What I learned from Saturday morning cartoons (or why I masterbate to the bible)

I think I’ve figured out why I’m screwed up a bit. I recently was on YouTube watching retarded people make fools of themselves and came across a few clips from early cartoons I watched as a kid on Saturday morning. I would watch them before my parents would wake and demand I read the bible to cleanse myself from the evils of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They in turn would watch some television program that promoted shady morals on a cruise ship that “helped” people fall in love….. (yeah right, the base of that show was “come to our boat and shag! We don’t mind!”) While they watched their innuendo’s of sex, drugs and capitalism I would be “forced” to read a few scripture from the “holy bible”. Did you know that if you use your imagination the bible if full of really fun stuff? There are stories of mass genocide, fratricide, orgies and even a guy named Lot who to be the “good guy” and protect the angels from the horny city folk that wanted to have sex with them tossed his daughters to the mob to be raped over and over again! Such a cool book when you have an imagination like mine! I’m pretty sure my parents never thought I would be reading the bible and thinking “you know, this needs pictures because I bet that Lot’s daughters were topless!” Nothing like being ten and getting off to the stories in the bible! I sit here and I compare the cartoons that are on tv right now with the insanity that is available in the form of Spongebob and I find it is less intelligent than the cartoons of the golden era of Bugs Bunny. Squarepants bounces off the wall while laughing at the simple things like bubbles for much longer than is healthy for anyone to laugh at a bubble, Bugs Bunny on the other hand would violently harm Elmer Fudd or convince him that it was actually duck season and then Daffy would loose his bill because Fudd shot his face off. Neither of these impacted me as a child, I did watch Looney Toon’s and enjoyed them. But my diet of cartoons was rooted in Transformers, G.I. Joe, He Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I want to take a few minutes to talk about what I learned no through these shows but because of these shows. Looking back I was unaware of the damage these Saturday mornings would do to me and the outcome of them twenty years later.

Transformers is a timeless story of good vs. evil. Two opposing forces seeking the same thing but going about it in very different ways, the autobots working along side the humans while the decepticons attempt to take through force what they want and in the process destroy their foe.
Lets take a look at the stuff I really learned from that show. I learned that semi trucks were all giant robots that if you watched enough of them one would turn into a big robot with guns. That seems all fine except that for some reason I always felt like it was trying to tell me that I needed to have a bigger penis than the next guy or the bad giant robots would kick my ass. I learned that physics meant nothing at all since Megatron was just as tall as Optimus Prime, but transformed into a pistol that fit in Starscreams hand. Let me tell you that fucked me up when I started to learn geometry! But seeing as my parents in their infinite wisdom knew my education would be superior if I was home schooled with an emphasis on divine design we didn’t focus much on the small details like geometry. But instead they focused on the evils that the cartoons taught us! The teenage mutant ninja turtles were a direct result of science gone wrong and were evolved creatures they were obviously anti-Christian and should be condemned. My mother would preach to me that God did not and would not ever allow something like a turtle to evolve to a point to communicate intelligently because that would be a blaspheme to the work he did by making humans out of dirt! The flaw I always found was that if we were made of dirt by a divine creator who is infinitely more intelligent than any of us dumb asses why did mom always try to stop her children from eating dirt? If we were made of it why not consume more of that thing to grow? This made sense my five year old brain simply because I hadn’t been exposed to the idea of cannibalism. Though there were times I did think about roasting my siblings and serving them for dinner when I was very angry. Of course when mother found me to have thoughts of murder and fratricide I was simply possessed by a devil and she would pray for me. This proved to be very effective because I always got really weirded out by people praying to the empty space of air asking for the thing inside me to go away. So to me they were asking for my soul to be taken away and as a five year old that was a terrifying thing. I had been told after all that my soul would be the only thing to make it to heaven or hell in the end and if they were asking it to leave then I would be just screwed! But all that to say that there were many times when the TV was turned off because it contradicted what the church said the bible commanded. But there were other times when my parents just didn’t care… with that I was always confused. It was bad last Saturday but this Saturday it’s not because they she wanted to sleep in late. But on the occasions I was reprimanded for watching inappropriate television I would be sent to my room with my bible in hand to “meditate” on the word of God. About the age of ten when a boy starts to discover himself and the opposite sex I had no instruction in the ways of the birds and the bee’s besides the bible. Let me tell you it is a bad instruction manual for telling a guy how to get a girl. First off the poetry in the Song of Solomon were great and if you have an imagination like mine they were simply pornographic! But it didn’t help me pick up any chick. Many times while reading I would feel a stirring in my “loins” as they say while reading about how so and so lay together in a green pasture. I was sheltered from the secular world but sex was not something far from my mind even at the age of ten. I may be the only person in the world who wanked off to images conjured from the bible but I doubt it. There are many other oppressed and repressed young men out there with no other form of sex, violence and guilt besides the bible and I am just one of the only ones who will admit what they did. For instance let me just quote a few lines from the Song of Solomon sometimes called the Song of Songs. This is from the King James Bible.

Chapter 1 verse 2
2Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

Hmm when I read this I can’t help but be confused about Solomon’s sexuality. This did not turn me on…. I was disappointed. Lets read on though.

3Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.

This verse on the other hand was juicy in my mind. But I had to hope it was talking of girls and not guys, even at the age ten I knew I was straight. So I just pretended it was aimed from a girl’s point of view written by a guy who obviously had sexual identity issues. But “the savour of thy good ointment thy name is as ointment poured forth” I am pretty sure he was writing about a blow job here… (I’ll let you figure out what I was thinking about when he wrote “ointment”) “Therefore do the virgins love thee.” So to me it meant this guy was hung like a horse. Yep so blowjob for this guy… so far good stuff for an ancient porn.

4Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

Let me translate this into The New Living Translation of Adam! “I am drawn to the king, I’ve longed for him. The king bought me to his bed and we screamed our brains out while we had wild monkey sex! I will always remember riding him reverse cowgirl style!” Damn that’s some hot sex! At least that is how I read it even at the age of ten!

5I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.

Holy shit! This is interracial porn! It’s jungle fever for this crazy Jew in the story! Yeah for bible porn!

6Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

Damn she is shy! That’s ok, I like shy girls… and what’s this? “They made me the keeper of vineyards, but mine own vineyard have I not kept” Oh she is a slut! SWEET!

7Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?

She got some lovin and now she wants more of it. If you don’t get that she is asking for a noon quickie you have no imagination.

8If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

Ok he’s game, he wants to see her, but this is a secret love affair so they have to be discreet. Now as a ten year old boy it didn’t take much to get me going, this so far was a kinky freaky farm porn in my mind.

9I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.

This verse scares me, I’m pretty sure I said this guy must have been hung like a horse and she evidently agrees. She says though that she compared him to a company of horses…. I sometimes wondered if she meant that she had also shagged the horses as well. If that is the case then the bible is way crazier than every preacher in the world thinks. This might just be some hardcore bestiality.

10Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.

This… I’ll leave this to your imagination. Man you have a dirty mind…. I thought I was bad.

11We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.

I can’t help but think about strange piercings all over her, my personal thought… nipple rings.

12While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.

Did she just call her vagina a “spikenard”? that is one crazy kinky name for a vagina. I’ve heard calling it “kitty” or a few other names, but “spikenard”? wow! (for those who don’t know a spikenard is a herb from the ginseng family.)

13A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts

Can you say money shot! So not only does these few verses talk about the reverse cowgirl position, interracial sex, pet names for vagina, comparing a guy to the size of a horse but to top it off they basically say that he blew his load and they stayed in between her mammoth boobs! Yeah I made up that she has mammoth boobs but you would too ok.

As you can see for me the bible was a fun book to read, so when I got in trouble I had no problem being entertained by “holy scripture”.


If you think I’m going to hell, you might be right. But if I am I’ll see you there because I know you were laughing at some point of this blog. Just think, this all came from me watching cartoons on Saturday morning. I might have turned out a little more normal if mom had just let me watch my fucking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Zombie Jesus... That's what I wanna see!

I have absolutely nothing of value to say today. Of course this isn’t uncommon as most of my rants are of no moral substance, nor do they lend to the betterment of humanity. So today I figure I will strike up a topic that will piss some of you off and leave others wondering where I lost my sanity. Well the answer to my sanity’s whereabouts is simple really, I happen to leave them in baggage at LaGuardia International with a nice young lady who appeared to be holding a sign that said “Will Hump For Food”. Though I am unsure of what she really meant by this never the less I left my sanity there when I was in New York this summer. So what is this thing that might cause you to wonder about the state of my mental health? Well to be blunt it’s quite simple really, it isn’t a statement or creed that proves I’ve gone off the reservation so far that I should be considered for institutionalization, nor weekly treatments in a chair at the Psychologist. I simply think that religion controlled by humans is ridiculous and bad. I grew up in a strict extremist Pentecostal church that taught us to fear the world and to understand that everyone that doesn’t attend that church is going to hell. To which I always thought was ridiculous bullshit, but being the good church going son I was I didn’t raise my voice to this. I simply bit my tongue and thought that most of the people in the church were fucking morons. I was educated that the ways of the world were evil, to buy a product made by Walt Disney was a sin because they were part of the evils of Hollywood, which is in the same state that some Pornography is made, which links Mickey mouse to porn thus making Disney a manufacturer of Porn, which meant that Mickey Mouse was shooting porn in the Walt Disney movies and by that thinking we should boycott them. By boycott I mean we were not allowed to go see their films, which didn’t matter because we were not allowed to go to the theater because it would show rated R films and those films come from Hollywood, which is in the same state that some porn was made, that meant porn was shown constantly in the theaters in every town across America and because there was porn being shown people would fornicate and molest each other while engaging in a mass orgy. Later in life when I rebelled against the ways of the lord and snuck in with a friend of mine to see the film Jurassic Park I was greatly disappointed that there was neither porn nor any orgies that I might take part in and thus fall from grace. Though watching Jeff Goldblum did seem like a sin as he was absolutely horrid in that film. I attended this church until I was nineteen when I was asked to leave for telling the other teens that the bible contradicts itself in many places and that Jesus the son of God who is all knowing didn’t know everything according to the bible and lied to the people on the mount when he ascended into the heavens. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe he said something about the faithful not tasting death before his return. As far as I can tell every last one of those people are dead or never existed. Let’s just say that the preacher wasn’t too happy about that, or the fact that I told him his wife was a bitch. But I am getting ahead of myself, let’s take a step back and discuss a little more about the dogma that plagued the cult….. I mean church I was forced to attend as long as I lived under my parent’s roof. At the tender age of eight I remember watching my first live action Easter reenactment! Excitement coursed through my every fiber as this was the closest thing I could get to watching a movie. I was excited to see the live portrayal of the life of Jesus of Nazareth, his death and ultimately his resurrection. I was looking forward to seeing Zombie Jesus! How fucking disappointed was I when it turned out that he was just a walking talking person with a couple cheap fake scars to impress the ladies. Hell I didn’t even get to see him get stabbed on the cross! I wanted to see the blood, the violence, the absolute destruction of this mans back from a whip beating him within an inch of his life! What did I get? Flashing lights, cheap smoke machine and bad acting with crappy corn syrup with food dye. I was looking forward to the violence that the bible promised, and I got a G rated version of a NC – 17 story. First thought came to my mind? This is bullshit! I think it was that moment that helped me start my path to discovery about the beliefs I now hold. So lets all give a round of applause to Church! Good job on retaining a member! Later when I must have been about thirteen or fourteen, I was in youth group. It was a Wednesday night sermon with lots of yelling and really cool modern music for the young people of Gen X and the early Gen Y’ers … lets get one thing clear, Christian music sucked then… I’m pretty sure it isn’t any better now, but since I don’t listen to that any longer I wouldn’t know. Instead I now listen to a variety of music that according to one preacher I was under stated was devil music. I’m pretty sure that Bache would be very upset if he learned that he was a creator of “devil music”. Though perhaps some of the other music I listen to might be considered “evil” I still don’t think it’s the devil’s music. If there was such a creation that one would call the Devil I am sure that he has grown into a little more class than to listen to AC DC’s highway to hell, in fact I would think he would listen to a little more classical music like Chopin since he has been around since the beginning of time…. So perhaps that preacher wasn’t so far off after all on what the devil might listen too… Well I have to say that I like the devil’s taste in music. A surprising notion as I happen to not believe in the devil. But back to the thought on the time when I was in my early teen’s, I remember many Wednesday nights attending youth group sitting in the back running the audio board thinking to myself that the electronics I’m attending too make more sense than the religious dogma that is being screamed from the microphone. For me I found that the construction of metals and circuits, the way that energy entered the box and exited made logical sense. The thought that everyone who didn’t believe exactly what was told by the preacher was going to hell; including those who hadn’t heard the “good news” in other parts of the world. This thought lead me to another thought, if other religions are out there, they must believe that all other religions are wrong and that we are going to hell for not believing what their preacher told them. This made me worry that perhaps in my parents limited knowledge of the world that perhaps they picked the wrong religion, perhaps I was going to hell for believing what I was being told. I was devastated by this notion, I being intelligent to understand that I didn’t understand everything in the world I asked my youth minister this perplexing question. His response was faith was the answer; if I had enough faith that god would speak to me and tell me the truth. A truth that stated that this church was the only right religion in the world and that over six billion people were heading to hell because they didn’t believe exactly what I believed. This confused me more because I was under the impression that god is love, to me sending six billion good people to hell because they didn’t attend and believe my churches beliefs was a shitty and mean thing to do. Asking the preacher why a god of love would do this I was told that He is a jealous god and he demands me to have faith in him and the leaders of the church. To me this just meant that I needed to shut the fuck up and stop asking logical questions because I was becoming too interested in the very thing they wanted me to be interested in. This marked the second stage of my fall from faith.

The final fall from grace… well that is pretty simple. I realized around the time I was sixteen that religion didn’t make sense and that though it taught some very decent morals it went about it the wrong way; at least at my church they did. I found by the age of eighteen I had a understanding of the religion they wanted me to know and also to teach others about. I understood that what they were wanting was for me to follow a path that I didn’t believe and couldn’t understand why anyone else would want to believe either. The basics were good, don’t steel, don’t cheat, don’t murder, and don’t covet. All these things were good morals to live by, but the catch with religion was that you were told not to do these things because that loving god upstairs is watching you like an evil dictator waiting for you to screw up so he can pimp slap the shit out of you and send your soul to a fiery hell. Again, doesn’t seem like a loving god that they teach in Sunday school to small children. The ideas taught were of obedience and submission through fear of the unknown. This for me was the greatest wrong anyone can do, they told me that if I couldn’t accept on “faith” that they were right then I should leave. So I did and have not been very welcomed there since. Let’s talk a little about faith, faith is a funny word. Let’s see what dictionary.com has to say the definition of “faith” is.

–noun
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

By looking at these explanations of faith we see that what the church I attended wanted me to understand was number three “belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion” But for me number two was what made number three invalid. “belief that is not based on proof”. This is also reflected in the bible as well Hebrews 11 verse 1 states according to the King James Bible “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” I am not going to preach out of the bible, but I use this to illustrate my point that even in the bible faith is a hope or belief in something that there is no proof of or evidence to support as a theory. For me this is the straw that broke the camels back, this was the final piece to the puzzle that had plagued me for nearly a decade. This led me on a quest to understand other religions and in the process find what I could believe in. during that time I spent a fair amount of time exploring things that had little or nothing to do with religion, but let’s face it. I didn’t get to see porn or even rated R boobs until I was sneaking into theaters and I felt I had some making up to do. So there were many a night I spent in less than Christian locations. I looked into Zen, a little into Islam (by the way, screw the seventy two virgins, give me one experienced girl. That is about all I can handle) I even into other strange mystic crap. Turns out each was just as full of shit as the next, but they each were glad to take my cold hard cash for educating me in their religion. Scientology, that made up religion at least advertises that you have to pay to get to the mother ship! Christianity, they just pass a bag or plate down the pews each week and make you feel bad for not giving to the church every week. Because if you don’t give to the church then the preacher who has dedicated his life and sacrificed so much for the good of the people may have to trade in that caddy and drive a Chevy instead. I’m not going to get started on the finances of religion right now; it isn’t a subject I want to delve into because I want to keep my dinner down. Some of the practices in churches are sickening when it comes to the finances.

Religion at its core is a decent idea for those who fundamentally need a hope to hang onto. A dream that they will live on beyond this world is common and a absolute cornerstone of religion. They tell you do good and you will be rewarded, be good and you will go to heaven. I say fuck that shit! Do good because it is right! Be good because what you do now impacts those around you and the future generations that are left after us. Care for those we will leave behind when we pass. Ask yourself which is better, to do a good deed because you will be rewarded by a overseeing entity that will punish you if you don’t do good? Or is it more rewarding to do good deeds not because you want the reward of not being punished, but because it is from your heart and you feel and know it is the right thing to do. I go to sleep each night knowing and understanding that my actions each day leave a foot print in the world, how I walk will leave either damage to the world that will take time to repair or if I am careful and caring with my footfalls I will create a path that leave no damage and by doing this I leave this world better than I found it. I know that some churches teach to do good for goodness sake, but do they teach tolerance of other religions? Or do they teach that only those who ascribe to the beliefs of that church will reach a paradise after they die? For me I believe that this is it, what we do here is the only shot we have at life. We live and die here and our legacy will be what lives on forever in the lives of those we leave behind. If I am wrong though, somehow I think that if there is a “god” he\she\it would be a fair and just god. God would look at each person and determine by the life they led if they were a good person and worthy of “paradise”. Throughout history some of the greatest crimes against humanity have been carried out in religions or god’s name. If the world were free of religion a couple things would happen. First many people wouldn’t know how to do anything because they believe Jesus still makes the sun rise each morning and if the sun came up without Jesus making it rise their little brains would explode all over their cheerio’s. I personally like cheerio’s and would hate to see them wasted by having dumb peoples brains all over them. The other thing that would happen is the religious wars that have caused America to attack Iraq, Pakistan and other Middle Eastern countries would end. The world would find that they are pretty much the same for the most part, and that most people want the same things. They want peace and happiness. They want their families to be healthy and safe. People would stop killing because someone else didn’t believe that their religion was the only way. True as humans we would just find another reason to kill each other, but at least you wouldn’t have read this long blog by me!

Let me leave you with this thought, if at eight years old I was thinking Zombie Jesus would be cool to see… how fucked up was I even then? Oh come on! You have to admit that Zombie Jesus next Easter would be totally awesome! Fuck it! I’m going as Zombie Jesus for Halloween!

Don't screw with my ketchup

A few years ago I was a little more vile, a bit misogynistic and much more of a asshole. What I’m about to disclose is all true, no liberties with creative writing. There is a time in most men’s lives when you care about one thing and one thing only. No it isn’t sex, it’s themselves. This story is at a time when I was living that selfish life to its fullest, it was full of sex, debauchery, vanity, stupidity and lots of alcohol. How I survived those years are still a bit of a mystery, perhaps one day I will find a few clues on YouTube as I am sure some of my adventures were filmed by someone’s camera-phone.

It was a warm summer night by the time I returned home from a long day working to find my roommate in a particularly good mood. Not to say that he was a morose fellow or a person depressed from repressed childhood of not getting the bicycle that he kept asking for as a boy. In fact he was a rather cheerful guy, but this night he was as a child who was just informed that the bicycle that he has been begging his dad for all year was just told it was sitting on the front porch. “What are you doing tonight?” Craig asked. “No plans as of yet, probably head to Jerry’s and see what is going on down there, you?” Craig gets a big grin on his face that clearly gives away that he has a date with one of the girls he recently met online via Myspace. For those women out there who are insane enough to read my blog let me advise you of one thing you should already know, DON’T EVER MEET ANYONE FROM MYSPACE! “So who is she and why do I have a feeling you are about to ask for a favor?” Craig laughed and told me of a girl he had been talking with on the internet and that she wanted to meet up but would only go if she had a friend come with her, she also requested that Craig bring a date for her friend so it could be a group date. Now the idea of a date with a potentially good looking girl without even so much as flirting at a smoke filled bar was one that brought that same bicycle grin to my face. I shower and cologne myself up and out the door we go. The plan for the night was rather simple. Meet the girls at a local restaurant that had a bar in it for dinner and drinks then see how everyone was feeling then perhaps venture on to a club or other activities. Let me pause here for just a moment and tell you that if you are expecting a steamy date story and hot romance or even that a friend is made from this situation, you are very wrong. This story doesn’t have a happy ending, it has a train wreck of an ending and to be honest I wouldn’t change a thing about this night if I had it to do over again. The restaurant is a local haunt that I spent many nights in and miss to this day. They brew their own beer and let me tell you, it’s a damn fine beer! Craig and I are seated at a corner booth table; this booth is a rounded table with a wrap around bench. So no matter where you are sitting you are next to a person. This is usually conducive to a date and so neither Craig nor I were abject to having this as the table for a double date. We are seated and order a couple beers and chat about this girl is that he is meeting for the first time. I learned that this would be the first face to face meeting that they would have and that he was actually interested in this girl for more than just a notch in his belt; so good behavior was requested on my part for the evening. If you are wondering why he actually had to ask me to behave it is because I am very outspoken and can be crass at times. I will be the first to admit that I don’t have a filter in my head that stops my mouth from spilling out the thoughts that formulate in my brain before they escape and offend those they are directed at. I have little to no regret about anything I say as nearly everything I say is complete honesty from me. Those who are my friends, are my friends by choice and have either learned to ignore this part of me or embrace it and are no longer offended by my linguistic disability. Craig asked me to behave because he has been a friend long enough to know that if I don’t put forth great effort to curtail my tongue that bad things sometimes happen. Though I have brought more girls home because of my blatant conversation than I have been turned down by, I understood that tonight wasn’t about me. It was about him meeting someone he had invested time in and wanted the evening to go well. I hated to tell him there is a flaw in his plan, that flaw is me. Craig should have known that when it comes to meeting people there are very few who can tolerate me and even less I tolerate. At that point in my life I had a very real issue of putting up with ignorant or stupid people, and to me most people were one or the other. Don’t worry, I’ve mellowed in the last few years a bit and I have learned that not everyone falls in one of those two categories. I learned that there are many more that needed adding to this list, like people who smell, the annoying and the stuck-up too good for everyone else, also the religious zealots who can’t seem to get through their heads that there is more to life’s questions than “god wants it that way”.

Waiting on girls, Craig and I sit and converse between ourselves and the waiter in friendly banter. I behave myself with waiters because I know they can spit in my food or drink and I would never know. The girls were supposed to meet us at 8pm which as I looked down at my watch was now half an hour ago. “Did you tell them eight or nine? I ask Craig who reaffirms that it was supposed to be eight. We wait another twenty minutes before I decide that these girls are stupid and are standing us up, I wasn’t about to let two inconsiderate twats ruin my evening in one of my favorite places. (Yes I had emotional displaced anger) I place an order for a burger and fries along with another beer, what Craig ordered escapes me at this point. The order takes roughly half an hour to arrive, and as our food is placed on our table guess who walks in? The two women who think that mimicking Sex in the City stars would impress a couple of guys who worked for FedEx. Little did they know that both of us hate that show, so the imitation Sex in the City girls saunter to our tables like divas and I want nothing more than to take the salt bottle, uncork the cap and toss it in both their eyes for being late and acting like it was no big deal. Their arrival came at the worst possible time for them as I was already annoyed that I had wasted my evening waiting on a couple girls who dressed like they couldn’t figure out if they wanted to be sexy or old ladies, lets just say I had no interest in them and had passed up meeting up with other girls that I regularly spent time with at Jerry’s bar. By this point I was hungry and I had given up on behaving, the combination of these things culminated in an annoyed anger at the girls showing up over an hour and a half late. Craig on the other hand was excited and happy to see them walk in, I on the other hand wanted to tell them to piss off and never bother showing either of their faces anywhere near me, oh and if they could be so kind as to die on the way out the door it would be appreciated. But being the friend I am I bit my tongue and smiled as they arrived. Introductions were made Marie was whom Craig has been talking with and her friend was Jennifer. (No not the Jennifer from my other stories, this is a different one) We settle into our seats, Marie and Craig then Jennifer and I. We wave down the waiter and order drinks for the girls, both order cliché cosmo’s, I was even further annoyed. Marie and Craig waist no time in chatting and I was quickly informed that Jennifer was a good Christian girl. Jennifer quickly confirmed this and was quick to ask if I believed in Jesus just as I pick up the bottle of ketchup and proceed to pat the bottom to extract the red contents to smother my fries. I can’t remember what else Jennifer said after the Jesus question as I was engrossed in my ritual of getting the ketchup out of the bottle, plus by now I hate her. It takes a patients and tenacity to get ketchup out of a glass bottle when it is brand new. Something I have learned is it is always worth the effort to gently pat the bottom of the bottle at a downward angle. Some people will swing the bottle at their plate like they are attempting to stab their fries while picturing that they are stabbing the face of the girl next to them who just asked if they believed in Jesus. This usually ends with an enormous splat of ketchup landing on the plate, fries, burger and people around the mock murder scene. I think this is funny to watch as it is a little retribution for those jackasses acting like they are stabbing something so as I pat the bottom of my bottle I crack a smile while ignoring Miss moderate, because lets face it that is exactly what she was. So as I gently pat my bottle of ketchup next to a girl who caused me to miss out of my friends and delayed my dinner time greatly I feel that urge to tell her to “fuck off I don’t care about your last church trip” but I don’t, instead I smile and act like I’m interested…I’m a good friend. This girl was moderately attractive, not something that would catch my attention at the bar or mall, but was thin and tall. She had a face that was less than desirable but again I was here as support for my buddy and not trying to score a one night stand. About thirty seconds into me patting the bottom of the bottle Jennifer stops mid sentence and says to me “Give me the bottle, I will get the ketchup out” in a slightly annoyed voice. “Great” I think to myself “she is already pulling this shit”. I remembered that I promised to be nice so I simply reply “It’s ok this is a new bottle, it will just take a minute”. This was completely unacceptable to her, “no just give it here I’ll use the knife to get it out.” I look down at the steak knife on the table, it is one of the extra large knives that are far bigger than needed to cut through a piece of beef, in fact I think these knives might actually be better suited to triage amputation on a battlefield in world war two; or to stab the girl demanding a ketchup bottle… anyway it is simply much too large to fit into the small spout of the ketchup bottle, so I state the obvious, at least to me. “The knife is too big, it won’t fit, don’t worry I got this”. She was not happy with my show of independence and must have determined that I was inept and incapable of caring for my own ketchup needs, she reaches for the bottle and that was the final straw and the camel’s back broke. Say goodbye to me playing nice, the filter that I had worked so hard on for the last minute crumbled and melted into a seven simple words, words that if used in any other sentence would not carry much power, words that said in a different tone would have been cause for a slight laugh. This was not the tone I used and as I pull the bottle away from the overbearing woman then continue to pat the bottom and without looking at her I say plainly in a near monotone voice sprinkled with a tiny bit of hatred “fuck off, who made you my mother?” Silence envelops the table and a light goes off over my head. I glance up to Jennifer mortified that I would speak to her in such a tone, my eyes move to her friend who was now starting to stutter while terror was plainly etched into every pour of her face. Craig on the other hand just starts laughing and says “and this is Adam”. I cock on eyebrow up and continue patting my bottle of ketchup and within a couple more pats the ketchup was flowing freely onto my plate and for that one moment with two women stunned to silence and my friend laughing all was right in the world. The sense of accomplishment I had from the ketchup made me feel completely vindicated in stating what I stated to the overbearing bitch who decided that I was just a stupid man who couldn’t take care of getting his own ketchup out.

I have been over this story with many people, the first thing out of many people is “Adam, she was probably just trying to be nice and be friendly”. I thought about this and I have to say no that isn’t true, if you were there you would have wanted to use her head to pat the bottom of the bottle of ketchup. If she was trying to be nice she would not have tried to take the bottle away from me for starters and she also would not have spoken in an annoyed and condescending tone. Now I know I’m an asshole and I should have handled this situation better, but like I said at the beginning of this story I feel that if I were to be in this situation again I would respond much the same way. I don’t take well to people of any gender speaking to me as if I am ignorant and incapable of handling simple tasks, the tone and situation was one that setup the outcome, so I blame her and her cosmo drinking ass. Perhaps if the girls had been considerate enough to call ahead and say that they would be running late I might have been less annoyed by them. Perhaps if the first thing out their mouths were not statements that indicated that they believed the only thing Craig or I were interested in was taking them home and fucking, things may have gone differently. I know that many men can think of little else, but I was not one of those men. I was in fact the man that only thinks of himself and at that particular moment I wanted ketchup and food, not a piece of miss moderate. To say the rest of the evening was awkward is an understatement, at least on their part. I was too pissed off by the girl that now had moved as far from me as possible and sat quietly scowling at me sipping her fruity drink to feel awkward. I ate my food (which by the way my fries with ketchup were awesome) and I looked at Jennifer and knew that I had to just sit and bide my time. Idle chit chat happened between the four of us, but it was nothing more than courtesies. The time they spent was rather short before Marie and Jennifer “had” to leave. To which I simply waved and said “have a great evening, nice to meet you” with the biggest smile and asshole written on my face. I turned to Craig and say “god you can find the biggest bitches in the world to meet up with. Her friend wasn’t even cute enough for me to fake being nice too so I could sleep with.” Craig burst into laughter and says “my god you are an asshole, I mean I knew you were an asshole but really you outdid yourself by telling her to fuck off.” I shrug my shoulders and respond by ordering another round of beers to try to take the edge off.

Smell that? It's Fall everyone!

Good morning, it’s been a couple days since we last visited and though it has been rather uneventful for me in respect of finding things of entertainment I am not without something to say. Those who know me well know that I am rarely without comment, so the prior statement will cause some of you to roll your eyes… Yes I saw that Deb!

October is upon us and I fucking love it! I have to say my favorite season is fall, I enjoy spring and watching everything turn green and come back to life after a long winter of being coated in brown’s and white’s with gray skies and a bitter wind biting your nose. I like cold weather more than most people I know, but I won’t say I love it. I enjoy summer for what it offers in the way of entertainment. Summer offers hot days perfect for being at the lake riding the jet skis and flirting with the girls in their bikinis. But fall is my favorite season for a few reasons, first and foremost is I love the weather! I love waking to temperatures in the forties or even in the thirties, I love taking my cup of fresh brewed coffee out my front door and breathing in the crisp air. It vitalizes me; it’s almost as good as that first breath after holding your breath underwater after being dunked and held under in the deep dark of a murky lake by those you thought loved you. The fall morning breath though isn’t preceded by moments of sheer terror and fear of loosing your life. Of course this thought might also have weight in the reason I prefer fall over summer, less chance of being drowned by people that you trust. Anyway, while standing on my porch this fine fall Saturday morning I couldn’t help but think of how nice it would be to wake up and walk out my door and not see the houses across the street from me, which of course led me back to my dreams I had last night. The dream I speak of had a young girl about the age of eleven blowing up Wal-Mart’s. A thought I find truly funny and brings a clown sized grin to my face while enjoying my coffee. Speaking of clowns, a side note to that thought I recommend anyone who is a fan of comedies and zombie movies to go see Zombieland, it was absolutely hilarious! Fall though is a time of a few of my favorite things. Bonfires with friends, chili, nights spent curled up on the couch with a blanket and a girl watching movies, and breaking out the heaving comforter for the bed! You might think me strange but I am a fan of tossing off the blankets to the chill of a morning tickling every exposed pore of flesh first thing in the morning. This time of year the leaves start to fall and everything that has been green for months change and show the personality that each living thing has, during the fall vibrant colors come out that you wouldn’t expect from places like Oklahoma. For instance, if you drive down 71st street in Tulsa by memorial you will see trees turn bright orange and red which is set off by the still green grass of the lawns there and the red brick lane throughout that area. Fall churns up some of the best memories; in fact I would say that I am most nostalgic this time of year. I have come to realize I feel nostalgic this time of year partly because I know that a long winter is ahead and I better enjoy the last coughing breaths of warmth left over from summer. More pointedly though is that in the back of my mind I know this is the time of year where things leave, trees hibernate, grass turns brown and starts to die and before long we see the desolation left after life has left the frail world we live in. I guess I have to say that at this moment I feel my mortality more than any other time of year, not by any act of tragic making but by natural reminders that we are nothing more than tiny insignificant bits of carbon and if I’m not careful I will have done nothing in my life to leave behind something that will make this planet a slightly better place for those I leave behind. But thanks to modern medicine and science I get to live twice as long as my great great grand pappy and great great aunties and uncles. But still in the grand scheme of things of a planet that has been around for a few million years, seventy years of my life is but a minor spark. But because I realize this I feel inspired to change that spark to a burning white hot phosphorous grenade. Though we might all burn shortly due to the limited time of life we have a choice is given to each of us of how brightly we choose to burn. Some might say if you burn to brightly you burn out too fast. I say, if you think like that it is simply because you are afraid of stretching yourself beyond your comfort bounds. Try something new, like yoga or even yogurt but try something new. Fall reminds me to step out and help when I would be inclined to pass by the person broke down on the side of the road. Fall helps remind me that humans have the greatest capacity for good or the ability to be the biggest assholes on the planet by not caring.

Ok I’ve gone on long enough on this, but I want to leave you with a teaser for what I am working on. It’s a story from a few years ago when I was even less capable of considering other peoples emotions or feelings. It’s a story of a double date that brings out the worst in me. This was the night that I earned the title of “fucking asshole”. Yep it’s true, just wait and see.