We're Fucked Because We Are Fun (Or "Fun King, deal with it.")

I wish I could be so good at something that I could be as amusing of a motherfucker as Axl Rose. Then again, I could never pull an "Axl." Don't get me wrong, I can be a dick, but only when being a dick is justified. I'm actually a nice boy. Maybe I'd make more of a Howard Hughes. Then again, I think he was a dick, too. Plus, he was a billionaire. And I'm too fun to be even a millionaire.

You ever thought about that? You always say, "If I was that rich, I'd be awesome!" And you're right. But that's why you're never gonna be rich: because you're too awesome to focus your crazy ass down and make money. And that's why billionaires are never fun: because they are too busy earning money to lay back and lick a frozen utility pole. Fun people can't focus. And focused people can't be fun.

And don't give me this shit about how people like Richard Branson are fun. Guys like him are posers. Sure he may build these mega-awesome hot air-balloons to play in, but he never plays in them; he's busy sitting in the damn thing on his cell phone making acquisitions and other boring business shit terms that us fun-ions could never understand. The same way your fun ass sits at your cubicle pretending to be smart, but you're really just playing Minesweeper. And who the hell plays minesweeper? It's not 1994. And who plays in hot air balloons? It's 2009.

So in conclusion, fuck super-rich people... because they're never fun. And fuck our fun asses, because we'll never be rich.

Fun w/ a dear friend's divorce

My friend looks like she is most likely about to go through an unexpected divorce after an otherwise great three year marriage. Her stupid husband is about to getted steam-cleaned because she makes, and always has made, all the money. He had a good life, but he's wanting to run. When she told me about it, she said, "Roth Wriscey, I am so annoyed by all the pity I'm getting. It's not pity time - it's business time. Just promise me you'll be the one person to make me laugh about this and not give me all that bullshit about how bad you feel for me."

I agreed to her demand - on one condition. I said, "I won't give you any obnoxious sympathy, since you asked, as long as you do know that I do want to."

"Deal!"

So I listened to her for a while and she said, "I gotta get this done. There's no time for me to grieve."

I said, "You're damn right! Cuz grievin' is for Steven. And last I checked, your name ain't Steven!"

She laughed.

A minute later, as she talked about how she had to drain the bank accounts of all the money that only she earned, she said, "I don't even have time to cry."

I said, "Yeah, cuz cryin' is for Brian. And last I checked, your name ain't Brian!"

She laughed again.

Then she said, "I'm sorry if I'm moaning about this."

I said, "Shit, you're not moaning. Moanin' is for Conan, and thank God, your name most certainly isn't Conan."

If you've got any other good formulaic name-things to go with this divorce, please share. And if your name is Brian, Steven or Conan; please forgive me. Your names are just conveniently comedic for my friend at this time. And if you still have a problem with it, quit crying, grieving, and moaning, because she isn't.

We're not gay. We're radio guys.

A few years ago, the two main morning show guys I worked with made a "bet" on the air. Charles bet Buddy that the Seahawks would beat the Steelers in the Superbowl. The loser would have to shave his legs in the 5th Avenue fountain in front of morning commuters the next day. I put "bet" in quotations for you because this bet was fake. Yes, I'm sorry. A lot of radio is fake. We call it "Theatre of the Mind." Let me explain how this bet was faked.

Off air, during a show-meeting, Charles told Buddy that it would be funny if one of them lost a bet and had to shave their own legs in public. However, Buddy was too much of prideful redneck to be willing to do that. So Charles said, "Fine. On Monday morning's show, the day after the Superbowl, me and you will reminisce on-air about the Superbowl bet we made on Friday. Even though, we never actually made the bet on Friday, most people don't listen to an entire show for four hours. So if I say, "Aww, man, Buddy. I can't believe I bet on (whoever turns out to be the loser) against you on Friday! Now, I gotta go shave my legs in public," people will believe that we really made that bet last week, just not when they were listening. That way, no matter who wins the game, I'll go out and shave my legs."

So that Monday, Charles said on-air, "Aww, man. I can't believe the Seahawks lost! Now I have to pay. I'll take Roth Wriscey with me to the 5th street fountain so he can describe the scene for the listeners on-air while I shave my legs."

So we took the big tacky country radio vehicle into the historic district in downtown Wilmington. However, we had to park about a block away from the old fountain that was in the middle of a busy four lane road.

We approached the fountain and Charles got in and started shaving his legs while I called into the studio and did the play-by-play from a cell phone live on-air. I chatted with Buddy (who was still in the studio) about the mayhem we were causing. A couple of hundred listeners had obviously altered their morning work routes to drive slowly by and cheer on Charles as he slid a razor up his legs.

Then the cops showed up.

Three or four of them parked to the side of the road and turned on their lights. They said, "All right boys, outta the fountain."

So I said into the phone, "I think we're being arrested."

The cop said to me, "And you! Hang up the phone."

They told me and Buddy that we were both facing a big fine and a trip to jail for standing and shaving in a public fountain. Then they started focusing on Charles more than me, so I slipped away and said into phone, "Folks I think we're going to jail. I know Charles is. I might be off the hook!"

Then the cop yelled out to me, "Get off that damn phone, and get back over here!"

I started to explain what was happening to the listeners, but the host in the studio said, "Don't worry, Roth Wriscey. They already heard the cop. We know what's going on. This is hilarious. Call us back whenever you're free."

So I hung up the cell and went to get cuffed. Just as they were starting to arrest us, one of the cops said, "I mean, what the hell are yall just trying to prove anyway?"

When we told him we had nothing to prove, another one said, "Wait, ain't this some sort of gay protest?"

When we told him no, another one said, "Oh, we thought yall were doin' some sort of homosexual activist stuff by shaving your legs in the fountain."

I was like, "Huh? We're not gay! We're radio guys. This was an on-air bet being honored. We thought ya'll knew that."

And the cop said, "Oh, hell. We didn't know that, we just thought ya'll was doin' some gay protestin'. All right, this changes everything. Just give us a minute to figure out what to do with yall."

While the cops stood at their cars alone and figured out what to do with us, I went back over towards the radio van and tried to covertly get back on the air through my cell phone. When the host put me on, I whispered live on the air, "Okay, folks. There was a misunderstanding. Now that they realize we're not gay, we may not go to jail. However, I'm not sure. I'm actually still supposed to stay off this phone, but I'm so far away those cops can't see my phone and they can't hear me talking to all of you. Nothiing could stop me from putting this on the air."

At that moment, one of the cops that was standing around a patrol car with the doors open yelled at me, "Hey, Dummy? You know, we DO have radios in our cars! We can hear everything you're saying! Get off that phone and get back over here!"

At that point, I went back to once again get arrested. At that point they were laughing at me and said, "Man, you 'bout the dumbest guy we ever had to detain. But look, since ya'll ain't gay protestors; as long as you promise us yall'll never get back in this fountain, and you give us some of those Country Coolers ya'll have been giving out all summer, we'll just call it a day."

So we accepted their solicitation of a bribe and gave them their prizes and got the hell out of there and went back to the studio. And we never mentioned on the air that the cops made us give them a payoff. To do that would have just been gay.

The Celebrity My Friend is Dating

I can't write this on my facebook page, so I'll tell you 7 people.

My friend sent me this text: "Guess who I'm dating? But it's only a fling. I'm having so much fun with him though!"

Get thisL my friend is a super sexy 21 year old and she lives in California. However, she is seeing the grossest B-lister in his 50's known for dating young women.

And get this! They're on a date tonight and he took her to the cheesiest place where the tabloids say he always likes to hang out: The Playboy Mansion. Any guesses? I'll give you a hint. It's not James Kahn.

It is a liberal Jewish political "Comedian. Guess now, answers at the bottom.



















Ooh, Gross! You're right. She's dating Bill Maher! Vomit! C'mon, -----, you're better than that! But you're happy, so I won't say it to your face. Nas-teeee!

Proposition W-9

Radio sales people are almost all across-the-board stupid. They will sell anything to anyone who will buy, even if it so obvious that the promotion ultimately won't work. Even if it is obvious that the audience you're targeting for an event doesn't listen to your station, and the audience you already have doesn't give a shit for what you're pushing on them and will be pissed when you try. All sales people see is the check in front of them. They can't see anything else. This was the case with Festival Latino.

We, as the pop-country morning show, got forced by the higher-ups to dedicating the entire show to Festival Latino - a get together in the park for Mexicans and whoever else wants to come out. That's fine. But those people didn't listen to our station. Us on-air people knew that because we fielded phone calls from our listeners and shook their hands at every damn event in town. And our listeners were generally two things: 1. Not Mexican. And 2. Not interested in Mexican festival. Forgive us for knowing our crowd, but we did. Our sales department didn't.

So to make things fun, since we had to promote Festival Latino that morning, we decided we would over-promote it. We played fiesta music in the background all day and it was my job to intro each segment with a high-pitched "FestivallllllllllllllllllLLLLLLatinooooooooo!" That wasn't the part that was going to get us in trouble. We would get in trouble for keeping it too real.

We said on the air to anybody listening: "Hey! Since it's Festival Latino day, we've decided we are only taking calls from Latinos. Real, live, actual Latinos. If you're one of our regular callers who isn't Latino, call us tomorrow. But for today, it's "Latinos Only" on our phone lines. We want to learn about you. But most of all, we want to see if any of you listen to this station, because none of us here think you do. So call us, Latinos. Call us now."

Nobody called. Nobody called for the first two hours. So to make it fun, we'd answer the phone and say "I think we've got a Latino!" And then we would play the sound of crickets chirping. Then we would remain postive on the mic and say, "We're sure we have SOME Latino listeners. You're probably just being shy. Call us, we'll give you a prize."

Then the phones lit up. But every damn caller was a cacausian listener (most of whom we knew by voice - it's small town radio, you have no idea how many people we knew by the first syllable they spoke.) So as soon as they would speak, we'd interrupt them and yell, "No white people! We said Latinos only!" And we'd hang up on them. Sure, we were pissing them off. But we were pissing them off to prove a point. We actually wanted them to be pissed off because we felt for them. Why should we be forced to alienate the supportive listeners who keep our lights on and our gas tanks full, just to appeal to a group of people who weren't even there? We didn't feel they deserved that, so we gave them that, so our management would see how stupid they were to force that bullshit on us and our listeners. Look, I didn't even really like country music, but I would fight for that audience when they were getting fucked, because they were for the most part really good people who took enough beatings by the world, they didn't need their only radio station doing that to them, too.

So, finally during our third hour we got a call from a guy who said he was a Mexican. We asked him what his favorite country song was, and he said, "Honestly, I've never heard of your station. I'm here on the job sight and some country boys told me the DJ's were begging for a Mexican to call. Here I am!"

Our first question was "Are you legal?"

Him: Nope. I snuck in when I was a kid. That's why I don't sound Mexican.

Us: What's your name? Nevermind. Don't tell us. We don't want you to get deported on our account. We're just glad you called.

Him: It's okay. I'll say my whole name and where I live. They won't come get me. They don't care.

Us: Do you want to become a citizen?

Him: I thought about it, but that means I'd have to drive 4 hours to Charlotte. I really get nothing out of it, and no ones gonna deport me anyway, so I'll stay illegal to save myself a drive. ---------------------------------

But boy did trouble come. Not for the illegal guy. For us radio guys who dared ask questions. We were put through hell by our management and the Festival organizers for daring open up the phone lines to their people and asking a few questions that they didn't have to answer. And of course, we had to make an appearance at the festival, and not one station listener was there. It was all Mexicans and us three guys who the Mexicans had never heard of, nor cared to know. That whole event (at least our involvment) was a waste of everybody's time.

I think they should all be deported and forced to live among the hell that is each other's company. Oh. What? I'm not talking about Mexicans. I'm talking about salespeople.

Glascock.

One time our morning show guy was giving a tour of the radio station to a bunch of young school children. I freaking love kids. And kids really love seeing the radio station. However, opening up a radio station to children can be such a roll of the dice, when you consider their behavior.

I'm not talking about the behavior of the kids. I'm talking about the behavior of the staff! Kids are actually so mesmerized by seeing the inside of a radio station, a place they thought was only in their mom's car speakers, that they actually behave on the tour and listen to everything you have to say.

Radio people, on the other hand, can be some of the tackiest and most clueless people on earth. If you don't warn the staff that the school kids are coming to tour the station that day, you will no doubt expose to the kids to a knockdown dragout cuss fight in the hall between maybe a shady salesgirl and, say, a lazy on-air guy. And once a radio fight starts, the presence of boy scouts in an orderly line won't stop some hungover redneck skank, who is still wearing last night's pantyhose, from threatening the life of some fat hairy mid-day guy (who quite possibly may also still be wearing last night's pantyhose. I'm not saying names. But there was one.)

Since salespeople are the most unrefined of all people in a radio station (I know, even worse than guys who do those morning zoo shows,) me and our morning guy Charles decided that he and I would take over givin any scheduled kids' tours. And, most importantly, we decided that we would only schedule them to come in before 8 a.m or after 5 p.m. That way, they wouldn't meet salespeople during work hours. We thought we had our bases covered.

One day, Charles was giving an early morning tour of our four stations to a group of kids that were all about 7 or 8 years old. After showing the kids our four studios, Charles decided to give the kids a preview of our soon-to-be fifth station. The company was constructing a new studio to put a hip-hop station in. Charles led the kids to the door and opened it up to show them the construction. He knew he'd be showing the kids construction. But what he didn't know was that, as an added bonus, he'd be also be showing them Glascock.

As Charles opened the door, and let the kids file in, he said, "This is going to be a rap station called Coast 97 that will be on the air in a few months. And that over there sleeping in a sleeping bag is Glascock. Who apparently lives here now. Say good morning to the kids, Glascock! He'll wake up. If you kids have ever listened to the radio in this town, you've no doubt heard Glascock. But today, you get to SEE him... in what looks like his new home."

Yes, apparently Glascock had recently gotten evicted from his apartment and didn't have money to find a new place. So without telling anyone, not even Charles, he had been sneaking into the Coast studio at night and making it his home, and he had been sneaking out every morning before anybody came to work so no one would know about his radio-squatting.

Unfortunately, on this particular day, Glasscock had overslept; most likely due to all the empty beer cans that surrounded his head on the sawdust floor while the children watched him wake up. Oh yeah! It was beautiful. I wish I could've been there that morning to see the look on the face of the teacher that came with these kids only to be shown a 40 year-old burnout with long gray/blond/brown hair still drunk and sleeping with his glasses on. Yes, this was the day that Glascock was quite the cock, while sleeping in his classes.

I guess I'm sexist towards medicated men

I'm drunk, so I can't type you a good story. But here goes the synopsis. I told my one good roommate (not the midget we just kicked out): "Dude, you suddenly suck at being drunk!"

He started to argue with me, when I said, "What did you think of the clowns we drank with last night?"

He said, "A lot of people were assholes last night. How could I know which clowns you were talking about?"

I said, "No, you dumbass! We drank on the street of a hookah bar with five actual circus clowns. In full make-up! If you don't remember clown drinking, you might need to rethink some shit!"

He said, "Sorry. I just went back on Zoloft."

I'm tolerant.

I grew up with women. Ya'll are all on something. But he's a dude. I guess I'll pretend he's a girl and give him a pass.

They're the fags, and I'm the one with a naked dude on me.

I used to be on a morning show with two guys we will call Charles and Buddy. (I can't use their real names so we're gonna borrow from a 1980's Scott Baio sitcom.) Charles was the goofball and Buddy was the more normal one. I was their occasional third guy who they would send out to do morning show stunts in public while on the air. What sucked is that, while we were three hell-raising sons of bitches, we had to tone that shit down on the air and act somewhat wholesome since we were on a station that played twangy bullshit new country music. You don't know how many of our crazy show ideas were squashed by one of us saying, "I agree, this is an awesome idea. However, our audience hates awesome, so we're not gonna do it. Think of something a little less entertaining that will amuse your average soccer mom. I like when the show goes to the locker room, too. Hell, we're all three great at doing locker room. But that's not who we're trying to appeal to. Come up with some gay ass shit like American Idol humor instead. And not that hilarious "Clay is Gay" shit. These women that listen to our station, cling to the belief that Clay might fall in love with their daughter. They pay us to be those kind of guys."

Yeah, it was hell sometimes. But when we went out on the road, that was a different story. We were out of control. Anytime there was a station event, we would all three pile into the tacky Country Station Ford Explorer and go wherever they wherever anybody would pay us to kiss babies, dance like monkies and give out lame prizes.

Rather than tell you about what happened at one of these stupid "Three Hours Giving Out Pizza To Listeners at a Car Lot" deals, I'll tell you what happened once on the way back.

We were driving back to the station from some event in Burgaw where an Auto Parts Store payed us to host a pig pickin'. It was actually really fun. We ate a lot and coaxed redneck skanks into doing that barefoot dance where they pull their skirts up over their ankles so they don't trip. It was a fun little hoedown in a parking lot. As we approached the end of East Bound I-40 we hit the first red light. (Yes, the road runs from 2500 miles from California to North Carolina with no lights, and then turns into a traffic jam when the name changes from I-40 to College Road.)

As we sat at the red light (Me driving, Buddy beside me, and Charles behind Buddy in the back), Buddy spotted an ambulance up ahead in the right lane. He said to us, "Fuck those motherfuckers. They're all a bunch of faggots. I hate that company. If you work there, you suck." (Oh, Buddy moonlighted as a paramedic, that's why he cared so much about other ambulance companies.)

Immediately Charles said, "Well, Buddy, an enemy of yours is an enemy of mine! If you don't like those guys, then I don't like those guys! Roth Wriscey, pull up beside them first chance you get and I'm gonna moon the fuck out of 'em. They're gonna get more of my ass than they ever wanted. This is for my pal in the passenger seat. I'm gonna do this for you, Buddy! Because I know you'd do it for me. Actually, I know you wouldn't. So the real reason I'm doing this for you is so you know that I'm a better friend to you than you are to me. Since I'll moon on your behalf and you won't moon on mine. So really, I'm gonna moon these guys so I can own you, you asshole of a friend! I'm gonna tell everybody on the air, too. I'm gonna tell them you suck. Roth, get up beside that ambulance!"

So as I approached the ambulance in the lane beside us up ahead, Charles was pulling his pants an underwear down and getting his butt ready to be smooshed up against the backseat passenger side window of this easily identifiable Explorer, to gross out the guys in the ambulance that Buddy hated.

As I pulled up beside them, Charles got his ass right up in the window, but but the EMT's hadn't looked over yet. So Charles said, "Honk the horn at'em!"

I honked the horn at them. And just as they looked over, while we were riding beside them, the light in front of us turned red. I had to slam on the brakes. And so did the ambulance. So we were slowing down together at the same time for the light.

Unfortunately, I had to hit the brakes so hard that something crazy happened. (And I know this is gonna sound impossible, but I saw it. It happened. I don't know how it happened, but it happened.) When I hit the brakes while Charles was mooning an ambulance from the back, he went flying over the back of Buddy's chair, over Buddy, and into Buddy's lap. I'd have to say, that's the first and only time I've ever seen a naked morning show guy accidentally sitting naked in the lap of his partner. I'm sure it's happened somewhere on Earth but I had never seen it.

And I remember, while Buddy was sitting there stunned and embarassed with a naked Charles in his lap, as those ambulance guys were sitting there laughing at us for looking like a bunch of country homos who ruined their own prank by pranking themselves, Naked Charles just looked at Buddy, and said, "Hey, there Buddy! I've been waiting a lifetime for this moment."

As Buddy scrambled to get Charles out of his lap, he was like, "Dude, get the fuck out of here. I hate those ambulance motherfuckers. They're the fags and I'm sitting here with some nekkid dude on me in front of them. This ain't cool!"

It may not have been cool, but it was funny as shit.

Who in the hell flies to Myrtle Beach?

I am tinkering with the idea of writing a book of compiled radio stories - and by radio stories I mean things that I have witnessed with my own eyes during my on-again off-again radio career that has spanned 11 fucking years. (Wow. That went by fast.) I also plan to include tons and tons of stories that were told to me by all the old school radio vets.

You see, I can proudly say that I have one awesome characteristic: I learn from the mistakes of others. I avoided a lot of pitfalls by asking the older guys to tell me about some of the radio messes they made for themselves back in the day. All those other dumb kids never thought to listen to these wise old fuck-ups. (Sorry, the beloved jadedness that comes to me when talking about anything radio causes me to cuss a lot. It just comes out naturally. Please forgive. We are rough bunch. OMG, I said "we." I try not to associate myself as "one of them." I don't even socialize with other radio people anymore. It's better that way. Two radio people together is too much. I learned that the hard way. I don't sleep with, drink with, or even go to a movie with other radio people anymore. Life is better that way. Trust me.

Still, I love this salty business. And in that year and a half that I was out of the business, I learned a couple of things about myself. I learned A: I can absolutely live without a microphone. Life is managable without a big megaphone to let everyone know what the fuck I think about fucking everything. And B: That being said: I do love access to the mic. I enjoy having a big megaphone that let's everyone know what the fuck I think about fucking everything. In conclusion, I prefer the mic. But I can live without the mic.

Here's what I was getting to, before I got all distracted by my self: because I was smart enough to inquire the thoughts of all these radio vets, I learned a lot of funny stories along the way. As a result, I think I could compile a funny book of radio stories. However, I don't want to get knee-deep in an endeavor only to find out that it is only funny to me and other radio people. So, with your help, I plan to write ten straight totally true radio stories. And your job is to tell me if it's actually funny, or just funny to me. Thanks. Here goes. I'm gonna pull a tale out of the bag.

Here's a true story that was told to me by my delightfully Jewish-turned-Christian production guy friend from Wisconsin. He's about 50. I will tell it as if I'm him.

"I've seen a lot of radio contests screwed up by a lot of people... but never by the actual contest winner. Until we encountered "THE GIRL." Oh, I still dread... THE GIRL."

"It was back in the 1980's when I worked at Rock 92.3 in Greensboro. We busted our butts to put together this really big promotion with a really big prize. It was two first class airline tickets to anywhere in the world... on our dime. Anywhere, sir. I'm talking anywhere. So this girl won the contest. And we interviewed her live on the air. Our jock said to her, "So where do you want to go? Paris? Brazil? Italy?""

"And do you know what her answer was? Do you know what THE GIRL'S GOD DAMNED ANSWER WAS? It was this: "I'm going to fly to Myrtle Beach to see my boyfriend."

"She said, "I'm going to Myrtle Beach to visit my motherfucking boyfriend!" Do you know how bad she screwed us. She had a chance to go anywhere in the world for free! And she took the wind out of our gigantic sails by saying she was going to take a thirty minute flight on us... for the weekend! That dumb bitch could drive to Myrtle Beach in 4 hours! A flight takes just as long when you consider check in and check out. She could've gone to Hawaii!"

"And this girl who had two tickets to anywhere had the nerve to ask us if she could us the two tickets separately! Both for herself, so she could make two flights to Myrtle Fucking Beach to see her stupid, stupid boyfriend. ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD!"

"And this burn she gave us had only begun. Think about the after-glow we had to do. In case you don't know what the after-glow is, the after-glow is where you pat yourself on the back and brag in commercials about the big fucking prize you gave out to a lucky listener. The intent is to make the listeners think: "Next time it could be me! I'm gonna keep listening to this awesome station."

"We had to send off copy for our voice guy to read that said: "Rock 92.3 is your contest station. We've always got the best stuff for you! For example: just last month we sent THE GIRL on a flight to anywhere in the world!!!!!!!!! And now she's living it up in.... MYRTLE BEACH!!!!!!! YEAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!11 ROCK 92.3 IS YOUR CONTEST STATION! MYRRRRRRRRRRRTLE BEEEEEEACHHH!"

"Sir, take my advice. Never do a contest to anywhere in the world. Never give the listeners control over their own destiny. They will screw you everytime. If you are gonna send them somewhere, you tell them exactly where they are going to go. You say: "You're going to GD Paris whether you like it or not!" Otherwise you got a voice-guy that thinks the copy you sent him was a prank. Who in the hell flies to Myrtle Beach?" Oh right! The Girl. I still hate the Girl.

Tomorrow's Booth

Me and my roommate are going to set up a booth downtown tomorrow night to make money off of drunk people. We will be running a two-man booth with your choice of two amazing products.

K-Max is going to draw caricatures of people for a dollar - stick figure caricatures. Give him a dollar, and we will draw you... as a stick person. He promises to give nice girls big boobs, and rude girls big hips.

For my part, I am going to be selling plagiarized celebrity autographs. You name the celebrity, and you tell me the message you want to them to send you and I will totally right that on a piece of paper and sign their name to it. You want a piece of paper with Brad Pitt professing his love to you? I can make it happen - you know, sort of.

I know what will happen. Mark my words. Whenever I just try to have fun and brighten this town up with something like a silly self-admitted fake autograph table, the powers that be get all mad and put me in handcuffs. I don't know how a comical side-business can lead to that, but when I'm involved, it always does. I think it's because I have pretty teeth.

Poor Guy Never Had Nothing

My dad's friend Skipper died on Friday when he crashed his own plane somewhere in North Carolina. Skipper was a very rich man that I never met once. But I always wished for the chance, so I could thank him for making me feel as rich as him on an annual basis when I was a kid.

You see, my dad was the electrician to Skipper's Mercedes dealership. The two of them were acquiantences first, but then became friends. Now let me eventually get to telling you what Skipper did for us.

Every year in the 1980's, my dad would round up a team of 13 of his redneck friends and they would head to a town in the Mountains called Newland for a softball tournament. We would stay at a ten dollar a night hotel called The Shady Lawn. An old man and old woman owned the place and lived in the place. It was so 1970's with it's astroturf outdoor hallways.

No women were allowed on the trip. No kids were allowed on the trip, either - except me. It was just me and all those blue collar men who were between the ages of 18 and 40. I remember all those dudes like it was yesterday. I remember there was Skinny Thomas who worked on a DOT crew. Monte with the Perm and Big John who looked like The Brawny Man, both of whom worked at Maintence Supply. (Big John would soon die at Maintence Supply when he was to fall through a skylight. I saw that man get buried in his softball uniform. I remember wanting to have the urge to cry, but I was afraid John would sit up in his casket and tell me to shake it off.) There was Allan the Dropout. Emory the Guy No One Liked. Mickey The Guy Who Never Got His Uniform Dirty. Donald Keith: The 20 Year Old Man with 80 Year Old Farts. Kimmett and Rodney Wilhelm. Kimmett was the big brother who was little. And Rodney was the little brother who was big. They were nephews of the Hall of Fame Baseball Knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm. There was the pitcher, Billy Winecoff, who I never saw drink wine and I don't remember having a cough. And there probably would've been Kevin McIntosh, but he got killed in a car wreck by an insurance agent around the time of the first trip. (We got a playground built at our church in his honor, because they said he loved kids so much. Which was ironic since my strongest memory of Kevin was the time he purposefully scared my 7 year old ass by laughing and driving down Rocky River Road at 95 miles per hour. Even more ironic, when he got around to actually dying in a car, it wasn't his fault. There was also this manly redneck named Jimmy Gurley. And there was my dad.

Thr only reason I got to go on the trip was because I had a job: I was the bat boy. The trips were awesome, but they weren't as debaucherous as you'd think. Mostly, the men just hung around the hotel at night and drank whiskey and beer and played poker in Big John's room and looked at porno mags that I could never quite get to. I even had a job in the poker game. It was to look out the window for any cops in the parking lot, since we had the door open. I also learned how to pinch pennies for money. Those rednecks taught me early that if you gamble, you might lose your money. They wouldn't give it back to me when I lost. A few of the guys would go out to try to find bars and chicks at those bars to screw, but my dad and Big John made it clear to them that they were to keep that shit out of our hotel. It was the old "If you're gonna bang'em, bang'em at their place, and make it to the field by game time" order.

The first year we went to one of these weekend tournaments was in 1985 and we were Team Tim Richmond. Yes, that Tim Richmond. The hottest guy in NASCAR at that time. The guy who had AIDS but nobody knew it yet. The reason we were sponsored by Tim Richmond was because Allan the Dropout's fiance was Tim's personal secretary. (When he died of AIDS, Allan said something like, "Thank God Melanie's a good girl. Or we mighta' both had that shit, too.")

When we arrived that first year for the first game early on a Saturday morning, there were like 200 locals there to watch the game. They were all staring at our team - and only our team. Then one of the older more decrepit ones spoke up:

"Whar's Teee-yum?"

Where's Tim? What?

We were all confused. Then Murph came up to me and my dad and pulled us away and said something to us privately. Before I tell you what Murph said, let me tell you who Murph was. He was my dad's best friend since they were 5. The only reason we ever came to this mountain town was because Murph was in charge of it. He also worked at a local newspaper.

Then he smiled and gave us a not-so-sorry apology. He said to my dad: "I guess you noticed the big turnout, Bill. Well, you see, it may or may not be because I may or may not have written an article in the paper hinting that Tim Richmond may or may not come to Newland to watch the team he sponsored play softball."

My dad and laughed and was like, "Murph, you fuckin' piece of shit! Hey wait, don't these people know he has a race this weekend?"

Murph was like, "I guess not. Just be glad you have a crowd. And they're probably gonna pull for you guys. Or kill you. I really don't know. Good luck!"

I remember that we didn't win that tournament. We made it to the second day, but that was it. And I remember that I couldn't believe these people were making such a big deal over us being the Tim Richmond team -especially since some of our guys played in blue jeans. All he did was give us cheap red t-shirts and cheap red trucker hats with his name on it. It couldn't have cost him over $200.

Some time between that tournament and the next one, Skipper got wind that the Tim Richmond Softball Team wasn't outfitted as well as it could be. So he decided to sponsor us instead. For 1986, we were to become The Beck Imports Team. We were sponsored by a freaking Mercedes Dealership. And we had these bad freaking ass black shirts with individual silver numbering and the dealership name on the back. And we got these nice hats. Real baseball hats. Not those cheap mesh-backed trucker hats that Folgers Boy used to give us. And pants! We all got pants! They were top-notch silver pants. We were the only team with full uniforms And I even got a uniform and I was just the bat boy. Very few teams had a bat boy. And only ours had a uniformed bat boy. Hell, I even had stirrups. We looked so good, that we actually played pretty good.

But it wasn't the uniforms that I always wanted to thank Skipper for. It was the car. Every year it was the car. You see, Skipper went on to sponsor us for 3 or 4 years. And every year, he would give my dad a brand new car from Beck Imports to take to the mountains. You'll realize how much this meant to me when I tell you that my mom and dad never once had a nice car. We always had the ugliest car in town. It was perpetually an outdated Malibu Classic. Our cars were never worth more than 100 dollars. We were some of the poorest white people in the snobby town of Davidson. I constantly got ridiculed by all of the snooty Davidson College professor's kids due to the ugliness of my moms cars. I didn't care to impress them. But I also didn't care for being picked on. And our car always got me belittled. But for one weekend a year, I would be in a brand new Mercedes. Just me and my dad. We would get the car on Friday, drive two hours to the mountains. Stay the night in the hotel. Drive to the game and park the car in a prominent place for all to see (Dad felt he should do that for Skipper since he was hooking us up.) Then we'd find any excuse to drive it around after the game. And then back home on Sunday.

And while the Mercedes Benzes were nice. One year, Skipper really did us nice. He gave us a cherry red brand new Porsche 944. I have never felt so rich and awesome in my life. I remember my dad, who wasn't that daring, driving the hell out of that thing a couple of times. And I remember it had all these electronic gadgets on it. And radio that didn't have old push buttons - it was something called digital. And I remember lots of hot young women looking at us at stoplights. And my dad would laugh and say, "They ain't looking at us, son. They're looking at this car. Still, it ain't so bad, is it?" No, it wasn't. I always knew Sunday would come and our Porsche would turn back into a pumpkin, but I never thought about that until Sunday.

And that's why I always wanted to meet Skipper and say thank you. He was a rich, rich man. He had golf courses, and sports teams, and car dealerships, and even got to be the biggest client busted in a high-profile prostitution scandal this year. He got to hang out with Michael Jordan and he got to golf with Tiger Woods. And I'm sure he got to have just about everything he ever wanted. But the one thing he never got to have was nothing. But because I had nothing, every time he loaned us a car for the weekend, I felt like I had everything.

Thanks, S.B.

All Hail King Buzzo

I went to see Down the other night and they were as awesome as I figured they would be. That being said, how come nobody ever told me that their opening act, The Melvins, would be one of the most badass things I would ever see on a stage in my entire life?As soon as I saw this chubby middle-aged freakazoid with a grey 'fro, I knew they were going to rule - I just wasn't sure how they would rule. Nobody told me this same bizarre being named King Buzzo would come out in some crazy wizard suit all descended from somewhere in one of the awesomer parts of outer-space and own the place. I've heard of the Melvins, since they've been around for 25 years, but damn! And that song that began with just the two drummers pounding two tiny cymbals for two minutes? And the way King Buzzo would turn around and act like he was fixing his guitar when he was really just letting his drummers have the spotlight? It was awesome. And the way he never spoke to the crowd or evern acknowedged us? It actually worked. That dude was too cool to acknowledge the crowd. And his mirrored guitar made it look like he was playing faster than he was. But my ears did not decieve me, he was actually playing better than he was (which doesn't make sense except when referring to King Buzzo. He is better than ever himself. He's that good.)I always figured because of the wacky hair and timid band name The Melvins would be a bunch of fags. But those dudes were some of the most badass metal I've ever seen. And if you want to argue with me that they aren't really metal, I don't care. You can call them whatever you want, but I know this: whatever the hell they are, The Melvins are from some other place and it's a better place than anywhere I've ever seen. And I hate all of you for not having told me during some time in the last 25 years.

Why did I take advice from an idiot?

I accidentally learned a lesson from the last person I ever thought I'd learn a lesson from: my self. I know! It's crazy. Here's how it happened:

I was writing for no good reason (two blogs ago) and I wrote about what I had learned from doing stand up comedy four times in my life. But I didn't realize until later, I hadn't really applied what I had claimed I learned. Then, the next day, I got up and stage and I fucking nailed it. Don't get me wrong, I did pretty good the first three times. And my fourth time wasn't a total bomb. But still, I had to take a week off to did my tail out from my legs and regroup.

And when I got up two nights ago on that stage, I fucking controlled the universe. I may never do that again, but I might. Either way, who cares. For eight minutes of my life, I ran that show. I could've convinced those 40 people to kill for me. I realized two minutes in, "Holy shit! This is different. This isn't just doing good. This isn't just doing great. This is owning these people! I can't do wrong tonight."

And I was right. I went nuts. I had them going nuts. I was making people bust their guts in a way I used to always think was impossible. And it was because every bit of what I wrote was fresh in my head. The voice in my head was saying "See, if you had listened to yourself all along you could'v'e been doing this shit sooner! Dumbass! Oh well, better now than never!"

I had those people laughing. I had them in suspense on the next thing I was going to say. I had them wanting nothing more than more me. I had them.

Now, don't get me wrong. Don't get confused. I don't need other people's approval. Sure, approval is nice. I'm man enough to admit that. But I enjoy my life just as much when I'm annoying the shit out of everyone. Approval is not what it's about. However, when it comes to doing stand-up, the laughter is the gauge of how good you've done. And after that night, I had a brain-buzz going for 36 hours. So why , you ask? If it wasn't approval, what was it? It's this.

I've never been good at shit. I've always been jealous of people who had a tag. You know, a talent tag. "That's Melinda - she's a gymnast." "That's Eddie - he's an auctioneer!" I only ever got, "That's Roth Wriscey - he's, ummm, cool."

Then I got decent at writing late in life, at 28, and that was a minor tag. But still, that's been pretty much it. So when I recently found that I can (even if not always) be a hilarious comedian, I'll take it. I love being "That's Roth Wriscey, he's good at being a dumbass on a stage."

Even if I just figured out how to clown around like an idiot with a microphone a little later than most. I'm still glad that in this stage in life, I found my way to the stage.

Free Hamburgers

I wonder if people can hear that I sometimes do the radio news in my bathing suit. My friends can tell when I'm hungover on the air, but no one else does. Most every radio guy I've know has talked a girl into giving him a hummer while he talks on the air and acts normal. It's a right of passage and also a challenge. I've never done it. However, I've never known any girls who tell their boyfriends, "I want you to eat me out while I'm giving the weather report." Girls are so annoyingly respectable sometimes. (Except the ones that give on-air hummers to radio guys.) Don't give hummers to radio guys. They're all poor. They only thing you get from them is that you're hanging out with a guy that everybody knows. Still, that doesn't mean you're hanging out with a guy that everybody likes. Most radio guys overestimate how funny they are. (Except me. I'm hilarious. Yeah, I'm not one of them. Never! Just kidding. I suck like the rest of them.) I have learned a lesson though. I barely socialize with other radio people this time around. My first gig, we all hung out so much that if one of us would've gotten crabs - all of us would have gotten crabs. Screw that. (By the way, I never actually got crabs.) I'm just saying, I love the people I work with now. But I don't want to hang out with them outside of work... because I love them.

Radio sales girls are weird. 7 out of 10 of them are in some one-sided relationship with some loser who doesn't make any money if he even has a job. Don't feel sorry for these girls though. They like it this way. Since they control the purse, they control the man. And sales girls love to fuck men that are not the man they are dating. They make his loser ass watch the kids at night so they can "attend a business dinner." Yeah, something's getting eaten but it ain't dinner.

The sales people I work with now seem to be an exception. They actually mean it when they say hi to me. They aren't just suddenly remembering my name so I can do something shady on the air to bail them out of an account they neglected. That kind of salesperson has some nerve: "I screwed up. Will you risk your career for no reason but to keep me undeservedly rich? Thanks."

I love radio. But sometimes I hate the radio business. These days, I'm with a great crew and making better money, but getting less hours. I'm in it because I love the medium. And also because I love the free hamburgers.

Comedy Club Lessons I've Learned

I interviewed a writer once for a newspaper article, and he told me that he doesn't allow his students to use writer's block as an excuse not to write. He said, "Pounding those keys, is better than not pounding those keys. You better write something anyway. You can't wait on the lightning to strike, because what if it never strikes?"

As a result, I will be writing every day for thirty days, no matter what. Today, I will write about what I've gathered from doing stand-up comedy on open mic night four time in the last six weeks at tge Nutt Street Lounge. (That's actually the name of the street. How convenient.)

I have learned that if you are gonna get up on that stage, you better damn well WANT to get up on that stage. If you're not sure you belong there, the audience will sense that and ask themselves the same question: "Why the hell is he up there?"

If your stuff isn't funny, it's not the audience's fault... even if it is their fault. Who cares if you are so funny they aren't smart enough to get you? (That's what lovers and spouses are for.) It doesn't mean dick if you're too advanced for the crowd. In the end, they are the judge. If they don't like your routine, you better fix it. Or at least don't expect them to like it if you keep doing the same shit that never made them laugh at you the first time. They aren't there to be taught. They are there to laugh... or not. It's really up to you.

If you are bombing, acknowlege it. The crowd knows when you're blowing it. You know when you you're blowing it. But most importantly, they know that you know that they know you're blowing it. Go ahead and acknowledge the elephant in the room. Get it out of the way by making it part of the act (or the RE-act in this case) and then get things back on track.

Be yourself. Don't try to be what they want. That sounds like it conflicts with something I said earlier, but it really doesn't. What I'm saying is: be yourself, but craft yourself into a package they can laugh at. If you're only trying to be what they want, but not who you really are, they will smell it. People are dumb about a lot of things, but this is not one of them. I learned I do my best even if I'm saying outlandish stuff they don't support, because I at least get a laugh from those who say to themselves, "Wow! I can't believe this crazy fuck believes what he says. And I even more can't believe that he would have the nerve to say it. But he must believe it if he's dumb enough to say it. Who would lie about something so unpopular? I'm intrigued by this dude. He's kind of funny."

Always listen to the other comics that go on before you. It is amazing how sometimes a comic you don't know will talk about the same bizarre shit you were planning to joke on when you get up there. You need to listen, so when you get up there you can acknowledge that you're retreading some guy's topic, and then you have to show them why your take is different and why it's still worth hearing.

The lights are bright. It makes it hard to see the crowd sometimes. Don't acknowledge this. The crowd doesn't see it and the crowd doesn't care. Just pretend you can see them, and make your hearing more acute so you can work off of the noise.

Don't get so hurried that you talk over the laughter you've created. They'll stop laughing when they're ready. But if you talk over it, they will stop laughing to hear your next words and you have ruined the natural flow of the conversation. Yes, it's a conversation. Their part of the dialogue is the laughter. If you talk over it, you are interrupting them and it subconsciously offends them and the laughter will stay smaller. (I need to listen to myself on this point. I'm so bad at this, because I'm nervous that if I stop I will lose them. It's actually the opposite.)

It's okay to catch a buzz to calm your nerves. But don't get too drunk. The lights will make you dizzy and you'll be all over the place.

Try to look at everyone from time to time. If you pay attention to only one side, you will lose the other. Make individual eye contact with as many people as you can. But only do it at points in your act where you are so comfortable you won't lose your place.

It is okay to laugh at yourself. In fact, the number one thing I have found wins the crowd over is when you truly, truly believe that what you're telling them is funny, too. Not in a "Hey, I'm so damn funny way," but more in a genuine, "I know! I can't believe this shit is true, either!"

There are my tips from the amateur comic that is me. Maybe I should listen to myself. Then again, I've met me. Maybe I should ignore everything I just said. And maybe you should, too. I'm a dumbass.

Good, Awesome, Terrible

I haven't had writer's block, I've just had "lifer's suck." Which means, I haven't lost my desire to write, I just haven't had shit to write about. Regular life is boring. Nobody wants to read about that, and I don't want to write about it, either. Could you imagine taking some No-Doz just to get through my stories that started out with the following:

"So I went to work on time today and did my job properly."

"I hung out with the same girl I always hang out with and we had a nice time."

"My roommates are pleasant people and I quite enjoy living with them."

Those three sentences alone are boring as shit. Imagine having to read the whole damn story! I don't know what to do. I love writing, but I'm only good at writing what I know: and what I know is that my life has been enjoyably flat lately.

I haven't gotten in any good trouble lately. I haven't even tried to. It's nice, but it sucks.

Girls will do that to you, man. I don't think they always mean to, they just do. They get you complacent and happy. And next thing you know you're no longer out running around in the middle of the night acting stupid and searching for things you don't need and falling into other adventures along the way that even Mark Twain couldn't have made up himself.

I need someone bizarre eccentric to swoop in like Willy Wonka and give me 60,000 dollars and orders to do whatever I wanted with it for the next six months (under the condition that I spend the 6 months after that writing a completely honest kick ass book about what I did during that time) I'd make us both rich. I could really stir some shit if I was under such orders. I'm great at being bad. I'm good at a few things. But I'm awesome about being terrible.

With My Pig Nose On

I entered a contest on redskins.com to win tickets to a game this season. Then I promptly forgot that I did that. Not a week later (last week,) I promptly remembered again. That's because there was a letter sitting on my kitchen table addressed to me with a return address that had the Washington Redskins logo on it.

I thought, "Those fuckers. They're gonna break my heart. This just has to be some junk mail. Those dicks put me on their mailing list. Oh well, it's not like I could expect to win some of the toughest tickets to obtain in the history of professional sports."

I made a deal with myself. Before I was to open the letter, I had to pretend for five seconds that there were tickets inside. Then I let the fantasy leave and said to myself, "It's over. Now you can't be pissed when there's nothing but a stupid merchandise catalog enclosed."

There was no stupid merchandise catalog enclosed.

There was a personally signed letter on Redskins stationary from some Redskins official I've never heard of named Heather Bretschger.

And behind that letter were two tickets to see the 'Skins take on the Denver Broncos on November 15th at FedEx Field in Freaking Washington D.C. (or wherever the hell in Maryland they are located!)

I won tickets! Damn, I've always wanted to see my boys in Washington.

Hey, you ! Yeah you, Section 329 Row 18! We'll see you in three months! And I might smash my butt all over you all day that day! Just kidding, I'll be standing and yelling the whole time... maybe with a pig nose on.

A Blog Dedicated To Myself

I'm am going to do an experimental blog entry. Here's the premise today, I'm going to write about stuff I care about, as if you, the reader, know or care about these things, too. Here goes. This should be fun (for me, at least.)

1. This Summer's Faith No More Reunion.

A lot of people are pissed that FNM is only touring Europe. While I, too, am upset about this, I understand. They have a stronger base out there. Europeans tend to stick with their bands no matter what. I doubt FNM could make much money in the U.S. after 10 years off. And if I have to hear one more dumbass bitch about how Jim Martin isn't part of the band, I'm gonna go all Crack Hitler on this place. Look, everyone knows FNM's best two albums were the last two ("King For a Day, Fool For a Lifetime" and "Album of the Year.") What? Is old Jimbo supposed to come back and perform "Naked In Front of the Computer?" That would be like bringing David Lee Roth back to sing Sammy songs. It only works one way, boys. Screw Jim. He's good at metal, but FNM ain't metal. These Jim Lovers are the same people who say "The Real Thing" was the best album of the main four. No, idiot. It was the worst. It was still great, but it was definitely the worst. These are the same people who would probably like to simultaneously do two things at once: hear (1) "Epic" for the millionth time and (2) have Chuck Moseley sing it. Yeah, let's bring Chuck back while we're at it, idiots. Happy Birthday, Fuckers.

2. The Atlanta Braves Trade Deadline Move.

Really. We're gonna trade Casey Kotchman for Adam LaRoche? I like LaRoche. And I know it was for more power. But I say for a full 162 ol' Casey at the bat brings more to the team. And besides, (I hope I'm wrong) we're not going to pass the Phillies. We probably won't even pass Florida. Should've kept Casey Kotchman, if for no other reason, his name is alliteration.

3. The Sean Hannity Television Show.

Dude needs a partner. Look, I hated Colmes, too. But Hannity is just one big runaway train of hokiness without a bad guy there. It's like watching Rocky and Bullwinkle without Boris and Natasha there to make things interesting. His "Great American Panel" is gay. His "Liberal Translation Sketch" isn't funny and has terrible music. And his satellite screen that has his guests 30 feet from him is a little ostentatious. Put Kirsten Powers or some other idiot on there to balance that poor guy out.

I'm done. Was that fun? I bet it wasn't.

Dude Tells The Dude About Non-Dudes

I have been mentoring my 9 year younger male roommate lately - about women! I'm no expert on the pretties, because no man is. But I've had a good life. My roommate is a cool guy, but he's had some bad habits (Read: He's not getting laid at the rate I'd like him to.) You see, when a guy like me is somewhat settled down, he has to make the guys who are available go get laid a lot for him. And the dude just moved downtown, but he's not going apeshit! He should be knee-deep in the depths of some shallow women, dammit! That's what every guy is supposed to do the first year he moves out here near the bars.

But here's the thing about my advice, while I do think it's good advice (you can be the judge of that) - the problem I have is that my advice makes me sound like a sociopath when I say this shit out loud. I'll give you my roommate's problem, and my solution.

Problem 1: Dude likes to hit on bartenders and other girls once he's totally wrecked.

My solution: "Dude, first off I don't recommend hitting on bartenders. They're going to be really busy really that night and they'll be working too late to hang with your drunk ass. That aside, here's your problem. You're hitting on girls when you're sloppy. You need to hit on them when you're still mostly sober. You know why? Because when you hit on girls sober, they say to themselves, "Now there's a man! He says what means and he knows what he wants. And what he wants is me! I know - cuz he just said it! That's pretty badass - I might consider it." I continued, "Dude, once you've established that you're man enough to lay it all out there without the shield of alcohol, they might still let you hit on them drunk later. Here's why: They'll say, "Damn this wobbly mumbler is all over me just like a bunch of other wobbly mumblers, but he was also all over me earlier when he was in control, so I know he means it. I don't know if these other drunk guys are just making a drunk desperation move or what. But not this guy - that's a man!"


Problem 2: Dude is always trying to turn his friends into his girlfriends.

My Solution: "Dude, if you know you're about to become friends with a girl, but you'd like to possibly later become her lover, here's what you gotta do. Tell her that. Tell her that the way you just told me and do it early in the friendship. Say, "Hey, I know we're friends. And just friends, and new friends at that. But here's how it is. I'll be your friend. And I'm not a fake friend. But let the truth be told, if you ever offered that shit up: I'm taking it. I want you. But I won't try to pull a dick move and sneak up on you with at a time when you're vulnerable." Dude, do you want to know why this will work? Because you're actually telling the truth. I know it sounds like a scam. But think about it, you're actually being straight up (provided you really do hold up your end of the bargain and be her friend.) Here's what will likely happen dude: she will have a moment of crisis. A moment of weakness. But here's the beautiful part. The part that now separates you from all those other snakes that have just pretended to be her friend: you really are her friend! And SHE will come to YOU! While all those other douche-bags try to swoop in when she's crying from being dumped, she will notice that you actually listened to her and didn't try to move in. Then she will remember that you once said you'd be down for her if she was ever down for you. She will now be down for you. But it's her idea. Never let her think otherwise. It's an investment that requires patience. But I'll bet you dollars to dildos that's what happens with you and this girl."

(Editor's note: Dude didn't take my advice last night. She had a crisis. She got dumped and cheated on by her boyfriend and called Dude and Me to go with her drinking. I went out with them and saw it first hand. Dude didn't show patience, like I told him. He swooped in on her with that "I've always wanted you" crap 30 minutes into our night out while she was just 4 hours into a heartbreak. She rejected his ass flat. As she should've. It's like saying "Enough about you, how bout me?" Not cool.)

So what's the verdict. Am I right? Am I wrong? Am I a sociopath? Or am I just damn delightful? I would guess the answer is #1, #3 and #4.

The Dumbass and the Tramps

I was about to hang up from a conversation with Dibsy today when I told him that I was about to go for a walk on the beach by myself. "Gaaayyyyy," he said all monotone and superior. I was like, "Gay? It's not like I'm walking out here with another dude. The only gay thing I've done today is have a 20 minute phone conversation about nothing with a dude. And that dude is you! So if I'm gay, then you're gay to. And that makes US gay! And I would never be gay for you, Dibsy, you gay gay gaywad!" And then we said goodbye and I got to my walk.As I walked to the beach access, I decided to find a landmark so I'd know how to find my car when I came back from my walk. I said to myself, "Okay, when you start walking back, just look for the two hot chicks in bikinis with sexy tramp stamps and you'll know where to turn for your car."So I walked up the beach for about ten minutes. And then I walked back for about twenty. Twenty? Holy shit, I had gone too far. I couldn't figure it out. Where the hell were my hot chicks with tramp stamps? They were supposed to guide me home. They were my landmark. Then I figured it out."Well, I'll be damned. Who knew? Hot chicks are mobile! They had moved. I hadn't planned for that. I thought they'd be there for me. So then I had to turn around to try and find my car without the help of two lovely lovelies showing me the path. I started thinking about what I should have done - what I figured normal people probably already do: I should have used the beach access number sign as my landmark. Not two unparalyzed sexy ladies in bathing suits. I started pondering the bizarre comparison that apparently you can count on beach access signs to be there for you, but not girls. Then I realized I was wrong. Up ahead frolicking in the ocean together were my two stamped tramps. Hooray. They had just moved to the water to splash each other and be all, you know, sexy and stuff. So I stared at them like a weirdo for short while, debated thanking them for getting me to my car, decided against it because they might think that was weird (since it was), and went to my car. The moral of the story? How the hell should I know. I just like looking at girls and finding my car.

Things I Think About People.

Do you ever look at people and think you can guess whether or not they do very specific things? I do. For example, sometimes I meet a guy, just a certain kind of guy, and this thought goes through my head: "I bet he pees sitting down. I don't know how I can tell. And I don't know why he does. But I just bet he's a seat pee-er."

Here's a list of things I think about some people.

"I bet she never dances in front of the mirror in her underwear. I bet 98% of women have done that. But she hasn't. Why is she so weird?"

"I bet that guy pays hookers to do things other than have sex with him. Stuff like going to a basketball game. Why would you use an escort as an actual escort? Weirdo!"

"I bet that guy abuses waitresses. And I bet he jokes about the tip during the meal. I never want to go out to eat with that guy. But then again, I do wanna eat out with that guy, to see if I'm right."

"I bet that guy talks with a black dialect when black people are in the room. Why would you do that? They understand white people. There are lots of them, and I'm pretty sure we invented English. You don't have to "black it up" for them. They've heard white people speak English before. Why would you patronize them like that.?"

"I bet that lady actually finds Fabio sexy. Why would a woman find Fabio sexy? I can't believe she's not turned off by Fabio."

"I bet that girl really doesn't like football. She thinks she likes football, but deep down she really likes that men like her because she likes football. What she really likes is America's Top Model."

"I bet that guy would deny that he's ever tried to blow himself. I know he's tried. Every guy's tried. That's how you find out you can't. I should ask him in front of people anyway to watch him lie and say he's never tried it. What a liar!"

That's all I got.

My Video Game For Girls

I have decided to make a video game for girls called, "Damn You, Toucan!" Here's why I'm doing it. You see, some of you girls can't stand when you have a great day. Yall know who you are. I call you "Crappy-Happys." Because girls like this are only happy when life is crappy. Seriously, we all know who yall are! When Crappy-Happys have nothing to bitch about, they bitch about that. Or they find their personal self-destruct button and do something to wreck their own shit, so they can be in a miserable bliss again.But for that pissed off happy girl that just doesn't have time to make everything around her suck, I've invented a video game that lets her live out lovely misery through television. It's called "Damn You, Toucan!" Here's how the game works:Your character is a young on-the-go attractive woman who is just trying to make it through the day. But for some unexplained reason, this damn toucan keeps showing up and happily telling her awful news. He really enjoys messing up your day.For example, the girl in the game is just trying to make it to yoga class, but as she's walking to her car, that damn toucan shows up and starts flapping his wings and hovering in front of her face and says this, "Hooo Hooo! Hooo Hoooo! You just got your period! Hee Hoo!" And then he flies away. But as he's flying away, there is one button you can push on the controller. It makes the girl shake her fist in the air and yell out, "DAMN YOU, TOUCAN!"And then just to be funny, a little later in the game, he shows up and say, "Hooo Hoooo! You DIDN'T get your period! Hee Hoo!"As your yelling "Damn you, Toucan," he turns around and says, "And the guy that did this to you is an artist! Hee Hoo!"FUCKING DAMN YOU, TOUCAN!"You're hating my toucan already, aren't you?Here are some other things the Damn You Toucan will say in the game:"Hoo! Hoo! It's your mother calling on the phone. She's calling to ask you if you're ever going to get your life together. She'll give you hell if you answer! She'll give you hell if you don't answer! Hee Hoo!""Hoo Hoo! That handsome, charming rich guy at the bar that's talking to you and your best friend is going ask you to agree with him that she is the most beautiful girl he's ever seen. What an accidental ass! Must suck to be you! You have to agree with him to be nice! Hee Hoo! Hee Hoo!""Hoo Hoo! You've gained five pounds! And you've been working out and dieting! Hee Hee! Hee Hooo!""Hoo Hee. You're waiter's about to tell your sister that she has a beautiful mother. He's talking about you! Heee Haahhh! Heee Hahhh!"Damn, even I'm starting to hate that Toucan. He's a dick. It's hard enough being a girl all alone in this world just trying to make her way. The last thing you need is some fucking Fruit Loop Bird showing up and wrecking your shit. That's your own job! I know! I'll make it where at the end of the game, you win a gun and you get to shoot that damn bird... and eat him. But you know he'll just go straight to your thighs. Heee Hoooo! Heee Hoooh!

Jokey Joke

Yeah, the first night of comedy went well. I got a good buzz on. Not because I think I'm only funny drunk. (I can be funny either way.) I was just worried the nerves would get to me up there.

So me and Pokey Pants and Kaveman went down there. I asked the guy in charge if I could go on, he said I could.

Man, I was nervous. Not on stage. I was just nervous waiting to get on stage. I drank a lot of beer and stepped out for a lot of cigarettes between comics.

Then he called me up. As soon as I got up there, the lights were bright as shit. I couldn't see anyone. (I couldn't see them unti ltowards the end when my eyes adjusted.) But I could hear them. They were laughing. I told a story about what happened when I was a teenager. When my friend wouldn't shut up about how big his dick was, and how I challenged him to a good old fashioned dick off just to shut him up. It's a great story. I don't want to give it away if you don't know it.

Anyway, the crowd laughed a good deal, but I could see their eyes looking at me in disbelief. Not at disbelief in my story, but at disbelief in the fact that I would tell it. Oh, they don't know me! Shame is lame, for me - that night was tame. They would elbow each other with looks that said, "Why would he tell us this?" Why not?

After the show, most of the comics were as nice as they were before the show. But some became dicks to me. I know why.

CUZ I DID GOOD!

They can be petty little girls all they want. I just want everyone to do well. But I will admit, I asked Pokey Pants how good I did while Kaveman was in the bathroom. She told me I was no doubt third biggest laugh-getter, besides a guy from Jersey and a guy from Raleigh. (Raleigh was a dick to me. Jersey became a dick to me the second week. Bitches.)

Then when Kaveman came back, I asked him. And he said the exact same thing Pokey did. And they swore they hadn't talked about it to each other. So if I can do better than 3 out of 12 guys my first time out. I'll take it. The second week went the same way.

If I can make it to the open mic this week, I think I'm gonna tell a story about how I ate German Shepard shit on purpose when I was 17. You think I'm kidding. I don't joke about joking.

Fun With My mini-review

I will now critique the critic from the Star News today about my part of a comedy show. (He wasn't really doing a critique, just a write up. Probably a nice guy.This excerpt is about me. He just didn't get my name.)

"Back at Nutt Street, a guy who's doing stand-up for the second time in his life is in the midst of a rambling but somewhat amusing story about a crazy, drunken night he and his friends had in Savannah, Ga.

Sherrill waves his lighted cell phone screen from the back of the house - a sign the fledgling comic needs to wrap it up - but he either doesn't see it or doesn't know what it means, and plows ahead with his story.

Sherrill doesn't seem to mind too much, however. He says one of his goals is showing the ropes to new comedians, who will bring their friends out to the open mics and, hopefully, to see touring comedians on the weekends, like Saturday's performance by Gene Renfroe, who's appeared on Comedy Central."

NOW CORY CRITIQUES HIS CRITIC

1. OK. He did get right that it was only my second time. Good job newspaper reporter!

2. Did I ramble? Probably. I was drunk. I'll start doing this sober after maybe the fourth time.

3. "SOMEWHAT amusing?" My story was damn amusing. Never trust a newspaper reporter to tell you what is and isn't funny. Newspaper reporters aren't funny. I should know... I'm a newspaper reporter! (Wow! Did I just blow your mind, too. I proved that guy to be wrong. And I proved him to be right. All at the same time. I just did a mobius band of logic. "He's wrong about what's funny cuz he's a reporter. But I'm a reporter, so I'm also not funny. Which makes him right me not being funny. But he doesn't know what funny is, because he's a reporter. So now I'm funny again? Maybe we're both not funny. That's the ticket.

4. "A crazy drunken night?" While we were, in fact, drunk in the story, that's still a mischaracterization. The story was about me pretending I knew Kung Fu to scare off an attacking drunken Australian who looked like John Rocker." Back me up, Byron.

5. "He doesn't see it or doesn't know what it means." Reporter boy is right, but he left something out. He's right, I didn't see the wrap light (no one told me we had one) at first. Then I did, but I just thought it was some jackass playing with his phone. Comedy lights are bright. I couldn't even see the audience. But what reporter boy left off was that I politely said into the mic, "Oh shit, am I stepping on other people's time. I'm sorry. Gimme sixty seconds and I'll wrap this shit up and make room for the next guy." I may be abrasive, but was still raised right. I'm Southern, you dick.

I give reporter boy a B-. He didn't get it all right, but he can't be expected to. Reporters are as detailed as they are funny. Translation: they wish they were both, but they'll never be either.
Example: I didn't even know there was a newspaper reporter there and I am one!

update, sort of.

I did some comedy last week and then this week. I'll talk about it when I have more time. I can tell you this. It went really well both times.

I'm going to do it.

Next week, I am attempting my first real time doing open mic stand up. I went last week to scope it out. I honestly think I can be funnier than all but one of them. I may bomb, though. You never know. I can tell that if I do well, those dorks there will hate me. They are like some gang of snobby nerd virgins... who aren't as funny as they think they are. They weren't being themselves, they were barfing up shit they've seen on comedy central. Wish me luck.

Just one month into my first radio job, they asked me to fill-in as side-kick on this morning show for a day with some guy I had never met. Little did I know I was about to meet my "Let's destroy this fucked up world and laugh the whole time we're doing it" soul mate.

I showed up at 5 a.m. just like they asked me to. When I walked in the studio this bald guy who was about 30 was sitting on the floor quietly, but not peacefully, reading the newspaper. He looked up from the paper and said, "Nothing fucked up happened last night at all. Nothing! We're gonna have to come up with our own shit again today. I hope you got something to talk about, because we got four hours of show to fill. What's your name again?"

I told him my name and he went back to searching the paper for relevant material. (I don't know why - it was 2002; we had internet.) I stood over him scared and uncomfortable in the tiny studio and he looked up at me again and yelled, "What the fuck man! Everybody talks about how goddamn good these people are like Jerry Seinfeld. Fuck Jerry Seinfeld! That fucker writes one hour of material and repeats that same shit every night all over the country for a year. And everybody's all like, "Yay, Jerry Seinfeld. You're so great! You're one act is so fucking funny! You're the best! Yay!" FUCK JERRY SEINFELD! Jerry Seinfeld doesn't do what I do. I have to come up with four hours of shit every day, five days a week, and I have to start coming up with that shit at three in the goddamn morning! Fuck Jerry Seinfeld. He couldn't do what I do."

As the show started, I stood on one side of the desk at my mic, and he stood straight across from me facing me and handling the controls. As he did weather reports and traffic, he would sometimes stop talking, turn of the mics, bend down, puke in a trash can, come back up, turn on the mics and finish his traffic report, then puke again.

"Me and the wife got fucked up last night. I got four kids. When the wife wants to get fucked up, dammit, I don't care if I have to work the next day - we're fucking doing it."

Then he told me that he thought he needed to spice up his marriage by secretly having anonymous sex with other women. (Which was weird, because I went on to know the guy going on seven years, and he never once came close to even touching another woman's shoulder. Looking back, I know this was just one of his weird ways of testing me - to see if I would tell other people in the building what he said. He never, ever had any intention of ever cheating on his wife. This was the case for two reasons. He told me that he had banged enough girls when he was single, so he never felt like he got shorted. As a third party once told me later: "Most of us married guys lie and try to pretend we did nothing but bang hot women all day long when we were single. But most of us weren't that awesome. But that guy - I witnessed it. If he tells you a story about crazy things he did with crazy numbers of women, he's the one married guy that isn't lying! We had to issue him an official company memo barring him from contact with the sales staff. We hated doing it, but those girls weren't getting any work done. That guy's dick was gonna make this radio cluster go broke. Thank God he knocked that dear woman up and married her! It saved all of our jobs!"

The other reason the dude never cheated on his wife was this:

"Dude, if I even kissed another woman, my wife would stab me in my dick. What? Quit laughing. I'm not fucking with you. This dick of mine... would no longer be. But it wouldn't matter. She'd kill me, too. You think I'm fucking around. If I cheat on my wife, say goodby to me. I'm dead with no dick and my wife's in jail. You think I'm joking. You'll meet her. You'll know."

I met her.

I know.

She's a wonderful country woman. A wonderful country woman who would stab her husband in the dick and kill him for kissing another woman. She banned me from eating at her house because I didn't finish my chicken. It didn't matter that it was a sudden dinner invitation when I was dropping her husband off right after we had eaten 4 pieces of car lot pizza. I talked to her yesterday and she invited me to dinner and then immediately uninivited me because "you didn't eat all my fucking chicken." It's been seven years. That was yesterday. Still, I love her.

I eventually went on to be the third guy on that morning show. It was always my friend and some other guy (we went through 5) co-hosting the morning show with me out on the streets calling in to give out prizes to the public. I usually wore a costume.

The good thing about my friend being married was that he was constantly getting me girls from work. He was doing it because "Someone's gotta fuck'er. And I obviously can't. And I hate every other motherfucker in this building, so dammit you're gonna do it."

We even had a secret morning show-rule. As the third guy, I would usually come in and join the show at seven (to save money on payroll,) but if I had gotten busy with a new girl: I was allowed an extra hour to sleep in.

But there was a catch. In return for the morning guys letting me sleep in for an hour, I had to agree to tell them all about the sex. (Not on air. I'm not that tacky. And I'm only writing this because only one person from around here reads this blog. And I think she's unshocked by me by now.)

A couple of times I accidenally messed with the sanctity of the rule. I learned the hard way.
One day, I came into the morning show studio an hour late and the two married guys looked at me eagerly with jaw-dropped smiles on their face and both of them were holding out double-thumbs ups at me and saying "Yeah? Yeah? Yeah?"

I broke their vicarious married-guy hearts. I said, "Oh, no. I didn't get any new stuff. I just over slept. I got real drunk last night. Sorry guys."

They got fucking pissed! The older host (late forties) gave me a damn lecture like I've never recieved. "You have violated the sacred rule! You can't tease us like this. You know the deal. You only come in an hour late, if you got some pussy. And you better damn well tell us about it. Look, bud! We're married guys! Our lives boring. We live through you. And when you come in here an hour late without a story, it's the worst kind of tease you can imagine. We're counting on you. Next time you're late, it better be because you got your rocks off all night, and you better tell us all about it!"

And then another time I came in an hour late and the guys did the same double thumbs up retard smile and I said, "Yeah! Me and Nicole had us a session last night!" And they said, "Nicole? NIIII-COLE! You've been banging her for like two weeks. We're tired of Nicole. You can't come in an hour late for fucking Nicole. You better get your single ass back out there and pull in something new for us, if you value your sleep, you bastard! Nicole? NIIII-COLE!"

So back to my buddy that I first met puking in a trash can. We worked together for four and half years before I left that company. And while he was secretly one of the most moral people of ever met (he hates people knowing that), he became my misbehaving partner. We got in so much trouble for doing so much bad stuff; at the radio station and on remote location. I can't tell you how many conferences he and I got pulled into with the suits for acting up.

During one particular lecture he told the GM and the OM the folowing thing that you won't believe. He got in trouble for saying somone was a cunt. He didn't call her a cunt. He said she was a cunt at his desk to himself. Another girl heard it and reported him. Regardless, during the meeting with the two men in power, he got out of his chair and gave a speech. "Gentleman, I can tell that I'm not going to lose my job for this particular offense today. However, let's be real. You are the two men that will one day fire me. It could be tomorrow, or it could be in ten years. But at some point you'll have to fire me."

They looked back at him like they disagreed with him, even though he was telling the truth. So he giggle at them and dance with finger guns pointed at them and said, "Oh, come on guys! It's okay! Let's not pretend you're not gonna do it one day - you'll have, too. I'm at peace with it. But when you do - gentleman - promise me this: When you fire me, do it at night. I've been getting up at 3 a.m. everyday for ten years. Please don't make me get up early and work all day when you know you're gonna fire me at ten a.m. Just fire me at night and let me sleep in. Can we shake on that?"

And these baffled old men shook his hand in agreement. Those guys didn't get my man, but I did. And he knew that, too. He whispered, "I've worked for these fucks for ten years and they still don't know how to handle me. Wow! Clueless."

So my man got fired last week. And that part's fine. It's radio - we get fired. We get fired when we deserve it. We get fired when we don't. We get fired when it rains. But you know when they fired him? At ten a.m.! He didn't deserve that shit. I hope his wife stabs those two men in the dick.

Remembering My Friend (with mentions of butt-sex!)

I always figured one of my roommates would die young. It's just simple math - I've had like 30 of them. I just never thought it would be Cracker*. The reason I never thought it would be Cracker was because I fully expected it to be Cracker. And since stuff always happens the way you never think it would, I figured that meant one of my roommates that lived a safe life on the straight and narrow would be the one to go first. Yeah, I thought it would be someone like Alison. But it actually turned out to be Cracker: the top candidate for early death of the 6 or 7 people I've shared a house with that have had extended periods of life where they were determined to off themselves by way of entertaining accident. That's what made most of them such terrific people. Cracker, umm, he was good and bad. More on that in a minute.

I just found about his death 35 minutes ago. Why am I writing about it so soon? Because I have no one to talk to at the moment. And besides, how often do you get to write about learning of a friend's death within the hour? Usually, you're too upset and your world is too rocked to do that. I'm not that way right now. Upset? Yes. Shocked? Oh, c'mon! I'm not gonna be phony with you, you'd see right through it.

I found out about Cracker's death when I was leaving my job at the radio station just now. I said hello and goodbye to our business manager who doubles as a our building cleaner. (She knows all of our "dirt" in two ways! Wokka Wokka Wokka.) After I said goobye, I picked up a crappy publication called Bootleg Magazine. I'm sorry, I just don't really like it. But I started reading it ever since I heard Cracker started working there, just to see what he was writing each month. Today, when I picked up a copy off of our lobby table, I turned to page 1 and saw a picture of Cracker, presumably standing in front of giant rocks in Iceland, and an article titled: "In Memoriam: Cracker B. Lastname." (C'mon, I've gotta change names here.) Don't you hate when you see an article with a name you have said out loud thousands of times, accompanied by the words "In Memoriam." That's never good. It makes me think of the times I've said the name other ways. Like nice ways: "Well, I'll be damned! If it ain't Cracker B. Lastname! How the hell are ya!" Or the ways you said it when you were mad. "Well, I'll be damned! If it ain't Cracker B. Lastname! If you don't fucking get the fuck out of my house right now...." But when it's in memoriam, the names just look boring. Like all the shit you did only led to that? How lame.

I know everyone that knows that guy expects me to tell the story about how I successfully predicted he would kick my door in looking for beer. Or how he flipped his truck over in a residential neighborhood after he did it. Or how I had to change the locks on him permanently. While those stories are good, they've been told. I'm not really giving that much thought right now. Instead, for some reason, I keep thinking about a day when we lived together when we had lots of beer and lots of time to drink it.We ended up in beach chairs drunk on the side of Racine Drive waving at traffic. Eventually, a crowd of people we didn't know had joined us. Cracker confused me because he spent the whole day acting like we were closer than we were, especially when he spent hours talking me up to this girl with curly red hair named Annie. (I actually didn't change her name. It's just too funny. If I changed her name it would lose it's humor. Sorry, Annie. If you're still alive. And reading some guy's blog entry you knew for a day. From ten years ago.)

Anyway, all these guys were hitting on Annie, but Cracker kept talking to her but saying nice crap about me. That day went on forever. I think I drank more beer in a day than I ever had.

Skip to the next day. Me and Cracker woke up in the apartment. And the first words out of his mouth were: "Please tell me you put it in her butt."

I was confused.

"Tell you I put what in who's butt?"

"That Annie girl. Did you do her in the butt?"
"I didn't do her at all."

Cracker was pissed! He laughed and said, "So I did all that work for nothing? I wanted you to put it in her butt and tell me about it!"

"Look dude. If you wanted something "put in her butt" so bad, why didn't you do it yourself, Cracker?"

"Because, I have a girlfriend in England. You know that. So I wanted to live through you. And I like buttsex more than a pirate! And I really love redheads. And you let me down."

"I made out with her, if that makes you feel better?"

"Thanks for trying dude, but that's not the same. Next time I send a redhead your way, you better buttram her the way I would."

"Ummmm, Okay?"

Yeah, so I guess Cracker was a sexual deviant. But then again, he wasn't a sexual deviant? Or was he a sexual deviant who loved his English girlfriend? I don't know. But he definitely had to be a schizophrenic. I don't mean that as disrespect. I just mean, had all the signs.

Some days, I hated him, some days he was my brother, and some days I just felt sorry for him. It wasn't his fault that he was born fucked in the head. And he was definitely just put on this earth fucked in the head from day one. And as much as you want to, it's hard to hold someone accountable for being fucked in the head when they didn't choose to be fucked in the head. And you can't expect them to cure themselves of being fucked in the head, because they can't do it. Have you forgotten? They're fucked in the head!

So yeah, after a short time living together, he did some fucked in the head shit and I had to kick him out of the apartment. And he ended up in a D.C. rehab. His parents payed the bills for the rest of the lease and I threw away all his shit and kept his clothes. I never got an apology. We were no longer friends. And I was sure I'd never see him again.For eight years, I never saw or heard a thing about Cracker. I thought I saw him hitchhiking once but that guy was smiling in a way Cracker never would. I always thought if ever saw him again, we'd fight or ignore each other.


We actually hugged each other.


It took eight years, but one night less than a year ago I ran into him at the Blue Post. We accidentally found ourselves standing face to face in the by the door of the bar. After all those years had passed, we found ourselves staring at each other, both trying to believe that the other guy was, in fact, not the other guy. Then I hugged him.Then he apologized for the shit he put me through back in the day. And I apologized for one of my famous overreactions. And we bought each other beers. It was fun to find out that we had both become writers since we saw each other last. (Neither one of us had any interest in writing back then.) And it was great to see that he had seemingly gotten his shit together. He had been living in other states the whole time. It was crazy to see our friends standing a safe distance away staring at us in disbelief with looks on their faces that said, "I can't believe those two are not cutting each other open with pool cues right now."

That was a year ago, and I never saw Cracker again. It feels today like God set up that one chance night last year for us to hang out and make peace. I never really considered him a friend until that night we made up. But I considered him my friend ever since. And I never saw him again. So I guess, I knew a guy for nine years and we were only friends for a day.

I don't know what happened to end his life, but for his sake, I hope it was fucking fantastic. I mean no disrespect to those that are close to him. And I know he wouldn't get mad if I told him that. But he would get mad if I told him I've still never had buttsex with a redhead. Sorry, Cracker. But that's your thing. Now go do your thing.

Intuition is a buzz kill. Part 2.

If you haven't read "Intuition is a Buzzkill - Part 1," do that first. I wrote it two weeks ago.

I went to Wal-Mart again tonight. I planned to spend twenty bucks. I spent ninety. It only would've been shocking if I had spent what I planned; which tells me I should just quit planning shit all together.

About 50 dollars into my trip, I made my way to the cereal aisle. I had planned to buy one of those cereals that are made for people like me who are still young but are no longer retard-young. If you don't know what retard-young is, it's this Someone who is retard young is at that age where he can be acting like a complete idiot in front of older people, but the older people don't get completely offended, they just look at him and think, "Yeah, he's acting like a retard, but he's young. I guess he doesn't know any better, yet."

I'm not that young any more. I do know better. Sure, I look that young, but I'm not. I actually now crave these cereals with yogurt and twigs and shit in them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not eating straight up fiber like a grandpa. I still make sure there's dried up and cranberries or maybe some honey mixed in the bowl, but I'm at the point where I just can't eat Lucky Charms every day. (Every other day, maybe.)

Once I thew my cereal in the cart, I rushed down the aisle to get out. But before I could escape, something stopped me. It was that damn Fruity Cheerios section, again. The Fruity Cheerios that promise an ATM card full of money in one out of every ten boxes. The last time I battled these boxes, I won. Due to the fact that some psychotic random guy named intuition jumped out of my head and appeared as an invisible hologram beside me telling me which box to pick. Was he to appear again? I didn't know if he would show.

"Hey, asshoooooooole! I'm beeeeeyack!"

It was him. He was back. It was the guy that lives inside my brain that is never wrong. There he was, invisible, standing beside me, ready to tell me that he knew something that I needed to act on, but only if I had complete faith in him.

Me: Oh great, you again. Let me guess, you're gonna tell me which box to pick.

Guy Living Inside My Brain: Well, do you want money or not?

Me: Yes. But you are really annoying about telling me stuff. Can you be fun this time?

Guy: No I can't. I am two things. One, I'm a dick. And two, I'm a dick who is never wrong. Now take the first box.

Me: You meant to say you were three things, because you're also boring. Lately, all you do is tell me to pick the first box. That's lame.

Guy: Lame? You always win don't you? You wanna call that lame. I could quit showing up and showing you the money. Would you like that?

Me: No, sir. I'll take the box. Even if it's the boring first box.

Guy: Hey, if you don't want money, I'll take it.

Me: What do guys in my head spend money on?

Guy: Hit men.

Me: What?

Guy: Nothing. I gotta take. Enjoy your five bucks.

Me: Hey, you fuck, you didn't tell me it was gonna be the smallest prize again. How come you never tell me where the 25 dollar prizes are.

Guy: (As he was fading away into the air): Maybe because you never thank me for what I do give you, you priiiiiiiiiick!------------------------------------------------------------------

So when I got home to unload my groceries, I unpacked in the kitchen while my roommate was in the room cooking burgers. I hadn't opened the cereal in front of him. I wanted to make a big show of it. He doesn't believe in ghosts or blind intuition; much less invisible brain-jerks that tell you how to win. So I decided not to mention the guy in my brain. Instead, I gave myself all the credit before it happened. I said, "Kev, I've done the math. The odds of me picking a box with one card in it are obviously 1 in 10. But the odds of me doing it twice in two tries are only 1 in a HUNDRED. My man - I said, MY MAN, are you ready to witness one in a hundred?!"

Kev, said, "Man, you're selling this so well, I'm starting to believe it might happen. Open the box!


I said, "All right, but I'm already telling you ahead of time. I'm winning money again."

I opened the top of the cardboard, pulled the bag of cereal out of the box and threw it onto the floor. Then I turned the box completely upside and dumped a rectangle covered in foil on the floor and yelled, "Boom, Beee-yotch. And there is the money I promised you!"

I still had to open it up the foil to pull the ATM card out. As I opened it, Kev said, "You think you're gettin' 5, 10, or 25 bucks?"

I said, "Oh, don't get excited it's gonna just be five. I know."

And then I pulled out the card and showed him the five bucks I had one. He was impressed that I told him I was going to win and then actually won. I couldn't bring myself to tell him I cheated. Some invisible hologram-guy from my head told me.

I'm not bright enough to figure it out!

A guy who purposefully gave me a bad haircut in high school just hit me up on Facebook. Guess what? He's bald! You mess with mine, you end up losing yours.


At the time I thought he just wasn't as good as he thought about cutting hair. Years later, he confessed that he did it on purpose because he secretly hated me. I'm going to enjoy the irony/punishment for five minutes, then I will revert back to considering him forgiven. Hey, at least he owned up to it. He didn't have to. I would've never known it was on purpose if he didn't tell me.

I never care if people hate me. But am always perplexed as to why so many people volunteer me the information that they used to despise me. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard, "Man, when I first met you, I hated your guts. And I stayed that way for years!" Quit telling me that - you don't have to! I'm not bright enough to figure it out on my own.

I got pulled over last night. The cop was a young midwesterner girl with glasses. She was nice, but I knew I hadn't done anything wrong.

Then she told me I was being served a warrant for criminal charges.

What the fuck?

"Wrong guy," I told her.

"Right guy," she told me.

She was right. They wanted me.

I will tell the story today or tomorrow. I'm too hungover to tell the whole thing. So I'll give you the long story short:

In April, a bouncer thought he could fuck with a guy who knows the law and knows it all. (That's me.) In the end, I was right, but I still got my ass tossed onto a sidewalk into a random black guy's ankles. Then the cops covered it up. You haven't lived until you've tried to call the cops on the cops. Southern mafia is so obnoxious. At least Yankee Italians charm you and feed you before they fuck you over. Anyway, a guy who assaulted me in a case of "100% his fault, 0% my fault," filed 2nd degree trespass charges on me back then, and I got informed of it while driving home through a black neighborhood last night.

As the officer served me my charges last night, she twice said to me: "This looks like complete bullshit to me! You should get off. I'd fight this."

She's right. I was gonna let it go, because it would cost me money. Now the Sleeping Nice Boy here is no longer sleeping and no longer nice. They just screwed themselves by screwing with me. This will be fun. It's especially fun when you're right. At least three people are gonna have their own bullshit come out in the wash. Dumbasses, they should've left me alone.

P.S. If I ever get murdered. Officer Crawford did it. I don't know shit about him, except he's corrupt, for what I don't know. Why he's so serious about messing with me, I can't say. Douglass (with two "S's" -lame) is also involved, and Diesel nightclub management conspired.) When I tell you the story, you'll say, "Really? Over that?" Yeah, people hate me. They hate me for standing there. They hate me more when I smile. It's a phenomenon like you'd never believe. My friends can't believe it. They see it. They acknowledge it. But they still can't believe it. (At least once a week they explain me to others like this: "He's not crazy. People who don't even know him, see him once and they make it their life's mission to get him. It happens all the time. We can't take him anywhere. And he never does shit to provoke it." I can bring hate out of people in extreme ways for not doing a thing. I find it funny. But it's also a pain in the ass. And now that these fucks have fucked with me, I'm gonna be a pain in theirs.