The Gospel According to Velveeta

Recently, the spiritual world and religious communities have been turned on their ear with the announcement that a decade old half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich that happens to bear an amazingly striking resemblance to the Virgin Mary in it's crust was being made available to purchase on Ebay. Even more dumbfounding is the fact that this same grilled cheese sandwich has been sold for a mere $28,000 and is now currently being taken on tour throughout the southern states. Isn't that just fucking spectacular?

In fact, millions of viewers that became fascinated with this most unique Ebay auction have been turning out in droves to witness for themselves this holy divination in the crust of a grilled cheese sandwich. If ever there was deserved a definitive WTF from yours truely; this would be fucking it!

What an interesting twist of fate this presents for those faithful tour goers who are usually most commonly dependant on selling the old standard $2.00 grilled cheeses in the parking lot in order to finance the next leg of the journey in order to make it to the next show(ing). Now instead of making and selling their grilled cheese fares, they are following one across the country!

I bet that this common parking lot marketing strategy has undergone a complete and utter overhaul when it comes to this particular tour. I mean, a commonplace $2.00 lot grilled cheese must be a real letdown after you’ve just paid out considerably more to see one with the likeness of the Virgin Mother on it, wouldn’t you think? How big a let down do you suppose that would be to be sold one without? Perhaps maybe, these touring religious fanatics have had to adopt different strategies to selling popcorn balls or fried baloney sandwiches instead.

This grilled-cheese tour juggernaught is currently being championed, state-to-state, by the current occupier, a Miami Herald journalist, Jim Defede. The Virgin Mary sandwich is now traveling First Class – as the Blessed Virgin should – in a custom-made carrying case and riding in her very own virgin white Cadillac.

Well, isn’t that just fucking special? A 10-year-old* grilled cheese sandwich is currently enjoying a better quality of life than even I am! Hey, thanks a lot God...hold the cruel irony on that last order, okay? Am I ever going to get the opportunity to go on a cross-coutry roadtrip in my honor...not fucking likely is it? This scheduled tour will take the blessed sandwich through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and finally into Nevada. Shit, and here I can hardly afford to leave my own rinky-dink hometown of St. Catharines but a few times a year on quick weekend getaways to exciting Rochester, NY!

As well, this whole thing has me deeply contemplating how exactly I feel about my modest place here on God’s great Earth when a half-eaten cheese sandwich has seemingly more clout and spiritual worth than my own meager existence? Shit, hopefully I too will be equally rewarded by having a Virgin Mary likeness appear on perhaps a used sheet of toilet paper of mine, or maybe on a slice of peanut butter toast or something? Suddenly, my life seems very small and insignificant compared to that of one simple slice of processed cheese haphazardly slapped between two ordinary slices of grilled bleached bread.

HOW ABOUT SHOWING ME A SIGN, HUH? Am I not worthy afterall? Hey, thanks a lot there Jehovah! Like I wasn’t suffering from enough insecurities as it is!

Already, others have taken this same cue and a whole new plethora of food items are immerging with the same similar likenesses to that of the Virgin Mary…from frozen Cod cakes to Ruffles chips.

The craze has begun!

* Apparently, the holy spirit that has embodied this sandwich has been able to also stave off mould and disintegration over the past decade. Who said that the Holy Spirit wouldn't preserve you?

The "Man Gene"

I was dumbstruck today when my father, MY FATHER, attempted in all seriousness to try and convince me to go see the newly released movie “Shall We Dance” starring Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, and Susan Sarandon.

Pardon? At the time, I didn’t know who or what it was sitting opposite me in the car in the passengers seat this afternoon, but I was confident that it was sure as fuck NOT my old man! No fucking way! Had the earth been suddenly over run by alien pods from another planet today, and I have just managed to continue slipping unawares through the dragnet or something?

Surely that repugnant creature seated across from me scratching his balls through his denims and flicking cigarette ash out the car door window was not the same tree from whence my fruit hath dropped?

My REAL father wouldn’t have allowed himself to be dragged, even by wild horses, to the screening (public, private, or otherwise) of ANY Jennifer Lopez movie…PERIOD…much less a schmaltzy “feel good” romance chick flick involving ballroom dancing!

This is the same man who has seen every single James Bond movie at least a zillion times, and honestly believes that Jean Claude Van Damme is underrated and under appreciated as an actor worthy of serious Oscar consideration. So exactly how he equates Richard Gere box-stepping with J-Lo as a credible cinematic work on the same level as he would any action packed knock-down-drag-out Kickfest cookie-cutter movie complete with massive explosions, fast cars, judo chops, and scantily clad women…sure beats the fuck out of me!

Maybe that alien pod beside me in my fathers form has also taken up needle-point, joined Oprah’s Book-of-the-Month Club, and has begun collecting the most recent volumes of Richard Simmons ‘Sweatin’ to the Oldies’ exercise videos through mail order. I think I can recognize the symptoms; the writing is on the wall. First, it’s J-Lo shimmying in high-heeled dancing shoes; next it’s Barbara Streisand Cryfests on Sunday afternoons into a steaming cup of Chi tea.

Maybe the time has finally come I suspect to take ’ol Pops for a long walk in the woods with a rifle…and one of us isn't going to come home again.

Either way…today there was a massive and sudden shifting of testosterone in my family’s male line *. Maybe “manliness” and “good taste” simply skipped a generation and bypassed my father altogether and was instead passed indirectly on to me in order to hold the torch high for all low-brow Steven Segal and Sylvester Stallone blockbusters everywhere…then, now, and in the future! To automatically rail against anything below an AA-14 rating or that does not include either muppets, machetes, gunfights, Charleton Heston, or bikinied women with daggers strapped to their thighs somewhere in their 90 minute plotlines.

It’s just not civilized cinema otherwise.

One day, when men ** rule the cultural world once again, there will be a mandated "Nipple Quota" enforced by the International Film Board. A globally recognized law that ensures that every movie created will have either an exposed nipple, an explosion, or a midget in costume every 15 motherfuckin' minutes! Then, truely there will be movies with "something for everyone"...even the MAN of the house!

But for the time being, as of today, I inherited the "Man Gene" to keep alive in our family and pass on to future gerations of Nash males. Clearly, my father wasn't entirely up to the task.

Oh, the shame of it all...

* And, it may be pointed out, considering the massive freakish genetics involved in creating my immense schlong, we’re talking about a shifting of testosterone that would otherwise capsize an Aircraft Carrier like it was a child’s toy floating in a plastic Mr. Turtle pool.

** And I mean real fuckin' MEN...no girly men named Jai, or claiming to be a "Culture Vulture" will be accepted. You can keep your Queer Eyes for Scotland Yard. (Get it..."Queer Eyes" ~ "Quiries"?)

Night of the Living Pilgrims

You know, upon spending the afternoon basking in my free bonus holiday from work today thanks to my American based corporation, I was able to reflect today on the nature of their beloved Thanksgiving rituals and traditions. I still have no fucking clue what a "Turduckin" is exactly, but some mysteries like the Mexican El Chupacabra, are just destined to forever remain a mystery

What I instantly realized is that the Pilgrims, the country's founding fathers who stepped off the decks of their ships at Plymouth Rock in 1620, were already wearing the everpopular all-black look with metal buckels and rebelling against popular vital secular culture long before the Goths ever made it cool in the eighties. How fortuitous into world fashion was that?

Back in these early colonial days, Pilgrims were already hip to how cool the whole "dark and mysterious" look was. Not ones to be caught skipping around the maypole with the other Puritan Separtists, the Pilgrims were more prone to hang out by themselves on street corners writing depressing farm poetry or in trendy coffee shops listening to the new Einstuerzende Neubauten albums.

They lived in a time which accepted fairies and witches, herbal remedies and astrological virtues, seasonal festivals and folklore as real parts of their lives. They looked at the world they lived in not as we do today, through the eyes of Einstein and Freud, but through the folklore of the countryside and academic traditions that stretched back to antiquity. They were both the thorough Protestants of the recent Reformation and the inheritors of the Medieval world picture that infused the imaginations of Shakespeare and Jonson.

In a world like that, how could one not end up with a pale complexion, embracing sexual androgyny and wearing a black trench coat?

Celebrity Piledriver

In my Robatusin-induced dementia this afternoon, I had a premonition while napping on the couch that just may be the new cutting edge of future Reality Television programming ~ ‘Celebrity Piledriver’.

Imagine a new TV series where each week, a new contestant is allowed the opportunity to run amok on the streets of Hollywood and simply piledriver any celebrity they find into the cold, unforgiving ground. Who wouldn’t want to participate in a game show like this, right? Each successful concussion timely delivered to an unsuspecting media celebrity will be rewarded with a $100 cash prize (like mounting Carrot Top’s cranium into a Beverley Hills crosswalk wouldn’t be reward enough?). It’d be beautiful!

Imagine the broadcasting phenomenon that would ensue. It would make ‘Cheaters’ seem like ‘Shakespeare in the Park’. During the course of any single episode, the lucky contestant could be given the opportunity to piledrive anyone from Tori Spelling to Bea Arthur! The possibilities would be endless on any given night: Michael Jackson, Alec Baldwin, Brittany Spears, Mary Kate or Ashley Olsen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gary Coleman, Shannen Doherty, Paris Hilton, George Clooney, Charlie Sheen, David Hasselhoff, Rene Zellwigger, or Corey Feldman. I’m getting a hard on just thinking about piledriving Pamela Anderson into the ground and leaving her unconscious twitching corpse lying prone outside of Mann’s Chinese Theater. “That's for leaving Baywatch! There’s your “V.I.P.”, bitch! VERY IMPORTANT PILEDRIVER!”

Following ‘Celebrity Piledriver’, there could be a special bonus airing of ‘Celebrity Trauma Room’, as we see these same unfortunate celebrity victims being brought in afterwards and placed in traction as a result of having their poor celebrity heads planted into the sidewalk on Rodeo Drive.

How Much for a Shockjob?

Dr. Stuart Meloy, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in Winston-Salem, has apparently developed a new device that is capable of bringing intense pleasure to his female patients. Initially he was attempting to alleviate and treat chronic pain in his patients...or so he "says".

Meloy’s new “Orgasmatron” * machine involves putting an electrode into the spine of the female patient with chronic back pain, but he soon later discovered that besides simply decreasing chronic pain in his patient, it had a rather delightful and bonus side effect in that it apparently also induced one huge flooding motherfucker of an orgasm! As he proudly stated while being interviewed on ABC News ‘Good Morning America’, when the power was turned on ** his patient let out a satisfying moan and began hyperventilating...like Tom Jones himself was gyrating his hips only just inches out of her reach.

This special device involves using an actual spinal cord stimulator that implants electrodes into the back of the patient, at the bottom of the spinal cord. When the electrodes are stimulated with a remote control, the brain interprets the signal as an orgasm...and, voila! It's your birthday! This “Orgasmatron Device” is about the size of a pacemaker can be turned on and off with a handheld remote control.

Well that sure sounds fucking romantic, doesn’t it? Christ, I have enough of a self-confidence issue without having to compete with one of these fucking devices. They sound like some kind of menacing Doomsday Device that has been transported around the world in a stainless steel briefcase handcuffed to the wrist of somebody wearing fashionable dark sunglasses!

Soon, our wives and girlfriends will instead be opting to plug into this machine in order to get their jollies in lieu of the tiny limp dick waiting for her on the other side of the marital bed! That’s just fucking terrific!

It’s coming soon fella’s; this is just the beginning! Soon, we’ll be sleeping with a less fit and crankier '7 of 9'...or even worse: Robobitch! Our foreplay will be reduced to: “Honey, can you plug in my spinal electrodes please?” How emasculating. How manly will we feel if our significant others require 120 volts simply to get off? Hard to be the man when your partner prefers fucking a pair of jumper cables than they are in riding your sorry ass beef bayonet another time, isn’t it? You damn fucking skippy, it is!

That’s not a world that any man should be forced to live in! Not unless of course, they were also to design a male composite of the “Orgasmatron” ***. We could hook similar electrodes into our nuts or something so that we too could experience the same thrill of mindblowing orgasms (in which case, we would in all likelyhood loose all our vested interest in female’s altogether and spend our days fondling the remote control like it was turning back time). We'd remain on the couch 24-7 with our eyes rolled back into our heads and a plastic bucket at our feet in order to catch the massive quantities of spent orgasms we've repetetively given ourselves.

So yeah, thanks a-fucking-lot, Dr. Meloy, for this inspiring apocalyptic sexual landscape and for making the lives of millions men with inadequacies issues, like myself, even MORE vulnerable to Love’s cruel charms…you prick.

* Wait, wasn’t that some old Transformer robot that also converted into a swamp buggy or something?

** No pun intended.

*** I would like to forth the suggestion of naming it the “Ejaculator”. Or was that a Heman cartoon character?

"And Behind Door Number One..."

The most awkward and terrifying moment in a bachelor’s life is the split second just before he opens the door to his apartment after returning home with an invited female companion.

In the back of his mind, he is already envisioning mass destruction and chaos on a global scale. In that moment it takes to find his key and actually open the door, he is no doubt already panic stricken trying to remember whether he left his dirty underwear in the hallway, or whether there are still wet bath towels crumpled in a ball on the floor, or maybe cat puke sitting in neat little dung piles on the plush carpet, or how about a sticky Hustler magazine left sprawled open on the couch next to some wadded, crunchy tissues?

Trust me; nothing brings the mood of your evenings date skyrocketing down faster than the a space shuttle reentering the earth’s atmosphere, than routing out and scrubbing clean two chipped juice glasses from within a mountain of greasy dishes left fermenting in the kitchen sink, in order to pour your date a night cap of vintage Bordeaux. Yeah, there’s a real “deal sealer” if ever I saw one! Likewise, I sure wouldn’t like your chances of coaxing any sympathy hummers from your date when there’s an unflushed turd still steeping in the toilet bowl. Can you say: “TAXI!”

I think it would be prudent to design a special bachelor’s spy hole for the outside of his apartment door so that when he returns home with his latest prospective partner he can just quickly look inside for an advance sneak peek into his apartment to ascertain the damage and be prepared to launch the necessary measures to correct the discovered faux pas upon entry and thereby avoiding unnecessary embarrassments.

Does a submarine captain ever surface without first taking a peak above the surface with his periscope? NO! And neither should the unfortunate bachelor! Imagine the awkward situations that could be avoided if he could simply have seen the ‘Lay of the Livingroom’, or the ‘State of Squalor’ as it would be, before committing himself to the annals of Dating Disasters.

"Cap'n! We have a skidmarked bogie off our starboard bow!"

"BLAST! Deploy the decoys, all engines to maximum power...rutter to full port!"

"Ay ay, Cap'n!"

"And God said unto his chosen people: TURN DOWN THAT INFERNAL RACKET!"

Lately I have been deeper contemplating the role of spirituality in my life*, and this is how I have come to find myself sitting in the back pew of St. Paul Street United Church this morning, pen in hand, laying witness to one of these new fangled “Alternative” worship services that I have been hearing about from my exasperated grandmother**.

This is the first time that I have even stepped foot in a church, let alone for an actual service, in almost 20 fucking years ***...and I still haven’t spontaneously combusted into flames or broken out into foreign tongues, so all must be forgiven between me and the Big Guy. What can I say? This seemed as good an opportuntiy as any to gobble up all the leftover hallucinogens that I recovered from behind the living room couch cushions, and head on downtown to watch the religious weirdo’s carry on like hobo’s dancing in the street for spare change: "Dance you hobo's, DANCE!"

What a change since those long ago days when I would read forbidden ‘Low Rider’ magazines in the darkened church cloisters during Communion. Now, instead of stained glass reenactments of crucifixion’s and other acts of rather unholy barbarism, there are bright paintings of rainbows, stereo speakers fixed to the ceilings and archways, huge Jumbotron-type viewing screens (Godvision?) behind the alter, a full Lighting and Camera crew complete with bored soundman leering over a lit up soundboard, and a full band gigging away in the choir pit making facial expressions fit for Porno Queens as they play…it’s like I've been warped into back into an 80’s MTV music video…either that, or its ‘Karaoke Night’ at the City Mission. All that is missing right now is Phil Collins in a headset drumming out solos to “Morning Has Broken’ and a Sideshow Diving Pony to complete the whole surreal atmosphere.

It is playing out before my eyes like a nightmarish Elton John funeral!

I’ve only been here 3 minutes, barely enough time to take off my jacket and let my bloodshot eyes adjust to the candlelight, and I am already being ‘Love Bombed’ back into the Stone Age by these eager "Alternative" church-goers. Sure they just all want to welcome me with hugs now because I’m new…but soon this same brotherly acceptance will be dependant by my willingness to participate in the greater church community by salting the communal wafers or stitching together Virgin Mary Beany Babies or something. Well, when it comes to bullshit...I have the nose of a Tuscan Truffle Hog!

Already I am suspicious about being enthusiastically greeted and tended to by these strange overzealous church zombies…all inviting me to stay afterwards for ‘Cheese & Broccoli’ soup. SOUP? No fucking thanks, Moses! I’m not about to eat or drink anything from these religious wackjobs that hasn’t first been tested on about a dozen strapped down and helpless bunny rabbits. I am aware what happened at Jonestown and I’m not about to accept any funky soup, or purple Koolaid for that matter either!

I also know that until I get a little bit more settled in my new surroundings, the next beaming moron who tries to hug me is likely going to end up having a beat down laid on them that would make 'The Passion of the Christ" seem like a sorority tickle fight!

If I’m not careful, my poor drug-addled mind may just allow itself to be successfully coerced and brainwashed, and before you know it I’m bald, dressed in a white sari, and singing songs about the ripples of water in a pond in some airport lobby somewhere. At the very least, I’d probably end up back in Texas wearing a brightly colored choir gown and singing about the Sun.

Luckily, as I am writing this in my journal, I am not spending too much time focused on those huge video screens flashing random majestic images of budding flowers, baskets of puppies, and giggling babies. My guess is that they also contain subliminal messages to snort pure chlorofluorocarbons and kill all penguins worldwide…or something just as disconcerting. It’d be like I was 18 again and loaded on LSD in the front row of a Skinny Puppy concert staring at vivisection videos set to the sound of a cuisinart filled with ball bearings and trying to get lucky with a black-clad Goth chick named ‘Scabie’.

Besides possible subliminal hypnosis, these same video screens play a very important part in the “alternative” worship service…they display easy-to-follow flow charts for the congregation of simpletons to help accentuate the positive points of the delivered sermon ****. It’s like ‘Closed Captioning for the Smart Impaired’. I could be completely deaf and stupid and still understand that today’s sermon had something to do with “the head, the heart, and the hand” based on the simple head, heart, and hand motifs on the overhead screen behind the minister’s lectern. I would probably have no idea where he was going with his sermon exactly, but I can tell you that I would be equally willing to show him the awesome power of the back of my hand if he continued to insult my intelligence.

Uh-oh, the children are being sent away! It seems that the inevitable culling of the weak and sick from the rest of the herd has begun and the kids have been led away to some Soylent Green processing plant in the basement, probably to become the chief ingredient in next Sunday’s ‘Ham & Lentil’ soup.

Why does this “alternative” worship thing disturb me so much? I guess it’s because I’m accustomed to the old fashioned belief that church shouldn’t be so fucking happy in the first fucking place! Who fucking goes to church to feel happy? It’s CHURCH for fuck sakes! There are no rainbows and baskets of puppies in church…only bloodied statues and instruments of primitive torture. You go to church to feel shame and as penitence for your past week of sins. God doesn’t want you singing and dancing, hugging strangers, and handing out cupcakes…he wants you shitting in your Sunday trousers and groveling for mercy, motherfucker! Each time these rubes are consumed by the Holy Spirit, they’re not really dancing in uncontrollable bouts of happy ecstacy…that’s God kicking the bejesus out of them from the inside! Get it? “You want to be saved? Then first you have to pay the piper, bitch!”

God is not a happy dude. Did you ever see him smiling in any of those Bible pictures? Of course not! If you were ever to greet God outside his Pearly Gates with a warm hug and the uncontrolable energetic enthusiasm of a star-struck teenaged girl, he’s likely to smite you right there on the fucking spot! Next thing you know, you’re bobbing for boiled stones in Hell’s caudron! God offers his warm favor to us in much the same manner that my father may have offered his affection on an anthill in our front yard with a riding lawn mower. It’s tough love in God’s house! God ad here’s more to the James Brown theory of doctrine: to bitch-slap each and every one of us until we finally get the fucking message...and then, it's usually only upon our death beds!

With all this exuded happiness, I am eager to find out how they also feel about the hot topic on banning Gay Marriages thats currently being waged by the hillbillies that live to the south of the 49th parallel. I mean, surely these people who are so happy and eager to welcome strangers would also feel compelled to bestow everyone else the same freedom and happiness that they themselves so richly experience, regardless of whom they may prefer to flaunt their naughty bits to…right? Who cares if someone likes to boff the knots in oak trees by moonlight just as long as they’re honest and open and happy? But somehow I’m sure their opinion would not be quite so simplistic and that might mean staying afterwards for soup and being further surrounded by these weirdo’s…and that will have to wait for another day, or at least until I can finish my suit of chain-linked armor.

I think i'll stick to being a non-practising Humanitarian. How's that for "Alternative"?

* I think it may be a residual side effect of last night’s midnight snack of bacon sandwiches and deep crust apple pie.

** Whom, it also interesting to note, is also fully willing and ready to haul out my late grandfather's ashes from their internment in the church's Collumbarium with a towtruck if they don't removed that burial plaque on the wall fast enough!

*** A time the United Church still fondly refers to as the ‘Dark Ages’. When I was twelve years old, it was unanimously decided among my parents and the church elders that I not continue my studies with the churches Confirmation Class and instead give way for an easy access route straight to Hell.

**** Which, it must be said, contained way too many “thrusts” to be either healthy or holy.

Pig In A Poke

A 45 year old man, Austin Gullette from Ouachita, LA, has been charged with having sex with his sisters Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig. Gullette’s sister caught him in the act of boffing l’il Porky behind the barn when she heard her beloved pet squealing * behind the family barn around 11:00pm and went out to investigate.

The woman reportedly observed her brother engaging in intercourse with her pig named P-Pie, but when she confronted Gullette he fled into the night, and was only later caught and arrested by local authorities.

Mayor Royce Toney with the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office said that the eyewitness account and all the physical evidence collected from both the victim and Gullette are what prompted the arrest and the immediate charging of Gullette for committing a ‘Crime Against Nature’. Fuck, there’s a forensics crime lab that I’m glad I don’t work in! That must have been a real pleasant experience to collect and examine the various swine vaginal juices and mixed bodily fluids from both the victimized P-Pie as well as the alleged pervert in question. I bet the County Coroner wishes he had called in sick that day!

Gullette now faces a fine up to $2000 and five years in jail with or without the possibility of hard labor. That’s a pretty hefty penalty for fucking your kid sister’s pet pig, huh? I bet he wishes he just ripped the heads off all her Barbie’s, or burned her collection of Kirk Cameron posters in her bedroom, or something that most normal big brothers would have done to torment their little sister…but, OOOOOOH NO! He just had to take out his penis and violate something!

P-Pie is currently under observation at a local veterinarian, where I guess she is undergoing treatment and crisis counseling by a team of specialized animal psychologists to help her get over her trauma and to let the healing begin.

But maybe five years hard labor is a bit too much of a penalty for the crime. After all, any pig named ‘P-Pie’ must have just been begging for it, right? WTF kind of name is that for a Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig anyways? Sounds like the name for something that would be walking the barnyard in fishnet stretchy pants and kinky boots looking for “a good time”. I bet all the local farmers and farmers sons have had their own hog imbedded in P-Pie’s piggy cooch at one point or another.

Shit, this is Louisiana for fuck sakes! Why is anybody really surprised at all? Is this not the birthplace of sexual promiscuity? Down enough liquor drinks and hand over enough plastic novelty bead necklaces and not only will you be able to have your way with most livestock, but you would also be able to film it and put out an entire “PIGS GONE WILD!” video series in no time, for purchase over the Internet with any major credit card!

* Which is a pretty sure tell sign that something is amiss, unless the neighbors are just holding a screening of 'Deliverance' in their backyard.

Officeplace Phenomena

Today at work, I was unfortunate enough to be stuck between a rock and a hard place...well, more of an ice cube and a gaseous place really. Allow me to explain.

Sitting on my right, was a fellow co-worker who is about as personable and warm as Roseanne Arnold with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. For the duration of my 8 hr shift today, it felt like there was this slowly advancing glacial wall of ice moving towards me across the desktop separating our cubicles from her immediate direction. And providing that she has been working here in this Corporate Wasteland as long as the weariness in her facial features would seem to indicate…I may have just discovered what actually killed off the dinosaurs.

For the remainder of the day, I would have to use the reflective surface on my metallic coffee mug to look into in order to see down the work aisle in her direction lest I should make eye contact and be instantly turned to stone like mighty Perseus cleverly waging battle with the hideous beast Medusa. Heaven help me if this sourpuss has spaghetti for lunch!

To make matters worse, on the opposite side of my cubicle is a rather smelly right-wing conspiracist who must have either had three-week-old Egg Salad on his lunch break, or I have just discovered where Saddam has hidden those weapons of mass destruction! Not since the battlefields of Ypres has there been such a massive emmitance of thick clouds of vile and noxious gas.

Great! Sub-zero to my right, stinky Oliver Stone on my left...I feel like an Eskimo trapped in a whale’s asshole!

With these two extreme conflicting warm and cold air masses meeting each other head on over my cubicle workspace, I was concerned at the time that I may end of the victim of some freak indoor meteorological phenomena, beginning with little tiny twisters winding themselves across my computer keyboard and through my many work manuals and office Memos leaving only chaos and destruction in their wake, and ending with me being sucked up into a wind funnel never to be seen again *.

I want to put all my Team Managers on immediate alert for such weather related office disasters. I expect them to be on guard with special state-of-the-art atmospheric equipment spinning wildly on their computer tops, and with a rusted Ford Bronco idling in the corner ready to give chase should any one of these office twisters decide to land anywhere in the vicinity of our call center.

* Which wouldn’t be too bad considering my current surroundings. Of course, there had better be some midgets making with the lollipops when land again or there will be hell to pay!

The "Dirty Word Generator"

Did you ever wonder who takes the credit for creating all those really uber-filthy swear words that you only use on those most special of situations? I originally thought that it must be some kind of potty-mouthed Thoreau who works feverishly with pen to paper in order to conjure up all those really colorful superlatives that we let fly each time we stub out toe in the middle of he night or spill hot coffee on our genitals. You know, those particularly inspired raunchy slogans that would make even Roseanne Arnold cover her virgin ears.

Then I realized: there is actually nothing much to it at all, and that absolutely ANYBODY can vituperate like a drunken sailor spontaneously with the help of an all-encompassing ‘Dirty Word Generator’ for direction!

First, you need to have a primary category of easily recognizable offensive nouns from which to build your cuss word on, to act as the initial foundation of your curse if you will. I have found that most easily derogatory of swear words begin by building on a particular naughty body part that is not often referred to in normal polite conversation. Such forbidden bodily words as:

• Cock
• Dick
• Tit
• Twat
• Ass
• Scrotum
• Pussy
• Nipple

Next, make a second list of specific nasty action words with which to give life and meaning to your newly created curse word. Such creatively suggestive blasphemes could include:

• Suck
• Munch
• Bite
• Smoke
• Shit
• Fuck
• Stain
• Stroke

(You can build on your lists of bodily and action over time to ensure yourself a continuing fresh source of filthy verbage in the future)

Now, once you combine a foundation word from the first group of words, and then amalgamate it with a dirty action word from the second category of words, you will then successfully be able to create your own instant swear word in the heat of the moment to impress even the most worldly and bitter of Merchant Marines.

Just think of the endless possibilities:

• Cockmunch
• Scrotumfuck
• Assbite
• Pussysmoke
• Twatsuck
• Dickstroke
• Nippleshit
• Titstain

Once you have mastered the “Dirty Word Generator”, you’ll be all set and ready for the guys on Poker Night. Soon, you’ll be rattling off the obscenities with little to no preconceived thought or consideration for others around you and you’re bound to be the hit of all the neighborhood taverns, docks, bowling alleys, bus terminal lobbies, and local Union CAW Halls for a long time to come. They will sing folk songs to honor your filthy mouth.

PRESTO! Instant Andrew Dice Clay!

Front Row Moe Ho Afterglow

There was a time when even the mere thought of attending an indoor concert was simply unimaginable for me. I am not at all fond of large crowds, and the usual press of hot sweaty bodies mixed with the stench of stale smoke and three week old armpit funk would normally have me rushing the nearest exit like an NFL linesman.

But I have made much progress since those long ago forgotten days, and little by little I have not only been able to begin attending these indoor venues, but also to enjoy myself along the outskirts of the concert-going audience without hyperventilating. Up until this point, my previous psychosis coup d’tat was in being able to attend ‘The Other Ones’ concert in Cleveland’s ‘Gund Arena’ from a seat in the seventh row, where at the time it seemed that I was so uncomfortably close to the stage that I could see my reflection in the slide of Bob Weir’s guitar. Hell, every time he passionately windmilled his axe throughout the performance it would blow my hat off my head. Surely, I had then faced my demons and earned a decided victory in the face of my Irrational Fears.

So it with even greater pride that I can now announce to the concert-going world, that after this past weeks moe concert in beautiful North Tonawanda, that I am now even a certified FRONT ROW CONCERT SURVIVOR! (Well, fourth row…but who’s counting?) There were none of the usual expected episodes like the weeping for “my mommy”, the anxiety attack, the subconscious nervous facial ticks, or finally just giving way to simply hoofing other surrounding concert-goers in the crotch while in a state of pure full-blown blind panic. I was lured into the ‘Lair of the Beast’ and I walked out on my own two weary feet. How cool am I?

What can I say? I was lured by a pretty smile and the promise of being able to cutely link pinkie-fingers with this cute concert beauty next to me. Hey, how can you pass up the company of a hot concert chick proudly wearing a t-shirt that reads “Front Row Moe Ho”? Am I not male after all? Luckily, I was able to successfully conceal the raging erection in my jeans and managed to not poke out the eyeball of any nearby dancers as I got my own groove on. That would have been a total concert buzzkill for sure!

Now, even though your dear old crazytigerrabbitman was busy getting himself some good concert lovin’s at the time, that doesn’t also mean that I wasn’t able to take some mental notes and observe the lives and activities of the local indigenous “Phatti Macrobus” dancing and sweating all around me in the front rows in a complete state of divine ecstatic fervor, like whirling dervishes in the funnel of an F4 tornado. This wouldn’t be much fun of a blog entry had I not, right?

I used to subscribe to the theory that the best way to keep other male concert goers from getting too close and crowding your own personal groove space was to simply align your genitalia with the other invading male genitalia and they will automatically be repelled like opposite poles of a magnet. When you stand directly behind another man and line up your penis in direct correlation with his own alien penis, the intruding genitalia will immediately become uncomfortable and will urge its owner to move away quick as possible.

Imagine how this scientific knowledge can be further applied in our everyday life besides dealing with tightly packed crowds at concerts! Is the line up too long at the cashier’s checkout down at the local Adult Novelty Shop? Then just sidle up close and align your genitals in alignment with the next pervert in line, and the whole entire que of males will part like the Red Sea! Think how quick you could get through the waiting crowd at a crowded bar to get drinks, or through the line up for urinals in the Men’s Room between innings? The world would be your homophobic oyster! You will never have to wait in line behind, or ever be unnecessarily crowded by other males ever again!

Sadly, this easy principle of sexual physics did not seem to apply to the crowd in the front rows of this particular moe concert. Instead, it was man-ass galore. In fact, I think it was mandatory for every other male within 15 feet to at some point drag their ass across some part of your body like tomcats marking their territory. I know that during the second set alone, I probably had more than a dozen male asses being rubbing, wiped, and brushed over me so that I was beginning to feel like the fluffer on the set of some gay porn shoot. I had definitely over-satisfied my quota of man ass for one night!

Another curious observation I made was the numerous cell phones that I witnessed being utilized throughout the concert by all the front row concertgoers. It seemed that every time a new song began, there was an instant glow of cell phone consols being displayed as everybody either began to quickly text-message the name of the new song to all their absent friends, or in order to provide a temporary portal into the show for their friends to listen to over the open telephone lines. At points in the concert it felt like I was in the landing zone of the nearby Buffalo Airport with all the flashing cell phones lights. Doesn’t anybody keep set lists on the back of ripped up cigarette packages with golf pencils anymore?

Work Mojo Madness

I am convinced at this point that there is some form of hex, curse, or some other form of funky mojo following me around my new place of employment…even more than normal that is!

It appears that Shangri-la has not come without its price: the coin machine refuses to accept my dollar bills, cans of pop become hopelessly lodged in the vending machine, my computer logins refuse me access to our operating systems, the hot water machine sprays my hand with scalding water, my swipe Employee I.D. card doesn’t allow me easy passage through any of the necessary doorways, the pay telephone steals my last quarter, the microwave burns my ‘Strips o’ Chicken’, I pinch my scrotum on the toilet seat in the Men’s Room, the Water fountain squirts me in the eye, and I am even forced to sit beside Habib Abdul Mohammed El Jabar, whose hourly phlegm attacks could be used to pave an entire International Highway in under a week (his entire body convulsing like a wildebeest caught in an electric fence as he hacks up these throat obstructions). By this point in my new employment, I am working in perpetual fear waiting on a Grand Piano or Brinks safe to suddenly fall from the ceiling and tragically squash me dead in my cubicle workspace; or at the very least, ending up crushed under a tilted over Coke machine.

Each day when I arrive at work it’s like I am suddenly being warped directly into the plot of Steven King’s ‘Maximum Overdrive’, where the earth passes through the tail of a strange comet and all the machines mysteriously come to life to run amok in a murderous rampage. I am expecting to have the Green Goblin come crashing through the dividing wall of my work area on the front grill of a huge semi truck.

It's becoming all too crystal clear what Brian Johnson was wailing about all those years ago:

“Who made who, who made you?
If you made them and they made you
Who picked up the bill, and who made who?
Who made who, who turned the screw?”

I can tell you one thing: If this continues, then I’m going to start volunteering to have those screws inserted directly into the frontal lobes of my brain!

Perhaps I need to appease the angry employment gods somehow? Hey, it worked for Pedro Cerrano in 'Major League'! I wonder what my trainer would think if I were to bring in a live chicken each day to sacrifice at my cubicle desk before each shift in order to lift the bad voodoo and prevent it from stalking me on the work floor like a hungry beast of prey?

Surely, to prevent me from my voodoo bloodlust would be to violate some religious right of mine or something...wouldn't it?