the weather can really f@$k you over

the weather can really fuck you over. i know that this isn't some revolutionary thought on my part. in fact, it may be the single most wholly unoriginal thought to ever come out of my head. but the fact remains, the weather can really fuck you over. it fucked me over the other day. let me tell you how.

i ventured out into the world the other morning earlier than usual, around the time that most real people are venturing out into the world to be precise, rush hour is what i think real people commonly refer to it as.

i had heard that it was to be warmer than is usual for this time of year on this particular day, so i decided to, rather happily i might add, go out sans coat on this particular day, an act that would surely make mine and millions of other "don't go outside without your coat on" admonishing mothers and grandmothers around the world cringe repulsively. i figured that a hoodie would be sufficient protection to save my precious flesh from any unkindness that the elements might potentially inflict upon it. i was rather pleased by this turn in atmospheric events. my heart was smiling.

but when i walked out of the door and finally found myself confronted by the outside world, my core was rather jolted by how un-warm i felt. i was downright cold in fact. after merely a few steps out i could feel a shiver across my body. goosebumps protruded from my flesh. i think that my teeth even began to chatter.

needless to say, i was disappointed. i paused to think back and recall what rogue had misinformed me as to what the weather would be like on this day. it certainly didn't come from the local television news, which i never watch because doing so only serves to drive me to wish to off myself with a garrote (this is the case no matter where i am. i can be in new york city, baton rouge, louisiana, or even billings, montana, to which i've never been for that matter but i just know that it wouldn't be any different, watching the local news always depresses the shit out of me.) not that the weather on the local news, even with all of their doppler 9000 super duper spy satellites, is ever an iota more reliable than a magic 8 ball anyway.

and then it hit me as to who had misinformed me about the day's weather; an old man i'd met in an elevator. it was he and i in an elevator the day before, when in a unsolicited spontaneous outburst he had mentioned, as old men are oft inclined to do, the weather...

"it's supposed to warm up tomorrow. gonna be downright toasty."

i probably smiled and nodded and said something trite in reply like, "hope so," but the fact is that the old man's proclamation was now permanently embedded in my brain. somewhere deep within my psyche, i trusted this old man. i took him at his word. old people are wise about these sort of things. they sit around all day watching the weather channel and calling everyone of their friends and family on their rotary phones to warn them of the impending doom of full moons and tidal shifts. old people are also usually pretty trustworthy. i trusted the old man in the elevator and he had betrayed me. if he were to have presented himself to me in this moment i probably would have punched him squarely in his old man face. that's how disappointed i was.

so i went back inside to grab a coat and to be on my way. i had things to do. i grabbed a coat and put it on. when i went back outside i felt comfortable, warm, snug, and confident that i would remain so for the remainder of the day. my annoyance with the old man who had led me astray quickly subsided with my new found comfort, and i went on my way.

but then a funny thing happened. right around lunch time, the temperature took a dramatic upturn. the low-hanging clouds that had blocked the sun's beams in the morning had dissipated. the sun was now enjoying an unobstructed path for its powerful beams to warm the earth, and warm the earth it did. i began to feel pools of sweat accumulating in the areas that pools of sweat typically accumulate when a human being is overheated. i thought about the old man i had encountered in the elevator and felt guilty over my desire to assault him merely few hours earlier. it was downright toasty. he had been correct all along. old people know these things.

although i was indeed sweating like patrick ewing at the free throw line, and fretting somewhat at what sort of judgments passersby might pass upon me when seeing what a sweaty mess i was, my fretting was somewhat alleviated when i arrived at the DMV office, my next stop of the day, to renew my license/ID. standing around outside of the DMV office was a motley crew of human debris. surely these people could find no fault with the state of my condition? hell, i was downright cary grant-ish compared to these folks.

it occurred to me in this moment that the DMV seems to be a sort of mecca for human debris. the lowest common denominator of society seem to be hopelessly drawn to it, and this seems to be the case no matter where you go. you can go to a DMV in new york city, baton rouge, louisiana, or even billings, montana, to which i've never been for that matter but i just know that it wouldn't be any different, and you will find unsavory characters loitering about. if i were an unsavory character, and some would argue that i am, looking to loiter, i'd like to think that i'd have better taste in my choice of location to loiter. i'd probably loiter outside of some swanky restaurant or high end department store, but that's just me. it also occurred to me that these unsavory DMV characters seemed to be interchangeable with the same unsavory types that i commonly see loitering about outside of the OTB joints in new york city. there must be something about places whose names are acronyms. they seem to be the flame to the proverbial moth of the unsavory character.

once i got done at the DMV, which was remarkably speedy and expedited by a frighteningly nice and overtly sane DMV employee (i should nominate her to be fast-tracked into sainthood for her ability to maintain a sunny disposition in the face of having to deal with the idiocy that she must have to deal with on a daily basis.), i decided to run home to drop off the coat that had become my glandular albatross, since it didn't appear as though i'd be needing it for the rest of the day. and so i did.

after dropping off the coat, i went over to a bookstore that i enjoy to purchase a copy of a confederacy of dunces for a friend. i'm a serial gifter of this book, my favorite read of all-time, and i take great pleasure in being the person to introduce those who haven't read it to it. when i got to the aforementioned bookstore, joyfully coat-less mind you, i searched the store up and down looking for the book. i fruitlessly checked all of the usual places that it's stocked.

fiction.

classics.

staff favorites.

etc.

nothing. it was nowhere to be found.

so then i did what most men, but not usually me, dread to do and approached the help desk, which was staffed at the moment by a vexing ball of intolerable lady cuteness. this made me apprehensive to even ask for help in a moment that i clearly needed it, due largely to the fact that my self-confidence had been shattered by the threat of the stench possibly emanating from my once sweaty body, coupled with the taint that the unsavorys at the DMV had likely rubbed off on me.

"we keep that book, along with a few others, behind the check-out desk," she said. "it's one of the most shoplifted books in the store."

"really?!" i was taken aback by this. "wow!"

if john kennedy toole, the author of dunces, were alive today, i wonder how he'd feel about that? on the road and fear and loathing in las vegas, among others, were also stashed behind the check-out counter, but i feel pretty confident that jack kerouac and hunter s. thompson would be very pleased to know that their books were among the most stolen. hell, they'd probably encourage it!

as for myself, i've often thought of how joyous it would be to walk into a bookstore and see my name on the cover of a book on display. i would certainly hope that my book would be one that people would clamor for so badly that they were willing to risk arrest and prosecution to thieve it. i would take it as an honor that the downtrodden and destitute would seek to rid themselves of their sorrows by drowning themselves in sentences that i had strummed together. somehow now the thrill of merely seeing my book on a bookstore shelf seemed less thrilling. fuck the best sellers shelf, i want my book to be on the most stolen shelf, dammit!

who am i kidding? any book written by me would likely end up on the $1 racks the keep outside of the strand bookstore on broadway, where the managers of the store are virtually begging people to steal.

"please take this crap! we have no room for it inside of the store."

anyway, after purchasing the copy of dunces for my friend, i decided to sit in the bookstore's cafe to read a bit and to return a couple of phone calls. time seemed to pass like the wind (no, not THAT wind) in this moment, and before you know it a couple of hours had passed on me. it was time for me to go.

when i exited the bookstore, i was shaken to the core by a chill that seemed to slice right through my flesh and hit directly in my bones, not unlike the same chill that had confronted me in the morning of that very day. the temperature's bottom had seemingly dropped out over the course of the couple of hours i was in the bookstore, easily plummeting 20-30 degrees in that span of time. i stood there, now coat-less mind you, struck dumb. the goosebumps and overall body chills and teeth-chattering that i had experienced earlier in the day were back again. i felt stupid. somewhat irrationally, i also found myself overcome with a desire to punch that old man again.

just then, an old lady, probably someone's grandmother, probably the wife of the old man from the elevator, exited the store. she was, of course, appropriately dressed, and paused to zip up her coat. as she did so she looked over at me, looking pathetic and feeling sorry for myself and my horrible coat-less plight, and smiled.

"whew, it got really cold," she said. "you should really have a coat on!"


an email from the "vegan pixie" holds within the secrets to sublime vegan french toast

last week, in a post titled "french toast," i wrote of my "date" with an otherworldly french toast slinging vegan. after reading what i had wrote along with some of the comments clamoring for her recipe, she dropped an email to me. i'll paste it here...

Read your little story. It made me laugh. I don't think you're an asshole for writing about it, nor did I think of you as one beforehand. I only emailed to reinitiate contact with you after reading your blog. You are quite amusing. I think you told our little story accurately and with lots of humor while remaining above the fray. I have no gripes. I make French Toast using vanilla soy milk that I blend with bananas and a dash of corn starch to substitute for eggs and milk. And I use cinnamon liberally and serve it with maple syrup ONLY! Absolutely no table syrup! Feel free to pass it along to your people if you want.

there's your recipe fuckers, now get off my jock!

so who's cooking french toast for me next?


it's 3am and osama bin laden is calling; don't worry though because hillary is up to answer the call

i'm sure by now you've seen this hillary ad. this sort of shit makes my blood boil, no matter who the candidate is that's running the ad.




i don't usually aspire to beat up marines serving overseas, but i kinda do this one

if this video is authentic, sign me up for the stoning...



i found this vid on radar online, where speculation as to the identity of the puppy hurling marine is linked to...

radar story on marine puppy tosser


diary of a fake goldman trader on dealbreaker

new "thad" column is up. read it here...

Becoming Your Dream


and i might post a couple of links here...

http://cajunboy.tumblr.com