Tag: funny

A Slice Of Life (from Zen And The Art f Culinary Maintenance)

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J.T. Hilltop
I was seriously depressed, spent 33 days as an unwilling guest at a South Carolina correction facility on my way to Arizona, and I never made it any further west then freaking Georgia. I played around in Atlanta, Columbia, and Myrtle Beach, and finally realized it was time to get back home to Long Island where I could at least waste my life away with some friends.

After two wasted years and a week of senseless sporadic hitchhiking in the south I finally made it back home to Centerlawn. It had only been two years yet as I quickly learned it’s a strange new world around here. Nearly everyone I hung out with has either gotten married, moved, or joined the “Establishment” and are doing their nine to fives. As for me I‘m officially unemployed and living at home with my Dad of all people. My next tattoo way just as well be a large “L” on my forehead so everyone can see what a loser I’ve become. What a cruel world. I had to do something, I was relented to the ultimate embarrassment of getting cash from my old man for doing menial tasks around the house, which had been seriously neglected as of late. A twenty three year old earning a teenage allowance. I needed to move out on my own again really bad but jobs were scarce, and I have zero money let alone security and rent for a month. Then my old friend Universe created its mysterious cosmic connection and the answer appeared in front of me. My cosmic companion placed fates ironic ad in the classified section of the local paper, “Looking for line cook for six day week. Room and board included. Inquire at Glen City Country Club.” “Fore!”

Thank you destiny! It opened up a whole new world to me. Long Island has tons of country clubs and most of them offer room and board as part of a compensation package. I could bounce from club to club until I get back up on my feet. Hey its not like Maggs Garden Apartment but it’s a room with a bed. I went to GCCC the very next day in my best clothes wearing my best attitude and charm. I got the job on the spot thanks to all my previous restaurant experience. Zen and the Art Of Culinary maintenance is back in the house.

The country club circuit is different from restaurants. For one thing it means split shifts. The members get breakfast and lunch Tuesday through Sunday, and dinner Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday which meant a break from 3-6 on those days. Mondays the kitchen was closed so we all had a day off. The hours were very mixed up but the work was steady and the pay was decent. A great staff, quality food, lots of waitresses, and we all got along and had fun. The room and board left a bit to be desired, the staff referred to it as “The Monkey House.” A small room with a cheap bed and dresser with showers down the end of the hall but what the Hell man, it was still better than having to see Dads face everyday.

Alas, I’ve learned that anytime anything good happens to me something has to come along and fuck it up. After losing at love three times in a row I opted to not get caught up in any serious relationship but that didn’t mean I would stop flirting. As I have also learned I have a pension for flirting with disaster, this time disaster being the General Managers daughter. Eight years younger than me but she was just too hot to let pass without making a pass. I put my flirtatious charm into overdrive and soon their was a very thick air of sexually charged tension. As the Rabbi said before the Bris, “It won’t be long now”

I was employed at Glen City Country Club for just under a year when the ill advised flirting with the bosses daughter teamed up with that old practical joker JT‘s fate and raised the level from disaster to catastrophic cacophony. An accident that would send me to the hospital would set off the next series of unfortunate events in my life.

The members of the clubs get a lot of perks and have a lot of all day golfing tournaments. On most big outings we had to set up two refreshment stations serving soda, beer, water, a hamburger grill and cold sandwiches. We loaded up a golf cart with folded tables, food and drink, and ice buckets to keep stuff cold. The tournament was over and one of the other cooks, Jose, was driving the cart we had just loaded with all the tables and leftovers from the refreshment stand at the 9th hole. He was driving the loaded cart along an elevated tee, a two foot incline, when he noticed something fell out of the cart and jumped out to get it. The cart kept moving towards the edge of the incline so I reached my foot over to hit the brake. Unfortunately the gas pedal bore a striking resemblance to the brake pedal so instead of coming to a stop the cart, full loaded with me in the passenger seat picked up speed. Or it’s quite possibly the beer I snuck or the two Valiums I washed down with the beer an hour ago, but either way I put the pedal to the medal and the golf Cart took off. Literally. Not enough speed to break any golf cart speed records but enough to send the cart full speed ahead to the edge of the elevated women’s tee into a triple one and a half twist gainer with a perfect swan dive straight into the ground. … I remember seeing a bunch of things rolling around with me but don’t remember any pain. In fact I was shocked when I saw the amount of blood coming from my arm.

Jose freaked of course and in his broken English I believe he said “Jesus and crackers JT, you losing focking blood”. Indeed I was, I grabbed one of the table cloths and wrapped my arm as Jose took off towards the main house screaming “help, help, help” That’s when I passed out. I awoke in and ambulance but I was seriously disoriented. The medic told me to relax and I told him I was in considerable pain.Next thing I knew a familiar feeling of warmth spread across my body. My old friend morphine was entering my bloodstream for a reunion. I closed my eyes, smiled, asked the medic to throw away the pill box in my pocket and drifted off into a different state.

I woke up about one or two days later, my arm was tied up top a pole with this huge sock that would be too big for Shaquile O’Neil, and sitting across from me smiling was the managers daughter. I knew instinctively that nothing good could come from this, so naturally, I asked her out which was extremely awkward considering when I got out of bed I realized the tied on hospital robe I was wearing exposed my big white hairy ass….. Was tha a good thing? Or a bad thing? Time and fate would tell….
TBC

 

I

Total Destruction, Only Solution (J. T. Hilltop)

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From Cosmo and The Garden Earth.
When last seen, Cosmo was pissed about the dinosaur behavior ruining his garden…….

One morning while sipping some of his favorite caffeinated breakfast beverage, Thors Thunderbolt, Cosmo noticed some strange things happening in his garden Earth. His jumbo dinosaur creatures appeared to be having unusually sloppy sex and puddles of love juice were forming lakes. Also they had become far less discreet as to who’s appendage fit into which aperture. The gigantic creatures were rolling around crushing everything in their way. Tree’s toppled, boulders rolled all the way to Colorado, and even volcanoes had become stopped up with goo. And the moaning, oh my Cosmo it was so loud and frightening. Of course with Planned Parenthood not yet created it was no time before Pangaea became over crowded with giant baby creatures. Not to mention the swamps of dino-sperm on the Easter egg hunt. With the creation of inter-species fuckfests some creative mutations began taking effect resulting in a array of new characteristics. They were larger, wider, more angry, and exceedingly clumsy. Cosmo sensed some other major adaptations taking hold, fortunately nor including longer arms for T Rex.
The sex also seemed to make the creatures extremely hungry and they were eating twice the normal amount of his marvelous Flora. Many seemed to favor this one particular bush, or rather one particular weed, which seemed to give them even more voracious appetites but also made them sort of smile. Cosmo won’t swear to it but he believed munching the weed made his creatures laugh. At the very least they smiled more than the ones that didn‘t partake. Narcosaurs mostly. He wondered if it was co-incidence or if it was because of his cannabis bush causing the effects so he took a few homegrown plants to try himself. He decided he would let them dry out and smoke some with a bottle of Pinot Nuetron after dinner. As he continued to survey Pangaea another curious practice was observed. The creatures seemed to be fighting each other over sex, which was not really a colossal deal but it appeared that the winners where actually eating the losers as some sort of carnivorous prize. Believing it to be from the cannabis he referred to the practice as canibisalism. He opted not to try smoking the enticing weed just yet afraid of what it may make him want to do. The eating of the other creatures as a diet instead of just vegetation also made the meat eaters even bigger and stronger. He would need to keep an eye on these developments.
As time passed more and more creatures were killing each other and eating the remains. And damn were they multiplying. They engaged in sex virtually everyday and babies were everywhere. It was like some kind of Dino-nursery. Every day there seemed to be more and more, and nearly all the vegetation had been eaten. Not only that but they began biting kicking and scratching each other for no apparent reason. Many fights seemed to be over who had more dangling under their tail or who was going to screw the better looking female dinosaurs. Many times these fights caused some to fall down never to get back up. Cosmo was not happy with these developments at all. His garden of creatures was turning into a giant fight club fiasco. His behemoth experiments were simply much to big and clumsy. He decided he needed to start over and this time start with much more compact set of creatures. First though he needed a plan to extinguish and cover up his dinosaur debacle.
His first plan was to go subterranean. He began to churn up the ground at different points of the land masses of Pangaea. The shifting of dirt created numerous effects. The mass of land split in various places and Pangaea began to break up into smaller lands. A few dinosaurs fell off the edges, but for the most part they rode the land mass that they happened to reside on and just sort of relocated. Two chunks of dirt headed out quickly, one due north and one due south. Each went as far as it could go until it turned into a giant massive iceball. Every dinosaur on these arctic edges froze along with it. The other land masses fared much better. Cosmo now needed names now for the different masses. On the east he named his land masses North Columbia and South Columbia. Way across the newly formed ocean there was a dark mass he called Afrika, and a huge piece he called Eurasia. A smaller mass slipped down under while a very green land went slightly north. He would name them later. As for the dinosaurs they had begun to change and were ironically defined by their land masses. The creatures in North Columbia grew more aggressive body parts, like large razor sharp teeth, pointed spiny tails, and large muscular arms. Military adaptations. Cosmo believed they actually thought themselves superior. Called them Mericans. They tried to force all the others live the way they did. Pretentiousauruses! The dinosaurs in Africa were very wild and it took on a predatory nature of survival of the mightiest. In Eurasisa half fancied themselves the more sophisticated and chic while the other half absolutely excelled in math. They had all begun to mutate body parts that were used as weapons or as protective amour. Spiny heads and necks, horns, shells, claws, Talons, scales and many other features that assisted warfare or survival. They continued cross breeding and a host of new genus’s were born. Now he had some walking on two legs, some on four, some eating only vegetation, some only other dinosaurs, and many eating both. The flying dinosaurs alone mutated into over 500 species. The fights became rampant and more frequent and quite frankly it was pissing Cosmo off a bit. The shifting of the land also had an effect on the once enormous Pangaean sea which was all the water surrounding Pangaea. The other lands had created borders which split the Pangaean sea into vast oceans. New weather patterns and water currents came into play, and many of the places he churned up dirt had formed piles, ranging from tiny molehills to humongous mountains that reached up towards the sky. At first Cosmo tried to make all the dirt piles as majestic as the giant ones but he quickly learned he couldn’t make a mountain out of a molehill.
As time went on things just got worse and worse. The changes in the garden plots were great, but the dinosaurs were out of control. In each land mass they were carrying on and destroying the vegetation, trampling everything in their paths, kicking the everlasting dinosaur shit out of each other. If that wasn’t bad enough the fornicating was maddening. No matter where you looked in the garden you could find many dinosaurs letting it all hang out ready for reproduction. Giant penispods galore. Humping and swamp hopping there was sex going on everywhere. Puddles of sperm gathered that drowned the lower vegetation and while they were knocking horns and creating future fossils it tore up the ground and caused many a fight to the death. Genus were being wiped out, it was a constant state of confusion. The trees they had eaten clear down to the roots. They simply had no respect at all for Cosmo, his garden, or each other and that was the final sipping stick! It was time for a raptor rapture!
The angry Cosmo had had it. He reached up into space and grabbed the biggest asteroid he could hold and hurled it towards earth with all his might. Had it not been an act of destruction one might have thought it a beautiful magnificent sight. Upon impact a huge explosion of colors, bright reds and yellows danced tangos across the planet. A blinding flash of white so brilliant it could be seen as far away as the Tolkien Galaxy. Flames that reached so high they tickled the moon and made it giggle and squirm. Sheer magnifigance. Why it was a fireworks display fit for the gods. But mere minutes after the glowing kaleidoscope of destruction lit up the skies as if to remind everyone that its beauty was marred by violence it was quickly replaced with an ear pounding roar. Bursts of concussion inducing reverberation accompanied the evening festivities with a mushroom plume of billowing smoke dressed in charcoal black from head to toe. A snap. A crackle. A pop. Within seconds garden earth became Earth Krispies. The explosion kicked up an awful cloud of dust with it that pulled the rug of sparkle pomp and circumstance right from under its cosmic ass. For the longest time Cosmo could see nothing but an enormous floating burntout dust bunny. Virtually everything was obscured and he had no clue as to the fate of his living garden below. One thing for sure, if any of the suns rays got through at all it was undetectable. How could anything live without food, without light, without sunshine? Cosmo was absolutely certain he had lost everything. He underestimated the ultra tiny earth dwelling insect known as the cockroach. Will anything kill those bastards?
As time went by the dust began to settle it was becoming apparent not much if anything would survive. Even with only a portion of the dust gone he could see there was not much sign of life. The vegetation tried valiantly to reach back up towards the sun but with limited success. The garden seemed still and void. Even Cosmo couldn’t detect the tiny crawling cockroach foraging at the base of the stringy vines of vegetation. But trust me when I tell you, those cucaracha’s marched on. The once magnificent dinosaurs however were not able to crawl between any cracks let alone march anywhere. A massive open graveyard was all the gardening god could see. Humongous piles of giant carcasses littered the ground and whatever ground that could be seen was scorched to a grayish black. Nary a leaf or a pine cone to be found. Not even a blade of grass on this once animated garden of green and blue. Stacks of bodies and body parts could be seen everywhere with billows of smoke reaching out to the Milky Way cluster. There was a stench quite unfamiliar to Cosmo, charred flesh smelled nothing at all similar to a god BBQ. To call the aroma unpleasant would be an understatement. The forces of fetid decay banded together with burning flesh and gunpowder. The acrid odors began an all out assault that would serve as a rank reminder of the magnitude of failure here. Battalions of rotted mounds of foul fecal sewage mixed with dino debris formed an aerial assault. The army of stench marched up Cosmo’s nose and set up a camp of odoriferous angry troops behind his eyes. Some salted droplets of sorrow snuck down Cosmo’s cheek which he blamed on the carousel of stink spinning in his sinuses. Make no mistake though that was no dew drop, that was a god sized teardrop…..TBC

Went To A Garden Party (An Existentialists Satirical Bible Interpretation)

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Part I
By JT Hilltop

Preface

We can’t wait until our babies can talk until they can. And damn can they talk.. Once they learn the fine art of communicating we bang our heads for not being careful what we wished for. They have an inate sense of how to easily push opur buttons with one simple word. Why! It’s an exercise in redundancy in which every answer we give evokes another why. Then they start to really ask questions. Not a question here and there but a barrage of never ending questions that like that once cute game of peek a boo has no definitive ending. “What’s oral sex Mom, why did you call that driver an ’A-hole’?”. What’s it mean when some one sticks up their middle finger Dad, is that bad? Is the ‘F‘ word bad?” And that’s just kindergarten. They wanna know everything about everything and the questions don’t stop, “Mommy, where do babies come from? Daddy, why were you moving furniture around last night?” Its just in the very fabric of our being to be inquisitive because even those unwilling to speak are curious. Inquiring mimes want to know.
Back when I was just a mere tadpole swimming around the shore burning questions festered in my head as well. I must have driven my Mom and Dad crazy with my overwhelming curiosity. “Why do I have to eat spinach? Is broccoli little tree’s? Why do I have to put the seat up after I pee?” Do spiders sleep at night?” “Who is God?” It was the last one that had Mom reeling and she handed me a black book called The Bible and said in a very earnest voice, “take this book to your father and ask him about God.”
And so I did. My dad wan’t one of those “I have to be honest with you son” types, in fact he funneled down the sex talk from my older brothers to avoid having to go one on one with me about biological urges so his bible explanation left much to be desired. Ergo, I was left to my own devices to come up with an interpretation….
Engagement Party In The Eden Room

My science teacher once told me evolution is the key to everything. Everything either evolves or it doesn’t survive. Who am I to doubt such an astute authority figure? He went on to tell me there was a time when we were all mere single celled organisms. Those were the good old days, so much more innocent than life is for humans today. Back then they didn’t even have a name for us, language hadn’t even evolved yet. Now they call us bipeds because we walk upright on two legs and use our hands to make and use tools. The original bipeds, our fellow male pig Neanderthals grew up like any other pack animals, in tribes. Each tribe or community took care of itself, gave as good as it got, hunted and gathered, and had no political affiliations all of them being progressives. They’re only purpose was to eat and fuck. Reproduction and eating kept the tribe alive. Sex was a happy accident of a survival strategy. Eating was rudimentary but make no mistake sex was the key to life. Most tribes were hunters or scavengers, either killing and eating animals, or scavenging the vegetation already here on earth. However, in an area we now call the Middle East, the so-called fertile crescent (fertile the definitive word), two tribes stood out among all others. The Aggies and The Shepherds. Both tribes had become far more advanced than any of the other tribes. These two tribes used reason and logic, figuring out a way to survive working together as a colony. It took a village. One tribe were The Aggies who learned how to manipulate the vegetation and grow it at will using soil, sun and water. They were prolific growers. The other tribe, The Shepherds, learned how to manipulate the cattle and sheep, and penned them up creating a seemingly endless supply of milks and meats. They were prolific manipulators. These two tribes habituated a very large area called the Garden of Eden. They didn’t like each other but they used their logic and reason to devise treaties and form imaginary lines they called boundaries which they agreed never to cross. So it was agreed the Aggies could live in the North Eden, and the Shepherds in South Eden. The tribes kept to themselves and all was peaceful until one seemingly insignificant incident set of a series of events that would change existence forever.
It was a beautiful late morning day in the Garden of Eden when a young male Aggie named Adam decided to take a walk in the designated forbidden area. The forbidden area was smack dab in the middle of the garden which served as a sort of buffer between the two tribes. It was chock full of colorful vegetation and small wildlife that enjoyed a life free of human domination or tricks. Both Aggies and Shepherds had agreed to never enter and allow whatever life survived within have it‘s freedom. That was their demilitarized zone, a patch of land untouched and unused by man or woman. But Adam was always an impetuous adventurous young man and snuck in to admire the beauty of the wild garden and cultivate different herbs and mushrooms in the magical place. He had created a hybrid of cannabis and special mushrooms which would one day in the future of the world play a large part in Moses having his “conversation” with God. But for now Adam kept the mind enhancers secret as he was not supposed to be in that area. In fact, no one else was either, but as it would happen, or perhaps as it was destined to happen, a female had also found solace in the forbidden garden zone.
So it was that on this one particular day everything would change forever. Adam was tending his plants in solitude when he swore he heard splashing water. Following the delicate splash sounds Adam came across a small waterhole in which a young lady was bathing in the nude. Not recognizing her from his tribe he assumed she must belong to the Shepherds. Those slightly whiter skinned people who smelled of animal shit. At first he was turned off but when he looked closely at her he noticed something strange. Aside from her large woman bumps she looked much like his own kind did only fairer in skin and hair. She had a pale complexion but much of her face was obscured by long bouncing colorless curls of thick hair. He liked the way her hair reflected the light of the sun across her face allowing only her eyes of deep turquoise which sparkled like evening stars and tiny button like nose and full lips in full view. He began to get a tingling in his loins because he found her oddly attractive and his fig leaf moved seemingly on its own. He became entranced as she bathed, water glistening off her white full breasts. The sight of her cherry nipples made his stomach a tad queasy. But not a bad queasy, a kind of happy tingling. He spied her with great delight and even began to wonder if she was like the women of Aggies in other ways. He felt that youthful familiar rising in his loins that cause men to lose control of their senses. He imagined her enjoying the pleasures of sex with him like the young women of his own tribe. He fantasized making wild unbridled passionate love to her. Considering the times perhaps it was bridled sex, but whatever, she made him hard and horny as all….. For lack of a better term, all Hell.
Adam continued tending and sampling his unusual cultivation’s but that was merely his fake excuse to return. Of course Adam had already decided he would return to cop a view everyday, have a quick toke of his and he had inadvertently created what would become the heart and soul of religion……Ritual

To Be Continued Tomorrow

DIVIDED HOME

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My mom always hoped I’d make something of myself and had her “list of idea’s” of what I could be. I doubt being an inmate at Rikers Island was even on the list yet it was a remarkably easy goal to achieve. Sorry Mom. But anyway I’m a product of my old boy, my Dad, a working class martini drinking, advice giving, home owner with a white picket fence and a two car garage used for storage. Most families had 2.5 kids which, if my algebra and biology lessons are correct is actually impossible, but my old man bucked the odds by having six kids all of which it turned out were boys. The starting lineup for a hockey team if we could skate. However, I would never make it in any sport. I guess you could say I’m the typical suburban failure. I was the youngest off those boys and my destiny was laid out at birth. I was mom and dads last hope at having a daughter so I came out of my womb a prepaid disappointment. An unwanted middle class kid in a town built on the hopes of a generation that survived World Wars and the great depression and were required to remind us about that at every opportunity. They fled the concrete jungles for a promise of a utopian society. Suburbia, the enchanted land just outside the reach of urban decay my parents grew up in where they could dream of an ideal future. They dreamed of having a girl and I totally fucked up their dream.

I didn’t have to be a constant source of disappointment if they just let me be who I was from the beginning. I’m a cook at a restaurant and love it which the folks could never understand. I did far better in school than my dumb ass older brothers so mom decided I would be a doctor or a lawyer. Dad wanted me to be a football star because I played with the older kids on account of my brothers but I hated sports. Maybe I hated them on purpose to further add to pops disillusionments for me but I would never attain any of the goals they set for me. I wanted to be a romantic, a poet, maybe an actor, or even just a chef. But I fell in with a crowd of buddies who only wanted to be rebel outlaw bikers so all the hopes and dreams mommy and daddy had for me went floating down the sewer system on two wheels where rats are king. That’s me, King Rat, the badass boy from Levittown. I earned my street stripes from shoplifting at the mall, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer, and being ready to rumble at the drop of a hat. Ready to fight over just about anything, even making up reasons to kick some ass. If you looked up teenage angst in the dictionary you’d find a picture of me and my crew. Suburban heroes, rebels without causes. But in truth we were suburban hoods, wannabes, not bona fide outlaws, just angry young teens looking to make sense of this so called utopian land that treated us so unfair. The suburbs, the new frontier of the fifties. Land of conformity. So all I can say is why me? Why the fuck am I sitting in a cell at Rikers Island feeling sorry for myself just because I grew up in a divided home?

Let me clear that up a bit, when I say divided home I don’t mean my parents split up, no no no. They had a fine marriage, but we had little money and one shitty loaf of bread and a pound of bologna had to be divided up between six kids and two parents. Yea, Pops wasn’t the thickest branch on his family tree, probably because he spent more time screwing mom and having kids than climbing any corporate ladders, so he only brought home enough bacon for a family of four that Moms had to stretch for a family of eight. So with Dad’s mediocre salary and a bunch of hungry kids we had to divide absolutely everything. There was never any seconds at dinner, sometimes I didn’t even get firsts. Being the youngest of six overactive boys I was at the bottom of the food chain. The wildebeest of the dinner table hoping to have enough time to graze a few morsels before the stampede. That’s how shit got divided. I ate dinner in like five minutes, wolfing it down before any of the older wolves finished and started to pick from my plate. We weren’t poor, just divided. I lived in a room divided by imaginary boundary lines set up by three older brothers, leaving me trapped in the crappiest real estate of a four bed suite the same size as a normal kids single room. Maybe that helped me cope with my current situation of sharing tight quarters with three other guys. Or maybe Mom and Dad were preparing me for my destiny but that’s what I mean by divided family.

Doesn’t matter, you play the hand your dealt and make the best of it. I was dealt the lowest card on the totem pole so I did whatever I had to do to get noticed, to be heard over the raging hormones of my big brothers. Johnny was the oldest so he got the benefit of being first in line. The newest clothes, the biggest dinner portions, and a monopoly on Dads time. Brian, or Legs was the next in line, the tall athletic son who used up whatever pride Pops had leftover from Johnny because he played sports. Jimmy, Bob, and Danny shared the middle child status where they existed in relative obscurity and devoted much of their time to teasing me or kicking my ass just for kicks. And holy shit could they kick! They happily and democratically divided that chore up pretty evenly. And then at the end of the line, at the bottom of the barrel came me, a virtual omnipresent bruise. Apparently when I was born the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck so I came out of the womb all blue. It earned me the envious nickname “Blueboy” which everyone called me for so long I’m not sure if anyone remembered my real name, Thomas. But that’s me with a nickname that stuck like Beaver Cleaver. Blueboy O’Brian, destined to a life of crime for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just glad they didn’t call me O’Blueboy.

 

Levittown wasn’t a particularly tough town as far as suburban towns go, but it was a town where appearance was everything. Parents spent more money on giving the appearance of being well off than they did feeding or clothing their kids. Like half the kids around town we starved so the family could drive around in a new big Chrysler and dress in high suburb fashion. Us angry teens on the other hand didn’t give a shit about looking rich we only cared about how tough we were, like the street gangs of the big city. Another disadvantage for me, Blueboy was not the toughest nickname around but what could I do, it has always stuck. One benefit was having a nickname, because everyone who was anyone had a nickname. My best friends were Red, Snots, and Digger. Red with a full head of bright orange curls, Snots with his ever runny nose, and Digger, the braniac who tried top dig a whole in his back yard all the way to China so he could run away. When I really think about it none of them that much better than Blueboy, but no matter, we were who we were and we were four young lads with tough ass nicknames preparing for an island adventure. Rikers Island.

We started out our lives of crime on a small scale, just selling a little weed here and there and reselling some stolen items from the mall. But we were hungry for more. Digger had a BB gun and Red had an idea. We planned to rob a Dairy Barn Store in Bayside Queens. It sounded brilliant, Dairy Barns were isolated drive up stores that sold basically dairy items, but you could also buy cigarettes, soda’s, just about anything you might find at a 7/11 store. We would drive up in Slots Rambler and Red would hold the BB gun on the dude inside the store. Me and Digger would run into the store and grab anything we could sell while the unsuspecting cashier would relieve the cash register of its contents into a bag and casually hand it to Red. I sensed trouble right at the start. The Cashier looked at Red and said, “That ain’t nothing but a damn BB gun boy.” Red was quick on his feet, “Oh yea? You want I should shoot out one of your eyes with this high powered BB gun? Why don’t you just shut the fuck up and put the money from the cash register in a bag there and hand it over.” The cashier didn’t look very impressed as he pointed to a sign that said “Store under surveillance” about the same time Slott’s Rambler stalled out. I tripped as I entered the store and Digger fell on top of me. “There’s a camera right here you assholes. Who the fuck thinks robbing a Dairy Barn is a smart idea? You assholes are going down.”

Slotts tried in vain to get his car running, Digger and I scrambled to our feet and the dark of evening soon became drenched in flashing red and blue lighting. About that time I thought I probably shouldn’t have brought the bag of weed with me while committing a crime. “Put your weapon down and your hands up!” Red dropped the BB gun to the ground, Digger peed his pants, and Slotts finally got his car started and in a panic hit the accelerator while putting it in drive slamming into the fence four feet in front of him. We would eventually be tagged as “The gang that couldn’t drive straight” by the local newspapers but for now we just learned a few new legal terms. Intent, transference, and armed robbery

 

So anyway, that’s how I landed this all expense paid trip to the Island to include housing. I have three roommates. They look mean and nasty but I think they’re all nice guys deep down. Theres Shredder here who I assume works in an office, and Knuckles, who I’m a bit unsure of. The real big guy over there calls himself “Hammer” and he calls me Blue Balls instead of Blueboy which he thinks is hilarious. Tell you the truth I don’t really mind that…..”YO BLUE BALLS. GET ON OVER HERE ITS HAMMER TIME!”…oh, gotta go, that’s Hammer now. My culinary knowledge and training suggests he wants me to teach him how to make pie crust. Why else would he have brought such a large jar of Crisco with him? Until next time guys, peace out.

Blueboy O’Brian

 

 

 

 

In Praise Of Punnery

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pun

 

 

I just want to profess my love for one of humors most clever yet looked down of art forms. People say that puns are the lowest form of humor you could buy. That makes no cents. It seams (A hem) to me the higher a person is, the funnier the pun appears to be and the harder they laugh. You’ll get no boo’s if you give then booze. Or whatever else will raise the level of the pun to cause the funny bones to be so humerus. I for one am a huge oscillating air blower of punnery. It takes a clever use of word twisting, timing, and structure to create a successful pun play. There is an art to doing it correctly, if a pun is too loose it won’t fit in to your punch line and if it’s to tight you won’t be able to pull it off. (Ahem)

So next time you hear someone say that puns are the lowest form of humor, get them high. Then maybe they can take their hang ups out of the closet and give a few chuckles. Some good home groan will make them grown and shake their head for sure. In the meantime, keep punning and keep laughing, humor comes in all shapes and sizes and its all good…PEACE

 

FLEXAS

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flexas

Breaking news from JT Hilltop reporter for RUSCNN (R U Stoopid Cable News Network) the leading 24 hour Snooze News on cable.

In a dramatic move both Texas and Florida have seceded from the United States of America to form the commonwealth of Flexas. (pronounced flex ass) Both former states claim they are called Flexas because they are flexing their 1st 2nd and 13th amendment muscles to break away from the dictatorship of the presidency. They have officially declared war on the USA and the former Texans have launched an all out attack on worker bee’s, taking especially sadistic pleasure in the destruction of the Africanized killer bee’s. Their army is led by General Anesthesia who claimed, “We’ll show this communist fascist socialist sommofabitch country what real drone strikes is all about !” while in former Florida citizens have armed themselves to the tooth with weapons. “We aims to stand are groun no matter what!” Former Florida took even bolder action after bingo hour and ran all the scientists out of the commonwealth. General Dee Nyer explains, “We will put an end to all the icecap and glacier melting worries by removing both ‘global warming’ and ‘climate change’ from the already limited vocabulary of Flexans.
The new Flexas flag is all red with a pair of crossed six shooters in-between the motto’s “Stand Our Ground” and “Don‘t Trend On Us“. The Whitehouse could not be reached for a comment but reliable sources tell me there was a loud echoing din of laughter and a number of choruses of and I quote, “Don’t Mess With FlexaS” from the West Wing.
If you missed any of the story have no fear, our network promises to bring in experts, people with ridiculous opinions, political strategists for both parties, and will explain the story over and over again ad nauseum until another story comes along we can beat to death. This is JT Hilltop, R U Stoopid news….

ONE SHOT….8 Mile (an hour)

On By Terrapin - The JourneyIn Uncategorized4 Comments

one shot

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity for a life reboot to seize everything you ever wanted, one moment. Would you capture it, or just let it slip. Yo

His hands are wrinkled, knees arthritic, palms sweaty and paralytic
Moms spaghetti he’ll discard again
There’s vomit on his cardigan, oops he slipped out a fart again, hope it doesn’t spot again
He’s quiet and nervous cause it was during church service
So he pretends it was gods purpose
But he dropped a bomb and he keeps forgettin
He keeps on sweating and just can’t remember
So he wrote it down and the nursing crowd gets so loud
He opens his mouth but nothing comes out
He’s choking, I’m not joking’ better get Heimlich I think he’s croaking
He’s bout to lose himself, the moment got to own it

Okay, no more M&M Bee Rabbit parodying, down to serious business

What if you could go back and change one thing from your past? Would you? And which moment? Of course you could go back to that time you took your first drink, or first joint, or not meet the person who introduced you to drugs but chances are it would only re-occur again at some other point. You could not meet and marry that one person who you regret but it may mean not having had some beautiful children, or maybe you would have been drawn to someone who did you even worse. So when a good friend asked me what I would change if I could go back and change only one thing from my past to make my present life better I had no answer. I told him “I don’t take much stock in that Wonderful Life George Bailey could have made a huge difference bullshit” Then it struck me because one of the words I used in my answer caused me to have a change of heart. The word stock. Like stock in Apple? No, I would’ve made a lot money but that’s not a paradigm shift. Stock up on Karma? Good thought, but no. It was Woodstock. How much would my life have changed if my older brother took me to Woodstock??

If I had an opportunity to go back into my timeline to make one adjustment I would choose to go back to Long Island when I was 14 and my brother was 17 smack him upside the head to tell him take his little brother to that little rock concert in upstate New York. It was almost his duty. Besides, as my big brother he was aware that my birthday was in July and Woodstock would have been the birthday present of the century. Granted at the time it only seemed as though it would be just another outdoor rock concert not the society altering rock statement of all time, but even so he should have taken me. Not that I hold it against that teenage piece of dogshit on my shoe excuse of a brother for not realizing how important it was but it kinda is on a big brothers job description. Like #1 rule, teach your little brother about coolness.

I admit that at the time I was grounded for some lame excuse my parents invented, or maybe I screwed up but that’s not what’s important. This rock concert loomed far more profound than mere parental acquiescence and would have been worth a groundation for the rest of the summer as far as I‘m concerned. At 14 years old I was ready for a Woodstock transformation. I had already made the leap from pop music to rock over a year ago when a friend in my eighth grade shop class lent me this album of his brothers by Iron Butterfly. Adios Monkees and Cowsills, hola psychedelic rock. As if the bands name itself wasn’t cool enough it had one long psychedelic song with swirling organ riffs, a killer drum solo, and some hard as hell guitar playing. Inna Gadda Da Vida! Not just music I was also building up a tolerance to cheap beer (Piels, Shlitz, PBR etc.), I knew how to remove the stems and seeds from reefer (using the album cover of Iron Butterfly) and how to portion off chunks of hash for optimal smoking pleasure. I wasn’t the best joint roller yet but practice will make perfect. I had tried uppers and downers and was primed and ready for some hallucinogens. What better place to have had my first trip than at Woodstock?

Imagine….. I’m looking around at all the weirdo’s and hippies, love children, flower children, and all the colors. So many colors and perspectives. Bending tangerine tree’s and marmalade endless skies. My brains would leave my head for a while and swirl around observing while my smile muscles stretched themselves to their limits and I would laugh for the entire weekend just taking it all in. The music would have infiltrated me ears to fill up my soul. Sometimes the music would make me dance like no one was watching and other times send me into groovy grooving trance. I would have been lifted to a higher plane, a new dimension of sight and sound absorbing all the cosmic energy the hippie counter culture had to offer. Enlightened, I would have found my Zen at age fourteen while enjoying three days of drugs, sex, and rock and roll. (Since it’s me doing the imagining it was a lot of sex. Really really good sex). I would have had a weekend of constant epiphanies, one after the other that would have left me totally altered, a new person. Basically being at Woodstock would have changed my life dramatically

Not that I was totally without rock and roll experiences I had already been to three concerts before Woodstock came around. Three Dog Night (with Stevie Wonder, Bloodrock, and Seals and Crofts), The James Gang, and Grand Funk Railroad, so it was the perfect opportunity for me to learn about outdoor rock concerts, tripping and what the hippies were all about. A bunch of my friends and I talked about going but it was mostly bravado and wishful thinking. At fourteen resources are limited. But at Seventeen my brother was the perfect age for Woodstock. Unfortunately he and his friends were far more interested in scoring with the ladies than scoring concert tickets for themselves and their little brothers. WTF? I mean they let me play football and baseball with them, they let me hang out after the games with them, hang out at the beach, I did all kinds of shit with the older kids. So why the hell did they not all get together and say “yo Jameson, why don’t we get some tickets for this Woodstock thing and take little JT?” But Nooooooooo! They wanted to get laid instead. (which probably didn’t happen that weekend anyway)

So that’s what I would change if I could go back. That would be my one shot. To force my brother to take me to Woodstock. If that had happened I would have had my first real religious out of body experience and would have converted to Hippieism much earlier than I did. Maybe even become a high (very high at times) priest, or Exalted Guru or something. I coulda been a contender. I would more than likely become focused my studies in some form of music or something or maybe seek the path of a journalist to write about important political happenings in the counter culture. Perhaps I would have been a revolutionary or at least a high (yes, very high at times) functioning member of the Peace Corps. Going to Woodstock is the one thing I can think of that would have truly changed my life. If I had that one shot, one moment to seize everything I wanted it wouldn’t have slipped away, it would have been my life changing moment. Being at Woodstock would have reshaped my entire life. Oh well, at least I have a plethora of Grateful Dead concerts on my cosmic resume…. What would you do?
PEACE

The Miracle On Thirty Fourth Steep

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easter I

Following is an excerpt from the Twisted Tale’s Easter special version of the story of creation focusing on Jesus. The God Cosmo had found his companion Mary Anne pregnant with the gods son. When the time came for them to send their son down to the global spinning garden of earth they switched out their real son with the “virginal” birth child Cosmo had impregnated into the unsuspecting Mother Mary in a dream. Their child had been trained his entire life to take over as the son of God Cosmo and spread the word. ……….. The saga continues:

The Miracle On Thirty Fourth Steep

Now it was time for part two, the long awaited Jesus bait and switch. The real Jesus had been trained and taught what to do and now had to set out an find about a dozen disciples to help him get the word of Cosmo out and fulfill his Dad‘s prophecies. Fake Jesus was extremely confused but he took to Mary Anne’s tremendous maternal instincts. Besides that she had lots of computer games left from real Jesus so it made his identity theft a bit easier to swallow. Real Jesus on the other hand really had his work cut out for him. It’s not easy making friends when you’re a long haired unemployed sandal wearing guru who introduces himself as the Messiah. But that’s what Jesus was expected to do, make everyone believe he was put in this garden to save the farm. While strolling around near the sea of Galilee he met two men named Andrew and Peter.
It took a considerable amount of convincing and a round or two of his “Jesus weed” smoke but the two new friends finally came around. Apparently a rumor had been traveling the grapevine about some son of God or something like that so they agreed to follow Jesus to hear and spread his teachings. They had some drinking buddies who worked down on the shore fishing which Jesus thought would be a great place to find new followers. With his fantastic personality and great training from Mary Anne it wasn’t long before he had a handful, twelve to be exact, of happy J-weed toking admirers who were willing to call themselves the disciples. They sat cross legged in a large circle to introduce themselves to the newfound cult. The J-man took center stage “My Name is Jesus, son of the god Cosmo. I was raised by a Jewish carpenter who taught me his trade. It’s a complicated situation I will do my best to explain. Joseph raised me as my Dad but my real father, my biological father that is, is God Cosmo creator of the Garden Earth He sent me to this planet to teach man how to live correctly. Humans have strayed from the path of God Cosmo’s circle of life by creating wars, killing creatures they don’t like, and generally fucking up the entire landscape and acting like the garden belongs to them not to every living creature. So in a way I’m here to save you from yourselves. If you guys follow me, listen and learn from me, then together we can go back to following the natural laws of life and survival. Any questions?” Of course a litany of questions rang out like “Does that mean I don’t have to serve in the military? Can we still have sex? You mean we can’t kill any animals? Etc.” Jesus held up his right hand which would soon become his signature move. “Okay, okay, I get it, you all have a lot of questions. Let me just put it this way. If you follow me and do as I say you will all live happy and lets just call it totally fulfilled lives. Now in the spirit of Disciples Anonymous let’s hear who you are and what your names are because I think we’ll be hanging together for a long time here.

Each man stood to introduce themselves. “My name is Simon, sometimes known as Peter but that’s a long complicated story. Suffice to say it’s sometimes advantageous to have an alias. My brother and I met Jesus up the road there and had a long conversation that makes total sense. I have chosen to become a disciple. I want to follow and see this world get back to where it should be.” Next Andrew stood, “I’m Peters brother Andy, or Andrew if you prefer and I too want to follow.”Some of the guys were either being coy or were properly shy, “I’m James and I‘m ready” ..“ Me too, I’m John” ….“My name is Bartholomew but you can just call me Bartman. I believe in Jesus” …“I am Phillip, you can be my body guard and you can call me Al.” Of course there is always a devils advocate, even within the disciple community, “My name is Thomas and I must admit I am somewhat skeptical but I’m willing to give this guy a shot. But as I said, my name is Tommy, not the see me feel me Tommy but Tommy the suspicious. Scratch that, I’ll stick with Thomas but I have my doubts.” Next a burly bearded Fisherman’s Weekly correspondent stood, “ I be Mathew, or the Matt Man, and unlike the doubting Tommy boy here I trust in Jesus. I plan to one day scribe his biography.” A meek voice came next, “My name is James too, but to avoid confusion just call me Jimbo.” Nearing the end at last, “Ah… my name is like Thaddeus, no jokes please I‘ve been getting shit about my name since kindergarten so please call me Thad.” Only two disciples left, “Well this is awkward, my name is Simon too. I guess I’m gonna ask other Simon if you can stay with Peter to avoid confusion.” And finally the twelfth and last man stood. He was a fisherman but he also had a part time gig as a charriot salesman and was believed to have invented the term Sleazy Sale. “Hey Y’all, I’m Judas. Judas Iscariot and I do believe in Jesus and all his teachings. I will follow him and listen and obey. You are my liege, my lord Jesus, and I will be a faithful servant unto you to the end.” With a sardonic smirk Judas surveyed the group then directly at Jesus……“Trust me.”
So it was set that the J-man had a fresh set of disciples ready to go out and shake up the garden earth. It had been quite stressful on Jesus getting to this point so the J-man decided he was due some relief with ba little R&R. He went to a house of ill repute to choose a prostitute with which to help him relieve his pent up emotions. Her name was Mary (What Another Mary?) Magdalene and she did for Jesus what Jesus’ mother had done for Cosmo. She spent hours very skillfully extracting every ounce of seminal fluid in his body and did things to him he had only had wet dreams about before. She was satisfied beyond her expectations as well, I mean who wouldn’t with Jesus being half god and all, and she had a never ending smile pasted to her cheeks. Mary sensed more than mere sexual satisfaction she felt a deep connection to Jesus who instead of falling asleep afterward began describing his purpose in the garden. Mary noted some remaining stress, “Try not to get worried, try not to turn on to problems that upset you oh. Don’t you know everything’s all right yes everything’s fine, let the world sleep without you tonight.” Maybe it was the sexual explosions or maybe it was her tenderness, but it touched Jesus deeply. Oh, and also she literally touched him deeply again. Jesus feel more calm and relaxed than ever before yet physically aroused. “Mary I haven’t been totally honest with you.” The J-pole sprang up to make an exclamation point, “Not only am I here to save the garden earth, but I am also the son of a god. I have a posse of 12 dudes with me and we are going to change the world. So I was thinking, would you like follow as well?” Stroking this half god’s erection things became clear to her. No wonder she had multiples! Knowing she was in for some more orgasms she smiled even wider until the 12 dudes comment struck her. Worried she was being asked to pull a 12 car train in the caboose she glared at him suspiciously. “Are you saying I should follow you or do you expect me to do what I’m about to do with all 12?” Jesus shook his head an laughed, “No, of course not, its just me and you in that way. By the way, the sex has to be our little secret. On the surface we need to appear righteous and free of sin. In private, well anything goes baby.” Mary smiled. “Okay Jesus, I’ll follow you and be your maiden.” She skillfully guided him into her forest as they entered into hour five of non stop sex. After climaxing for the umpteenth time Mary Magdalene mumbled to herself, “Changing the world huh? Ha, and they said I would never amount to anything. Wish my friends could see me now!”

Now Jesus had his core group set. At the head was Jesus himself, secretly giving head was Mary the repentant sinner, and his new band of twelve merry men strolling through the countryside giving motivational speeches and teaching classes on how to live the natural laws of life. He made a quick name for himself with people all over the Middle East talking about the son of Cosmo. That was great but he needed something big, something real big. Something that would put him over the top and get him noticed throughout the entire garden. He needed a miracle!
His real Mom Mary Anne offered another bait and switch, this time a more obvious one. “I have an idea that should work like a charm honey.” There was a high profile wedding at Thirty Fourth Steep, a high maintainence valley outside of Galilee to which both he and his mother had been invited. It was a kick ass affair but the celebration had run out of Ernest and Julia’s Galilee jug whine. Mary Annes came to Jesus and whispered, “Honey, we’re ready, they’re all out of wine, are you ready?” Jesus was indeed ready, he had four gallons of wine hidden behind a tree. He spoke very loud so all could hear what he was saying, “Peter bring me some water.” While his Mom created a distraction Jesus switched jugs with the water Peter had brought and soon the party continued with all in attendance believing he had changed the water into wine. Now the J-ster had mad street cred’s. It was all anybody talked about for the next two weeks. “Did you hear about this guy Jesus? I heard he took a gallon of water and turned it into 20 gallons of preamo whine. An urban legend was forming and it got bigger as it grew. 20 turned into 40. 40 into 100. Soon he not only turned water into wine and brought 10 huge pigs to BBQ. He carried them across the river on his shoulders! It was incredible. Everywhere you went you heard about this dude named Jesus, his hooker girlfriend, and his 12 faithful followers roaming the world feeding the poor, healing the sick, and stopping wars in the name of the god Cosmo. The towns and villages were abuzz with hope for their future. Everyone was elated. Well not really everyone. Remember that dude Herod, and the salad loving Caesar? They were none to happy. Neither in fact was the hierarchy of the Jewish religion. Seems like Jesus was gonna have some splainin’ to do to the Romans as well as the Jews. Apparently hey don’t like having their authority challenged. Something evil was afoot…TBC

Living La Vida Existential

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exi strip

Is your belief system stressing you out with too many demands? Why not try Living La Vida Existential. Belief systems are so difficult to maintain these days with all the rules and regulations and the conflicting messages. My creator all mighty its hard maintaining any religion these days. I mean love thy neighbor, unless they’re gay, no unmarried sex unless you wear religious garments, a bunch of commandments to uphold, just way too much work remembering how to make the verse from whatever your good book happens to be to fit into the desired result. Are you tired of having to go to a house of worship once a week? Got bruises on your knees from too much kneeling? Maybe you’re tired of having to admit the evil rule breaking you committed during the week to an obscure stranger in a dark box? Are you looking for a belief system that doesn’t cost you so much money, even going as far as having baskets shaken in your face shaming you into giving up your hard earned cash? Does your religion make so many demands on you want to scream, “I’m mad as the burning afterlife and I’m not gonna take it anymore.”? Or scare the actual Hell out of you by threatening to send you straight to Hell? Would you like to stop having to fold your hands and talk to yourself before bed, listen to your stomach growl with hunger while everyone has to wait for that one person to say grace? If so, then Living La Vida Existentialism may be right for you. For a limited time you too can become an Existentialist and throw away all the categories and labels religions place on you. It’s easy, all you have to do is believe in yourself. So hurry, this offer expires when you do so act now!

Thousands of people have been turning away from the out-dated teachings of organized religion. If you like belonging to a group but would prefer something more modern, more flexible and reasonable maybe its time for change. Why not considered Living La Vida Existential? Being an existentialist is fun and easy to do, plus it free’s you of all those pesky tenet requirements of organized religions. The best part is you can do it in your spare time in the privacy of your home or office, or even while texting from the bathroom. Not only that, it cost no money and is open to absolutely everyone, no experience required. All that is required is an open mind, and you already have a mind so wait no longer. Open it up to a world of possibilities. Forget all those ugly theological labels, like gay abominations, lustful coveters, or sinners in the war on god. Existentialism is skin color blind, gender blind, and practices actual non judgmental living, not the phony non-judgmentalists who pray and point their finger calling others names (No, pray was not a misuse, its a play on words. Its okay to joke when your existential) Sexual orientation remains your business in existentialism. Its all about living your life the way it should be, free of all the garbage that has built up over the ages such as attempting to explain the unexplainable with cartoon precision. Wile E. Coyote can paint a usable tunnel because its The Roadrunners will. Don’t involve yourself in a which came first argument, the egg and the chicken arrived simultaneously and have always been. We are here and we are alive, what difference does it make when we first came to be here on this planet? Be fair, be just, and forget about judging others, just enjoy life while your living it. No need to condemn your neighbors and call them unholy, that won‘t help you live well. No need to force others to believe what you believe either. Why you don’t even need to exclaim to the world that existentialism is the one true religion, and practitioners of any religion other than that is an express ticket to damnation. Its not a religion, it’s a REALigion.

Actually, its not a religion at all, it’s a philosophy, more like Hakuna Matata, or Karmic Existence. It’s a very common misconception, existentialists are often misunderstood, sometimes even by other existentialists. They are not nihilists or anarchists, not Pagans or polytheists, not occultists or Satan worshipers. Nor are they atheists, although by strict definition most existentialist are Atheist, just not practicing Atheists. No need to go to an anti-church and praise scientific logic, deny God, or sing songs like “Imaginary Grace” or “The Old Rugged Death Penalty”, just accept that there is an abundance of ignorance in the world and let those who don’t get life have their bliss.

Existentialism is a philosophical belief not a faith. Many people today are jumping on the ex tr ain because its believed that existentialist are clever intellectuals that speak in profound quotes of some of the more famous existentialists. “I think therefore I am”, “He thought therefore he was“ “He will think therefore……” you get it. . While most of us are indeed very clever, we are no a bunch of beret wearing brainiacs who sip cappuccinos at cafes and discuss matters of global implications. You don’t need to be a college graduate and read every work of Kierkegaard, Sartre, or Kant. Many existentialists are just average people whose beliefs do not fit in to a mainstream belief that we were all created by the one true creator be it God, Yahweh, Jumping Jehovah, Allah, or He-Man Master of the Universe. We don’t need a structured religion to explain to us how we should live our life, what will happen to us if we don’t follow the rules, what happens when we die, and who is the one we must consider to be superior to everyone and everything in the universe even though we are the tiniest speck of a planet in an unimaginable vastness. Simply, everyone is equal and deserves equal respect. That’s not to say we can‘t believe in divinity.

Existentialism does not rule out the possibility of a creator although for the majority if there is a creator its nothing like the one most of us were force-fed as children. No all-knowing all-seeing god who demands praise from everyone, sitting on a metaphoric throne waiting for us to come to him. No angels waiting up in a gated paradise community playing incessant harp music in the clouds as we ascend to heaven. But that’s not to say that some form of energy or entity didn’t have a hand in getting the ball rolling so to speak. For existentialists it’s a little clearer than believing a magic image in the sky that is watching over everyone to make sure we behave. It seems a bit arrogant of a god to take credit for all the good shit that happens but then when the fecal matter hit’s the oscillating rotary alter everything goes to, pardon the expression, Hell in a hand basket. No waving of the hand explaining things away by way of mysterious ways being worked we’re apparently not clever enough to understand. That kind of deck stacking would have you banned from every casino from here to the Netherworld. It’s more about a cycle of life, we’re born, we live our life, then we die. We exist in that cycle just the same as every non worshiping living thing on earth. I can’t prove this but I firmly believe bacteria do not worship any pathogen gods or pray in any amoebic temples yet they live the same cycle we do. The bottom line is everything lives, everything evolves, and everything dies. Respect all life.

We all accept that others lived before us, and others will live after us, and in every religion death is an accepted stage. However temporary, whether it leads to paradise, another life, another stage of existence, a box bed covered with dirt, a reduction to ashes in an urn, or pure nothingness it happens to us all. What occurs after death we tend to disagree, but everyone pretty much agrees death is imminent. Except maybe Donald Trump, he believes he can build his own tower in heaven greasing the almighty palm enough to buy himself a private room in eternity. Trump eternal? Talk about living Hell! But we exist in the here and now and frankly if there is a god it will have zero effect on how I choose to live my life, which by the way is far more Christian than most Christians I know. Maybe they should actually read the entire bible and not just the parts they enjoy bragging about. I mean really, what is religion anyway?

.
Religion is described as an organized collection of beliefs, cultural systems, and world views that relate humanity to an order of existence. That makes your religion a random happenstance, an accident of geographic birth not very different from gender, or class. Existentialism is relatively simple. Our existence precedes our essence leading us to an understanding that the self is what’s important, that we are merely tiny specks on tiny cogs in a vast and complex universe. It gives us the ability to defy classification, especially when it comes to religion. Its what’s in our hearts and our minds that matters. Live your best life, treat others as you wish to be treated, help out your fellow humans when they are in need, share and do not judge how others live their lives. Live and let live. Many religions claim to teach those principles yet they condemn others for their lots in life. Its hard for me to get behind a religion that tells you we are all of Gods children then tells you if you’re gay you are an abomination. Clearly forgetting judge not lest ye be judged. It irks me to see a person on social media claim their love of God and tell me how blessed we are and how we should rejoice in one post on social media, then spew hatred at someone because their politics are different than a friend (or ex-friend once politics enters the relationship) in the next. Unfortunately it seems we live in an age of rage, intense hypocrisy, especially among the holy rollers. Religion shouldn’t allow you to feel superior, but humble. Unfortunately most religions fall far short on the humble. This is the main reason most existentialist show distain for religions.

So that’s my take on existentialism, not right for everyone but especially handy if you’re a recovering Catholic, a confused protestant, a paranoid closet Muslim, or a doubting Hindi. Practice whatever damn religion you want but before you continue your religious commitment take existentialism for a test ride around the block. Terms and conditions do not apply, no scrolling past a million words to reach an I Agree button. If your still unsure, ask your clergy if existentialism is right for you. Wait! Check that, better if you just ask yourself the way I did.

I was born scraping and scratching my way through life and now I’ve reached a point where death becomes more and more imminent every day. One of the cruel jokes of life is when we finally much of living is bullshit we are too tired to live the life we should. We allowed money to be the center of our lives, putting us not in a solar system like every other living thing, but an economic system in which we all revolve around money. I should stop before I become more like the people I’m ranting about! Damn, looks like my equine ride has been puffing my weed again. Time for me to get down of my high horse. PEACE

Doing A Few Lines, And Line Cooks

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after mimi

Potsink Diaries
Leaving Mimi Dee’s was hard but I had to do it. I was smoking way too much weed, I had affairs with three women and got caught. I got too close to the edge having cheated myself out of a great relationship with a great chick. Carrie would never talk to me again and honestly I didn’t blame her. If I wasn’t stuck with me I’d never talk to me either, but it is what it is. Or was. I found myself in a new relationship with a new job so now and its time to man up and act like an adult. Me, an adult? Not sure that can work but I had to at least give it a go. I applied for and got a job as line cook at Moonleaves, a family restaurant in Syosset not far from Mimi Dees. I say line cook. At Moonleaves that had two meanings, one was the cooks line where my sauté station was. I had four entrée’s and two appetizers to prepare and plate during service. The other line cook was all the cooks doing lines. I never saw so much white powder in my life! It was as though the entire staff snorted a gram a day. Pot, pills, and cocaine flowed so freely it was more like a drug mart than a restaurant. Dishwashers, busboys, waits staff, cooks, just about everyone in the kitchen did drugs and the manager was a raging alcoholic too drunk to notice.
The amount of total degradation there was astounding, cooks banging waitresses in the storeroom, oral sex among the glass racks, even an area specifically reserved for gay sex. You could watch, partake, or just ignore, your choice. It was the Sodom an Gomorrah of the restaurant world and this was the mid 70‘s, the decade of decadence and drugs. Pot was smoked constantly out by the dumpsters, pills were exchanged openly, lines of coke were cut on sheet pans, and in the walk in refrigerators soup pots of screwdriver and gram jars of cocaine were at the ready. “Freeze Break” meant someone was running into the fridge to take a hit of blow an a swig of vodka and OJ. It’s a wonder we ever got a single meal out let alone get through service of a hundred and forty dinners a night. So much for a serious relationship, I fell into it like a pro, screwing every waitress I could and having my clock cleaned orally twice a week. Yea, line cook and head waitress were ironic terms at Moonleaves.
Even though I was engaging in so much extra curricular I also had begun to actually hone some cooking skills learning to make sauces a la minute and handling a constant litany of ordering and picking up of my food items. I was finally good at something and actually enjoyed doing it, a win-win. Pay for play. I had gotten so good at my station I helped out on the grill when it was overwhelmed, and the other line cooks when they needed a hand. The sous chef was ecstatic because it meant less work for him so he could go back to the glass racks where he would find non culinary satisfaction.
By early December I was beginning to fall apart from all the sex and drugs. I lived with my girlfriend Janet who enjoyed the weed and coke as much as I did. I always reserved some of both for home. It was becoming harder and harder, or sometime not hard at all, to perform sexually with Janet between my indiscretions and the coke both. The staff Christmas party was just around the corner and I could only imagine what a sick fucking party it would be. There wa sure to be tons of party enhancers and lots of parking lot sex. I resisted as best I could at Moonleaves when sex was offered but in the end I wasn’t the most faithful of lovers. No way I could bring Janet the party to meet the waitresses I have been with. I know Janet didn’t like me working there, and for good reason she was jealous. I was juggling it all really well, barely balancing sex at home and Moonleaves by never allowing the two to overlap. Repeated requests to meet my “friends at the restaurant” were deflected and redirected. Janet wasn’t stupid and even though I was a “strapping young stud” I could only handle so much. Besides, a girlfriend always knows, whether it’s the distant scent of perfume from a tryst hours ago or just the way we kiss. Putting passion into a kiss is like a fingerprint to a woman, and Janet was quite a woman. “JT, either you take me to the Christmas party to meet your friends or I’m going to eat there everyday.” Trapped like the rat fink I was.
I needed to figure out how to keep Janet from the restaurant. My two separate lives were on a collision course and the explosion would surely destroy both worlds. A plan was hatched. Let me just put a touch of perspective on this, I have hatched an enormous number of plans and from that maybe a handful have worked in my favor. This one had all the earmarks of being amongst the majority of failures. What logic I found in asking Janet to marry me as a way to get out of this would confound Einstein. But that was the plan, to buy a ring, ask Janet if she’ll marry me, an tell her we could get married sometime next year. I believed it would give me time to figure out a balance. Now I just had to figure out how to balance the news to Trudy, the waitress who sort of became my work girlfriend, the one waitress I had become exclusive with at Moonleaves. I know she is planning something huge for us at the Christmas party that involved a jello bath and some Quaaludes so I decided I could wait until after the party which now Janet won’t feel a need to go to. I’ll tell her its not a “party” party but more like we all just sit down to dinner together. Weak at best, but I was convinced of my own schmoozing abilities.
Janet was prepared for the usual argument surrounding Moonleaves and the staff party so it caught her totally off guard when I handed her a small box. Her eyes lit up like stadium floodlights, “What is this? JT……What’s in the box?” Girlish excitement was building as her face took on a kid at Christmas look. “Well…..why don’t you open it and see.” Her hands shook fumbling with the box as I positioned myself on my knee in front of her timing my request in perfect unison with the opening, “Janet, will you marry me?” She jumped up screaming, her hands flailing wildly, “Oh my God yes, yea of course JT, of course I’ll marry you.” We embraced while Janet allowed tears to flow freely, tears of happiness and even I got caught up in the frenzy. After kissing me a dozen times or so I became unimportant, “I’ve got to tell my Mom, and my sister, and…” She rattle off a number of her besties while the depth of what I had just done sunk in. Jesus shit, what have I done? Not sure I thought this one through.
Janet and I made love that night, with extreme emotion and reckless abandon. It was the wildest sex the two of us had in a very long time. Four times before we finally collapsed in exhaustion. The party had not come up in conversation once and now I’m not so sure I played this right. I will most likely need to opt out of the party all together to concentrate more on how to keep work and home separate on a more permanent basis. I would need to tell everyone at Moonleaves I was engaged which would change things drastically. I could still do the drugs, but the sex had to stop. Maybe it was for the better anyway.
The second I got to Moonleaves I was prepared to tell everyone of my wedding plans, but Trudy had other idea’s. Trudy was a hot an very sexy chick, not the kind of girl you bring home to Mama. With long straight jet back hair and the sexiest eyes alive! She wore a ton of make up which she didn’t really need because she was real pretty. But the make up made her look intensely sexy, like the woman that grabs you by your libido and forces you to surrender to her will. Thick black eyeliner, huge curled eyelashes, a deep blue swatch above each eye and the reddest lipstick around coating some naturally thick succulent lips. HOT! She put her hands up to my chest, looked deep into my soul with eyes smiling that sex smile that melts my loins. With a playful kittenish demeanor she pushed me toward the glass racks. I should resist, this shit has to stop. Too much drugs and I know Trudy thinks we are boyfriend and girlfriend even though she knows I live with Janet. I mean she lives with her boyfriend so its not like we would ever be together as a couple. That’s it, no more! She pushed my back against one of the racks and I grabbed her cheeks tilting her head up to mine to tell her we can‘t do this. Oh my God she looked so hot and vulnerable. Before I spoke a word her hand wandered down my stomach to my jeans as she undid my belt, then the zipper. Before I knew it I was rock hard on the racks moaning while Trudy gave me the most incredible head ever. When she finished me off she raised her head, kissed me with an open mouth an I hungrily swapped spit with her. “Mmmmm, that was good baby, see you after my shift?” I was no longer thinking no more, I was thinking lets do it again Trudy. “Of course baby, I’ll get a room after service.” I gotta quit this job!!!