Sammy and I ate dinner with the Lancasters yesterday. We talked about heading out to the local Indian reservation to make more money off my monkey wrestling winnings. I used to not like to gamble with Boyce and Sammy because they distracted me. Once I was sitting at the roulette table in Vegas with Sammy. He started talking to this other guy at the table which I generally don’t mind. But the story the other guy told was so disturbing that I simply couldn’t continue. Sammy somehow got him talking about his hometown. This is a favorite subject of Sammy’s and it produces some wonderful stories, and in this case, some horrifying ones.
In this instance I overheard the man tell the story of a guy from his high school (most hometown stories begin this way) who was the quarterback of the football team. He was a “straight-shooter,” the man said. The kind of guy, “who wouldn’t stab you with a screwdriver.” There is just no way to concentrate on anything when someone describes an admirable person by explaining how they would be unwilling to jam a sharp tool into you. This un-stabbish quarterback went to a party where he got very drunk, unusual for him. Out of his mind on whiskey, one of his linemen took him up to where the teenagers neck and canoodle. Approaching a car the lineman said he’d take the driver, and the quarterback can take the girl. They each opened the door and the lineman pummeled the driver, while the quarterback pulled out the girl and had his way with her. Only to realize that the girl was the quarterback’s sister. The quarterback ran away and was later found drowned in a local pond.
At this point in time the roulette ball was spinning. I’d made my bets which were all foolish, no doubt compromised by some lunatic telling me an outrageous story that was as ghastly as it was undoubtedly untrue. As Sammy says, I blew a gasket. I reached into the roulette wheel and grabbed the ball, screaming how I was distracted when I made my bets. The dealer was a small Asian woman who reached for my arm as I grabbed the ball. Too late Tokyo Rose, because I already swallowed it.
In retrospect that was the wrong thing to do. I was quickly grabbed by some large men and told that while every one else’s bets were safe, my money was gone, and if I didn’t get off the grounds immediately I would offer a small but important part of myself to be the new roulette ball. Since I was actually using my fake id of Boyce while I was there, he was the one who received a letter explaining his permanent banishment from Excalibur Casino.
Sammy later told me that I shouldn't have been so disturbed by the man, that in fact I should have liked him based on my hatred for most things people say. Here's the thing: I do not like it when most people speak their opinions because those opinions are generally based on: 1) a lie, 2) a rumor, 3) someone else's opinion. Since #3 generally comes from other #'s 1 and 2, you can understand how endless this is.
For instance, I understand Barack Obama is our "president." I do not care what anyone has to say about this man. I simply don't care because why on earth should I? I certainly never said I was interested in what you thought because I am not a liar. Sammy is the only person I know who says, "What do you think?" instead of, "You know what I think..." To be fair though, Sammy doesn't care what the person actually says--he's just interested in how people say it. Rachel was like that: she didn't care what you thought, just what your thoughts meant about you. As for Boyce, he just doesn't care about most things, and I am generally looking up at the sky because anything falling from a bird's butt is more genuine and enlightening than what rises out of a person's mouth.
This is why Sammy thought I should have liked this man. After all, he told a wildly inappropriate story (even for a roulette table) instead of saying some simplified opinion he got from someone else about politics, religion, or someone he doesn't like. This man, Sammy said, was shockingly original, which next to no one is (certainly not people who want to be shocking or original). Next to talking about who he thinks would win in a fight between a red-tailed hawk and a german shepherd, his story should have been one of the best things he could have told us, even if we didn't like what we heard.
Therefore I changed my mind. I also changed my mind about Sammy and Boyce being around me when I gamble. I pride myself on being somewhere between degenerate and professional on the gambling spectrum, and I was never sure where eating the roulette ball falls in that. With Sammy and Boyce as my wingmen, however, I can not only learn to appreciate the fresh jabber of alcoholics, prostitutes, and lunatics who often sit by me, I can also learn to love myself a little more.
By the way, when word somehow got around at the Sleep Center about how I ate the roulette ball, I had one religious lady tell me that it was the demon of gambling working in me. When Rachel heard that she said maybe it wasn’t the demon of gambling but the angel of investment capital, since those two little devils are never in two places at the same time so you'd almost think they were the same thing. I didn't get what she was talking about, but she touched my arm when she said it so I just kind of mumbled, "Seriously...Jesus is awesome...no way devil..." and then pretended she was a blackjack dealer with a pet falcon who asked me to marry her.
P.S. The red-tailed hawk would destroy the german shepherd. The dog just couldn't overcome the advantage of position.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Misrepresentation of Class Aves
Ever since I mentioned the magpie in the picture of the golden eagle whipping the fox I’ve been thinking about Rachel. She loved magpies, which at first is an odd choice for a beloved bird. Like many members of the noble and misunderstood Corvid family of birds (crows, ravens, jays), it’s associated with a lot of mythology, but none more famous than the rhyme about what number of magpies you see:
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
And seven for a secret never to be told.
When I told her about that rhyme she’d never heard it before, and she thought the phrase, “One for sorrow, two for joy
” was just great. She would just say, “One for sorrow, two for joy” for no reason. She also loved the magpie once she realized that Heckle and Jeckle were not actually crows but magpies. I consistently balked at them being called magpies since little in their appearance reminds one of an actual magpie. Their behavior was also puzzling. In this video they are attempting to sell hair tonic to park animals. An apparently mentally disabled custodian dog, probably a Goodwill hire, attempts to do his job and keep them out of the park. Heckle and Jeckle do frightening things to him.
Rachel also loved Woody Woodpecker, again for aesthetic reasons, despite the fact that he is clearly a deranged bird that doesn’t look like a woodpecker. In this video, he attempts to sneak into a baseball game, neglecting his ability to fly. At about 1:18 he apparently has a brain aneurysm based on the look on his face.
When I showed Sammy both videos he thought they were both clearly influenced by John Steinbork, since the law is represented as an arbitrary power that keeps the working poor out of open places. I looked up John Steinbork but was unable to find what kind of cartoon bird he was.
I fear that bird representation in the media, especially when shown to the children, leads to unrealized expectations and therefore disappointment, and possibly resentment. Does your aunt keep parrots because she was born a horrible person, or because when she realized that her exotic birds would never deliver her colorful cereal in loop-form, she became a horrible person? Does Rex Tugwell shoot doves from his back porch because his mother's uterus was formed from the tears of fallen angels, or because he can't endure the bitterness caused by visiting a farm as a small boy where he hoped to see a former plantation-owning, gigantic rooster attempt to philander with homely hens?
Keep it real, America. Not just for the birds' sake, but ours, too.
One for sorrow,
Two for joy,
Three for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
And seven for a secret never to be told.
When I told her about that rhyme she’d never heard it before, and she thought the phrase, “One for sorrow, two for joy
” was just great. She would just say, “One for sorrow, two for joy” for no reason. She also loved the magpie once she realized that Heckle and Jeckle were not actually crows but magpies. I consistently balked at them being called magpies since little in their appearance reminds one of an actual magpie. Their behavior was also puzzling. In this video they are attempting to sell hair tonic to park animals. An apparently mentally disabled custodian dog, probably a Goodwill hire, attempts to do his job and keep them out of the park. Heckle and Jeckle do frightening things to him.
Rachel also loved Woody Woodpecker, again for aesthetic reasons, despite the fact that he is clearly a deranged bird that doesn’t look like a woodpecker. In this video, he attempts to sneak into a baseball game, neglecting his ability to fly. At about 1:18 he apparently has a brain aneurysm based on the look on his face.
When I showed Sammy both videos he thought they were both clearly influenced by John Steinbork, since the law is represented as an arbitrary power that keeps the working poor out of open places. I looked up John Steinbork but was unable to find what kind of cartoon bird he was.
I fear that bird representation in the media, especially when shown to the children, leads to unrealized expectations and therefore disappointment, and possibly resentment. Does your aunt keep parrots because she was born a horrible person, or because when she realized that her exotic birds would never deliver her colorful cereal in loop-form, she became a horrible person? Does Rex Tugwell shoot doves from his back porch because his mother's uterus was formed from the tears of fallen angels, or because he can't endure the bitterness caused by visiting a farm as a small boy where he hoped to see a former plantation-owning, gigantic rooster attempt to philander with homely hens?
Keep it real, America. Not just for the birds' sake, but ours, too.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Birds in the News!
Outrage in Shelton, Connecticut! I realize I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but the following was just reported: "Nineteen people were arrested Sunday after police raided a home and seized 150 canaries and finches in a suspected bird fighting ring." See the entire story and video here.
This is outrageous for several reasons:
First, and obviously, bird fighting is wrong. In fact, so is most bird ownership. Other than farm birds that are allowed to roam, anyone who keeps a bird in a cage is a filthy piece of trash. And I don't mean the kind of trash where there are some papers and maybe you could recycle them, but oh, someone spilled a little bit of mustard on it so, yeah okay, I'll just leave it in the trash. No, I mean the kind of trash where someone didn't finish their Red Lobster crab cakes.
Why would you keep a bird in a cage? Do you think he likes it? Do you think it's a reflection of your smarmy good taste? I'll tell you what it is: it's a reflection of your soul: lock up something originally free and beautiful and turn it into an isolated madman that fills its food dish with its own feces. That's you! Congratulations, Satan, on putting a gorgeous creature into what is the exact opposite of its intended environment.
And P.S.: your bird doesn't love you. No one does. We all wish you would die so we can finally have a party you don't show up at and ruin.
Second, if you are going to fight birds, go big or go home. This is a picture of a saffron finch. It is, well, a finch. It would be like getting a bunch of your friends and instead of having a fight club, having some kind of non-fight club. The news video reported that some birds were missing wings and eyes, and this is probably due to finch-fighting. Eventually everything will fight. That's pretty much a rule of nature. But the print story pointed out (right after the names of the criminals, as though to insult them) that none of the birds were injured.
I don't consider cockfighting especially "big" either, though it is certainly ruthless. I might come to respect both your gambling as well as your bird fighting if you fought with golden eagles.
Here is a golden eagle lifting a fox off a carcass (check snopes.com for validity of photo. I would not lie about golden eagles.). If you're going to be a tough guy and keep birds in cages and fight with them, do it with these guys.
Perhaps the best part of this picture is the magpie in the right hand side of the picture deciding that it needs to get the hell out of there.
I will keep you updated about the canary/finch fighting ring, and do the same if any of you out there decide you'd like to round up some golden eagles.
This is outrageous for several reasons:
First, and obviously, bird fighting is wrong. In fact, so is most bird ownership. Other than farm birds that are allowed to roam, anyone who keeps a bird in a cage is a filthy piece of trash. And I don't mean the kind of trash where there are some papers and maybe you could recycle them, but oh, someone spilled a little bit of mustard on it so, yeah okay, I'll just leave it in the trash. No, I mean the kind of trash where someone didn't finish their Red Lobster crab cakes.
Why would you keep a bird in a cage? Do you think he likes it? Do you think it's a reflection of your smarmy good taste? I'll tell you what it is: it's a reflection of your soul: lock up something originally free and beautiful and turn it into an isolated madman that fills its food dish with its own feces. That's you! Congratulations, Satan, on putting a gorgeous creature into what is the exact opposite of its intended environment.
And P.S.: your bird doesn't love you. No one does. We all wish you would die so we can finally have a party you don't show up at and ruin.
Second, if you are going to fight birds, go big or go home. This is a picture of a saffron finch. It is, well, a finch. It would be like getting a bunch of your friends and instead of having a fight club, having some kind of non-fight club. The news video reported that some birds were missing wings and eyes, and this is probably due to finch-fighting. Eventually everything will fight. That's pretty much a rule of nature. But the print story pointed out (right after the names of the criminals, as though to insult them) that none of the birds were injured.
I don't consider cockfighting especially "big" either, though it is certainly ruthless. I might come to respect both your gambling as well as your bird fighting if you fought with golden eagles.
Here is a golden eagle lifting a fox off a carcass (check snopes.com for validity of photo. I would not lie about golden eagles.). If you're going to be a tough guy and keep birds in cages and fight with them, do it with these guys.Perhaps the best part of this picture is the magpie in the right hand side of the picture deciding that it needs to get the hell out of there.
I will keep you updated about the canary/finch fighting ring, and do the same if any of you out there decide you'd like to round up some golden eagles.
Monday, July 27, 2009
You're the Best: Back after Monkey Wrestling
Wow. It’s been a while since I’ve written. I know you’re wondering why, thinking, “Cyrus must have been doing something great. Maybe he helped deliver a baby or something.” Actually, I’m recovering from getting beat up by a chimpanzee.
If you remember, two weeks ago Rex Tugwell invited us to monkey wrestling “down at the airport.” I didn’t want to go, figuring that monkey wrestling was really code for some kind of metaphorical but nevertheless public de-pantsing at the hands of Rex. Both Sammy and Boyce, however, were excited to go.
I was none too excited that we had to go with Rex Tugwell, nor could I understand why he was inviting us in the first place. But when he told us to pick him up about a mile away from the airport, I figured why: if the police showed up he wouldn’t have to worry about his car being identified. Boyce said he’d bring his van since he was angry about the threat of going to part-time work, so we all sat in the back as he drove us to the airport.
Our city has a small municipal airport, and just to the west of it are a series of hangars for little prop planes. Rex pointed us to the last one where some cars were parked out back. We went into the hangar to find about three dozen men standing around a boxing ring. They were just drinking, but I got the feeling that something incredibly disturbing was happening. Like when I was a kid and woke up in the middle of the night to see my uncle’s car entirely on its side in our front yard, and he there digging a hole and laughing.
We walked with Rex who would high-five random people or call them horrible names and laugh with his mouth way too open to trust him as anything but ready to eat his own arm. In one corner of the ring was a small metal cage, and Rex told us there’s the monkey. It had just enough room in the cage to turn around. Sammy said it was actually a chimpanzee, and Rex said, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Rex told us that you paid twenty-five dollars to enter the ring. The monkey would be released and if you could stay in the ring with it for one minute then you won a thousand dollars. The only thing was, you had to put your money down before the first guy ever gets in the ring.
Rex begged us to put our money down, and Sammy, who was really trying to get a good look at the chimp, as though it’s height might change whether he entered or not, decided first. He told Boyce he had to do it, and Boyce said fine. Rex told me that he was willing to pay my money if I entered. It didn’t take much to convince me. Even though most things make me nervous and scared, I do them anyway. We went to the ring and got a good view to watch the first guy with the chimp.
The first guy was bigger than Boyce. He was really serious, spitting into his hands and trying to get a good footing on the mat. I watched the owner of the chimp shouting at it until suddenly a bell rang and the front of the cage slid straight up. I don’t know how fast normal chimpanzees are, but I had to assume that this one had eaten the four other fastest chimps. In two strides it was across the ring and latched to the man’s face and neck like the way a starfish sucks onto a rock. The man immediately fell on his back, and the chimp began pummeling him on the sides of the head. The bell rang again and immediately the chimp jumped off the man and ran back into his cage where the gate slid back down. The man lying on the mat looked hurt, but more than anything he looked scared—like he’d reached down to pick a flower and came back without an arm. They dragged him off the mat and when he stumbled by us Sammy asked him if he had any advice. I don’t think he heard us since he just kept waving his hands in the air. Rex couldn’t stop laughing, but Boyce, Sammy, and I were scared. Sammy guessed that this wasn’t animal cruelly since clearly nothing was ever going to happen to the chimp.
(For an example of a chimp fight)
Seven more men were pummeled in like fashion, though to the chimp’s credit he always jumped off them when the bell rang. No one got too hurt, though one guy did lose two teeth which really freaked out Boyce. Rex asked if I was going to chicken out and I told him I most certainly would. Surprisingly, when Sammy was informed he was next he didn’t hesitate to jump into the ring. He walked up to the chimp’s owner and spoke to him for a second, then leaned down to talk to the chimp. Before he left Sammy told us his strategy was to befriend the chimp. He had a candy bar in his pocket that he had unwrapped, and when he spoke with the owner, he snuck the chimp a piece. As he walked away to his corner of the ring he winked at us. When the bell rang he was going to offer the chimp the rest of the candy bar, thus winning without either fighting or defending himself.
Waiting for the bell he took the candy bar out of his pocket and waved it at the chimp. The bell rang and the chimp burst out of his cage. Sammy didn’t even have time to extend his arm with the candy bar. In pure defense he simply chucked the candy bar at the chimp and then heaved himself over the top rope. He landed hard on a foldout table and knocked over quite a few drinks, but no matter because everyone thought it was hilarious. Everyone was cheering him and patting him on the back for such an absurd, doomed strategy. Sammy held his arms up to the roar of the crowd.
There was another guy to go before Boyce, so we thought to talk strategy. Boyce thought the best thing to do was just try to give an enormous kick to the chimp on its way over to him. We told him if he did that he’d never be able to get over the ropes before the chimp began punishing him with those meathooks. Boyce just shrugged though. When the guy before him got slaughtered, Boyce put a huge wad of gum between his front teeth and gums, then climbed into the ring.
Just before the bell rang Boyce put his right leg back to get ready to kick. He looked like someone who really wanted to kick a long field goal. As soon as the bell rang he started to kick. I don’t even think the chimp was out of his cage before the kick was half-over. That chimp though was so fast that Boyce actually timed it perfectly and kicked that chimp square in the face. It fell over to his side and Boyce just stood there, kind of stunned. Then the chimp got up, stared at Boyce for a few seconds, and rushed him. Boyce didn’t waste any time and dove out of the ring. The crowd cheered for him because he’d made it the longest: 14 seconds, and half of that was just the chimp staring at him in a you-know-I’m-going-to-eat-your-eyes-out-for-that-right? kind of way.
Rex informed me that I was next and both Boyce and Sammy, sensing my lack of resolve, told me to stand right at the ropes, and as soon as the bell rang to just get out of there. That way when we told the story to people I could always say I did it too. I thought it was better than my plan of simply screaming at the chimp until I blacked out. I climbed in the ring.
Whenever I have to do something I don’t want to do, I always imagine I’m doing it for Rachel. Even if it’s washing a ton of dishes, I think, “No Cyrus, you do this for her.” And even though I knew Rachel would be horrified to know I was attempting to wrestle a caged, undoubtedly ’roid-raging chimp, I still thought to myself in the ring, “No Cyrus, you do this for her.” Even when I looked back and saw Rex Tugwell talking with other people and laughing, knowing full well he just wanted to see me hurt in a way that 24 hours earlier I didn’t even know existed, I still said, “No Cyrus, you do this for her.”
I wished for just a second that ornithology had some kind of crossover to primates. If I were forced to fight an osprey I could at least know where to try for a lucky hit. The chimp seemed impenetrable. I thought the eyes and groin were the universal weak points, but going after the chimp’s eyes seemed ungentlemanly. Besides, I’m sure others thought the same thing only to be faced with a brute force that makes the mind go blank and the bladder go empty. Nothing three feet tall should be able to pile drive a three hundred pound man. Even the largest guy of the night, some 400 pound man who thought he’d just fall on his foe, learned that a chimp can punch through several layers of fat to make a man scream, “My liver! He burst my liver!”
Sometimes it seemed like the chimp was just messing with the contestants, and I expected him to do the same thing. It spun one guy around twice before it finally just grabbed him by the foot and dragged him to the ground where it leaped on top of him. Another guy tried to run away and the chimp jumped on his back. For a good five seconds it just rode him as though to say, “Where are we going, friend?” Then, suddenly, it punched him several times in the back of the head.
I wondered what undignified move the chimp would do to me. The whole night it had never gone for a man’s groin. It was either a noble, principled fighter or simply saving its crotch attack for the final fight of the night, which was of course me. I whispered one last time that this was all for Rachel, and then the bell rang.
I just kind of screamed “Oh dear God!” at the top of my lungs and turned to climb the turnstile. I didn’t think anything, even when I felt the chimp jump on my back. I just kept screaming uncontrollably. Everything went white and I was later told the chimp had rammed its forehead into the back of my skull. I have no idea why it would do this instead of punching or biting—what analysis did it do while riding my back to think that trying to break my skull with its skull was the best maneuver? Whatever the case was I saw white for a second and fell over to my side. I was not aware of this at the time but I twisted as I fell, and actually landed on the chimp. It’s head must have hit funny because it was dazed for a second.
Feeling no primate on my back, I stood up and realized I was in the middle of the ring. The chimp was getting up and I panicked. I don’t know why I did what I did. I had watched Boyce, Sammy, and many others leap out of the ring at the very first opportunity. Why didn’t I leap? My God, why? I don’t know. But with reeling tunnel vision, all I saw was that chimp dazed for a second and, inside my skull, on the opposite side where the chimp headbutted me, were the letters R-A-C-H-E-L. I didn’t even see her, just the letters. And suddenly, without thinking, I just kicked the chimp as hard as I could right in the chin.
The crowd cheered and I realized that maybe I could do it. Maybe I could beat this chimp. But as it was getting back up someone shouted “45 more seconds!” 45?! That had only been 15 seconds? Again, I’m not sure with a second opportunity why I did not simply leap out of the ring. Instead, I ran. And for whatever reason, I ran straight for the chimp’s cage and dove into it. The chimp saw me and started bounding over to me. I reached up and from pure adrenaline broke the latches on the gate and pulled it down and shut. Since I’d broken the latch I had to hold the gate down because the chimp—well, he really wanted in that cage. I think I broke some cardinal rule in monkey fighting because that chimp was seriously pissed. He was pummeling my fingers that were holding on to the bars to keep the gate down, but I had to hold on. At one point he jumped on top of the cage and reached down to tear my ears off. I had to lean way down. Even at the time I was able to think that very few people have had a seriously pissed chimp screaming at them from above their head. You know what, though? I have.
For 45 seconds that chimp punched my hands and swiped at me. When the bell rang he suddenly went docile but damned if I was going to open that cage gate. I didn’t let go and let it up until the chimp owner got into the ring, screaming at me that I cheated. Others though were screaming that the cage was in the ring, and nothing said I couldn’t hide in there. Sammy, Boyce, and even Rex helped me out and were checking me over since I was bleeding in a few places. They were all so happy they couldn’t stop giggling. After a while some guy came over and asked if I would accept $750 dollars, and I said that was fine. They gave it to me in cash, and everyone there came by to congratulate me. Not since my uncle’s funeral have drunk strangers been so kind to me. People patted me lightly saying how great it was to see the chimp not be able to get me crying in that cage.
Boyce and Sammy agreed it was just about the single most greatest thing they’d ever seen. Rex told me he would cover for me for a few days to give me a chance to heal, and then he gave me a big, but soft hug. Someone in the background was singing the “You’re the best” song from The Karate Kid, and we kept up with that for much of the night.
That was a couple weeks ago, and things have gotten back to normal. None of my injuries were so severe I needed to see a doctor, so I just spent a lot of time watching birds and thinking. My hands have been pretty beat up so I haven’t been able to type. Now things are getting back to normal though. Even Rex is starting to treat me mean again, though some times when he finishes a three-minute speech about my masculinity, he finishes with, “Dang, that chimp was pissed, Virus.”
If you remember, two weeks ago Rex Tugwell invited us to monkey wrestling “down at the airport.” I didn’t want to go, figuring that monkey wrestling was really code for some kind of metaphorical but nevertheless public de-pantsing at the hands of Rex. Both Sammy and Boyce, however, were excited to go.
I was none too excited that we had to go with Rex Tugwell, nor could I understand why he was inviting us in the first place. But when he told us to pick him up about a mile away from the airport, I figured why: if the police showed up he wouldn’t have to worry about his car being identified. Boyce said he’d bring his van since he was angry about the threat of going to part-time work, so we all sat in the back as he drove us to the airport.
Our city has a small municipal airport, and just to the west of it are a series of hangars for little prop planes. Rex pointed us to the last one where some cars were parked out back. We went into the hangar to find about three dozen men standing around a boxing ring. They were just drinking, but I got the feeling that something incredibly disturbing was happening. Like when I was a kid and woke up in the middle of the night to see my uncle’s car entirely on its side in our front yard, and he there digging a hole and laughing.
We walked with Rex who would high-five random people or call them horrible names and laugh with his mouth way too open to trust him as anything but ready to eat his own arm. In one corner of the ring was a small metal cage, and Rex told us there’s the monkey. It had just enough room in the cage to turn around. Sammy said it was actually a chimpanzee, and Rex said, “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Rex told us that you paid twenty-five dollars to enter the ring. The monkey would be released and if you could stay in the ring with it for one minute then you won a thousand dollars. The only thing was, you had to put your money down before the first guy ever gets in the ring.
Rex begged us to put our money down, and Sammy, who was really trying to get a good look at the chimp, as though it’s height might change whether he entered or not, decided first. He told Boyce he had to do it, and Boyce said fine. Rex told me that he was willing to pay my money if I entered. It didn’t take much to convince me. Even though most things make me nervous and scared, I do them anyway. We went to the ring and got a good view to watch the first guy with the chimp.
The first guy was bigger than Boyce. He was really serious, spitting into his hands and trying to get a good footing on the mat. I watched the owner of the chimp shouting at it until suddenly a bell rang and the front of the cage slid straight up. I don’t know how fast normal chimpanzees are, but I had to assume that this one had eaten the four other fastest chimps. In two strides it was across the ring and latched to the man’s face and neck like the way a starfish sucks onto a rock. The man immediately fell on his back, and the chimp began pummeling him on the sides of the head. The bell rang again and immediately the chimp jumped off the man and ran back into his cage where the gate slid back down. The man lying on the mat looked hurt, but more than anything he looked scared—like he’d reached down to pick a flower and came back without an arm. They dragged him off the mat and when he stumbled by us Sammy asked him if he had any advice. I don’t think he heard us since he just kept waving his hands in the air. Rex couldn’t stop laughing, but Boyce, Sammy, and I were scared. Sammy guessed that this wasn’t animal cruelly since clearly nothing was ever going to happen to the chimp.
(For an example of a chimp fight)
Seven more men were pummeled in like fashion, though to the chimp’s credit he always jumped off them when the bell rang. No one got too hurt, though one guy did lose two teeth which really freaked out Boyce. Rex asked if I was going to chicken out and I told him I most certainly would. Surprisingly, when Sammy was informed he was next he didn’t hesitate to jump into the ring. He walked up to the chimp’s owner and spoke to him for a second, then leaned down to talk to the chimp. Before he left Sammy told us his strategy was to befriend the chimp. He had a candy bar in his pocket that he had unwrapped, and when he spoke with the owner, he snuck the chimp a piece. As he walked away to his corner of the ring he winked at us. When the bell rang he was going to offer the chimp the rest of the candy bar, thus winning without either fighting or defending himself.
Waiting for the bell he took the candy bar out of his pocket and waved it at the chimp. The bell rang and the chimp burst out of his cage. Sammy didn’t even have time to extend his arm with the candy bar. In pure defense he simply chucked the candy bar at the chimp and then heaved himself over the top rope. He landed hard on a foldout table and knocked over quite a few drinks, but no matter because everyone thought it was hilarious. Everyone was cheering him and patting him on the back for such an absurd, doomed strategy. Sammy held his arms up to the roar of the crowd.
There was another guy to go before Boyce, so we thought to talk strategy. Boyce thought the best thing to do was just try to give an enormous kick to the chimp on its way over to him. We told him if he did that he’d never be able to get over the ropes before the chimp began punishing him with those meathooks. Boyce just shrugged though. When the guy before him got slaughtered, Boyce put a huge wad of gum between his front teeth and gums, then climbed into the ring.
Just before the bell rang Boyce put his right leg back to get ready to kick. He looked like someone who really wanted to kick a long field goal. As soon as the bell rang he started to kick. I don’t even think the chimp was out of his cage before the kick was half-over. That chimp though was so fast that Boyce actually timed it perfectly and kicked that chimp square in the face. It fell over to his side and Boyce just stood there, kind of stunned. Then the chimp got up, stared at Boyce for a few seconds, and rushed him. Boyce didn’t waste any time and dove out of the ring. The crowd cheered for him because he’d made it the longest: 14 seconds, and half of that was just the chimp staring at him in a you-know-I’m-going-to-eat-your-eyes-out-for-that-right? kind of way.
Rex informed me that I was next and both Boyce and Sammy, sensing my lack of resolve, told me to stand right at the ropes, and as soon as the bell rang to just get out of there. That way when we told the story to people I could always say I did it too. I thought it was better than my plan of simply screaming at the chimp until I blacked out. I climbed in the ring.
Whenever I have to do something I don’t want to do, I always imagine I’m doing it for Rachel. Even if it’s washing a ton of dishes, I think, “No Cyrus, you do this for her.” And even though I knew Rachel would be horrified to know I was attempting to wrestle a caged, undoubtedly ’roid-raging chimp, I still thought to myself in the ring, “No Cyrus, you do this for her.” Even when I looked back and saw Rex Tugwell talking with other people and laughing, knowing full well he just wanted to see me hurt in a way that 24 hours earlier I didn’t even know existed, I still said, “No Cyrus, you do this for her.”
I wished for just a second that ornithology had some kind of crossover to primates. If I were forced to fight an osprey I could at least know where to try for a lucky hit. The chimp seemed impenetrable. I thought the eyes and groin were the universal weak points, but going after the chimp’s eyes seemed ungentlemanly. Besides, I’m sure others thought the same thing only to be faced with a brute force that makes the mind go blank and the bladder go empty. Nothing three feet tall should be able to pile drive a three hundred pound man. Even the largest guy of the night, some 400 pound man who thought he’d just fall on his foe, learned that a chimp can punch through several layers of fat to make a man scream, “My liver! He burst my liver!”
Sometimes it seemed like the chimp was just messing with the contestants, and I expected him to do the same thing. It spun one guy around twice before it finally just grabbed him by the foot and dragged him to the ground where it leaped on top of him. Another guy tried to run away and the chimp jumped on his back. For a good five seconds it just rode him as though to say, “Where are we going, friend?” Then, suddenly, it punched him several times in the back of the head.
I wondered what undignified move the chimp would do to me. The whole night it had never gone for a man’s groin. It was either a noble, principled fighter or simply saving its crotch attack for the final fight of the night, which was of course me. I whispered one last time that this was all for Rachel, and then the bell rang.
I just kind of screamed “Oh dear God!” at the top of my lungs and turned to climb the turnstile. I didn’t think anything, even when I felt the chimp jump on my back. I just kept screaming uncontrollably. Everything went white and I was later told the chimp had rammed its forehead into the back of my skull. I have no idea why it would do this instead of punching or biting—what analysis did it do while riding my back to think that trying to break my skull with its skull was the best maneuver? Whatever the case was I saw white for a second and fell over to my side. I was not aware of this at the time but I twisted as I fell, and actually landed on the chimp. It’s head must have hit funny because it was dazed for a second.
Feeling no primate on my back, I stood up and realized I was in the middle of the ring. The chimp was getting up and I panicked. I don’t know why I did what I did. I had watched Boyce, Sammy, and many others leap out of the ring at the very first opportunity. Why didn’t I leap? My God, why? I don’t know. But with reeling tunnel vision, all I saw was that chimp dazed for a second and, inside my skull, on the opposite side where the chimp headbutted me, were the letters R-A-C-H-E-L. I didn’t even see her, just the letters. And suddenly, without thinking, I just kicked the chimp as hard as I could right in the chin.
The crowd cheered and I realized that maybe I could do it. Maybe I could beat this chimp. But as it was getting back up someone shouted “45 more seconds!” 45?! That had only been 15 seconds? Again, I’m not sure with a second opportunity why I did not simply leap out of the ring. Instead, I ran. And for whatever reason, I ran straight for the chimp’s cage and dove into it. The chimp saw me and started bounding over to me. I reached up and from pure adrenaline broke the latches on the gate and pulled it down and shut. Since I’d broken the latch I had to hold the gate down because the chimp—well, he really wanted in that cage. I think I broke some cardinal rule in monkey fighting because that chimp was seriously pissed. He was pummeling my fingers that were holding on to the bars to keep the gate down, but I had to hold on. At one point he jumped on top of the cage and reached down to tear my ears off. I had to lean way down. Even at the time I was able to think that very few people have had a seriously pissed chimp screaming at them from above their head. You know what, though? I have.
For 45 seconds that chimp punched my hands and swiped at me. When the bell rang he suddenly went docile but damned if I was going to open that cage gate. I didn’t let go and let it up until the chimp owner got into the ring, screaming at me that I cheated. Others though were screaming that the cage was in the ring, and nothing said I couldn’t hide in there. Sammy, Boyce, and even Rex helped me out and were checking me over since I was bleeding in a few places. They were all so happy they couldn’t stop giggling. After a while some guy came over and asked if I would accept $750 dollars, and I said that was fine. They gave it to me in cash, and everyone there came by to congratulate me. Not since my uncle’s funeral have drunk strangers been so kind to me. People patted me lightly saying how great it was to see the chimp not be able to get me crying in that cage.
Boyce and Sammy agreed it was just about the single most greatest thing they’d ever seen. Rex told me he would cover for me for a few days to give me a chance to heal, and then he gave me a big, but soft hug. Someone in the background was singing the “You’re the best” song from The Karate Kid, and we kept up with that for much of the night.
That was a couple weeks ago, and things have gotten back to normal. None of my injuries were so severe I needed to see a doctor, so I just spent a lot of time watching birds and thinking. My hands have been pretty beat up so I haven’t been able to type. Now things are getting back to normal though. Even Rex is starting to treat me mean again, though some times when he finishes a three-minute speech about my masculinity, he finishes with, “Dang, that chimp was pissed, Virus.”
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Rex Tugwell, the Brown-Headed Cowbird
Sammy reports that while working his shift at Arby's yesterday he found in his register a crude stick drawing of what he assumes is himself with the word "RACIST" underneath it. Clearly, Trisha has not forgotten his lack of concern about Michael Jackson. Generally, Sammy wants every person to like him. It bothers him if people look at him funny. So it was uncharacteristic when Sammy held up the drawing to Trisha and said, "Did you see what a seven-year-old retarded customer made me?" He says it was the easily the cruelest thing he's ever said, though he's more concerned about the insult to a mentally retarded seven-year-old girl than to Trisha. Sammy knows himself though, and he's already tried to make it up to Trisha (in the absence of a mentally retarded seven-year-old girl). On break he listened to his ipod with one earphone hanging out so Trisha could hear he was listening to Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" (he has no Michael Jackson and refuses to buy any now) which Boyce gave to him from his favorite Stevie Wonder album/cover, "Talking Book." (Boyce says: "I don't think anyone ever told Stevie Wonder that they made the cover from a picture of him 
trying to find something he dropped in the dirt. I bet they took a hundred pictures of him in some funky, artistic poses, and then they thought, 'Let's just use the one where he's trying to find the pen he dropped.'") Trisha didn't seem to notice, so now Sammy is going to have to give her great hours next week to try to smooth things over.
I wish I had a boss like Boyce. My boss who makes the schedule is Rex Tugwell, the head janitor at the Sleep Center. He calls me Virus Buttertree. I told him he should be one to make fun of names. He said, "Oh yeah, is there something wrong with my name?" Apparently he's like the fifth Rexford Tugwell in his family. When I don't have anything to sketch, sometimes I sketch Rex with the head of a brown-headed cowbird, which is the biggest douchebag in the bird class.
Birds of prey are a necessary part of nature, and I don't resent them for killing other birds. There is a certain dignity in being hunted by a Peregrine Falcon. I only wish I could go in such a worthy way, rather than forgetting to look when I cross the street which I have so often predicted. The brown-headed cowbird though is an undignified, shameless monster.
Brown-headed cowbirds do not make nests. The females lay their eggs in another species' nest so that the victim species raises the cowbird young instead of its own, sometimes letting its own baby birds die from neglect. There is also something called "mafia behavior." Occasionally a victim species will recognize the cowbird egg and refuse to care for it. Other brown-headed cowbirds, however, will literally come to intimidate the victim species by ransacking the nest until the victim gives in and cares for the cowbird young (for the unbelievers). The cuckoo bird actually does the same thing, and can actually make its egg look like the victim's eggs. But since the cuckoo is mainly in Europe my disdain is more abstract. Still, I find the choice to domesticate the cuckoo's form through the hour chime of novelty clocks to be a dubious decision, at best.
5 reasons why Rex Tugwell is akin to the brood-parasite brown-headed cowbird:
1. He calls me Virus Butterbee. Other versions are Typhus Wondergeek, Spineless Feathertree, and Idiot.
2. He shoots mourning doves in his spare time. I confirmed this when I asked him.
3. He doesn't give me extra hours except when he goes camping.
4. He says "I understand that" even when you are clearly informing him of something new.
5. He is actually a pretty terrible janitor.
Since we don't work at the same time, I generally don't see Rex too much. I saw him yesterday evening on his way out, and he told me he just got down shooting some owls out back. That's how he says hello to me. I said I highly doubted that due to the laws about discharging guns, and he said, "Yeah, well, you think you're so tough, you think you could wrestle a monkey?"
I was not expecting this. It turns out Rex was in a good mood because what he called "monkey wrestling" was back in town down at the airport. He told me to get on the phone and let my two gay friends know about it. I told him I would do nothing of the sort, but when I did tell Boyce about it later he told me we have to go. So for the first time in my life I called Rex and asked him about the monkey wrestling.
We're going Saturday night.
trying to find something he dropped in the dirt. I bet they took a hundred pictures of him in some funky, artistic poses, and then they thought, 'Let's just use the one where he's trying to find the pen he dropped.'") Trisha didn't seem to notice, so now Sammy is going to have to give her great hours next week to try to smooth things over.I wish I had a boss like Boyce. My boss who makes the schedule is Rex Tugwell, the head janitor at the Sleep Center. He calls me Virus Buttertree. I told him he should be one to make fun of names. He said, "Oh yeah, is there something wrong with my name?" Apparently he's like the fifth Rexford Tugwell in his family. When I don't have anything to sketch, sometimes I sketch Rex with the head of a brown-headed cowbird, which is the biggest douchebag in the bird class.
Birds of prey are a necessary part of nature, and I don't resent them for killing other birds. There is a certain dignity in being hunted by a Peregrine Falcon. I only wish I could go in such a worthy way, rather than forgetting to look when I cross the street which I have so often predicted. The brown-headed cowbird though is an undignified, shameless monster.
Brown-headed cowbirds do not make nests. The females lay their eggs in another species' nest so that the victim species raises the cowbird young instead of its own, sometimes letting its own baby birds die from neglect. There is also something called "mafia behavior." Occasionally a victim species will recognize the cowbird egg and refuse to care for it. Other brown-headed cowbirds, however, will literally come to intimidate the victim species by ransacking the nest until the victim gives in and cares for the cowbird young (for the unbelievers). The cuckoo bird actually does the same thing, and can actually make its egg look like the victim's eggs. But since the cuckoo is mainly in Europe my disdain is more abstract. Still, I find the choice to domesticate the cuckoo's form through the hour chime of novelty clocks to be a dubious decision, at best.
5 reasons why Rex Tugwell is akin to the brood-parasite brown-headed cowbird:
1. He calls me Virus Butterbee. Other versions are Typhus Wondergeek, Spineless Feathertree, and Idiot.
2. He shoots mourning doves in his spare time. I confirmed this when I asked him.
3. He doesn't give me extra hours except when he goes camping.
4. He says "I understand that" even when you are clearly informing him of something new.
5. He is actually a pretty terrible janitor.
Since we don't work at the same time, I generally don't see Rex too much. I saw him yesterday evening on his way out, and he told me he just got down shooting some owls out back. That's how he says hello to me. I said I highly doubted that due to the laws about discharging guns, and he said, "Yeah, well, you think you're so tough, you think you could wrestle a monkey?"
I was not expecting this. It turns out Rex was in a good mood because what he called "monkey wrestling" was back in town down at the airport. He told me to get on the phone and let my two gay friends know about it. I told him I would do nothing of the sort, but when I did tell Boyce about it later he told me we have to go. So for the first time in my life I called Rex and asked him about the monkey wrestling.
We're going Saturday night.
Sammy Loses It About Michael Jackson and Boyce Dreams
Sammy said that when he told a fellow Arby’s co-worker that one of his friends was having trouble with dreams, the co-worker asked if it was because of Michael Jackson’s death and “what his kids must be going through.” Sammy tries to like everyone, and up to that point he had been fine with Trisha. He couldn’t manage it, though. He told her he didn’t know Michael Jackson, that nobody he knew had ever met Michael Jackson, and that if he later found out that Michael Jackson was really a cyborg created by the CIA using a new type of synthetic skin, then it wouldn’t affect either his or Trisha’s life one single bit. That under no circumstances should she be talking about Michael Jackson until she first spoke about the fact that yesterday was the anniversary of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, which did a whole lot more to define both her existence and consciousness than anything Michael Jackson ever sang, no matter how many times she watches Access Hollywood. Then Trisha called Sammy gay, and finished getting some curly fries for a drive-thru order.
At Boyce's Charlotte made us chocolate chip cookies which was her way of saying she didn’t mind we were over. While we ate I showed Boyce a mouthguard to wear while he slept to help in the short term with chipping more teeth. We played Risk for a while like we always do. We never finish the games because Boyce comes to peace arrangements and says he’s content to rule the land he has. I always say he needs to keep fighting because that’s the game, and so he swept all the men off the board and said, “There, swine flu wins.” Every time Boyce ends the game this way by sweeping his arm across the board, he says a different disease: ebola, tuberculosis, yellow fever, AIDS, the plague, rubella, smallpox, syphilis.
After Risk Sammy said he was worried he didn't act weird enough and might get chosen for the jury. Boyce said he was afraid there wasn’t enough work for him to keep getting full-time hours as a locksmith. I told them I miss Rachel. Then we figured out which were the five most sensual fruits. Answer: strawberries, cherries, grapes, mangoes, and pomegranates. Sammy wanted it noted that he disagreed about pomegranates, and instead would like to have seen olives on the list.
Boyce slept on the couch, I slept on the floor, and Sammy slept on a recliner. We asked Boyce what would be signs that he was dreaming he was Jud. Boyce wasn’t sure, but singing, hoeing, bidding at a pie auction, and dying were all possibilities.
In the morning Boyce told us he didn’t dream about being Jud, but he did dream about Rachel. I never dream about Rachel. Just like I don’t dream about birds or doubling down on a good hand. I asked Boyce what she was doing, and he said practicing on one of my boomerangs. I said that was stupid. She wasn’t coming back. Boyce said I was stupid, but then he got what I meant.
At Boyce's Charlotte made us chocolate chip cookies which was her way of saying she didn’t mind we were over. While we ate I showed Boyce a mouthguard to wear while he slept to help in the short term with chipping more teeth. We played Risk for a while like we always do. We never finish the games because Boyce comes to peace arrangements and says he’s content to rule the land he has. I always say he needs to keep fighting because that’s the game, and so he swept all the men off the board and said, “There, swine flu wins.” Every time Boyce ends the game this way by sweeping his arm across the board, he says a different disease: ebola, tuberculosis, yellow fever, AIDS, the plague, rubella, smallpox, syphilis.
After Risk Sammy said he was worried he didn't act weird enough and might get chosen for the jury. Boyce said he was afraid there wasn’t enough work for him to keep getting full-time hours as a locksmith. I told them I miss Rachel. Then we figured out which were the five most sensual fruits. Answer: strawberries, cherries, grapes, mangoes, and pomegranates. Sammy wanted it noted that he disagreed about pomegranates, and instead would like to have seen olives on the list.
Boyce slept on the couch, I slept on the floor, and Sammy slept on a recliner. We asked Boyce what would be signs that he was dreaming he was Jud. Boyce wasn’t sure, but singing, hoeing, bidding at a pie auction, and dying were all possibilities.
In the morning Boyce told us he didn’t dream about being Jud, but he did dream about Rachel. I never dream about Rachel. Just like I don’t dream about birds or doubling down on a good hand. I asked Boyce what she was doing, and he said practicing on one of my boomerangs. I said that was stupid. She wasn’t coming back. Boyce said I was stupid, but then he got what I meant.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Boyce as Jud and How to Fix It
A few years ago Boyce finally stopped making fun of me for interpreting dreams when he told me he’d been having a recurring one. He kept dreaming that he was called on at the last second to play Jud from Oklahoma! Boyce owns the album 
because he thinks the cover is “classy.” It’s actually a rather boring album cover so both Sammy and I think that Boyce actually loves Oklahoma!, testified by the fact that Boyce Jr. will always play “Surrey with a Fringe on Top” whenever you asked him to grind his axe.
In Boyce’s recurring dream, he was rushed into the part of Jud and at first, could never remember the words. A classic dream, I told him, about anxieties of failure, especially in front of others. I told him not to be surprised if future versions of his dream included being naked, forgetting to go to class, or being forced to eat muppets out of jack-o-lanterns at the request of Paul Bunyan and the Buddha, all classic symbols in anxiety dreams. But Boyce told me his dream evolved and he started getting better as Jud. Once he did so well that a talent agent asked him to join Seinfeld, but then she made advances on him and Boyce felt uncomfortable and declined.
The problem was every time Boyce woke up from one of his Oklahoma! dreams, he’d chipped his teeth a bit. He didn’t know if he was punching himself in order to recreate his death at the hands of that unfairly smug Curly, or if he was grinding his teeth due to the pressure of being a Broadway star. I told him it might even be the opposite: his teeth cause the dream to happen, not the other way around. When his mind attempts to represent shattered enamel it chooses a potentially sexually violent ranchhand who sings at his own funeral.
Boyce loves his teeth, and any damage to them is like the poisoning of his soul. He doesn’t have dental insurance working as a locksmith, but he doesn’t worry about the money. He just adores his teeth like a baby rock pigeon adores its regurgitated crop-milk. Sammy told him teeth were a sign of mortality, and pointed him to Edgar Andy Poe’s short story "Berenice." Boyce told him he’d like to tear Sammy’s teeth out if he offers him one more book, and Sammy told me it seems that Boyce had already read the story.
This morning Boyce called me to say he’d dreamed he was Jud again, and this time he was so good he finally got invited to the cast party afterward. When he checked his teeth he had a new chip running up one of his front teeth. He was panicking because there’s nothing he can do about it. As soon as he goes to sleep he can’t control what he dreams anymore than I could control how a Common Merganser flaps its wings (my words, not his). I told him there might be something we can do. Sammy and I are going to spend the night at Boyce’s to try and keep him from dreaming about Oklahoma!, but still making sure he gets some sleep. I’ll report on how things go tomorrow.
because he thinks the cover is “classy.” It’s actually a rather boring album cover so both Sammy and I think that Boyce actually loves Oklahoma!, testified by the fact that Boyce Jr. will always play “Surrey with a Fringe on Top” whenever you asked him to grind his axe.In Boyce’s recurring dream, he was rushed into the part of Jud and at first, could never remember the words. A classic dream, I told him, about anxieties of failure, especially in front of others. I told him not to be surprised if future versions of his dream included being naked, forgetting to go to class, or being forced to eat muppets out of jack-o-lanterns at the request of Paul Bunyan and the Buddha, all classic symbols in anxiety dreams. But Boyce told me his dream evolved and he started getting better as Jud. Once he did so well that a talent agent asked him to join Seinfeld, but then she made advances on him and Boyce felt uncomfortable and declined.
The problem was every time Boyce woke up from one of his Oklahoma! dreams, he’d chipped his teeth a bit. He didn’t know if he was punching himself in order to recreate his death at the hands of that unfairly smug Curly, or if he was grinding his teeth due to the pressure of being a Broadway star. I told him it might even be the opposite: his teeth cause the dream to happen, not the other way around. When his mind attempts to represent shattered enamel it chooses a potentially sexually violent ranchhand who sings at his own funeral.
Boyce loves his teeth, and any damage to them is like the poisoning of his soul. He doesn’t have dental insurance working as a locksmith, but he doesn’t worry about the money. He just adores his teeth like a baby rock pigeon adores its regurgitated crop-milk. Sammy told him teeth were a sign of mortality, and pointed him to Edgar Andy Poe’s short story "Berenice." Boyce told him he’d like to tear Sammy’s teeth out if he offers him one more book, and Sammy told me it seems that Boyce had already read the story.
This morning Boyce called me to say he’d dreamed he was Jud again, and this time he was so good he finally got invited to the cast party afterward. When he checked his teeth he had a new chip running up one of his front teeth. He was panicking because there’s nothing he can do about it. As soon as he goes to sleep he can’t control what he dreams anymore than I could control how a Common Merganser flaps its wings (my words, not his). I told him there might be something we can do. Sammy and I are going to spend the night at Boyce’s to try and keep him from dreaming about Oklahoma!, but still making sure he gets some sleep. I’ll report on how things go tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Boyce's Favorite Album Cover and My Dad
Boyce asked if I would post an image of his favorite album cover of all time. This means that Boyce listens to this album a lot, though he's not particularly fond of the album. If you ask him
about it he won't even mention the album, but instead just tell you how much Led Zeppelin could destroy the earth if they wanted to. However, Boyce cares more about the art of albums than the music inside, so Glen Phillips' "Winter Pays for the Summer" still gets more attention in his home. It's a painting of two ravens (not crows. Notice the larger bills, stouter necks, and longer tail feathers.) eating from pomegranates. One of the ravens is holding up a pomegranate seed while the other raven looks at him. Sammy said that since pom
egranates get used by a whole bunch of religions to represent heaven and ravens are picking at them, the sky is bleak, and the tree's leaves are dying it's a terribly pessimistic painting. He thinks maybe the ravens aren't so much feeding themselves as they are casting lots to see who gets what of the pomegranates. He also thought the first raven stole the seed from the second, and the way the two birds are placed on opposite sides of the pomegranates suggests conflict. Boyce said birds are stupid because there are about five thousand seeds in a pomegranate and all they need to do is just pick one and eat all they want. Either way, we all agree it's a great album cover. And that Zeppelin is like a meteor that could blow up Russia any time it felt like.
One reason I really like the album cover is because it reminds me of the ranches my father would take me to when I was a kid. We would take long drives out to different cattle ranches and we'd get out of the car and just stare at the land. I'd look at the birds while my dad said things like "It's not coming back." There were bunches of crows out there in the trees, and when I asked my dad if he saw the blackbirds, he said those were crows. Not blackbirds, not ravens, he said, crows. He said some crows don't mate so they can help other crows raise their young. Then he'd say he was tired. We'd get in the car and I'd cry about getting fast food and then he'd take me, and I'd spill my pop or throw french fries in his face.
He was a lot older than my mom, and he died when I was just a kid. One of the first times I ever spoke to Rachel I told her about my dad taking me to the ranches, and she said he must have been a really gentle person. Then I said, "I think it's creepy when kids sing religious songs in perfect unison," because I had thought about that earlier in the day and I was so nervous I just blurted out the first thing I could think of.
about it he won't even mention the album, but instead just tell you how much Led Zeppelin could destroy the earth if they wanted to. However, Boyce cares more about the art of albums than the music inside, so Glen Phillips' "Winter Pays for the Summer" still gets more attention in his home. It's a painting of two ravens (not crows. Notice the larger bills, stouter necks, and longer tail feathers.) eating from pomegranates. One of the ravens is holding up a pomegranate seed while the other raven looks at him. Sammy said that since pom
egranates get used by a whole bunch of religions to represent heaven and ravens are picking at them, the sky is bleak, and the tree's leaves are dying it's a terribly pessimistic painting. He thinks maybe the ravens aren't so much feeding themselves as they are casting lots to see who gets what of the pomegranates. He also thought the first raven stole the seed from the second, and the way the two birds are placed on opposite sides of the pomegranates suggests conflict. Boyce said birds are stupid because there are about five thousand seeds in a pomegranate and all they need to do is just pick one and eat all they want. Either way, we all agree it's a great album cover. And that Zeppelin is like a meteor that could blow up Russia any time it felt like.One reason I really like the album cover is because it reminds me of the ranches my father would take me to when I was a kid. We would take long drives out to different cattle ranches and we'd get out of the car and just stare at the land. I'd look at the birds while my dad said things like "It's not coming back." There were bunches of crows out there in the trees, and when I asked my dad if he saw the blackbirds, he said those were crows. Not blackbirds, not ravens, he said, crows. He said some crows don't mate so they can help other crows raise their young. Then he'd say he was tired. We'd get in the car and I'd cry about getting fast food and then he'd take me, and I'd spill my pop or throw french fries in his face.
He was a lot older than my mom, and he died when I was just a kid. One of the first times I ever spoke to Rachel I told her about my dad taking me to the ranches, and she said he must have been a really gentle person. Then I said, "I think it's creepy when kids sing religious songs in perfect unison," because I had thought about that earlier in the day and I was so nervous I just blurted out the first thing I could think of.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sammy Gets Interviewed
Well, Sammy went to his interview at the courthouse posing as Boyce. If you remember correctly, he had challenged himself to use the words "bodacious" and "fetal development" five separate times, and then Boyce (the real one) challenged him to use "bodacious fetal development."
Sammy said when he got to the courthouse he realized he did not want to be selected for the jury. The rest of the people there for the interviews were so magnificently awkward and disturbing that Sammy felt, even with just eight fingers I guess, like "a god." Sammy didn't mind though because he loves people. Even shy strangers end up enjoying his company because he always asks questions that make people want to keep talking. If he has any talent other than reading books and putting the most massive pile of Arby's Horsey sauce on a roast beef sandwich without having any of it drip off, it's knowing what questions people want to hear to get them to keep talking.
He said he was interviewed by a few lawyers that he assumes were from both sides of the case. He thought it would be best to try for a homerun on the first pitch, so when the first lawyer asked if he was enjoying the beautiful day thus far, Sammy said, "If the sun were a baby I bet it enjoyed bodacious fetal development." Nobody knew what to say to him, so he chewed on the corner of his thumbnail to show he was missing fingers.
Every time one of the lawyers explained something to him, he would nod thoughtfully and say, "Bodacious." He said getting five of those was easy. "Fetal development" though was much more difficult. One was already used up on his opening comment, and though he didn't remember every use, he did recall that when one of the lawyers asked him how he felt about slander laws, he said, "It depends a lot on one's fetal development." Another time he switched it to "the developing of a fetus" and hoped that wasn't cheating.
Sammy is pretty sure he's not going to get selected for the jury, but there's always a chance that one side wants a complete basketcase on the jury, especially if the case is particularly hopeless. Who knows, you might get a mis-trial or something if one of the jurors tries to eat the hair of a witness or something.
Sammy said when he got to the courthouse he realized he did not want to be selected for the jury. The rest of the people there for the interviews were so magnificently awkward and disturbing that Sammy felt, even with just eight fingers I guess, like "a god." Sammy didn't mind though because he loves people. Even shy strangers end up enjoying his company because he always asks questions that make people want to keep talking. If he has any talent other than reading books and putting the most massive pile of Arby's Horsey sauce on a roast beef sandwich without having any of it drip off, it's knowing what questions people want to hear to get them to keep talking.
He said he was interviewed by a few lawyers that he assumes were from both sides of the case. He thought it would be best to try for a homerun on the first pitch, so when the first lawyer asked if he was enjoying the beautiful day thus far, Sammy said, "If the sun were a baby I bet it enjoyed bodacious fetal development." Nobody knew what to say to him, so he chewed on the corner of his thumbnail to show he was missing fingers.
Every time one of the lawyers explained something to him, he would nod thoughtfully and say, "Bodacious." He said getting five of those was easy. "Fetal development" though was much more difficult. One was already used up on his opening comment, and though he didn't remember every use, he did recall that when one of the lawyers asked him how he felt about slander laws, he said, "It depends a lot on one's fetal development." Another time he switched it to "the developing of a fetus" and hoped that wasn't cheating.
Sammy is pretty sure he's not going to get selected for the jury, but there's always a chance that one side wants a complete basketcase on the jury, especially if the case is particularly hopeless. Who knows, you might get a mis-trial or something if one of the jurors tries to eat the hair of a witness or something.
Friday, July 3, 2009
I Interpret a Dream and Boyce's Family
Worked at the Sleep Center last night. From the utility closet I listened to a woman named O----- F----- (name withheld: she seemed like she had social problems but was unaware of said social problems, and is therefore the kind of person who googles herself every day) tell her dream to Marcie, the attendant who was working last night.
O------- was in a mall where she saw a man with a machine gun sneak in. She rushed into a store where she and a small Asian woman hid among ceramics. As the man walked by with his gun, she realized she couldn't just sit there and do nothing. She grabbed a bat that was apparently available among the ceramics of angels and small boys in overalls "goin' fishin.'" She hit the man with the gun and celebrated that she stopped any crime from happening. A cop though, in what might be described as the ultimate buzzkill, told her that all she managed to do was stop the murder of a woman who was pregnant with a child who would grow up to murder Batman.
It is much more difficult to interpret dreams without reading the people's files, but a promise is a promise. Just hearing the way the woman talked though, she seems to think a lot of herself, as is evidenced by the fact that she a) stopped the mall shooting, and b) felt she was good enough to hide out with Asians. However, there is a fly in the ointment. The women was in a shop of what can only be described as sentimentalized dreck. She wasn't able in her dream to even hide out in a "cool" shop, or even one that pretends to be a "cool" shop like where kids buy shirts with distressed clowns and aliens on them. She also found her most heroic act to be an anti-heroic act by literally allowing the eventual murder of a hero. Clearly, this woman hides a debilitating lack of self-worth behind a thin veil of middle-class sentimentality and cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, by telling the dream she has a vague impression that sharing with another (even if it is a stranger) could lead to some realized sense of community. She will either come back for more treatments at the Sleep Center or be dead by her own hand within the week.
Today is the first day that Sammy can go in for an interview at the courthouse, so I'll let you know tomorrow how it went. Sammy called Boyce before he left for the courthouse to make sure he was willing to risk a fine/jail time just to stay out of jury duty, and Boyce told him he couldn't be away from his wife and kid for that long.
Boyce's wife is different. Sammy and I don't mind, though, but other people get in a fit about it. Charlotte doesn't really like to be around other people, though she doesn't mind being around us because we don't ask questions we know she doesn't want to answer. We just let her do her thing, and her favorite thing is getting out blank sheet music and writing the musical notation for everything she hears. Commercials, songs, people humming--she writes it all out on sheet music, and it's always right. I once gave her a cd of bird songs and she loved it because it was so hard for her to do, but she eventually got most of them right, I think. Charlotte would then give all the sheet music to Boyce who would then try to play it on his guitar. Boyce isn't very good on the guitar though, but now their son Boyce Jr. is eight and he's already better than his dad is. So now Charlotte gives the music to Boyce Jr. and he plays it for her.
The first time Rachel met Charlotte she used the s-word around Boyce. She called Charlotte a "savant." I didn't even know what the word meant--I thought it meant a kind of medieval sword, so I made this "swushing" sound and tried to cut everyone's head off with an air sword, which was obviously really inappropriate--but Boyce knew what it meant. He yelled at Rachel that just because Charlotte is good at one thing doesn't mean she's good at other things. Then Boyce shouted at Charlotte to add 150 and 146 and she couldn't do it, and both Charlotte and Rachel started to cry. It got really weird there, and Boyce apologized, and to lighten the mood I went to air-chop everybody's head off again with my savant-sword but Sammy told me to quit before I got revved up.
O------- was in a mall where she saw a man with a machine gun sneak in. She rushed into a store where she and a small Asian woman hid among ceramics. As the man walked by with his gun, she realized she couldn't just sit there and do nothing. She grabbed a bat that was apparently available among the ceramics of angels and small boys in overalls "goin' fishin.'" She hit the man with the gun and celebrated that she stopped any crime from happening. A cop though, in what might be described as the ultimate buzzkill, told her that all she managed to do was stop the murder of a woman who was pregnant with a child who would grow up to murder Batman.
It is much more difficult to interpret dreams without reading the people's files, but a promise is a promise. Just hearing the way the woman talked though, she seems to think a lot of herself, as is evidenced by the fact that she a) stopped the mall shooting, and b) felt she was good enough to hide out with Asians. However, there is a fly in the ointment. The women was in a shop of what can only be described as sentimentalized dreck. She wasn't able in her dream to even hide out in a "cool" shop, or even one that pretends to be a "cool" shop like where kids buy shirts with distressed clowns and aliens on them. She also found her most heroic act to be an anti-heroic act by literally allowing the eventual murder of a hero. Clearly, this woman hides a debilitating lack of self-worth behind a thin veil of middle-class sentimentality and cosmopolitanism. Nevertheless, by telling the dream she has a vague impression that sharing with another (even if it is a stranger) could lead to some realized sense of community. She will either come back for more treatments at the Sleep Center or be dead by her own hand within the week.
Today is the first day that Sammy can go in for an interview at the courthouse, so I'll let you know tomorrow how it went. Sammy called Boyce before he left for the courthouse to make sure he was willing to risk a fine/jail time just to stay out of jury duty, and Boyce told him he couldn't be away from his wife and kid for that long.
Boyce's wife is different. Sammy and I don't mind, though, but other people get in a fit about it. Charlotte doesn't really like to be around other people, though she doesn't mind being around us because we don't ask questions we know she doesn't want to answer. We just let her do her thing, and her favorite thing is getting out blank sheet music and writing the musical notation for everything she hears. Commercials, songs, people humming--she writes it all out on sheet music, and it's always right. I once gave her a cd of bird songs and she loved it because it was so hard for her to do, but she eventually got most of them right, I think. Charlotte would then give all the sheet music to Boyce who would then try to play it on his guitar. Boyce isn't very good on the guitar though, but now their son Boyce Jr. is eight and he's already better than his dad is. So now Charlotte gives the music to Boyce Jr. and he plays it for her.
The first time Rachel met Charlotte she used the s-word around Boyce. She called Charlotte a "savant." I didn't even know what the word meant--I thought it meant a kind of medieval sword, so I made this "swushing" sound and tried to cut everyone's head off with an air sword, which was obviously really inappropriate--but Boyce knew what it meant. He yelled at Rachel that just because Charlotte is good at one thing doesn't mean she's good at other things. Then Boyce shouted at Charlotte to add 150 and 146 and she couldn't do it, and both Charlotte and Rachel started to cry. It got really weird there, and Boyce apologized, and to lighten the mood I went to air-chop everybody's head off again with my savant-sword but Sammy told me to quit before I got revved up.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Chronics at the Sleep Center
We don't get too many regulars at the Sleep Center. Some sleep problems are acute, so people get the problem fixed and don't come back. Other people have chronic problems but after they come here a couple times they realize nothing at the Sleep Center can help them find the merciful joy of oblivion until they confess they slept with their brother's wife, ran over a construction worker in Mexico, or admit that's probably too much pork for one person to consistently ingest.
Like all medical settings though, we do have a few chronic patients who come even though we can't help them. They don't care insurance isn't paying or that Mark and some of the other attendants are making fun of them barely-behind their backs. They just don't want to be alone. One guy told me he was doing research for an article he's writing for the New Yorker, but then he messed his pants in his sleep, so I'm pretty sure he was a crippled alcoholic who needed a friend.
I first started reading people's files at the Sleep Center because of one of these chronic patients. Once, I was mopping the floor and a chronic patient leaned forward on his chair and said, "I bet I could kill you and no one would even care. I've killed people, you know." I didn't know what to say and he just kept staring at me. I thought I better check his file so when I was cleaning I just pulled open the cabinet and looked him up. Turns out he never really killed anyone. He was just a lucid dreamer, so he was having trouble keeping reality straight sometimes. The next time I saw him I touched him on the shoulder and told him not to worry, that he never really killed anyone. He told me to leave him alone and that, instead of bothering him, I should go do horrible, horrible things to my sister. That guy was eventually banned from the Sleep Center because he told Marcie, another attendant at the Sleep Center, that he was going to wear her one day.
From then on I really started to enjoy reading people's files. Sometimes people were messed up so you felt good your life wasn't as bad as theirs, and other times people seemed so hurt, and when you talked to them they were so kind, that you never thought you could feel so strongly for a stranger. I never read Rachel's file, though. Even when she told me I could. She told me I couldn't read any more files, that it wasn't right, and that I could only read one more, and that it would be hers. I said I didn't want to, though.
So I read another person's file instead, and sweet grackle!, that guy was just completely insane.
Like all medical settings though, we do have a few chronic patients who come even though we can't help them. They don't care insurance isn't paying or that Mark and some of the other attendants are making fun of them barely-behind their backs. They just don't want to be alone. One guy told me he was doing research for an article he's writing for the New Yorker, but then he messed his pants in his sleep, so I'm pretty sure he was a crippled alcoholic who needed a friend.
I first started reading people's files at the Sleep Center because of one of these chronic patients. Once, I was mopping the floor and a chronic patient leaned forward on his chair and said, "I bet I could kill you and no one would even care. I've killed people, you know." I didn't know what to say and he just kept staring at me. I thought I better check his file so when I was cleaning I just pulled open the cabinet and looked him up. Turns out he never really killed anyone. He was just a lucid dreamer, so he was having trouble keeping reality straight sometimes. The next time I saw him I touched him on the shoulder and told him not to worry, that he never really killed anyone. He told me to leave him alone and that, instead of bothering him, I should go do horrible, horrible things to my sister. That guy was eventually banned from the Sleep Center because he told Marcie, another attendant at the Sleep Center, that he was going to wear her one day.
From then on I really started to enjoy reading people's files. Sometimes people were messed up so you felt good your life wasn't as bad as theirs, and other times people seemed so hurt, and when you talked to them they were so kind, that you never thought you could feel so strongly for a stranger. I never read Rachel's file, though. Even when she told me I could. She told me I couldn't read any more files, that it wasn't right, and that I could only read one more, and that it would be hers. I said I didn't want to, though.
So I read another person's file instead, and sweet grackle!, that guy was just completely insane.
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