We need to talk. I’ll be brief. But I won’t be nice. The time for nice has passed. The situation has gotten so out of control that only unniceness will do. Also, I am grumpy, and you know how I get when I’m grumpy. I apologize in advance for any undue grumpiness, but say also tough titty: something has to be done. So let’s get this over with. Here goes.

I swear to Christ I am going to pumpkin the next person who responds to anything that I say with, “I know…right?” Bam. A pumpkin right to the face. A gourd to the gourd. The “I know” is irritating, but asking me “right?” is downright offensive. Of course it’s right, you nebbish! Otherwise I wouldn’t have said it. Your endorsement is unneeded and unsolicited.

I’m sure you’re suddenly pissed off at me, but save it: there’s more. If you are an American in 2014 saying “At the end of the day,” just shut your word hole and walk away. That expression had achieved shameful cliche status in England by 1998. Just eliminate it from your speech and say what you really want to say. For example, instead of saying, “At the end of the day, I still think that Michelle is a vapid twat,” just cut out the cliche. Hell, cut out the “I still think.” Just be bold and speak the truth: “Michelle is a vapid twat.” Isn’t that better?

Okay. Now for the big one. This one is likely to alienate everybody I know, because virtually everybody I know does it…that’s what makes it so insidious. “It is what it is.” God. This is, perhaps, the most existentially useless statement ever uttered by a soccer mom. I can only assume that what people like about it is that it is a balanced sentence. Someone recently told me that it is Zen. I assure you it is not. It is to Buddhist thought what Hootie and the Blowfish was to classical music.

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Sorry I’ve been all incommunicado. Here’s what’s been going on. A couple months ago, an old friend showed up with a the biggest bottle of what appeared to be NyQuil I’ve ever seen, squawking about wanting to play his new drinking game.

“It’s called ‘Look,'” he said, waving the bottle around.

“What’s in that? Absinthe?”

“Fuck Absinthe…that stuff is terrible. This…this is the green Chartreuse!”
“Whatever. Tell me about your silly-ass game.”

“The game is simple. To play Look, tune to any round-table discussion on any cable news network. CNN, MSNBC, FNC…doesn’t matter. Personally, I like Special Report on Fox because Krauthammer.”

“Charles Krauthammer is a fucking superstar.”

“Okay, so everybody who’s playing needs a glass.”

“A shot glass?”

“Nope. A big, fuck off glass. This game is not for the timid.”

“Okay…we’ve got glasses. Now what?”

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And George Clooney. I want to fight George Clooney.

Here’s a haiku about today:

What a waste of time.
Didn’t write a goddamn thing.
Well, that’s not quite true.

I’m actually writing and working quite a bit. The problem is that I’ve got about 7 things I’m writing now, and I’m making progress on all of them, but not finishing any of them. The going is slow, but at least it’s going.

Still no rain. The situation is dire. See, rain to me is like wind to a sailor: without it, you just have to sit there and hope the crew doesn’t gang rape you while you die slowly of scurvy and shame. Whatever. I am about to roll the dice on a supernatural solution and try a traditional Nekid Celtic Rain Dance in the backyard. If that doesn’t work, I will sacrifice a goat. Somebody’s got to do something, and I’m somebody, dammit.

Okay, enough of this bilge…this whiskey isn’t going to drink itself.

And now for some haiku. A little 5-7-5 to clear the head and loosen us up. Here we go.

Jayson Gallaway
What a bad motherfucker
Jayson Gallaway

Hell, this is easy.

Douglas Adams rocked
He wrote The Hitckhiker’s Guide
Bad motherfucker.

Let’s try another.

Hannibal Lecter
Not necessarily real
He’ll eat your liver

Holy shit…I’m awesome at this.

I like the new Pope
He thinks gay people are cool
Listens to Abba

Thanks for burritos
You really outdid yourselves
Mexico kicks ass.

Holy shit, Jesus!
You said love one another.
Nailed you to a tree.

This is so much fun.
Man, I could do this all day.
Okay, I’ll stop now.

Dear Reader,

Namaste. And good God, wasn’t 2013 just a big bag of shit? It wasn’t the Worst Year So Far, but it was a very close second. Well…to hell with it. It’s over, and we got through it. Cheers to us.

Sorry I’ve been out of touch of so long, but I have been On the Goddamn Move. I am presently still hiding out in the suburban flatlands of California. It’s awful. Everything is exactly the same here every day. High of 63F in the daytime, just about freezing at night. No ice, no snow, no wind, no rain, no fog…nothing. Every day is sunny: not one cloud in the sky for three months. It’s the middle of winter, for fuck’s sake! Never in my life have I been this meteorologically bored.

[Takes a long slug of whiskey, looks to the sky, displays a defiant middle finger to the deity, then refocuses on the keyboard in front of him. Takes another drink of whiskey. Starts typing.] Continue reading →

An alarming number of pretty loaded psychological terms have made their way into the popular vernacular in the last few decades, been abused to the point of meaninglessness, and are now bandied about with shameful disregard, filling the world once again with people walking around saying things (usually very loudly) that they don’t mean at all.

In just the last month I have had no fewer than 5 women describe themselves to me as “anal.” These were not interactions with hookers, nymphomaniacs, future ex-wives, or anyone with whom I am intimate enough for discussions of analism to be appropriate, but rather very recent acquaintances or coworkers. And while contemporary American society may have become inured to this term to the point not batting a sphincter when it’s thrown around, I have not. Last week, a woman whom I had just met said, “I’m very anal about my desk.” If I were to take the literally, well, the mind simply reels at the various ways such a statement could be interpreted. To consider it a bit of an invitation would not be much of a stretch (sorry to use “anal” and “stretch” in such propinquity, but if it will help just one of you to quit bringing your anus into otherwise polite conversation, so be it). Even when viewed through the the filter of Freudian theory, there is no getting around that what you have just told me is that they are no more psychologically developed than a three-year-old, and that since you haven’t figured out your vagina yet, you’re just really into pooping. “But that’s no what I meant,” are the cries of the contemporary anal masses. But that’s what you fucking said. Not my problem. Continue reading →

Last night the school bus came back. It’s been 10 years since it showed up in my dreams, and I was very much in need of a visit.

It was daytime, but there was no sunlight. The sun never shines in my dreams. I was alone, of course, walking through a city, away from a mushroom cloud. My pace was steady: despite the destruction around me, I never broke stride. But I kept turning around to look at the cloud: it was so big it didn’t appear to be moving at all. The cloud had been there, taking up most of the horizon, for hours. All the other people on the busy street were transfixed, unable to break their collective gaze. But I forced myself to look in the opposite direction, where I was heading.

I made my way steadily through chaotic city streets filled with confused and injured people. Things were on fire. I had no fear, no sense of loss, nothing…I was just walking away. Then, a few blocks ahead of me, I watched as a large airplane flying way too low lose power, bank sharply, and crash down into a high-rise building and then onto the street . More flames, more chaos. Everything was dying. I kept walking.

I was walking through the plane’s wrecked carcass, observing the dead and injured, but not stopping, not talking. I got to the intersection of the next block, and that’s when the school bus pulled up. Continue reading →

Some seventeen Saturdays ago I was snuggling soundlessly on a sexy sectional with the girl who likes grellow, watching a bit of a chick flick. And it wasn’t half bad. Michael Scott from The Office starred in it, and he’s always good. Anyway, toward the end of the thing, “The Air That I Breathe” by The Hollies came on. I had heard the chorus to that song dozens of times, but I had never listened to the whole thing, soup to nuts, until right then. And my God…the melody during the verses….the word that first came to mind was “haunting.” The lyrics were beautiful, perfectly suited to the song. “That is exactly the sort of song,” I thought, “that I’ve been trying to write for 35 years.” The second word that come to my mind as I was listening enviously to this song was “familiar.” Hauntingly familiar. I knew I hadn’t heard this song before, because I would remember it, but, impossibly, simultaneously, I knew I’d heard it before.

Later that night, I found “The Air That I Breathe” online and listened to the shit out of it.

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…and a laugh like last life’s lullaby.
Alas.