Beautiful People

Yesterday there was a guy walking around near Downtown Crossing, yelling "People are bastards, they're all fucking bastards!" Then today I was outside on a smoke break and some jacked-up dude with a leathery suntan was walking down the street with his shirt off. He turned to a couple construction workers and yelled, "Fuck all people, that's what I say!" Then he immediately approached me and said, "Hey man, can I bum a smoke?" Excuse me tanman, am I not people?

Final Countdown

Sharon's leaving, Day 4:
Instead of one anecdote, let's do a list of ten things I'll miss about Sharon.
1) She can't get enough coffee ice cream. Sometimes if we're out on the town, she asks if I have any on me. "Sorry Sharon, fresh out."

2) Whenever the kittens do anything remotely cute or awful, Sharon sings a little song she made up. The only lyrics are "Because You're a Kit-ten." She sings these lyrics over and over and over again.

3) She drinks the dregs of whatever coffee I brew in the morning, even if it's a half-sip.

4) Sharon is really tiny, like three foot two or something.

5) If I ask a question she finds boring, she'll pretend I didn't ask it and start a new topic of conversation. Especially when drinking.
Jesse: Why do you hate this couch so much?
Sharon: I love kittens.

6) Sharon forgives my foibles. The other night I woke up and ate most of her catfish sandwich at 4 in the morning. It seemed like she expected it to happen.

7) I'll miss manfriend Ron and his wild theories. "I think I'd only buy an IPod if it was made of pasta."

8) Sharon has taken to calling everyone a bitch and spitting like Gena Rowlands in Woman Under the Influence.

9) Kitchen Klatsch, once in the morning, once before bed. Sometimes I would be late for work, sometimes I'd stay up way too late. Never boring.

10) Sharon can dance, and she does. Like the wind.

Say my name

Sharon's leaving, Day 3:
Hey, for all you people who don't hear me talk, Sharon is pronounced like Ariel Sharon or My Sharona, with a long O. Her mum is Israeli.

She is also quite generous. Sharon worked at the prestigious Huntington Theater and was always willing to get me free tickets to any play. Unfortunately most of my friends prefer watching King of Queens and eating paste to a night of cultural enrichment, so I couldn't often find theater companions.

So this March, I was attending a play at the Huntington and Sharon emailed me directions. This is the e-mail exchange we had:
Jesse- "THANKS LADY!"
Sharon- "NO PROBLEM GRAVY (it rhymed with lady)"
Jesse- "it rhymes with lady if your mouth is full of marbles. I mean, c'mon sharon."
Sharon- "Why are you always scolding me, man?
I'me just minding my own besswax and WHAM, you come down on me about
something else. some trivial bullshit. I was a happy carefree rhymer, and you squashed my enthusiasm to please people with my rhymes.
You are doom and gloom. Enjoy the show."

She was kidding, of course.

Why this story indicates Sharon is awesome:
a) Free theater tickets.
b) Very funny straight-faced chiding.
c) She didn't make fun of me when I called her in a panic, thinking I had really made her feel bad. I didn't understand it was a joke at first. Shut up.

Unholy

Click below to enlarge. It's almost certainly the devil's work.

I only yell because I love you

Sharon's leaving, Day 2:
Last night Sharon was cradling Grayskull in her arms like a little infant. She rocked her to and fro and said a bunch of goo-goo babytalk. All of a sudden something snapped, and she snarled at the cat, "Look at me! Why won't you look me in the eyes?! I said LOOK AT ME!" The baby talk is kind of cute but it's Sharon's faux-volatility that I will miss.

Wait for it, wait for it...

Broken Social Scene

When I was in high school, there was one destination for all our drinking and debauchery needs- the Busler's Pool Hall. My friends Mat and Dan Busler were raised by hippies (like wolves except less blood and more weed) and the Pool Hall was the crown jewel of Hippie Manor. It's a stark free-standing building with only a pool table, a stereo system and a TV set. That was enough. The parents were floating on happy puffy clouds so discipline was never an issue. We spent most of our funnest drinkingest nights at this house of ill repute. I have fond sepia-toned memories of our times there.

It was a fantastic party! I tricked you all. Pictures to follow.

The future's so bright

So I just came in and gave an enthusiastic "Good morning!" to one of the nice temps in our office. I proceeded to talk about how good his life must be because he has such a nice girlfriend. "She's really great, you must be so happy!" I don't know why I was being so weird and perky, it's really not in my nature. All I do know is I got an email seconds later from my sister- 'his girlfriend dumped him.' Oh-ahsome.

God Bless Us Every One

So my roommate Sharon is moving out at the end of the week to live with her rockin' manfriend in Vermont. She decided it would be a good idea if I wrote a little post about her every day until she goes. In fact, she called it a '7-day devotional.' I don't think Sharon realizes that blogging takes the weekend off. Each of the next five days will explore something loveable that Sharon has done or said. Then she'll be gone.

Day 1:
Today at 7am, I went into the pantry to get some sugar for my coffee. When I came out, I said in my best Tiny Tim voice, "It smells like Christmas morning!" Sharon promptly responded in her best prison inmate growl, "There ain't no Christmas, biatch!"

Crazy Is

So I got an IM from Kool Keith a few nights ago in reference to a recent post. I thought I'd post the transcript:

Jesse, my dawg-
Hey man, it's been too long. How're things? A little birdie told me you might be dating some Canadian. What's up with that? I thought we used to agree that Canadians are gross. Oh well, I guess people change.

I actually haven't changed that much. 'Notoriously batshit,' you crack me up! Here's the thing. As crazy as I am, there's actually a method to my madness. See, that line about Nissan trucks is a reference to the indie documentary, Hands on a Hard Body. The subject of that movie is a contest at a Texas car dealership where people have to keep their hands on a brand-new ($100,000!) Nissan truck for as long as possible. The last man standing wins the truck.


I thought my subtle reference to 'hands on a hard body' would be a smashing double entendre for a rap about masturbation. I figured people in the know would pick up on that. You know what, Jesse? I'm kind of disappointed that you missed the joke. Maybe you should stop smokin' all those blunts to your dome!

Ah, I'm just playin. You know we're boys. In fact, I made you a little e-card just so you know there's no hard feelings. lol!

Peace and pineapples,
Kool Keith, aka Doctor Octagon, aka Black Elvis, aka Dr. Dooom, aka Mr. Gerbik, aka Mr. Nogatco, aka Rhythm X

Editor's note: the e-card is not to be missed.

Help Yourself

I have a new blog listed on my sidebar, There's a Blog in my Throat. It is written by an acquaintance friend named Meaghan and is consistently incisive and hilarious. Between her and the ever-snarky Joshua, I get my bored-at-work funny fix on a daily basis.

(This is not to belittle the fine work of my other blogging friends, I'm just doing a little PR.)

Heard this one before?

I am back to responding to all your comments. It'll be different this time, I swear. Baby baby, I've changed.

Handsome Devil

Going to the Chapel

My 'friends getting married' counter is now at 4 with a bullet. Has the world gone completely kookoo? Or am I 28 years old, living in a state of suspended adolescence?

Either way, I intend to get drunk and make a scene at my friend Craig's Wisconsin wedding in October. This will be my form of protest. Rebecca will be my 'handler.'

The Tale of Saggy Baggles

Do you guys know Alli? She is sooo wicked super fun! You should totally be friends with her, she dates celebrities and plays zombie dressup and deletes her Friendster profile and dances like Kelis and has two moms. We went to Vermont last weekend and made a circle tour of Lake Champlain, stopping at flea markets, food shacks and holy sites along the way.

I made Alli stop at an old haunted train car that was filled with mannequins and Christmas decorations. She wants to use this as her main profile photo at rumpshaker.com.

A bit later we stopped at a horrible little yard sale where the crusty lady wouldn't barter with her overpriced crap. "Wellll, those nail clippers are actually from World War II and were used by Eisenhower right before the Tet Offensive, when he defeated Napoleon. Sorry, $25 firm."
I didn't buy anything except for a painting of a salty old sailor with his arm around a young skipper. I also took pictures of the lady's crap to prove I am a fruity city-slicker. "Ooh, look at the contrast of light and dark. Everything is so authentic!"

This is a huge saint shrine that I assume is made of solid gold. At the bottom was a little trough of holy water that Alli used to freshen up. I took a picture of her posed provocatively by the trough but she said the angle made her nose look like an isosceles triangle. Girls is crazy. Am I right?

In this picture, I had just bought Alli a nice diamond broach. This made her very angry so she threw poison berries at me.

Wouldn't it be weird if that face wasn't in the tree when Alli took the picture and it showed up now because of my huge sins? That would be weird.

I adopted a child from Hong Kong named Quasimodo. Quasimodo loves roadside poutine.

I can't remember what is happening in this picture. Options:
a) Alli is showing the old "found a french fry in my nose" trick, a distant disgusting cousin of the "found a quarter in your ear" trick.
b) Alli is showing Quasi what not to do at the dinner table.
c) Alli wants attention.
Please note the ash smudge on Quasimodo's forehead. I decided he will be raised Catholic. The ash is his way of celebrating Ash Saturday, which I'm pretty sure is in August. Actually I don't know shit about Catholicism so I just bought him this book and got drunk on whiskey. The end.

Raindrops on roses

I'm not sure if it's an aesthetic or stylistic preference that makes me not want to follow a photo post with a photo post. Actually, the distinction is inconsequential and I just made myself tired. All I'm saying is, this is a brief intermission before I post fun pictures from Vermont.

These are some of the things making me smile this week:
1) The weather is sweet as saltwater taffy (obviously not the gross flavors like BubbleGum or Ham.) In Boston, I think people make conversational careers out of complaining about the weather. Now that it's nice outside, they talk about how bad weather is right around the corner. I don't think people know what to do with gorgeous sunshine and mild temperatures, it deflates their gripe balloon. Myself, I shall bask.

2) The hip hop project High and Mighty has a dirty song about ah, touching your naughty bits. The song is kind of funny but my favorite part is in the chorus. Notoriously batshit rapper Kool Keith says:
"The raw ingredients, with hands on experience,
with Nissan trucks, worth a hundred thousand bucks."

That is just so outrageous and weird. Why Nissan, Keith? Do they make a $100k model? Is that the ultimate in luxury? And what does it have to do with masturbation? I grin from ear to ear every time I hear it on the old 'I Pod.' I bet I look like a sex criminal.

3) On the flip side, powerfully sad lyrics make me feel happy as well. These words from the Magnetic Fields 100,000 Fireflies always make me feel good in an achy wistful way:
"You won't be happy with me,
But give me one more chance.
You won't be happy anyway."

4) This girl.

5) I'm the last to know about a lot of things and this Borat guy is no exception. A character from the Ali G show, I've been spending far too much time at work watching his antics on YouTube. Here is a short funny clip. Borat, a culturally impaired Eastern European, is talking with an actual 'dating specialist.' He is asking if he can impress women with his favorite joke.


She tells him he probably should not tell his joke on a date.

We Are Family

Two weekends ago, a small group of us made a three-car caravan down to Falmouth for a beach weekend. It was a strange combo of people- fun Jenny, dancing Alli, happy Rob, meathead Irv and Irv's sweet girlfriend Kissy. Somehow the dynamic still worked and I ended up driving home on a serious Cape Cod high.

In this photo, Alli is displaying what Kelis would do (WWKD) if she was put in an innertube and left to drift on the lazy river. She's bossay.

I can't explain the white heat in front of Jenny's face but I do know that she is terrified of this spooky picture. Apparently she recently smashed a glass with the power of her mind and I think she's starting to feel like Carrie. I blame Jenny's mind control for how we both went to sleep at 1:00am that night.

"What do you wanna do, Rob?"
"I don't know Jenny, what do you wanna do?"

When all else fails, interpretive dance.

Irv on the dock, Kissy in the tube. This was the first weekend I hung out with these two people. Irv continually suggested that the girls in the group should make out and "compare the size of their titties." Kissy sat quietly by the wayside, doting on her incorrigible man. Let's have a caption contest for this picture.

Duck parade. Smile like you mean it.

Excuse me while I kiss the sky.

No

I just gave away a bunch of pineapple chunks to my co-workers, telling them "it's loaded with citrus!" Someone thought I said syphilis. Laughter followed.

I can tell I'm highly irritable because I wanted to scalp anyone who thought it was funny. I don't know why I have such a short fuse, general malaise I guess.*

I'm going to write a couple happy photo posts to counteract my bad attitude. It's like my mom used to say, "When you're feeling bad, force yourself to fake a smile. Do this for long enough and the smile will eventually become real."

* If someone suggests it has something to do with 'the Mondays,' they will rocket to the top of my to-scalp list.

Odd

It slipped my mind that I used to do the 'find a picture, tell a story' thing with a funny Texan named Anne Maloney. It was awhile ago.
For instance.

Update

So my plea in the last post looks like a wash. 15 people have looked at this blog from weird places like Cherokee Village, Arkansas and Mt. Laurel, New Jersey but only one person has actually commented. And that person is a man of shame.

Bah. See if I ever tell you about last month's Rat Safari.

I just re-wrote this post and many people will never know it changed. Blogspot allows me to explore my inner revisionist.

Roll Call

In a recent conversation with friend and neighbor Alison (called out,) I discovered she has been reading this blog for months without telling me or making comments. This isn't the first time someone has said this to me.

So here is my plea to all you silent lurkers- if you look at this blog but never comment, please leave a comment now. BUT, in order to protect your online anonymity, you don't have to leave your name. Instead, you can just make some private reference so I will know who you are.

Example-
On 8/8, Anonymous said:
Remember the moonlight noodles? Don't forget to fly fish!

Then of course I would know you were the crazy guy who talked to me on the subway this morning. You get the point.

On the Game

Long-time readers will remember my old hobby- buying photographs of strangers and making up their stories. Today I mark my return to the old sport with this gleaming find from a Cape Cod flea market. It's pretty brilliant, if I do say so myself.

click to enlarge

Sixpence, the sequel (this time, it's personal)

So my co-workers are upstairs enjoying schmancy hors d'oeuvres and an open bar while I sit here, listening to Tapes n' Tapes and blogging. I owe it to my readers, ya little rascals.

When we left off, Niko and I were standing outside talking and smoking. The topic? I don't remember, give me a break. Okay fine, we were talking about topiary gardens. Happy?

All of a sudden, some fifteen year old kid with warmup gear and an afro went speeding by us, holding a black bag in his hands. I heard someone yelling, "Stop that kid!" After a second of processing, I realized what was going on, threw my cigarette on the ground and took off running.

Now I've always been an inordinately fast runner, considering my hedonistic, anti-health lifestyle. I think my blood is made up primarily of grain alcohol, nicotine and sausage. Nonetheless, I was able to catch up with Running Man within a couple blocks.

I grabbed him by his jersey and spun him around. The kid looked totally terrified, although I cut about as imposing a figure as David Faustino. He immediately starts saying, "I didn't do nothing, I swear, that guy is crazy!!!"

What guy? Omigod, he must mean the tall screaming man who is walking towards us with long Paul Bunyan strides and brimstone in his eyes. He kinda looked like a cross between David Bowie and the robot cop in Terminator 2. Also he must've been at least 65.

"Hey you little fuck! Thought you were a big man, huh? Thought you could just mouth off to whoever you want? I'll rip you apart!"

Whoa whoa, all of a sudden I realized the situation was a bit different than I anticipated. I had apprehended a little wiseguy, not a thief. And his 'victim' was actually a drunken madman, way too old to take a mouthy teenager seriously. The guy kept walking tall as the kid stumbled backwards, desperately pleading, "Leave me alone, I was just kidding, c'mon man, it's cool..."

Next thing I'm putting my hand on the big guy's chest, telling him to cool off, not to worry about it, he's just a kid, etc. It took about 100 feet of walking before I made an impact. All of a sudden, like when Wily Coyote looks around and realizes he has actually run off the cliff, the guy looked me in the eyes and snapped out of his anger-trance.

"Hey man, you're right, it's not worth it. I don't need to get arrested tonight." He turned around and we walked back to the bar.

Sorry Rebecca, not really a hero. Just a fast runner.

Epilogue:
Later, back at the Newtown, I had to ask the guy, "Why would you yell out 'Somebody stop that kid' when it was your beef?"
He responded, "I've been coming to this bar since God was a child, I figured somebody outside would get my back."

The guy then bought me a healthy tumbler of whiskey.

Song of sixpence

Tuesday night I was at a local dive bar, the Socrates Newtown Grille, with my new friend Niko. The ubiquitous Red Sox game was on T.V., but something wasn't quite right. See, an injured little blackbird had wandered onto the field and was captivating everyone's attention. The camera would not leave it alone, exploring every gimpy little step the bird made around second base. Manny Ramirez was at the bat but no one seemed to care. The Little Bird That Couldn't was now America's sweetheart.

It was also in severe danger of being hurt. The bird had to avoid being stepped on, as well as avoid the natural meanness that helpless creatures inspire in boys. Indians player Casey Blake later said, "I was thinking about smashing him with my glove." At one point, shortstop Jhonny Peralta threw a dirt clump at the bird. (He was loudly booed by the pro-bird audience.) The announcer said, "For the love of God, won't someone step in and take care of that bird!?!?"

But no one did. It's a pretty common human phenomenon to see a crisis and hope the guy next to you will intervene. (yes, I know a bird on a baseball field is hardly a crisis, I'm just making a clumsy segue.)

When I was a wee lad, my parents took me to Boston for Chinese New Year. Near the subway, there was a destitute man on the sidewalk who was obviously in a medical emergency. He was writhing around, gasping for air, saliva streaming from his mouth. To me, the most horrifying thing was watching people step over the dude as they went off to buy Glo-sticks and piping hot peanuts. Nobody wanted to get involved.

My dad got serious hero points for being the one person who leaned down, checked the guy out and gave him medical attention while my mom called for help. That was a valuable day of learning for Little Man Jesse.

Late Tuesday night, when Niko and I were out smoking a cigarette, I had the chance to follow in my dad's footsteps. I couldn't save a blackbird or a bum, but maybe I could stop a crime...

part 2 to follow