Zombie Or Not A Zombie?

Trumpster Fire.

It's been:

...one week since you looked at me
Cocked your head to the side
and said I'm angry
Five days since you laughed at me saying
Get that together come back and see me
Three days since the living room,
I realized it's all my fault, but couldn't tell you
Yesterday you'd forgiven me
But it'll still be two days till I say I'm sorry

Hold it now and watch the hoodwink
As I make you stop, think
You'll think you're looking at Aquaman
I summon fish to the dish,
Although I like the Chalet Swiss
I like the sushi
Cause it's never touched a frying pan

Hot like wasabe when I bust rhymes
Big like Leann Rimes
Because I'm all about value
Bert Kaempfert's got the mad hits
You try to match wits
You try to hold me but I bust through

Gonna make a break and take a fake
I'd like a stinkin, achin shake
I like vanilla, It's the finest of the flavors
Gotta see the show,
Cause then you'll know
The Vertigo is gonna grow
Cause it's so dangerous,
You'll have to sign a waiver

How can I help it if I think you're funny when you're mad
Trying hard not to smile though I feel bad
I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral
Can't understand what I mean?
Well, you soon will
I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve
I have a history of taking off my shirt

It's been one week since you looked at me
Threw your arms in the air and said you're crazy
Five days since you tackled me
I've still got the rug burns on both my knees
It's been three days since the afternoon
You realized it's not my fault not a moment too soon
Yesterday you'd forgiven me
And now I sit back and wait till you say you're sorry

Chickity China the Chinese chicken
You have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin'
Watchin X-Files with no lights on,
We're dans la maison
I hope the Smoking Man's in this one
Like Harrison Ford I'm getting Frantic
Like Sting I'm Tantric
Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy

Like Kurosawa I make mad films
Okay I don't make films
But if I did they'd have a samurai
Gonna get a set of better clubs
Gonna find the kind with tiny nubs
Just so my irons aren't always flying off the back swing
Gotta get in tune with Sailor Moon
Cause that cartoon has got the boom anime babes
That make me think the wrong thing

How can I help it if I think you're funny when you're mad
Trying hard not to smile though I feel bad
I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral
Can't understand what I mean?
You soon will
I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve
I have a history of losing my shirt

It's been one week since you looked at me
Dropped your arms to your sides and said I'm sorry
Five days since I laughed at you and said
You just did just what I thought you were gonna do
Three days since the living room
We realized we're both to blame, but what could we do?
Yesterday you just smiled at me
Cause it'll still be two days till we say we're sorry

It'll still be two days till we say we're sorry
It'll still be two days till we say we're sorry
Birchmount Stadium, home of the Robbie.

The Best Thing I Said Today.*

"They weren't just panties, they were a lifestyle."

*Special guest-star edition.

Gotta' Pay Them All.

Cover Me!

Testify.

Next Stop.

It Was 21 Years Ago Today.

Best TV Theme Song?

Sluuuuuuuuuuurpeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The Best Thing I Said Today.

"Yeah, sure... but you didn't have to hold it."

Best TV Theme Song?

New Feature! Remember TV theme songs?

Worst Album Cover Ever?

Obviously.

Cover Me!

The Best Thing I Said Today.

"Seriously, what's ironic about a black fly in your chardonnay?"

Independent Dance.

You See? Daveless.

Make American Maid Again.

I Need This Now.

Zombie? Or Not A Zombie?

The Best Thing I Said Today.

"What? Your's looks like RuPaul?"

Worst Album Cover Ever?

A Man Of Letters.

Aaaaannndddd Blank.

Zombie Or Not A Zombie?

Worst Album Cover Ever?

What's the Worst That Could Happen?

Sit Down And Don't Shut Up.

The Best Thing I Said Today.

"Whatami, Tina Yothers?"

Come ON!

Miss You.

It's Not A Spoon.

Nailed It.

Empty Mitts.

The Best Thing I Said Today.*

"I was raised to be a Sandy... but I'm a Rizzo."

*Special guest star edition!

No. No Better Place.

Crash.

One was a grimace of gnarled, stained metal.

Nothing could have survived.

Then a few rows of the less damaged, most with perfect, eight-inch holes in the windshields.  Holes wide enough to fit a cantaloupe through.

Rain trickled down my nose; dripped down to my lips.  I could taste hair gel and salt in the drops.  I couldn’t hear anything but the pitter-patter of rain splashing softly in rusty puddles.

I got my car back, eventually.

I spent six months visiting doctors… another seventeen alone.

She called me once, over the summer.

Her voice purred on my machine, whispered over and over:

“Te amo… te amo… te amo….”

But I know what that’s all about.

Let Love Rule.

The Best Thing I Said Today.

"Seriously, how bad would it be if I ate this? Like Trump bad? Or 'Showgirls' bad?"

What's The Worst That Could Happen?

Time Flies When You're Bustin' Ghosts.

WTCaesar?

Okay, look: I've loved Coen brothers movies since they did tracking shots over passed-out bar patrons... and I love a weird, unexpected movie as much as the next guy... but seriously, WTF Joel & Ethan? I'm confused and scared... and I have a feeling that in ten years or so I'll be watching "Hail, Caesar" as often as I watch "Glengarry Glen Ross." Which is to say, constantly. Keep closing, Coens... keeeeeep closing.

History Retreating.

At last... first.

Worst Album Cover Ever?

Only The Backs Remain.

Sharc...

I drove for hours and hours.  I decided I’d never tell a living soul what happened, not even my best friend.  I’d never tell anyone.

Then, the car crash.

A cop picked me up at a little diner.

I called him from a payphone outside the gas station, then I had called my sister and left her a message.

In the diner, all those stupid people looking at me, wondering if I was a criminal.

In the cop’s car, there were no door handles in the back. 

The cop told me stories as he drove; told me I was lucky to be alive.

And I was.

At the police station, standing in line for hours… cold coffee in a styrofoam cup; the dull thud of waiting.

The car graveyard.  Rows and rows of twisted and mangled machines lined-up in order of severities.

One had been torn inside-out.

One looked like it had been scooped-up with a giant spatula.

One was crushed and bent up to the sky like a sculpture.

Thanks To You, We Could Be.

Rest in well-earned peace, Muhammad Ali.

Ahsrc...

She got on the phone and started talking to somebody in Spanish.  I could make out the pitch and inflections of the voice on the other end.  It was a man’s voice, also Spanish.  Not her brother, either. 

She was doing a good job;  she chose words which weren’t obvious.  But Spanish is like French, you know.  Even big words, carefully chosen, sound the same.

I’m not that dumb, you know.  I’m just a slab of meat, sitting on the edge of a bed with a stone face.

She hung-up the phone.

“Sorry, that was a friend. I had to call him.

“He’s upset.

“You understand.”

“Sure I do… let’s go to sleep, I’m tired.”

I was gone before she was awake.

I put the room charges on my Visa; the call had been local.

I got in my car, turned on the heater, and chugged coffee.  I beat the morning traffic by over an hour. 

I Would Never Have Known.

Worst Album Cover Ever?

Hey BooBoo! It's Yogi Dare!

Hcsar...

“ ‘Gur-tuuuh’…. What is Faust?”

“Faust is a doctor who sells his soul to the Devil. Or, well, to the devil’s agent, Mephistopheles.  In return, Faust gets all the worldly power and knowledge a man could hope for.”

She lit a cigarette; stared at me openly.

“It’s a bet,” I finished.  “A bet between the Devil and God, just to see what would happen.”

Smoke oozed from her mouth.  “What happened?”

“Faust goes to Hell. 

“He tries to repent, but he goes to Hell.”

She nodded.

I shouldn’t be fucking this girl.

I shouldn’t be alone with her, naked in a hotel room.

I shouldn’t be here at all.

“Could I make a phone call?  I forgot I need to call a friend.”

“Sure,” I said, pulling my shirt on.

The Best Thing I Said Today.

She said: "Kids... I can't believe he's started lying to me."

I said: "You can't believe everything you breed."

Shcra...

But, after I had crawled from the wreckage, when I stepped off the car rim, I sprained my ankle.

But I’m getting ahead of myself….

*    *    *

The day before, at the hotel.

Brothel scenes like you can’t imagine.

The walls dripped sweat.

When she came, she’d cry “Kill me, kill me, fuck me, kill me!”.

A Latin girl from South America, you know.  Catholic schoolgirl stuff.

Sex and death.

It was all wrong.

Later, she took the book from my bag.  “What is this?  I have heard of this.”

“What?  Oh, that’s—“

“ ‘Faust’.  Goethe… it’s German, no?”

“Yes, it’s German, and it’s ‘Gur-tuh’.”

Birthday Boooooooy!

Birthdaaaaay Boy!

Happy Birthday The Boy!

8 years young and so loved!

Ahrsc...

And there she was in the lobby at eleven o’clock, when I came down to greet her….

               

*   *   *

So, here’s how stupid I am:  taking a curving turn at 87mph, that’s 155km.  The sign read “Warning, 40km. Slow. Curve.”

Driving twelve hours straight, taking a curve at 87 per….

The car careened into the solid rock of the overpass; flew across the road, and slammed off of a huge, concrete pillar.  Then it tumbled over the snarled guardrail and into the frozen mud.

All the junk in the car --tapes, my sweater, old coffee cups half-full of coffee from the night before, me-- all of it, slammed back and forth.  First one way, then the other.  Sky, mud, sky….

Six seconds.

All four tires burst; shit was everywhere.

The wipers were still going, and somehow, so was I.  Unscathed.

Half Off = Half Wrong.

Rchsa...

I got up; stood in front of the window while she exhaled smoke on my back.  Standing out there in the freezing cold, looking up at her building… her friend shivered in the darkness.

“I wish he’d just go away,” she sighed, lighting another cigarette.

We split at dawn.

I had her number scrawled on the torn corner of a phonebook page, folded and tucked in the front pocket of my favorite jeans.

It stayed there all day.

It stayed there when we stopped to buy a goldfish at the pharmacy.

It stayed there when we ate Indian food at that place on Bay Street.  A real spread; chicken masala, aloo matar, lamb korma, naan, raita and chai. 

I felt that little scrap of paper in my pocket.

Still there.

It was still there when I took my friends to the train station that night.

Later, finally, I pulled it from my pocket; called her from a booth in the hotel lobby.

My toes felt frozen in my boots; the wool of my socks itched.  I hummed softly while the phone rang on the other end….

The Best Thing I Said Today.

"What? Next to the Asian Jan Michael Vincent?"

Read Between The Whines.

Trumped.

Yeah... You Don't Know.

New Feature!

I ask you: "Worst album cover ever?"

Scrah...

The smell of smoke and shampoo.

Amber oil in her hair.

Captured!

Every last thing my mother ever told me; every caution, every trained nuance… gone.     

But we couldn’t do it.  Just a few quick strokes and I had to stop.

I couldn’t do it.

She was patient.  She reassured me.  She bent over to kiss me, but stopped when she felt the tears.

“You are crying?

“Why?”

But that’s always the problem, isn’t it?  How to get all that stuff in your head out from behind those teeth and lips.  How to get it out of your dry mouth and into the warm air of a sweaty room.

No.  It would be too much to explain, even to you, now.  I didn’t even try.  I just let those few tears get swept up by her mouth.

She lit a cigarette then.

Fatman Returns.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Rhsca...

I heard her go into the bathroom next, and from the next room, I heard my friends… moans through the walls.

I leaned back.

The little statuette on the wall beside the door.

The curtains blowing softly in a chilly breeze.

The red glow of the night-light, casting crooked shadows on the floor.

The bathroom sink… on… off… on… off….

She came back naked, except for her socks.

I could see between the silhouettes of her thighs.

Now, sometimes something happens when a beautiful girl presents herself to you.  Naked, floating in the fragrant shower of her aromas.

You lose yourself.

You are lost, and you are fucked, and you are captured….

You are hers.

You belong to her.

You are played out, even if you don’t know it yet.

The moans from the next room grew louder.

Lamplight from the hall.

Borne Ceaselessly....

Scrha...

“Only three leaves?” he asked petulantly.

“You are not that lucky,” she replied, capping the pen.

Later, when the bar closed, she took us all back to her place. She fried plantains, and gave us more tequila, and put a fire in the little wood stove.  The tequila was chilled over ice, strained, and served with a lump of sugar and the juice of a half lime, each in a little tumbler, without ice.  We watched Spanish soap operas on a tiny TV in her bedroom.

Her friend got up and went to the kitchen.  He stayed there; I could hear him pacing, his tennis shoes squeaking on the linoleum floors.

On that collapsible couch, she leaned on me, pressing her breasts into my arm.  Her breath was sweet, and it cradled my face in its warmth.

The pacing stopped.  He called out her name a couple of times, tersely.

“I’m going to get rid of him,” she spat angrily, rising.

The front door slammed; she came back, and gave my friends the spare bedroom.  Then she went back out to the kitchen; cleaned the mess, turned off the lights, blew out the candles and cracked open the windows.

Just a little, to let in the cool, morning air.

What's The Worst That Could Happen?

Hrcas...

He snorted, and shook his head.  Small dead things fell out of his dirty hair, and littered the table between his greasy hands.  He was just intimidated.  And why shouldn’t he be?  His crooked yellow teeth, fucked-up haircut, stupid Rush T-shirt.  He oughta’ be intimidated, the way she was staring at me. 

I rose confidently, and walked over to their table.  Looking down at him, I took a risk -- to knock him down some more.  “I think you want to fuck her… that’s what you’re saying, you know.”

Chickenshit.

“Hey man, it’s cool.  I don’t want it to be that way.  Come on, sit down.”

I slid into a chair beside her.  I looked at her; this was the girl in my dedications.  She asked me my name.  She couldn’t understand my English, so I wrote my name on her palm.  I asked her friend for a pen; he reluctantly handed me a fat, black Sharpie.

She told me her name, but I missed it.  So she said it again; so proud.  A film school student, rich kid from Venezuela.  She smiled, and wrote it on my arm, all twelve syllables worth.  He asked her to write it on his arm too, but instead she drew a three-leaf clover on the back of his hand.

Hello?

Ahrcs...

Her legs were open.

Her legs were spread wide, and I could see the white of her thigh through a carefully-torn hole in her jeans.  The guy sitting next to her?  All he saw was me, staring at her, and wondering….

Well, there it was….  Four shots of tequila and an icy stare. 

My downfall.

“What are you looking at?” my friend asked me.

“That girl’s spread.  Could that be a mistake?  The way she’s sitting?”

He leaned over, and took a long look; his gaze lost in the shadow that nestled between her slender, welcoming legs.  “I doubt it,” he announced with a hopeless sigh.

Her friend spoke to me then.  It’s weird when a stranger in a crowded bar addresses you from an adjacent table.  “We see you man,” he leered.  It was clear he wasn’t her boyfriend.  “Why don’t you come over instead of just staring at her?  She’s not gonna’ fuck you, don’t worry.”

Asshole.

“What makes you think I want to fuck her?”

Whaaaaaaat? It's Not.

Happy Mother's Day!

Signs Of The Times.

The Best Thing I Said Today.*

"What's that watermelon doing there?"

*Special guest star edition.

You're An All Star. Every Year. All The Time.

No "e" Valley.

Trump(ster) Fire.

Wake up. Wake up! Wake up! WAAAAAAKE UP!

That's All She Wrote.

I'll Want The Finger With The Ring.