Japanese Maples

I rent a small, two-bedroom house in SE Portland. If I had to guess–I don’t, so my guess is as good as anyone’s who’s ever fiddled with my toilet’s flusher after dumping fruitfully into a toilet bowl that refuses to properly fill back up–the house is over a hundred years old. My landlord, as I signed the papers he put in front of me, told me of the neighborhood in the early ’70s, stories mostly detailed by rows of Harleys kick-stood awkwardly along the sidewalk and bikers throwing up in their beards before passing out on front lawns. The Horse Brass was a biker bar once, he reminisced, and domestication in Sunnysude was always at odds with the lawn flamingo graveyard of poop-stained outlaws. With probably too much of a glisten in my eyes, I mused: did a biker ever shit his drawers on my lawn? Puke on someone’s head while that someone was blowing him? Of course my mind went there. What sort of debauchery accompanied the pleasant little rise in my lawn’s topography, from sidewalk to porch (giving it ever slighter appearance of a palatial estate, or like a servant’s quarters, guarding something larger and deeper), long before I was ever born? What dirty little ghosts haunt my house?

The house, it’s white in the way bones are: corrugated and phalangeal, not so much just _white_ as it is the color of generation after generation of approximations of white, giving shape to all the incomprehensible stuff on its insides while steeling against everything without, like the dog piss lifted against the porch or the fly carcasses smeared against its windowsills because one night I marched outside and blotted out an entire family with a phone book. If one were to devolve its decades of paint jobs to the bare surface of its siding’s birth, would it even be the same house? Would it even be a house? What fucking else good are phone books for anymore?

I have these two Japanese maples out front. Well, more to the east of the house, set snugly against the porch. I’ve thought they were rather pleasant trees on an otherwise totally bare lawn, but it wasn’t until someone I know who works in real estate gasped, and pointed them out with no small measure of quiet awe: “You could get $20,000 for both, easy. If you could somehow manage to dig them up.” It was then that I first _saw_ the trees. The bases of their trunks are planted so near they could be mistaken for one, but instead their trunks quickly repel from one another, bowing outward…only to relent and return, back side-by-side, practically kissing. Together they make a hoop, a circus ring for dogs to jump through, or, some might even go as far to call, a heart. And this is all fanned over by serrated leaves that, lying across each other just so, give the big fat illusion of softness. What’s more: they’re just so old, as old as the house, maybe even older–because who fucking knows these things. But their size speaks enough; if correctly unearthed, an arborist properly consulted, these puppies would be worth ten grand each. That’s $100 per year lived. I wonder how much Lassie made per episode. In 2013 dollars.

I probably have it backwards: the trees start far apart but reach for one another, never quite touching before springing off into a few mossy tentacles. I don’t remember. They aren’t, after all, my trees, and so I don’t care. If they were mine, I would have named them by now. Here: I’ll name them now. How about Damen and Chuck? If they are women, then Frankie and Beatrice. Leftie and Righty. Oh, I like those last ones best, because only I know from which perspective they’re named, and so I’m pretty much forced into caring about them. Chuck is named after my landlord, so: Leftie and Chuck. They really are a treasure, those trees.

But they aren’t mine, and I have months of trouble attempting to connect with them, and it’s not as if I’ve stood outside and stared them in the roots, understanding why one would be Chuck and the other, deservedly, Leftie. I sense a deep loathing growing within me. On one side of my belly is deep loathing, and on the other is the need to escape, but soon they’ll reach out and almost kiss. Before that I’ll move, before loathing and escape start making out in my gut. And I’ll miss this place; it’s where my stuff lives. But no I won’t.

The Vampire Diaries: LITERALLY Vampires with Diaries, You Guys.

Or: Reading is Fundamental?

Honestly, I feel like you know what this show already is, so let’s just start with the pilot episode and feel this shit out. See what happens…

For the first episode–and really only the first episode–fog is kind of a “thing.”

To most people this would look like two assholes just driving around on a foggy day in Virginia, until the female passenger exclaims, “What’s with all this fog!?”

The easy answer would be: “Well, it’s the mountains.”

What he actually said was: “It should clear up in a sec.”

However: the car then crashes after a silhouette pops up out of nowhere. Out of (and I’m just going to go all-in on this with italics) the fog. They hit the guy, the body goes rolling over the hood, they spin out by the side of the road and flip out, etc. And the scene that follows (with the guy unwisely getting out and the girl not getting cell reception…) is just exactly the scene you’d imagine playing out.

They both wind up vampire-ed.

We then skip to an autumnal-as-all-balls morning–the first day of school actually–narrated with brief soliloquies from our  undead sexy-eyebrow guy (Stefan Salvatore, played by Paul Wesley) and leading doe (Elena, played by Nina Dobrev). The former stares into the sunrise from a domestic rooftop and narrates how he’s come back to town after so long because he “has to know her”; the latter writes in a diary and clears up almost immediately who this mystery “her” is.

And yes, she starts her entries with “Dear diary…”

God. I don’t know. Once you glean that Elena’s parents have died in a car accident, leaving her as soul survivor, with only her younger brother and a short-lived quirky aunt in her life…well, it all plays out about as predictably as the intro.

Let’s zoom out.

There’s not much conflict over what The Vampire Diaries (Creators: Julie Plec, Kevin Williamson) is about.

According to Netflix: “Trapped in adolescent bodies, feuding vampire brothers Stefan and Damon vie for the affection of captivating teenager Elena.”

According to IMDB: “A high school girl is torn between two vampire brothers.”

(Oh, and this is the other brother in love with Elena btw:)

So of course a  smouldering cast of highschoolers (though, ‘adolescent bodies’ is descriptive of no one…)

…anda game of romantic Pong with a kind of “meh” brunette was basically what I expected going in. And it is that. Though, I will front with you: I had no idea the “Diaries” part was so literal.

But it is; The Vampire Diaries actually involves quite a lot of rigorous self-documentation, reflection, and journal-keeping. (Stefan is a boy so he calls them “journals” in the actual scenes.)

These are just Stefan’s, by the way…

Feelings are hard. JOURNAL FACE.

In fact, one of the first significant exchanges occurs after Elena leaves her diary in a cemetery. Where she was writing. In her diary.Why does she leave the diary? Because…

…the fog.

And then… 

…the raven.

By the way: ravens are also a big thing in Vampire Diaries‘ pilot episode.

Anyway, after the fogand the raven Elena runs, leaving her diary behind.

Elena doesn’t seem to realize that her diary is missing; later that night she gets ready to go out to (what becomes the equivalent of Buffy‘s token teen-hangout, The Bronze) The Grill, she’s surprised when she opens the door to find Mr. Journal-Keeping himself…

jk.

It’s this guy:

This is Elena’s surprise-face.

And then Stefan hands Elena her diary…

He assures her he didn’t read it. She is surprised and asks, “Why not?”

He says:

“Well. I wouldn’t want anyone…reading mine.“

  “You write in a journal?

“Yes, memories are important.”

…and she just eyegasms all the fuck over him.

It’s not as good as early- to mid-series True Blood, yet it’s nowhere near a bad as Twilight in that: people have sex, people get killed–a lot of them even killed by the vampires–Elena isn’t completely vacuous as a female character, and her wounded spirit results from the writers actually throwing her some super shitty curveballs.

Also there’s a plot to speak of. Sure, the plot is essentially: “everyone Elena knows, dies (including Elena herself in the current season), while dudes hit on her.” There’s a lot more reflection, handling of addiction and grief, a lot more damage accrued to contend with…and, again, it breaks the genre’s cherry of having a leading lady die/be turned into a vampire.

Turmoil occurs thusly, though the actual journals–the causation for their even being a tender, introspective side to the show–are more sparingly peppered throughout the scenes. Which by the last season are pretty overwhelmed with vampires, “originals,” magical/cursed hunters, witches, hybrids, something called “sire bonds”…

It’s not entirely vapid, just, mostly.

There aren’t “fairies,” so. There’s that.

Oh, also, to add to the “pro” category: while some immortal fellas are given sexy accents and not others, the Dreamy Dudes are all relatively in the same shape. (So’s to incur ‘hubba-hubba’ eyes evenly “across the board”:http://www.homorazzi.com/article/hottest-vampire-diaries-men-shirtless-pictures-ian-somerhalder-matt-davis-paul-wesley-steven-r-mcqueen-zach-roerig/ and so no one’s left with comparative grandpa-chest…)

Like, look at this guy:

…now this guy:

But I digress. Even while deploying some staple romanti-fantasy, there’s an odd returning factor of books/journals and even at the apex of a plot involving sexy babe…

and sexy dude with English accent…

the team gets worked up and…goes to the library to research 16th c. distribution ledgers.

Like I said: you know what this show is.But did you know it all happens in a library?

NERDS.

Just, everything happens in this library.

They flirt in the library…

They drink in the library…

Yeah, I really don’t know what else to say about this show.

Um.

Ha ha, this guy…

Not that Stefan’s so perfect. He has a really inconspicuous “daylight” ring, like something from the set of Roswell.

***

A Few Neither-Here-Nor-There One-Liners:

“It’s the fog, it’s making me all foggy”

“‘Chill it’, is that stoner talk??”

G’night folks!

Illegal Groupon: $295 for $500 Worth of Finger Smelling Buddy Assignment From Stiff Whiff

It should be no secret that finger physiognomy is such that one person possesses ten separate destinies. We mean it: if the fingerprint is a little face, then where it’s stuck, pushed, plumped, or piddled is reflective of its inherent God-given personality. The fingertip is the window to the finger’s soul, after all, so why keep one of those souls curtained and in the dark?

That is, unless it’s the darkness of one’s ear canal or the depths of a lover’s nethers. Today’s Groupon flicks the tip of all your hopes and dreams: $295 for $500 worth of a Willing Sniff-Pal-for-Hire from the Stiff Whiff Association.

Pioneered by Canadian Icon Tom Green in the foothills of Missouri, which, as the firm’s mission statement relates, “is the birthplace of smelling fingers,” Stiff Whiff provides you with a full-time, officially licensed Sniff Pal who will, at any and all times, smell your finger. It may be the middle of the night; it may be during the best man’s speech at your sister’s wedding. Or say you’re on a crowded bus and you’ve been formidably jostled. There’s no telling what anyone could be smelling: make sure your finger finds the right nose. Stiff Whiff guarantees your odor-inhaling buddy will be right by your side, ready to smell whatever happened to accompany your finger on its latest adventure.

Since Stiff Whiff knows it’s more about the smelling than the smell, every Sniff Pal is not so much trained in detecting a subtle bouquet or a delicate effluvium as he or she is schooled in the arts of interjection. Improv comedy’s top talents flock from miles around to teach our candidates an arsenal of countenances–surprise; aghast; the mean-mug; the “donkey bar mitzvah”–and fill their vocabularies with popular phrases. Check out these patented Sniff Pal Reacts:

* “Hey!”
* “Whoa man, that is nasty.”
* “That burned a little.”
* “That burned a lot.”
* “I hate you. So much.”
* “Yeah bro!”
* “How cool!”
* “There is nothing I’d like to do more.”
* And so many more!

Stiff Whiff simply aims to allow a client the safety and freedom to have his or her finger smelled without shame. There’s no need to ever explain away those deep-seated urges; you have fingers, they have needs…and smells. Why not pay for someone to truly appreciate what your knuckles have to offer? Or at least pretend to!

Sniff Pal Testimonials

“I was trying to pay my way through college, so when I heard about Stiff Whiff I applied immediately, keeping secret my birth defect: that I have no sense of smell. Good thing, because my first assignment was a boxer. He’d pummel some poor guy’s face for like an hour then come over to me and yank off his gloves and wraps–and shove his sweaty mitt right up my face-hole. It was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever done. But now I can be a dentist…just like my dad, and his dad before him.

“Can I stop talking now? No?” — “Elijah Cray”; October 2011

“So this one time? I was with the client and he’s just _fucking balls out_ on crystal meth. He’s sprinting down the middle of the street, completely naked, weaving back and forth with his right index finger snugly stuck right up his butthole. And I’m just trying to keep up, but the litle guy’s got all this superhuman power. Because of the meth? But then he beelines it for the gas station on the corner and kicks out the glass on the door to the adjoined convenience mart, and he’s just bleeding everywhere, probably dying right in front of me, y’know? I’m stepping over red, broken glass to get by his side, and this is when he pulls his finger out of his butt with this big POP noise and sticks it in the face of the check-out clerk.

“The clerk is of course terrified and starts to inch away from my client’s twitching hand. So what do I do? I storm around to the back of the counter and punch the clerk in the kidney, making him double over. I grab him by the neck and scream in his ear, just keep hollering until his eyes roll back into his skull. And I’m all ‘SMELL THIS DUDE’S FINGER. NOW’ over and over. It was the best job I ever had.” — Studs Terkel; December 2010

“Sssss…difficult. Me. Tawlk. Ouch. Brain.” — Mush Head Mannie, who received his nickname because a client pushed a finger too far up his nose; February 2012

Illegal Groupon: $50 for $175 Worth of Propitiatory Killing Services from Cain-Do Attitudes UTLD

Ever get the knack the End is nigh? And not just the end of your favorite soap opera, or of a good book, or the end of your little girl’s time at home before she goes to college and loses all sense of shame. No, here at Groupon we only speak in hyperbole: we’re talking the End of All Things. Total Apocalypse. “Revelations,” bro. And chances are that deep niggling feeling is your inner, primal, entelchial Personhood awaking with the knowledge of its absolute demise. Cool, right?

So how does one confront such catastrophes? Born in the lavender-savory middle of Anderson, Indiana, Cain-Do Attitudes Unlimited stands at the forefront of proxy sacrifice services. Thinking you should probably placate Cthulu before he unleashes Godzilla-like terror on the local Metropolis you call home? Feeling that urge to roll some heads at the behest of your flaming Bird God’s bloodlust? Does the gibbous moon engender talk of kidnapping and Wicker Man assembling parties in your close circle of friends? Chances are you’re in the market for a human sacrifice. And STAT.

To save your soul, this week’s Groupon is a killer deal: $50 for $175 worth of Baal-Abating Murder for Hire from Cain-Do Attitudes Unlimited.

Cain-Do operates as the middle man between your eternal salvation and your deity, taking care of all the dirty work involved in ritual murder and leaving all the benefits to you. No need to rear a golden child for eventual slaughter; Cain-Do incubates beautiful science babies for this very task, introducing them early enough into your home to sustain relative attachment, thereby tricking your deity before eventual beheading. And forget outdated notions of grief or nostalgia: Cain-Do will clone your first-born, ready to replace the Original with a healthy, un-murdered replicant, and the Angel of Death is none the wiser.

Boom! Suck it, God!

Whatever your intermediary, homicidal requirements may be in the face of Cosmic Wrath, Cain-Do is committed to making your last moments as super as possible. Call for a free evaluation today!

Reviews

“Snake asks the Sun for hope, and the Sun does not reply. Snake must take matters into its own hands. Snake does not have hands.” — Ancient Mayan Prophecy, wikipedia’d sometime last July by this dude I know

“Just as Cain restored balance to thy Mother in vanquishing Abel, so does Cain-Do replenish the hope of the weak. Also? Ex-wife: pwned. Bitch. And the swelling in my prostate’s gone down.” — FUigy33, via Yelp.com message boards, 3/15/11; also, whispered by a man supposedly named Miles Brodwell to a stranger at local Santa Rosa brew-pub, Maxine’s, on 10/9/10

“I hate my sister. Give me her stereo.” — Gavin, age 8, submitted via paper airplane tied to a chip of urinal cake, 10/2/12

THERE’S NO TIME TO EXPLAIN: The Tropes of “24” (pt. 5)

Previously, on the “Tropes of 24“:

Dom: Kiefer’s been telling the press that a 24 movie’s in the works.

Kaylen: I call him “Ol’ Kief” around friends and loved ones.

Adam: No you don’t.

Phil, from the kitchen, supposedly mopping the floor: Will you guys keep it down? I’m on the phone with Linda.

Kaylen, to no one: I thought he was mopping the floor.

Dom: I wish you all would take this more seriously.

Adam: Wait, why do I suddenly smell vanilla?

Phil, in the kitchen, speaking slowly into the phone: …then you probably should have zigged where instead you zag–hold on…Hey, c’mon, people! What’d I just say?

Dom: I’m eating yogurt, Adam.

Adam: Can I have some?

Phil, in the kitchen, into the phone: …you’re probably thinking of David Tennant.

Dom: No. This is my yogurt.

21. Startling revelations are accompanied often by a sinister, spectral HAWWWWWWRSSSHHHHH!. I’m not sure how else to describe it; I believe it is meant to be the sound of all your expectations spontaneously combusting.

In season two, when Nina agrees to give up the location of the bomb for full immunity, including from a crime she hadn’t yet committed, President Palmer, dumbfounded, slowly asks Nina what that crime will be. She responds, her eyes lifeless:

“The murder of Jack Bauer[!]”

HAWWWWWWRSSSHHHHH!

It’s the deeply felt rumble of a Dementor’s tummyache; a bundle of spider eggs hatching on a cymbal; the echo in one’s ears after burying one’s head in the sand; democracy giving up and rolling over in the bushes.

Or like in season six when Chloe discovers that Sexpot President Wayne Palmer negotiated with the Chinese for Jack’s release and…

…WHOASHIT, was that Stephen Merchant?

HAWWWWWWRSSSHHHHH!

22. If a woman has sex (especially with Jack Bauer) then she will die. The only real exception to this rule(/trope) is Chloe, who boffs her dashing computer simp subordinate at the beginning of season 5; turns out dude’s, as I mentioned in my first Tropes post, reluctantly working with the government conspiracy that sets in motion the season’s crisis. Poor guy is of course arrested, which means he’s pretty much minced meat, allowing the viewer to disregard the obligatory plot-point-with-a-pretty-face, erase his domestication with Chloe from every functioning dendrite, and continue following the plot’s well-laid-out twists and turns. Not to mention: Chloe’s eventually reunited with her ex-husband Morris, who can barely keep his hands off her (in public for God’s sake), and the suave baldy is horribly (awesomely) tortured with a drill before he’s summarily ejected from the series’ narrative.

What makes sense about this exception is that Chloe is never really considered a woman anyway. She’s voraciously intelligent, fiercely loyal, cunning, nearly emotionally non-existent, and, for lack of a better phrase, straight-up ballsy. These are not the attributes of a woman on 24; this is how the show portrays American man-soldiers. Since Chloe stays alive at the end of the series as opposed to getting wiped out for being even remotely feminine (see: Michelle’s murder after living in domestic bliss with Tony, though she once gruffly ran the CTU; Nadia’s disappearance from the 24 universe after Milo’s shot in place of her, his bravery inspired by a too-passionate kiss between them not “hours” before) she’s not rewarded for championing her gender so much as not acting like it.

Oh, also? In season six, Chloe explains she once dated Milo. They “saw a few good movies.” This is what Chloe remembers. But since they may’ve locked genital regions at some point, Milo’s forehead finds it’s fate with a bullet.

Meanwhile, Jack bangs Nina and she’s revealed as a homicidal terrorist; Jack bangs his wife for years and in the first season she’s murdered for overhearing Nina’s nefariousness; Jack bangs Audrey Raines and she goes crazy in Chinese prison, later pronounced catatonic; Jack bangs Renee Walker and she’s killed; Tony bangs Michelle and she’s blown up; Kim’s best friend bangs some gnarly hipster dude in the first season and her arm’s broken before she’s run down and left for dead in the street; Bill Buchanan falls in love with Karen Hayes, bangs her, and she’s functionally dropped from the show before Bill later gets blown up; etc. 4ever.

23. Job security in the CTU is pretty solid. Because bureaucracy is so thick and unyielding ’round their parts; because Chloe just always looks like that: Jack is often working against the express wishes of the CTU and the U.S. government, and often in collusion with Chloe. Inevitably, their dastardly deeds are discovered, though usually the discovery is accompanied by someone admitting Jack was right all along (whattup, President Sexy, should’ve trusted Jack before you agreed on that air assault, eh, guy?), and Chloe or her cohorts have to be reprimanded. But, since shit’s always going down, Bill Buchanan or another CTU stressball always end up blathering, “I’d fire you both right now if we didn’t need the manpower!”, using while walking purposely between one computer station and a different computer station. Yeah, whatever; I’m getting overtime today, right?

Of course, “regular life” is rarely revealed during the course of the “day”‘s run, and when it is such moments are gilded by heavy moral consequence. Take Chloe’s post-coital morning with her work friend: she tries to defend their copulation as she clumsily collects wine glasses and an empty bottle from the counter. Ah-ha! Alcohol, the culprit. Dionysian fornicating bears wicked results, lady.

24. 24‘s “contemporary” America isn’t ours, though in it we recognize that to which we may aspire.

This “America” is far form perfect. Of course: if it was, that would be–and I don’t use this word lightly–ridiculous. Yet, 24‘s America almost totally disavows partisan divides; it in fact doesn’t seem to even consider partisan alliances. We can assume the Palmers are democrats, that presidents Keeler and Logan so obviously faced down the Palmers with their republican fury, but 24 sidesteps such malice by placing the blame on the audience: you create those divides in your head, America, and those divides only distract from larger issues.

Larger issues, we learn, entail the value of human life in a rampantly corrupt international purview, entail the fringes and extent of the Individual’s prowess with love against the interests of the many–encompass, all essentially, the Battle between Good and Evil. What’s funny is that _24_ statistics would lean heavily towards the Palmers (democrats) as Good and the Logan Cabal (REPUBLICANS: BLECHH) as Evil, though the vicious patriotism of 24‘s ultimate Good (and the political preferences of its creators) suggests otherwise. But what’s even better about 24 is that it holds above the chaotic fray some chauvinistically American ideals that are, sincerely, pretty OK. In the end, we root for men that are loyal, humble, hardworking, tolerant, and–we say in awe–men that are relentless.

Men yeah. Only men. But we’ve made it this far with this show, so might as well finish up here.

24 may be a mess. Even when it’s at its most efficient. Because nothing in life could be so overexplained in black and white. Then again, nothing in life is ever so soothing as the dependable heroism of 24‘s grandest moments. When Jack Bauer jump-kicks an exploding terrorist through the back window of a commuter train, when he bites out some poor fuck’s neck to escape, when he quits heroin while enduring a day any other American would abandon around 8 that morning (even without a heroin addiction to kick)–when we witness Jack Bauer’s tireless inertia, the limitless, morally upright progress of the human condition rings calmly true. In 24‘s patterns we recognize the heartbeat of America.

Or “America.” Whatever. No shit; it feels good. Like a glass of warm milk.

notextile.

Mean-Spirited: The Peace Ponies, Domino & Puzzle

Now that Kaylen lives even farther from Dom, tripping the light fantastic in Fancy New York City, it has become more imperative than ever to communicate about important issues via Facebook.

Recently, Kaylen was telling Dom about her new roommate…

Kaylen: …so he always talks very loudly, and with great frequency, about pooping.
Going poop, past poops, future poops…
To even the scales, every time we’re at a bar or restaurant or just anywhere, I bring my phone with me to the washroom and find and text him a picture of a pony while I’m peeing.

Dom: What was the most recent picture? Do you find majestic ponies or sickly ones?

Kaylen: Oh both. I think the more adorable, the better though. Then he’ll just be at the table or bar, talking to people and get an adorable pony pop up on his phone.

While Dom sat in his living room, lamenting the lack of ponies sent to him while friends are peeing, Kaylen then unveiled a startling Facebook page discovery…

Kaylen: Could I please divert your attention to:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Peace-Ponies-Domino-Puzzle/106446646139055

Dom: Holyjeez.

Kaylen: :’D <— THIS FUCKING FACE.

Dom: Ambassadors? Who appointed them?
GAW, I already hate this. Stupid fucking ampersands.

Kaylen: I like the picture of the horse with an Abraham Lincoln quote?
THAT is not Abraham Lincoln…

Dom: Haha, it sure isn’t…it has sexy Jim from The Office messy hair.
“Indeed. and in light of that… all horses should be free… to live a life of comfort and peace :)”

Kaylen: President Pony has no time for product.

Dom: Show a little pride in your appearance, pony.
The amount of activity on this page is astounding.

Kaylen: ISN’T IT…?

Dom: Wait, what’s the “domino” for?
And “puzzles”?

Kaylen: I think those are the two horses’ names?
Ponies’ names.
Of the “peace” breed.

D’aw. “We are shaping our collective future based upon the Practices of Peace and the Core Value of LOve. Thanks for trotting along with us ☮ The Peace Ponies, Domino & Puzzle.”

Dom: Oh.
I see.

Kaylen: This seriously might be a (ridiculously adorable) cult…

Dom: BUT HOW CAN THE PONIES TYPE WITHOUT FINGERS?

This creeps me out:

Actually, it terrifies me.

Kaylen: These horses look FUCKING INSANE….

Dom: Yeah, there is nothing rational behind those eyes.

Kaylen: These really are the most frightening looking horses…

Dom: It probably has to do with their perms.

[And then Dom and Kaylen simultaneously typed:]

Dom: Oh, and their soul-gouging yet utterly lifeless eyes

Kaylen: They have weird eyes… like sick hooker eyes

Dom: Ha!
Sick hooker.
Man, that cracked me up.

Kaylen: …what the…
“The Peace Ponies, Domino & Puzzle Thanks Robin ✭ Each share brings us one step closer …”

Dom: They stole her soul.
That’s what they mean.
When they have the power of enough souls, they’ll “bring” “peace” to our world.

Kaylen: Like Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus.

Dom: …
Yes exactly.

Kaylen: But with those vacuous fucking pony eyes.

Dom: Or like Jeremy Irons in Dungeons and Dragons.

But with horses.
Sorry: ponies.

Kaylen:

…so that horse is about to fuck that other horse.

Dom: Enough of this sappy bullshit, I wanna see some horse dick.

Kaylen: HA.

Dom: What do you think would happen if we wrote that?
Would we get “reported”?

Kaylen: ONE CAN ONLY HOPE.
Did you ever see Cher in Moonstruck…

Dom: OH MY LORD, that looks exactly like Cher in Moonstruck.
But anyway: would Facebook kick us off?
I’m gonna do it.
It’ll just get deleted.

Kaylen: DO IT DO IT DO IT

Dom: Done.

Kaylen: That is about as close to horse erotic fiction as I’ve ever read…

Dom: Agree with me. On the page.

Kaylen: …but Dom what if they ban me? I love this page.

Dom: OH NO.
I’ll need to live vicariously through you.
I’m going to go make a sandwich and reflect on what I’ve just lost.

Kaylen: Where did you comment?

Dom: On the horse fucking one.
“Adding to ANGEL KISSED HORSES ALBUM :)”

Kaylen: Now you’ll never get enough thetans or something to be in the Peace Pony Ambassador Herd.

Wow… Dom it would be SO EASY to make graphics for this page.
And have like a bazillion people like it.
I want those soul-sucking ugly horses to sign off a note to me in “pony hugs”…

Check out this petrified mummy pony I just found.

I’m just looking for pictures of ponies now. PWN-ies, eh?

Dom: Is that a specific kind of horse that it looks like death?
You horsey expert you.
You’re no Rick Gore, but… WHO IS. AMIRITE?

Kaylen: lol.
<— BARN WITCH.
Maybe the barn witches got him.
…like Bette Midler in Hocus Pocus.

It’s cool that I am using that twice right.

Dom: Did you watch it recently?
I remember when I was little thinking that Sarah Jessica Parker was the hot one.
But only because she was “saucy.”
Like, my prepubescent mind was struggling to force one of the witches to be the “hot one.”

Kaylen: Yeah, it’s like going to Walmart in West Virginia. I’m always the hot one but that is purely relative.
There were no dudes at all really in that film so I just had a crush on the cat.

Cat in a poet blou$e.

Postscript: Dom’s comment was deleted.

Using Brett Ratner In A Sentence

In its latest edition, the Oxford English Dictionary included, among many worthwhile and colorful additions, the word “brett ratner” in its lexicon. We would like to provide you with a series of timely, common-place, and utilitarian phrases illustrating the best use of “brett ratner.”

“Dude, Dave got drunk and brett ratnered all over the cab last night.”

“I ate some spoiled meat and brett ratnered my pants.”

“Charles picked at the scab, so of course it became brett ratnered.”

“Our economy is so brett ratnered right now.”

“Those Latinos do nothing but brett ratner all day.”

“The dentist took care of all the brett ratners in my mouth…for a price.”

“What i mean is: I had to brett ratner him. Before the dental work. It was so degrading. And painful.”

“I do not get it, Shirley. He’s always into brett ratnering. But no butt stuff.”

“Millions of chickens every day are subject to brett ratner, forced to live out their lives in a 1’x1′ metal enclosure.”

“I forgot to add the brett ratner to the pasta, but it actually turned out better that way.”

“There is nothing but brett ratner on the radio anymore.”

“Brett ratner me once, brett ratner on you. Brett ratner me twice? Brett ratner on me.”

“The worst brett ratner in two decades totally decimated the tiny country’s economy.”

“Have you seen that Ken Burns documentary about illegal brett ratnering during the Korean War?”

“There is no brett ratner for you here, boy.”

“It was the worst of brett ratners, it was the worst of brett ratners, it was the age of brett ratners, it was the brett ratner of foolishness, it was the epoch of brett ratner, it was the brett ratner of incredulity, it was the brett ratner of Light, it was the brett ratner of Darkness, it was the spring of brett ratner, it was the winter of brett ratner, we had brett ratner before brett ratner, we had nothing before brett ratner, we were all brett ratnering direct to Heaven, we were all brett ratnering direct the other way—in short, the brett ratner was so far like the present brett ratner, that some of its brett ratneriest authorities insisted on its being brett ratnered, for good or for evil, in the brett ratner degree of comparison only.”

“Bro, I didn’t use lube and so she ended up brett ratnering on my dick; it was gross.”

…with thanks to Phil Nelson

Chartsengrafs — Hipsters vs. Child Molesters

Damon Art X

Episodes on the Internet: Whicker Man

Lamenting the sudden absence of Bebe’s Kids on Netflix gave way to idle musings with a colleague, whom I respect and with whom I while away much of my time.

Colleague, whom I respect: “Pony” as an adjective makes everything sound adorable-er. It’s like “doggy.”

“We went to the hospital” sucks.

“We went to the doggy hospital” sucks slightly less.

Myself: “We went to the pony hospital” = D’AWWWWWWW.

Actually, let’s get ponies and make a TV drama. Pony Hospital. Mostly so I can use the word “whicker.” 

If we are friends, you and I will inexorably discuss both shows I would like to script with you and ponies/horses. Because of the latter: I will pluck the ripe opportunity from the opportunity-fruit tree to say the word: “whicker.” Because essentially, talking about horses and ponies is the only time I get to use the word in that very special way.

Said colleague–while I do respect him–as it happened, had no previous knowledge of the word “whicker.” That is not hard to imagine. A hell of a verb, it isn’t exactly one that’s prevalent in everyday jargon. Honestly, unless you’ve gone on some trail rides and/or have read your weight in Saddle Club fiction, odds are slim that you’ve encountered it at all. Odds are even slimmer that you know the sound which “whicker” is indicating. The Internet is less than helpful as several dictionaries misleadingly liken “whicker” to “a whinny.” To my chagrin and to likewise a lot of embarrassment attempting to prove otherwise: it is not an easy sound to replicate. Actually, it is a sound that’s impossible to produce with the human neck-voice-tentacles or whatever is in there.

That didn’t stop this guy from making an earnest effort:

And that is… what it is.

But anyway, ‘lo, by pure happenstance (or the similarity between “whicker” and “whisker”) I came across Rick Gore’s–if that is not a name to raise the hackles…–video “Why You Should NOT Trim Horse Whiskers.” Delightfully on par with the screaming vitriol of alarmist nolilliesforcats.com, these videos are activist messages thinly veiled by the instructional/informative headers and promise of learning something about Horsemanship. (Horsemanship, how stately!) But in reality, it is roughly four minutes of this barely intelligible guy conveying to the best of his abilities why he explicitly does not condone trimming horse whiskers.

Explanations, which are interspersed with Gore’s labored breathing and poking this horse in the eye:

Our chubby-fingered narrator (we’re fond of those lot here at DMD) is this classy gentleman:

…Who may or may not believe in witches and/or be a misogynist as well as a seemingly all-around a-hole as illustrated in this response to a comment…

The horse, by the bye, is named “Mr. T” and frequently seems embarrassed by the goingson. Or he is looking over his shoulder as though he suspects he is being Punk’d…

Gore endeavors to win us over to this anti-whisker-trimming cause he’s so adamant about by rattling off a list of reasons, including but not limited to:

• “Trimming is for people.” (And this is an excellent opening argument.)
• “It’s what people do to spend time with horses.” (I own this horse; if only there were some way to spend time with it… )
• “It helps him when he’s looking into the wind.” (Which paints such a majestic picture in my mind it is difficult to even want to argue with Gore.)
• “It tells him how deep water is.” (It can feel about, what, two inches worth of water. In like a trough in the barn?)
• “Without these eye whiskers he will run and bash right into something until it hits him in the eye!” (Fantastic point.)
• “Flies aren’t going to land and poop down into his ear.”
• “Let nature take its course.” (That is not what that means really.)

He is also against braiding manes. And I really would like to take a moment just now and emphasize that: there is a man out there who adamantly believes braiding pony hair is a cruel and arguable offense.

At the cost of joyless horsie sleepover parties:

“[un-braided mane] helps him look like a stallion” (I think that’s the NBA-arm-length penis actually.)

and:

“It helps him be a horse.”

I’m positive there are some valid points in there, ensconced as they are in syntactical/rational fumbling. If we are to take the word of his commenting public: Germany has gone so far as to ban whisker trimming on horses. Yes, Germany. But for the record, I don’t know that for a fact. Actually, here you go; enjoy some of these comments, why don’t you.

(While that is a little off-topic: Aw, gypsy horse mustaches! If I had to place a bet on it, I would put money on Gore having issues with gypsy horse mustaches too.)

TRUTH.

Anyways.

If any of this tickles your fancy, feel free to enjoy any number of Gore’s videos, executed to varying degrees of clarity-slash-comedy. For instance, all that I can glean from “Sacking Out on the Trail on a Scary Trashcan” is that he sees no problem saying things like “perfect time for sacking out.” Also trash bags are terrifying to horses so we should all take a moment and make them stand around trash bags blowing in the wind.

Like I said, I am positive Gore has points but I implore anyone to come to an understanding of those points by way of listening to him talk. Also he just comes off like the biggest jerk.