I have neglected to mention my ex-wife, because... well, some people get all uptight and judgmental about it when they discover that you once shared a nuptial bed with, y'know, a sinister lying murdering baby-eating slag. But hey, who hasn't at one time or another, right?
Soooooo... about Margaret. I should preface this by pointing out that there comes a time in every young, free-spirited, thrill-seeking otter's life when he is likely to develop a little "thing" for feral cats. They are the Punk Rock Girls of the animal kingdom... just an irresistible ball of smokin' hot mindfuckery, all disheveled fur, scars, alluring eyes, and hormones. Dear god. Margaret and I met when she was scalping a couple of bogus tickets for Sonic Youth (this fact dates me, I'm aware) and after figuring it out a block away, I went back and threatened to kick her mangy ass, at which point she assured me that if I touched her, she'd yank one of my eyes out and spit in the socket.
It was love at first sight.
Ah, the adventures we shared. The trash cans, the train-hopping, the catalog of petty crime... I felt edgy, inspired, alive. My friends tried to warn me, yes... they said she'd give me distemper or rabies, or that I'd end up being scraped off the road by some fat DOT worker in a reflective vest. But to no avail. I was unstoppable. I blame it on the drugs. Okay, and hormones. And booze. But back to the story.
It is probably no surprise that alcohol fueled the decision to get hitched. I only dimly remember it. A few flashes come back to me: Roadside wedding chapel, a tattooed dwarf and a 100-year-old lady dressed up as Sonny and Cher officiated the ceremony, there was a buffet table draped in a plastic Fourth-of-July-themed tablecloth (though it was October) with a few stale Costco snack foods laid out, our witnesses were the waitress and line cook from the attached diner, "Chubby's," whose mascot was a poorly-drawn bald ChiMo-looking clown.
We attempted to settle down after the wedding, clean up our lives... Margaret got this brilliant idea to start a daycare business to make a little extra money, watching the children of stressed out animals who'd produced particularly large litters. That's when the trouble started. I'd notice that, say, seven kids would come in, six would go out. I asked her about it.
"They'll never notice," she told me offhandedly. "You know most animals are so fucking stupid they can't count higher than four. Really I'm doing them a favor! I'm just, y'know... taking a little off the top. Isn't that what all babysitters do?"
"Sure," I said, "With stuff like the liquor cabinet, or the kid's piggy bank, or grabbing a few condoms or a little weed from the parents' bedside table... but, um... as a general rule, it doesn't extend to snacking on the 'extra' kids."
"Hey, quit pointing fingers, mister. I didn't get all up in your shit for swiping those printer ink cartridges from your work."
"Slight difference. Eating baby gophers is not the same as pocketing office supplies."
"So says you, Mister Morality-Police. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go reduce the noise level in the playroom by about 12%."
You can see my dilemma. Bottom line: the whole thing was kinda disgusting, but mostly I didn't want to be legally attached to her if some animal happened to develop enough grasp of cardinality to complain.
Ah, Margaret. You gorgeous, intoxicating, brutal psycho-bitch-from-hell...
Friday, June 10, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
There's Always an Exception
You know that old bit about how anything consumed off the naked back of a hooker is supposed to be automatically more awesome and decadent? Turns out that's not true for penicillin.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
MC Stripes in da house
You speciesist bastards probably think "all otters look alike." I'd be offended, but frankly I'm too busy laughing hysterically -- considering that in the absence of clothing and stupid hairdos, humans are about the most embarrassingly generic meat sacks on the planet. Even the help of so-called "fashion" only separates you into about seven categories: suburban church-goers, old people, children, filthy hippies, reality-tv rabble, urban professionals, and the three flavors of young adults (those who wear vintage clothes and think everything is "overrated," those who shop at the mall and fantasize about school shootings, and those who shop at the mall and routinely commit or endure drunken frat-party date-rapes).
At any rate, the one type of creatures who legitimately "all look alike"? That would be garter snakes. Those poor motherfuckers are truly the Wonder Bread of the animal kingdom. Telling them apart -- aside from stripe color -- is like picking out That One Lady in the Denim Jumper at a scrapbooking convention.
Which is why my buddy Steve currently thinks he's a gangsta rapper.
Steve is a garter snake. He has three sorta-bluish stripes. And for most of his life, that's all one could say about him. That fact chafed him more than it did his garter-snake brethren, to say the least. I think maybe he rather romatically felt "oppressed" or something, and translated that into identifying with, say, N.W.A. Because the next thing I knew, Stevo was constantly slithering around talking about how The Man is keeping the garter snakes down. I didn't have the heart to tell him how ridiculous it was, and that his persecution complex was .0001% Rodney King and 99.9999% "middle-class teenager writing shitty vampire poetry."
He got himself some sunglasses and a big dollar-sign necklace (which necessitates a rather odd locomotion, in that he has to keep the leading two inches of himself off the ground when he moves around), and if that wasn't enough to mark him at 20 yards, there was the perpetual beatboxing to clue you in.
I really want to be supportive of Steve and all that... I try to say with a straight face that he is Dope as Shit, and a Straight-Up G. Something about Steve's earnestness won't let me take him down a notch, unlike when Edwin -- who is a possum -- got into rockabilly to an annoying degree and I told him that if I had to hear one more goddamned Reverend Horton Heat song, I would crotch-punch him.
Ah, well. Steve (or MC Stripes, as he's called these days) indisputably always has the best weed now. I'll let it go.
At any rate, the one type of creatures who legitimately "all look alike"? That would be garter snakes. Those poor motherfuckers are truly the Wonder Bread of the animal kingdom. Telling them apart -- aside from stripe color -- is like picking out That One Lady in the Denim Jumper at a scrapbooking convention.
Which is why my buddy Steve currently thinks he's a gangsta rapper.
Steve is a garter snake. He has three sorta-bluish stripes. And for most of his life, that's all one could say about him. That fact chafed him more than it did his garter-snake brethren, to say the least. I think maybe he rather romatically felt "oppressed" or something, and translated that into identifying with, say, N.W.A. Because the next thing I knew, Stevo was constantly slithering around talking about how The Man is keeping the garter snakes down. I didn't have the heart to tell him how ridiculous it was, and that his persecution complex was .0001% Rodney King and 99.9999% "middle-class teenager writing shitty vampire poetry."
He got himself some sunglasses and a big dollar-sign necklace (which necessitates a rather odd locomotion, in that he has to keep the leading two inches of himself off the ground when he moves around), and if that wasn't enough to mark him at 20 yards, there was the perpetual beatboxing to clue you in.
I really want to be supportive of Steve and all that... I try to say with a straight face that he is Dope as Shit, and a Straight-Up G. Something about Steve's earnestness won't let me take him down a notch, unlike when Edwin -- who is a possum -- got into rockabilly to an annoying degree and I told him that if I had to hear one more goddamned Reverend Horton Heat song, I would crotch-punch him.
Ah, well. Steve (or MC Stripes, as he's called these days) indisputably always has the best weed now. I'll let it go.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Irrational Obsessions
Probably most of you don't realize the degree to which various wildlife species have fixations on completely insane shit. Not always the same shit, mind you -- it comes and goes in fads, like anything else. Here are just a few of the things I'm fucking sick and tired of hearing animals talk about:
Raccoons: Those free-spinning chrome rims. They pass the catalogs around like Penthouse.
Salamanders: The superiority of Betamax tapes. Seriously, guys?
Crows: If I could get through any interaction with a crow these days without having him quote Heidegger, that would be refreshing.
White-tailed Deer: It is not necessarily impressive that you are vegan. Since when did you guys ever eat meat or dairy, for chrissakes?
Gophers: ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING HARPSICHORD.
Raccoons: Those free-spinning chrome rims. They pass the catalogs around like Penthouse.
Salamanders: The superiority of Betamax tapes. Seriously, guys?
Crows: If I could get through any interaction with a crow these days without having him quote Heidegger, that would be refreshing.
White-tailed Deer: It is not necessarily impressive that you are vegan. Since when did you guys ever eat meat or dairy, for chrissakes?
Gophers: ENOUGH WITH THE FUCKING HARPSICHORD.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Gary's Confession
Look, it's complicated, but let me just preface this by listing three things which I am resolved never again to touch: a) female badgers (holy SHIT it's not worth it), b) tequila, and c) my wallet when I'm within a three mile radius of any tattoo joint.
It sort of started when Gary got all butt-hurt about my "30% reproductive success rate" comment, and at the bottom of the fourth shot confessed the reason behind pandas getting the rep for being about as virile as a napkin full of disgorged Toaster Strudel.
"So, y'know how you, *ahem*, get used to... um, a certain thing, and then you find that later, well... this one very specific thing is all that works for you -- let's say, um, thinking about a really hot sea lion holding a lacey wadded-up apron over your face and telling you she's gonna smother you because you've been bad--"
"--Jesus wept, Gary... You are one sick bastard."
He shot me a nervous sidelong glance. "Nah, man, I mean... not that exactly... I'm just--"
"Uhhhh, right. How do you come up with something that fucked up out of the blue?"
He ignored this and went on. "So imagine that instead of it just being you that sort of fixated on something specific, it was your whole species. Then it got reinforced over dozens of generations. Until, well..." He sighed and picked a cashew out of a little plastic bowl of party mix -- I think maybe showing off his thumb-dexterity, as if to make the point that despite being sadly crippled perverts, pandas at least have excellent fine-motor skills. I'll give 'em that. They utterly fucking dominate at Xbox.
Several drinks later, I was really feeling sorry for him, and that was my first mistake. We were stumbling outside for a smoke and I'm all, "Know what, Gar? If your problem is that you have these, like, very precise needs, look no further than the badgers. Those bitches are crazy. They will do anything. Whatever your thing is -- and for the love of God don't tell me -- I know they're game."
Next I remember, I wake up in this squalorous shithole above Ricky's Tattoo Emporium, covered in scratches and bruises, my mouth tastes like the floor of a bus terminal, my wallet's empty, and there is a distinct shaved spot on my belly with a tattoo reading "Felicia Furever." (I'm not sure if this is some idiotic pun or just a misspelling, and I sure as shit have no clue who Felicia is, but I heard water running in the bathroom and got the hell out of there.)
As I was creeping down the stairs and saw all the broken bottles, it started to come back to me. To make a long story short, let's just say it was two grand bail to spring Gary, but he learned an important lesson -- do not resist arrest. And if a female police officer is in the process of reading your rights, do not suggest that she do something else with her mouth, unless you want to get your ass kicked.
It sort of started when Gary got all butt-hurt about my "30% reproductive success rate" comment, and at the bottom of the fourth shot confessed the reason behind pandas getting the rep for being about as virile as a napkin full of disgorged Toaster Strudel.
"So, y'know how you, *ahem*, get used to... um, a certain thing, and then you find that later, well... this one very specific thing is all that works for you -- let's say, um, thinking about a really hot sea lion holding a lacey wadded-up apron over your face and telling you she's gonna smother you because you've been bad--"
"--Jesus wept, Gary... You are one sick bastard."
He shot me a nervous sidelong glance. "Nah, man, I mean... not that exactly... I'm just--"
"Uhhhh, right. How do you come up with something that fucked up out of the blue?"
He ignored this and went on. "So imagine that instead of it just being you that sort of fixated on something specific, it was your whole species. Then it got reinforced over dozens of generations. Until, well..." He sighed and picked a cashew out of a little plastic bowl of party mix -- I think maybe showing off his thumb-dexterity, as if to make the point that despite being sadly crippled perverts, pandas at least have excellent fine-motor skills. I'll give 'em that. They utterly fucking dominate at Xbox.
Several drinks later, I was really feeling sorry for him, and that was my first mistake. We were stumbling outside for a smoke and I'm all, "Know what, Gar? If your problem is that you have these, like, very precise needs, look no further than the badgers. Those bitches are crazy. They will do anything. Whatever your thing is -- and for the love of God don't tell me -- I know they're game."
Next I remember, I wake up in this squalorous shithole above Ricky's Tattoo Emporium, covered in scratches and bruises, my mouth tastes like the floor of a bus terminal, my wallet's empty, and there is a distinct shaved spot on my belly with a tattoo reading "Felicia Furever." (I'm not sure if this is some idiotic pun or just a misspelling, and I sure as shit have no clue who Felicia is, but I heard water running in the bathroom and got the hell out of there.)
As I was creeping down the stairs and saw all the broken bottles, it started to come back to me. To make a long story short, let's just say it was two grand bail to spring Gary, but he learned an important lesson -- do not resist arrest. And if a female police officer is in the process of reading your rights, do not suggest that she do something else with her mouth, unless you want to get your ass kicked.
Friday, May 27, 2011
A Few Words About the Food Chain
Contrary to what you may have been led to believe by cutesy books like Charlotte's Web, Archy and Mehitabel, and A Cricket in Times Square, bugs make shitty friends. They are crappy conversationalists. They can't hold their liquor. And they have the worst taste in music of the entire animal kingdom, no lie. I'm talking catastrophically bad. I peeked at this staghorn beetle's iPod one night at Frankie's Place when he went out to throw up, and I swear, it was all 90s boy-bands and Van Morrison. Fuck me.
The problem with a bug's so-called "personality" is that... well, would you consider it an evolutionary advantage to HAVE a personality when you're basically a plastic clamshell of 7-11 nachos with legs? One whose main focus is scuttling around trying to find a dark corner in which to lay eggs before a skateboarder with the munchies pries you open, ravages your contents, and washes the aftertaste out with a Rockstar? If some little exoskeletal bastard made an effort at self-improvement, he most likely wouldn't get through 15 pages of Swann's Way before having his head gnawed off by a vole. See my point?
At the risk of making a gross overgeneralization, I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say that where your species falls on the Dumbshit Spectrum mostly has to do with your risk of being eaten. Thus making bugs just about the dumbest motherfuckers on earth. But, y'know, at a certain point it's a case of diminishing returns -- which is probably why you humans have enough fucking free time to care about bullshit like throw-pillows, beard trimmers with attachments, and experimental jazz.
I have to acknowledge that the outlier in my hypothetical species-intelligence-model would be bears. Jesus Christ they are dumb. Bears do not understand satire. At all. I heard these two black bears talking once about an article from The Onion, and the one of them goes, "Can you believe this shit about the United Nations? It's outrageous!" and the only reason I didn't point out that it's humor that wouldn't be lost on even the most stoned 19-year-old liberal arts major is that I had a hangover and couldn't run too fast, and didn't feel like being eviscerated. And don't even bother trying to explain McSweeney's lists to them. WASTE OF TIME.
So sure, bears may seem like a food chain/intelligence exception... until you consider the only creatures that will eat bears: Yeah, that's right. Scavenger insects, bacteria, and Ted Nugent. Just sayin'.
The problem with a bug's so-called "personality" is that... well, would you consider it an evolutionary advantage to HAVE a personality when you're basically a plastic clamshell of 7-11 nachos with legs? One whose main focus is scuttling around trying to find a dark corner in which to lay eggs before a skateboarder with the munchies pries you open, ravages your contents, and washes the aftertaste out with a Rockstar? If some little exoskeletal bastard made an effort at self-improvement, he most likely wouldn't get through 15 pages of Swann's Way before having his head gnawed off by a vole. See my point?
At the risk of making a gross overgeneralization, I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say that where your species falls on the Dumbshit Spectrum mostly has to do with your risk of being eaten. Thus making bugs just about the dumbest motherfuckers on earth. But, y'know, at a certain point it's a case of diminishing returns -- which is probably why you humans have enough fucking free time to care about bullshit like throw-pillows, beard trimmers with attachments, and experimental jazz.
I have to acknowledge that the outlier in my hypothetical species-intelligence-model would be bears. Jesus Christ they are dumb. Bears do not understand satire. At all. I heard these two black bears talking once about an article from The Onion, and the one of them goes, "Can you believe this shit about the United Nations? It's outrageous!" and the only reason I didn't point out that it's humor that wouldn't be lost on even the most stoned 19-year-old liberal arts major is that I had a hangover and couldn't run too fast, and didn't feel like being eviscerated. And don't even bother trying to explain McSweeney's lists to them. WASTE OF TIME.
So sure, bears may seem like a food chain/intelligence exception... until you consider the only creatures that will eat bears: Yeah, that's right. Scavenger insects, bacteria, and Ted Nugent. Just sayin'.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
God Bless British Petroleum
Damn. That oil spill made Louisiana go from "party-state" to "fucking epic super-party-state." When BP kicked down the most recent installment of dough, my buddy Harris calls me, and he's like "Get your soggy woodchuck-lovin' ass down here, bro! I am RICH!" I could hear music thumping in the background, and the particular squealing/giggling/splashing that a Man of the World recognizes instantly as a hot-tub full of loose women. "I haven't put pants on in a WEEK!" he shrieked into the cell. "You're a turtle, Harris," I said. "You don't wear pants. And I resent the woodchuck remark. I haven't messed with woodchucks since college." The phone muffled and got dropped; Harris said to someone "Don't bogart, man! Pass that shit..." He got the phone to his face again. "Whatever, dude. Just grab the next plane and follow the trail of bikini bottoms to my place."
Christ's balls, what a couple of weeks. Those Louisiana motherfuckers can party. I woke up at odd hours, sore, dehydrated, greeted by the bleary sight of a revolving cast of tousled bottle-blondes with tramp stamps and food-themed first names. I gave out dozens of fake numbers. (There was one unfortunate scene where some shirtless butter-face chased me around the condo, wielding a barbecue fork after trying unsuccessfully to sext me on a bullshit number. I probably wouldn't have hit my head on the bidet if I hadn't been mesmerized by those wildly swaying funbags...)
The last morning I was there, I was rudely awakened by some hippie broad in a caftan and yoga-pants, trying to put me in a plastic tub to wash me. I scrambled out of the cold bath, shouting "Yo, step off, bitch! If you're gonna massage my junk, you'd best have a stellar rack and lose the handful of Boraxo. For your information, I'm sticky from wrestling in Hershey's syrup with both Olsen twins -- it's not oil."
Helluva vacation. Not sure how I got the small burn-scar on my inner-thigh. It's probably best that I don't remember, because I know at one point I was trying to out-drink a certain former-vice-president, and that guy is one kinky sonofabitch from what I've heard.
Any paternity-related inquiries should be directed to my attorney. Thanks.
Christ's balls, what a couple of weeks. Those Louisiana motherfuckers can party. I woke up at odd hours, sore, dehydrated, greeted by the bleary sight of a revolving cast of tousled bottle-blondes with tramp stamps and food-themed first names. I gave out dozens of fake numbers. (There was one unfortunate scene where some shirtless butter-face chased me around the condo, wielding a barbecue fork after trying unsuccessfully to sext me on a bullshit number. I probably wouldn't have hit my head on the bidet if I hadn't been mesmerized by those wildly swaying funbags...)
The last morning I was there, I was rudely awakened by some hippie broad in a caftan and yoga-pants, trying to put me in a plastic tub to wash me. I scrambled out of the cold bath, shouting "Yo, step off, bitch! If you're gonna massage my junk, you'd best have a stellar rack and lose the handful of Boraxo. For your information, I'm sticky from wrestling in Hershey's syrup with both Olsen twins -- it's not oil."
Helluva vacation. Not sure how I got the small burn-scar on my inner-thigh. It's probably best that I don't remember, because I know at one point I was trying to out-drink a certain former-vice-president, and that guy is one kinky sonofabitch from what I've heard.
Any paternity-related inquiries should be directed to my attorney. Thanks.
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