Busting A Cap In Your Ass - April '09

Rant #1: Do not be the first one to get out of the elevator or get off the train if you’re going to saunter along at 2 miles per hour in front of me. You should know I’m a fast walker – I’ve painted flames on my shoes to indicate it. So step aside, Slappy, before you get a taste of the pavement.

Rant #2: If you’re under 5 feet tall, you do not have permission to put your seat back on the airplane. It’s unnecessary. And if you let your kid do that, be prepared to donate a kidney to your lil’ munchkin after I rupture his with a sharp blow from my patella.

We lived in Northlake for a couple years when I was a kid and I remember driving past a music club called The Thirsty Whale. They had the coolest sign – a giant bloated whale, and when I reached my teens I’d read about the bands playing there in the free weekly entertainment rag I’d pick up from the record store. I knew it had to be one of the greatest places in the world and I envied all the people old enough to take a Jonah-like journey into the belly of my imagined nirvana. Then finally, one day, in 1990 I had the opportunity. In all honestly I had probably forgotten all about the place, but one of the crazier chicks I worked with was dating a musician, of course, so I would be her date for the evening until Theater finished their set, at which time I would tender her vinyl-clad bod to the nasty bass player in leather pants and mascara. Not only did I seem to be getting the raw end of that deal, but the club was kind of a letdown as well. I never went back and they tore it down in 1996.

The older I get the more I like Steely Dan. It’s something that I’d make fun of someone else for admitting, so go ahead, let me have it. Even worse is that it reminds me of Red Lobster. I bartended there for a few months after college and they played the same damn tape every day, which included Peg. In a desperate move to find relief I eventually let a live lobster from the fish tank in the lobby claw my eyes out. I never said I was smart. There was a reason I was working at Red Lobster after college.

In addition to not posting much lately, I’ve also fallen off on my resolution to catch up on some movies this year. But I did get to watch Dig! which I highly recommend. Just do it. But those numbnuts at Blockbuster kind of screwed it up for me – it’s a two-disc set and they decided to send me Disc 2 of the bonus material first. That’d be like a girl asking you to snuggle before the sex.

An Easter Discussion

Jesus did not go get a burrito first thing after coming back from the dead. They didn't have burritos then. He probably had a matza ball and some gebrattens.

He was JESUS. He could turn a pile of camel shit into a burrito if he wanted to.

I don't know. It's not like he could have whipped out a miracle to do anything he wanted to do. They should have cut off his head instead of crucifying him. Apparently, he could rise from the dead, but he couldn't heal his wounds, since he still had the holes in his hands and feet from the nails and the gash in his side when he came back. They could have taken his head and thrown it into the ocean, leaving the rest of him in the tomb.

When he showed up in heaven, god wouldn't have known who he was - "This can't be right, my son had a head the last time I saw him. Are you sure you aren't Holofernes? How did you get out of hell, you bastard?!"

Unless he compared Jesus' footprints to the footprints the manger medical staff took and put on his birth certificate.

Plus, the beheading would have delayed his return to life because he would have had to take some time to find his head. If he didn’t, the disciples would have had the same doubt god would have had - "You're not Jesus! Where's your head? You’re that bastard Holofernes straight from the crags of hell, aren’t you?! If you really are Jesus, turn my wife's foot into a gefilte fish. Go ahead. I dare you."

Instead of three days, maybe we would have a full week of holiday, which means a full week of boozing if you are anything like the Christians I know.

"Drinkin' thy blood" all week long!

It definitely would have thrown a wrench into the entire religion. And the iconography would have been totally different. Instead of a cross, it could have been a decapitation axe, maybe with drips of blood coming off of it. Do you know how cool that would look hanging on a necklace?

Holy heavy metal religiosity, Batman!

Or maybe an octopus beak.

No, that wouldn’t work unless they killed him with an octopus beak.

But, it would look cool on a necklace.

Yeah, it would.

Jesus would have come back and said something like, "Uh, fellas, yo apostles, I would've been back sooner, but I had to wrestle my head from the beak of an octopus. It took me a while to figure out how to get under the water because I kept walking on the surface out of habit. The trick is in weight distribution. And I can't seem to get my head to stay balanced on top of my neck. Anybody got a staple gun? I'm not setting a very good example as a savior here, am I? I thought they were going to hang me on a cross. Who knew Pontius Pilate was so adept at wielding a battle axe. And jeez, was he ever pissed off. As god as my witness, I never saw it coming. Of course, if god was witnessing me, maybe he could have warned me. You know, 'Look out Jesus, axe at 2 o'clock!' or something like that. My father never loved me. I can't believe he put me through this. I think it's because I throw like a girl. I'm the worst messiah, EVER!"

Stupid, incompetent Romans. They ruined everything. No wonder their empire fell apart.

Yeah, I know.

Scene From An Italian Restaurant

During our first visit to an Italian joint a couple blocks down the street on Sunday evening:

Owner: How-a izza everything tonight?

Sid: Awesome.

Mrs. F’er: This is the best pizza I’ve had since my grandmother died.

Owner: Ah, good – that-a makes us a very happy.

I’m hoping he was referring to the pizza and not her dead grandmother. It's not like she was competing in the same neighborhood.