I Gotta Come Clean

There's a reason I did a cover of Debbie Reynolds' Tammy. I'm tired of hiding it so click on this or this to find the real tale.

Man, I miss my football days. And my freaking kidney.

Oh wait, I forgot. I'm dead.

Horror Haiku

Leatherface is pissed.
Hippies in a goddamn van.
Please kill Franklin first.

Teen kids having sex.
Jason shows up and snuffs them.
Christ, not another.

Michael Caine in drag.
Angie is no Janet Leigh.
Brian thinks he's Hitch.


Woman blows her lunch
and all her organs as well.
Fulci was a god.

Here comes crazy Jack.
Axe busting up the hotel.
The book was better.

Theatre of Blood.
Robert Morley has some dogs.
Hello, Rip Taylor.

David Naughton shifts.
Latex snout stretching to there.
I'm a Pepper, too.

Michael Landon shifts.
It's still ten times better than
Touched By An Angel.


Boy causes much death.
They say he's the antichrist.
You know kids today.

The mines aren't real safe.
Pickaxe through your fucking head.
Sing O Canada.

Look at Miss Kinski.
Even as a cat she's hot.
Wish I was some yarn.

Geek buys a damn car.
You would think they were screwing.
Folks die; roll credits.

Got bugs, Mr. Pratt?
Tell it to call you Billie.
The sequel so sucked.

Cabin plagued by ghosts.
Scary stuff keeps happening.
God bless Steadicam.

I see dead people
and a stunning twist ending.
Thank you, O. Henry.

Ape on twin towers.
It's even scarier now.
Thanks heaps, Al Queda.

Flies on the drywall.
Pig's eyes at the window frame.
Oh, sure, it's all true.

Saw off your damn foot.
You do that, underwear boy.
Once more with feeling.

Copperfield on train.
Jamie Lee, scared, shits herself
sans Activia.

There she is again.
To The Devil A Daughter.
Wish I was some yarn.

College kids with dough.
Ninety minutes of some twigs.
You call this scary?

Boy meets rabid dog.
Years later he's in leather.
Who's the fucking boss?

Cabin still haunted.
Plates smashing on a guy's head.
My god, it's Curly.

Legend of Hell House.
Is "Roddy McDowell" a
slang term for penis?

Little folks in jars.
How's this mesh with Frankenstein?
Fag director.

Kid kills some adults.
Halloween, or any day,
I can so relate.

Dead kid at seance.
George C. Scott cries yet again.
Is that all he does?

Penmanship medal.
Shoes in incenerator.
I dated that girl.

Ballet school mayhem.
Colors bleed off the screen.
Goddamn genius wop.

Little girl is nuts.
Forced cunnilingus with mom.
Pea soup, anyone?

Repo is awesome.
The soundtrack just kicks, brother.
Paul Sorvino? What?

Norman Bates back home.
People die again; surprise.
Whore, whore, whore, whore, whore.

Drill bit through ceiling.
Blood showers down like crazy.
Nope, still not Hitchcock.

A teenage vampire.
Emo kids all want him bad.
Sound familiar, Keefer?

Children of the Corn.
Thomas Tyron's Harvest Home.
It's plagiarism.

The dead like shopping.
I guess it's force of habit.
3M blood films well.

Jigsaw and puzzles.
Bet it wouldn't work without
post-production shit.

The shark is hungry.
Quint is awfully surly.
Here comes Schindler's List.

Woman from the well.
I've never been so frightened.
I rike this movie.

Snails, snails, snails, snails, snails.
Snails, snails, snails, snails, snails, snails, snails.
Midgets are creepy.

Girl gets sodomized
by an invisible ghost.
I should have her luck.

Wait for the action.
Keep waiting, it might happen.
It's a Hammer film.

Zombies moving fast.
Digitally speeded up.
Keystone fucking cops.

Some kids overseas.
Achille's heel gets severed.
Ouch, that's gotta smart.

They remade Chainsaw.
Studs instead of hippie boys.
Glad to watch them die.

McDonald's In Detroit

"Gimme all the money in the drawer, motherfucker!"
The counter help behind the six inch plexiglas shrugs.
"I said give me all the money in the drawer or I'll blow your fuckin' head off."
"Really?" asks the teen in the paper hat.
"Whatchoo mean really? I said give me the money."
"I know what you said. I'm just not particularly motivated to do it. Besides, there are people behind you, sir. They look hungry."
"Fuck hongry. Empty out that cash drawer or I will blow your damn head off."
"Sir, if you could just please step to one side if you're not ordering anything. I need to get these people taken care of or the manager might become very upset."
"I ain't stepping aside for nobody."
At this, the patrons in line voice their displeasure.
"You asswipe, my daughter wants a strawberry shake."
"I only have a half hour for lunch and I need my Asian Chicken Salad."
"Hey, idiot, you're wasting our time."
"If you don't move it I will fold my Filet O Fish in half and shove it up your ass."
The man with the gun turned to the people behind him. "I done told the man to give me all the money. It's not my fault he's being so slow about it."
"Sir, please, if you're not placing an order could you just please step to one side so that others might enjoy our line of reasonably priced products? "
"Yeah," a man growls, "I want a number one value meal sometime today."
"Sir, I will place your order when you arrive at the counter but there are still two people, not counting this guy with the gun, ahead of you."
"Sorry," the man says.
"Gimme my cash!"
"No sir. It is not your cash. It belongs to the McDonald's corporation; a very, very, very small, teency-tiny portion of which is going to the Ronald McDonald House, an organization for parents who have children with cancer."
"Awww. That's sad. No, wait, I mean, gimme that money, mofo."
"Excuse me," a woman says, "Do you think I could have three of those yogurt parfaits? I know you think that no one noticed you cut them down to a third of the size they used to be, but some of us have eyes, you know."
"Yeah," says a man. "Chicken McNuggets used to be huge but now they're practically the size of a dime."
Celebrity talk show host David Letterman is also in line and says, sarcastically, "Really. If there was a part of of a chicken you could conceivably call a nugget, would you want to put it in your mouth?"
Everyone laughs.
"Shut up!" the man with the gun yells. "All of you."
"Top ten reasons I can't get my fucking lunch," Letterman says, and everyone laughs again.
"So how are you liking Detroit?" the kid behind the counter asks the TV star.
"Shut up! I have a goddamn gun!"
"It's ok," answers Letterman, rolling his eyes. "Mostly."
"Are you going to give me the money or not?"
"I'm going to have to check with my manager on this." The kid disappears, which causes the line of people to audibly sigh and pointedly check thier wristwatches. "Hey," the man with the gun says, "I just figured he would hand it over and I'd be gone. I'm in the same boat as you."
The boy in the paper hat returns, accompanied by a man sans similar chapeau and wearing a necktie, which in the McDonald's world means an ass that needs to be licked, pretty much constantly. "What seems to be the problem here?" the manager asks.
"Gimme all the money in your goddamned cash register. Do it or I will shoot you in the face!"
"Is that David Letterman?" the manager asks.
"Yeah," says the kid in the paper hat. "He's just as funny in real life as he is on the TV."
"Hey!" yells the man with the gun.
"I hear he and that Paul Schaeffer don't really get along."
"Hey!" the man cries again.
"You know Letterman got one of those baboon hearts, like Baby Whatsername. Those rich shits get anything they want. My mom, she died, but if she had her own talk show she'd still be kicking."
The man who was causing all the trouble rapped on the plexiglas with the butt of his gun.
"You have three seconds to give me the cash before I open fire."
"Hi David! I'm the manager here!"
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Three of the four shots fired bounced off the plexiglass, the one remaining stuck barely a sixteenth of an inch into it so that a slight breeze might jar it loose and cause it to fall onto the floor next to the others.
"Excuse me," the manager said, "can you scoop those up and throw them away?"
"Or recycle," said the kid in the paper hat.
"We have a lot of elderly customers. Never mind the fact that the loud noises might have sparked a stroke or something, but could you pick up your spent shells so they don't trip on them. Someone could break a hip."
"I gots a pistol. Bullets, not shells."
"Just the same. Would you mind?"
"Ok. I'll pick 'em up."
" Thanks. Now do you want anything?"
"All the money in the drawer."
"No."
"Fine. A diet Pepsi."
"Sir, we only have Coke products."
"Ok, a diet Coke then."
"What size?"
"Large."
"For here?"
"To go."
"That'll be a dollar ten."
"Thanks."

You Give Me Fever

Cold sores. Fever blisters. Whatever you call ‘em, I get ‘em. It’s my understanding that, secondary to gender, there are two types of people: Those whose lips suddenly erupt into the fluid-filled equivalent of bubble-wrap and those who don’t. Color me among the unfortunate.
It’s supposed to be a wintertime thing and usually is, but mine can show up any time of the year. Other people complain about the cold and flu season because they’ve woken up with a stuffy nose; my big grief is greeting the day looking like Oscar Wilde on his syphilitic deathbed.
As if the indignity of seeming a lesion-ravaged leper were not enough, the appearance of these unwelcome intruders upon my person is always accompanied by the acute paranoia that this one inch flawed area on my body is all anyone else can see, as though I were wearing a two foot, novelty foam rubber top hat that, through means of a concealed battery pack, also flashes a neon announcement to the world that blinks “Herpes! Herpes! Herpes!” on and off accompanied by the sound of an air raid siren. This is not an unfounded fear. When you get a cold sore there is always an amateur microbiologist amongst your peer group who feels compelled to mention, usually in the largest crowd in which you circulate, “You know that’s a form of herpes. Not Herpes Simplex, the kind you get from sex, but it’s still herpes.” Thank you dear good doctor. I was still trying to wrap my brain around the fact that canker sore is only one consonant away from cancer sore. It’s like hearing that you’ve got the good kind of leukemia.
What makes this situation fully mortifying is that you know only part of the population will accurately comprehend this information. People who don’t get cold sores are in no particular rush to study up on them. They just assume you’ve had your mouth on the nastiest part of a nasty person. It shows on their faces, like spotting Catholics on Ash Wednesday. You find yourself mentally constructing a profile of the average fever-blister-getter in hopes of determining who around you might be sympathetic, much like trying to figure out if the cashier at the beer store is gay. You also assume people are profiling you as well. You can feel total strangers thinking “Yes, I have severed cat heads in my freezer at home but at least I’m not unclean.”
Getting a fever blister is a horrorshow of premonition, based on the fact you feel it coming, like radiation victims knowing handfuls of hair in the shower will soon mean skin detachment and explosive diarrhea. You feel something akin to razor rash, only coming from inside your lips. This reminds you of how utterly awful shaving is going to be for a while--dragging a razor across a blister-ensconced upper lip merely slices them open, resulting in robust and bleeding scabs (always seen as cute, cute, cute) whereas not shaving causes spiky hairs to form inside the pustules which prick the living crap out of you from within until you want to tear your lips off your face with locking pliers and throw them in the river.
This initial tingling (which will move from that, to pain, to feeling you have pubic crabs swarming on your mouth) signals that your little translucent friend is on its way and there is nothing, nothing you can do about it. You have a day to gather supplies before you transform like a werewolf; supplies to keep you nourished and entertained while you avoid letting anyone see you for the next two weeks.
The next stage is a pronounced redness, which indicates that your earlier paranoia was well founded. At this stage of the game it can pass for a wine-stain birthmark, which although unattractive still allows you to move through society without suspicion of being a slut. It does, at least, allow you to gauge the surface area of the soon-to-be blistered skin and know just how much of a whore you’ll soon be judged.
Then come the blisters, tiny at first but by the end of the day they look and feel like water balloons. The pressure build-up from the inside fluid is so intense that, should you prick one with a needle, you can spritz down the back of someone's shirt merely by pursing your lips. This, in fact, is generally what happens to people who feel moved to mention the word herpes in my presence.
There’s a popular radio ad for a product called Releev that claims to be able to cure this condition “in just one day.” Don’t you believe it. What you get for your twenty bucks is a little tube full of mysterious goo that is as effective for treating cold sores as a glue stick is at fixing amputated limbs. If you want to go cheaper there is the proven favorite Campho-Phenique which treats your problem through aversion therapy by assuming you’ll forget all about the fact that you have a fever blister if you run around smelling like moth balls.
The timing involved is invariably the worst--so much so I believe the virus is wired to the subconcious in such a way that when I know I'm going to be most socially prominent the pustules are simply willed into life. I would bet money I could be locked away, alone, in a remote cabin for years and never get a fever blister. The Unabomber probably never bought Blistex in his life.
One first date, though, and my lips will sprout what appear to be pepperoni slices before cocktails have arrived. I am at my most charming and suddenly my date's getting-to-know-you smile is replaced by someone watching a toddler get autopsied. The conversation awkwardly turns to getting tested. For everything. My new friend slowly slides their chair back as if six more inches distance will prevent them from being quarantined. Another date destined to end with a handshake.
I always do the worst thing possible and drain the blisters. I know it simply prolongs their presence, but I reach a point where I can't bear to be in public a second longer looking like I've got inflated condom tips growing from my skin. So I stand before the mirror with a needle I've sterilized by wiping on my pants and go to town. The fluid leaks all over and it appears my lips are actually crying over the way they look. Unfortunately, the now-stretched skin, not having all that pretty fluid to fill it up, hangs in tatters like a window treatment in the projects. So I tear it off, revealing raw, open flesh, and what do you know? My mouth has it's own little vagina and it's that time of the month. Now I really look like a freak. I could, I suppose, carry a supply of tiny band-aids with me I could curl around my lip to hide the soon-to-be scab, but that would only result in a hundred "What happened?" conversations which would be much worse than the usual, embarassed, looking away. I've tinkered with the idea of inventing stories involving highly theatrical bar fights or near-death spider bite episodes. But then most likely the pooling lymph fluid would ooze away the adhesive, revealing me to be both disgusting and a liar when the band-aid finally slides off and drops off into my soup.
I find myself trying to point the offending side of my face away from all possible viewers, so that I end up twitching around the room like David Byrne dancing. I can't imagine this works in the slightest. "That poor man," people must think, "He's hurt himself very badly or maybe had a stroke, in addition to his diseased, fucked-up lip."
The trouble with having a scab that feels like a manhole cover stuck to my mouth is that patience is not my strong suit. I always attempt to peel it off long before it's time has come, resulting in more fresh blood and having to start the healing process over from scratch. But at least I'm left with something, a part of me, I can turn sticky-side-up and put in the chairs of people I've seen giving me the herpes look. Especially if it's summer and they're wearing shorts.

Progressive

A nation divided. It is the violent, bloody zenith of the Civil War. While all around, in neighboring states and counties, slave owners take out their frustrations on the backs of their work force with a horsehair lash, there is one secret, safe place where property of color can feel, at last, valued humans. It’s the vast Jennings tobacco plantation in Beluga, South Carolina, passed down through my family for generations. But now that I am in charge, things are different.
I’ve gathered all the help and their babies into my huge, expansive, parlor. Mind you, I’ve placed burlap sacks over all the furniture because these people can be a little grimy after toiling in the fields all day. But still, I invite them into my home instead of having our meeting in the barn.
“Thanks for coming this afternoon,” I say, attempting to reinforce the concept they actually had a choice in the matter, something I imagine they’re not used to. “I want to let you in on a little secret. Thing is, if this secret gets out, all of us will die.”
A collective look of recognition passes among those gathered. This one, they understand perfectly.
“I do not believe it is right for one human being to own another. This may shock most of you, having worked, pretty much for free, for my father all these years. But now that he is dead and I am lord of the plantation, things are going to change. Starting today, all of you will be given a salary for whatever it is you do. So, okay, I guess it’s okay for one human being to rent one another, ha, ha. Seriously. But if you take the paycheck I’m going to give you and start blowing it all over town on new clothes and fancy food, people are going to notice. So take your money, save your money, hide your money, but don’t run down to the dry goods store and buy a fine new dress. Or if you do, be sure and tell them it’s for me. No, wait. Okay, no dresses, agreed?”
No one says a word. I am sure that the notion of earning a decent wage for hours worked has them all dumbfounded. I continue.
“Slavery no longer exists in this household. We just have to sort of, you know, pretend that it does in order to fool the neighbors. So yeah, those of you who pick tobacco from sun up to sunset will still be doing it…but you’ll be getting money for it. And I promise you, not a soul will ever physically harm you again. Unless we have visitors and you’re acting, you know, uppity. ‘Cause like I say, we gotta keep up the image of being anti-abolitionist and so forth. But you’ll get extra, hazard pay for that if, under those very rare circumstances, the foreman has to beat you.. Not that I want to see anyone acting out just so they’ll get a whipping and the extra moolah.”
A man timidly raises his hand. “Uh, suh?”
“Yes. You there. In the straw hat and bruises.”
“Do you means to say we’s gonna be getting’ paid by de hour?”
“Um, what’s your name, sir?”
“Sambo.”
I wince. “Not anymore. That’s a racist, slave name forced onto you by some landowning swine. What was your name back in Africa?”
“I was born here. On this here plantation. Your daddy owned my moms.”
“I’m so sorry. From now on let’s just all agree to call you Larry.”
“But I been Sambo since—“
“C’mon Larry. Step up to a new age of enlightenment. Your wife there, um, from now on I want you to call her Tammy. And those two naked babies she’s got on her lap? I’m thinking Zoe and Linda.”
“Whaaa?”
“It’s ok, Larry. I understand how hard it must be for you—and for all of you—to come out from under the shadow of the low-self-esteem life you’ve lived so far. But to answer your original question, yes! Yes, absolutely, you’ll all be paid by the hour for the work you do. Now, granted, although I’ve inherited my entire family’s money, I’m not exactly made of it. So instead of paying you what backbreaking work in the hot sun truly deserves I’ll just be paying you what I can afford; a new idea I like to call minimum wage. But still you’ll be earning actual money—not that you can flash it around town or anything—and will be able to take pride in the fact that you are actually earning your living instead of having it, you know, handed to you.”
A hand waves. “Another question, yes?”
“Will we still be living in the slave quarters?”
“Yes. You will. I mean, we have to keep up the appearance of slavery or the neighbors will burn us to the ground. Plus you’ll find the rent I’ll be charging you, now that you’re making your own way, is very reasonable. But the good news is that there will be no more of this Master crap. You’ll all get to call me Brent. Isn’t that nice?”
“Uh, Suh?”
“Please. Brent.”
“Brent. You mean we gots to pay you to live here while we work for you?”
“Your name?”
“Rastus.”
“Mmn, not feeling it. How about Ed? Look, Ed, you have a right to a decent wage. Okay, a wage. But with rights come responsibilities. If I let you stay for free I am no better than the slave owners. I’m trying to create a society of equality here, you know? Can you work with me on this?”

Light and Vision

The act of seeing is not a straightforward, direct function of anatomy. Our species tends to think that an image enters the eye and therefore it is seen, unlike hearing a Nickelback song, which is instantly struck from the memory.
The common belief is that things retain their identity and are recognizable because we see them and have always seen them that way. This is a precept that held true until one of the Olsen twins began publicly vomiting after dinner. The biological construct of the eye, a direct receiver and recorder of information, is coupled with the brain, an organizing apparatus which analyzes the incoming data, although the two often make disparaging remarks at one another’s expense after a couple of cocktails.
The eye focuses, sharply, on what it sees at any given time-slice. The brain, of course, tends to think it directed this choice like it was D.W. Griffith.
Eye: Hey, look, some pretty roses!
Brain: That red is the same shade as the blood that dripped out your ass when your mother fucked you too hard with an enema syringe.
Eye: Aww, isn’t it pretty?
Brain: I made you look at that.
Eye: Roses are truly one of God’s most beautiful creations.
Brain: Yes, incestuous rape has the best color scheme ever.
But the eye can do only what it is engineered to do: look at shit. It has no selective interest. It sees your best friend’s wife shoving her hands down a stranger’s pants and only processes how flattering the lighting is when it bounces off an engorged crotch. But unlike the brain, the eye is mobile. It is constantly moving and brings other parts of the field in view, such as other bar patrons eyeballing the very same crotch or your best friend about to bash his wife upside the head with a Manhattan glass.
The visual world cannot be perceived all at once; ask anybody with a DUI. Man perceives a succession of images—often at twenty-four frames per second at twenty-five cents a minute in small, grimy booths littered with used tissues. But the eye blends these images so seamlessly that the fragmented nature of such encounters is lost. Particularly when a stranger’s member shoots through a glory hole and plunges against the side of one’s cheek, so that the tactile nerve endings responsible for feeling reassure both brain and eye Never mind, I’ll make sure this gets remembered.
In spite of the changing pattern of selective focus and the moving eye, in spite of the fact that man sees things from every angle and in a multitude of lighting conditions, things usually remain recognizable, unless of course we are talking a middle-aged man gazing at himself in the mirror. Then, the brain biochemically checks itself into an Urgent Care and all bets are off.
The visual equipment is not only capable of eliminating the irrelevant (two-plus hours of the Country Music Awards) and of recognizing the unfamiliar (Log Cabin Republicans :) it is also able to operate with limited information (the Obama administration as regards to health insurance.) But the eye “fills in” where there are gaps. The human eye demands completeness, much in the same way a first date will demand the lobster special and the best wine on the menu after already deciding you are far too creepy to allow you to touch them. The eye and the brain fight it out, each insisting on their own framework of making sense of experience, expectation and knowledge. The brain usually wins, given its vastly superior capability when it comes to correct spelling.
The brain and eye constantly analyze the information received, based on past experience, then usually sit down together and have a good cry.
Despite what the brain might tell you, given its far better press when it comes to intellect, the visual mechanism alone is equipped with enough of its own experience on which to make choices and its own brand of decision-making. The repetition of images creates an index of experience. The mere sight of dancing tampons will warn against ever turning on a television without the brain having to bother to step in and rule an edict.
The brain functions through a chemical form of electricity—wondrous in terms of what happens via consciousness but still not enough to power a nose hair clipper—whereas the eye processes what it does solely through light. This seems overtly simple, until one considers what can happen if light rays are bent and changed; you can enjoy a pretty sunrise or sunset or you can stare into a laser and fry your corneas into hash browns. In the same way that electricity can be manipulated—transformers, diodes, potentiometers—so can light. Refraction, bouncing waves, broken-down particles, 8mm porno movies. If this happens externally, what the hell can be done with light internally? In the same way applied chemicals can cause the synapses in the brain to fire more smoothly or misfire more erratically, can the rods and cones be jolted to make the act of vision a different experience? And if this is so, where does truth, in terms of what one is actually seeing come into play?
My friend Aubrey is both a drunk and an opthomalogist, which is why he works at Lens Crafters instead of having his own private practice. Thing is, he is probably more of in touch with the human eye when he’s shitfaced than when he’s on the job. For it is then that he will argue long into the morning hours the sort of conjecture that I’ve replayed above; mental stands that to which despite my best efforts he’s managed to win me over. He is funny, he is smart, and has managed to get me to believe that the eye is its own organism outside the brain.
I am amazed at what he does for a living. He looks at scratchings on a prescription pad, puts a piece of glass into a grinder and comes away with something a person can strap on their head and walk out of the store without any longer adopting the gait of a crack addict. People can suddenly read, close-up or far away. To me this is magic. To Aubrey it is all in a day’s work. He wants more.
“Light is the only source of color in the world,” Aubrey says, staggering off my couch and spilling his Canadian Mist and coke. No matter what the fuck you’re looking at, it’s just a reflection, a transmission, an absorber of what makes up light.”
“And my sofa is just an absorber of what you’re sloshing everywhere,” I say.
“Puddlewinks, you fuck, you just aren’t getting it. Without light, not a single color exists.”
“So?”
“So what is color?”
“BET?”
“Funny. But even using that, what is color?”
“Pigment.”
“And there’s your problem. Light is the source of all color and pigment is simply a reflection. Or an absorber. Or a transmitter. But not color itself.”
“Whatever, Aubrey. You are drooling down your shirt.”
And yeah, he was, but he instantly broke into that Aubrey-speak way he has of making me seem beyond retarded. “Name the primary colors,” he demanded.
“Yellow, blue and red,” I said.
“I know you’re a computer geek and have played around with configuring monitor colors. Name the others.”
“Fine. Cyan, yellow and magenta.”
“So where does yellow come from?”
“What do you mean?”
“If it’s all about your precious pigments, what colors have you named, mixed together, that will create yellow?”
I thought for a minute. “Um?” I said.
“Exactly,” Aubrey said. “You can’t do it with paint, but if a beam of red light and a beam of green light are overlapped, it will produce yellow.”
“But I’ve seen yellow paint.”
“How are you sure?” asked Aubrey, right before passing out.
This color business was clearly a riddle, a puzzle, some sort of wordplay thing I hadn’t understood.
I shook him awake, not expecting in his condition to get anywhere. Instead, he informed me that in the band of wavelengths visible to man green is about 500 millimicrons whereas red is 700 millimicrons and that the eye averages the two to see one of 600 millimicrons, the yellow sector of the spectrum. Then he threw up a tiny bit, like a cat hacking hairballs on my couch.
He left the next morning, visibly shaking, but turned to me and said: “What you and I and science think of the spectrum is just the beginning. There are more colors out there than dreamed of. And I am going to find them.”
“I should probably call you a cab,” I said.

Socks

Since hitting puberty, the common sock—tube or dress—has been my preferred article of choice for cleaning up the aftermath of the act of masturbation. It’s generally the last garment one takes off before sliding beneath the covers, usually piled into a heap on the floor, next to the bed in easy reaching distance, which later one can easily toss back to the same general area from whence it came in blissed-out, though solitary, afterglow when aim tends not to be at its best.
It is not a perfect system, as just this morning the cat came lumbering onto the bed and up my body with a cotton, men’s crew-length seemingly glued to its butt. It was not a problem for long, as fortunately cats are just so flingable. She bounced off the edge of a dresser but the sock stayed put. I was forced to grab an end and peel it away with a gooey, tearing noise, a tuft of cat hair remaining in place as though the sock had chosen to grow a mustache. I did not eat breakfast.
At thirteen, I discovered the concept of necessary camouflage. If you squirt your spew into a white tube sock and toss it under the bed, in a matter of days the invisible white-on-white color scheme will transform into a viscous and crusty dried yellow, giving the game away. If you blow your nose into the same sock, though, the dried snot will blend with the other body fluid and you can explain yourself to the person in the family who does the laundry by saying you were too tired to get out of bed and find a Kleenex. Trouble is, the dried spunk can have a sharp edge and inflict upon your nose the equivalent of a very nasty paper cut. Handy tip: it is much easier to tell your mother that in the act of blowing your nose your fingernail accidentally scratched your flesh than to admit the truth that your own crusted semen has done damage and also recently intermingled with your bloodstream.
Pounding the pud is no longer the wondrous phenomena it was at puberty and is now an involuntary, yet necessary, activity like respiration or sweating. So I tend to forget when and where I’ve done it. Given what happened last week, I should probably start making some kind of chart with gold stars and smiley faces.
I’d hit the snooze alarm way past the point of timely arrival to work. I’d blown off the concept of shaving, rationalizing that my scruffy look would be taken as the apex of cool rather than a wino stumbling into a pressboard cubicle. I had no clean laundry, so I simply pulled items out of a pile, squirted them down with Febreeze and threw them in the dryer to fluff out the wrinkles. No time for a shower, so I rubbed an anti-perspirant stick over every square inch of my body. It was from the Axe line of products and I hadn’t bathed; I figured my scent would be too peculiar to be identifiable, like what would happen if someone burned a stick of Nag Champa incense in a pile of parmesan cheese.
Not thinking, racing to exit my apartment in time to make it to work, I suddenly discovered there was not a clean sock in the house. It was winter; it was cold; so I figured I could re-wear yesterday’s hosiery as it hadn’t been hot enough for my feet to perspire and send out their usual scent, which in summer tends to be along the line of Viet Nam Mustard Gas. I pulled on the recycled socks, forgetting entirely about their former use as a Splooge squeegee, and ran out of the house, hoping to get to work without a write-up.
Half a block down the street I noticed that my feet felt, well, slimy.
Suddenly it hit me just what that tapioca-pudding-like sensation actually was, smearing against the balls of my feet. I could have turned around. I could have gone back into the house and hand washed some socks in the sink using a combination of shampoo, dishwashing liquid and foaming face masque; drying them later by wrapping them onto the nozzle end of a hair dryer and letting them inflate with hot air like a Rugrats balloon at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but no. If I kept on walking, I could make it to work just in the nick of time.
So I did just that. Squish, squish, squish. Five minutes later, Jon, in the next cubicle, pulled me over and whispered in my ear.
“So I guess someone got lucky last night.”
“What?” I asked.
“Dude. You absolutely reek of sex.”
“Huh?”
“You live the life I dream of,” he said, clapping me on the back.
My semen-infused socks, through the open rivets in my Converse high-tops, were venting the scents of my own jiz dump into the open atmosphere.
“Something smells yummy,” said Pat. “I can’t put my finger on it but I’ve tasted it before…”
The embarrassment was causing my every gland in my body to secrete, particularly the ones in my feet, and the heat blasting from my vented sneakers might as well have been issuing from a ceramic fan heater.
“I know,” said Keckler, several rows over. “It’s sort of a mixture of buttermilk and Clorox.”
“I smell cum,” said Chris, getting to the point.
I stood up and put on my coat, as if going outside for a smoke. Instead I ran to the bathroom, kicked off my shoes, peeled off my pungent socks and threw them into the sink where I squirted them down with a sizeable quantity of liquid hand soap. I ran hot water over them, doing my best to wash away the remnants of my joy juice. I figured walking around the rest of the day in wet socks, which perhaps might smell of wet dog, would be better than throwing off an aroma of a popular male body fluid. What, unfortunately, I hadn’t taken into consideration was the simple act of locking the door.
My boss, Steve, walked in on me. Now, Steve is great because he is so low-key and unlike every other supervisor I’ve ever had he’s not up your ass every minute of the day. But the man has his limits, and walking in to see me barefoot and hosing the DNA off my socks in the employee restroom may have crossed one of these or two.
“Dan, what are you doing?”
“Washing my socks.”
“Oh. Ok,” he said, beating a hasty retreat. The less known, the better. This is why Steve is the best boss ever.
I squished my way back into Cubicle City, fragrant water flowing out the rivets in my sneakers and leaving moist footprints.
“I smelled it and then it was gone,” said Chris. “It was like a poltergeist was masturbating and suddenly the house was clean.”
Jon leaned over and sniffed me. “Oh, you went and had one of those whore baths in the sink. You don’t smell like Fuck Town quite so much.”
“Shut up, Jon,” I hissed.
And I got away with it. The phantom, spew-drenched aroma was not associated with me or my vile shoes.
But the sock thing is still causing problems. A motherfucking bat flew into my window last summer, pounced onto my footwear and flew away with a dark stretch-sock pasted to its chest. It flapped around my room, bouncing off the walls, until it banged against the ceiling against the rafters just above my open, girly, screaming mouth, where the sock dislodged and fell straight down into my open cavity. The dried semen flaking into my mouth wasn’t the problem. It was just that, out of habit, I’d also blown my nose in it.

The Poetry of Lung Function

A bit of fiction where a cigarette butt hits on a gum wrapper. Click on the title if you want to read it. I wrote this one about ten years ago.

History

This is from the now-defunct arthoar.com site which once housed the definitive history of Spookshow In Your Pants:


SPOOKSHOW IN YOUR PANTS

The phenomenon known as Spookshow In Your Pants started in 1990 after the accidental combination and ingestion of several household cleaning products. Charles Nelson Reilly appeared to members of the band wearing a poodle skirt and floating in clouds of ammonia/chlorine gas, whereupon he commissioned the composition of music befitting his eventual 1000 year reign on earth before the seven seals are opened and the apes take over. SSIYP met this challenge head on and immediately began constructing an immense cream cheese pipe organ (to this day the backbone of their sound) in order to properly convey his mighty, nasal glory. Their sonic scope expanded in 1993 after second-dealing their way through a high stakes poker game and winning a Vegas novelty act consisting of a six piece horn section played by specially trained cats. Tragedy befell the band in '97 when it was discovered their lead singer, despite his protests to the contrary, didn't actually exist. SSIYP immediately re-grouped and, hoping to ride the lucrative boy-band trend to the top of the charts, began their strictly enforced policy of mandatory cheekbone implants, some members sporting up to seven or eight pairs. The dawn of a new century brought exciting changes, finally, in the form of a recording contract! If the band agreed to buy seven more at regular prices within the scope of two years, it read, they could get the first six CDs for only a penny. It was during this period they composed their masterwork, the title of which no one bothered to remember; the master tapes unfortunately ending up baked in a pudding. Currently the band is wishing away their future without actively pursuing a single goal in a tangible manner. This may continue for some time.

Pitch Meeting For Lidsville

"Sid, Marty, great to have you here. Whatya got for me?"
"It's gold. Gold, I tell ya, gold. Imagine this. An entire world populated with hats."
"Cats?"
"No, hats."
"I don't follow."
"What's not to get? There's a cowboy hat, a football helmet, an Indian headress...basically any one-dimensional stereotype you can wear on your head. We're calling it Lidsville. Get it? Hats? Lids?"
"You do understand that a 'lid' is a popular drug reference?"
"Don't start that again. We got that crap when we came up with Punfnstuf."
"You mean H.R. Pufnstuf. As in hand rolled puffing stuff. Please."
"We make shows for children. Not stoners. Can we help it if there's a huge crossover market? Hell, that's how Scooby Doo built a fucking empire. They've got a pothead, a talking dog and a goddamn lesbo solving crime. Who wouldn't need a brick of hash to sit through that?"
"Marty, calm down. Look. Our new thing is all about hats. Hats of every imaginable type. They sing, they dance, they fall down. Hilarious."
"Am I missing something? Is there a third grade interest in headgear of which I'm not aware?"
"Look, there's a top hat that sings opera. A straw hat that carries a pig and talks like a hick. A cowboy hat that sounds exactly like John Wayne. It's the goddamn melting pot only with hats. What's not to like?"
"Do people even wear hats anymore?"
"That's beside the point. Everyone knows what hats are. Now they can see them walking and talking and doing pratfalls."
"So if a hat falls off a table it's entertainment?"
"It is if it shoots out a one-liner afterward."
"You should tell him about the boy."
"Right, Sid. So there's this teenage boy, a real kid from the here and now, who gets dropped into this world of hats."
" I see. Another kid wandering around in a land of puppets. You two are a one trick pony."
"No, these are hats. An entirely different animal than Pufnstuf."
"Different how?"
"Well, like I said, they're hats. And the kid is American, not British."
"We're thinking Butch Patrick."
"Who?"
"Butch Patrick. You know, Eddie Munster?"
"God, that show's been off the air for years. How old is he now, sixteen, seventeen?"
"Whatever. The important thing is he's being chased by a gay magician."
"Come again?"
"We thought it would be a good idea to get Charles Nelson Reilly and paint him green."
"What?"
"Okay, we're not married to it. Blue would work just as well."
"Are you telling me the plot revolves around a green child molester trying to get a teenage boy?"
"You're forgetting about the hats, sir."
"So this kid goes to a magic show and peeps inside the magician's hat. And it, well, grows."
"Frankly, the subtext here is making me kind of sick."
"No, wait. The kid climbs onto the growing hat and falls inside. He wakes up in this world of hats. Living hats. That's Lidsville."
"Yeah, remember? The opera singing top hat?"
"Wait a minute, wait a minute..."
"Marty, tell him about the wacky henchmen."
"Oh yeah. The magician has evil henchmen. One is a comical stupid rabbit."
"What's the other one? A goddamn gerbil?"
"Look, you're focusing too much on the homo factor. True, adults find Charles Nelson Reilly absolutely creepy. But to kids he's just silly. They see him as a silly, funny man. Which is why he'd be great as the magician."
"You two were the ones who said a gay magician."
"Well, it is kind of hard not to notice."
"So you've got a green queer, a has-been at sixteen and a bunch of hats. What else?"
"That's pretty much it."
"Okay. Fine. Give me two seasons."

Welcome To The AARP!

I wrote this brochure for the AARP. Click on the title to read it.

Meet the Beetles

Where did this story come from? I honestly do not know. I had an alcoholic grandfather, my mom's dad, who would arrive at family functions so shitfaced she wouldn't let him in the house (being like that behind the wheel was fine, just as long he wasn't in our home spoiling the Christian vibe.) When I was four or so he arrived on Christmas eve, and though he couldn't come in, he did drop off a package for me. It was a toy called 'Flea Circus' that featured flea-shaped magnets that could do tricks like clinging to a miniature trapeeze and shit. Somehow that got extrapolated into this story, worlds removed from what really happened but that's how writing fiction works most of the time. Click on the title to read.

If First-Time Exploration Was Better Than It Was

A very short, fairly new story. A bit more pervy than some, not as much as others. It's about the teenage fumbling we'd all like to forget. As usual, click on the title to read it.

Sleep In Heavenly Peace

I know, the title sounds like a Christmas story. And it's set at Christmastime and involves the usual let's all get hardons over the baby Jesus imagery, but still. I want to hope this one transcends all the holiday flapadoodle and just speaks of what it means to be human all year round. Click on the title to read or save it.

You Have Questions, I Have Answers

Apparently certain people want to ask me questions. Instead of going through Facebook you can email them to me directly at chacha.puddlewinks@gmail.com if you want to get involved. I'll be glad to answer them on the blog. This first one comes from (name and email witheld upon request) and wants to know: "If you masturbate, what magazines do you do it to?" Yowza. Not where I ever intended this place to go. But click on the title if you really want to see this. And please send along your hopefully more innocent questions. Or not.

Oh yeah: any guy who says he doesn't spank it is either lying or can't get it up.

Huffco

We here at Huffco are so committed to our product line that we are reproducing a page from our competitor's catalog just so you can compare for yourself which concern has the more useful merchandaise. Click on the green title to see a list of items immediately available for shipping. We guarantee, you'll be grabbing for your credit card so fast your wallet will leave scorch marks trailed across your buttocks.

Another Snow Day!!!

God has spread his mighty buttcheeks and shat frosty fun all over Columbus. I don't have to work again. So, another drawing from years ago when I wanted to be a cartoonist:

Tales From The Bus Part One

I first thought of this as an idea for a book, then as a segment on the Spookshow In Your Pants Radio show (click on the title to hear the theme song.) Essentially, it's true stories overheard or experienced while using public transportation. Here's one that happened not too long ago.

I was on the bus and a young couple was sitting behind me. The girl was crying.

She: It's just you're so...distant.
He: What?
She: Distant.
He: Whatever the fuck THAT is.

What, Again?

The neighbors are pounding on the walls because I simply cannot stop yodeling. Going to bed.

Snow Day

Ah, a free day off from work due to gobs of ice and slush. Thanks, Mother Nature!

Here's a couple of cartoons I did as an urchin. They date from around 1985, I think. They would have been lost forever but someone kept them, scanned them and sent them back to me years and years later.