Text Messaging for Men
Let’s face it. Most men like scatalogical humor to some degree. That’s the only explanation behind Adam Sandler’s and Will Ferrell’s success at the box office. And yeah, I know. You don’t like scat humor - you try to keep it classy. You’d rather go see something of quality with Ethan Hawke in it, and you get your wife, girlfriend, husband, or lover roses on his or her birthday.
Well, I get my wife roses, too, jocko, and I still like a good fart joke when I hear it. Also, Ethan Hawke’s last three films grossed under $100 million worldwide while Adam Sandler’s last three grossed over $500 million. So I’m not alone. Here’s hoping your pretention gets you laid tonight, eh?
So guys like jokes about poop. And cocks. And urine. We like things that stick, run, ooze, and throb. Most of us, though, aren’t household names and can’t demand $20 million for a movie, so we don’t tend to make scatalogical jokes in mixed company. I think gross stuff’s funny, but I don’t post scat jokes on Facebook or Twitter, because I’m aware that some people will get offended, and there’s always the threat of that Unfriend or Unfollow button. I respect my friends enough not to throw shit at them, literally AND figuratively.
Although you’d think they’d respect me enough to accept me at my most disgusting. Oh well.
As for this site, well, I don’t usually post disgusting stuff here for the same reason. James Joyce might have been able to get away with a big shit scene in Ulysses, but so far I lack the literary merit and clout of James Joyce (I’m more likely to end up like Adam Sandler anyway), and if I did write a scene about taking a dump, it’d probably be precisely for obscene and prurient reasons. I’m not as noble as Joyce either.
Also, I don’t say the sort of things I’m talking about here in front of my wife. As far as scatalogical humor is concerned, she’s effectively humorless.
Which brings me to the point of this particular post. If there’s a new paradigm wherein even the most proper male among us can vent his need for semen jokes, it’s TEXT MESSAGING. That’s right! You find the right buddy, and the two of you can exchange insults, observations, and innuendo to your hearts’ content. It’s convenient, immediate, and private. Yeah, I know Big Brother might be listening, but I don’t think he sees such idiotic escapism as a threat. Hell, if he’s a guy, I bet our exchanges are an amusing diversion from his otherwise boring workday.
You want some examples, don’t you. Of course you do! So here you go - a few choice exchanges between me and a couple of my friends. I’m not gonna reveal to you which guy in each exchange is me, though. Suffice it to say that I’m the guy with the slightly better vocabulary.
Now, I respect you, dear reader, so I warn you. The following text exchanges are not for children. Or prudes. And they are 100% genuine. If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you my phone sometime.
Conversation #1
Man 1: Well?
Man 2: Rule me out. Tell her I said happy birthday.
Man 1: OK. She said fuck off. Thanks for coming. Ur not welcome anymore, Mr. Never Puts The Seat Down. We even made u ice.
Conversation #2
Man 1: Defendor was a pretty good movie, Butt Farkus
Man 2: Woody Harrelson starred in Defendor. YOU starred in SPHINCTOR. Coprophagist.
Conversation #3
Man 1: Cfyffhffhrethhgggfffjjygddvbjjqwrfcssgjjvxdhhxsgbbjktxvhhfgkippo
Man 1: Did you get my text?
Man 2: Yeah. I don’t believe a word of it.
Conversation #4
Man 1: What DOES semen taste like?
Man 2: Chicken
Man 1: Do you like chicken?
Man 2: I like choking it.
Conversation #5
Man 1: I got a gaper!
Man 2: I’ll give you a gaper.
Man 1: I meant paper. I can’t come tomorrow, I got a paper to do. Damn auto-correct.
Man 1: Thanks, though.
Conversation #6
Man 1: Your pussy is so fat, it looks like a stack of pork chops turned sideways. Your asscrack is more humid than the Amazon River Basin. Your asshole is a swamp.
Man 2: Your pussy tastes like hobo dick.
Man 1: That’s funny, ’cause ur hobo dick tastes like my pussy. And your balls taste like hummus.
Man 2: It’s because they’re Muslim. You, sir, are a Republican. You wish Rush Limbaugh would spread those ample buttcheeks and let you plow him like an Idaho potato field.
Man 1: Ur a Teabagger. In both senses of the word.
Man 2: I dunk my donuts in the aqua Buddha mouth of Rand Paul.
Man 1: Every time u touch ur cock, Glenn Beck tells a lie.
Man 2: But unlike you, I’ve never had my gaping maw filled with the viscous semen of Sean Hannity.
Man 2: And Glenn Beck must tell a lot of lies.
See? Foul, foul, foul, foul, foul. But up until now, conversations like these (if you can call them such) were between us guys. So how about you, dear reader? “Dude”? How are you using the new communications technologies available to us in the 21st century?
Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 20
A fun little Interlude? Well, the character of Elgin, with his incredible wit and candor, may amuse people somewhat, but hopefully you’ll get the sense of foreboding that his behavior and the situation merits. Why?
Because this is a portentious piece - an aside which will eventually become the crux of the novel.
There - I hope I’ve intrigued you. Now, on to Interlude 2, featuring my brother Daryl and my other brother Darrell (seriously).
A War Between States Part 20:
Interlude
“What we doin’ way the fuck out here?”
Terminius Green drove his white Mustang down the gravel path which the road sign had said was County Maintained 51. The road had two lanes, with barely discernible yellow streaks indicating the divide between northbound and southbound. But Terminius wouldn’t quite call them lanes — they were so narrow they could barely accommodate his car, and the endless washouts and potholes on either side forced him to drive right down the middle. Streaks of morning sunlight danced across his car as they came through the periodic gaps in the pines which lined either side of the road. It gave him the impression of someone turning a light on and off, on and off. The rhythm of the light, the dull roar of his tires as they cracked on the gravel of County Maintained 51, and the fact that he wasn’t used to getting up so early would have lulled him to sleep, except for Elgin Blalock beside him.
Elgin was used to getting up this early. Elgin barely slept anymore, on his diet of Red Bull, rum, amphetamines, and cocaine. Terminius figured the man, barely in his twenties, had maybe two good years left before he’d OD or have a heart attack.
He wouldn’t die in a car accident, probably, because he’d already lost his license three years back, and he never drove. Strangely enough, it was a rule he took seriously.
“We jus’ doin’ what we told,” Elgin said. He fidgeted in the bucket seat beside Terminius, twisting this way, then that. He undid his seatbelt, and then, when he caught Terminius’s sidelong, uneasy glance, he put it back on — but not without offering a little verbal abuse.
“Fuckin’ fuck. Fuck yo’ old stupid fuckin’ rules about yo’ fuckin’ car.”
“They ain’t my rules. They my mama’s.”
“Fuck yo’ mama.”
Terminius let his foot off the gas and the car slowed. He reached into the pocket of the car door beside him and felt the handle of the .22 there. He’d use it, by God, if this asshole beside him gave him any more shit — especially about his mama. He dared not slam on the brakes the way he wanted to — not on the loose gravel, not in his new car. But he’d stop the car and take care of Elgin.
Elgin noticed the car slowing and grinned.
“I’m jus’ kiddin’, man,” he said. “Don’t need to slow down and start no trouble. I o-pologizzze.” The zzz was accompanied by a huge flash of Elgin’s gold-plated front teeth.
Terminius grunted and accelerated, accepting the o-pology. For now.
“‘Sides,” Elgin said, still grinning,” I’d fuck yo’ ass UP!”
Elgin didn’t know about the gun in the car door.
They came to a place where County Maintained 51 veered off, banking steeply against the rows of pines. An unpaved road of red clay dirt continued straight ahead. The pines also lined the left side of the dirt road, but an open field filled the space to the right. In the middle of the field stood a lone, off-white trailer on the top of a low hill that started at the dge of the dirt road and plunged away out of sight. A rough driveway led from the trailer’s grassless yard to the dirt road, and a forlorn pole with a transformer clinging to it towered over it all. Wires hung low over the driveway, connecting the transformer to the power lines on the side of County Maintained 51.
“Turn in there,” Elgin said and pointed at the dirt road and the driveway.
“What’s that?” Terminius asked.
“That there is a little white trailer in the middle of a fuckin’ field out in the middle of bumfuck,” Elgin said and flashed his teeth.
“I can see that. But why are we here?”
“You’ll see.”
Terminius slowed down again, pulled onto the dirt road, and then onto the driveway leading to the trailer. Rocks crunched under his tires. He was glad it hadn’t rained recently, or he’d have to wash his car.
Elgin popped his seatbelt loose before they stopped, opened his door and tumbled out before Terminius had a chance to shift into park and turn off the car. He strolled quickly across the barren yard, his skinny legs looking strikingly black in contrast to his ultra white shorts. Despite all the money Elgin had, he refused to wear shorts like Terminius — baggy, with lots of pockets, just like their heroes on BET. Instead, Elgin wore super tight coach’s shorts, kind of like the ones Coach Williams sometimes wore. Only Coach Williams’s legs always looked especially large and more muscular in his clothes. Elgin’s just looked… funny.
Terminius climbed out of the car and clicked on the alarm with his keychain. A beep let him know it was armed. He followed Elgin to the trailer, mounted the steps, and entered the door that Elgin had left open.
Inside, the trailer was musty and devoid of any furniture, save a fold-out card table in the front room and two matching chairs. Elgin was already in the kitchen, his movements echoing through the empty trailer. Terminius walked into the kitchen to find Elgin opening the cabinets and pulling out stacks of plates and glass after empty glass.
“What is this place?”
Elgin chuckled. “It belongs to one of Coach’s girlfriends. She don’t live here no more, though.”
Then Elgin pulled out an airtight brick of something wrapped in green plastic. He reached into the cabinet and pulled out another one, this one wrapped in black plastic.
“What’s that?” Terminius asked.
Elgin smirked. “What the fuck you think it is? That,” he said, pointing at the green package, “is smack.” He pointed at the other. “That… is crack. Smack and crack. Crack and smack. What the fuck you think?”
The Cast
- Terminius Green - Darrell Collins
- Elgin Blalock - Daryl Funn
- Narrator - Will Kenyon
Creeps and Assholes
First, a little context for this post: I have a hobby, one which I love SO MUCH that sometimes Aida (my wife) questions whether I love it or her more. And that hobby is gaming.
This is a creep.
When I say that, people automatically assume I mean VIDEO gaming, which I don’t. While I enjoy video games a little bit, I rarely play them. No – what I mean is board and card gaming – and not Magic The Gathering either (I had a long brush with collectible card games like Magic and I’m mostly over them). I mean board games ranging from ones you know - Chess and Backgammon – to ones you might not have never heard of, like Twilight Imperium and Cosmic Encounter. I mean card games like Poker and Blackjack, as well as card games like Colossal Arena and Race for the Galaxy.
One of my best gaming buddies is a guy named Michael Buccheri. He lives in Baltimore, and I only see him a couple of times a year. But we shoot the shit nearly every day while he’s driving to work and I’m dropping Madeleine off at school (free long distance is one of the best things to happen in the past decade).
One day, while we were talking, I started bitching about some people who were pissing me off (no, not you), and Michael (who has the nickname Malloc, BTW), told me about this thing he wrote a couple of years back for a gaming web site we both belong to. What he said intrigued me, so I went to the site and appropriated what he wrote there for this post.
This is it, more or less intact. I cleaned it up some, and made some statements more “general” so that non-gamers can understand it better, but this is more or less exactly what Malloc wrote:
It has been said there are two types of people in this world: those who lead and those who follow. I have a different way of thinking, a slightly more cynical Boolean classification for the world’s population. The two types of people in Malloc’s world are Creeps and Assholes.
I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and we got onto the topic of types of gamers. Why does one guy like a specific type of game , and another guy like a different type of game? (Will’s interjection for the gaming layperson: there are two major “schools” of gaming, which I will explain in some detail at another time.)
It became clear to me that there are distinct personality types that favor each school of gaming. Essentially, some people get what they want by acting in a passive-aggressive manner, and these people favor a particular type of game: games with clearly defined mechanics, relatively short play times, and little direct player interaction. Others are more of the “in your face” types, and they prefer games with heavy themes, less restrictive rules, relatively longer lengths, and more direct player interaction (i.e. fighting).
Now, I’m sure my “sample” wouldn’t satisfy even the loosest of scientific standards, but I tended to notice that the people I would consider Creeps - the kind of person who is usually quiet, but gets his way by complaining and manipulation – tended to favor the first school of gaming. On the other hand, those whom I consider to be Assholes – brash individuals who never stay quiet when given the opportunity to offer an opinion and who tend to get their way via direct confrontation – favor the second school.
I’m not condemning or condoning being either a Creep or an Asshole – all of us are one or the other. I just wanted you all to think about what you are.
For the record, it should be obvious that I consider myself a total Asshole.
Essentially, when you’re not applying it to gaming, what Malloc means is that there are two ways people approach “getting what they want” - either aggressively (Assholes) or passive-aggressively (Creeps).
This is an asshole.
After Malloc told me this, we concluded together that the reason those people were pissing me off was because they were Creeps and I (like Malloc) am an Asshole, and sometimes Creeps and Assholes just don’t get along. It didn’t help that the Creeps were complaining about my being an Asshole without acknowledging the fact that they’re Creeps. Furthermore, and as Malloc pointed out, neither Creeps nor Assholes are necessarily superior behavioral models, but it’s been my experience that the Creeps out there tend to believe that THEY’RE better, because they are essentially non-confrontational, and thusly “better behaved.”
So I’m an Asshole. I get what I want by being aggressive, and you usually know where I stand on a given topic. Which one are you? And which one would rather be?
The Next Time You Come To A 4-Way Stop, Think Of Me
Every once in a while I have to rail against some of the silly, innocuous things which – in the grand plan of the universe – don’t matter. Things like toilet paper that’s been put on backwards, like soggy French fries, like Nicholas Cage’s hair. I’m sorry if I’m wasting your time – but hey, I’ll pretty much warn you every time I do this, and you can just skip over these tirades.
Actually, this particular tirade is about time wasters – a certain group of idiots who have collectively over the years robbed me of a least a day, maybe more, of my life, several long seconds at a time. I have asked for, and hope to receive back, all the time these people have stolen from me. I guess God could tack it on at the end of my life to extend it for a few days, but not if I’m in pain or anything, please. I’d rather have these moments inserted into some day when everything is just awesome, so that I can enjoy whatever awesome thing which is happening a little longer.
A few years ago, I heard a routine by Bill Hicks (at least I think it was him; otherwise I apologize to whichever comedian it really was) where he went off on people who sat at stoplights for several seconds after the light turned green. So he pretty much covered those assholes. My complaint is about people who apparently passed the driver’s test, but obviously either missed the part about how to handle four-way stops and turn signals, or have simply forgotten the rules.
This is the stop where I have lost the majority of my precious moments.
So here it is. Please, if you don’t know or follow these rules, memorize them and use them, so that people like me aren’t sitting at a four-way stop wondering what the fuck you’re gonna do. And if you DO follow these rules, please share them with your family and friends, in case they forgot. Evangelize THIS, ye evangelists.
As you come to a four-way stop, the person who has the right of way is ALWAYS the first person who has stopped at the stop sign. So if you get there first, you can go first. For God’s sake, please don’t expect me to go first if you got there first. I’m gonna wait on you, and if you don’t take your turn in a timely manner, know that I’m sitting in the other car remarking on what a dumb shit you are.
Now, sometimes you’ll get to the intersection at the same time, or close enough so that it’s difficult to tell who got there first. In that case, you YIELD to the right: the person to your right gets to go first. Once again, if you are to my right, I will wait on you. Please don’t make me wait too long, or I will say nasty things aloud about your intelligence, and if my children are in the back seat and hear me and become foul-mouthed hellions because of that, I blame you.
Finally, if you come to a four way stop directly opposite from someone, and you’re both going straight through the intersection, then there’s no need to concern yourself with these rules. Simply stop, then go.
However, if you’re going to turn, please indicate this by using YOUR TURN SIGNAL. I swear, the use of this little device seems to be lost on Atlanta drivers, and I personally think that cops who bust speeders are missing the best targets. Please, cops – bust these idiots who don’t use their blinkers to let everyone know their desire to turn or change lanes. Please, please, PLEASE. Dear government of the state of Georgia: please stop increasing speeding fines and instead increase the fines related to this infraction. I bet if one of these morons got slapped with a $500 fine for failure to use his turn signal, he’d fucking use it the next time.
Back to the last rule: if you come to a four way stop and you want to turn, then put on your blinker. If you’re turning left, then YIELD to the guy who’s going straight or turning right. And if I’m the guy who wants to turn left and you’ve got the right of way, then please GO. My blinker will be on, I swear. And I will wait for you, because I don’t want your dumb ass to sideswipe me.
Naturally, if you’re both turning in opposite directions, you don’t need to wait – you shouldn’t be anywhere close to each other.
See how easy it really is? And yet, some people just don’t get it: they yield when they shouldn’t, don’t use their turn signals, and sometimes even stop when they don’t have a stop sign. And I wait on them, because I don’t want them to suddenly decide they ARE gonna go and slam into me. Not only would that screw up my car and possibly hurt me and my family, but ironically, the accident would be MY FAULT – for failure to yield.
So there you have it. Please, learn the rules, follow the rules, and spread the word. I know it’s not a lot of my time these people waste at intersections, but it happens a lot, and it’s starting to add up.
I’ll Put On My Ring of Blog Resistance +1
I resisted the idea of blogging for over three years. Somehow, I came to believe that blogging was the simple act of taking the personal and self-centered musings that most people confined to their diaries and airing it, warts and all, in a public forum in the hopes that someone would come along, pat you on the back, and say something that would justify the way you felt.
And I felt like most people simply wouldn’t give a shit about hearing EVEN MORE self-important diatribes from an idiot like me. If I blogged, I would become yet another whiny voice in a sea of cacophonous whine.
Then I started noticing that, though a LOT of blogs out there were exactly what I’d assumed they would be, there was also a lot of insight, objectivity, and usefulness in what some people wrote.
And some of them were really fucking funny, too.
Finally, I caved, and the result is this… thing.
So what is this thing? What do I want to do with it?
Well, one thing I don’t want to do is rant and whine about the shit that pisses me off.
Ok, I DO want to do that, but not so much that THAT is what you come to expect from me. I guess you can expect an occasional off the handle diatribe from this particular idiot, but I’d also like to be positive and supportive of all the things I do like. And there’s a lot of stuff like that out there. For instance, if you read my last post, you’ll know that music will be a topic that will come up quite often.
I’ll also talk about:
- Fatherhood (Because it’s pertinent, interesting, and has the potential of giving me absolutely hilarious material to work with – it’s not all masturbation jokes with me, folks, contrary to what you may come to think.)
- Games (I love board games and card games, and I love gamers – even the ones that stink and masturbate a lot.)
- Atlanta (Here is where many of my diatribes will no doubt come from – I don’t really like Atlanta, even though I’ve lived here for 10 years.)
- Writing (Because that is an essential part of my soul’s well-being. And I think it’s vital to YOUR soul’s well-being as well.)
- Movies (I’m not an expert on them, like some of my “associates” purport to be, but I think I know what’s good.)
- Politics (I’m excited at the prospects in America right now, although the moment to moment still fills me with frustration as well as amazement at how low some of these assholes will go.)
- Alcohol (I’m a beer geek, and I write about bars for Examiner.com, so it’s inevitable, right?)
My goal is to give you a piece of my mind about three times a week. Also, I’m gonna start self-publishing one of my novels here, one chapter at a time, maybe once or twice a week. Hell, I’ve got a few of them lying around. So I’ll give you one now, little by little, and try to get the others published through conventional avenues in the meantime.
Do I require anything from you? I just KNOW you’re wondering that.
The answer is yes: Come visit me often. Try to enjoy these personal and self-centered musings that ought to be confined to a diary. If something inspires you, positively or even negatively, to respond, then speak up. Contrary to how my wife sometimes feels, I do tend to listen.
Although I must say this: I will not tolerate language rougher than what I use – which I guess actually gives you a lot of leeway. And I don’t suffer idiots lightly. Unless you’re a useful idiot.
Which I intend to be.