I Seen The Whole Thang! (Stuff that happened once)

Joe Buck Yourself (By Myself) Part 1

2010-06-11T00:09:00.001-07:00

I like traveling alone, because I always get into adventures. I recently drove 4 hours from Wilmington to Salisbury to be in my main man American Matt's wedding. Lucky for me, I found out that one of my favorite musicians would be playing in a mountain town that night, just one hour away from the wedding.

Once the reception started winding down, I got in the Mustang and drove the hour west to a town called Morganton. I had only ever been to Morganton once, 25 years earlier, to eat steak. (You never forget steak trips no matter how young you were.)

When I pulled off the interstate and into Morganton, I saw the only thing Morganton is famous for: Broughton Mental Hospital. It was scarier than I had heard. It sits way up on a hill with highways circling around it. It looks scarier than The Shining. It's an old castle looking place with tons of window - windows that are all blacked out. It looked vacant, but I know there were thousands of people inside that were mentally anything but vacant. Hell, I knew that place was full of people with mental over-crowding.

I kept going and got to a gas station to get directions to the show that was listed as being at a place called "Night Owls." Some short country boy on a moped gave me directions that were hard to here because his voice was muffled, due to the fact that he never took his helmet off. I could tell he told me to take the "Bahh-Pace." (Bypass.)

So I took the bypass and parked across the street at some auto place. I walked into the bar, and for some reason they didn't ask for my ID or for me to pay to get in. This seemed weird, since everyone else had to pay and everyone else got ID'd and everyone else had to wear a Budweiser bracelet. And one other thing: everyone knew each other.

I was regretting rushing to the show, because the man I now realized the man I came to see perform would not be on until 2 metal bands went on first. So I bought a 23 ounce Bud Light for $2.50 and seemed to shock the bartender by tipping her $1.50. Apparently in Morganton the beers are cheap, and the customers are cheaper.

I decided to stand up against the wall in the back to not make myself get noticed. I did this, because I knew that everyone knew that I wasn't from there, and was naturally suspicious of a seemingly normal looking guy coming to Night Owls. This wasn't working.

If I moved to far to the left, I was intruding on a game at the one pool table. If I moved to far right, I was standing over this hot girl with big boobs in a low cut white shirt. Being low-profile was gonna be tough. As I danced left and right between the pool table and the boob-girl, I became perplexed by the clientele. It was mostly country boy metalheads with bad mustaches and black t-shirts of underground metal bands, and girls that were pretty and seemed to only mild Southern accents, if they had them at all. I decided there must be a college nearby.

With people whispering too loudly about me, (not rudely, just inquisitively,) I went outside and sat in the grass behind a car in the parking lot and chain-smoked, while cleaning out old voice mails and pictures on my cell phone. I decided I would pass the time until the man I came to see perform went on stage. Then I looked up and there that motherfucker was!

I know he's nobody to anybody else. But I am a huge fan of Joe Buck. (Not the baseball announcer, the Hellbilly Rock Star.) To see Joe Buck in person was the craziest thing. He does nothing to look scary. He just is. Marilyn Manson can put all the make up on and stupid contacts in that he wants and he doesn't look one-tenth as scary as Joe Buck does in jeans in a t-shirt.

That's what makes Joe Buck scary. He's being himself. He's about 6 foot 5. Lanky as shit. Pale and freckly. His eyes look demonic white. And he has a loose long red mohawk. The thing is, and this really didn't surprise me, I watched him being the most genuinely friendly redneck to all these Morganton rednecks. You see, he may be Hank Williams III's bass player who gets to live the high life, but when he travels solo, he actually seems most at home in weird towns like Morganton that are only known for mental institutions. He chain-smoked and chatted with the occasional fan that would speak to him in the parking lot. And I noticed he laughed and smiled at the shit they said. This didn't surprise me because most metal people are very nice when they're off the stage, since the get their demons and agression out when they're on it.

I decided not to talk to Joe Buck. I just don't want to meet heros. And this guy was the only one of my top ten favorite musicians that I had never seen live. I didn't want to ruin the show for myself.

As I watched drunks coming in and out of the tiny bar to smoke in the parking lot, I noticed Joe Buck mostly stayed outside and smoked. Then it clicked. I suddenly knew he was a junky. A cleaned up junky. He was not drinking, he was obviously sober, and he wasn't disappearing for drug-breaks like most musicians do before shows. I thought, "That's odd. Since all his songs are about drugs and the devil. This man isn't on drugs and he's anything but a devil."

Finally, the show was about to start. I went inside, and Joe Buck sat down at his drum (he plays one) and tuned up his guitar. Then he started kicking the hell out of his bass drum and started belting out "Evil Mother Fucker From Tennessee," and the crowd formed into a way I've never seen at a show. All 50 of us were only three rows deep, and we were circled around Joe Buck, while he sat below us in a chair playing his guitar, singing, screaming and stomping his bass drum. It was odd because we were, stomping our feet and heading banging and swinging our fists DOWN at him. This 6'5" guy had a circle of regular sized people rocking out over him. We were so up in this scary man's business that I could have strummed his guitar and kicked his drum and he didn't care. When he sang, sometimes his spit would fly at us. And the music is some of the fastest hard rock hillbilly devil music you'll ever here. And forget everything I said about him not being scary in the parking lot. He was now scary again.

He finished "Evil Motherfucker" which is a song that introduces who he is to those that don't know:

"MY NAME IS JOE BUCK.

AND I'M AN EVIL FUCK!!!!!!!"

Then he broke into "Devil is on His Way." This was was one of my favorites, so I started jumping around and acting as retarded as everyone else - by myself, in a mountain town I didn't know, full of mountain people I had never met. At least during Joe Buck's set, I knew we were all friends and they wouldn't mind me.

(I'll edit and finish this later. Red Eye is on.)

2010-06-11T00:08:00.000-07:00

Me and Her Part 2

2010-05-23T12:24:00.000-07:00

Me: Awww, shit yes! I am craving some Taco Bell! I'm gonna get me a Meximelt and a Volcano Taco.

Her: Really? Again? Do you ever learn?

Me: Learn what?

Her: Everytime you talk all this shit about how much you love the Volcano taco, as soon as we get to Taco Bell and get our food, you eat everything except half the Volcano taco. And you say, "That wasn't near as good as it looked. Why did I get that?"

(2 hours later. At a Taco Bell. Me sitting across from her with a tray full of empty wrappers and one wrapper with half a Volcano Taco on it.)

Her: How's that Volcano Taco.

Me: Great. I just don't, uh, feel like eating it all.

Her: Riiiiiiiiight.

Me, Her and a Puddle of Mudd

2010-05-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

Conversations that will make you glad I'm not your boyfriend.

Her: (Pointing to the radio, as a song comes on) Oh, gosh. Is that band with that dude, all he ever does is sing about blowjobs and stuff?

Me: Yeah, they're called Puddle of Mudd. They are an absolutely terrible band.

Her: I know! Who could ever like this shit?

Me: I like it.

Her: But you said they were an absolutely terrible band.

Me: They are. And I like them. Nobody should ever listen to this.

Her: But you do? Even though you feel you shouldn't?

Me: Yes. I love this song. It's so stupid.

Your Welcome. For your kids punching me in the nuts.

2010-05-07T00:03:00.000-07:00

I am a parent's biggest dream and biggest nightmare. That makes me sound like some sort of super-wealthy child molestor with an early 20th century English accent and a cane: "I'll pay you one meee-llion dollars for one night with your child!"

That, of course, is not what I'm talking about. Here's what I'm talking about:

I am the King of All Children.

I'm not just their king. I am their earthly deity. For some reason, kids between the ages of 0 and 10 think I am the greatest freaking guy of all time. They think I am so cool. It doesn't matter if I am actually interacting with them or ignoring the hell out of them, they will follow me around and beg me to play every silly game imaginable on earth. I have some sort of magnetic presence that makes kids so hyper that you'd think they snorted 5 or 6 lines of Pixy Styx and mistook the Robitussin for Kool-Aid again.

They give me new names. They make me play impromptu games that they are inventing as they go along. They hand me musical instruments that I don't know how to play, and beg me to create songs. They even insist that I pick them up and throw them into things that aren't safe to be thrown into.

I know you think, "Oh yeah, Kids make me play with them, too." And I'm sure they do. But not to the degree that they harrass me. I don't even have my own kids. But damn, when somebody throws a family party full of people my age and a bunch of kids, my girlfriend has to explain to any of the adults we've never met, "Look, Roth Wriscey is not going to be able to talk to any of you much tonight. It's not his fault. He's like the Elvis of children. He could try to run from them, but they'll only tackle him. If you get more than one minute to speak to him tonight, you'll be lucky. He can't tell them to go away. They won't. You can't even tell them to go away, AND THEIR YOUR KIDS!"

And they never really believe her until about half-way through any party. And that's great. Because for the first half of the party, those parents always give me these boring tired-out jokes like, "Hey, if you're gonna wind up my kids, you should have to take care of them tonight when they won't go to bed." Sure, they sort of laugh, but they're really irritated with me. I try to explain to them that I don't have a choice: That the little girls are going to make me spin in circles with them, learn hand-slap games and let them climb me like a jungle-gym. And that the boys are going to shoot me with imaginary machine guns, throw every damn toy on earth at me and punch me in the nuts. I don't stir them up on purpose. I could never even acknowledge the existence of these children and they'd still think I'm the coolest guy of all time and scream their lungs out in my honor. I know I can't stop them. I've tried! So I've learned to just accept my role on earth as a real-life SpongeBob SquarePants and enjoy it.

Get this, I am not allowed to go to my girlfriend's house between 6 p.m. and 8:30. Why? Because she lives at her best friend's house. And her best friend has a 7 year old girl and a 4 year old boy. They love me so much, I could talk them into killing you. (Yes, you, you reading this.) And those kids don't even know you. And they can't drive. But if I asked them to do it. They'd google your address and steal their mom's keys and stop at a gun shop along the way to finish you off. All because I said to. They also think my name is "Mr. Potato Head." And Mr. Potato Head here had to ban himself from visiting his girlfriend during those hours of the evening, because that's when those two disciples of Mr. Potato are supposed to eat dinner and go to sleep. And if I even set foot in that house and try to walk straight to my girlfriend's room - Yeah, that'll be the day! When I do that, those kids run up and latch on to each side of me and beg me to eat their food. Not because they don't like the food, but because they think it would be so cool if Mr. Potato Head honored them by eating something that once touched their plate! Yes, they think I'm that cool. And once I'm there, those kids won't eat or go to bed no matter how much their poor mother threatens the life out of them.

So just know this: If I'm ever at a party and get your kids so wound up they won't go to bed after you get home, just remember one little thing. You got to have fun at a party full of adults for the first time, without being constantly interrupted by the taps of your kids telling you that so-and-so called them a name. They didn't bother you at all. They were too busy punching me in the nuts. You're welcome

You, get off the stage. You, get on the stage.

2010-04-30T01:38:00.000-07:00

I did stand-up tonight for the first time ever while sober. I thought I'd be all like "Wow, I'm so much better sober!" Or maybe, "Wow, I'm better at this drunk!" No, it's entirely the same. And I'm entirely the same guy.

I didn't get into a habit of doing comedy drunk because I needed alcohol for courage. It just happens to be staged at a bar, and I lived down the street from that bar and could walk home. So getting drunk was just easy. Now that I live 25 minutes away from the club, getting drunk is not an option. But being funny was just as easy. I'm not saying I'm great. But I'm self-aware enough to know I can tell a dick joke and usually get the reaction I intended. That being said, let's get away from me and get to the others. Here's some crap I hate about the comedy club on each and every open-mic night.

First off, a lot of these guys who perform every week sit at the bar while the other comedians are performing, and they hold a pencil and stare at a paper and scribble over their own comedy notes. They had a freakin' week to prepare! If you feel the need to bring a Number 2 and yellow pad, then you shouldn't feel the need to get up on stage. You're not ready. And besides, it's just downright rude to be staring at a paper full of your own ideas, while ignoring a colleague who is making a fool of himself on a stage 20 feet away. In fact, I time my smoke breaks and piss breaks around guys who do this. If they can't watch some other guy, I can't watch them.

I also cannot stand these nerds who work their act out on me without my permission, while I'm sitting at the bar trying to drink and watch the guy on the real stage. I don't do that to my friends. Don't do it to me. I can understand running a joke by someone to see if it bounces; but to actually perform your act like you're on the stage to me, when you're not on the stage, and some other guy actually is, is fucked up. And I certainly wouldn't do it to other comics... especially while at the comedy club! That's like a musician singing a song to another musician in his dressing room, when the other guy didn't ask. Gay. Cut that shit out. Plus, my fake laughs are obviously fake. Don't make it awkward for both of us.

About half of these dorks base their whole routine around how they can't get girls. Let me tell you: if you can't get girls, then I can promise you one thing: you're not funny. It's a myth that funny guys don't get laid. Funny guys get laid all the damn time. In fact, some only ever get girls because their ugly ass is hilarious. Maybe they don't plow every girl on earth, but by at least some girls on earth. Give some ladies some credit: some of them are ready to wiggle, just so long as you make'em giggle. So if you really can't ever once land a woman, then get off the stage.

The other half of these dorks base their whole routine about how much pussy they get. That's even less funny than a guy who talks about how he perpetually strikes out. No one finds a guy funny who is up there talking about random girls. Don't get me wrong: dirty can be funny. I'm always dirty. But a guy who gets up there acting like a conquestor of coochies is boring. Not just to me, to everyone. The guys that do this are actually usually pretty good looking guys. They should realize that is why they get laid. Not because of their stagecraft. Get off the stage, you unfunny Adonis.

Some of these tards get up there every week and do the same five minute routine. Look, if you make a living at this, or are trying to perfect your act, I can understand that. But, if you're gonna do that, shop that shit around to different clubs. Don't do it to the same audience at the same club, every seven days. If you ignore my advice and still do, 1/3 of the people will step outside to smoke, another 1/3 will sit there and ignore you, and the other 1/3 will fakely polite-laugh. If you have lived your entire life and can only find five funny minutes of your existence to talk about, please get off the stage.

Now, by my bitching, you'd think I'm a rude asshole to other comics who struts around the place like I'm some big shit. Not at all. I'm actually one of the nicest people there. And I know I'm not big shit. I mean, it's jokes, man. Jokes. There's no need to be petty. I only ever compliment the other guys or keep my mouth shut if they blew chodes. But some of them, some of them, are catty little girls. If you do well, they will ignore the shit out of you or even try to make you feel unwelcome at the club. They do this to me all the time. I've even been shoved by other comics who acted like they didn't know they were doing it. How silly. I want all these dumbasses to do well. But many of them think that if one guy does well, that will dig into their own success. Not true. And if you think that, well, I won't ask you to get off the stage, since some of the petty little bitch boys are actually the funnier ones. But seriously, grow up and cut that junior high shit out.

The final person I hate is the guy who week-in and week-out tells me how good he'd do if he got up there. Fine, I believe you. (Not really.) Some non-performers show up every week and brag about how great they would be if they ever felt the need to share their fucking amazing observations. To these over-confidant armchair-comedians, I beg you: Please get on the stage.

Blowing Blows.

2010-04-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

New Post: The entire story is fictional. Totally fictional. So let's just go with that one, okay? Otherwise, I'm not writing the shit.

A certain dumbass went to the Down/Melvins show back in September. The show took place in Myrtle Beach 1.5 hours from the dumbass's home in Wilmington, North Carolina. Due to the fact that he lived in a tourist town, Dumbass forgot that this was a holiday weekend. Shit - every weekend is a holiday weekend in Wilmington. Dumbass also forgot that the authorities announced they'd be doing DWI checkpoints all over the area.

So the show was great. It was great because Down rules, the Melvins rules, and Dumbass drank about 2 vodka tonics and 7 Miller Lites in three hours. The amazing thing about this dumbass is that he can drink a lot and not become legally drunk. (Two or three police tests over a lifetime have proved his incredible alcohol processing abilities.) Unfortunately, this streak of incredible metabolism was going to come to an end... by a hair.

Dumbass and his co-hort, Girl Who Knows She's Always Safe When He's In Control Of Anything Including A Car, saw a checkpoint at the state line. They dodged it. Unfortunately, another tinier, po-dunkier town was running a separate checkpoint. Dumbass wisely tried to turn around and hide at the Food Lion, but a more pussified citizen got behind him and wouldn't agree to turn around as well. This forced dumbass to go through the checkpoint.

Dumbass was the last person to get arrested. And arrested he was! And the chivalrous cops packed up and left the girl sitting alone in a dark parking lot in the woods by herself! Real men. Who wouldn't leave a skinny young blond girl in a skirt and tank top all alone locked out of a car and refuse her a ride to a safe place?

Dumbass doesn't regret driving. Dumbass regrets getting caught. The world was not spared an unsafe person that night. He even told law enforcement he could do backflips during their stupid test that he was ace-ing, despite the fact that he had never done a back flip in his life. Despite his bravado, Dumbass was charged with being .01 over the limit. (An amount that used to be legal to drive under.)

Fast forward 7 months later.

At court date 3, Dumbass's Attorney said to him, "You know that female officer that wrecked her car hot-dogging at 100 mph when she was trying to race her fellow officers who were on duty about two months ago?"

Dumbass said he was familiar with the woman.

The well-connected Southern Attorney said, "Since she administered your blood test, and now she's out with serious injuries and probably has lost her police career, I'm going to ask for a dismissal."

Dumbass said, "A woman never tested me. A big fat guy did."

The Attorney said, "Yes, she did."

Dumbass privately asked his passenger (who came to court) if she remembered the woman giving him a test. She said, "The only woman there that night was me. A big fat guy tested you."

Then dumbass realized that his attorney had a scheme that he needed to not sabatoge. Dumbass also noticed that the other officer in the case had suddenly disappeared from court... for the day. He said he "had a meeting he forgot about." And then the judge made jokes about the female officer's driving skills and dismissed the case while everyone in the court laughed (except the lone female officer who barked out defenses of the woman.)

Then dumbass realized that his expensive attorney's fees were being spread around. Thank God that some officer who couldn't drive and wasn't there to testify was the convenient excuse for everyone in the court system to distribute dumbass's money to each other and let him go free.

Acquitted and enlightened. Dumbass will never again bitch about dirty attorneys - they'll keep you clean.

2010-04-02T16:37:00.001-07:00

article 2.

2010-03-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

Trust no one today, no one. If you are reading our weekly edition of the Topsail Advertiser on the first day it comes out (Thursday,) then you are likely to avoid tragedy. If you are reading this after Thursday, then we are so sorry for what may have happened to you. Before I tell you why you need to trust no one today, let me tell you what happened to some other people who ignored the warning of the day.

The things that can happen you today can range from the mildly inconvenient situation to the most embarassing debacle. Every year on a day like today, a local woman named Mindy asks her husband, Baxter, to fix her a glass of water. But when Baxter turns on the faucet to fill up the cup, the nozzle doesn't pour water into the cup, it instead sprays water all over Baxter's shirt and face. Inexplicably, a piece of plastic-wrap taped over part of the spiggot had caused the drenching. But no one is sure why. All that is known is that things like this happen on this particular day.

Water-faucets accidents are just tip of the iceberg when it comes to bad things that can happen to you today. One time, my friend Yvonne ran into the bedroom of her older sister, who was sleeping, and yelled, "The house is on fire!" Since her sister wasn't wearing clothes she wrapped herself only in a towel and ran out wearing next to nothing. But the house turned out not to be on fire! And the neighbors were actually in a good mood, since they were laughing at the poor girl that was now standing in the front yard nearly naked. Why would Yvonne say the house was on fire when it wasn't? Nobody knows. All that is known is that things like this always seems to happen on days like today.

When I tell you to trust no one today, I don't just mean people you encounter in person. I mean people that call you on the phone, people that you hear on the radio, or even people that write articles in publications. On a day like today, individuals aren't the only ones that can fall victim to the strange phenomenon that is today, sometimes large portions of the public can have an unfortunate incident. You may remember an article written in Sports Illustrated in 1985 (on a day much like today) about a baseball player named Sidd Finch. The article claimed that the previously unheard-of New York Mets pitcher could throw a baseball almost 170 miles an hour. This excited several of the most skeptical people on Earth: New Yorkers. Still, the day would win again, when for some reason, it was revealed that not only could Sidd Finch not throw a baseball that fast - Sidd Finch wasn't even a real person. No one knows why such things happen on a day like today; but if you'd like to hear more about why you need to trust no one today, come out the annual Topsail Island April Fool's Day Parade and I'll explain it to you. The parade starts at 4 p.m. at the Surf City Community Center. See you then.

newspaper article incomplete

2010-03-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

My word perfect is broken so I'm just writing on this program and saving it from time to time so I don't lose it. It's a terrible article I'm throwing together at the last minute for my newspaper, so please disregard it.

This Sunday, thousands of people in Topsail, and millions around the world, will be celebrating Easter. The holiday will be begin with sunrise services for some, and visits from the Easter bunny for others. Some families will be remembering Jesus dying on the cross and his subsequent resurrection, while others will be dying Easter eggs and hiding them in the backyard. For many, the day will consist of a little bit of both. The following is a fun quiz with a variety of trivia questions spanning the topic of Easter.

1. Most people may remember that Linus, the Peanuts character, had a strong belief in "The Great Pumpkin," in an animated holiday special, but do you remember the person he spoke of during a Peanuts Easter special. Was it:

a) The Easter Beagle
b) The Little Redheaded Bunny
c) The Great Sleeping Peep
d) Mr. Hanky The Easter Present

2. It was an passover tradition for Pontius Pilate to free one prisoner during passover. Instead of freeing Jesus, who did he choose to set free?

a) Barnabas
b) Barabbas
c) Hanna Barbara
d) Barney Frank

3. The White House Easter Egg Roll is held each year on which day?

a) Ash Wednesday
b) Good Friday
c) Easter Monday
d) Two-fer Tuesday

4. Not all denominational organizations officially celebrate the Easter holiday. One if the following groups does not. Which one is it?

a) Presbyterians
b) Southern Baptists
c) Methodists
d) The Religious Society of Friends (also known as Quakers)

5. The Cadbury Bunny is a bunny that has been used in commercials advertising Cadbury Creme Eggs for decades. Which animal does the bunny make sounds like?

a) A chicken
b) A bunny (Duh, he's a bunny!)
c) A rooster
d) A tortoise

6. Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus by turning him over to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver. How did he spend it?

a) He had a temple constructed in honor of himself.
b) He threw it away.
c) He bought a donkey.
d) He donated it to an orphanage.

7. Sugar, Corn Syrup, Gelatin and Carnauba are the main ingredients in what.

a) Chocolate Bunnies
b) Vanilla Bunnies
c) Peeps
d) Something I never want to eat.

8. Who rolled back the large stone covering Jesus' tomb?

a) Peter and Paul
b) Mary Magdelene
c) Atlas
d) An Angel

We here at the Topsail Advertiser wish everyone on Topsail Island a fun and fulfilling Easter. Please check our Church Announcements section on page ? for information on local Easter-related events. Happy Easter!

The answers are as follows: 1-a, 2-b, 3-c, 4-d, 5-a, 6-b, 7-c, 8-d.

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

2009-12-05T02:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-22T01:43:00.001-08:00

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.

2009-11-17T19:35:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-31T17:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-29T16:43:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-10-05T22:57:00.001-07:00

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

2009-10-02T03:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-09-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-09-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-16T01:31:00.001-07:00

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

2009-09-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-07T00:12:00.001-07:00

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?

2009-08-30T03:22:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-26T18:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-25T21:37:00.001-07:00

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

2009-08-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T22:47:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T22:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-08-05T21:53:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-08-05T21:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T23:28:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-28T23:13:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-28T22:17:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-07-24T22:24:00.001-07:00

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.

2009-07-11T14:26:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-07-08T23:24:00.000-07:00

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!)

2009-07-06T16:03:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-06-28T23:36:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-06-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-06-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

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.

producing a show.

2009-06-27T08:40:00.001-07:00

I'm producing a show right now called the Retirement Environment. I doubt I'll chime in, but you can hear it live until noon eastern today on thebigtalkerfm.com. (Click the listen now button.) After I post this, I'm going to write a nonsense post as I do this show. Hopefully, it will be fun. Until then....

Your biggest hater.

2009-06-21T23:51:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered who in the world hates you the most? I mean, think about it - six people might hate you, or maybe six MILLION people might hate you. Regardless of the actual number of people that dream of stabbing you with a knife just after they have farted on it - one of them hates you just a special bit more than the others. I guess that person gets the boring, but accurate, title known as: "Person In The World That Wants You Dead The Most!"

If you know who hates you the most, I am jealous. I have no idea who my person is. I haven't been through a bitter divorce or thrown someone's baby into a volcano, so I don't really know who is my Most Supreme Hater!I do know this: lots of people hate me. And I also know this: I don't give a shit. If I gave a complete shit about what people thought, I'd say what I thought everyone wanted me to say. Let me prove my point:

I would accept an opportunity to get dizzy-busy with extremely elderly (and Canadien) talk show host Sue Johanssen just for the knowledge I might pick up from getting raunchy with that wrinkly old sex expert.

That wasn't what you wanted to hear me say, was it? But I said it because it was true, not because I want you to approve of me. So there. Now can we get away from the argument that I care about my hater because I want him or her to love me? I don't. I'm just fascinated and amused that there is possibly someone out there that gives enough of a shit about me to actively hate me. When I start to hate people, I usually just delete them from my mind and move on. But some people can't do that. And as I established just a moment ago, it's a near certainty that we all have a Supreme Hater. But what bothers me is that I don't know the identity of mine. I want to know who it is so I can laugh at them. I want to know who it is so I can annoy them even worse. I want to know who it is so I can possibly call them and agree with them about why they should hate me. But most of all, I just want to see her house. (C'mon, let's be real. We all know it is likely a "her." Girls love to hate me. It's just because I'm fun. They love me because I'm fun. And then they end up hating me because I'm fun. That's another story -that I'll never write.)

But back to the point I just stumbled on. Wouldn't you really love to see the home of someone who hates you more than anyone on earth? It might be incredibly awesome. I would love to walk in the home of my hater and see my picture on a dartboard. No, I'd rather see a picture of myself giving a smile while flashing some metal to the camera - only to find that my hater has taken a Sharpie and drawn a swastika on my forehead, Satanic pentgrams on my cheeks, and a swirly 1930's aviator mustache on my face that is supposded to be mean, but actually looks kind of cute. If I saw that, I'd beg her for a copy.Ooh, what if my hater is a real psycho and every day she bakes a cake with my face drawn on it in icing. But instead of eating it, she cools it on a window and then slits my cake-throat with a knife and screams "I hate you I hate you I hate you, Cory Withers! I hate you die!"That would be awesome.Or wouldn't it be just too much fun to sneak into your haters home and see a voodoo doll of yourself! But not just a regular voodoo doll of you - A LIFE SIZE VOODOO DOLL of you! (Complete with your real hair shavings that she bought from your barber. That would be killer.)

I'm just saying. I think it would be fun to know your biggest non-fan - the person who thinks you can do no right. I do know who once was my biggest hater, but it doesn't count because I only found out after she quit hating me. And she quit hating me because she realized that dating my dumbass may have actually been the reason she ended up with her also-dumbass husband that she thinks is so cool. I think she reluctantly thinks "thank you" in my direction every once in a while. And she did tell me that even though she kind of still hates me some, that I still am kind of fun. And she wasn't even eccentric or entertaining enough to try to slip diarrhetics into my coffee or to try to place an IED in my driveway, so she doesn't count as my Supreme Hater. I don't know though.

Mabye I'm wrong about the whole thing. Maybe I should hear from those of you who abslolutely do know who your biggest hater is. Maybe you know who your hater is because you did something really bad; like banging your dad's wife... which is your mom! Or maybe you put slugs in a blender, then poured them into a baster and then squirted their liquid-slug-remains up your roommate's rectum while he was sleeping. If you did someting on that level, I'm sure you know the identity of the person that hates you most on this planet. What's that like?Is it as fun as I think it is? Or am I better not knowing?P.S. If you are this person, please reveal yourself to me. I want to know what drives you. And I want to laugh at you. And dammit, I want a replica of that voodoo doll!

I wasn't a wanker, it was the anchors!

2009-06-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

I love writing on this sight because it's the one place none of my Wilmington friends know about. I do re-post some of these writings elsewhere. But not all of them. Not this one. Here goes, enjoy.

Pokey Pants got pissed at me the other night. I didn't know it 'til we got home. She bitched me out. And I didn't even do anything! (Maybe using the phrase: "Look! I can't help it if I'm so damn charming!" wasn't a good response, but other than that, she was way out of line.)

I'm not mad at her, though. She doesn't bitch at me very often. Hell, we never bug each other. And even during her "end of the night I hate you right now" tirade, she even beat me to saying what I was going to tell her. She said, "I don't bitch at you very often, but dammit, I'm pissed!"

She said that at the exact moment I was about to say, "You don't bitch at me very often, so I'm just gonna let you run with it. Get it all out."

You gotta love a girl who even says your lines for you in a fight. Because no man ever really wants to talk during a fight anyway. So I just let her rapid fire me with words while I layed on the bed with my feet on the floor and looked at the ceiling. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't looking at the ceiling to convey that I was ignoring her, she knew I was just tired but still listening. So what happened?

We went to a bar. I'm an extrovert. Pokey Pants is not. I recognized some TV news people and started talking shop to them. I tried to include Pokey in conversation the whole times. I tied every topic to her and her hospital job. (Example: If me and the news crew talked about a fire, I would ask Pokey to explain how you treat burn victims when at the hospital.) The problem with Pokester is that when you lead her to telling a group story in a circle at a bar, she inevitably speaks in a quiet voice and turns to just me. I KNOW THE FUCKING STORY! TELL EVERYONE ELSE. I'M INCLUDING YOU, BABY! I SHOULD BE THE ONE BITCHING - WE JUST LOST THE WHOLE CIRCLE BECAUSE YOU CUT THEM OUT OF YOUR STORY!

Still, I didn't complain. That's not me.

So what was Pokey pissed about? I'll tell you the real answer, but you'll think I'm being an arrogant dick. I'm not. It would be more disrespectful if I tried to bullshit you and faked some humility. So here's what she was pissed about:

I couldn't help it if I was so damn charming.

That's it.

It's true. I'm sorry. I was on. I mean, on. I wasn't flirting. I was just amazing. Every word came out of my mouth right. Every punchline was incredible. Every response was so quick you'd think it was scripted. I was the funniest guy on Earth. And that's what pissed Pokey off.

She was pissed because our new news friends consisted of a dude reporter (who was cool) and a super hot weeknight news anchor and an also super-hot weekend news anchor. And they loved me.

Is it my fault that the weekend girl was constantly touching my arm and saying, "You are the funniest guy ever! Seriously!"

Is it my fault that the weekday girl was saying, "You are an absolute character... I mean it!"

And is it my fault that the weekend girl wasn't just touching my arm - she was also always walking over from five feet away to touch my arm while I was standing with Pokey when she would say it? I mean, what was I supposed to do say, "Please don't touch my arm." That would've been weird. And besides, I was with Pokey, she should've known I was only going home with her... unless of course she wanted to give out "join us" invitations. (That'll be the day!)

Look, did I like the attention? Fuck yeah. Did I do anything out of line? Certainly not. Should Pokey have been at least a little flattered that young hot TV girls were messing with her man? I would think so. (That means I'm worth something, right? Which by associative property means she's even better than those chicks since I'm with her and not them? That's how I see it.)

But the way I saw everything about that part of the night was entirely not how Pokey saw it. So I let her bitch, and bitch and bitch. And when she apologized, albeit half-ass, I dismissed it and told her she shouldn't. (Although, I was secretly glad she gave one she didn't mean.)

I love my Pokey. And I know you do, too. And I know you hate me. I know that any girl reading this right now hates me. You know I'm right. You know on paper, by law and by every technicality I am not in the wrong at all. But for some reason there is an unknown, unexplained and physically undetectable part of the woman's psyche that doesn't give a shit about proof and fact, it only knows "feel." And it feels like saying "You're a dick, Roth Wriscey. Fuck you. Pokey is right. You don't deserve her. If I ever meet those anchor bitches, I'm gonna smack them. No, nevermind. While they deserve a smack, I'm gonna transfer my empathetic anger for you and all men and smack you, Roth Wriscey. This is for Pokey. This is for me. And this is for all girls everywhere who get mistreated by men - which is all of them: "SMACK!"

Yeah, go ahead. Get it all out. You don't smack me very often. So just smack away. But at least just let me lay down while you do it, so I can lay down and look at the ceiling.

Intuition is a buzz kill.

2009-06-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

Intuition is just some guy. He appears to your side without invitation like a hologram you can't see and he tells you what is up and how it's going to be. My guy is a dick. He's usually right, but he's a dick about it. He just shows up and tells me how he's right and how if I argue with him, I'll just end up later admitting he was right. He doesn't know everything, but he tells me all he can. It happened last week in the Wal-Mart cereal aisle when I came upon a box of Fruity Cheerios. The fucker just appeared all invisible-like and started telepathically telling me what was in the box.

Me: Wow, it says "One in ten boxes wins money in the form of a bank card!"

Intuition: It's in the exact box you are reading.

Me: Dammit, you scared me. Can you ever say hello when you show up?

Intuition: I don't have time for that, I'm trying to help you.

Me: And just how are you going to help me?

Inty: I'm telling you which box has a winner. It's in the first one you saw.

Me: That's boring. Wouldn't it be more fun if I looked at all these boxes and picked one out besides just grabbing the first one I saw?

Inty: Sure, it would be more fun now. But it will suck when you get home and open, because you probably won't win. It's in the first box.

Me: It says the cards can be worth 5, 10 and $25. How much is in that box you're telling me to pick?

Inty: Five bucks.

Me: That sucks. I'll be winning the smallest prize.

Inty: Yes, but at least you'll be winning something.

Me: There're like 50 boxes here. And one in 10 are winners. Where are the rest of the winners?

Inty: I don't know. I never claimed to know everything. All I do know is that the first box you looked at is a winner and it will net you five bucks.

Me: But I have to buy the three dollar box of cereal. That means I'll only net two buck.

Inty: Gosh, asshole. Do you want to win or not? And won't it be fun to have a really cool ATM card with the Trix Rabbit on it?

Me: That is pretty cool. But where is the suspense now that I know I will win, and I know how much I'll win?

Inty: The suspense will be between now and when you get home and open the cereal. You will be wondering if I am misleading you.

Me: No I won't. You're almost never wrong, Intuition. You're even more reliable than my friends "Gut" and "Hunch."

Inty: I know. I was just trying to be humble. Now get that damn cereal, I have to piss.

Me: But your not a physical being.

Inty: Don't inquire on what you can't understand. Just grab the box.---------------------------

So I got home with my groceries, put all of them up but the cereal, opened the box, pulled out a ATM card, noticed that it was worth five dollars and had a picture of the Trix Rabbit on it, shrugged my shoulders indifferently, and said, "Wow, big freakin' surprise. My friend helped me cheat." And I went to bed.

Intuition, you sure can make fun things boring.

I hate Jimmy Fallon more than I hate the person I hate the most (which is Jimmy Fallon.)

2009-06-18T10:00:00.001-07:00

There's a lot of serious crap going on these days. Terrorism, Marxism, Ignorancism. You name the 'ism' and it's been shooting it's jizm. But I'll tell you the global threat that has been bothering me the most: Jimmy Fallon is still on television.Don't get me started on how much that guy sucks and how much I hate him. Oops, too late. Here goes.Originally, I felt like the world's smartest guy, because a year ago I proudly stated that whoever picked Jimmy Fallon to host Late Night on NBC had to be the world's biggest moron. While this statement has been scientifically proven (by scientists, no less!) to be true, I then remembered that I was already the world's smartest guy, even before I proclaimed that Jimmy Fallon would be the worst talk show host in the history of talk show hosting.The thing that puzzles me is that this dork is still on the air after three months. He must have a picture of the CEO of NBC putting DDT into the IV's of babies in the ICU. All acronymic fun aside, I'm pretty sure this Jimmy Fallon has some Denzel (black male) on someone in charge of whether his show lives or dies. Otherwise, it would have been cancelled before it began. Unless, UNLESS, today's college kids are so stupid that they actually watch this turd-tard and think he's funny. Are the youth of today really that dumb? I mean, I know that most girls this age talk like they're girls on The Hills and most guys this age talk like they're girls on The Hills, but even people this dumb can't think that Jimmy Fallon is funny, can they? No way. Anyone that dumb would have already choked on a glowstick by now. And I should know, because I just typed the word glowstick. (What?) I don't know, either. Let's get back on our subject: how Jimmy Fallon blows toad choads on gravel roads until he fills his nodes with their loads. (If you disagree with that last non-non-sequiter then you sir, have never seen his show. It's that bad.)Late Night With Jimmy Fallon is the worst show I've ever watched on purpose. It is Must-shaudenfruede-TV! I watch him to watch suck. And he sucks as bad as my spelling of "shaudenfruede." He's so bad. He makes me feel like the Randy Quaid character in Major League who sits in the crowd and boos the Indians the whole movie, since I only tune in to watch him fail. But at least that Quaid character, deep-down, wanted the Indians to do well - he had just had his heart broken for too many seasons to open himself up to belief. This is not how I feel about Jimmy Fallon. I want him to fail. When he sucks, he deserves it, because he's too up his own ass to even realize how much he sucks. On the occasional moment that he is actually funny (about once a week for one line), he makes me even madder, because it reminds me of that "even a broken clock is right twice a day" theory. Then I look at my actual broken clock and get more pissed because that one is only right zero times a day. (It's a digital clock, people!) And there' s no way that Jimmy Fallon is funnier than my broken alarm clock. That would be down right "ALARMING!" (Puns. The worst form of humor... except for any form of humor that comes from Jimmy Fallon.) One more thing about my broken alarm clock. The only way it could ever be right would be if there was suddenly no time at all, which would hopefully mean there would at least be no more Jimmy Fallon Show. Sure there would be no you and there would be no me, and there'd be no we. But at least there would be one thing that we (you and me) would not have - and we'd not have it together! And that thing is the Jimmy Fallon Show. He's so not funny. I'll give you a quick list of run-on reasons why he is the worst talk show host of all time. His jokes aren't funny. When the joke bombs (and it always does), he's not skilled enough to make a joke about how the joke was a terrible joke. (That's comedy 101. Hell, that's comedy One-Oh-Dumb.) He says the word "awesome" way too much. (And I used to love that word. Me being actually awesome and all I had to use it all the time. Now I've had to synonomize and describe myself with words like "superior" just to distance myself from JiffyPop Fallon. (Why did I call him Jiffy Pop? Because I want to wrap his show in foil, place it on my stove and make it explode. Then I want to put in a bowl and serve it to my friends, but just the ones that like Jimmy Fallon. Just kidding - I have already defriended - in real life- everyone who likes Jimmy Fartknob.) His skits suck. He thinks his already crappy skits would be enhanced by putting audience members in the mix. When your skits suck with professional actors in them, what makes you think putting non-actors in them will make it better? Retardation, that's what. Jimmy Fallon is, himself the worst actor ever - and he, according to SAG, is a professional actor! I am so sick of the way he thinks it's funny to break character and giggle at himself. It's only funny if you absolutely can't help it. Not only can he help it, he thinks we're too stupid to know that. We're not that dumb. You know why? Because we're not Jimmy Fallon. I can't believe how proud he is that he can't act. He's an actor. That's shameful. I can't act, either. So you know what I don't do? I don't act. It's the same reason that John Goodman doesn't model speedos and Evander Holyfield doesn't practice law: because they'd suck at it. And this is the same reason Jimmy Fallon shouldn't be on television. I can't believe I'm about to say this - get ready: JIMMY FALLON IS EVEN WORSE THAN CARSON DALY.There, I said it. This concludes Why I Hate Late Night With Jimmy Fallon: Part 1. (Yes, it's only Part One. Now stop picturing Dan Connor in man-floss, you perverts.)

Ran Dumb

2009-06-10T11:02:00.000-07:00

I usually write with at least the mildest structure and mildest plan. Today I don't. I'm going to write what I want and let it spill out. I have no idea what's coming, either.

I wonder what Stephen King is doing right now. Probably something boring - like writing. Did you know he only takes off his birthday and July 4th. Every other day he is required to write six pages.

When I'm on a plane I look around for what girl I want to share a raft with if we crash. Then I remember that we are flying over land and I get all pissed off. Then we land and I'm even more pissed off. I pee a lot on airplane flights. That's because I drink a lot on airplane flights.

I think Marth MacCallum, from Foxnews, would be the perfect lady to replace that other lady who has been the spokeswoman in all commercials for all products involving women in the last fifteen years. I know you know which lady I'm talking about. She is about 45, tall and thin, and has long wavy blond hair. And she is always standing on the back of a sterile white stage with the product sitting to the side on top of a white mantle. When she speaks, she slowly starts walking towards towards the camera, usually in white pants. She hocks everything from yogurt to tampons. Unfortunately, she's getting old enough that she will soon be shilling metamucil and boniva. She seems like a respectable lady, but time gets us all, and it's time to pass the torch to someone like Martha. I'd buy a brand name folic acid pill if she recommended it. (Oh, if you still don't know who that long-time hot soccer mom spokeslady is for the last fifteen years, she's the one now doing commercials promoting the oil industry. She's pretty, but I don't wanna fuck'er. And I don't not wanna fuck'er, either. I just like her. But it's time.)

I'm confident that I can comprehend the word "myriad" when someone else uses it. But I'd be nervous to use it myself. I'll just stick with "a whole buncha."

Shooting at the holocaust museum today. If it turns out that people die in there today as a result of anti-semitism. Couldn't they just leave their bodies where they fell as a fitting, and also convenient, tribute? I can say that. Not cuz I'm a Jew. But because I love Jews. Except for their food. Sorry, John, I don't care if your a master chef - gefilte fish is still gefilte fish. I'd rather eat my own ass... while dooky was coming out of it.

My family has a Jewish Sadr every year. (Don't get on me about the Jewish spelling. Remember: Not an actual Jew. Seriously, my family is a mix of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Methodists. And we're all Southern. Every damn one of us. Except one. So why do we have a sadr? Because my my cousin Lewis has a "domestic partner" for the last thirty years who is from Manhattan and is very Jewish. He gets lonely for some Hebrewness down here. So every year, he cooks the Sadr and we are all Jews for a day and celebrate like hell. I hope Jesus isn't mad. Wait, he's a Jew. I bet if he was walking around today, unclever little college girls would all deem themselves clever everytime they called him "Jewsus." I hate hybrid words.

Know what I do like. Girls that flirt. Girls don't flirt like they did in the 40's. I wasn't around then, but I've seen the movies. I guess the language was more colorful, because the background wasn't. Everything was black and white: except for the sex. I'm sure Sammy Davis got honkified backstage, but I bet he had to keep a low profile about it.

I'm glad I'm not married. But I'm glad I've got a girl around that's always cock-blocking my fun, too. Because, these last few years, I was getting really good at being really bad. It wasn't so much that I was good. It was that other men had gotten really dumb, and were making me look really good by comparison. They had lowered the bar so far, that all I had to do was show up in public and not piss on a jukebox or speak in some trendy fem-guy voice about how sensitive I was and I'd be golden. I'd hate to be a girl. Even the best guys suck. I know. I'm one of them. I suck ass. But I'm way better than so many other guys. Those dudes simulataneously, and accidentally, make girls cry and leave themselves celibate. Dumbasses.

I wish I was a baseball player. I'd play first base for the Braves. I loved First. I love baseball. I would have been one hell of a second basebman or shortstop since I like to dive around and get dirty, but God made me a lefty. Lefties can't be catcher or play infield, except First. Maybe First prepped me for radio. When you're chatting with a baserunner that you're holding on first, you have a short time to get your point across to a guy who is about to runaway. And while you're chatting him up, you both understand that you're really out for yourselves: he wants to score and you want him out. On radio, when you talk, they want change the dial, and you want to go work for a different station. That was a stupid analogy. I could talk about baseball for hours. It's like pussy, without all the distracting pussy.

Yeah, I said "pussy." I think the word looks more vulgar in type than it sounds when you say it. I kind of sound like a redneck when I say it: "Puuuuuh-see." Why is that? I refuse to say "titties." That is a super redneck word. Every hick I know cannot say "strip club." They have to say "titty bar." I don't like strip clubs. All the men around me look really pissed at the strippers. Why? They are naked. Love them. Girls that go to dick bars don't do that. They scream and yell and giggle at wieners and try to figure out which guys on stage are real life wiener-wanters.

Patty Duke played twins on that show. Now she's bi-polar. Is that ironic? Or was it conditioning? I don't really give a shit. Is Mackenzie Astin gay? Why do girls like him? And Scott Bakula? And Giovanni Ribise? My sister watches dream for an insomniac every week. I bet it's gay. Does Jennifer Aniston only play "Jennifer Aniston" in movies? She's never put on a big fake nose or portrayed a crack-whore in Victorian times. Good, I wouldn't watch that, either.

My Friend The Ass Grabber

2009-06-09T23:15:00.001-07:00

I was walking with a new friend from one bar to the other last month. As we were managing our way through the crowded street, he said, "Dude, I almost had a random ass grab go down!"

I said, "Really? Some girl tried to grab your ass and missed? Usually when some strange girl wants to get my ass, nothing stops her from getting her way."

Dude looked at me all confused and said, "No, I meant that I was almost able to grab some random girl's ass that was walking by, but I couldn't quite reach her. Really? Girls you don't even know grab your ass?"

Ok, by this point, we were both confused by each other. Dude couldn't fathom that random girls I have never ever met have been squeezing my bum without asking for about 15 years. And while (for reasons unknown to me or my ass) that's very true, the more imporant question was: "How in the fuck did I get to be friends with a guy who grabs girls' asses on the street?"

I'm sorry, but there is an acceptable double standard here. You know why? I'll give you the core answer as to why it's okay for a girl to butt-squeeze some unknown guy; but it's not okay for guys to approach girls the same way. Here's why:

All men on earth want to be touched everywhere on their bodies by all girls at all times any where on earth at any time of day.

And women know this. So if they feel like being so nice and putting a grab on a gluteal, everyone's gonna be happy.

But girls for some reason have this thing called "morality." They also have something called "self-respect." And most of all, they have something called "I just don't get off by having men I don't know squeezing my ass without my blessing." Prudes.

But seriously, not grabbing strange girls asses is a policy I have always abided by. Not because I'm great, but because of a thing called "THAT'S HOW YOUR SUPPOSED TO FUCKING ACT!"

Do I want to grab every girl's ass I see? Just about. But do I? No. And that's why I couldn't believe that I was hanging out with a guy who is one of these people. I'm used to always having to oppose the strange douche bag grabbing one of the ladies I'm with as we walk on the street. Suddenly, I was accidentally on a team with this guy!

Rather than take the time to explain to Dude how many nice girls there are out there that will not only LET you grab their asses, but will also let you hang on to their asses and do all sorts of other dirty stuff to them (provided you buy them shit, give them compliments, do stunts for them and listen to what they say at least 9% of the time) - I instead just tried to politely ask him for sure. I calmly said, "Dude, are you really one of those guys that grabs girls asses on the street?"

Suddenly realizing that he had sorely misjudged my take on grabbing stranger ladies, he tried to water it down by saying this: "I mean, I was only gonna grab her in a way where she wouldn't think it was on purpose. She'd think I was just trying to, you know, slide by in the crowd."

That's even worse! If you are gonna be an ass-grabber, you should at least remove the greasy-residue-doubt that is left on and in a girl when she is left saying to herself: "Wait, did that guy, or did that guy not, mean to grab my butt? Now I'm even more disgusted, because I'm not even sure if I should feel icky or not! Why didn't that asshole at least look me in the eye like a weirdo and say "Yeah, Baby! You like that!" Now I'm just left to wonder. It couldn't have been an accident. Could it? No? I don't know. DAMMIT!"

(At least that's how I'm guessing how girls would react to an unclear maybe/maybe not cop-a-feeler guy. I could be wrong. I've gotta be wrong one day.)

So rather than just end the friendship, I made our new relationship clear. I said, "Look, I've got your back when we're out together. That's how it has to be. If someone fucks with you, they have to deal with me, too. Except for one thing: If some dude or some girl punches you for a random ass grab that you pull on her... then you had that coming. I cannot defend you over that. With that one, you're on your own."

He said that was cool. So I guess we're cool? Maybe? Maybe not? I'm not sure how I feel about it. I feel kind of icky over being friends with an ass-grabber guy.

My Married Cartoon Show

2009-06-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know how to create animation? I want to create a cartoon. Before I sell you on the premise. Let me tell you how I got the inspiration.

I was sitting on the beach with a bunch of friends two weeks ago. A third were married, a third were dating and a third were thrilled with life. It's the married third that caught my interest. While all these people are nice and behaved and generally fun people, I noticed one characteristic that only the married possess.

The desire to murder.

Every once in a while I'd catch one of the wives looking at her husband (and occasionally one of the husbands looking at his wife) with this stare that said, "I want you dead. I'd volunteer to do it. I know how I'd do it. And I'd enjoy doing it. You really have to die, spouse."

The best part was that they would usually be giving this look while their current-lover/future-victim was blissfully unaware. I saw Marina giving this stare to Ken, and Ken's dumbass had no idea that she was giving it. He was just chatting away with Ray about this awesome move he did on his jet ski one time. And, of course, because Ken wasn't even aware of his wife's death stare, I could see that this only made her want to kill him more. This gave me an idea for a cartoon. Here's the pitch:

I want to do a cartoon about a married couple. A married couple that is always trying to kill each other. The beautiful part will be that the husband will constantly be trying to kill the wife, and the wife will constantly be trying to kill the husband! But because both of their dumbasses are so entrenched in their own murder plots, neither idiot knows that the other one is trying to kill them right back.

This cartoon will be much like Tom & Jerry, but with a twist. Both characters will think of themselves as a covert Tom, but neither one will know that he/she is also a sitting-duck Jerry. The hunter knows not of his own hunting. Ya dig?

And here's the beautiful part: they will both always fail. Often their murder plots will precisely cancel each other out. And their mutual punishment for being bad at murder will be this: they're still married to each other for another day! This will be like some really sick Lockhorns shit brought to animated life.

I have an idea for one episode where the husband is about to drop a running blow dryer in the bathtub that his nagging wife is sitting in. And when he drops it in - every thing goes black and silent, which would lead you to believe that he finally electrocuted her and the power shorted out as a result. But then, just when you think it's over, you hear a voice from the bathtub say, "YOU NO GOOD BUM! YOU FORGOT TO PAY THE POWER BILL AGAIN, DIDN'T YOU! I ASK YOU TO DO ONE SIMPLE THING AND YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" (And of course, she's nagging so hard, she doesn't even notice the blow dryer he dropped in the tub. Nice try, trying to poke holes in my plot.)

We also had ideas for a classic drink poisoning scene. And maybe one where the wife keeps pretending she's trying to kill bugs with a frying pan, but she's really trying to knock the asshole out. And the husband using that as an opportunity to "spray" the bugs - but he's really trying to spray poison in his wife's face, but she keeps accidentally blocking the spray with the pan.

So because I am exactly who I am, when this stroke of lightning hit me, I immediately asked my married friends if they fantasized about killing each other. Ken matter-of-factly said, "Oh, Melinda wants to kill me all the time. I know the look. I sleep at my own peril. It's cool." Melinda agreed.

But the best part of my cartoon idea was that my married friends had tons of ideas for the show! And they swore to me, if done right, they would make that shit some must-see appointment TV. So if anyone knows how to make cartoons, or has an idea they want to share about how they are comically planning to kill their spouse, let's do this dumb thing.

My First Beer Stand

2009-05-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

I was pretty sure I had thought of (and usually done) almost every silly thing on Earth... until Saturday night. I'm as suprised as you will be that it took me until almost age 32 to take part in this caper:An an impromptu and illegal roadside beerstand!Let's back this thang up, and explain how it started, then we'll get to how it ended. Me and Pokey Pants and my roommate "Juan Valdez" were staying in drinking beer and watching metal videos on VH1 Classic at about 1:30 a.m. when our bright idea started to form.Pokes said, "It's about time for all the drunk people to start stumbling back from the bars and right by the house."Usually, we are those people, but when we're not them, we love to watch them. People are always fucking, fighting and fraternizing on the sidewalk in front of my house here in the historic neighborhood after the bars boot them out at two. It's always great fun, you never see the same dumb shit twice.Right after Pokey said this, we all kind of looked over at Juan's marker board that was sitting out in the living room for no apparent reason. Apparently, one bolt of mind-lightning hit all three of us at once and we were all laughing about how it would be fun and funny to set up a beerstand on my porch and sell the drunk people booze as they walked home. Then we stopped laughing. Uh-oh. Our dumbasses were suddenly serious. This was not good. But this was, in fact, very awesome.Juan, was the first to act by writing "BEERS: $3" on the marker board. At my suggestion, he made the "R" backwards. Pokey, who is a nurse and almost thirty and a girl and should know better, was suddenly decorating the sign up with pictures of beer bottles and little squiggly lines that somehow convey "buying roadside beer is fun!" I love her for not knowing better. Nothing is more annoying than girls that try to stop me from my antics. None have ever succeeded, none ever will. This one often out-me's me. Next thing we all know, the three of us were out in my yard scoping out the street. We knew the cops would be driving up and down the street, so we did a hilarious mafia style speed set-up. Whenever drunk groups of people would get within 30 feet of my raised front lawn steps, we would rush out, drop a table down put the sign in front, set up a box of Miller Lights and Coors Lights, put on our baseball caps all goofy like Dennis the Menace and then we'd start hocking our product like 1920's newspaper boys: "Bee-yahs! Get'chey Bee-yahs! Fresh and cold! Only Three Doll-ahs! Only beers in town at this hour!"The first few groups of people were too drunk or too horny with each other to buy a beer or even laugh at us. Then this pair of brown-haired girls came walking by and we thought we had a sale, then the big one almost fell down from an irregular bump on the old-ass sidewalk, and she said, "That's why we don't need to be buying anymore beer!" Touche.Then, two guys in a truck waved at us from the other side of 5th avenue, did a u-turn, parked in front of my house, turned their lights off, and got out. It was a white South African and a Southern guy. Africa said, "We were looking for drugs, but couldn't find'em, and we figured a fucking 2 a.m. beerstand had to be even more fun than drugs. How often do you see this shit! Put us down for two Miller Lites."While these guys turned out to be very cool, we suddenly realized how a roadside beerstand can quickly become just like a regular bar. First, these guys had to piss. My yard is too public to be pissing in (even if maybe some guy, I don't know who, may have accidentally done it on the front porch in the daylight once last year. I didn't say who, and I never said it happened,) so suddenly me and Juan felt obligated to let these two strangers in our house to wiz. At least these guys were, cool, But what if they weren't?Then we got a third customer. It was some cute, but very talkative, Irish girl. She was barefoot and in her pajamas and talking about how she was wandering the streets because minutes earlier, she had walked in on her live-in boyfriend shagging down with a girl that was not her. Just like real bartenders, we had to pretend we cared while she rambled on. This was getting too real.Then a fourth customer came up. He was a bartender from some high class bar I've heard of but never been to. He was the other roommate of Ireland Chick. Now we had four drunks, nice, but still drunks, on our front steps buying beers from us and making a mess. Shit, we forgot that if you have a bar, you gotta clean up a mess left by your drinkers. Me and Juan were now bartenders, bathroom attendandants, and janitors. This was becoming a job... and we had only been doing it for 25 minutes. And Pokey wasn't getting off easy, either. I said, "You're the sex-appeal in this operation. When the men order beers, you should serve them, that'll make'em keep drinking more. You're legs are prettier than mine or Juan's." She laughed and obliged.After 2 or 3 rounds, our drunks started getting louder. I said, "Guys, we gotta keep it down just a little. I have one neighbor, Mr. Wilson, who hates me and all people on Earth. He is always out to get me for having a good time."They laughed and said, "You guys are dressed up like Dennsi the Menace and you really have a Mr. Wilson that's out to ruin you? That's crazy!" I said, "That irony has never been lost on us. He even looks like he could play Mr.Wilson. He's always trying to stamp out my fun." So now we were, as bartenders, having to monitor noise-levels and the occupancy level of my yard. This was a job for sure. And then we realized that if Ireland's cheating boyfriend was to show up, we'd have to hire a bouncer as well. Between all of these things and having to flip our sign around every time the cops drove by, we decided our improvistionial beerstand had been a success. So we closed up the bar, sent our new friends/customers on their way, and watched two of the guys leave in a vehicle with beers we had sold, and decided we had just escaped trouble once and should never do this again. Then again, we're dumb, so we probably will.

(P.S. I finally got my PC fixed, but I can't use it until Juan returns from PA, so I can use his spyware copy. Then I can bother you guys back more.)

2009-05-14T12:26:00.000-07:00

I saw this happy fat chick walking by me pushing a cart full of food with her mom, and I noticed something bizarre. She was really happy! Even though she was really, really fat! (More on that a little later.)
This girl was one of those weird looking fat chicks that was super-fat, but still had a shape to her. You know how most obese people turn into some sort of shape that is a mix between a gumball and a meatball and maybe a little bit doo doo ball? Well this fat chick wasn't like that. She still had defined body parts like hips and legs and shoulders and things. It was weird. Don't get me wrong. She wasn't hot. In fact, she was very not hot, I'm just saying, at 300 pounds you could still tell her belly from her boobs. It was so freaking perplexing!
So back to her being happy. This chick had a glow. She was just beaming. It wasn't a regular-happy, it was a super-happy; a specific super-happy. Then I realized what it was:
"Oh my gosh, somebody is boning her. And not only is someone boning her, that person also loves her... a lot."
You'd think that would be a good thing. You think wrong. My advanced super-simean brain realized this was actually a TERRIBLE thing. I know you're gonna going to be all simple-minded and try to cock-block my reasoning before I explain to you why this fat girl being loved is a bad thing. You'll say, "Oh, come on, Withers. Can you just not be so damn, you know, "Withersy" for once and let things just be as they are? Can you just admit for once that something really is just the way it is on the surface? Why can't you just see things the way the rest of us do and simply admit that a fat girl being loved is a good thing?"
I'll tell you why I can't do that. Because it's not true! Now, if you'll shut up and quit preaching at me for a second I will explain why I'm right and you're wrong. And ultimately, why I am an overall better person than you, as well.
OK, think about it. This fat happy girl at Wal-Mart who is receiving wieners and love - she's feeling good about herself, right? And what do all people do when they are feeling good about themselves? They keep fucking living the way they are living. You're not gonna change it up when you've got a good thing.
So if that's the case (and it is) then what's going to happen to our extremely-loved and over-sexed superblob? She's gonna keep doing what she's doing. That's right, she's gonna keep eating. And we all know that when you keep on eating, you keep on fatting! And the fatter you get the more you risk catching terrible diseases. When you go fat, you increase your risk of diabetes, heart disease, ugliness, cancer, overall smelliness, and thyroid problems.
Do you really want our happy fat girl to lose a foot? Do you! Yes, I know that technically counts as losing weight, but it's still not right. And think about this, if this overly happy fat chick keeps being treated like an actual human being by her boyfriend, there's a chance she could wind up married and pregnant with his baby. I know that sounds good, but remember, the baby's Mom is a fat chick - so if the baby crawls out the front door it's over! Her fat mom will never be able to catch her and she'll end up being raised by river rats. Do you want rat babies roaming your yard at night? And let's say the baby doesn't escape, her mom's still a fat, fat, fatty and will likely die an early death due to a heart attack due to the strain caused on her heart by a strenous session of sitting. Now the baby is motherless and left alone with her dad. And lord knows that guy can't raise her! I mean, a dude that likes superfat chicks obviously can't be trusted to make decisions in serious matters like child care. And besides, he's the reason we're in this predicament in this first place.
If he had just acted like a normal guy and ignored the hell out of the entire existence of this fat girl, one of two things would have happened A: She would remain fat and die early and alone with a big tub of molasses, but no lonely offspring. Or B: She would do like a normal girl and hate herself for a while and then get her ass to the gym (or barf her way there) until she was in good enough physical condition that she was now deserving of the love of a man. And as an added bonus, her babies would never become river rats.
So inconclusion: it is immoral to love fat people. We should shun them for their own good. If not for them, at least do it for their children. River rats, people, river rats. I know everything. You heartless people that love the fat disgust me. How do you sleep at night?

Unnnecccessarrry and stupid

2009-05-13T19:17:00.001-07:00

I was leaving my day job as a newspaper reporter in Surf City to go to my other day job as a radio guy in Wilmington. On this particular day, I was to be the fill-in news/traffic/ and weather boy on a couple of radio stations. So the irony of me almost dying in a car wreck on my way to broadcast the location of deadly car wrecks was just one of the funny things about to happen to me in a matter of seconds.

I was on highway 17 behind two girls that were doing what every idiot driver in this lovely part of North Carolina likes to do: they directly beside each other!

That's so fucking unnecessary! And stupid.

Looking beyond them, I saw a big truck broken down in the emergency lane about 1500 feet ahead. Like a normal person, I moved over to the left lane to give the guy some room, in case he needed it.

Like every other idiot driver in this lovely part of the state, Miss Right Lane didn't even see the guy. She was becoming so unnecessary. And she was already stupid.

So as I was in the left lane, behind the two side-by-side girls approaching the part of the highway with the broken down truck on the side, I was pretty sure what was going to happen.

As we got about 75 feet from the truck in the emergency lane, Miss Right Lane predictably freaked out like that truck had just appeared and slowly swerved over (of course without looking) into the left lane that was occupied by Miss Left Lane.

It was so unnecessary for her to move over at that point because the truck wasn't crossing the line into her lane. It just would have been polite for her to have done it earlier. And it was so very stupid of her to have swerved into the left lane, since she had been riding directly beside the other stupid girl for two fucking miles! But she did it anyway.

Somehow, Miss Left Lane and Miss Right Lane (who were both in the left lane) had managed to be within inches of each other, but hand't actually made contact yet. What was even better?

They were both unaware of it. I was aware of it before it happened, and they had no clue during the actually happening of the damn thing. Neither one knew of the other.

I knew at least some minor dumb shit was gonna happen so I started putting mild pressure on the brake. However, I saw it unnecessary to believe some major shit was really about to go down. Looking back, that was stupid of me to believe any Eastern North Carolina drivers would have any lick of sense. Great! Thanks to them, I was now also in on being unnecessary and stupid!

It was funny at first to watch these girls look left and right into each other's cars catch the realization of each other's existence at the exact same moment. What wasn't funny was when these two dumb girls both slammed there brakes on that I estimate took there cars down from 70 miles an hour to a nearly instant 30 miles per hour! Stupid and Unneccessary! Stupid and Unnecessary! All they had to do was swerve apart and go two different speeds. There was no need to squeal to a near stop on an open highway as a team! You know why? Because the person that got fucked was me!

Because I assumed they weren't extreme morons, I had to check the median, and then take my chances since I now had no chance of not plowing into at least Miss Left Lane and maybe Miss Right Lane, too.

So the next thing I know, I am taking my Ford Mustang through an unkept flower field that quickly turned into an unkept field of weeds. At first it was fun. I remember thinking, "Damn, these flowers smell great. I love spring!" (Seriously.)

Then I looked over to realize how ridiculous it was that I was in a field and still passing a girl on a paved highway. And I looked in her window and was really mad that she never even saw me passing her five feet to her left in a field. She had no idea! How dumb can you be? The answer: that dumb! Thanks to her I just took a sports car 250 feet through a field!

Then it started to get tough. I was going through loose dirt with tight steering. I'd say 7 out of 10 drivers would've lost control. (I really think it's 9 of 10, but I'll be nice.) I hung on and fought the cars desire to freak out on me and came to a stop just left of the left lane.

I was amazed that I didn't hit any random median items like a drink cooler or auto parts or shit like that you usually see in places like that. I was not amazed at my great driving -that is forever. I can't fix'em. But damn, I can run'em!

As I was waiting to get on the back on the road (Miss Left and Right Lanes had re-passed me.) I saw that the Bronco behind me was going to let me back on the highway. I thought man, "They just got a hell of a show!

Just as I was pressing the gas to leave the median, I looked over and saw something I had never seen laying in a median. Something I would have run over if I had proceeded ten feet further through the field.

It was a dead bear!

A dead adult bear.

Every part of him was squished except his skull. I had no idea bears lift in this part of the state! Beach bears? Seriously? Wow.

Once I got back up to speed and got in the right lane, the Bronco passed by me and a 12 year Mexican fat kid gave smiled and gave me an "Arsenio Dogg Pound" to compliment my skill. I wanted to smile back and acknowledge him, but instead I figured I should do the adult thing and glare at him a look that says, "Boy, I just returned from hell," so he would take auto safety seriously when he grows up.

30 miles later, I got to the radio station and told a sales guy what happened and all about the bear and he said, "Really? Terri reported that bear accident yesterday. The city was supposed to dispose of it properly. Those bastards threw it in the median where they thought no one would see it. Sons of bitches."

The sons of bitches didn't think the only person to find their improperly disposed of bear would be the other radio guy who reports dead bears. Weird.

P.S. I have not the energy or the concern to learn to spell unnecessary properly. Who cares, it's stupid.

My Fart

2009-05-09T18:31:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't normally write about a fart. But this was no normal fart. It may have been the most violent fart of all time. And it happened to me yesterday.

I was walking out of the Pizza Place and to my car to deliver a pizza. As I got close to my car, I stopped to rip a fart in the parking lot. And rip I did.

It seemed like a normal fart at first. Then this awful burning sensation went up and around both of my butt cheeks. It left me frozen and burning all at once. I couldn't move, but my butt cheeks were burning. The most intense burning lasted about 8 to 10 seconds. Then it tapered off and stayed at a merely painful level for the rest of the night. Yes, my butt burned for the rest of the night - not my butthole. My butt hole was fine, it was my buttcheeks that burned. I'll admit it, I even stuck my hand down my pants to see if I had sharted them - I hadn't. This was all from a fart.

When I got home, I put Preparation H all over my inner-butt cheeks. They burned in a line on each side from my butt hole to near the top of my butt crack. I've never had a hemerroid, I just keep the H around, because it's our Wriscey Family Wonder Drug. I use it for days when my butt cheeks have rubbed each other raw from walking all day. Mom uses it for cracks in her feet. And I can't remember why my sister uses it, but it's not for hemorroids.

Anyway, I went out drinking with Pokey Pants and told her how that one singular fart had torn my butt cheeks up. She asked to see it. I told her no. I said, "I'm not bending over to show you the inner-workings of my ass and how it was affected by a fart!" She said, "But I'm a nurse, I need to see it......Fine! I'm just gonna look at it when you go to sleep."

God help me, I tried to outlast her, but apparently I fell asleep first. And I was drunk and h___.

The next morning Pokey Pants said, "I don't believe your ass!"

I said, "I don't believe you saw my ass. You're lying, right? You didn't look at my butthole and all when I was sleeping did you? I'd have felt it."

She laughed and said, "You don't believe me? Then stick your hand in your butt crack."

I stuck my hand in my butt crack and my eyes got big.

Pokey laughed harder and said, "You think you pooped your pants don't you."

I nodded my head yes. I was stunned.

Why did I shit myself? How did Pokey know about it?

Pokey kept laughing and said, "You didn't shit yourself. That's lotion. But that's proof that I got all up in your ass! I told you I would! After I looked at your poor butt, I felt the need to lotion it up. Your welcome."

Then Pokey gave me her diagnosis.

She said, "I seriously don't believe what I saw. That was all done from a fart? Those two long raised pink lines got there from a stinker? Wow!"

When I swore it was all from a fart, Pokey said, "You know I see shit that looks like that all the time. Just not on asses. I have no doubt then what happened to you. I know what it is. But you're not gonna believe it when I tell you...................."

".....................You're fart burned you!"

I can believe that. I lived through that fart! I couldn't forget that fart if I wanted to. That fart will haunt me forever. That thing burned, man. I mean, for real. I don't mean it burned like a match. I mean, that shit burned by a campfire. And I've got the scars to prove it. Something is way wrong with my ass.

2009-05-02T13:03:00.000-07:00

So I went to the Relay for Life Cancer Walk last night as an assignment for my newspaper. I already wrote a story previewing it earlier this week. My only assignment was to take photos. In fact, my editor told me I didn't even have to go. But something compelled me. My pizza job boss let me have the night off to go take pictures. Don't ask me why I felt I had to go, I would've made more money delivering pizza. But I went. I went determined, for what I didn't know.

The walk was at the Topsail High School Track about 30 miles from my house. There were probably 800 people there. I forgot my press pass. Which wasn't a big problem. No one stopped me from being there. The reason I hated leaving my pass was that it looks weird for a grown man without a press pass to be taking photos of kids he doesn't know. And you think being a woman is hard! Ha! You can photograph and play with all the kids you want and nobody glares at you.

As I took pics of the Cancer Walk. I noticed a tent for a team of walkers named "Walking For Julie." There were dozens of other teams with names and tents, but something told me to get a story from them. I ignored whatever was telling me that. Besides, I wasn't supposed to get a story, I was just supposed to take pictures. I continued walking around the track and taking pictures.

Then I passed the "Walking For Julie" tent again. And something told me to get their story. I ignored whatever was telling me that again and I continued walking around the track taking pictures.

I passed the tent a third time and all the same shit happened. Voice spoke. I ignored. Then ended up back there again.

After the fourth time in front of "Walking for Julie's" tent. I said in my head to the voice: "Fine. I'll get the damn story. I didn't even bring a notepad. I'll have to record the interview into my phone!"

I went up to one girl and an older lady that looked like they were the head of the group. I said, "Hi, I'm a newspaper reporter. Can I ask you about your team?" They said "sure."

I first asked them if they had purchased one of the luminaria bags that had just been lit up along the track in honor of cancer victims and survivors. The girl said, "Yes. We have one for Julie."

Me: Is Julie here?

Girl: Julie was supposed to be here.

Me: What happened?

Girl: She died Monday. She had lung cancer. She was 34. She was from Burgaw.

Me: My Pokey Pants lost her mother Monday to Breast Cancer. She was 54. She was also from Burgaw.

Girl: This is Julie's daughter. She's three.

Me: Can I photograph you guys with the luminaria bag lit up with Julie's name on it?

Girl: Sure, we'll have little Alyssa hold it.-----------------------------------------------------

I took three pictures of them for the paper. Two were great. Then I interviewed Julie's sister.

She was young, blond, and hurt. She spoke into my phone for about two minutes during the interview, then her voice cracked and I could hear too much sad in her. I'm a reporter. But I'm still a person. I cut it short and her eyes thanked me. She had already given me enough. Then as I walked by the little girl who was obviously too young know just how dead her mother was, I walked in the direction of Julie's husband, Bubba. I know that name sounds made up. It's not. Bubba was a big country boy. And his eyes were defeated. I politely asked him a question I knew the answer to. I said, "Do you want to add anything about your wife to the story."

He said, "What's there to say. It's not a matter of if it gets you. It's when it gets you. I think she already said all there is to say."

I don't know what Bubba meant, but I think I knew exactly what he meant to mean.

I was going to stick around and take pictures of the 9 o'clock ceromony, but I already had enough.

I went home and waited for Pokey Pants to come over. When she walked in, I felt compelled to show her my photos and play her my interview from my assignment at the Cancer Walk.

This was weird because Pokey shows almost zero interest in my radio or newspaper careers. She reads nothing I write, and she hears me only by accident on the radio. So I never share my work with her, because it hurts to see her not really care. It's almost the only thing annoys me about her. Anyway, last night I felt compelled to share with her my work.

She saw the photo of the two women and the little girl on Team Julie. Pokey said, "That little girl, Iknow her. Is her dad a big country boy?"

Me: "Yes."

"I know them. Her mom was my mom's next door neighbor at the hospital. She went in the same day as Mom. She was a young girl. She had lung cancer. How's she doing?"

Me: "She died. On Monday."

Pokey Pants: "Mom died on Monday. They went in the same day and died the same day?"

Me: "And there both from little old Burgaw."

I still don't know what to make of this. Why was I compelled to approach Team Julie? Why was I compelled to tell Pokey about it? What am I supposed to do with this?

A few hours ago, I produced a morning show for a preacher in this town. During commercial, I told him what I just told you. I said, "I don't know what to make of it? I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it."

He said, "I don't know, either. Maybe, you're not supposed to know, yet. But you're off to a good start. You are willing to recognize it, whatever it was. It wasn't a coincidence. You know you were supposed to talk to them. Just take it from there, and don't try to force what you're supposed to do with it. If you're supposed to know, you'll know."

He's right. And I don't know.

If I don't, then you can't

2009-05-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

As you know, Pokey Pants lost her mother to breast cancer on Monday. The funeral was Thursday. I wrote a bit about it in the last blog. BTW, before I start this story, I want to give a quick story on last night.

Last night, me and Pokey were walking back from the bar and I told her, "Y'know, it's funny. When someone loses a parent they often say two conflicting things. They'll say, "I'll tell you one thing: I know that woman is definitely in heaven. And I'll tell you another thing: there is definitely no God." Hilarious.

I then turned serious and said, "Pokester, have you started hating God? Or maybe have you quit believing in him?"

She said, "Nope..."

And what she said next might make you cry. That's not my intention. And I may be wrong. But don't say I didn't warn you. It makes me tear and smile at once.

She said: "...I wanted to do a little of both. I wanted to hate him. And I wanted to not believe in him. But Mom told me from her deathbed that if she didn't feel that way, then I wasn't allowed to feel that way, either."

Typing that was almost too much. It was tougher than hearing it the first time.

I'll tell the story I was getting to later.

Thanks, yall.

2009-05-02T12:14:00.000-07:00

Thanks yall for the nice wishes to my Pokey Pants. I still have a borrowed computer that won't let me comment on other pages. It's picky about where I can navigate. I hope to fix it next week. I got a bizarre story that's been tapping at me coming up. It happened yesterday. Stuff like it happens all the time to me, but I almost never get used to it. I'm bout to get started on it, while I simultaneously produce a live radio program at some forum.

Naturally

2009-04-29T14:48:00.001-07:00

I've never lost a parent, much less anyone to cancer. But Pokey Pants lost her Mom at 2 a.m. on Tuesday. A 3 year battle turned into a four step process over the last 2 weeks. Here's what the doctor's said.

10 days ago: "We'll let you know tomorrow if you can give chemo one last shot."
9 days ago: "Sorry. Tell your mom she has a month or two."
5 days ago: "Let's make that a week or two."
3 days ago: "Any minute."
2 days ago: ____________________

If it sounds like I'm bitching about the doctors, I'm not. Pokey says they were great, and she's a medical worker. I'm just showing how I watched a daughter who had 3 years to plan for her mom's death, still have it her her like a sudden load of bricks. But it was nice to hear her admit the truth in a confident way she usually doesn't express; because two days before it happened, as we sat there while her young mom was struggling to sleep with an oxygen machine, albeit with a cute buzzcut, she said, "At least when she leaves, I'm not gonna live with regrets. I took damn good care of her! A lot of other people will have to live with how they neglected her - but not me! I loved her like I was supposed to."

Thank God, I didn't have to explain that truth to her. Everything she said was exactly right.

For the last two days, every TV show, whether a drama, comedy, reality show, documentary or news program we have tried to escape into has been about cancer. I told her: "You know it's gonna be this way." She understood that if her Mom was attacked by an alligator with mittens on - every show she saw for the next month would be about exactly that, it's just the way it goes.

And of course, I couldn't be with her last night. Why? Because I had to write a newspaper article. A newspaper article about The Pender County Relay For Life Cancer Walk. Naturally.

My Life As Jack Tripper

2009-04-24T09:50:00.000-07:00

I've had 7 girls live in this house over the last 3 years. If they are indicative of all girls (and they aren't), here's what I've learned about the smell-goods (girls).

Buy in Bulk?: Never! Why do that when you can buy all your food in very tiny individually packed and outrageously priced containers. Just because you're a hippie environmentalist, that doesn't mean you shouldn't purchase six tiny plastic yogurts instead of one big one!

Pregnancy tests?: Always leave them in the top of the garbage can in the common bathroom! That way the boy here can wonder a few things! Things like: "Is she pregnant or not?" "Did she luck out?" "Did she have an abortion?" "Is she about to tell me and the other girl here that she's having a baby?" "Oooh, which guy did it?" "Does he know?" "Did I have sex with her and forget that I did? Man, I hope not." "Why did she leave this where we'd surely see it?"

Charity?: Always sign up to be on the mailing list of every local co-op. It's empowering! (Whatever that means.) But under no circumstances are you supposed to ever give them money! Or even open up the mail from them! But don't ever throw it away! Keep it on the dining room table; that way you can kid yourself into thinking you will donate soon! It's empowering! And it's the thought that counts! Even if your thoughts are fucking crazy!

Having a bad day?: Then walk in front of the boy in a towel! Act like there is an urgent reason to get something from the living room immediately after your shower! And pretend you have no idea how much you're affecting him and his weiner! Sure the boy will try not to look - but he's a boy! He has to look. And you'll feel better! You still got it, Miss Thang!

Feel free to laugh and the boy and ridicule him about all the delightful sluts he sneaks in and out of the house. But if he so much as acknowledges the existence of that drummer you snuck in the other night, then give him that glare that says, "Hey, asshole. We're pretending that didn't happen. There is a double-standard - deal with it! A guy like you whoring around is hilarious. A girl like me slutting around is not a conversation topic. Did your parents not teach you this when you were a kid?"

Showers: The girls always say, "We'll be sweet and let the boy go first, since ours take so long. But seriously, dude, we are judging you. I mean, how clean can you really get in two minutes, you little stinker!"

Leftovers!: Bring them home everytime you go out to eat! But under no circumstances are you supposed to eat them. Especially salads. Salads are only brought home to take up precious fridge space and to die a painfully slow and bitterly cold wilting death. At least it will die side-by-side with it's best friend: A rotten plastic container of bleu cheese dressing.

Parents visiting?: Bongs get hidden in the boy's room. Vibrators get hidden in the other girl's room.

Cigarettes?: Look shocked and offended that the boy would ever offer you a cigarette if your mom is in the room. YOU HAVE NEVER SMOKED ONE CAMEL IN YOUR LIFE!

Do you eat fondu? Do you drink a lot of wine?: No and no. But don't let that stop you from buying 80 wine glasses and 40 dollar fondu set! It's fun just to know you can.

Cleaning the house? When you're gonna do it, do it all! Clean everything, even things that are already clean. Hell, you should even clean your bottles of cleaner! But don't ever clean because the house needs cleaning - that would be sane! You need to clean because of some other mood-altering aspect of your life that has nothing to with cleaning! After you've spent hours cleaning a house that maybe four of five people will ever see, you should remind yourself to never clean your car or maintain your lawn - since those are the things that the entire world gets to see. That would be crazy!

News: What's that? Don't watch the local news, it's boring! Don't watch the national news, it's also boring! Newspapers? C'mon! You're a grad student, you're smart enough, what could you possibly learn from a daily? But don't let your lack of news absorption ever stop you from expressing a silly opinion on political subject you know nothing about! It just "feels right" to feel the way you do about domestic issues, so let everyone know it, no matter how illogical your views are - you're a grad student, dammit! So you're right! Is there a new Gossip Girl on tonight?

This is only part one. I hope it was clear that I absolutely have loved living with girls. I just notice that they are amusingly absurd. I'm not pretending to know why. I don't even want to know why. I just want them to know that I notice. And I bet that in weirdass "girl world" that's more than enough. Freaks.

Broken Back Finale (I'll fix the spelling later)

2009-04-23T17:25:00.000-07:00

I guess I'll finish up this broken back story I started two or three months ago. I have been reluctant to finish it because I'm not sure how to end it. I'm not sure where it really does end. I guess I'll cover the litigation part of the thing.

It took five years and month to resolve the financial issues with with Ginger's insurance company. Apparently, someone can visibly break your spine and dent your head and an insurance company will look at you and say, "You're faking."

They know you're not faking, but they go on record saying you are.

I remember my Mom told me at 16 to go about my business as usual after the accident, but to not be shocked if people were following me around that were hired by the insurance company to film me. She said I'd probably never see them, since that was what what they did for a living. I never saw them once. But I sure spent five years looking for these invisible people.

We had one day of forced mediation with the insurance companies before taking it to a new level of dispute.

Apparently, these lawyers had never met a guy like me. I sat in one room and they say in another. They wrote a financial offer on a piece of paper and handed it to an official who brought it to me, my parents, and my lawyer. I wrote them an offer back. It basically said, "I would like X sort of a deal. Either, this or let's call it a day and meet in court."

They thought that was a negotiating ploy on my part. They sent me another piece of paper with a better offer than their first, but it still wasn't up to my demands. I sent them back the same offer I had made earlier. And I wrote again, "I really mean, this amount or let's go home and wait for court."

The raised their offer... but not enough.

I sent them my original offer again.

This went on for 8 fucking hours!

I never budged and they never caved. I told them! (And they were trying to say I wasn't a man of my word? Wasn't that proof enough? I kept my promise that my demand wouldn't change.)

Finally, we had a court date. It took place on my 21st birthday in 1998. I really hated Ginger now. She ruined my 16th birthday by nearly killing me, and she indirectly ruined my coveted 21st birthday by having my day in court set for then. It forced me to stay sober the night before and drive 4 hours from my home in Wilmington to Charlotte early in the morning.

I saw my lawyer for the first time in a couple of years in the parking lot. I said, "Hey, Jim. My mom says the insurance company has P.I'.s stalk me all the time. What do you think?"

He said, "I used to work for them. I have no doubt they do. If we don't see video of you in court, they didn't get anything good to misrepresent your injury. But never for a second think they don't know everything about you. They do."

They did. The trial was hilarious. I had no idea that real-life trials could be as over-the-top as Matlock. This one was.

These people summoned every piece of school work I had ever done. The showed me my elementary school report cards! They asked me about friends I had forgotten existed! They tried to trick me into lies. For example, here's how me and Opie interacted in court. ("Opie" was the name I secretly had for one of the THREE or FOUR opposing attorney who was questioning me.

Opie: Would you describe your tenth grade year as a wild and crazy year?

Roth Wriscey: Looking back five years? No. I'd say it was a normal year for a kid that age.

Opie: So you're on record saying your tenth grade year WASN'T a wild and crazy year. Do you recognize this school assignment I'm handing you.

RW: No? I don't remember this.

Opie: Does that look like your handwriting?

RW: Oh, I definitely wrote it, I just don't remember it.

Opie: Please read the top line out loud.

RW: "Assignment: Describe each year of high school in one sentence."

Opie: Now read the line describing tenth grade.

RW: "Tenth-grade-was-a-wild-and-crazy-year."

Opie: So do you want to change your statement on your tenth grade year being a wild and crazy year?

RW: No. I thought that when I did this assignment at the end of twelfth grade. But I don't think that now.

Opie: So first it was a wild and crazy year? Then it WASN'T a wild and crazy year? And now it's both? Which is it? Nevermind. Let's address any drug use you may have participated in that year and see how this might relate to any possible "head injury."-------------------------------

I went through this shit like this for several hours. My family went through this shit for several hours, as well. And Ginger's family sat there and let it all happen.

They had hired an attorney to be there and sort of work with their insurance company. Why? Because they were trying to cozy up to the insurance company and gang up on me, so the insurance company wouldn't turn around and sue them for any money they had to pay me. And that's the part I could never - I actually I've already forgiven them - they've just never asked for it. The reasong I find the way they sat back and let me be treated was because what I saw when I looked down the table at my parents and saw how different they were from Ginger's.

My parents were two hard working people who didn't have shit for possession. But if I had broken Ginger's back, and our insurance company was treating Ginger like a fraud when it was obvious she wasn't. My parents wouldn't have allowed it. No matter how certainly it would make them lose the few things they had, no matter how certainly it would have made them broke for life, my parent would have never for once second let an insurance company treat Ginger or anyone the way that company had treated me. They wouldn't have tolerated it that day. And they wouldn't have tolerated it those five year. They would've caused a scene fighting for that girl to be treated right. I know this. I don't have to have seen it actually happen to know this. That's just the kind of people they were.

And yes, I sort of got screwed in the end when the judge's decision was made. I don't like to talk numbers. But let's just say I'm still renting at 31, so I'm no millionairre. But the little bit of money I did get did help me out in some ways. I never had to borrow any significant amount of money from my parents again. I got to pay for my own college. I got to buy my own car. And I got to stick with a couple of careers that I was passionate about a little longer than if I didn't have that money. It's mostly gone now, but it did allow me to pursue some things I couldn't have without it.

But that money didn't take away that I've hurt every day for 16 years. It didn't take away that there are some things I just can't do. It didn't take away that I never even got to consider military service. It didn't take away that I will one day have to live on painkillers forever. (I could already, but I'm holding off.) It didn't take away that my thighs and balls hurt all the time. It didn't take away that I fall to the floor with hilarious back spasms that I don't have time to see coming. It didn't take away that I will have to have surgeries later in life. And it didn't take away that I bitch about it all the time. And it didn't take away that people mistake my forgetfullness for stupidity or rudeness. It didn't take away shit. It didn't take away that my dad would soon become resentful and mistreat me because of the money. It didn't take away that people treated me different - for the worse - due to the fact that they assumed I had more money than I did. (When say "It's private" they hear "A MILLION.")

Sometimes I wonder: "If I had a magic wand that would give me the option to give back the money and all that came from it in return for no injuries from that car wreck, would I do it?"

And then I remind myself that magic wands don't exist and that their is no point in trying to answer that hypothetical. It happened they way it did and it always will have happened the way it did.

Part of you might be saying, "In a way, shouldn't you be thanking Ginger for what she did to you, since you had some good come out of the insurance settlement?"

No, no I shouldn't be thanking her. For one, what she did was still wrong. Two, hurting me was not her right. Three, she didn't hurt me to help me, it just happened that way. In fact, her and her family tried to impede my progress from injuries caused by her every step of the way. Those people are tacky. And they were willing to bankrupt my parents with their bills just to save their own culpable asses. So no, I'm not thanking them. But if they ever want to ask, I will forgive. I already have, they just never bothered to find out that I did.

I missed an accidental dirty joke? I 8 when I do that.

2009-04-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

I went bowling with some co-workers and their girlfriends the other night. We had two lanes, which meant we all shared one ball returner.

Me and Frisoli's girlfriend were both going to the ball returner to grab our balls and get bowling. She was a step ahead of me, so I motioned for her to get her ball first, while I would wait to get mine next. Mind you, I had just met this girl five minutes earlier.

She tried to pull a small ball with a big "8" on it out of the returner. It slipped off her fingers before she had a grip on it and it fell back on the rack. Then it slipped out the same way a second and a third time.

She looked up at me, while she was still trying to pull the ball out, and apologized for holding me up by saying this:

"I'm sorry, man. I am trying really hard to get 8 out!"

Then she fell on the floor laughing at herself.

I didn't get it.

She said, "Dude, I just looked at you and told you I was trying really hard to get ate out!"

Now I got it. That was hilarious.

I hope Frisoli 8 her out later. She deserved it for being so funny.

Might Whitey, please quit saving the day, you pompous prick.

2009-04-22T18:15:00.000-07:00

I hate people trying to prove how not racist they are. Boooring.

Guilt-ridden white Hollywood actors are always trying to prove they aren't racist by doing one of two things. They either play a super-racist character, so when they hit the talk show tour promoting the movie, they can tell everyone in the crowd how it was "so hard for them to play such a vile person, that was nothing like themself- really a stretch." Boooring.

Or these same white actors play some character who was the only white person in the film who would stand up for the poor helpless black characters in the film. Also boooring.

Look, Hollywood actors, we get it! You're not racist. Or at least that's what you want us to say. But aren't those films those guys make where Mighty Whitey comes in and saves the brothas' kind of racist in a patronizing way. It's like they are saying, "I love black people. But they'd be nothing without my heroics!" No? No one else gets that vibe. Well, I'm right and you're wrong.

You know who else I hate? Politicians who have debates with each other on the campaign trail about who grew up poorer. They think this is a noble characteristic. Wrong! I don't want poor people running this country. Look, most of us have been poor at some point in our lives. That's the beauty of our society: economic mobility. In other words, keep working and you'll pull yourself up. But if you come from a long line of poor people for generations on end - especially in AMERICA, the land of opportunity!- then that means you come from a long line of stupid people! And I don't want these people who come from a long line of royal stupidity running my country.

I also hate people who falsely claim they weren't popular in high school. It's as if nobody over 25 ever remembers being popular. You know who you're really majorly pissing off? Guys like me who really weren't popular in high school. We don't want you stealing our victimhood. We earned that shit... that we didn't deserve! And besides, don't you know that there are public records out there called yearbooks? I know if you were Prom Queen - there's a photo of you with a caption! And you're wearing a sash that says "PROM QUEEN!" Don't lie about it now.

In my case, sure, there were some kids who were more isolated than me. But no one else can claim that a hot Senior girl once came up to them with the intention of being sweet and said, "Hey, Roth Wriscey. You know that column I write every week in the school paper about 'The Adventures of Poor Freddy Freshman?' He's you! I just wanted to say thank you. But I'm sure you already knew you were him anyway!"

No! No I didn't. I thought that guy in those stories was a real dork. But I didn't think he was me!I thought this fictitious character was the one guy who was lamer than me!

I know you're wondering, "How did she get all this inspiration from you?" Here's how:

I had no friends my freshman year. No one would sit with me at lunch. These two senior girls that went to my church had the same lunch and they felt sorry for me and did the Christian thing and let me sit with them every day. I knew it was pity, but for once I didn't care. I took it. The senior girl columnist was also friends with these girls and sometimes they would tell her about my plight, not because they were gossipy, but because they felt for me. So the only popularity I had was in the form of some fictitious guy with a different name who was a loser.

I'm glad I was never popular. Honestly, I never wanted to be. I never liked those dudes in that crowd. I did finally make some friends with some awesome dudes in the 10th grade. They were like me: themselves. Not long after that, the popular crowd came calling just like some cheesy 80's teen movie. They made it clear that I could join there side if I would just ditch my boys. Ditch Garlic Boy? Ditch Bravo? Ditch Cadillac? Hell, no! Those were my real friends and I was smart enough to realize it. Ironically, Cadillac's big sister was one of the two church girls who sheltered me at her lunch table the year before when I was a lonely new guy. And I was gonna bail on him? Not a fucking chance! I'm so glad to look back on one aspect of being a teenager and realize how mature I was for a moment. You don't get to do that a lot.

So, in conclusion, I hate Hollywood actors? (That was no conclusion at all. I need to go to writing college. Do they even have those?)

My perverted bowling alley!

2009-04-22T11:37:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I'm not richer. I was bowling last night and thought to myself, "If I owned the bowling alley, I would do my best to strategically place groups of men (or mostly men) in odd lanes and groups with mostly women in even numbered lanes. That way everyone would have more fun and want to come back to my bowling alley. This would probably make people stay longer - which means they would bowl more games and drink more booze, thus making me a rich son of a bitch with an awesome bowling alley.

I would even try to place people of similar attractiveness beside each other. Because science has shown that people generally fuck the level of attractiveness that they are themselves. So I'd put the ugly peole on the left, the normal people on the right, and the hot people in the center. I'd even try to group the lesbians, the yankees, and the rednecks together. Everyone gets laid! And I get paid! And lots of people get knocked up because of me... except the lesbians.

SATLIMB

2009-04-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

Note: This story starts out boring, but as always, it ends in me being a perv.

So I had some time to kill the other day. I had 45 minutes before I was going to go to a radio station event. Not for my company, but for my old company. I tried to explain to Pokey Pants that I needed to go there for a specific reason because two years had passed since I was "choired" and I needed to let them know something. (Definition? Choired: prounounced "kwy-ered" - I say I quit, they say I was fired. So I was choired.) Feel free to use my term.

I needed to let my old GM know this: that I was doing great and I loved my new job and had no current intention of leaving. I also needed to politely let him know that I didn't respect him one bit, but if the day came that he needed to hire me, I would consider it - but only on the grounds that it would be because I am talented and we would need each other to make money, and that I no doubt still thought zero of him as a man.

This confused Pokey Pants. It makes perfect sense to me. That is why she takes care of gunshot victims for a living, while I turn on a microphone and announce the gunshot victims for a living. She said she could never do what I do for a living, that it was too stressful. I said, "You save lives every day, and you would be scared of some job where they pay you to talk? You're crazy."

I couldn't make it clear to her that I was going to this event so I could run into my old boss so we could talk with each other, not as friends, but as two guys who don't care for each other, but still needed to re-break the ice, so it wouldn't be awkward when the day comes that he holds his nose and calls me and makes me an offer, and I hold my nose back and consider it. What's weird about that? He likes beer and country girls and so do I, so this stupid event his station was throwing at a bar in a hick town was perfect for us to run into each other and loathe each other.

But like I said, I had an hour to kill and I was too far from my house to go home. So I decided I would drive through my old college campus and go look at all the new buildings I had heard they just built. I planned on doing a driving tour to look at all the new parking deck and the new dormitories at the east end of the campus.

When I got to the new section of buildings and slowed down to about ten miles an hour, I saw this really cute girl walking by. I started thinking, "Mmmmmmm. Damn! Oh yeah. She's just mmmmm! I'd sure like to- mmmmm!"

Then I got distracted by another girl walking by and thought, "Whooooo boy! Hay-elll Yah! I'd just love to - MMmmm! Pffeww damn she's -!"

And this went on about ten more times. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Fuck New York, fuck Brazil, fuck Paris. Wilmington is the per capita hot chick capitol of Earth! It's hard to get stuff done here, I swear. I wish they'd just kick the girls out of town for two days every week so the rest of us guys could get on with our lives and be productive.

So after like the 13th round of me seeing a girl walking in front of a car that made me think, "Hubba Hubba Hell Yeah, Gimme Gimme, You are just, Mmmm," I suddenly had come to the end of the new section of buildings. That's when the sarcastic asshole that lives in my brain decided to belittle me with questions. Here's the conversation we had. He set me up good:

Sarcastic Asshole That Lives In My Brain: Man, those were some cute girls, weren't they?

Roth Wriscey: Yes they were! I want them all. I'm glad you were there to witness all the prettiness I just saw, too.

SATLIMB: Yeah, they were nice. So what'd you think about the new buildings?

RW: Huh?

SATLIMB: You know -he new architecture that you drove out here to look at?

RW: Oh - uh, yeah. Those buildings were, uh really cool.

SATLIMB: You didn't notice a single one did you?

RW: Not a one.

SATLIMB: You couldn't even tell me if they were brick or vinyl siding, could you?

RW: Nnnnope!

SATLIMB: What color they were?

RW: Not a chance!

SATLIMB: Private entrances or public entrances?

RW: Look, I have a problem! I know it! You know it! I never get tired of looking at girls! And when there are girls around, I can't not look at them. It is so much fun. They never get boring. I'm never like, "Man, I sure don't wanna check out some hot chicks today!" It is the only thing in life that is fun absolutely 100 percent of the time. Every girl I look at is a new one, and I'm never happier. So why don't you quit being a sarcastic asshole and just say what you want to say? Do I waste too much time looking at girls? Yes! Am I ever gonna stop? NO! So just shut up and enjoy them with me, or at least get out of my head, you sarcastic asshole! I know I didn't see any buildings. And I know if I drove through there again right now, I still wouldn't see any buildings! But you would! So why don't you climb out of my skull and go live in one of them since you love architecture so damn much, and leave me alone so I can look at girls!

Frat That Ass Up

2009-04-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

So on day three of the baby trip, me and Pokey Pants decided to walk from my Mom's house to the other side of Davidson for 2 hours of late night drinking at the only bar in town: The Brickhouse. Even on Saturday nights when there are young people in there, that place has the nerve to constantly play 1970's light rock. I'm talking Dan Fogelburg and shit like that. It's so weird.

I did notice one funny thing on the men's room wall. There was an advertisement above the urinal for a local gym. It had a sweet looking girl-model in the add reluctantly shrugging her shoulders and smiling with a caption that said, "I don't have time to work out!"

But before I read it, I noticed some dude had scratched through one of the words with an ink pen. I figured, as usual, it would be some unclever and probably misogynistic vandalism. However, upon further inspection, I realized that whatever guy did this had actually scratched out the word "time." Aww, some guy had a crush on the girl in the add. Because the word he crossed out left the sweet model now smiley-shrugging while saying, "I don't have to work out!"

I bet if that model ever found out about that bathroom prank, she would come to town and spend her life on a quest to find that unknown man that she now loves back.

So back to our night at the bar. It was boring. A lesbian tried to dig at me for making her job easier. When she realized it, she felt like shit and was super nice to me the rest of the night. Not only was I not being a dick, I was being extra-cool, and her dumbass initially misunderstood. I guess it's not her fault. Most people in Davidson suck, she probably just assumed.

What happened was, I ordered two bourbon and cokes for me and Pokey when we got there - but Pokey, who is 29, was in the bathroom. The lezbo asked for two I.D's., so I nicely said, "She (Pokey) will have her I.D. when she gets back. Here's mine."

She started to just make one drink. I said, "If you just want to make two at the same time and keep one behind the bar until Pokey gets here, that's fine. I know that's what she wanted."

She got snippy and said, "Do you have any more orders to give me?"

I said, "Whoa. I've worked behind that side of the bar. I was trying to assure you that a second valid I.D. was coming your way, so I was trying to save you the time and the trouble of making one drink two different times, and instead making two drinks at once. I was not ordering you. I was trying to be a non-problem for you."

After that she was nice. Don't call me a dick when I'm not, because then I will be.

So after our night at the bar, we headed to the street for our mile walk home through the Davidson ghost town.

"What's that noise coming from that way?," said Pokey.

"Oh, I'm sure it's a party at a frat house on the Davidson College Campus," I said.

I then told her how we used to go to sneak into the parties when we were 15 and 16 and try to flirt with the college girls, since the college guys would always steal our high school girls. We never did succeed. The older college girls would humor us and think we were cute, and then the Davidson guys would beat us up and/or throw us out.

I told Pokey how it was funny how I used to go to those college frat parties when I was too young, but I never went when I was the right age. And now that I'm in my thirties, I'm once again too old.

She said, "That's all the more reason for us to do it." Let's get thrown out of a frat party full of people we don't know for being too old.

I said, "You forgot one thing. We both look young as shit. We just had a bartender think we were pulling the "underage girl go to the bathroom trip while I order" trick. And you're about to turn thirty. We can probably fool young kids into thinking we're one of them."

So the challenge was on.

We walked down frat row, and Pokey pointed towards a small house with loud music. It had about 75 people dancing on the open floor while a couple of DJ's played hip-hop songs we didn't recognize.

Now, I'm more of an extrovert than Pokey. She's retardedly shy to strangers. But she ran this show. As we entered the house, Pokey decided to blend into this party by being really loud. She walked in the door to the main floor and started going "Whoooohoooohooooo! Yeaaeaaeeah!" Then she started shaking her butt. So I started shaking mine. And we started dancing as crazy as all these kids around us. Even if they were 10 to 12 years younger than us, on a campus where all 1700 students know each other. Everyone saw us, but nobody suspected us.

I remember one time saying, "Hey Pokey, everybody's making out. We have to do it too, or they'll know we're not one of them." So we made out nastier than any of those tykes.

And everytime a new song came on, Pokey would scream at the same time as the other girls acting like the DJ had just turned on her favorite tune. During the third of fourth song, I said in her ear, "You don't know any of these songs do you?" She giggled and said, "Not a one. I hate this shit." And then we kept dancing like we loved it. And for the moment, we did.

Then after five songs, we decided to quit tempting fate. As the old saying goes, it was time to walk before they made us run. And walk home we did.

The Spooky Graveyard

2009-04-06T19:17:00.000-07:00

So I went back to Davidson to be an uncle. But that's not what I want to talk about. Don't get me wrong - I love my little new niece Fiona, and I'm glad the little five pounder and my sister are healthy so far. But everyone has lived a story like that, so let me tell you the more entertaining shit that happened during my stay in the place I spent my first 18 years. Graveyard or frat house, graveyard or frat house. Let's start with the grave yard story.

During some downtime out of the hospital on Saturday afternoon, I decided to take Pokey Pants on a driving tour through the Davidson College campus, since she had never seen it before. That town looks like a beautiful twilight zone Pleasantville kind of place - provided you don't talk to any of the people from there. As we drove through north part of the college campus, Pokey Pants pointed at a poorly kept graveyard that was just beyond the 3-hole golf course. (Yes, the campus has links with just 3 holes. That's Davidson.) She said, "Do you have any family there?"

I said, "Honestly, I thought I knew every square foot of this one square mile town; but I've never in my life seen that graveyard. Let's get out and walk it."

It was a mix of old and new graves that was probably 100 feet by 50 feet. The first tombstone we walked up on was arguably the biggest one in all the cemetary. I immediately said, "Oh, CJ Oh, no."

CJ was a guy who was my age. He was very big, and now had a big tombstone. Then I realized he had a wife whose name was on the grave, too. Then I realized that only their birthdates were on the tombstone. Hooray! Cedric was alive! And he apparently married a Latino girl. Who knew? I hadn't seen him since high school.

Then me and the Pokester started walking deeper into the graveyard when I turned around to see what was on the back side of CJ's tombstone.

"Oh, no. CJ! You poor guy," I said. I wasn't trying to be melodramatic. It just came out.

His daughter's name was on the backside of that tombstone. She lived a year. Last year.

As we proceeded through the graveyard, I noticed a lot of last names on the stones that were very common in Northern Meckelenburg County. There were Stinsons and Sloans and Kerns, and Houstons and Carrs and McCains and Burtons everywhere.

"Pokey Pants, I guarantee you I don't have any family in this graveyard. This is a black grave yard! These names are names that belong almost exclusively to black people from Davidson."

Some McCains run for president. Our McCains run from the cops. I've never met a white person with any of these last names I just mentioned until I left Davidson. I never knew, or never thought about, the existence of black graveyards, but once I found myself in one, I knew it was going to be an adventure.

I guaranteed Pokey that I would know a handful of people in this graveyard I had never heard of, and that I would have great stories for her about them.

The first dead person's tombstone I found that I knew was Arteze McCain. He was found murdered in Charlotte in 1993 at the age of 19. Me and my big sister were watching the news the night his body was fished out of the forest. Here were the first words out of our mouthes when hearing the news that night:

Big Sister: He showed me his weiner in kindergarten.
Me: He licked my slurpee and made me give him money outside of the 7-11 when I was 8.

Arteze's grave had a picture of him ground into it. He looked like such the nice guy that no one ever once knew him to be.

Then we saw Wyatt's grave. I hadn't seen him since elementary school. He was nice. He was a little guy two years younger than me. He was dead since '05. I still don't know what happened. His picture was also ground into his grave and he looked as nice as I remember him being. I hope he didn't die being an asshole.

Then we saw Trent's grave. He died back in the early 90's at the YMCA. He was a nice guy who stopped the basketball game to sit down on the court and catch his breath. He never did. He was in his early 20's. I remember hearing about his death from this 50 year old guy named James at a Lollapalooza concert during the Rage Against the Machine set. I remember thinking how Trent was too young to die on a basketball court and James was too old to be at Lollapalooza. Apparently, I was wrong about both.

Then we saw Damon Kern's grave. I hadn't seen him since elementary school. I remember him being OK. Not as nice as Wyatt (they were friends), but nice enough. Even though I hadn't seen him since the late 80's, I remember the night he died. It was Christmas night in 1997. Even though I was speding Christmas with my family in Davidson that day, and what he did happened in Davidson, I only heard about it from the television. What happened? Two police were called to his house. He shot them. They shot him. All three died.

I went to the Burton section, of the graveyard and couldn't find James' stone. I don't know why he wasn't buried there. His dad was buried there. James was murdered in front of Cornelius Elementary school buy some white guy. James was sweet and harmless and very gay. He rode a riding lawnmower everywhere. And he would bring my dad rotten apples in a bag that he grew himself. He once brought them over in a thunderstorm.

I looked over to where the Houston graves were and got said. I didn't want to see Lisa's name over there. She was my age and we always liked each other way too much. She had pretty green eyes and made me melt. I thought she had two kids now and was fine. Oh wait, she was fine! I was reading it wrong. It said "Lola Houston" not "Lisa Houston." (Later on when we got back to my house, I stumbled onto my sister's elementary school yearbook. I did go to school with Lola, but I swear as small as our school was, I don't remember her.) Either way, I'm glad Lisa is okay. She had green eyes and her mom had red hair, the were some genetically interesting black folks, that's for sure.

Then, I told Pokey. "I liked some of these people, and I didn't like some of these people. And I know it's been funny hearing me talk shit about these people as we stand over their dead bodies, but what I'm about to say is going to even make you question my heartlessness. Here's what I want to say. I need to go over to where the Carr family is buried. I want to see if "N---m" is buried there. I hope he is. I hope that fucker is dead as hell. I will be so happy to see his name on a tombstone."

She was like, "Damn! If you feel that way, there must be a reason."

I said, "There are a few reasons. Besides him being a murderer. We got into it a lot when we were kids. Long story short, N---m killed some white guy on just about the same spot where some other white guy killed James -over by the school. That murder had nothing to do with James. It was just a coincidence. And it had nothing to do with me. I was just relieved when he got a lengthy murder sentence, because he and I had gotten into a lot of fights growing up. (He started each one. I was meek when I was young. But I always fought back hard.) Sometimes I have dreams that he comes to kill me. That might be a little far fetched, but I bet if I ran into him even today, he might try to do something. I'd rather that worthless son of a bitch just not be here on Earth while I am.)

Dammit! If he's dead, he sure isn't in that graveyard! (BTW, I spelled his name wrong on purpose, so I don't recieve death from a google search - if you know what I mean.

So that was our day in the black graveyard. And if that graveyard is indicative of other graveyards, then I would draw these conclusion. Black people take more trips to leave flowers and trinkets on the tombstones of their loved ones than white people. However, they take less time maintaining the yard. It had grass where it shouldn't, no grass where it should, it looked like the people were covered in baseball dirt, and I swear they were placed in the ground so shoddily that it looked like some of them were trying to climb out. It also told me that black people, especially black males have a higher rate of premature death. Some by their own doing and the rest by someone else's doing - often one of their own. With all that said, I also learned this. Black graveyards are way more fun than white graveyards. All my families tombstones come along with boring heart disease, alzheimers or old age stories. At least these guys shot each other up and made it interesting. The End

Side Note: After I wrote this I looked up the info on my murderer friend. He's not dead. They don't make it clear if he got paroled or not - but he was up for parole last October. Here's what I found (with some editing by me)

N---m S***d Carr
Conviction: Second-Degree MurderDOC# 00-700-Parole Review Date: 10-3-08Sentence: 42 yearsHas Served: 14 yrs 7 months to date

Crime StoryAccording to a witness who was riding around Cornelius with Carr on February 6, 1994, they approached the victim who was walking in the 19*** block of School Street. N***m stopped the vehicle and the victim walked up to the passenger side. N***m motioned for him to come over to the driver's side. The victim walked around the vehicle to the driver's side and when he leaned down to talk to Carr, N***m shot him in the head for no apparent reason.
The victim fell backward into the street and Carr drove away. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene of the incident.
Carr was charged with first degree murder but pled to second degree and received 42 years in prison.
Return to Inmates for Parole in 2008
Man, that dude was not fun to grow up in a small town with.

Screw UNC

2009-04-06T18:28:00.000-07:00

I hate the Tar Heels. Most people outside of this state assume we all love them. Hell no. Only about half the state loves them. That consists of the people who attended there, and a bunch of well-meaning rednecks from this state who have never actually made a trip to Chapel Hill to be loathed by those snobby communist assholes.

So who do the rest of us here in North Carolina like? Duke. The other snobby school in our state. Don't ask me why we all pick between those two prick-ass places, but we do. I fall on the Duke side, but if that wasn't snobby enough - I'm actually a Davidson fan. And that is our third snobbiest school! What the hell is wrong with us here? I'm from Davidson. I know Davidson. And I hate the people of Davidson. But when they actually make it to the tournament, I'm screaming "Go Wildcats" along with a bunch of faggots who were too good for me my whole life.

Oh, and another North Carolina team that is a bunch of pricks is Wake Forest. My optometrist, who is a Winston Salem native, was telling me that everyone from that town that doesn't have any direct involvement with the Wake Forest actually pulls for the Tar Heels just because they don't want to be associated with anything Demon Deacon, and just to prove it, they pull for a different snobby ACC rival.

I love that outsiders think Southerners are simple. We are the most complicated people on earth. I'm not saying what we do makes sense. It doesn't. (Actually, to us it does. We just don't have time to explain it. I really could explain to you how if you pull for Duke or UNC, you most likely come from a family that at one time was a bunch segregationists or desegregationists, respectively. It's true. But it's boring.) Just let me say this. North Carolineans are some of the most laid back go-with-the-flow people on earth - except for the assholes at the colleges that have good basketball teams that the rest of us reluctantly support for a variety of reasons. Got it? Yeah, me either. Actually, I do. But I don't have time. Go Michigan State! (And don't you outsiders dare ever call me a Tar Heel. It might be our state nickname. But it only applies to those wine and cheese fags that wear baby blue. Damn you UNC, you're so terrible you're making me pull for Yankees! Midwesterners, whatever.

GGWB'S Here!

2009-03-26T19:45:00.000-07:00

If I hadn't gotten kind of gay with my friend Brandon, then I would have been no friend at all. And no, I'm not ashamed of what I did. In fact, I'm proud. Here's what happened last week:

Brandon, my 24 year old pizza manager/womanizer friend, came into work and told us how he had spent the day before in the ER. Why? Oh, you're gonna love this shit!

He was skateboarding on a half-pipe at the skate park and went 7 feet up in the air without the board. When he came down, the board was waiting in an upright position... and went straight up his nuts.

Brandon said that it was news to him that when your nutsack splits open like his did, there is another layer of skin under there, so he didn't get to see his own balls. Damn, that would been cool. He said they stitched him up or something. He also injured his dick, but at least nothing had to be amputated. Here's what I said to him in front of everyone:

"Dude, I wanna see it. I want to see your dick and balls."

All the others guys at work heard me and were like, "Oooohh, that's gay."

I said, "Maybe a little. But if I'm suddenly gay, at least I'm not a fag like you guys. Because you guys are being total fags for not taking sympathy on our dear pal and looking at his junk. I want him to know he's not alone - that I feel his pain. And the only way to feel his pain is to see the injury - which in this case, is on his junk. Excuse me, for being a better friend than you guys."

Brandon smiled at me and said, "Come to my office, I wanna show you my dick!"

And show me his dick he di! He dropped his drawers and I bent down and inspected his shit from about 18 inches away while he navigated his dick and balls while telling the story and pointing out what happened to what. It felt gross, but it was necessary. And it looked really cool.

His left nut was black and blue and had a butterfly band-aid on it. And his dick was black.

I said, "No fucking for you, huh? How 'bout wacking? I can't sleep without unloading something first. Can you still do that?"

He said, "Oh, I wacked it about an hour ago. I just wanted to make sure I didn't jiz blood. I didn't. I'm cool."

And I'm cool for looking at my friend's dick. Not like those fags that were scared of some dude's dick.

Broken Back Part Something

2009-03-25T17:59:00.000-07:00

Pokey Pants let me borrow her computer for the week. Thanks Pokey! And thanks for always looking good in those pants!

I'll tell one back-back story that I forgot - if this overall tale actually has retained any chronology to it in the first place. After this one, I'll get to what I think will be the last part of the broke back story - the litigation.

However, today's part deals with 23 days after the accident. I don't know if it will be funny or not. I haven't thought about this part much, you will actually read it (for the most part) as I am remembering it while I type.

On my 16th birthday, May 25th, a lot of dorks were celebrating the birth of their savior. No, not me, I'm talking about the release of the first Star Wars movie. Look it up, we're twins. Here's what happened on May 25th, 1977:

Darth Vader: "Luke, I am your father."
Penny Wriscey: "Roth, I am your mother."

Anyway, on this day in 1993, I didn't get to do the 16th birthday tradition, which was getting my driver's license. Back in the day, when a 16 year old in North Carolina got his/her driver's license - it was fucking on! We didn't have some nanny state saying, "You can't drive after six p.m. You can't drop out of school. You can't leave the state." Oh, fuck no. Once you were sixteen, you could drive your car anywhere all the time. It ruled.

But it sucked for me. I didn't get to have a license, since I already had a broken back. Apparently, you don't get to have both. They said it was because I was unable to turn around to look at merging traffic behind me. I'm sure I would have been hurt, but I was still on codeine. Only now does 2009 Me suddenly feel sorry for 1993 me. But really, who gives a shit. I'm over it. But those five seconds of self-pity I just had while typing that were fun.

So instead of getting a license, my buddy Holton took me out for a birthday dinner at Lotus 28. I love that Chinese food. By the way, I've never slept with a Chinese girl. I've only been involved with Asian girls from countries that the United States has previously gone to war with. Oh man, does that mean I have to bang an Afghani girl now? Shit, they're just not my bag.

So Holton's dad, Ken took us to dinner and we ate up. It was really nice, even if it was a man-date.

On the way home from dinner, it was still sunlight since it was May and the sun was staying out later. As we walked towards the front door, Holton said, "Nah, man. We gotta walk around to the back yard."

I thought this was odd that we were walking this extra long route to get in the house, since I was in a back brace, and Brian was now going to be trekking through my dad's lawn on crutches. (Remember, he ruined his ankle in the front seat of our wreck.) I can't remember what lie he made up to get me to agree, but I did and had no clue.

As we walked towards my screened in porch on the back yard, I started digging boogers out of my nose. (You know, you've just left a public place like a restaurant, where you couldn't pick your nose, and you didn't even realize it until your home and then suddenly you realize you've got all kinds of nasal excavating to do?

Well, while I was digging my nose, I finally looked up and saw about 30 people inside our porch say "Surprise!"

My first ever surprise party! Among the crowd I was my mom, my dad, my sisters, and Leah from the wreck and Kelly and Blank and Nothin' and Ginger! Wait. Ginger?

Yeah, Ginger.

It doesn't surprise you by now. The girl wrecked my spine, killed my chances at a license, and now she was crashing my party. Ironically, the only thing about my surprise party that wasn't a surprise was that Ginger would have the nerve to attend it. I didn't mind. Codeine, God bless you.

The only things I remember about that party, was that I walked into a room and saw my Mom among a crowd bandaging Holton's bloody hand. Apparently, while I was out of the room, Ginger once again bitched about her "shitty new car" and Holton tried to "crutch after her" but was too slow, got mad and punched my brick house on my behalf in some way.

And I also remember me being a piece of shit, because I was in my bedroom making out with -Shit! I forgot the fake name I previously gave the girl from West Virginia who was in the wreck with us. Anyway, I made out with her in my room, and remember her once again stopping my hand from sliding up her thigh in that little velvet green dress she looked so good in. She liked it, but she still stopped it.

Once we went back out to the party, the only girl I liked better than Miss West Virginia showed up. Miss West Virginia suddenly didn't exist: Miss Charleston. I was an ass. I'm sure she cried somewhere that night like girls do. I don't think we were ever involved again. She had sense for a 16 year old girl to say "fuck that guy." I had no sense in my head for always being willing to fuck over that sweet girl. I remember dancing with the girl who showed up in my driveway, not knowing she was only doing it to claim me over Miss West Virginia. You know how girls are. Bitches sometimes. "I don't want him. But I don't want him to want someone else. I like being able to reject him. Let me hurt two people to satisy myself!" (That was the kind of bitch I was referring to. That's not misogynistic - that's someone (several someones) that we all have known in our lives.) It's weird; when you truly feel that you aren't a woman-hater-dude, it allows you to speak freely about those among the prettier half of the population when they deserve it. I could actually justify why I was so favorable to Miss Charleston, but that would ruin a great story. I could write 300 pages on me and Miss Charleston -and I will. It would make a great movie. Let's not spoil it.

The party ended, and so did my chances with Miss West Virginia.

(Ending note: Sorry I haven't spell checked this. Ironically, I am going downtown to a comedy club right now as a benefit for a guy here in town who just fell of a porch and broke his spine this month. I don't know him, but he's some comedian that's friends with my friends at the radio station. Don't worry, I won't mention my broken spine, since I'm walking and he's now a quadropalydgic. I've always wanted to do stand up. Maybe I'll get the balls tonight. Maybe I won't. Sometime this year though, I'm gonna slay that demon, regardless of whether or not I slay the crowd.)

Stupid Me.

2009-03-24T10:57:00.001-07:00

Fried my computer about a week ago. Don't have money to fix it. All I get is a blue screen. I miss writing. I don't have time at work to write. They expect me to write new stories at the newspaper. How dare they!

Haji Won't Send You To Voice Mail

2009-03-14T19:13:00.004-07:00

(I'll finish the broken back story this week. But I have to take a sanity laugh and talk about some funny people I know. You'll laugh at this one, I promise.)

My friends are stupid funny. I love those bastards.

I called my main man American Matt last night. He lives in New Mexico now and spends a lot of time working in Texas, as well. I called him because the UNC game was on and I was pretty sure he was missing being back in North Carolina while watching the game. I don't even like Carolina - I'm a Duke fan. (For those of you that don't know - at least half of all people from North Carolina have a least favorite team... and that team is North Carolina. Fuck Carolina! I hate them. But American Matt loves them. I prefer to pull for that team of Yankees in Durham known as the Duke Blue Devils. (Everyone that attends Duke here in North Carolina is actually from New Jersey, so I really have no idea why a Southerner like me loves them to death, but I do.)

So I called Matt and said, "Let me guess, you're at a sports bar watching the Carolina game that nobody in Texas gives a flying shit about. And I bet you and your brother douchebagged out and put on all your Chapel Hill gear to wear to the bar to annoy people who don't give a shit about some basketball team from North Cackalackee."

He said, "Actually, you're close. We decided to wait until tomorrow's game to dress up like a bunch of Carolina assholes in tar heels jerseys and hats and shit. Everyone here cares about the Baylor game and the Longhorns and shit like that. They don't give a damn about our game that's on the littlest TV in the bar, so we're gonna act like it's the biggest thing ever and scream like hell and make them hate us."

So before I tell you the funny story Matt told me last night about our friend Grayson, let me tell you how American Matt got his name. Me and Greyson knew each other from college radio - only barely, but we had later become good friends working together at a corporate radio company together here in Wilmington. We shared an office and one desk as he worked for the hip hop station and I worked for the country station. We had some good times. (We even fucked doughnuts on a dare. And that was like the 30th craziest thing we ever did.)

One of the best times was when we had interns come in for an introductory meeting in the conference room. The first guy introduced himself as "Matt" and said he was from Canada. The second guy also introduced himself as "Matt" and said he was from Salisbury, North Carolina. Greyson said, "Well, from now on we're referring to this guy as "Canadien Matt" and that guy as "American Matt."

Canadien Matt never showed up again. Beyond that one day at work, he disappeared never to be seen again. After this happened, American Matt said, "Now that Canadien Matt is out of the picture, does that mean I get to go back to just being called regualar old "Matt" again?"

Grayson laughed and said, "Ha ha! You don't know how things work around here! Just cuz Canadien Matt is gone, don't mean shit, boy! You're American Matt for life!"

And for the last three years, he has remained as our good friend, "American Matt."

So last night, when I talked to American Matt while he was out in Texas, he was telling me a funny story about what happened when he talked to Greyson on the phone the other night.

Greyson lives out in Santa Cruz now. He's a rapper. He is amazing. He makes songs that I love in a genre I hate. And he's good not just because he's my friend - he's just good at what he does. He plays in front of hundreds these days. He should be playing in front of thousands. I can't wait 'til his break comes. He deserves it.

So Matt told me that he decided to give Grayson a random call out in Santa Cruz last week and it went down with usual hilarity. Matt said that when Grayson answered the phone and said, "Whattup, American Matt!" - he knew exactly what was going on.

Matt said that he heard an announcer screaming over a crowd on a P.A. system saying "Ladies and Gentleman - here he is! HAJI P!"

Haji P is Grayson's rapper name. Matt said, "Grayson are you currently walking out on stage?"

Greyson matter of factly said, "Yeah. But what's up, my man? How you been?"

Matt said, "I'm good. I was just calling you to shoot the shit since we haven't spoken in a while. But Greyson, if you're walking on stage right now, why did you answer? Go do your show, man!"

Greyson: "Shit man. The show can wait. I don't ever turn down a call from my boy, boy! How the hell have you been? What's new, American Matt?"

Matt: "Dude, you have people screaming for you - go do your show. I can wait."

Grayson: "Oh yeah, I guess you're right. I'll go tear it up. I call you later."

Matt: "Have a good show!"

And that's why I love my friends. They will hold up their own rap concerts just to shoot the shit with each other on the telephone.

Broken Part 15 (Keg Guy To The Rescue. I swear the stories will end in two or three installments.)

2009-03-06T13:42:00.000-08:00

About a year after the wreck, I ended up at a keg party in Davidson. This was unusual for two reasons. One: No one ever had keg parties in Davidson. And two: If they did, I sure as hell didn't want to be there with those pricks. And they didn't want me there, either. However, this one was being held at the house of my only female friend from Davidson: "Jacyln."

Me and Jacyln had also known each other since preschool, but both went to different high schools at that time. She went to some private school and I went to Mooresville. Neither one of us went to North Meck like we were supposed to. Man, so many people avoided that schoool like the plague. Jacyln was just like the girl that broke my back -except she was the exact opposite. Huh? They were the same age and they were both from Davidson and they were both intelligent and they were both professors daughters. However, Jacyln didn't act entitled, Jaclyn was sweet, Jaclyn had a great sense of humor, and Jaclyn's parents were hilarious. Her mom was a personality on the Classical music station at the college, and her dad was a French professor who looked like James Taylor. They both loved drinking wine and the dad wasn't above playing a round of "Asshole" with drunken teenagers. They were the first family I ever knew that didn't go to church. (In Davidson, I would dare speculate that most people don't believe in God, but they still think it would be downright unsociable not to go to Sunday services at the DCPC (Davidson College Presbyterian Church) and scoff at all the stuff the preacher says. I think a lot of them looked down on my family because we went to a Baptist church out in the country and actually believed in the God that the preacher spoke of. How crazy were we?) Jacyln's family confused me, because I always heard that if you didn't go to church you were bad people. But they were great people.

So when me and whoever I was with showed up at Jacyln's keg party, we ended up on the back porch waiting for the keg guy to pour our beer for us. Have you ever given much thought to the general character known as "The Keg Guy?"

The Keg Guy is the person who may or may not be throwing the party, but he insists on being the guy sitting at the keg nicely pouring beers into the cups of everyone that approaches the tap. Keg Guys are guys who later run for mayor. Just like guys who run for mayor, keg guys can be in for good or bad reasons. Some guys take the position as keg guy so they can talk to every single girl at the party. They often also do this, so they can talk to every guy at the party. They want to meet the girls for the obvious reasons. They want to meet the men so they can know a few things: So they can know who they want to fight, or maybe so they know who they will later have to stop from starting a fight. Also they get to know which guys have girlfriends, and which guys will be competition, and which guys can be allies in the "War For Pussy!" The reasons for being the Keg Guy are obvious, but most people think it's just a nice guy pouring beers, which it often is - but sometimes it isn't.

In this case it was. I could tell that this guy running the keg was a cool motherfucker. He was a little older than me, maybe 19, and I could tell he was country, probably from Huntersville. I felt like I knew him, but I knew I had never seen him in my life. I must have just known his kind.

So the Keg Guy poured my friends beer and then he got to me. We immediately started chatting me up. He was my kind of redneck. He was funny and friendly and just wanted to have fun, raise hell and see nobody get hurt - although he did reserve the right to hurt someone who deserved it. I could see all this. We were laughing and shooting the shit and having so much. That I even stayed by the keg and kept talking to this guy even after my beer was poured. I just moved to the side and kept chatting with him while he filled up everyone else.

About a minute or two into our conversation, the guy said, "Man, I swear, I feel like I know you! But I know I don't know you!"

I said that I felt the same way, and we felt awkwardly too affectionate for a minute and then went back to just talking about stupid shit, then he interrupted whatever we were talking about.

"Wait! Man, you're gonna think I'm crazy if I'm wrong. But I gotta ask: Were you in a real bad car wreck about a year ago?"

Me: "Yep."

Him: "Over in Huntersville by the school, right?"

Me: "That was me."

Him: "No, shit? I always wondered what happened to you. I can't believe you look as good as you do. Shit, I can't believe you're walking! The name's Eddie Hagar. I pulled your ass out of a ditch one time. Nice to finally meet'cha!"

Me: "Well, this all sounds about right. The name's Roth Wriscey. First off: Thank you. Now fill me in. This all happened during my black out period after the wreck."

Him: "Well, I was driving down that hill and came up on these four people in a wreck. They was four of yall, right? So I pulled over and got out, and you had, somehow, passed out in a ditch. Your friends didn't know what they were doing, and were letting you lay and roll around in some awful positions in that ditch even though they said you were screaming about how bad your back hurt. I've had some medical training, so I knew that I had to get you out of that ditch, and stabilized, so I laid you in the road and kept you down until the paramedics came. Man, I always wondered who you were. What the fuck? I can't believe you're at a keg party being all normal."

Me: Thank you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I never saw Eddie again. But he was one hell of a keg guy, and from what he tells me, one hell of an amateur emergency worker.

Broken Back Story Part 14 (Sixteen Years of a Head Injury Boiled Down to One Page)

2009-03-06T00:14:00.002-08:00

The looming head injury that I had suffered that no one noticed at first, including myself, started becoming more evident about three months after the wreck - once the summer ended and 11th grade began.

A lot of it was funny. I won't bore you with the whole process. But some of the things that happened were things like this:

1. During the first year, my friends could say "Meet me back here in fifteen minutes." When I wouldn't show up, they'd call me at home later in the day all pissed, saying "Why didn't you meet me in fifteen minutes, like you said you would?" And I'd say, "What are you talking about? I haven't seen you today."

2. Writing. I developed a new accidental habit of repeatedly leaving the last letter off of words and the entire last word off of sentences. Oddly, I just realized that once I took up writing as a hobby three years ago and quit hand writing and started doing more typing, I've kind of overcome this.

3. Double negatives. I still haven't, and probably will never heal from this one. If you use a sentence that has two words in it such as "don't" and "not." I have no idea what you mean. I literally have to stop and do the math. For example, if you say, "I don't want you to think I'm not happy with the situation." I have to do the math in my head and say, "OK, He DOESN'T want me to think he ISN'T happy with the situation. OK, that's twominuses, which kind of makes a positive. So he DOES want me to think he IS happy with the situation. So that's good. But only sort of. Why didn't he just say it that way? I wan't to explode my brain now. What were we even talking about anyway? I am now even more confused. (I know everyone has trouble with double negatives at times, but I never had the trouble to that degree until after the wreck. And I've never really conquered it. I read recently that stroke victims often report having this exact problem. I'm glad to know it wasn't just me.)

4. Math. I know they say I didn't hit the part of my brain that does math. But I do know I was great at it. And ever since the wreck, I am frustrated at it.

5. Directions. I get lost going to places I've been a million times. I've had a job delivering pizza in a 4 square mile area for a year and a half. I still get majorly lost at least once a week in places I've seen five thousand times. I also still get lost going to my newspaper job at least twice a month. And it's mostly highway.

6. Sleep. My sleep habits got fucked in 1993. I slept 12 hours a day for the first two years and I've never recovered. Sure, I was a night owl when I was six. But now, I can't turn my brain off or I can't turn it on. I'm either up forever or I sleep forever.

I ended up going to a memory loss clinic in Charlotte about three months after the wreck. It was called the Arnold Palmer Medical Center. I don't know what golf has to do with memory. But I know it only taught me how to cheat at being competent. I guess cheating comes from golf.

I took a lot of expensive tests at the center to conclude that my memory was as bad as was already obvious. (I've had more MRI's and CT scans and EEG's than you'll care to know. More on that later.) I never had amnesia, I just have major trouble comprehending too much new information at once. It's really bizarre for a guy like me to have memory problems, because in a way (I'm not joking), I've always thought I was mildly, mildly retarded or autistic or something - because I was born with the amazing ability to remember details about the stupidest parts of life from many years back. I can tell you multiple details about random days as far back as preschool. Yet, since the wreck, that weird ability was coupled with common situations where I get overwhelmed with not being able to comprehend something that used to be so simple. As a result, I just go stare at the wall alone and think, "Why don't I understand something so simple that used to be so easy?!" I can't explain it any further. Head injuries suck. I do know that I'm way better now than I was the first year, but in some ways I've hit a recovery plateau. And when you're a guy like me, it's hard to deal with these things that make this already eccentric person seem like some sort of different eccentric than my normal weirdness.

The only thing I remember about going to the head injury center for those two years was that they told me that my short term memory was in the 2nd worst percentile. In other words. If you put 100 people in a room and gave us a simple memory task. I was only going to be better than one or two people most of the time. I don't know if retards were included in the sample.

I also remember that I was supposed to go to the Center in Charlotte twice a week. However, a lot of the time, I would get lost driving there. Or (Surprise!) The doctors would call me at home and ask me why I hadn't shown up for my appointment and I'd yell, "OH, NO! I FORGOT!" I bet that happened to those people a lot. All I really learned when I was there was how to fake my way through life to trick myself into making people think I remembered things I really didn't. And I'm still not good at that. Don't get me wrong. If I hadn't told you, and you knew me - you would never suspect I battle the effects of a head injury. But when I tell people, they always get a sense of relief over them and say, "Oh! That makes sense."

I also piss a lot of people off on a daily basis because I am always introducing myself to them, only to hear, "Dude, we've met like three times."

Oh well. Who the fuck cares. I can walk. And I can run and jump now. Even if that usually hurts like shit. I'm not in a wheelchair, so I'm not gonna cry about it. Besides, there are millions of more legit things to bitch about. Have you seen how fucked this economy is?

The next story will be funny. It's about a keg party.

Broken Back Part 13 (Lucky 13)

2009-03-02T19:26:00.002-08:00

If I'd have known how much my new back brace was going to make girls love me, I would've taken a car and driven into a tree myself a whole lot sooner. But because I was a dumb teenager, even then I had no idea what fun I was in for.

It started a couple of weeks after the wreck when one girl placed a decorative band-aid onto the chest cover on my back brace. It was a simple white plastic brace that had three horizontal velcro straps that went across my torso. It had two curves that came over each of my non-existent pectoral muscles and a very high ridge in the back that almost sliced into the back of my neck and made me sit in a ridiculously perfect posture. Everyone called me "Posture Man."

I would usually wear a t-shirt under the brace and an unbuttoned button-up shirt outside the brace. I kept it unbuttoned because people stared at me LESS if they could see the brace. If the brace was covered, people would stare at me with looks that said, "Why in the hell is that guy holding himself so perfectly upright. He looks way too confident. Prick!" I could tell that's what they were thinking.

After the first girl decorated the exposed part of my back brace with a band-aid, it seemed that every cute girl in the world would pull a different designer band-aid out of her purse and stick it on me and tell me that her band-aid was the one with the magic healing powers that I needed. I ate this shit up! I won't lie. I fucking loved it! I swear I think girls were going out to the drug store and trying to buy the coolest band-aids for me to one-up the other girls who had grafffitied me with them.

Even though I loved the extra girl-attention, I was still too drugged and immobile to intentionally milk it. Then again, I didn't need to milk it. This brace was a self-milker! The band-aids didn't have the magic power... the brace did! Once school let out for that Summer, that brace I was in made every girl, even the ones who never noticed me before, want to totally make out with me. It was great.

I don't know if it's because girls are just such insanely sympathetic nurturers, or if they just like the thought of an immobile boy that can't run away from them (Like I'd ever want to), but whatever the reason, I kept finding myself on my back in the woods or by a lake begging some new sweet girl to be very careful when they she laid down on top of me and laid some lips on me. That was the only semi-safe way I could make out. Sometimes, I'd take the brace off, and sometimes I wouldn't. Either way, once I laid down, I'd say, "You have to be very still and not move me too much. But I think I can do this." (I always knew I could do it.) It was stupid and risky to my condition, but it was worth it. I think girls enjoyed the extra thrill of thinking they could get me so swept away by them that I would be willing to risk never walking again for them. Man, come to think of it, I WAS stupid!

And I was still a stupid virgin. No boy wants to be a virgin after 12, and I had just turned 16. This sucked!

Then, sometime in June, I had my chance! There was Hawaiian Girl, who I was totally obsessed with. Here's the weird thing: She was from Hawaii. And she looked Hawaiian. But she wasn't a native Hawaiian. Her parents were regular old white people like my family. But for some reason, she had the odd coincidence of having those crazy sexy big hips and legs without being fat, and she had that semi-Asian girl brown hair that was so soft and straight and she was from Hawaii... but not Hawaiian.

One night, when I had my buddy B.S. spending the night, we snuck Hawaiian Girl and her red-headed friend into my living room after my parents went to bed.

At some point in making out with my disabled self, Hawaiian Girl said this to me (without me even asking her)- she said to me: "Roth, I've been thinking about it, and - well, I've never done it before. But I'll let you right now. You know - if you really wanna. It's up to you. I'll do whatever you want. I don't know. It's whatever you think."

And get this. As horny of a 16 year old as I was, and as much as I wanted this girl, and as much as I didn't want to be a virgin, and as much as I thought this felt almost perfect; I gave her an honest answer. I said, "Well, I'm dying to have you. And I've thought about it forever. But you know what. I don't want to do this if you're only doing this because you think that I want to. And I can tell you're only willing to do it because you know I want to. I can tell you're not really ready. So thanks, but let's not. Damn, I can't believe I'm saying this to you. But I couldn't enjoy having you if you weren't also enjoying having me."

Am I the dumbest guy on Earth? In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. But one thing is certain: I am the only 16 year old horny boy in the history of 16 year old horny boys who has ever said and meant exactly what my dumbass had just said to that girl.

But don't feel sorry for me about losing Hawaiian Girl. Three years from then, there would be a story called "Guess Who I Ran Into When I Was Back Home From College On Christmas Break." And that's a great story I'm not going to tell. Besides, you already know how it went now.

;)

Broken Back Part 12 (The Bad)

2009-03-01T19:01:00.001-08:00

Recovering from a broken spine is mostly bad. But some of it's good. Let's do the bad first.

I had to miss two weeks of school in May. Then I forced myself to attend the last two weeks of the year, so I could pass the 10th grade. While missing school was fun, getting an undeserved F in math was not. My teacher thought it was plausible that a guy with 2 B's and an A in the class would suddenly choose to make an F. Screw you, Mrs. Holthouser!

Riding in cars was no fun, either. For one thing, it took a couple of minutes for me to get in the car. And two, I developed a phobia of riding with other people. I would have to stare at the white line the whole time to make sure we weren't running off the road. And three, I could only ride in the car for up to ten minutes at a time before I my legs would turn into a completely dead ache, and I would have to get out on the side of the road and punch the pain away and bring them back to life. My balls would ache, too, but I never punched them.

Wearing the back brace for three months wasn't as bad as you 'd think. The only thing that sucked was that I couldn't bend over. You don't realize how much you drop stuff until you aren't allowed to bend over to pick it up. Try picking a dollar up off the ground without bending your back - you look stupid, and you feel stupid, and it takes forever.

Not being able to exercise sucked, too. Even after the brace came off, after three months, I still had nine more months where I was under orders to live as if I was wearing a brace. My back was still messed up, but my spine had healed back together enough that I could live without the brace as long as I didn't run, jump, or bend. I have always been so damn hyper since I turned twelve, this just killed me. (I was the most boring docile creature for the first 12 years of life. No one knows why the switch happened.) The only ecercise I could do was go the YMCA and shoot flat-footed basketball shots. I remember one time these twelve year-olds were playing on the other side of the court and got mad at me because their ball bounced off the rim and went rolling by me about five feet away. They called me an asshole because I didn't do the polite thing and take a couple of steps over and catch their ball and give it back to them. When I explained to them that I wanted to, but had a broken back and couldn't run, they called me a liar and said a guy with a broken back would be in a back brace and wouldn't be playing ball. I told them that the proof that I did have a broken back was that I wasn't kicking their asses right then and there for calling me an asshole.

Another thing that sucked during those first three months in the brace was that I was not allowed to sleep on my side. I followed orders and slept on my back for three months. I knew this was a healthy habit and promised myself I would keep sleeping that way for the rest of my life. But on the first day the doc told me I could sleep however I wanted again, I went right back to sleeping in the fetal position like a baby. And I've slept that not-so-healthy way ever since.

Another thing that sucked was that I my awesome 16 year old "Michaelangelo's David Abs" that I never appreciated, turned into a gut in those three months of inactivity. I would never get them back. Actually, I have them back - but you can't see them. I can out do anyone on ab exercises to this day, because it keeps my back strong, but you can't see the muscles, because there is a wall of alcohol fat that layers over my hidden chisel. Only I know about the existence of my amazing fat-shielded abs.

Another thing that sucked about my broken back was that I couldn't get my driver's license on my 16th birthday, due to the fact that I couldn't turn around to look at merging traffic behind me. I would have to wait three or four extra months thanks to what that unrepentant girl did to me.

The biggest thing that sucked about my broken back wasn't even evident to me at the time. The back overshadowed the fact that my concussion was more serious than first thought. My parents thought I was just being lazy and letting my mind go because Summer had come and I had no school. And I wasn't aware of how stupid I was, because I was too stupid to know I was stupid. We would later find out it was a pretty serious dent in the front right part of my brain known in layman's terms as "blood on the brain." More on that later.

You know what was good about my pitiful back brace? The effect it had on girls. I had no idea how it was going to turn them all into such suckers. More on that fun story in the next post. Heh, heh. A broken back isn't completely a bad thing when you're trying find some sweet thing to squeeze on.

Damn PC's are not the Mac

2009-02-28T03:26:00.001-08:00

Two years with my awesome computer and no understanding as to how I haven't got a virus on it.. now I have. Some how it gave me a window to type this, but until I get some superior virgin guy to fix it, I can't t ype for a day or five. The nerds own us. Hopefully, he won't take all my money, my real job depends on this here porn machine... not for porn, but for boring newspaper articles I write.

And porn.

RW

(Or C.W.) Whichever you know me as.

Broken Back Part 11 (B.S. tags along for Sewer Day)

2009-02-24T23:10:00.000-08:00

So about a week after the wreck, I was finally getting up and staying awake a little longer than I had been. It still wasn't a lot. Other than going to that pool party with Ed, I still hadn't left the house much.

One particular school day, I had made it to the living room to watch the morning game shows. I remember being home alone and thinking it was way too quiet. I know it was a school day, because suddenly, my three Mooresville boys busted through my living room in a party mood yelling "Sewer Day, Bitch! School is canceled! We're hanging with you today, Wriscey!"

I looked over at them in shock. Not because they busted in my house without knocking - at least 100 people had a right to walk in my house without knocking any time they wanted. You wouldn't believe how much of a happy hub of a hangout that house was for people of all ages for so many years. My friends, my big sister's friends, my little sister's friends, and all my dad's employees, and all my mom's coffee drinking friends could just walk in that house whenever they wanted. Hell, people would go straight to our fridge without asking, but many of them would also fill it up from time to time. I never knew what a house key was. The only time we locked the doors was when we went to bed at night. Even when my family would go on vacation for a week to the beach, we wouldn't lock up the house. Every couple of year's a neighbor would get robbed, but we never did - and my mom told me that we never would. (She was right.) She said it was due the fact that she opened her home up to people the way God wanted her to. You wouldn't believe how many down on their luck people would stumble onto our porch telling us they had no idea what sent them there to our poor ass family in their lowest moments. Occasionally, we'd have some recovering addict, or some abuse victim, or some pregnant woman staying with us for a few days here or there, while they got their shit together. And while my Mom would help them, she would also set their sorry asses straight and tell them the truth even if they didn't want to hear it. She wouldn't tell them they weren't at fault just because they wanted to hear that. Don't get me wrong, she never put her kids in obvious danger and let raging crackheads stay with us, but we occasionally we had some character at the house. The crackheads would soon turn out to be two of my friends. And even they never caused a problem... at least not with us.

So why were my little druggie friends, Jason, Blank and B.S running around my house laughing about something they called "Sewer Day?" I didn't know, either. So one of them explained.

"Basically, Dr. Sloop is a dumbass!"

Let me explain who Dr. Sloop was before I recount my friends explaining Sewer Day to me. Dr. Sloop was our principal at Mooresville High School. She was a lady that my Grandmother went to high school with. So that would've put her in her early 70's at that time. Yes, we had an old, naive grandma for a principal. Awesome! She was very nice, but she was very naive. I'll tell you how clueless she was about bastards our age.

One day earlier that year, all of the students were suddenly sequestered in their 4th period classes while a drug sweep was performed by the K-9 unit from the local police department looking for drugs in the lockers. Once it was done, this sweet lady came on the intercom and proudly announced to us that we had a "completely drug free school!" Even my Drafting teacher, Mr. Nail, was laughing his ass off when she said that. It was even more hilarious than you think. You may think the dogs failed at their job and that our little school couldn't possibly be drug free. But actually, on that day our school probably really was drug free. Here's why: The night before, one of our asssistant principal calleds exactly one friend of mine and told him to spread the word that we all needed to keep our drugs out of school the next day. It's not that the assistant principal was involved in drugs. As well as I knew the respectable man, it was probably because he didn't want any of our futures to get derailed by one stupid day of dogs running through the school. I always loved that dude. And believe me, everyone got his memo. I wasn't one to bring drugs to school, and even I knew about it. So that's how naive Dr. Sloop was, she had no idea she had been backdoored by her assistant principal. So let's get back to one of my friends explaining Sewer Day to me.

"Roth Wriscey, you're got gonna believe it. Dr. Sloop got on the intercom in first period and said "Students, we're having a problem with the plumbing. Whatever you do, please don't flush the toilets for the next couple of hours, because if you do that, it will back up the system and we'll have to cancel school for the rest of the day."

I told you she was naive.

"Seriously dude, after she said that shit - during the very next class change, every motherfucker in school was racing to that bathrooms to flush every toilet. What was that lady thinking?"

While I was jealous that I had missed an event like Sewer Day, I was thrilled that my three friends decided to spend it with me. Then I looked at my friends and realized one detail didn't add up, and it fell squarely on my main man, B.S.

I said, "Guys, I'm glad you all thought to come her for Sewer Day. But B.S, what the hell are you doing here? You don't even go to our school!"

He laughed and said, "Well, when the guys found out about Sewer Day, they called me at the payphone in the hall at my school like yall always do at that time, and I decided to ditch class for the rest of the day, so I snuck out of school and ran to the side of the road where they picked me up in the Samurai. I wasn't letting ya'll motherfuckers have a day off without me. Fuck that!,"

Yeah, B.S. went on to be a twice-convicted felon. He also had at least two babies with two women. He's even escaped from jail during a transport to court. I've seen him get in countless jams. I've known him to get his ass kicked multiple times. But I've never seen him start a fight or even through a punch. And he's never screwed me over in 17 years. We have an agreement. He doesn't bring his bullshit world into mine, and I don't try to talk him out of his scams. And he's still he's one of my best friends today. I haven't seen him in four years. And he now lives with other freaks in Oregon. But we're still tight. I'll make it out there soon, or he'll shock me with a surprise visit this year.

Me and B.S. going to different schools was kind of funny because I lived in Mecklenburg County but my parents paid money for me to go to a public school where he lived in Iredell County.

And while B.S. lived in Iredell County, his parents paid money for him to go to a public school where I lived in Mecklenburg County.

Here's the difference: I went to school where I did because they provided a better education than where I was supposed to go.

B.S went to schoo where he did, because he had been banned from the Mooresville School System FOR LIFE for bringing a gun to class in the 8th grade. He didn't even point it at anyone. He was just trying impress a girl by showing it to her in class. She was so impressed she tattled. B.S. later got banned from a second school system for something else, but I can't remember. At his third school system, he didn't get in trouble, even though he was involved in some altercation outside where some people shot some guy he was standing with. His friend wasn't majorly hurt.

My final thought on Sewer Day? "Man, I always miss the good shit!"

Wokka, Wokka, Wokka!

Broke Back Part Ten: New Friend, Start to End

2009-02-24T19:04:00.001-08:00

My two days in the hospital were pretty uneventful and pretty quick. Before I knew it, I was back home, under some basic orders from the doctor:

1. One, you can take the back brace off to sleep, but you must always sleep on your side.

2. You can take the back brace off every other day for a shower.

3. No physical activity and no bending.

It was easy, except for the fact that I loved taking at least two hot showers a day, I loved sleeping on my side and I loved being physically active. Other than those three things, it was easy to follow those three orders. Still, I obeyed, because I knew I wanted to retain my ability to walk. One fuck up and I could ruin that.

I was healing slowly. In fact, I still hadn't felt any sign of healing, but I was told that I was lucky to be 16, because a 40 year old would be healing even a lot slower than that. It still took forever to get out of bed and I was getting these awful dull aches in my thighs and balls that I still get today. (I found out that they are related to a nerve in the part of the spine I injured.)

After a couple of days at home, I woke up from my coma routine and saw a guy sitting in the chair across from just staring at me. It wasn't a mean stare, or a creepy stare or an overly sympathetic stare, it was just a neutral stare. I would later learn that this guy just had a habit of staring directly into your eyes whenever he thought deliberately about what he was going to say.

I could tell the guy had probably been sitting there patiently, and for quite some time, until I finally woke up. He could have been there minutes or hours, I'll never know, but he had definitely been waiting until I was ready. Then he spoke in his matter of fact way:

Him: I bet you feel as bad as you look.

Me: That depends. Do I look like shit?

Him: Yeah. Pretty much.

Me: Well, then I'd have to say you're right. You're name's Ed, right?

Him: Yep. I heard you weren't doing so hot.---------------------

OK, so here was the deal on Ed. I had met him one time. He was good friends with my good friend, Blank. We had met weeks before at Blank's house and hung out with a bunch of other people at the house that day. I knew he was a senior two years older than me, and I had heard he was trouble, but I never saw it myself.

It was the early 90's, and Ed looked every bit like a teenager from the early 90's without being one of those cliche grunge kids or one of those silly cross-color wearing wigger kids. He had that somewhat-bowl cut that went around your head kind of high. He was a blond dude with a really round skull kind of like a cabbage patch kid.

What I couldn't figure out was how Ed figured out where I lived or why he came to visit me. He had never been to my house, he lived 10 miles away in Mooresville, he was older than me, and I honestly didn't think he would've remembered me if he had seen me again after that one time we met. I figured my Mom had let him in, but I really wasn't sure. Our conversation continued:

Ed: Have you left the house since you've been back?

Me: No. I've been here the whole time.

Ed: Well, that's no good. Let's get you out of here for a while.

Me: How did you know where I lived?

Ed: Blank told me how to get here. I know where there's a pool party in Bridgeport where a lot of your friends are. You need to get off your ass and out of the house. It'll do you some good. I've already checked with your mom, she said it was OK.

Me: O-kay? I guess I can go. But it's gonna take me a while to get out of bed.

Ed: That's fine. I can wait. I got a new sound system in my Thunderbird. The bass will probably feel good on your back.-------------------------------------------------------

I've never enjoyed rap music so much. I remember Ed had that damn Onyx song that was new at the time playing on a CD on repeat the whole way to the party. He was right, the bass did feel good.

As we rode to the party that night, I could tell this was the first day of this guy becoming a pretty good friend to me. Few people got to see this side of him. I don't think he gave a shit whether they knew he was a nice guy or not. They just believed what they heard. While I knew I had a new friend, I didn't know was how short our friendship would turn out to be. It was May, and Ed was alive while I felt dead. I didn't know then that the following May, we would switch roles. But for the moment, I was riding shotgun. And a year from then, Ed would decide to eat one.

I don't want to go into Ed's death too much for a couple of reasons. First off, it was his death, not mine. I hate people who try to turn someone else's misfortune into their avenue to try to get attention. Still, he turned into a pretty good friend, and I don't want to not mention him like he didn't exist. He did exist. And he was a damn good guy. I joke that he was probably my 8th best friend at the time he decided to leave us. I probably just missed the cut in being mentioned in his homemade will that he left behind. And justifiably so. If I was suicidal, he probably would have just missed the cut in making into my letter, too.

I know he had troubles, and I know his troubles won out. And I know I've had people much closer to me have died whose deaths have affected me less. I don't know why. Yes, I do. It's because he was so nice for no reason. And I knew he would've eventually made something of himself if he didn't feel the need to do what he did to himself.

I'll leave my memories of my year of being friends with Ed by telling one funny story about him.

A couple of weeks before he died, he was issued a citation that only one other person in North Carolina had ever received: Instructing While Impaired.

North Carolina used to issue some kids a provisional license that would allow them to drive only as long as there was another licensed driver in the front passenger seat with them.

One day Lame-O (who I once justifiably popped in the head with a Pepsi can) was pulled over for speeding by a cop. While Lame-O was totally sober, Ed was in the passenger seat drunk as shit and technically in the role of "instructor." So he basically got charged with the bizarre crime of having a designated driver.

Oh, one other funny thing from his suicide note. (There's a sentence you don't see every day.) Besides leaving lots of my pals lots of his shit in a suicide will that didn't count, he also mentioned Kurt Cobain. He mentioned him to the effect of, "Don't let anyone say that what I did had to do with Kurt Cobain's suicide a few weeks ago at all. I am not one of those copy-cat suicide posers. This has nothing to do with that. It completely has to do with _______."

That guy was funny as hell. I can't believe it's been almost 15 years. It feels like only 10.

Broken Spine - Part Nine

2009-02-24T18:37:00.003-08:00

Once they wheeled me across the catwalk and into the hospital, they led me straight to my room and put me in a hospital bed. (Private room - fuck yeah!) I was in so much pain, so I fought it the only way I knew how: I started trying to go to sleep (with the help of drugs of course.) They told me that in a few hours someone would come in to fit me for a back brace.

This was the first time I had ever been a patient in a hospital. As I started falling asleep, I started anticipating exactly how good my nurse would look when I woke up - I thought about this in the exact way you would think a 16 year old would. Hell, let's be real, that's the same way a 60 year old man would, too. Because if sitcoms and movies had taught me anything: my nurse was going to be gorgeous. And she was going to be whatever I wanted. If I wanted a blond, I'd get a blond. If I wanted her to be Chinese, she'd be Chinese. If I wanted a Chinese blond - I could even get that. That had to be the way it worked. Right? I couldn't wait to wake up and get whatever I wanted - which changed every five seconds. Then I fell asleep.

When my nurse woke me up, you know what I got?

A big, muscular, hairy, middle-aged, yankee, dude, with a lisp and a buzzcut.

Here comes the understatement of the year:

Dude, that was totally not what I wanted.

In fact, that may have been the most extreme opposite of what I wanted. I was so pissed! What a buzz-kill! And I was so offended that this dude had the nerve to ask me to roll over so he could do his job and fit me for a back brace that was going help me heal and improve my quality of life.

I hated him. I was such a bastard to him.

He was such a nice guy. He was such a patient guy.

And I was such a motherfucker to him.

He put up with so much of my shit. I wasn't nice to him. I didn't do what he asked without putting up a fight the whole way. And still, this guy never yelled at me or said even the most cross words toward me. He just persistently stuck with me until he got my asshole-self flipped over where he could apply these warm plaster strips to me that would harden into a mold while I bitched the whole time at his competent ass.

And thin when he was done with my back, he flipped me over and went through the same bullshit routine with this little punk that was me, as he layed the plaster on my front and finished fitting me for my brace.

I was such a jerk to this guy. And 100 percent of it had to do with the fact that he wasn't a pretty lady.

Now that I am older I have so much respect for this guy and all other medical professionals. They help people who treat them like crap.

There aren't many people on Earth I owe an apology. Either I'm not sorry, or I've genuinely told them I'm sorry. But this guy, who I've never seen in my life again, is still owed an apology by me.

So wherever you are, Big, Muscular, Hairy, Middle-aged, Yankee, Dude with a Lisp and a Buzzcut, I am so sorry. I hope you forgive me for being such a piece of shit to you.

Broke Back Bitchin Part 8 (Dr. Chew chews out the young doctor)

2009-02-24T15:58:00.001-08:00

After those two days in bed, my mom's suspicions were too much. She packed my raggedy body in her car and took me to who she was told was the best back specialist in Charlotte.

Dr. Chew was a little guy with a little mustache and a red bow tie and reddish hair. I could tell I was looking at a genius. Sometimes you just know when you are in the company of brilliance. I could tell that he knew this about himself, too. This man may have been little, and he may have been friendly, and he may have worn an antiquated bow-tie, but I could tell he was still confident to say the least. I always felt like this guy was probably slumming it by being only the best back doctor in the area. He probably could have built rockets out of re-treads if he wanted to.

Dr. Chew had already looked at my records before we met. So after a few minutes of examining me he said in a chipper voice, "All right, you broke your back. And you broke it good. It's a plain as that. You're not passing go, and you're not collecting 200 dollars today. We're gonna fit you for a brace and your gonna stay across the catwalk in the hospital for a couple of days, then you're gonna wear that brace for three months. Then you're gonna do nothing for a year, and then we'll have you healed up as best you can."

I said, "Do nothing?"

And he said, "You're not gonna run. You're not gonna jump. And most of all, you're not going to bend over."

A year of nothing? Have you ever met me? To this day, I'm still the most hyper 31 year old you will ever meet, and that's still with all these problems. (I just retired from doing full-speed fake-falls at 30. And I'm thinking about pulling a Magic Johnson and getting back in the game!) So imagine how hard this was gonna be on me when I was 16! Do nothing? This was gonna be tough.

As they started to wheel me to my hospital room, Dr. Chew asked me a few sarcastic but serious follow up questions.

Dr. Chew: Did you ever have any dreams of being a power-lifter?

Me: No, not really.

Dr. Chew: Good, because that dream would've been killed today. I'm surprised, though, a guy as big as you.

Me: I'm 140. Real funny.

Dr. Chew: Did you ever have any military dreams?

Me: Not really.

Dr. Chew: Good, because that dream is D.O.A today, too. Here' s the bright side: now you can't get drafted! But seriously, if you ever want a desk job in the Air Force, even years from now - you let me know. I can make that happen.

Me: Sure will, Doctor Chew. Now one more thing. How close was I to paralysis?

Dr. Chew: Have you ever heard of a place called "The Edge of Hell and Back?" You've just returned from there. You don't get closer than you did without going in.

Me: How did that other doctor miss this?

Dr. Chew: I don't know. He was young. But I'll tell you this. He received a phone call from me about this. I've never met the guy before, but let me promise you: he will never EVER make this mistake on someone else. We came to an understanding.-------------------------------------

I could tell by Dr. Chew's eyes and tone that he meant that he had given the new doctor a brief lesson in reading X-Rays, and then probably yelled at him a little and maybe even cussed at him for sending me home with a broken spine.

Also, Dr. Chew told me that I would never get to play football like I wanted to the next year. I would've been a great receiver, too. I was skinny, fast, and afraid to get tackled... which would make me even faster. This "no football" order made my mom happy, because it was the only thing in life she had ever sheltered me from. This lady would let me jump off the railroad track bridge as trains passed two feet over my head (seriously), but the thought of me returning a punt from the 30 yard line scared the shit out of her - ironically because as she once said, "You could break your back!" I had finally gotten old enough that she was going to have to let me play football my junior year, but now, thanks to Ginger, Mom got her way.

In part 9, I'll get to my poor nurse. Oh, it's a good one. That poor nurse. Although, I really want to get to part 10. It's a sad tale about such a nice person, who I guess was sad.

Broke Back Story Part 7 (In Bed, But Not Dead!)

2009-02-23T22:35:00.000-08:00

The first two hours after being sent home from the Emergency Room with case of "a sore back" were pretty uneventful. I just slept and slept and slept. I only ever got up to go to the bathroom. I never thought going to the bathroom would be the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. No, taking a wiz was still easy. It was getting out of bed that was the hard part. It usually took ten to fifteen minutes to get out of the bed and on my feet. Little did I know that it was because I was trying to get out of a bed with a broken spine! That may have had something to do with it.

Getting out of bed was like trying to limbo through the Labyrinth. (That last sentence at least makes sense to me, and that's all that matters.) I would slither to from the mattress trying to reach my feet, and I'd be able to make an inch or two of progress and then pain would hit and then I knew I would have to find a new route. Once I got the nerve to try to find a new way to slither a little further that wasn't unbearable, I knew that route would also be good for only another inch or two. This would go on for the ten or fifteen minute period until I finally could get myself to my feet to go to the bathroom. It really is amazing I didn't paralayze myself during one of my trips out of my bed to the bathroom. It's just that first off, I trusted that I was only as bad as the doctor thought I was - I didn't know doctor could misdiagnose broken spines. And second off, I really didn't want my mom and sisters to have to handle my jars of wiz and pans of poo, so I was determined to take a leak and crap in the bathroom.

On the second day after the accident someone came to see me: it was the girl who drove me into a tree. (I'm tired of dignifying her existence by saying her real name, let's just call her "The girl who drove me into a tree" for a while. Nah, let's just call her "Cuntree.")

So Cuntree somehow got into my house and sat in a chair across from my bed and woke me up with her obnoxious voice. (Because when you're in terrible pain, the one person you want to wake you up during one of your few moments of pain free peace is the girl made you that way.)

I woke up all high and was looking over at her talking away, and thought to myself, "Man, these drugs are good. I haven't even gotten mad at her, yet." I still wasn't mad at her, yet - even though I knew I should be. But when you're high, and hurt, and just glad to be alive, you really don't give a shit who's sitting in front of you babbling on and on about a bunch of nonsense you couldn't give three shits about.

Do you want to know what she was babbling on and on about?

Was it my condition? No.

In fact, she hadn't asked me one question about how I was feeling. I mean, who asks a guy who can barely walk, who has a softball-sized knot coming out of his forehead, who has all sorts of cuts on him including a seatbelt scar that would last for 10 years how he was feeling?

Was she babbling on and on about how sorry she was about what she had done to us?

She said not a word about that. I should have felt lucky to get the crumb of an apology I got at the scene when she thought that was more important than me getting help. I wasn't surprised, I had known her since I was four, she was always that way. I knew I would never hear one word of culpability come out of her mouth again for the rest of my life. And so far I've been right. Not that I care. Sure it would be nice, but it wouldn't change anything, as far as my physical problems go. Actually, all an apology in 2009 would benefit would be her. And I've already made it clear: I'd accept it. I really have no axe to grind. But as far as it affecting me - it wouldn't. I'm over it. I know it sounds like I'm not, but that's just because I took it upon myself to tell this story and I've kind of had to let all of the anger back in me for the purposes of writing this. Once I'm done, I'll let it go away again. And I guarantee you this: I'm ready to be done writing all this. It has been a haunting writing project. It has consumed me ever since I started it last week. But it's too late to quit. And when I'm done, I'll let every bit of it leave me again. Lord knows, I have to deal with it enough, just because of the physical pain that will haunt me forever whether I want it to or not, so I don't feel like adding to my burden by letting the emotional part of the ordeal consume me. In fact, I'm grateful that all the stars lined up and things didn't turn out even worse than they already did. Now let's get back to what this girl said to me while I was bound to my bed as she babbled away from across the room in a chair. So what exactly was she rambling about?

No, let me correct that: So what exactly was she bitching about? (Because yes, she drove to my house to bitch to me about something.) What was it?

Her new car.

Don't reread that. You read that right. The girl already had a new car. And it was less than 48 hours since she destroyed the old one.

And she was bitching about the car!

And she was bitching to me about the car!

What in the fuck was consistently wrong with this girl! I wish I could chalk up such behavior to her having a bad day, or say, a head trauma. But she wasn't just having a bad day - she always like this! And I was the one with the head trauma!

Lucky for me, I was high and disabled, because I had to listen to her go on and on about how much her parents had screwed her over by giving the poor girl a sports car that she didn't like.

Let's dissect how many fucked up things were in that sentence (As if we have to.)

1: The girl nearly kills people when she wrecks a car, so the parents give her another car.

2. The girl nearly kills people when she wrecks a car, so the parents give her a sports car!

3. The girl nearly kills people when she wrecks a car, so the parents give her a sports car and let her out on the roads two days later!

4. The girl nearly kills people when she wrecks a car, the parents giver her a sports car
and let her out on the road two days later and then she has the nerve to bitch about it.

5. And most notably: She had the nerve to come to my house and bitch about it to ME!

Still, I didn't mind one bit. I had other things to worry about, like not dying and crap.

(Maybe I read them wrong, maybe her parents also couldn't stand her, and were trying to insure that she finally finished herself off the next time she wrecked, by giving her a faster and more dangerous car than the first one.)

So while Cuntree was going on and on about her new car, I focused on something different to pass the time. I started looking at her, and I remember she was wearing short jean shorts and a little yellow shirt, as I thought to myself all perplexed, "Try as I may, I just cannot make this vile girl attractive. I could probably see her panties for a second if I wanted to, if I caught a glance of her from here at the right angle, but I think I'd rather not try. I bet if she was cool, she'd be at least semi-attractive, maybe even regular-hot; but she's such a consistently horrible person that I just don't think I could ever bring myself to touch her. That's too bad. Because if she was hotter, and had the slightest feeling of remorse: I bet I could totally guilt her into doing it with me. Then I wouldn't be a virgin anymore and my friends could no longer pick on me. Why, out of all the girls in the world, did this one have to be the one to critically injure me? If it was any other girl, I would totally try to get laid out of this. Dammit! And I'm even high! And I still can't bring myself to try to "turn her lemons into lemonade." I wish she would leave. But I'll let her sit here and babble on if she wants. I'm sure I'll fall asleep again soon."

And babble away, she did! Then Cuntree did more thing that you won't believe. (Unless you know her, then you'd totally believe me.)

She tried to persuade me to get out of bed and walk outside to see her new ride and sympathize with her about "just how ugly" her new car was.

Oh, poor her. Even then, I didn't get mad - no matter how long she argued with me that I really should take the ten to fifteen minutes it took me to get out of bed to go look at the terrible sports car her parents had forced on her.

If I was mad or clever at the time, I would've said, "Yeah, it sucks when people force something on you that you didn't ask for."

Broken Spine Part 6 for sure

2009-02-23T15:19:00.002-08:00

I already told you I don't remember anything about the ambulance ride. I also don't even really know what hospital I went to. I think it was Memorial in Charlotte, but it might have been that one in Huntersville. All I know is they put me on a surfboard. I hated that surfboard.

I'm still not sure what the surfboard does. To this day, you could explain to me exactly how that surfboard thing is designed to keep you from further injuring your spine while you wait to see the doctor, and I still won't believe you. That thing I was strapped to was horrible. The ER people imprisoned me on that thing for 9 or 10 hours. I didn't mind having to piss in a cup... which for once I couldn't do because I was so dehydrated. I just minded the surfboard itself. It hurt my back so bad.

And what made me the maddest was that I could not talk the nurses or doctors into letting me get off of it. They would just keep walking and sometimes they might acknowledge me and coldly say, "Just stay there, we can't let you off of that. Please stop asking us that."

This was pissing me off. I could talk my way in or out of anything and these people didn't give a shit. I would say, "Look, this surfboard is hurting me so bad. I just need to lay in a bed. Will you people please just move me into a soft bed?! I promise not to move. I'll lay still on my back just like I am now. I'll do whatever you want. Just let me off of this hard board! It is the most painful thing I've ever felt."

These people were stone cold stones. I still think they could have put me in a bed.

Besides the 9 to 10 hours stuck alone on the surfboard pleading to be let off the surfboard, I don't remember much at the hospital.

I know my mom and dad were there at first. But after an hour or two, just my Mom was there.
She would later tell me that he left because he "Had to work the next day and needed a good night's sleep." She said she argued with him that he "owned the damn company and could call in to work for one day to be with his injured son at the hospital." He left anyway. Sounds like him. Sounds like her. She's right, and he gets his way.

I also know that my mom pleaded with Kira's parents at the ER. She had never met them, but she offered them this advice: "Look, I've been through stuff like this many times. Ginger's insurance company, no doubt, has somebody on the way here this minute to offer you what seems like a great amount of money, while you're here. They want you to sign away your daughter's right to sue them in the future. Don't sign a thing. She may seem fine now, but if you find something wrong with her later, you're screwed. You're name should be signed on nothing tonight. Trust me, I know how this goes."

They didn't trust her. And you will later find out how it goes. The magical insurance guy showed up just like my Mom "amazingly" knew he would. I guess Kira's parents just thought my Mom got lucky? I don't know. If she was right about Step 1 (him showing up), why would she be wrong about Step 2? (You shouldn't sign shit.") Oh well, these people signed a piece of paper for a few thousand dollars and I guess they thought they had hit the jackpot. I shouldn't speculate, I don't know what they were thinking. I'm still not sure even if they were thinking.

After 9 or 10 hours on the surfboard, they took some X-Rays of me and all this other stuff and then they dumped me in a wheel chair. They wheeled me into a room with my Mom and the young doctor came in and saw me in person for what I think was the first time that night.

He handed my Mom a written prescription in my name for a bottle of Hydrocodone. The only phrase I remember him saying was that I was going to be "pretty sore for a couple of days."

There was no mention of a concussion, and not even close to a mention of my back being broken. Even though I HAD JUST HAD A MAJOR CONCUSSION AND MY BACK WAS VERY BROKEN!
In fact, the doctor said that the X-Rays showed "no problems at all." I was diagnosed with a muscle sprain. Just a muscle sprain. NOT A MAJOR FRACTURE OF MY THIRD LUMBAR!

A nurse wheeled me out to the entrance/exit of the ER as my Mom pulled up in her Wood-Paneled Buick Electra Station Wagon 2.25. (Some black people in my town referred to the model as a "Deuce-and-a-Quata.")

After ten or fifteen minutes of trying to get me into the car, they finally succeeded. You would think that would have been a sign, but nobody thought anything. And my mom drove me home to let me rest my sore back for a couple days. It wasn't her fault. She's no doctor. I'm thinking maybe the doctor should have paid attention in X-Ray class when he was in medical school. Oh well, at least I had codeine.

On the way home, my Mom told me how she had spent the day in nearby Long Creek the same time I was in the car wreck. She was sitting outside in the backyard eating with family at her dad's house when they heard the emergency workers driving by. She said when the sirens went off, she said to them, "That's not good. Roth is in this Huntersville today. I think those sirens are for him."

She said she went and sat by the phone and waited for the call to reach her so she would know where to find me. She was right. Then she found me.

My Broken Back Story Part 6 is it? Or is it 5?

2009-02-22T19:55:00.000-08:00

Do you want to know exactly what waking up from a major concussion feels like? Then watch the scene in Pulp Fiction where Marcellis Wallace is waking up from being hit by a car and Kathy Griffin is all in his face trying to help him wake up. That scene captures exactly how it looked to me and how I felt when I woke up. Whoever directed that scene or did that camera work has been knocked the fuck out before, I promise you.

I woke up in the street laying on my back. Yes, I told you earlier that I fell asleep in a ditch? So how did I wake up in the street? I can't tell you, yet. That's a great story that will probably be best saved for maybe Part 9 or 10. It maybe my favorite story inside this giant story. So let's just get back to me waking up in the street.

I was on my back and there was a girl with curly hair in my face standing over me gently trying to wake me up. She didn't know my name. And she wasn't a medical worker. She was just a 19 year old girl. (Yes, I knew exactly how old she was, just be patient.) When she woke me up, her voice was so soft and so comforting almost like a mother's voice when she wakes you up on a Saturday when you're nine and tells you that there are no chores and breakfast is ready whenever you want it. (Oh my gosh, my face is trying to cry for the first time right now. Holy crap, why is thinking of that girl's voice making a tear rest on my right eyelid right now? I'm not going to wipe it, I'm going to let it live a minute. It's blocking my vision a little, but I don't mind it. There's a little one on the inside of my left eye now, too. It's been almost sixteen years, and that's the first time a tear has come out of my eyes related to this. I just don't cry much. These two dots on my eyes have felt like a sobfest and they didn't even run down my face.) OK, back to the story, this girl was in my face and being very soothing and asking me if knew what happened and if I could just promise to lay still.

I wasn't really listening to her though, because all I could think was, "Man, Shelly DeWese sure did grow up to be a lot prettier than I thought she would." Yes, I knew who the girl was. I hadn't seen her in years, but I knew her. She was my sister's best church-friend for a few years when I was little. Her dad was our choir director at this old-timey Southern Baptist Church that I went to until I was ten. He also owned a head shop called the Oasis. Yes, the man sold bongs, and the man sang songs. I see no conflict there. I know other people do, but I don't. The guy loved weed and the guy loved God. What's the big deal? I doubt God hates weed. He made it. Then again he also made cancer. So what do I know. I know that a lot of people with cancer smoke weed. I also know that they think weed can CAUSE cancer. God gave us a funny world. And God also gave me Shelly.

I could tell Shelly had no idea who I was. So I decided to fuck with her. Yes, I was laying there in the road with what I didn't yet know was a broken spine and a major concussion and I thought it would be a good time to play a little game. Wow! Now I see why my friends had thought I would impulsively fake my death during a tragedy. I have no line. So here's what I did:

When Shelly asked me that question about how I felt and if I would promise to lay still for her, I recognized that she didn't know who I was, and I knew she didn't think I knew who she was, either. So when I answered her I said, "My back hurts a lot. And I think I hit my head. But how are you, SHELLY?."

Oh, man! You'd have thought I said, "Hello, Clairice." She was freaked out. But she tried to stay calm and matter of factly said, "How did you know my name?"

I could see her wondering if maybe my time in another place had returned me to Earth with special powers that enabled me to know everything about people I had never met - because as far as she knew, we HAD never met.

I remember smiling at her and stalling just to let her keep being freaked out for a few long seconds. Then I gave up the trick.

I said, "Shelly, I've known you since as long as I can remember. I just haven't seen you in a few years. You were my sister's friend. Her name is Hannah.

"Oh my gosh. You're Roth Wriscey, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. And I hurt really bad. But I can wiggle my feet. That's a good thing, right. I can wiggle my feet. That's means I'm gonna be able to walk right? I'm not gonna be paralyzed am I? Can you move your feet when your first hurt and the become paralyzed later in the day? Do you know? Why aren't you answering me, Shelly? Do you know if I'm gonna be able to walk? Am I gonna be paralyzed forever?"

"I don't know, Cory. I think it's probably a good sign that you can wiggle your feet. But how 'bout not wiggling your feet? I'm glad you can do it, but you need to be still for me, OK, buddy."

I tried to follow her sweet directions, but every few moments, I had to wiggle those feet, they were the only think telling me I wasn't going to live in a wheelchair.

Once my conversation with Shelly concluded, I looked over my body towards my feet as I was still laying on my back in the road and I saw about thirty people. There was an ambulance and paramedics and people I had never seen before. And I heard Ginger trying to get over to me and say she was sorry. (I don't count this as an apology. It was just words at the scene. The last sixteen years, I haven't heard shit. And you'll hear more on that cunt later. Yeah, I called her a cunt. And I'm not sorry. Oh, don't worry. She's forgiven. She's been forgiven. She just doesn't know she's forgiven, because she never bothered to ask. She's not just forgiven for the wreck, she and her whole family are forgiven for what they were going to soon do to me. They are forgiven for what they are not sorry about.)

As Ginger screamed her "I'm sorrys" at me while I was laying in the road, she was pulled away by people who were trying to explain to her that my medical treatment was the top priority at the time, not her agressive "apologies."

Then I heard Holton talking to me while I had my eyes closed, he was talking to me like a man. We were men. We weren't boys. At least not when the situation called for us to be men. That's why I liked Holton, he could flip his switch from "retard" to "maturity" in the same way I always could. I remember him talking rationally to me about how we were gonna deal with this, and how we were gonna get me healed, and how he was there for me.

The paramedics must have just arrived when I woke up to Shelly because they were on the scene but they still weren't on to me. As I looked at all these dozens of people that were there, I thought to myself, "All these people on the scene sure are making a big fuss over me, some guy they don't know. I know it's necessary, but I don't like all this attention. Wow! When have I ever not wanted attention. I just wish they would leave, or at least throw me in an ambulance and get me out of here."

Then I looked over towards the ambulance and thought, "Hey, I didn't know my old assistant soccer coach was also a paramedic. Man, I hated that guy. He was a dick. I remember begging Coach Lacy to fire him and he wouldn't. But everytime he told me he wouldn't, his eyes looked like they were saying that the real reason was that he "couldn't." But why? Had the mob told Coach Lacy that the only way they'd forgive a gambling debt was if he hired that douche-bag as his assistant soccer coach? That doesn't seem plausible - even for the mob! And I don't think Coach Lacy even gambles. Man I don't like that dude. I really don't want him treating me. What if he knows I tried to get him fired? What if he now gets his revenge? What if he kills me?"

Then I realized he didn't fucking recognize me. It had only been three years, how did this little pencil neck motherfucker forget me? Me! The guy who hated him! I thought about playing a trick on Shelly again, by calling this guy by his name in front of her and doing the whole bullshit clairvouyant routine again, but I was kind of sore.

As they loaded me into the ambulance to be taken to the hospital in Charlotte, I heard screaming from about 30 feet away. I knew who it was. And I could hear what she was screaming but I really didn't care.

"OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! MY CAR! LOOK AT MY CAR! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! MY CAR IS DESTROYED! OH MY GOD! IT'S RUINED!"

I later found out that Holton lost control and tried to punch her for yelling all of that crap out of her mouth right then and there, but he couldn't get to her fast enough, because his ankle was twisted from the car wreck and as he tried to hop on his one good foot down the street to hit her, a group of people easily restrained him from doing what everybody wished he would do. There were men and women there who didn't even know Ginger except for the last half hour who were telling Holton that they completely understood why he was trying to punch her, but that they unfortunately had to stop him. She better thank her vagina every day for the fact that she still has a face, because if she had a dick, that mob of people would have let Holton destroy her. They did the right thing, for a girl who was always so determined not to.

I don't remember one second of that ambulance ride to the hospital. Maybe I was drugged, maybe I was just knocked silly, maybe I slept. I have no idea. I do know that Part 6 begins at the Emergency Room.

I broke my back or something (Part 4)

2009-02-22T19:29:00.003-08:00

This installment of the "I broke my back" story is being told the best I can. I am only telling you what people around me told me. Ny body was there and I was awake, but for the rest of my life I will never remember the first 15 minutes of my life after the car wreck, due to the fact that I was in the initial stages of a major, major concussion. Here's what Kira and Holton told me happened after the wreck:

When the car we were in flew down into the woods, it hit a tree head on and just stopped. The car tree was lined up with the hood of the car directly in front of the passenger side that me and Holton were both sitting on. (We were later told that the tire had a role in saving us from the tree.)

When the Accord came to a stop (by way of a very hard collision) everybody sat there stunned. Then they started asking each other if they were OK and crap like that. Then they looked at me.

I was sitting in my chair with my seatbelt still on and I looked fine... except I was knocked the fuck out. Holton saw me sleeping and thought I was fucking with them. (Yes, that's what happens when you're a joker like me: people truly believed that I had it in my to use a near-fatal car wreck to pretend I was dead. They actually thought I was capable of saying to myself: "Wow, we're about to hit a tree, I should use this occasion to trick my friends into thinking I've been killed! I'm so funny! They're gonna love this gag!") But I wasn't faking. I was out.

After the three people in the car screamed at me to wake up and shook me with no success, they came to the next obvious conclusion: I must be dead. They were sure I was dead. I knew I wasn't dead, but I was in the black, so I couldn't tell them. I didn't hear them and I didn't feel them, but some part of me knew I was just knocked out and disabled at that moment.

Just when my friends and Ginger had given up on me waking up and being alive, I jolted awake and was on some sort of supersonic speed. I scared the shit out of them, not by being dead, but by being alive! They said I was in some sort of panic and rescue mode. I undid my seatbelt and I undid Kira's seatbelt, and screamed shit like "Oh no! We were just in a wreck!" Then, gosh I can't remember which way it went: they told me that either I coughed a giant load of blood into Kira's hand or she coughed a giant load of blood into mine. I tend to think they said she coughed in my hand, but I don't know. They said I was really intent on making sure she was OK. Then I ran out of the car and opened all the doors and told everyone they had to get out of the car, and then I just started running back and forth like a crazy person. Oh man, I bet this was some sight to see. They tell me that after a bit of this goofy running act I had going on, I stopped and calmly said, "Oh man, my back hurts. I need to lay down." And I promptly laid down in a ditch and fell back asleep.

That is all I know about the period where I was awake but not there. They say Troy Aikmen once got knocked out in a Dallas Cowboys game and didn't know it, got up, huddled his men together and flawlessly executed a running play. A week later, he said, "I always told the coach I could run that play in my sleep. And last week, I got to prove it." I don't know what that has to do with me, I just thought it was funny. I am going straight to part five. That is where my memory starts up again for the first time at the crash sight. It possibly the most amusing and bizarre part of the story. It's a lot better than part 4. Still, I had to tell you about this part I wasn't there for. Is it me, or is this true story starting to sound somewhat like a work of fiction written by that guy that wrote Fight Club? (Not the quality of the writing, just the "small town coincidence scheme.") BTW, I give "Rant" mixed reviews. His hick accents were so contrived that they ruined a good story, and it got a little to sci-fi at the end, I thought. On to part five.

Busy as a Bee-Yotch

2009-02-21T14:12:00.001-08:00

Sorry to be a tease, but there will be no part 4 today. Ironically, I'm busy here at the radio station writing and reading news stories that are mostly about this weekend's fatal car wrecks.

They were funny, too. I'm working all three of my jobs this weekend and I really just want to sit home and write for fun.

I promise to get back to this fun adventure on Sunday.

The I broke my back story (Part 3 of a million)

2009-02-20T11:56:00.005-08:00

We were on our way to pick up Kira at her house in Huntersville. It was a five mile ride. It was the first time I had ridden with Ginger driving. And it was already being scary. She was speeding without controlling the car that well, and she was acting like the whole world needed to yield to her and her Honda Accord.

Never shy, but still polite, I said, "Ginger, do you mind slowing it down, you're scaring me just a little?" She said, "I think I know what I'm doing."

After another minute of her still driving uneccasarily aggressive, Holton got in her face from the passenger seat and screamed, "LOOK, YOU STUPID BITCH! YOU HAVE GOT TO SLOW DOWN! YOU AREN'T A GOOD ENOUGH DRIVER TO BE DOING ALL THIS CRAZY SHIT. SLOW THE FUCK DOWN!"

She screamed back, "WHO'S THE ONE WITH THE LICENSE HERE? ME! I THINK I KNOW HOW TO DRIVE! DO YOU WANT TO GO PLAY VOLLEYBALL OR NOT?"

We wanted to go play volleball. Even if it meant riding with that bitch, Ginger. Man, nobody liked her! And we weren't exactly the most popular guys on Earth ourselves. I guess we somewhat deserved what we got for using her for a ride. Then again, not really. It was supposed to be a fair transaction: we got a ride, and she got to be in the company of Holton, who she obviously had a crush on. (Hey, I wonder if he was fooling around with her nasty ass and not telling people. They were alone a lot. Ooooohh! Grossss! He ended up being married twice by 21, but at least not to her.)

So the next five scary minutes passed with no injuries as he headed to Kira's. It was not fun though, because we had to put up with Ginger's attitude the whole way. Where did Ginger think she had such a right to that attitude? She wasn't cute. She wasn't charming. Her voice sounded like a man's. She would suck up to the devil. She even made me hate two things I normally love: curly hair and freckles. But she did have a license. The sad part is that me and Brian were better drivers than her, but we only had learner's permits.

So we get to Kira's and she was waiting outside her house. I loved me some her! I had only known her a few months since she moved down from West Virginia, but she was already my second favorite girl. That's why she loved and hated me. She loved that I adored her, but she hated knowing there was even one girl out there I liked better. Looking back, it was kind of rude of me to make that so obvious - I should've made both girls think they were number one.

I remember Kira having those really pretty squished together lips that made it look like she always wanted to make out. (She didn't always want to make out. She only let me do that once, while we were watching The Excorcist. WTF?) Those kind of lips can makes some girls look stupid and some girls look smart. Her lips made her look smart and snobby, even though she wasn't snobby at all, she was sweet

For some reason I was really attracted to her. Maybe it's because this smart/snooty looking girl came from West Virginia; the one place even us Southerners get to call backwoods. I would always look at her and think, "How did THAT come from THERE?" Kira was also the thickest and shortest little ballerina girl I had ever seen. She acted tall, but she was really little, even though she wore these little dresses that made me think she had these nice long legs that I was always trying to put my hand on. (She was lucky if she was really 5'1".)

While the girls were in the house looking for the volleyball, Holton turned around to me from the passenger seat and said, "This bitch is going to kill us."

I said, "Well, we're only going a mile. I'm sure we'll be fine."

Holton said, "No. I'm pretty sure she might wreck this damn car. I've been riding around with her for a few weeks. This bitch is nuts! We gotta quit riding around with her. We're gonna fucking die!"

I said, "Well, you never told me all this. This is my first time riding with her. How bout this? Once we get to the volleyball court, when we're done, we'll go to a payphone and call someone to pick us up. It's only a mile."

"All right, but I say we make sure we put our seatbelts on."

Now I was scared. Holton never wore his seatbelt.

Then the girls came out to the car and Kira jumped in the driver's side of the back seat and tossed a volleyball in my lap and smiled at me.

Ginger started the car. Holton put on his seatbelt. I put on my seatbelt. Ginger did not put on her seatbelt. Kira was trying to put on her seatbelt, but it was not cooperating.

After about 30 seconds of her trying to put her belt on, Kira said, "Oh well, it's only a mile."

I looked at her and said, "You don't know what a mile is anymore. You're riding with Ginger. We're GETTING your fucking seatbelt to work." And I worked with that belt and the belt receptacle around Kira's waist until if finally forced itself in and clicked. Kira didn't yet know how scared she should be, so she just smiled at me and said, "Thanks, that was sweet."

Neither one of us knew that I had just saved her life and, as a result, Ginger's life, too. Guess which one would later thank me and which one wouldn't. Hey Ginger, you're welcome, bitch! Have you enjoyed the last 16 years being alive?? I did that for you. I didn't mean to. But I still did. You're welcome, you vile person.

Only about thirty seconds passed since I had gotten Kira's seatbelt fastened, and we were now only about 30 seconds away from the volleyball court. All we had to do was go down the hill, and take the 90 degree curve to the left.

All we had to do was go down the hill and take the 90 degree curve to the left????

ALL WE HAD TO DO WAS GO DOWN THE HILL AND TAKE THE 90 DEGREE CURVE TO THE LEFT!!!!!!

Oh, shit! We were riding with Ginger! Not one of us had factored in that we would be going down this dangerous road with her as the driver. I have almost no doubt that if we had known we'd be going down this particular road, we'd have all gotten out of the car at Kira's house and told Ginger to suck it.

The left turn at the bottom of the hill was so sharp that normal driver would slow down to 10 or 15 miles an hour while taking it. The only reason there wasn't a stop sign there was because it wasn't an intersection - the road just turned left and headed towards the playground and the elementary school. We weren't going to make it to the playground and the elementary school.

We were heading down the hill and approaching the left turn at a rate of about 55 miles per hour. I didn't know a lot back then, but I was pretty sure that the odds were now against us.

Here's where everything slows down. We made the first part of the turn, but that was the easy part. Then I heard the tires on the Accord start squeaking like horses that had just been shot. They were squealing because Ginger was trying to make them go left, but gravity and physics were trying to make them go straight. That's how self-centered Ginger was, she thought her commands trumped that of gravity and physics.

Actually Ginger gave up pretty fast. Rather than try to hit the brakes or keep trying to correct the turn, Ginger threw her hands up in the air and and screamed "Ahhhhhh!" Yeah, that's how you handle a crisis. So now the four of us were headed down a hill at 55 or 60 miles an hour into the woods. This couldn't be good.

At the same time, Ginger was yelling "Ahhhh," Holton was yelling something else. It is seared in me:

"HOLY SHIT!"

Not "Oh, shit."

Not "Oh crap."

I remember the exact two words he said and how he said them. He said "Holy Shit" in a quick and surprised way, the same way you said it when Brad Pitt got hit by that car in "Meet Joe Black."

When I heard Holton say "Holy Shit," I could hear him being scared, surprised, curious, and relieved all at once. Let me explain:

Scared: "Are we about to fucking die?"

Surprised: "I told this bitch she'd do this to us, but even I didn't totally believe me!"

Curious: "I wonder how what's about to go down is gonna really go down."

Relieved: "I told her so. She didn't listen. I was right. What's about to happen is still worth being right."

You wanna know what I thought about?

I didn't think about death. I didn't think about impact. I didn't think about my Mom, or God or the welfare of those in the car with me. I didn't think about any of that. I thought about crash test dummies.

Yes, crash test dummies.

I was about to die, and all I could do was be a curious little nerd. I remember exactly what I was thinking as we were headed towards all those trees. Here's what happened:

I was in the back passenger seat, so I couldn't see up front that well. So what I did was lean up to look over Holton's front passenger seat so I could see the wreck that was about to happen to us out the front windshield.

Here's what I thought as I looked out the windshield of the car I was in as it headed towards the trees:

"I wonder what impact will be like? I wonder if our bodies will fly around like those mannequins do on those crash test dummy videos? I've never been in serious impact before. I have a hard time believing our bodies are about to fly around in all those contorted positions just like the crash test dummies. But then again, maybe they will. I wonder if crash test dummies are an accurate representation of what is about to happen to us right now. I'm just not sure."

Then we rammed the tree head on and everything went black.

Going black is the craziest normalist feeling. Let me start by saying, I don't think I ever temporarily died or saw angels or anything like that. But I went black. And the first second of going into the black is a strange place.

When we hit the tree, I hit my head on the side window and maybe the back of Holton's chair,too and that sent me into the black. It was like, one second, I was thinking about the validity of crash test dummies, and the next second, my TV got turned off. But when your TV goes out, it doesn't really go out. It's like it's on but it's off. When you're in the black, you're not blind, but there's nothing to see except black. When you're in the black, you're not deaf, but there's nothing for you to hear. When you're in the black, you're not paralyzed but you aren't moving either. I know this sounds like the same description of sleep, but it's not. It's the black. If you've been there, you know. If you haven't, then I'm sorry if I can't describe it for you. It doesn't hurt when you're in it, but you still don't want to go there.

(In Part 4, we'll describe the wreck scene. It's funny. I wish I was there for the first half of it. I have to go on what people told me I did. I was still in the black, but I was awake and doing shit. I guess I'd have to call that the grey or the clear or the white or something.)

The broken back story (Part 2 of probably 9)

2009-02-19T19:47:00.003-08:00

I forgot that earlier that morning, I had gone to the Davidson College Presbyterian Church to see my birth-friend, Carlton, receive his Eagle Scout recognition. I went while my three Mooresville boys had slept in at my house. Then I came back to wait for our rides in the driveway.

I call Eagle Scout Carlton my birth friend because we had known each other since we were infants. His mom and my mom were two completely different women who were best friends. As a result, his mom also paid my Mom to take care of him while she worked in Charlotte as an architect for Harvey Gantt. (Harvey Gantt was the black dude that lost to Jesse Helms in a 1990 Senate run. She loved Harvey. My mom loved Jesse. Still, they were best friends.) As a result of my mom's job as Carlton's nanny, he was sort of like a brother since he was always around and wasn't immune from the same spankings as me. While he was a brother, when I was younger, he was still a brother I hated. I hated him until we were 12 or 13, then I realized that weirdo was actually the most awesome guy. He played guitar and loved dinosaurs. That guy was born not giving a fuck what people thought about him. I admired him, because; while we were both two guys who didn't care what people thought of us, Carlton was better at it than me because he never even consciously thought about the fact that he didn't give a fuck - he just didn't. Whereas, I had to make sure everyone knew I didn't care about their opinion of me. While I truly didn't give a fuck, I was still less of a rogue than Carlton, because I obviously cared enough to make sure people knew how I felt. Carlton didn't even give a fuck about that. I guess you could say, he didn't even give a fuck about giving a fuck. He wins.

I remember this trip to see him get his Eagle Scout honors, for two reasons. One: It was the last time I went to church besides holidays, funerals, and weddings. And two: Carlton never once told me he was still a boy scout all those years! And we hung out all the time! I told you he didn't care.

You may be asking yourself, "Why did Roth Wriscey quit going to church after that day?"

The answer is boring.

It has nothing to do with a lack of faith. Or some sort of anger towards God. If you want to know, I have a really strong belief in God. I just don't like church, or large groups of behaved people. Once I broke my back, I couldn't go to church for a few months, and I kind of just kept it that way after that. I think God has different plans for me other than being a church goer, but what do I know?

Anyway, back to the driveway. I was waiting for my ride to play volleyball, while my three Mooresville boys waited on their ride to take them to a renaissance festival.

I still don't know who got picked up first and it doesn't matter.

I do know that when my ride arrived, my friend Holton was in the passenger seat, and the driver was Ginger Stell. (Ginger Stell is her real name. Oh, it's her real name.)

Ginger was the only person with a license. Holton was 16, but his dad wouldn't let him have one, yet. And I was still 23 days away from my sweet day of automobile freedom. (BTW, note to parents like Holton's: Yeah, that's real smart. Don't let your boy get a license, but let him ride as the passenger with a spoiled 16 year old professor's daughters who has no regard for others.

Let's give some back story on these two. Holton was my pal from the 7th grade up through that day and a little while beyond.

He was my first friend who shared my vision that Earth is a stupid, stupid place full of stupid, stupid people and that the only thing you can do is have the best time you can ridiculing the hell out of it. This guy got it! We were clowns. Awful, awful clowns.

I also found him at the perfect time in life for a boy: the bastard years. The bastard years happen when a boy turns 13 and they don't end until he is 17. Sure, boys also act bad before and after and eternally, but those four years are special. Let me tell you this: if you have a son in that age range, he may be a geniunely nice kid with a good heart, still I guarantee you he has a part-time gig as a son of a bitch! Holton was my partner during these years. We weren't thieves, but we stole. We weren't vandals, but we destroyed. We weren't anarchists, but we could not be governed. The only thing that pulls a boy outof his bastard years is when he starts getting laid. One day you say, "Hey, dude. Why are we stealing baseball cars and setting fields on fire, when we could be out doing something productive like searching for blowjobs.

Holton was a little harsher than me, still a little more laid back. How could he be these two incompatible things? Easy. Here's your example:

Holton once said this to me when we were 15. "Wriscey, let me tell you something. A bitch of mine is a bitch of yours! I won't share my pussy with just any guy. But you man, whatever ass is mine, is also yours." Yes, my buddy was a 9th grade virgin swinger with commitment issues. Was he a little sexist? Sure. But you would be too, if your mom abandoned her only son at 13 and left him with just his dad, so she could go live the party life in a sweet condo in Charlotte with some slut roommate. (And note to moms: don't let your son find your vibrator. It will mess him up big time. Just ask Holton.)

Still, this was the only guy I knew who invited me to a make out party, where I went in one room and he went in the other, each with a girl, he would ring the "switch bell" and the two girls would then crawl across the carpet towards the other bedroom, while each of us waited as they made the switch on us. This guy was good. This guy was bad. This guy was hilarious.

Ginger was another story. I had known her since preschool. She was a spoiled brat and an apple polisher. For example, she once became a vegetarian in the 6th grade to impress our teacher and his unpaid mistress... who were also vegetarians. (I'll tell the story about how I had a teacher try to indoctrinate us with communism another time. It's definitely a five parter.)

Ginger was entitled. Ginger was the only person in the world. Ginger got everything she wanted (except looks.) Ginger was a bitch. Why in the fuck were we hanging out with Ginger?

This girl tried to attack me in gym class with another girl in the seventh grade. They were both taller than me at the time. When she clawed my wrist (I still have the scar) and made me bleed, I punched her in the face. She was so embarrassed, she wouldn't let them send me to the office. Actually, she wasn't embarrassed. She knew I could argue my way out of punishment and get her charged with the rightful offenses.

So I got in the backseat and the three of us were on our way to pick up Kira. (Kira is not her real name.) Kira lived in Huntersville. And Kira had the volleyball. And Kira was the whole reason I was going on this stupid volleyball trip. What? You thought I liked volleyball? Ha! I like girls. That's about it.
More on Kira in Part 3.

The time I broke my back. (Part 1 of who knows how many.)

2009-02-19T18:46:00.001-08:00

OK. Let's give the broken back story a try. I hope it doesn't make me cry or break things in anger as I write it. I doubt it will, but you never know. Here goes:

It was May 2nd, 1993. It was a Sunday morning. We were in my hometown: the elitist, liberal, snooty, left-wing, ashamed to be Southern town of Davidson, North Carolina. (20 miles north of Charlotte.)

I remember hanging out in my driveway by the basketball goal with my friends Blank and Jason. (By the way, people who were assholes get their real names used in this writing. People who are cool, or even just questionable, get the courtesy of me changing their names. Jason's name is really Jason.) Jason was a little blond skater drug addict who was two years older than me. Last I heard, he alternates between being a Russian missionary and being a junkie. He never does both at once. It's been ten years since I've seen him. The last time I saw him was at my friends' shotgun wedding party at Ocean Isle and he was a junkie and not very nice to me. The time before that, he was a missionary and confessed to me that he always had hated me and that the bad haircut he accidentally gave me 6 years earlier was no accident. He apologized and I accepted. That haircut was so bad that I once had to throw a can of Pepsi at Darryl Lameo's head for picking on me about it. (Darryl Lameo is his real name. And Darryl Lameo got smacked in the forehead by a twelve ounce metal fastball for trying to ridicule me after school before I got my hair fixed.) I'm still waiting for Darryl to come back "with all his black friends" to kick my ass like he said he would. That's so racist to assume that the few black people you know are just a bunch of violent animals waiting to be asked to start a fight. If you think like that, then you're not their friend. And I've never seen a group of black guys actually show up and fight on behalf of some wigger from the suburbs.

Now on to the other guy in my driveway. I'm calling him Blank. Blank is still my friend today. Blank is also a revolving junkie. I saw him at a Cure concert last year. He's clean and enrolling at Cornell as a 31 year old Ivy League Freshman. I don't keep up with him, but he's forever my pal. He alternated for many years between going to rehab and working as a shock therapist at a mental institution in the mountains of North Carolina. He also once had a job as the cum-cleaner at a porno shop in Charlotte. He would put on two pairs of gloves and clean up the mess the men left after jacking off in private boothes at the store. Blank also once almost got arrested for an obscure charge of drunkenly directing traffic on a busy highway for no reason. Blank and his brother "Nuthin" once almost got arrested for driving construction equipment that they found left on the side of a highway. (Little known secret: the men often leave the key in the ignition at the end of the night, so the next guy that shows up for work in the morning can drive it, too.) Blank and Nuthin were the sons of a concretee man - they knew this. Blank also once did a testimonial on the news from rehab about how he was addicted to everything. Then hours later, he was arrested for breaking out of that same rehab and buying lighter fluid and huffing the shit out of it behind the gas station. I could go on about those brothers, Blank and Nuthin, but we're eventually going to get to the story about me breaking my back. So let's get back to who was in the driveway.

Oh, I forgot, my best friend B.S. was also in the driveway with Blank and Jason. (B.S. is not quite his real name, but it is his real game. I love that criminal so much that I even took a trip to Ohio four years ago to help him and his family as his father slowly died in the hospice bed in the living room from brain cancer. (Let's just say, when a dad tells his son that his only dying wish is for his son to fuck the smoking hot black hospice nurse on his behalf, because he "never got to bang a hot black chick himself," the son complies and fucks her upstairs while dad slowly erodes downstairs in the bed. And then the son tells him all about it. You think I'm kidding. I don't joke about shit like that.) I can even overlook that in the last five years, B.S has banged both my big sister and my little sister. You know why? Because when I said something to him about hit, he said, "Well, if you want to get me back, you can fuck my sister if you want. But I doubt you'll want to... she's ugly as hell!"

She WAS ugly as hell. And B.S was funny as hell. And I'm sure my sisters enjoyed fucking him anyway, so what the hell can I do about it. Not fuck his sister, that's for sure.

So anyway, these three guys in my driveway were from Mooresville: The center of the NASCAR world. It was a much nicer town than Davidson, even if it was (then) sort of a hick town. I like hicks. A lot of them are the most tolerant, generous people on Earth. They just don't give a fuck if everyone knows it or not. However, my three friends weren't hicks. They were all three Midwestern transplants from blue collar families. Maybe that's how I got to be friends with them: because I too was the new guy in Mooresville since my parents decided to transfer me to Mooresville High School (away from the crappy Charlotte-run school system) just a year before.

All four of us in the driveway should've been hungover from drinking and greening the night before out at the lake at the YMCA, but we weren't. You know why? Because we were fucking teenagers! Teenagers don't get hangovers. The bastards. I wish I was one.

Anyway, these guys in my driveway were waiting on B.S.'s dad (he was alive then) to pick them up and take them to a Renaissance Festival. The asked me to come with them, but I told them I had already agreed to go play volleyball with three of my friends from my old high school (2 were girls. 1 was gorgeous. The other was my other best pal, Holden.) So while my three Mooresville guys waited on their ride, I waited on mine.

The End of Part One

Story Teaser (Or "back atcha!")

2009-02-19T12:39:00.001-08:00

I have been writing for about three years now. The one story I've never taken a dive into was the one about when I broke my spine. It's not because I have some issue, with the story. It's because I feel like I bitch about it all the time, so it's not worth telling. But you know what? I think I'll start writing it today. And I'll even make it funny. As in "I broke my back! Isn't that hilarious!"

It might be an 8 to 15 part story. That's probably why I never tell it. It starts today. Who knows when it will end? Damn, that shit still hurts. Once you've broken you're back you live in two modes: Pain and Lots More Pain. I have days where people ask me how my back is doing and I seriously answer: "It's doing great! I only feel like regular shit today."

The story begins later today.

Pubics or Publix?

2009-02-19T12:06:00.005-08:00

Have you ever seen those commercials for "Guys Gone Wild." I don't know if it's made by the same company that makes Girls Gone Wild, but I've thought of something that will make you laugh at those commercials just a little bit harder.

OK, think about this. Those commercials are of supposedly straight young men dancing around and showing there dicks to the camera. (Because we all know that all straight guys love to show off their physical form through dance and sensuality?)

Now think about this. How many video camera operators have you known? What are almost all video camera operators?

Male.

So that means that when they film these Guys Gone Wild videos, these young muscly frat boys are putting their arms behind their head and gyrating their wankers at a dude holding a camera!

Oooooooooooh, gross!

And, Ooooooohh, no fun for anyone involved!

You know that if these homos showing their dicks are actually straight, they're all like, "Do you really expect me to get a boner shaking this thing at people named Ted and Jeff?"

And you know Ted and Jeff are sitting there thinking, "How fucked up did I handle my career to end up with this gig getting fresh wangs held out towards me by really horny drunk boys? Somewhere, I took the wrong career path. If this guy so much as blows a load in my direction, I'm going to drop this gigantic camera and beat more than this guy's meat. Why is this happening? How come I didn't get to be on the GIRLS Gone Wild crew? Lord, why do you torture me so?!"

Oh. Could you imagine having to be the boom mic guy following these naked guys around? You'd be so scared of touching their dicks with the long pole you're holding. You'd be all like, "Man, if this thing even grazes that guy's pubes, I'm dropping that thing and walking out and going back to my job at Publix.

You're welcome. I just enabled you to enjoy those commercials just an extra bit more.

P.S. I noticed that I said the hilariously minimal "If that guy SO MUCH AS blows a load in my direction-" like shooting a wad at the camera guy would be just a minor offense. I laughed so hard when I noticed that, that I had to leave it. But I just did want you to know I was also aware.

Alone With Others (Part 3 of 3)

2009-02-18T17:55:00.001-08:00

So I continued down the "high"way, which was really just one of our historical old streets on the Cape Fear River headed towards my friends that were at Odessa.

As I was about to head into the building to ride the elevator up to the bar, (Don't ask me why we have so many bars that are on the 4th and 5th floors of buildings that people live in. Seriously, my friend Caroline lived below a 5th floor bar called "Level 5" so we called her place "Level 4." She had a bar with hundreds of people in it every nights directly above her apartment ceiling. Sometimes she would sneak up there in her pajamas and buy cigarettes from the machine at the bar. On two unrelated side-notes, Caroline's first kiss was in a TV movie with Elijah Wood, and that Level 5 building was owned by Dennis Hopper. You can see his name on the elevator inspection certificate. Oh, one other television note, and I'll get back to the story. Caroline's sister was on some soap opera. And then she ended up playing the snoopy reporter on "Women's Murder Club." I think it got cancelled. I never met that girl. Caroline is funny, though. She once fought with me over a flower pot, because I was going to bash a hippy over the head with it for walking in my house in the middle of the night, making a mixed drink out of my fridge and cussing me out. He was drunk and thought he was a party at his friend's house. I'll tell that story another time.)

Back to the story of my night. As I was about to head into Odessa, I saw my friend Gay Jay walking towards me. I wonder if the name "Jay" sounded too much like "gay" and subliminally led him into that life. Anyway, I looked him dead in the eye and yelled, "Ja-----, nevermind. Sorry."

It wasn't Jay. It sure looked like him.

Then I rode the elevator up to Odessa. When the door opened to the dance floor, the first person I saw was Jay. I said, "Weird, I just yelled at a guy I thought was you not one minute ago, and then I run into you." He was too drunk to know how odd that was. Then again, in Wilmington, it's really not.

Then the second person I ran into was Jeff. I hadn't seen him in a year. Then I remembered that I had just invited his girlfriend to come meet everyone at the bar. I started hoping she wouldn't show up, so they wouldn't run into each other and fight. (She never came. See, that would've been a better story if she had showed up.)

Then, finally. FINALLY! I got to my friends I was meeting.

The reason we were all hanging out together that night was to celebrate and mourn. We were celebrating that my friend Anch was alive, but we were mourning that he burned down his entire condo with a cigarette that caught his ashtray on fire.

I hugged him. I never hug him. And I've lived with him twice. Then after we all told Anch how glad we were that he didn't die, we all immediately started making jokes about him losing everything.

He was finally in a laughing mood, but still said with a smile: "Thanks, guys! I lose everything but my car and one pair of underwear and you guys are laughing. Yall are my best friends? Wow?"

Everytime Anch would put a cigarette out in the ashtray, one of us assholes would think we were the first one to jokingly go behind him and smoosh it out harder while saying, "Careful now, Anch. Those things can cause a fire."

After a while, the jokes ran out.

Then the fire alarm went off.

"Everyone quit looking at me. That's not funny! OK, it is. Laugh away."

Yeah, of all the bars we could've picked in town, we picked the one that had a false fire alarm go off for ten straight minutes. And for ten straight minutes we pretended that the guy who had just set his own home on fire was the one that did it.

We're dicks. We're funny. I'm glad my friend's alive. I'm glad all my friends are alive. Without them, I'd be alone, and we see what happens when I'm left all alone.

The End

Alone With Others (Part 2 of 3)

2009-02-18T17:20:00.002-08:00

As I headed into a two-block walk into the cold night of this old town, I ran into my friend Jen. I hadn't seen her in a year, but I barely had enough time to even greet her with an arm-touch. I said, "Hey, I'm going to Odessa. You're friends with everyone there. If you get tired of whatever you're doing, bring Jeff and whoever else you're here with and come see us."

She said, "I hate Odessa. And I hate Jeff. We broke up and I never talk to him. Maybe I'll come." I said "sorry" and started walking downtown towards the bar among all the drunk strangers standing outside of all the bars in the street. But really, there are no strangers in this town of 100,000.

As I turned the corner in front of "16 Taps" a man came up from I don't know where and buried his arms around my thighs and pushed me like a football-sled into a brick wall. As he rammed me into the wall, he said in a low redneck voice, "Hey, Boy! You wan' faaaght?"

I didn't want to fight. But I was about to. Who in the fuck was this guy pinning me up against bricks? No, really, who was he? I couldn't see his face because his head was wrapped around my hip. If I was younger, I would've punched without questions. But since I'm older, I thought, "Maybe it's a joke. I never had brothers, but I hear that guys like to play-fight. Maybe it's that. I can never tell."

Well, it was a joke. It was my friend "Kuhn." (Pronounced the same way as the word that black people don't like you calling them.) Kuhn is a young TV producer who tends bar around here, as well. (We all have 2 or 3 jobs in this town.) We only had a second after he let me go to start laughing before some other guy I had never seen in my life interrupted us.

The guy I had never seen before interrupted us by holding a "cigarette" in my face and saying "Your turn, brother!"

Let's recap: I had never seen this guy in my life.

We were on a busy public street in front of a bar.

There were tons of cops within our view.

And this guy doesn't even say hi to me, a complete stranger, - he just smiles holding a "cigarette" out at me after a fake attack from a friend and says "Your turn brother?"

What do you think I did?

Before I tell you what I did, let me tell you why I do a lot of what I do:

I do it for the story. So no, I may not be a particularly regular "cigarette" smoker. And I sure as hell knew it was quite risky to "smoke cigarettes" on the street. And I really didn't feel like smoking on that particular night. But dammit! What kind of story would that be? It would be a lame story like this:

"One time, some guy offered me a smoke on the street and I said no. The end."

How lame!

So I shit you not, when moments like that come, I tell myself, "Which decision makes the better story? Are the consequences worth the true tale I will get to tell." Usually they are. And I go with it from there.

The only part of this way of approaching things that I don't like is that it does take me outside of the moment to a degree. Sure, I was smoking on the street with strangers. And sure I was making girls I didn't know join in as they walked by. And sure, I spotted my Evironmental Scientist/Door Guy friend, Ozzy, working the door (we all have two jobs, I told you.) and I made him smoke on the street, on the job, too. But if I hadn't told myself I was doing it for the story - I may not have done it. I may have. But now I'll never know. Either way, I did what I did, and I now felt how I felt... good!

Ozzy the door guy/scientist, and Kuhn the bartender/producer asked me if I wanted to come in with them and the strange guy that had just smoked us up. (By the way, I later found out he wasn't just the dude on the street "Cheeching" everybody, he was also the lead singer of whatever band was playing that night. I declined their invite and headed on my way alone to meet my friends at Odessa.

Will I ever make it to Odessa? Find out in Part 3.

Intermission

2009-02-18T17:11:00.003-08:00

I just wrote "Alone With Others Part 1." But don't you think for a second I'm stopping. I am going to write part 2 right now. Let the suspense begin. And check back in. Wow, I think I'm experiencing mania today. I've always wondered what that was like. Am I becoming every woman I'm related to. Man, they are crazy. Fun, but crazy.