Classic Quirky Moment

Sitting on my balcony perch downtown, I get to sample the worst of Albuquerque - boring drunk people - and the best of Albuquerqe - funny drunk people - without having to worry that they will touch me.

I also get to observe those Quirky drivers obeying the Quirky Code, which includes numerous efficiency-driven details unknown to those who lack the grammatical daring to Think Different.

1) Green means go. Yellow means slown down in sissy language. Red means you're a fucking hero. Jah, Push it!

2) Weaving in and out of traffic is only illegal if you are weak. Go, speed racer. Go.

3) Right turn on red applies even if there's a car waiting in front of you at the light. Just drive on around him. (Just learned this one today! Soon I'll be driving like a man, not a little pussy.)




But that's not my story. Mine is a special story, a classic story of the Quirky.

So I was sitting on my downtown perch, hoping for an accident or at least a fight. Then a jalopy that's been sitting at the red catches my attention when the light changes. The poor little junker keeps revving every now and again as those behind it gradually realize they're going to have to go around. I settle back in my lawn chair and take a pull off my Super Big Gulp.

The revving continues through two cycles. Once, the guy leaves the car in neutral and it almost fools me as it starts to roll into the intersection. Then, finally, with a fart of smoke from the tailpipe and a bloated roar, it's in action and drives on.














But wait... What's this? Can it be? Just as farty belch got the green light to go, the car idling directly next to him died. And I, of course, had an orgasm of snark.

And so all the people who'd gone into the left lane to avoid righty had to pull into the right to avoid lefty. And that's kind of it, and I guess you had to be there to appreciate the beauty of this accidental choreography, this harmony of horrible hulks, this terpsichorean timing of two terrible trashheaps. I thought it was kind of funny how the second car revved his engine with metronomic regularity, about every five seconds, and how I thought, 'well, that shit ain't gonna work,' and how on rev 47 the engine came to life, so this was, like, a method. But that's not a story. That's just a thing I thought was, well, ironic?

Burky Bugs

I don't know if you've noticed, but the Quirky has got some bugs. I won't even go into this shit, but this city has some motherfucking bugs, yo. Some kind of assfuck pissant cumsipping shitcrunching cockfondling little monkeyfucking slimelapping chunckchewing pussbowl jizzstrainer of a bug stung the bottom of my foot yesterday and that shit itches like a two dollar whore. With this lump on my fucking foot I feel like I'm stepping on a testicle.

And not somebody else's testicle, either.

And that's why you never ask for the cheese

My pizza guy was like the weirdest guy I've ever met outside of a mental institution or a bus.

He looked like a normal pizza guy - slightly well fed, not the paragon of hygiene, probably wearing frugal black sneakers. He had a hands-free earpiece in, which I haven't seen before in a pizza guy but might be de rigeur in a town with a drive-and-cell ban.

But as soon as this guy opened his mouth, my frickin god. Take two parts Office Space stapler guy, one part George Hamilton, one part Slingblade.



He sounded kind of like he was on a ton of ludes or something and was trying to very slowly seduce me. Or like this was some far-fetched confidence game that would allow him to insinuate himself into my house and my life. He asked me if I wanted any cheese or chili "tonight," which believe you me sounded a lot stranger in person than it looks in print. Trying to get rid of him just ASAP I politely declined (I am always anachronistically polite but I really lay it on with crazy people, with whom I am positively fawning).

At some point I must have figured, 'Hey, this guy just talks really, really weird. I can probably ask for some cheese, and no harm done.' So I asked for the cheese.

This seemed to be just the opening this guy was looking for. Fumbling rather more than he had to, he slowly removed the cheese packet by packet from a mesh pocket on his pizza warmer. These crazy guys usually move at a kind of newborn baby speed until they start wailing on you with a blunt object.

"So how are you doing tonight?"

Oh dear. I've made a terrible mistake. Don't forget he is speaking with this drawly, retarded gay phone sex vacuum salesman voice.

I try to be positive.

"We're doing great, great."

I make little jerky motions toward the interior of my house, as if to express my desire to end the conversation and return to my privacy, though I know this will be fruitless.

"I can't say we're doing too well tonight."

Egads. Who is 'we'? What the hell is going on?

"Oh ... I'm ... sorry to hear that."

I'm quickly compiling a list of things I might empathize with him about - the weather perhaps. I quickly check the air and note it is pleasantly cool, even balmy. I grow desperate.

"No, not too well. Just doing this to pay the bills, you know."

An eternal truth. The doubters will choke on their own bile when the Pizza Hut-tips-backed Great American Novel is released. Or perhaps he is taking a break from investment banking.

"Aah ... um. Have a good night!"

I'm employing my biggest smile, which is only a straight line but still communicates jolly conviviality.

And ... he wishes me a good night in return - and leaves! Relief beyond measure. I spin gingerly on my heels and slowly close, slowly lock and slowly bolt our front door. The room rings with a stunned silence.

Didn't know I was paying for pizza and a show. RIMSHOT!

Babe in the hood

By the way, new child in the house. Born in the dining room (hope he doesn't turn out to be fat, or this will be a running joke that secretly pains him forever).

As far as his looks, a friend wheeled out the old Winston Churchill analogy. I think it's time we agree it was WC who looked like a baby,




not the other way around. Also, I only know the man from news reels, but I remember less rooting and meconium.

Rooting: baby-bird-like mouth gaping meant to elicit nipple insertion (atn. WC experts: I don't want to know)

Meconium: Newborn tar poop. See CUSPIDOR -- CONTENTS

Cuspidor: Spittoon

Cuspidor -- Contents: Mouth meconium. See FISHERMAN'S BONES -- TEXAS TARTAR SAUCE

Fisherman's bones: Completely normal potato salad

Fisherman's bones -- Texas tartar sauce: Too disgusting to describe. See CIRCUS PEANUTS

Oh, and by the other way, I got the long shoes job. And the guy who hired me resigned like the next day. Long shoe intimidation factor: 10.

Could be worse

I doubt there is anything so wonderful as a truly crappy blog. I'm not talking boring or self-absorbed in the standard way. I'm talking about a blog that reflects honestly a truly crappy life. What could be more heartening than knowing for a fact that someone is out there trying, time and time again, to make designs in their coffee froth? To know for certain that this man is not alone, but part of a community of coffee-froth-designers who come up with pseudo-poetical names for different froth designs? Ah, bliss. Others are indeed more pathetic than I.

We have established an outpost in the Quirk, back in my old Ridgecrest neighborhood. As an adult I am discovering that many people have no idea where this neighborhood is, which sort of dents my pride. Did I not in fact grow up in the center of the universe?

"Yes, I am Heliogabulus, of the Ridgecrest Heliogabuli."

I pause, allowing my social superiority to sink in.

"Whichcrest?"

I pause again, planning an explanation that will be comprehensible to this barbaric cretin.

"Ridgecrest. It runs roughly from old Lovelace over to Carlisle?"

"Whojimacrest? Falcon Crest? Toothpaste? A haircut? Smagigoo?"

And so it goes.

My lengthy, lengthy shoes

I know a lady who had the fart burps, but she's better now. And I am too. I'd never totally gotten over the shame and self-doubt brought on by the fart burps, aka the stinky croaks, belch bombs or hairy hiccups. But now I realize it is no less than human, allzumenschliches, to have farts come out of your mouth. She said it's the Rolaids. Apparently Rolaids spell relief of gas and bloating but not of farting out of your mouth.

I'm getting ready for an interview (I think) on Friday in the Quirky. My wife, perhaps partly because she wants to see me get some use out of my brand new suit (which cost me $200 but really could have cost $400, I swear) suggested I wear it, but journos generally go a little bit more down-market. Besides, I bought the suit like three weeks ago and barely fit into it then, so I'd have to majorly fast to get into it now. And I anticipate being hungry tomorrow.

I will, however, wear the long shoes. I don't know when shoes got long, and how phallic the long shoes were intended to be, but I'm going for it. These fuckers are like three inches longer than my feet. Forget a sportscar; if you can get that cocksman reputation from a pair of foot-snugs, why not?

Also, my sister's coming in from Japan (good sushi there! check it out!) for a Quirkstop while I'm down there. I know she'll appreciate my shoes, even if you fuckers don't, so I'm glad she's making the trip.

The happiest of blogs

This is the happy blog, where only good things happen. Sometimes, in other blogs, people don't get the right color iPod for their birthday, and, like someone hit over the head with a hobo, they are "bummed." Sometimes relatives of the bloggers get sick, or they die or even lose their Internet connections. Some bloggers are just sad, not in the seasonal affective disorder way but in the so die already (or "So, Already, Die!") way.

But you won't have to deal with any of that here, cause I'm always happy. Sometimes I think about how the moments of my life are just ticking away, and I just have to giggle. Sometimes my children are terribly ill and we have to spend hours in some Reagan-foresaken moldy ER and I just smile to myself my secret smile. There's something just spectactularly wonderful about life, and I'm totally not being sarcastic!

So we're moving to Quirky, my sort-of-home-town, a decision we probably won't regret for several weeks. Join me on my wonderful voyage into ... the future!