chair leg of truth

listen to the chair leg of truth. it does not lie. what does it say? well grab a loved one and smack away as i read this evenings truths.

it is fucking late

i am fucking tired

i did NOT kill cyrus

i DO in fact dig it

there is no reason i need to ride all over manhattan just to get back to queens

you do not appreciate my patience about the delays

i have no patience about the delays

you aren't really sorry

i know that you aren't

the express track is never a good place for the garbage train no matter what hour of the night it is.

and finally, despite the MTA's best efforts, i'm still going to be the good kind of tired tomorrow.

listen to the chair leg of truth. it does not lie. good night jerks

—the bastard

hit

"you know" said high school, "i always forget that while i've lived here for 8 diggity years, that i live two blocks away from the dakota"

"you mean THE dakota?" i replied

"yes"

"of john lennon got shot in front of fame?"

"yes, where yoko lives"

"wow, it's a nice building. who'd have thunk?"

so there i am in front of the building with high school wrapping up dinner at señor swankys, shooting the shinola about the last three months of catch up (as i haven't had dinner with high school in three months) and along comes mos def. he looks like he's waiting for a ride. or he looks suspicious but, the bastard hadn't quite worked that out yet but either way, we continued the catchup when we hear the tell tale screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech...thump of someone getting hit by a car. i stop. mos def starts to head out into the street and high school asks if someone got hit, as her back was to the street. mos def heads back to his spot as a gentleman comes out from the spot where the hit occured, phone in hand, still talking, dusting off his pant leg and continued his walk down 72nd street, still talking, still walking. i looked at mos def, mos def looked at me and we were flummoxed. before mos could get more than "well.." out i say, "i guess that was a really important phone call"

"i guess"

"or he's made out of iron"

"maybe"

shortly after that, mos def's ride arrived and he was off. i frikkin loved him in hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. you know, the bastard knows that's it's 10 to midnight but, i think i might have to watch that flick right now.

—the bastard

...on reprints

the bastard doesn't do retreads very often. but i often enjoy this 12 line short story neil gaiman wrote as a christmas card a few years back. i always find it somewhat funny and heart warming every year. i ran it this time last year and i'm running it again. you don't like it? go to hell.

Nicholas Was...

older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.

Ho.

Ho.

you know, this has been a weird christmas for the bastard. it's the first christmas that i'm not spending any part of it with the boy which is a bummer. but, also it's the first christmas i'm having since things got better. yeah... things got better in the last quarter of this year. maybe i'll tell you about it. maybe i won't. merry christmas chumps

—the bastard

...on the one

holy crap! the bastard woke up this morning only to find out that the godfather of soul is dead. there is now a great void in the world that some great god of funk will have to fill. i don't think anyone is up to the challenge. james was the standard bearer of what george clinton referred to as "the one". the one is the first beat of the 4/4 time (the bastard doesn't understand sheet music well so bear with him) and funk kind of finishes the measure not on the four count but on the following one (thus the one) clintop went on to explain how james brwon would end on an "early one" and he would end on a "late one" and that was the difference between james and parliament funkadelic. but none of this matters anymore. james brown was a consumate musician, a consumate conductor, and his souns was more important than the beatles, the stones and elvis in many respects. on this day of christmas get up from your dining table and go to the fucking record store and buy james brown live at the apollo. you may not like it at first but, you will find that it's the gift that keeps on giving. you might even catch yourself dong the funky funky funky funky broadway. good night james, and thank you very much for the funk.

—the bastard

...on the end...

...or is it the beginning?

so the bastard hasn't put up in a couple few. and i realize that i haven't. so now i am. one gets caught up in the business of complaining about the business and i forgot to tell you that business has concluded. the january issue has gone to the four winds and all that haunts me is that one spread that i can never take back now (the things some people will do to a magazine to avoid a make good*). and that removed a great deal of my burden. the daily is gone as well. the ad guys owe the bastard some alcohol. this however will never give me back the vacation time i lost this year but in essence, that's my own fault anyway. holiday shopping is done despite my trip to the mouth of hell and back again (didn't someone write a book called that?).

so, needless to say, while i'm at the end, i am at the beginning. i can begin enjoying the holiday season. the bastard bestowed booze upon all who took the time to bail his ass out these last few weeks and now i can get on with the holiday.

came home. thing 2 was looking out her open door shouting into her phone so i turned around to close the door downstairs mostly to give her the opportunity to close the door and save her the trouble of tipping me off that she's an awful person. she tolerates my presence in this building and i know it. but, a thing i've learned about mean people is that they think that they are fooling someone with fake pleasantries while they skewer you behind closed doors (we have thin walls thing 2) but, it's the holidays. my gift to her is the ability to keep up the pretense.

opened the mail and got a card from uncle acid (as well as from numerous others) and enclosed were two pictures of my grandparents from april of 1943. i took pause and got a little misty. i was an awful grandson and i miss them. thanks uncle. i appreciate it. merry christmas.

—the bastard

* a "make good" is when the magazine screws up an ad placement and we have to pay for it or we just have to run it again for free next time.

these are the voices of modern industry

Three years ago or so, I left NYC for Purgatory, part of my trip down was spent on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, mostly on Hatteras Island (get a map, ya jerks). I spent a night there at a campsite on the Atlantic Ocean and instantly feel in love with the place. On the way down I noticed an obelisk type structure on top of a hill. the town was of course, Kill Devil Hills, NC the place where Orville and Wilbur Wright took the first recorded flight. Though I was driving another 50 odd miles down the coast, I made plans to try and get back up the next day to check out the the site before going down to Florida. The next morning I had to run down to the Hatteras Lighthouse to take pictures for Ma Dukes. But by the time I got back up time had gotten away from me and I wasn't able to stop. I still had a lot of driving ahead of me, and the outer banks had just went through a category 2 hurricane and was cleaning up making driving a very slow go. I didn't get into Florida until 2 am.


On the way up north for my yearly drive toNYC for the holidays i decided to take an extra day out of my drive to hit the outer banks again and check out the Kitty Hawk Monument. Turns out when I showed up Sunday, December 17 i was there exactly 100 years to the day that Orville and Wilbur Wright made their grand experiment. It's crazy how things seem to work themselves out at times, I thought, as I marveled at this obelisk structure placed on top of what is truly and enormous hill.


Apparently there is a stairwell inside in order to service the light affixed to the top of the monument, that's pretty cool, which is basically the way I felt about the day. It is pretty cool when a plan comes together.

KROCK—KFAT—K4—KSHAQ...these are the voices...these are the voices

—the mofo

...on that holiday hoo hah

so, the bastard decided to do his christmas shopping online this year. because of the wave of mutilation i've been going through lately, it seemed like the logical progression. shop online, less time in stores, less time in traffic, less frustrated, more time for my social life.

but, every once in a while, we hit a speed bump. this speed bump is called federal express. they are one of the nation's largest shipping companies and they won't deliver unless there is a body to sign the invoice. so, the bastard had to go up to one of their more obscure trafficking facilities to pick up the mofo's gift. that is correct mofo. your gift. and left me tell you, if i could tell you what i bought the mofo for christmas (don't want to spoil the surprise and all that) you would find the quest absurd. you see the woodside facility is somewhere at the crossroads of hell where the grand central parkway, the brooklyn-queens expressway and laguardia airport. and it's at the end of long driveway that has a sign that says, "this isn't a fed ex facility you dick, make the next right and end up in astoria shiteyes!!!!!!".

so needless to say, it hasn't been a good morning. however it got me to thinking about a show i watch called ugly betty. yes, the bastard watches ugly betty. go to hell. it's about this girl from queens who isn't conventionally good looking who works in the magazine business. yes i watch it because the main character is from queens. no, i do not watch the king of queens. why? because while i find kevin james to be extremely funny, and i find jerry stiller to be an extraordinary comedic foil, i find the idea of sit coms about fat guys with extremely dedicated hot looking wives totally absurd and because i am never home either. however "sweat the small stuff" is brilliant standup and you should all watch it. also jerry is great in zoolander as ben stiller's manager. but i digress, in ugly betty, the show enforces two of my favorite bullshit stereotypes about new york city. first, it puts for the stereotype that everyone who who is pretty in new york city comes to new york from other part of the country that they hate coming from which i find absurdly funny mostly because i've met one or two people who are from "brooklyn" but, sound like they're from Tennessee. and i don't have anything against Tennessee but, i can tell that you're not from brooklyn, so stop it. the second stereotype which i don't find so absurd anymore is the stereotype that queens is a third world country that is mostly made of concrete wilderness that is easy to get lost in. i will never get those two hours back again...ever. maybe it isn't a stereotype. or maybe i just don't know my way around astoria. or maybe i don't know my way around woodside. or both. or maybe i just don't know how to ask for directions in russian. go fig. or go to hell.

—the bastard

everytime the bastard thinks he gotten out...

...he realizes that he's still IN!!!

pay no attention to the snakes on a plane here. i just felt the need to to replace the office art for this one. or maybe there ARE snakes in this motherfuckin office. i'm tired of all these got-dam snakes. anyway. january is closed. off to bed, never to be seen until i get the box of first bounds.

QUICK SIDEBAR: "hey bastard, can you tell the folks out here in tv land what a first bound is?" well shiteyes, i believe i can. you see kids, when you print a magazine, the pressmen waste about 10,000 feet of paper (and yes, that's alot of trees) making sure the pages are aligned properly. then when they are done printing the everything they box up the first 200 or so copies and box them up in boxes of 25 and send one of these boxes to the bastard's little cubicle on park avenue with little stickers on them that say "first bound copy".

so i get the call from the rep. no wait, let's backtrack. yesterday, the stand in for my production monkey tells me that she has to move page 45 up an eight of an inch so that it can accommodate an ad. i say sure without thinking about it because, i'm working 4 days of dailys. OK. RESTART NOW. i get this call from the rep and he tells me about the fact that the shotgun that runs across the spread is now out of alignment. now i have to resend the page potentially with pages on press.

QUICK SIDEBAR: hey bastard, what happens when you have to hold up the press? well let me tell you young jerkface, when you hold up the press it costs about roughly 5,000 dollars u.s. at least that's how much it cost 10 years ago which was the last time the bastard was ever involved in any press holding up hijinx. so, accounting for standard of living increases and inflation over time we're going to say it costs a fuck ton per hour to hold up a press

so needless to say, the bastard is having a grand old time because there are certain IT related issues that are preventing me from sending this ONE FRIKKIN PAGE to the plant right now. good times. no. GREAT times. i'm tired of all these got dam snakes.

—the bastard

...on holding

hey pack of sales guys with cookie cutter hairdos. when someone holds a door open for you the phrase that you are grasping for is "thank you". so please go to hell. THANK YOU

—the bastard

...on the tunnel

...and i don't mean the dance club

friday...my day...or at least it was supposed to be my day. i was supposed to be off today but the storm lasted a littel longer than anticipated. tired.

FLASH BACK: "how's it going gentlemen? we have one AA*. the rest of the book is looking good so far" the bastard drops a big ol plastic envelope in the outgoing and starts back when the retoucher asks

"so how are we doing?"

"we're in a good place retouch, i think i see the light at the end of the tunnel now."

"tunnel, eh?" blurts out the head of manufacturing who we wil call "latin heat". "do we haf a fucking train coming"

i start walking out of latin heat's office, "yeah train's a coming l.h. train's a coming and we're all tied to it and it's about to go over the cliff. see ya at the bottom"

FLASH FORWARD: found my ipod buried under some crap on my desk this morning and as i was pulling into lexington, "christian sands" by tricky comes on. it's nice to see the ipod has a good call on walking music.

my defenses...become fences.

the nice lady just called. she's on the ground and the boy and her are heading up north. i'll see them tomorrow. i love seeing the boy. while he never wants to talk about school, he's always fun to talk to. of course he is, he's my son. one more day of this grief and the bastard can crumple. i had read somewhere that the strongest willed beasts in the wilderness like to run when they know that their going to die so that they can hit the gorund running. die with dignity. i think i might want it that way too. coffee's calling. time to run.

—the bastard

*AA is a generic term used for any page that gets a change after we send it to the plant. generally, we pay for it.

...on the yard

sometimes the tired brings out there weirdest combination of words.

"i knew i came over her for something", as the bastard reaches past the freelancer for a box of paperclips

"ahh, stealing office supplies again?" quips freelancer.

"umm, yeah. actually, these are like currency in the prison yard"

"i see"

"yeah, i taking this box over to sweet lou. i need someone shanked in the yard later today"

"sounds good"

"he takes paperclips from you?", asks left hand rob. "lou only takes post its from me"

i think i'm due for a nap right about now. or due to write a novel.

—the bastard

...on the sixth sense

so the bastard got home last night an into bed around 1. such as life this time of year. so after 5 or six pages of 100 bullets, i turned in. around 2:30, i wake up from what felt like a dream and my knee felt out of wack so i bent my leg real quick only to hear a resounding pop and then after the initial shock, the pain kicked in. OW! it felt like something popped it the wrong way as if it had been sat on. i get out of bed to look for the knee brace and it's freezing in the apartment. so in the bastard's surreal half sleep/pained state, i start wondering why it's freezing in my apartment considerring how it's been in the 60's all day in new york (yeah, i don't get it either) and then it hit me. i might have ghosts. yeah it's probably the delirium but it was totally freezing just like one of those scenes from the sixth sense.

FAST FORWARD: i get off at lexington and the verve is on again. apparently my randomizer has a love that dares not speak it's name for richard ashcroft. who cares. it makes for good walking

FAST FORWARD: in the office. things are already starting to go wrong. we don't have copy for this gun. we won't have a road map until tuesday. we need to have the issue to the plant by thursday. the bastard fixes them or learns to deal. i feel so serene. i'm a fucking razor.

—the bastard