Blind Willie's Johnson

Since the dawn of time, man has had this negative stigmatism surrounding his wee-wee, and how he chooses to use it, hanging over his head like a sinful piñata. To ever consider participating in sexual relations with another being, or to ever simply touch yourself in a caressing pleasuring manner, was basically just to purchase yourself a one way ticket straight to Hell's barbeque.

Now, there is a very real chance that the old Victorian threat to schoolboys that sex could make them blind may, in fact, be true.

Swell.

The mighty powers-that-be with the nation's Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating reports of blindness by some users of the impotency drug Viagara. Already, the FDA has received 40-plus cases of blindness or vision loss that were allegedly associated with the use of impotency drugs such as Viagra and Cialis.

Medical experts say that a definite connection with the cases cannot be directly established with impotency drugs, because many of the men who rely on these types of medications already have underlying health problems such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease. In essence, the same symptoms of fat, geeky, couch potatoes everywhere.

Likewise, the side effects of Viagra are also well noted. “The most common side effects of Viagra are headache, facial flushing, stuffy nose, urinary tract infection, and upset stomach. Less common are bluish or blurred vision, or being sensitive to light. These may occur for a short time.”

So? Tell me something I don’t know! Headache, facial flushing, urinary tract infection, upset stomach – that sounds like my usual normal state of being after sex! What’s the big deal? Blindness is just one more of the unfortunate consequences of an over-active sex life.

Why is everyone so surprised? Blurred or light sensitive vision is an evolutionary reaction to locking ourselves in dark places for hours on end in order to masturbate furiously like a Bonobos monkey in heat.

I’m not fucking surprised at all! Hell, I know that after some particularly rigorous locked door sessions I might immerge with a little blurred vision myself!

This visual impairment condition is rumored by medical experts to be the result of an increased blood supply to the retina causing the visual field to take on a more bluish tinge*. Well, that makes sense, what with all the excess straining needed to focus on and count the individual pubic hairs on Ms. July’s neat and trimmed beaver.

Besides, who gives a shit if Viagra makes you blind? I’ve had that premonition hanging over my head since birth, you think I’m going to care when I’m pushing 65?

SHIT NO!

If the continual beating off as much as I did back in grade school didn’t do the job and turn me into Ray Charles once and for all, you think I’m going to worry about some little pill?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Bring it on!

I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t; I may as well be getting lucky in the meantime!

Personally, if the worst thing I have to worry about is going blind – then dose me up until I’m harder than a diamond-headed drill bit and hornier than a three-peckered billy goat! As long as I can still make use of a fully functional penis in my later years – I’d happily give up my eyesight. Shit, I'd give up a lot more than that even!

In fact, I would list my own personal hierarchy of acceptable physical losses as: eyesight, hearing, sense of smell, taste, my arms, my legs, my teeth, and all my acquired learned intelligence.

So, pretty much, you could pluck out my eyes, cut out my tongue, sever both my arms and legs, puncture my eardrums with sharp sticks, and pull out all my teeth so that I can only eat with the assistance of a feeding tube, but as long as I still have a rock hard cock to bounce up and down on, I’ll be a satisfied happy camper – %100!

* Which is weird if you ask me, since the whole point of the medication in the first place is to increase blood flow to another very distinct part of your body. But what do I know?

The Haymaker Memoirs (Part I)

By now, most of you are probably chomping at your straightjackets wondering what has been keeping the latest mindless rambling of a blog post from your pseudo-friendly, neighborhood, wackjob Internet author– right?

My apologies, of course, but it was simply time for the Crazytigerrabbitman to step away temporarily from his idiot box and once again pack up all his shit and head off on another cross-country adventure, this time to the beautiful Commonwealth of Virginia, in order to indulge in some impromptu weekend camping, bluegrass, and red mud - lots and lots of red fucking mud – at the annual Haymaker Music Festival in Spotsylvania.

What follows below are taken from my usual comprised journal entries from the four-day car journey as well as the festival itself. As with the travelogues from my prior trips by train and by plane, this particular trip, this time by automobile, is presented in random chronological order and attempts to follow absolutely no logical chain of thought whatsoever. In fact, much of it was conceived under the influence of either large quantities of alcohol, pre-made Teriyaki chicken from festival vendors, or in between joint sessions back at the campsite while hiding out from undercover police officers and sniffing dogs.

Hopefully, some of these random vacation scribblings will be of either interest, or at the very least intelligible.

May 19th; St. Catharines, Ont (11:00AM)

I am successfully packed up and I am beginning to become anxious to begin the first leg of my weekend’s journey – unfortunately, my ride is neither here nor seems to be answering his cell phone. I am keeping myself busy in the meantime by continuously checking and re-checking all my intended camping supplies, toys, and appliances – and, of course, by bitching in this journal about the fact that my ride still hasn’t shown up yet.

I am glad to have these four days to myself to travel through strange unfamiliar lands, pitch tents in the great outdoors, get drunk as lords, get a funny sunburn, and return home with an invigorated sense of direction and worth that my life has been severely lacking lately.

There is something about a road trip that renews my zest for adventure as well as my passion for life. It is simply too overwhelming and stifling to continually roast under the florescent track lighting at the office place like an extra cheeseburger on the warming rack of life for 8 ½ hours a day, 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month, etc, etc, etc. It feels lately, that if I don’t get away from the office place soon, my mug shot will inevitably appear on the front pages of all the local papers under the heading: “DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE BLAMES BRIGHT LIGHTS FOR OFFICE MASSACRE”.

So, it’s just as well as I’m taking off for a while – providing my fucking ride gets here, that is.

Border Customs; Buffalo, NY (1:30PM)

We’re free! After a few nervous moments with a border guard after realizing that I did not have my passport, or that we may be subject to being pulled over and having our vehicle searched – we’re waved through successfully, and our journey begins. In fact, the border guard didn’t even seem to give two shits about who we were, where we were going, what we were doing, or how we were going to do it exactly. All he really seemed to want was to get the two wide-eyed, twitchy travelers in the service van to leave his booth altogether; for which, we were only too happy to oblige.

So much for Homeland Security! And so it begins...

Today's trip will take us through three states, one nation’s capital, and ultimately in the green hills of Virginia.

It must also be said that any trip that doesn’t take itself down the I-90 in upstate New York is bound to be at least a decent fucking trip as just about any scenery at all is better than the flat, boring, littered landscape or any of the numerous Rest Stops that dot the I-90 Interstate like malignant tumors. You could spend an entire trip in the trunk of your car and still enjoy more passing scenery than you could through upstate New York.

Today’s intended route will take us instead down Route 15 South through Pennsylvania into Maryland, to Washington D.C., before looping down into Virginia. New territory, new adventure, and new roadside delicacies – I’m just tickled fucking pink to be moving again.

Cosmo’s Meatball & Steaks; Newbury, PA (6:30PM)

It is safe to assume that we are about half way to our destination and craving roadside sustenance. It just also happens that the small town of Newbury, just on the outskirts of Williamsport, PA, is the home to, quite possibly, the world’s best subs. Although it seems that in central Pennsylvania, submarine sandwiches are called “Cosmo’s”, which I believe must translate to “large ass sandwich”. For the next 150 miles to Harrisburg, we were propelled by the seemingly endless excessive power of meatball farts after we woofed down a Meatball Cosmo as big as the Bismarck.

Route 81; Schamokin Dam, PA (8:30PM)

What a cool name for a state city or township. However, as far as I can ascertain from the trip into town from Route 15, there is no dam in Schamokin Dam at all! How fucked up is that?

Upon first glances, Schamokin Dam is like any other small town we passed through – Walmart, Target, Bob Evans, as well as the usual healthy numbers of Adult themed stores and shops. But there is also something a little more sinister lurking hidden on the very periphery of the city’s center.

I bet they actively lynch any tourist who innocently happens to emulate the infamous Jim Carey line “SCHAMOKIN!” in public. I bet the towns people have long since grown tired of this particular joke. By now, it would carry all the comedic weight of a melted rubber chicken. I would also wager, that all copies of the movie ‘The Mask’ have been rounded up, and any subsequent public viewings of the movie would result in hard time cracking rocks at Leavenworth prison. It’s probably impossible to find or purchase a copy anywhere within city limits, except maybe in the Clearance bin of dusty snuff videos in the basement of Adult World.

I’ve only said it once, and already I hate myself.

Somewhere along the Susquehanna River; Harrisburg, PA (8:30PM)

I can’t help but notice that the steep rippled Alleghenies of Pennsylvania spread out over the countryside like the ridges on a gi-normous ribbed condom. Of course, I think that this rather twisted image was implanted in my brain by all the Adult Video & Magazine boutiques, outlets, super stores, clearance centers, etc.

As we traverse the breadth of Pennsylvania, I simply cannot believe the number of porno shops located along the interstates! We probably passed by more Adult porno shops than MacDonald’s fast food franchises – and how many states can claim that? Coupled with the fact that this particular portion of the journey was set to the soundtrack of Van McCoy’s disco classic ‘The Hustle’, this ultimately led to some pretty new and interesting feelings of sexual inadequacy.

The real bizarre thing is that each Adult Novelty shop has a subsequent church either right next door or across the road. By the time we navigated our way through most of Pennsylvania, my unconsciousness had been programmed into thinking that in some way porno was somehow going to save me.

At least the positive benefit of having this strange symbiotic relationship existing between the local churches and Adult video shops is that after you’ve gone and marred your soul by visiting one of these windowless, unkempt buildings* with neon signs advertising “Private Viewing Booths” out front, and having spanked one out in the backseat of your car along the side of the road (which, I assume, is the normal custom judging by all the parked cars pulled over along the Interstate with hazards blinking and the back seat windows covered up with towels), that at most, it would be only a two second drive to confess your sins of the flesh at the local Lutheran Personal Growth Center nearby.

(To be continued...)

* Isn’t there something creepy about a mysterious, windowless farm house-style building on the edge of town? That’s not really the type of place I would want to visit lest I was an axe murderer or something. I would think that something like a Adult novelty shop would be made to appear like a Gingerbread House along the side of the road in order to attract weary, hungry, Christian, traveling perverts.

Who Fondled Macaulay Culkin?

As much as I am addicted to the entire three-ring circus surrounding the whole child molestation case against Michael “Freakshow” Jackson, I will admit that I am getting sick of seeing Macaulay Culkin flashed on every news clip and media bite 24-fucking-hours a day!

This is getting ridiculous. There’s about an inch of dust on my VHS copy of ‘Home Alone’, and I have all but forgotten his face until now.

First it was Corey Feldman, then Webster, and now it's Macaulay Culkin? Who still gives a shit? So he likes to bang talentless child actor has-beens; it sure beats half the kinky shit currently available in any Amsterdam Red Light District alleyway!

The former child actor, now 24, was the third young man to testify at Jackson’s trial as boys they slept with Jackson at his Neverland Ranch and were neither molested nor inappropriately touched, as prosecution witnesses have alleged. Those witnesses included a chef who testified he saw the King of Pop with his hand up Culkin’s shorts as the singer held the boy up to a video game at a Neverland Ranch arcade.

Culkin, who is also the godfather of two of Jackson’s children, testified that he and Jackson were drawn together by their common experience as child performers. He claimed to have slept in Jackson’s bed several times between the ages of 10 and 14, sometimes with other boys as well.

He said that the sleepovers were not planned and that he and other would just fall asleep when they were tired. During the cross-examination, prosecution lawyer Ron Zonen suggested that Big Mac could have been molested while he was asleep.

Okay, as much as I would love to believe that Michael Jackson is guilty, and to hear the scathing reports of how he decorated Macaulay’s dangly bits like a May Pole, I will have to side with Culkin on this one in that it was highly unlikely.

I know that if anything were ever to come within a square foot of my jewels, all my inner bells and whistles would sound off like a tripped alarm at the NORAD Missile Command Center, much less endure a vigorous fondling unwittingly at the hand of some pedophile with a chimp!

The rumor that he was also involved in a little oiled up pre-pubescent daisy-chain action along with Webster, Fred Savage and the Freakshow himself, is yet to be determined.

I sympathize for poor Macaulay, and I feel his shame.

Here he already has to deal with his own slew of problems including the recent charges of possession of marijuana and Xanax, a fizzled Big Screen acting career, a failed attempt at Broadway, as well as whole having to deal with the whole "forever being stereotyped as the wide-eyed kid from ‘Home Alone’" thing, and all the world wants to know is:

“Did he, or did he not, have his pee-pee diddled by Michael Jackson?”

That just has to fucking suck! (No pun intended)

How embarrassing would that be to be continually thrown before the media hounds to discuss the possibility that he had his wanger fondled by Michael Jackson? That just has to be pretty fucking demasculating having continually being confronted with this debate over his genitals during all his brief glimpses of media limelight*.

What a way to get your personal shit together; become embroiled in a heated criminal investigation into the spatial relationship between Michael Jackson's hand and your 11-year-old winkie. I’d rather oil wrestle Ron Jeremy naked on a live Pay-Per-View event rather than having to continually play out this train wreck before the public eye.

* Or red light, as the situation would have it.

Disturbance In Hooterville!

So it happened again*– I was busted staring inappropriately at someone's breasts at the bus stop today.

Oops.

It wasn’t even one of those casual quick glances easily feigned by looking over her entire ensemble, when actually its only her hooters you’re actually interested in looking at, it was one of those fixated, pie-eyed stares directly into her heaving bosom with one of those amazed expressions of complete wonderment on my face, as if I had been staring into the Ark of the Covenant instead. All that was missing at the time was my tongue unrolled out in front of me like a red carpet and a chorus line of angels singing.

Boobs, boobies, boomers, bazooms, bazookas, gazongas, kazongas, ta-ta’s, hoo-ha’s, cha-cha’s, jugs, sweater monkeys, snuggle pups, chest muffins, fun bags, torpedo’s, shakers, woofers, knockers, grapefruits, love melons, Hindenburg’s, over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder’s - what have you; they’re all pretty freaking fantastic – but how embarrassing still to be found ogling, transfixed in such an obviously unflattering indulgence of uncontrollable petty maleness!

What can I say? Oink!

I am not normally such a slave to my primal male instincts. In fact, %99 per cent of the time, I am completely able to keep my hormones in check; but this time I happened to slip in moment of weakness. So sue me.

I couldn’t help it; there they were in all their fleshy magnificence, cheekily peeking out from over top the low-cut neckline like the two bright suns of Tatooine rising along the horizon. They were beautiful! There must be statues in the British Museum weeping over the sheer perfection of this girl’s breasts.

Men are inherently obsessed with breasts, and considering the considerable lengths that women go through in order to get us to notice them, why should I feel so ashamed at having been discovered scooping out this particular woman’s breasts?

I’m not a pervert - HONEST!

Men are attracted to women’s breasts, I imagine, just as women are drawn to Tom Jones and a six-figure paycheck. So all this really means is that I’m just “normal”, right?

It could be raining rodents from the sky, and every man on the planet would still notice a nice pair of luscious orbs bouncing around inside a tight pink halter top like a neutron in a reactor. It’s just part of what makes us men, along with ripping farts, air-guitaring to power ballads, and Monday Night Football.

As it is also with women’s panties, we men are simply attracted to female cleavage like a moth to blue light.

I don’t think it should be such a taboo thing to just look at a woman’s breasts. It should be flattering to them instead! I know I’d feel pretty flattered in I ever found some girl staring google-eyed at my crotch. In fact, I think I’d probably feel pretty fucking fantastic actually!

Don’t get me wrong, I can totally see why some women would be offended, since in the back of their heads they are probably assuming that all men are fantasizing dirty thoughts about planting their beefsticks between their exposed womanly mounds like a breakfast sausage between two loaves of warm, freshly-baked French bread. C'mon, I know they've seen enough magazine layouts to know!

But it's not true! Some of us think of other things as well!

We men are not all like Bonobos monkeys, unashamedly wacking off with reckless abandon, and growing a third arm out of our chests for the sheer necessity of coping with all the fervent masturbating we’re doing over the breasts of all the women we see.

Well, okay, any man OVER the age of, say, 18.

Sometimes, we’re just actually reveling in, and enjoying all the delicious feminine splendors afforded by what revealing outfit the woman in question had chosen to display herself in – is that so bad?

Why is there such an instant negative connotation associated with looking at a woman’s breasts? They’re wonderful! Why shouldn’t we look at them? And yet, its considered as something almost sinful, lecherous, or even perverted, to simply gaze upon, no matter how briefly or innocently, those two bodacious mams.

That makes about as much sense as penis reduction surgery!

This ill-regarded societal trapping is the reason why we fella’s normally have to go fulfill our natural quota for breast admiring as well as satisfying our basic instincts at the type of seedy establishment in the middle of nowhere that would inevitably have a neon sign in the front of the window flickering as if it was fighting for its very life.

How dignified is that?

Why should I have to secretly congregate at some shack in a back alley somewhere on the outskirts of town like a shunned leper just to sip at extortionately-priced glasses of warm draught beer and ogle over bored-looking female zombies with bushes that you could hide mountain gorillas in, mindlessly strutting their pock-marked wares on a flat top stage in a pair off ridiculously-sized stiletto boots; particularly when the girl at the bus stop is practically showing it off for free?

So much the better!

Take it as a compliment! I say, we men are deserving to be released from instant pervert-status purgatory every time we fall victim to our basic natural sexual impulses.

Likewise, gentlemen’s nudie bars should be grandiose theaters; a haloed sanctuary of Mammarydom. A place free from persecution from pretentious cockteases; where we can go to openly worship the objects of our affections without all the shame or disapproving looks.

I envision a magnificent palace, complete with works of stained glass representations of famous Playboy spreads, crystal chandeliers for naked swinging, and a brass pole so shiny that you can see the future in it - somewhere worthy of such positive female beauty!

Is that so much to ask?

That girl should be proud of the fact that I scoped out her twins as I did. Surely, this was the reaction she was looking for when she decided this morning to wear that tight low-cut blouse that clung to her boobs like a frightened child.

She should be sending me a “Thank You” Hallmark card for the positive flattery I tossed her way instead of just continuing to leer at me so accusingly.

* By "again", I simply mean the being caught staring mindlessly at someone, not necessarily at someone's muchachas like a starving calf. I'm a victim of circumstance here, not a suspected neighborhood peeper.

The Paraskevidekatriaphobia's Ball

I am not really the superstitious type of person, but if leaving the house was uncomfortable for me on the haloed stoners “4/20” holiday, then “Friday the 13th” makes me want to turn my humble abode into a complete militarized bunker in which to ride out the wake of whatever carnage that may erupt in the city streets.

Despite my overtly rational layman’s approach to understanding nature and the universe, I can’t deny that there is still something sinister and unnerving to me about the particular Friday the 13th calendar day. I can’t deny that I feel that things are just a bit edgier on Friday the 13th; people are more anxious; the air carries a more foreboding scent of sweat and fear; and I have this ever-present feeling that a grand piano is going to land on my head at any second.

Things are just weirder on Friday the 13th.

So maybe I suffer a little from a mild case of Paraskevidekatriaphobia: the condition that afflicts some with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th. Well actually, it’s not that I’m so much spooked by the whole unlucky taboo surrounding Friday the 13th itself, in so much as I am about the intensified stupidity of others around me.

But regardless, there it is – this nagging fear in the back of my head advising me to call in “absent-without-leave” to work, and stock up on vital stores of kerosene and jerky in order to wait out the inevitable onslaught of psychologically triggered wackos, lunatics, and psychopaths everywhere, all running amok and looking to bury a meat cleaver into the back of my head.

If that’s an “irrational fear”, then lock me up and throw away the key! At least I’ll be safe in my little padded cell.

Where did this irrational fear of Friday the 13th come from anyway?

Though no one can say for sure when and why human beings first associated the number 13 with misfortune, the belief is assumed to be quite old and there exist any number of theories purporting to trace its origins to antiquity and beyond.

It has been proposed, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as ancient as the act of counting.

Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units, so he could not count higher than 12, according to this explanation. What lay beyond that — 13 — was an impenetrable mystery, hence an object of superstition.

Which has a lovely, didactic ring to it, but one is left wondering: did primitive man not have toes? Were we evolved from badly injured pirates or something?

It is said: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names). There are 13 witches in a coven. It never ends.

There are more irrational ways to explain the fact that 21 million people (that’s eight per cent of all Americans) are wrapped in the grip of old world superstition – myself included.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia stems from two separate fears -- the fear of the number 13 and the fear of Fridays. Both fears have deep roots in Western culture, most notably in Christian theology. Who’s surprised?

Thirteen is significant to Christians because it is the number of people who were present at the Last Supper (Jesus and his 12 apostles). Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th member of the party to arrive.

Christians have traditionally been wary of Fridays because Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Additionally, some theologians hold that Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit on a Friday, and that the Great Flood began on a Friday. In the past, many Christians would never begin any new project or trip on a Friday, fearing they would be doomed from the start.

What’s with all this “TGIF” bullshit about then? By the sounds of it, I’m hunkering under my bed on Friday nights now shivering like a wet Chihuahua and praying to God to spare me until Monday!

Some historians suggest the Christian distrust of Fridays is actually linked to the early Catholic Church's overall suppression of pagan religions and women. In the Roman calendar, Friday was devoted to Venus, the goddess of love. When Norsemen adapted the calendar, they named the day after Frigg, or Freya, Norse goddesses connected to love and sex. Both of these strong female figures once posed a threat to male-dominated Christianity, the theory goes, so the Christian church vilified the day named after them.

So, Friday the 13th is really just a case of the Church attempting to cock block the other hotter, more attractive deities from it’s own legions of faithful believers? WTF?

This characterization may also have played a part in the fear of the number 13. It was said that Frigg, or Freya, would often join a coven of witches, normally a group of 12, bringing the total to 13. This idea may have originated with the Christian Church itself; it's impossible to verify the exact origins of most folklore. A similar Christian legend holds that 13 is unholy because it signifies the gathering of 12 witches and the devil.

NOW we’re getting somewhere! This more accurately depicts my own fears of Friday the 13th. It’s a day to strip down, draw chalk outlines on dirt floors, light some candles, smear yourself in goats blood, and dance around to Alice Cooper records being played backwards while pumping the air above your head with your hands made in the sign of the beast.

This is why I would rather stay home.

The Christian perspective on Friday and 13 is the most relevant today, but it's only one part of the Friday the 13th tradition.

Some trace the infamy of the number 13 back to ancient Norse culture. In Norse mythology, the beloved hero Balder was killed at a banquet by the mischievous god Loki, who crashed the original kegger of twelve, bringing the group to 13. This story, as well as the story of the Last Supper, led to one of the most entrenched 13-related beliefs: You should never sit down to a meal in a group of 13.

Another significant piece of the legend is a particularly bad Friday the 13th that occurred in the Middle Ages. On a Friday the 13th in 1306, King Philip of France arrested the revered Knights Templar and began torturing them, marking the occasion as a day of evil.

Both Friday and the number 13 were once closely associated with capital punishment. In British tradition, Friday was the conventional day for public hangings, and there were supposedly 13 steps leading up to the noose.

But ultimately, the complex folklore of Friday the 13th doesn't have much to do with people's fears today. The fear has much more to do with personal experience. People learn at a young age that Friday the 13th is supposed to be unlucky, for whatever reason, and then they look for evidence that the legend is true. The evidence isn't hard to come by, of course. If you get in a car wreck on one Friday the 13th, lose your wallet, spill your coffee, or melt your collection of vintage Yes albums on vinyl in the front seat of your Ford Tempo, that day will probably stay with you. But if you think about it, bad things, big and small, happen all the time. If you're looking for bad mojo on Friday the 13th, you'll probably find it.

Shit, I could find bad mojo at a Tibetan monastery on New Years morning – one specific calendar date wouldn’t be so fucking hard at all!

Dressed to Kill

There is girl that I work with whose sense of fashion tends to slay me.

Literally!

I remember first recognizing her unique sense of “business casual” when I happened to notice when she wore her infamously gruesome “orifice babies” t-shirt. It instantly invoked an unusual sensation in my balls that was not altogether pleasant.

On other days, it has been a gray military training t-shirt with a Navy SEAL in full combat gear slitting the throat of some surprised evil-doer, with the heart-wrenching slogan “A CUT ABOVE THE REST” brazenly outlined in the resulting pool of blood below.

Isn’t that cute?

That loin cloth and purple strap-on are sure seeming more and more encouraging as a feasible office place ensemble.

How, in any way, can this be considered anything resembling as either professional or appropriate?

Today she was dressed a little more conservatively. Her chosen black t-shirt only had child-like stick drawings of a little girl, some tombstones, and a puppy awash in a goopy puddle of red blood-like splotches.

That’s not too creepy is it? This must be her “come hither” attire.

Why, in an environment where the recommended business attire has all the warm personality of a dentists lobby, hasn’t anybody ever expressed shock or even mild concern over her dark sense of fashionable decorum? I don’t get it!

If I, heaven’s forbid, were to ever be so brazen as to even attempt to wear a pair of clean denims with my sneakers, they’d probably call out the office Gestapo on my work desk and have me instantly removed for reprogramming!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love this girl – she is a great collegue, even if she is a little like a walking Steven King novel on acid…oh, and with boobs. She’s friendly, clever, not totally indifferent towards me, and has an ass you could crack walnuts on; she’s everything I could ever ask for in a good co-worker.

But there’s still just something inexplicably sinister being emitted from her that, apart from the ghoulish sense of fashion of course, I just can’t put my finger on. I realize she’s not exactly the kind of girl that you would shower with lollipops and ‘Hello Kitty’ memo pads, but does she have to be so in-your-face with her choice of t-shirts?

I have a morbid fascination with the macabre as well; I revel in reading the biographies of infamous serial killers and even pride myself on my seemingly infinite knowledge in the delicate lost art of medieval torture*, but I don’t feel the need to incessantly impose these graphic disturbed illustrations on the general public**.

Twisted “orifice babies” and animated murder scenes are not exactly going to bring out the warm fuzzies in your fellow man, is it?

Shit, NO! It’ll have them running for their very lives lest these should become the subject matter for tomorrows grizzly t-shirt.

* In fact, it was an impassioned lecture by a University History professor on the practice of Anglo-Saxon dungeon interrogations that convinced me to switch my then current major in Geography & Environmental Studies to that of Medieval Studies in my first year. Fuck rocks and depleted ozone layers, nothing kick-started your morning buzz like a class on crusades and medieval warfare.

** And I’m talking about the type of disturbing images that could invoke rats to rain from the sky and make horses nervous for miles around.

675 Words About Sperm

Sperm has been a prevalent topic of interest with me today. How does one fully begin to explain this thematic oddity to their peers?

Here’s why:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is about to implement new rules recommending that any man who has engaged in homosexual sex in the previous five years being barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor.

Why? Are we supposed to be worried that a newborn might be created with a keen ingrained sense of style or something?

Who gives a shit! Look at the kids today – they look like the walking dead! It’s about time we started encoded newborns with more sensible and dignified DNA.

I don’t think that a more fashionably chic, trend-setting, cultural bastion of good taste for a child is something so evil to be worthy of legally banning all gay men from donating their otherwise wasted fruity ejaculates?

It’s not like their sperm is serving any other practical purpose is it?

Although there is disagreement over whether the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) guidelines regarding gay men will have the force of law, most doctors and clinics are expected to observe it.

How is this even possible – what does the FDA care? They’re donating their sperm, not serving it for lunch!

I can see the viewpoint that gay men stereotypically engage in riskier sex, and therefore have a higher chance to pass on transmittable diseases and life-threatening infections to any bared children – but don’t we have tests to find that shit out before we hand over a jar of tainted fairy spuzz to poor, barren, childless Suzy Q. Public?

ALL homosexual men can’t have funky sperm, can they?

And what constitutes as “homosexual sex” anyways? Are we talking about strictly dark tunnels and plenty of lube here, or are we to also consider oral activities as well. Shit, where does it end? I once was involved in a tickle fight on the living room floor with my Uncle Bernie back in grade school – can I still donate?

What about gay-straight men? Even though they engage in heterosexual sex with females, they still have prevalent feminine qualities to them that can possibly be transferred to new impressionable life forms. Is this still of any concern to anyone?

What about non-gay men? Are they ALL to be considered as safe in comparison? What about some guy who spends thousands of dollars on Peepshows and prostitutes every week, and participates in weekend binges of unprotected orgies with traveling gypsy’s and circus freaks – can he still donate his sperm?

Where does it end? Too many questions - where do you squirt the line exactly?

And on another spermy sidebar:

Researchers are discovering environmental pollutants from domestic and industrial waste and pesticides could be changing the ratio of sex chromosomes in sperm.

Great!

They found that Swedish fishermen exposed to high levels of organchlorine pollutants have a higher proportion of the male Y chromosome in their sperm.

Now, I have no fucking idea what any of that means – but it sure makes me want to drop my current employment and take up a pair of rubber boots, a net, and a penchant for gooey gelatinous treats.

I know what kind of sex ratio I’m getting now – ZERO!

So a new changing of my current sex chromosome ratio sounds like a pretty inviting idea. I can’t possibly do any worse than I’m doing right now!

So where does one find some of this organchlorine shit anyways? Maybe by rubbing a little behind my ears before bed each night I may actually be able to help my lagging sex ratio.

“VIVA LAS INDUSTRIAL WASTE!”

But then again, after working as a fishermen out at sea in the company of other men, I’d probably learn that my precious man-juice would be vetoed down at the neighborhood Fertility Donor Clinic.

And there on the bulletin board, there would be posted a little WANTED poster with a picture of one of my wiggly wonders on it.

WARNING! DO NOT TAKE SPERM FROM THIS MAN!

"Louie Louie, oh, oh, me gotta headache"

A pop culture controversy that has been simmering for decades came to a head in the most unlikely of places recently when a middle school marching band was instructed not to perform the ‘ol marching band coup de tat crowd favorite, the very epitome of cultural Music Cheesedom, “Louie Louie”.

WTF?

Benton Harbor Superintendent Paula Dawning citied the songs allegedly raunchy lyrics in ordering McCord Middle School not to perform in in the Grand Floral Parade, held as part of the Blossom time Festival.

How can you ban “Louie Louie”? Hasn’t she seen ‘Mr. Holland’s Opus’ for fuck sakes?

“Louie Louie”, written by Richard Berry in 1956, is one of the most recorded songs in history. The best-known, most notorious version was a hit in 1963 for the Kingsmen; subsequently, the FBI spent two years investigating the lyrics before declaring that they not only were not obscene but also were “unintelligible at any speed”.

Whew! How comforting it is to know that the Kingsmen weren’t the group of evil Nazi perverts we thought they were, Hell-bent on desecrating the very moral fabric of society and promoting demeaning taboo sexual perversities to an otherwise innocent, unassuming and impressionable youth of America!

Now there’s well-spent taxpayers dollar hard at work!

I know I will be sleeping more peacefully in my bed tonight knowing that – and still be the master of my domain, of course.

What the fuck is so “raunchy” about “Louie Louie” in the first fucking place? Surely, they are misinterpreting something in the popular garbled translation! Who could ever be so possibly turned on and subconsciously driven to such unchartered heights of sexual fervor over “Louie, Louie, oh, oh, me gotta go”?

Doesn’t exactly leave you experiencing primal instincts, other than, maybe, murder, does it?

Look at these guys - they look like a High School Glee Club. These were guys that most of us used to kick the shit out of after gym class!

Fortunately, we have a little something today that the 60’s G-men didn’t have then as an invaluable resource tool – Google. After one such quick search, I managed to procure the actual lyrics for Richard Berry’s ode-to-perverts-everywhere anthem, and I am surprised* to find that there is absolutely nothing ither suggestive, provocative, or morally corrupting about the song at all.

Nada.

Now, I fully understand that it is quite impossible to follow the main topical themes in the popular Kingsmen version of the song, but when just now, after simply reading what is actually being said in the song, it becomes obvious that it is instead about taking a solo sea voyage far away from ones home and loved ones.

Nothing X-rated about that, is there?

“Fine little girl she waits for me
Me catch the ship for cross the sea
Me sail the ship all alone
Me never think me make it home”

Apart from a little lacking in vocational skills, I don’t see anything resembling raunchy yet.

“Three nights and days me sail the sea
Me think of girl constantly
On the ship I dream she there
Me smell the rose in her hair”

Danielle Steele, maybe - Penthouse Letters, NOT!

“Me see Jamaica moon above
It won’t be long, me see my love,
I take her in my arms and then
Me tell her I never leave again”

Actually, it sounds like the guy has some pretty noble intentions instead of intending to befoul his love’s virtue and chasteness. This song has no more to do with being "raunchy" than it does about smoking pot merely because it happens to make mention of a Jamaican moon.

What horseshit!

In a letter sent home with McCord students, Dawning said “Louie Louie” was not appropriate for Benton Harbor students to play while representing the district.

Wait- it’s a fucking marching band! They’re not even going to be actually singing the damn song!

How can you offend somebody by NOT singing an INOFFENSIVE song – particularly to a bunch of stupid flower blossoms?

The world is way too fucked up to even contemplate sometimes!

Band members and parents complained that it was too late to learn another song and its far too stressful to even try to come up with new songs for the band**.

Besides, if “Louie Louie” is too sinful a song to perform publicly lest it should bring everybody to fuck in the streets like dogs in heat, then a rousing marching band rendition of ‘Dr. Feelgood’ probably wouldn’t be welcomed too keenly either, would it?

Narrow-conservative-minded jugheads.

* Now surprised can be viewed in several different ways; such as a sudden rush of nerves and adrenaline as with being greeted suddenly by an assembled group of secretly invited friends and guests in your honor, or just merely surprised, as in finding out that your box of Ritz crackers are %50 Fat Free instead of the regular salted Original variety. This particular surprise was more like the second kind.

** Okay: “boo-hoo”, I admit. You’re playing in a marching band, how stressful can THAT be exactly? But for the sake of not sidelining my other grievance, I will omit this little informative tidbit.

Cuckoo for Empty Calories

There has been convincing research conducted lately by scientists with the British Medical Journal that seems to indicate that being fat in your 40’s might raise your risk of developing dementia in life.

WTF?

Put down your drumsticks people – these world scientists are flip-flopping their stories quicker than John Kerry at a Murder Mystery dinner. They just announced that modestly overweight people were found to have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight, didn’t they? So, even though we may be the healthiest bastards on the planet, we’re also going to be about as nutty as a bag of walnuts.

Just fucking perfect – and just when you thought it was safe to go back to Ben & Jerry’s!

After four decades of having all walks of popular media hammer home the notion that flab is not either fabulous or fashionable into the deepest recesses of my brain, not to mention that my excess bodily bulk continuously has me percotiously perched at the very brink of a total health meltdown at any moment unless I should start taking 5:30AM jogs and spend millions of dollars on vitamin suppliments, dietary aids, special low-carb meals, and protein shakes, that I’m going straight to Hell in a KFC bucket, my personal sanity is the least of my worries!

Dementia? Pfft!

In a study that followed more than 10,000 Californians for almost 30 years researchers found that the fatter people were at a greater risk of developing Alzheimers disease or other forms of dementia.

That makes sense – what other kind of person would Jazzercize in a leopard print leotard or forgo yummy breakfast donuts for Richard Simmons ‘Sweatin’ to the Oldies’ videos? Sane people just don’t participate in these kinds of activities willingly.

Maybe it’s a lifetime of intense subliminal brainwashing us by big business market trends to be rake-thin and uber-health conscious that’s causing us to go all cuckoo for Coco-Puffs?

Kapeesh?

Besides, fuck it, if a little dementia due to a little extra baggage around the middle is the worst that I have to worry about in life, then I’ll truly be living on Easy Street at last!

I’d say that as long as I can still maintain an erection, haven’t ben reduced to a pile of ash in some preemptive strike, or haven’t grown a second head out of my neck thanks to prolonged exposure to toxic waste, radiation or intense ultra-violet rays, then I couldn’t give two shits if my brain finally goes to Crazytown for the rest of my days and forgets to bring the sunblock altogether!.

BRING ON THE KRISPY KREMES!

The Mickey Mouse Project

(This story is either loosely based on real events, or it was one fuck of a massive hallucination I had that week! Either way, it took place at a different time in my life when I was a very different person. I'm still a dickhead - I just don't take as many drugs now.)

At some point in everybody’s life, they think up something so incredibly stupid and misguided, that it is simply laughable in hindsight that the concept was ever deemed worthy of attempting in the first place. And yet, you did it anyway.

This is one such story.

During the ‘Spring Break’ week in my third year at the University of Waterloo, studying Medieval History & Classics, I happened to be living with four other equally dysfunctional freaks at 130 Albert Street.

It was there that a particular fiendish plot was hatched, soaked in continuous Mescaline doses, to foul up the very purist essence of one, Mickey Mouse – on his home turf no less! The disastrous plot would forever go down in the annals of asinine student pranks gone wrong, as the infamous “Mickey Mouse Project”.

The original concept of the ‘Mickey Mouse Project’ began as a ludicrous dare, from one roommate to another while lying bug-eyed on the living room couches after a few too many bong hits and chemically laced Mimosa’s and watching Walt Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ – our usual Sunday house ritual.

And so it began. The gauntlet had been thrown down.

It was agreed upon by the members of our house that together we would spend our weeks holiday away from our studies, planning and carrying out the perfect caper – to get a posed photograph of Mickey Mouse being bent over and violated by one of us degenerate jagoffs.

Imagine THAT photo on the front of a t-shirt! We’d be hailed as gods among our peers, and ensure us a due reputation as the undisputed kings of debauched student debacles for years to come on campus. We’d all become folk heroes for future generations of students, slackers, and jackasses alike.

Or so we thought.

It was settled. We spent the next three days gobbling down hallucinogens by the bucketful and craftily planning out our master plan with ‘Dirty Dozen’ style meticulousness.

And under these preposterous pretenses, we departed on a long, adrenaline fueled two-day car journey to the Sunshine State and the Magic Kingdom. Come to think of it, in our haste to launch our hastily prepared MO, we left with only our toothbrushes, a carton of smokes, jars of instant coffee, our trusty ATM cards, and enough hidden hallucinogens to keep Hunter S. Thompson wired until the year 3000. All set to the soundtrack of Primal Scream’s animated classic acid album ‘Screamadelica’:

““Just what is it that you want to do?
We wanna be free
We wanna be free to do what we wanna do
And we wanna get loaded
And we wanna have a good time
That’s what we’re gonna do.”

The road trip itself was a blur of road signs and roadside fast food burgers. By the time we arrived at our staging base of operations, “Foxbase Alpha” as we likened to call it (also known to the locals as the ‘Kississimee Comfort Inn’) just ouside Orlando, there was a virtual waft of toxic fart that emanated from the opened car doors so thick that you could spread it on toast.

But what did we care? We hadn’t slept for 48 hours and were higher than Rosie O’Donnell’s cholesterol count after a Denny’s ‘All-U-Can-Eat’ dinner buffet. Our eyes burned red with a crazy intensity as our focus immediately began to shift to the task at hand:

To besmirch Mickey!

That night, we hunkered down in our hotel room with a case of Corona and more doses of Mescaline, and carefully ran through our mission plan in preparation for our attack first thing at dawn the next morning.

“One: down to the road block we've just begun - Two: the guards are through - Three: the Majors men are on a spree - Four: Major and Waterslaw go through the door - Five: Pinkley stays out in the drive - Six: the Major gives the rope a fix - Seven: Waterslaw throws the hook to heaven - Eight: Mayonnaise has got a date - Nine: the other guys go up the line - Ten: Sawyer and Gilpen are in the pen - Eleven: Posey guards points Five and Seven - Twelve: Major and Waterslaw go down to the delve - Thirteen: Franco goes up without being seen - Fourteen: Zero hour, Mayonnaise cuts the cable Franco cuts the phone - Fifteen: Franco goes in where the others have been - Sixteen: we all come out like it's Halloween.”

Except in this mission’s operation count-off, Donald Duck was not on the bridge with a sub-machine gun, he was in position along Main Street with a high-speed shutter camera.

How could we possible fail? Yeah right!

The next morning, after an early complimentary Continental Breakfast at the hotels restaurant that was in itself, a scene right out of Animal House (clearly the hotel staff were not prepared for the likes of four sweaty, twitchy, stinky, malnourished freaks such as ourselves buzzing like a hive of bees), we set about putting our dastardly plan into action.

The initial idea was to locate our target, and then set in motion the sequence of events that would ultimately lead Mickey into a particularly precarious body position, bent over forward, from which he could be taken advantage of from behind with a daftly planted pelvic thrust into the mouse’s costumed ass for the benefit of a waiting camera.

Voila! Instant prankster immortality!

We'd make the Merry Prankers look like a bunch of faggy street mimes.

The entire success of the mission of course, relied on the actual finding of Mickey Mouse in the first place. A task, that for four tripping thrill seekers, proved to be much more difficult than that which was initially believed. For those of you church going smarty pant’s who may never have had the opportunity to experience the Magic Kingdom on numerous doses of mescaline, Walt Disney World is the center vortex from which all things trippy emanate and radiate outward through the universe. This only becomes clear after a few hundred viewings of Fantasia on psychedelically charged Sunday afternoons, but you can take my word on it.

Hard as it was in our condition to focus on the goal, we searched out Mickey Mouse for hours. We practiced our aim at the Frontierland Shootin’ Arcade, were lured into a hypnotic state with the incessant “Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” song in Adventureland, literally warped through time on Space Mountain in Tomarrowland*, and giggled for hours over the ‘Dumbo the Flying Elephant’ amusement ride in Fantasyland**; but still no Mickey Mouse!

Day One ended in defeat. Sure we saw the opportunity to wage our scheme upon other unsuspecting Walt Disney characters – but we wanted the Mouse. To truly capture the triumphant lunacy of the whole shameful event, we wanted the big kingpin over all the Disney characters.

Pluto or Tigger would just not do!

We reluctantly returned to our “Foxbase Alpha” with more Corona’s and a few more handfuls of mood adjusters, and proceeded to settle into a more serious debate on how to locate our prime directive in a more efficient and expedient manner the next day.

Day Two began in much the same way, one near ejecting from a local Lum’s restaurant, and one insane objective. We arrived at the Disney World gates promptly at 8:00AM, pure exhaustion and dementia brewing in our bloodstreams like a virus. The search for Mickey Mouse continued.
Luckily, we did not have long too look on this particular day, since as luck would have it, Mickey happened to be strolling up and down Main Street USA as soon as stepped off the park monorail.
“BINGO - YOU RAT BASTARD!”

Like a well-oiled machine***, our band of brothers spread out and prepared themselves for action.

Our originally conceived plan called for me to approach our mark under the false pretenses of having his photo taken with me by my unassuming “companion” friend. The third member of our posse would be in charge of temporarily distracting Mickey’s partnered liaison, while the last fourth member of of team of misfits, the anchor, positioned himself off to the side of the action prepared to snap the prize the second the pigeon takes the bait.

Looking back, I now recognize the major fault in our Modus Operandi: that Disney characters are not likely to just simply bend over on their own; coaxed or otherwise. Chances are, the person inside the Mickey suit never even saw my lame attempts to casually persuade him to bend over facing our anchorman with the camera.

I dropped my wallet at his feet hoping Mickey would just chivalrously bend over to retrieve it for me, but instead he never even flinched – he just beamed and waved obliviously.

I tried bowing to him in Japanese fashion hoping that he, being the culturally diverse cartoon debutante that he is, would reciprocate my gesture with his own polite bow giving me the chance to leap behind him in a lurid thrusting gesture – but still no dice.

And then my chemically altered universe and the complete futility of what I was trying to do began to implode in on me like dark matter on a collapsing neutron star. That is to say, I panicked.

Our decoy had successfully distracted Mickey’s attendant by pretending to be a lost Armenian looking for Peter Pan shoelaces, the anchor with his prepared camera in hand, my “companion” was becoming antsy knowing that our window of opportunity was closing – and still the mouse refused to cooperate!

So, in a moment of extreme toxic anxiety, I decided to proactively take matters into my own hands and gently persuade this fucking dipshit rat to bend over one way or another – that is, I tried to bend him over physically.

I quickly turned on Mickey suddenly while his attendant was still occupied, spun him around and then attempted to force him over a garden railing so that I could take my position pumping at Mickey’s backside like a horny German Sheppard for the camera lens.

Unfortunately, just at that moment, our anchor became distracted by a blonde Swedish tourist in denim short-shorts, just as Mickey managed let out a cry of fright that happened to regain the attention of his attendant who quickly called in the reinforcements on his walkie-talkie.

“Kfft! We have a mouse fucker on Main Street – Over! Kfft!”

The gig is up!

From that moment on, it was total chaos! In mere seconds, Mickey’s army of incognito lily-printed Disney G-men leapt into the foray and proceeded to round up our drug-addled asses in one foul swoop; me; my “companion”, the decoy, and the anchor.

Our plan had been foiled!

We never stood much of a chance at getting away once the hammer dropped. None of us were capable of running in a direct line without teetering off into walls or bumping into garbage cans and baby strollers; not to mention our stopping to stare at the ground and giggling like school girls every three seconds. The Disney security net dropped on us like a Norwegian deep-sea fishing trawler – we were captured as easily as had the security agents been picking overripe tomatoes.

Minutes later, we were under the bright lights and had the official Disney G-men interrogating us as if we had just perpetrated a holy Jihad on park grounds. In actuality, they had us for the attempted assault of a Disney character and for causing mischief on park grounds – but that little tidbit of information had still somehow managed to elude our taxed out brains.

After some fast-talking and a great shedding of tears, we confessed our whole crazy master plan and proceeded to turn on one another like hungry jackals and set about trying to place sole blame for the catastrophe on each other. Of course, being the actual perpetrator of the crime, I was deemed as the ringleader and therefore focused on by our Disney interrogators.

What can I say – I caved. I didn't have to wait for them to bring out the rubber hoses!

I like to think that it was because of my begging and pleading that we managed to only have ourselves escorted off the Disney grounds in a pair of Shaggy D.A. handcuffs instead of being brought up on charges of sexually assaulting a 5ft. rat.

Take about dodging a bullet!

And so we left Disney World with our tripping tails between our legs in shame – never to return.
We never did get our t-shirt photograph or our promised notoriety. In fact, we barely made it back alive and in one piece the day before classes were to begin.

Our bodies had literally been drained over the last week of sleep, healthy nourishment, and common sense. Luckily, now that class schedules were about to begin we’d have lots of time to catch up on our REM sleep since we were never really the most diligent of students anyways.

So that’s it - my ‘Fear and Loathing’ style road trip where we came within a whisper of being arrested and charged for molesting a beloved Disney character. To this day still, I wonder if the unflattering photographs that security took that day are still posted at all the entrance checkpoints, alerting park guards to be on the continuous lookout for this obnoxious, crazed University miscreant.

* In fact, it was a whole two minutes of prodding by park operators to get me out of my seat afterwards as I had then thought that my ass had been literally fused to the plastic seat cushion as a result of reentering the atmosphere.

** Hey, for what truly dedicated tripper is flying elephants NOT funny?

*** Actually, it was more like a rusty shopping cart in our condition.