Herr Proctor offers said land for a song, but nobody wants to sing

i now know it's true what grandpa used to say: "Kid, there's just no right way to carry a giant metal seahorse... now go get Pappy some more of his "cough medicine" and a hickory switch." The seahorse is aqua-blue, in the neighborhood of 80 lbs, and just rescued from the trash heap of a dismantled playground. Having flirted with tetanus and Lime's disease, i schlepped this bug-eyed creature through a handful of Montreal quartiers to a place i have taken to calling home.

i smoked a joint before leaving the hostel the morning i found this place. Stress is not something i handle particularly well, and it was alien after a few years of avoiding it, but really it was the hemoroids that did it. A bewildered dispute with management had landed my ass in the street for a night to think things over the day before, and now it hurt to wipe. What's a $10 gotta do to get a domicile in this town? To the classifieds! There was the goodnatured Quebe, who wanted someone to split the rent with while he devoted himself to mastering the vibraphone; there was the genuine Frenchie, who was told that the refined custom of endless cheek-smooching landed on my List O' Fun a mere two or three spots below having a camel take a dump on my forehead; there was the enchanting girl working at the hostel, who will not return my emails. And then there was the McGill PhD candidate with his sparse, quiet apartment and polydactylous cat.

Suddenly i wasn't high. Maybe.

He had a Trashcan Sinatras' shirt, a Moserian assortment of Foucault, and no questions. i almost had one. When i noticed the several framed posters, i thought to ask; then i noticed the assortment of books and hesitated; then i noticed the tattoo, and declined to ask the question to which the answer was now obviously "Because I have a bizzarre and overwhelming fixation on Montgomery Clift." He'll share when the time is right.

So i moved in. Here's the thing: he's a tall, skinny guy, well-informed soley in order to better criticize everything, named Colin. There can be only one. My smoldering love for CMacD not withstanding, the battle to the death -refereed by special guest Christopher Lambert- should be quite entertaining.

For those who will read but never see, Montreal is a fine town. i'm now situated in a conduit -a veritable noman's land- between several hundred Ukrainian hacids and a plateau of militant Francophones, whose occassional calls for succession and historic willingness to murder English speakers has done wonders for rent. And yes, my front door is within a hockey rink's length of an establishment whose buzzing neon lettering, in any language, can only mean exposed vagina. Hopefully i'll have time to get back home from this internet cafe before Slang and Kev show.

And now, down south in the tropical latitudes of the upper Mid-Atlantic, puke is filling a urinal at O'Flanagans; the night's eighth Rheingold is tasting a shade less grundel-tinged than the seventh; a denuded Iranian is contemplating a tiger-adorned rug while wondering where Sam went; the same tequila used to clean knife wounds in some Juarez alleyway is lubricating the jukebox buttons on 6th St; 5-4=Unity is punched in to yield Gold Soundz; Missy is single.

But i'm here, not there. To kill the time until the convergence of a small cluster of nogoodniks and their alcoholism-enabling powers could be mustered, i used to sit alone in the dark quoting Family Guy to nobody and putting cigarettes out on my scrotum everytime the cablebox clock hit a palendrome. With you mooks in my dust, i've traded in those glory days to sip liter cans of Labbatt amongst the maple leaves and scan for signs of cosmic reassurance.

And how else to describe the relief off getting of the bus in a strange land, to be greeted by the morning sun ringing off the gleaming goatee of a 30-foot titanium statue of Eli Batalion. After the Greyhound had lightened its load of those particular dregs of society that find it necessary to bus it 150 miles to Albany before sunrise on a Monday, we made for Canada. Canada: a land where, courtesy of the Federal government's dime, Michael Ironside lent his supernova to a two-season action series with every scene shot twice -once in English, and again in French. Yes, Fred Michael speaks French. And now just membership to a self-respecting video store and a dirth of actively engaged afternoons stand between me and gruff, clipped, Richteresque fluency. See you at tha party.

POEM by Jonathan

behold, SoK's first foray into poetry, courtesy of and unbeknownst to dear friend and mancinomate Jonathan Mason......

jonathan.
Stupid.
Raindrops falling in my head.
30 days in February?

I'm leaving,
and I've left an "r"
out for retarded

Retarded retarded retarded
little black boy in a Prague Dept. Store window,
holding his head as if it could help his wits
and mechanical thoughts
from collapsing even faster

Like the little black Retard,
I compensate with my pearly whites;
smiling to erase my mistake.
But why can't I help my lust for hookers?
Smack-filled Godesses who do not judge.

God, send me a hooker,
so she can pet my aching head.
My ails ail me
and meandering worms eat away
at my last ounce of reason,
leaving me pale and dry.

If you see a little black retard
tell him God sent you:
He will cry and kick you in the shin
but really, he loves you like a brother.

Fred Wards of the World, i Salute You

As the howls of creatures great and small being gleefully cornholed filled Rick Santorum's handsome ears from every direction, Orin Hatch, ablaze, staggered out of the sodomy-free sanctity of his Chevy Chase estate and into a civilization in ruin.  As promised by some of the finest minds Alabama, Mississippi, and Oklahoma have to offer, the unchecked lust for tushy unleashed by our nation's hellbound faggots had sent America from the hights of glory to the bottom of a box of ribbed, lubricated, but not spermicidal condoms.

and it was in this inferno that we lost one Lic. Harvey Birdman.

Birdy was a good man.  His skin was well cared for.  His obsessive compulsiveness was disarming.  His raport with Asians, quite admirable.  His wholesome charm harkened to brighter days when a cable channel's promise of "brief nudity" and "adult situations" was enough- before buying a ticket to Gettysburg and sneaking into Sliver dispersed so many mysteries.

i awoke in the wee hours of midday.  Drinking Birdy out of my heart the night before had been unsuccessful.  i did, please note, manage to drink a "Fuck you, man, this is Admiral Nelson!" out of my lungs and onto the face of an otherwise innocent David Bowie requester.  Marinating in my hangover with some udon soup and the paper was the call.  Perhaps it was preoccupation with Herby's departure; or could it have been the emerging memory of having my "veritablement, cette merde est incroyable" -the only phrase i know in french, incorrect and uttered to a french broad- met with "I don't speak Spanish."  Irregardless, my friends, the winds of fate that day blew me away from heeding the ornery contents of my colon before continence had been adequately achieved.

And all this is how a new age of Adrian dawned.  The failed marriage amendment, the first wobbley steps of Ewic's medical career, the clamoring of my PBR-craving demons; they all seemed to have some sort of hand in reaching the point in my Life where "Doing the Responsible Thing" mainly entails getting up from my bowl of noodles and walking briskly to the nearby house of a trusted friend.  Because, let's face it folks, dumping fire in my pants as i sat there in the 2nd Ave. Teriyaki Boy could not be worth the SoK gold.

The need to crap came so swiftly and so urgently.  i'd like to think i could have controlled it on my own terms.  But i tell you, caution and responsibility won that day.  And so, when all was concluded, i rewarded my grace under fire by watching Tremors.

In its entirety.

Twice.

Game: Guess the context!

I sent the following one line e-mail to a coworker:
If you like your night out to end in murderous rage, you drink jagermeister and appreciate the appeals of gothic S&M dungeons, methinks.

Post a comment and guess what provoked me to utter that decree.  Winner gets a SoK carryall.

"You're a real asshole, you know that?" I can do better.

I can't top it.  I've climaxed like a horse knocking back the waiting face of some poor girl in a video i was forced to watch via peer pressure as a college freshman.  Now it's a one way road to the glue factory.  Which isn't to say that glue does not have its place in society--surely it does--but my girth does not carry value at a rendering plant.  So I will go somewhere else.  And Baltimore it will be.
****
Strange city, this.  I saw Ray Lewis on a car commercial.  I hope he was offering to protect it, rather than use it as his cover as he murdered someone in a club.  But i digress.  It's a giant frontier as I'd expect would make old westerners comfortable.  I walked to a bar on saturday with full-fledged gambling at the front.  Texas hold-'em $100 buy in.  Some floozy (a word i've taken to saying far too much of late) moseys up, bats an eyelash at her man and he gives her a crumpled wad of cash.  At which point he stumbles backwards and falls against a pole.  She counts seven bucks in ones.  She asks for more.  He says, "here's four."  Some guy suggests, "just eighty-nine more."  He huffed away, insisting something about ESPN cameras making his life difficult.  The girl did not come with him.  I used this distraction to hole myself in a corner and rip a cigarrette with volocity unseen since Morton Downey, Jr. (Great reference, Kevin!).  Like the Frank family of Amsterdam, I was found by an oppressive regime, in this case my father.   If he had night vision goggles, i would have looked more mischevious than a raccoon in a trash can or Paris Hilton with a piece of trash.  He asks where i got it.  AND THEN BUMS A SMOKE.  Bonding.  It's not just for S&M any more.
******
I was at a bar on Friday.  Accidently got drunk.  For unremembered reasons, some girl comes up to me.  I'm reeking of booze and dressed to the nines in a Buddy Cianci Tee. She whispers something in my ear and kisses me on the cheek.  She walks away.  "You looked beautiful coming toward me," I say, feeling slightly smooth, "but you look better going away."  I don't remember intending to be a dickhead, at least until i overheard a slightly-outdated "Oh snap!" Of the three girls that followed her, the hottest, "The Inforcer" as it were (what is this?  GLOW?  Roller derby?) was in charge of telling me off:
Inforcer: Apologize.
Me: Huh?
Inforcer:  You're a real asshole, did you know that?
Me: Huh? What?
Inforcer: (Louder) YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE!
Me: Uhh.  Yeah.  I totally know what you're saying!

However, i didn't know what she was saying.  I don't hear very well at bars, and "I totally know what you're saying!" is my stock answer to any question.  It had never met its match.  When what she had screamed at me finally registered, i got defensive.  Then, i realized that my answer wasn't entirely far-fetched. 
******
We are talking about practice.  Not a game, practice.  The All Star break for the Summer of Kevin.  We've let some of the stars show their wares in an exhibition game.   I'm gearing up for the playoffs.  i don't want to throw out my arm.  Watch out, drunken Eskimos with herpes, i'm comin' atcha.  Practice is over.

Incognito Auto Repair

back in my heyday, when the weed was plentiful, the klonopin crushed up, and the strippers spiderweb-tit-tatted, i would have my car serviced by the proprieter of the abovementioned establishment.

He once charged me 75 bucks for a fake inspiction sticker.

But Dave Incognito, GNOS though he may have been, is not the subject of this story.

Faithful SoK readers may have noticed my startling absence over the past days. Some may have conjectured that I may have passed away, or been jailed, or deported. Fear not loyal readers, my silence has been due to a far more glorious and time honored purpose.

Research.

What, you may ask, was the topic with which my research was concerned? Was it a complete reading and cross-referencing of David Foster Wallace footnotes? Possible experiments with the space-time continuum? The Higgs boson? To which I respond, much like the populace of New York in Brewster’s Millions:  none of the above.

While all these projects would have been worthy uses for an intellectual talent such as mine, I was looking into far more important aspects of the natural world we live in.

Namely; prosthetic limbs, handguns, and mescaline.

Hmmmmm.
Thats probably what your thinking. Your probably wondering what these three seemingly unrelated products of the military industrial complex could possibly have in common? And how a misanthropic 24 year old TV hack could have somehow embarked upon an experiment in which all three were critical components. I can almost see the wheels turning in the collective SoK temporal lobe.

******

The story begins on a beach in Mexico. Wait, you say. Sam hasn't been to Mexico in the last two weeks. How could the story start there? To which I reply its my story and i can start it wherever i want, and fuck you if you dont like it.

Let me explain:

Chemical Ali and myself, having been denied entry to Guatemala due to lack of proper paperwork, were holed up at said beach twiddling our thumbs as our visas expired. This unfortunate event meant that our immigration status was quickly transforming from the innocuous "transmigrante" to the far more nocuous "illegal alien". And there wasn't shit we could do about it.

But as the days slipped by and our migratory condition became more and more suspect, we did manage to strike up a friendship with the perma-baked salvavidas who occupied a small red-lit shack in the middle of the beach.

Zipolite, which was the name of the beach, is famous for the treacherousness of its waves. 10 or so people a year die in the undertow. Adrian, rightly, wondered how many of those poor fuckers might have been saved if the lifeguards didn't spend the better part of each afternoon burning els that would make Bob Marley choke.

One evening they sold us some mescaline. Or so they said. What we bought looked like it came from a crematorium

We took the bag of gray dust and made little hand grenades out of toilet paper, which we then choked down in the front seat of our rhode-island plated jeep cherokee.  Then we set off down the beach, because our erstwhile Samsons had told us that the way to get the mescaline to kick in was to raise your heart rate by walking down the beach.  Then they told us we would vomit uncontrollably, afterwhich we would be off on the trip of our lives.  Oh the things we put our bodies through to escape our tortured reality.


So AT and I, mustachioed, walked off down the beach.

Upon reaching the far end, I turned to my companion and inquired as to his degree of gastrointestinal unrest.
Me: you feel sick yet?
AT: not at all.  you?
Me: nothing

So we walked to the other end of the beach, and, upon feeling no pangs of nausea, decided we’d have to take the situation into our own hands.  At which point the finger-down-the-throat game began.  Afterwhich ensued the finger-down-the-throat-combined-with-stomach-punch game.  Afterwhich the thought that we, with a combined 300 grand or so worth of education, were sitting on a Mexican beach trying to make each other vomit, set in.  Which is not, by any means, a bad thing. Unless you’re a functional human being.

****

Flash forward 1 year.  Our hero lives in the rotten apple.  His mustache is gone, his job is semi-legit, and he’s buttoning his shirts nearly to the top.  He goes to to the Hamptons, where he is treated to dinner by a duo of jewish septuagenarians.  As he’s finishing up his clams and ordering his fifth G & T, he manages to strike up a conversation with the waitress.  She’s got a fat ass for a white girl and hoop earrings, which he happens to have an innocuous fetish for.  As conversation continues after dinner, he’s making real progress.  And when the topic of Mexico come up, he’s on familiar ground and confident of his ability to charm this service professional with his intricate knowledge of the red, the white and the green.

Me: yeah I spent some time in Mexico
She: really?  me too.
Me: Oh yeah?  Where?
She: Zipolite.
Me:  no shit.  me too—I was stranded there for like 3 weeks with visa problems.
She:  I lived there for 6 years.

At which point I probably should have suspected something.  But, for better or for worse, I persisted with the same line of questioning.

Me:  wow.  what were you doing down there.
She:  Oh I had a baby by one of the lifeguards.

Blam!  Her baby’s father sold me bad mescaline!  That slore!  This turn in the conversation was one that I was utterly unprepoared for.  So I said the only thing I could think of, which was oh, I know your baby daddy that piece of shit sold me bad mescaline.  Which, predictably, ruined our rapport a little bit.  Like completely.  She stalked off and that was that. 

Later in the week I found myself at an after hours spot on Essex.  It was 6 in the morning, and I was listening to bad techno and drinking a 10 dollar gin and tonic.  And I was talking to a chick with a back full of intricate tattoos, fuck-me glasses and a wooden leg.  Actually wooden is a misnomer—it was some manner of aluminum PVC alloy.  But there I was anyway.  I asked her if she’d ever been to Mexico.  She said no.  So I went home.

The next day I got a gun pulled on me outside a Zox concert.  Ask Mike.  It happened. But that’s a story for another time. 

"Reliable Sources"

I am pleased to report tha two members of this forum, one Michael Grimes and Kevin Cunningham, are, thanks to their intrepid investigative skills, recieving full citation on New York television. To protect their identity, we have not used their real names, referring to them only as "less than reputable sources".

As in "sources say mary kate olsen was suffering from an eating disorder. However other, less reputable sources reported that she was being treated for a cocaine addiction."

Congratulations gentleman, your 15 minutes starts......NOW.

Are You There God? It's Me, Kevin

They say that Honore de Balzac used to write with a bowl of rotting oranges on his desk to hold writer's block at bay.   I've got empty beer bottles on the floor, three pairs of headphones, some Andy Dick TV show, a bottle of vitamins and toenail clippers.  I cannot be stopped.  And my name doesn't bring to mind a sex maneuver involving Gold Bond Powder, a felt pillow and Jesus-strength myrrh. 
 
Some have feared that SoK had died.  As the Yogi of this Ashram, let me just tell you maggots:  Like the South, the Brood X Cicada and the prophetic phoenix, I have risen.  As foretold in the scripture, bitches.
 
Still, I haven't had a coherent thought for a week or two and this will not be an exception.  But it does occur to me that there is a marked occurrence of my thoughts not corresponding with reality.  For example, I laughed hysterically at the inspirational quote in my work elevator:
"Pleasure in the Job Puts Perfection in the Work."
--Aristotle
Turns out, I read it as "Hard work will set you free."  I later again misread the appropriateness of my sense of humor, whilst attending a friend's wedding.  Religiousness has a curious effect on people.
 
Me: "I got a great rock band name.  So what do you think of 'Siegfried and Jesus?'"
Groom: "That is horrendous. I want to throw up on myself, clean up, then throw up on myself again."
I insist that, well, yes, it may be months until Roy can get back into the act.  The show must go on.  It's the spirit of Vegas.  Some things are bigger than any one man.  Who's best suited to deal wild, man-eating, genetically modified tigers?  The Son of God.  Damn skippy. 
 
Sorry about all of this.  I think this might be the least interesting religion writing since any Modest Mouse song.  
 
I'm spending money like a drunken sailor and do not have a mustache.  One will change. 
 
Fire 'n Brimstone,
--Ed 
 

Baron Von Nibbles: the Playboy Emperor

Living above an Indian restaurant in college had its advantages and disadvantages.

advantage: the interminable aroma of curry masking all competing smells in our 4th floor bathroom.

disadvantage: the interminable aroma of curry

advantage: free Indian food

advantage: lessons in making naan bread

advantage: the companionship and comaraderie of a congenial waitstaff

disadvantage: BARON VON NIBBLES

Not since Bao Dai, the "Playbor Emperor" of the Nguyen Dynasty, has an authoritarian figure so brazenly wielded and misused his power than Baron Von Nibbles during his reign of terror at 230 Wickenden Street.

Bao Dai's authority fueled a reckless hedonism visually manifested in ostentatious gold toilets, elegant ivory-tipped cigarettes and a seemingly endless bevy of sycophantic prostitutes.

Baron Von Nibbles displayed an authority of excess in a similar fashion, leaving carcasses of half-gnawed whole wheat bread loaves, pockmarked packages of crackers and telling trails of excrement in his wake.

Bao Dai and Baron Von were kindred spirits, inextricably linked. With this association evident, is it not a stretch to liken 230 Wickenden to being "in the shit"? I don't think so. I can recall several nights spent lying awake in semi-comatose terror, convinced I could hear Baron's sewer-rat physique slithering towards my bedroom as if I were camoflauged in palm fronds in anticipation of Charlie's inevitable advances.

(editor's note - for those offended by my usage of the slang word "Charlie", I can only say that I have been emboldened by the epithet's puzzlling resurfacing in the upcoming issue of Damon Dash's America Magazine, in which R Kelly justifies transforming his studio into a jungle by stating:

"I have never been to Africa, but I got books and studied up on the music, the culture and, most importantly, the people....That's why you see all of the shrubs and plants and trees in here. I just wanted to feel it. I put tents in the studio and slept in the tents for like a few months, eating off the floors, dressed in army fatigues...I know people out there might laugh, but we are in the jungle....We're on a serious mission, and just know that Charlie is out there to stop us, and you have to load up your guns. I know this all sounds crazy...."

Come to think of it, I guess its never a good thing to follow the lead of a man who urinates on tweenage girls whilst wearing a Kato mask....)

I was in the shit. Like Kevin and his Boredom Offensive, it was a war of attrition. Time passed, seasons changed, we soon graduated and moved on. Yet just as Vietnam Vets have carried the shackles of post traumatic stress syndrome throughout their civilian lives, I have likewise been cursed with daily reminders of my unsavory tour of duty, for I now have mice in my apartment.

I am now back in the shit. Whether their unwelcome appearance in my apartment is a result of our scabies-ridden friend's weekend residence on my floor I cannot tell. Evidence cannot be corroborated. Speculation is pointless.

If I have learned anything from my previous journey into the heart of darkness, however, it is that swift action must be taken. Land mines in the form of mousetraps, agent orange in the guise of rat pellets, this is guerilla warfare and this time I will not be Bao Dai'd.

When the napalm clears, I will have bayonetted so many rodents with spring-action peanut butter-baited traps that even Lieutenant Calley would lose his lunch.

I will come to work wearing a necklace made of little mouse ears.

And then I will come home and dance joyously to the Chocolate Factory, a free man once again.