WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS...COMES BACK TO BITE YOU ON THE ASS

Las Vegas is really, really gay.

Immediately after stepping off the plane in Vegas, I realize this, coming face-to-face with billboards for Elton John, Cher, Bette Midler, and a whole assortment of wet tights and pseudo-fellatio Cirque Du Soleil acts. Factor in old standbys like the Liberace Museum and Sigfried & Roy (don't worry- they'll get back up on that white tiger...) and you've got one big crazy gay place.

But then I see a sign with a woman in a bikini and a headband wielding a machine gun that says "LAS VEGAS GUN EMPORIUM: COME IN AND SHOOT A REAL MACHINE GUN!"

So not only is it way, super gay, it's also alarmingly heterosexual, with all the clubbin', bettin', machine gun stores and 'live nude girls' (the dead nude girls are easier to exhibit, FYI.) AND prostitution is legal AND you can drink outside. So in Vegas, if you're one rough and rugged lady-lovin' dude, whilst walking PAST the Cirque du Soleil Tight-Rope Dolphin Humping Spectacular, you can drink scotch on the sidewalk, take a cab over to the Machine Gun Emporium to fire automatic weapons, and top it off with some prostitutes. Now THAT's the Yul Brenner form of heterosexuality right there- no fuckin' around.

I've never been to Vegas, so this is all new to me. I've heard things, so I certainly had an idea what to expect, but- much like my first visit to New Orleans a year ago- I am amazed with how comfortably the incredibly blatant homosexuality rubs elbows and knees and every other bodily protrusion with unspeakably right-up-front heterosexuality all in the same block. And in most cases, you've got a ton of crossover in clientele between the two extremes. Because y'know what? It's all the same urge when you get down to it, it's just a matter of who yer pointing yer unspeakables at at the end of the night.

It's truly amazing, watching people at their most base level...

Come to Vegas- drink a bunch, win a bunch of money (if you can), and (if yer game), fuck a whole bunch, or watch other people fuck a whole bunch. And bring the family!

But even going in with a level headed, logical approach, the whole thing is pretty damn cool by me.

Of all the things I learn in 2009- and thus far, four months in, it's looking like I'll learn a lot of weird-ass things- perhaps the most shocking will be that there are pirates.

Yes, honest-to-God, swashbuckling pirates.

OK. So, admittedly, these guys don't do as much 'swashbuckling' as they do, say, aim giant rocket-propelled weapons at boats. AND, I knew there were pirates and that pirating has been even more prevalent in recent years than since the days of tri-cornered hats (still trying to bring that one back...) but never before have they been so prominently splashed across our TVs, newspapers and internets.

It's very surreal, hearing about pirates for weeks on end. Because ask any five year old what a pirate looks like, and I'd bet "a 14 year old Somalian boy in an inflatable raft" is not likely to be his description. No, he'll describe a big ol' bearded guy, probably speaking a pretty gnarly form of English with an equally gnarly English accent. He'll probably be dressed not wholly unlike a British revolutionary war soldier, but... y'know... shabbillier. And he'll have a parrot, for-absolute-fucking-sure. AND one or an assortment of the following: peg leg, hook hand, eye patch, scurvy.

AND he'll be on a big ass ship. With skulls and cross bones on the sails.

Now- these guys MAY have had scurvy. It's hard to say.

But what they don't tell you when you're five is that "pirate" just means "guys in a boat who hijack other guys in a boat." And "boat" can also mean "raft," or really "something that floats on water and can hold some dudes." Actually, you wouldn't even necessarily need a boat at all to be a pirate... if you can swim out to a navy vessel with a dagger in your teeth and take the thing over, well.. then I guess you'd be a pirate.

But I'll take what I can get, pirate-wise. It's novel just hearing people say "pirate" a whole lot without it being immediately followed by the word "Depp."

Ed. note: As I transcribe this from my journal from three weeks ago, I can't help but be stricken by the fact that ALL the news has been weird in 2009, as now every other news report is about swine flu.

Of course- by the time I post my comic about swine flu, there will be grasshoppers the size of Saint Bernards, eagles will have taken Southeastern Maine by force, real Leprechauns will be discovered, and Funyuns will have replaced dollar bills as the favored (flavored?) currency.

WITNESSED TUESDAY APRIL 7, 2009



Yes, that's right.

A man with his wife at the drug store announcing to God and everybody that he's opting to buy napkins in lieu of toilet paper.

Just buy napkins instead of toilet paper! It's all trees!

In fact, just use newspapers, paper plates, typing paper, labels from old canned goods, or rolls of receipt tape. Who gives a shit?! In fact, fuck paper- leaves are free! Just use those!

Keep a shrub in your bathroom- it can be your ass-wiping shrub! That would work great! Actually- naw. Then you gotta water it and stuff.

I did have to fight the urge, however, to ask which room he'd be keeping them in.

The whole walk home I was imagining the guy gnawing on a big drippy plate of hot wings, running to his toilet every couple minutes to get a fresh napkin.

Actually, this guy probably eats hot wings while ON the toilet. Y'know... cuz it's easier.

Actually he and his wife probably both eat hot wings on the toilet. Possibly at the same time.

WITNESSED MONDAY APRIL 6, 2009

Certain things come about that don't require a lengthy string of explanation.

Henceforth, those will be allowed to stand on their own merit. Otherwise- lengthy string of explanation.

Sew- here's some shit I saw!

WHAT'D HE SAY?

Recently, I was listening to "Stomp & Swerve," a CD companion to the quite excellent book by one David Wondrich titled, appropriately, "Stomp & Swerve."

It's all about that weird, mystical, racist period in music- y'know, the one before anything had a name? Blues wasn't blues yet, jazz wasn't really jazz either (it was just coming to be called 'jass' which in and of itself sounds explicit. Actually, if you read the book, you'll find out it kind of is!) and country music wasn't called 'country' music- instead, it was called 'cracker music,' or 'hillbilly jass,' that is, when people didn't just call it 'music.'

See- there were a ton of white people around back then. Not that there aren't now- but in terms of ratio, there were just shit loads and bushel fulls of white folks all over the damn place. Hence, the popular music of the time before jazz and blues and country all bust out of the regions they were created in (thanks, almost entirely, to the advent of recorded music and distribution channels) was mostly marches. Oh, and waltzes!

What happened that made music as rich and interesting and as varied as we know it today- from the Halls and Oates and Loggins and Messinas to the Metallicas and the Cannibal Corpses and the Dead Kennedyses, to the Babyfaces and TLCs of the world- was black people. Black people had an interesting, rich musical heritage that white people had been ignoring for years (along with myriad other things) whilst mistreating them and forcing them to build their houses and raise their children. As I understand it, this was so the white folks could sit around in white suits on large southern porches and sip mint juleps. But I'm probably missing something.

To make a long story short, all that African musical heritage started to mix with regional musical styles, and all those crazy, fucked up marches and waltzes, and started to branch into weird, terrifying and (fortunately) short lived, racially ignorant proto-genres, like Cakewalks and Minstrel Shows.

From that odd bunch of stuff came jazz, blues, & country, and from them came rock n' roll, electro, adult contemporary, easy listening, hip hop, and black forest metal.

OK- so this is a rough version of the entire history of music.

Anyway- stuff like minstrelry is so ridiculously ignorant that it is mildly hilarious and quite sad that THAT was what people went out to see. Well- to me anyway. But if you can get past the white gloves and grease paint, the music was revolutionary at the time (and much of it- musically- is still a rousing listen), and in all that goofy hokum were the seeds of jazz and blues and country music as they came to be. So as you can imagine, it is a pretty fascinating time to read into, white folks dressing up like black folks and dancing around assholes or no.

Back to the CD.

It's a very interesting collection of 27 tracks repeatedly mentioned in the book as milestones in terms of what they signified for the future of music, and all the weird turns it was taking.

The problem is that in all that experimentation and change was a prevailing ignorance towards any culture besides white, and specifically, white and European. So... let's just say its not the kind of thing you'd wanna listen to every day. But when held against your run-of-the-mill gangsta rap CD, there are probably less racial epithets per song than what kids are running around listening to today. The difference is in the spirit. Old songs were laughing at. New songs laugh with. Anybody who's been to jr. high while still playing with action figures knows the difference. But I digress...

I could go on. It's an interesting and hot button issue, these old time farts and their shenanigans.

Taking all this into consideration- there is a warning label on the "Stomp & Swerve" CD. Being one to always take heed, and also one who gets a good laugh out of ludicrous warning labels, I read it. And it says:

"Warning: Contains Historical Racially Derogatory Language."

Really? A CD of proto-jazz from 1906? A CD with songs like "Carve Dat Possum" and "Watermelon Party?" A CD that has vastly more openly offensive titles than that?

Is there an old man out there (one who isn't already pretty outwardly racially obtuse, which...may be hard to find) who's gonna pick up this CD and be SURPRISED, let alone OFFENDED?

Hm. Maybe.

If only everything and everyone were so clearly marked, we could save ourselves a lot of trouble.

But then... maybe that keeps things interesting. If everything were clearly labeled, there'd be no risk involved in any interpersonal relationship. It'd be very Metropolis-esque and dull, perhaps.

But who am I to say?

LET'S DISH

I decided to make some soup. A big decision- I know- so, I grabbed a bowl out of the cupboard. Shockingly- there was a clean bowl to grab. I realized in a "life flashing before your eyes" moment that I have had these bowls since I was probably 6 years old. How many meals have I eaten from these crappy, K-Marty bowls and plates? I'm gonna guess something like 75%.

I got 'em from my parents when I moved away for college because they decided to trade up for something better. I don't blame them- these are ugly. Blue, white and brown. Why they bought them in the first place is beyond me. But here they are, in the cupboard I'm renting (along with the rest of the apartment) waiting for me to pour cereal into them, or fill 'em up with beans n' weenies so I can eat a quick dinner while watching "Incredible Hulk" reruns.

I also still have coffee cups I use on a regular basis that are at least as old as I am (more hand me downs.) Two are from "Mister Donut," which doesn't exist anymore, and another is a boring white mug with an insurance company I've never heard of's logo on it. I remember some customer of my dad's gave him a whole box of them once, and here is one of them sitting in my sink.

So when will I NOT have these dishes?

I'm not exactly a design-y kind of guy who's swapping out a perfectly functional item for a new one every couple months just because the new one looks cooler. But
visually, these things suck- it's a little thrift store stacked in my kitchen. If I had to go out and buy silverware and plates and cups, I'd buy fucking cool ones. But for now, these materials I have in-house do the job bowls and cups are supposed to do. They help me to move foods and beverages around my house without splashing them everywhere. As a means of conveyance, they can't be beat. The plates are flat, and the bowls are concave enough to allow for wet and saucy things to be transported around the apartment easily and mess-free.

The trouble is, I can't imagine when these will not exist and I will be forced to buy new dishes. Pending some kind of mass-disaster, I think one or two of these things will ALWAYS be around, until I forcibly throw them out. I don't know that I can bring myself to do that- they're like a younger step sibling you don't really get along with, but who idolizes you. You can talk some shit about them when prompted, but can't be a complete asshole to them, because deep down inside you have an attachment to them.

And if I donated these to Salvation Army just to spruce things up around here, who would buy them? And if someone actually DID, it would almost seem like rape to have them eating from dishes I've had my casseroles, tacos, and pastas on for the last 27 years.

So I think I'm stuck with these dishes.

Until they finally get fed up and run away with the spoons I've had for just as long.

GET FUCHED

Everybody's pretty well aware that the economy is circling the bowl at the moment. So I couldn't help but be struck with an overwhelming wave of irony when flipping through TV channels recently. Look- it's Family Feud! THAT'S what America needs in these challenging economic times; a good ol' fashioned game show. And now there's a row of hearty, beaming and hopeful looking Midwestern folks with their family name emblazoned on the wall behind them- "FUCHS."

There's always that hope that you'll hit it rich without having to do much work. With the possible exception of the lottery- perhaps the most futile pursuit of cash imaginable- Game shows are the benchmark for quick n' easy cash. Family Feud, in particular, has a kind of cheesy, homey quality to it that makes me feel like I should be balled up on the couch in Batman pajamas eating a bowl of Frankenberry waiting for it to be over so I can watch the Muppet Show.

Especially at a time when the middle class doesn't exist, people are losing their savings, their pensions, and all seems hopeless. Welcome, Game Show. You can make things better. Watching those Fuchs for a minute, trying to lay their hands on some cash- it was as though they were the shining example of the American middle class getting screwed over (and out of existence.) Maybe Daddy Fuch got laid off from the auto parts factory, so Mama Fuch had to go back to teaching piano lessons to make ends meet. Son Fuch and his wife, the new Mrs. Fuch, had to help pitch in, too, even though they have a baby on the way. Then- a Godsend- a letter from the TV studio asking them to try their hand at Family Feud. "Go ahead, you Fuchs. Try and win some money. Get Fuched, why dontcha?"

Not these Fuchs. These Fuchs will survive.

Don't care for my thin analogy? Fuch off.

COVERED IN PUPPY BITES

On my way home from work, I saw a guy walking a massive wild beast of a dog. The dog is obviously racist against Belgians, as it is visibly vibrating with seething hatred, growling at me like an outboard motor that doesn't quite catch. The pure viscous anger is pouring from it as I absent-mindedly wander by, wondering what I'm going to feed myself for dinner tonight.

The tiny, fragile, cigarette-like man keeping the hell hound at bay (now hanging on for dear life with both hands, his arms jerking around like over cooked noodles just a-wavin' in the breeze)reassures me that there's nothing to fear from his enormous, spite-fueled dog that probably forgoes Kibbles n' Bits in favor of a plate full of carpet tacks, who shits razor blades and gnaws off orphans' legs just for fun.

"Don't worry" says the waifish, frail man. "He's just a puppy- he's just all excited 'cause he sees a new person!"

I nod slightly and pick up the pace. Much like people with new babies who thrust them at you and say "Here! Hold him!" not taking into consideration the fact that you may very well be an unprecedented clod who will drop little Snoogums on the coffee table, shattering his soft, fragile skull, people with new dogs are likely to say "Go on! Pet him!"

Normally, petting a puppy....well...let's just say it fucking rules. But this was no puppy. And if I ever want to use my hand again, I dared not touch this heaving forest-beast lest I should draw back a bloody stump coated in a thick, gooey layer of wolf spit.

The logic from this man says to me "Yes- I have a big, terrifying fucking dog that hates people. But he's just a puppy, so it's prob'ly fine!" So do puppy bites hurt less because they're from puppies? Even if those same puppies can swallow a baby hippo whole? If a man walks into the room with his nose missing and every visible skin patch a mess of open bleeding wounds, is it OK for him to say "Don't worry about it- they're just puppy bites!"

I think not.

So beware...

Puppies: they're not just for scampering anymore.

OH- YOU'RE NOT FREE? M'BAD.

So have a go at this: the New Hampshire state motto is "Live Free or Die." Pretty God damned bold for the smallest state in the union, I'd say. But it's undoubtedly rooted in old-timey colonial militant shit dreamt up long ago to get alla them powdered wig guys' pantaloons in a twist (I believe that time period was known as "yore.") So I get that- it's real inspiring. Kinda makes ya wanna go out there and kick up some dust, y'know?

So good. New Hampshireians are right riled up and ready to go poke oppressive British men with their bayonets so they can be free to while away their afternoons tooling around the harbor in their yacht while drinking wine coolers and listening to Michael McDonald before retiring to the Country Club lodge. Go team! I'm for it. Do as you will- LIVE FREE OR DIE!

But there's a sad, disturbing twist to all this. New Hampshire is also one of the last (if not the very last) states that has its prisoners stamping license plates as part of their debt to society. And what's stamped on every license plate for every state in the union? Why, the state motto, of course!

Sure, I'm imagining that prison in New Hampshire isn't exactly like serving your time at, say, Cook County, San Quentin, or Riker's. But if you're a prisoner in the state of New Hampshire, that's some pretty bleak, subversive shit. You could be the hardest gang banger this side of gang bangy town, and if you were told "Son- you're going up the river TO NEW HAMPSHIRE!" that person's only natural reaction would be, "OK. So... I won't have to fashion my shin bone into a shiv so I can stave off randy fellas in the shower? Cool by me." But imagine day after day reading "LIVE FREE OR DIE!" "LIVE FREE OR DIE!" That's gotta take its toll. Like Chinese water torture, maybe it's better to be staveing off would-be rapists with your leg bone shard.

So the lesson here? Don't ever stab a dude in New Hampshire. You will end up making license plates, constantly being reminded that you are not free. And your state motto will be there at every turn, haunting you, reminding you that the only choice besides free livin' is...to die. And God hates a quitter.

I AM NOT A BLOOD BANK.

Earlier today I answered a very accusatory phone call. Seems the gentleman on the other end of the phone was pretty severely irritated that I was not the blood bank.

Seems he wanted to make an appointment.

Unfortunately, I had to tell him that I have never been the blood bank, nor do I ever intend to trade in other people's bodily fluids, especially not vital ones. AB, O+, HTML, ADHD,- I know nothing about it.

As far as I know you can just walk right into a blood bank and give away some extra blood without an appointment. I also understand that they will then trade you, say $25-$40 for that blood, along with a delicious cookie and a refreshing paper cup full of orange drink.

Unfortunately, I was also fresh out of delicious cookies and am generally free of any drink whose name is also what color it is.

I suppose I could have gone ahead and made an appointment for him. But finding my imaginary blood bank would have undoubtedly proven difficult, seeing as how it doesn't exist, and when he arrived, I wouldn't have had any idea what to do for the duration of his visit. I don't have any bloodletting equipment, though I would've been happy to jam a pie server into his forearm, or maybe a fistful of dull pencil nubs into his upper thigh. I do have an old cottage cheese tub I took my lunch to work in once that I could collect the drippings into. Unfortunately, I've just remembered that I don't actually own a pie server. Pencil nubs it would have to be.

Ah well. Hopefully that guy didn't call fifteen more places, yelling at them for not being the blood bank. I've been yelled at for worse, certainly. But somewhere, deep down, maybe I should've been the blood bank for that guy. Maybe I'm the one at fault, here. Maybe that's what I'm missing in my life: I am not a blood bank.

THE EYES HAVE IT

Walk into any kind of "Eye Care Pavillion," "Vision Quest" or "Sight Shanty" and you'd think everybody who wears glasses is a chiseled, hunky man-stud or lithe, beautiful model.

As a lifelong glasses-wearer, I can personally attest that the vast majority of people who wear glasses and don't have contacts either (A.)have eyes so screwed they can't wear contacts, or (B.) don't give a shit and just wear glasses because contacts are a pain in the ass.

But upon entering Eyeball Town or whateverthefuck to get some prescription sunglasses made (I am, above all else, a sun child my friends...), I noticed that there among the glasses-sporting Branjolinas deep in ruminative thought was one lone poster with a satisfied looking old fart on it.

Now there's accuracy- that's a company that knows their audience. That's a company I can comfortably support with my hard-earned fistful of warm, wadded-up dollar bills I'll be forking over to pay for the fact that God has screwed me on both my vision and hair genes.

Music used to have more class. It could be completely ribald and filthy, but nothing was terribly upfront- everything told with a wink through double entendre. Songs like "Mama Keep Your Yes Ma'am Clean" by Walter Cole and "Down in the Alley" from the inimitable Big Bill Broonzy ("If you want somethin'/that smells like fish/ down in the alley/you'll find that dish") or "Don't Give All the Lard Away" by the Dixieland Jug Blowers (which I was listening to today) had some skill to 'em- the filth was there and discernable, but not all laid out plain as day. With the use of some folksy "nudge-nudge" lyricism, musicians could write a bouncy song like "Don't Give All the Lard Away" without calling it "Bitch, Stop Fuckin'."

Popular music today could use a dose of sly innuendo- 'cause honestly, it's mostly all been mostly malnourished down to "eat shit" this and "suck my balls" that.

Fortunately- everything goes full circle, so hopefully one day soon the "Baby Got Back" and "Smell Yo Dick" 's of the world will revert back to "Shine That Bumper" and "A Whiff of the Wand."

I'd prefer it anyway...

Every neighborhood has that dull, utilitarian place you go to only because you need something and the place to buy it is looking you square in the face. Though it's a nearly featureless box of gray carpeting and white walls, you find yourself there repeatedly, buying the same things over and over again- "Milk, check. Bread, check. Vitamins, check. Do I need booze? Probably. Check."

Only occasionally does your frequenting of such places come into sharp and alarming focus. Suddenly you realize, maybe it's time to move and find a new place you don't like going to over and over again.

Today I received a flier in the mail advertising half off all American flags.

It was addressed "Attention: Flag Buyer."

What sad commentary on patriotism at present is it that we've taken to hocking the most solemn symbol of what our country was founded on at half price values?

Billy Ray Cyrus would weep openly.

Though I have to say, I've never considered buying an American flag before, but at these prices...

Today, while passing a school bus, I got a big ol' nostril full of school bus fumes and, sadly, instantly remembered about twenty different field trips on a poorly ventilated bus taken in grade school. The smell of the chalk board green colored seats was as distinctive as anything I've huffed in my life.

Almost as quickly as the wave of flashes from trips to state parks, public zoos, firehouses, and John Adams boyhood home passed through my mind, I realized that this was perhaps the saddest bit of nostalgia I'll ever experience. I don't remember having fun on a field trip once- it was merely less terrible than other things I didn't enjoy in school.

Also- bus fumes=dead brains cells, which should not equal pleasant memories.

Of course, I'm drinking rum as I type this, and I have pleasant memories of drinking that. Does rum kill brain cells? I don't remember. What's on TV?

SO... NOTHING THEN?

Yup. You saw it right- nothing for five days.

$20-a-day for internet access at the hotel? No thanks, sez I.

But mind you those comics will be right here at regular intervals starting now!

And, in a couple weeks- comics straight from fabulous Las Vegas! We saw hilariously titled slot machines, amateur wrestling (featuring Ted "The Million Dollar Man" Dibiasi), a tricked out hot rod show, about a billion elaborate 50's hairstyles, the best burlesque show I've ever seen, a dozen solid rockabilly bands, and overheard serious conversations about everything from dead babies to kidnapping rich people to layin' it straight with multiple prostitutes at one go.

So keep yr eyes peeled, folks.

SPORADIC

I'm about to hit the road for a much-needed trip to Vegas.

Depending on internet access and levels of intoxication, I may be a bit spotty with posts thru next Wednesday.

But fear not- there will still be comics for every day I'm away!

Viva Las Vegas.

--Pete

Last night I had a dream that I was at home and I had to pee.

So I went to the bathroom. As soon as I walked in, I was struck by two things:

1. The bathroom was identical to the bathroom at one of the local music venues/bars.
2. There was a business man sitting on his briefcase in the corner, sobbing deep, baleful moans.

His crying was frighteningly anguished, but the only thing I could think was "don't look at him, or you might have to deal with this."

I peed, and nodded in his direction on my way out.

In real life, I am highly non-confrontational. And it's not that I don't care about people, I just assume its not my business. If it were me with the problem, I wouldn't want somebody bugging me about it.

I think that might make me an asshole.

ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID...


Reading article after article about the slow death of recorded music and the printed word, as magazines fold up daily and movies are continually pirated, I've realized that no one wants to pay for art, in any capacity.

As someone hoping, perhaps naively, to scrape together some kind of meager earnings in that field, it is both frustrating, and heartbreaking.

If you're good at sports- paycheck. Good at science? Paycheck. Good at business? Paycheck.

But (with only a very few exceptions) if you do anything of a creative sort- writing, painting, drawing, singing, playing an instrument, acting, etc- you are mostly fucked for any kind of living.

So what does that say? Everybody will tell you how important these things are for enhancing their daily lives. But anymore they're apt to run home and illegally download the new album from their favorite band that supposedly had "such an impact" on them. It sucks.

I don't know what the solution is, but as someone who's not much good at much of anything other than writing inane blurbage and scrawling simplistic black and white pictures, I certainly hope there is one...

SEALED FOR YOUR PROTECTION

Upon opening my fourth protective seal on something this morning, I came to realize just how ridiculously many of these things there are. I appreciate that each of these little barriers is keeping people out of my food and medicine- the less thumbs pressed into my cottage cheese and snot rockets blasted in my ibuprofen containers the better, and honestly, when I was a young gad-about, I would've thought it was hilarious to fart into a tub of yogurt and put the top back on. But on a certain level, all this protection seems fairly arbitrary. After all, the FDA allows an alarmingly high percentage of rat feces and cockroach parts in our canned goods, and what's to stop the guy who's bored off his tit day-in and day-out on the Claritin packaging line from squashing one in his armpit for an hour or two before sealing its fate inside the little protective package?

Fact is- we don't trust each other anymore. And we shouldn't. Not because of terrorists or anthrax or poisoned Halloween candy (of which there was only one documented case- a shitty father trying to collect his kid's life insurance policy.) We shouldn't trust the public with our food and medicine because people are bored and craving any kind of feeling, no matter how minor, and will screw with something just for that momentary thrill of realizing someone will eat the banana they just had in their butt cheeks (fortunately, nature gives them their own protective seal...)

Once upon a time, you'd go get aspirin from a pharmacist, milk from a milkman (Oberweiss commercials aside) and meat from a butcher. People didn't worry about them screwing with your stuff, because their job description explicitly points out that they shouldn't. That doesn't mean they didn't, but it was understood that that was an unlikely and mostly isolated thing.

But in the age of chain drug and grocery stores, you really can't trust anybody- so little barriers from the public on everything it is.

So the lesson here is that nothing is truly safe until it's hermetically sealed from human contact, and even then there's a government allotment for how many rat feces and cockaroach parts you can have in there.

Now go break the seal off some ibuprofen to stifle that headache that's been mounting. And mind the one with armpit sweat all over it.

IRONY FINALLY REACHES THE SANDWICH ARTS

In the interest of keeping the day wild and exciting, I went to Subway. I noticed there was a new homemade sign taped to the counter refusing service to anybody using a cell phone while ordering.

After waiting five minutes, the store's lone employee (who'd been talking loudly on the phone in the back) comes stumbling out, pretty obviously as well baked as an oven-toasted sub.

He's on a cellphone, and continues to be on a cell phone all the way through the "sandwich artist" creative process.

I can't help but think maybe the homemade sign taped to the counter was supposed to point the other way.

BRANDED!

I spotted a cell phone store that was offering free shirts and hats with the company's logo emblazoned across the front to people that open new accounts.

Is this really an incentive to anybody to get a new cell phone? "Wow- I just love that company's logo! I want a baseball jacket with that embroidered on the back!"

Admittedly, this isn't much worse than insurance companies, investment firms, or plumbing fixture manufacturers that do the same thing. Maybe it's time to come up with some other way for these places that deal in unspeakably boring goods and services to get their name out there? 'Cause fashion just doesn't seem like a smooth fit to me.

RUN FOR THE BORDER: PREDICTED.

When you spot a large, mouth-breathing, possibly stoned Insane Clown Posse/pro-wrestling fan loping along at 4PM on a Friday, is it wrong to assume he's going to Taco Bell and not on his way to take a walk in the park or pick up Mr. Fuzzypants at the cat hospital?

Is it worse when, after tailing him for 10 minutes, that's exactly where he ends up?

BEAMER UBER ALLES

Without fail, every time I see someone driving like a complete and utter asshole they're piloting a BMW.

Now- I'm not saying EVERYONE who drives a BMW is an asshole. All I'm saying is that it seems to me, after many years of strict scrutiny and careful observation, like they mostly all DRIVE like assholes. They could be perfectly wonderful people on a one-on-one, non-wheeled basis. But when put in a driver's seat, the positraction German engineering takes over their reason center and coerces them into treating the road and all other drivers on it like their own personal shit rag.

Maybe it's like that movie Christine, y'know- the Stephen King classic about the possessed car that treats the road and all other drivers on it like its bitch?

Maybe its like that.

Or maybe it runs deeper...

A BEACON FOR THE HOPELESS

In these troubling times, what we really need is a sign that there is hope for the up-and-coming generation to be strong and help carry things on. Without youth, there is no future, after all.

With all the stock market tumblings, CEO bonuses and job losings and such in the news, it is imperative to find a glimmer of hope wherever you can to help pick you up by your bootstraps and keep on keepin' on, perhaps a little stronger and a little wiser than you were before.

Today, I saw that beacon. Unfortunately it confirmed every doubt and sour thought clinging to the inside of my skull...