Tournament of Ass-Kickers

Violence is a polarizing impulse for me. In actuality, I find violence repellent and detestable. The violent urge, except when it is employed in self-defense, is laden with twisted sadism. Enforcers of violence do ignoble and deplorable damage to their fellow man. With every strike against flesh, such crooked lowlifes tacitly contend, “There must be more suffering!” And that sort of brutal adage refutes the possibilities of virtue a human being can choose to pursue—to minimize suffering.

If you'd rather chase after suffering than peace in this frenzied rat race known as life, then you're fucked in the head. If that's the case with you, reader, then let's never hang out together.

In my imaginative life, which of course differs from actuality, violence appeals to me. It is quite a challenge to suppress the human urge for gaudy entertainment. We get bored so easily without fireworks, thunderstorms, Super Bowls, Royal Rumbles, episodes of “Cops,” and the like. The days become unbearably slow and stagnant in the absence of lurid spectacles. In cycles of neurosis, we trade boredom for pain when the boredom begins to ache. Later we trade the pain back for boredom when the pain becomes dull.

The pangs I feel to partake in one hell of a bloody show are transferred to imaginative outlets. My precious jollies are had when I press the X-button to decapitate a zombie with a loaded shotgun as I guide my character through the gory adventure of a survival horror video game. I watch on with savage glee as Lieutenant Aldo Raine carves a swastika into the forehead of the hysterically squealing Jew Hunter. Once a year I watch a WWF cassette tape highlighted by a steel cage match between The Undertaker and The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels—as dumb tribute to gaudy and fictitious violence at its best.

I suppose I'm a hypocrite because I disdain real violence but embrace fictitious violence. I assure myself that imaginative violence is harmless as long as one has a thoughtful philosophy to condemn real violence. But perhaps I'm fooling myself.

The ensuing column glorifies fictitious violence with (hopefully) funny results. After I graduated college, I still published guest contributions on a sporadic basis in the Advance-Titan. I was able to do this because fellow humor columnist Tyler Maas, two years my junior, had become the editor of the newspaper, and Tyler is a fan of my work. For the Halloween issue, we collaborated on “The Tournament of Ass-Kickers” with two other columnists whose names I cannot recall. We devised brackets of 16 combatants for each writer and then determined the outcome of each fight, working our way to the Final Four.

Included here is the first round of my bracket, the Fist Pumps for Brutality region. Much of what follows differs from how it was printed in October of 2007, which hardly matters. Changes have been made to allow for more contemporary references as well as an expanded list of dead pro-wrestlers.


First Round Match-ups

Wolverine (1) defeats Captain Planet (16).
Shortly after the opening whistle blows, Captain Planet sets his mind to digging a compost heap. He offers Wolverine a hoe in a gesture of what he refers to as, “Solidarity with Mother Nature.” For the novelty of an easy kill, Wolverine doesn't even bother to extend his deadly Adamantium claws, opting instead to club Captain Planet to death with the garden tool. Wolverine then litters an empty bag of pretzels onto the mangled corpse of Captain Planet. Sorry, hemp-worshiping vegans, but if you want America to become more environmentally conscious, you need to lend your support to a superhero who's got more balls than Captain Planet.

Goro (2) defeats Franklin Delano Roosevelt (15).

With a functioning limbs advantage of six-to-two, Mortal Kombat's most insidious villain finishes off what polio started. Goro hijacks the wheelchair of our greatest (handicapped) president and bashes FDR with it using his top two arms while the others play Wii Boxing and write haikus in honor of fallen heavy metal God Ronnie James Dio.

Massive Naked Black Guy from “Cops” who Punched a Hole through a Wooden Fence while Jacked-Up on PCP (3) defeats Aquaman (14).

Aquaman's reputation as the most useless above-sea level superhero is validated in this one-sided fracas. Pfft. Aquaman. His “powers” would only prove fruitful if we lived in a world in which SCUBA divers robbed mermaids at harpoon gunpoint. His opponent, whom we will refer to from now on as PCPNBG, with the last three letters in the acronym standing for “Naked Black Guy,” is built like a naked linebacker. He is impervious to pain until the PCP wears off and he is covered in blood. Aquaman's fear of possibly contracting Hepatitis from the bloody vagrant is fleeting. Before the panic really takes hold, PCPNBG bashes Aquaman's head in with a trash can lid.

The Bride (4) defeats Chewbacca (13).

In spite of Chewbacca's height and weight advantage over Beatrice Kideaux, the Bride, the bedazzling Samurai assassin from the Tarantino flick “Kill Bill,” it is important to keep in mind that Chewbacca, endearing as he is when his plaintive moans aren't irritating the shit out of you—Chewbacca is essentially a noisy, gawky, Muppet creature. He's built more like Yao Ming than Shaq O'Neal; he's lacking in bulk for not only a dominant low post game, but also superior ass-kicking prowess. The Bride slays as many Yokuza henchmen in two gory minutes of “Kill Bill” than Chewbacca kills Strom Troopers in the entirety of the “Star Wars” trilogy. The Bride dominates the fight but spares Chewbacca's life. Rather than slicing the Wookie in half with her Hattori Hanzo blade, the Bride opts for a more humane victory and mercifully plucks Chewbacca's right eye from its socket. She then sells it to the highest bidding nerd on e-Bay. (Congratulations to Tyler Christensen from Sherman Oaks, California!)

Hacksaw Jim Duggan (12) defeats Magneto (5).

X-men arch nemesis Magneto's ability to manipulate metallic objects with telekinetic force is rendered useless because Hacksaw's foreign object of choice is a wooden 2 x 4. Magneto's lone offensive attack is telepathically ripping a gold stud out of Hacksaw's earlobe, which Hacksaw only wore in the first place because his old lady Deedra, a bartender at a bowling alley in Queens, insists it makes him look more dashing. Luckily for Hacksaw, the plate inserted into his head after the notorious “Sledgehammer Trampoline Incident” is not made out of metal, but rather Legos. (It turns out that pro wrestler Dr. Death, who performed the procedure, is not in fact an accredited surgeon.) Hacksaw squeezes the pine into finely ground sawdust with his mammoth, clumsy hands and then bludgeons Magneto into a mangled monstrosity. As Dick Vital would exclaim, it's upset city, baby, and they are rejoicing in the streets of Hacksaw Jim's hometown of Glen Falls, New York.

General George Washington (11) defeats Robocop (6).

Unknowingly corrupted by overconfidence, Robocop pistol-whips General Washington for the first two minutes of the bout, echoing the initial power and haughtiness of the British Empire during the Revolutionary War. Bloodied and exhausted, Washington matches the fortitude he displayed during his troop's six-month winter Battle of Attrition holed up at Valley Forge. General Washington, always a savvy strategist, aims the barrel of his musket at Robocop's vulnerable mouth area, specifically the hollow target of his open mouth as Robocop drones bland cop rhetoric about Persecuting to the Fullest Extent of the Law. Crimson-tainted gunpowder sprays through the back of Robocop's neck.

Macho Man Randy Savage (7) defeats Super Macho Man (10).

Supercilious Nintendo boxer Super Macho Man scrambles the brains of the Macho Man Randy Savage early in the bout, landing solid thumps on his skull with the force of a hammer. He should have worked the body instead. Considering that much of Savage's thought process consists of catchphrases such as “Oooh, yeah, Dig it” and “Snap into a Slim-Jim,” Savage's head trauma has little if any effect on the fight. The former WWF Champion eventually turns the tide of the fight, nailing a flurry of clotheslines before finishing Super Macho Man with a flying elbow drop off the top rope. In a post-match interview, a teary-eyed Savage dedicates his victory to the memories of his tragically fallen pro-wrestling comrades, including: the Lovely Miss Elizabeth, Mr. Perfect, The Big Boss Man, The British Bulldog, Owen Hart, The Texas Tornado, Earthquake, Yokazuna, Eddie Guerrero, Flyin' Brian Pillman, Chris Benoit, Ric Flair, who is expected to die in a Sledgehammer Trampoline accident of his own later next week, and 14 others whom I'm omitting due to lack of space. For God's sake, please stay the hell away from cocaine and steroids, kids!

Chucky (9) defeats The Leprechaun (8).

The Leprechaun at once tackles Chucky, pins him down and kneels on his wee doll arms, and wields a broken bottle of Guinness inches above Chucky's bulging eyes. With certain death looming, the redheaded Hellraiser pleads in an Irish accent: “For the love of Riverdance, you can't kill a fellow Irishman!” The Leprechaun skeptically remarks, “What? You're too big of a wanker to be hailing from Mother Ireland.” Chucky persists. “I swear on me last drop of whiskey, me family's from Ireland. Every time I think about the Great Potato Famine I feel like stabbing the first babysitter I come across.” The Leprechaun lowers his guard. “Ay! I've stabbed more than a few babysitters me-self. And the Great Potato Famine? T'was devastating! You know, me grandparents in the Old Country didn't even realize there were edible foods other than potatoes. Just imagine what a cursed time they had—“
At this point the treacherous Chucky takes advantage of the Leprechaun's naïvety and thrusts a switchblade into his opponent's jugular. In his regular voice, Chucky muses, “Stupid Mick.”

Fear of Flying

B.A. Baracus and John Madden have something in common. Granted, B.A. Baracus is a character and John Madden is a real person, but don't stop reading on account of that. The former is the Mohawk-rocking enforcer played by Mr. T on the insipidly macho '80s show The A-Team. The latter is the blustery and retired football coach and analyst. Their similarities are not striking on the surface. The two differ starkly in matters of hairstyle*, wardrobe, skin pigment, and tolerance of crazy fools. But they share a severe phobia, the topic of this essay: Aerophobia, the fear of flying.

David Bowie, the eclectic and eccentric explorer of psychedelic glam, is also afraid of flying, which in part explains why he adopted the surrogate persona of Major Tom for “Space Oddity,” his epic song about a doomed and intrepid astronaut who loses his way somewhere in the cosmos. The hero of Bowie's invention meets the tragic fate that the songwriter portends for those foolish enough to defy the Earth's gravitational pull in a floating tin can.

But I'm digressing far too early on. I've been warned about that.

Hey, did you know that Marge Simpson also suffers from Aerophobia? I love The Simpsons, from season 2 through 8, especially. Did you know that Homer Simpson's flummoxed profile was etched into my right bicep when I was eighteen? It's true, and before I turn 40, that tattoo is totally going to get me laid.

Oops.

Returning to Mr. Bad Attitude Baracus** and bloated gasbag John Madden, their mutual phobia is vexing when you consider how their manly personas are in contrast with suffering from an abject fear. Male chauvinists tend to think phobias are exclusive to women, that they're always the ones afraid of spiders, mice, guns, chainsaws, and unprotected sex. Baracus and Madden, both broad beacons of manliness--one known for launching terrorists and evil drug lords through plate glass windows, the other for squiggling X's and O's on a telestrator to enlighten fans and players alike about the nuances of America's greatest and manliest sport--are afflicted with a dire phobia. Baracus squeals in a hysterical tantrum every time he catches wind that his partners want him to board an airplane. It is rumored that Madden curls up into the fetal position and wails in a terrified falsetto the words to “Rocky Mountain High” every time he overhears a John Denver song on the radio. *** Such weaknesses hardly reflect the behavior of two macho guys.


At a recent backyard bonfire, as I spoke with my friend Tony, both of us sipping on Keystone Lights on a tranquil summer night, Tony revealed that he fears flying, too. My hope is that someday B.A. Baracus, John Madden, David Bowie, Marge Simpson, and my friend Tony will all be in the same support group for Aerophobics, empathizing amongst themselves, lending each other shoulders to cry on and so forth.

In terms of manliness, Tony ranks much closer to the likes of Baracus and Madden than an effeminate neurotic such as David Bowie. Tony hangs dry wall for a living, he swings a sledgehammer for a good chunk of his workday, he manages fire-pits and grills with nonchalant aplomb, and he plays on a rugby team dubbed the Wolf Pack.

Personally, anytime I think to myself, “Hey, I'm playing RUGBY!” I know that I'm having a nightmare. A YouTube clip of me locked into a combative scrum would elicit a million hits. The clip would be titled, “Skinny Geek Pummeled into Coma on Rugby Field.”

It surprised me that Tony had such a palpable fear of flying, that something he found terrifying didn't scare me much at all.

Like all obsessive-compulsives, I am not without my phobias, but nonetheless, Aerophobia puzzles me. The odds of dying in a car accident are exceedingly greater than dying in a plane crash. The average motorist is so much less reliable than the average pilot. A pilot would sooner smash his own crotch with a wooden mallet than send a text message from the cockpit. Pilots are a competent, respectable breed. Have you ever shaken hands with a male pilot? The handshake of a pilot is firm and vigorous. His intention is to make your hand throb afterwards, but the gesture is done with gallantry meant to inspire confidence.

Pilots can be trusted not to guide the plane into the side of a jagged mountain with malice both homicidal and suicidal because pilots are usually content men who lead satisfying lives. This is mainly because it's easy for pilots to get laid. Women are insatiably attracted to them because pilots are adventurous, capable, courageous, and responsible (for the lives of 200 people at a time). Pilots also wear uniforms.

By the way, the fact that women are so profoundly attracted to men in uniforms bothers me because writers can't feasibly wear uniforms. I protest petulantly that being an individual who thinks uniforms are highly over-rated can be sexy, too, but no one ever seems to listen. Fair enough, I suppose. It takes a repugnant fool to argue with the truth.

Pilots exude authority and command respect. When a pilot is distracted by the intense glare of the Sun, he squints ever so slightly, gnashes his teeth and growls, “Fuck off, Sun!” Seconds later, it gets cloudy. The Sun retreats behind hastily formed clouds, thick as Texas-sized marshmallows.

Bus Drivers, on the other hand, tend not to be great conquerers of women. Their calling in life inspires feelings of tedium rather than adventure. There are ballsy dudes on bicycles in major cities who don't fear a brush with a bus. Flying in an airplane evokes enterprise while riding a bus evoke the realization that you're probably poor. Pilots have got to be more satisfactorily laid than their bus-driving counterparts.

I'm not entirely trying to worsen the wounds of the bus driver—it's an essential, respectable profession. It's just that, in a roundabout, peculiar way, the fact that pilots have richer sex lives than bus drivers makes me fear flying less and riding on a bus more. Screwing on an airplane is a cheeky achievement. Screwing on a bus is a desperate plea for a Hepatitis intervention. To boot, homeless people don't jerk off on airplanes. They can so rarely afford plane tickets. Buses are often seedy and filthy vessels of transport, and that rankles me as an obsessive-compulsive. The more I think about it, the easier it is to assert that riding in a bus scares me more than flying in an airplane.

I said so to Tony and he dismissed my argument. He considered it bizarre nonsense. Tony has never lived in Chicago as I did, without a car, and so the last time he stepped foot on a bus was probably for a high school field trip, nearly a decade ago. I didn't spend much more time debating the perils of bus travel because I was more at ease questioning Tony about his fear; it was and remains an interesting novelty to me.

It's dubious to seek validation for your argument based on a scene from the film Dumb & Dumber. The film is a sophomoric comedic spree and not typically known for imparting wisdom. It reflects poorly on your intellect when you're in total agreement with the words of a hapless buffoon—especially when the buffoon in question essentially fulfills the role of a character coined “Dumber.” But that is where my rhetoric ventured to next.

I asked Tony to recall the scene in which Lloyd, behind the wheel of a limousine, drives vivacious redhead Mary Swanson to the airport. Her demeanor is frazzled because she is about to drop off a briefcase loaded with ransom money as payment to the mob—who have kidnapped her husband. Lloyd wrongly assumes that her anxiety is due to a pre-flight bout with Aerophobia. Wanting to console her in his flirtatious stupor, Lloyd cranes his neck over his right shoulder, ignoring oncoming traffic, and says to Mary...

“There's really nothing to worry about, Mary. Statistically, they say you're more likely to get killed on the way to the airport. You know, like a head-on crash, or flying off a cliff, or getting trapped under a gas truck—that's the worst. I have this cousin—well, I had this cousin...”

At this point Mary urges Lloyd to keep his eyes on the road, to which he replies...

“Ooh. Yeah. Good thinking. Can't be too careful. There's a lot of bad drivers out there.”

What I said to Tony was paraphrased, and rather shabbily, at that. I smoke too much to remember that many words verbatim. As readers, you get the benefit of verbatim thanks to the wonder of DVD technology.

I felt like a recollection of this scene from Dumb & Dumber did wonders for my argument. Even a hapless buffoon like Lloyd Christmas can cite evidence to support his stance that driving is more dangerous than flying, and additionally, Lloyd's negligence behind the wheel speaks volumes about the intellect of the average motorist. (Not to implicate you, of course. No. Never you.)

Tony is pretty practical--a quality that can really hinder one's imagination, and so he said I was nuts for citing Dumb & Dumber as persuasive evidence for the case against Aerophobia. My thoughts were again dismissed with cordial authority, treated like little more than wisps of smoke cleared away by a hand-swipe.

Deferring and recharging, I listened further to Tony's explanation of why he's afraid to fly. At last it occurred to me why he feared airplane travel and I didn't. It was all a matter of Control and Faith.

My capacity for control is exceeded by that of Tony's. He provides a justification of control at his job, swinging sledgehammers, or while he's calmly tending the grill or thrusting a shoulder block as he struggles to advance past carnage on the rugby field. Me? I'm less in control of my life, what with the unemployment, the fact that my dad doesn't trust me to operate his grill—perhaps with good reason—and my fear of contact sports.

My capacity for faith, contrarily, exceeds that in Tony. I have faith in pilots because there is something cosmically profound about their handshakes, because pilots get laid frequently and therefore have stronger wills to survive. I trust pilots for being everything I'm not. Unlike pilots, I'm not too adventurous, capable, courageous, or responsible—and I don't wear a uniform. But I have enormous faith in all of the aforementioned qualities (wearing a uniform NOT INCLUDED, because I still think the perceived sex appeal of men in uniform provides a grim hint that women really prefer conformists to individuals).

With maximum faith but minimal control, death wish inclinations abound. This is why terrorists declare Jehads and fly planes into buildings with malice both homicidal and suicidal--because they have faith that a grateful and benevolent invisible man is going to greet them after the catastrophe, his arms stretching around the distance of 36 ravishing virgins on either side who can't wait to be banged by insidious lowlifes. Their lives are likely to be out of control, too. It's hard to get a job in a country that is war-ravaged and economically bleak. It's also hard to get a job when you check “Yes” to the box on the application that asks, “Are you a terrorist?” And consequently, without steady jobs, terrorists must strive to oppress women no matter what, because an independent woman is one who needs a damn good excuse to date a dude who doesn't have a real job.

Let's see Tony dismiss that as bizarre nonsense.

And incidentally, I'd like to declare that I am not in fact an Islamic extremist. My death wish is expressed with sadistic patience, by means of sweet, toxic nicotine. Not coincidentally, Tony rarely smokes cigarettes.


I'm not afraid of flying. For people, control is always subject to limitations, but Faith can be boundless, immeasurable. Forgive the sour grapes, please, but I think control is mostly an illusion, a tangibility that can morph into an apparition at any moment, regardless of our objections. When I lose control, I still feel human. When I lose faith, I turn into a monster. Maybe you can relate.



*Okay. Admittedly, Mr.T's hairstyle lookalikes are a very breed, limited to pro-wrestlers from the Cock Rock era who have all but become extinct due to overdoses of cocaine, steroids, and anti-depressants, which when abused at the same time, comprise a concoction that pro-wrestlers ominously refer to as the “Ultimate Piledriver.”

**As his name appears on wedding invites.

***Obviously, I hope you already know this, otherwise I hate to bear this bad news, but folk singer John Denver died in a plane crash. For God's sake, didn't you see the movie Final Destination?!

Cubs Fan Wants to Waste Time Travel

I like to wear a blue hat with a red "C" printed on it. The "C" represents my affinity for the Chicago Cubs baseball squadron. Because of the team’s hundred-year championship drought and knack for faltering in the presence of greatness, many people who follow sports consider Cubs fans pathetic and masochistic. But I don’t see it that way. I prefer to think we are dauntless optimists who never lose hope but occasionally lose self-respect. Being a Cubs fan has taught me that hope can’t be killed by oodles upon oodles of disappointment, frustration, and failure. Thanks to a revolving cast of jocks that wear matching hats and uniforms, I have learned a lot about hope. Hope is like a cockroach in the nuclear winter.

Of course, this column wouldn’t be very funny if I didn’t segue into the disappointment/ frustration/ failure realm of loving the Cubs. My darkest day as a Cubs fan should come as no surprise: October 14th, 2003. On this date, the Cubs squandered a three-run lead in the eighth inning and wound up losing game six of the National League Championship Series to the Florida Marlins. A few days later, the Marlins eliminated the Cubs in game seven and went on to win the World Series. A crucial play in this dreadful eighth inning occurred when Marlin Luis Castillo sliced a foul ball toward the left field stands—right in the area of seat 113 in aisle 4, row 8. The fan who claimed seat 113—a bespectacled geek named Steve Bartman— lunged for the airborne souvenir, oblivious or indifferent to the fact that Cubs leftfielder Moises Alou was tracking the ball, poised to make the catch. Alou didn’t catch the ball, however, because Bartman knocked it down. Thus began a gut-wrenching plummet down an emotional black-hole. Thanks a lot, Bartman. I mean...What the fuck?!

I realize there were many other factors in that eighth inning debacle (including but not limited to starter Mark Prior’s abrupt loss of composure, Alex Gonzalez’s error at shortstop, the relievers floated the ball to the plate in under-handed, softball fashion), but for the sake of this column, let’s just assume a fan with busy hands deserves 100% of the blame. Steve Bartman could discover the cure for cancer and he still wouldn’t redeem himself. Don’t get me wrong: I hate cancer as much as the next guy. I’m anti-cancer all the way, but on the other hand, I can’t overlook the fact that Steve Bartman deserves at least a dozen vengeance wedgies.

I have a request for any scientists that are reading this column: Invent a time machine. I’ve never asked you for anything before; PLEASE scientists, invent a time machine so that I can travel back to October 14th 2003 and restrain Steve Bartman in a full-nelson hold for a mere three seconds while that infamous foul ball is in flight. I want to go "Quantum Leap" on that chump!

Some of you may be wondering, "Aren’t there more important historical events to rectify through time travel? Genuinely tragic events that we could set straight if only the damn scientists would get off their duffs and invent a damn time machine?" It’s an interesting argument that I’m willing to counter. So with no further ado, here is a brief list of some other catastrophes that do not, in my opinion, merit time travel intervention.

***

You can read the rest of this essay, and 39 other doozies, by ordering a copy of my book, "There Will be Blog."

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People Don't Usually Forget Human Train-wrecks

Sometimes the search for my next column comes to me with blatant force, and in the instance I am about to describe, the blatant force was as literal as a sharp whack to the head. Actually, I sustained a couple of sharp whacks to the head as my poor noggin bounced off the concrete after I fainted in my friend Bill's basement. The reasons why I fainted are twofold. In short, I took one toke too many with a famished stomach. There was no debased glory in my actions. My complexion turned ghostly wan, my vision blurred with impending darkness, my knees wobbled and then my body went limp. It is with bitter annoyance that I concede that all those people who have told me I simply need to EAT MORE—whether it be with concern from friends and family or with mockery from callous strangers—are entirely justified in their assessment of my food intake.

And of course, the burning green stuff I inhaled was a contributing factor to my woozy spell. (It wounds my manhood, by the way, to use the grandmotherly term “woozy spell,” but those two words are an apt description of what afflicted me.) It's a puzzling paradox for a malcontent, being an unhappy louse and yet realizing you have to cut back on the good times.

Creative fairy tales of serendipity or epiphany didn't exactly apply the moment I discovered what to write about next, when a blatant force jolted the idea into my skull on the concrete floor in my friend's basement. Instead, the thought came to me, as it has before: I've made trouble and now I've got to explain myself. This is going to be awful. I say to myself with steely resolve: I'd better at least get a column out of this mess.

****

After the pipe had taken two tours around the group of my musician friends, my brain, with all its loose and hazardous wiring, began to hum with serene complacence. This complacent feeling was short-lived. My friend Matt was informing me of the state of his fantasy baseball team, a topic that was of some interest to me because I had helped him draft his roster. We had huddled around his laptop the day before April Fool's and studied statistics with neurotic revelry. We determined the preeminence of elite starting pitchers and run-producing middle-infielders, made a list of our top 50 players. It was a rather nerdy endeavor, to be sure, but one that we both embraced. Fulfilling the role of co-manager for Matt's fantasy baseball team was one of the highlights of a dreary and languorous spring.

As I write this Casey McGahee, third baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers, ranks third in the National League in Runs Batted In. Adequate but unexceptional hitting stats were projected for McGahee in 2010. He was the third third baseman Matt and I drafted for our team—named America—and he was one of the last players we added to our roster more out of Matt's home state favoritism than
indisputable merit.

Matt was expounding on the unexpected virtues of Casey McGahee when my senses started to diminish. By the time Matt suspected I was on the verge of collapse and posed the question, “Dude, are you okay?” I was on my way to the ground. My head clunked against the solid surface and seconds passed by before I regained consciousness.

My friends gathered around, panicked and concerned, and somebody retrieved a chair for me to sit down on. Reprieve came to me immediately as I sat up, feeling revived and relieved that my head wasn't gushing blood. My body had reprimanded me for mismanagement but had made its message known and was not relishing in further punishment. I took a seat in the chair and awaited a glass of water brought by Bill.

My friends suspected that I might have sustained a concussion. I felt lucid, however, and told them as such, but when they started asking me questions to verify my mental well-being, it occurred to me that it would be fun to play around with the notion of having a concussion. Think about it. How often does one get the opportunity to make absurd statements and pose preposterous questions because they are possibly concussed? It's liberating! The shackles of tact and decency can be unlocked in the wake of what could be a concussion. I had just made a fool of myself and I wanted some retribution; it was time to behave foolishly (on purpose this time).

***

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Oldies Deejays Have A.D.D.

^ Herman's Hermits ^

Originally published in the Advance-Titan, "Oldies Deejays" was written before I gained a begrudged fondness for Oldies Stations, which is fortunate, because otherwise this column wouldn't be so pithy and scathing.

Baby boomers often criticize my generation for our short attention spans, but have you ever listened to an oldies station that plays the a-sides from the mid-50s through the tapering of Beatlemania? The nasal-voiced deejays yammer over the opening 15 seconds of every song, shutting up only once the vocals begin. Then some preening tool with a sucked-helium falsetto rhymes “do” with “you” for 90 seconds before said yammering deejay interrupts him mid-chorus.

“Okay, we get the picture. Driving T-Birds and going steady with a swell girl—very nice.” Cue a new song. “Now here's a hit from that same year from Richie Doodleberry and the Nameless Subordinates called 'Driving in My GTO with My Sweetheart.' It's 50 degrees and partly sunny with a 40 percent chance of evening showers, the barometer is right around 30, the dew point has something to do with humidity, clouds are pretty, this booth is awful drafty, I see a penny on the floor and now I've got to zip it because the vocals start in half a second!”

God help you if you hear a surfer rock instrumental on an oldies station, since the Oldies Deejay is likely to drown out the entire song with an exhaustive anecdote about his days working as a roadie for the Mamas and the Papas.

The truth is that Baby Boomers have the shortest attention spans of any demographic group on the radio dial, and the Oldies Deejays adhere to their like-minded brethren. To prove my point, any time you hear the Doors’ “Light My Fire” on an Oldies station, the psychedelic jam is omitted, which shaves four minutes from the version you hear on the album and classic rock stations. The deejays at classic rock stations are only ten years younger than their oldies counterparts, but the difference in taste is substantial. Classic Rock Deejays prefer the full-length versions of tunes such as “Light My Fire” and even “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida” since they allow more time to gawk at the lines in their left palm that totally shape a Star Trek symbol when they cross their eyes just right. Live long and prosper, Classic Rock Deejay. You know that I would be a liar if I was to say to you: “You couldn’t get much higher.”

***

Curtain closed. You can purchase a copy of the book that features the rest of this essay by following the link offered below.

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Superhero Beach Towels

This poem was written in 2002 for a Creative Writing class in college. I recently found it amidst a heap of old writing in the basement and decided to rework it. Willow Ridley really digs this poem, and so I dedicate it to him.

We’d kept our heads above water
just long enough to hear an adult’s lofty voice
calling us back to shore.

We glared at the descending sun
with silent disdain.
It had betrayed us.

It would sparkle and shatter again
on this same Great Lake tomorrow,
in spite of our departure.

The waves had escorted us far away from our
tip-toed entrance. We had left behind superhero beach towels
laid just outside the stretch of the frigid tide.

Now, one by one, we surrendered the
refreshing smack of broken crests,
the raw scent of drenched inner-tubes.

Our bodies too frail, the current too strong,
we waddled inland in slow motion,
cursing the water’s one way ticket.

Bones rattling like beads in a can of spray paint,
teeth chattering like Scooby Doo’s in a haunted freezer,
noses leaking like punctured water balloons.

At last I reached Wolverine’s one-dimensional pounce,
his grizzled snarl and vanishing metal claws
soon to be retired as a basement relic.

Beyond the shore loomed the sum total of futures that boded
medication and depressive submission, religious oppression,
the hell-raking rebellion of high school dropouts blindsided by fatherhood.

I smothered that towel against my face—
not so much because I was freezing,
but to veil the glare from beyond the shore.

Partying with Alex Trebek

I wrote this short story in 2004. It's from the perspective of a fictionalized me--that is, "me" if I was still a smartass who played Super Nintendo but I was more of a confident frat dude than a daydreaming misfit.

It can be a struggle for know-it-all's to make friends, and even an educated mind can be hit by midlife crisis, so I thought it'd be fun to insert the host of Jeopardy! into the oftentimes debachued campus of UW-Oshkosh.  

****

I have partied with game show host Alex Trebek. I first met him a few months ago at a basement kegger here in Oshkosh. First impressions? Well, it’s a bit like seeing a really attractive girl with full, pursed lips. But once she smiles, she reveals these horrifying, British bumpkin teeth. And when she introduces herself to you, her voice sounds like a shit-faced Fran Drescher. Put simpler, the initial thrill of meeting a celebrity wears off when you see the man dance to the song “Dancing Queen” when there is not a soul within a ten-foot radius of him. Then the thrill plummets into silent sympathy—viewed from a comfortable distance, of course.

“Alex Trebek” is one of those names you type into your wireless phone book out of guilt because he asked for yours first. Then, once you retire for the night, you erase it right before passing out.

What follows is a series of journal entries documenting my experiences with Trebek. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent. For instance, one of my buddies dabbles in bud-dealing and he specifically asked me not to use his real name in this story. Fair enough, “K-Dog.” Protecting Trebek’s name, however, is not a concern of mine. Celebrity dishing sells these days, and an aspiring writer like me must always look for ways to get his foot in the door. Oh, and should Trebek one day read this and take exception to some of the facts printed in the following article, should he decide to take legal action for what he may deem “defamation of character,” I vow to track him down and give him a titty-twister so brutal it will cause him heart palpitations.

9/5/05

This afternoon, while we were puffing at my buddy Zimmy’s place, Zimmy offered Trebek a snack. He had pretzels, Pringles and trail mix to choose from. Trebek thought about it for a while (he was a little low on those Ivy League brain cells at this point) and, after much delay, he picked the Pringles. Zimmy kind of giggled and—totally kidding—he asked Trebek if that was his “final answer.” I started to laugh, but Trebek slammed his fist on the coffee table, pointed a fidgety finger at Zimmy, and shouted, “Dag-nabbit, you’re quoting Regis Philban! Don’t you confuse ME with that chattering junior college dropout!” He was really pissed. Zimmy chortled uneasily, then, following a pause that simply wouldn’t end, he swallowed his pride and apologized.

Following that unpleasant episode, everything was cool for a while. We continued watching The Big Lebowski and every chuckle distanced us from the hostility. Everything was cool until the scene with Tara Reid lounging poolside in a bikini. Trebek made some meat-head comment like, “Goodness gracious, she’s almost as hot as your sister, Zimmy.” This is a well-known sore subject for Zimmy; you could almost see his simmering veins pop through his skin. (But in fairness to Trebek, little Christie has indeed matured into a self-assured, supple-bodied vixen.)

A couple minutes later, Trebek busted out his cell phone and said he was going to call up Bob Barker to see if he’s in town. (As if he’s actually hip enough to hang out with Bob Barker. My ass, Trebek.) So Zimmy says to him, brimming with sadism, “Phonin’ a friend, eh? How many lifelines does that leave you with, Rege—er, Trebek?” Like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, Trebek blew a frickin’ gasket. He fumbled around in his pockets, then pulled out this toenail clipper with a pointed nail-filer attachment and lunged at Zimmy, shouting his head off. I wasn’t sure if he intended to stab Zimmy, or merely give him a complimentary manicure, but I couldn’t chance the latter. I put the crazy geek in a full-nelson before he could do any real damage. Situation neutralized.

9/10/05

Trebek showed up at our party tonight. Long before the advent of the Game Show Network, I think he really lost touch with reality. For instance, every time he inquires about something, he demands that you answer in the form of a question. Shortly after he spotted me standing beside the keg, he said to me, “This is the amount of money you’re charging for a cup of beer.” I laughed out of politeness (plus I was pretty tipsy), then told him, “Five dollars.” His brow scrunched in the shape of two dusty caterpillars and he stared a hole through me. Then he cleared his throat, in a very deliberate, impatient fashion. “What is five dollars?” I said. That pompous nut-job—I can’t believe he made me say that. Then, to top it off, he produced a one-hundred dollar bill and asked if I had enough change to break it. And right after he asked me, his gaze sauntered over to this little group of hot ladies, like he was desperate to make eye contact and telepathically communicate the words, “I’m rich, so my excrement smells not revolting, but rather, invigorating.” After I told him no, he just shrugged and handed over a five-dollar bill. I felt like thrashing his stupid mustache with a broken beer bottle and screaming, “Why didn’t you just hand me the five-spot right away, you conceited prick?!”

Later on, I was baffled to see him conversing with a decent-looking female. (This is a girl that loses the ability to recite the alphabet once she’s had a few drinks, but that’s beside the point.) Amazingly, Trebek worked up the stones to ask for her digits, but being a pretentious sap, here’s how he worded it: “THIS is the phone number you’re going to give to the handsome gentleman standing before you.” The girl had no clue what the hell he was talking about. She shot him a look like she suspected he had just released a diabolical fart and asked him, “What?” Undaunted, Trebek replied, “This is the phone number you’re going to give to the handsome gentleman standing before you.” “Huh?” “This is the phone number you’re going to give to the handsome gentleman standing before you...” I shit you not, this routine went on for another two minutes until the girl caught sight of something shiny and wandered off. After she left, Trebek said to me, defeated and commiserating, “Darn, I thought that was going to lead to some you-know-what.” He ceases to amaze me.

9/12/05

Playing Mortal Kombat II this afternoon, I notched 12 consecutive flawless victories versus Trebek, each one punctuated by a fatality. Toward the end of our session, I detected tears welling in his eyes. Suppressing laughter, I asked if he was crying. Trebek swallowed hard, shook his head vehemently, and insisted he was merely having an allergic reaction to the pepper that garnished the pizza we had eaten. (For the record, we had eaten that pizza over three hours ago.) He then screamed at the TV screen: “How does one block a bolt of lightning simply by shielding his face with his hands?! Good Heavens, it just isn’t feasible!”

By the end of our session, Trebek looked about as chipper as Kurt Cobain in Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance. It was the best!

9/14/05

While I was studying for my Spanish quiz, guess who showed up uninvited, for the sheer sake of jabbering my ear off. Trebek started bragging about how he nailed Cybill Shepherd the week she was on Celebrity Jeopardy. Whatever. He so never nailed Cybill Shepherd. He’s so pathetically desperate for praise. Next time he starts bragging compulsively, I’m just going to toss him a dog biscuit and rub his belly or something. Maybe that’ll shut him up.

His visit wasn’t a total waste, though. He told me the story of the time he hosted with a wicked case of gut rot back in 1994. While a contestant was answering a question during Double Jeopardy, Trebek let one slip. If you listen very closely, the boom mic detects the noise. And then, like thirty seconds later, when he cues the commercial break, his mustache is twitching uncontrollably and his facial expression resembles that of a man who has just been told his elderly grandmother may not live through the night. He showed me the tape and everything. Trebek’s not so bad when he’s willing to humiliate himself.

9/16/05

Tonight at my buddy K-Dog’s party, Trebek wouldn’t stop complaining about how much he hates the Final Jeopardy music. He said it’s like being a DJ that’s forced to play the exact same hit song every half-hour, only the song stays in heavy rotation for a mirthless eternity.

At the time, this hippie girl clad in a Phish shirt—I think her name was Angelica—was in earshot. She sympathized, since she too was not a fan of the final Jeopardy music. Always a stray puppy desperate for petting, Trebek quickly warmed up to her. “You know, I keep begging the producers to play snippets of Phish songs in place of that boring old theme music. Those fun-loving longhairs really get my booty boogying.” (The funny thing is he kind of shuddered with dread while saying those last two words, “booty boogying,” as if the outdated slang somehow raped the English language.)

My buddy K-Dog was there with me, and he totally called Trebek out on his Phish knowledge. K-Dog was like, “Trebeck, you poseur. I’ll bet you can’t name one single Phish song.” Trebek muttered unintelligibly for a second, and when that Angelica girl started snickering, he pulled out his toenail clipper with a pointed nail-filer attachment. To quickly summarize: No one got hurt, Trebek crashed alone in the bathtub while it was still recognized as a “time-saver toilet” to keep the bathroom line moving, and K-Dog totally got laid.

9/17/05

K-Dog was showing us this awesome hip-hop DVD that depicted these free-styling emcees that just made up their rhymes on the spot. A stone-cold stickler for stuff like the Starland Vocal Band, Trebek was unimpressed. He said, “Sure, these minority ruffians know their crude street lingo, but where’s the alliteration and iambic pentameter? Where’s the elegant vernacular?” K-Dog wasn’t hearing it. He said, “Listen, brainiac, if you’ve got a hard-on for ‘illiterazation’ and ‘I-am-dick pentagon,’ why don’t YOU try free-styling?”

It should have ended there, but Trebek was determined to prove he could bust a rhyme. He borrowed my buddy Phil’s visor and cocked it to the side. Instead of resembling a youthful hipster, he just looked like a golfer whose head-wear had been blown askew by a stiff wind.

The exact words of his freestyle are burned forever in my memory. “Homies, don’t be a loser like Pat Sajak/ Be a winner like me and say no to crack/ Other drugs are bad as well/ Weed is okay, but...Sajak can go to Hell.”

Then he just kind of trailed off. He lowered his gaze to the floor and somberly removed his visor. I couldn’t look him in the eyes for the rest of the night.

9/23/05

Too drunkto type. Trrebek given atomic wedgie. Womens pantease pulled all the wayover his head. Finish entry inmourning.

9/24/05

Man, I was so wasted last night I blacked out and completely forgot the details of that story. The gist of it is pretty funny, though, isn’t it?

10/01/05

After drinking just one cup of beer, Trebek always acts like he’s really hammered, and he gets overly lovey-dovey with anyone in close proximity. Ever since we first met him, we’ve suspected him of faking his buzz. Tonight we finally put him to the test. We served him twelve cups of non-alcoholic beer, and within two hours, he was belligerently betting people that he could crack a light bulb with his bare hand. He was down $50 to K-Dog when we broke the news about the beer. The room boomed with laughter and his face turned red as a Baywatch leotard. It was a real humiliating, Carrie-type of moment for him—minus the bloody, telekinetic vengeance, of course.

Before fleeing the scene, he angrily tried to crack a light bulb with his bare hand, but was unable to muster up the strength. As he stomped up the basement stairs, K-Dog called out, “Not so fast, Trebek! Now you owe me sixty dollars!”
That was the last time I partied with Alex Trebek. In a way, I kind of miss the mustachioed geek. He was always volunteering to refill your empty beer cup, and had I never met him, I never would’ve guessed that 74-time returning champ Ken Jennings blew most of his prize money on erotic Hummel figurines. Plus, the girls were always grateful any time you rescued them from a conversation with the man.

This is the thing I miss most about Trebek. What is the lovin’ that came my way when the ladies saw his total lack of charm? That is correct.