I noticed something about my behavior the other day that I thought I would share with you. I still buy a lot of books. Yep, even with the Internet and e-books and the Kindle and the iPad and the Nook and the Cranny, I have ignored these pissy little fake books and I continue to buy real books. Why? Because I am a good American and I want to help out the economy and actually hold a big, heavy hardbound book bought from Vroman’s in my hairy-knuckled hands and just lean back and smell the new-book ink. (I’ll wait for the applause to die down.)
And even though my pinko wife, Marge the Commie, has drifted over to the other side and now reads almost all her books on the Kindle, I still hold out for decency and apple pie and wrongheaded stubbornness. Sometimes when she’s not paying attention, I try to jam her Wi-Fi connection to our home network by running around the living room in my boxers waving an old antenna and tying aluminum foil to Archie’s collar. So far it hasn’t worked very well, except we have noticed a drop in Jehovah’s Witnesses in the neighborhood.
OK, I know you’ve been dying to ask me just what books I have been reading. Well, I am going to tell you that, but first, I have to make a little confession. Although I continue to buy a lot of books, I have noticed that I am not reading a lot of books. What I am doing is stacking a lot of books. I am a really good stacker of books. I love to stack books. It’s just so cool. It makes you look really intellectual and the chicks love the long stack.
And the art of stacking is pretty easy. I learned it in only a few days. Once I caught on to the trick of putting one book on top of the other and continuing that, I pretty much knew how to stack.
So what books do I have in my stack? What books am I not reading but have purchased to help me give the impression to houseguests that I read a lot? Is that what you want to know? OK, here’s the list of my perfectly stacked, and as of now, unread or just barely partially read, books:
“Animals Make Us Human,” by Temple Grandin
“The Wagon,” by Martin Preib
“Perfectly Reasonable Deviations,” by Richard P. Feynman
“iPhone: The Missing Manual,” by David Pogue
“The Quants,” by Scott Patterson
“The Last Empty Places,” by Peter Stark
“Going Rogue,” by Sarah Palin (I bought this to just piss off people)
“Open,” by Andre Agassi
“The Poker Bride,” by Christopher Corbett
“Hollywood Moon,” by Joseph Wambaugh
“Mao: The Unknown Story,” by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
“The Book of Genesis Illustrated,” by R. Crumb (By the way, did you know that when you spell check R. Crumb, the spellchecker gives you “rectum?” Try it yourself.)
Now, if I had actually read those books, I may have had an outside chance of being a somewhat interesting person. But, as you now know, I have only stacked these books. But I think I have stacked them very well. I put the large, R. Crumb oversized coffee table book on the bottom and then put the giant-ass 800 page Mao monster on top of that one, and so on, up to the shortest one — “The Wagon,” only 167 pages. Pretty damn good stacking, huh? What if I had put “The Wagon” on the bottom of the stack and created an unwieldy stack? What you have still respected me? Would you have let me stack around your children? I doubt it.
Although I am a damn good stacker, and I think my stacking would stack up to any book stack I know of, I have felt a little guilty about not actually reading the books. At first, I didn’t quite know how to remedy the situation. Oh sure, I could have actually read the books. But that’s pretty time-consuming.
So I decided to buy an iPhone app to help me read more. I hit up iTunes and clicked on the Apple App Store and damned if I didn’t find an app to help me read more. It was called Read More. (That Steve Jobs is something, huh?) So, even though I couldn’t stack it, I bought the Read More app to help me read more. (They didn’t have a Stack More app.)
And, get this: You enter all the books you are reading in this Read More app, and then when you actually start reading a book, you start a timer! Then, when you finish a reading session, you stop the timer. That way you can go from book to book and keep track of exactly how many pages you have read and you’ll know your official pages per-hour reading rate.
But, hell, I already knew how many pages of each book I had read. Zero. And I knew my official reading rate. Zero. And I already knew what people thought of me. A number less than one. So I wasted my money on this damn Read More app. But at least I could stack my iPhone, which had my Read More app in it, up on my stack of books. It’s the perfect size to be on top of a stack.
Jim Laris is a former publisher and owner of the Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
That May Be Stretching It a Little (Cigar Smoke 5-20-10)
OK, I know it may not be possible for you guys to resent me more. Let’s just say that something incredibly wonderful has recently happened to me that should cement your previous resentment.
Of course, in the past you have resented me for my lanky body. What can I say? God has graced me with litheness. You are just going to have to work that one out yourselves.
And I know you admire me for my political views and my general wisdom. And I know you don’t like me because I have a better dog than you do. And my sincere, well-deserved humbleness probably turns you off, too.
But most of all, I know you resent me because I am retired and I don’t have to work anymore and can sleep in and do what I want and take meaningless trips to even more meaningless places. Yet you still have to work and make money and deal with blood-popping stress levels and read my bullshit week after week. You still have kids and families and spouses to provide for and you can’t quite believe you’re still reading about someone who’s biggest concern in life is getting up in the morning and trying to figure out what day of the week it is.
Now, after saying all that, something so wonderful just happened to me that I almost hesitate to tell you what it is. But, what the hell, your mental health has never really meant all that much to me before. And I’m going to say it fast, so sit down, maybe with a loved one, or take a shot of Chivas or grab your Teddy bear. Are you ready?
OK, here it is: I had an incredibly wonderful experience with the cable company.
I’ll give you a minute. Just relax, count to 10, chill out. Just accept the fact that some people are meant to have things that you will never have. Just let that burning resentment drain from your brain. Let it go through your ulcer-ridden stomach and through tortured rectal areas and eventually seep out of your toes, on to your carpet.
Yes, a few days ago my cable went out on me. I could not get any premium channels. (And you thought your life was tough.) There was no way I could live with only basic cable, so I called up Charter. The woman who took my call was so damn nice I asked her if I had the wrong number. She laughed, and I said, “Where’s the usual bitch who doesn’t give a shit? She on vacation?”
The nice Charter lady told me to turn off my cable box and then restart it. I looked over at the shelf next to my TV. There was a TiVo receiver, a DVD player, an old VHS recorder, some Bose Surround Sound stuff, four speakers, a WiFi transmitter and a phone doohickey that put the phone number on the TV screen. The shelf looked like a damn Fry’s store.
I confessed to the lady that I needed a Boy Scout troop to help me find my cable box. She laughed again. I asked her if she would like a job as a column reader. She laughed. I hired her.
Eventually, she delicately told me that maybe she should send a technician out to help me. “Would this afternoon be OK?” This afternoon? I couldn’t believe it. Same-day service at the cable company. You think I’m a Charter-ass rookie? I double-checked. “Didn’t you mean to ask me if the third week in June would be OK?” She laughed. I gave her a raise.
That afternoon, a half-hour before the appointment, I got a call from Charter asking me if it was OK if the technician arrived early. Early?! I thought one of my commie friends was jerking me around.
Nope. The nicely dressed, well-groomed and polite young man inquired as to how my day was going, and he asked me where my cable box was. I said, “Your guess is as good as mine.” I don’t know how he found it, but he did. And he got me my premium channels back. One day without the NHL playoffs on Versus — I don’t know how I lived through it.
He smiled and said, “Anything else I can help you with, sir?” “Probably not,” I whined. But I pissily mentioned to him that I had another TV in my office that I’d had for four years and I hadn’t been able to hook it up to cable. “I’d be happy to take a look, sir.”
He looked. And told me all I needed was a splitter to go from my cable modem on my computer to the other TV set. I said, “Sounds good, but you probably don’t have a splitter with you, huh?” “Got one right here, sir.”
He hooks up the splitter. And says, “Oh, you’ll need a new cable box, too.” I said, “Probably have to order that? On back order, huh?” “No, sir, got one in my truck. Be right back.”
He comes back. Sets it all up. I blurt out, “OK, hit me with the bad news. How much is all this gonna cost me?” He chirps, “Only $5 a month.”
I sat down at my desk and quietly wept. I sobbed out, “You Charter people are the best! This is the best day of my life! My readers are going to have green poo poo.”
He said, “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”
I hesitated, and didn’t want to press my luck, but I said, “You guys ever do any penis enlargement work?”
Of course, in the past you have resented me for my lanky body. What can I say? God has graced me with litheness. You are just going to have to work that one out yourselves.
And I know you admire me for my political views and my general wisdom. And I know you don’t like me because I have a better dog than you do. And my sincere, well-deserved humbleness probably turns you off, too.
But most of all, I know you resent me because I am retired and I don’t have to work anymore and can sleep in and do what I want and take meaningless trips to even more meaningless places. Yet you still have to work and make money and deal with blood-popping stress levels and read my bullshit week after week. You still have kids and families and spouses to provide for and you can’t quite believe you’re still reading about someone who’s biggest concern in life is getting up in the morning and trying to figure out what day of the week it is.
Now, after saying all that, something so wonderful just happened to me that I almost hesitate to tell you what it is. But, what the hell, your mental health has never really meant all that much to me before. And I’m going to say it fast, so sit down, maybe with a loved one, or take a shot of Chivas or grab your Teddy bear. Are you ready?
OK, here it is: I had an incredibly wonderful experience with the cable company.
I’ll give you a minute. Just relax, count to 10, chill out. Just accept the fact that some people are meant to have things that you will never have. Just let that burning resentment drain from your brain. Let it go through your ulcer-ridden stomach and through tortured rectal areas and eventually seep out of your toes, on to your carpet.
Yes, a few days ago my cable went out on me. I could not get any premium channels. (And you thought your life was tough.) There was no way I could live with only basic cable, so I called up Charter. The woman who took my call was so damn nice I asked her if I had the wrong number. She laughed, and I said, “Where’s the usual bitch who doesn’t give a shit? She on vacation?”
The nice Charter lady told me to turn off my cable box and then restart it. I looked over at the shelf next to my TV. There was a TiVo receiver, a DVD player, an old VHS recorder, some Bose Surround Sound stuff, four speakers, a WiFi transmitter and a phone doohickey that put the phone number on the TV screen. The shelf looked like a damn Fry’s store.
I confessed to the lady that I needed a Boy Scout troop to help me find my cable box. She laughed again. I asked her if she would like a job as a column reader. She laughed. I hired her.
Eventually, she delicately told me that maybe she should send a technician out to help me. “Would this afternoon be OK?” This afternoon? I couldn’t believe it. Same-day service at the cable company. You think I’m a Charter-ass rookie? I double-checked. “Didn’t you mean to ask me if the third week in June would be OK?” She laughed. I gave her a raise.
That afternoon, a half-hour before the appointment, I got a call from Charter asking me if it was OK if the technician arrived early. Early?! I thought one of my commie friends was jerking me around.
Nope. The nicely dressed, well-groomed and polite young man inquired as to how my day was going, and he asked me where my cable box was. I said, “Your guess is as good as mine.” I don’t know how he found it, but he did. And he got me my premium channels back. One day without the NHL playoffs on Versus — I don’t know how I lived through it.
He smiled and said, “Anything else I can help you with, sir?” “Probably not,” I whined. But I pissily mentioned to him that I had another TV in my office that I’d had for four years and I hadn’t been able to hook it up to cable. “I’d be happy to take a look, sir.”
He looked. And told me all I needed was a splitter to go from my cable modem on my computer to the other TV set. I said, “Sounds good, but you probably don’t have a splitter with you, huh?” “Got one right here, sir.”
He hooks up the splitter. And says, “Oh, you’ll need a new cable box, too.” I said, “Probably have to order that? On back order, huh?” “No, sir, got one in my truck. Be right back.”
He comes back. Sets it all up. I blurt out, “OK, hit me with the bad news. How much is all this gonna cost me?” He chirps, “Only $5 a month.”
I sat down at my desk and quietly wept. I sobbed out, “You Charter people are the best! This is the best day of my life! My readers are going to have green poo poo.”
He said, “Is there anything else I can do for you, sir?”
I hesitated, and didn’t want to press my luck, but I said, “You guys ever do any penis enlargement work?”
Thursday, May 6, 2010
I'm Looking to See if I have a Look (Cigar Smoke 5-6-10)
I bet you didn’t know I was a fashion plate. Well, you would have won that bet. But, you know, I don’t even want to be a fashion plate. I really don’t. But I would like to have a look.
Most of my friends have a certain look to them. And it seems to fit them quite well. One guy I know lives out on a ranch, and he looks like a damn rancher kind of guy. Jeans, Western shirts, belts with buckles bigger than bull genitals and stallion-dung-encrusted boots. This guy looks the part. Jesse James would walk on the other side of the sidewalk if he saw him coming.
Another guy I know has a great, what I call urban casual look. He just looks so damn comfortable in his soft leather moccasins and cuddly corduroy pants and flannel shirts. I want to hug the guy. But I’m afraid I would become gay and have to spend all my time lobbying for same-sex marriage, so I don’t. Instead, I just tell him he looks like Pat Boone, only he looks older and poorer and uglier than Pat.
Another friend has an earthy look to him. His clothes are all in shades of brown and beige and green and burnt orange and pomegranate pumpkin. He just blends right into the damn planet. Sometimes I’m not even sure if he is really there. I’ll have to say, “Hey, Eggplant Lips, you here? Has your biodegradable ass blended into the moist, black, organic sod yet?”
Even when I was going to school up at Humboldt State College in Northern California, I never quite fit in. My look just didn’t work. All the guys looked like damn lumberjacks or outdoorsmen. They had these big, black caulked boots that would make a Hell’s Angel sob into his pillow, and they all wore wide-ass suspenders over Pendleton shirts. They had a damn look! They looked like they were ready to fell a Redwood or punch an elk in the face and skin it right there.
Me? I didn’t skin too many elk, because the elk blood and elk guts would get on my polyester pants. Yes, I’ve always liked polyester. What can I say? When I was born, the doctor told my mother, “Ma'am, you have the first baby we’ve ever delivered who is not naked. Too bad he is wearing polyester.”
I don’t think my mom ever got over that. In fact, when she breastfed me, I remember reaching up with my eager lips, searching for her tender breast, and she would turn me away and say, “Polly, my breasts are on my back.” Oh, the trauma of being called a girl’s name and searching for the breasts that weren’t there. I only got over it 37 years later when I heard Johnny Cash sing “A Boy Named Sue.”
You know, I kid about polyester. But I have always liked it. I’m not sure why. I think it’s because it never needs ironing. It’s cheap. And it’s easy to wipe mustard and spittle from it. And you know, come to think of it, I may have always had a look after all. Here I have been bitching and crying about everybody else having their own damn look and all the time I have had a look, too. I was just too envious of others not to have seen it.
And my look is more than just polyester, too. It has a lot of other, shall we say, accessories to it. Yes, I have inadvertently accessorized without even knowing what accessorizing is or does. I also like to wear SC T-shirts. Or Dodger T-shirts. Or LA Kings T-shirts for variety. They seem to go well with polyester.
And all my T-shirts end up with holes in them. Cigar-ash holes. (Stop. Don’t say it. You wouldn’t be the first one to call me a Cigar Ash Hole.) I don’t try to put holes in them. They just seem to mysteriously appear after I’ve been driving and smoking, and after I smell something burning.
I also wear a navy blue jacket that used to be a nice jacket. Sixteen years ago. Yes, it’s 16 years old, but it goes well with my T-shirts, and it’s made out of some kind of synthetic material, too, so my polyester pants don’t get their panties in a bunch, either. Polyester, sports tees, synthetic jacket. It’s starting to come together, isn’t it?
All you would need now is some really nice shoes. Kind of a shame I don’t have any. I wear black Rockford old-man shoes with orthotics in them. What’s that sound I hear? Could it be the pounding hearts of you lady readers out there? Thump. Thump. Thump.
All this fashion talk reminds of when I was younger, and I hate to say it, but I will. I looked pretty damn good in my leisure suit back then. It had pale blue polyester bellbottom trousers with a Nehru kind of button-less jacket. And a puffy shirt that would have given Jerry Seinfeld a woody. I mean, I looked pretty damn good. Really good. John Travolta walked by and fainted.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Most of my friends have a certain look to them. And it seems to fit them quite well. One guy I know lives out on a ranch, and he looks like a damn rancher kind of guy. Jeans, Western shirts, belts with buckles bigger than bull genitals and stallion-dung-encrusted boots. This guy looks the part. Jesse James would walk on the other side of the sidewalk if he saw him coming.
Another guy I know has a great, what I call urban casual look. He just looks so damn comfortable in his soft leather moccasins and cuddly corduroy pants and flannel shirts. I want to hug the guy. But I’m afraid I would become gay and have to spend all my time lobbying for same-sex marriage, so I don’t. Instead, I just tell him he looks like Pat Boone, only he looks older and poorer and uglier than Pat.
Another friend has an earthy look to him. His clothes are all in shades of brown and beige and green and burnt orange and pomegranate pumpkin. He just blends right into the damn planet. Sometimes I’m not even sure if he is really there. I’ll have to say, “Hey, Eggplant Lips, you here? Has your biodegradable ass blended into the moist, black, organic sod yet?”
Even when I was going to school up at Humboldt State College in Northern California, I never quite fit in. My look just didn’t work. All the guys looked like damn lumberjacks or outdoorsmen. They had these big, black caulked boots that would make a Hell’s Angel sob into his pillow, and they all wore wide-ass suspenders over Pendleton shirts. They had a damn look! They looked like they were ready to fell a Redwood or punch an elk in the face and skin it right there.
Me? I didn’t skin too many elk, because the elk blood and elk guts would get on my polyester pants. Yes, I’ve always liked polyester. What can I say? When I was born, the doctor told my mother, “Ma'am, you have the first baby we’ve ever delivered who is not naked. Too bad he is wearing polyester.”
I don’t think my mom ever got over that. In fact, when she breastfed me, I remember reaching up with my eager lips, searching for her tender breast, and she would turn me away and say, “Polly, my breasts are on my back.” Oh, the trauma of being called a girl’s name and searching for the breasts that weren’t there. I only got over it 37 years later when I heard Johnny Cash sing “A Boy Named Sue.”
You know, I kid about polyester. But I have always liked it. I’m not sure why. I think it’s because it never needs ironing. It’s cheap. And it’s easy to wipe mustard and spittle from it. And you know, come to think of it, I may have always had a look after all. Here I have been bitching and crying about everybody else having their own damn look and all the time I have had a look, too. I was just too envious of others not to have seen it.
And my look is more than just polyester, too. It has a lot of other, shall we say, accessories to it. Yes, I have inadvertently accessorized without even knowing what accessorizing is or does. I also like to wear SC T-shirts. Or Dodger T-shirts. Or LA Kings T-shirts for variety. They seem to go well with polyester.
And all my T-shirts end up with holes in them. Cigar-ash holes. (Stop. Don’t say it. You wouldn’t be the first one to call me a Cigar Ash Hole.) I don’t try to put holes in them. They just seem to mysteriously appear after I’ve been driving and smoking, and after I smell something burning.
I also wear a navy blue jacket that used to be a nice jacket. Sixteen years ago. Yes, it’s 16 years old, but it goes well with my T-shirts, and it’s made out of some kind of synthetic material, too, so my polyester pants don’t get their panties in a bunch, either. Polyester, sports tees, synthetic jacket. It’s starting to come together, isn’t it?
All you would need now is some really nice shoes. Kind of a shame I don’t have any. I wear black Rockford old-man shoes with orthotics in them. What’s that sound I hear? Could it be the pounding hearts of you lady readers out there? Thump. Thump. Thump.
All this fashion talk reminds of when I was younger, and I hate to say it, but I will. I looked pretty damn good in my leisure suit back then. It had pale blue polyester bellbottom trousers with a Nehru kind of button-less jacket. And a puffy shirt that would have given Jerry Seinfeld a woody. I mean, I looked pretty damn good. Really good. John Travolta walked by and fainted.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Monday, April 26, 2010
For Better or Worse (Cigar Smoke 4-15-10)
In this case, let’s go with worse. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning.
I got up the other day and I went out to the kitchen and sat down at the table and I pulled a little clump of my chest hairs out and counted them. I have found that my best days occur when I have an even number of chest hairs. Well, I ended up with 13 chest hairs. Yep, I should have gone back to bed.
Anyway, I’m sitting there reading the paper, and out of the wild smoggy yonder, Marge says, “You know, I never knew that President Taft became a Supreme Court justice after he was president. Can you believe that?”
And I said, “Of course I knew that. I can’t believe you didn’t know that. What kind of woman are you? Who did I marry? When I stood there at the altar that day and agreed to that ‘for better or worse thing’ I never thought you would disappoint me like this. I can’t believe you married me under false pretenses. The fake pregnancy I could understand. But this? You’ll be hearing from my attorney.”
But before I called my lawyer, I noticed that my new dog, Archie the Airedale, was pressing his big horse head up against my leg urging me to take him for his morning walk. So I ran the Taft thing by him and he just shook his head in disbelief, too. So I told Marge I didn’t want to interfere with her learning any more new Taftinian revelations in the Times, so I was going to take Archibald for a run. I don’t think she heard me. She was lost in her educational dream world and was mumbling something about Warren G. Harding as I left. For worse had kicked for better’s butt.
Archie and I get in the car and I asked him if he could believe what he had just heard. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there like a dog. I told him my other Airedale, Hadley, the good Airedale, would have answered me. Archie still just sat there. He’s got that down pretty good.
Because Archie was disappointing me almost as much as Marge was, I decided to take him to the dog park over on Orange Grove instead of his usual walk. When we get there, we have to go in this little gated buffer neutral area before you can let your dogs out in the main area and Archie is throwing himself at the fence in a fit of rage. He’s growling and snarling at the other dogs on the other side of the fence, and mothers are picking up their kids and guys are wishing they had brought their firearms in with them.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I said, “What the hell. Let’s see what these so-called dogs are made of.” And I opened the gate and Archie rushed out there and people gasped. And what did vicious Archie do? Vicious Archie smelled more butts than a proctologist. That’s what Archie did.
I was relieved. I really didn’t want to have to deal with Archie killing a miniature poodle while I was still digesting Marge’s Taft remarks. And it was kind of cool out there in the main dog park of life. Archie just ran his semi-mangy self all over that place. He was doing that thing where they run alongside of each other and bump their shoulders, and he was hauling ass, baby. His Airedale life was good. So was mine. I could just stand there and watch and not have to do any physical exercise of any kind. And be a good master without exerting any energy. I’m trying to patent this.
Well, Archie ran his big canine furball butt for about a half-hour and was panting harder than Paris Hilton on YouTube. And I was panting just thinking of Ms. Hilton.
When I stopped panting, I started talking to some woman as I watched my dog embarrass himself, and I mentioned that I had just taken Archie to the vet and it had cost me more than $200 for the vet to determine that my big-headed dog had too much gas in his stomach. I said, “Can you believe I dropped two large ones because my dog would NOT fart?” The woman did not respond. She just walked away. Quickly walked away.
When I got back home, I opened the door, and yelled out to Marge, “Hi Honey, your soon-to-be-former-husband and your non-farting dog are home.” She didn’t answer. Probably too excited learning that Millard Fillmore only had one testicle or something.
I got up the other day and I went out to the kitchen and sat down at the table and I pulled a little clump of my chest hairs out and counted them. I have found that my best days occur when I have an even number of chest hairs. Well, I ended up with 13 chest hairs. Yep, I should have gone back to bed.
Anyway, I’m sitting there reading the paper, and out of the wild smoggy yonder, Marge says, “You know, I never knew that President Taft became a Supreme Court justice after he was president. Can you believe that?”
And I said, “Of course I knew that. I can’t believe you didn’t know that. What kind of woman are you? Who did I marry? When I stood there at the altar that day and agreed to that ‘for better or worse thing’ I never thought you would disappoint me like this. I can’t believe you married me under false pretenses. The fake pregnancy I could understand. But this? You’ll be hearing from my attorney.”
But before I called my lawyer, I noticed that my new dog, Archie the Airedale, was pressing his big horse head up against my leg urging me to take him for his morning walk. So I ran the Taft thing by him and he just shook his head in disbelief, too. So I told Marge I didn’t want to interfere with her learning any more new Taftinian revelations in the Times, so I was going to take Archibald for a run. I don’t think she heard me. She was lost in her educational dream world and was mumbling something about Warren G. Harding as I left. For worse had kicked for better’s butt.
Archie and I get in the car and I asked him if he could believe what he had just heard. He didn’t say anything. He just sat there like a dog. I told him my other Airedale, Hadley, the good Airedale, would have answered me. Archie still just sat there. He’s got that down pretty good.
Because Archie was disappointing me almost as much as Marge was, I decided to take him to the dog park over on Orange Grove instead of his usual walk. When we get there, we have to go in this little gated buffer neutral area before you can let your dogs out in the main area and Archie is throwing himself at the fence in a fit of rage. He’s growling and snarling at the other dogs on the other side of the fence, and mothers are picking up their kids and guys are wishing they had brought their firearms in with them.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do, so I said, “What the hell. Let’s see what these so-called dogs are made of.” And I opened the gate and Archie rushed out there and people gasped. And what did vicious Archie do? Vicious Archie smelled more butts than a proctologist. That’s what Archie did.
I was relieved. I really didn’t want to have to deal with Archie killing a miniature poodle while I was still digesting Marge’s Taft remarks. And it was kind of cool out there in the main dog park of life. Archie just ran his semi-mangy self all over that place. He was doing that thing where they run alongside of each other and bump their shoulders, and he was hauling ass, baby. His Airedale life was good. So was mine. I could just stand there and watch and not have to do any physical exercise of any kind. And be a good master without exerting any energy. I’m trying to patent this.
Well, Archie ran his big canine furball butt for about a half-hour and was panting harder than Paris Hilton on YouTube. And I was panting just thinking of Ms. Hilton.
When I stopped panting, I started talking to some woman as I watched my dog embarrass himself, and I mentioned that I had just taken Archie to the vet and it had cost me more than $200 for the vet to determine that my big-headed dog had too much gas in his stomach. I said, “Can you believe I dropped two large ones because my dog would NOT fart?” The woman did not respond. She just walked away. Quickly walked away.
When I got back home, I opened the door, and yelled out to Marge, “Hi Honey, your soon-to-be-former-husband and your non-farting dog are home.” She didn’t answer. Probably too excited learning that Millard Fillmore only had one testicle or something.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Talking to Myself (Cigar Smoke 4-8-10)
OK, I talk to myself. And not only that. I answer myself. You may ask why I talk to myself. And I may answer, because my self is the only one that will talk to me. Can you hear that little slurping sound? That is the sound of all the shrinks in Pasadena licking their lips.
And not only do I talk to and answer myself, I talk to the imaginary people I have conversations with and answer them, too. Let me give you a recent example. I go into my favorite coffee place the other day, and I am carrying a container of yogurt with me. As I am going up to the counter to order my coffee, I say to myself, “Self, is it OK that you are carrying a little container of yogurt that you have not purchased here, because they don’t offer any little yogurt containers?”
But then I think the manager will see me and he will say, “Uh, excuse me, yogurt carrier, but do you think, maybe, you could buy something from us since you are in our store and we are a small business trying to survive in this suck economy, and we are providing you with a comfortable and safe place, cleaner than your house, to drink your coffee and lead a nice middle-class life?”
And I say to either him or myself, I can’t quite figure out whom, “Well, what if I just bought a cup of coffee and I wasn’t carrying a cup of yogurt with me, would I then be considered a responsible patron?” The answer remains a mystery because, obviously, the manager has never even heard my imaginary question and I myself do not know what the answer is, although I lean toward being on the side of myself.
So I get my coffee and I go to my table and sit down. I take my yogurt in one hand and I notice that the top of the yogurt container has a little secondary container of nuts attached to the top of the main yogurt container. Are you with me? (I would talk to you more about this, but I don’t want that many people in on the conversation with myself.) So I take the nuts container off, and I notice that there is a tinfoil lid on the yogurt container. And that there is a little tinfoil flap on the tinfoil lid that you have to pull up to gain full yogurt access.
So, of course, I pull up on the flap, and I hear this little spritzy sound and a glob of strawberry yogurt squirts out and lands on my shirt. It kind of startles me. (I startle easily.) And I lean my head back to look at it, and I notice the guy next to me looking at my yogurt glob on my shirt. And then he notices me noticing him, and he looks away like he hasn’t really seen my yogurt glob. And then I quickly talk to myself and wonder if I should acknowledge somehow that I know he saw my yogurt glob, and tell him that I’m usually a person whose shirts don’t have yogurt stains on them, and that this was just a one-time act of sloppy and careless flap-lifting. Or maybe I should just tell him to just buzz the hell off, or maybe even walk over and smear some uneaten strawberry yogurt all over his Dockers. I talk myself quickly out of that last option. Because I am a sane, civil human being? No. Because he’s bigger than I am.
So now I am sitting there with a yogurt glob on my shirt and a flap full of yogurt on the underside of its lid. So I ask myself if I should lick the lid. And, of course, my self says I should. So I lick the lid, and then place it licked-side-down on one of my napkins. And I can’t help myself, but I glance over to see if my favorite yogurt-glob observer has seen me lid licking. Thank God he hasn’t; that saves me one imaginary conversation.
So then I grab the little container of nuts, which has its own little flap on it. But this damn flap is too small for me to get my semi-fat fingers to pull on, and I have to use my teeth. But before I use my teeth, I ask myself, “Self, should I use my teeth? Self, is using teeth to pull nut flaps off a yogurt lid in a public place OK?” And apparently my self has given me the OK, because I start using my teeth like a pirate.
So now I empty my little packet of nuts into my strawberry yogurt, and I am all set to thoroughly mix my nuts, which are on top of my yogurt, deep into the yogurt beneath the nuts, and then finally eat my evenly distributed nut yogurt and drink my coffee and lead a relatively happy life.
But then I realize something — I do not have a spoon. No frigging spoon. My head drops to my chest, just missing the yogurt glob.
I sigh a long, audible sigh. I ask myself if I think the manager would give me a spoon to eat snuck-in yogurt not purchased in his store. I answer myself that he would probably use a phrase that had “over my dead small-business owner’s body” in it.
So I ask myself if you can eat nut-filled yogurt with one of those little coffee-stirrer piece-of-crap thin wooden dealies. My self said, “No, but if you use two of them together, it should work pretty well, Dummy Butt-Face.”
Well, my self was right. It did work well. But why would my self call me “Dummy Butt-Face?”
And not only do I talk to and answer myself, I talk to the imaginary people I have conversations with and answer them, too. Let me give you a recent example. I go into my favorite coffee place the other day, and I am carrying a container of yogurt with me. As I am going up to the counter to order my coffee, I say to myself, “Self, is it OK that you are carrying a little container of yogurt that you have not purchased here, because they don’t offer any little yogurt containers?”
But then I think the manager will see me and he will say, “Uh, excuse me, yogurt carrier, but do you think, maybe, you could buy something from us since you are in our store and we are a small business trying to survive in this suck economy, and we are providing you with a comfortable and safe place, cleaner than your house, to drink your coffee and lead a nice middle-class life?”
And I say to either him or myself, I can’t quite figure out whom, “Well, what if I just bought a cup of coffee and I wasn’t carrying a cup of yogurt with me, would I then be considered a responsible patron?” The answer remains a mystery because, obviously, the manager has never even heard my imaginary question and I myself do not know what the answer is, although I lean toward being on the side of myself.
So I get my coffee and I go to my table and sit down. I take my yogurt in one hand and I notice that the top of the yogurt container has a little secondary container of nuts attached to the top of the main yogurt container. Are you with me? (I would talk to you more about this, but I don’t want that many people in on the conversation with myself.) So I take the nuts container off, and I notice that there is a tinfoil lid on the yogurt container. And that there is a little tinfoil flap on the tinfoil lid that you have to pull up to gain full yogurt access.
So, of course, I pull up on the flap, and I hear this little spritzy sound and a glob of strawberry yogurt squirts out and lands on my shirt. It kind of startles me. (I startle easily.) And I lean my head back to look at it, and I notice the guy next to me looking at my yogurt glob on my shirt. And then he notices me noticing him, and he looks away like he hasn’t really seen my yogurt glob. And then I quickly talk to myself and wonder if I should acknowledge somehow that I know he saw my yogurt glob, and tell him that I’m usually a person whose shirts don’t have yogurt stains on them, and that this was just a one-time act of sloppy and careless flap-lifting. Or maybe I should just tell him to just buzz the hell off, or maybe even walk over and smear some uneaten strawberry yogurt all over his Dockers. I talk myself quickly out of that last option. Because I am a sane, civil human being? No. Because he’s bigger than I am.
So now I am sitting there with a yogurt glob on my shirt and a flap full of yogurt on the underside of its lid. So I ask myself if I should lick the lid. And, of course, my self says I should. So I lick the lid, and then place it licked-side-down on one of my napkins. And I can’t help myself, but I glance over to see if my favorite yogurt-glob observer has seen me lid licking. Thank God he hasn’t; that saves me one imaginary conversation.
So then I grab the little container of nuts, which has its own little flap on it. But this damn flap is too small for me to get my semi-fat fingers to pull on, and I have to use my teeth. But before I use my teeth, I ask myself, “Self, should I use my teeth? Self, is using teeth to pull nut flaps off a yogurt lid in a public place OK?” And apparently my self has given me the OK, because I start using my teeth like a pirate.
So now I empty my little packet of nuts into my strawberry yogurt, and I am all set to thoroughly mix my nuts, which are on top of my yogurt, deep into the yogurt beneath the nuts, and then finally eat my evenly distributed nut yogurt and drink my coffee and lead a relatively happy life.
But then I realize something — I do not have a spoon. No frigging spoon. My head drops to my chest, just missing the yogurt glob.
I sigh a long, audible sigh. I ask myself if I think the manager would give me a spoon to eat snuck-in yogurt not purchased in his store. I answer myself that he would probably use a phrase that had “over my dead small-business owner’s body” in it.
So I ask myself if you can eat nut-filled yogurt with one of those little coffee-stirrer piece-of-crap thin wooden dealies. My self said, “No, but if you use two of them together, it should work pretty well, Dummy Butt-Face.”
Well, my self was right. It did work well. But why would my self call me “Dummy Butt-Face?”
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Should Have Named Him Jughead (Cigar Smoke 3-11-10)
Well, I knew it was going to happen. Yes, I shot a few Democrats just to watch ’em die. No, that was Johnny Cash in “Folsom Prison Blues.” I always liked Johnny. No, no, I didn’t shoot anybody.
What I did was get another dog. Yup, my life was just getting too comfortable and I was enjoying myself way too much to not have another fur ball around. And, of course, my good friend Paula Johnson had something to do with it. She suggested that I get a rescue dog from the pound and not get another damn purebred like my last dog, Hadley. And she kept giving me subtle hints, like, “got another dog yet, you jerk-off commie heartless bastard who likes to see dogs put down at the pound?” (Are you able to get new friends at the pound?)
So, as it happened, I had recently joined the Airedale Rescue Society, and my main function was to help them haul rescued dogs to kennels and homes. So they called me and had me go down to the animal shelter in Downey to pick up an Airedale who had been picked up off the street.
Well, I went down there and got him. And he was one ratty-looking dog. His hair was all matted and his head was bald and he was scary skinny and he had a trailer-trash long tail, and he smelled like No. 2 and he had just been neutered. I got him in the car and he nipped at me. (Hey, I would have nipped at someone too if I had just had my nuts snipped off.)
We got him home and he started to get acclimated by taking a dump on the living room carpet that was bigger than any dump Hadley had ever taken and would have given a rhinoceros dump a good challenge for both texture and total volume. I scolded him and he instantly rolled on the floor in a submissive posture. I told him I didn’t want him to be submissive because that’s what I want out of my wife, not my dog.
Then we had to give him a name. My first choice was Dumpy, but I didn’t share that with Marge. So, because he was bald, I said how about ArchiBALD? She thought that was just a little too cute, so I came up with Jughead because he has a jug-horse head. That didn’t fly, either. Then we remembered that Jughead used to hang out with Archie in the comics. So his name is officially Archie. Archie the Airedale.
I asked him how he liked his name and he didn’t say much. Then I asked him how he liked being rescued from the shelter and being with us, and he paused and said, “I would have preferred the 8-year-old boy on a Montana ranch, but seeing as I am nutless, I might like it here in the old folks’ home.” I told the Rhino Defecator not to press his luck.
Let me tell you a few things about this dog. We’ve only had him for three weeks but we are starting to see a trend. And the word “psycho” is in a lot of the early data. He likes to dig holes in the backyard; he likes to eat shoes; he is sneakier than Pete and waits until we leave a room before he shreds our valuables; he has squeezed under a fence and run away three times; and he likes to seriously haul ass around the house just tucking in his Airedale butt and crashing into things that used to be whole. I mean this sucker moves like Clinton after an intern, baby.
And one time while I was out playing Scrabble, and Marge had to go out for a few hours, she put him in the laundry room. When she got back, she opened the door and there was Archie, looking at her eyeball-to-eyeball. He had jumped up on a counter and ripped open some dog food packets and was trapped up there. But not before tearing down the curtains and overturning his water and food dishes. Psycho. Archie, not Marge.
And get this: I have never seen Archie either pee or go dumpy-poo. Never. Not once. Yes, I see the results, but I have never seen him do these things. Hadley would do these things until I cried. Archie is different. Oh, and Archie does not lick, either. Have you ever heard of a dog that doesn’t like to slobber on you? Me neither. He’ll put his mouth up to yours to smell what you’ve just eaten and try to remove it before you can swallow it, but he won’t lick. I think this is a case for The Dog Whisperer. Maybe even The Dog Hollerer.
But we love the big lug already. He’s very sweet. He is just a gentle giant of a dog. He now weighs more than 70 pounds and you can’t feel his bony sides anymore. And he’s getting healthier after the antibiotics and the de-worming and the deficit-building vet bills. And his hair is starting to grow out. And he smells a little better after the industrial bath and chemical dip.
But he’s still pissed off about his nuts.
What I did was get another dog. Yup, my life was just getting too comfortable and I was enjoying myself way too much to not have another fur ball around. And, of course, my good friend Paula Johnson had something to do with it. She suggested that I get a rescue dog from the pound and not get another damn purebred like my last dog, Hadley. And she kept giving me subtle hints, like, “got another dog yet, you jerk-off commie heartless bastard who likes to see dogs put down at the pound?” (Are you able to get new friends at the pound?)
So, as it happened, I had recently joined the Airedale Rescue Society, and my main function was to help them haul rescued dogs to kennels and homes. So they called me and had me go down to the animal shelter in Downey to pick up an Airedale who had been picked up off the street.
Well, I went down there and got him. And he was one ratty-looking dog. His hair was all matted and his head was bald and he was scary skinny and he had a trailer-trash long tail, and he smelled like No. 2 and he had just been neutered. I got him in the car and he nipped at me. (Hey, I would have nipped at someone too if I had just had my nuts snipped off.)
We got him home and he started to get acclimated by taking a dump on the living room carpet that was bigger than any dump Hadley had ever taken and would have given a rhinoceros dump a good challenge for both texture and total volume. I scolded him and he instantly rolled on the floor in a submissive posture. I told him I didn’t want him to be submissive because that’s what I want out of my wife, not my dog.
Then we had to give him a name. My first choice was Dumpy, but I didn’t share that with Marge. So, because he was bald, I said how about ArchiBALD? She thought that was just a little too cute, so I came up with Jughead because he has a jug-horse head. That didn’t fly, either. Then we remembered that Jughead used to hang out with Archie in the comics. So his name is officially Archie. Archie the Airedale.
I asked him how he liked his name and he didn’t say much. Then I asked him how he liked being rescued from the shelter and being with us, and he paused and said, “I would have preferred the 8-year-old boy on a Montana ranch, but seeing as I am nutless, I might like it here in the old folks’ home.” I told the Rhino Defecator not to press his luck.
Let me tell you a few things about this dog. We’ve only had him for three weeks but we are starting to see a trend. And the word “psycho” is in a lot of the early data. He likes to dig holes in the backyard; he likes to eat shoes; he is sneakier than Pete and waits until we leave a room before he shreds our valuables; he has squeezed under a fence and run away three times; and he likes to seriously haul ass around the house just tucking in his Airedale butt and crashing into things that used to be whole. I mean this sucker moves like Clinton after an intern, baby.
And one time while I was out playing Scrabble, and Marge had to go out for a few hours, she put him in the laundry room. When she got back, she opened the door and there was Archie, looking at her eyeball-to-eyeball. He had jumped up on a counter and ripped open some dog food packets and was trapped up there. But not before tearing down the curtains and overturning his water and food dishes. Psycho. Archie, not Marge.
And get this: I have never seen Archie either pee or go dumpy-poo. Never. Not once. Yes, I see the results, but I have never seen him do these things. Hadley would do these things until I cried. Archie is different. Oh, and Archie does not lick, either. Have you ever heard of a dog that doesn’t like to slobber on you? Me neither. He’ll put his mouth up to yours to smell what you’ve just eaten and try to remove it before you can swallow it, but he won’t lick. I think this is a case for The Dog Whisperer. Maybe even The Dog Hollerer.
But we love the big lug already. He’s very sweet. He is just a gentle giant of a dog. He now weighs more than 70 pounds and you can’t feel his bony sides anymore. And he’s getting healthier after the antibiotics and the de-worming and the deficit-building vet bills. And his hair is starting to grow out. And he smells a little better after the industrial bath and chemical dip.
But he’s still pissed off about his nuts.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
The Handyman Can (Cigar Smoke 2-25-10)
Is it just me or do things like this happen to you, and I don’t know if things like this don’t happen to you because you don’t have a column, or is it that these things may happen to you but you don’t give a flying fraguzzi, and I do give one of those?
Anyway, I’m up in my little Hovel by the Sea in Oregon last week and I need to do some work on my so-called house. I have to hang a large clock on the wall and I know from experience that if I do it myself I will leave a large hole in the wall and the anchor bolt will just hang there like Saddam Hussein and the clock will just be holding its breath until the first earthquake. And then it will fall on some luckless pet and I will be sued for every penny I have in my lousy shack hovel life. That is a pretty good summary of my handyman experience.
So I need to get a real handyman. So I go to a furniture store up there that I know fairly well, and I ask for a referral for a great handyman, and this guy standing near us hears my request and he says, “I am a great handyman.” So I looked at him and I said, “How do I know you are a great handyman?” And he said, “Because I drive a ratty pickup and I wear a tool belt.”
That was good enough for me. So we arrange for him to come over in the morning and do the work. He gets over to my place at 8 a.m. sharp and I have high hopes. (These hopes will be lowered very soon.) As he’s coming up the walkway, he seems to be wobbling just a bit. Nothing alarming, but there is definitely a wobble waiting to come out.
I asked him how he was doing and I didn’t want him to answer, but he did. He said he went to his brother’s bachelor party last night, but he had to leave early so he could help me out. Yup. Straight from the naked women and Chivas to old Jim E. Baby’s hovel handyman job. The hopes were pretty much at my ankles about then.
But, because I am a what? I am a dumb shit, that’s what. I let him continue. He comes into the house to analyze the job and he reaches for his tool belt, but his tool belt is not there. He says, “Oh shit, I left it with that stripper last night.” I said, “Hmm.” He said he would go out to his truck and get something. He did. A hammer.
He came back in and he had some kind of punch thing and he took a relatively straight swing with his hammer and he, well, he punched out a big enough hole in my cowering wall to put his fist through — and then crack his knuckles. He looks at me and I look at him and he says, “You got any Spackle?” I swear on my handyman’s manual, he said, “You got any Spackle?”
I said, “No. But I have a Colt 45 in the bedroom.” The humor went right over his hangover. He told me to sit tight; he would run down to the hardware store and get some stuff. He was back in 20 minutes with some hardware bolts and bullshit. And he worked awhile and the only thing I could see change was the size of the hole in the wall. He inquired as to whether I might have a bigger clock to hang.
Well, he went back and forth to the hardware store five times. Five frigging times. He kept coming back with wrong sizes and medieval attachment devices you may have seen in prisons in the Middle Ages. He was there for three-and-a-half hours. To hang one really tacky heavy clock. Three-and-a-half hours.
But finally he says, “Got ’er done. Come on over here and take a look.” I look and sure enough, the damn clock is on the wall. I kind of gingerly touch it and it seems secure. He asks me if I would like to see his work behind the clock and I tell him no, because I have a bad heart and I’ve seen large rat-entrance holes before. He laughed his handyman laugh.
I said, “Well, how much do I owe you?” and he said, and this is the God’s honest handyman fee truth, “how about five bucks?” Being from LA where I have been charged $120 dollars for a guy to come out to the house to look at a problem, I was pretty much stunned. Only five bucks.
I couldn’t believe it. Three-and-a-half hours of work for five bucks. I didn’t know what to say.
Finally, I said, “Would you take four?”
Jim Laris is a former publisher and owner of the Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
Anyway, I’m up in my little Hovel by the Sea in Oregon last week and I need to do some work on my so-called house. I have to hang a large clock on the wall and I know from experience that if I do it myself I will leave a large hole in the wall and the anchor bolt will just hang there like Saddam Hussein and the clock will just be holding its breath until the first earthquake. And then it will fall on some luckless pet and I will be sued for every penny I have in my lousy shack hovel life. That is a pretty good summary of my handyman experience.
So I need to get a real handyman. So I go to a furniture store up there that I know fairly well, and I ask for a referral for a great handyman, and this guy standing near us hears my request and he says, “I am a great handyman.” So I looked at him and I said, “How do I know you are a great handyman?” And he said, “Because I drive a ratty pickup and I wear a tool belt.”
That was good enough for me. So we arrange for him to come over in the morning and do the work. He gets over to my place at 8 a.m. sharp and I have high hopes. (These hopes will be lowered very soon.) As he’s coming up the walkway, he seems to be wobbling just a bit. Nothing alarming, but there is definitely a wobble waiting to come out.
I asked him how he was doing and I didn’t want him to answer, but he did. He said he went to his brother’s bachelor party last night, but he had to leave early so he could help me out. Yup. Straight from the naked women and Chivas to old Jim E. Baby’s hovel handyman job. The hopes were pretty much at my ankles about then.
But, because I am a what? I am a dumb shit, that’s what. I let him continue. He comes into the house to analyze the job and he reaches for his tool belt, but his tool belt is not there. He says, “Oh shit, I left it with that stripper last night.” I said, “Hmm.” He said he would go out to his truck and get something. He did. A hammer.
He came back in and he had some kind of punch thing and he took a relatively straight swing with his hammer and he, well, he punched out a big enough hole in my cowering wall to put his fist through — and then crack his knuckles. He looks at me and I look at him and he says, “You got any Spackle?” I swear on my handyman’s manual, he said, “You got any Spackle?”
I said, “No. But I have a Colt 45 in the bedroom.” The humor went right over his hangover. He told me to sit tight; he would run down to the hardware store and get some stuff. He was back in 20 minutes with some hardware bolts and bullshit. And he worked awhile and the only thing I could see change was the size of the hole in the wall. He inquired as to whether I might have a bigger clock to hang.
Well, he went back and forth to the hardware store five times. Five frigging times. He kept coming back with wrong sizes and medieval attachment devices you may have seen in prisons in the Middle Ages. He was there for three-and-a-half hours. To hang one really tacky heavy clock. Three-and-a-half hours.
But finally he says, “Got ’er done. Come on over here and take a look.” I look and sure enough, the damn clock is on the wall. I kind of gingerly touch it and it seems secure. He asks me if I would like to see his work behind the clock and I tell him no, because I have a bad heart and I’ve seen large rat-entrance holes before. He laughed his handyman laugh.
I said, “Well, how much do I owe you?” and he said, and this is the God’s honest handyman fee truth, “how about five bucks?” Being from LA where I have been charged $120 dollars for a guy to come out to the house to look at a problem, I was pretty much stunned. Only five bucks.
I couldn’t believe it. Three-and-a-half hours of work for five bucks. I didn’t know what to say.
Finally, I said, “Would you take four?”
Jim Laris is a former publisher and owner of the Weekly. Contact him at jimlaris@mac.com.
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