Like most sane people in their twenties who don't get married out of high school and start families before they're allowed to buy beer, I maintain a healthy dislike of children. Oh, I recognize the need for children on a purely biological level, certainly; I'm just glad it's not me having to lug screaming miniature idiots around to restaurants and supermarkets just so I can keep my bloodline in the gene race. Children: they're cute at first, sure, but they're also loud, destructive, not very bright and frankly horrible conversationalists. I don't adopt retarded, violent midgets and invite them into my home for decades at a time, either, and I fail to see the difference in principle.
The only time I get face-time with children, then, has been at family reunions; and since my cousins have all since grown up into adults, I'm in a comfortable little child-free pocket of time until one of them gets married and decides to breed. (Jason, if you're reading this, have you considered recent advances in vasectomies? All the cool twenty-somethings are getting them.)
Even though I work hard to keep any meet-and-greets with the under-ten set brief and infrequent, whenever I meet children I tend to get a reliable litmus test for whatever the country's most terrified of this month, based on what they've scared the hell out of their kids into believing. (Ten years ago, for instance, I gathered that anti-smoking paranoia had hit its stride in America's public schools when a child ripped up my cigarettes in front of me and told me I had cancer. What an adorable rascal.) Based on what I've noticed since becoming a dog owner, then, I'm convinced that children today are being taught that all dogs, regardless of their size, temperament or breed, are vicious, fanged killing machines who will dive through their chests and feed on their still-beating hearts as soon as look at them.
It sounds like I'm exaggerating—and, of course, for comic effect I am—but truly, you'd think I was walking around with a four-legged bomb on a leash the way the kids melodramatically dive for cover in my neighborhood. I saw one little girl flatten herself against the wall in mute, wide-eyed terror as I walked my dog past, unable to move until we were safely past the block. Another little girl just last week actually ran into traffic to avoid getting within ten feet of my dog.
Childen accompanied by parents are even worse: the kid'll look up at Mom and Dad and ask if they can pet my dog, and—without conferring with me or even acknowledging my existence—the parents will loudly scold them into silence at such a ludicrous suggestion, explaining that I'm most likely a pervert who feeds my dog human steaks through a cage. This morning I witnessed a mother accidentally (and hilariously) bean her child off a lamp post in her flailing efforts to prevent her darling from getting his hand licked by a puppy. When I walk my dog in the park, I'm accosted now by roving packs of eight-year-olds who want to pet my dog, surreptiously asked in the same hushed, guilty tones they might use to score weed. Apparently Playing With an Adorable Puppy is the new Climbing on Abandoned Construction Vehicles for childhood rebellion.
Keep in mind, I'm not for a second suggesting the parents and teachers are in error here: it's not like children can be trusted to use their own judgment on a case-by-case basis, since they're idiots and don't have any. If you want little Taylor to understand he can't put his arm in the mouth of a foaming, rabid Rottweiler chained to a rusted-out Buick in the junkyard, you're going to have to make a blanket rule that the little moron can't go near any dogs at all. And you'll probably want to make up a bunch of ridiculous lies to instill fear in the kid too, because God knows common sense is going to sail right over his dirty little skull.
No, I'm merely pointing out the effects of this strategy: that children are running into the paths of cars and getting headbutted into poles to avoid ravenous, flesh-hungry beasts like my dog:
Frightening just looking at him, isn't he? Those are the black eyes of a killer.
Perhaps I'm just out of date, and there's been a recent scourge of puppy attacks on children lately. Based on how kids play with my dog at the park, I believe it. (Yes, I let my dog play with kids at the park. Kids are in better shape than I am, and my dog needs exercise. When an angry parent approaches, looking like she's about to chew me out, I usually fake a cell phone call and talk into a dead receiver while beating a hasty exit.) Typically the kids will approach my dog with fear, which as I'm sure you can imagine, puts him at ease immediately. There's nothing like having three complete strangers encircle you while stage-creeping around with their arms out to put you at your ease.
Once the kids are satisfied that my dog's not going to kill him, they'll terrorize him, because—I hope I've made this clear by now—children are dim, evil-minded little bastards. They'll chase him around, usually while holding tree branches or other threatening-looking implements, screaming at the top of their lungs like the sticks are swords and they're the loudest, stupidest ninjas ever. My dog's tail will immediately tuck between his legs and he'll hide behind me, looking up at me imploringly as if to say, "I don't know if these are friends of yours or what, but this needs to stop."
One of the kids, swinging his tree branch experimentally, will puzzle this new information out for a bit, and say, "I think he's scared." The others will flatly refute this, on the grounds that it's a dog and they love it when you attack them with sticks. If I wasn't there for my dog to hide behind, I'm sure at some point he would have bitten them. I know I was close to committing some form of violence—but then one of their mothers showed up, red-faced and fat, and I hurriedly faked a cell phone call while walking swiftly in the other direction.
]]>So I'm sitting at my desk watching him walk in and receive excited greetings from everyone, and I'm totally confused, because I remember incredibly clearly that he'd already dropped by this week: he'd even stopped by my desk. We'd shaken hands, I'd asked him all about his new job. We'd had an elaborate, detailed conversation for upwards of fifteen minutes.
Or wait... had we? Doubt set in. Had I just dreamed it?
It was possible. The memory of it seemed incredibly lucid. On the other hand, I routinely have stultifyingly boring dreams about going to work: commuting in on the subway, returning email, laying out articles for the web, goofing off online. Often I'll have gotten almost a full day's work done and will just be returning a few final phone calls before calling it a day, when I'll wake up suddenly and realize with mounting depression that I now have to go to work and do it all over again.
Not wanting to come off rude, I walked over to our former IT guy to feel out the situation. If we'd already talked this week, my greeting should obviously be more subdued; after all, we'd caught up with each other two days ago. I'd look like a callous ass if I came off like I'd completely forgotten about our conversation.
On the other hand, If I'd dreamed it, that would mean we hadn't actually talked in over four months. Casually waltzing over with a cursory head nod and a "What's up?" would come off pretty rude. The situation would require tact and delicacy if I wanted to come off non-crazy here. I thought for a minute about what my best opening volley should be.
"Hey! So, did you already stop by this week or did I just dream that?" I ended up going with, because to hell with tact and delicacy. It's not like I'm not intimately familiar with looking like an idiot in social situations. As regular readers of this site might remember, you're reading the website of a guy who's been caught masturbating by construction workers. Once you walk away from shame like that, admitting you can't separate dreams from reality to work friends is a cake walk.
Our former IT guy's confused, slightly frightened look told me everything I needed to know: I had in fact dreamed his previous visit, and, yes, now sounded like a dangerous, unbalanced psychotic. Hoping to rally the situation, I immediately ramped up the enthusiasm level and greeted him, now confident we hadn't seen each other in months. "Heyyyyyy!" So how is everything?" Then I sat back and listened—feeling more than slightly pissed off, however unreasonably, about getting locked into the same goddamn conversation twice. I didn't want to be rude. It was simply that from my perspective, however caked with lunacy it might be, this entire reunion was pretty redundant. In my head I kept thinking, "Damn it, we just did this! I want to get some lunch."
And so, after ten minutes of catch-up, I did just that. (Luckily I didn't wake up at this point. I have a bad memory and lucid dreams, it's not like I'm living in a Twilight Zone episode or anything.)
]]>
It is widely recognized in academic and scientific circles that I have gifts. Powerful gifts involving prose, and its crafting. With this burden in mind, I decided it was damn well time I gave back something to the community: hence an article exhaustively analyzing which '80s action movie hero is the hardest badass.
I must point out: this article was written at no great personal risk to me, and was written in my capacity as an authority on absolutely nothing. By this I mean to say that this article should be read as its author intended: as unvarnished, objective fact. If you disagree with the article in any way whatsoever, it is important that you understand this is your moral or intellectual failing, and that with proper counselling you can be brought back from the abyss of improper views on Rambo, and rejoin society as a fully functioning person with correct views.
Too wide to fit here, so I had to give it its own page. Also, watch your back, sports fan: it's not work safe.
]]>
But first: a scathing holiday-themed piece of mine is up at Cracked called St. Patrick's Day Exposed (it's a shit title, I know), as well as another holiday-themed piece of mine from last year that one of the Cracked editors exhumed and reposted. It's mostly just an excuse to tell a lot of filthy jokes about pooping and sexual assault. (Guess which article's getting linked around more?)
Anyway, thats all I got. By the sound of it, two feral cats are clawing themselves to death in the alley outside my apartment. I might referee that for a while if they let me. Otherwise, some aspirin and a warm bed beckon.
]]>
Like most superhero team-ups, when Peter Lynn and I get together to co-write something, it usually involves us beating up on each other for a while before channeling our powers towards the defeat of a common enemy. In this case, movie trailers. Be sure to check out our snap judgments and harsh condemnations of the world of film based only on a cursory viewing of a blurry YouTube clip in Trailer Trash: Cruel Reviews of Upcoming Movies over at Cracked.com.
Or, at least, as much as you’re able to check out before the sun sets. Frankly, it’s a touch long. We each took ten trailers to review, assuming they’d be about a paragraph in length apiece, somehow forgetting our respective longwinded prose styles. It now sits towering and blotting out the sun, an imposing War & Peace of catty film review.
If you do manage to get through it and, against all reason, decide it still wasn’t long enough, do yourself a favor and surf over to Pete’s blog link to the same article, where—Pete being Pete—he’s helpfully posted all the weaker bits I cut out of the damn article in the first place, this time as an introduction to the article proper: as the old maxim goes, put your club foot forward.
]]>
I didn’t know it when I woke up Friday morning, but in less than an hour I would be tested.
Tested as a man. A real man. The kind with chest hair, muscles and an actual chin. The kind of man that women look at and think, “You better believe I’d let him drill me.” It was to be a morning where, in the space of a single split-second moment, my character would be called daringly into question. An “Oh my Christ look, a woman’s screaming from the top floor of a burning building, WHAT TO YOU DO, HOTSHOT?” moment. A “You're walking home from a game of catch at the park when you notice a baby flying off the balcony of Eric Clapton's house, WHAT DO YOU MOTHERFUCKING DO, SPORTS FAN?” moment. (And no, I’m not sure who specifically is yelling at you so angrily in either of these scenarios, or why they can’t get off your back and catch the damn baby themselves. Probably just some asshole.)
This was also to be a morning where, in addition to measuring my instinct for cool-headed bravery in the face of crisis, I would learn that I don’t have any. It turns out I’m sort of a huge pussy, and that if given one of the above scenarios, I’d stare blankly in confusion while women fell, burning and shrieking, from the windows of fire-engulfed condos, or look on with ineffectual concern while Eric Clapton’s baby picked up speed. Yes, surprising nobody but myself, it turns out I’m the sort of can-do hero who, when called to action, will immediately freeze like a tender-eyed fawn in terrified brain-lock. If placed in a highly metaphysical conundrum involving a collapsing bridge, a loved one hanging off of either side and the choice of saving only one, I would in all likelihood cause both to plummet, cursing me, to their deaths, having opted to “hang back a little and mull over my choices” until the time for action had long since sprinted past.
I am, it seems, incapable of reflexive bravery. This is never good news to hear. And it certainly doesn’t make the medicine go down any easier if you’re reaching this epiphany while an old man buries his face, deeply and lovingly, into your crotch. Let me explain that.
]]> Figure 1: Subway Car LayoutHere’s how it went down. On the left is me, reading a book and minding my own business. Second from the left, another commuter, also reading and minding his own business. Further down the subway car bench is an old man and a young boy, presumably either his grandson or a child he’s elected to abduct. In either case, I’m not aware of them yet. As I mentioned, I’m reading a book and minding my own business. The layout looks more like this from my perspective:
Figure 2: Subway Car Layout (My Perspective)
It’s helpful to keep this image in your mind when I tell you the next part of the story, so you can understand the limited amount of information I had when my character was suddenly tested and I responded by acting like a laughably enormous rose-scented pussy.
Supplemental Information: It’s also helpful to note, if you’ve never ridden public transportation in New York City before, that it’s prudent to adopt the Fifty-Yard Ignoring Stare at all times (a topic I’ve touched on before). Why? Because fully 30% of the population of any given subway car is pants-shitting crazy. On this particular subway ride, I’d already ignored no less than three homeless people, one crazy person (probably, let’s face it, also homeless) and one really angry dude who, for reasons lost on the rest of us, wanted to fight the shit out of someone, anyone at all, as soon as possible.
One homeless guy even walked up and down the car for three stops singing old Motown hits at the top of his lungs, explaining that he wouldn’t use the money he expected us to give him to buy drugs, and assuring everyone present, against all current evidence, that God was a loving God. (I never give these assholes money on the simple principle that they’re taking advantage of our helpless captivity to beg for money, which makes them selfish pricks no matter how pathetic they look. As far as I’m concerned, waiting until a hundred people are locked in a moving subway car before you pull out a guitar unprompted, butcher something by Leonard Cohen and beg me for a dollar is tantamount to breaking into my house, barging into the bathroom while I’m crapping and asking to borrow the magazine I’m reading. I don’t care why you want what you want or when you ate last, Three-Finger Pete. Get the fuck out of my bathroom.)
So for perspective’s sake—and by that I mean, “for the sake of somewhat excusing what a big pussy I’m about to act like”—note for the record that I’d been quietly ignoring a continuous stream of homeless people and short men with anger issues for at least twenty minutes when, apropos of absolutely nothing, I suddenly found a man’s head buried face-first in my dick and balls.
The car hadn't jolted to a sudden stop or anything. There was no logical explanation for it, other than a man had suddenly decided, without including me in the decision-making process, that the best place for his face was nestled, like lettuce on sandwich meat, on top of my groin. My first thought was that one of the crazy homeless guys had tripped while making his begging rounds. Actually, that’s a lie—this was my second thought. My first thought was “Aghhhh Jesus Jesus!”, and my first reaction was to leap up reflexively like my dick was on fire.
As it turned out, what had happened was that the older gentleman two seats down had... fuck, I don’t know, done one of those old people things. I have no idea what happened to the guy. My only experience with something like this isn’t even firsthand; apparently my grandmother did something similar two Thanksgivings ago. She was at the dinner table with everybody else, eating turkey and complaining about how dry it was to everybody, when suddenly something went LINE 298 ERROR in her brain, she spoke a few sentences of utter nonsense and just… turned off. The lights were on, but there was nobody home. I couldn’t make it up for Thanksgiving that year, so I only heard about it afterwards: 911 was called, she was completely unresponsive for about a half hour—then, just as suddenly, the back-up generator flickered to life and she was herself again, complaining about the doctor’s presence and wondering where the fuck her pumpkin pie was. It weirded my family right out, and I mention it only to illustrate that sometimes old people get up to some wacky shenanigans, and all medical science can do is keep them away from sharp cutlery.
Anyway, it looked like this:
Figure 3: I Don’t Know What the Deal is With Old People, I Seriously Don’t
In case you were getting impatient with the constant anecdotes and asides and started impatiently scrolling down to read the part where I was a huge pussy, this is the part where I was a huge pussy. I leap up from my seat, making a strangled “Gah!” noise and basically freaking out, like I’d woken up to find a huge spider on my face. The old guy, disgorged from my lap and still in freefall, sails downward to the floor of the subway, where his head connects with the base of one of those upright steel poles in the middle of the floor with this extremely nasty, extremely loud, extremely wet K-RRK! noise. Imagine dropping a watermelon down a flight of steps, and it doesn’t split open or anything, but when it hits a step it makes a sound that lets you know it’s probably at least leaking a little now. That was the sound. It was stomach-churningly gross.
I’m standing stock-still, book in one hand, the subway train still moving. About three-quarters of a second has passed, and it dawns on me that I’ve just killed a guy. He’s not moving. Someone shouts “Oh my God!” and then someone else shouts “Oh Jesus God!” while the first person says “Oh my God!” again, but louder.
Then the old guy does start moving, just a little, and groaning. (Hooray! I’m not a murderer!) I immediately start wracking my brain for whatever half-remembered safety tips I might have filed away for situations like this. Wallet under the tongue? I think. No, that’s for epileptic seizures. I remember I’m supposed to not let him go to sleep if he’s suffered a concussion, though this doesn’t seem immediately helpful.
I also suddenly recall a plot point from one of those procedural cop dramas about not moving someone with spinal injuries. They need to lift you up with one of those special paramedic gurneys after your head’s in a brace and you’re all strapped in. Again, not immediately helpful, so I leaf through more mental files. I recall that whenever this happens to someone in the NFL, the medical procedure is to talk very quietly while showing his injury from multiple angles in slow motion. Everyone waits for him to get up on his own and give the crowd a thumbs-up sign, at which point you cheer his bravery and he’s helped off the field.
While I’m thinking all this, in the space of a few seconds, some handsome young guy stands up, walks calmly over to the old man, wrenches him upright, sits the dazed old guy back down in his seat, chucks him on the shoulder, laughs “Hey, we’ve all been there, oldtimer” in a comforting, stage-whispery voice to help the old guy keep his dignity, tousles the grandson’s hair and tells him he's a pretty brave little kid.
That motherfucking jerk.
The handsome young guy smugly walks back to his seat, where he pretends to ignore the quiet admiration of everyone else on the subway car. Elsewhere on the train, five attractive women get down to the business of imagining what the handsome young guy would feel like inside them, drilling them right there in the car. Meanwhile, I’m standing around like a moron, wearing a dumb “woke up with a spider on my face” expression and still internally debating whether I’ll break the old guy’s spine if I move him. (Apparently not.)
Calmly, hoping to save as much face as I can, I put my book down, smooth out my jacket, walk over to the handsome young guy and punch him as many times in the throat as I can before I’m pulled off his quivering, bloody body. (Note: this doesn’t actually happen, I just sit back down.)
]]>
Larry Holmes' GrillMaster XL makes its advertorial debut over at Cracked.com. With acknowledgement to JP.com forum regular Scott Feenstra for the idea, since he actually talks like this in casual conversation.
]]>
]]>
]]>
Whenever I try to leave my apartment, my dog will dart out of the closing door with alarming, Indiana Jonesesque speed. Nine times out of ten I won’t even notice it. I’ll be out in the hallway, fumbling through my pockets in the dark for my keys. (The hallway lights have been out in our building since September—I think our super is either dead or long since escaped to Tijuana with a suitcase full of lightbulbs.) At some point I’ll remember that I keep my keys in my jacket pocket, and have in fact done so for fifteen years. (It’s early, and I’m legally retarded before noon.) I’ll finally get the door locked and turn around, where I’ll find my dog sitting in the middle of the hallway with a pleased, curious look on his face—as if saying “Man, that took you some time, huh? Can we go now?”
My wife, who watched the dog escape when I left, will now be listening from the couch with (evil, small-minded) amusement as I try to re-find my keys in the dark (front jacket pocket again), unlock and open the door, then walk back in, grumbling and calling for the dog—who knows damn well that staying in the hallway equals Walk, and so sits motionless, staring at me like I’m some idiot who likes to stand in doorways shouting “Come!” for no reason.
“He’s so smart,” my wife will say, after my faux-enthusiastic shaking of a rubber dog toy eventually convinces him to pad his furry ass back into the apartment. To my mind, given the battle of wills that’s just taken place, this of course leaves hanging in the air the implied addendum He’s so much smarter than you.
“He’s not smart,” I’ll say. “He’s fast. Cars are fast. That doesn’t mean they understand algebra.” It’s not, in other words, like the dog has calculated his escape with flowcharts for when I open the front door. He has a brain the size of an under-ripe walnut. More likely he was just thinking OH BOY DOOR WALK GO POOP WALK DOOR OH BOY, his legs moving independently of his brain the second he heard the doorknob turn.
He’s a moron, is what I’m trying to say, because all dogs are morons. Sure, my wife and I enjoy swapping stories with other dog owners about how smart and observant our pets are, but all bullshit aside, of course they aren’t. In the context of pet ownership, having a smart dog means he can sit or poop when you tell him to. When you’re gauging the intelligence of a mammal on its ability to understand that it should walk towards you when you flail your arms and make noises, I’m sorry, but that’s a low-set bar. The buck-toothed Hispanic woman from the Subway near me with the horseshoe-shaped divot in her forehead can sit and poop on command, as well as punch up to five distinct sandwich-themed buttons on a cash register, but I don’t think anyone’s making any convincing arguments that she isn’t as fuck-dumb as a pile of sticks. The difference between the buck-toothed woman and a dog is that we’re disappointed when the woman forgets to shit in the right place, but astounded beyond belief when the dog manages to remember.
Compared to other dogs, sure, our dog is pretty sharp. But whatever. Compared to humans—meaning me—my dog is, I’m sorry, an idiot. I can poop in designated areas as well as he can or better. I’m also able to perform any number of simple tasks that, frankly, soar right over his tiny bullet head—and I don’t mean reading The Iliad or programming my VCR to tape 24 or what have you. I’m talking about basic survival instincts he should possess as a mammal but doesn’t, like how you shouldn’t decide to eat something based exclusively on the criteria that it’s directly in front of you and not on fire.
Another example: I stepped on my dog a dozen times yesterday, resulting in a high-pitched “YIP!” sound and a betrayed expression from floor level. It was accidental every time, and I do make an honest effort to feel guilty about it—but at the end of the day, one of us keeps veering into the path of the other before diving headfirst under their descending feet. As the latter person in this scenario, I put forward: seriously, what kind of idiot does this more than once? The first time I put my finger on a hot stove outlet, it resulted in a high-pitched “YIP!” sound and a betrayed expression from me level. The take-away point from this experience wasn’t “Next time I’d better try that with my face.” It was “Pain = Bad.” My dog’s cumulative experience from me stomping on him like a burning oven mitt, on the other hand, seems closer to something like “Pain = Dog Food” or “Pain = I Can See My Reflection in The Mirror, Hooray For Toys”.
To summarize, I’m way fucking smarter than a dog. The reason? Unless you do something a thousand times in a row for their benefit, dogs don’t have the capacity for pattern recall. Their inability to remember basic cause-and-effect lessons makes them, as a species, ridiculously easy to outsmart. If I tried distracting my wife with a rubber ball every time she complained that I never listen to her, I realistically couldn’t see it working past the seventh or eighth time. But when the dog annoys me, the rubber ball trick’s worked consistently now for something like three months, with no indication he’ll catch on any time soon. There’s something touching about the naked trust my dog has that when I throw a ball for him to fetch, I’m not suddenly going to leave the apartment and lock the door behind me once he runs after it—and I receive immense satisfaction from abusing this trust on a daily basis without any consequences at all.
Last week I lopped his balls off—not personally, I just took him to a place where someone else did—and the poor little guy trusted me every step of the way to the animal hospital. The only one of us feeling anxious about the future was me, as I’d been quoted a price of $200 over the phone. This struck me as high, since I knew from the research I’d done that most animal shelters would neuter my dog for $75. But the pet store we’d bought him from had given us a deal for a year’s worth of free vet visits (operations not included) if we went to a specific animal hospital for the entire year. Going elsewhere would annul this deal, so $200 now meant free visits for the next six months.
Once I got there with the dog, the receptionist handed me a list of “optional” services I could purchase, including an IV and pain medication for the dog. Under the IV description, the list made a point of explaining that, in the event of a complication during surgery, this option could mean the difference between life and death. Under the description for pain medication, the text stressed that “if YOU were getting neutered, wouldn’t YOU want pain medication?” Never mind that if I was getting neutered, I wouldn’t want pain medication so much as a pistol, six bullets and five surgeons. But come on. Since when are IV stands and medication considered optional for surgery? I’m surprised they didn’t try to rent me the pillow or charge me extra for the scalpels.
Since the list was phrased in such a way that refusing any of the not-really-optional “optional” perks inferred you’d be about to wave your dog off to a painful, drawn-out death, the price tag for the operation was now up to $300. So imagine my dubious look when the pet surgeon introduced herself to me soon after, then asked me if I’d be purchasing a pet ID microchip for an additional $50 that would be implanted in my dog during surgery.
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said, although in fact I did understand: my bill was now $350 and climbing steadily with no end in sight. “If I lose the dog, this will find the dog?” I asked, looking behind the kiosk for radar equipment.
“No, not exactly,” she said.
“Because we live in New York City,” I clarified. “It’s bumper-to-bumper traffic outside of our apartment all day and night. If our dog escapes, he’s dead in five minutes. I’m not sure if it’s worth $50 to help find his corpse.”
Apparently this little piece of logic came off a little coldhearted, if the looks of shock and horror on everyone around me were any indication. I might have imagined it, but I think the surgeon, who was holding my dog, tightened her grip a little.
“No, it’s if your dog goes to an animal shelter,” she explained. In my mind, I imagined someone from the shelter taking dogs out of a box and running them over one of those check-out counter lasers like at the supermarket. It all struck me as ludicrous, but realizing that I’d already come off a bit troll-like, and aware that the unfairness of life dictated that I’d probably need this thing some day only if I decided not to get it now, I agreed to the microchip. After this I kept glancing at the door, waiting for another in a series of dog specialists to come in and coax money out of me for another twelve optional choices that my dog would die during surgery without. But apparently I’d reached the cap-off point, and managed to walk out of the place minus $350 and a pair of dog testicles.
The whole affair was incredibly depressing, in the end. At no point did my dog really understand what was happening, what he’d lost or my involvement in the transaction. As a proud owner of my own pair of testicles, part of me wanted him to be angry at me—to cast me immeasurably betrayed looks for robbing him of his manhood, to look down at his poor shriveled little nutsack, then stare me in the eyes as if to say, “I know what you’ve done, and frankly, sir, you should be ashamed of yourself.”
But nothing like that happened. He jumped around beforehand, thinking we were going for a walk. He had no idea I was leaving him at the vet until I actually left. He was oblivious to what was coming next when they put him under. Afterwards, snoozing on the couch with his swollen crotch, he never connected me to the pain. He was just happy to be home and snoozing on the couch. I’m not sure how I expected it would play out—possibly with him getting drunk and taking a swing at me—so the fact that he doesn't blame me for, or is even remotely aware of, his own castration means I don’t have any option but to shoulder the guilt for it until one of us dies.
Maybe he’s not as stupid as he looks.
]]>
Hot on the heels of Shameless Hype #2 is Shameless Hype #3, detailing my involvement with Cracked #3, which hits newsstands officially next week (though it looks like most of the comic book stores are already stocking it). This officially catches me up on my self-congratulatory navel-gazing until Issue #4 in two months. What will I do in the meantime? Rape things, maybe. I don't know. Maybe I'll knit a pair of socks.
Click below for the Issue #3 rundown. As before, if you're not interested, no hard feelings. Actual updates on their way.
]]> Stuff I wrote for this issue
The Rachel Ray one was just something getting passed around the office that I contributed to. Mine are #1, #4, #5, #6 and #7.
A letter from me to the person I've just hit with my car, attempting to buy them off with expired Hamburger Helper if they don't go to the cops.
This marks the last article appearing in Cracked Magazine that has previously appeared on my site. As of Issue #4, I'd officially run out of backlog I could sell off as new stuff ("It's new-ish") and was forced to, gasp, come up with original material. So in Issue #4, there's an original article about St. Patrick's Day that I wrote, much in the style of "My Vagina, The Prison" or "How To Buy a Mexican Child for 300 Pesos." I love writing these for the sole reason that the narrator's always such an oblivious asshole. Coming up with new ways for him to be cruel to people for no reason is the highlight of my daydreams on the subway ride into work.
Photoshopped picture also by me. That I was able to find a picture of a guy actually pumping his fist into the air while driving is no less than an act of providence.
One of the jokes here might have suffered a bit from being a bit too regional, I later discovered. Growing up in Canada, the "Face Wash" was as famous a torture technique as a Wet Willy or a Titty Twister. Essentially, you sit on someone's back and scoop snow into their face, and laugh like a cock. Apparently it's unknown here in the States, as I got nothing but blank stares from the reference. "Why is Fastman washing that guy's face?"
"Great for sex," assures Sinclair.
Kupperman Komiks, Michael Kupperman
See Shameless Hype #2 for my thoughts on Michael Kupperman.
"New Sex Foods", Maddox
See Shameless Hype #2 for my thoughts on Maddox.
"Marketing Consultant For The Homeless", Sir John Hargrave
John Hargrave, who runs the website zug.com, was one of those guys that proves how vastly big a place the web can be; he'd been doing professional-level pranks for years, had gotten linked all over the place, was the subject of interviews and articles, and had a book out, and I'd never heard of him. Only after I'd commissioned a piece from him and met the guy did I actually sit down and read his book, Prank the Monkey. It was incredibly smart and funny. "Holy shit, this guy's amazing," I thought. "How could I never have heard of him before?" Because the net's a big place. And because I'm an antisocial, self-absorbed little troll.
His piece, "Marketing Consultant For The Homeless", ended up being hysterical. Dude actually got dressed up in a suit and went out badgering homeless people, trying to get them to expand their homeless earning power. He even made a Powerpoint presentation. It was absolutely brilliant.
"Unintentional Comedies," Michael J. Nelson
See Shameless Hype #2 for my thoughts on Mike Nelson.
"Laugh Audit: Romantic Comedies", Chris Sims
See Shameless Hype #2 for my thoughts on Chris Sims.
"White Face, Red Nose", Peter Lynn
I'll let Pete tell you about this one.
"More Information Than You Require: Interview with John Hodgman," Max Burbank
Max Burbank is/was one of the writers over at Roger Barr's I-Mockery.com, and I'd worked with them both a few times while at National Lampoon. Max contacted me about a potential interview he thought he could get with John Hodgman, the frequent Daily Show correspondent, "PC" in the Mac/PC ads and writer of the funny almanac spoof The Areas of My Expertise. I'm always more of a fan of humorists (i.e. writers) than comedians (i.e. stand-up comics) anyway, so it was nice to get an interview with someone who's more comfortable in front of a word processor than a microphone.
Working for a magazine like Cracked starts to feel a bit like a reality TV show after a while—you're a contestant trying to get as much of the stuff you've either written or commissioned into the mag, while competing with other editors who are trying to do the exact same thing. Because comedy's so subjective, this sort of creative tug-of-war ultimately makes the magazine a lot better, since there's probably a lot of stuff you find hilarious that I wouldn't, and vice versa. The more people contributing, the more varied it becomes.
The downside of this, though, is that there are always one or two things that make it into the magazine that I just didn't think were funny, either because I felt they were too pandering, or too "easy," or too lowbrow (I'm a bit of a comedy snob). Then they get the biggest response of anything else in the magazine, and I hate humanity just that much more.
Issue #3, for me, had the highest ratio to date of shit I either loved or really liked over stuff that I thought was lacking. Leafing through it now, it's just really strong. It feels like we started to hit our stride a little, and I liked the fact that we got adventurous with some higher-brow comedy (like our New Yorker parody) that might not be the most popular thing in the issue, but damn it, it was funny and smart. John Hargrave's "Homeless Marketing Consultant" is probably the funniest infiltration we've done yet; I liked being able to get Fastman in for another story (even if he does only have a walk-on appearance in it); Michael Ian Black's got a hilarious essay in there; Neal Pollack has an extremely cutting spoof column of the New Yorker's David Remnick. There's just a lot of stuff in here I enjoy an awful lot.
]]>