November 12, 2002

If you have heard of this Epistolary Gigolo; let me know. Please. I respect the use of pseudonyms and won't ask for a name. I am just curious to know if others hereabouts have heard about this. If you haven't, let me explain what I do know:

This letter I've received is mostly a strange irreverent pitch in which he introduces himself as "Your Epistolary Gigolo" and explains what this means, which, basically, is that he (I'll just assume it's a he - as "he" claims to be) wants to send me letters. One every other week. His premise is that there is a joy to receiving actual letters on paper and as this joy is now rare, he is there to provide what's been missing, there to satisfy my epistolary needs, if I want to be his John.

I should mention that he doesn't come across as a Luddite freak. He apparently believes in the thrill of old-school letters and has decided to use this as his way to express himself, to spread his writing in this way - anonymously, by night (as it were), stockings and all.

He is not a pen pal. It's a one way thing. He does not expect me to write him back. He doesn't want me to write him back.

But it is more than an absurd pitch letter. It includes X tangents and a Y short story, mixed into what should be an Endnotes page, but is really mocking the whole Endnote craze in modern literature, while simultaneously adding to it with an excessive new twist that I won't try to explain.

He is a writer. This is clear from the letter, a good one, and this is about all he blatantly admits to, as far as who he is. (He does actually give a brief bio - which is ridiculous - but it doesn't help me know who he is.) He wants to live cheap, have adventures, and write. He is hoping being an Epistolary Gigolo will help him gain or maintain this freedom.

For this "service" he asks me to mail him a check once a month.

This immediately chimed the suspicion bell, "This Gigolo is a shady business whore, some moderately slick entrepreneurial character, sneaking below the radar with appeals to the good old days of hand-held letters."

Nah.

This plea for money came early in the letter. My gut kicked in and I decided, resolutely, that this shameless wordslut would never see a penny from my pocket. I only continued reading for the cynical pleasure of seeing how low this beggar would go. But I kept reading.

The letter lured me along with silly arguments, metaphors, some sharp analogies, some stupid, and a strange sense of honesty. Strange to say "honesty" about a mystery person who blatantly says that while what he writes is true, he will lie if he wants.

By the end of the letter I was scratching my head (it hurts me to say that, because he said I would be scratching my head. But so what? - I was.) I had thought he'd be selling something more. But he didn't.

He's only selling writing delivered as letters, not some magic pill that may not arrive or that may not turn out to be magic. His deal is that you only pay for the last two letters you already received - so you're paying for "services" already rendered. If you don't like the letters, if you don't mail him money after the first two, the game is over, he sends no more. Another thing that muffled the scam bell was his price of $5 per month, for two letters - hardly a steep charge, hardly an attempt to get rich. In fact, the $5 is a suggested donation. Indeed, he claims you can pay what you want, whatever you think it's worth. Just so long as I send him at least $1 a month - to pay for his paper, envelopes, and stamps - he says the Epistolary Gigolo will keep making the rounds.

I am supposed to make my check payable to `Epistolary Gigolo'. I know something about banks and business accounts and I can only imagine what the banker thought when this character sat down at their desk and asked to open an account under the name of Epistolary Gigolo. Perhaps it was this image of the Gigolo and the banker that pushed my curiosity over the edge. If his second letter is half as interesting as the first, I'm going to mail him a dollar, not only to get two more letters but also to know that somewhere some banker is actually going to have to clear a $1 check written to an official gigolo.

Why not?

If this person is real and his next letter's interesting - it's worth it.

If the quality drops, I just don't mail another buck/check.

And so I am going to go against my gut instinct. If, in a month or two, he tries to sell me something, or begs for money for his mother's operation, or some such, then I will know my gut reaction was right. Until then, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

In fact, it is BECAUSE I am a cynical person that I am going to check this out further, read the second letter and then decide, because it would be hypocritical for me, while bemoaning the superficiality and cheapness of this overly commercialized society, to reject something genuinely ballsy and original and of a peculiar but real quality.

If I thought this was just some friend of mine, I wouldn't write this up. I have been wracking my brain trying to figure out who this person is. I assume I must know him because it can't be a mass mailing scam because the letter is too long (10 single spaced pages), too crazy, and the odds of it reaching people who would bother to read it are so astronomically against him that it would've cost hundreds of dollars in stamps just to find one potential "John."

And it is no specialized niche marketing thing either, because there is no company that would market this and even if there were they would surely include a self-addressed stamped envelope. He didn't. It is entirely up to me to actually waste my time and find an envelope, write Epistolary Gigolo on it, buy a stamp, and mail it to this New York address. This is a one man show. So, I figure I must know him. But I don't. I have called or emailed everyone I know who it could conceivably be. Absolutely nothing. Unless he lurks here?

I remember hearing a story (almost certainly an urban myth) about Dylan playing in the subways of New York sometime in the mid 80's: strumming and singing down there enjoying the anonymity of it, people walking by, some stopping to listen, most not, and once someone (supposedly a writer from Rolling Stone) telling him he sounded like a shitty Dylan clone. I don't mean to start any myths, but it did cross my mind that this Gigolo could be a well known author. Surely this is just a benevolent conspiracy theory, and I doubt it because it just doesn't happen, just as you never fall in love with the poor girl and then find out she is really a billionaire's daughter who had played the pauper act in order to find someone to love her for who she was.

Curious thing.

I would like to scan this and put it up on the web for you who are curious to check it out, so you could give me your thoughts. But I won't. It would be wrong. It would be to sabotage the essence of what this person is apparently trying to do.

However, I don't think photocopying and dropping it in the mail would be morally unacceptable - as this is hardly any different from what he is already doing. So, if you're curious, I'll do that. Send me whatever name you want but of course I need a real address.

And, finally, if you are the Epistolary Gigolo, you who is reading this, then I have these things to say to you:

If you do know me, why not just confess? I'm not mad. It's a fucking hysterical idea. I'll buy you a beer. What's the point in hiding from me?

Hat's off so far, but if there's anything brewing in the future about your cousin needing money for a new wheelchair, you're in trouble.....

And, BTW, the Carmen McCrea song is entitled "Little Butterfly," not "Pannonica" and I don't believe "Little West 12th Street" exists in Manhattan - I lived there.

`The Golden Goose tossed to achieve the golden goose' - was an especially nice touch.

OK E2, if you know anything about this, let me know. If you want sight of the original letter, /msg me with your address and I'll happily mail you a copy.

Update: A goodly number of fellow citizens hereabouts have asked for copies of the letter, which I have begun dispatching. To keep the administration of this in check, from now on I will be sending anyone-else-who'd-like-a-copy's address directly to the source and thus you will get your own 'clean' and original letter.

Not Turning Away

He's looking with an experienced brow.
I'm not seeing him though, only the blond hair 
And pool of life surrounding her.  She's looking 
Up and East in the direction I am driving, her mouth 
In an unnatural position of surprise and misunderstanding.

I'm quickly shocked by the wrong things.  
I look to her arms and legs expecting to see
The result of 10-stories worth of gravity, 
But there is nothing awry.  She's only dropped 
Off her chair or bike or maybe just walking on 
The curb with an armload of something and will 
Be getting up again as soon as the embarrassment 
                                  ends.
  
That wetness in the hair will be washing out 
Easily, and the clothing can be replaced.

My mouth is closed.  My eyes are shuttling 
From the police to the people to the girl 
And not seeing any of them.  She is there 
Now, but the rhythm is missing from her breast 
And the lights that were animating are moving 
At the fixed speed toward the East.  Sleeping 
Remains complete and unashamed in the West.

He waves me impatiently forward and I roll 
In first gear and turn North.  Not seeing the roads 
Or signs or dashed yellow lines that guide me daily 
On this way.  The images I hadn't seen now replaying 
                     For my reason to redesign. 
And I'm not sure how long it will take to actually arrive.


(note: it's a true experience, and much more intense than I can possibly write.
 Please feel free to /msg me with constructive comments.)

¡A rant!...
On current theory of dreams...
Inspired by Lucid dream...
For JerboaKolinowski...
...!A rant¡

• The "imaginary" register is the domain of images and ideals. This is the domain of the ego, which is an essentially falsifying agency that gives a sense of unity to a body that is, in reality, fragmented and uncoordinated. The ego provides an image that is a unified, ideal, glossed over/false reality. This image is part of the so-called imaginary domain.
• The "symbolic" register is that of semiotics. Symbolism gives "meaning" to the world. (By definition, the definition of meaning is signification.) The symbolic is composed of signifiers and signifieds. One's relation to the image is structured by the symbolic. Language belongs to the symbolic register. The texture of our world is symbolic.
• The "real" register is that which resists signification, that which we cannot situate or explore.

Now, the interesting thing about dreams is that symbolic register is totally missing while the dream is occurring. Only afterwards, when one wakes up, is symbolism imposed upon dreams. This is not to say that dreams have no substance. Merely that their substance is "meaningless", in the literal sense of the word. Everything is immediate.

Example:

While dreaming, I see someone whom I know without any equivocation is my father. This person's form is unclear but unneccessary to the dream. Without any sort of signification, I immediately, directly know that the person is my father. Hence, the substance of the dream (that the person is my father) is immediate.

But when I am awake, I may remember the person as my father (perhaps with difficulty), but only through association and signification of my memory of the form of my father. My memory is subject to the symbolic order.

It also appears that dreaming's lack of symbolism is intimately connected with forming/restructing/playing out signification according to some (logical) laws.

Symbol-blindness is what gives one the strange sense of tunnel-vision when dreaming.

One could insert an interesting tangent about the different psychoactive mechanisms of LSD and Ketamine here. LSD causes attention to detail and texture, and is thus in the analytic domain of the symbolic. Ketamine is at the opposite end of the spectrum: it causes disassociation (i.e. mutes the symbolic), increased attention to archetype (which is the domain of the imaginary), and thus a feeling of tunnel-vision.

Napalm on forests and piles of dead kittens,
Bright gleaming barrels and enemies smitten,
Brown Fedex packages rigged to go bang,
These are a few of my favorite things!

Smog tainted skylines and vile fascist regimes
Evil overlord lists and domination schemes
Crippled young children that have STDs
These are a few of my favorite things

Sluts in black panties with no inhibitions,
Nuclear warfare and unscheduled fissions,
Spreading downvotes and then getting 10 chings
These are a few of my favorite things!

When the trolls write
The death borg bites
When I'm feeling mad
I simply reflect on my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad!

~ a true story about the ninjagirls ~

11/07/02 06:43 <Cletus the Foetus> OMG one day i was walkin down the road ok? and i sees this chocolate bar that nobody was eatin. and the bar used crazy mind powers to talk to me. it said like this: "I am the food. You are the eater. Now do yo' damn job bitch."

11/07/02 06:44 <Cletus the Foetus> OMG LOL ASL i was so scared i ran home. but not before i ate the chocolate! because i know how to do my damn job!

11/07/02 06:46 <witchiepoo> CthF - please write a story that longer but starts just like that. It would make me very very happy.

attn: imaliterarygenius@hotmail.com
from: jlivingston@islandtelecom.com
re: A story for witchiepoo
date: Nov 7, 2002

Ok lady, you asked for a story and you're the hell damn going to get a story!

A STORY BY ME!!!

I live in the city. ok so one day i was going down the street to fouads convenience store to pick up some one percent milk and also some gatorade for my grammy. because she plays hard and wants refreshing drink after her sports. and fouad is wicked because hes got this big gat and he scared a buncha gang kids away one time with it. i think they were the west side gop kids – they wore fancy silk neckties an shit, totally fruity theme gang like in a clockwork orange only sissies. fouad calls me sparky.

but the way to the store is through the bad hood, in fact its the baddest hood of all, its seventeenth century bristol. you know what that means. yup. lots of pirates.

so i was walking along through seventeenth century bristol and this pirate jumps outta the bushes. he opens this big umbrella. the umbrella is black with a big white stripe spiralling into the middle. he sets it to face me and goes Look into my umbrella. yarr matey. you be feelin mighty sleepy lad. yarr. And he started spinnin the umbrella at me. so i thought Oh holy damn, this guys tryin to hympotize me. And you know what? good gracious it worked.

i didnt have any money on me because i get the gatorade and one percent milk on credit from fouad, he puts it on our tab and we pay it at the end of the month. and it wasnt the end of the month. so. i had no money. so the pirate reckons Ok, i got this kid hippotized, and he has got zero monies so i guess i have to keep him as a slave. Did you know this is the true story of how i became a pirate's cabin boy?

but being a cabin boy for a seventeenth century pirate who knows hyptosis is not a picnic. you'd think Ooh, a cabin boy? is that like a cabana boy with the tight little trunks and the rosy cheeks under the bronze tan of a beach god? And the answer is no. did you know you can get scurvey? i didnt until i did.

anyway this pirates name was latka, kinda like from taxi only latka from taxi kicks out the jams way phatter than this pirate latka. latka the pirate wasnt a funny crazy immigrant, he was an angry serial rapist with some other kinds of mental problems too. when he was a kid he wanted to learn how to fix his own mental problems and thats how he learned the hypsotism. but afterwards he was like Hell damn i got these mad skills now, i could use them to be a good happy person or i could use them to get some treasure and some hot village girl booty as a pirate. So latka chose the career of pirate. also he had a lot of anger in him and pirates get to vent their anger a lot, like on peoples heads with swords; so i guess you could say he was predisposed to the profession in the first place.

ok i lived as latkas cabin boy for one whole year. an i got scurvey an fleas an i got some typhoid i think, and also i had dysentery for like a whole week. also i got mono. latka drank a lot of "grog" but it wasnt real grog it was really strawberry dacquiries. but he called it grog because he wasnt comfterbal with his sexuality. also he didnt let me off the ship ever, and this was related to his mental problems because they made him mean. he gave ma a hammock though an i aint never had one of them before so that was kinda cool. but he would laugh at me if i got tangled up and look man, that's just nott cool, hammocks are scary.

but one day i broke outta my hyprotized state and i said You cant catch me with your hypsersnism any more! pirate! And i ran away. i went along the coast to find a village that was safe and friendly, and also that happened to have a lot of sexy girls. and i did, but you know what? it was kinda scary too.

so i walked into this village and there was all this japanese shit going on with stuff. like a japanese restaurant and japanese temples and japanese money. there was punk music but all the words were in japanese. and there was these hot babes all over the place.

so i walked up to one and she had this nametag an it said Yo nigga, my name be "a ninjagirl" and the chickie who was wearin it said Whats yer business with the ninjagirls penisperson. (This is secret code in the allgirl village for people who have a penis. like me because im a boy.) So i said I just escaped from pirates! an i need protection!

But the ninjagirl said Dont worry dude, we can kick all the pirate ass. there are just so many ninja girls here that you dont understand. pirates would crap themselves before seriously thinking of attacking here. and heres our names: chee-zoodah, an gracie, an mundie, an ninjapenguin (because she rocks the flow so hard it got diverted and flooded a bunch of little dutch villages an i think some kids died), an ee-no-nee (this one was hard for me because im stupid), an tempie, an the fab, and the wuuk, an grundie (who started the group but is not, for the purposes of this tale, their leader because she isn't the one who asked for the story) an all the others. An as she named them all of the ninja girls stepped out and it was totally nuts. i was like Holy crap youre like dwarves from a fairy tale except youre all taller than dwarves and you know the craxy shinobi jitsu skills! and you have cooters! And all the ninjagirls put their hands over their mouths bashfully and tittered and blushed. but they could stilla kicked my anus inside out if theyda wanted.

You should tell your story to our overlady One of the ninjagirls said. Shes always lookin for cabin boys and cabana boys and also camero boys but youre not one of those anyway. An she took me to the overlady whose name is witchiepoo. but dont worry the poo part is just a name, she wont try to poo on you. i know that because i was worried about that at first and the ninja girls laughed at me. but you know that because its y o u !! so you sad thing was that i said I need to go home and get some gatorade for grammy. An you said you could cast a magic ninja spell but only if i submitted a report in full.

THIS IS THAT REPORT!!! WORK YOUR NINJA MAGIC!!!

(ps holy shit i was half delirious with sleep deprivation when i wrote this, especially at the end)

love jeremy
aka cletus

Tuesday of the completely banal, normal, is this it daylog

Sometimes in dreams, and badly designed platform games, I find myself in some sort of pit, hole, or crater, staring up at the edge that I know marks the join with ground level. The stupid thing about this crater is not that I've fallen into it in the first place - it always catches me slightly by surprise, even though I've been watching it approach for some time - but that it seems impossible to escape from. No matter how hard I run, or how cleverly I launch myself up one side, turn, and sprint off to the bottom and up the slope opposite, I'll always run out of steam a little way before the top.

Sometimes in movies, a helpful droid saves the day, but this ain't the movies kid.

"The greatest gift you'll ever learn
is just to love, and be loved in return"

This is my life: I split up with my girlfriend 14 days ago, after 18 months together, thus bringing my total of unsuccessful long term relationships to three, and forcing me back into single life. I've been single for all of three months since the end of my second year at university, way back in the summer of 1995, and I'm not a big fan. I'm a simple boy with simple needs, who just wants to be loved. According to my personality profile, my moderate narcissism should take care of that, but sadly, it looks like my moderate paranoia is the stronger force these days. So I'm untouchable, unless I find a nice girl with a rebound fetish.

I've been out and about a bit, though, escaping Southampton to see somebody I used to know who seemed happy to see me, even though I'm such a crap friend that she'd deleted me from her mobile phone. I even managed to fit in morning tea in a hotel with my one and only media celebrity friend (Liquid News viewers will know who I'm talking about), on fine form as ever, but it's hard not to be jealous of a man whose biggest worry is how badly his fantasy football team is faring.

The only bright spot in being a miserable pile of bones on the cutting room floor is that suddenly I've noticed that every song that's ever been sung was written for and about me.

So, Johnny Marr's tuning up on my windowsill, and Morrissey's in my bedroom reminding me I'm unloveable, Aimee Mann's got my life figured out, and Airhead, Jesus! Airhead! I'd hoped that my life would amount to more than a couplet from a band whose airplay, as far as I could see, was restricted to an afternoon in the the electrical department at John Lewis "...and this model even has a bass boost". Oh yeah, what's that for then? "It masks the cheapness by making the system sound slightly less tinny."

Anyway, Airhead, unwittingly prescient, saw the last fortnight thusly:

"It's funny how the girls you fall in love with never fancy you. It's funny how the girls you don't, do."

You know who you are.

Not to be outdone by a bunch of hapless indiepoppers whose sole album was called "Boing!" (fer god's sake), Blur have since released a song of quintessential sadness. The kind of song that'll make me nod knowingly. Yup, they've found the nub alright.

No Distance Left To Run

It's over
You don't need to tell me
I hope you're with someone who makes you
Feel safe in your sleeping tonight
I won't kill myself, trying to stay in your life
I got no distance left to run

Heartbraking isn't it? No, you're right, not really. Yes, yes, I'll get on with it. Yes, worse things happen at sea, yes it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, and yes there's always someone worse off. I can think of one friend for whom that's certainly true, and my thoughts are with him.

Soon, I hope, I will be able to sing along with Alex Chilton in a totally unironic fashion, with no bitterness, and a grin to shame the cheshire cat. I'll be just another hopeless romantic, listening to appalling upbeat music. But life will taste so good I won't care. All together now:

"I'm in love with a girl
Finest girl in the world
I didn't know
I could feel this way"

Soon? How soon is now?

It reminds me of the times my father made me wander in the forest alone at night, whispering to myself.....

EVEN THE TREES MOCKED ME

I apologize.

The videotape was supposed to be for our use only. We never expected it to enter into widespread distribution. Yes, we killed the mother lamb. Right after it gave birth we put a bullet in its head. Then we took that somewhat willing chick Allie and both of us had rude and ungentlemanly sexual relations with her in front of a tractor while the newborn lamb, still frosted with afterbirth looked on. That lamb is going to grow up with severe emotional problems now. I'm sorry.

I apologize.

I pushed that old lady down. I lied to the cops about it, but I'll tell you the truth. We offered to help her cross the street. Six lanes of traffic going nowhere in particular. We were almost to the median when I grabbed the back of her head and shoved her down. We ran to the median and watched as a tractor trailer truck carrying roughly hewn logs bore down on her. She was helpless. We laughed. It wasn't funny. I'm sorry.

I apologize.

I got up a five in the morning every day for the last week and went down to the schoolyard. I distributed free packs of cigarettes to grammar school age children, as well as that old woodsy fellow who has been "left back" in the fifth grade since 1971. Hey, he can't pass the basic courses, so he has to keep repeating. He helped us force the kids to smoke pack after pack of Benson and Hedges 100s. Those kids are now never going to be able to collect social security. I'm sorry.

I apologize.

I did go to the high school dressed up like a sixteen year old girl and try out for the cheerleading squad over the weekend. I had to sleep with the coach, the quarterback and two linemen to do it. They had some pretty hefty sausages and that was cool with me. Kind of like having an extra large Jack Benny Plate. I made the squad and now I have been blowing off practices. Too many hot and sweaty muscular men looking on. I couldn't stand it. I insist on remaining mostly heterosexual and going to cheerleader practice might have an impact on that. I'm sorry.

I apologize.

I've slept with countless junkies and recovering alcoholics. Go to an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting sometime and check out the pickings! Most of them were not very clean, but I haven't had a test for STDs in more than a decade. I figure, what's the point? It will probably just be bad news. Now I'm gunning for your daughter's virginity. I'm sorry.

I apologize.

I eat a lot of greasy foods. I laugh at crippled children. I steal heart medication from old fellars. I injure small dogs for the amusement of myself and others like me. I look up girls' skirts. I urinate in people's coffee when they aren't looking. I swear in front of nice families while watching G rated movies at the theatre with them. I don't rewind videotapes. I steal anything that isn't tied down. I break everything else. I smell funny. Other than that, I'm really a pretty nice guy. I'm sorry.

Really, I am. I am really sorry. I need to find a priest or something. In lieu of that, can you forgive me?

The brick finally, finally fell out of the wall today.

Some background:

in the shipping/receiving room (which is mostly the shipping room... lots of stuff leaves here, but not much comes back), we have a bare-brick wall. It's a beautiful, old wall, original to the building. Plastered over once, discolored bits of which are still permanently bonded to the stone.

Anyway

This wall is convex. Severely convex, like the back of a deep spoon, with the more central bricks hanging on only by the tenacious edges of old, curmudgeonly grout. The center brick seemed to defy gravity...at least until this morning.

As some of you know, I work a lot of late nights; have ever since I started this job last year. I'd been assured that the wall had "been inspected" and was "completely harmless settling" and "not load-bearing", but, fearing collapse, I usually tried to get out of the shipping room as quickly as possible. Especially after I started hearing the tapping.

Everyone thought I was kidding.

But there it was. I didn't hear it all the time, it was very faint, but after hearing it once you really couldn't UNhear it ever again. Tapping, like a small hammer padded with thin leather, right in the center of the wall.

Sure, it was probably pipes. Old building, after all. But when you're at work late and hopped up on ire, you envision someone or something trapped in the featureless, crumbling warehouse next door. Someone or something with the will to tap softly on their prison wall, so intently for so long that the whole world might crumble.

There's construction on the floor above ours, and when they push heavy machinery around it feels like an earthquake. We'd all run to the shipping room door (foolishly... what if the whole wall came down?) and silently cheer for that proboscoid brick to drop. It never did. We'd drift away, more disappointed than we let on, back to our desks.

Everyone wanted me to lay off the tapping joke.

Today, there was all that rumbling downtown. We barely felt the tremors up here, so the Wall and Brick Issue didn't really occur to me; day after a day off is pretty busy after all. But I just took a tape back to the shipping room for FedEx... and there was a hole, deep and black, in the center of the wall. The brick had fallen out.

Joel had taken it right in the head.

I don't hear any more tapping.

It's amazing how easy it is to get laid when you stumble into a bar on Veterans' Day and claim that you did two tours in the 'Nam. A word about Scandinavian twins... the sex may be fantastic, but it's highly unlikely they're going to cook you breakfast in the morning. That's the second goddamned time in a week I've had to make breakfast for myself, and normally I'd let it slide like Astroglide, but after hearing the results of the Raiders-Broncos game, I was plenty pissed off. I gave Magdalena and Hannah a couple of bucks for the bus, threw on some buttonflys, and began plotting measures to be taken against Ernest.

I don't really give a flying fuck if he's the Sealer of Weights and Measures in this town... if he vetoes another one of my fantasy football trades, that fat bastard is going down. I'm sick of him and his bullshit, checking the cab meters and the gas gauges and putting his little stickers on everything in town. He's still pissed off cause I cut his son Tommy from Pop Warner, but honestly, if the kid could even put the shoulder pads on right he'd probably still be playing.

I'm sorry. That's not the point of the story.

The point of the story is this: the Canadian money must go. All of it. The wannabe quarter with the big fucking antelope on it, the lame-ass dime with the schooner on the back, whatever crazy shit is on the coins they call the nickel and the penny... all of them. Gone. I've been carrying around this Canadian quarter for three weeks now and I can't get rid of it. The washer and drier won't operate with it in the slot. The Coke machine spits it back out. Even the coin slot on the bus wouldn't count it towards my fare. This, my friends, is a conspiracy.

Things would be fine if only the machines ignored this cheap-ass worth-only-60%-of-real-money quarter. But this morning, shortly after pulling the protective tarps down off the wall in the bedroom and heading down to the Store 24 to get a cup of coffee, the goddamned immigrant behind the counter wouldn't take the quarter. Handed over like fourteen coins for a cup of coffee, and the guy notices the Canadian quarter. "We don't take the Canadian money" he says in broken English. Fucker. He's the prime suspect for delivering the bastard currency in the first place.

Maybe later I'll give the twins a call. But first I'm buying a handgun. It's gonna be OJ's day, Falling Down style.

Where I live is Medford
which is north of the Cambridge
which is north of the Charles
which is north of the Boston
and you'd be right to call it heaven.

Long distance to the other coast, my message being returned:

So this guy's comin up the street, right? And he's movin his mouth like he's gonna chew his ear and he's makin this movement like he wants to talk to me and I hate dealing with retards, man. They freak my shit out. I don't know what level to operate on. They make me feel real fuckin uncomfortable.

uh huh.

So he's makin this move to talk to me and then he coughs and sneezes at the same time, and I see he's not retarded after all! He just looks that way when he sneezes!

crazy. you find a roommate yet?

No, only people I've interviewed have been a bunch of assholes. Oh, but get this, you know that dude who was obsessed with me?

no, man.

Shit. This dude, right, comes by the place to check it out and likes all the right shit, but way too much. Fanboy. Shook my hand way too long. Smelled like a sweat sock in a subway. Didn't feel right, so I tell him I'll call him. Asshole spends the next week calling two three five times a day, til finally I tell him, "Hey, boy, I found you another roommate. I think he's an asshole too and that's why you might like him. Just don't ever call me again."

wow. harsh.

Yeah, but check it, the cops came by this morning to ask some questions about the dude. Turns out he stabbed his roommate in the shower with shards broken from the bathroom mirror, then shot himself in the head with a fucking flare gun.

what?
you're putting me on.

I shit you negatory, if divine Providence hadn't interceded and shied me away from a bad choice, I would have been murdered last night.

crazy, man.

Yeah, man. Crazy.
So your message said you need help with the rent?

yeah. one of my roommates got vacated today.

What happened?

it's complicated.

ET's got the magic touch and he doesn't come around much so, when he does, we really roll out the green carpet and go HOG NUTZ to make a splash. Like you have to try when ET is around, bitch laced up to the Keds and busting out of his skin. Shit, even the Fry Guys know bout when ET got juiced up on tanq and tanq and took a riding mower to his bitch's house in Dorcester.

So we were ready to roll out when Jammy, the gook, comes up the stairs and says someone's slashed our tires! The nerve! In our parking lot! In Medford! Of course we ran down and sure enough, rims to rubber to asphalt, and I immediately suspected the slanty, but ET played it off legit, r