The First of Many Deaths for Richard the Ninth

         Richard the Ninth believed with every fiber of his being that he heard an airplane land in his bedroom last night. He awoke to find no airplane, no passengers, no signs of landing damage, and no complimentary pack of peanuts. The only bit of evidence which vouched on his behalf was an open window. Fearing that his beliefs amounted to little more than fantastical dreams, he set to fabricating a fallen airplane from the collected items in his bedroom. His pillows became fluffy wheels, his pants made up the seats, and his immense set of collectible figurines from the GoWallCo Company became the passengers of the illy landed plane. Richard the Ninth decided that he must act as the pilot. Posing as a pilot proved to be the greatest challenge for Richard the Ninth was never allowed to drive a golf ball let alone pilot an aircraft. He set to work teaching himself the controls of his homemade flight deck. Within the hour, he was taking off from the carpeted runway, maneuvering in and out of bed sheet clouds, and instructing the passengers to observe San Giacomo's Water Mine, the largest sanctified mine in all of Australia.
          As he approached his final destination, Richard the Ninth realized his great error in never including the landing process in his self-made, self-taught course for new pilots. He turned to his co-pilot hoping for help, but found only a pair of tube socks with marked-on eyes. Richard the Ninth cursed his folly as his plane careened down to the ground nose first, landing in the Lapidian Sea fifteen miles from the Coast of Magonia. And there he spent his final rest, in the cockpit of his self-made plane with a host of dead passengers. No one ever found them. No one ever thought to look. Eventually, Richard the Ninth grew hungry, drifted from the destroyed remnant of plane, floated to the kitchen, and with the grace of a great spirit made a divine peanut butter sandwich.

Endangered Species

The giant face-eating checkered chair monkey.




The natomian flame-topped hedgecat.



The tiny six-toed albino camerahog.

Freedom Rings

People love free things. The price is low and the dividends are high. Hugs cost a person nothing but give them the soaring sensations of comfort and belonging. Complimentary hand soap gets high marks with people because it keeps them clean and healthy. Some people say there is no such thing as a free lunch. But can you imagine if someone gave you one? How cool would that be? Sitting in a restaurant or a train station or in a stranger's kitchenette and they give you your very own lunch, absolutely free, no strings attached. The sky should rain with kittens on such a day.

What people love more than free things are more free things. A free pack of peanuts would be lonely without a second pack of peanuts or a third. Or a free soda and a tee-shirt. And a car, give me the car, too. Now how am I going to carry all of this home? I definitely need a free backpack now. From that well of the one free item there must spring eternal a cornucopia of swag.

When people get those free things, it follows that the free things must be perfect. This shirt is a large, but I wear a medium, give me a medium. There is no medium, then give me another shirt. Or how about your shirt, give me your shirt. Wait, all of the free shirts are the same. This is discrimination. Give me another shirt. Do you have small? Yeah, I saw the free peanuts, but I had part of my stomach removed. I've been having problems paying my rent, so if you have any free... rent payments back there... do you?

And so it goes. Free is the best. One is never enough. This free thing had better be absolutely perfect because I paid good money for it. Now give me a shirt, your wallet, your keys, pictures of your family, your right eyeball, a free lunch, a box of them peanuts, this table, a lock of that girl's hair, and -- hey -- how about a hug? Do you have it in a small?

Crunchy Eyes

I winked at her five times, adding a sixth for good graces. She yawned. Asked me to pass the granola. Passed over for rolled oats, waxy raisins, and indigestible flaxseeds, I ceased the winks, pointed my eyes down and away. The night lumbered on.

With sixty minutes between us and the winks, my eyes dry went for the blink. She mistook it a wink, yawned. Pass the granola. Another twenty past, the same eye down, yawn, granola gimme gimme. What Pavlovian eyes you have my dear.

She getting fattened on the crunch of hippie manna, I surrendered. Taped them both open for both our sakes. No need to pass the granola with the wink when never blinking can be seen. The scotch tape held too short, the gaff tape held too long. The duct tape help just right.

Funny looking face she told me I had. All to quickly my vanity took hold and anger filled up. She could never tell though because my face was frozen. Eyes open. Brow lifted. Surprised, shocked, slightly concerned were all I would ever be. For the sake of her and our granola.

And so we sat. Never blinking nor winking nor yawning nor eating until twelve days passed. On the twelfth day my eyes withered away. The tape remained. She saw my eyes gone first, stifled a laugh, yawned, asked me to pass the granola.

Family Portraits

When using the latest imaging technology, I input my wife's name and this happened.


With the same process I input my name and this happened.


Following suit with the rest of the world, technology conspires against me.

Over Eggs This Morning

Teamwork is for people who are not smart enough to do it themselves.

Collaboration is a genial way for people to steal your ideas.

Friendship makes it easier for your enemies to get your home address.

The Salvation Army is a cult aimed toward the expansion of the industrial military complex and the exultation of Santa Claus.

Flowers take away our air and kill bunnies.

Bunnies are responsible for overpopulation.

Marriage is a long way to get a free breakfast that you pay for a dozen times over.

Whence Conquistadors

--From the New Rochelle Raconteur April 18, 2002--

        The rise of performance master and musical guru, P. Conifer MacIntosh has led many of us, not including me, to abandon all hope for a reunion of the once-popular song stylists, New Rochelle Conquistadors. Perhaps the world dictates where individuals go through biorhythms and control who they collaborate with via the weather. I attribute Mr. MacIntosh's lack of cooperation on his enormous talent and excessive hubris that should make us all proud. The rest of the Conquistadors wait in the wings, humming their harmony parts and dry-cleaning their chalecos.

        The true victims are the fans. This became most apparent during a concert in the latter part of the twentieth century. A highlight of the Conquistadors' shows has always been a twenty-five minute clogging section accompanied by only a pan flute and an occasional tambor. On this gruesome night one of the Conquistadors, who asked not to be named, clogged so aggressively that a portion of his heel shattered, blinding several observers in the front row. Rather than halting the show, the other Conquistadors clogged even harder to maintain their masculine sound. Soon, all of their poorly-crafted heels were decimated by the stomping, leaving three rows of sightless Conquistador fanatics.

        Perhaps Mr. McIntosh has outgrown the Conquistadors. Some say he has referred to all Spanish music as "salsa-fied dreck." He was once overheard denouncing all clog dancing "Spanish, Irish, or otherwise." Could this be self-loathing at the rise of a genre brought about by his own genius or an extended period of mourning for the dozens of punctured eyeballs from that fateful night? Either way, Mr. McIntosh refuses to budge. Until then, the New Rochelle Conquistadors remain a relic of the past that many of us, except for me, hope to see resurrected, buffed, and placed on the mantle of great, shiny music.

Except for Richard the Ninth

        The last time Richard the Ninth talked to a woman, she asked him to remove his trousers, scrutinized several parts of his body, and refused to prescribe him penicillin. Growing impatient, Richard the Ninth removed himself from her office and sat in the hallway for several hours. However, his trousers remained in the office. Due to a malfunctioning heating system, the propensity for cold in vinyl floor tiles, and a weak immune system, Richard the Ninth eventually found himself with a minor respiratory infection. He returned to the office to find another man under physical scrutiny and an even nicer pair of trousers than his own laying nearby. Richard the Ninth left the office shortly thereafter with a love note prescribing penicillin and another man’s trousers.

        Watching Richard the Ninth swim is considered a felony in most states. So much embarrassment cannot and will not be tolerated. For those attempting to do so, permanent blinding can be expected as well as an immediate evacuation of ingested materials. Please do not misunderstand. As intolerable as it may be, it is not the physique of Richard the Ninth that leads to such discomfort, but rather his form as a swimmer. Such butchery of the sport should be placed in a bottle and immediately smashed.

      Richard the Ninth loathes eating any food that could have belonged to someone else. He roams the aisles of stores, asking every item on the shelves whether they have been touched, eyed, prodded, groped, or price checked by any other curious shoppers. The food rarely responds. A dark day came for Richard the Ninth when he sought to outsmart the system by going into the fabled back of the store to ask for a box of his favorite cereal, a fibrous, flavorless concoction made in the Netherlands, only to find the store employees grabbing boxes and cartons and jugs and fruit from larger boxes and crates. His mind reeled at the realization that the food on the shelves of this market was touched, eyed, prodded, groped, and possibly price checked dozens of times before it ever reached his mouth. His illusion of virginal food shattered, Richard the Ninth immediately ran home. He thought maybe of fasting in protest. Instead, he opted for a more constructive route and began a small farm. He expects his first harvest in the next ten to fifteen weeks. The crop includes boxes of his favorite cereal and several jugs of Tang.

Feminine Ending

Dear Kitchenette,

      It has come to my attention that you have harbored ill feelings towards me for the last several years.  You taunt me as I pass on the street with my friends, Fridge and Stove, whispering and snickering with your Hotplate and Cooler.  You have emptied my cupboards at night while I sleep, leaving the mess for me to clean up.  And for the longest time I could not understand why.  Until today.

      I am better than you, Kitchenette.  The four little letters at the end of your name tell me so.  You are smaller, less useful, and altogether cheaper than me.  I bring value to a home, you belong in cheap hotels throughout the midwest.  Families spend time with me everyday, they are forced to use you on road trips through Arizona.  Scientists spend their every waking minutes making me better, while sociologists questions the necessity of you.

      Deal with it, Kitchenette.  You are inferior.  You have a feminine ending.  God created me first, a God named G.E.  You are but a gimmick created in my image.  Bow before me, Kitchenette, and quit dumping everything out of my cupboards or I will knock over your single barstool.  

                              Firmly stated from on high,

                             

                                Kitchen

The Nearer Side of Richard the Ninth

           Many believe that Richard the Ninth was not born, but exploded into the gentle grasp of a waiting obstetrician who still had his first baseman's mitt from his days playing with the Emerald Hills Mustangs. After a thorough cleansing and several slaps to the backside, the baby immediately soiled himself merely out of post-natal spite and pre-adolescent angst. This angst lasted through the next thirty years until a chance meeting with a woman of more than usual amounts of spunk, frivolity, and chinchilla pelts taught Richard the Ninth the meaning of the word “pragmatomaton” and left him with a crooked grin tattooed on his chest. She left without a word shortly thereafter. It took poor Richard the Ninth twelve ponderous years before he deduced that she had made the word up on the spot, taken his wallet, and never intended to get a tattoo of her own to compliment his. The angst returned, the tattoo remained.

           One odd day of no significance, some time after his forty-third birthday, Richard the Ninth developed a strong attachment — some would say affection – for a pair of loafers. He found an entrancing beauty in them due to their lack of pennies, though later used this deficiency against them. He was heard proclaimed, to the groaning of millions, “They had no cents. They made no sense." From that day forward, Richard the Ninth went barefoot.

           Richard the Ninth never held a throne or a crown, much less a position of authority in life. However, he did appropriate the number Nine as his own, trademarked it, and removed it from the public domain to be kept under his indefatigable control. Baseball players seethed, never again seeing an end to their games. School children bristled at never again earning above eighty-eight percent or correctly identifying the sum of four and five. Astronomers roared in disapproval for though they had already nullified Pluto, they could no longer name any celestial body after Neptune a planet -- not even Leptidion. Yoko Ono never sang again. And Tommy Tune stayed forever in his freakishly long bed. "Richard the Ninth will pay," he tapped between his sheets.

Richard the Ninth Goes On

       Richard the Ninth, a gem among pearls, had little sympathy for the lonely third guy. The one who stood perpendicular to his friend and the friend's girlfriend as they carried on with conversation and little consideration for the case of Lonely Third's observation, discomfort, and passive voyeurism. Richard the Ninth hoped never to be one of these Lonely Thirds and, so, avoided most all people, especially those with significant others. Furthermore, he observed very little, sought comfort everywhere, and became aggressively voyeuristic.

       While the early days of Richard the Ninth brought great shame to his family, as his productive capacity amounted to no more than filthy onesies, sporadic slobber, and constant attacks of silent mewling, he had reached an age where he brought only limited amounts of shame to his family. However, on the occasion of his fifteenth birthday, he sought a model of a boat shaped like a blue whale -- in his estimation, the deadliest whaling vessel of all. Not finding his birthday wish requited, Richard the Ninth fell into a vicious row with his mother, which led to combative conversation and the threat of a return to the devious activities of his infant life. An hour or so later, his threats proved fruitless and the rebellion dwindled as Richard the Ninth found himself parched, constipated, and thoroughly incapable of pure infantilism. Still sour, he ran away from home for seventy-three minutes.

        Richard the Ninth once wrestled a tiger into submission, hoping to find spiritual enlightenment. The battle lasted a quarter of an hour and brought great crowds from the world over. One man was heard to exclaim, "Not since the last time have I seen such a thing." A triumphant Richard the Ninth emerged some time later with his weakened arms raised to the heavens in exultation. Now, he thought through gasps of air, I will find an enlightenment of my spirit. It was not so. Instead, Richard the Ninth discovered a mouthful of synthetic fiber filling, faux fur in places unmentionable, and a lifetime ban from Coleman's Toy Shoppe. As an additional insult to his injuries, Mr. Coleman pinned a note to the pants of Richard the Ninth with strict instructions that the note was only to be removed by his mother. Richard the Ninth laughed knowing full well that his mother had not been able to reach his pants for several years.

         Believing himself immortal, Richard the Ninth drank a whole gallon of skim milk without taking a single breath. This led to a tumble, copious spilled milk, and a mild concussion. Through the new crack in his head, Richard the Ninth's blood began to co-mingle with the spilled milk, creating a stream of pink liquid across the kitchen floor. Once he came to and observed this, Richard the Ninth deduced that he had pink blood, which explained little to him outside of his predilection for pink frosted donuts and his assumption that he was a superbeing placed on earth to frighten all other beings into submission. The latter idea was reinforced when Richard the Ninth passes out a second time and awoke in his own bed, proof positive that he had powers of unconscious teleportation.

The Earliest Days of Richard the Ninth

         Having an exceedingly tall mother, Richard the Ninth was not born, but rather dropped from a great height.  He dangled for a time before a passerby noticed him, pointed, and proclaimed, "You've a baby 'tween your knees."  As skeptical as she was vertical, his mother ignored the proclaimer and continued on her way.  Later, while removing her shoes for bed, Richard the Ninth was discovered by his mother, cradled in a web of her shoelaces.  She was doubly surprised.  First, that she had been with child.  Second, that she had not worn loafers.  After a swift disentanglement, she named him Richard the Ninth and then set him in one of her shoes to sleep.  He obliged.

        Richard the Ninth found his early days an awful burden, terribly dull, and overwhelmingly tedious as his companions consisted mainly of crying babies.  They had no sense but to cry when they were hungry, when they had spoilage, and when they craved attention, the latter being most common.  Even as an infant, he found pride in never crying, screaming, whining, hollering, retching, cooing, or howling.  Often he even went days without blinking for fear of the noise.  Solitude and silence suited him best.  Richard the Ninth was presumed dead one hundred forty-seven times before his first birthday.  

Peanut Butter Ponderings

Snowbelle Edition

Let's sell all of our belongings and move to a farm where we will grow boysenberries and make preserves.  That is a hard life, the preserves-maker.  The growing, the picking, the jars.

Or maybe we will run a general store.  One day our son will take over.  We will sell everything from bags of flour to bolts of fabric and horse feed.  We could even have a soda fountain.  Sell toys for the holidays, special toys.

I would make clothes with our daughters and the shop would sell hats.  You would wear suspenders and have rolled-up sleeves.  

We would have an apartment over the store for those nights when we are too overworked and too tired to go home.  Our home is a mile out of town.  A one story house with a barn behind it.  We own three horses.  What else do we own?  Four cows - no we only need one.  Just one for our milk.  It's a lot to own your own general store and churn your own butter.

I'm spent.

Hallowed Halls (apologies to CM)

How do they get under there. Creeping infestations under my skin reviling revolting shredding tissue and into my belly. It could be hunger but the pains come only when I see their faces. The faces and the click of tongue disappointment. Not living in to what they call the perfect. Scolding sight unseen. The long distance disappointment. Erring towards honesty makes it worse. They feed on positivity humility smell weakness and eat it. Hurts my back to think. Get away. Live alone in a room and get away.

She called them vampires. I liked that. Vampires with poisonous faces acid tongues infestations under my skin. Could live a whole life without knowing them but too late for that now. Give good God give good. Haven't eaten in a week without pain front back side. My arm. Oh my arm. I miss it. Give it back oh good God give it back. Poisonous ugly vampire faces peeking round to stomp and seethe and infect. Took my arm from me left me alone came back asked me where my arm went. They know how to get me back they leave me dead come back thats how they get me.

I could chew on them if I was quick. Quick and shrewd and hungry. I am hungry. Not hungry like them but hungry. Would not eat their arms for fear of infection. Look like them with poison faces acid tongue. Mouths hurt with poison tongues everything tastes like poison. No guff. Something to feed me. Stay away from them though do not feed on them they taste like poison arsenic laced with virus.

Makes no sense to chew off my arm ask for a hand come back chew off my leg tell me to run. Give a bit ask for more give more ask for most. Something still hurts. Got away something still not right. No guff. It hurts. If I could only get my arm back my feet my torso legs face. They feed on kindness honesty. Ask for it then feed on it. Cannot be gentle cannot be honest cannot be giving cannot be what they feed on. Walking meat to eat and infect.

Keep alone and keep away. Good morning all alone and goodnight all alone. Keep that way. It hurts.

Elegy for Sleeping Dogs

Sugar we called her.  Not because of sweetness.  A black lab-collie-something-or-other mix, she had a lot of browns and blacks, with a single twinge of white on her back.  A sprinkle of sugar.  She could be sweet from time to time, often when we were not around.  She was sweet enough to leave the house intact.  Mostly, though Sugar was cold, remote, Ibsen.  

Chasing did not always suit her, but occasionally Sugar could be seen dashing and leaping for novelty flying discs.  We would push he bounds with her, tossing further and higher.  This led to a defiant Sugar.  Well aware of our schemes to send her past her comfort zone.  Sugar scolded us with stillness and stares.  

Where couches were concerned, Sugar was a champion of sitting.  Taking umbrage at the plague of miniature lapdogs and their diminutive sits, she sat in bulk.  She invaded space, kicked us aside, dominated cushions.  She cared not for television or conversation.  Sugar like to be scratched on her haunches.  Occasionally on her sugary back.  She fell asleep.  Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.  Always on the couch.

At that park, again with the flying disc.  Toss, run, catch.  Toss, run, catch.  The rhythmic process of fun.  Toss, run, catch.  She jumped, she caught.  We threw the disc, she returned it.  And then a toss, she jumped, caught the disc between her teeth, and fell to the ground on her side.  Still breathing, disc between her teeth, fast asleep.  We did not know what to do, so we let her sleep.  She woke up and looked at us blankly.  We took her home.

We mulched together the dry with wet for her dinner.  She set to, her tags clanging against the metal bowl.  The pinging crunch-crunch clang cacophony of supper.  We ate in the other room, having long adjusted and accepted the clanging of metal as our mealtime musak.  White noise of pots and pans.  Then the sound stopped.  We stepped into the kitchen to find Sugar on her side, asleep in her meat mounds.  We pulled her nose out of the bowl and wiped it clean.  Let her get her sleep out.  She woke up and denied the remainder of the meat meal.

We walked her, allowance to do her natural duty.  A dog of pride, of privacy in all places, Sugar peeked around before assuming a most unladylike position.  She pressed and squeezed, teetered on her toes, haunches tense.  She fell over on her side, asleep, only half-finished excreting nature's call.  We had a plastic bag to clean up the half-seen seen half, but what of the rest?  Strangers walked past spying us with a dead, half-pooping dog.  How could we explain that we have a narcoleptic dog?  She does this!  we could shout.  But who would understand?  We waited, but still she slept.  So, we took the plastic bag and began cleaning up around Sugar's end side.  She woke up just as we began.  A scolding of silence ensued.  No proud hound finds a person peering in the nether regions of puppy privacy.  She never spoke of it and neither did we.

Our narcoleptic dog.  In seconds, alert to a coma.  Dragging her home from walks that Sugar dog.  A canine somnambulist she was not.  We dragged and carried and wiped food from her face.  She fell on our toes, trapped our legs.  Once she blocked the front door.  Don't mind the dog.  She's not dead.  Just a narcoleptic.  Always she awoke with a blank stare, scolding us for caring.  Sugar.  But not for sweetness.

 

Sleep of the Dogs

My neighbor confided in me a problem that has plagued his family for the last several weeks, perhaps changing their lifestyle if proper measures are not taken.  Always one to back slowly away from neighbors with problems, especially those who share them with such candor, I found myself in an escapable position wedged between the stairwell and the wall carrying nothing but my keys.  At least with a bag of groceries or a fistful of barbells, I could find the excuse.  If only I had learned to induce vomiting when the offer came so long ago... Instead, I was forced to listen and nod in a pantomime of interest.

It began last month when he took the family's dog, a spitfire lab-collie-beagle-terrier mix with all colors of the chocolate rainbow, to the park for an average, albeit aerobic, day of novelty flying disc fun.  Toss after toss of the disc proved no challenge for this runny-jumpy dog, shaming the feeble lapdogs that infest so much of the city.  Throw, run, jump, catch, throw, run, jump, catch.  The further he threw, the further the dog ran.  The higher the disc went, the higher the dog leapt.  He felt cruel to throw the disc with such force, testing the physical limits of a dog who may have been mistaking the flying disc for bacon.   

Finally, my neighbor made a colossal toss, one to spur envy in college quads across the land.  He watched his dog run-run-run, jump... and the dog landed with a thud.  My neighbor dashed over, terrified that his sadistic disc throws had finally done the poor creature in.  He dropped to his knees and found the dog on her side, frisbee in mouth, asleep.  "Can you believe she made the catch?!" he asked me, impressed.  (I nodded as I peeked to the stairs behind him, imagining the number of bones I would break leaping from the third story window, and figuring that might be worth it.)  He continued.

The following week, during a walk, the dog began doing its curbside business.  Admitting defeat in the face of nature, my neighbor looked around in embarrassment as his dog rose up on her haunches and performed her balletic poo maneuver.  Too busy apologizing for his animal's natural processes, my neighbor missed the moment when his dog fell over, mid-poo, completely asleep.  Not wanting to deal with the half-excreted turd, he waited for her to wake up and finish.  "It's so embarrassing, man!  You know?"  (I did know.  Several other, smarter neighbors had walked by and the shame on my face could not be shrouded.)  He continued.

A few days later, my neighbor tossed the dog's crunchy-moisty meat food together in her dish and set the dish down next to the water.  She ran over and set to it, again mistaking the concoction for some form of bacon, her metal tags clanging against the metal bowl in a gluttonous cacophony.  My neighbor moved to the living room to set to his dinner, which probably did include bacon, and left her in the kitchen.  A few minutes later, while muting a commercial, my neighbor noticed a shocking silence.  He called out his dog's name.  She did not answer.  ("Does it ever?" I thought to ask and would have had my jaw not been clenched shut long before.)  He went into the kitchen to find his dog face down in her meat mash, asleep.  "Like she was drugged, man!"  (If only... )  He continued.

"So, dude," he said, undoubtedly one of the multiple Dudes in his life, "I took her to a vet and a dog psychologist and they're all telling me - dude, you ready for this?"  (Yes, please, God.)  "Dude... she's a narcoleptic.  Amazing, right?"  I nodded.  It was amazing.  Amazing that he could not have told me that right off and let me live the last ten minutes of my life.  Amazing that canine narcolepsy exists.  Amazing that my neighbor could pronounce narcoleptic.  And most amazing that my neighbor watched as I fell to the ground, feigning sleep, the narcoleptic neighbor.  He left me there in a heap in the hallway, one narcoleptic pup plenty for his little life.

Paper Slip Overalls

A diminutive man in heavily-stained overalls handed me a tattered piece of paper with the following written on it: "Enter the awarity feeling open to completion." I thanked him and walked away, only to be chased down by the man who demanded his precious paper be returned. I obliged. He stood and stared.

"Enter the awarity feeling open to completion."  Et vous aussi, mon ami.

Awarity is not a word. Agreed. How then must I enter it? Buy it dinner first? Ask nicely? Or perhaps the awarity itself must enter. Enter the awarity stage right. And so it has, now residing in my speech. Awarity abounds. Awarity all around. Awarity Jones and his Magnificent Monster Machine. As far as I can surmise, awarity means the abaility to achieve awareness. It must be a word that achieves itself in the very knowledge of itself. I know naivete means, that gets me off the hook. I know what awarity means, therefore I am it. I have entered the awarity. The awarity has entered.

Feeling open to completion. A range this could be, beginning with open and moving straight through to completion. The spectrum of feeling when a person resides in awarity. Today I feel open, tomorrow completion. Maybe a thousand tomorrows from now completion comes. Open all day and all night, the 7-11 of awarity. But no. Looking at it directly, feel open to completion. Allow the completion to come. Feel open. Be open. All day and all night. Namaste Master Big Gulp. Soon it will all be done. Thank you, Mr. Long Pants.

What sort of man wears overalls? This man. It would do a disservice to the cryptic keeper of the paper to objectify him, place him into the category of those sickly, overall-wearing mutants that emerge from their holes every nine years to deliver messages. Granted, categories can err towards the positive. Let us not forget the angelic overalls of Liliput, patron saint of farmers' daughters. Who am I to judge a man his choice of pants? Pants with built in shoulder straps, no belt required. We should all be so clever to avoid our belts without resorting to gluttony or twine. Overalls. Over all. All what? All who?

More disturbing than the overalls were the stains. What stains befall such a man? The stains of time. A hard-lived life. Lunch, perhaps. Bleachy splots mark mistakes and make me think that this little man has found his repentance passing notes to strangers on the street. Learn from him for he has lived the wrong and returned with nothing but lessons and pants. Overalls are the official pants of life's lessons. Bleach, paint, coffee, and other unmentionables mar the man's pants, announcing to everyone the slips of time's past, and he is doomed to wear them all because overalls are all-encompassing pants. The Pants Omnipresent, no belt required.

And I walked away.  God is in the pants and I left him staring, standing in his stained overalls, and clutching his tattered scrap of paper, extolling truth to all who would receive it.  Understand, though, awarity is not a word.

Late Entry

Let us set the record straight.  Since, after fifteen hours, this has become the biggest sensation since sight was invented in the late third century, let us set the record straight.  Christopher Clark is eight years older than me.  Mathematically, he was eight years old when I was born.  Mathematically.  He began his adventure four years ago.  Four minus eight is four.  This puts me four years ahead of him.  Mathematically.  You cannot make up statistics like these.

Do you enjoy math?  In the last fifteen hours, I have posted twice.  Mr. nearly-Dr. Clark has posted once in the last three days, or seventy-two hours.  My ratio is once every seven-point-five hours.  With this post, said ratio will be impossible to calculate with the ten percent of the brain available to most humans.  Mssr. Clark's is once every seventy-two hours.  Math, my friends, pure, unadulterated, never-failing, unconditionally loving math.  

Let us dispute no more.  No more.  Mathematics.  Yes.

The jolly porter is one of my favorite places to visit.  Now I must destroy it.  Or tell you to visit it every twenty minutes.  So many thanks to Chrisopher Hermano Clark for supplanting enough envy in me to do this.

Please forgive this blog about blogs - as tedious as news reports about news reports, or car wrecks caused by car wrecks, or lawyers.

Christopher Clark can be found at http://thejollyporter.blogspot.com.

He Just Shit On You

A MOVIE MIZ EXCLUSIVE

A few weeks ago, my wife and I were offered free tickets to a preview of the next major motion picture epic produced to control the behavior of females the world over. Jesse M. Patch warned me against attending, but upon seeing my devotion to the aforementioned wife asked that I write a review of the movie for him and him alone. I do not believe in selfish Patchantics. Enjoy, learn, watch for flying poo.

HE JUST SHIT ON YOU

In Kwapis’ He’s Just Not That Into You, our first peek at humanity shows a young boy repeatedly calling a young girl “poop.” In all forms to this boy, that girl is poop. Knowing nothing about the girl but that she hangs out in parks and looks confused as to why she is in the movie – a trend that follows for several of the performers – I could only assume that she did smell like poop and may well have been just that, poop. Instead of unveiling the mystery of whether or not this girl is indeed composed of excrement, the movie assures us that the boy only compares the girl to human waste because he likes her.

The movie’s second glimpse of humanity involves women of every walk of life comforting each other as they are “pooped” on by men. These walks of life include women at a club, Japanese women dressed like extras from the movie blade runner, and African women in the tidiest hut village this side of Santa Clarita speaking in American idioms. Welcome to the shit.

From here, Kwapis takes us on a magical journey of severely uninteresting people in Baltimore (no sign of Omar or Bubbles or Ray Lewis) pretending to be as real as you or me by flashing movie-star smiles and every five minutes or so grandstanding with soap-box speeches about how men and women relate to each other. The aforementioned magical journey, however, feels less like a journey than a gestalt of rom-com clichés butted against each other by people who believe that John Hughes was a prophet, infidelity can only be blamed on a woman’s “hotness” quotient, and that Harry and Sally were right about everything, dammit! The movie makes no qualms about its thefts, using clips of Hughes’ Some Kind of Wonderful and When Harry Met Sally’s talking head interstitials. Meanwhile, five different movies emerge from the neck of the beast to create the chick-flick hydra and the women are all treated like poop.

In one of the movie’s movies, Ben, played by Bradley Cooper, and Anna, played by Scarlett Johansson, have a meet cute involving bananas and a free cooler. Just when we see the spark of something between them, which we are later told to be a fallacy created by men, we find out that – UH-OH! – Ben is married. His wife, Janine, played by Jennifer Connelly, wants him to stop smoking, have kids with her, and be emotionally available. Instead, Ben spends most of the movie telling ScarJo how hot she is and how he does not have affairs. While sitting naked, post-coital in her bed, he tells her that he does not have affairs. And again, tells her that she is hot. Not only are the women treated like poop here, but also poop objects. Anna/ScarJo is nothing more than a device of sexual observation and participation for Ben leading her ample bosom to dominate many of their scenes together.

She's just not that into pants.

Another of the movies in this movie involves Beth, played by Jennifer Aniston, who cannot get her longtime boyfriend Neil, played by Ben Affleck, to marry her. (Ed. note: Ben Affleck is in this movie and has scenes with the character named Ben, which created a small wormhole at the screening I attended.)  What is the hold-up? Neil does not believe in marriage. She leaves him, he lives on a boat, her grizzled father, played with extra whiskey by Kris Kristofferson, has a heart attack, and through a keen observation of other men, she realizes that Neil is more of a husband – in name, not in law – than any other real husband. Have no fear, though, he proposed by movie’s end and we get the rom-com movie-ending wedding. To be fair, Aniston fights a singular battle in her movie in this movie, bringing truth to her performance by appearing to actually care about the people and events around her.

In the only movie within the movie to actually invoke the movie’s title, a woman named Gigi, played by Ginnifer Goodwin (is anybody counting G’s here?), cannot for the life of her understand why men are not interested in her. No matter how overbearing she gets, calling dozens of times after a first date, stalking a man to his favorite bar, and being named Gigi, she just does not comprehend her repellence to the opposite sex. Fortunately, she meets somebody who has the opposite problem – THANK GOD FOR DIVINE COINCIDENCES LIKE THIS!! Alex, played by Justin Long, knows absolutely everything about men and women and, what is more, he is a serial dater, sleeping with whatever breasts come within ten feet, then shrugging them off as crazy women who don’t get that HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO THEM (poop anyone?). Gi x 2 and Alex carry on a platonic partnership as he guides her through her dating woes, but men and women cannot be friends. Hi, Harry. Hi, Sally. She of the multiple Gi's eventually tells Alex the truth about who he really is and why he will never be happy, causing both of them to become completely different characters in less than a week’s time. And the women think, maybe the Apple guy is in love with me. Poop on them.

Two other movies exist within the movie, but may have been trailers for other movies about movies based on books based on ideas from movies. One involves Drew Barrymore as a woman who meets men on MySpace and cannot get dates to return e-mails and voicemails and – OH TECHNOLOGY! Will we ever learn? She also hangs out with homosexuals, one of whom is played by Wilson Cruz (aka Ricky from My So-Called Life). He has a very funny line about his own aroused genitalia. The movie could have used more of him and his genitalia, mostly due to the sincerity of both.

The other non-movie movie has E. from Entourage playing E. from Entourage, but instead of being a husky-voiced manager who seems not to care he plays a raspy-voiced real estate agent who truly does not care. Through a new strategy, he begins selling strictly to homosexuals and wearing purple shirts. This one-note joke is not funny; nor are any of the one-note jokes about stereotypes. Poop on everyone, especially those in purple shirts.

Then Luis Guzman shows up. The married couple dealing with infidelity and smoking are remodeling their house with the help of “undocumented workers” led by Javier, played by poor, poor Guzman. In his only scene, he stares at Jennifer Connelly, responding with the same dissatisfaction and confusion as I experienced watching this jumbled, unfunny mess of a movie based on a book that somebody must have read once and mistaken for a different book, thinking that there was quality material to be mined for a feature-length motion picture to be enjoyed by rational, thinking people who had experienced life, talked to other people, and maybe even related to someone once on even a partially profound level. Guzman gives the best performance in this movie-based life form.

Along with the aforementioned crimes against humanity, everybody in this movie is connected in some way, sending Robert Altman into a graveyard spin, and the term “dry-hump” is spoken twice. To wit: “…with an ass that makes me want to dry-hump all day long.” “Did you say dry-hump?” Then the blonde proceeds to remove her clothes and jump into the pool naked because she believes that true love means a married man leaving his wife for her. I was embarrassed. I felt pooped on. If only I had a copy of the book to wipe myself with.

Fussy eater

Last week, I stepped into a friend's home on the lower east end of the upper west side with unease coursing through me.  Prickly pears in my blood stickled and tickled every organ, vein, tubule, and tapeworm -- especially Leonard, the youngest and most sensitive of my tapeworms.  Finding little else to pacify myself, because conversation, interaction, and group high-fives would not soothe, I turned to the food.   

Tortilla chips in hand, I scooped bean dip in abundance, pushing the first chip to its payload capacity.  I eased the chip into my mouth with great care to preserve every ounce of spicy mushy bean spread.  The spread - dip dip dip - worked.  Satisfaction and ease sat where anxiety and resentment had so recently jigged the night away.  I worked this precious treat around in my mouth, savoring the flavor, and after getting my fill, swallowed the bean dip and spat out the chip.  The second chip followed the same course.  Dip, careful into the mouth, enjoyment, bliss, euphoria, swallow the dip, spit the chip.  And the third and fourth.  

By my twelfth chip, the party's host, a bean dip genius in my estimation, saw the soiled chips littering her living room floor and asked what I was doing.  Nothing out of the ordinary so far as I saw.  The host's voice raised, so I shouted back and dashed away, diving beneath the couch.  Much like my host, the couch did not approve and only allowed a portion of my head to enter its basement level.  I stood again, yelled at everyone in the room, and made another dash for safety into the bedroom.

Alone in a strange room, I began to smell everything within nose's reach.  Guests' coats, the bedspread, shoes, my own crotch.  Nothing to feed me here, no bean dip pantyhose, no tortilla chip flip flops.  I heard an intruder on my isolation and ducked beneath the bed, which proved to be far more compliant and, therefore, superior to that awful, awful couch.  The host had little trouble finding me, my legs protruding from beneath her bed and asked what I was doing and, furthermore, what was wrong with me.  Having no response, I emptied my bladder.  She was not pleased.

My friend's actions confused me greatly.  Why such dissension, disapproval, and rage at me?  All of this was so bloody cute when the dog did it.  It was little surprise then when she muzzled me, stuffed me into a burlap sack, and hurled me into the Hudson.  So bloody cute.