Lil Chubbs: My Time As A Pillar Of The Hip Hop Community

"Man, doze ain't stab wounds, daze stretch marks."

When I was a young boy-mostly around the ages of eight, nine and ten-I was terrified of black people. You see, folks, I grew up in the Midwest in a variety of white bread, culturally mute towns: Fremont, Nebraska, Treynor, Iowa, Columbia, Illinois. These towns were all predominately white, predominately protestant, predominately conservative. There wasn't a whole lot of variety when it came to race or ethnicity, which probably accounts for so many girls from my school currently in the grips of jungle fever. It's that whole "forbidden fruit" thing. Though it is hard for anyone to truly rebel against conformity, since odds are there are a million people just like you, I don't really think it can be called conformity if there are not any alternatives. Growing up, I didn't have any alternatives. I was like Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four (the movie version or the book version, whichever you are most familiar with), mechanically moving in unison with the tide of people that I was surrounded by, careful not to step outside the lines, meticulous about not drawing attention to myself, greatly desirous of maintaining absolute and total anonymity. In other words, I just wanted to be like everyone else, which was easy, because everyone was the same. Yet, like that doomed herald of progress, Winston Smith, I too felt like something was missing from my life...options namely. I mean, I sometimes wondered if it always had to be the same people, the same places, the same routine day in and day out. Something needed to change. I needed a certain, indefinable stimulus to make me realize that there was more to the world than the town I lived in and the people that inhabited it. The catalyst that finally shook me from the dull meanderings of my Midwest existence came in the form of rap music. Now, it wasn't like I heard Biggie or Tupac and thought, "Yeah, fuck the Man!" It was a slow process. I heard a rap song for the first time, and gradually, over time, listened to the music more and more before I realized I needed to cut a demo. The original turning point came in roughly 1990-91. My older brother, Dale, owned a cassette tape titled On the Rap Tip, a mix tape of contemporary hits by artists like Tone-Loc, Kid 'n Play, N.W.A., Awesome Dre' and the Hardcore Committee, and De La Soul. Together we would sit in our basement in Fremont and listen to the tape on our parents old stereo. The problem was the tape was actually edited for content, so N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" was mostly just white noise. But I do remember liking Cash Money and Marvelous's "Find An Ugly Woman" and Vanilla Ice's "Ice, Ice, Baby." As far as I can tell, that was my first introduction to rap music. I know it wasn't exactly Public Enemy, Naughty By Nature, or Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff, but it was a start. My brother and I wore that cassette out. By the time I was in first grade I was living on a farm in Treynor, Iowa. My friend next door had an older brother who owned a few rap CDs. So by the age of seven, I was listening, awestruck, to Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle. "Ain't No Fun" was like porno for my ears. And I also got acquainted with 2 Live Crew, specifically their song "Dirty Nursery Rhymes." Man, I tell ya, when Fresh Kid Ice raps "Little Jack Horner sat in a corner, fucking this cutie pie, stuck in his thumb, made the bitch cum said 'hell of a nigga am I'," it was like my Beatles moment. I wasn't completely sure what I was hearing. In fact, I think I was in disbelief for the most part. I didn't realize that all those words could actually be said on CDs. My parents listened to Bruce Springsteen and Black Oak Arkansas, so when I heard Snoop say, "Guess who's back in the motherfuckin house with a fat dick for your mother fuckin mouth," I thought, "Huh...this is different. Different is good." In 1994, my family moved to Columbia, Illinois, and it was here that my rap career was finally ready to take off. By this time, I was watching MTV on a regular basis, and my brother was starting to purchase rap albums more and more often. The two that stood out to me the most were Bone Thugs-N-Harmony's E 1999 Eternal and Warren G's Regulate...G Funk Era. Dale also owned the album Very Necessary by Salt-N-Pepa, but I only listened to this PSA at the end of the album about AIDs awareness...I thought it was hilarious. Anyway, by the age of ten rap music had pretty much become my favorite genre, and I had even manged to see movies like Boyz N the Hood and New Jack City that further initiated me into the world of hip hop. Now, that being said, I was still terrified of black people. I didn't actually know any black people, had never really even spoken to a black person, and not by choice, they simply were not a part of my little world back then. So everything I knew about black people and black culture I happened to learn from rap music and movies, and according to those two sources I thought that all black people sold and/or smoked crack, owned AK-47s, killed people, hated white people, smacked their bitches, and were more or less poor, but if they were rich, they probably got their money illegally. Keep in mind also that at this time I was not familiar with Spike Lee's work, and therefore unaccustomed with the societal prejudices that held the black man down. So, my view of black people at the age of ten was kinda warped, I admit. When I go to the zoo I like to watch the lions and the tigers, but I don't want to stand right beside them. That's how I felt about black people at the time. I loved rap music, but I just knew that any one of these rappers would smoke my ass if given the chance. Fourth grade rolled on, my brother bought some Notorious B.I.G. and some Tupac, and soon it was almost time for school to get out. I was going to a Catholic school called Immaculate Conception, and my class was broken up into pairs, and each group was supposed to come up with a fake business, and then advertise that business to the rest of the class. I teamed up with my best friend MM, and we decided that our fake business would be a record store. So we got some particle board, glued some old CDs to it, came up with a name for the store and when the time came we presented our idea to the class. Now, as part of our advertisement, MM and I wrote a little jingle for the business. We each wore black jackets, dark sunglasses over our eyes and slicked back our hair. The two of us pranced around the room singing, "Buy our CDs, buy our CDs. We need money like bears need honey. Buy our CDs." Technically, it was my first performance as a rapper and my first shot at songwriting, and I must say it was pretty successful, because throughout the day people would be muttering my song under their breath. I had written a hit. It wasn't too long after that that I decided I needed to make a demo tape to show all these big time hip hop producers my skill(s/z). The previous November my parents bought me a karaoke machine for my birthday, which I took as a sign of their unconditional support. So one summer day in 1995, I stood in my room and rapped into a shitty plastic microphone while my karaoke machine recorded my every word. I guess back then you could compare my process to Jay Z, in that I didn't write any of my lyrics down, it all just flowed out from memory. And much like Eminem, much of what I was saying I was just making up on the spot, which was easy since "fuck" and "bitch" made up ninety percent of what I was saying. After I was done, I took the tape out, listened to it, and, satisfied, tucked it away in a dresser drawer. A few days later I came home from baseball practice, only to be met by my old man glowering at me from the kitchen. "Eric," he said sternly, "follow me." He led me into my bedroom and told me to sit on my bed. He reached his hand in his pocket and pulled out a cassette tape. "Probably just a coincidence," I assured myself. "Your mom found this when she was cleaning," my old man said. Now, my mother's definition of cleaning is pretty liberal. I had that tape hidden pretty well, so I'm pretty sure the whole thing was a sting operation. Anyway, my old man hands me the tape and tells me to stick it in my karaoke machine. I took the tape in my trembling hands, utterly mortified, not because I was afraid of getting in trouble, but because I was nervous about another person hearing me rap. I thought he was going to be too judgemental. I put the tape in my machine, sat on my bed next to my dad, and pressed play. A brief sound of static, a mic being shifted around, and then my voice. It was soft, monotone, clumsy and completely without rhythm. Unfortunately, my lyrics are all lost to me now, but I distinctly remember my ten-year-old self singing, "Goddam, I hate to take my bitch to the mall." Out of context that lyric loses some of its punch, but I'm sure the song it came from made a pretty heavy political statement. For close to five minutes I sat on that bed with the old man listening to the blur of obscenities coming out of the speakers. Finally, mercifully, my old man took the cassette out of the machine and held it up. "Eric, this is trash! This is garbage!" He yelled at me. "You made your mother cry!" A phrase often repeated during my childhood. Then, in a more subdued tone, he said, "Women don't like to be called bitches, Eric." Then he set the tape on the ground and smashed it with his foot. Well, the reviews were in...the world just wasn't ready for me, I guess. I never made another rap tape after that. My message was too controversial, and the music business was too corrupt. I am twenty-six now, and currently balls deep in adapting Strunk and White's The Elements of Style into an erotic thriller screenplay, but I look back on my rap career with fondness, and sometimes, on those sleepless nice where the moon is hidden and the light of the stars is lost amongst the street lamps, I find myself, ever so briefly, thinking of how many words I can rhyme with fuck.

The Moore You Know: Tell me if I'm racist. The other day my girlfriend and I were at the grocery store picking up some things for the Superbowl. We each were bundled up and we each had on our New York Jets stocking caps. Mine is the official sideline cap of the NFL and my girlfriend's is a grey and green retro cap that says Jets across the front in cursive. As I am taking my set of groceries through the checkout line I notice another cashier, a young black man, talking to my girlfriend and smiling. The talk is brief, and soon the two of us are walking through the parking lot to her car. "What did that guy say to you?" I asked. "He said my stocking cap was hot." "Really?" I asked. She nodded and said, "He said, 'That hat is old school. It's hot.'" I was suddenly filled with an immeasurable sense of pride, because a black person liked my girlfriend's hat. Is that racist? Yeah, probably. I mean, I wouldn't have cared so much if it was a white guy saying it, and compliments from Mexicans don't really count, but this was a black guy, a bastion of style and fashion saying it. I dunno. It just seems like a black guy saying you have style just kinda validates it. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go get my white hood out of the dryer.

© Eric Moore - 2011

When Doves Cry...And Shit All Over You

"If I keep smiling he won't know that I'm completely dead inside."

When I was sixteen (16) I worked at a Hy Vee grocery store in Council Bluffs, IA. It was my first real job. I had to dress nice (tie and slacks), converse with customers, associate with co-workers, and in return I was awarded a pretty solid paycheck...well, as solid as fifteen (15) hours a week at six (6) dollars an hour can be. I remember my first paycheck was actually for seventeen (17) dollars. I left the store that night thinking, "It feels like it should be more." Working for Hy Vee was probably one of the worst jobs I have ever had. Sacking groceries and ringing up customers at the check-out line is usually not a good environment for someone who has an innate aversion to other human beings. My tenure was a little less than a year, but in that time I never bothered to learn where things were, so when a customer asked me where the chili powder was I told her it was my first day. At drive-up one night I misread the number on a woman's receipt and actually put the wrong groceries in her car, knowing full well that I might have the wrong cart. Once a young boy came through my line and bought a small basket of food and paid with food stamps. Of course I short-changed him, believing that anyone who paid with food stamps obviously could not comprehend simple mathematics. But I got mine when the boy returned later in the day with his irate and terribly overweight mother. Needless-to-say, the boy fingered me (heh-heh) and my manager came over and gave me a stern talking to. Another time, the store's director, a chubby prick named Moon, came through my line, bought a fucking candy bar, paid with a fiver, and then told the shift manager that I did not count out his change back to him. So, the fucking shift manager took me to where Hy Vee does dry cleaning, and yelled at me for not taking my job seriously. And I didn't take my job seriously. I hated working at Hy Vee. I fucking hated it. Honestly, I gave people free stuff all the time when they came through my line just because I was too much of a lazy asshole to ring it up. "I also have a sack of dog food in the bottom of the cart. Did you ring that up?" I would just lithely dance my fingers across the keypad like I was typing. "Yep. Got it." Or I would over-charge people on fruits and vegetables because I didn't care about how much something weighed or was supposed to cost per pound. One time I charged a guy eight (8) bucks for a tomato. "Christ, that's a lot of money for one tomato." I shrugged my shoulders. "They're in season," I said dully, not even sure what I meant by that. I dreaded going to work, I hated every second I was at work, and when my shift was over I felt like that dude from Midnight Express when he busts out of that Turkish prison (except no one ever rubbed their tits in my face). The only saving grace, the only thing that made work bearable was the fact that a few kids from my school worked at the store with me: Jordan, Andy, Eric, Tony, Josh...so there were some mild distractions. Even though these kids were older than me, and we only hung out peripherally at school, when I was at work with them they talked to me and brightened my day a bit. One day at work I was behind my register and two (2) absolutely gorgeous girls came to my line with a few items. They talking between themselves and not really paying attention to me, as I mechanically scanned item after item. Suddenly, I hear, "Eric Moore red line. Eric Moore red line," come over the loud speaker. So I pick up the phone next to my register and say, "This is Eric." "Dude," a voice says. "How bad do you want to fuck those girls?" A sharp grin immediately cracks my face, and I start looking around the store, as nonchalantly as possible. "Uh, yeah," I say into the phone, cupping it between my head my shoulder while I continue to scan the pretty girls' things, "that would be great." Finally, I look to far end of the store and see Tony, an older kid from my school who worked with me, standing next to a closed checkout lane with a phone to his ear, staring at me with a big smile on his face. "I bet you got a fuckin boner right now." I smiled and nodded. "Yep. Yep. It's good. OK, buddy. Thanks for the call." Little things like Tony's phone call or stealing a can of pop from the stock room, tiny moments of subversion, is what got me by. Secret "fuck yous" that we sent to managers and dickhead customers could really turn the day around. But it wasn't just working with kids from my school that got me through the day. There was one other thing: an angelic angel (angle?) draped in blond hair and big blue eyes. Her name was Shayla (pronounced SHAY-la), and after one brief conversation with her, I was instantly smitten. Shayla was my age, but went to a school in Council Bluffs, whereas I commuted the ten (10) miles from Treynor in my parent's Chevy Lumina, which even that food stamp kind told me was a piece of shit. Anyway, Shayla was short, barely cresting at five-two or -three. But, like I said, she had long blond hair, giant blue Disney princess eyes, and a healthy serving of bewb up top. And her voice...she had such a sweet and tranquil voice, like flowers queefing on a pond under a still summer's eve. At 16, I fell madly in love with her, and eventually looked forward to going to work in hopes that she would be there. If she did work the same shift as me, it was like getting an old-fashioned while watching Care Bears fuck. But, if I arrived to work and found that she was not there, the depression was terrible, like the Lust perv from Se7en skull-fucked my heart with that leather knife strap-on. Now, I had noticed Shayla around the store before, thought she was pretty, but really never dwelt on her too much. I mean, I was 16, and Hy Vee hired lots of cute girls, not to mention all the pretty ones that came into the store every day. I had to prioritize my spank bank a little. The turning point with Shayla came one night at work when we were both in the break room together. At that age I was more concerned with hanging out with friends, and all of my friends were dudes. I never really talked to girls except when I was at school, and that was all strictly classroom related and mundane. I think, psychologically speaking, I was so used to my older brother Dale getting the girls that I just naturally assumed that I did not appeal to the opposite sex. Plus, I really didn't think I was good looking. Maybe a 6 outta 10...7 when I had my makeup on. Anyway, I didn't have a lot of experience talking to girls; certainly not ones as pretty as Shayla. Well, on this particular night, I found myself in the break room with this girl. I was sitting at the table, watching an XFL game on TV, with a hot microwavable dinner in front of me. As soon as Shayla sat down I stopped eating, even though I was starving. I thought too many things could go wrong: I could get something stuck in my teeth, I could drop a piece of food down my shirt, I could sneeze a whole mouthful of mashed potatoes across the room. I better just not eat, play it cool. Plus, I honestly thought she would get disgusted seeing me eat. Not that I'm a fuckin slob or anything like that, I just didn't want her to look at me while I was spooning food into my mouth, because I was afraid she might catch a glimpse of some unswallowed mush on my tongue. Shayla sat down across the table and began to munch on a sandwich. I thought my heart was going to punch outta my chest and land on my salisbury steak. I couldn't even look at Shayla, could not even move. I just stared at the TV like I was trying to perform a goddam Jedi mind trick. Shayla would say a few words to me, just some small talk, and I would reply in breathless exasperations of, "Yeah" and "No." I mean, I had no fuckin game whatsoever. I felt like a tool. But over the course of our break, I guess I lightened up. Shayla was very nice, talkative, and really just made me feel comfortable. And by the time our break was over I was hooked. I know that sounds like the confession of a serial killer. Most of you are probably saying, "Jesus Christ, Eric. It was a polite conversation, and she was probably like that with everyone. Get the fuck over it." Ok, ok. I understand that. But when I was 16 I had never had a girlfriend, never really talked to girls, and really no girl ever paid me much attention. So here I am, a teenage boy, sperm coming out of my fucking hair follicles, and I have this girl actually paying attention to me. Now, in hindsight, yes, I had made some...miscalculations, the major one being that I mistook her natural kindness for genuine affection, I'm just pathetic like that. Over the next few weeks I never had another chance to talk to Shayla one-on-one, and after a couple of casual nods at work, I realized that I was in danger of being relegated to just another random face at work--no one special. I had to act, so I did what most insecure boys do when they like a girl: have a friend talk to her. My buddy Josh, who I went to school with and also worked at Hy Vee with Shayla and I, became my official mediator. I told him about Shayla, and our night of passionate small talk, and that I really wanted to ask her out. Josh did his part, and did it masterfully to his credit. He talked to Shayla, about nothing in particular at first, then slowly brought up the fact that he had this friend who wanted to ask her out, but he couldn't say who, but it was someone from work. Finally, the big day came when Josh was to tell Shayla that I, the random dude from that one night in the break room, was her stalker secret admirer. I wasn't working the night Josh told Shayla that I wanted to ask her out, so he told me about it the next day. We were sitting across from one another at the lunch table, and Josh told me how he talked to Shayla on her break, and said that his friend was "Eric Moore, and he wants to ask you out." "What did she say," I asked, simultaneously happy and terrified. "She said, 'really'." Now, 'really' is not really an answer. It's more of an uttering of mild, if not meaningless, surprise. But it was in the way that Josh related Shayla's response to me that made me optimistic. Josh said that when told about my intentions, Shayla replied, "Reeeally." It's hard to get the feeling across with a limited number of buttons and font manipulations, but the point is, Josh made it sound like Shayla was happy I wanted to ask her out. So, I asked Josh, "Did you ask her if she would go out with me if I asked?" Josh nodded. "She said she would, dude." Cue choir of harmonizing angels and a heavenly spotlight. Already my mind began to work out all the sonnets I would write her. With Josh's reconnaissance mission complete, the work now fell to Yours Truly. Josh set 'em up, now I gotta knock 'em down. I finally asked Shayla out on a warm April night. I had planned out what I was going to say and how I was going to say it. I even checked her schedule at work so I could do it on a night where I wasn't working and she ways. I also brought Josh along with me, since he had done most of the work for me. Also, I think Josh wanted to see what I would do if she said no. We walked into Hy Vee and scanned the cashiers. Shayla was working at a middle register with a line full of customers checking out. Seeing her and knowing what I was about to do suddenly became too much. I started breathing heavy and I thought for a moment I might lapse into a panic attack. I realized I needed to steel my courage, so I told Josh that maybe we should walk around a bit until I was ready. So we walked around the store a bit, even catching Shayla's eye and waving to her. She waved back, which I took as a good sign. Josh and I ended up over by the magazines, flipping through bullshit articles, while I spied Shayla's line from the top of the pages. As her line of customers slowly extinguished I asked Josh to repeat everything Shayla had said to him so I could over-analyze it again and again. Finally, Josh exclaimed, "She'll say yes!" Shayla had only one customer in line...this was it. I put the magazine on the rack and Josh and I each grabbed a pop from the little cooler at the start of her line. "Hey guys. What's up!" Shayla said in her normal jovial way. "Nothing," Josh said. He could barely keep a straight face. It was like he was in on some great practical joke that was finally going to come to fruition. "Hey, Shayla," I said, my words coming out in short rapid bursts. I thought, I have to do this before I pass out or shit my pants. "Hey," Shayla said. She quickly dragged my bottle of pop across the scanner and told me the cost. It felt like all of my innards were fighting to climb out my throat. Now-or-fuckin-never. I handed her a five. As she was counting out my change (a real pro) I said to her, "Would you like to see a movie with me?" It felt more like I was vomiting than actually talking, and for a brief hideous moment I thought I saw Shayla react to my words as if they were vomit. It felt too long. It felt like she was thinking too hard about it. It felt like she was being put on the spot. "Yeah," she said with a smile, and suddenly a wave of relief washed over me. It was like a devil had been exorcised from my body, and I was finally myself again. It was the most beautiful word I had ever heard. Shayla looked to Josh and said, "So, this is the friend who wanted to ask me out? I thought you were talking about someone else." Well, at that the devil came back and repeatedly kicked me in the balls over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...It felt like an anvil had been tied around my insides and dropped. Her words sounded unnatural and repulsive, like a Maroon 5 album. It was like I was hearing backwards Latin devil language. I thought you meant someone else. I wanted to fucking kill myself. I wanted to walk out into the street and step into oncoming traffic. I wanted my head to cave in. I wanted to be crushed out of existence. I was so fucking mortified, so humiliated, so goddam deflated. It was like that old joke where the doctor tells the new dad, "Your baby is doing great!" "That's wonderful, Doctor! When can I see him?" "Just kidding," the doctor replies, "your baby has brain damage and your wife died in child birth!" It was the most exhilarating thing I had ever felt, followed by the worst fucking feeling in the world. I had no idea how to respond! I just looked at her. Then she looked at me and said, "I'll still go out with you." It was such a condescending, patronizing thing to say. "I didn't agree to this, but I'll suck it up." She gave me her number and Josh and I left after I muttered an awkward goodbye. Outside in Josh's car all I could do was cuss. "She didn't even know who the fuck I was! What did you say to her? Did you fuckin tell her it was me? How come she didn't know who the fuck I was? Who the fuck was she expecting to ask her out? Did you see how fuckin disappointed she was?" We drove home without saying much. No matter how long I stayed in the shower, the filth of shame would not come off...But, honestly, I couldn't just sit around moping. After all, she did say she would go out with me. So, after I felt enough time had passed to get over my humiliation, I called her up, and asked if she wanted to go see a movie that Friday night, which she agreed to. We worked out the details, and she told me she had to work Friday night so could I just meet her at work? Sure. Soon, the big night came. I was showered, shaved, feeling refreshed, dressed to the nines (I never thought I would have the chance to use that expression) and actually feeling confident about things. I was going to be taking a pretty girl to the movies, that was the bottom line. My mom spent most of the time giving me advice like, "Be sure to open the door for her." and "Start with two fingers first, and if she is fine with that you can stick in a third." Just kidding about that last one. Anyway, there was a lot of hubbub, because this was my very first date. Then, Dale comes sauntering into the living room, looking every bit the older brother from a shitty '80s movie. "So, ah, what movie you seein?" "Joe Dirt." "Great," Dale replied. "I'll be there." To my horror, Dale had phoned his friend, Nicky B, and told him that the two of them should play chaperon to me and my date. I started to get worked up, but gradually decided that maybe it wouldn't be that bad. I mean, Dale was a dick, but not mean enough to fuck up my date with a girl. And I thought, maybe I'll be more relaxed if I know Dale and Nicky B will be there. Shayla would have no idea who they were anyway. So I hit the road into Council Bluffs, feeling uncharacteristically optimistic about the date. I picked her up from the Hy Vee parking lot, held open the door to the Lumina for her, and headed to the Mall of the Bluffs for some David Spade action. During a lull in the "conversation" on the way to the theater I realized something horrible: the date was absolutely mediocre. I mean, we were barely speaking in the car. You could fill a warehouse with all our awkward pauses. She seemed all together disinterested. And why not? I wasn't they guy she was expecting to ask her out. Disappointment was only a natural human response to your hopes being shattered, something I knew all about. We got to the mall and I opened the door for her and bought her her movie ticket. "You didn't have to do that," she said, which I interpreted as, "I don't want to owe you anything." When we got into the theater I saw Dale and Nicky B sitting near the back, and I gave them a furtive nod of the head. Shayla and I took our seats in the middle of the theater. We talked in little, pointless sentences about absolutely nothing of consequence. Every now and then I could hear Dale or Nicky B laugh behind us and I would cringe with embarrassment. I was thankful when the movie started, just so I had an excuse not to talk to her. It was going terribly, and I sensed that Shayla thought the same. The movie had its moments, but it was clear that she was not impressed. When it was over and we got up to leave, I asked her what she thought. "It was ok." Which was a nice way of saying she fuckin hated it. Thankfully, my two spies had left the theater without any ideas of taunting me. I hustled to the Lumina, wanting to get the passenger door open for her, when she said, pretty curtly, "Eric, I can open the door myself." The tone stung. I was only trying to be nice...When we got into the car I asked if she was hungry, and she demurely said, "I don't know." "Do you want to get something to eat?" Finally she shook her head. "Not really." So I started up the car and drove back to the Hy Vee parking lot to Shayla's car. "Well, I had fun tonight," I said. "Me too. Good night." To this day I remember how fucking fast she got out of my car. She said good night, and the next thing I know the door is slamming in my face. I wasn't going to try to kiss her. I knew that shit went out the window about two minutes into the date. I was upset though. I mean, I really liked this girl, and the whole time she acted like a cunt, and I'm not ashamed or afraid to say that. She was being a total cunt the whole time. She wouldn't talk, wouldn't responde to what I was saying, didn't want to get a bite to eat...she treated the whole fuckin evening like it was a goddam chore. In the end, I think she only agreed to go out with me so as not to hurt my feelings, or so that things wouldn't get awkward at work. Which sucked for me. I woulda just had her tell me no, and save me the 16 fuckin bucks on the movie tickets. Anyway, she gets out and into her car and starts dialing on her phone, no doubt to tell her friend how terrible the night has been. And when I look out my window I see Dale and Nicky B sitting in the latter's green Chevelle. I drive over to them and get out. Dale and his buddy get out, and we're just standing around in between our cars, bullshitting about the date, laughing over how bad it went, and I suddenly felt totally at ease. The whole bad date thing didn't matter...Dale said he and Nicky B were going to get some beers and play Playstation at Nicky B's house all night. I said I was in. And as we were talking, Shayla drove over. I was pretty shocked. I thought she would just start up her car and drive away. But she drove over to us and rolled down the window. "Hey," I said, trying to act cool. "Hey. What are you guys doin?" She said with a smile. "This is my brother and his friend. Probably going to just hang out tonight." Shayla nodded and said, "Well, give me a call, Eric." I said I would and we said goodbye again. Now, here is what I think happened. I think Shayla saw me drive over to this other car, and saw me laughing it up with a couple of guys, saw that I was having a good time, and got a little jealous. I think after our date she wanted me to be fucking crushed and sad and disappointed in the fact that I had blown my chance with her, and when she saw me laughing, saw me happy, she got a little pissed off and drove over to see what was going on. That cunt. So I went over to Nicky B's house with my brother, and we drank and played video games all night, and it was the best fucking part of my day. Over the next few months, Shayla and I hung out some more, but that first date really put things into perspective for me. I was much more casual around her and my heart was not aflutter when she walked by as it had been. In the end she turned out to be a huge cocktease, because it turned out she had a boyfriend this entire time! Eventually I quit Hy Vee. I called in on a Saturday that I was supposed to work and told the manager that I wasn't coming in because I had found a new job. "Don't do this, Eric. Do you know how busy it is today?" I told him not to worry, I had found someone to take over my shift, which was bullshit. So I was done with Hy Vee and done with Shayla. Better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Now, some people might think I'm being unfair, talking about a girl that I have not seen in ten years and bascially only telling one side of the story. Well, too-fuckin-bad! I'm the one who took the initiative to write a blog dedicated to talking shit about people who screwed me over. How about a little fuckin credit!

The Moore You Know: Don't you think it would be hard to be a smurf? Forget about Gargamel and his fucking cat, I'm not talking about the survival aspect of it. I'm talking about the language. Smurfs have so many definitions for the word smurf, it must be fucking impossible to get anything done. What if a smurf was diabetic and he needed his daily insulin injection? He would say, "I need my smurf! I need my smurf right now! Otherwise I'll go into a smurf!" Would the other smurf be able to differentiate between the word smurf for insulin and the word smurf for reading glasses? What if two smurfs were trapped in a house with Azrael the cat trying to bust through the door, and the only way to live was to lock the door. One smurf would be screaming, "Where is the key! Where is the fucking key to the front door!" And the other smurf would be cowering in the corner saying, "It's on the smurf! The smurf is on the smurf!" And the smurf trying to lock the door would scream, "The smurf! The smurf!? What does smurf mean in this situation!? In what fucking context are you using the word smurf!? Does it mean bureau? Table! Jesus Christ, he got in! He's eating my smurf! My smurf is coming out of my smurf!" Anway...I'm high right now.

© Eric Moore - 2011

For The Spandex, If Nothing Else

"Green Arrow, can you lose the hat? It's a bit much."

One of the biggest problems that I have is my inability to properly maintain my finances. I am absolutely terrible with money. Anytime I get a little bit of coin in my pocket I have to go out and spend it on the most pointless things imaginable. Most people do not have, nor would they ever need, a crownless Panama hat...I own two. Once I bought something called an "egg cuber" because I thought the reason that I hated eggs was because of their oval shape, and perhaps squared-shaped eggs tasted better. Indeed, the square eggs did taste better, but I am now willing to admit this may have been only a placebo effect. But the thing I spend most of my unearned, government check on is comic books. I love comic books. I started reading them when I was a little kid, then the habit waned a bit in high school. I started obsessively reading them again in college once I convinced myself that vaginas were probably not all that great. And my favorite superhero has always been Batman. Just a regular guy who uses his vast fortune to fight crime. Pretty cool. Of course, a man like Bruce Wayne could never exist in real life, even though the world is full of wealthy douche bags who possess the resources the become Batman. This article explains that the process of becoming Batman is not so fantastic, but of course, our world would never accept, never allow, a superhero to exist. For one, most of the rich people in this world are, as I mentioned above, douche bags. Second, a lot of them are ugly as shit and out of shape, and no one wants be rescued by fucking Bill Gates, whose hero persona would be something retarded like The Window, or The Human Circuit. And, let's be honest, most of the people who possess the means of becoming a superhero are Arab; rich oil barons living in posh palaces in Saudi Arabia. These are the guys that could really invest in some great superhero gear: lairs, cars, costumes, gadgets, et cetera. But be honest, if a costumed vigilante just saved you from a horde of enthusiastic rapists, wouldn't you be pretty disappointed if you found out he was Arab...Actually, people in general would be pretty unhappy if they found out the superhero running around saving everyone was a minority. Look at The Avengers or Justice League of America. It's all white people, mutants and aliens. Now, I'm not saying that the mutants and aliens in these superhero teams represent minorities, but they probably do. Sure, there have been black superheroes in the past: Black Panther, Luke Cage (who gets points taken away for being Nicolas Cage's namesake), one of the Green Lanterns, Spawn (who is also kinda iffy, since his face is burned off, so he's really more of a skull than a face...a white skull). But more often than not, your hero is gonna be white, and I think I know why. Deciding to become a superhero, coming up with a moniker and a symbol and an outfit, and saying, "I'm going to go outside in this, and I am going to take myself seriously and I am going to try to stop bad people," is totally batshit crazy, and batshit crazy is exactly what white people do best! There is a reason that most serial killers are white, most participants in the X Games are white, most stuntmen are white, most people eaten or attacked by wild animals are white...because all that shit is, to some degree, nuts, and no one does nuts like a fucking Caucasian. It probably has something to do with the fact that white people have been at the top of the racial totem pole for a very long time, and with that comes a dangerous mix of boredom and arrogance. Minorities in America have enough to worry about as it is, so fuck hiking in the woods and fuck jumping across a goddam roof in a cape. Now, crazy does not discriminate. It passes through every nation and race and religion, white people just have more crazy than other races. Crazy for white people is like sickle-cell to black people or taco farts to the Mexicans. So, yeah, there are some black superheroes and there are Latino superheroes and Asian superheroes, but none come close to touching upon the fanatical commitment of white heroes. Another reason why this world could never have a superhero is because asking a being of unlimited power to be a good guy is really just too much to ask. If you had, say, Superman's abilities, would you honestly use it for good? Or would you steal a bunch of money and beat the shit out of people. I mean, I probably would not become a supervillain, killing millions of people and wanting to take over the world, but I would dick with people. However, being the avid comic book fan that I am, I have often wondered what kind of superhero I would be. I definitely would want a cool costume, and although fashionably speaking I am not necessarily drawn to codpieces, I am definitely not going to rule out wearing one. Then there is the whole matter of what powers I would want. Now, quick side note: it is well known that in order to gain superpowers one must expose himself to large amounts of radiation. Yes, you may grow little dicks on your head, but you will also be able to run fast. For me, I have never cared for the power to fly, or superstrength. For me, it would be all about invisibility. That being said, if I did have the power to make myself invisible, I would probably be a villain. Going invisible is essentially wiping yourself off the face of the earth. Like Kevin Bacon said in the sci-fi masterpiece Hollow Man, "You'd be amazed at what you can do when you no longer have to look at yourself in the mirror." You would have no need for morals or ethics. You could pretty much do whatever you wanted. If my superpower was to go invisible I would sit on a bench in a girls locker room somewhere and say, "This is my life now." No saving the world bullshit, just leering...all day...But I would probably die of starvation because I would forget to eat. Anyway, I guess it's just something to think about; that kind of powers would you want to have if you had the choice of becoming a superhero. Really you can't go wrong...except Aquaman...that guy got the fuckin shaft. All the fuckin powers in the universe, and this asshole gets stuck with talking to fish. Superman is pretty much a god, Green Lantern can use his ring to create anything out of thin air, Wonder Woman uses her whip to get people to tell her the truth (little shaky on that one), and fuckin Aquaman has to settle for talking to fish. Why even have a power then? Why even let him into the club!? I cannot think of a single thing that Aquaman brings to the table. What diabolically plan could possibly be thwarted because a goddam fish told Aquaman about it? Unless Al-Queda's headquarters are located under the Arabian Sea, get that guy outta the fuckin group!

The Moore You Know: Lately I have had a lot of Time on my hands (Mallory H. Time is the name of my penis), and I also play a lot of video games. Specifically, I play a lot of Call of Duty: Black Ops. This is a FPS (first person shooter for those with lives), that partially takes place during the Vietnam War, and is also one of the most visually stunning games I have ever played. Remember back in the day how awesome that game Contra was? You and your buddy just going around blasting the shit out enemies...that was fuckin fun. But it's different now. The enemies in Black Ops aren't little multicolored pixels dancing around on the screen. These new enemies have fucking facial expressions, they have artificial intelligence, they have names and human voices, and probably families...little computer families praying for them in some program somewhere. I think kids might start to get PTSD from these games. Can you imagine fat ten-year-olds screaming themselves awake at night, lying a pool of sweat, stammering about what they had to do, "in the shit." Mom comes running in, "It's OK, Billy. It's only a game." And Billy, red-faced and bawling, "A game! A game, you cunt! Tell that to the fuckin gook general I fuckin executed on level 9 today!" Pretty soon we will see thirteen-year-old boys sitting in wheelchairs begging for change outside the drugstore.

© Eric Moore - 2011

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