Suck My Dickens

Charles Dickens wrote twenty novels in his lifetime. His beard wrote four short story collections.

There are several things in this world that I am passionate about. I love to write Schindler's List fan fiction (in which Oskar Schindler not only saves a lot of Jews, he can also unlock doors with his mind!). I am an amateur voyeur, mostly open window stuff. And I am a voracious reader. Next to TV, Blu-Ray movies, Playstation 3, tanning salon porn, homemade nachos, writing op-eds with an extremely right-wing slant for the local newspaper, minority counting and my fantasy quiddich league, curling up with a good book is my favorite thing on earth. Currently, I am reading David Mamet's Theatre, a brilliant nonfiction piece on how a play should be properly performed, although I am a bit disappointed that the phrase "fucking cunt" does not appear nearly as often as it does in Glengarry Glen Ross. From there I will probably move on to Stephen King's new collection Full Dark, No Stars. And after that I will be diving head-first into George R.R. Martin's fantasy epic A Song of Ice and Fire. I love to read, because books provide a great refuge from the worries of the outside world. For me, it's all about escapism, except when I read in public...then it's about showing these fucking morons how goddam superior I am. I understand that reading is not for everyone; that some people find the thought of having to pick up a book and stare at words repulsive or insanely boring. But I think anyone, anyone, can find a book he or she would like. The problem is there are so many more options available to us today. Netflix, video games, Glee, iPods, Avatar on Blu-Ray, copious amounts of free porn, et cetera, et cetera (notice how I spelled et cetera rather than just putting 'etc.' Just another way of showing you how goddam superior I am). Recently, National Book Award winner, Jonathan Franzen told Oprah (I was flipping channels and the remote just happened to get stuck) that there is so much noise in the world, one must be able to write a book that his louder than the noise. There are a lot of great books out there that I'm sure you would love if given the chance. Oprah's newest addition to her book club (I actually lost the remote so I just left the TV there out of laziness, pure, manly, heterosexual laziness) is a twofer of Dickens's most famous works: A Tale of Two Cities (the one that starts out, "Call me Ishmael") and Great Expectations (don't expect much...nothing happens). Now, since many mindless Stepford wives take Oprah's word as gospel, I'm sure they are taking their dead-eyed, dried-vagina selves to their nearest Barnes & Noble to purchase a book that they would normally ignore even if it was getting raped right in front of them. It's pathetic really. Anyway, I bought my copy yesterday and just can't wait to open wide and take in some seriously long Dickens. And who knows, maybe reading Dickens for the holidays will open people up to other great, super fuckin dense, but great books. For example, my favorite book is Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maughm. It is an excellent manifesto on the secrets of dungeon fetishes. The hardest book I have ever read is probably Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. It's about this guy Jude, you probably don't know him. And of course, there are always the classics: Lord of the Flies, The Catcher in the Rye, On the Road, Grapes of Wrath, et cetera, et cetera (that smug sum-mama-bitch). I mean, you really can't go wrong when choosing something to read. Unless you are reading a book by Frank McCourt...fuck that guy. But Thomas Pynchon is always good. So is Clive Barker and Joe Hill. Lisa Reardon wrote a great book called Billy Dead (I know she's a woman, fellas, but she's still OK). And it doesn't have to be fiction. Fuck no! I read great biographies on William Golding, Steve Martin, Raymond Carver. I read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States and Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Anything by Christopher Hitchens is always good for a laugh. Hell, read comic books! I do. Everything Alan Moore has ever done is pure genius. Ben Templesmith, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis...these guys are masters. Now listen here, Eric, you preachy, self-righteous, egotistical, shitdick, I do read! I DO READ, MOTHERFUCKER! See, I'm all the way to chapter 4 in Twilight, book 1 of the Twilight Saga. Ok, ok...I'm just going to say it: Twilight is not literature, it's porn for tweens who don't know how to get porn. What happens when a fucking Mormon writes a book about vampires? The vampires SPARKLE!!! Normally the sun kills vampires, but Mormon vampires look fabulous under the sun. Edward Cullen, Jacob Black, Bella Swan...God how I hate them, those characters, those fucking books. They are dirty, lousy, gimmicky, unoriginal complete pieces of shit, and if any one of Stephanie Meyer's blasphemous creations was getting raped in front of me, I would NOT call the cops. Which leads me to my next unnecessary tirade: Fuck Nicholas Sparks, too! This man is not a writer, he is a whiny, conceited robot set up on an assembly line, manufacturing some of the most bland and terrible books ever written. In this Newsweek article Sparks compares himself to ancient Greek writers, Shakespeare and Hemingway. He lambastes the genius Cormac McCarthy (remember that scene in No Country for Old Men when Anton Chigurh asks the gas station attendant, "What's the most you ever lost in a coin toss?" Fuck. Remember how badass that guy was walking around with a fucking air gun that shot a metal rod in fuckers' heads? Well, Cormac McCarthy invented that guy). And the stupid M.F. says that he is the only writer in his genre. He even says, "No one is doing what I'm doing." Nicholas Sparks is a super douche. Here is the plot to every Nicholas Sparks book: boy meets girl, one of them dies in the end. Think about it. A Walk to Remember? The chick dies. Message in a Bottle? The dude dies. Nights in Rodanthe? The dude dies. Dear John? The chick's dad dies (oh, twist ending!). But Eric, how the hell do you know the ending to so many Nicholas Sparks books??? Fuck you. That's not important. You're just trying to confuse me. Put down Sparks, pick up Bret Easton Ellis or Roberto Bolano. Throw away Stephanie Meyer and read Jane Austen or Charolotte Bronte. Forget Harry Potter. Go read some goddam Tolkien or C.S. Lewis for Chrissake! You want vampires? Anne Rice wrote the fuckin book on vampires! And hers are way more sexy and brooding than that guy from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Fuck Edward Cullen! Lestat 4 Life! (23 minute breather)...OK, I'm back. I just needed to calm down there for a minute. I don't mean to go on a solipsistic rant, I just love me my stories. All I'm trying to say is pick up a book now and then and expand your mind. And I'm sure some of you are asking, "Is it the same if I don't read a book and just watch the movie instead?" The answer is yes. It is exactly the same.

The Moore You Know: Last night I went to my local grocery store and picked up a twelve pack of beer. The kind I bought was Rolling Rock's light beer, called Rock Light. I took the beer up to the counter, and the asshole working at the store looks at my beer and says, "Rock Light? Isn't that an oxymoron?" Now, I have heard jokes about Rolling Rock before. A guy I worked with called it piss water, then called my sexuality into question. But listen, I drink Rolling Rock for one simple reason: Robert De Niro drank the shit out of it in his best movie, The Deer Hunter. In fact, De Niro's character, Michael, even says at one point in the movie, "Get a Rolling Rock, it's a good beer." So, all I'm saying, if it's good enough for Robert De Niro, uh, yeah, it's OK for me too.

© Eric Moore - 2010

The Adventures of Dapper Dale and the Waffle Stomper: Part I of an Epic Brotherhood

For the past twenty-six (26) years of my life, one of the many constants has been my shining and absolute affection and respect that I have for my older brother, Dale (name changed to protect the humiliated). Over the years, Dale and I have had our differences, a couple of times even throwing down in fisticuffs. But we have also been each others' staunches allies, especially in the face of the tyrannical Steve-O. Now, as I mentioned, I have nothing but unwavering love for my older brother, but I could go on and on about his many faults. I mean, I could talk endlessly about his ruinous and awkward obsession with pregnant-woman porn. Sure, I could tell you all about Dale's "Heavy Girl" phase that he went through in high school. But this entry is not about that. This entry is meant to be a celebration of two brothers' complex, poignant and moderately homoerotic relationship. If you would be so kind as to offer me just a little of your time and indulge me, I would like to share with you some of our greatest battles. I have a lot to be envious about when it comes to my older brother. He has the ripped body of an Adonis. A jawline so perfect, Michelangelo himself would weep at its beauty. An astonishingly flawless hairline, and a charm so innate and hypnotic he can scarcely say two words before women begin to throw themselves at him and beg for his seed. He's a good-looking guy. And me? Well, if Dale got all the brawn, I guess I would be the one with all the brains...and a lot of the brawn. But Dale and I lack any true similarities in physical appearance. My hair is usually a disheveled mess of wild curls, and it is retreating faster than a French battalion (oh, snap). A weak and waddling chin is hidden beneath an I-don't-give-a-fuck beard. My eyesight is so bad, when I made love to my girlfriend outside the other day, I went down on her for ten minutes before I realized I was eating grass. My body can be accurately described as gelatinous, and my penis curves so much it looks like the tip is making a fucking U-turn. However, Dale has said that he wishes he has my broad shoulders. So...I got that. Now, since Dale looks like a goddamn Greek hero and I look like I might molest someone if I stayed in one place too long, Dale has long been a favorite of immediate family and relatives and the weaker, much less paid sex. Yet, there have been occasions where I actually felt bad for him. The most vivid happened in the late 1980s. I was probably five (5) and Dale was seven (7). It was Christmas Day, and one of the presents that I got from Santa Claus was a bright yellow Big Bird doll that would talk when you pulled on a string. I ripped it out of its box, gave it a big hug, and tirelessly pulled on his little string, listening intently as Big Bird said to me, "I love you," and "You're my best friend." Finally, my parents persuaded me to put the Big Bird doll aside and open my other presents. I tore through a few of them, showing mild interest. But then, I turned around to check on Big Bird, only to find him in the clutches of my malevolent older brother. An intense and burning hatred swelled up in me like a herpes outbreak, and I lunged at Dale. "Noooo!" I screamed at him, and I tore my feathery companion away from him. Now, this memory is so clear to me, not because I can recall it so accurately in my mind, but because the whole incident was captured on home video. After I take Big Bird away from Dale, there is a moment where he looks up at the camera with a sad smile as he leans lazily against a recliner. I'm telling ya, the heartbreak of this little kid is so palpable it just pours out of the TV. What a selfish little prick I was. It is one of the few times my brother has ever garnered my sympathy. But there are other times when Dale had to play the Virgil to my Dante, guiding me through the trenches of adolescence and doling out advice when he saw fit. For instance, there was the time I ran away from my baby-sitter's house, only to find myself sitting on my bed, bawling and waiting for my dad to come in an administer a promised punishment. Dale looked at me with a wry and victorious smile. "You shouldn't have run away, Eric," was the sage wisdom he bestowed on me. There was also the time where my brother and I were playing on a large dirt pile, but were forced to flee after a group of kids pushed us away and took over. Dale decided to mete out his own form of justice. I watched him dig his hands into a mud puddle and craft a pretty orbital globe of mud. Then, he covered the thing with rocks. "I'm gonna chuck this at 'em," he said defiantly. It was the first time that Dale became my hero, seeing him push those sharp angular rocks into the small, mud planet. "This guy don't take no shit from no one," I thought. Back then mine Englishes weren't that good. Of course, time has a nasty habit of forcing people apart, and as Dale and I got older, the raft of brotherhood began to come undone in the ocean of life (fuck, my metaphors get me hard). Dale had his style and his friends, and I had my style and my friends. By the time I was in elementary school and Dale was close to junior high, we looked and acted less like brothers and more like inmates forced to share a cell. I favored sweatpants and bulky shirts and kept my hair nice and short. Dale had a fetish for acid-washed jeans and any t-shirt that could be securely tucked in as tight and restricting as a straitjacket. Also, Dale wore his hair longer than me. In fact, by the fifth grade, he was sporting a pretty good mullet. Now, his mullet wasn't as epic as, say, a Billy Ray Cyrus, but it was a fucking mullet, and Dale did not wear it well. The slogan for the mullet is "Business in the Front, Party in the Back." But the slogan for Dale's mullet was, "Kick My Ass" in the front and "Kick My Ass" in the back. I think it was around the time Dale was in the seventh grade and I was in the fourth that he started to notice that maybe he was getting handsome. When he was twelve (12), Dale had a homely-looking ginger for a girlfriend, and in eighth grade he took a liking to a pretty blond that he talked to in CCD classes. I think it was some point around this time that Dale realized, "Girls like me." This was also about the time I realized that I could just take a dump while I showered, and just mash the filth down the drain with my foot, saving both time and water. Well, since Dale was the good-looking one, and I was still humping my pillow to the cover of Ween's Chocolate & Cheese album, I began to experience girls vicariously through Dale. When we would go to the mall, it wouldn't be long before a gaggle of giggling girls (alliteration get me hard, too) would approach my brother. We would go to church dinners with my family, and even there girls would haunt my brother's steps. Of course, we went to a Catholic church, so its no surprise that those girls were ravenous for the cock...Catholic chicks are skanks. Anyway, Dale could do little to control his movie star looks and the magnetic pull that they had with women. All he could do was ignore them...and he did...like a little bitch. Seriously, I would have killed for the attention that Dale got from girls, but he considered it an annoyance! The two of us were at an arcade in the mall called Aladdin's Castle once, and Dale was playing a video game called Silent Scope. The object of the game was to look through a plastic sniper rifle mounted to the game and take out enemy targets. While Dale was bent over, looking through the scope (which was indeed silent), a random girl walked behind him and grabbed his bulbous ass! And what did he do? Nothing! Not a fucking thing! He just went on playing the game, completely undisturbed. Well, what are ya gonna do. I suppose that's the curse little brothers must endure, always in the passenger seat, never allowed to drive. And as time went on, Dale's female admirers got prettier and prettier, and of course it was only a matter of time before Dale began to actively engage them. And yes, there was a "Heavy Girl' phase he went through. At one point my mother even commented, "I think Dale likes those bigger girls." Yet, for all of my brother's suaveness with the ladies, there was one time, just once, where I got a girl he couldn't get. I was sixteen (16) and Dale was eighteen (18). It was New Year's Eve 2000. My family and a bunch of relatives were celebrating in a hotel in Council Bluffs, IA. This particular hotel had a wide open courtyard next to a pool and a hot tub. After a while, Dale and I noticed a small group of girls talking around a table next to the pool. Naturally assuming that they would melt like butter in my brother's hands, my father encouraged my brother to go over and talk to them. Dale begrudgingly obliged, knowing that if he did not, my old man was only two or three beers away from going over to the girls himself and ranting about his handsome and lonely son. So Dale and I stood talking to these girls, in particular a pretty red-haired girl wearing a sports jersey. The chat did not last long as I recall, and Dale eventually left them alone, perhaps a bit disappointed. During the conversation, I did what I always did when Dale would talk to girls: suck in my gut, stand behind him, and try not to get caught staring at their tits. Anyway, our prediction came true, for eventually my father did start talking to these girls, much the humiliation of Dale and myself. Yet, when my father confessed to Dale and I that he had indeed spoken to the girls, what he had to relate was most queer. It seemed that the girls, the red-haired girl included, were not interested in Dale at all, but rather "the blond boy" who was with him. Now, since I was the only person with Dale at the time he talked to the girls, and since I had dyed my hair blond in an act of nonconformity like my friends, I could only deduce that it was in fact me that the girls liked. At one point during the night, Dale went to the room alone. When I went to find him, I saw the girls standing outside our room. I tentatively approached and opened the door, saying awkward and stupid things to them. They came in the room a bit, and I saw Dale lying on the bed watching TV. The girls and I chatted before they left. My heart was thumping like crazy as I watched them leave. It was probably because most of the blood in my body had swiftly exited my brain, torso and limbs that I stammered a quick question to Dale: "Should I ask that chick to make out with me?" I said, breathlessly. A large grin spread itself across Dale's face. "Do it, dude!" he wisely advised. I turned and spit my gum out, and called down the hallway. Now, I didn't even know the red-haired girl's name, so I merely shouted, "Red! Hey, Red! Come here." The red-haired girl turned around and walked back to the room. Very creepily, I put my arm around her shoulder and ushered her back into the room, in full view of my older brother. "You want to make out?" I asked. Her response was a sudden jerk, as she pushed her lips into mine and invaded my mouth with her tongue. I was just-turned 16, and it was my very first French kiss (up to then I was like the Wilt Chamberlain of fingering). It was all too brief, and the red-haired girl and I parted ways. After she left, it dawned on me that it felt like the fucking Hindenburg was going down in my pants. I casually slipped onto the empty bed and then moved to floor to watch TV. I was lying on my stomach, and Dale asked me, "Doesn't it hurt laying like that?" "Fuck yes," I replied. Now, Dale was not obsessed, much less concerned with the affections of the red-haired girl. In fact, he probably could give a shit if she liked him or not. But that's not the point. The point is, she had a pretty distinct choice: Dale or me, and she picked me! Time once again did its thing, and eventually Dale went off to what could technically be called a college, and I meandered through a few more years of high school. The first time I saw bewbs, Dale was there. The first time I drank a beer, Dale was there. The first time I smoked weed, Dale was there. The first time I stole something, Dale was there. The first time-actually, now that I think about it, Dale was a fucking horrible influence on me.

TO BE CONTINUED.....

The Moore You Know: OK, the other day I came up with this joke: "My washing machine is so racist it still has separate settings for whites and colors." Now, hilarity aside, I feel like that joke is so obvious, that I'm not sure I even made it up. Did I hear it somewhere? I can't remember. If anyone thinks or knows they have heard that joke before, let me know from who. In the meantime, I'm fucking taking credit for it.

© Eric Moore - 2010

The Legend of the Dragon Wolf: My Time As A Student Of Karate

"I told you not to wear the same outfit as me!"

You probably wouldn't know it by looking at me, but I am in fact a certified green belt in the Okinawan form of karate known as Isshin-ryu. This is true. And I know some of you are thinking, "Eric, I've physically seen you...like, person-to-person, right in front of me, and I gotta tell ya, buddy, you don't look like you know fuckall about karate." Well, guess what cock wrangler, I said I was a student of karate, I didn't say I was a goddamn Ryu from Street Fighter! So let me provide you with a little backstory. Growing up, I felt that my sole purpose in life was to avoid conflict at all cost. I did everything I possibly could to avoid getting into a physical altercation with someone. The only time I have ever thrown a punch at someone was when I socked my older brother Dale when I was in high school, and even after all my training, I found the curl-into-a-ball-and-pray-mom-and-dad-get-home-before-Dale-somehow-manages-to-castrate-me-with-a-kick-to-the-head method to me most effective. There are rumors floating around my family that when I was in first grade and on the wrestling team my dad told me I could not leave a Saturday wrestling meet until my match was over, so when my match came I proceeded to just lay down on my back and not put up a fight (a technique that has served my sisters well, also). And it is true that I was once straddling a fence watching a homecoming parade when a friend of mine threw a corncob at my head and knocked me off. I cried. When I was in the fourth grade I went to a friend's overnight birthday party, and while throwing a football around in his basement I got shoved into a wall. I cried. That same year another friend of mine asked me if he could punch me to see how I would take. I anticipated that he would be hitting my arm, but he instead hit me as hard as he could in the side of the head. I cried. So here we are in 1995, living in a shitty rental house in Treynor, IA, and I am eleven (11)-years-old. My hair is thick and wavy and I comb it back, giving me a slightly more retarded look than Corky from Life Goes On. My shirts of choice are Bugle Boy, and my Arizona jeans are size Husky. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I had had some trouble regarding our next door neighbors and certain aspects of their property, specifically me destroying their property and them not wanting me to destroy their property. It's all political. Anyway, spawned from my delinquency was a friendship between my father and our neighbor, Blackbeard, whose daughter (in order to protect the innocent I will refer to Blackbeard's daughter as Talia al Ghul) was in my class. One night, Blackbeard and my old man got to chatting over a glass of good Vinho do Porto-or it could have been a dozen cans of Milwaukee's Best Ice-and as it turns out Talia al Ghul takes karate lessons from Blackbeard's uncle in Carson, a town about ten miles east of Treynor. This piques my dad's interest, and the next day he informs both Dale and myself that we are going to start taking karate lessons as well. Now, a severe, primal fear of my dad disallowed me from protesting, but in my head I thought, "Is he goddamn serious?" I mean, picture this: I'm 11-years-old, its about eight o-clock at night, and I am watching TV with my brother and sisters. All of a sudden, Steve-O bursts into the room and states, "You boys are taking karate!" Then he walks out. It was fucking vexing...disturbing even! I thought my dad might have had a brain tumor. "You boys are taking karate! This chair has no meat on it! I can only smell the color blue!" I just thought that it was such a random thing to declare all of a sudden. But what was I going to say, "No?" After about ten instances of Steve-O slapping his wedding-ringed hand across the back of your head, you learn to just go with the flow. "OK, I'm in karate now." Up to this point I have been a failed wrestler, a failed soccer player, a failed t-baller, and a failed Christ-Eric-you-are-ten-fuckin-years-old-why-are-you-still-wetting-the-bed! I have no idea why my dad thought I would be any better at karate, an art that requires discipline, dedication, honor, heart and makes it very easy to tell if you have an erection under those little pants. Now, on top of being forced into these karate lessons, I have to start carpooling with Blackbeard and Talia, two people who hated me just weeks before for the alleged damage I did to their stuff. Also, it wasn't like Talia and I were friends. I only had 36 kids in my class, so yeah, we knew of each other, but we didn't hang out or anything. I think at this point in my father's life he could only produce an erection when fantasizing about ways to humiliate me. So there are Dale and I, riding in the back of Blackbeard's Buick, on our way to Carson as the sun retreats behind us. Now, let me be absolutely clear about one thing: Blackbeard's uncle was 100% legit, a Grade A badass muthafucka of Samuel L. Jackson proportions. This guy, whom I will affectionately refer to as Scorpion (Scorpion being the most badass of Mortal Kombat characters) taught Okinawans their own form of karate! In 2001 he was inducted into the Isshin Ryu Hall of Fame. He knew his shit. He operated a small dojo of roughly twelve (12) students. As far as I can recall Talia was the only girl, and the ages ran from anywhere from middle age guys to elementary students. I can remember my very first day, putting on my pristine white gi, tying the long white belt, bowing at the entrance to the dojo, bowing to a picture of Tatsuo Shimabuku (the founder of the art), and stepping onto the cold wooden floor. In my mind I had been transformed from the timid, overweight boy that I was, into the sleek and deadly Dragon Wolf! A ninja persona of my own creation. I imagined Scorpion's dojo to be a clandestine training ground set deep in the mountains of Japan; a mythical place where I honed my secret and mystical ninja abilities. This delusion served me well until the first time I stepped in front of a mirror dressed in my karate garb. My chubby red cheeks stood out like inkblots on my moon-like face. A tiny chin protruded below my lips, edging away from a face that lacked any form of discernible jawline. And my salient stomach curved out like a descending sun from a gi that I saw was much to small for me. The pants stopped well above my ankles, and they were so tight that my colored Hanes were visible underneath. The top half of my uniform was disheveled and the tight sleeves restricted much of the movements I would need to fight the forces of evil. The long white belt that signaled my beginnings as a novice looked like it had been tied around my waist by Theresa Uchytil. On the other hand, Dale looked like goddamn Kung Lao from Mortal Kombat II. His gi fit him perfectly, and just looking at him in his uniform would give one the impression that he could totally kick the ass of that doucher from Sidekicks (R.I.P.). Needless-to-say, I was pretty disappointed, but what choice did I have? Over the next year or so I attended karate class every Wednesday night from 7:00-8:00. Over time I began to develop and memorize many of the different katas I would need to learn to advance my training. I understood how to punch and kick properly, and the more classes that I attended the more my confidence began to grow. Despite my awkward appearance, the shadow of the Dragon Wolf began to slowly creep back to me. Now, even though I was learning my shit, I still was nowhere near as good or as passionate as some of the other kids in the group. I mean, there were a couple of kids in there that looked like they would go on to seriously fuck someone's shit up. They were the kids I tried not to practice with when we had to pair up. They would go balls to the wall for every exercise, where my training mostly consisted of trying to run out the clock. So I would usually go with younger kids in the class who showed the same half-ass consistency that I did. Sometimes I would go with Talia al Ghul, but that was only when I was hoping to practice some move that would let me brush up against her bewbs. My training took a massive hit when Dale was no longer required to go to karate lessons. Once he started junior high sports he convinced my father that his schedule was full enough as it is. I was upset at having to attend karate alone, but in the end I sucked it up. I was the fucking Dragon Wolf after all, and both dragons and wolves are solitary creatures. That's just science. One of the defining moments of my Isshin Ryu training came when the class had to complete an obstacle course of sorts. Around the dojo, Scorpion had set up different exercises that each student had to complete. So we all formed a line and began to move through the course, one after the other. For the most part it was pretty straight forward stuff: perform this move here, use this weapon here, do this kata here. But there was one stage...one fucking stage that was being overlooked by one of the oldest students, a hulking figure of a man that looked like a mustachioed psychopathic Dauber, the idiot from Coach. At his stage, which I am assuming was inspired by one of the nine circles of Dante's Inferno, he held out a long bow-staff about three feet off the ground, and instructed students to dive over the bow, immediately go into a somersault, and then pop up in one fluid motion. Bullshit. When I saw the other kids doing it I thought, "Surely, he isn't going to make a white belt do that." When it was my turn to jump over the bow, I simply walked up to it and began to step over it. But the crazed Dauber told me no, I had to dive over it. Dive over it? At this point in my life I didn't even know how to dive into a swimming pool! How the fuck am I supposed to perform such a sophisticated move? Christ, the only reason I'm here is so my old man has an excuse to leave the house for a few beers. After much hesitation and steeling my nerves, I took a deep breath and dove over the stick. Well...dove is a strong word, I guess. I actually ran up to the bow, bent over it, but my hands on the ground on the other side of the bow, used my momentum to pick my feet up off the ground, and jumped over, landing on my side and looking very much like a drunk person who had set himself on fire and wasn't a hundred percent sure how to put it out. Of course I fucked up my wrist on the maneuver, officially destroying any remaining enthusiasm I had left. The Dragon Wolf had been confronted with his first test of ability, and the Dragon Wolf said, "Fuck it, can we get onion rings after this?" Eventually though, I did test for and attain my orange belt, and a little bit after that I tested for and got my green belt, which, if you can believe, is only two belts away from black. But I was only eleven, and if I remember correctly one had to been either sixteen (16) or eighteen (18) before being able to achieve the rank of black belt. Five more years of this? I couldn't do it. But knowing my father, it sure as shit wasn't me who ended my karate days, it was my old man, who I'm sure just got tired of having to drive my ass to Carson every other week. After a while, my training just sort of puttered out and eventually stopped. Fortunately for my enemies, I have not yet had to call upon the mythical and deadly powers of the Dragon Wolf, but I always have them ready, waiting in reserve in the form of an old steak knife I keep under my bed. Dale eventually returned to Scorpion to continue his training once my brother was enlisted in the Marines. Unfortunately, Scorpion passed away a few years ago, but the spirit of his badassery lives on. Oh, and my days as the Dragon Wolf did have a kind of fortuitous side effect. One Friday night, while I was still enrolled in Isshin Ryu classes, I was attending a high school football game with some friends. As I was walking to the concession stand with a buddy, I saw Talia and her friends approaching; they were giggling. As they passed my friend and I, a few of them chanted, "Eric, Talia likes you! Talia likes you!" Talia of course was telling them to shut up. The fact that Talia al Ghul fell madly in love with me does not surprise me in the least, as any woman who spends a long enough time with me will eventually wonder what my penis looks like. Here's a hint: I nicknamed it the Caduceus.

The Moore You Know: I was walking through the supermarket the other day, and my errands just happen to take me down one of the most dreaded aisles in the store for any man: the disgusting feminine hygiene aisle. As I walked passed the tampons and assortment of creams, I found myself stopping in front of a large section of douches. What had caught my eye was the plethora of aromas that these products come in. One douche's scent was Tropical Rain, another's was Island Splash. I even saw one for Baby Powder and one for Extra Strength (I believe this was just a can of Raid). Anyway, it hit me, the Summer's Eve people are missing out on a huge section of consumers: men. I mean, a man should have a say in what his lady's vag is going to smell like if she expects him to go tongue spelunking, and I think men would be more apt to buy these products for their women, if only the scents were more appetizing to a man. No guy wants his woman's church door to smell like Hurricane Katrina or his newborn's ass. Summer's Eve should market more man-friendly douches, like Summer's Eve Taco Pizza Rolls, or Summer's Eve Brats and Sauerkraut. Instead of the going down on a girl that smells like an autumn night, wouldn't it be better to go down on a girl that smells like your mom's homemade fried chicken? Or how about, Summer's Eve Your Ex-Girlfriends Pussy. Steph has a degree in marketing...we're going to get started on this.

© Eric Moore - 2010

Til Death Do Us Part...Sweet, Merciful Death

"I can't wait to savagely cut off your balls and shove them in a mason jar, honey...metaphorically speaking, of course."

Scientists have confirmed that, statistically speaking, one (1) out of every eight (8) marriages will end in a brutal murder-suicide pact. That's simple mathematics, folks, and you can't argue with that. Given these staggering numbers, I guess I should consider myself lucky that my parents ended their marriage in divorce years ago, otherwise I might have ended up like one of those kids you see on the news being carried out of their house by a police officer. Now, for some married couples a divorce may seem like a life-altering event, but fortunately for my parents, divorce is as natural as calling in sick to work because your mouth herpes is acting up. My parents collect wedding rings the way most people collect jars of their own piss, which I have heard is quite a common practice. My mother has been married and divorced twice and has currently just begun that magical third marriage. Seriously, my mom has more hyphens in her name than a message in Morse Code. My old man is 0 for 3 in the marriage department, and has since relegated himself to harassing check out girls at the local grocery store. Unlike my mother's third marriage, I was not present for her second marriage-the one to my father. But I do know that their wedding vows were more like funny anecdotes and after my dad said, "I do," he suddenly turned to the congregation and shouted in a wild bout of hysteria that it was he who had originally come up with the concept for the movie Blade Runner. When the priest explained to my father that Blade Runner was in fact based on a book by Philip K. Dick, my father punched the priest in the balls and screamed, "Vader lives!" At this point my mom had divorced one husband and my dad had divorced two wives. The relationship that I am in right now has lasted longer than my parents' first three marriages combined. Anyway, over the next twenty years, Mom and Dad spawned a multitude of children who would not become useful until they could be used as leverage in in divorce proceedings. After the break up of my parents' marriage, I knew that I could do one of two things: either become a whiny emo douche or get the fuck over it. I decided to become a whiny emo douche. For two years I dressed in black and posted video diaries and songs on Youtube. I'm sure they are still out there. My best numbers were "Skullfuck My Heart," "Your Divorce is the Reason I'm into Bondage Porn," and the tearjerker "Is the Reason I Hate My Father Because I Am Actually In Love With My Mother?" Good stuff. Eventually I got over it and moved the fuck on. In fact, the only real change that happened after my parent's got a divorce is my dad went from saying, "Your mom's really got me by the balls." to saying, "Your mom's still got me by the balls." It was an amicable split, and us kids were all old enough to be spared any emotional damage caused by the divorce...emotional damage caused by the marriage is another story. Last year I went to the doctor to get something checked out. The doctor looked me over, gave me his diagnosis and a prescription and I went on my way. They very next day I returned to the doctor's office without an appointment and waited over an hour before I was called in to see him. He asked me, "Eric, why are you here just one day after we talked?" And I explained to him that I felt I did not adequately explain my condition the day before, therefore he may have erred in his diagnosis. He then proceeded to give me my second check up in two days. Afterwards we talked for a moment before he finally said, "Eric, would you be interested in seeing a psychiatrist?" I replied that in a perfect world I would love to share my paranoid fantasies in a neutral setting with an unbiased person, but it costs money, and I didn't have a job or insurance. He gave me a worried look that told me he was probably calculating how long it was going to be before the crazy took over. The reason I tell you this is because my parents' marriage has instilled in me a neurosis so volatile that my only recourse is pessimism. Here is what I mean: I had no job, no money, no health insurance, but I still went to the doctor. A medial professional who went to school for this shit told me I was fine. I didn't believe him. I thought, "There's no possible way he is going to know for sure unless I tell him this." So I went back to the hospital the next fucking day. Waited for a fucking hour to see him, only to have him tell me the same shit he told me the previous day, except this time add that I may need psychiatric help. I was later billed for two visits that came in at just under six hundred dollars. And the worse part was, the doctor didn't find anything wrong with me, and nothing ever came from it health-wise. It's almost like I wished I had cancer, just to say, "I told you I was sick." You see, I expect things to go bad for me and for others around me. Hell, I have even written out eulogies for people I know are still alive, and who might not even want me to speak at their funerals. But I'm getting off topic. Some people might say, "That ol Eric is an odd duck," and I say that is because I witnessed my parent's marriage erode over a twenty-year period. Now, my obsession with midget porn, OK, that's all me...but the neurosis, that's Mom and Dad. Not long after the divorce my mother had a gentleman caller whom she invited over to her house to cook out. This was the first time I met my mom's future third husband. Anyway, as the gentleman caller was outside grilling, my dad stopped over to drop something off for my sisters. Steve-O comes into the kitchen, and just then GC comes in front outside, and they both stare at each other thinking, "What's this asshole doing here?" I thought a black hole was going to erupt right there, causing a seismic rift in space and time. The awkward silence was so thick I felt it covering me. I don't know how this meeting ended, because I got the fuck outta there. So, Mom moved on pretty quickly after the divorce. My dad completely swore off marriage, pretty much swore off women, saying he just wanted to be with his kids and his friends, then almost immediately after the divorce he goes out and starts dating a woman who looks almost exactly like my mom and even shares her first fucking name! Dysfunctional does not even begin to describe my first five years out of high school. But things are starting to look up...my jars of urine are starting to look half full now. I've been dating Steph for nigh on 5.5 years. She's a wonderful girl; wonderful because she doesn't yell at me when I show her my wiener. And although I have no idea what a good marriage should look like, I have no clue as to what make a marriage work, I feel myself stepping closer and closer to the gallows of marriage. Actually, I already have the noose around my neck...I'm just waiting for the guy in the black hood to drop the floor out from under me. Before I end this I also want to say a few things as a sort of post jerk-off mop session: out of my parents' failed marriages my army of siblings has nearly doubled. I discovered that I have a (much) older sister from my dad's first marriage, which in turn has also given me a niece, and from Mom's Marriage 3rd Edition I got two (2) step-brothers. And the real kick in the balls? I'm still the one my uncles say will probably be gay.

The Moore You Know: There are many reasons why I love porn, but one of the most important reasons is how simple the adult video companies make it for the consumers. Everything you need to know about the porn you are watching is right there in the title. The titles of porn movies are so specific you would think that Vivid's major demographic is paint-huffers and pant-shitters. But the titles make it impossible to get confused. Because of the title you know exactly what you're getting into. She-Male Cum Guzzlers is more than likely going to show people, most of whom will have both boy and girl parts, imbibing copious amounts of human seed. There is no need to think when watching a porn. It's the only time you can look at something and immediately comprehend what is going on. No one should watch Asian Schoolgirls Like It In All Holes, and at the end credits say, "So the chick with the glass dildo up her ass...was she a ghost the whole time?"

© Eric Moore - 2010

Erotic Prison Literature

That cigarette just spent two days inside his rectum prior to being smoked.

The metal bars slid shut with a loud clank, and Leo knew that it was for real. He wrapped his sinewy fingers, bending like spider legs, around a couple of cold metal cylinders. He could feel his brow birthing droplets of sweat that slowly traced their way down his cheeks. His eyes were closed, and for a moment all he could see was a carnival of dots and swirls dancing behind his eyelids. Behind him a wiry old con lay listlessly on a cot, his gaze assessing and absorbing his new cellmate. Leo was only 20, but in the last few minutes he felt himself maturing, as though experience was something tangible and growing inside him. He didn't want to turn around. Didn't want to face the withered visage of the old man behind him. He was afraid. But, he knew, he could not show his fear, not here, not in this place. In prison, cowards have the lifespan of a retarded fly. It was time to put on a tough face, as his mother would say. He prepared himself mentally, and then slowly turned to face the man extended on the bed.

"I'm Leo," he said. The old man raised his eyebrows in amusement.

"Jake," the old man replied. Jake was what you would call a career criminal, though it was getting hard for him to make a career out of it, as he had spent most of his adult life in one form of prison or another.

"What you in for, Jake?" Leo asked. He sat down in the cot across from the old man.

Jake shrugged mildly. "Arson. Attempted murder. Bull shit. I set my ex-wife's house on fire. I thought she was on vacation with her new husband. Turns out she wasn't. I try telling the cops that I just wanted to torch the house, and they don't buy it. They call it attempted murder and lock me up for 11 years. How about you, Kid?"

Leo was in prison because he got pinched selling cocaine to an undercover cop. He had dreams of becoming the next Tony Montana, but really he had become nothing but a two-bit hood with an eighth grade education. But he knew he couldn't tell Jake that. Jake had done some serious shit in his life. Leo decided to lie.

"Murder," he said. At this, Jake sat up in his bed.

"Really?" the old man said, amazed that the angelic face on his young cellmate was capable of such violence. "Who?"

Hitler had said that more people will believe a small lie, than a big one, so Leo decided to go all in.

"Lots of people," Leo lied. "I killed em all with a hammer-two hammers. I would break into houses and just murder the fuck outta anyone inside. Sometimes I would put two people together and pretend I was playing the drums on their skulls. Real brutal shit, Man."

Jake's curiosity had been piqued. He stared intently at Leo, and the younger man immediately became uncomfortable. But, Leo thought, he's buying it.

"Yeah," Leo continued. "I probably killed about 30 people...I honestly lost count."
"That's so fascinating," Jake said.

Leo stared at Jake, and noticed the bulge growing in Jake's pants. Ug! I'm turning this sick fuck on! he thought. Leo turned towards his cell door and thought for a moment. If he's getting aroused by me I better make myself as unappealing as possible.

"The reason I kill people is because I want revenge."

"Revenge for what?" Jake asked. He was like a kid listening to a parent's bedtime story.

"Being born with super-herpes."

Jake recoiled in disgust. "What the fuck is super-herpes?"

"It's the rarest and most potent form of herpes. The blisters never go away and it is highly contagious. The virus comes off the skin, so anyone who even touches me gets it. My dick always feels like it's fucking a razorblade volcano, and my asshole is riddled with blisters. If I spread my cheeks, you'd think you were looking at a pack of frozen peas."

"Wow!" Jake said. "That's fuckin brutal! I better not touch you then!"

"Yeah," Leo agreed. "But that's not even the worst disease I have!"

"What is?"

"I also have that disease from Resident Evil that turns people into motherfucking zombies!"

Jake's eyes widened and he guffawed in sheer disbelief. "You mean to tell me that you were infected with a disease that was created by an entirely fictitious corporate entity?"

"It's true, Man. All my girlfriends turned into zombies. My best friend is now a zombie because of me. The cops that arrested me? No doubt they're starting to turn now too."

"Holy shit. Not just zombies, but zombies with herpes!" Jake proclaimed.

"That's right, my main man. Zombies that will eat you and turn you into a zombie with a rotting dick, and your dick is rotting for two fuckin reasons, because you're a zombie and you're dead, but also because the super-herpes is also rotting your dick."

"Christ-onna-cross!" Jake said, as he slapped his hand over his forehead. "Shouldn't you be in some kind of quarantine? At least in the infirmary?"

Leo shook his head. "Don't worry about it, Jake. Everything will be cool, as long as you don't touch me. And you should probably tell other people here not to touch me as well."

"Oh, I will. The last thing we need is a bunch of herpes-ridden zombies stinking up the whole place."

Just then a man that Leo recognized from the prison bus came shuffling by between two guards. Leo took this as another opportunity to show that he was not afraid of his new environment.

"Hey, Fish!" Leo shouted at the slow-moving inmate. "What you in for?"

"L-larceny," the man replied.

"That's like stealing, right?"

The timid man gave a barely noticeable nod.

Leo stood up and pointed at the man. "Well, tonight in the showers, I'm going to give you my own five finger discount!"

Jake laughed and covered his face with his hands. "What does that even mean!"

"I'm going to shove my fist up that guy's asshole," Leo explained.

Jake suddenly became serious. "But he would become a zombie..."

"I'll kill him before he turns. Just like old times."

Jake stood up and stretched. Leo was taken aback by the man's size. While sitting down there was nothing remarkable about Jake, but when the older man stood up Leo saw that Jake rose to be at least six-five. Jake took a step towards Leo and encouraged the young man to sit down by gently placing two large hands on the kid's shoulders and coaxing him down.

"Can I tell you a secret, Leo?" Jake asked.

"S-sure. Any-anything."

"I did try to kill my wife. But all I succeeded in doing is turning her into a human bacon strip. Her face looks like melted candle wax."

"Oh."

"And to tell you the truth, all this talk about murder and herpes and zombies and fingers...It's really starting to get me hot."

"It is?"

"Yep. Now, the thought of becoming a zombie with a scorching case of the love bites does not appeal to me at all, but I'll be honest with you, I'm going to take my chances."

Showing remarkable strength that his old age belied, Jake seamlessly forced himself on top of the now-terrified Leo.

"Promise me," Jake said, meticulously sniffing the younger man's neck. "If I do turn into a zombie, kill me."

Tears were suddenly cascading down Leo's face. "Only if you promise it won't hurt," he stammered.

"Don't make me lie," Jake whispered.

He then proceeded to brutally rape the living shit out of Leo.

FIN

© Eric Moore - 2010

Private Beaver and the Battle of Shit Soup

"This elevator only goes to the basement, and someone made an awful mess down there." -Abe Simpson

I have a great fondness for women that extends well beyond my girlfriend's hewg bewbs and a crippling oedipal complex. Females are the buxom glue that holds this world together. They are, most importantly, the givers of life. And a woman truly is a man's better half. Plus, if you tell a chick you love her she will probably tongue your balls, which, being inches closer (eight inches in my case) to your asshole is remarkable. The weaker sex (yes, ladies, you are the weaker sex. It is so easy to beat you up!) has always had my complete and unconditional respect. I did not think that I could possibly sing the praises of your virtues any higher. And then, this weekend, I was reminded of one of the most important and degrading struggles most of you women will have to face in your lifetime: the port-a-potty. Whenever I am in the vicinity of a port-a-potty (or john), it usually means that I am at a county fair, a concert, or a tailgating party, in which case I am also usually too fucked up to give a shit where I piss, just so long as it is not in pants. But this weekend, whist tailgating, I encountered a brief moment of sobriety, and in my lucidity I took notice of all the girls having to march in and out of the johns that lined the parking lot. Suddenly, it hit me that it must really suck to be a chick and have to use one of these disgusting shit boxes. I stood in line and watched as girl after girl came out of the john, a look of pure, unadulterated antipathy etched across their faces. For some, it could have been the booze making them look that way, others were probably born with that look on their face (ISU fans), but I was sure that most of them were looking that way because of the excrement-laden crypt they had just endured. When it was finally my turn to relieve myself, I stepped diligently into the john and let the spring door slam behind me, turning the gray plastic lock so the outside notice changed from green to red. Inside I was provided with two (2) luxurious options. Being a man who also contains a penis, I could either piss into the small urinal attached to the side of the john, or I could piss into the gaping hole in the center of the john. Decisions, decisions. Now, I have the urinary aim of Stevie Wonder at a shooting range, so I politely and respectfully chose the urinal. As I let myself go I turned (out of sheer morbid curiosity) and peered into the toilet. The lid of the toilet was already covered in piss. I doubt that anyone had every attempted to lift it. Inside the belly of the beast was an abhorrent salad of piss, several definitions of shit, vomit, an excessively used tampon, a diaper, beer cans, part of a hot dog and season four (4) of Scrubs. Now, according to WebMD, a picnic table has more germs than a port-a-potty, but I'm not sure I'm convinced. Ladies, if someone asked you, "Where would you rather put your cootchie? A foot-and-a-half away from someone else's liquidy shit? Or tucked away nicely in a pair of jeans and resting comfortably on a wooden bench?" how would you answer? "What is liquidy shit, Alex." "Oh, I'm sorry. We were looking for 'tucked away nicely and resting comfortably on a wooded bench.'" As I gazed hypnotically into that dank abyss of apocalyptic defecation, I couldn't help but think of all those poor vaginae out there that had to hoover delicately over it's murky waters. That hole of sick and waste very well could have been the gateway to Hell. Dante himself could not have envisioned a more horrific sight. Once I finished my business, I zipped up, stepped out, and gave a deep hug to the girl who was set to go in after me. "Poor thing," I whispered, as I furtively wiped my piss-covered hands onto the back of her shirt, "you have no idea." If I was a dashing archaeologist living in the late 1930s and leading a group of scantily clad lady scientists through an old South American temple, and we suddenly found ourselves encased in a small room with a poopy hole in the center, my first order would be, "Ladies, whatever you do, don't take out your vaginas! There's shit in that hole." Then I would follow up with, "Bewbs are OK, though." Seriously, for all intents and purposes, a port-a-potty is technically the last reasonable place a lady should flash the moose knuckle. I'm not quite sure of technique once inside either. I'm sure there is some hovering going on. A delicate balancing act that if done properly results in a controlled stream falling languidly into the center of the void. But if done with a booze-addled mind, one slip could mean a slushy end for those Steve Madden's you stupidly decided to wear. I'm sure a honed aim could hit the side urinal if aimed correctly. Perhaps some semblance of cleaning could be done to the seat, but if you are a woman who just plops her ass down on the seat to do your business, then you have effectively given up on life and I feel sorry for you. It is, of course, completely different for a man. We were blessed with an external appendage for our sex organ; a veritable pistol, naturally made to be pointed and shot wherever we please (not in the hair, though. Trust me, your girlfriend will be pissed). Public restrooms pose no threat to us; no bathroom situation does. We can wheel out just enough dick to get the job done, and empty our chambers whist standing at a safe distance. Port-a-potties? Fuck em. I use the side urinal out of respect for the women who have to endure the toilet, but every now and then I will piss into the hole, especially if there is a nice big turd resting atop a raft of toilet paper. That turd becomes Pearl Harbor, and my piss is the sneak attack. "Hey...hey, Mike. Did you-did you see that piece of shit in the toilet in there? Yeah. I know. I know. L-listen, man. I, like...(hiccup)...like totally sawed it in half. With my piss!" I'll tell you what, girls, I definitely couldn't do it. But you march right into that john and do what has to be done. That takes balls, and I liken that bravery to the Allies storming the beach at Normandy. You deserve to be saluted.

The Moore You Know: Oh boy. I just got back from London, England a few days ago. It was weird, because I had no idea that across the pond cigarettes are called fags. Needless to say this caused a bit of confusion, as I'm a smoker. I would ask for a fag, people would shove cigarettes in my face, and I would have to tell them that, "No, I mean I want to get fucked in the ass."

© Eric Moore - 2010

My Dad Will End Your Shit

At the World Arm Wrestling Championships, Drew Dempster was the heavy favorite over Danny "Baby Arm" McCoy

My dad is a complex man. He's not the human equivalent of a David Lynch movie, but he is complex nevertheless. I guess he's complex in the same way that a seven (7)-year-old probably thinks Monopoly is complex. All those cards and rainbow monies. Over the course of my life my dad has done and said things that would annoy, anger, bother, humiliate, amuse, shock and scare me. Growing up I was in constant fear of his temper, which could swell up at the slightest inconvenience. But there were also moments of surprising hilarity and genuine affection. I guess life was sort of a trail mix of emotions for him. I wasn't sure which side of my dad I would see from one day to the next. One of the earliest memories I have of my father being mad at me was when I wasn't even in school yet, maybe four, and I had run away from my babysitter's house and into the woods past her backyard. I had gotten into some poison ivy, and came back to my watcher's house scratched and itchy. When my dad came to pick me up, my babysitter told him what had happened. I distinctly remember my dad looking down at me and saying, "I can't wait to get home." Once home, I was promptly sent into my bedroom which I shared with my older brother, Dale. The threat of physical abuse was so palpable I started bawling as Dale changed out of his school uniform. "You shouldn't have done it, Eric," my brother said with an air of smugness that he still reeks of to this day. My dad eventually came in, sent my brother out, and bent me over his knee. I lay bare-assed as he began to rein down upon my supple flesh a torrent of sharp slaps that turned my butt cheeks a deep, red color. Now, over the years I had become accustomed to getting spanked, and had developed a technique to lessen the punishment. First, I clenched my cheeks as tight as I could to deaden the sting. Second, I usually flailed about and slid from my father's knees like a fish out of water, hoping desperately that he would consider the punishment properly received. Ten times out of ten, though, he merely pulled me back up across his knees and started the process over again. If this is my first memory of punishment, then it is also the catalyst that birthed my great fear of my dad growing up. But his punishments were not always abusive. Well, not in the hitting way. For instance, one day my brother and I were playing in the living room. I was probably five and Dale was seven. We were watching The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! on TV, and decided to act out the show ourselves. The problem was that we both wanted to be Mario. For the next moment are argument consisted of "I'm Mario!" "No! I'm Mario" Until finally my older brother suggested an alternative. "You're Koopa!" He shouted at me. I was standing on the couch, looking down on him when he hurled this nefarious accusation at me. My honest reply to him was "You're a dumb fuck!" Now, as much as my old man loves saying the word 'fuck' I'm actually surprised I didn't say it more often, but the truth was I didn't even know what the word was, only that my mom and dad could say it, but not me. Well, my mom was in the bathroom dying curling her hair, when all of a sudden I heard her shout "WHAT!" She came storming out of the bathroom, eyes blazing with fury. I was terrified. My brother and I were sent to our room, as punishment would be meted out by Father. For this indiscretion, my dad took both Dale and I into the kitchen and grabbed a bar of soap from the sink and shoved it into each of our mouths. Now, it wasn't just letting the soap rest on our tongue. My dad scraped the soap across our teeth like a fucking cheese grater. My gums were bleeding by the end of it, and my mouth was filled with large chunks of Ivory soap stuck in every nook and cranny of my teeth. It sucked. Now, because Dale and I were subjected to this type of punishment throughout of lives, and because we were both little bastards who deserved it, we each relished any time my dad made an ass out of himself, and this continues to this day. One time when my family was staying in a motel, my dad had bought Burger King for everyone. As my mom was eating her sandwich a large tomato slipped from the bun and landed on the floor. "Ewww..." the kids said. My mom picked it up, bits of hair and dirt stuck to it now, and placed it on a napkin on the nightstand. Well, Dad was in the bathroom during this, and when he came out, all he saw was a free, unwanted, perfectly good tomato lying on a napkin. So he just bent over, picked it up, and popped it in his mouth. Immediately, we all tried to stifle our laughter for fear of Dad's retribution, but alas, Mom could not hold it in any longer. With tears running down her cheeks, she admitted, "That fell onto the floor! It had shit all over it!" We all busted out laughing, as Steve-O had been had. Another minor victory over my dad's tyrannical reign came in 2002 when my family was vacationing in Washington DC. We were attempting to board the subway, but in order to get through the turnstile, one had to take his ticket, insert it into the front of a metal box that controlled the arms of the turnstile, and then take the ticket when it popped out of the top of the box. Doing this would enable the metal arms to move and the person could get through. No one in my family had a problem with this concept, except Dad. When the metal box took in his ticket, he thought it had disappeared from the face of the goddamned earth! We watched with bemused laughter as he futilely tried to force the metal arms to move. He began to violently shake the contraption, until finally a small Indian man who worked at the subway yelled, "Tade da teekit! Sir, you must tade your teekit!" "What fuckin ticket!" my dad offered. Now, everyone could see the ticket sticking noticeably out of the top of the box, but my dad continued his assault on the machine, until finally the Indian man had to come over and tade the teekit himself. Then, on the subway, my brother and sister noticed two elderly Asian women looking at my dad and talking to each other in whispered smiles. Turns out they were staring at my dad's crotch, because when he went to the bathroom that morning, he zipped is shirt into his pants, so it was sticking out of his zipper. These small victories, in which the world kicked my dad in the nuts every so often, were moments I cherished and they got me through my childhood. As I grew older, though, my father opened up more, and let me into his strange id. I grew to love his morbid and perverse sense of humor once I began to understand it. My dad loves to say things that he thinks are funny. He is his own audience, so he doesn't care who is around to hear it or how inappropriate it might me. In the summer of 1997, my family was down in Fort Worth, TX visiting my mom's brother. My uncle had a pool in his back yard, and I went outside early one day with my dad and my uncle. As the old men drank and bullshitted, it fell on me to blow up the rafts for the pool. At 12 I had the lung capacity of a seventy (70)-year-old smoker, so I rather humbly told my dad that I couldn't blow up the raft. My dad snatched the raft from my hands and pinched the air nozzle in between his thumb and index finger. "All you do, Eric," he said to me, "is bite low and blow. Just like I tell your mother." Now, was it right for my dad to discuss his fellatio instructions to my mother with me? I would argue that no, it wasn't right. Not to mention that this little joke was also told to my mom's older brother. But Steve-O didn't give a shit. Funny is funny, and now that I'm older, it was a pretty fucking hilarious thing to say. One summer my family went camping, and one evening my dad and I went to showers. When we were done, we wadded our dirty clothes into a ball and carried them under our arms back to our campsite. While en route, we heard a soft female voice coming from behind us. "Um, sir?" We stopped and turned around. It was a mother and her little girl sitting on a picnic table. She was pointing to the ground. "I think you dropped something," she said cautiously. My dad had indeed dropped something. A sweaty pair of dirty tighty-whiteys. Rather than be embarrassed about it-as I was-my dad simply walked back, picked them up, and told the woman, "These'll scare your kids." There was also a time while driving over the Council Bluffs viaduct, my dad managed to get behind a piece of shit Le baron, with its wheels positioned a foot out from the body of the car. The licence plate on the car read BEANER. When my dad passed the car he yelled at the Hispanic gentleman in the Le baron, "Thanks for warning us, asshole!" When my dad converted to Catholicism in his early fifties, my family thought that his first-time confession, fifty-some years of bad deeds, would take hours. But Steve-O got us there. His first reconciliation as a Catholic lasted about two minutes. "You don't have anything else to confess?" The priest pressed. "I'm really a good guy," my dad replied. But growing up it wasn't always spankings and soap and dick and fart jokes and sexual remarks about my mom that have left me with a searing oedipal complex. My dad did have a tender side. Like when my mom had to work and couldn't take her little kids to Sesame Street Live, Dad brought her home flowers. Hell, Steve-O even once put his own fucking kidney up on the auction block! He was shit-faced, but he meant it. And he was fiercely loyal to his kids. We all know how I sucked at organized sports, and one game in particular comes to mind. I would have been in fifth grade, and my team was playing in a Southwest Iowa baseball tournament. I had been sitting on the bench the entire game, and my team was getting crushed. The final inning was upon us, there was no hope of a comeback, and it was the last game of the tournament. I hadn't even stepped onto the field. My dad approached the coach and asked, "Why don't you let these other kids play a bit?" The couch (who had a notoriously hot temper) exploded on my dad. "You want to couch, Steve!? You want too? Then get in here and do it!" "Christ, Kurt," my dad said. "It's only a game." When I got older, and eventually outgrew my dad, I also got braver. Once. Only once have I stood up to my dad, nearly coming to blows. One day while I was in high school I was standing in the dinning room of our house getting yelled at by my mom. Now, my mom is maybe 5'1", probably 100 pounds. But she has a voice that can only be described as banshee-esque, especially when she is yelling. Well, she was screaming at me this day, and was very close to my ear...so much that it hurt. I pulled away from her and shouted, "Your hurtin my fuckin ear!" And as I said this I punched her in the upper arm. Now, I had meant to pull my punch at the last minute, but as I lack all forms of physical coordination, the punch landed and bruised my mom's arm. When my dad got home, I knew what was coming. He cussed and smacked me all the way down the stairs, kicked me in the ass, and shoved me around until we got to my room. Finally, he hit me hard enough that I fell into my bed. Almost instantly, I shot back up, puffed up my chest, and glared down at him. "What are you gonna do, tough guy?" My dad asked, completely unimpressed by my attempt at machismo. I immediately sat back down and didn't say another word. And that is how it has been for the past twenty years, though his hold on me has loosened with time. All in all, I had a fine childhood, and I deserved all the good and bad I got. Do I hold a grudge? Nope. Because each tirade about money that I have to endure now, I know that the world is just waiting to hand my dad another dirty tomato. And, I have decided, that even though the old man is sixty now, once, just once before he dies (hell, it might even be on his deathbed) I am going to haul off and punch him in the face as hard as I fucking can, as payback for years of bullshit. Then, I'm going to run away as fast as I fucking can.

The Moore You Know: I have decided I can no longer drink orange juice with pulp. One day I was having a glass, and as I felt the texture of it in my mouth I thought, "This must be what sperm tastes like." I have no context for that thought, and nothing to back it up. I just think that if I had to guess, orange juice with pulp is about as close as you're going to come to matching semen. So, you know...no more for me. Hot dogs I'm still good with.

© Eric Moore - 2010

Idle Hands Are The Devil's Anal Beads

If Heaven was this good, I would convert to Islam and start suicide bombing tomorrow.

I have the work ethic of a dead black man. You know that anorexic guy from the movie Se7en who turns out to be Keyser Soze's victim for Sloth? Well, that skeletal sumbitch got more done in a day than me. I always get up early, having made grand plans the night before in which I listed out all the great and prosperous things I'm going to do, only to get side-tracked in the morning by five crudely made pancakes and a Dirty Jobs marathon. Balance my check book? Ah, Iowa Student Loans gives you like two weeks before they regard a payment as "late." Apply for a better job? But where else can I smoke a pack of cigarettes while driving a badly damaged Kubota lawnmower through a gaggle of terrified and tragically slow ducks? No where, that is where! Hey, Eric, how about losing some weight? Well, dick, according to this well-written article I don't have to. But fuck you for suggesting otherwise. For some reason, perhaps genetically, perhaps subconsciously, I lack all motivation to better myself. When I was unemployed-a part of my life I refer to as the Good Part-the only time I stopped playing video games was to watch only the battle scenes from the Lord of the Rings trilogy or masturbate to cosplay porn. My girlfriend would get home from work around six and ask, "Did you apply for any jobs today?" "No," I would tell her. "Even better! I finally completed the Path of the Mentor on Ninja Gaiden 2 and unlocked the secret Black Jaguar costume!" I remember Steph's look of equal parts rage, confusion and depression. "So, are you going to have money to pay your half of the rent this month?" She asked me. "Rent is not important, honey. What is important is this fuckin sick ninja gear I found today. I don't know anyone else who has done this." Well, she didn't even bother to congratulate me...a transgression I have still not forgiven her for. The little victories are what it's all about for me. Getting to the next level of a video game is hardly the same as receiving a MacArthur Genius Grant, but I doubt any of those so-called "geniuses (geni? genies?)" have ever landed a 40-hit freeflow combo whilst playing Batman: Arkham Asylum. Finishing a book always makes me feel like I've done something productive. There, I defeated all those pages, retained most of what I've read, and can now paraphrase the author's ideas to my friends and pass them off as my own. Doing the laundry is also a great way for me to feel like I've accomplished something, because the end results are immediately tangible. It's not like when I worked at Geico and my boss would say, "Good job, Eric. You saved the policyholder seven dollars over a three-year span." That last scenario was an utter work of fiction, as I never helped anyone save money during my brief stint as someone in charge of lots of important and personal information. More likely my boss would hover over my desk to make sure I didn't use any racial slurs or ask female callers if they would like to give me a "Ralph Johnson." But I digress. I enjoy doing the laundry because you can see the results of your work. However, I'll admit that doing the laundry can get a bit dicey at times. Washing and drying is OK, but folding laundry was invented by child molesters as a way of distracting mothers. When I wasn't working I could go days, literally days, without showering. I wouldn't brush my teeth until my tongue felt like it was rubbing against sandpaper. I sat up from nap one day, and could not recall the last time I wore a pair of pants that had a zipper. Everyday just became one long span of apathy, insane PS3 graphics, discovering what foods could be dipped into ricotta cheese, and falling asleep to violent South Korean horror films. I mentioned in a previous entry that I stopped going to church because I could never find a decent parking spot, now I call in sick to work if IFC is playing the director's cut of Bad Lieutenant. I need a jump-start, I think. I need something to jolt me into existence. Something to turn me into an active and contributing member of society. You know what? I'm finally going to register to vote. Yeah. I'm sick of being so apolitical. And you know what else? I am going to join a gym. I'm tired of my eyes disappearing into my face every time I smile. And I'm going to finish that 10,000 piece puzzle of the movie poster to Eat Pray Love. I'm going to get a hair cut. I'm going to trim my beard. I'm going to finally get fucking organized! Starting tomorrow. What's that? Rays play the Red Sox tomorrow? OK, starting Thursday I'm taking my life ba- Jersey Shore? It's all new? Is JWoww and Sammi still fighting? Friday I am going to clean up my act and start living for the future. Oh, shit. Wesley is have that party isn't he. Hawks and Cyclones on Saturday. I never work on Sunday in order to keep holy the Sabbath...Monday! Next Monday begins the start of a new Eric! If I remember...and if I still give a shit.

The Moore You Know: My sister recently announced to the family that she's become a vegan. It took us all by surprise. No one had any idea she liked eating pussy. There is no humble way to say you're a vegan. I'm sure some people thought Gandhi was a self-righteous asshole. You could be in a hospital, dying of cancer, and when the nurse brings in your lunch of Jell-O, a small salad and a turkey sandwich, you have to say, "I can't eat the turkey sandwich." "Are you too ill today?" "No, I-I'm a veg-vegan..." Your a pretentious piece of shit is what you are, and your cancer is a sign from God that he thinks so too.

© Eric Moore - 2010