Monthly Archive for September, 2004

I’m sitting in the laundry mat waiting for my clothes to dry. I broke down and bought some fabric softener. No, not the sheet kind, the liquid kind. Ya see, for about five months this l-mat had a special every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday where you got free Tide and Snuggle fabric softener for every load you do. Great deal considering that I never used liquid fab softener before in my life. (That’s what I like to call it now because it is indeed a Fab-ulous product) I only used the sheet kind but that wasn’t until my experimental years in college. No, I grew up on Arm & Hammer powdered detergent and nothing else. Nothing remotely April-soft about the Hammer, no smell or nothing. I think that’s why I love smelling different detergents when I walk past the detergent aisle in a store. Ever since I was a kid I tried to talk my mother into something that smelled good- Tide, Dynamo, anything! Fab? She always told me that they all have perfumes in them and they were not really biodegradable, not like the plain and scentless Hammer. Sure didn’t stop me from smelling them. Like they say, you can smell but you can’t touch.

I do give credit to my mother for my young looking skin. Little did she know, she was exfoliating my skin until I moved out of the house. Right when you got out of the shower you were greeted with a towel that was as refreshingly soft as a dried-out loofa sponge. Mmm mmm good… Not one dry skin cell on my body or face for eighteen straight years! That’s why I bought the fab softener now that the deal was done at the L-mat. And the SMELL! To LIVE for!!! If I didn’t hate the Snuggle commercials so much I wouldn’t have purchased the generic version of it. I think it’s called Coddle… or maybe I’m just making that up. Just plain “American Made Fabric Softener”, a name I can trust. All I know is that my towels are softer than hell and my sheets don’t cut me anymore. And like always, just as I did with the fabric sheets back in my wild days, I overdo the amount by about double. My shit’s gonna be soft, by God!!!

It’s funny doing laundry with everyone around me speaking Spanish. EVERYONE. There is a young family of four and two of the boys are down to their tighty off-whities. Why not just wear a robe and wash the underwear too. They are running around screaming in Spanish, beating the hell out of each other. Old momma could give a shit if they are disturbing the hell out of my peace right now. They look like a couple of sumo wrestlers. I hate sumo wrestling now. I wish I knew Spanish so I can tell them to shut the hell up. Maybe I should just sneeze on them in English, they’re already dirty.

Looking at all the cat scratches under this fluorescent lighting is depressing. I have to stop fighting Twillow, my roommate’s cat. These lights bring out about every flaw on my exposed skin. It has been proven that fluorescent light causes depression. That is true. Remember how depressed you felt in Jr. High with the lime green walls glowing under the most unflattering lighting ever created by man? I HATE FLORESCENT LIGHTS!!! When I found out about the depression facts years ago, for the longest time I would preach that to everyone that had them. Even if it was unavoidable lighting for them. I remember one time I was at a job interview at this golf course in Asheville NC and I was in this lady’s office. She was in human resources and she was doing all the hiring for the country club. I always remembered that in a job interview, make a comment on something in the room, a picture on the wall, a neck tie, something on the desk. Well as you can guess, the first thing I said was, “You know that fluorescent lights will cause depression… Nice trash can!” I realized at that moment that sometimes it’s easier to just smile and listen. Depressed people don’t want to be reminded what put them there in the first place. She doesn’t know this but if she had hired me I would’ve brought her a lamp from home to replace her devil lights. Anyway, don’t get me started with lighting, I’ll talk your head off.

Look who’s beeping at me! My laundry is done!! Talk soon!

My least favorite place to be in the city is in Chinese town… That is right, Chinese town NYC. It stinks of fish and shit more than any place that I’ve ever seen or smelled in my life. I saw a shirtless jogger guy running his baby in a baby stroller in the middle of China town last week and I about shot him with my imaginary machine-gun. What an asshole not only for the baby but for everyone watching him… He was a model type of guy with rock hard abs and super tan, jogging just outside of the sidewalk on the street facing oncoming traffic. I pray that he was from out of town and he accidentally woke-up stupid and got lost and was running from a mugger. (Or a social worker) It was soooo dangerous what he was doing. Just a stupid beauty boy that needs to get rid of that baby.

I am sitting across from where Canal Jeans used to be in Soho. What memories I had there. I still have a bunch of clothes from that old store… I am actually wearing a pair of shorts that I got there for five bucks… Everything was great with the shorts except that the pockets were not sewn together. I found out the hard way when I tried to put my hands in my pocket and ended up sucker-punching my knee cap. Boy that hurt. I ended up stapling them shut and to this day they are still stapled shut. I really need to just get them fixed because every once in a while it pokes the snot out of my thigh… You would not believe how I just spelled thigh, I am slightly embarrassed to tell you but screw it… I spelled it “thy” and I swear to someone’s god that I stared at it for about two solid minutes just as dumb founded as a guy jogging a stroller through China town… Sometimes I even surprise myself how bad of a speller I am… Maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever done spelling-wise was calling my brother-n-law and asking him how to spell “allofasudden”, I kid you never, I thought “all of a sudden” was one word for a good fifteen minutes… I looked everywhere in the dictionary and in my speller, everywhere for that damn word until finally I called my sister’s house and my brother-in-law picked up the phone and I asked him how to spell it… He was very nice not to just flat out call me a retarded dumb ass, which is what I would’ve done if someone asked me the same question now. “Hey. Quick question. I’m writing my one man show and I’m stuck on this one word, alavasuddin… is it with a v or and f, I can’t figure it out for the life of me?” I am such a bad speller!

It used to bug me and make me feel stupid but now I just gravitate to other bad spellers, which I’m proud to say that I am in good company. My friend Matt Ballard is even worse than I am… He wouldn’t mind me saying this to everyone because he would tell you himself the same thing. It’s not that I feel smarter than Matt because that is obvious, I am, but it does allow me to laugh at how bad of a speller he is. (Just kidding Matt)… It’s like they say, if you point your finger at someone you have four fingers pointing right back at yourself. That’s why I never point at people and instead I clap at people because that is having ten fingers pointing spastically at them and none at me. Either that or I just flip them off with my middle finger pointing into the sky and the other three fingers pointing to the ground. You’re probably wondering what in the hell is going on with the thumb during this fiasco. We’ll I accidentally flipped off a table of Asian teenagers sitting at the table in front of me as I was locating my finger placements and I didn’t get a chance to see where the thumb was pointing.
I’d assume it was pointing up or to the side… Just do it yourself and find out on your own hand.

Speaking of hands and fingers, one of the most painful self inflicted injuries I’ve done to myself lately was accidentally biting the shit out of my finger eating the last bite of a chicken sandwich. The reason why it was so bad was it was my last bite and as always when I eat anything, I save the last bite as the most flavorful and juicy thing to go in my mouth. I guess I left my finger in my mouth for a split second too long on this occasion, biting into my finger and breaking the skin. They say that the human jaw is as powerful as two-hundred ant jaws! That’s one powerful jaw! Don’t even get me started with my animal facts. Did you know that humans can jump as high if not higher than a flea and a human can outrun a roach in the forty yard dash? I didn’t think you did. And if you drop a cat, it will always land on it’s back if you tape enough lead to it. Did you know that humans can squeeze three times harder than a baby python? THREE TIMES HARDER!!! … WOW!

Okay, what was I talking about… Oh, biting yourself! The worst form of accidental cannibalism is biting your tongue or cheek. Especially if it is bitten during your last bite of food. There is nothing like a perfect forkful of eggs, hash browns and that last crispy piece of bacon added to a couple teaspoons of blood pouring out of an old swollen gash that you tore out of your mouth the week before. That’s what I’m talking about!

I have a really big week ahead of me so I better make this nice and quick. This Wednesday a guy from KROC will be at the show to see me because the station is looking for afternoon DJ’s and my buddy that works there put in a good word for me. Wouldn’t that be funny if I was an afternoon radio personality? I love that for a job description, Radio Personality. Boy I tell ya what, that Bobby sure has a great outlook on life- he’s funny, easy going and has a wonderful radio personality, not to mention his love for cats.

I hope I don’t have to have any experience in radio to get the job. If this guy asks me if I have any radio experience I will be forced to say yes, which would be fudging the truth a little. YES, I have had plenty of experience with listening to, the programming of, and talking to, AM and FM radios and radio operated air planes. YES, I do have a pretty special bond with the operation of a radio so YES, I will take the position of afternoon radio personality at your fine broadcasting facility. If the guy asks me if I was joking and if I really had experience in RUNNING a radio program to be aired live for thousands of New Yorkers and the surrounding listening area I would have to be forced to change the subject really fast, point out that his shirt reminds me of what a supermodel looks like and that I have about twenty free drink tickets for him to have if we could talk about this “technical stuff” later in the evening. I guess I’ll cross that bridge when it comes. For now, I will try to write something for my show that will showcase my skills as a someone with a great radio voice and the ability to make funny radio noises and catchy catch phrases for my new radio fans to try to recreate. I want people to go around to their friends and family repeating what I said that afternoon on “Mr. Gigglesworth in the afternoon”. (That will be a possible radio personality name to give myself if I do get the job. I think I should go incognito for a couple months while I learn the ropes of the trade. That way if ever I spill tea on the radio amplifying system or other stuff like that, screw up on the weather because I am dyslexic or have potty mouth because I sometimes have the uncontrollable urge to curse violently, I can blame it all on Mr. Gigglesworth.) Catchy phrases such as, “Ding-dong! No, you didn’t!” or something like, “Oooooohhhh, hell no!” (which I robbed from Will Smith from his hit movie iRobot) maybe this, “IIIIIIITTTTTT’SSSSS WEAAAAATHER CHECK UP TIME!!!?!” or “What time is it?! Ohhhh, I don’t know, iiiiiiiiiiitttttt’s TRAFFIC CHECKING TIIIIMEEEE!!!” I can’t wait!

I do have a massive week of preparation though. I am warming up for a live taping of a Vh1 pilot on the 9th in front of up to eight-hundred people. A show that my friend Aimee Miles created called Soundtracks Live, where they take a classic movie with a great soundtrack and recreate a forty-five minute version of the movie with hip young actors and a collection of talented musicians playing the soundtrack throughout the show. A great idea for a great person, Aimee that is… Anyway, they are doing Sixteen Candles for the pilot and my job is to watch that movie and come up with some funny comments on the movie and get them all pumped up for the live taping. That means that I have to actually prepare for this and rent the film today. Should be fun and terrifying at the same time. That’s a lot of people! I should just do all jokes on a completely different movie to throw the producers at Vh1 off, something like from the movie She’s having a Baby or Grease 2. That would freak them out and they would all end up hating me so I better just leave it at a little joke between us for now…

Gotta get some work done!!! This is Mr. Gigglesworth saying goodbye and good afternoon!!

I have an opportunity to live in a city where the Republican National Convention is pumping out some of the most amazing protests since the Vietnam War. Great day to live in New York!!! People are sooo alive and vocal everywhere you go. I was in a bar last night and this dude that knows people in the police department told me that there are over 40 thousand plain clothed officers roaming the streets, some even wearing pro-Kerry attire and all. That is scary as hell if you ask me. Can you imagine standing on a street corner chanting anti-Bush sentiments and then some guy starts chanting with you and then out of the blue he has you penned to the ground with a badge in your face, arresting you for speaking the truth. That would suck. Everybody would be chanting “FOUR MORE MONTHS! FOUR MORE MONTHS!!” And then the guy wearing an anti-Bush shirt starts another chant, “YOU HAVE THE RIGHT! YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT… SILENT SILENT SILENT!! YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO AN ATTORNEY!! ATTORNEY ATTORNEY ATTORNEY!!”

I think if I was an undercover cop I would dress as a professional wrestler with a cape and mask, whatever a typical wrestler would wear, and scream out to everyone, “I’m a wrestler!!! Whooo!!! I wanna wrestle someone professionally!! Whooo!!! WRESTLE INSTEAD OF WAR!!! WRESTLE INSTEAD OF WAR!!!”, then when people would take me up on my offer, I’d wrestle them and put them in my patented ‘hand cuff move’ and arrest the shit out of them. Another disguise would be to act like a carpenter, sitting casually on the side of a protest with my tool belt and the whole get-up, screwing a couple of pieces of wood together with a screw gun slash real gun, back and forth, screwing and unscrewing the wood together – no one would know the difference… People out of line would look at me and say, “Are you an undercover cop or a carpenter? I’m confused because you haven’t stopped staring at me as you screw and unscrew those rulers together.” Then I’d pull out a tape measure and measure one of my rulers and say to them, “What do I look like? I’m a carpenter, what do you think I am.” Then they’d reply, “Well, you LOOK like a carpenter, but you act retarded…” and at that point I would arrest them for calling an officer of the law retarded.

I have to go now. I wanna get back outside and take some snappy snap-shots!! I will write a funny and longer DD tomorrow!!!