Falling In Love

I have been thinking a lot about falling in love lately. Maybe it's the weather. Maybe I need hormone injections. Maybe I need to fall in love.

And why not? Guys have emotional needs, too. Unfortunately guys must live by a set of societal rules known as the Macho Playbook, and on page one it states: "At no time may a male show himself vulnerable, physically or otherwise. This includes showing his asshole (mooning is acceptable), and any display that might betray some emotion other then gas, excitement, or arousal."

But not me - I am anti-macho.

So here's a little poem I wrote to deal with my love frustration.

True Love

I imagine,

Had the deer run on,
It may have survived.

Some freeze in the light;
Some leap.

This deer died,
Not from a strike,
But paralysis in the light,

A frozen blink of an eye
At the unknown

Speeding by.

Tasteless Tongue in Cheek

My friend Steve has a Vietnamese girlfriend. If that isn't disgusting enough, her name is Nung, which sounds like a fungus that grows on a fat woman's pussy.

As a concerned friend, I warned Steve about the dangers of having a Vietnamese girlfriend. You can never tell when Nung might suffer a flashback, poop on a sharp stick, and stab Steve in the foot or abdomen, causing gangrene. Or, she might pop up out of a hamper or a pile of leaves and slit his throat. And, of course, there is the ever present danger that she might serve him poisoned alleycat.

And for this, Steve accused me of being a racist.

I, on the other hand, consider myself to be anti-racist. Only when we can make fun of our differences can we say that we are comfortable with them. Much like when black guys call each other "nigger" - oops, I mean NIGGA - I play with stereotypes because they are such jokes to begin with that referencing them becomes its own type of humor. To wit:



(this is from The Chappelle Show - a black guy with a sense of humor)

Every single day I have gay jokes hurled at me. Some are actually funny, some are feeble. My issue isn't whether or not the joke is TASTEFUL...all that matters is whether the joke is FUNNY. In fact, I probably make as many gay jokes about myself as others do. I simply do not take myself so seriously that I might be offended.

Others shouldn't take themselves so seriously, either. Do I think all black men have small trees for dicks? No, unless they've gone through puberty. Do I think all Japanese are intelligent? No, they build paper houses under a volcano. Do I actually believe Nung is right now sharpening a stick and working up an unhealthy shit in order to hurt Steve? Of course not. But it's fun to think that she MIGHT.

The facts show that St. Louis is one of the most racially divided cities in the USA. My high school ranked in the top five for violence in the state. The attitudes around me could either harden me to other races, religions, and orientations, or it could make me more openminded. I have chosen to shrug my shoulders and not take it so seriously.

Of course, it helps that I am a white suburban male. Thank God.

irmão onde mil da arte

I have never lived anywhere else in the world, which I regret. Living in the United States has provided me with many advantages that people in other parts of the world do not enjoy, such as fast food, vast nuclear arsenals, and Lindsay Lohan. These, of course, I would not trade for anything.

On the down side, being an American citizen has left me with an unhealthy disregard for every other living creature beyond our borders. Occassionally some of those living creatures want to blow our stuff up or knock down our buildings, but for the most part, they are more annoying to Americans than anything else. And we treat them as such, sometimes eradicating them like an underpaid exterminator chasing down that last cockroach at the end of his day.

Without the internet, I might never have known about some of the beautiful people and places in other parts of the world. I have little compulsion to travel, and even if I did, I have even less time to pursue it. I have spent the last several years so consumed with hobbies/work/masturbation that I have never really experienced other parts of the world. Canada doesn't count; it's America Lite.

One day in late January 2004, I met a guy online named Paulo. He claimed he was a singer and performer from Portugal, which I sincerely doubted - everybody online seems to be pathetically phony. As I continued my conversations with him, I discovered that Paulo told me the truth.

At first, our conversations were difficult. English is not his first language, and often Paulo would ask me to clarify some of the terms I used with him. Like "goofball." Or "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." Of course, being American, I expected him to cater to me and communicate fluently in English, which he gamely tried to do. Since he can speak three languages, I should have been grateful he tried to deal with my monolinguistic disability at all. :)

In the first year and a half of our friendship we have had the same types of ups and downs that many fleshly friendships endure. I have let him down. He has let me down. We have been hurtful to each other at exactly the wrong time. And yet. at other times, we can make each other smile and laugh without being in the same COUNTRY, let alone the same room.

Through Paulo, I have learned a lot about Portugal, and the world as well. Unlike me, Paulo has traveled around Europe, Asia, Canada, and South America. His mother and stepfather work for the United Nations, which gives him a larger view of the world than I might ever know.

This breadth of experience shows in Paulo's personality. Unlike many Americans, especially in the Midwest, Paulo accepts so many more idiosynchracies in other cultures. He opens himself to opportunites with other people, and in fact cherishes those differences. Americans rarely do this, even though they declare loudly that they do. I know I don't, nor do those around me. But Paulo does.

Most of all, Paulo is a person with a huge, warm heart. The Portugese in him is hot-blooded, temperamental, and, as he says, "passionate." But life and experience has tempered him into a man who is a steady and loyal friend. Of course, being a 23 year old male model and singer has made him a little vain (LOL), but with so many wonderful experiences ahead, the possibilites in him are endless and exciting.

Even if I stay here the rest of my life, marooned in the center of an egocentric nation, I know I will always have a brother in Paulo somewhere in the world. He is the window I never knew I needed to look through until I did.

I will forever be grateful for the wider and more beautiful view.

Eu te amo meu irmão.

Closer to Murder

Once, a long time ago, I pitched baseball. Not well, mind you, but I did manage to throw a baseball in the area of home plate, or at least directly at the guy standing next to it. In fact, I didn't have bad linescores in my pitching performances as long as you ignore all the balks (I do). The reason for this usually involved the fact that the hitters stood there petrified for their health and welfare. It's difficult to swing a bat correctly when you dive away from home plate while covering your head, a stream of urine trailing you in the air.

You never see such behavior in the opposing batters of any close ninth inning game with the St. Louis Cardinals. Instead, hitters slobber greedily, their eyes a-twinkle and teeth grinding eagerly. They grip their bat as if it was Excalibur and they were Arthurian gods. They paw the ground with their cleats like angry bulls. You would be hard pressed to find a more eager bunch of people outside of a buffet line at four in the afternoon.

On the mound, mysteriously, stands Jason Isringhausen. He stares into Yadier Molina's sweaty, Latino crotch as if it were a Magic 8Ball about to give an answer to life's most important questions. Questions like... what might happen if I throw this pitch directly over the plate? Would that pitch be more hittable if I hit three people, gave up a walk and a wild pitch, and then stalked around the mound as if it mattered at all?

Only Jason Isringhausen and Tony LaRussa are asking questions like this. EVERYONE ELSE on the field, in the stands, watching on television, listening on radio, and living or dead, know the answer. Such circumstances ALWAYS lead to disaster. And so it did last night for the Cardinals. AGAIN.

I cannot stomach the recap of this gut-punch to any Cardinal baseball fan. Needless to say that Isringhausen couldn't have offered a better pitch to hit if he knelt on the plate and balanced the baseball on his upturned lips. I wish this would actually happen, in the event that a hitter might miss and permanently retire Isringhausen's number. However, hitters never miss with Izzy.

Cardinal Nation spent the evening screeching into their televisions and radios, calling their friends and drinking enormous amounts of beer/Pepto-Bismol. Every fan who has spent over 100 dollars at that shiny new ballpark this year (i.e. anyone who attended a game) wants to understand why this disturbing event continues to occur every ninth inning.

The Dizzy Disaster continues because, even more than Yadier Molina (batting .217) and So Fucking Taguchi (36 year old back up player batting .270), LaRussa loves Isringhausen. And in LaRussa's case, love is not blind, it is acutely retarded and suffering from a stroke-induced coma.

Let's face it: Isringhausen could trot in from the bullpen carrying a kitten, stab the kitten in the neck on the mound, smear its blood all over his face, and then open fire on the crowd in the stands, and LaRussa would classify it as a team failure with a few "missed opportunities." LaRussa wouldn't accept anything less than Isringhausen on the mound in a one-run ballgame even if Jesus Christ landed on the Mount of Busch and offered to pitch the ninth. LaRussa would only reconsider putting Isringhausen into the game if, when he pulled his dick out of Isringhausen's ass, the shit smear on his shaft actually said, "Izzy cannot pitch today." Of course, in the minute Tony spent staring at the message with that emotionless smirk, Izzy would have turned around and sucked it clean, ass-to-mouth style.

So we continue to have Isringhausen on the mound. This will continue as long as LaRussa manages the Cardinals. Fortunately LaRussa is much older than Isringhausen, sparing us the sight of a sixty-seven year old Isringhausen gamely throwing pitches into the dirt from his walker.

If someone would just shoot the jug-eared fucker on the mound, then we could all pitch in and stuff him so LaRussa can satisfy his Izzy fixation in the privacy of his own home, and not on a national stage where it embarrasses every conscious baseball fan and heterosexual male.

Then I could offer my services in his stead. I could blow the baseball out of my ass and get comparable results. And I guarantee, those hitters will be a bit more nervous then.

Vonneguts and Glory

Kurt Vonnegut recently said this to Rolling Stone magazine, the whorish tabloid of commercial radio:

"I'm Jeremiah, and I'm not talking about God being mad at us," novelist Kurt Vonnegut says with a straight face, gazing out the parlor windows of his Manhattan brownstone. "I'm talking about us killing the planet as a life-support system with gasoline. What's going to happen is, very soon, we're going to run out of petroleum, and everything depends on petroleum. And there go the school buses. There go the fire engines. The food trucks will come to a halt. This is the end of the world. We've become far too dependent on hydrocarbons, and it's going to suddenly dry up. You talk about the gluttonous Roaring Twenties. That was nothing. We're crazy, going crazy, about petroleum. It's a drug like crack cocaine. Of course, the lunatic fringe of Christianity is welcoming the end of the world as the rapture. So I'm Jeremiah. It's going to have to stop. I'm sorry." -Kurt Vonnegut 2006

Of course, Vonnegut is correct: the human race faces the last few moments of possible change in our world, before the window of opportunity closes and the damage inflicted on the Earth ruins it irreparably. Most scientists agree that the rising temperatures, melting glaciers, and disturbed and increasingly violent weather patterns spring from the destruction of the environment.

And remember, a butterfly's wings flapping in St. Louis, Missouri creates tsunamis in Asia. So everyone is to blame for this.

Which brings me to Vonnegut himself. He has amassed great wealth due to his status as one of the great thinkers/writers of the 20th century. Did he share it? Vonnegut has smoked Pall Mall cigarettes since he was a teenager, adding up to seventy years of smoking. Where are all of those butts, and what about the effect of his smoke on others or the environment? Let's not even think about the reams of rainforests used to publish his books and articles over the years. And what about the SIX children Vonnegut brought into a world increasingly faced with population and starvation problems? Did this cross his mind when he blew a wad in his wife?

I have no problem with a man of Vonnegut's intelligence stating ominous warnings of impending doom on future generations. I wish the psychotic monkey in the White House could even UNDERSTAND some of what Vonnegut is preaching here.

But I DO have a problem with a person sounding a warning of a destruction that THEY HELPED CREATE. Don't wag your finger at others, shaming them for their inaction while you yourself used and/or destroyed more than your fair share of resources.

If I want an author to guide my thinking on such a matter, let it be Thoreau, not Vonnegut.

"A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone." - Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau didn't just bitch about the consumption of the Earth's resources by thoughtless peoples and their selfish governments. He lived a life of simplicity in response to that, treading softly and harmoniously with the Earth around him. He led by EXAMPLE, not just words. Vonnegut should think about that as he coughs and wheezes his way out of this world, leaving behind his own dirty fingerprints.

As for me, I am going outside to kill some of those motherfucking butterflies.

Nothing Inspires

SuttSteve is a 40 year old asexual virgin that lives with his mother in a trailer in Georgia.

Stop. Digest that one.

He never leaves the trailer; in fact, he rarely ever leaves his tiny bedroom inside the trailer.

Digest that one, too.

He hasn't had a job in TEN YEARS. He last worked at WALMART. As a GREETER.

Better get a stiff drink while you digest THAT.

Yet, somehow, Steve manages to crawl to his computer, despite the crushing weight of hoplessness and despair, to record a video blog every single day to nobody in particular.




It's inspirational.

The Fisherman and Paris Hilton - A New Fairytale

Here is a short story I wrote for Paris Hilton. Well, perhaps not FOR Paris Hilton, but rather for her detractors. I cannot be the only one LOL...

A "hot" new take on an old classic....



The Fisherman and Paris Hilton


There once was a fisherman named Hilton who lived with his daughter Paris in a little wood shack by the sea. And every day, the fisherman would brave the roiling waves to fetch his hungry daughter a morsel to eat as she absentmindedly gazed out the window and did nothing at all.
One day, the fisherman felt a great tug on his line, a yank so forceful it nearly snapped his simple rod in two. For hours the fisherman fought with the underwater beast, until the sun went down and the sky turned cold and grey. Then, when all hope seemed lost and the fisherman was ready to cast his rod into the sea, he reeled in one last time and pulled out a fat, healthy flounder. The fisherman gazed wondrously at his prize, the sweat of his struggle glistening over his wide smile. Just then, the flounder spoke!

“Dear fisherman,” said the flounder, in a rich, clear voice, “you have made a delightful nemesis, but I pray that you let me live. For you see, I am not really a flounder, but an enchanted prince. Please return me to the sea, that I may not die.” The fisherman, unfazed by the talking fish (there were many known in those parts then), smiled even wider. “Why would I kill a talking fish? Surely you would be better on display than in my belly. There is no need for more words about it. It would be foolish to kill a magical fish!”

So the fisherman released the flounder back into the sea. Though slightly wounded, the flounder turned and looked at the fisherman, its head bobbing just above the water. “Thank you, my friend,” he said, and disappeared below the surface.

When the fisherman returned to his shack by the sea, he found his daughter, Paris, sitting in a stylized way near a window, stacks of Cosmopolitan magazines scattered across the filthy floor around her. When she noticed her father walking through the door empty handed, she began to whine. "My darling daughter, you shall never guess!” said the fisherman excitedly, “I struggled all day and nearly into night with an enchanted flounder! I couldn’t bear to kill such a magnificent thing, so I let him go of my own free will!”

But Paris just stared back vacantly. “What the (expletive), Dad! You caught a (expletive) magic fish and you didn’t get anything from it for me? What kind of (expletive) Dad are you? I should call Child Services and have you arrested!” she screeched at the top of her lungs.

The fisherman felt awful. His head hung down and his eyes dropped as Paris moaned and complained. Finally, after her tirade subsided, the fisherman asked her what he should do.

“Go back out to the (expletive) ocean and tell the (expletive) fish to give me a better house to live in,” Paris screamed. “I deserve better than this little (expletive) hut.”

After begging her to reconsider, the fisherman finally decided to follow her demands and returned to the sea. He called out to the flounder over the bobbing waves, and suddenly the flounder splashed to the surface.
The fisherman began nervously. “My friend, I have a daughter named Paris. And while she is a temperamental and selfish girl, she is all I have in this world. She implored me to ask you if you could grant us one wish.”
“What is it your daughter requires?” asked the flounder. The fisherman squinted, uneasy at the request. “We have a hut to live in, but she would like a nice house instead.”
Without hesitation, the flounder said, “It would be my pleasure. She already has it.”
The fisherman returned to his home by the sea, but instead of a dirty little hut, he found a beautiful house. Inside, there were magnificent furnishings of oak and silver and plush fabrics. But Paris sat by the window, an empty look in her eyes.
“See my dear daughter? The flounder has given you what you desired most. Now be happy and content.”
But Paris glared back drunkenly. “(Expletive) you, Dad. You think this house can make me happy? How can I be happy all alone here while you’re out all day? HUH? I want people to love me, totally be absorbed in everything I do. Only then can I be happy!”
The fisherman’s heart grew afraid. Paris leveled a nasty look at her father. “Go back to the sea,” she commanded, “and tell that (expletive) fish to make me famous!”

So the fisherman went back to the sea, and there he called once again for the flounder. Faithfully, the flounder returned to the fisherman.
“My dear friend,” said the fisherman cautiously,” I know this may seem odd. The house you gave us was exquisite indeed, but my daughter is not yet satisfied.”
The flounder considered. “What more does she yet need?” he asked.
“She wants to be famous, and have all the adoration and wealth and attention it brings,” replied the fisherman tentatively.
“Does she have any talents at all from which this fame might spring?” asked the flounder reasonably.
“None. None at all,” replied the fisherman.
“Alright, go back to your home. All of her desires are hers, and go in peace,” said the flounder.

The fisherman returned home, but instead of a hut and instead of a house, there stood a great mansion, with a winding pathway leading through a sculptured garden. In a large patio area, a rave was going on, with all the lights flashing and music thumping and bodies writhing. The fisherman went inside, only to find even more people roaming through the large rooms of the house. Photographers snapped pictures of people surrounding large glass tables, each doing a longer line of cocaine than the last. The fisherman went up the wide, curving staircase to the bedrooms. There was a group of men standing at the doorway to the bedroom. The fisherman forced his way inside, only to find his precious Paris naked in bed with three guys, while video cameras taped them from every angle. Liquor bottles littered the floor, and cocaine piled like snow on the nightstand.
“That’s hot! That’s hot!” Paris cried endlessly during her orgy, until her eyes met those of her father. She saw the tears welling up in them, and his heart nearly made a sound as it cracked in two.
“Are you happy now, Paris? Are you happy now?” The fisherman asked sadly, and ran from the room. Paris dismounted her momentary paramours and chased after him.
“Hey wait!” Paris screamed. The fisherman turned around slowly, his eyes hollow and dejected. He could barely look at his naked daughter, who stood there sourly and unashamedly with her hands on her hips.
“Yes, daughter?” The fisherman choked through the tears.
“Tell that (expletive) flounder that he’s doing a great job so far. But I was thinking, I think, that it would be hot to be, like, the president,“ Paris blurted. “Yeah, the first female President – there hasn’t been one yet, right? – or maybe God. They’re always saying God is a dude. Well (expletive) that! I’ll be the first female God!” She cackled idiotically.
The fisherman glared back at the monster he created. “Paris, I will not do that. I cannot let you destroy yourself this way. I love you too much.”
“Whatever. If you (expletive) loved me, you’d do it! So go do it!” Paris yelled. All of the people around them took pictures of the incident, and many of them cheered for her as she berated her father in front of them.
“No, Paris,” the fisherman replied steadily,” I will not.” Paris flew into a rage and pushed her father, and he tumbled backwards down the long, winding staircase and landed on the marble entryway, dead.
Paris sighed heavily. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.”

Paris went down to the seashore in the nude, to the humble boat her father used. There she posed for photographers before setting off across the choppy waters. Once a distance from the shore, she began to call out to the flounder. “Hey (expletive) head! Show your nasty (expletive) face! I gotta talk to you!” Paris screamed.
Suddenly, with a splash, the flounder broke the surface of the water.
“What might I do for you, daughter of my friend?” asked the flounder calmly.
Paris wasted no time.” Look everything’s cool so far, but since my dad spared your life, I think you really owe him more than that. I mean, come on.”
The flounder considered. “What is it now?”
“Well I was thinking,” she began,” it might be hot if I was, like, God. I mean, the world could use a woman’s touch anyway, ya know?”
“Why did your father not come ask me himself?” the flounder asked.
“He wouldn’t do it because he’s a dumb (expletive). Besides, he fell down the stairs and died. Um, like, thanks a lot, Dad!” Paris replied.
The flounder waited a moment. The quiet lapping of water against the boat filled the silence between them.
“Well? What the (expletive)? Are you going to give it to me or what?” Paris shrilly shrieked.
“You want to be God, yet you have ruined your own life with your selfishness and stupidity. There is only one way you can be like God. Do you want it?” the flounder asked.
“(Expletive) yeah!” screamed Paris excitedly. With that, a huge wave crashed against the little boat, and Paris flipped from its safety and into the cold, churning sea. Lacking even basic skills like swimming, Paris was easily overtaken by the green waters and quickly drowned.

And the tabloids ran her last pictures in mourning.

The End