Sunday, September 30, 2007

Memorable Abuse from Strangers

A one-eyed, speed freak biker crossing the street in my home town. I was probably six. Naturally I gawped at him.

Quote (said in extremely loud, guttural roar): “Quit eyeballin’ me, you little shit.”

**

Ordering cider in an Irish pub frequented by real Irish people. A real Irish chappie, fresh from a Gaelic Football match, the blood still damp under his fingernails, grabs me by the scuff of the neck:


“Cider! You’re a mad bastard order feckin’ CIDER!”

**

Leaving a bar in San Francisco transcendently shitbricked with Mark and Geoff. Probably 22 years old. For some reason I am wearing a bowtie. Out of nowhere some dude with a mustache approaches me on the sidewalk: “You partyin’, Bro?”

Me: “I’m having a fuckin’ great time.”

The guy punches me.

Later, Mark says “Your bowtie made that guy really mad.”

**

Walking with a pretty girl through a weird neighborhood in New Orleans. A hooker says: “Baby, SHE make you look good.”

I’m not sure if that was an insult, and if it was, who it was insulting.


**

Japan, during a festival. A large, drunk Japanese man walks up to me and starts roaring in my face. Not in Japanese. Literally roaring. Thinking “Aw, feller wants to make friends” (I was only 18), I offer my hand for my new friend to shake. He takes my slender kangeroo paw in his All Kobe Beef mitt and proceeds to crush it, roaring the entire time. I am released only after a gendarmie on patrol intercedes.

**

Working in a bookstore in my early twenties. A douchey looking cat in a sportcoat and large moustache approaches the cashstand, holding a large hardback book.

“Hey, man. You guys gotta a copy machine, so I can copy this page?”

Me: “No, we’re a bookstore. We’re not really supposed to let people copy the books. You can do that at the library, though.”

Guy: “Man, you gotta get some class.”

**

At Seattle-Tacoma airport, at a cab stand -- I’m reading the Atlantic. A woman who looks sane is standing behind me.

Woman: “Heymisteristhisthecabplaceorwhatever?”

Me: “Yes it is.”

She looks at the cover of the magazine.

Woman: “Are you an (giggles) intellectual?”

**

Riding BART. I’m wearing a cardigan. It’s a crowded Friday afternoon commute. A young guy with slicked-back hair is loudly harranguing a young woman who has a small Virgin Mary printed on her handback.

“See, there’s no salvation through Mary. Nah, you can only be saved by believin’ in JESUS. I seen some bad stuff and I come from a hard neighborhood. I don’t have no sweaters, not like THIS guy…”

He points at me.

**

At a gay bar celebrating a friends birthday. Two buff guys with with no-shirts walk up to me as I try to order a drink at the bar. As if on cue, they both begin flexing their pecs, with these fierce glares. I’m unsure what it all means. They both bust up laughing and walk away.

**

Riding on an Amtrak train from California’s central coast to the Bay Area. I am sitting in the snack/bar car, reading a book. We are at a station, so the bar is closed. A belligerent man with long hair and a hockey jersey enters the car and is very, very angry that he can’t have any liquor.

He begins to stalk out of the snack bar and mounts to the steps up to the observation platform above us. He takes three steps, stops, yells “This is for you, faggot!” and sticks his ass out. He farts audibly, then bounds up the steps.

**

At a keg party in High School, I walk into the kitchen. Two blonde soc-type girls are sitting giggling. One says, “Hey, do you want some dip?”, and shoves a plate toward me. On it is a moist pile that could only be cat food.

Me: “That’s cat food.”

Girl: “It’s not cat food, you fuckin’ asshole. It’s dip. It’s fuckin’ good. You should eat it YOU FUCKIN’ DICK.”

She jumps up and takes a lunge at me, and her friend holds her back. I leave.

My friend asks me later: “Whadya do to those girls. One was crying.”

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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Feel like making a mixed CD.

If you want one, drop me your postal address via gregmills at-symbol pacbell dot net.

I haven't decided what to put on it. You will just have to trust. It might be crap, and you might end up hating me. But I'm not worried about that, because that's your problem, you mean person.

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Friday, September 28, 2007

You people are animals.

The most popular referring search term directing folks to Bastard of Art and Commerce, like, for months, is "Fat Men Fucking".

Monsters. Monsters, all of you.

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Oh, dang. I forgot weigh down this old world with my pointless shit!

Me. Feh! That's what I say to me. Not blogging. Watching "Flight of the Conchords" and "Mad Men". Listening to I-Tunes at work and staring at things.

That's me. If I were a camel, my hump wouldn't be filled with zesty content, no. It'd be filled with fetid air, and I don't mean the fetid air that naturally gathers around camels. It's the sort of fetid air that gathers around dead blogs, only in this case, it had been pumped into the hump some poor bactrian motherfuckin' bastard, probably through a shunt. (Humanely? We need to hope so.)

Speaking of camels, I went to Santa Monica for the day last week. I've been sick this week, miserable really. Like a single camel lost in Santa Monica. Paula has told me that it's "nice that you're home during the day" (and when she said this, she was fucking KNITTING. My wife is a high powered web designer. But she was KNITTING when she said this. And I was on the LAY-Z-BOY. I felt like I should have been drinking a Tom Collins, wearing a smoking cap, and reading the Saturday Evening Post or the American Mercury. And being racist or something) only for me, it's sort of hell ride. Taking unlabelled pills found in the linen closet does that to feller.

This is how my wife likes me: mute, sweating, slightly cross-eyed, wrapped in a quilt on the couch. I can be that for you, baby, effortlessly!

So, what's be going on with you?

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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

I try to protect Ruby. Ruby corners me.

A family trip to the video. Mom pulls a copy of "Zodiac" off the shelf. "Is Zodiac any good?"

Ruby has seen the ads, she asks "What's Zodiac?"

Me: "A movie."

Ruby: "What's in about?"

Me: "It's about this guy that was around when Mom and I were little kids."

Ruby: "What about him? Who was he?"

Me, in a sheltering mood: "He would go around... scaring people."

Ruby (incredulous): "How? Little kids?"

Me: "No, grownups."

Ruby: "How did he scare grownups?"

Me: "He would sort of sneak on people and yell BOOGA!"

Ruby: "That's stupid. They made a whole movie out of some man yelling BOOGA!?"

Me: "He was quite scary, Ruby. "(This is where I lose the thread a bit.) "People were afraid to go outside, in case the Zodiac was walking around."

Ruby: "Why?"

Me: "People didn't want to pee their pants. Men started wearing Mumus so the pee wouldn't stain their pants."

Ruby: "Don't make up stuff."

Me: "He also wore a mask. He was scary, Ruby."

Ruby: "Like a dead guy mask, like bloody and stuff?"

Me: "No... eh... it was more squarish, like a grocery bag. And he drew a little cross on the front."

Ruby: "That's stupid. What a stupid movie."

**

Postscript:
Later, when we were discussing cannablism, Ruby mention in an off-hand way that the Zodiac was a killer. "He didn't make people pee, Dad."

I bet he did, actually.

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