. TOWING ENFORCED." signs that run the length of the short street like half-assed christmas decorations and i begin to truly understand the significance of the area. I had found the edge of the universe. While waiting we meet someone else who got towed that same night and when Earl finally arrives he has yet another car on the back of his truck. Scavenger of human misery.
Well, this blog entry is long as hell so i will divide the debacheries of this week at this point and label them as Part 1 and Part 2 respectively. I will also wait a while to write the second part so that i wont be nursing a hangover while writing it and this will also allow the events of the past couple of nights to fester in my brain like some divine tumor of prose.

Just stumbled across pictures from Neon Hell.

I live near South of the Border. If you have ever been on I-95 then you know what i am talking about. Yes, it is an actual town/tourist trap. I say that to clarify the myth that it doesnt actually exist or that it can only be found by use of a compass born straight from the bowels of hell with a needle that was tempered in the halitosis of Satan himself. Its a horrid little speck of forsaken earth where large, neon-laden phallic structures spring up like withered vegitation after a hail-storm. Some visit jokingly. They buy stckers to put on the back of their cars. They dine in the steak-house that is actually a 40 foot tall sombrero. They know not what they do. For every dollar you spend in this terrible place Beelzebub himself owns a small percentage of your soul. I honestly do not know what keeps attracting people there. I guess it is the same dark, mystic allure that draws people to the Bermuda Triangle. The inexplicable sense of doom that sends tingles up your spine and an unhealthy burst of adrenaline straight to your heart. It seems to me that the seemingly endless row of strip-clubs with such colorful and festive names as "The Cage" and "The Pit" would make them think twice about their journey to the center of the earth. But no, it doesnt. I live less than 4 miles from there and i have only visited this cavern of human misery a few times. My survival instinct forbids me. I only go to gawk and stare in slack-jawed wonder at the intelligent witticisms such as the golf shop called "The Golf of Mexico". Even the golf shop is adorned on every possible side by layers upon layers of neon lights. Its as if Hell was forcibly insemenated by Las Vegas and this is the bastard child. I am certain that it is entirely possible to stand naked in the center of the place at midnight and get a very nice tan (i would advise against this however because i feel like i am catching STDs like they are Pokemon when i get near the place fully clothed).

Like a super hero with mediocre powers.

I am a super hero, this was copied from Erins blog:
"My friend Seth writes me these emails. And for those of you who know him, you need no further explanation than that. For those of you who don't, we will just say that a fitting nickname for Seth would be Tangent-Man. He went on a fantastic tangent today that I must share with all of you.

i have watched from a distance the bastardization of icecream. what once was a proud dessert has now become diluted by a million strange flavors that make me think that everyone in charge of the ice cream industry does a lot of hard drugs. Pistachio flavored icecream. Peppermint flavored icecream. Contact lens flavored icecream. Tiny glass-shard flavored icecream. Rocky Road icecream is an inherently bad idea. "Ben, Jerry, lets make an icecream with a texture akin to gravel and a name that is also a euphamism for a difficult time in someones life." "Edy, what the hell is wrong with you. You are a sick fuck. Get out of my shop." Edy was always the problem child of icecream entrepeneurs. Ever since the cops raided his house in the late sixties and found him in the corner huddled against large quantities of very strange photos of various dairy products. There were mirrors with half-snorted lines of whipped cream everywhere. Posters of the food pyramid which had been violently rearranged so that the entire mass of the pyramid was balanced precariously on the "Sweets" section.

I love you Seth. Thank you for being insane, and making my day that much more entertaining."

Jesus don't want me for a sunbeam.

Ok, for those of you who dont know what facebook is, it is basically just another myspace that is attached to colleges like a leech. So i was dicking around on there one day when i stumbled upon Jesus Christ. Thats right, i found Jesus on facebook. Some jackass "christian" (i use the term loosely because it literally means 'christ like' and i have only met about 3 that actually live up to this label) made a profile for Jesus and then began to assume various traits and facts about Jesus based on stereotypes and the garbled messages that he was able to decipher from his mis-firing neurons. So i decided to send Jesus a message and add him as a friend which he either never confirmed or simply denied causing me to send him yet another message. So without further adieu here are those very messages:

Hey Jesus! Why did you put "very conservative" for your views? Back in the day you seemed very liberal with the whole recognizing-women-as-people thing and the whole forgiveness-in-spite-of-the-justice-system thing. Have you changed? Or has your original message just been screwed up over time? I like to think the latter because you hung out with sinners and fought against the strictly established churches and religion of the time and now YOUR followers ridicule and shun those who hang out with sinners and YOUR followers are the strictly traditional church of the time. What do you think about that by the way? Man, a long time ago i wanted to be just like you. But then i had some questions that no one could seem to answer. For example, genetic diseases such as what is commonly referred to as "super males" (one X chromosome and two Y chromosomes as opposed to just one of each) these people are very violent and cannot help it. Most of them end up being serial killers. Why would your dad do this? Why would he make someone be born almost directly into Hell? Anyway, i still think you are a pretty cool dude but i honestly cannot bring myself to be part of what your followers have become. Stay cool and jewish. -Seth

Message ..2:
Hello once again Jesus. I was just wondering why you refused my friendship. I thought you used to be friends with sinners. I thought that was the whole beauty of your life; the fact that you accepted those who didnt even accept you. Oh well, guess i was wrong. You refused my E-friendship and now i am going to E-Hell. Had you simply ignored my request i could have at least assumed Catholicism and been sent to E-Purgatory. I honestly dont know why i sent you that last message. Perhaps i was hoping in the back of my mind that you would say something inspirational that would "save" me. I doubt that this is the case considering that i have been on both sides of this fence and i find the grass equally green. And to be honest i am perfectly content with my life at the moment. Which is more than i could say when i was one of your followers because although the questions still remain unanswered, they no longer keep me up at night. I have seen the other side of that fence. Its not the barren waste-land that you had painted for me. I still have many questions that i would like to discuss with you. Here is a topic to get us started: I can take any arbitrary object and apply the characteristics of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence to it and i have just formed my own religion that no one can argue with because any question can be answered with "because its (insert name of object here)". I am not joking, although it may seem that way. Thats just the way you and your dad made me. As you can see i have put a lot of time, thought, and effort into this and the previous letter. Please do not ignore this. I would very much like to have an in-depth, one-on-one discussion with you. And no, i am not going to bring up stupid ineffectual concepts like "could your dad create a stone so large that he cannot lift it?" i know and you know that points such as that are simply conceptual mishaps that signify nothing. Please respond. -Seth

What have I done?

Recently i found five dollars next to a hooker and so i scurried away and squandered it on my most cherished of all addictions. I bought 3 packs of Croissant Pockets. My only fear now is that after such a quantity of high-class pockets i will have set the bar too high for myself. Will i ever be able to enjoy the elegant simplicity of regular Hot Pockets again? I can feel it; the full weight of my error sinking in. Crispy, crunchy, tender, and flaky are no longer enough for me. I now also desire buttery. I feel the darkness creeping in.

Dia de los muertos.

Man, i love this time of year. Halloween is great. Its that magical time of year where a trip downtown allows you to see The Little Mermaid and Simba and all of the staples of your childhood indulging in the most unsavory things. The one night of the year where, when you walk into a restroom at a bar, there is a decent chance that you will see Tinkerbell snorting a line of blow off the small of Cinderellas back; two of the Seven Dwarves trying to wake Dopey up because he lived up to his name a little too much while the other four are trying to convince the bartender that they are, in fact, not toddlers. I recently witnessed a light saber battle between Darth Vader and Napoleon Dynamite.