WBA title holder

Hello, seekers:

Here I am recovering from a long run on a beautiful day. I have just enough time to choke down enough alcohol to make working on this beautiful day tolerable, but while I am doing so I wanted to tell you a WBA story.

WBA is not what you think it is. I think at one time WBA largely meant World Boxing Association, which I think was one of the main organizations in professional boxing before Don King and his Eraserhead 'do got involved and fucked it all up. Now I think there about about 600 boxing federations, each of which has a champion. It is not like the good old days, back when my dad and I used to sit in front of the black-and-white Motorola on Friday nights and watch the Fullmer brothers, Gene or Don, or one of those tough-as-shit guys from the late '50s and early '60s really pound the pissbuckets out of each other.

No, the new "WBA" is something that started at my office several years ago, and it stands for World's Biggest Asshole. Actually, it started out as Asshole of the Night, which I guess means that while having lots of variations of a governing authority (like boxing does) can be confusing, it doesn't hurt to allow for just a little bit of natural evolution when it comes to these things.

The original Asshole of the Night started when a friend and I used to occasionally (try nightly) go out drinking after work. While doing this we would discuss particular incidents of aggression or, worse, passive aggression in the office that night, and both of these traits are seen on a regular basis in my line of work. After we would hash over the most appalling of the night's incidents, we would come to a decision as to who the Asshole of the Night was.

Mind you, we were not high-hatting everyone on this. Either my friend or I were Asshole of the Night on occasion; of course, there were a few people who were the Cal Ripkens of being Asshole of the Night.

But my friend moved on, and eventually a small cadre of the newer crew came up with an even better contest: the now-coveted WBA title, or World's Biggest Asshole. But the criteria have changed, just like the big league strike zone is no longer from the shoulders to the knees like it was back when baseball was worth paying attention to.

Being aggressive or passive aggressive will get you nowhere on the road to the WBA title. What you need to get in on this one is to be the biggest fucking chump on the job that night, the person who gets the biggest load dumped on them, the person who winds up getting a cowshit pie in the face from one of the "bosses" for no real good reason. Stuff like that.

We thoroughly enjoy awarding the WBA title at the end of the night. This event is either not known to the "bosses," or they try to ignore it. I suspect the latter. We have not come up with an official belt yet, like one of those idiotic jewel-encrusted
things boxers get when they pound the bejeezus out of some tomato can to retain one of the 600 or so titles that are available. But we are working on it, and I am always up for ideas in that regard. I guess the crown of thorns is already taken, so we will have to do better.

However, there also is a subdivision in the WBA that occasionally calls for the awarding of a title, and this is probably more in keeping with the World's Biggest Asshole concept that Denis Leary sang about in his unforgettable song "The World's Biggest Asshole," which would be sung on a regular basis in the office if we weren't too tired or stupid to remember all the words.

I need to tell you that on Saturday one such person crossed my path. Seeing this person made me wish that there was a real WBA organization, and that WBA title winners were real professionals who made ridiculous salaries, because if that were so I could have been this guy's agent and signed him to a WBA contract for seven figures and pocketed a nice little bit of change out of it my own self.

I took my daughter, my daughter-in-law and my grandkids out to a small restaurant for brunch in a small city near where I live. This place was unbelievably crowded, and it took forever to get served, but that's what you come to expect when you put the preparation of your food into someone else's hands, and whenever you do that and survive without a near-fatal case of dysentery or food poisoning you should thank your lucky fucking stars for your good fortune in life.

About 25 of the people in there, or so it seemed, were from one family or group, and they were making about the equivalent amount of din that you might hear from the left-field bleachers during the seventh game of a World Series. Amid this buzzing, teeming nest of assholes (I call such gatherings NOAs for short) was one guy who was an asshole for the ages.

He was about 35 or so, and was decked out in full asshole regalia: snap-brim golfer's cap endorsed by Payne Stewart or some other dead asshole with a little kangaroo logo on it; wraparound "shades" that were alternately up on his forehead, covering his little rat eyes, or hung down the tip of his skinny-assed, long pointy nose so that he could "peer" at you while telling "jokes"; a T-shirt that inexplicably said ALCOHOL TOBACCO FIREARMS on it (two out of three isn't bad, but he can shove his tobacco up his ass), and some kind of nylon sweat pants with a stripe down the side, even though by looking at this guy I daresay he hasn't broken a sweat since Reagan was in office.

You could just tell that this guy once got a fortune cookie that said he is the life of the party and took it fucking seriously, because he kept braying and guffawing and shouting and cracking stupid one-liners, after which he would look around at the poor suffering hordes to see if anyone else was laughing at them, and if you have to check to see if people think you are funny chances are you are not very funny.

There is a terrible tendency that lies within me for some stupid reason. That tendency is to think that things can't possibly get worse, and of course this is a painfully wrong canon on which to base your faith. Just as I am starving and looking at my fork and thinking that on their prior visits to this place people like that have had that very one I am about to eat with in their mouths, he stands up again and, guffawing at his own incredible cleverness, shouts out "Git 'er done!!"
This line, along with the standing and some weird arm motion that looked something like what Jackie Gleason used to do when he would say "And away we go," was repeated several times. If I weren't sick of this fucking jackass before, believe me that did it because it stirred up a painful memory.

I have a brother-in-law whom I love dearly. He is an educated man and a high school teacher. One night when I was visiting him and my sister, he suggested we watch a DVD featuring L---y the Cable Guy (note that I continue to carefully avoid revealing identities in here. You can't be too careful in this world).

For about 55 minutes or 55 hours, and I really am not sure which it was, I watched open-mouthed as this jackass L---y delivered his "routine," which basically consisted of being an asshole in not too different a manner from the guy in the restaurant. This is fucking funny? And L---y's catchphrase is the selfsame "Git 'r done," whatever that means, and God only knows that I have no interest in finding out.

So hearing "Git 'r done" from the guy at the diner really sealed the WBA deal for me as far as he was concerned. Former pitcher Jim Bouton wrote a very funny book in the late '60s or so called "Ball Four" in which he revealed the shocking fact that young big-league players are often drunks, whoremongers and womanizers, which really sets them apart from regular young males, doesn't it? Anyway, in "Ball Four" there was a coach or manager or something who would yell out "Have an idea out there!" whenever a player would do something stupid. (If anyone recalls the identity of who said that in the book, please let me know. The suspense is brutal.)

But that was exactly what I thought when this guy kept saying "Git 'r done" and thinking it was the funniest thing since Cheney shot the lawyer. Have a fucking idea out there. If something isn't funny when a comic making seven figures a year says it, it sure as shit isn't funny when you say it, pal.

So if you decide to get into the business of crowning WBA titleholders on your own, just learn from this experience and remember that no matter how good you are, there's always another contender right around the corner.

ADDENDUM: And now for an opposing point of view. I want to preface this by saying I take neither side in this little tiff, but I must say the music on the Web page is an inspiration to all. Looks like a job for People's Court or Judge Judy or Oprah or something: http://www.disinfotainmenttoday.com/hakim/andrehakim.htm

And if you are Andre or his tormentor, don't bother seeking my opinion, OK?

Almost Famous

Montreal is my favorite city in the world. That's probably a misleading statement because I haven't been to most of the world. I've never been overseas and I've never been South of the Border, so I guess that leaves two countries I have been to: the United States and Canada.

So, OK...it is less misleading if I say Montreal is my favorite of the cities I've actually been to, even though it is accurate to say it is my favorite city in the world because it is my favorite of the cities in my world, or the world as I know it.

That ridiculous bit of pointless explaining done, I need to tell you that Montreal is a fabulous place, and if you are a single male you should shut your computer down and head there this moment. I mean it...drop whatever you are doing. If you are a woman, well, sorry, but I can only speak for my particular side of the plate, but I would imagine the deal is pretty much the same.

But I'm not here to be a one-man Montreal tourism bureau. I just need to tell you about Mr. Bartender. People who know me are cringing right now because they have heard this story umpteen times, but why shouldn't everyone else get to hear it?

Mr. Bartender works in the bar at a chain motel out by Dorval Airport. The bar is a weird little place. I have only been in this bar twice, and I can tell you that it's kind of bizarre, which might be how one would imagine a bar located in a chain motel right near an airport.

The first time I went into this bar I'd just had a major tiff with a woman (yeah, shut up, everyone) and had decided to treat myself to a martini. I drink martinis when I am tired and can't sleep, or when I am vaguely homicidal and need a bit of a sedative in order to keep myself from getting a free punched ticket to Pound Me in the Ass Prison. I know that this place was mentioned in that "Office Space" movie, and I will believe that it really exists until proven otherwise, and I do not care to be in on the proving.

So I sit at the bar and order a martini. It's a weird little place, like I said, with odd-looking red curtains all over the place and a slot machine in the corner that probably hasn't paid off a nearly worthless Canadian quarter in years.

The bartender nodded and went to his work. I could tell he was a true artist; he was really into making this martini, like Mr. Sandwich was really into making my salad (see entry Mr. Sandwich). I would bet this bartender fully realizes that whenever he is making a martini for a pissed-off and depressed looking man, he is probably saving him from a long stretch in PMITA Prison, and I bet this bartender feels like he accomplishes good in the world for preventing this.

He was an odd-looking fellow, too. I don't mean this in a nasty way; he just had the kind of look about him of someone you don't forget. He looked like a cross between a 50ish Jerry Lewis and Moe of the Three Stooges, and topping off this unusual appearance was a very distinctive nose with the appearance and approximate texture of a couple tater tots smooshed together.

He was smiling and ready to serve, but didn't have much to say. I got my drink and sat there sipping it, eagerly awaiting the moment at which the gin would start making me feel like my old self again.

No one else came in, of course, and we were alone in there, me sitting with my face in the gin and him standing there pretending to polish glasses so that it would look like he was actually doing something. I had an old friend (see entry "Monkeys of Brass") who might have mangled a couple old sayings to describe the moment and said that you could have heard a mouse fart in church.

At one point, he put down the glass he was polishing.

"When I was working in Israel," he said, "I once served MISTER B.B. KING!"

Huh. I think B.B. King is pretty good and seems like a nice guy, and we both happen to use the same diabetes testing rig, so this seemed like a mildly interesting thing for a moment. He really emphasized the MISTER part of it too, and I found that kind of weird. Perhaps a lifetime in a service industry job can turn you into a servile kind of fellow, which is why I have never had a service industry job...I would just as soon tell a customer to blow it our their ass, no matter if they were MISTER B.B. KING or Jane Doe or George Bush or whoever.

So that was all the guy said to me. I finished the drink and went back to Relationship Damage Control Central, feeling better prepared to handle the job with a bit more discretion.

Several years later, I happened to be in Montreal, at the airport, and happened to be pissed off about something, and of course for this reason I wanted a martini. So I checked into this motel and went to the bar.

And there he was. Same guy. Same slot machine. Same red curtains all over the place, probably still unwashed since my prior visit. Polishing a glass, probably the same one he had been polishing for years. Again, like my last visit, we were the only two people there.

I ordered the martini. He nodded and fixed it, carefully, artfully, not spilling a drop during the mixing or straining processes. I sipped it. We were both silent.

It was so quiet I could almost hear the snow landing on the roof . Mr. Bartender with the potato tot nose polished his glass. Then, suddenly, he put it down.

"When I was working in Israel..." he began.

No! Could it possibly be? The moment hung in the air like English Leather in a heat wave. Could he possibly be about to tell me that he...

"...I once served MISTER B.B. KING!"

Same story, same inflection. And that was the last thing he said to me. Unbelievable. A man who'd lived 50some years and had one fucking story to tell. How was this possible? How many regular customers, if there were indeed any in this place, had committed hari-kiri with a swizzle stick right on the fucking stool after the 3,000th recounting of a chance encounter with MISTER B.B. KING?

It gives me the chills to think that this guy is probably at that bar this very moment, waiting to pounce on a customer and relate the tale of his moment of glory, serving MISTER B.B. KING. Go check it out. If you plan on staying for more than one drink, be certain to bring a ceremonial sword with you, for I am certain that no one who remains there more than an hour gets out alive, or even has the slightest desire to do so.

What a coincidence! I'm with "Stupid," too!

Well, this can be a painful subject, but so what. Somebody has to talk about it, and I guess it might as well be me.

There are a whole lot of really, really stupid people in the world.

Surprised? Of course you aren't, or at least you shouldn't be. You only need to exist on this fucking bunghole of a planet for, say, 25 minutes in order to discover that we are surrounded by idiots, paralyzingly stupid morons, people who are here just for the specific purpose of pissing everyone off, and I am sure that is why they are here because I cannot imagine what other possible role they play in whatever master plan there is that guides the workings of our little universe.

I am not, of course, talking about people with mental handicaps. These people should be treated with compassion. I'm talking about people who seem to have chosen stupidity as their lot in life. I hope you know what I am talking about, because I can't seem to come up with a better way to explain it.

And these fucking people are all over the place. They are in front of me when I am trying to get coffee. They are cutting me off on the highway because they are too busy changing their Best of Boston or ELO or Supertramp or whatever 8-track tape of unbearably shitty arena rock crap to bother watching the road. They are standing in the deli like trying to decide which bologna is cheaper, the one that's $3.99 a pound or the one that's $4.29 a pound, and the whole time they are doing this they are ramming you in the ass with their shopping cart for no good reason, not that there would ever be a particularly good reason to do such a thing.

.I have known my share of stupid people. I've even managed to have stupid friends, because there are some people who have qualities that are somewhat endearing enough to enable you to overlook their core stupidity.

Here's an example of stupidity that I have never forgotten, even though it was many years ago, and this is gospel truth, as unbelievable as may be. When I was a kid I had a stupid neighbor. He was a good type of fellow, but he was, sadly, a very stupid young kid.

I guess I was about 12 years old, and my brother was 5 and a real hell-raiser in those days. One day while I was asleep on the couch, my brother thought it would be funny to break a plate over my head to wake me up. This not only succeeded in waking me up right quick; it also put a good-size gash atop my head which left a scar that can be viewed to this very day, now that my genes have decided I don't need much hair on my head anymore but need an abundance of it everywhere else. My mother drove me to the hospital, and the doctor sewed me back up good as new, or at least almost good as new.

So I came home with a huge bandage on my head, and my neighbor, Young Master Stupid, stopped over to poke his nose in and find out why my head was dressed out like that of a mine disaster victim. I told him the sad truth: that it was because my little brother had broken a plate over my head.

It's no surprise that Stupid's first reaction was to laugh, and I sure can't blame him, because how could anyone not laugh at such a ridiculous thing? I would not be surprised if you are laughing right now at the thought of it. It is funnier than when I was nailed between the eyes by that 100 mph soccer shot by the Mongolian kid on our high school team.

So then Stupid stopped laughing and decided to analyze the entire event, as if he were a color man for a TV sporting event. I will never forget his next words:

"Well," he said, "maybe he thought he would do like they do on the Popeye cartoons. You know, when they break those fake plastic plates over each other's heads in the cartoons."

Now how the fuck do you respond to something like that? Here was a kid who was almost old enough to get laid, and he believes that Popeye and Bluto are real actors who need to use stunt props to effect the illusion of violence? God almighty in heaven, I almost fell over. But I didn't say anything. Just like you don't want to be the one to tell a kid there's no Santa Claus, I didn't want to be the one to tell this kid that Popeye and Bluto (forget that fucking "Brutus" nonsense that came later in the Popeye series...this is Popeye were are talking about, dammit, not the Roman Empire) aren't real people.

Anyway, Young Master Stupid came to a sad end a few years later. As I told you, we lived way out in the country, and I'm sorry to report that a common means of culling stupid people out there at that time was auto accidents because the country roads were dangerous and stupid people had a tendency to push their luck on them. He died in a sadly stupid fashion, traveling about 300 mph on a twisting country road with his lights off in the middle of the night. He used to like driving with his lights off because he thought it was "exciting." This was not Stephen Hawking, folks.

Anyway, I think of this poor guy and others like him whenever I happen to see people wearing those "I'm With Stupid" shirts. Whoever thought of those things was a genius, because there is a huge market of people who would buy such a jackass thing and then humiliate their spouse or partner by wearing it. What a world.

Allow me to dump on your Easter Parade

Today is Easter. And one thing I can surely say about Easter is that throughout my life, from the time I was a little kid up to and including my current state of crabby-assed middle-agedness, it remains the lamest fucking holiday of all.

I am kind of sorry if this offends you, seeing as that it is the "holiest" holiday on the Christian calendar. I don't mean to diss Christ, who truly was a great man for what he did in his short 33 years. It's just that I have seen lots of dead people, both in caskets at wakes and in the course of my job, and I will be goddamned if any of them looked as if they had the slightest interest in getting up and being alive again. And if anyone on Earth would have gotten up from the dead it would have been my grandfather Lonnie, the half-Indian joker who enjoyed putting live rats in people's lunchboxes while they were working high construction so that they would be startled as hell and risk falling about 500 feet to their deaths when the fucking rat would jump out of the lunchbox. Now THAT'S entertainment.

Anyway, Grandpa Lonnie was a great guy, and he died young at 67, and while he was alive he could really put the booze away. I almost never saw him without a bottle of Seagram's or something within close reach. So seeing as that he loved both life and liquor so goddamned much, if anyone since Creation would be able to rise from the dead I think it would have been Grandpa Lonnie, because it is impossible for me to imagine him going the 33 years he has now been dead without a glass of good old Seagrams whiskey.

So Lonnie never got back up, and he has been pushing up daisies in a dismal New Jersey boneyard for decades now. Even though Jesus was in tight with God, why would he have gotten a free pass on this? It just doesn't compute with me, folks. I read a book called "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" in which the authors claim to have evidence that Christ faked the resurrection for a good cause and then went off to father a bunch of kids with Mary Magdalene. This is probably horseshit like everything else, but it is kind of more believable than what you will hear out of the Vatican on the matter.

But religion aside, let's get back to why Easter is a shitty holiday. I remember having mixed feelings about it even as a kid. My parents were hugely into the whole Easter basket thing, and even though their intentions were good I can remember all that fucking Easter candy and how sick it made me, and those goddamned stupid-assed marshmallow Peeps that tasted horrible and got hard within two minutes after you opened your basket (I should be so lucky at my age, but that's another matter), and the chocolate footballs that you could never quite get all the tinfoil off of and thus you would enjoy simultaneously the taste of rich milk chocolate and the taste of thin aluminum foil.

. And then there was my kid brother, who was wired to begin with, and once he chowed down on the seven pounds of chocolate in his basket he would become a whirling fucking dervish and create all sorts of havoc, doing things like once trying to rip the testicles off my sister's cat and breaking plates over my head (see entry "I'm With Stupid").

Ah -- the Easter ham. I hated ham as a kid. I always thought that despite my mother's commendable kitchen wizardry, ham looked and tasted like a pig's ass, and I guess I was not too bloody wrong on that one, was I?

The insult of Easter as a shitty holiday continued into adulthood. At least as a kid you got a few days off from school around Easter, presumably so your GI tract could return to normal after the massive sugar infusion. Once you are grown, that's it. There is no Easter holiday. I work every Easter, and I work it for straight fucking time, for God's sake.

So what does Easter mean to me? Well, let's see. It means the endless repeating of the most dubious story in the entire fable-filled realm of Christianity. It means memories of stomach aches and prolonged diarrhea due to chocolate overdose, which is probably the main reason I have had little use for sweets as an adult. It means just another day of work, and at straight time yet.

So, frankly, whoever came up with this idea can take their Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it and shove it clean up their ass. And let me tell you this: if resurrection is possible, someday I will come back from the dead and tell everyone that Easter is a good thing. If that doesn't happen, people, just assume Easter is a load of crap like every fucking thing else in this world.

The Banjo Minnow..A Genetic Response!!!!!

Mama, don't you give all the lard away,

Save some up for a rainy day...

---Some '20s or '30s jug band whose name I can't recall


A co-worker has come up with a new and interesting use of the word "display," that being as a way to describe some kind of intolerable public behavior. It is most commonly used among my co-workers to point out a particularly disgusting bit of ass-kissing, and those of you who have been here a while know how I feel about that. "Look at that Display," he will say (I like to capitalize it in this usage), and everyone will stop what they are doing and look over in hopes of catching a little bit of the ass-kissing or other shameless behavior, though I cannot bear to look at such things anymore if I can at all avoid it. I guess 30-some years of my line of work have left me with a sort of "thousand-yard stare" when it comes to ass-kissing and that sort of thing.

But this is a bit different from that, in fact a lot different, but I found it nearly as disgusting.

I was in some food court deep in the wretched bowels of O'Hare Airport, eating some "food" that alleged to be Chinese curry but tasted more like canned vegetables in a sauce whipped up from a bit of jimson weed and 40-weight motor oil. (Fuck those little baby corns...who the hell grows them, and why?) As I was trying to choke this stuff down, I noticed the arrival of a spectacularly beautiful miniskirted young woman. I am sorry to point out that I noticed, but that's the way it is. Ever see the old commercials for the Banjo Minnow, a lure that supposedly invokes a "genetic response" in fish that actually forces them to hit at it whether they want to or not? There is a genetic response in males to the arrival of such women, and I have always assumed there is a similar genetic response in women to the arrival of comparably attractive males, but I can only make an educated guess that it's the case there too.

The trick is, of course, that at my age, the initial genetic response passes within a brief moment of having the Banjo Minnow appear before me.

So that's what happened here. I noticed her, then went on about the business of eating my dismal, shitty $16 meal (did I say "fuck those baby corns?" If not, I am saying it now), and all would have been forgotten had she not then sat down at one of the tables directly across from me and immediately assumed a very immodest pose that made clear to the world that she'd "forgotten" to put anything on under this embarrassingly short skirt.

It seemed as if every male within 60 yards noticed this right away (genetic response! The Banjo Minnow people are right!), and if I am not mistaken there was a little jostling for seating of the unobstructed view variety, especially among the young, available males.

I probably had the best seat in the house for this, but I am sorry (or glad, as the case may be) to report that my reaction to this was utter and total revulsion. All I could think of was my co-worker saying "Look at that Display" with complete disgust, and that was how I felt about it. I am sorry, people, but I am not interested in seeing your private parts while I am trying to eat, whether it be good food or bad food, and whether you be a Banjo Minnow-type female, a drill sergeant or whatever.

So it was kind of funny because I was very obviously averting my eyes. While everyone else seemed to be totally drawn to this Display, I was busy reading restroom signs, checking out the offerings at the other food stands in hopes of getting something marginally edible next time I was there, reading the back of the newspaper being read by a woman who was sitting near me (and who clearly was not interested in the Banjo Minnow Display).

I could be wrong about this, but I could not help but get the feeling that this Banjo Minnow person was thoroughly enjoying putting on this Display. Or maybe that's just a guy thing left over from my youth, during which I imagined that a lot of women thoroughly enjoy tormenting men by doing things like this in public. And I was determined not to fall into this trap, if it indeed was a trap. Besides, sorry, but the food was unappetizing enough on its own without the added side dish of having to look at all that.

I have had Zelig-like tendencies throughout my life for some reason, meaning that I seem to be present when all sorts of monumental or ridiculous things happen, and had I been, say, 21 at this time of this Banjo Minnow sighting I would have thought of little else for, say, the next 18 months or so.

That was then and this is now, to coin a phrase. I am not 21 anymore, and maybe it is selfish of me to wish away events like this, which are the sort of thing many young fellows' dreams are made of. So please - please - if you want to show your goods to the world for some crazy reason, do it elsewhere and let me get indigestion in peace.

Indigestible baby corns and unfettered viewing of something that should not be seen in public do not make for a fine dining experience, especially for a world-weary person like myself.

(For those who have never seen the commercial...this is NOT an endorsement, and there will be no underwearless women in this link):

https://www.asseenontvnetwork.com/vcc/tristar/banjominnow/133257/

By the way, that is not me in the illustration at the beginning of the blog. I have no idea who it is, but I must say it looks like someone who has been reeled in a time or two. As if that isn't the case with all of us who live and breathe on this fucking Earth.

Will Suffer Degradation for Food

Seekers,

Some of you who have been around awhile, back when this blog was under the auspices of those quasi-human loafpinches at A-L (fill in the middle letter yourself; you can do it!), will remember that at about this time last year I engaged in a great tirade against that modern practitioner of usury, L-----y Tax Service.

If anyone is interested I will repost that rant, but basically the thing was that I was enraged that they paid some poor assholes to stand out in humiliating Statue of Liberty costumes (that, friends, may provide a hint to their identity, but I am not saying for sure) as a method of shilling for their ripoff tax preparation service and "rapid refunds' that of course were loans made at interest rates that would make Shylock look like a fucking piker.

The humiliating circumstance of these people, making shit money for basically turning themselves into clowns, clowns whose purpose is not to make people laugh but to suck the lifeblood from people too stupid to complete a 1040EZ form and who needed their $54 federal refund so badly that they are willing to pay 900 percent interest to get it...well, it just makes me sick.

So enough of that. I saw something almost as bad the other day. There was no usury involved, but the humiliation factor was even worse.

I was walking near an off-track betting parlor in a small city near where I live. I have written about off-track betting parlors before, and as much as I like to gamble I must say that they are pathetic places, and this particular parlor is one of the more pathetic of the pathetic lot. I was on my way to an indoor farmers market nearby; I am not trying to claim that I have never been in that godforsaken betting parlor, because that would be a lie. It is a place frequented by some of the strangest and most decrepit people I have ever seen in a semi-upright state, including one old man who walks around in a weird, staggering gait, wearing wraparound sunglasses even when the sun hasn't been seen for hours or days, who always has a large portion of toilet paper crammed up each nostril for reasons that I care not to learn about.

Enough of that. What got my attention as I walked by was a young man, a slender black fellow in his 20s, wearing a fright wig and a clown suit. He was holding a box that was supported by a leather strap around his neck, a contraption that looked like one of those boxes the cigarette "girls" had in the old movies and old commercials in which they would walk up to someone and offer then a Swisher Sweet or a Tiparillo or some fucking awful turd of a cigar in exchange for a nickel or something and then flee in hopes of not having their ass pinched.

But this poor guy. This was so much worse than the L---y Tax Service drones, whose getups are absurd and degrading but at least half a step up from wearing a goddamned clown suit. And the box had a sign on it:

MAKE $15 PER HOUR..ASK ME HOW!

My first thought was to ask him if HE was making $15 per hour for standing on a street corner looking like last week's smacked ass, but it occurred to me that I should just leave the guy alone because when you are being humiliated you don't need some asshole to come up to you and just make it worse by asking how little money you are being paid to prostitute yourself, especially when you are doing it while dressed as a fucking clown. Wearing such a getup is about as glum and naked an admission of having a failed, wasted life as there can possibly be, unless you are gainfully employed by a circus or are an independent contractor who works kids' parties or something. Dressing as a clown to promote some asshole's ripoff business is, well, basically like being a carnival geek without even getting the dubious nutrition of a raw chicken head or two a day.

Sadly, a couple of this guy's friends happened by and began to torment him by asking if that stupid-assed outfit had something to do with some kind of weird probation agreement. This was actually sort of the plot of an episode of Larry David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" show, on which after Larry got involved in some ridiculous misunderstanding he was sentenced to stand on a street corner wearing a sign that said "I STEAL FORKS FROM RESTAURANTS." So I guess perhaps the question of whether this poor guy was undergoing some kind of punishment was conceivable, at least in TV world, and today's TV sometimes is tomorrow's reality.

So I never did find out why this guy had to dress like that, or what was in the box that was supported by the strap around his neck (I am assuming it was not free cigarettes), or how much he was being paid to make a perfect asshole of himself.

I hope he was making at least $15 per hour, and if he was I hope he buys enough dynamite to blow up the fucking place that made him parade around like that. Some things are just not acceptable.

Thank You So Much For Not Kissing My Ass

My parents worked hard to prepare me for the fact that life is full of disappointments great and small, and I am grateful to them for going through the effort to do this. I don't approve of all the methods they used, but at least they tried.

One of the things I was taught at a young age is that a portion of the human population is made up of ass-kissers, and man are they right about this one, and that being an ass-kisser is being less of a human being. Please do not kiss people's asses, including mine. Do not think it gets you anywhere, because a person whose ass you are kissing probably thinks less of you for it, and if kissing their ass improves their opinion of you then their opinion of anything is basically worthless.

I have known some real ass-kissers in my time, and it is a sorry sight to see these wretches at work. If you are kissing someone's ass, don't think for a second that everyone around you does not realize it is happening, and in my case seeing someone kissing ass is so nauseating that I have to turn away in disgust and out of pure pity for the ass-kisser. To me ass-kissers are like one of those Untouchable caste members in India. I have to avert my eyes. To look at an ass-kisser, especially while the ass-kissing is in progress, is like staring into the blazing sun.

I spent three years as a supervisor at one paper, and believe me I could not get away from the whole supervisory experience fast enough. I don't really care for the whole idea of "bosses," so being one was to me the ultimate hypocrisy, and I was thrilled when offered the chance to no longer be a boss. In my business, most people know what to do and can function pretty well without someone telling them to do it, and most of us function best when left to our own designs without one of these "bosses" getting involved and sticking their nose in.

Anyway, I was the metro editor at this good-sized paper in upstate New York aand had a staff of eight people or so who reported directly to me in my days as a "boss," and I am sorry to report that one of them was an ass-kisser, and it was just pathetic. I was 27 years old and this guy was about twice that, and it just made me physically ill to have him kissing my ass all the time. He had worked at the paper for about 30 years and through some kind of misfortune had become kind of simple-minded, or so it seemed. Some people say he pretended to be so in order to escape having to do work that required much of an effort, and this was not totally out of the realm of possibility.

The most entertaining theory as to his professional and mental decline was that he had untreated syphilis. The story was that he had been the office cocksman for quite a while and had contracted the disease from a young reporter and never had it treated and that it had ravaged his brain and made him both a bit slow and an ass-kisser. I cannot attest to whether he had really been a cocksman or whether he had syphilis, but these are the kind of stories that can follow you around if you work at newspapers long enough.

His ass-kissing was really shameful to see, and it pained me very much. He was old enough to be my dad, and if I was ever made aware that my own dad went around kissing his boss's ass with as much zeal as this guy kissed mine, I would have had to shoot him down like a dog and bury him in the woods in order to preserve what would have been left of his family name, for if you kiss ass like that it gets around, believe me, and a known ass-kisser does not have a name worth preserving.

I did not have an office in the newsroom; my desk was right in the metro desk area, and so if a civilian wanted to see me he would just get through what passed for security at the main door and walk right to my desk and see me. This was not good enough for Mr. Ass-Kisser, who was technically the metro desk clerk but still held the title of reporter more out of pity for his decline than for any other reason.

So what used to bug me is that when some person would come looking for me to discuss a story idea or to complain about something or for one of the other reasons that outsiders (in the news business we call these people "civilians") come to see us, Mr. Ass Kisser would vault out of his seat and intercept the visitor and ask why they were there and would offer that if they wanted to see Mr. Jarboe, he would check to see if it was possible to do so.

Christ almighty, this was horrible. I would be sitting right there, and even though I had more than enough work to do at all times I know it's good customer relations to take a few seconds out with a person who takes the time to come see you in person, even if it is about something stupid. And Mr. Ass Kisser would come over and ask me if I could see them, which of course I could, and then he would bring them over and say "Mr. Jarboe, this is Mr. Smith to see you, sir." Sir. Sir. Imagine that. I was ashamed when this guy would say this, because the visitor would infer somehow that I had made it a condition of this much-older guy's employment that he refer to me as sir. In actual fact I had told Mr. Ass-Kisser to NEVER call me sir, and to NEVER call me "Mr. Jarboe," because in newsroom environments people generally call their bosses by their first names and I did not want things to be any more formal than that, of course.

So visitors would get the impression that I was the sort of fellow who enjoyed having his ass kissed, when in fact I believe that enjoying having your ass kissed is a despicable trait. And sadly, these sort of people are always the ones who are in the position of having people pucker up to their butts all the time, and I am sorry, but you can count me right the hell out on both sides of that fucking equation. I once had a federal judge come in to talk to me about a very sensitive story, and Mr. Ass-Kisser went to every length to kiss both our asses the whole time he was there, including making an offer to run out and get coffee for us. The judge loved it because like a lot of judges he was used to having lips pressed against his ass, so he was right at home with all this.

The worst and most embarrassing ass-kissing I got from Mr. Ass-Kisser was on one fateful day when I happened to have been expecting an important long distance call about something. I was kind of up and down with a few other matters that day, so I told Mr. Ass-Kisser to make sure he took down a number and got me the message right away when the call came. He kissed my ass, even though I had told him many times not to do so, and promised to get me the message right away.

About an hour later, I was taking a short comfort break in the men's room, and I should not have to tell you what that means. And suddenly, there is a knocking on the stall door.

It was, of course, Mr. Ass-Kisser. "Mr. Jarboe, sir, that call is on the line. Would you like them to hold, or would you like me to take a message, or would you like them to call back. sir?" This is absolutely true. Two people who were hiding from life in other stalls started laughing out loud, as did another guy who was in there doing something or other at the sink.

I would think that anyone with even rudimentary clerical skills would know that you do not knock on the stall door when the "boss" is in there.I guess he had his reasons for doing it, but the biggest one was probably to kiss my ass, which as I have said before is about as pathetic an endeavor as has been undertaken since time began.

I've seen various other ass-kissers in my day, and it is painful to see, but at least I do not have to worry about people doing it to me any more, at least in my own office. Sadly, I still have to watch other people engage in ass kissing, and I have to feel the pain of people kissing my ass when I venture into the world (see entry "May I Help You, Chump?").

So do me a favor, people. Take stock of yourself right now, right down to your core, and assess whether or not you are an ass-kisser. If you are, stop it right now, and the world will be a better place for it. If you aren't, at least give some thought to going up to someone you know who is and tell them to knock it off right now. Some things are not acceptable, and this is one of those things. Stop an ass-kisser and save the world.

A Hero for the ages

I fly a lot, and thus I am quite familiar with the caste system that has evolved between first class and what they call "coach." I think it is called "coach" because it is about as much fun as it must have been back in the Old West when you would ride a fucking stagecoach from El Paso to Dodge City and arrive 16 days later drenched in your own and others' vomit and with an asshole that likely would never work properly again. At least you don't get held up on an airliner, though I must say those $5 "meals" they sell aren't too far from highway robbery.

But I have discovered that the airline I use, which I will refer to as U----d in order to avoid a nasty confrontation, sells something they call "Economy Plus" seats, which I usually get whenever possible. These seats have a short pecker's worth more leg room, which is a good thing. They advertise it as five inches, but believe me, when you sit in these seats you feel like a fully dressed emperor...you can actually stretch your legs out.

The thing that stinks is that these seats used to be called "bulkhead," and were available for no extra charge if you were lucky enough to book them ahead of time. I made a bunch of bulkhead flights back when I had a severely broken leg (done in a sky diving accident, which of course I need to tell you about one of these days), and I remember that it was the same price as the other seats. Economy Plus costs you like an extra $30 or $50 or something, but I always get it whenever possible, and you should too, provided you are not bumping me out of one of the seats.

So these seats are right behind first class, and when you stretch your legs out you wind up with your feet directly beneath the seat of some dickhead in first class. I think this is wonderful, since I usually get an Economy Plus seat in Chicago, when my feet are nice and sweaty from the first flight, and I always take my shoes off and stretch my legs as far as possible so that my sweaty feet are directly below the person sitting in the first class seat right ahead of me. I then hope against hope that this disturbs the hell out of him (it's ALWAYS a HIM), and that he is unable to determine whether it is the fine cheese he is being served or my sweaty feet he is smelling. We are in a state of class warfare in America, folks, and guerrilla actions like this are our only hope.

I got the idea for this many years ago, while riding the Lake Shore Limited train from Chicago on my way to Albany. It was the middle of the night, and there was a guy -- I will never forget the sight -- with his goddamned shoeless feet up atop the seat in front of him, ankles crossed, and he was wearing these ridiculous checkered socks that looked as if he'd been born in them. His feet were right next to the headrest of the seat in front of him, and the poor asshole in that seat was sound asleep...with his face inches away from those filthy-ass, crusty checkered socks. He was snoring up quite a row, and his nostrils must have been getting one hell of a funk infusion. There he was.. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....and there were those checkered socks. My sides hurt from laughing.

Eventually, a conductor came around and scolded The Checkered Demon, telling him in a rather stern tone: "Get your feet off that seat! How'd you like to have someone's stinking feet in your face while you are asleep?" The guy sheepishly pulled his feet down, and the sleeping fellow was none the wiser, unless the foot odor burned his lungs like mustard gas and permanently disabled him, and I must say I cannot rule out that possibility.

Anyway, back to the flight. This was beautiful. I was set to deploy my feet underneath the first-class seat (all's fair in love and class warfare) and suddenly, before they made the announcement to get ready for takeoff, some joker from "coach" made a mad dash into the first-class lavatory, which he then used loudly and (hopefully) abundantly. After about six or seven minutes in there, he suddenly burst out of the shitter and went back to his seat back around the middle of the rest of the suffering herd in the coach cabin.

This was the act of a true revolutionary, a hero of the Class War. Here I was thinking I was a subversive for my sweaty feet maneuver, but that was nothing compared to defiling the first-class lavatory, an act of true heroism. There was a Seinfeld episode in which Elaine made a lame-assed attempt to sneak into first class, but this beat the pants off that. Solidarity, comrade! And before takeoff yet, thus making certain no one would be having a particularly good time in that little crapper for the entire flight to Vancouver! My only hope is that this brave soul did it right and ate nothing but Taco Bell and drank nothing but bock beer for the entire week before the trip.

No one ever said a word to the guy, either. I think he was a professional revolutionary, because he timed it perfectly, right when people were still getting settled. And what would they have done to him, anyway? Thrown him off the plane? I bet the worst that would have happened would be that they would have told him not to do it again, just like they did with all those cocaine-abusing baseball players.

So this is my hero, and he should be yours, too. Some pompous asshole in first class had to smell this guy's dump when he went in to piss away some fine 15-year-old single malt, and the thought of this lifted my spirits all the way.

Seeing things like that makes you damned glad to be alive.