One-Upmanship and Pop Culture Braggadocio

by Tony Palermo

“The earliest I ever referenced John Merrick was at a 10 a.m. board meeting. Arthur in accounting INSISTED it was a tam, but I was of the mind that he was wearing a pillowcase.”

“Pfft. I catch the 8 a.m. bus to work and just this morning told the driver that the part in his hair was almost identical to that of Fred Rogers AND that his choice in pomade was Most—not Moist—MOST Shemp-esque.”

“Heh. Every other week at 7 a.m. sharp I’ve got an appointment with the shoeshine dude in our lobby. By 7:15 a.m., I’ve already told him that his shammy looks to be comprised of the same material as Johnny Weissmuller’s loincloth, that his buffing reminds me of the ninja moves of Lee Van Cleef, and that his saliva appears to have the same consistency of a blendered Gremlin. The shoeshine dude calls me the Steve McQueen of sitting to boot (pun intended).”

“My coffee shop is right on my bus line; so I’m there every morning ’round 6:45 a.m. I’ve told the barista there that her whipped cream applications to my daily mocha are akin to the eye of the cyclops from Krull, that her swaying chest is reminiscent to the migratory hunchback of Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein, and that the aroma of their fan favorite dark roast ‘Frozen in an Igloo Seal Plops’ would make Nanook himself hock his parka for a cup.”

“Closing time at the bar last night I noted that the olive floating in my fifth martini looked a lot like a decapitated Boba Fett. Thus inspired (and already olived out), I hooped that bastard in the ass crack of a fellow patron; in essence, turning his upper crena analis into a Mobile Sarlacc Pit.”

“Man…fuck you.”

“Heh.”

New Job

by Sean Rein

As you all know, I have a tenuous relationship with my editor. When I started writing for him in the early 1990s, he promised that there would come a day when he could pay me for my writing. Seventeen years later, the only payment I have received for my hard work has been two beat-up issues of The Incredible Hulk comic book and a quart of Wild Turkey.

Needless to say, I need to keep a normal job to support my family. I have stooped quite low to make ends meet. In fact, I once worked as a janitor to help pay for my college tuition. There is nothing more humbling than cleaning toilets and emptying the “love” boxes in the ladies room stalls. You know what I’m talking about, girls.

So as it turns out, the job I was holding down for more than five years had gone from a rewarding, well-paid gig to an absolute shitfest. To top off all of the crap I was having to endure, my annual raise was 34 cents an hour. If you think that this tidy sum is an okay raise, let me put it in to perspective. My 18-year-old daughter got a 40-cent per hour raise from Sam’s Club. FUCKING SAM’S CLUB is giving out better raises!

That was enough. I needed a new occupation. So I started kicking it around with my friends that I was currently looking for a new job. Without batting an eye, my friend Scott told me that he could hook me up with a job that he guaranteed would pay more that what I was doing right now.

“How much, Scott.”

“I don’t want to talk salary in front of other people, but it’s better than what you’ve got.”

“What would I be doing?”

“It’s a great gig. You’ll be a supervisor. Quit your job tomorrow and come work for me.”

So I did. I quit my job and went to work for Scotty. He neglected to tell me that the “supervising” that I would be doing is driving around and watching the employees of his sanitation company sucking out the leavings from port-o-pottys at various construction sites and carnivals.

Have you ever experienced a sewage truck, or honey wagon as they are called in the industry, suck out a portable toilet? First, the one guy puts on rubber gloves that go up to his armpits and fishes out anything that might clog the old tube. This includes pop cans, beer bottles, solids, etc. Then the second chap sticks the old suction hose into the toilet’s glory hole and turns on the suction. The noise it makes and the smell it creates is quite amazing.

Scott is now on the top of my enemy list.

1. Scott
2. The guy from the post office
3. My editor
4. Nick
5. Marjorie Johnson

Jimmy’s in Minnetonka

by G. Sax

It was all white people at Jimmy’s in Minnetonka. They were wearing various uncool shades of gray and had this year’s jacket style slung over their chairs. John Mayer played overhead. She ordered water with no ice. The other, a salad with a light pasta. They cared not for cheese. I felt the walls closing in around me.

I need to relearn how to play the game. I used to not mind mingling with white people in pseudo-fancy restaurants. Now, I burn disdainfully within, which is not healthy.

“Don’t ever settle,” goes the deep, internal mantra, but have I already? Why am I even here? Need to stay positive. Need to keep the attitude up. But I am feeling a need to check the bread crumbs I’ve scattered behind me before the squirrels eat them.

Oh, the Little Background Noises

by G. Sax

I have this new habit at the workplace cubicle farm. First thing in the a.m. when I’m inspired enough, I’ll hit up the Interweb for a representative image of what’s on my mind. I have a rule where I have to Adobe it in some way, usually a quick Photoshop mashup.

Bad traffic? I’ll head over to MNdot and mock up my experience.

Celebrity curious? Gary Busey meets the mark. Fuzz him up, add a filter, and you can almost see his iconic value.

Man of Action III

by G. Sax

So last time I wrote about procrastination, which is something I’m very good at. But the point of the exercise was to slap myself in the face with it like a cold fish in a cartoon or a gloved feminine hand in a 1950s romance. I don’t want to be good at procrastinating anymore. Let’s time capsule these things and move on:

• Delivering Sunday newspapers at noon to old people who wake up at 5 a.m.
• Arriving in high school homeroom at the bell…everyday…for four years.
• Nearly missing high school graduation.
• Blinking at the dawn with 4 pages more to write for the big college paper. Doing it again. And again.
• Showing up for the game in the 3rd inning, the 2nd quarter, the 2nd period.
• Arriving late to the job, to the party, to the wedding, to the…you name it, I’ve been the last one there.
• Doing my taxes on April 14th.

This year, I did my taxes by April 8th. Federal and two states. It’s a start.

Today, I’m writing in the morning. Writing before I do anything else. Writing fresh, rather than only at the ass end of the day, when I’m spent and my voice is cracking.

And I have a full-time job that I must go to now. On time.

Man of Action II

by G. Sax

Springbok
Last night the air smelled so good. Rain pure, washing away the last bits of dirty air from an overlong winter. The weekend was grand and not even an early case of the Mondays followed by nearly 11 straight hours of deskwork could wipe the smile off my face.

I’ve officially been in Minnesota for a year now after about 10 years away. The way I used to feel about springtime as a kid on my way home from school was the same way I felt last night as I locked the garage and wobbled toward my apartment after a long day. Youthful, full of a certain thrill that an incredible summer lay before me, unrepentant in my zeal for the tastes of life.

I’m not so young, of course, though it feels good to be regularly mistaken for a twentysomething. I have my hair and my hair is brown. My wallet remains empty, but maybe this is what makes me lean more toward 18 than 38.

With spring and summer here and now, I’m going to get me some of that green real soon.