Repulsion in 5 Easy Steps

Step 1:
Indulge in a little gathering or "get together" with a known-acquaintance ratio of about 50%.
Step 2:
Let everyone prattle on, as they do, while waiting for a pause in conversation.
Step 3:
Loudly relate this non-sequitur:

"So, I’m sucking this guy’s cock, right? He leans down and asks me if I’d tickle his ass a little bit, like a Rusty-Trombone in reverse, and I say to him, I say, ‘what am I, some kind of faggot?’"
Step 4:
Smile broadly.
Step 5:
Enjoy watching people you don’t know try to pick up the pieces of their ruined evening.

Heartbreak & Other Conditions of Boundless Empathy

Just ahead of me in the coffee-shop line today was a little old lady wearing a Winnie the Pooh backpack, some sort of plastic anteater purse, and pink running shoes; she had with her a to-go mug, a handful of change, and glasses that made her eyes look as big as my head...which is huge, at least metaphorically.
Then, SLAM! Down comes the mug on the countertop, making me jump but not the coffee-shop employee - completely unfazed, said staff-member just poured coffee in the mug and curled her hands into a bowl to receive the old lady’s change.
I imagined the crowd-surfing I’d be doing had I done the same thing, getting evicted by a torch-wielding mob and thrown in the gutter, when the coffee-girl said, "have a nice..."
The old lady turned away feebly and mumbled, "I’m goin’, I’m goin,’" like she was being rushed out of the place. I was next in line, but the coffee-girl & I just watched the little old lady shuffle out of the store, and it was very, very sad...upsetting, really.
Once I got my fix of coffee, I hurried outside to watch the little old lady amble down the sidewalk, wondering what I could do while simultaneously understanding that there was nothing I could do; she was just doing her thing, and I felt bad about it.
Constantly toeing the line between compassion and pity, that’s me.
Worse, I spent the rest of the day daydreaming about where she was going, and not one of the scenarios I imagined made me feel any better.

Periodically obsessing about matters beyond my control...now that’s me.

Are You Cool, Man?

You’ve got it together, your friends think you’re rad, and you’ve got the whole world by the short n’ curlies...but tell me, brothers & sisters, are you cool?
Does your awesomeness bring about a euphoria so deep that perfect strangers clutch their chests and laugh into the sky? Does your prodigious ability to both stun & delight cause dry heaves of bad karma in people waiting for the bus? Does your breathtaking marvelous-ness make the sun shine on cue?
Or do you just have pink hair and listen to My Chemical Romance?
You’ve got to figure it out: it’s not enough to be beautiful, or talented, or well-connected...if you aren’t motherfucking cool, you’ll never captivate, fascinate, or infatuate anyone.
Oh, people are reluctant, it’s true...even at your coolest, there’ll be some people who dislike you, and I have a whole book of excuses you can use if you like, if that’s the way you want to go.
But, honestly, ask yourself: are you cool, man?

My Gall Is Unmitigated

I’m going preface this story, as I’ve done eight times already tonight, with a warning: you will not believe it...which is too bad, because every single word of it is true.
One hour after writing my last post, I found myself driving through a residential-area and coming up on a stop-sign; there were cars parked on my left-hand side, which comes into play in a second. Now, just before I reached the intersection an SUV came in from the left, just whipping around the corner, and I swerved to the right, narrowly missing it. As I stopped, I threw my hands into the air and, with every little ounce of irritation that had packed itself onto my skull backing me up, screamed, "WHAT THE FUCK?!"
The SUV stopped and, here’s the best part, out walks a cop.
Fine, I think to myself.
Great, I think to myself.
Fuck THAT, I think to myself, and I too get out of the car...and as the cop smugly walks towards me, I ask him, "what was that?"
"There were cars parked in the road," he says.
"There are cars parked on the side of the road," I say, pointing at the cars. "I’ve made that turn a hundred times and never once did I swing out like that. There’s a stop-sign..."
The cop cuts me off: "Now, we can’t have you yelling cuss words, not in a family-neighbourhood like this."
"What?" I say.
"Can I see your license and registration, please."
"You’re kidding," I say, beyond astonished; he just stands and looks at me, which is apparently cop-talk for, "no, I’m not kidding."
"All right," I say, gathering up all the nutsack I can for what I’m about to do: "I’ll give you my information if you give me yours: I want your name, your badge-number, and whatever else I can use to identify you to your superiors."
The silence that followed was kind of like what I imagine it would feel like to watch the top of a building collapse and fall toward you; like being in the eye of a hurricane, except instead of a hurricane, it was an all-encompassing, spend-the-night-in-jail shitstorm. Then, I say:
"I’ll just go get my registration."
With that, the cop walked away.
I was, and still am, paralyzed with disbelief. At the time, though, I did all I could think of to do: I lit a smoke, sat up on the trunk of my car, and watched the cop drive his SUV over the horizon.

I’m moving to Tibet.

The Price of Rage

It’s a $1.58 for an extra-large coffee, allowing me, for just pennies really, to pour hot-caffeine onto the already-hotly hotted hotness of the fiery furnace-itude of my fury; the psychic price, however, is much higher...incalculable, even, as I’ve found that I’ve been talking to myself in parking-lots all over Hammertown.
Well, it’s less "talking" to myself than angrily muttering and wildly gesticulating - I saw my own reflection in a coffee-shop window and my frown was so acute that my eyebrows looked to have been eating my face; like a sleek, black duo of Pac-Men, my intensely-angled eyebrows were munch, munch, munching away at my mug, and I got looks that varied from "appalled" all the way over to "frightened"...or was that revulsion?
Regardless, the word of the day is "incommunicado"; I feel a million-miles away today, and it’s not like me to feel so detached...even ordering coffee feels like I’m yelling through a haze of brainsickness & nearly-opaque cotton-candy to get heard.
That would, however, explain the looks I’m getting, wouldn’t it?

Pay Up

I have little tangerines of tension underneath my neck & shoulder muscles, limiting my head-swivel movement to the point where I’d be a sitting duck but for my outstanding peripheral vision; I have a coffee, smokes, and the new(ish) Queens of the Stone Age album, but they’re not helping...or, at least not as much as they usually would.
I am out $500, and have yet to be reimbursed - five-hundred big-ones, and despite assurances to the contrary, I’ve been waiting on this for THREE FUCKING MONTHS; I’m being played for a sucker, and am a cunt-hair from quitting altogether.

So, if anyone’s looking for a desperately-unemployable, intensely-opinionated, zealously-profane, incurably-hilarious, egomaniacal-loudmouth with a blatant, outright distaste for authority, well, I might be available towards the end of the week.

And, really, who isn’t looking for a person who combines those traits in one hairy, growling package?

I mean, come ON...am I right?

Evidence of My Mouth Being a Total Jerk

"Hello, Mr. Automotive-Specialist of Short-Stature. My tire just blew up and I would like a new one, please."

"All right, sir. Which tire was it?"

"Fright runt."

"...I’m sorry?"

"No, I’m sorry; it’s been a really long day..."

Dude, You Should See My Beard

Thick?
Mm-hmm.
Bushy?
Oh, yes.
Awesome?
Oh GOD yes.
Until recently, even my neck-hair growth was a silky masterpiece of heaping hirsuteness, an unstoppable underbrush of unkemptness, a wonder of whiskered winsomeness...until I came to my senses and realized how sick neck-hair actually is.

All is not lost, however: as a result of my big ole bushy, fat beard, I can now say that I’m big-headed both figuratively and literally, and it reminds me of a story from my teen-aged years when, yes, I also had a beard...and, yes, I also obsessed over myself to a disgusting degree.

We were all coming back to school from a late-day basketball tournament - the team, the coach, and the coach’s wife, the latter we had never met before...and she, for some reason, seemed a little tipsy.

I was 18 with hair down past my shoulders, a sweet little goatee going on, and the pick-of-the-litter in terms of lockers: near the gym, near the exit, near home-economics (where, in the totally sexist year of 1994, all the girls took class), and near a water-fountain.

Mrs. Coach’s Wife was taking a drink from that fountain as I gathered up my belongings to go home; she turned and found me the only other person in the hallway; staggering just a little bit, she cozied up to me and started telling me about my facial-hair:

Mrs. Coach’s Wife:[giggling]

That...there, on your face.

[pointing VERY CLOSE to my face, a though amazed by my goatee]

With the hair all around that...your mouth...

[giggle; swirling finger in a circular motion]

It looks kind of like...

[whispers]

...an asshole.

Me:
Are you saying that my face looks like an asshole?

Mrs. Coach’s Wife:[giggle]

Suffice it to say, since none of my teammates witnessed it, none of them believed me...however, the next day my coach gave me an extremely uncharacteristic smile, and I knew that HE knew what was up, the proof being the absence of Mrs. Coach’s Wife at all subsequent basketball events.

Ah, to reminisce; these days, I don’t need a beard for someone to call me an asshole.

Public Urination Invariably Leads to Self-Inflicted Choking

I’ll tell you what makes for a good place to pit-stop: a bathroom close to the door. This way, if you’re peeing at an establishment that would usually expect some food-purchase in exchange for urinal-usage, then you can get in & out without having to withstand the withering glares from employees.
One of my favorites is a West-Hammertown Burger King...and though said bathroom continually smells like somebody’s armpit took a shit, there is a massive amount of parking and the bathroom is, of course, close to the door.
Or it was, I should say, as this heavenly respite is now closed for renovations.
Not knowing this as I park to expel two extra-large coffees’ worth of urine, I am at critical mass by the time that I figure out that my beloved rest-stop will be of no help to me. So, I wander over to this strange overlay-canopy-type-tunnel-walkway between the parking lot and the main road, and I let loooooose; I am exposed here, but can’t stop my peeing...even as a van pulls into the parking lot and drives towards me, I turn and jog towards the street, a quick-paced mosey whilst holding a leaky hose, and finish just before reaching the main road.
Aaaah, I say to myself in relief, running around the side of a nearby building.
Aaaah, I say to myself in horror, as the van follows me around.
Like some punk-kid, I keep ahead of the van by scaling a chain-link fence that leads back to my car, and I find myself alone...so I have a celebratory smoke.
The van comes wheeling around the corner, having somehow gotten through the heavy main road traffic, and though I am busted, I am not bowed: I take a hearty swig of what’s left of my coffee, trying to seem nonplussed, as a gentleman comes out from the van and hands me my car keys.
This is when I choke, spewing coffee like I had tried to drink it through my nose.
"You dropped your keys," the man says, giant, gaping grin on his face.
There is a pause in his delivery, as I am hunched over with coffee dripping from my beard, laugh-coughing like a lunatic, and then he says, with a snicker:
"Yeah, you dropped ‘em when you went running onto the road with your pants open."
I stand up, still-sputtering coffee-swill from my mug, and take the keys with a "thank you" in as dignified a way as is possible under the circumstances.
This is when I notice that my keys are wet.

Handicapped Parking Isn’t Just For Yuppies Anymore

If the movement of a car could be referred to as having a "stroll", hopefully conveying a privileged nonchalance, then I would have to say that I witnessed a dark-gray Lexus "strolling" into my local coffee-shop’s handicapped parking-spot last week.
Though I was knee-deep in the varied luxuries put forth by the fabulous triple-play of coffee, cigarette and loitering beside my strategically parked car (backed in closest to the exit), I still managed to saunter over by the idling car to see the handicapped-permit sitting on the dashboard.
Fair enough...that is, until a perfectly-capable woman in her mid-forties popped out the car, jauntily hurrying herself inside said coffee-shop. I positioned myself on the sidewalk between the door of the coffee-shop and the Lexus, not blocking anyone from passing through as much as making myself noticeable.
ME:
[Loudly, as Woman comes out of coffee-shop and walks towards her car]
Are you handicapped?
WOMAN:
[quickly, as if she’s been asked this before]
It’s my husband’s car.
ME:
Then why don’t you take the handicapped-permit off your dash? Or, better yet, don’t park in the handicapped parking-spot.
[angry, the woman pushes past me and opens her car door; there is a small but curious pack of patrons watching and listening from the patio; just as this Woman begins to close her door, I point at the passenger side:]
I keyed your car.
[the door shuts with a SLAM! and the Woman sits for a second as the words sink in; enraged, she pops back out and hits me with her purse on the way to check her passenger side; at this point, the patio is laughing as I try to keep a straight face; after the Woman checks and sees that I in no way scratched her car, she looks up to see that the entire patio and I are laughing at her - some patrons even pointing to humiliate her further - and runs around the other side of the car, getting in and almost backing into an SUV that had just entered the parking lot; she finally frees herself from this sticky situation by blasting out onto the road in a hail of screeching tires and anguish, and I turn and give the patio a bow, to great applause]

Hiatus Over

Just gimmie three days to write a book.

If you gimmie those three days, maybe my computer will crash.

Maybe I’ll lose track of space & time much quicker than I realized going in.

Maybe I’ll drink 23 cups of coffee, 4 cans of Red Bull, and smoke 117 cigarettes.

Maybe I’ll stare at the computer-screen demon that taunts me with my unfinished work.

Maybe I’ll, just now, get a phone-call asking for an interview – she needed somebody from Hammertown, I believe.

Maybe the finished-product will please my sleep-deprived & caffeine-addled mind.
Maybe I’ll wait for perspective before I come back here again.