Merry new year!

Yes my friends, 2004 is nearly behind us. It’s been a fine year, but like a loyal family pet that is now rabid, we must take 2004 out behind the toolshed and mercilessly hack off its head with a hachet. But before we bloody our hands with such unpleasantness, let us take a moment to look back on my personal accomplishments from this 2004. I believe you will find this excercize to be unpleasant, while ultimately pointless.

-I completed graduate school and am ready to begin my new career.

-I have successfully gone out with a girl for over 9 months and she still hasn’t broken up with me.

-I have recorded and released a CD with Welmore Mile.

-I have grown a beard.

-I have somehow fathered a fully-grown mule. His name is Greg, and though he is severely handicapped, I love him deeply.

-I have learned how to operate a scissors.

-I have eaten an estimated 1400 raisins per day for the last year. By this point, my lower intestines are a veritable trail of tears for all who traverse them.

-I have obtained shoes of the highest grip and traction, that I may no longer slip on icey sidewalks or fish fillets.

-I have defiled the entire state of Michigan.

-I have gone to a couple Minnesota Twins games.

So you see, 2004 is a year that we mustn’t quickly forget. It is a significant, meaningful chapter in my life, and in the lives of several others. Perhaps, like the amber-glazed mosquito that science used to spawn a dinosaur, 2004 might someday be used to molest science and create horrible beasts with razor fangs that devour men like grapes.

Until that day, however, we have but our memories. I want to wish all of you a merry new year, and a wonderfully awkward moment at midnight on Friday night when you try to kiss the person you’ve had a crush on for months but they jerk away in revulsion.

My friend Pete recently shared with me a story of a friend of his who had never eaten chili in her entire life.

So many questions spring to mind when considering her situation. How had she successfully avoided chili for so long? What element of the chili was so offensive to her? The bean? The pepper? The spice? Why chili? Why not some other, lesser food? Like chow mein, for instance. I could happily live the rest of my life without seeing another damned chow mein noodle. Does her chili bigotry have anything to do with former Angels and Twins slugger Chili Davis? Did he wrong her somehow? Perhaps he bludgeoned her dog to death?

I wonder if she will ever have an encounter with chili, or if she will spend the remainder of her days in some sort of godforsaken, chili-less existance. I can only imagine a realm beyond chili: stone stairwells leading into festering cesspools of rotting mule carcasses and molten lava, vast plains of dust punished by an unmerciful sun, men and women mumbling incoherently - having ripped their own tongues out of their mouths in a vain attempt to mute their chili-lust. The inhabitants of this grim land are left to eat pasta and corn dogs that are still cold in the middle.

My friends, I confess to all of you that I have no point today. My life is an odious, execrable heap of owl dung. This is essentially the summative message of the John Larroquette Project.

Hope you had a nice Christmas!

It is Christmas in four days, and a holiday tradition in my house is for our family to gather together and have my father share a christmas tale for us all. This year, he has passed the tradition down for me to share with the readers of the John Larroquette Project. This, however, is not the story of the first Christmas in Bethlehem, nor is it the fanciful tales of Rudolph saving Christmas. This is a delightful story of the shame and humiliation of my friend Kevin Sawyer.

This story takes place at my church’s Christmas banquet, where Kevin (one of the founders of the Alienating Boys Club) was emotionally skewered and made to be ashamed of his very existance. I’ve changed the names to protect the innocent, but let’s listen in to how Kevin tells the tale…

You guys will appreciate this. So last night at the Christmas ball, everyone’s dancing and having a great time…. Until they play a slow song (perfect timing, 4 days after I got dumped). So I slink off the dance floor like a shmuck a la Junior High, and everything’s going great. Then, out of the blue, Mrs. D asks me to dance with her. After about 30 seconds of this stultifyiing awkwardness, Mr. D shows up and Mrs. D says “I just wanted Mr. D to notice I was dancing with someone else.” and dances with him. Then, during the same song, my friend C comes up and starts petting my arm. Not really knowing what to do there, I ask her if she wants to dance, and she says, “No, I need to find my camera.”

I’m never going to church again.

And that, my friends, is the true meaning of Christmas - humiliation, embarassment, and impotent frustration all leading up to a renunciation of faith. I’m happy for Kevin that he has finally found the true spirit behind these holiday festivities. So many of us go through the motions without stopping to reflect on the paralyzing shame that has been shoveled on us by people in our lives. We buy gifts for loved ones and listen to Bing Crosby’s mellow tidings, but we rarely allow ourselves to be made invisible to the opposite sex and ponder a lifetime of bitter singleness.

It is my hope for all of you during this Christmas that you come to understand that this season is not about Santa, not about the manger and the lowing cattle, but about drinking deep from the vulgar goblet of rejection and swallowing the acidic wine of anguish until your gullet can hold no more.

I have a delightful treat for all of you on this fine winter’s morn.

Jeff Boyardee (co-author of Jeremy the Perfect Boyfriend) is a friend and songwriting partner of mine, and yesterday he played me one of the most curiously bizarre songs I’d ever heard. This song must be heard by all, and so today I present it for you. I will warn you that there is a bit of “blue” language toward the end, but there is still plenty of delight to be had.

Jeff Boyardee’s summary of the song: This is a song about a guy who is trying to write a highfalutin poetic song but can’t get over the fact that his girlfriend broke up with him, so that fact keeps creeping into the song.

Here it is: The Rook

Last night, I went out after church with Adam, Kevin, and Leroy to a lovely dining establishment called Bennigan’s. I enjoyed the company, I savored the smokey, boisterous ambiance, and I gorged myself on the Monte Cristo Sandwich.

A ham, turkey, and cheese sandwich. Deep fried. Dusted with powdered sugar. Dipped in jelly. A feast suitable for a gluttonous midieval nobleman. Well, maybe not quite that far - perhaps I could say that the Monte Cristo sandwich is a feast suitable for a corrupt, slightly inbred midieval nobleman with a wispy beard and no male offspring.

Let’s go over those elements again:

Ham, turkey, and cheese sandwich - Okay, we’re with you so far.

Deep fried - That would seem a bit excessive, but I’m willing to hear arguments on this.

Dusted with powdered sugar - Is this absolutely necessary? It would seem that a some sort of practical joke is being played on the diner at this point.

Dipped in jelly - This part is a joke, right? At this point why not just glaze the whole thing in fudge and hook the customer up to an IV of lard? Why not a side order of Turducken?

So yes, I ate the sandwich in its entireity and left shortly afterwards. I left not because of the company or the conversation; no, I left because I sensed the coming of a bowel movement of extraordinary power and volume. The further events of that evening are best left to another blog entry, but suffice to say that the noises emanating from my bathroom that evening sounded as if they were escaping from the depths of perdition.

Do I regret any of this? My friends, I most certainly do not. Will I regret detailing these events for all to read in perpetuity? It is very likely that I will. But there is no turning back. Yes, I ate the sandwich meant more for ogre than man, and yes it caused over two quarts of sweat, blood, and feces to hasten out of my body, but it was worth it.

Save my seat for tomorrow night, Bennigan’s. I have unfinished business to tend to with you.

Welmore Mile played our last show. Here are some live mp3’s for you to suck on.

Save Me
Anyone But You
Hiding in the Dark
Empty Glass

Save Me & Anyone But You -copyright 2003 Sasquatch Waterslide Songs ASCAP (they appear on Choices Collide)
Hiding in the Dark & Empty Glass - copyright 2004 Sasquatch Waterslide Songs ASCAP.

All three of these performances are also available on the DVD of our final show, available at Welmoremile.com.

Enjoy, young knaves!