"I want my updates NOW, fuckstick!"
Monday, July 26, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
I Am A Dumb And Drunken Nazi
William the Conqueror successfully invaded England, armed only with a majestic stacheFor today's post I want to talk about heritage. The title of this entry is a jocular reference to my own mixed lineage. I am part Pollock (a notoriously dumb people), part Irish (a notoriously drunk people) and part German (a notoriously Nazi people). Of course, those labels are really nothing more than ethnic barbs designed to satirize entire groups of diverse European cultures. I was merely having a bit of fun with stereotypes. I'm not actually dumb. I'm not actually drunken. Anyway, I recently found out that my ancestors can be traced all the way back to William the Conqueror, the first king of England, who ruled the country from 1066 to 1087. Man, that was like a billion years ago! And how is one bestowed with a title as bad-fucking-ass as The Conqueror? Oh, it don't take much, just the complete taking over of an entire goddamn sovereign nation. You see, folks, when Edward the Confessor (what a pussy name) of England died, he had no heir to his throne. William was one of the main contenders, as he was loosely related to Edward. However, an archbishop decided to give the throne of England to someone who wasn't nicknamed The Conqueror (big fucking mistake). This didn't sit well with Billy the Kid, who decided, "Oh hell, I'll just crown myself King of England," and proceeded to kick the living shit out of anything with a British accent. What a great story. And to think that I am one of this man's ancestors. But, I have to admit, living in 2010, the ancestral butter has been spread quite thin. William the Conqueror would shit his coffin if he could see how diluted his family line has become. That gene pool has been pissed in way too many times. Here's a guy who invades a nation, set himself up as its ruler, puts down all subsequent revolts against him, revolutionizes the English government, brought lasting changes to the English language, helped build England into a global superpower whose reign lasted until America won the Revolutionary War nearly 700 years later, and changed the entire course of the English monarchy. And me? Well, I like to spin my dick like a helicopter when I get out of the shower. And what a cool name: The Conqueror. They all had cool names back in the day like William the Conqueror or Alexander the Great or Erik the Red (the manliest ginger ever made, and yes, the carpet matched the drapes). But I'm glad society doesn't attach those labels anymore, because I would probably be something like Eric the Sweaty or Eric the Awkward Runner or Eric the Sexually Incompetent. Oh, and I'm also related to a real Polish gangster. No shit, man. My maternal great-grandfather emigrated to America because the Polish government had a warrant out for his arrest. What was his crime? Bootlegging alcohol! My great-grandfather was illegally transporting hooch before anyone in the world had ever heard of Al fucking Capone. There's also ostrich feathers, too. My great-grandfather also had Polish authorities after him because along with bootlegging booze, he was also illegally selling ostrich feathers, which apparently in Poland are like goddamn blood diamonds. So that's just a little bit of my family history that I wanted to share. Oh! And to all my readers out there who were born out of wedlock, before he attained the title of Conqueror, he was known as William the Bastard. So, you know, there's hope for you illegitimate assholes yet.
The Moore You Know: When I was a little boy, my brother and I would walk down to the local drugstore and poke holes through boxes of condoms with a sewing needle. When I think of all the abortions I might be responsible for, I can't help but smile!
© Eric Moore - 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
My Old Man Believes I Am Plotting His Demise
.jpg)
The Menendez brothers on trial for their crimes...against fashion! Oh no he di'int!
I am honestly starting to think that my dad believes I am trying to kill him, or at the very least, that I am currently in the planning stages of seeing him deceased. Let me state outright at the beginning of this post that I am indeed not planning on murdering my father for his vast fortune that 40 years at Union Pacific RR has provided him. It is true, however, that my father has been the bane of my existence for nigh on 26 years. He is the obnoxious thorn in my side. The chubby fly in my ointment. If you have never had the honor of meeting my old man, I can tell you he is...boisterous, to say the least. To say the most, he's a real fucking asshole. He is loud. He is arrogant. He is cheap. He is perverted. And ladies, he's single! My old man is thrice divorced, the proud parent of five children (three daughters [one's a slut, one's a bitch, one's a drama queen. I'll let them fight over who gets to be who] and two sons [my brother and I are quite different. He got all the brawn and I got all the brain...and most of the brawn]), and the happy grandfather of a young man and a little lady. My father is also a functioning alcoholic. By that I mean he can fail at three marriages, but still work at the same company for 40 years (that's where the functioning comes in). This is a man who my entire life has never been shy about smacking me, threatening me, lying to me, mocking me, humiliating me...the number of times he had me pack my bags for Boys Town in Omaha is innumerable...This is a man who thinks Peter Jackson's King Kong is believable until the giant insects attack, then it gets far-fetched (side note: by the time the insects attack, the audience has already seen King Kong fight three T-Rexes). For the better part of my life he has been my adversary, my nemesis, the Moriarty to my Holmes, the Batman to my Joker, the Alive to my Brittany Murphy (too soon?). But, to be fair, I was no angel (angle?) myself. Our life together wasn't a Flowers in the Attic situation, where I was a sweet and lovable child, only to be assailed by a malevolent parent. You guys remember that movie? Kristy Swanson totally wanted to do her brother in it...it was just a weird 80s movie. Anyway, I definitely played my part in our battles. As a baby my mother refused to allow my dad into my room when I cried at night, for fear it would result in Shaken Baby Syndrome (true). I insisted, insisted, on sleeping with no less than five pacifiers (true). I ran away from babysitters. Convinced myself that all my socks, shoes, blankets, sheets, sleeping bag, covers, etc. had uncomfortable "lumps" in them that disallowed sleep (true). My nefarious behavior not only turned my old man into a raging lunatic, it also rubbed off on others, as I have had my grandpa bust a spatula across my ass, my grandma scream at me to "Shut up!", and an Uncle (he knows who he is) seriously consider smothering me in my sleep in a poetic Hamlet sort of way. What I am trying to say is, I guess I gave as much as I got. But now, it seems, the tables have turned. For I have become a spry 25-year-old, while the old man has withered into an ol...an old man...I guess (or expanded into an old man). Yet, though I am no longer under my father's iron-fisted (wow, I used fisted in a non-sexual way! Progress!) rule, I am not completely financially independent. I humbly admit that I still rely on the old man to help with certain monetary things (back-ally abortions mostly). And now, my financial pressures are starting to make him paranoid. As I said before, once he kicks the proverbial bucket, I stand to gain an incredible chunk of his UP savings, not to mention the incredible life insurance policy he took out. He walks with a certain twitch whenever I am around. Always looking over his shoulder, always sleeping with the door locked, keeping his 9mm safely tucked under his pillow with the safety off. He knows precisely how much his death would be worth to me, and the knowledge scares him. Patricide is a part of history, as many great leaders have fallen victim to ambitious sons. I'm not going to Google any because my pizza is almost ready in the oven, but, you know, I'm sure there are some names out there. And now my father believes that I have put into motion a series of grand machinations that will leave him in a permanent vegetative state, lying at the bottom of his basement stairs, the smell of cheap rum on his breath. "We're good, right, Eric?" is a question he frequently asks me. "I'm so broke. I have no money," he will randomly point out during the day. "You know, Eric, a cop lives right across the street," he says cautiously. Chickens, dear father, have come home to roost. Or so you believe. For I still maintain that I am just a loyal son with some cliche daddy issues, that IN NO WAY WANTS TO KILL HIS FATHER. Even though life would be good without these student loans and credit card payments. But are they worth the life of a father? No! Well, the reward points on my Am Ex could get me a trip to Hawaii if I pay it off in less than a year, and Steph has always wanted to-NO! I mean, NO! Of course my dad is more important to me than money. Of course he is. So, rest well, dear father, and relegate all perilous thought into the void of dreams, for your son loves you and only wishes you a long and healthy life. But not too long. Steph wants a ring.
The Moore You Know: Three months ago I went down to St. Louis for a Jimmy Buffett concert and I actually saw two black people there! I couldn't believe it! Black people like Jimmy Buffett? Then I realized they probably thought they were going to a buffet.
© Eric Moore - 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Masturbation Is A Touchy Subject
Haley Paige in happier, boner-ier timesWARNING! THE FOLLOWING POST DEPICTS A FRANK AND GRAPHIC DISCUSSION ON THE SIN OF SELF-ABUSE. PLEASE, THOSE READERS WITH ANY FORM OF MORALS OR CONSCIENCE DO NOT READ THIS ENTRY. THIS IS NOT A TEASE TO ACTUALLY GET YOU TO READ THE POST, SO PLEASE, IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED OR NOT EVER OFFENDED BY ANYTHING DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING POST!
Jesus Christ, Eric. Another fucking entry dealing with you jerking off? All you ever talk about is jerking off. Why didn't you name your blog the Jerk Off Blog instead of that gay shit you chose? Well, guess what dickfarts, I wanted to call my blog the Jerk Off Blog, but that name was taken like a seat on Forrest Gump's school bus. Besides, today's entry is not entirely about jerking off. In fact, jerking off doesn't really have anything to do with what I am about to say. Wait...yes, it does. But only in an indirect way. You see, dear readers, this entry today is about the short, sad life of Maryam Irene Haley, AKA, Haley Paige. Ms. Paige was an adult film actress who died of a possible methadone overdose in 2007 at the age of 25. Let me provide you with a little back story, as well as informing some of my female readers about the kind of sexual deviants their male partners are. How many of you ladies have heard of the term 'spank bank?' Well, if you have not, allow me to fill you in. Every guy has a spank bank, and puts it to use maybe once or twice a day. A spank bank is a mental catalogue of sexually appealing women, scenarios, images, etc. Anything that a guy might think of as sexy. Once a guy sees something that arouses him, he immediately locks the image up in his spank bank. A spank bank is accessed by a guy when he really wants to jerk off, but does not have any visual aides, i.e. Internet porn. A perfect example is if a guy is taking a shower, or rubbing one out in a bathroom stall at work, he will call to mind from his spank bank a certain image to help him along in the process. Think of a dude's spank bank as that little paperclip that helps you write letters in Microsoft Word. Now, the deposits in a spank bank are usually, girlfriends, wives, other guys' girlfriends, other guys' wives, other guys' sisters or moms, friends of your mom, attractive first cousins, average fast-food workers who probably aren't really that good looking but for working at Hardee's she's hot, the proverbial girl next door (who's apparently become such a slut that one cannot even describe a girl as looking like the girl next door. Anyone who uses the phrase 'girl next door' to describe a good looking girl is a total doucher), your boss, a co-worker, bartender, waitress, famous actresses, not-so-famous actresses, non-actresses, female athletes (usually confined to beach volleyball players or Danica Patrick), porn stars, teachers, teachers' aides, maids, cheerleaders, video game characters, comic book characters (have you seen Hack/Slash!)...basically any woman a man encounters during a typical day is potentially spank bank material. Now, ladies, if your man tells you that you are his number one spank bank deposit, he is lying, except in my case. I love you, Steph. Oh, and quick side note, I know a lot of girlfriends might think that their boyfriend jerking off is gross, and yet she's always flattered when I say, "I was doing it to you!" Anyway, that's the story of the spank bank, which leads us back to the tragic Ms. Paige. Ms. Paige was a deposit in my own spank bank. I thought she had that pretty, girl-next-door kind of look. And as time went on, I became, I suppose, a fan of Haley Paige. Yet, the more I watched her movies, the more I could see a certain pain, a haunting visage of suffering hidden by exaggerated moans and loads of sperm. Frankly, the girl looked sad, which, in me, aroused suspicion (Suspicion is the nickname for my penis). So, my creepiness knowing no bounds, I decided to visit Ms. Paige's Wikipedia page in order to get a little bit o' history on the gal. Imagine my chagrin when I read that Ms. Paige is dead. Three years dead. Doctors think she died of a methadone overdose. Her boyfriend OD'ed a month later. Anyway, a very important, ethical question took hold of my very being: Is it OK to jerk off to someone you know is dead? I wasn't sure. I mean, precedence to the negative had been set in the Anna Nicole Smith incident of 2008. So this was tricky. Jerking off to porn is already a messy, disgusting humiliating act that should never be done by anyone (except followers of the Brotherhood of the Gassy Jesus), and this vile performance is only exacerbated by the fact that the chick your wanking to is dead. After months of debate, theories, trial runs and research, I decided that this was a decision that was too big for me to make on my own. So I decided to call forth a tribunal of perverts to help put the matter to rest. I set up a Lord of the Rings-type secret council, that consisted of myself, a co-worker of mine who solemnly refers to himself as the Dong-slinger, this dude who lives in my building who can't stop shaking his head and always has an umbrella, and former poet laureate Robert Penn Warren. After many thought-provoking arguments, death threats, MLB 2K10 tournaments, taco flavored pizza rolls and readings of Mr. Warren's novel All the King's Men, a decision was made, which I will announce................nnnnnnnnnnnow: Yes, it is OK for a dude to jerk off to a woman, any woman, he knows to be dead, as long as two (2) conditions are met. One, said abuser must not be jerking off over the fact that said woman is deceased. Two, said abuser must not be picturing the dead body of said woman while he is jerking off. As long as these two criteria are met, then it is not considered rude or creepy, but rather should be taken as an act to celebrate the life and times of said woman. But, still be pretty creepy. Sick, actually.
The Moore You Know: I cannot cook worth a shit. Seriously, I suck. I can barely thaw a goddamn burrito. Except for when I'm shitfaced. Dude, when I'm hammered I turn into fucking Wolfgang Puck. I'll stumble into my bedroom at three in morning, blasted off my ass, wake my girlfriend up by shouting, "Where's the cilantro. I n-need the cilantro for my ziti. Ziti is only good with cilantro. Also, I puked on your laptop."
© Eric Moore - 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
I Am Going To Start A Cult
The Jonestown Massacre took place during the most fucked up game of Simon Says ever recorded [citation needed].I am going to start a cult. I feel that it's the only way I'm going to get the goddamn respect I deserve. But Eric, you don't know the first thing about starting a cult! Bullshit. If you believe in God and have a healthy relationship with hallucinogens, then you are already halfway to starting a cult. Take the king of the modern cult, Jim Jones. Mr. Jones was an Indiana preacher by day and an acclaimed Elvis impersonator [citation needed] by night. As the founder of the People's Temple, Jim Jones integrated his followers under the banner of peace and love and freedom from what he believed was American persecution. You know, I haven't finished reading my biography on Jim Jones at the time of this writing, but the way things are going so far, I'm sure everyone is going to end up juuust peachy. Another famous cult leader was the Waco Kid, David Koresh. He believed he was the final prophet of the Branch Davidians, and ended up going out in a blaze of glory, Bon Jovi-style, when a massive firefight broke out between his followers and the FBI. A more recent cult leader that stole the headlines would be Marshall Applewhite, AKA "Do." This sumbitch was the leader of the Heaven's Gate religious sect. In 1997, Applewhite and 38 other members of his little Apple Dumpling Gang committed suicide because they believed a spaceship traveling in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet would "take their souls to another 'level of existence above human', which Applewhite described as being both physical and spiritual. This and other UFO-related beliefs held by the group have led some observers to characterize the group as a type of UFO religion. On Oct 10th 1996, the group purchased Alien abduction insurance to cover up to 50 members at a cost of $10,000 [Wikipedia]." Jee-zuz Christ. I think somewhere Tom Cruise just got an erection. Speaking of Mr. Cruise, some argue that Scientology is a cult. In fact, the German government recognizes Scientology as a cult. And when was the last time the Krauts were wary of any kind of massive organization of people sharing one common belief? Scientology's founder, the shitty sci-fi author L. Ron Hubbard, even stated in an interview once that if a person wanted to get rich, all he or she had to do was found a religion, i.e. cult. So, with the weight of these notorious swindlers' legacies on my back, I have decided that I am going to start my own cult. Here we go. Attire. I want everyone to dress like the Strangers from that movie Dark City starring Jack Bauer and that dude who played the bad guy in A Knight's Tale. The Strangers (for those people with actual lives who have not seen the movie) wear long black trench coats with fur trim and black fedoras and gloves. Sweeeet. They can also put people to sleep with a wave of a hand, but that power will come to my followers in time. Next, I guess I have to proclaim that I am indeed a prophet. I AM A PROPHET! OK, check. Oh, and we should be a religious cult. Nothing riles up the masses like some good ole Jesus talk. Now, we have to believe in some fucked up lunacy regarding Jesus. Hmmm....Jim Jones did the whole Utopia thing with Jonestown. Koresh had the Book of Revelations going for him. Heaven's Gate was all about outer space. I got it! Let's combine the best of all worlds! OK, here's what we believe in-our manifesto: Jesus is going to return one day, but not to Earth. He is too upset at how secular Mankind has become, so He decides to reappear on the planet Saturn. Now, since I am His prophet, Jesus has told me-and only me-how we (my slaves followers and I) are to meet Him on Saturn. OK, now the means to our celestial transcendence has to be somewhat logically sound, but paradoxically batshit crazy. The fuckin French! The Frogs have a saying: le petit morte, or 'the little death.' It's a phrase to describe the lightheaded feeling a man gets upon ejaculation (Eric is mentioning male ejaculate on his blog? Yeah, and I got me 16 followers, Bitch!). In medieval times, people believed that whenever a man reached orgasm, he died a little. So, my cult will believe that the only way a man can reach Saturn is by jerking off (or having sex. Every time I think about orgasm I immediately think it can only be achieved single-handily) enough times until his corporal body dies, and his spiritual form can float safely to Saturn. This explanation will also give the cult that freaky fuckfest free-for-all vibe that it's been missing. But folks, we run across a problem. The souls of men can reach Saturn by having multiple prolonged orgasms, but what about the women? As it is a well-documented fact that there is no such thing as a female orgasm, I am going to have to think of something else for the weaker sex. Hmmmm....I got it! Menstruation! The way women get to Saturn is through their menstruation! I know Mars is the original Red Planet, but too fuckin bad for Mars. We're going to Saturn. OK, ladies, if you wish to leave your physical bodies behind and join us men up in Saturn for our Jesus Party, then you have to have your periods, and you need to have them long and you need to have them heavy. The Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, "I don't trust anything that bleeds for seven days and doesn't die [citation needed]," but we are going to trust you, ladies. We are going to trust you to do the right thing and bleed baby bleed. Once you have bled to death, your spiritual form will join its male counterpart in the gaseous mass of Saturn. Once our ascension is complete, we will all mingle with Jesus for a while, and then watch as He mercilessly destroys the heathens of Earth. Then, using our new Saturn powers, we will build a city on the 9 rings of Saturn. The first ring will consist of all of our houses, which will be mansions, and my mansion will be the biggest, as I am the Prophet. The second ring will be garages to house our cars, which, strangely, will not be Saturns, but Nissans, as I currently drive one and like the gas mileage. The third ring of Saturn will be our jobs. Most of you will have to work in customer service or outside sales, but I will be eternal supervisor. Rings four through seven will be used for our consumer necessities. We will build Home Depots and Best Buys and Starbucks and Netflix shipping centers. Ring eight will be for all the churches that Saturn Jesus will have us build in His honor. The ninth and final ring will be set aside for future use. I just don't think that right now we should fill up all the rings. Let's save the last ring until we are absolutely sure we know what we want, OK. Finally, we need a name. Saturn is classified as a gas giant. Jesus will be there. OK. Hitherto, we will be known as the Brotherhood of the Gassy Jesus. By reading this post you have willfully and knowingly agreed to become a member of the Brotherhood of the Gassy Jesus. If you are a man, start coming! If you are a lady, commence blood flow! By order of the Prophet! Also, as a Catholic, I'm pretty sure by writing this I committed a slight form of heresy, so let's keep this whole cult thing just between me and you.
The Moore You Know: Halloween is my favorite holiday, but I have to admit, I find the costumes for women a bit offensive. I mean, all I see is Slutty Nurse or Slutty Secretary. It's gross and detrimental to the women's movement. Come on people, let's finally see some Slutty Doctors and Slutty CEOs out there!
© Eric Moore - 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
This Is the Zodiac Speaking. Your Apartment Smells Like Shit
"Be honest. I'm overdoing it with the sunglasses, right?"
Ed Gein used his victims' skin as lampshades. Jeffrey Dahmer boiled and ate chunks of his victims. The Zodiac sent cryptic messages to the San Fransisco Police Department. Jack the Ripper began his letters with a foreboding, "From Hell." And in an act of life imitating Jesus-fucking-Christ-are-you-serious-fucking-nightmares, John Wayne Gacy dressed up as a clown named Pogo for children's parties. Hell, Ted Bundy told police that there were only six steps to becoming a serial killer: 1. peeking through people's windows 2. watching softcore porn 3. stalking people 4. watching hardcore porn 5. violently attacking strangers 6. killing strangers. Subsequently, I have stopped masturbating cold turkey, as I was already up to number four on Ted Bundy's Six Easy Steps to Becoming a Serial Killer. Anyway, as I am sure that most of my readers are sick fucks like myself, I am willing to bet that most of us are familiar with the names that I mentioned above. Even if we don't know the details of their crimes, we at least know the names. Hollywood has made biopics on each person listed. The dude from Hurt Locker played Dahmer for Christ's sake. Serial killers hold a certain fascination for a lot of people. Not in a creepy let-me-rub-my-flaccid-penis-on-this-mugshot type way. Just in a rather, how-could-one-person-do-this-to-another type way. What are a killer's motivations? Who are the victims? Where are the clues? I'm sure we have all seen episodes of City Confidential or Cold Case Files or The First 48. CSI and Law and Order are still two of the most popular franchises on TV. Everybody finds true crime interesting, whether you start your own website to try to solve the Keddie Murders (http://keddiemurdersfilm.com/), or you just turn the sound up on your TV whenever Se7en comes on (Question: Did anyone care that John Doe cut off Gwyneth Paltrow's head and shoved it in a box at the end? I pretty much wanted to do that shit to her the entire movie). I, of course, am no exception. True crime has always fascinated me, and to be honest, movies about serial killers are some of my favorites. Se7en is a classic, The Bone Collector is creepy as hell, and Silence of the Lambs is the undisputed heavyweight of horror flicks. I read Robert Graysmith's profile on the Zodiac killer. I read Patricia Cornwell's excellent book Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed (SPOILER ALERT: Walter Sickert was the murderer). I read Ann Rule's sensational book on Ted Bundy, The Stranger Beside Me. And I also own a sizable tome entitled The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Michael Newton. Now, it is the latter that I wish to speak about more thoroughly. You see, those other books I listed are neat, compact little books that fit well on a shelf, and are aesthetically pleasing to the eye. It gives me the appearance of an amateur criminologist, I think. Or, maybe it looks like I have been studying the modi operandi of some notorious killers and am at this very moment planning a visceral assault on the minds and bodies of a goddamn town that has thwarted me at every turn! But soon, very soon I will have my vengeance, for it has been foretold that a golden dragon will......excuse me. I digress. Where was I? Ah, yes. You see, those other books are basically novels, whereas Mr. Newton's Encyclopedia is comprised of brief biographies on a couple hundred serial killers. It is a large and awkward text, and does not fit on any bookshelf that I own. So where did I think a good alternative to put it would be? I put it in my shitter. I have a little collection of reading material in my shitter, and I thought the macabre book would be a good addition. The other books in my bathroom are an encyclopedia on Batman, an encyclopedia on Spider-Man (PRETENTIOUS NERD TANGENT: Did you know that Stan Lee inserted a hyphen into Spider-Man's name so people would not confuse the webslinger with Superman?), a collection of Gary Larson's Far Side volumes, some Calvin and Hobbes books, a few old issues of Rolling Stone, even a big book of brain teasers. So I thought, regarding the serial killer book, "Here's a book with a bunch of short articles. I could read one or two of these while dropping a deuce." To me, it seemed pretty reasonable. Most guys (GIRLS DON'T SHIT! GIRLS DON'T SHIT! THEY WEAR THONGS AND HAVE BIG BEWBS AND LIKE TO GIVE BLOWJOBS! GIRLS DON'T SHIT!) like to read while they're on the toilet. In fact, I would argue that the majority of men's reading habits occur while taking a dump. Anytime a guy says, "I read this in a magazine..." he read it while pooping. Well, apparently, I was grossly mistaken when it came to adding The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers to my bathroom library. Here's what happened. One night, my girlfriend goes in to use the bathroom. When she comes out, she sits silently on the couch, staring at the TV, wearing a look restrained terror. The absence of her typical jovial behavior is apparent to me, so I says to Steph, I says, "What's wrong?" She can only shake her head mildly. Well, it's obvious now that something is wrong. "Steph, what is it?" Again, she says nothing. Now, I'm curious. Like, fucking Altoids curious. So, I get up, walk into the bathroom and take a look around. Maybe I left a streaker? I lift the lid to the toilet and find no such evidence. I look in the shower, in the medicine cabinet, under the sink. I even flip through my shitterature (bathroom literature), but to no avail. Everything looks to be in its place. I walk back out to the couch and sit next to my beloved, who still wears an expression of repressed discomfort, like she stuck her tampon in sideways. So, once again, I says to her, "Steph, what is wrong. Don't say nothing, because I know something is wrong." Finally, though reluctantly, she breaks down for me. "Eric," she begins, "I was going through your bathroom books, and I noticed something disturbing." Even though I new for a fact that I didn't count porn amongst my shitterature, I briefly felt the pang of guilt like she had somehow managed to find a hardcore fuck magazine in between my precious Calvin and Hobbes collections. "What was it, my dear?" She looked at me, but could barely hold my gaze. "It was...it was...a book on serial killers!" And with that she burst into tears and flung herself into my arms. I was confused by this sudden outburst, to be sure, so I replied, "What do you mean?" "You have a book about serial killers in your bathroom!" She cried. "Yes. So?" She stared up at me, tears racing down her face. "That's fucked up!" I shook my head in disbelief. "I don't understand." "You study serial killers while you take a dump? Do you realize how creepy that is?" To be honest, I had no idea this was considered creepy. I mean, to me the book was just one more piece of quick bathroom reading that I could add to my collection. Variety is the spice of life after all (oh, God, nothing spicy, please. My asshole will feel like Mt. Saint Helens). I tried explaining this to Steph, but she would have none of it. Her reasoning was this: books in the shitter are OK. Books about serial killers are OK. Books about serial killers in the shitter NOT OK. "I can't help but picturing you there, sitting on the toilet with your pants around your ankles, your pasty ass tucked into the pot like a robin's egg in a nest, that fucking book spread across your lap, while your hairy, sweaty face looms over it. It's disturbing!" Well, when you put it like that...I mean, her distaste for the book in the bathroom probably has to do with the fact that the only time I'm reading it I am half nude (fully nude if it's pre-shower), and dealing with bodily fluids. Put into that context it is kind of creepy. Here I am reading of their terrible exploits during one's most private moments. OK, I get it. So, I relinquished The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers' place in my stack of shitterature, and forced it into a lonely corner of our bookshelf. I didn't really want to do it, but, anything for my Stephy-Poo. She later made the suggestion that maybe she should put some of her books in the bathroom, so she isn't stuck having to read about secrets of the Batcave. Great! Now, whenever I run out of toilet paper, I just rip a page from one of her shitty Nicholas Sparks books.
The Moore You Know: Thanks to Wikipedia it is easier than ever to meet women! You don't even need to resort to lame pick-up lines or spending your money buying a girl a drink. All you do is tell a beautiful girl at the bar to visit your Wikipedia page, and it will tell her everything she needs to know about you. For instance, according to my Wikipedia page, I'm a rugged 1930s archaeologist, who battles Nazis while searching for long-lost religious artifacts. I also have a thirteen inch penis.
© Eric Moore - 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
The Distinguished Janitor
"I want to finger your toilet."I think of myself as something of a factotum, a working class rogue, too wild and ambitious to be tethered to one job for too long. Instead, I bounce from career to career, expanding on an ever widening set of skills and experiences. That's how I think of myself. My girlfriend has another word for rogue: "Fucking bum." I have a college degree, and have worked in professional office environments, but I have not ever held a position important enough to warrant my own business card. I think that is my one regret in life. Oh, mighty business card, how dapper you are and how aristocratic you make your owner look, so prominently displaying your master's company, name, position, and numbers where he or she can be easily reached. How freely you are handed out and stored away. No, friends, I have never known the gentle caress of a business card betwixt my fingers as I hold it out assuredly to some random imbecile, saying to him, "If you have any questions, let me know." And the lucky person receiving my business card would indeed have questions, because I would use a lot of technical jargon and interoffice slang to make me look smart. The customer would think, "Man, this guy really knows his shit. I better put his business card on the fridge, because my infantile brain cannot wrap itself around all the knowledge that this man is emitting, like a beautiful celestial aura." And he would take my business card, a little piece of my heart, with him. I think it would be wonderful if every job was important enough for a business card. Janitors could leave them in urinals, maybe with a little bullseye graphic on them. Or have a maid leave hers in a freshly dumped wastebasket (has a business card ever been made in Spanish [I am not a racist.]?). The clerk at the liquor store could slip his in the bag for your 40 oz. bottle of Laser specialty malt liquor. "Call me if this don't get you fucked up," he could say. A teacher could pass his business card to his favorite student, while telling her, "I'm giving you an A for ass. Call me." Priests could give their business card to members of their parish. One could read: St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church. Father Milton Fitzpatrick. "It's not a sin if just the tip goes in." Strippers and hookers (one in the same, honestly) could hand them out to the biggest tippers. I could go on and on. Yuppies and CEOs and doctors and lawyers shouldn't be the only ones to get business cards. Every job should be considered important enough for one. But alas, perhaps I am just jealous. Perhaps it is too much to ask that such professional equality could ever exist. Maybe I should just be happy with what my past jobs have provided me with. You see, though I have never had my own business card, I have had my fair share of employee ID numbers. 118187. A42E119. EM112584009. 00080997. GEI4441376. THX1138. Equality 7-2521. OK, those last two are the names of the heroes from George Lucas's film THX 1138 and Ayn Rand's novella Anthem, but see how easily and inconspicuously they can just slide into my past employee ID numbers. I know these ID numbers are not meant to evoke images of dystopian futures as in 1984, but still...ID numbers, companies say, are a good way of not only keeping records on employees, but it is also a good way to ensure the confidentiality of said records. Isn't that wonderful! Your company probably uses the same system as your state prison! Cubicles have become the new rock quarries. The computer has become the new hammer. The telephone headset is the new ball and chain. Fuck you, Eric. What gives you the right to bash people's jobs you self-righteous asshole! True, true. It is easy for me to sit here and write this from the safety of my home, whilst some of my readers may have something like the very jobs I am criticizing. But look on the bright side, while I can afford to scoff at those shackled to phones and the monotonous beeps of incoming calls, I cannot afford health insurance, car insurance, renters insurance, rent, groceries, clothes, food...Maybe I would enjoy low-paying, completely mundane work if it just felt more important. And that is where the necessity of business cards come in, I suppose. Of course, we need you here, Danny! We put your goddamn fax number on a little piece of fucking paper! Hand that out to as many people as you need to. Ahhhh....I envy you, Danny, arbitrary, white-collar manager that I just made up.
The Moore You Know: Leaders of the Ku Klux Klan refer to themselves as either Grand Dragons or Imperial Wizards. Seriously? Wizards and Dragons? What a bunch of fuckin nerds. I picture these guys as kids who were really into Dungeons & Dragons, but at the same time still very racist. "When I'm older, I'm going to form my own club, and I'm going to where a cloak, and a mask, and ride a horse, and YOU'RE NOT INVITED! Neither are the blacks, the Jews, the Catholics, the homosexuals, the......."
© Eric Moore - 2010
I Am Not A Racist: Another Warrantless Plea
"Excuse me, kind sirs. Could you point me in the direction of the nearest Banana Republic?"I am not a racist. Let me say that again. I am not a racist. The idea that in this day and age I could harbor a single discriminatory thought is absurd. Laughable, even. I am not a racist. That being said, let's talk about black people! First, a little history of myself. I grew up in a town in southwest Iowa that had a population of about 900 people when I went to school. The one traffic light in town wasn't really a traffic light, it was a crosswalk for school kids. There was one bar, one gas station, one post office, one grocery store (that could not stay open), one high school, one elementary school and two churches. In a town of 900 people, not one but two churches were erected, both Protestant, of course. The town was a mostly middle-class to upper-middle-class farm town settled mainly by dirty Pollocks and Nazi-sympathizing Krauts (I am not a racist). The local color was obviously white. Very white. There was not a single dose, not one fucking ounce of color whilst I was in school. Back in the day, America had many towns called "sundown towns." Sundown towns were small towns that allowed black people in them, but only during the day. Once the sun went down whatever black population was in town was forced to leave. I thought for a long time that maybe my town was one of these sundown towns. I think white people are genetically hard-wired to discriminate. Thousands of years of being the most dominating race on the planet probably infused in us an idea, consciously or not, that we should think of ourselves as superior. I think this only because when I was in high school some of my friends gave me shit for being a Catholic. I am basically every stereotype of a white person, yet I was still lambasted at school for being different. Every season when Lent rolled around and I had to get "fish" (I once asked a lunch lady what kind of fish the school served for lunch and her response was honestly, "Kind? Fish is fish.") my friends would heckle me with all types of clever names like Fucking Catholic. Catholic Douche. Fucking Douche. On Ash Wednesday when I would go to school with ashes on my forehead I had to answer the same question all day: "What's that shit on your head?" Although, Ash Wednesday was a good way of finding out who all the Catholics were at your school, so you could form little support groups to help deal with the onslaught of slurs from those fucking Protestant heathen pieces of shit motherfucking blasphemous Martin Luther loving cocksu...but I digress. The point that I am trying to make is that a lot of white people, not all, but a lot of them will find something, anything to make fun of another person about, even if that other person is almost a spitting image of the other. I lived in a very Protestant town, I took shit every now and then for being Catholic. It's as simple as that. Needless to say that I was woefully unprepared for the world outside of my cozy little town. In high school they don't teach classes like How To Walk Down the Sidewalk Confidently During a Gay Pride Rally or Black Nationalists Are Not Targeting YOU Specifically or Muslims: Some of Them are OK. I attended college at the University of Iowa, which, like a lot of college campuses, was pretty liberal. Christ, it was a goddamn Gomorrah compared to what I was used to. They handed out condoms and lube in the dorms, every other block someone wanted you to sign up for this or that cause, and the culture, my God, the culture! Coming from my town to the campus in Iowa City was like going from owning a Daisy air rifle to being chief scientist for the Manhattan Project. It was culture shock. Fuck, it was Culture Epileptic Seizure. Now, I don't want to give my readers the impression that I was some rube from a podunk town in Iowa. I considered myself intelligent, open-minded, empathetic and eager to learn. But I had come from a town with absolutely no diversity, to perhaps one of the most diverse places in the country. After college, I stayed in the area, and I now work with a handful of people who look exactly like me, and lately I have been sensing some of that white supremacy starting to creep in a bit. The other day I was driving home from work and while at a stoplight I noticed an African American gentlemen waiting at the bus stop. Without warning I muttered to myself, "That's the seventh black person in a row I've seen." I was surprised, to say the least, as I was not consciously aware that I was counting black people on my drive home. Now, the neighborhood I live in currently is a diverse section of town, i.e. a lot of black people live around me. One can tell this just by the amount of abandoned shopping carts found on the street corners (Jesus Christ, it's a joke). And even though where I live now is miles (both literally and metaphorically) away from where I grew up, I am very happy and safe and secure. I am glad that I grew up in the town I did. Even though it was ethnically diluted, I was still able to meet some of the best people I will ever know, while at the same time build up my tolerance for alcohol, something that serves me well to this day. As a kid we can't choose where we live, just as we can't choose our parents, and those two things are really what shape us. I could have easily become like some people I knew in my town, close-minded, bigoted, extremely conservative, but I didn't, and I am thankful for that. But an open-minded liberal white person must always be on guard to repress any supreme urges that come up, like me with the counting. Or maybe I can use my subconscious cataloging of black people for a good use. We all know how much the blacks hate to fill out census forms, but now they don't have to worry. I'll be sure to keep my totally-not-racist eyes on every one of those motherfuckers.
The Moore You Know: I wish I didn't have to watch the new stripper come up onstage and clean the pole off with WD40. It's like when Toto pulled the curtain away from the Wizard of Oz. I don't want to see that shit. I want to maintain the illusion that these girls are healthy, in body and mind. Don't sterilize the pole while I'm sitting there. I don't want to be confronted with the fact that those poles are the United Nations of STDs.
© Eric Moore - 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
You Literally Scared the Piss Outta Me. Literally.
Not Pictured: Normal
With Halloween just around the corner, I thought it would be festive to relate an old fashioned ghost story to all my faithful readers (and not to my unfaithful readers, you adulterous whores). This story takes place waaaaay back in October of 1994, when I was but a lad of 9. My family was living in the town of Columbia, IL, and my siblings and I were attending Immaculate Conception School. Now, at this time in my life I was a big reader, and the books that I loved were RL Stine's Goosebumps and Fear Street sagas. I also enjoyed reading Bruce Coville's Book of...series, like Bruce Coville's Book of Monsters, Bruce Coville's Book of Aliens, et cetera, et cetera (you fuckers didn't know I could speak Latin, did you). I was really into scary stories and horror movies. I think it started even earlier than 9, like maybe 4 or 5. You see, one of the earliest memories that I have is of being a small boy spending the night and Grandma and Grandpa's house. My Grandma usually stayed up late, and as I was too terrified to sleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms by myself, I slept on the living room couch. On this particular night, my Grandma let me watch the vampire movie Fright Night. I'm not sure why exactly. Maybe she thought that I was too young to understand it, which is true. At age 4, the plot of Fright Night probably went over my head a little, and I probably didn't understand much of what the characters were saying. Although my cognitive abilities were still being developed at that age, my eyesight was pretty much goddamn perfect! It wasn't the dialog or story pacing that scared the shit outta me! It was a fucking cross being burning into Evil Ed's forehead! It was Evil Ed being killed, but not before transforming into a hideous beast! It was the main characters being chased by vampires with huge fangs! It was the bloodshed! I remember my eyes peering through a cage of clenched fingers as Grandma asked, "Are you OK, Eric?" I nodded furiously. You see, as much as the movie terrified me, I couldn't help but watch. I didn't want to close my eyes...and I've been that way ever since. Anyway, let's jump back to 1994. As I said, I was very much into what young adult had to offer in the way of horror, and the coup de grace, the mothership of all horror anthologies, the motherfucking scariest thing I possessed was a series of books entitled Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones. The books were written by the late children's author Alvin Schwartz. And I use the term 'children's author' very loosely. I went back and reread these books recently, and I haven't taken a shit since, OK. These books are bowels-pluggingly scary. Come on, Eric, you're being a pussy. They can't be that scary. Really? According to Wikipedia, the Scary Stories trilogy "was America's most frequently challenged book (or book series) for library inclusion of 1990-2000 (Source: American Library Association)." Did you need to read that again? These books were so fucking terrifying that for an entire decade people wanted them taken out of the library. The target age for Mr. Schwartz's books: 9-12. And the horror of the books did not end with Mr. Schwartz's nightmare-inducing prose, oh no. The writer wanted to make sure that the reader could picture exactly the terrifying creations he was writing about. He didn't trust a child's imagination. He called on the talents of illustrator Stephen Gammell, a fellow Iowa boy who draws images so gruesome, schizophrenic demons jack off to them deep in the pits of hell. Seriously. If you don't believe me just click on following links: http://roberthood.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/gammell.jpg and http://stateofaffairs.info/wp-content/gallery/art-by-stephen-gammell/two_people.jpg and http://stateofaffairs.info/wp-content/gallery/art-by-stephen-gammell/alien.jpg and http://media.photobucket.com/image/stephen%20gammell%20gallery/decalonmysticker/church.jpg. Are you back from sitting in the corner weeping and etching crosses into your flesh with your fingernails? That shit was meant for 9-12 year olds! And I loved it! I fucking loved it! I devoured these books the same way I devoured my signature nacho creation (Lays sour cream and onion chips, topped with melted slices of Kraft American cheese. I made these all the time in fourth grade, until my dad yelled at me for wasting the cheese). My friends read the stories aloud to each other during sleepovers. We sang the macabre songs that Mr. Schwartz put in the books ("Both are dead in the very same bed, and neither one of them know it" is a lyric that comes to mind). I even did my own drawings based on Mr. Gammell's creations. I was a fan to put it simply. That is, until one fateful Autumn night in 1994. My brother, Dale (I've mentioned him before, right?), and I shared a bedroom in the basement of our house. And it wasn't a creepy or spooky basement; it was a nice, finished basement that on any other night would have caused me no fear. But on this night...I. Was. Fucked. You see, the basement, as nice as it was, did not contain a bathroom, so anytime I had to pee I had to march through the darkness, up the stairs, down a hallway to the bathroom. Well, it wasn't total darkness. I had a nightlight that stayed plugged in near the foot of the basement stairs. In hindsight, I think I had a genuine fear of the dark, as that nightlight stayed with me until I was in high school. Yet, the light cast was never really a beacon of safety, as it only served to give sight to all the crawling things I was afraid of. Also, I should note, that I peed a lot at night, maybe 3 or 4 times a night. So, making the trek was a pain in the ass to begin with. One night, Dale and I lay in our beds and I was suddenly awakened by the need to pee. I threw the covers off my body, trudged sheepishly out of the room, past the nightlight, which cast my stretched and black shadow against the basement walls, making me the terrible things I feared, but only for an instant. Up the stairs I went, ascending into the unknown pitch, an ominous void of nightmares, imagined or otherwise...I didn't know. Through the living room, where slips of light broke through the windows from the streetlights outside. A little bit of light. Not enough for comfort. Down the hall. It was so black it could have gone on forever. I stopped before the bathroom door, pushing it open with a soft nudge. I reached to the light, praying to God that when the light came on there were no goblins or ghosts awaiting to be shone. The light comes on...nothing. The same old bathroom I had been in countless times before. Now, let me say that the memories I have of that trip up to the bathroom are pretty familiar, as I had done it so many times. And I know that each time I made it there was always a little fear, but nothing more than an average child's wild imagination. Certainly not enough to keep me from going upstairs. I shut off the light, plunged once again into the blanketed depths of night. The journey to safety was not over. Down the hall I went, but this time something was different. Something was wrong. All at once Mr. Schwartz's words began to flutter through my mind like terrifying mental butterflies. These were soon followed by Mr. Gammell's illustrations. One in particular. The story that the image was attached to escapes me, but to this day the drawing is fresh in my head. It was of a small and elderly man wearing a black suit. His face had been made grotesque by old age and bad deeds. An evil rictus was cut across his mouth, and bright light burst out from a gash in the man's head. For whatever reason, this image has stayed with me from the moment I saw it, and even as I write this I am looking over my shoulder to make sure the creature has not found me. This image filled my mind, like water in a pitcher; I thought of nothing else. The hallway completed, I turned into the living room. Every silhouette of furniture was a mammoth beast waiting to tear me apart. Every sound was a footstep of some malevolent entity. I could sense the monsters closing in on me, my heart threatened to break through my chest, my breath slowed to a quiver. The basement door approached...the demons were upon me...I turned the corner to open the door...It's HIM! The man with the broken head! He had found me! I turned from the basement door in horror and literally, and when I say literally I mean I actually fucking did this, ran through the house with my hands flailing wildly above my head screaming bloody murder at the top of my lungs, tears cascading down my face. Through the living room I ran, down the hallway, before slamming into my parents bedroom door. I remember in the midst of my panic I could not find the door knob. Instead, I beat the door like a maniac, begging to be let in as the man's hands began to slither over my shoulders. Just as I began to feel his noxious breath on my neck, the door opened in a blaze of white light. My mom stood before me, looking like an angel sent from heaven. A severely pissed off angel, but an angel nonetheless. I threw my arms around her and buried my face into her gown and sobbed. "What the fuck are you doing?" Came my father's sympathetic voice. "Do know how goddamn late it is?" My old man was angry, my mom was angry, and my two younger sisters were also making their way into the room. In my rampage I had awoken them, giving real credence to their terror over my imagined one. "What's wrong? What is wrong?" My mother kept asking me, but I could not find the words. All I could do was continue to bawl. After a while, when nearly all the lights upstairs had been turned on, and I was beginning to calm down, my mother looked at me, and I remember her words perfectly, "This is because of those fucking books you read!" With tears still pooling in my eyes, I replied, "No, it's not!" Even then, in the middle of what was the most terrifying thing to ever happen to me, I would not implicate the source of my fear. I could not bring myself to give them up. They had mind-fucked me something awful, but I still refused to part with them. There was a spare room next to my sisters' room. My dad made my older brother get up and sleep in the double bed with me. I "slept" with my back glued to the wall, while Dale's body lay under the covers facing the open bedroom door. Outside, the hallway light was turned on. Every two seconds my head shot up, just to make sure the old man was not at that moment sneaking into the bedroom to finish me off. "Eric, lay down!" My brother would yell, so often in fact my dad once screamed from the master bedroom, "Shut the fuck up you two!" "It's Eric! He won't go to sleep!" "Get the fuck to sleep, Eric or I'll put you in the basement by yourself!" My dad always did know how to calm me down. My mom ended up sleeping between my two sisters in their room, because apparently I had scared the shit out of them. It was a long, long night, and the daylight did not come fast enough. The next day my mom rounded up my Alvin Schwartz books (I convinced her that RL Stine and Bruce Coville were innocent of the previous night's events) with tyrannical enthusiasm. They disappeared from my life at that moment...but the terror of that night lingered. As I said, our basement did not have a bathroom, but I still had to piss. But if I went upstairs, I risked being butchered by the old man with the cracked head. How did I solve this problem? Simple. I just walked out to my nightlight and pissed on the carpet. I did this night after night, giving no thought to what I was doing. To me it seemed like a perfectly normal solution: I was able to relieve myself in peace without being set upon by the terrors of the above floor. Now, let me do a quick side note: the actual reason that sent me running like a madman through the house was that in the corner by the basement door, where the door's hinges would be, I thought I saw the dark outline of a person, a person shorter than me at age 9. In my head, I saw the man with the split skull. I never told my mom or dad this. Instead, I told them that I had touched the door handle and felt this little knitted witch's head that slip over the knob, and not recognizing what it was, I was sent into a frenzy. Why lie? Once again, I did not want my parents to blame those books. I was loyal to them to the end. So, back to the pissing. This went on for a while. When I told Dale what I was doing he didn't believe me, so that night he stood in our bedroom and watched me piss all over the carpet by the nightlight. "You idiot," he said. "That's going to smell." But I didn't pay any attention to him. Pissing on the carpet was still more reasonable to me than walking up to the bathroom alone. One weekend in November, as my 10th birthday neared, my Grandma and Grandpa paid a visit. The same grandma that allowed the seeds of horror fandom to be planted. My brother and I were watching TV in the basement, as my mom walked downstairs with her folks. I will never forget my grandpa's words as he reached the bottom of the stairs: "It smells like piss down here." And I will never forget my mother's response: "Steve just put some varnish on the wood trim going around the bottom of the walls." Yes, Mother, yes. That's all it is. Varnish. And that is all it will ever be! I thought I was out of the woods, but the whole weekend my damn grandpa kept pushing the issue, insisting the basement smelled like urine, inviting my dad down on several occasions. My grandparents left, and I was sad to see them go. It sucked being that far away from them. But, I thought, at least things can get back to normal, i.e. me pissing mercilessly on the carpet. Well, my dad and mom did not forget my grandpa's urgings and they must have had a meeting, because not long after my mom sat me down and asked me if anything was wrong. I denied that anything was wrong, but the issue was not dropped. To be honest, I'm not sure if I broke down and told them, or if Dale told them (after all, he had to live down there with the stench too), but my parents eventually found out what was going on. But here's the kicker: my mom thought I was doing it in my sleep. She thought that I was sleepwalking, seeing the light from my nightlight, and thinking it was the bathroom, pissing right there on the carpet. Besides, no child functioning at full mental capacity would willfully piss repeatedly on the same carpet he walked on. My old man was pissed (pun intended) and paid to have a large section of carpet torn out and replaced. My mother suggested installing a toilet in the furnace room across from my bedroom so I didn't have to walk upstairs anymore. My dad suggested installing a goddamn five-gallon bucket in the furnace room. Guess which idea won out. So, carpet replaced, smell evaporated, but now I was reduced to sulking into the furnace room each night and pissing into a five-gallon bucket, then hauling it upstairs each morning to wash out in the tub. As pathetic and humiliating as this was, I still thought it better than the alternative. So, a new routine developed. Night after night I pissed in the bucket, day after day I rinsed the bucket out. Eventually, my dad did get around to installing a toilet in the furnace room, so a small amount of my dignity was able to be salvaged. Sometimes I think about that house in Columbia. I hope to this day that toilet still sits there. No sink, no mirror. Just a single, white porcelain toilet set in the middle of a nearly empty furnace room, a standing vestige to one little boy's imagination run amok. So, that is my little story for you all. As I wrap this up I am amazed at how those books affected me so. I don't think I have felt something so acutely since that night of pure unadulterated terror. Blinding fear, everyone should try it once. As for Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Gammell? Well, Mr. Gammell is still drawing, and hopefully scaring the piss out of a new generation of husky dreamers. I was saddened to hear that Mr. Schwartz had passed away, but the man has left an indelible mark on my childhood that I carry with me to this day. When I was in high school I won some awards for writing my own scary stories, and I can't help but feel that I owe some of that success to these two men. And though I have yet to earn any money from my imagination, I can at least say my imagination has caused others to lose money (here's to you Dad)! Happy Halloween everyone!
PS: My mom eventually did give me my books back. Thanks, Mom.
The Moore You Know: So, the popular saying goes, "Here's where the magic happens!" when referring to your bedroom. Well, magic actually does happen in my bedroom, because with just a few awkward jerks I can make my girlfriend's libido DISAPPEAR!
© Eric Moore - 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
( . )BEWBS( . )!!!: An Incoherent Ramble
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely." - Lord ActonNo other item, entity, group or belief has shaped the world with as much power, blind faith and cruelty as bewbs. From the moment the first set of bewbs was created, when God fashioned Eve from the rib of Adam, they have led to the destitution of many a man's soul. Do you think Adam would have been so quick to take that bite out of the apple if God did not endow Eve with a holy set of bewbage? Of course not! Throughout history, the ebb and flow of mankind's greatest triumphs and its lowest defeats have all been due to a single fundamental idea: I want BEWBS!!! So, what is the cause of this mass hysteria that abounds whenever bewbs are around? A few scholars have offered us some insights. One is the idea that man's infatuation with bewbs stems from being breast fed as children, resulting in a subconscious need to get back to the warmth and safety of our mothers' bewbs (if any of my readers are now picturing their mom's bewbs then Mission Accomplished). This idea is very oedipal and smart and would have Freud coming in his cigar box, no doubt, but I think there is more to it than that. I know that my own infatuation with bewbs started at a young age. I can remember being in kindergarten and living in Fremont, NE, sneaking my mom's JC Penny catalog into my room to look at the women's underwear section. I can remember watching an old VHS tape of the movie Bachelor Party so many times that it seems a competition was brewing as to which would break first, the tape or my wrist. I can remember being 10, and living in Columbia, IL, and finding a xerox box with my brother Dale full of my old man's Playboys from the mid-80's (Two quick side notes: 1. Dale and I had no reason to believe my dad had Playboys, though we had been looking for this El Dorado of bewbs for years. We were just always under the assumption that my dad looked like he would have nudie magazines. 2. As many of you probably know, Dale is not my brother's real name. He requested that his name be left out my blog. Does this make you happy,
For tips on how to effectively treat and maintain your bewbs, or to donate to the noble cause of protecting bewbs please go to http://ww5.komen.org/
The Moore You Know: Today my little 4-year-old niece said to me in a very melancholy voice, "Uncle Eric, Santa isn't real, is he?" I explained it to her the best way I could. "Santa is like a southerner who's been a contestant on Jeopardy: he doesn't exist."
© Eric Moore - 2010
My Dog Has Marxist Leanings
Wyatt: Puggle and MarxistI am greatly concerned that my 5 month old puggle, Wyatt, may be sympathetic to Marxism. It all started a couple weeks ago when I was cleaning out his kennel. Underneath his blanket I found a tattered copy of Karl Marx's masterwork "The Communist Manifesto." I was a bit surprised that he, being a puggle, was able to obtain a library card and check the book out to himself under my very nose, yet all in all I could forgive him that. Indeed, I consider it very industrious of him. The problem lies in what I perceive to be his growing enthusiasm for Communism as a legitimate political philosophy. Deeply disturbed by my findings, I confronted Wyatt the next time I took him outside to shit. But when asked, he only responded with vague generalities about wanting to expand his philosophical and political knowledge, Marx being a great writer on both topics. Yet when I pressed for him to be more specific, he became evasive and accused me of trying to begin a McCarthy-esque witch hunt. Sensing that I had struck a nerve with the dog, I dropped the subject, but informed Wyatt that I would be returning "The Communist Manifesto" to the library myself, as well as giving the librarian a stern warning not to check out any books to Wyatt. As we returned to the apartment I distinctly heard Wyatt refer to me as a 'capitalist swine.' A few days passed, and I thought that perhaps Wyatt had moved on from his study of Marxism to some other scholarly topic. Feeling confident, I asked the puggle if he had been reading any new books. Without saying a word he trotted over to his kennel and pulled out a thick book that contained numerous essays by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. My brow furrowed. "Didn't Marxism derive from the writings of Kant?" I asked suspiciously. Wyatt nodded. "So are you still studying Marxist theory?" Again, the dog just nodded. I flipped through the book only briefly before setting it high up on our dinning room table, an area I knew Wyatt could not get to, as he stands less than a foot off the ground. "Wyatt, I told you that I don't want you reading-," but before I could finish my sentence, the dog interrupted me. He asked, quite matter-of-factly, how much I earned at my current job. I replied that that was none of his business. He then asked, rather boldly, if I thought that I was being exploited. Bewildered, I replied, "How do you mean?" Wyatt then asked me if I thought that the amount of labor that I performed doing my job was equal to the pay I was receiving. I told him that it was, at which point the puggle burst out laughing. He didn't believe that I was serious. He began a five minute long tirade about how hard I work outside in the blistering heat, about how I have contracted poison ivy on several occasions, about how I work late most nights and often on weekends. "I have seen your pay stubs," he said quite callously. "You don't make dick for your efforts." Admittedly, I lost my cool at this point and I told him to shut his dirty commie mouth. Wyatt could only sneer at me before walking casually away to lick the linoleum on the bathroom floor. Infuriated, I drove to the library with the book of Kant's literature. I slammed the book on the librarian's desk and demanded that she not allow the puggle to check out any more books, period! "But, sir," she said softly, "is it not remarkable that you own a dog that can read and express himself politically? What should it matter what he reads as long as he is reading something?" This only enraged me more. "Listen lady, I got two grandfathers that fought the krauts and the japs in World War II. My great uncle was killed in the pacific theater! My fucking brother is a United States Marine! No dog of mine is going to be a card-carrying Marxist!" I apologize for the racist language I used in my anger, but I was just so upset with my dog, and, I suppose, with myself. What kind of man allows his dog to become a Marxist? I returned home ashamed and feeling defeated. When I arrived back at my apartment, Wyatt was gone. I wasn't sure if I would ever see him again. Two days later he showed up at the door. I let him in and gave him some food and water. There was an oppressive tension that hung heavy in the room. Finally, I asked him. "Are you a Marxist?" He said that yes, he was. I shook my head and he accused me of being a sheep, brainwashed by the Washington bourgeoisie. "Capitalism is the fundamental value of America," I told him. "It ensures that everyone, no matter what his or her lot in life, has the chance to make something of their life." Wyatt only shook his head. "What?" I cried. "Capitalism turns the working class into slaves and exploits their labor only for the greed to the rich. It is an oppressive system that ensures that the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor!" I accused him of only vomiting back up the bullshit he had been reading and then just eating it back up again. Plus, he does that with his food, too. Then, in a act that shook me to the core, he pulled out a small blue pamphlet entitled "Marxism: The American Ideal." It was authored by himself. He told me he had been handing them out on the campus of the university. I sat down in utter disbelief. A fucking Marxist. My puggle had become a Marxist. He hopped up on the couch next to me, looking almost dignified as he stared into my eyes. He told me, very articulately, that he cannot change who he is, and that he will not expect me to change who I am. He told me he wants to live in peace with me, and he hoped we could put our political and philosophical differences aside for the sake of companionship. I was touched, but still reticent. "Are you going to go to the Fourth of July Parade?" He replied that he could not support such a farce. I smiled and shook my head. Then, he licked me on the nose. Maybe he was right. In America everyone has the right to his or her own set of beliefs. I do not agree with Wyatt's view of the world, but I respect that he has found something to believe in so passionately. I looked down at his small wet nose. "I'll bring you back some candy," I said with a smile. These days things are much better between Wyatt and myself. I lifted my ban on library books, and he promised not to print his literature in the apartment. We also have a strict NO POLITICS rule that is in force 24/7. I think we are going to be OK. At least on the subject of his Marxism. In August he is scheduled to get his balls cut off, so, you know...that's probably going to stir up a whole other line of bullshit.
The Moore You Know: Today I watched a marathon on TLC of a show called The 650 Lb. Virgin. Really? Did TLC really need to add the Virgin part. When you weigh close to half a ton, isn't your virginity pretty much implied? Did anyone think that show was going to be called The 650 Lb. Pussy Magnet? Seriously, TLC, that title, man...it's gotta be a real kick in the balls.
© Eric Moore - 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
