So I got in to work this morning, and checked the blog only to see that our friend “Dumb Things at Amazon” has crammed the comments box full of more delightfully irrelevant, pointless links.

I took a moment to delete them, but I never felt too annoyed. It would be one thing if this guy were trying to sell something, or if he had a point. No, he just felt it necessary to visit the John Larroquette Project and post 6 links to semi-obscure items on Amazon.com. He also included a few references to our Bill of Rights conversation, when he complained about his civic freedoms being opressed and I reminded him that the 1st Amendment doesn’t necessarily protect speech on my website. He can start his own blog of funny Amazon links, and write about whatever the hell he wants to. Clearly such a site would be overwhelmingly popular and draw a fanatical response. He might even get a girlfriend out of the deal, but probably not.

I thought about leaving a couple of his comments in and responding to them in a reasonable tone, like I did last time, but I quickly realized that it wouldn’t be worth it. If the guy had a perspective or opinion, then it’d probably be worthwhile to open a dialogue with him, but this guy wanted to use the forum to litter the site with pointless links that weren’t funny or interesting in the least. That’s some fun existance, let me tell you. Really putting your energies to good use there. He’s angry without reason. He’s belligerant without purpose. He’s setting himself up as a first amendment martyr without any understanding of the spectrum and scope of the Constitution.

Sorry this isn’t particularly funny today, I guess I’m just feeling a bit bothered at the moment. Some might say that it’d be good to take a deep breath and then go back to penning a bizarre rant about Oregon Trail or something. However, I thought it would be more interesting to publicly bitch about this guy for a few minutes and then have it be stored in perpetuity on this website. Seems like the prudent choice to me.

I would also like to note for the permanent record that right now, at 7:36am CST on June 30th, 2004, I’m wearing olive-colored pants and that my left elbow itches. I ate Frosted Flakes for breakfast. I will investigate whether my choice of breakfast cereals is connected with the dry, itchy skin on my elbows. Let the record also reflect that I didn’t shower this morning, for time efficiency reasons, and that I likely have a cavity, as my tooth has become very sensitive in recent weeks.

Okay now, where was I?

The benefits at my job are really outstanding. I get three weeks paid vacation, along with full medical and dental insurance. Even better, my company is nice enough to pay me in shame.

I do get paid in money, although not very much. The money I make is enough for me to pay my bills and keep going to school. I’m thankful for it, but I’m doubly appreciative of the shame that my current position heaps upon me as well. Granted, I’ve made more shame at previous jobs. In fall 2000, after I had graduated college I had to briefly move back into my parents home and work at a movie theater. I worked at this same theater when I was 16, and now I was back again as a 21-year old, selling tickets and suffering through humiliating encounters with people I knew in high school going to the movies. In that job, I made $7.25 an hour plus all the shame I could bear. I made more shame units per hour than I ever had, but it was tough picking up enough hours.

My current job isn’t quite as emasculating and awful, though my company isn’t bashful about distributing shame upon me and my co-workers. We are often treated like delinquant children, and conversely rewarded with candy and toy cars (I’m completely serious). There is a veritable bounty of shame to be had for a man in my position. Fortunately, I thrive on shame. It wounds me deeply, paralyzing me with fear and feelings of overwhelming inadequacy. I then feel too worthless and pathetic to look for work elsewhere, thus ensuring my continued employment at my job. For a man like me who needs stability, being compensated in shame is a true blessing.

This fall, when I begin my career as a teacher I will demand early on to be given additional shame. If the administation will not submit to these demands, I plan to take my grievance to the union for help. I don’t care how they give me the shame; I just know that at this point my lifestyle needs to be maintained through shame. Perhaps I can be ordered to clean up my students vomit, or maybe all the other teachers could mercilessly mock and ridicule me. Maybe the principal could force me to defecate myself in front of my 4th hour class. All these options would provide me with the shame that cruelly fuels my identity. I need the sweet shame so bad.

I love the cereal aisle.

Choosing what breakfast cereals to purchase is a very elaborate, painstaking process. I do not take it lightly, and would never think of attempting to sidestep my duty as a cereal consumer. When I arrive at the aisle, I first stroll slowly up and down the aisle. In doing this, I am surveying my troops. I am their commander, like General Patton with a shopping cart. I look my cereal in the eye, and I can immediately tell whether they’re ready to be consumed or if they need a bit more time on the shelf. It’s never easy sending any cereal into the shopping cart - it’s not something I take lightly. I do it, however, because it’s my job, and I want my best cereals on the front lines in my pantry. Some cereals just don’t have what it takes, and probably never will. Quaker Oat Squares, for instance - an utterly worthless, cowardly cereal. I’d send him back home to his momma but the beaurocrats upstairs won’t have it. So for now, Quaker Oat Squares pretends like he’s a real soldier while Honey Nut Cheerios is out there fighting for his life.

I try to put the right combination of men together in these wars. I can’t send Cocoa Krispies and Coco Puffs out into the same shopping cart together - they’d trip all over themselves and likely end up doing themselves in with their own hand grenades, guts and chocolate spilling all over the damn shelves. It’d be a catastrophe. That’s why I’m the general. I’ll send Coco Puffs into the fight with the big ol’ Froot Loops over there, and then send Cinnamon Life in to back them up. Those three together would be a lean, mean fighting machine, and would satisfy the early morning cravings of any person in this fine land of ours. In fact, I went with that very combination yesterday. I have the fullest confidence in those boys.

See this picture in my wallet? It’s of an old box of Cookie Crisp. That box was primed for success - it was fresh, delicious, and it came with a mail-in offer for a Superman wristwatch. I carry this picture because I sent this particular box out there in a battle with nutritous cereals - you know, Total, Grape Nuts and whatnot. Well, apparently the children in this particular household tore ol’ Cookie Crisp apart - they had his guts emptied by noon. It was a damn bloodbath. The kid never stood a chance. I keep his picture with me to remind me of my responsibilities in this aisle. I am not here to play games, the decisions I make affect the A.M. consumption patterns of the entire free world.

And so, my cereals, once more into the breach…

Today I’d like to share a few of my favorite memories with all of you.

In college I met my friend Jeff Boyardee (NOTE: names have been changed to protect the innocent). He and I shared the same love of alienation and awkwardness. Jeff Boyardee’s abilities to conjure discomfort were more powerful than mine, and we would regularly go through elaborate steps just to create alienating moments. One time was particularly enjoyable - Jeff Boyardee was friends with a very sweet, nice girl named Caileen. Caileen was the kind of girl who volunteered to cut his hair while showing him “Pride and Prejudice”. Well, one afternoon, we knew that she was coming over and bringing along some old friends of hers to introduce to Jeff Boyardee and me. She had been telling them how funny and friendly we were, and we were hell bent on alienating all three of them. When the girls arrived at our dorm room, we had all the lights out except for a single candle in the middle of the room. On the stereo, an album of Gregorian chants was playing obnoxiously loudly. We didn’t acknowledge the girls at all, but just sat on the couch looking down. They came in and tenatively sat down, giggling at first, but as the minutes dragged on the awkwardness grew. Jeff Boyardee and I would speak only in short, pretentious sentances like “Consciousness is vanity.” The girls were confused and annoyed, and Jeff Boyardee and I had a long laugh afterwards.

Another time, we were being interviewed on a campus TV show by an ineffectual Greek gentleman named Thanos Zyngas. Thanos was something of a mascot around campus - always friendly, slightly plump, and beloved by all. He wanted Jeff Boyardee and I on the show to talk about how fun it is to be involved in campus life. I still have the tape of the interview, and to this day I laugh at this moment:

Thanos: “So where would you guys say that your humor comes from?”
Me: (mumbling) “I don’t know…”
Jeff Boyardee: “That’s kind of like asking the grass why it grows, you know?”
Thanos: (smiling) “Yes.”
Jeff Boyardee: “Because the lawn mower’s just going to come and cut it down anyway.”
*awkward silence*

That pretty much sums up my philosophy on life.

Our old friend Tran Van Hay of Vietnam recently got the chance to show off his record-breaking hair. Mr. Hay hasn’t cut his hair for 31 years, and it currently measures in at over 20 feet long.

That’s just about the most disgusting thing I’ve seen in my entire life.

What makes a man decide to not cut his hair for three decades? Curiosity? An elaborate dare? A mental handicap? My guess is that all three played a sizable role in this nonsense. And would it kill him to pick up some Pert Plus on the way home?

The more I look at this man, the more he reminded me of somebody. Somebody from the past. Somebody well worth emulating…

He stole his look from Bib Fortuna, emissary for Jabba the Hutt

I now know his secret. Tran Van Hay didn’t fool everybody. He is no Jedi.

This weekend I got the chance to catch up with some old friends, including my she-pal Kathy Grunditz (KG around these parts). Kathy expressed her concern for me that I am becoming simply too weird. She said that the positive reinforcement that I receive from this blog, along with the fact that I now have a girlfriend and don’t need to worry about maintaining a facade of normality has caused me to fall into the deep end.

This is very interesting, and it may well be true.

I know for a fact that I’ve always had a very strange and twisted internal monologue, and that the things that really make me laugh have always been things that are excessively bizarre and unnerving. I haven’t always been tremendously confident in sharing that with more than a few people, however. This blog began relatively innocuously, trying to write humorously about situations that everybody can relate to. I didn’t find my writing very rewarding, however, until I allowed my words to follow the rabbit trails of alienation and insanity in my own mind. It’s also true that Bridgette doesn’t really seem to mind how strange I can be sometimes. There are moments when she seems to outright enjoy it. This has definitely been liberating for me, as I no longer need to heed the repeated warnings of my mother to be a gentleman or to treat women with “dignity” and “respect”. I can now go off on hour-long tirades on work or bark belligerently at them about eating 700,000 Fig Newtons without fear of rejection.

There is perhaps a danger that all this might go too far. I suppose that I might end up journeying down the farthest reaches of where my mind will take me. Maybe someday when I’m married and I no longer care about anything, I’ll spend my days residing in an elaborate system of forts and tunnels that I created in my living room out of couch cushions and loaves of bread. The forts will have defense mechanism designed using simple machines like levers, pulleys and inclined planes. I will be wrapped from head to toe in swaddling clothes by my wife, at my behest. Then the entire room, as well my body will be coated with a generous layer of Crisco, to allow me to glide and flop about my tunnels with maximum viscosity. My communication will grow increasingly autistic, as I will become unable to relate with other human beings on any level apart from being punished physically. My internal monologue will become distressingly audible. Rather than acknowledging my wife’s existence, I will become more interested in elaborate scientific experiments designed to determine how many cracker crumbs will fit in my belly button. A deep part within my soul, a fragment still trying to appear normal will then remember Kathy’s fateful words, but it will be too late. I should have listened to her, as usual. All has now been lost.

So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.