Overheard At The Supermarket

"...i dunno, dude, i think it needs new tires and shit. OH! DUDE! so's i go to my bro's, dude, to check out the car and shit and he's watching 'twin peaks' again, right? that's like all he fucking does and shit, right? so like that sharon fenman babe, the one that he has that picture of on his fucking wall and shit? her dad shoved her fucking head into a fucking FIREPLACE and shit, dude! that show's fucking WEIRD and shit, dude! i was like all, 'DUDE! NO FUCKING WAY', and shit! SERIOUS, DUDE!"

Free Band Names (Sorry, Jello)

black band-aid
the snoochies
four toed foot
pen in the neck
gentlemen nail redheads
the pleasant tomorrows
the egg needers
ungentlemanly haymakers
stomp the poodle
yoda morgenstern
mondo con carne
the living nixons
wac's and wayne
the flying dead
funkmeisters of the new despondency
the wankers
flying eraseheads
the honkeys
dr. skinflint's purple tinted airport monkeys
the flaming hetros
the aristocrats
back 2 bach
pink water
bring me the head of lou jacoby
beatlemaniaphobia
mad about plaid
liquid lunch
the sneeches
greta garble
melted leopards
not perry como
father and sum
the nocturnals
the orgone donors
skip toomaloo
april may june and jewel eye
half cocked and fully crocked
wet nightmare
colombus was a fink
singed eyebrows
chunks of pulchritude
the skinks
knights of the lepus
loni anderson's cleavage
the stolling roans
cream of groucho
thyme and tied
the bruce lee spotters
murder is neeto
underwater tractor pull
friday the 54th

So Long Spring

Welp.

It's just about summer and you regular readers of my stuff know what that means. Yeah. I'm going to have to beat down those mole men in the backyard again. Man! Am I ever tired of that whole scene! It just never fucking ends!

You know, once I found out what a total sham voting is I should have just kept my mouth shut. Not me though, not fucking me. I was so filled with that ass-holy-ness that's better known as righteous indignation that I actually called the government to bitch about it. Have I ever told you that story? Maybe I haven't. I don't remember if I have. Come to think, maybe you're new here so I'll drag that old chestnut out for another spin. Forgive me if you've heard it already and feel free to skip ahead if you'd rather. It's not going to kill me if you do so, whatever. Know what I mean?

So I call the government. It's not very hard to do, anyone can. You just have to know what to Google to find the number, right? I'm pretty sure a lot of you can figure it out on your own. So I call and this voice asks me what I want and I start screaming about what a lame ass scam voting is and how I never will again because all politicians are jag offs and if I had to pay to vote I'd want my goddamn money back and fuck this and fuck that and fuck you too, sister. Really letting it rip. And she says can I hold on for a moment and she puts me on hold.

I fire up an ultra-light 100 and do another shot of spiced rum and I'm sitting there wondering when the guys with the high powered rifles with the silencers are going to show up and pick my ass off through the window. On the news it'd be reported as one of those drive bys or whatever and boo hoo hoo, time for my funeral and some shoulder shrugging and who'd give a wet fart anyway?

So she gets back on the line and says that she checked with her supervisor and that I have two choices. Either a plain white van is going to pull up and I'll be shot with a high powered rifle through the window or I can make a deal. So I go what kind of deal are we talking about here? You know, like, is there a lot of math involved or what?

She says that it's cool if I never vote again but if I tell other people what a crock of shit that whole school yard game is other people will stop voting and then they'll start thinking for themselves and stop watching hit TV shows and giving a good goddamn about 'Scrubs' and total wankers like Celine Dion and whoever wins 'American Idol' (no matter what a babe Kelly is or how hot Carrie looks in a real tight T-shirt) and then they'll stop buying big ass cars that they don't really need and they'll realize how fucking stupid caring about empty headed junk like this whole bling bullshit is and the economy will collapse and where the fuck am I gonna get my spiced rum from then, thank you very much. At this point I see her point and I say I'd like to deal, please. And if you'd like a cherry on top I could arrange that for you real easy-like. I'm nothing if I'm not polite in a crunch. It's the romantic in me.

Anyway, she says seeing as to how the government is going to spare my life I'll have to do a favor in return. I say it sounds fair to me which is exactly the wrong mother fucking thing to say for sure.

So I hang up and keep drinking and screaming along with old Alice Cooper songs and watching "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" for about the eighty first time and the next morning or maybe the evening after that I've forgotten the whole thing. Which is yet another mistake in an entire life that's chock full of huge ass mistakes, believe me, you.

About nine months later a guy in a dark suit with a clipboard shows up and has me sign in ink at the bottom. I'm a fucking moron so I sign. I was also pretty well hung-over because... well, I'm an American, and it's one of my rights since I was born here and all of that shit you see in the movies and in those old books about history. It might have even been a question on "Jeopardy" once or twice but I'm not gonna swear to it.

As it turns out the government knew about these mole men that were going to show up and my part of the deal was having them sent to my house and now I have to deal with them every summer for the rest of my life. Even if I move they'll just have them go there. So I'm stuck and it sucks and you can write the second verse yourself so, like I said before, it never fucking ends.

In fact I was going to wrap this up with a real cool story about how one night Drew Barrymore, Melissa Joan Hart, and Avril Levine gang sucked me while Jennifer Tilly made me eat her nipples and kept calling me daddy but I hear a scratching noise outside so I have to get a flashlight and a rake and go kick some mole man ass.

It never ends, man.

It just never fucking ends.

What I Believe

most of the world doesn't really hate us. we're the home of jazz, the blues, rock and roll, cinema, the telephone, television, thx sound, marilyn monroe, the marx brothers, jerry lewis, woody allen, francis ford coppola, bill hicks, george carlin, oingo boingo, the ramones, the donnas, and countless advances in medicine, electronics, and
technology. what they hate are ugly americans. those boneheads that think that we should be thanked for everything that ever happened in the world and who think that the american way of life is the ONLY WAY that all other countries should be run. you know, the kind of morons that believe whatever they see on the news because they're just too dumb to understand that it's just a TV show. the kind of folk who rush out and buy a plastic flag because everybody else does and then throws those same flags away when it's no longer in style to have them. the sort of jerks that really think that people die in wars so they can buy those cheap ass flags that are made in other countries and wave them in the face of guys and gals who don't agree with them, the feeling being that if they have an opinion it must be the only opinion that's important because any REAL american follows orders and never asks questions. you know, assholes.

all i know is this:

1) i used to have money and now i don't.

2) i can spell potato. being a devo fan i am one.

3) ketchup is NOT a vegetable and before reagan all of those crazy people that you see living in the streets were in hospitals.

4) we are at war with some guys that bush's daddy hated and those clowns who blew up those buildings are still free.

5) strangely, gas now costs a freaking fortune. just like it did in the eighties. i don't really know why and i don't really care.

6) you should all rush out and see, 'duck soup', 'wag the dog', 'network', 'starship troopers', 'the president's analyst', and 'josie and the pussycats'. you should see them over and over and over until you really understand them and tell people that won't see them to get bent. any truth you need is buried in pop culture. trust me. i'm a rogue sub-genius doctor/pope.

7) no president really does or says anything. they have advisors and writers and people they have to answer to who helped them get elected in the first place. anyone who thinks differently isn't really thinking.

8) this is my country too. i was born here, i'm fifty years old, and i can have any opinion i want. just like anyone else. if you don't agree with me you can stick it where the sun shines now and then. like if you sleep naked with the window open or bend to tie your shoes at a nudist camp or whatever.

9) if you'd like a much easier life send me rum and vodka. the only reason i took the time to write all of this junk out is because i'm not screaming along with old alice cooper tunes right now. i miss drinking and, like most people who feel gypped i blame those rat bastards in office. whoever the hell they are they never ask me anything...

Might Have Been A Model

she was pushing eighteen. not much of a problem there. i was in my mid twenties (going on about twelve) and she had a boyfriend anyway. besides, i take things kind of slow. i wouldn't want to hurt anybody, once bitten, better safe, apples falling from trees, pick one you like, okay? she was blonde, hips like a dessert cart, painfully pretty. wanted to be a model and might have done very well at that kind of gig. face like a really hot angel.

so... we're at this party and her boyfriend (a real nice guy, btw) leaves for a while. i'm feeling good, drinking a bit, nothing serious, just hanging out. we've known each other for three or four days and i'm playing at flirting with her and she's playing at being pissed off about it. we're both laughing and bothering other people with our fun-vibe. i go to the bathroom and, on the way out the host drags me back in.

he says:
you like her?

i say:
yeah. lots.

she told me not to tell you but she's leaving her boyfriend.

so?

she's thinking about you.

why would she tell you that?

so i'd tell you.

but she told you not to tell me.

what are you, man? a fucking moron?

(long pause)

oh...

at one point she's really acting shocked at my attitude, goes into the kitchen, comes back with a glass of warm water, and dunps it over my head. it wasn't beer. it wasn't cold. it was art. i would have married her right then and there.

her boyfriend comes back and they get a ride home. she and i act like we don't really give a shit that the other's leaving but the eye contact was promising.

a few hours later we get a call from the emergency ward. the car that they were in was in a crash.

i figured that everything was okay, or at least not all that bad or they would have told us over the phone so it's off to st. john's.

we sit there for about an hour and they call her sister into another room.

there was a scream. just like in the movies. just like nancy allen in 'blow out'. anybody that tells you that chicks don't really scream like they do in the movies is full of shit. you can trust me on this one.

so there's this scream like in the movies and then she yells, 'that's not my sister! she doesn't have a face!'

she was dead before the cops had shown up.

we all kind of floated home in a fog.

a couple of days later i got the story: the car had rolled over quite a few times. she was in the back seat on the passenger's side and her face was torn off when her head was smashed through her window. her boyfriend was crushed in the wreck. the driver lived. he was saved because he was pinned in the seat by the steering wheel.

she never became a model.

the strange thing is that i rarely think of her and when i do i can't remember her face.

then again

maybe that's not so strange after all...