My Version of Beauty *final

The first thing you notice about Beauty is her eyes. They’re a bright concoction of clear sky and rolling hillside grass. Her bottom lip is slightly less than the width of your average Twizler, and twice as sweet. She only wears makeup on special occasions. When you touch her skin, your hand just seems to glide. Her light brown hair runs down to the part of the back that can’t be scratched without someone else. Beauty’s smile can redeem your most disastrous day. 

Beauty prefers books to channel surfing. She knows the importance of knowledge, but she’s fine with killing her brain cells once in a while. She pays rent and part of tuition by working at a record store. A small chunk of her work check goes to expanding her Pez collection. She keeps it in a cardboard box in her closet. It’s seldom seen, which only adds to the shits and giggles. She can play a few songs on guitar. Her fingers are heat seekers for cool, easy melodies. She writes poems about everything from goldfish to God. 

Beauty is not above wearing her boyfriend’s dumb cartoon shirts in public. If she detects a guy eyeball fucking her from afar, she just using her middle finger to pick her nose and the problem goes away. Beauty only has a few close friends, and she’d die for all of them. When she goes to the beach, she outlasts the sun. When she gets into a good movie, she’s as quiet as a true believer in church. 

When she’s bored, she pinches her stomach and plays with the cushy lump between her fingers. She has a contagious laugh that’s never cheapened by faking amusement. The sexiest thing she does is watch classic Simpsons in panties and a t-shirt, elbows on the carpet, head tilted up and wiggling with laughter. She has dirty and wholesome memories from the night before Saturday mornings like these. Sometimes she gazes back, inviting. 

To be honest, I’ve never actually met Beauty. But maybe someday.

Another Promising Draft

My once promising draft

is now hacked up and gashed

from head-to-toe, bleeding 

red ink from paper-cut wounds

and I’m ruminating in a room with no windows,

pale complexion, opened veins,

traced with White-Out

skin wrinkled and brittle

like the wadded up hopes brimming 

inside my garbage can. 

I’ll keep shredding rain forests

in search of a decent story. 

I’m no masterpiece, but I’ll live-–

to fuck up another promising draft.

Grunk Gets Ink Done *final

Tattoo facts about yours truly: I got a lil’ Homer head drilled into my virgin flesh when I was 18. I had just graduated high school and it seemed like a kooky way to confirm my adulthood. The look on Homer’s face is blank. It’s the look of Homer as he appears in the dictionary in the episode “Homer Defined,” if you wanna be an obsessive nerd about it. 

It wasn’t until 2016 that I got a follow-up. With so many things in this world to choose from, my choice was easy: I got a second lil’ Homer head drilled into my flesh. Teenage Homer, this time. Picture him in the one where he meets Marge in high school and asks her to the prom. That Homer could belt out “Space Cowboy” with the best of ‘em. 

A few months later, I grew weary of this duo and demanded a trio. My friend Scott did the honors again at Akara Arts in Milwaukee. The third installment was more of a strange, fever dream-type Homer: Mr. Sparkle. Mr. Sparkle is a logo for a dishwashing detergent in Japan that, by coincidence, looks a lot like my main man Homer. In his commercial, Mr. Sparkle shouts “I’m disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?” What a brave corporate logo. 

In late 2020, I switched over to my left arm for body art. This part may be hard to believe, but tattoo #4 was not a Homer. Nor was it a Simpson, or even someone from Springfield. It was musical in theme, taken from the album cover of Beck’s 1996 classic, Odelay. I have a black-and-white image of a shaggy dog jumping over a hurdle high on my bicep. The breed of dog is Komondor, I just learned. I felt like a goofy-looking animal overcoming an obstacle was something to live by. 

Finally, number 5 was inked in 2021. Scott and I enjoyed the Clash album London Calling as he drew the cover art of a man smashing his guitar on my left arm. I wish he was done by the time the album finished at 65 minutes, but nope, the session took about four hours. I was tired and bleeding and tired of bleeding by hour three, but if we’re gonna do these things, then we gotta do them right. 

I’m telling you this in order to call out the intro I wrote for this story in my book More Stories and Additional Stories. I wrote: “In all likelihood, I have met my quota for body art.” Of course I said that in a way that was too wordy, instead of just “I think I’m done with tattoos.” I wasn’t. I want more. Hopefully this summer I’ll be getting a Bowie or Jimi or Nirvana to make three music tats on my left arm. That’ll balance three Homers on my right arm. I can’t wait for the symmetry.

Turns out, I’m more like Theodore “Grunk” Grunkowski than I realized. I became a little bit more like the guy I created in order to mock. Years after I published this book in 2014, I dated and got serious with a woman named Tina. Like Grunk, I very much valued her feedback. Grunk and I may act like know-it-alls, but we both knew damn well that our Tinas were smarter than us.

   For those reasons, I’m not going to portray Grunk’s voice as a vapid surfer or a lackadaisical hippie—no! Grunk needs to sound like me. 

Grunk:

What’s up, bro? I’m thrilled you’re open so late. You never know when a guy like me is gonna want some ink in the wee hours of the morning. Kudos to you, Party Marty. You know your clients.

I got the urge to get a new tatt like an hour ago. It was towards the end of the Tool show at the Metro. I found these blue-and-gold pills on the floor of the men’s room. On the way home, riding the el, I got all these rad ideas for tatts. They just started shooting into my brain, one after another–like beams of color in a laser light show. 

I could taste vibes, man. Good and bad–-one flavored like butterscotch and the other like battery acid. 

Anyway, I turned to my old lady–say hi to Party Marty, Tina—and told her we had to stop here. Like, I was going to explode without that throbbing buzz of the needle on my back. Tina understood. 

I jotted down some options in this notepad. I mostly use it for doodling. Get a load of this one. Darth Mal motorboating Wonder Woman. What really makes me hard is that you can tell they’re in love. For a minute, I wanted this to be my next tattoo. It seemed like the perfect imagery for my relationship with Tina. But then I broke up with her and started dating another chick named Tina. And Tina here really has more of a Batgirl figure, as you can see. So I had to scratch that one.  

But that hardly matters when I consider the tatt-thoughts I got on paper on the train. With your help, Party Marty, I’ll get one of these pictures etched into my flesh. 

OK, how about a zombie in a wheelchair? Don’t you see? It makes a profound statement about the frailty of human flesh. Whether alive or undead, Man is always vulnerable. His Achilles’ Heel persists. When it is torn, the human can no longer run or jump, much less walk, just as the zombie can no longer stagger. Both will need a wheelchair. 

We all know the threat of a zombie takeover is real. And since I’ve been stockpiling tuna cans and honing my skills with a Samurai sword I got from a pawn shop, I plan to survive it. But once the war is settled and the wounded undead are left to crawl across the land, I will show mercy on my zombie foes by helping them into wheelchairs. 

The main drawback, I guess, is that the zombie takeover hasn’t happened yet. When it does, I don’t want to be seen as a zombie sympathizer to my brothers at arms. Sure, decades later, our enemies in World War II have become our allies, but it wouldn’t be cool to get a tattoo of an American and a German working together to straighten out a swastika before the war even started. 

Forget about the zombie in a wheelchair. That’s the price I pay for seeing the big picture. 

Plan B is to get a tattoo of the Grim Reaper sitting on the toilet. To explain, my senior thesis in Philosophy was titled “Everybody Poops.” In it, I offered proof that “everybody” includes the embodiment of death, the Grim Reaper. He poops just like the rest of us, and ergo, should not be placed on a pedestal to strike fear in us. 

But now, in this wicked awesome state of mind, I recall that Tina shot this one down just before we walked into this place. She pointed out that the Reaper is only a skeleton, that he lacks the digestive tract needed to poop. Damn. 

Tina put it simply: “Skeletons don’t have guts.” Perhaps that’s what my professor meant to say when he called my paper “incomprehensible malarkey.” 

It’s a shame I’m not getting ink of the Grim Reaper sitting on a toilet on my back. Now I have to go on being afraid of death because it’s philosophically correct. 

Alright, let me get my head together. Third time’s a charm, maybe. 

Eureka. The Princess Frenching Bowser. Follow me closely, Party Marty. It represents my theory that the average woman prefers the villain, yet she will conduct a phony kidnapping in which a hero she won’t sleep with goes on a crusade to rescue her. Bowser– or King Koopa, if you will—is the arrogant dictator, who is more alluring than Mario, the virtuous plumber. A plumber isn’t fit to provide for a princess, not on that salary. But a dictator owns a castle. He’s got a legion of minions working for him, eager to please. Monster or not, a dictator hires a plumber to unclog shit from his nine golden toilets. A princess isn’t gonna fall for some Italian stereotype dressed in overalls, like a damn toddler. Timidly wringing his Little Rascals hat in his hands, stammering “I fix-ah yous-ah toilet.” 

Princess Peach longs for luxury, not self-reliance. Mario is sweet and easy to manipulate, but once he’s done adventuring, he has to offer Peach a lifetime of clipping coupons, endless housework, exhausting childcare, and debt in pursuit of the American Dream. For Peach the choice is easy, but the guilt is a burden. She eases this guilt by making Mario feel like a hero. She does this by staging her abduction. Meanwhile, she’s Frenching Bowser. 

Tell me you’ve got canary yellow to get Bowser’s flesh just right and we’ll make this a reality, Party Marty…

You’ve only got the extremely close honey, corn, and dandelion?! That’s a dealbreaker, Party Marty. Don’t disappoint me again. 

OK, I’m getting another vision. 

It’s a Ford logo peeing on Calvin as Calvin pees on a Chevy logo. Yes! Sure, I like Ford more than Chevy if you’re putting a gun to my head, but that doesn’t give Calvin the right to soak a Chevy logo with piss. You know, both companies make fine automobiles. Before I moved to the big city, the backseat of my ‘88 Chevy Caprice saw plenty of action. The same goes for my ‘89 Ford Probe. And I got good mileage from both cars. In both cars, I banged a hot Goth chick who blew the drummer from Rammstein, so what does that tell you? 

No one can go back in time to stop Calvin from peeing on a Ford logo, but we can do the next best thing. Get revenge. Piss on Calvin. I never liked his comics, anyway. Talking to a stuffed animal… I think he had mental problems.  

But wait. I am just now recalling a chat I had with Tina a week ago. She said that both Ford and Chevy could be doing more to fight condom missions. 

What’s that, Tina? Oh, my bad. I meant carbon emissions. The point is, either way it’s a bad thing. 

Well, maybe I could get a tattoo of the environment taking a wiz on a Ford logo as it pees on Calvin while he pees on a Chevy logo… but I doubt I’d have enough space on my back for that. 

So, that’s a dead end. 

Ah-ha! This tatt-idea is a can’t-miss. Keeping in mind the principle that nature should dominate man and not the other way around, I want Bigfoot, the beast, destroying Bigfoot, the monster truck—with Donald Trump inside screaming for his life. 

Put on a pot of coffee, Party Marty, ‘cause I need to elaborate. Trump is a symbol of the bourgeois elite. The richest people in the world don’t care about the environment, man. If they did, we wouldn’t be using dinosaur fossils for fuel, but rather for badass stage props at heavy metal concerts. And like, if they did care, then the hole in O-zone would have been mended by now—with space glue or something. Trump and his ilk control an evil vessel of industry that runs over and crushes the Earth like a row of shitty cars at the county fair. 

It’s time for an agent of Mother Nature, Bigfoot, to exact revenge on the powerful elite. With your pulsating jabber, Party Marty, I ask you to carve a flesh-mural of Bigfoot crushing Bigfoot. For the rest of my life, I want my back to tell the story of Bigfoot in the clutches of Bigfoot, the truck splitting in half high above the beast’s head, Orange Trump hollering in the driver’s seat, begging to be saved by an absent God. 

Hey Tina, I spent a lot of cash on those Tool tickets. Plus, as we were leaving the venue, I bought some acid and Bolivian Super Freak. So, is it cool if I borrow 400 bucks? C’mon, it’s for the environment.

 

Haikus

 Skin Deep

“Beauty is skin deep.”

They dove right in the shallow

end, lonely for friends.

Where It Ends

 

Pinpoints of light and

only the universe knows

where the darkness ends. 

For Mary 1

Sorrow like ice pick

jabs behind the eyes and a 

brick tied to the heart. 

For Mary 2

Can I go back to 

camping with you at age 10

even in a dream? 

Vote Len Finklin for Mayor *final

 If elected mayor of your fine city, I vow to continue my vicious smear campaign against my opponent. In December, after cashing in a month’s worth of those big-ass mayor checks, I’m going to crank the smear campaign up a notch. Did you know he buys booze for minors just to keep them busy while he bangs their moms? You do now, and I promise to remind you of this disgrace and many others by setting up billboards that state all the reasons why the man should be ashamed of himself. 

You didn’t know he farted on a Korean War vet? Well, look at the billboard. 

Losing this election won’t be enough to convince him that he’s an asshole. It’s going to take a wrestling match to convince him of that. He won’t be able to sidestep my steel cage challenge once I’m the mayor. He can either sign the contract for the match or I’ll send him to Detroit in a boxcar along with all the other undesirables. And by undesirables, I, of course, mean all the people who didn’t vote for me. 

If you make me the mayor, history will remember you as the first domino to fall on my quest to build a government-funded cockfight arena on the moon. PETA members, calm down. I support cockfighting, but I’m not an extremist. I’ve heard enough whining from hippies to concede that there is no place for a cockfighting arena on this planet of beast coddlers. All that we, the cockfighting fans that can be reasoned with, are asking for is a Holy Land of sorts to call our own. Just as the Jews have Israel with no dispute whatsoever. 

Folks, the time has come to finally get some use out of the moon. A venue on the moon is long overdue. And as for this animal cruelty nonsense, well, Colonel Sanders isn’t very nice to chickens either, but the last time I checked, it’s legal to have lunch at KFC. I don’t expect the unconverted to embrace cockfighting, nor live in a world where the fighting of cocks is mainstream. All I’m asking for is a cockfighting arena on the moon. 

If elected mayor, I pledge to pay one lucky citizen $500 and (decimal point) ten percent of future royalties to invent a pair of shoes that can change colors. Voters, let me tell you a heart-wrenching story about a man–me, Len Finklin–who owns a black pair of shoes and a red pair of shoes. Sounds simple enough, but a man can’t be expected to wear shoes and nothing else, can he? Nay, thanks to the laws that ban public nudity that I never said made a mockery of our Constitution–unlike my opponent, I’m willing to bet–-a man must also wear pants. For covery of unmentionables, of course. 

Now, this Mr. Finklin-character owns pants in four different colors: Blue, brown, white, and yellow. This man has zero matches between his shoes and pants, which makes him feel like a damn fool. But he’s not a fool. He’s a noble and sexy American who doesn’t see the sense in paying upwards of… a shitload of money so he can have enough shoes to match every color of pants he owns. Negatory–-he’d rather pay a reasonable price for just one pair of “Chameleon Shoes.” 

Critics of this initiative, such as Mrs. Finklin #4, raise questions like, “Why do you own a pair of yellow pants in the first place?” To which Mr. Finklin replies, “Because Goddammit, Frannie, I’m a golfer!” Ooh, there’s another reason to vote for me: I golf. Constantly. Heck, I love golf more than any ideal or human. If I had kids, they’d be buying me golf shit for Father’s Day. Yessiree Bob, my soul is a barren wasteland, aside from an endless, selfish desire to hit the links. And after 18 holes, I get smashed at the country club bar, chugging Long Island Iced Teas and bad-mouthing all minorities. 

Last year, our community bulldozed zero shanty towns to make way for golf courses, but if I’m elected mayor, this town’s golf course-to-hobo ratio is going to skyrocket.  

Where was I? For God’s sake, why do I have these damn note cards if I’m just going to–-Oh, right. Shoes that change color. Someone in this town ought to invent a pair of those. 

If elected mayor, the Nativity scene on display in front of town hall each December would remain a proud tradition. However, a major change would be made to it. I ask you, why is Baby Jesus so small? Joseph and the Virgin Mary could punt him like a football if they felt like it! And those three ethnic-looking Wise Men are just towering over the poor little guy. What’s their agenda? What kind of explosives are they hiding under those turbans?

To solve these problems we’re all troubled by, if elected mayor, I promise to you a gigantic Baby Jesus. The statue of God’s Boy will be a thousand pounds of bronze if he’s an ounce. His manger will be the size of a two-car garage, and those Wise Men better pray that Toddler Christ don’t roll out of bed and flatten them like ants beneath the crushing mass of a holy hippo. I’ll demand a Baby Jesus so large and imposing we’ll need to rent a crane to get him out of storage. Or, we could save some of the taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars by simply leaving him up all year-round. 

If that doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, then go ahead and vote for my opponent, ya sack of shit. 

Anyway, remember my vows! Humiliation for my opponent, preferably in a steel cage. Cockfighting arena on the moon. $500 to the inventor of Chameleon Shoes. And an enormous Baby Jesus statue. As a sort of postscript, I’d also like to do something to benefit the economy, but presently, nothing really comes to mind.

Vote Len Finklin for mayor. Because together, we can do this for me.

Hammer Plays Monopoly *final

I like having fun, and one way I do that is by playing video games with my friends. Willy and Swinkle will tell you the same thing, and I’m glad we found each other. During the summer of ‘13, when I felt like I was enduring another sad chapter in a frustrating narrative, we’d meet up and unwind at Swinkle’s place. He had a studio apartment above a church that used to be a pawn shop.

On his computer, Swinkle had ROMs of every single Super Nintendo game, and three controllers. When I look back, I realize there are many better titles we left unplayed, but for whatever reason, maybe the power of a joke going too far, the one we got into most that summer was Super Monopoly.

Really, that game was no match for Mario or Mega Man, Kong Country or Contra, but dammit, somehow it had the charm of the underdog.

With aspects of financial savvy and luck, Super Monopoly let us compete without losing real money. Plus we didn’t have to go through the tedious crap with a regular Monopoly game of portioning out fake money, and plastic houses, and straining to do basic math. We could roll the dice and buy a property by pressing a button on the controller. Rolling dice by hand onto a real surface had become too much of a chore, I suppose.

When I enter my name in Super Monopoly, I go with “Hammer.” I turn back time to the early ‘90s and think of myself as MC Hammer on a spending spree. I’m a dynamo of enterprise, buying properties and overindulging, convinced I will never go broke. I like making jokes and observations from Hammer’s point of view. Win or lose, I feel like I’m enacting an old episode of VH1’s Behind the Music. I can rewrite Hammer’s past with a happier ending, or lose everything and replay the great comedy of errors.

Hammer and I have a few things in common. In life and Monopoly, as we see it, we only get so many chances. That means we have to spend-spend-spend while we can, and accept the consequences if they turn out to be dire. Life in America and games of Monopoly are ventures for capitalists. The true winners are rare. The rest of us are left to scrounge for remnants of chicken wings in back alley trash cans.

That’s the bad news, but Hammer and I get that in order to get rich, the first step is to at least try to get rich. Flawed and defective as we may be, we still owe effort to the game. It takes a lot of gumption to buy a second yacht or Park Place on a modest budget, but even so, we’d forfeit our self-respect if we didn’t splurge on these extravagances when we had the chance. 

What follows is me (as Hammer) in a game of Monopoly with friends. And if this premise seems outdated, keep in mind that Hammer appeared at the New Year’s Eve Countdown to 2013 on ABC. He performed a duet with PSY, who had a huge hit with “Gundham Style.”

Now that’s what I call relevant (I wrote in 2013).

It begins with a pixelated hand rolling pixelated dice.

Act I: “Too Legit to Quit”

They say snake eyes are a bad omen, but Hammer just started this party by landing on the Community Chest. Runner-up in a beauty contest. All my haters gotta deal with the fact that Hammer is just so beautiful. Like, second-place-in-a-beauty contest level beautiful. And to the winner, Earth Goddess Halle Berry: I’mma get first place next time.

Guess who just purchased the hell out of Oriental Avenue. My investment portfolio is so sound I’m destined to make Bill Gates look like a braindead chump.

This round was quiet for Hammer. I visited jail and spoke words of wisdom to Chris Brown. I gave him some advice: “What’re you doing smacking Rihana? Boy, I oughtta smack you.” 

At the Community Chest, Hammer received a $25 consultant's fee. Cuz it’s not like I’mma tell Chris Brown that beating Rihanna was a punk move for free.

Hammer is now the proud owner of B&O Railroad. So, I called everyone in my crew and let ‘em know if they ever need a place to chill, we can play dominoes in a boxcar with no hassle from the cops.

Now that I got Pacific Avenue, an Atlanta man like yours truly can be for the deadly East Coast/ West Coast feud. The first step is getting everyone to agree that Hammer’s a better rapper than both Biggie and Tupac. After that, cultural wounds will be healed while Hammer fines enough trespassers to buy a new sound system for his silver Hummer.

Let the Swinkles and the Willys of the world have their precious Park Places and Boardwalks. Hammer just got a few Benjamins richer by passing Go. Then I celebrated by buying Mediterranean Ave. for the low price of sixty bucks. Those suckers will be headed for the poorhouse when they land here, two dollars at a time. Yes indeed, Hammer foresees a glorious future. Once all the sex offenders and crack-heads get the hell off my property, Mediterranean Ave. is gonna be somethin’ special.

Act II: “We Got to Pray”

When a man lands on Free Parking, he expects to be rewarded some residuals from the Community Chest. Clumsy-ass Swinkle just broke his leg and had to pay a $50 doctor’s fee two turns ago, and Hammer ain’t seeing a dime of that. You gotta be cornier than Kenny G to set the rules so that when you land on Free Parking, not a damn thing happens. Someone just made a mental note to email the makers of Super Monopoly, subject line: “Free Parking: WT Fudge?!” And that someone is Hammer. 

All three of us have yellow properties now. Granted, Hammer did stroke his goatee and ponder putting the place up for auction, thus forcing those fools Swinkle and Willy to outbid each other, but I decided against those Art of War tactics because Marvin Gardens is the perfect place to rent out to my cousin Marvin.

Becoming a railroad tycoon has made Swinkle a coldhearted man. He’s charging folks $150 a night just to crash on a mound of raggedy blankets at Short Line. Next time I roam these parts, I’mma need God’s blessing. “Are you there, God? It’s me, Hammer–holding up my end of the deal. Now help me make it today.”

In Hammer’s time, you didn’t laugh in a man’s face when he landed on the Boardwalk you own. Willy can have my $50, but he’ll never have my class. Anyway, now I gotta do the Hammer Shuffle for strangers beside a collection hat to make enough change to buy a McRib.

When a man lacks the funds to make an ATM withdrawal, it’s a great relief to Pass Go. Revisiting Oriental Avenue has been nostalgic as hell. I spotted Psy and we reminisced about the New Year’s Eve show. Then I had to remind him that he owed me six bucks for trespassing. He shouted at me in Korean, gestured madly at his kids, and threw the money at my feet. He stormed off before I could apologize for the name of the avenue.

Today was as productive as any day in 1990 for Hammer. Rolling two threes has blessed me with the Electric Company. This will allow me hella-watts to record an album. Plus, I struck up a trade with Willy, getting rid of Pacific Avenue in favor of Baltic Ave. and some cash. With that cash, Hammer’s gonna build houses. Those fools are gonna fear to tread the south side of the Monopoly board.

Call me Dominique Wilkins cuz I got myself a double-double. My hand is so hot Scottie Pippen couldn’t guard me. St. James Place is mine! Super, Hammer’s bankroll is wearing thin, but the faithful man must honor a saint when given the chance. Whatever he was known for before doesn’t matter anymore. St. James is now the Patron Saint of Livin’ Large.

Lord have mercy, this game is a sham! Hammer’s getting sent to jail. Some trumped up charges of rolling doubles three times in a row. Where I come from, if you roll doubles thrice, you might win a crumpled pile of 20s! Rich Uncle Pennybags is turning my good luck into bad. Now ain’t that a B-word?

Act III: Any post-1995 Hammer Song

Willy won’t sell me his Get out of Jail Free card for less than a hundred. So, I retaliated. I wrote a dis song about his greedy ass. I’mma put him in a state of despair from which he will never recover with my cutthroat epic “Silly Willy.”

On my first day outta the joint, misfortune forced Hammer to pay rent at one of Willy’s houses on Kentucky Ave. Damn him. I had to mortgage some properties to avoid bankruptcy, but on the bright side, now I might have enough money to buy a gun.

Let’s just say the former owner of Pacific Ave deeply regrets trading it to the same punk who’s chagrin’ the former owner an exorbitant fee to stay at a hotel not owned by Hammer and leave it at that. Help me Jesus, I’ve fallen! I used to be in Taco Bell commercials, for God’s sake!

Dice in hand, Hammer is gulping at the sight of all those hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk. Hammer was tempted to buy Kleenex from the nearby Walgreens with his last four dollars. However, Hammer does not submit to tears so easily.

Luxury tax of $75?! Hammer done dodged a few landmines only to step in a pile of dog crap. At this point, what luxury are they taxing? Hell, my iPhone has a shattered screen and my pants are made of scraps from defective parachutes. So I don’t know where Uncle Sam, Uncle Pennybags, or any other uncle in a fancy hat finds the nerve to tax Hammer for luxury. 

Mercy mercy me. Due to the nefarious crew of Willy, Swinkle, Pennybags himself, and now the Income Taxman, Hammer has lost all his assets. I don’t have money to buy a gun. Hell, I don’t even have the money to buy a hammer. Sure, maybe things would have been different had Hammer known he should’ve paid 10 percent instead of $200, but only a fool gets tripped by what’s behind him.

Throughout all the tribulations, Hammer still believes that God is good… to other people, anyway.

Swinkle’s St. Charles Place has sealed my fate. In much the same way that the great Dominique Wilkins sometimes lost an Eastern Conference Semifinal, Hammer has been bested in a game of Super Monopoly.

Oh, and by the way, St. Charles is the Patron Saint of Perpetrating Some Bullshit. 

###

A minute later, with Swinkle and Willy ravaging bids on my foreclosed properties like hungry vultures, I shrugged off defeat and said goodbye to my friends. 

On the ride home, my gaslight turned on, but I couldn’t stop to fill the tank until I got my paycheck in two days. Like Hammer and all the other hard luck losers I spotted during a red light on Main Street, I was just another humble player circling the board, hoping to Pass Go again.

Nobody Brought a Football *final*

 This is the final version of 'Nobody Brought a Football.' I rewrote it many times over the years and finally got it right. Now I'm done with it.

I have an episode of this story on Spotify. It's #45 of Who Needs More Content?

Brock Walton:

OK, OK. Enough. That’s enough of the damn eyeliner.Gimme my face back, makeup lady. Solid gameplan on my cheekbones, but never tell anyone I wear makeup. OK, let’s shoot this thing already.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: where’s the football? Come on, don’t play dumb with me. Everybody knows you bring a pigskin to a commercial like this. It’s what you wimps call a “prop.”

Look at you three! Deersez in headlights–jeez. Quit your dawdling and fetch me a ball.

What? You’re shittin’ me. Nobody brought a football? What in the hell, guys?!

Dammit, how are the people gonna recognize me if I’m not clutching a football? It’s bad enough that I’m not wearing pads and a uniform. Now you don’t even have a Manning Missile for me to palm while I nod at the camera and say, “Buckley’s got the perfect game plan for low prices!”

The nobodies sitting on milk crates in their trailers are gonna say, “Who is that asshole dressed like the rest of us bums, not holding a football, telling us where to buy a truck? What does he know about game plans? Just where in the shit does he get off?”

Jesus, why didn’t I bring a ball from home? I’ve got like 50 of ‘em in the garage. Wait, I know why. Because any dipshit with a camera and a boom mic should know to bring a Brown Lombardi to a commercial that stars a football player! I got two pancake blocks against the Cowboys last year and this is the thanks I get. Amateurs! How are the losers supposed to know I’m better than they are if I’m not pumping a pigskin? I’m straight-up fat, bald as Mr. Clean, and missing a front tooth. You take away my Dick Butkus Bomb and I look like a bouncer at a hick bar, checking the ID's of the jagoffs who want to see some Poison cover band. I’m a flabby, naked nobody without that pigskin!

What’d you say to me? Oh, that’s rich. I just say, “I’m Brock Walton, one of J-Ville’s gridiron guys.” Then some fancy ‘graphic’ is gonna state that I play in the Goddamn NFL. Well hot damn, allow me to breathe a sigh of relief. 

Only kidding. Panic mode! Brock panic, OK? You know how Hulk smash? Well, Brock panic!   

I don’t want a graphic to have to introduce me. OK? I want a football to do that for me. I want to thrust that Stitchy Ditka right at the camera and say, “Buckley blocks you from owning bad trucks, just like I block for J-Ville’s starting quarterback.” And I want it to mean something, because I am sincerely holding Mr. Stitch-face Spheroid.  

Pumping footballs in people’s faces is a way of life for me. When I want to skip the line at a nice-ass steakhouse with a hot-ass chick, I go right up to the podium guy and pump a football in his face. 

“Table for two, on three, jabroni. Hut, hut, huut!” 

And it worked two times! One time it got me arrested, but I still had a winning record of doing that!

Now, let’s talk about your cute little “graphics.” I’m against the yes-to-graphics yes, no to real-pigskin game you nerds came up with. I’m not gonna do it, but I just had the urge to put one of you in a headlock. 

Look, people don’t wanna read if they’re watchin’ TV. That’d be like if I went to the library and started asking “Hey, where’s the TV?” 

If I don’t get a damn football in five minutes, I’m outta here. I’ll walk out. I can make like two-grand every time I blink and I have a deal with Red Lobster to fall back on. From the bottom of my heart, you need to recognize that I’m an artist, truck dealership ads are my canvas, and I need a football to be an artist. So… just help me be an artist, you bunch of chickenshits. 

Well, I guess this is the thanks I get for blocking that one guy that one time when good stuff happened. I’m not bitter. I just wish I had a Gronk Spikerino to point at the camera when I deliver the line, “Buckley trucks will block the linebacker standing between you and the touchdown of big savings.” 

That line brought a tear to my eye, the second I wrote it. Hell, I gave up a few G’s to have full creative control, so all of this BS now is a pain in my ass. 

Ugh! No football.... Give me a break. This is worse than soccer. 

Whoa! What have we here? Is that pencil-necked intern holding a pigskin? Yes, finally! Where’d you get this, kid? Dick’s Sporting Goods, eh? There’s one across the street. The prop department didn’t mention it. The head of the prop department is me, Brock Walton. You left the moment I started my unhinged rant. 

Aw heck. You know what? “Unhinged rant” is a fair point, intern. Maybe I did overdo it. Tell you what, I’m gonna tone it down a notch and try to respect people better. Let’s celebrate with a high five.

Thank you for this pigskin. High five on the count of one. Huuut!  

Sigh. OK, I didn’t mean to break your wrist with that high five. I didn’t mean to make you scream in pain and wave hand-up at the ceiling right now. It’s just, I do my high-fives at 110% and I don’t hang out much with dudes who weigh like a buck-thirty. What I’m trying to say is… I’m sorry, intern. 

We’re gonna get you to the hospital. But first we gotta shoot the commercial with me holding this football. Don’t worry, I’ll get it on the first take.