on not having it in me today pt 2

ok

ok

let's not make monday totally suck

—the bastard

i just don't have it in me today

you know,

i just spent the last 10 minutes bashing the keyboard over some asshole down the hall and his inability to do the right thing when the bastard is 6 feet away from the door and he didn't.

bang bang bang. thought up something clever and all that crap.

but i just don't have it in me today.

—the bastard

...on cocksuckery

a week or two ago, left hand rob wrote about the noise problem in our work area. and we've both kind of commented about the issues surrounding our work area.

but there is this guy who walks around with a headset on who can call locutus. now when we're at all above an audible volume, locutus shuts his office door but, the bastard assumes that locutus is not aware of his own annoying sounds because he justs walks around with his nasally wine all the fucking live long like his shit don't stink. it's kind of annoying in an us versus them kind of way.

haves and have nots.

shit like that.

generally, i tend to ignore it but today an unnamed editorial staffer who has just recently discovered the internet came over to discuss the latest "uniques" on the web site or some crap.

people learn new words and it's just like a toddler who learned how to say, "poop".

"poop"

"poop"

"poop"

"poop"

you hear it every day. for weeks upon end until they learn "light", or "kobe beef".

"kobe beef"

"kobe beef"

"kobe beef"

"kobe beef"

you get the point. anyway with locutus and staffer having their open air love in about the internet. it makes my head hurt. so it's ipod+loud equals small oasis from jackassery.

so i'm tapping my foot.

"is that sound you tapping your foot?"

"yes."

"oh i was wondering what that was." and staffer turns away.

"unique. kobe beef."

"unique. kobe beef."

"unique. kobe beef."

"unique. kobe beef."

can't wait to move into the new space. oh has the basatrd told you. selling bullets 7 times a year is moving down the hall. yes, it has gotten to a point that the irritation has brought us to leave our good good friends at killing stuff monthly so that we can make a fucking magazine in peace.

—the bastard

...on the subconscious

the bastard doesn't understand.

i keep having these reoccuring dreams.

they take place usually in and around the neighborhood. and i don't recall the overall storyline in the dream. it's not like the rat dream s i used to have but, i never really talked about them much (it's kind of a long story).

anyway, the only thing i can recall when i wake up is:


somehow, the black guy from night court keeps showing up. not bull or harry anderson but, the black guy.

hell i didn't even like watching the show. when it was in syndication, the mofo (rest in piece) would want to watch it and i kind of didn't want to. which was not to say that i never watched but, i never really watched it willingly. i thought the bull character was unfunny, marky post had the worst 80's hair and harry anderson was not just awful, he was god awful.

anyway, the bastard clearly doesn't understand why the black guy from night court? why not the black guy from sliders? i actually watched that show when it aired on regular tv as well as syndicated on the scifi channel. the bastard just doesn't get it. stupid brain, pick better reoccuring subconscious cast members. dammit!

—the bastard

...on the flying experience

so there are a few things, the bastard has noticed about travelling these days.

wait let me back up for a sec: i have this uncle who lives in california. let's call him grizzly adams. he works for a major air carrier that has a hub out there. and part of the trappings of working for a major air carrier is your family's ability to fly for free. well not free. but for tax. no wait. employees families do fly for free but buddy passes are where you pay the tax. anyway, grizzly's family used to fly for free. now, notsomuch. it's kind of like how after you get out of school, you no longer have their medical benefits. which is pretty much why the accountant is the only one of my cousins from cali that can come out on a regular basis but her company pays for that crap. but i digress, grizz, would make them dress up for the flight as they are technically representing the company every time they fly for free.

but back to my point: there are a few things, the bastard has noticed about travelling these days. people dress like slobs.


well, not everyone. i mean sometimes you can be a little overdressed for some occasions.


but then again, i think it was toht that remarked that americans are always overdressed for the wrong occasions. but i think ithe opposite has become the standard. behold, y'all:


i mean come on! what the hell is this? people are in the airport in broad daylight in their hoodies and their pajama pants. and, well i've already commented on this guys frikkin' birkenstocks. i mean i know that white folks like to wear things that will help them will summer to happen sooner but come on! there is appropriate footwear and there is NOT appropriate.

what the bastard is saying is, he should never feel like the best dressed guy in the airport.

—the bastard

...feeble

got off the plane at 6:30 am.

didn't sleep a wink.

hungry enough to kill and eat the cab driver who i was stuck with on the fucking van wyck for an hour.

hell, i could dig up robert moses' corpse and eat IT if it was time efficient enough.

but it ain't.

so upon getting home, the bastard has breakfast, then goes to bed.

an hour later, left hand rob calls up to tell me that somethings wrong with the cover. now, my head hurts. problem gets solved and it's back to bed.

got up at 4pm.

got to bed at 2am after a bout of the devils work.

my life hurts.

so that said, i have more to say about my travels but, it's going to come later. much later when my head isn't covered in the fog of exhaustion.

—the bastard

...on crosses to bear

easter sunday.

the bastard gets up at the crack of dawn to go to church with the boy.

father and son stuff.

let me save you the trouble of asking.

lightning didn't strike.

the ground didn't open up.

the hosts of hell didn't come up to claim what is rightfully their property like i've always suspected they would. however, one minister looked like mike ditka and the other looked like the lead singer of the bosstones.

don't be disappointed, it'll happen for me one day.

dad'll be so proud.

at least when i get there, i'll be warm.

so i get out of the rental and i look up the parking lot to the big rusted cross where the worship is taking place.

i approach the fist of kung fu to get my mass program but, then i look up and see this on top of the church and i see this:


the bastard had to wonder. so i ask the fist, "ummmm hey fist?"

"how's it going?"

"pretty good but, i was wondering"

"how was your flight?"

"good, is that a cell tower on the cross?"

then the fist of kung fu makes himself a big ole smile and shakes his head. "yeah, it is."

then he spins a brief tale about it.

you see, the fist is pretty active in his church. so he's friend's with pastor ditka and one day while walking the grounds he explains to the fist that they had the roof repaired or something done to the sunday school or something and he pointed out the new cross on the roof and the fist asked the same question. pastor ditka gave him the same answer.

"wow, it sure did look like one", i repled. "i just had to ask. it kind of gives a new meaning to the phrase can you hear me now?"

now let me say off the bat here that , i would never begrudge a church the means to keep itself afloat. not every church is a catholic church. so, that means that they may not have the vast landholdings and financial resources of the catholic church that come with that. a church can have a cell tower but maybe not a coca cola sign on the church front door perhaps. i don't know. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe it's the worship that matters. on the same token, having a cell tower attached to the cross on top of your church is pretty funny to me.

the bastard is SO going to hell.

—the bastard

...the bastard has seen his future

it's early.

well not THAT early.

i mean it's almost lunch time in new york but, it's early here.

anyways, the rudest thing happened to the bastard in the coffee shop.

well not really really rude but, pretty much the rudest thing that has happened to me since the boy moved to tucson.

old man.

looks like a hobo (the boy prefers to call them hobos instead of homeless. the bastard prefers no shoulders small tooth jones or old barb stab you quick), probably wasn't but he sure was disheveled.

anyway, he's getting his coffee, and after he gets, i go around him but apparently, the bastard didn't cut old ahab a wide enought birth. mostly because, he, rather than turn to his right and go on his way, turned directly around got all up ons and said "excuse me" in his gruffest tone, to which i responded, "relax tiger".

the barrista flummoxed just smiled and took my order. every always smiles in dining establishments in this town. that's why i keep getting my coffe at this place when i'm out here. also, it's the only coffee shop the bastard can find other than the it's a grind on oracle and while the coffee there is ok, i can't help feelign like the opening credits of weeds when i walk into the place.

but then i thought about it, is this my future?

chubby little fat man?



brushing up against people and trying my best to make them feel like assholes?

i hope not.

it's totally going to ruin my golden years if i become a hobo and i don't think my ladyfriend wants to grow old with me in a refrigerator box.

—the bastard

has the bastard ever told you...

...hell is travelling with other people.

okay, so the bastard has yet to enmass the kind of wealth to buy a jet and have a carbon footprint like al gore's house.

which reminds me, when has a Nobel prize ever been awarded on television featuring music by melissa etheridge? if that ain't media bias, the bastard doesn't know what is.

but I digress, hell is travelling with other people. try to keep up stupid. it all started out when the bastard discovered eastern european gangsters on line with him. and they litter too. I guess vigo mortensen was totally off the mark because he didn't toss his empties on the frikken ground instead of the handy trash recepticle 5 feet away. I guess be didn't want to tip off the tsa by having a loaded empty bottle of water.

in out next thrilling episode, the bastard drowns out women who finish all sentences in question form with the velvet underground. it begs the question of what's worse, enduring two asian girls with oily skin yammer on about boys and otaku or a tone deaf german chanteuse warbling about all tomorrows parties (which was a hell of a book). my money is on nico. at least she didn't look all shiny from eating too many potato chips, just tranked out from too much heroin.

-the bastard

...on sucking it in

a good nights's sleep has all sorts of stupid side effects on one.

you're more on point.

dodges this jerk.

dodge that jerk.

nice shoes.

holy CRAP! that is a sweet looking motorcycle. i have GOT to get me one of those. he's so tall, he looks like he's riding some kind of motor powered kids bike.

anyway, you jerks get the point.

get in the building and the elevator opens up magically for the bastard.

it's nice to have magical powers.

you should get some.

anyway, some character gets on with the rest of the rubes. and he's in the doorway, and not getting off on my floor so , you know how this is supposed to end.

anyway, his headphones give away that he is listening to some kind of rap music that sounds like jah rule or busta rhymes and the bastard thinks to himself, "white people sure do know how to keep has been hip hop artists in business". hell, i do my part every time in listen to
"it takes a nation of millions to hold us back". i'm sure flavor flav loves it when he can fill his crack pipe with residuals.

but i digress. , it's my floor and fat boy is in the way so he sucks it in. which is a half assed way of getting out of the way of people. god forbid, you step aside. i mean hell, the elevator might leave without you. and as i scrape past his gut, i turn to him and say, "you ain't that skinny pal", and i'm off to the office. he said something in response but who cares what he said, he had a green ipod mini with matching green earbuds abd according to borat, ipod mini is for girls so who cares what he say. not that the bastard really cares what a fictional asshole says about pop culture but, it seemed to fit at the time, so go to hell.

—the bastard

...on asking

...and receiving

sometimes, the bastard stays at his ladyfriend's place.

it's a short hop from the office.

and i actually get sleep.

anyway, she only has one vent on her floor and when everyone on the floor cooks in their apartment, the most curious smell is borne in the hall.

so one of her neighbors put out an air freshener.

next day it was gone, thinking that the neighbor who put it out brought it back in. inspired, my ladyfriend bought her own to do away with the smell which some days is a mixture of cooking and mothballs and 3 day old cabbage being set on fire.

so upon waking up the next morning, the hallway smelled of airwick sugar water and baby bottoms, which mind you is better than the mothball smell. look for it in your grocery store.

when she got home it was gone. what to do?

upon discussion with the maintenance guy, she asks me to write a note to the air freshener thief. and not the kind of note with vitriol and and cursewords. begrudginly, i agree and write a nice note.

"CAN I PLEASE HAVE MY AIR FRESHENER BACK THANK YOU?"

next morning, lo and behold, there it was, right where my ladyfriend left it on sunday night. it was like the air freshener fairy returns air fresheners in return for notes from tenants. it was magical. so, she did what any smart new yorker would do. unplugged it and put in in the apartment. air fresheners are expensive you know? you can't trust anyone these days. but, you can leave a note about it.

—the bastard

...on amateurs

so this crane collapsed over the weekend uptown and this prompted the bastard to take
local streets to my ladyfriend's place instead of the fdr drive. and travelling uptown, on 3rd avenue, he was reminded of two things.

firstly, that he is part irish.

and secondly, he can't stand saint patrick's day.

especially when it falls near a weekend.

why?

well i'll tell you shiteyes. because every stupid, fratboy/sorority girl jackass sees it as a chance to get drunk and clog up the frikkin street with his/her drunken wearing green, drinking green budweiser, acting like asshole shenanigans. there's nothing that sets a better example to folks than running around like jackasses and puking all over the place. thanks to our best and brightest who will no doubt start working on a hedge fund that everyone else in their frat is working on (because qualifications mean SHIT in the face of fraternal nepotism) and command a better salary than actual normal humans. you suck at life.

—the bastard

...on cud

ok, it's like this. i've made it abundantly clear that the bastard doesn't enjoy watching you eat on the train so i won't belabor the point.

ok.

maybe he will belabor the point. it was like a surprise gross out this morning when this character sat down across from me with his cup of....something. i think it's coffee.

but it wasn't. instead it was a cup of nice sludgey steel cut oats.

thanks pal, watching you cram that sludge into your pie hole really made my day. thanks.

no.

really.

i appreciate your disgusting albeit efficient use of your time. the fact that you look like you are spooning spackle onto your beard is neither here nor there.

—the bastard

special sunday revelations edition

the bastard is a super model.

now go to hell.

—the bastard

...on dress codes

the bastard has been living in the FoHi since about 1996. i used to work at a grocery store in the middle of it from 1992 through about 1994. safe to say, i've put in some time here. now since there was a large influx of russians into the community due to a little thing we like to call glasnost.

and when the russians came over, they started buying what was hip at the time regardless of age. this culminated for the bastard during the summer of 1998, when while purchasing ice cream at a carvel the bastard witnessed two late 40 somethings russian gentlemen sporting threads from roca wear. this made me question the notion of whether newly emigrated peoples are really aware of what is age appropriate clothing. or perhaps the notion might have been moreseo about how if something is really really expensive, then it must be the thing to wear.


the bastard hadn't thought about that night until last night when i was taking the train home from work late. you see, when you head home during regular rush hour, you head home with the rank and file new yorkers who are coming home from their regular jobs. well, an hour or so later seems to be the time that all of the really choice folks get the ride home.


as illustrated here. this guy is balding, mind you and not to take away from the fact that the bastard is in fact bald himself, i would never wear anything to attempt to draw attention to it. but this guy was decked out in SO much young hiphop wear, i just had to diagram it out for you. and to think, there were 4 young guys dressed just like this that were high school age and looking for trouble. so much so, that it prompted the bastard to decide to wait for the next train to avoid said trouble. sometimes i'm convinced there is a god and that he has my sense of humor. thanks god, you're a real pal.

—the bastard

...brain turning to mush

maybe it's the shipping. maybe it's just because this online show has a character named batlle pope. maybe it's acapulco shirted christ with little orphan annie eyes but, i couldn't resist this ad. so here it is.

enjoy.

go on.

enjoy!

fine see if i care. frikkin jerks.

—the bastard

...on offense

got on the elevator this morning (da daaaaaaaah da dah), the roadie was getting on with me. he had a suitcase he was rolling with him. more folks pack in and this woman is standing between us.

i ask roadie, motioning to his suitcase, "coming or going?"

"oh, i'm going."

"where to?"

"georgia."

"what the hell's in georgia?"

now the roadie's answer isn't important at this time because this woman who was standing between us gives me the gas face.

downright offended.

the bastard offends people all the time but never quite so quickly, and never really about regional things. still and all, it was a good start.

—the bastard

get happy, stupid

walk into the stop and shop.

the chairman asked me to pick up some chop meat for meatballs as he is making sauce tonight.

but, first, coffee.

and they have it in house.

"can i have a big/medium/grande/motherfucking coffee please."

he hooks it up and asks, "can i get you anything else?"

"no thanks....no wait. i'll take a million dollars"

"we could all use a million dollars."

"from your mouth to god's ears."

his girlfriend pipes up, "what would be the first thing you do, when you get a million dollars?"

the bastard thins for a sec.

"you know, i was looking at apartments with my girlfriend this afternoon, and i saw this fantastic apartment designed by phillippe starck, and i would just drop the money on that."

"no you wouldn't. you'd get happy first."

then the bastard thought for a sec. and it made sense. you're right, i would.

—the bastard

...on the longest slice ever

...in which the bastard lays into a local favorite.

sometimes, ok, well most times, on the weekend, the bastard goes out to lunch with the chairman.

and most of the time, it's not exactly walking distance. so i hop into the magical jeep and he asks,

"whatcha eatin?"

and i felt like pizza, so i said "dee's"

so he says okay and instead we head to nick's. now nick's is a very good pizza place but i was thinking dee's because it was closer.

but we went to nick's.

at 3 in the afternoon.

and it was crowded. but not crowded because there was too many people. because the staff is kind of...

well...

lazy.

at this point, as the crowd is en massing, the bastard is being pushed into the eating area which prompted a bunch of young investment banker types to switch from speaking in english to saying "excuse me" as i am WAY too close to their dining experience and iphone/penis comparisons, to speaking in russian. i would imagine about how annoying it is to have my trenchcoat in their lunch.

in retrospect, it might be better this way insomuch as, if i had to listen to them talk about me in the third person in english might have prompted me to punch the poor sap in the face.

and that would have ruined lunch.

but it did prompt the chairman and i to speak at length about how this place might well have to get it's act together if equivalent competition moved in close by. i mean that's the thing both nick's and dee's are in pretty remote locations on their respective blocks on opposite sides of the fhills. hell, opposite sides of the tracks. but, the fact of the matter was, we had to bus our own table and the jackass had the nerve to make a joke about it. it was annoying. and the bastard was hungry. and while the pizza was good (really good actually), it ain't that good that i'm willing to put up with it often.

at least when i go to dee's in the afternoon, the place ain't crowded. oh well, go to hell.

—the bastard

...on delights

so there's this illustrator we use.

and he's fantastic for spot work. spots are the 4 inch by 4inch illustrations you would see at the front of a magazine. try to keep up.

anyway, he does a block of them for us so we can get one of our columns put together on time. every time. it doesn't suck.

his new style has begun to reflect an almost bosch like sensibility to them. and bosch is a personal favorite of mine.

"i mean look at these guys on the side rob. they have a whole garden of earthly delights quality to them. i'm waiting for them to start crapping little souls of the damned out of their backsides?"

"ummm, what do you mean?"

"the garden of earthly delights, it's a famous tryptic that hieronymous bosch painted back before the renaissance which oddly ended up in the bedroom of the guy in charge of the spanish inquisition"

"okay"

the bastard calls the image up on screen.

"it's like this. the first panel has the creation and adam and eve in it, then the garden of earthly delights and the third panel is one of hell."

"so it's the creation, followed by the corruption of this earth, followed by the end results."

"exactly."

you see, rob knows how to understand a painting, which is nice. sometimes when the bastard talks about old paintings, he can hear crickets.

and that's not nice.

"so the thing would close and there was a painting on the outside of the tryptic."

"i see, you know what would be really good?"

"what?"

"if there was a sneeze guard of earthly delights at the salad bar in his castle too."

delicious. however, i don't know if patrons would find images of bird headed men crapping out people would fly at the holy roman emperor's salad bar.

—the bastard

remiss

sorry kids.

the bastard has been remiss in his duties (heh heh...doody).

i spent this week putting together my feature well.

what's a feature well?

well young shiteyes, let me tell you what a feature well is. you see, a feature well is that really nice looking section of the magazine that you breeze past all of the shitty looking parts with the words on them. it's kind of like the sears roebuck catalog but, with guns.

then again, i think sears roebuck used to sell guns too. and motorcycles. but that was a simpler time. but i digress,

i was working on the well. and the bastard likes it to look good. and i also have a ton of the devils work to do as part of my stay out of a refrigerator box program which works in tandem with the bastard's not dying program. here's to hoping they work.

—the bastard