Ugly Shoes and Dangerous Driving

First of all, not all English majors are good at Scrabble. I'm pretty terrible in fact, but I bet can still beat Chris Wallitsch at it, fairly consistently.

Speaking of Wallitsch, here's a prank we played on our town after being annoyed by the prolificacy of a "Lost Parrot" flyer.

The morning after affixing approximately 100 of these flyers underneath the originals, some mother on a mission took them all down. And I remember the person who actually posted the parrot flyers eventually contacted me and tried to make me feel bad about it all.

Secondly, Vibram's (which is pronounced Vee-Brahms for some Italian reason) FiveFingers KSO model is pretty kewl. $85...when you're rich like me, you can buy these shoes just to look at them, or microwave them, or bury them in the woods.

Today was the first day I used these mother-fuckers and I found that, during my three mile jog, I felt more comfortable running on the grass than on the cement. You can still feel the impact and the intricacies of each sidewalk, but I'm going to have to say I prefer my regular running sneakers for the asphalt.

My shins and ass definitely felt this run more than usual...so I know I'm a little closer to my work-out goal of crushing apples with my toes. I had no problem sprinting in these, and my feet felt very secure. These shoes are definitely for hiking. I also made sure to purchase the all-black versions of these shoes since I figured they would dry quickest in the sun after having splashed around a bit, but Vibram recommends you don't do that.

After the jog, I stretched on my front lawn, and a neighbor that always lets her dog shit all over the place made small talk with me and eventually asked "...but do you feel all the pebbles underneath when you run?" and I told her I did, if I were to scrutinize every step, and that our ancestors never used Nikes. And she understood, and her little mutt of a dog got a good whiff of my sweat-soaked shoes.

Thirdly, deliveries.

I made twenty-five deliveries yesterday, and around twenty on Saturday.

Breaking everything down: Sunday alone, I delivered $565 worth of food. I was tipped $147.

I delivered some food to a woman in the Hampton Inn's lobby and noticed a small tattoo on her shoulder of an om symbol, except it was torn at, ripped, burnt. There was actually a marble-sized blister disfiguring the sacred syllable of quite a few Indian religions.

Being nosy, I asked her what had happened, and she gave me an uneasy smile and told me it was a long story, and I believed her.

At some point in the incredible heat of the day, I stared straight ahead at the road while waiting for a light on Jericho to change and the road seemed to stretch itself out before me as if I were hallucinating--and then geese flying overhead sent down a breeze, changing the light green. Throughout the day, I learn that the marijuana habit is alive and well and very ubiquitous.

Back at the pizzeria, a snarky boy asked if we sold free ice cream and I couldn't help but laugh in his face and then laugh harder when my explanation failed to amuse him.

"You can't sell something that's free. Get it? Understand me?"

So I gave him a cup of ice water and told him to pour sugar on top.

"Right next to the coffee machine."

But what do I really want to inform those of you interested in a pizzeria career, or perhaps just those interested in the inner-workings of such an establishment? You should know that delivery boys, excluding those from major chains since they usually have multiple drivers, are usually very reckless when driving--especially when you're as terrible with directions as I am.

I must have blown fifty stop signs, and by blown I mean given joe-blobs to. At any given moment, I would be adjusting the 2 liter Pepsi in between my legs (which is where the cold drinks always go on hot days), juggling orders, deciphering scribbled addresses and belting Miike Snow songs.

I have an amazing falsetto, I've discovered.

Making deliveries provides the perfect stage for singing your favorite songs. Forget high school chorus and forget those college theater productions you never took part in--it's you and your voice under a sun-roof amidst people just as self-absorbed about the road and its ways as you are.

Dead Baby Jokes

Scientists recently found a bright light in the firmament that just so happens to be the heaviest star ever discovered.

No big deal.

This ball of gas, only 10,000,000 times brighter than our sun.

Meh. So what.

And its surface temperatures reaching 72,000 degrees Fahrenheit--that's one thousand times my favorite temperature.

I love this kind of shit because it's so beautifully confounding/daunting.

I frequent this website, and I think you should, too.

--

...While we're at it.

Found Dumb!

This is the first "Found Dumb!" entry--backwards for dumbfound, for these precious little moments throughout the week that have surprised me, and transformed me into a reveler of a revelation, entranced by a certain event that had transpired--and it can also quite plainly be found dumb, or monotonous, immature, what have you. I'm honestly not crazy about the title of the section but these things are about as official as the administration presently running this country.

Unfortunately for this week, everything that intrigued me was morbid--the last one is political, and more of a gripe than a declaration.

1. If you can remember...

Hollywood actor, Charlie Rocket, as seen in the picture above, not below

who played the obsessive fan in the fantastically underrated film (2.3/10 on IMDB):

as well as the villain in Dumb & Dumber (1994):

then you might have also known that he was found dead five years ago in a field near his Connecticut home.

The 56 year old had his throat cut open, with the state medical examiner ruling it as a suicide. And then those closest to him attempted to bring him closer to nature, ashes after they cremate you bastards, hope you been readin your psalms and chapters...

In short, he was cremated, but I went on a Jay-Z tangent...this is his best song, in my opinion.

Charles Rocket had an interesting and very ephemeral career on the SNL cast due to a faux pas, which for me, adds to the sadness of the story:

The February 21, 1981 episode hosted by Dallas star Charlene Tilton featured a parody of the famed Who Shot J.R.? episode of Dallas. In the episode, Rocket was shot in the chest by a sniper while doing a sketch about a sexy couple (with Gail Matthius as his partner) bathing a dog and spouting innuendo. At the end of the show, as cast members traditionally gathered around the host to say good night, Tilton asked Rocket how he felt about being shot. In character, a wheelchair-using Rocket improvised, "Oh, man, it’s the first time I've ever been shot in my life. I'd like to know who the fuck did it", followed by the cast and audience reacting with shock and laughter.

Due partially to the violation of broadcast standards, along with Saturday Night Live's low ratings, Doumanian and Rocket were soon fired (along with most of the writers and fellow cast members Gilbert Gottfried and Ann Risley).

I enjoy how wikipedia links the word "fuck", you know, just in case.

2.

An old couple was found dead in their home elevator in Georgia. Sherwood Wadsworth, 90, and his 88-year-old wife, Caroline, were found stuck in between the 2nd and 3rd floors. 911 was eventually contacted because of the accumulating stack of newspapers in front of their house.

There was no way to contact anyone while inside the elevator, which is the most fail-enabling elevator system I can envisage. Instead of feeling immediately upset from this story, all my mind could really do was conjure the image in Titanic of that old couple seen cry-spooning as the proletarian bulkheads fill. This image came to mind after reading how the couple was found "lying beside each other in the fetal position".

And then after all that, I couldn't help but think about the finality of such a thing. Being stuck, panicking, feeling helpless, angry, denial, depression, and perhaps finally acceptance.

Imagine if they got it on, just one last time?

This story reminds me of this video I had seen--a surreal time-lapse of one man's ordeal, being trapped in a McGraw Hill elevator in Manhattan for 41 hours.

3.

Nicholas Hughes, whose mother was Sylvia Plath, famed poet and novelist, hanged himself last year in March. He was living in Alaska at the time and had taken a break from teaching marine biology at the University of Fairbanks, a really long break.

Ted Hughes, Sylvia's husband, cheated on her and left her for another poet's wife, Assia Wevill, who also eventually committed suicide by gassing herself and their daughter, Shura, who sure isn't coming back from the dead anytime soon.

Side-note: I believe that if I can find a way to sneak in terrible jokes in between these sad histories, it might somehow legitimize these findings.

In case you were mistaking Sylvia Plath's suicide with any others, like Virginia Woolf's for an absurd example, allow me to clarify: Sylvia was the first to stick her head in an oven, Woolf weighed herself down with rocks so she could familiarize herself with the riverbed near her home, and Wevill, as mentioned above, supposedly copied Sylvia--some brash statement, I suppose.

A film named "Sylvia" was made in 2003 starring Gwyneth Paltrow and I really fucking loved it, not only because I thought Paltrow did a fantastic job, but also because of how well the movie adhered to fact. I must've seen this trailer 25 times.

Supposedly Sylvia Plath's daughter and literary executor, Frieda Hughes, not only refused to cooperate with the producers or allow them access to her mother's poetry, but also publicly denounced the project in a published poem of her own.

I found the poem:

Sylvia Plath My Mother

They are killing her again,
She said she did it
One Year in every ten,
But they do it annually, or weekly,
Some do it daily,
Carrying her death around in their heads,
And practising it. She saves them
The trouble of their own;
They can die through her
Without ever making
The decision. My buried mother
Is dug up for repeat performances

Now they want to make a film
For anyone lacking the ability
To imagine the body, head in oven,
Orphaning children. Then
It can be rewound
So they can watch her die
Right from the beginning again.

The peanut eaters, entertained
At my mother's death, will go home,
Each carrying their memory of her,
Lifeless — a souvenir.
Maybe they'll buy the video
Watching someone on TV
Means all they have to do
Is press 'pause'
If they want to boil a kettle,
While my mother holds her breath on screen
To finish dying after tea.

The filmmakers have collected
The body parts.
They want me to see.
But they require dressings to cover the joins
And disguise the prosthetics
In their remake of my mother.
They want to use her poetry
As stitching and sutures
To give it credibility.
They think i should love it-
Having her back again, they think
I should give them my mother’s words
to fill the mouth of their monster,
Their Sylvia Suicide Doll.
Who will walk and talk
And die at will,
And die, and die
And forever be dying.

If I were her, I'd hog those film rights until I was dead myself instead of denouncing the finished product and sounding like a real wind-bag.

4.

And the last topic, as promised, does not involve suicide or death, but actually gay marriage, or "civil union," according to my coworker who insists on these phrases remaining entirely distinct. I don't wish to delineate the conservative viewpoint because it's all antiquated and lacking progressive logic in my mind. My major gripe with this argument is how every time I find myself regrettably taking part in this conversational rubicon, the person against the idea of legalizing gay marriage brings up the fact that they have numerous gay friends.

"...Oh, and they're so great with their children, and everyone in the town loves them, and we just had dinner recently and they were just such great company..."

And it's all very futile and sad in a strangely oblique way, because it's a cheap exercise in evasion-- a truly ignorant affectation that leaves me utterly dumbfounded.

I will extol every step of progress against such thinly-veiled prejudice...Consider me a radical in this instance.

Favorite Drinks

In order of refreshing(ness):

1. Water

2. Milk

3. Arizona Iced Tea

Deliveries for the Liveries and General Contempt for Pedophiliacs

My readers should understand that this blog was started because before I began working at a pizzeria, I literally googled "Pizzeria Experiences" because I'm a wuss and I wanted to know what I was getting myself into. It seems like a generic-enough job, but what about the intricacies of each day? The idiosyncratic annoyances each customer poses?

I delve into this for you, and for my sanity, otherwise it would all go unnoticed and I would be suffering and laughing and sweating alone and as Mephistophilis gracefully put it: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris--misery loves company.

For the past two days, I worked the counter and I made deliveries. Working the counter means: tending the register, spinning pies, wiping down the counter, arranging the slices behind the display case, actual congenial for the customers and occasionally microwaving rice-balls.

Nothing special with counter-work, but the deliveries, oh the deliveries.

The deluge on Saturday flooded Old Country Road and stranded everyone, but more importantly, me and my deliveries. And when I got to one of the houses, I was greeted by an amiable creature, a calm golden retriever. Out of the thirty or so houses with a dog inside, this was the only one that didn't bark like an idiot when I arrived. The owners let me pet the dog, with very little reserve. They introduced me.

"This is Max."

And I fell in love.

I remember there was some other dog, some mutt somewhere that whined quite a bit, really anxiously, ahh yes, I remember now. The mutt belonged to a family packing for a surprise disney trip--what happy little children they would soon have--the delivery boy, being made aware of such things, such privilege.

At another house, a man answers his door buck-naked, barely shielding his johnson with a towel when I show my disgusted surprise.

"Woah! You alright over there?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm sorry about this, just got out of the shower."

"Alright, $22.50, sir"

I don't remember at what point he says it, but he says "...still hot out there, ain't it?" and it was...And when he gets back, he's still cupping his crotch with the goddamned towel, and I can't believe his audacity, leaving me feeling anxious/harassed, but he tips me well, the hairy bastard.

An old lady living on some obscure cul de sac made me very aware of her fragility, just watching her live for our little shared moment, the quick and ungainly pitter-patter of geriatric feet.

There was a delivery to the Hampton Inn's front desk, a 10-15 minute pain-in-the-ass drive from the pizzeria, and when I tell the manager the price, he looks at me and tells me, very calmly, as if he's practiced this very monologue, "Full-price, huh? I can't believe you would disrespect us in such a way, such a slap in the face to my employees. "

Instinctively, I want to laugh, because he used the phrase, "...a slap in the face," but I try to understand before jumping on the defensive--bringing up how we normally do give discounts to our partners and how whoever handled the order just didn't realize at the time the egregious error they had made in forgetting to deduce three or so dollars from our standard price.

I tell him a simple phone call could rectify the situation, but he outright refuses to negotiate; the price, in his mind, is finalized. It has become personal.

"After all the business we've given you, after every reference we've given our customers. You can tell your boss we're no longer interested in doing business with you." And he hands me the little stack of menus from behind the desk, and I open up his pizza box and throw this dog poop I keep in my pocket for emergencies right in the middle of it--the steam from the pizza liquifying the whole mess surprisingly fast.

The poop part isn't real, but the manager leaves and I ask his quiet minion, who was standing next to the manager the entire charade, "Am I crazy?" And he tells me something obsequious to the effect of "Whatever the boss says..."

And you know, fuck it.

Later, I deliver a pie to someone's backyard, where there's a pool with three children jumping in and out of it, screaming ebullience, and three adults, lounging along the perimeter with mixed drinks, a happy calm between them all, and now exuding outwardly: "...Want to jump in?"

And short story short, I do, and it's more amazing than I imagined and the kids jump in right after me, screaming, "I can't believe it! I can't believe he jumped in! Yay! YAY!"

It was basically like this, but in a pool, and I got paid for it. And when I reluctantly hoisted myself out of the pool, the two little girls pushed me back in, proving that happiness can love company as well.

My car's thermometer, while sitting in the sun for a few hours reached 136 today, I remember it reached 148 at Bonnaroo.

...Sitting in the traffic between these destinations, these strange people, often wonderful, and entirely intriguing...

Ugly looking thing

traffic at a dead halt

beneath a bright beacon of green

trying so hard to signal the opposite

And no refreshing air to be had

just the muggy throwback

swimming in an ocean you could sweat in

--

That was an impromptu poem. Redundant? Maybe.

And as to the pedophiles mentioned in the title of this post, I just had to ask Bobby, that old veteran who comes in just to watch the phone girls work, what he was looking at today, since he was very obviously scrutinizing the movements of one of my co-workers. And he told me some bullshit about trying to "figure out [the girl's] dowry because women are the most expensive beings to maintain," or something, and then I had to make sure he was talking about "...women, right, Bobby? Not girls, women."

And even though he defended my freedom at one point or another, I still hate the bastard, and I wrote so on my drinking cup today, to distinguish mine from the rest.

"I HATE BOBBY"

The weekend fades to darkness and I drive home, my car still emitting the pungent scent of seafood fra diavolo. I arrive at the intersection of Glen Cove Road and Westbury and the light is yellow and I know I can make it. I drive through it and before I reach the beginning of the next street, I'm cut off by another driver making a quick turn in front of me, and I notice a flash of light behind me. A ticket. A $50 traffic violation as automatic as my ensuing anger. I scream one obscenity, bang the wheel of my car once, and allow the give-and-take of life to settle in like smoke.

"...but you will blow me first"

If you missed the Mel Gibson scandal, you can learn about it anywhere on the internet. Basically, he's a mean guy and he punches his wife and after a long, threatening, and racist diatribe, he told said this to her "(see above)".

William Wallace, the actual historic character Gibson portrayed in Braveheart, made belts with the skin of his enemies...and was also bat-shit insane.

Update: To be fair, Oksana Grigorieva, Gibson's spouse, attempted to extort $10,000,000 from Gibson in order to keep the recordings of his unmitigated rage private.

Money, money. I used to evaluate large sums of money by figuring how many slices of my favorite pizza (which no longer exists) I could buy with it: 4,000,000 slices, that's 500,000 pizza pies.

In the latest recording, Oksana placidly tells Gibson that she never asked for his money, or something to that effect, and through Gibson's seething rebukes, I can't help but feel a bit of the gold-digger sting myself...not to legitimize anything that Gibson said.



I mean hey, it's Mel Gibson! Come on!

A Very Hetero Manhunk List

For a somewhat recent job application to an online media site, they asked me for ideas I'd pitch, to fill up the space, I suppose, and I suggested a few I had thought out beforehand.

One of them being: A Very Hetero Manhunk List. But I've grown impatient and gone ahead with it on me own.

If something seems inserted, it's because it was, thanks to Wiki wiki and Imdb. Here it is, in no particular order:

1. Daniel Day Lewis



A great website I often visit is The Art of Manliness. It sounds cheesy because it often is, but there are a plethora of good articles in there. One of them makes a distinction between two similar words:

"manliness"; virtues and values men should strive for such as bravery, honor, and loyalty.

Then there's my idea of "manly"; medium-rare steaks, drinking brews with the buds, punching bears, and The Last of the Mohicans (1992)

Everyone who's seen this film understands that no other film has a better ending fight scene so I don't really have to go into depth there.

During the production of The Last of the Mohicans he built a canoe, learned to track and skin animals, and perfected the use of a 12-pound flintlock gun, which he took everywhere he went, even to a Christmas dinner.

Then we have his remarkable portrayal as the nefarious nationalist, Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York (2002).

While on set for the production of Gangs of New York, he would talk with a New York accent and sharpen his knives at lunch.

I could laud his performance all day but there's no thesis here, just very declaratory sagacity.

Haha, English can't help but make me sound like a pompous pedant--a real hoity-toity.

I feel compelled to mention Lewis' role in There Will Be Blood (2007) not only because of this very hetero and comprehensive manhunk list, but because of that current exponential problem laying waste to the gulf and ensuing coast line.

[Daniel Day Lewis on researching his role as PLAINVIEW in There Will Be Blood]: "I read a lot of correspondence dating from that period. Decent middle-class lives with wives and children were abandoned to pursue this elusive possibility. They were bank clerks and shipping agents and teachers. They all fled West for a sniff of cheap money. And they made it up as they went along. No one knew how to drill for oil. Initially, they scooped it out of the ground in saucepans. It was man at his most animalistic, sifting through filth to find bright, sparkly things."

I wasn't going to include that excerpt but I enjoyed his voice throughout it--very measured and articulate, almost, I dare venture to say, enrapturing with its honest simplicity.

2. Pierce Brosnan (Exclusively in GoldenEye)

I say exclusively because, there was simply something to it--some methodology to his attractiveness, his ulterior role in awakening the secret agent in all pre-pubescent boys, or at least he did for me, since Sean and Roger's portrayals were never very salient...I know Pierce was in Mars Attacks! but how can we really look at this man the same after Mama Mia! both exclamatory for reasons unknown...

But here, we can admire his poofy hair and fitted tuxedo and Walther PPK--not to mention the opening sequence of the film where he bitch slaps the great majority of the Russian army in their own facility and escapes via helicopter via riding off a cliff on a motorcycle.

And then there was this to solidify it all for years to come...Slappers Only!:

3. Hugh Jackman

I call him Hugh Jackedman.

There are plenty of shots of him as Wolverine but I figured this French movie poster did proper justice, considering the way it captures his roar amidst an oncoming storm, and his augmented crotchal-region...I mean I could be wrong, but my jeans don't necessarily do that when I'm angry.

Some facts from the film X-Men (2000), since it's my favorite of the three.

Gary Sinise was the studio's preferred option for the role of Wolverine. --That's right, Lieutenant Dan.

Despite being nearly 6 feet tall, James Marsden (Cyclops) had to wear platform shoes so that he would appear taller than Hugh Jackman (6'2")

Jackman got his testicles caught in his harness after a 6 foot jump off the set's Statue of Liberty--but rest easy friends, those Adamantium jewels withstood the ordeal and would play a crucial role in the next year when Jackman would portray Stanley Jobson, the world's greatest hacker in the film Swordfish (2001).

4. Jimmy Kimmel

Now, "manhunk," although vague in its etymology, can translate a number of ways. I for one, am lazy, and do not wish to delineate the multitudinous definitions one can ascribe to the word "manhunk," but will instead allow for the subsequent video to voice my sentiment.

Although I felt conflicted as to who would fill the fifth spot on this contrived list, I've decided upon

5. Vigo Mortenssen (Exclusively in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy)

I just want to say I feel privileged to have grown up with this trilogy. This is my Star Wars.

There's one particular scene that tickles my knurl, which was so excellently defined by Deez Nuts on Joe Mama's face--the scene near the end of The Fellowship where Aragorn decides he can handle infinite orcs while the others get a head start.

It starts with this singular shot of Aragorn, measuring up his off-screen foes, and suddenly leads to...

a mirthful massacre of orcs and plenty more to dish.

I love how you can find pretty much any screen shot from this entire trilogy on the internet thanks to prudent fans.

6. Keith Carradine (Exclusively in Dexter--FBI Special Agent Frank Lundy)

I believe every fan of the Dexter series remembers when Frank Lundy first walked into Miami Metro Police Department, exuding professionalism, confidence, and raw sex.

That's right, sex. Looks like lucky Deb's got some hot boobs resting under her boobs.

Before I delve into any other salacious aspect of Lundy's being, such as his surprisingly toned old-man buttocks, I should say I found his teeth distracting...I don't remember why in retrospect, maybe they were yellowish, perhaps too many FBI coffees, but I still found him an incredible addition to the ensemble that is the Dexter masterpiece.

Dexter is such a powerful character on his own, letting the mask of his sanity slip only when necessary, that I couldn't help but giggle like an Irish school-girl at the following exchange between him and Lundy, pitting Dexter as the inexperienced one, hiding in the mouth of the lion.

Dexter Morgan: Hi, you wanted to...

Special Agent Frank Lundy: Morgan, come in. Can I offer you some tea?

Dexter Morgan: Uh, no, thank you. I'm...

Dexter Morgan: [thinking] And he pours it anyway. He's trying to throw me off balance, show that I don't have the power to say no to him.

Special Agent Frank Lundy: How about some sesame crackers to go with that?

Dexter Morgan: [thinking] So I'll say yes to everything.

Dexter Morgan: I'd love some.

Special Agent Frank Lundy: Oh. Sorry. Guess I ate them all.

Dexter Morgan: [thinking] Asshole.

--

Although I basically just picked out amazing actors from amazing scenes/films, I still feel strongly towards my choices, and I plan on expanding upon this list, whenever my boredom's piqued.