the dandy river

"So this is the new year, well I don't feel any different"

Normally I don't like bands with long names because they always sound pretentious, but Death Cab for Cutie is one of my personal favorites.

I've got the 'it's a new year blues'. For the past couple years or so they have all started with a mean hangover tinged with fear. The hangover for obvious reasons, since new year's eve is one of only a handful of eves with an asterisk attached to it saying that it's all right to get belligerent and act the fool. The fear may not be so obvious, but it is related to the asterisk, the question I'd always ask myself was how much of a fool did I act? Apprehension, mostly, thinking that maybe I did something bad.

This year, instead of the headache and dry mouth, I awoke to the clinking of dishes and a surprisingly bright sun shining in my window. My grandfather was already up, as usual, and doing some dishes in the kitchen. It was a pleasant morning, as I showered, the idea of washing everything away popped into my head. The sins of the past year and the wrongs that I had done or were done to me slowly swirling round down the drain. As quickly as the idea floated into my head, it floated out. Let's face it, that kind of thinking is just a skip over the dandy river into full blown homosexuality.

I decided instead, in less dramatic fashion and fully clothed, that I should just treat it like any other year. As a wise man told me, it really is just another day. I started off without a resolution, but I've found a resolution in my own absolution. Looking forward to 2007, I don't have any high reaching aspirations, but I do think that things might be a little different. At any rate, there will be more to come, look forward to it.

mortal thinking

The other day, perched precariously atop my orange tractor, anxiously awaiting the flip that will send me into crushed and shredded oblivion, I began thinking about death. Not in the average 'Oh, boo-hoo I'm getting older and everyone dies' kind of way, but the much more bad ass, 'Bad ass ways to kick it' kind of way.

Being a big fan of lists and countdowns (I mean, who isn't?) I thought of a few really bad ass ways to die. Not necessarily making my top ten that I'm about to drop like it's hot, flipping over on a tractor is kind of cool, and since it's my list, gets an honorable mention.

#10 Death by Explosion

Nothing spectacular, but generally speaking, when someone dies in a giant explosion ... well, it's normally pretty cool. I mean, explosions are cool and fire is cool. Loud noises are awesome and any type of death including all three of these things has got to be cool itself. Since explosions are so manly, death by explosion is pretty BAD ASS.

#9 Death by Scurvy

You're only lying to yourself if you don't think scurvy is bad ass. We'll play a bit of word association for a second. I say 'scurvy' and you say ... yeah, I thought so, 'pirates.' I looked up 'pirates' in the dictionary just now (read: no, I didn't) and the second definition was two words: 'bad' and 'ass.' You can't argue with facts.

#8 Death by Gun Fight

If you die in a gun fight, you're a bad ass. You've overcome all of the hurdles needed for full bad-ass-i-tude. The first one is that you have a gun. The second is that you use it. Bad asses use guns. Two words: 'dirty' and 'harry.' These same two words could be used to describe the physical appearance of bad ass dudes, or BADs, as I like to call them. The coincidence is shockingly argument proof.

#7 Death by Robot

Everyone who is anyone knows that the only thing more bad ass than some seriously BADs is some seriously bad ass robots, or BARs, as I like to call them. If a BAR kills a BAD, there is an overload of bad and ass. Every guy knows that you can never get enough ass. Case closed. Try and keep up.

#6 Death by Cobra

No, not the kind that live on planes. Cobra of the GI Joe fame. This is serious. Actually, in hindsight this is way too high up on my list. It shouldn't even be in the top 10 of anything. If you're killed by any of the Cobras, you're kind of an asshole. The GI Joes always managed to kick some Cobra ass, and they melted in the sun. At least when I used a magnifying glass to heat them up after the ants were all dead. Man, Cobras sucked. And that one guy never even showed his face. What a little bitch tit.

#5 Death by Decepticon

Ok, now we've got some serious villains here. These are the BARs I was talking about earlier. They get their own spot on the countdown because they're too much, much too much. Are you fucking kidding me? ROBOTS that turn into CARS and shit! That's just wild. That blows my mind. If a Decepticon kills you ... just, I mean, if you could, just say thank you. It's cool that the Autobots are here to help us out and all, but man, robots give me an erection.

#4 Death by Sacrifice

HEY VIRGINS! Listen up and listen up good. Soldiers are willing to give their lives for their country. Sacrificial deaths are just about as bad ass as can be. Going out to protect America from places like Indonesia and Congo... If you die as a sacrifice for something greater than yourself. That's bad ass. Fuck those commies. Virgins make such a big deal out of being sacrificed, but I don't know why. Every time I sacrifice one they always kick and scream, and damn can those bitches bite.

#3 Death by Snakes

Pythons? Anacondas? Fuck that shit. They're so gay. They want to squeeze you to death? I'll tell you who else tried to squeeze me to death. Tyrone, the large black man that liked me so much when I spent that night in jail a couple months ago. All he wanted to do was hug me and stick his tongue out. Anacondas and pythons are the gayest of snakes in the snake world. They're the gayest of animals in the animal world, besides Sasquatch, of course. Poisonous snakes are too bad ass for their own good. They have fucking poison INSIDE of them. The poison doesn't even bother them. But it can KILL people. Really quick too. They bite you with NATURE'S NEEDLES!!! They have hollow teeth like some damned vampires! Come on, you're retarded and blind if you don't know that death by poisonous snakes is fucking bad ass. If I was bit by a poisonous snake, between my spasms and bloody coughs, I would probably want to hug the little guy for letting me go out like such a man.

#2 Death by Sword

The ancients knew this was a noble way of death. If dishonor were to befall you in some societies long ago, you were to kill yourself with your own blade rather than face the shame of ... whatever. Here's the thing: it didn't matter what it was that made you ashamed! Death by sword was just too bad ass, it overcame everything else. It was like the royal flush of ways to die. NOTHING BEAT IT. If your old man went out and fucked 54 sheep and sucked off a pair of horses while his drunk boyfriend taped the whole thing and then inadvertently showed it at the local town fair while getting caught molesting a small child behind the screen this interspecies erotica was being played on, all he had to do was kill himself on his own blade. All was well with the world again. The end all to problems, the sword ruled.

And now, for the number one way to die. The most bad ass of bad ass-ery, you probably saw it coming, and I don't really need an explanation for it. In fact, I won't give an explanation, because it would insult your intelligence and tax my ability to use the english language to convey such bad ass-ery. The number one, bad ass, most motherfucking awesome way to die...






#1 Death by Snakes on a Plane

with or without you.

This isn't something that I normally dig my hands into, but I'd like to make a brief trip into the realm of sex. That's a funny sentence, seriously, go back and read it again.

Sometimes facts change. I remember back when I was a small child, the cars we drove and the engines that gave off harmful greenhouses gases were ... well, harmful. Turns out that was a load of shit. There was a recent study that proved that the earth is staying the same temperature. When I say 'recent study' I mean I just made that up. Facts change, deal with it.

Here's a fact that will never change: big vaginas are always funny.

Supposedly, there are a few key thoughts that can turn an otherwise virile young man limp again. You know what I'm talking about. When a guy wants to 'go the distance' for his lady friend or his guy friend, if he likes, he's supposed to think of goofy, off-the-wall-shit that will keep the racer in his car for the last lap, so to speak. Lady friend or guy friend works, because we all know that a warm hole is a warm hole. The guy is the one that is supposed to keep it going because that's the cool thing to do, or something. This type of thinking is wrong on so many levels. I'll go over a few if you keep it together. Ha, get it?

Grandmas, dudes, ugly girls, baseball... wait. Baseball? I tried this. Baseball doesn't work. I think baseball is sexy. It turns me on. I often get an erection just from thinking about baseball. I love it. Do you know why I love it? Because I'm an American. I went there, Americans love baseball. Some Americans love baseball more than others because, let's face it, some people are more American than others. I tried thinking about baseball in order to keep going recently. It didn't work.

My initial reaction was one of shock, basically because I had no idea I love baseball so much. Also because I thought about how stupid that was. Why was I trying to go the distance? Rather, why was I trying to push the finish line farther away? If that's not the epitome of counterproductivity, I have no idea what is. I should be trying to finish as fast as possible, because hey, fuck them anyways. Aha. Another joke.

Who am I trying to impress? The only woman in my life that I want to impress is my mom. And she's told me plenty of times now that she doesn't want to hear me talk about that kind of thing. It's similar to the way my dog will go out in the yard and kill something. He then brings that dead thing back to the porch, as if to say 'hey man, check this out, I'm real bad ass'. The equivalent for me would be 'hey mom, check out this gutterslut, I'm a horrible human being. what's for dinner?'.

Let's put this in a different perspective. When I'm home alone, or not alone, or when my dog is watching and I'm whaling away on myself like there's no tomorrow, I'm not worried about my hand's pleasure. Fuck that guy anyways (lol) he leaves me all raw sometimes and never says he's sorry. So why is it, when I'm slumming after a night of drinking, that kind of nonsensical bad joke of a bad idea pops into my head?

Of course, this is all just a prelude to what I've really been trying to get at. And that's to remind you that big vaginas are always, and will always be funny.

it's not about the butt pleasures.

Every Tuesday, iTunes or Apple or some guy sends me the new music email and I learn that such and such Indie rocker group has a new album out. That this band or that band has their newest release out and why I should buy it, preferably off iTunes. I imagine there is an email that would inform me about all the new, hip movies that come out on whatever day of the week they come out. My question is this: is there an email that would let me know what new, hardcore-blow-your-load-all-over-some-titties, girls-fucking-animals, hot porno?

Sometimes when I drink (read: sometimes, but only when I drink) I get a craving for some Taco Bell. Since the taco gods (no relation to Pussylia, the greek god of vagina) chose to take away the Taco Bell mere miles from my home. My only poor service, "good-to-go", greasy taco action alternative is to drive to the other side of the world. It may not seem that way to some, but to someone who is often more than 'slightly inebriated,' it can make the difference between a stop-off on my way home and a harrowing race down the parkway.

I manage to make it to the Taco Bell every time I set out for Taco Bell, so all is well.

One of the cool things about the Travel Channel is that one show that talks about all the cool, secret, fun things to do in whatever city you're in. Some good places to eat, some sweet adventuring spots or whatever. There's gotta be a lot of money in that kind of advice, I figure there's a piece of that pie that I could get hold of because I have the best piece of advice for anyone ever.

When you go to the Taco Bell, go to the one near the porno shop. I always get drive-thru and eat it in my car as I watch the late night patrons to the local pornery. I find myself asking questions like the first one, about the new releases in the porno industry. Releases as in video tapes, not the other kind, the sexual releases.

Let's review this for a moment.

There are quite a few things in this world that I dislike. If you're reading this, chances are that you're pretty well versed in this general fact. My distaste for a lot of things is clear as crystal, and in this sense, I wear my heart on my sleeve. I kind of wish there were an organ that was metaphorically linked to hatred, because in actuality it would be this organ, as opposed to my heart, that was worn on my sleeve. Being a smoker, I get the occasional 'your lungs are black' joke or jibe. Maybe since my lungs are black they can be linked to hatred, so we can say that I wear my lungs on my sleeve. Does that make sense? Good.

Few things in this world garner enough of my energy to warrant the term 'hatred.' The fact of the matter is that I just don't care enough about what goes on to say that I 'hate' anything. Either that, or we should replace the aforementioned 'dislike' group and call it the 'hate' group, meaning I hate almost everything. If that were the case, I would be a lot like Jesus. Except the opposite. Where he loves stuff, I would hate it. Since I'm not so full of myself to compare myself to the Christ, I'm going to have to stick with dislike as the majority and hate the minority.

The last three words from the previous sentence are pretty funny when they stand alone.

We've finally reached the point of my argument for today. I'm here to discuss one thing that I absolutely loathe.

We live in a world where text messages and AIM conversations are commonplace. Email has replaced the 'quick call' for many businesses and our lives are in the hands of computers more everyday. I can't say that I like the idea of relying so heavily on machines, I saw A Space Odyssey and I remember the bleak future from The Terminator. My point, however, is that there is much more text being read now when communicating than ever before. Also, machines are evil. Remember The Matrix?

A simple question is 'wat r u up 2?'

This bastardization of the English language is almost unavoidable. I get emails, text messages and instant messages like this everyday. Loosely translated, the above means 'I'm an imbecile, if I could figure out how, I would strangle myself with my mouse cord and end the miserable excuse for a life I now lead.'

I hate that. Is it so difficult to add two extra letters to the word 'you' or 'are' or to type out 'to' instead of just hitting the number key? Why do I need a translator to read English? You're not Chaucer, you can write like a normal instead of a 13 year old girl. By the way, any 13 year old girls who type like this are retarded. I get it, you passed the third grade and figured out what a homophone is. Too, two, to. Perhaps we missed the boat on this one though, the trick to homophones is that they sound alike, but mean different things. They mean different things, as in not the same. Like that time when I went for a walk and caught butterflies. What I really meant was that I got all drunk and had sex with a coked out model. Or when I went and volunteered at the local homeless shelter, I really meant that I cruised around downtown and beat up homeless people.

I digress. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes. The difference is that my mistakes are accidental, like the time I crashed my car into a tree. I didn't mean to fall asleep (or pass out, depending on who you talk to) and kiss that tree, it was an accident. These text mistakes aren't mistakes at all though, they're 'on purposes.' Someone purposefully leaves out the 'y' and the 'o' in the word 'you' and it is my contention that they do it purely to invoke my ire. So next time you think about being lazy and not typing out the entire 3 letters of a 3 letter word, think about the offer your mom made me the other night. She said she'd be up for anything for 50 cents and an apple. Anything. And I swear I'll film it.