Having some Pun

Welcome to the generic name extravaganza. Come on in and smoke some generic name extrava-ganja. 

The Old Man and the Sea

Once upon a time, there was a man. This man's name was Richard. In his youth, Richard often found himself in the most implausible of situations. As an old man with a long beard, he took to telling tales of his past to the kids in the neighborhood, but only on holidays.

Although I always looked forward to all of his stories, the one that always stuck with is was the Black Friday Terror.

Stuffed full of pumpkin pie and turkey, we would sit in a circle in front of his fireplace, slowly sipping our hot toddys, as he regaled us with this tale...

"Sometimes in a man's life, he's forced to make a hard choice. The hardest choice I ever made was in my 18th year, on this very day, the day after thanksgiving. My pop had worked his whole life to earn enough to open a small curio store. He had me working as a stock boy and cashier, and even back then, Black Friday was the busiest day of the year for us, which was rather odd, as our stock was pretty small, and we couldn't offer particularly decent sales, due to the extremely low market margin and turnover rate for what mostly amounted to ugly plates and weird toys. This year would be special, however. My dad had somehow lucked into a gorgeous ruby necklace, inlaid in the finest-spun silver we had ever seen. Even with the holiday "discount", we expected to make enough to rest easy on finances for a few months, at least. I knew I had to do my best and make dad proud while selling it.

So, early that morning, I went through our storage, and found the most luxurious, plus pillow we owned. Purple with gold trim, even, I felt the ring looked absolutely royal. I grabbed out poster board, and in my finest lettering, I painted out "For Sale- The Most Beautiful Necklace you have ever seen!" Everything set up, I eagerly anticipated the crowds who would come. And, boy, was I right. By noon, word of the necklace had spread around the town, although nobody who had come yet was willing to part with the money for it- although not surprising, this used to be a poor town.

Eventually, I did manage to get a buyer- John Jenkins was going to buy it for his wife at the time, Heather. But, as I prepared to ring it up, a sharp yet commanding voice floated across the room "WAIT!"

I froze immediately, and traced my gaze to the source of the voice- the most beautiful face I had ever laid eyes on. And it was attached to the sexiest body I had ever laid eyes on. I froze immediately, ignoring Jenkins completely. She ran, stumbled across the room to the counter, her heels clicking on the floor. Dressed in finery unlike anything this town was familiar with, she exclaimed "I'll give you five times what he's paying for that necklace! I must have it!" 

I agreed immediately, but, heck, I probably would have agreed at that moment even if she offered less! I was struck. With all the strange things that happen to me, I knew this was it, this was fate, our meeting. Fantasies of marriage were already forming in my head.

Which made it all the stranger when a soft voice lilted across the room. "Please, you mustn't." Only, this time the girl was as modest as the first girl was extravagant. Dressed in simple, baggy clothes, her faced obscured by long bangs and a cap, you would find her in the dictionary under "tomboy".

Despite her firm footing, she timidly edged her way to the three of us.

"You can't sell her that necklace!" she squeaked out.

"It's my mother's necklace. It was a gift to her from my now-deceased father, and was stolen from her years ago. It was her last memory of him. I can't afford to pay you for it, but it would mean the world if you could give it to me, to return to her."

The beautiful and rich woman was understandably annoyed, and among the four of us, we quickly established that the claim could not be proven, and that the necklace was bought by our store legally. I was feeling frustrated by this obvious con artist, and began to ring up the woman with the money.

At this point, the tomboy became visibly upset, and said she had one thing that could convince me that I absolutely should give the necklace to her, but that she needed to tell me it in private. Gentleman that I was and am, I couldn't stand to see a woman so upset, and not at least give her a chance.

So, I let her lead me to the back room, and ten minutes later, I came out and agreed that I could not sell the necklace. I wrapped it up and gave it to the tomboy, and she would later go on to be your beautiful Grandma Betty, Keith-boy, and you can see her wearing that necklace in the picture up on the mantle, god rest her soul. As for what she told me? Well, boys, a story has gotta have some mysteries." (For, you see, his grandson Keith would always listen with us.)

Normally, this would be the end of the story for us, but one year, Keith wasn't with us, and he stumbled at the end of the story. Like always, we pressured him to tell us what she said, but this time, to our surprise, he relented.

"Okay, okay, but you have to promise to never reveal this story to the outside world, and that includes Keith."

After crossing our hearts and swearing and making affirmations, we all crowded in to hear Old Man Robert's secret conclusion, finally.

"What did she say? What did she say?"

"Well, boys, she actually didn't say a word. In complete silence, she undid my pants, and proceeded to give me the greatest blowjob of all time. As I finished in her mouth, I knew I had met my soul mate." 

Thoughts on Being Single

I don't miss dating. For the most part, I vastly prefer the pleasures of living a self-absorbed life a lot more than trying to deal with romance and love. I'm obsessed with myself, and dating is mostly distractions and caring about other people. I don't miss sex. I don't miss anniversaries or parties or dances. I don't miss presents or kisses or the touch of another human.

Sometimes, I do miss You.

I have a female friend who occasionally sends me pictures of her, with doodles of penises in her hand. I never know what to think of those pics. I feel like if I sent people pictures of Me fingering doodle vaginas, that would be creepy.

Flowing with the Music

Last night I was laying in bed, as per usual, thinking crazy thoughts about nothing. However, this time, there was this absolutely enchanting song playing. The bass was rich and resonant, rolling across not just the soundscape, but my very understanding of what bass could be. As I grew aware of the song, I ceased all thought and lost myself to it, letting my conception of identity, of physicality, drift away. Naturally, I lost my perception of time as well, and I cannot recall the length of the experience. Regardless of the time spent, it encapsulated what it needed to. Well, until stubborn little thoughts began to worm their way into existence. I started to wonder about the name of the song, and about the name of the author of such a piece. This evolved into more petty and immediate physical concerns- what speakers was I using to play this song? What platform had chosen it for me? Of course, at the moment I had the questions, the music ceased completely, and I remembered that I was laying in bed at night and it was completely silent in my room.

Old Old Old Old Old

I bet you that Hunter S. Thompson scrapped thousands of pages of whiny, needlessly self-indulgent bullshit while writing what he did. Same goes to Mark Twain, George Carlin, Kurt Vonnegut, David Foster Wallace, Voltaire and so on and so forth. The key theme here being satire, of course. Or being rich and white. One of those two. I already tried the former, should really get to work on the latter.

Amphetamines

You.

You think a little pill will help?

That forced happiness will pay off?

It has never worked for anyone.

Why would you be special?

You.

You never listened to a word I said.

I'm a pretty dumb guy by myself.

But I'm not alone.

It's not Me that You're ignoring.

But the million others just like

You.

Have you ever sucked dick for weed?

Are you happy now?

Admittedly not business. I just want to know. You said you were miserable. Are you happy now? Did anything good come out of this? 

Okay, admittedly, yeah. That is about exactly how I expected you to respond. 

I'm sure you're plenty happy. It was a stupid question on my part. 

I'm glad to hear that everything is going so well for you.

Things really haven't been all that great for me since the breakup. After I lost my job, the apartment went soon after. Then my dog died and my house blew up. I was reduced to sucking dick for crack, but then the dicks blew up too. 

What did I even do to you? What makes me so unbearably awful?

You Don't Always Have to Get the Joke

Hillary Clinton reminds me of my ex-girlfriend.

HRC: I went to the oppressors and told them "Cut it out!"

Press: Aren't you worried about hypocrisy? You're on the board of directors for Wal-Mart.

HRC: I fail to see how that's relevant.

Press: Well, just, you're quite literally in bed with the same thing you just claimed to be against. We can literally see him thrusting in and out of you right now.

HRC: I fail to see how that's relevant.

Press: Oh, for fuck's sake, couldn't you at least avoid signing that paperwork right now?

HRC: What paperwork?

Press: You are literally holding in your hand a new policy approving cutting Wal-Mart wages so low that most of the employees will need to go on welfare.

HRC: Get your shit together, poor people.

Press: This is effectively a subsidy for billionaires. It goes against everything you claim to stand for. You can't just talk about championing ideologies of morality while simultaneously blatantly debasing them.

HRC: Walmart. Employees. Get. Your. Shit. Together. I'm an intersectional feminist. Interview over!

I plagiarized this from the internet and I don't know who I stole it from.

You are the type of hypercritical and cynical "good-time-genocide" sort of guy that I go out of my way to avoid dealing with in real life.

Like me, you are also brave in that it's a really tough thing to be able to anonymously correct someone's opinion over the internet. That guy who you so bravely corrected will hang his head in shame for the rest of his life.

I call it reddit-syndrome. You become so accustomed to dishing out minor corrections all the time on the internet because for some reason it makes you feel good to be correct. You don't do it in real life anymore because you realized people don't like to be around someone who does that. However on the internet there's an endless supply of people and opinions to "correct".

Good guy You.

The Mystery of Turtle Cove

There's always been something mysterious and seductive about a secluded beach. Thick fog rolling across the ocean and curling up the sand, before exploding into a heavy blanket of soft whiteness that clouds your vision beyond your own reach. The crisp sea air, tangy with the sense of adventure, and also salt. The crunch of sand and pebbles underfoot, heart racing with anticipation as Turtle Cove appears in your view. The rocks of the cove practically exude sunlight, their warming glow contrasted by the rich deep blues of the sea and night sky. Looking around, the only movement is the ankle-high waves gently lapping and receding, rhythmic and dull. Some people say it used to be teeming with life here,  that it was impossible to get within sight of the cove without wading through the swarms of turtles that used it as a nesting ground. The name seemed obvious enough in that context, but whenever I stood there, I always wondered "what happened to all the turtles of Turtle Cove?"

Of course, Turtle Cove was not actually a cove. There was no rolling fog, no turtles had ever lived there, and the nearest ocean was over fifty miles away. I grew up in a suburb on the eastern edges of Los Angeles county, rows of identical two-story square houses having supplanted once-profitable orange groves. The community butted up against and splashed into two small canyons of quasi-developed nature. Starting from the local high school and armed with good directions, a swift walk could bring you to either canyon in about fifteen minutes. The larger of the two canyons was mostly occupied by a few thousand acres of playgrounds and parks, and a 250 acre man-made lake. The area was clean, safe, and organized. Paved, scrubbed and scrutinized, the biggest danger was getting hit by the cars driving along the multi-laned roads.

But the other canyon? It was something special. Small and practically hidden away, the land was criss-crossed with signs of detritus and decaying civilization. For whatever reason, every attempt at bringing the location into the 21st century seemed to fail and begin rotting away*. Rusted metal bars poked out of chunks of crumbling concrete at the oddest locations, and every road petered out into faint dirt pathways within a dozen meters of penetration.

Of course, the kids of the neighborhood loved it. There was a horse's hitching post at the entrance of our favorite route into the forest, which was strange considering the nearest stables were several towns over. I don't think I ever saw a single horse anywhere in the canyon. Occasionally a llama or two would be hitched up, but that was to be expected. Most of the time, we would all rush down a path that existed only in our collective muscle memory, eager to get to The Waterfall.

Upon reflection, I would call The Waterfall something like "bucolic" or "picturesque", something akin to one of the more interesting Rockwell paintings. At the time, all we cared about was that it was a load of fun. Set in a small clearing, the actual waterfall was only about fifteen feet high and overlooked a relatively narrow but surprisingly deep pond. I have no idea how many thousands of times we jumped from that waterfall, plunging into the ice-cold and murky water below.

However, there was something rather odd about the waterfall- its water source, or rather its lack of a source. There was no river or creek that fed into or out of the pond, and yet the water was never stagnant, never grown over with moss. 

*There is one minor exception to this. Deep within the thickest part of the forest, there was a small building. I would call it a shack, but it was easily the newest and most modern looking thing there. Everybody stayed away from it, but that's a story for a different time.

Sexual Assault is Always Funny

On Rape and Humor: Why Rape Jokes can be Funny

The rape joke is a complicated topic to tackle, and approaching it carelessly can result in a rather ugly brouhaha. However, a well-timed sexual assault reference can also bring a bit of excitement and laughter to the room, as everyone heartily commiserates on the humor inherent in horrific tragedies. Rape jokes can be fun because it's a painful event and a socially taboo issue that peeks into the deepest and darkest crevasses of the human experience. It's not uncommon for people in heartbreakingly tragic situations to develop a sense of humor about it, so much so that there's a popular term for it- Gallows Humor.

By discussing something in a humorous manner, we can work to devalue its hold over those who have to deal with its very real ramifications. In fact, this is actually the basis for “exposure therapy”, a rather effective way of treating PTSD, quite probably the single biggest concern when dealing with rape victims. In essence, avoiding rape jokes only serves to fetishize rape, turning it into something quasi-sacred and the victims as something other than human. Rape jokes allow a victim to move beyond being just a victim, and return to being an ordinary person who can exist beyond a single moment, to allow them to fight having that moment define them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_therapy

In addition to that, as a bonus point of benefit, rape jokes can actually work as a way to address other relevant issues. Take, for example, this comic.

The "dickwolves" in this comic are not representative or supportive of any sort of rape culture in any way. Rape is used as a punchline, but only as a way to demonstrate the depravity of the characters involved in the scene. If one were to try to assume that the comic is pro-rape, it stops making sense as a joke. The joke relies on a sense of understanding that the hero’s callousness is morally reprehensible. There could be nothing worse than being raped by dickwolves, and yet the hero won’t take a second out of his day to help somebody beyond the bare minimum expectations. It is made aggressively clear that we, as the audience, are expected to be laughing at the fact that we would personally never do something like that, as the shocking actions are as repulsive a thing one could imagine.

My Time as a Professional Chef

You have one pasta on the menu with every fucking kind of seafood on the menu, and you got to be making it all day.

A Conversation with You

"Does chocolate help?"

"How would chocolate help? It's candy, not magical creativity food!"

"You know, the sensation? Evoke your brain to start thinking about things."

"What are you expecting me to think about? Going to a chocolate shop? I'm writing a goddamn horror novel."

"You could write about a spooky chocolate monster or something! The fudginator!"

"That sounds like a terrible wrestling gimmick or a bad episode of Scooby-Doo."

"Okay, okay. We want some serious, something really dark and gritty. How about an evil candy factory?"

"How would a chocolate factory end up evil? 'Mwuahaha. We've put nuts in the plain chocolate!'"

"Obviously the factory is just a front for dark secrets!"

"So... Saw meets Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Isn't that just Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?"

"Shit."

Titles

My friend the Lizard Person: A Tale of Love in the Face of an Attempt at Global Usurpation by the Reptilian Forces

God Mode: How to Live a Life of Success and Happiness through Cheat Codes

The Tawdry Turnip

My Yoga Pants are a Metaphor for Love

The Loneliest Lagomorph and The Pestilent Plague of the Malicious Myxo

Tea-time with myself: Memories of a life lived during refreshment breaks

T-Rans: The Tremendous Tale of a Transgendered Tyrannosaurus Rex's Trans-Atlantic Trials, Travels and Tribulations

Poems about Butts

So You've Just Been Decapitated: A Guide for Dealing with Terminal Stress

Online Shipping is Free with the purchase of Online Shipping

The Man in the High Castle, but, like, with weed instead of Nazis

Chalupa Joe and the Case of the Missing Chalupas

Chalupa Joe II: Attack of the Chalupacabra

Moving in Slow Motion: Why Athletics are Necessary

Middle-Class Cisgendered White Male: A tale of being oppressed in America

Do Rhetorical Questions Belong as Book Titles?

Yes!

Fuck Me Harder, Daddy: An Exploration of Michel Foulcault and Power Dynamics

My Immortal 2: I don't have the rights to the original

Literally Just a Dream

I had a dream about you last night. An oddly specific one.

I was living peacefully. Happy. Life wasn’t perfect, but it was decent enough. But, for whatever reason, you decided that simply leaving my life wasn’t enough. You persisted in publicly mocking me. For whatever reason, I was unsure myself, your derision took on a life of its own. It grew and spread, wormed its way into my life. I couldn’t go out in public, I couldn’t even leave the house, because the specter seemed to hang over everything I did.

Why would it?

One of the biggest lies told to children: "It gets better."

No, it doesn't. Life is shit, and it stays shit. If anything, it only gets shittier, and you just lose the will to keep fighting. You just sort of flop, give up, and say "I guess this is what life is."

Your parents liked to snort crank and fuck in the back of an old civic

Of course, the key high-profile compositional distinction between the works indubitably lies in the national and lingual preferences of the authors. Even translated into English, Proust's prose flows with a delicate yet quintessential French-ness, floating along like a feather caught in a draft, pleasantly at first, but gradually worn into a threadbare skeleton that ultimately collapses in on itself by merit of its own faint weight and flight duration. Meanwhile Joyce's thick Irish brogue seeps into a nigh-incomprehensible mishmash of onomatopoeic nightmares and deliberate subversions of every major trope in both English literature and the language itself.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, this presents a rich breeding ground for points of comparison and contention, as both manage to press up against the boundaries of excessive and unbearable in their respective manners.

The authors didn't let their similarities stop there, either. Both left the works in a tragically incomplete manner, though it becomes easy for one to imagine when such colossally nontraditional works would have a frame of reference under which we could even possibly determine whether they were properly finished.    

Some animals were born more equal than others

It feels like if I kept writing until I died, it would never be enough to express everything I want to say. For example: the word "fungible". I would love to have an opportunity to use "fungible" in my writing, but when would I ever have an organic opportunity to work it into the dialogue? I don't write about economics or finance, and for good reason. Never take financial advice from a writer. I'd have to come up with some thinly-veiled excuse to shoehorn it in awkwardly.

I tried interpretive dance for self-expression, too. That's probably the most interesting sentence ever written about interpretive dance, and I still fall asleep every time I read it back to myself.

The self is found in the expression of kinesthetics. A flash of limbs. Grunts and thrusts. The mind is clear, the goal precise. Assault, penetrate, and barrage. Unrelenting. Showing no forgiveness and no mercy. Pure, unfiltered hatred. Pure, unfiltered love. Every reflex honed to respond to the slightest twitch, every nerve on fire with an ache to connect, to control and dominate.

At Least it Was There

She looked deeply into his eyes. Limpid pools of black ichor, eternity and nothing.

“I really just don’t care.” “Go to hell.” “I’m already there.” “What right do you have to say anything about pain?” “At least I’m honest.” “Why would I ever care about that?" "You’ll see some day.”

And he did see.

A thoughtful analysis of Marcel Proust's "In Search of Lost Time" in relation to James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake"

Fuck off. I don’t know a thing about those slag-arses. Thud bonk bonk splat. It was on the eve of the first fortnight of flibbertigibbets that the young man found himself in the fledging strokes of a bildungsroman. He dies. The end. Bratta tat tat tat uomph spelling this sentence backwards sdrawkcab ecnetnes siht gnilles hpmou tat tat tat attab.

It’s not a satire. I just hate you and think you don’t deserve better. You want this? It’s yours, free of charge. A gift to the world. Savor it.

Friendly Advice

Oh you have some constructive criticism? Blow it out your ass.

Post-ironic gritty hyperrealism? Simple blue-collar sincerity? Neo-postmodern meta-exploration? 

The context? Go fuck yourself.

Knock-off Don Reckless. Performers should be blind. Audience antagonism.

Prove it.

Old Tin-Ear and the Christmas Weekend Jam Band

I have a super power. It's one nobody has ever thought of before as a super power. People get paid hundreds of dollars an hour to pretend they have it.

Nobody likes a whiner. I do. Pretty fucking amazing power, I know. Bet your jaw just dropped.

Writers have the responsibility to be an asshole to the people who trust them the most.

Maybe it's just an excuse. Maybe my problem is the only time that I'm ever happy is in the thick of a fight.

Who the fuck even says this kind of shit? 

I invented a new writing style the other day. I call it nouveaux-hyper-minimalism. 

I've always sort of resented the phrase "write what you know."

I can’t get the taste of bile out of my mouth

I can’t get the taste of bile out of my mouth

Smile and then you're smiling

Hello again. This comes and goes. You know the drill. See you when I see you. I guarantee nothing and plan to under-deliver.