RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPiTER

Everyone knows that Philadelphia suffers from an inferiority complex. We look to New York and Washington and see what we once were and what we could have been. For a few fleeting decades, Philadelphia was the capital of the world. We were the Athens of the 18th century. We were the largest and most exciting city in the most radical corner of human civilization. The world’s greatest political minds gathered here to change the course of human history. Since then, not so much.

By the early 1800’s New York’s population passed Philadelphia’s. The federal government packed up shop around the same time, heading up to NY and eventually settling down in D.C.

How do we get over this loss? So far we haven’t. For more than 2 centuries, Philly has both prided and derided itself as a grungy little backwater. But I think we’re looking at this in entirely the wrong way. We compare ourselves to New York. That’s just stupid, and here’s my suggestion. Ask yourself this:

What’s worse than being the city between New York and Washington?

Being Baltimore.

click image for source

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Remember them? Neither does anyone else. Baltimore was never anything to anybody. From a skyline that you might mistake for Wilmington Delaware to a murder rate that makes Philly look like Toronto, Baltimore is a place that we can proudly look down on.

If New York is the stud and Philadelphia is it’s scrappy, punch drunk uncle, then Baltimore is the neighborhood crack whore. Think about it. What does Baltimore have? Crabs.

Now while Baltimore does have a waterfront and an aquarium, Philadelphia has all those things that Baltimore doesn’t have beyond the waterfront and aquarium. We kick that shitown’s ass up and down I-95.

Nothing boosts the civic ego like looking down on someplace else. The problem is, when we look down on New York, we just look stupid. It’s time we picked on someone smaller and weaker. If Rocky fought Woody Allen instead of Apollo Creed, what do you think would have happened?

That’s all for now.

Every once in a while I resurrect one of my phony product reviews from the website epinions.com. From 1999-2001 during slow time at my job in an animal ER, I used to write things like this review for a strap on catheter:

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How my life has changed since I discovered the Netti One-Leg Stocking. This nifty little device makes conventional toilets obsolete. I’m not incontinent, but what’s it matter with convenience like this? The Netti One-leg Stocking is the bathroom you strap to your leg. Anytime, anywhere, there it is.

I know you’re skeptical. You’re probably reading this and thinking, is this guy for real? I must admit that when I first came across this product, I had the same objections to the whole concept of peeing into your leg that you’re probably having right now. But you need only to cross a small mental barrier in order to see the light.

The beauty of it is that you aren’t really peeing on yourself. In fact, the urine never touches you. The product is clean, easy to assemble and cheap. The practice of using only a conventional restroom is an entirely culturally based construct, and if I might add, just a little bit snobbish. If you break the hegemonic relationship between yourself and your bathroom like I have with the Netti One-leg Stocking, imagine the quality of life you will gain.

In the car, at the movies, everyplace you have wished you could urinate at will, you can! And I won’t lie, there’s a certain satisfaction gained in peeing comfortably while interacting in otherwise normal circumstances. Just the other day, I was urinating while I asked out an attractive young woman. You can’t even come close to imagining the added sense ease and comfort brought on by the relief of a good urination in such a situation. The same holds true for job interviews, uncomfortable holiday get togethers and pretty much any other high stress situation. The Netti One-Leg Stocking is a therapeutic device as much as anything.

The other day my boss was coming down on me hard for not getting a proposal in on time. Instead of fumbling for words, like I used to do, I smiled narrowly, initiated a steady flow of urine and calmly explained exactly why I was unable to meet the deadline. He appreciated my frank demeanor so much, he gave me a promotion! When I heard about the promotion, I peed ecstatically.

(And by the way, the date with that attractive young woman went so well that I had to exchange the urinary condom that I regularly wear, for… well, you know.)

Think of it.

The Netti One-Leg Stocking has given me comfort, time and increased my productivity. It saved my job and even granted me a promotion. Because of it, I have a steady girlfriend and am on the whole a much calmer person. The Netti One-Leg Stocking has paid for itself in more ways than I can list. This thing is just great. I can’t say that enough. In fact I love it so much… I’m peeing right now. Aah, sweet satisfaction.

For years I’ve waited for the day when I can pronounce the revelation of a miracle. This morning in the shower, I knew that day had arrived.

It started like any other shower, with the washing and the scrubbing and the standing there trying to wake up. I was in there for 10 minutes, thinking of coffee and trying to force that horrible Jennifer Lopez song from the Rhapsody commercial out of my head, when I spotted it.

There on my shower curtain was the apparition of Edgar Allen Poe. He was clear as the morning itself.

Poe is one of my favorite writers and I’m honored by his appearance. I don’t know why he chose today for his return to Philadelphia, or why he wants to watch me shower, but I’m grateful that he’s there.

*postscript: After a period of deep consultation, I’ve decided that Edgar Allen Poe has appeared to me in order to bear a message of great import: It’s time to clean my shower curtain. I plan to heed his warning on Sunday afternoon.

In my own defense, but for a thin band of Poe birthing mold, my shower curtain is clean and sanitary.

I was recently brought a tasty snack food directly from Mumbai. With over a billion people, India is a crazy place. I guess it’s some sort of cultural standard that seems foreign to me as a U.S. American, but I still think they’re soylent green style snack foods are a little weird. Strange or not, I cracked the bag during the Eagles game, just to see what people tasted like. It turns out they taste like spicy peanuts, pecans and little crunchy things. All in all, people are pretty good and I could see human based products doing well here in the states.

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PHILADELPHIA - Coupled with his contentious stop-and-frisk policy, Michael Nutter’s appointment of controversial Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey has already raised alarm bells among local Civil Rights groups. Organizations such as the ACLU have questioned the constitutionality of Nutter’s anti-crime tactics and have also raised concerns about Ramsey’s record as Police Commissioner in Washington D.C. This morning’s press conference - in which Nutter endorsed reclassification of street crime as urban terrorism - has turned the hot button issue into a three alarm fire.

“These people are terrorizing our communities and should be treated as such. They are terrorists.” Nutter stated.

The new wording will have significant implications for the legal rights of accused criminals. “The reclassification goes far deeper than semantics,” noted Temple University criminologist Harriet Cole. “The accused will no longer enjoy the legal rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.”

“Water Boarding? Next person that takes a shot at a cop, I’ll water board them myself.” Nutter responded angrily to a flustered Rene Chenault-Fattah. “Tell your husband to repeal the Patriot Act and then I’ll talk to you about this.”

In addition to the verbal assaults from the next mayor, local news stations have accused Nutter of trying to shut them down.

“We must declare a state of emergency in Philadelphia. I said that in my campaign and I meant it. Now this isn’t Pakistan and I can’t force local news to stop broadcasting. I can however give Comcast an additional 10-year tax abatement on that new tower if they agree to stop running local news.” Nutter said with a smile and a wink.

Late yesterday Comcast announced that ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX will begin airing the City Hall channel during time slots previously reserved for local news. “There is absolutely no connection to the Mayor’s office,” stated a press release from Comcast Corp.

The Mayor-elect is also reportedly working with Greyhound on a rendition program for accused terrorists. “He’s had conversations with Greyhound executives” reported political watchdog Chuck at the popular blog Phillyistheshit.org. “He’s planning on bussing these people to states where torture is already legal, like New Jersey and Delaware. He knows full well what will happen to them in a Wilmington prison.”

While Nutter’s tactics have been enormously popular among the majority of posters at the phillyblog messageboard, some voiced reservations. “This isn’t the mayor I thought I was voting for” posted BaltimoreAve48.

Nutter seemed unfazed by critics, ending his press conference with a reference to another controversial mayor, “I’m gonna make Frank Rizzo look like a faggot.”

I’ve decided that I should bring a more serious dialogue to this website. Today I’ll level damning accusations at Whole Foods, accusing them of being a racist organization that promotes a fierce white supremacist ideology. My evidence?

Yesterday after work I stopped by the Fairmount Whole Foods to pick up a few items for my high fat, dairy and fiber rich, evil liberal diet. Things like plain kefir, organic milk, French and British cheeses and dry black beans.* But with winter approaching, there was one other purchase I wanted to make: Cream of Wheat cereal.

I expected Whole Foods to offer some alternative brand of wheat cereal… something in a brown box made with organic wheat on some ecologically sustainable farm in Wisconsin, but to my surprise, they only offered that in Buckwheat. The only regular wheat option was Farina.

Farina is advertised with the image of a smiling Aryan child, while the Cream of Wheat model was Caribbean born immigrant of African descent: Frank White. Why wouldn’t Whole Foods offer wheat cereals with a diversity of offensive racial stereotypes? Why the smiling Hitler youth and not the benevolent servant? Shocked and outraged, I bought Farina.

I had some this morning. It was pretty good and tasted exactly like Cream of Wheat. That’s all for now.

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* Just in case you’re confused where the line between truth and satire begins, these were my actual purchases.

On October 25 of the year 2000 I wrote this product review for the “Ouija Board” for epinions.com:

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If the dead want to talk, let them come to YOU
Oct 25 ‘00

Pros
good for contacting the dead

Cons
the dead will bore you to death

It’s about time for my favorite holiday, Halloween. I figured I should review something a little freaky. What’s better than the good old fashioned Ouija board?

The first time I used the Ouija board, it was me, my girlfriend and my uncle Teddy. I was about 15 at the time. These days Teddy’s upstate for boinking kids on a Cambodian vacation, but back then he lived in Burlington County NJ. All in all, he was the creepiest part of the night. Dimming the lights and lighting some candles, Teddy broke out the Army of Darkness edition of the Necronomicon and asked to speak with some dead people. Sure enough, some spirit began moving around the little pointer thing. We were all pretty excited, talking to the dead and all. Uncle Teddy had gotten us pretty liquored up with some Southern Comfort. We asked the name of the dead person and he said “Todd.”

That’s when we knew it was going to be a boring night. “Todd” went on and on about how he used to be alive. It took him forever to write out anything. He couldn’t even spell worth a damn. Turns out Todd was a single, shoe salesman who hung himself at age of 32 right in my bedroom! That was sort of interesting, but the fascination soon faded. Todd went on to spell out the words “died a verjan.” We supposed he meant “virgin.” My girlfriend told him she wasn’t surprised and Todd got angry. He tried to blow out the candles, but they just sort of flickered. We laughed and taunted him a while and eventually he left. It was an all around disappointment.

A few years later, me and some friends were bored. I had since moved out of the “Todd” house. It was 3 in the morning and all the bars were closed. We’d been drinking Southern Comfort again, (weird) and smoking opium. After a confused conversation, my friends and I decided that we were sharing hallucinations. All of us kept seeing little men running around under the recliner. Curious as to the nature of these little people, we decided to initiate contact via the Ouija board. We had no luck. The little men weren’t interested in us. Either that or we were just imagining them. We decided to go another route. We got one of my cats and put him near the recliner. Since cats are mystical creatures, we thought he could guide us. But the cat just licked himself and wandered over to the water dish.

At that point we decided we were just imagining things. In a last ditch effort my friend Stephan picked up the Ouija board and folded it up. Creeping over to the recliner he smacked the board down, right on top of one of the little men. He was all squashed and bloody, but you could see his little man hat and his little man pants. He looked like a tiny garden gnome. His little man beard was all stained with blood. My friend felt so bad for killing the little man that he started to cry, asking the other little men for forgiveness. But the other little men had already fled in fear. The next day, the corpse of the little man had turned into a dead cockroach. I gave it to my cat and he ate it.

Recently I took out the Ouija board again. I figured it had to be good for some entertainment. Again I was with friends and again we were drinking Southern Comfort, (I swear to you all, I never drink the stuff. It’s just one of those weird coincidences.) One of my friends got up to vomit in the bathroom. He came back white as a ghost. I asked if he was all right and he said that he was. He told us that he saw a fat woman lying face down in the bathtub. When he walked in he said she turned to look at him. Just as she turned, the SoCo made it’s return to the world and he hunched over to vomit. By the time he finished, the woman was gone.

“Weird.” The rest of us said in unison.

Incited and intrigued, we decided to get to the bottom of it. We took the Ouija board into the bathroom, wiped up the spatterings of sweet peach vomit with some balled up toilet paper and sat in a circle by the tub. We asked to speak with the woman. I’ll spare you the details of this encounter, but the woman was even more boring than Todd. She spent her earthly days watching daytime television and collecting disability. Then she asked us for plot updates on the Young and the Restless. Eventually we discovered that she had drowned in the tub after slipping on a bar of soap. The drain – clogged with matted balls of hair – had pooled around her feet and she died in 3 inches of dirty, oily water. This had been right before I moved in. I remembered pulling clumps of hair from the drain and shuddered in disgust.

The Ouija board is a good tool to contact the dead. But do you really want to? The dead are rarely more fascinating than the living. And on top of that, they usually haven’t talked to anyone for a very long time. They go on and on, trapping you with their stupid, irrelevant stories. The novelty of talking to a dead person wears off real quick.

So this weekend I decided to kick back and relax out in Amish country. The whole trip was precipitated by a craving for sliced ham, pickled eggs and tapioca pudding. Sometimes there’s nothing better.

Once I was full though, my thoughts turned to sex.

I did the usual, cruising the streets of Paradise, PA, whistling at Amish girls and looking all flashy in my motorized vehicle, but for some reason I wasn’t having any luck. Cruising for Mennonites can be rough. Full on Amish girls are even harder. In a change in strategy, I drove down to Route 23. I’d had some success there in the past. One time I met this inbred dairy wench that could churn butter back to cream.

But anyway, after being struck down in Churchtown and neighboring Goodville I drove over to Blue Ball. I hadn’t run into Blue Ball since high school. I’d even forgotten the uncomfortable feeling I used to get from Blue Ball. But there I was. Even though it was a little unpleasant, it was the biggest town around. Getting through Blue Ball was my best chance at scoring so I stopped at the corner bar and ordered a drink. They had Bud, Bud Light and Miller High Life, so I ordered whiskey.

The Blue Ball bar was a desperate place full of desperate men. It didn’t take long to see that life in Blue Ball weighed these people down. The men shifted uncomfortably on their stools, looks of frustration on their faces, nursing their shitty beers in some horrible Blue Ball limbo.

By contrast, the women were surprisingly upbeat. Whatever caused the throbbing, gut wrenching anxiety in Blue Ball, it only affected the men. I chatted with a nice brunette named Cindy. We talked about her hopes, dreams and some other crap. Things were going great and when we hit the dance floor, I thought I’d be busting through that Blue Ball barrier in no time.

Cindy told me to meet her later that night at her house in Intercourse. She promised me apples from her garden and fresh baked corn muffins. She slipped her number and address into my back pocket and told me to meet her at 9PM.

And that’s when things went wrong.

After finishing my last whiskey, I slipped out to my car, ready to hit the road. I felt fine, but for some reason my court ordered breathalizer said that I was too “drunk” to drive. It was bullshit, but I couldn’t start my car without a clean readout. I slammed the dashboard with both fists and fell out of the car into the gravel parking lot.

That’s when I realized that it was 8:30PM and I was stuck in Blue Ball with no way to Intercourse. My map told me that the trip was an agonizing 9.5 miles. I decided to run it. The last time I’d been to Blue Ball was for a statewide track meet. I’d run my way out of Blue Ball before and I could do it again. Unfortunately for me, I was a decade out of condition. With the promise of Cindy’s farm grown apples and the assumption that I would have sex with her also, I didn’t care how out of shape I was.

I hit the pavement. With every step, I drew closer to Intercourse, leaving Blue Ball far behind. But unfortunately, with every dry, pounding motion the pain and cramping just got worse. I started to doubt myself. Could I really get from Blue Ball to Intercourse? As I ran, I called Cindy on my cell and told her the problem. It was so hard I said, and I really, really wanted to come. She gave me a deadline of 10PM. After that, she was feeding her muffin to the dog and going to bed.

At 9:40, just 2 miles from Intercourse I buckled over, a cramp freezing my groin. I couldn’t move. That was it and I knew it. I wouldn’t make it to Intercourse. I lay in the shoulder all night, frustration and pain holding me down. Eventually I masturbated and went home.

The BBC reported today that homo sapiens edged closer to total victory in the ancient battle for terran ape supremacy. Today’s report notes that Gorilla and Orangutan populations hover on the brink of species collapse and ultimately, total extinction.

Like the Wal Mart of the Great Apes, human beings stand proudly atop a diminishing list of competing species. While human action has led in large part to the annihilation of inferior monkeys, apes themselves are also to blame.

A recent report put the Ebola death toll among Africa’s lowland gorillas at nearly 5,000. Comparatively, a continuing outbreak among humans in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has killed less than 200 individuals. Better understanding, preparedness and post-infection actions undertaken by homo sapiens has spared our species a death toll similar to that of the subordinate loser ape populations.

While the victory against gorillas and orangutans should be praised, today’s triumphs pale in comparison to the ancient battles against competing hominids. Most revered is the human suppression and eventual eradication of the Neanderthal menace some 25,000 years ago. Likely able of verbal communication and equipped with larger brains than modern man, the destruction of the Neanderthals may be humankinds greatest victory.

Other extinct hominids include homo heidelbergensis, homo erectus and homo antecessor. While not a hominid or an ape, the elimination of the Yangtze River Dolphin should also be noted among mankind’s achievements.

Yesterday’s Eagles/Packers game was a horrible pile of shit and I’m glad I missed the second half because of previous commitments. But I’m not here to talk about the game, I’m here to talk about an often-overlooked facet of football culture: the NFL’s clear and overt feelings of sexual longing towards Packers quarterback Brett Favre.

While NFL announcers tend to eroticize players and especially quarterbacks, Favre is in a class by himself. For years I’ve shifted uncomfortably in my seat while announcers like John Madden and Troy Aikman talk with yearning and desire about his “big strong legs” and “classic, gritty face.” Yesterday as the camera cut into a tight shot of Favre staring vapidly out from behind 25 years of repeated head trauma, one commentator stopped to note: “There are those eyes I was talking about.”

Watching a Packers game is like seeing a group of frat boys at a strip club… or maybe more accurately it’s like watching a Republican Senator in an airport bathroom. Now of course there’s nothing wrong with a gay football announcer, in fact I strongly encourage Aikman to come out of the closet. I just feel that sexual desire of any sort has no place in the commentators box. It skews opinion.

When it comes to Brett, NFL commentators see him through rose-colored glasses rubbed with Favre’s ball sweat. He’s been a terrible, terrible quarterback for years. Favre throws more stupid interceptions at more crucial times, in more games than any starting quarterback I’ve ever seen. He also continues to throw them during non-crucial times or in other words, once the Packers have fallen desperately behind. He’s terrible and he should have retired years ago.

It’s the announcers and those like them who through their constant on-air blowjobs have convinced the washed-up Superbowl MVP turned punch-drunk loser Favre, that he can still actually play in the NFL.

Here’s to a better game and that’s all for now.

Occasionally I repost phony product reviews from my brief ‘career’ over at epinions.com. One day while toiling away at work, I wrote this review of:

Home > Hotels & Travel > Destinations > “Hell”

Yes, Hell is a real place. I think it’s in the Caribbean. Here’s my December, 2000 review:

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I was just a small boy when my stepfather first told me I was going to hell.

“Liberator.” he would say, “You’re nothing but low life scum and if you don’t finish your damn mac and cheese, I’m sending you to hell 60 years early.”

Hell.

I found myself in hell after a brief stint up in heaven. I don’t know how I got there, the last memory I have I was trying to get a bagel out of my toaster with a butter knife. I guess I forgot to unplug it.

The next thing I knew, there I was. Just like in the Family Circus, heaven was a big place full magnificent light and beautiful androgynous beings. It all reminded me very much of the Velvet Underground. But there was something more to it. There was an ever present feeling of overpowering love. A feeling entirely absent from The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed overall. Up in heaven love had form. It had shape and texture. I supposed this was God. Being in heaven was the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had.

And then.

The feeling drained from my body like sand from an hour glass. My strength and understanding fell away as I was transported through a draining of consciousness into some other place of being. There was no sense of falling, there was no sense of movement at all. The change and the shift in perceived time and space seemed to come entirely from within. As love abandoned, my perception changed accordingly. I floated motionless as the world fell away. Ether and essence ceased to be. There was no pain. There was no feeling at all. I just floated, waiting to be thrown into the fiery pits of legend. But it didn’t happen. I prayed to God, begging for forgiveness and for readmittnance into his realm, but my thoughts were dead in nothing.

Without the aid of perception as there was nothing to perceive, I have been here now for what may be an eternity. My consciousness is all that remains. It lives here somewhere, blind, deaf and mute. No one and nothing is here. There is no love, there is no pain, no grand ideal, no emotion at all. No feeling at all. I can only think… I can only think. I’ve relived my life a million times. I’ve recounted every moment. I can do it a million times in what seems like a second. But as many times as I do it, I can never feel it. I can never feel in the memory of it. I can never understand it. I know I should, and I think that I can, But I can’t. I just can’t.

I’ve wondered where my thoughts go. Do they exist at all? I asked the same question on earth, but now I know the answer. On earth there was a purpose. There was a reason for thought and my thoughts were alive there. Thought was transcendent on earth. It lived in it’s own space. Now that I’m dead, I know this. That every thought I had on earth existed elsewhere, but it always tied into my life and myself. Why or how I ended up here I don’t know. I’ve thought of it forever, but just can’t understand. There’s nothing here to understand. Just words and dead thought.

What world do my thoughts end up in? Do they go anywhere from here? Can someone hear my thoughts now? Why am I here? Where are my thoughts now?

On days when I don’t have the time or inclination to post, I regurgitate posts from my career at epinions.com. There I wrote phony product reviews under the handle “liberator76.” My persona there was far more popular than this one here. This review for a Yugo convertible racked up 33 comments:

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When my job as a stack attendant at Borders Books International transferred me from center city Philadelphia to the main warehouse out in the burbs, I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. Of course, I had to take the promotion. Finally, my career was taking off. The job offered a raise in the upwards of a dollar an hour. Benefits included a 15% discount on all books, 10% on audio. I was finally going somewhere.

But every blessing comes with a terrible curse. Work kept me out of the house 50-60 hours a week as it was. My then-girlfriend, Cindy had already taken 5 or 6 lovers in my persistent absence. I mean I can’t blame her, I was never around and even when I was I usually just drank until I lost consciousness. I feared that she would leave me altogether if I worked anymore. I had to find a way to spend more time at home.

By bus, getting to my new job would require about 2 and a half hours of transportation a day. I had to take the el to the main terminal and then 2 buses to a spot about a mile from the warehouse. Moving was not an option, as suburban life isn’t for me. I decided to get a car. With the extra .92 an hour, a car was finally feasible. I went down to the corner store and lifted a copy of the �trader times.� In it I found all sorts of cars listed.

That evening I went home, stripped naked, covered myself in peanut oil and vinegar, lit 77 candles, arranging them in a spiral pattern around me. I affixed steel/leather clamps to my eyelids and nipples and induced bile from my bosom into a ceramic pot I had placed at my feet. Removing the clamps and returning to their burlap carryall filled with flour and corn meal, I sat in the center of the room and read through my issue of the Trader Times. Scanning the ads, I realized that most of the cars were all far too expensive.

Then I saw it. When the winter wind whipped through my broken window and into my room, the shadow of several candles converged on the ad of a 1991 Yugo convertible. The price, $112. Now this was a car in my price range! The next day I started my investigation of the owner. Urgbon Molzinvericheznt, was his name. A simple background check showed that his record in the States was clean. Having moved from the former Yugoslavia in 1993 Urgbon had attained his citizenship in 1998. His parents had been killed in the 1999 NATO bombings. For this, an extensive FBI file was available. It seems they considered him a potential security threat and monitored his actions. Later in the day I called Urgbon, from a secure phone in Borders. Urgbon agreed to sell me the Yugo for $100. He said it had about 100,000 miles on it, but was in otherwise good condition.

When I bought the Yugo, I felt great. My first car. And a convertible at that! The classic Eastern European design and engineering made me feel like a genuine piece of neo-Soviet Euro-trash. I slipped on my pair of “Eagle Eye” (as seen on TV) sunglasses, popped down the top and took off for home. I slept easy that night.

The bitter winter wind whipped through my hair as I cruised the King of Prussia Mall parking lot on the way to work the next day. The roof of the Yugo had broken free when I was taking the top down and I couldn’t find a way to reattach it. It was of no concern; I didn’t plan on putting the top up much at all.

On the way home from work, when black smoke started billowing from the floor of the vehicle, I decided I should probably take the car in for a tune-up. The owner of the Jiffy Lube told me that they didn’t repair Yugos and referred me to a European Motors specialist. When I pulled up in the lot, the repairman met me in the lot.

“Is that a Yugo?” He asked enthusiastically.

“Sure is.” I responded proudly.

“Well son of a bitch.” He said, “I didn’t think any of them were still on the road.”

“This one is.” I responded. “Bet you don�t see too much of these babies around, do you?”

“Sure don’t.”

“It’s got some smoke coming out of it and the roof fell off, can you fix it?”

The mechanic burst into hysterical laughter. This lasted for several minutes. He smacked a monkey wrench on the ground, tears streaming down his leathery grease covered face. He sure did look jolly. Like a grease clown. When he finally gained enough composure to speak, he said to me:

“Boy, these are the most unreliable cars in the history of the world. They go on an break down every 5 miles.”

“But can you fix it?” I asked.

“The country they come from hasn’t existed for na’er on a decade… an even if the sanctions was lifted an parts were allowed shipped, the air force’s bombed the Yugo plant. Yugo’s been blown off the face of the earth.”

“Oh.” I said, feeling a little cheated. “Was that in the NATO bombing?”

“Yup. NATO that was the one.”

“Oh.”

That’s where Urgbon�s parents were killed, I thought. they died in the bombing of the Yugo manufacturing plant. It all started to make sense. I had a piece of junk car from an enemy country that no longer existed.

“What can you do with it?” I asked.

“I can sell it for scrap.”

“Oh”

“Can you put rims on it?”

“No. The wheel size is a standard for Yugo only.”

“Oh. Can�t you just use makeshift parts?”

“Nope. Don�t much care to”

With this final revelation, I left. Driving off in my Yugo, the smoke began to seep from various parts of the car. I hit the fan button to try to cool the engine, but smoke, then flame shot from the vents. I tried to stop the car, but the brakes failed. I pulled the emergency brake clear off. I decided to jump for it. Aiming the car at a brick wall, so as to avoid pedestrian injury, I leapt from the car, covering my face and rolling to a stop. The Yugo drifted slowly into the wall, completely engulfed in flame. It tried to blow up, but even failed at that. The gas cap blew off and a flaccid shot of smoke emerged from the valve. I watched the car smolder slowly, shaking my head in disgust.

I guess I always have my degree in computer programming to fall back on. I’m quitting Borders altogether and getting a job in that field. That way I can buy a fucking Mercedes. As for Cindy, she can go to hell. It’s time I take charge!

Last night I saw a commercial for the coinstar machine. You’ve probably heard of it, but in case you haven’t it works like this: You take all your loose change and throw it into the coinstar and get paper money in return. No rolling, no counting, all easy. In the commercial, the guy who goes to the machine gets a nice return then ‘splurges’ on some impulse buy.

Well I’ve got a ton of loose change and thought it sounded like a great idea, so this morning I headed over to Commerce Bank at 18 and Walnut to use their conistar-like machine to cash in. It turned out that I had like $400 in change. I was shocked!

My next thought is, what do I do with $400 found dollars? What would you do with $400 found dollars? Long story short, I bought a gun. A pink glock. I don’t really care about the color, it’s a fucking gun. If someone gives me shit for having a pink glock, I’ll just shoot them. Besides, the pink gun was 30% off and that brought it right into my budget.

So this afternoon, I was itching to shoot something. I headed over to Kelly Drive after work, walked up behind a goose and shot it execution style in the back of the head. It worked great!

This evening I’m feasting on roast goose. I love my new gun!

I’ve decided that from now on, there will be a slight change in format. During times when I’ve got nothing interesting to say or to share, I’ll just make shit up. Fortunately, I don’t have to do that today. My life has been crazy interesting over the last few weeks.

A lot of you know that you can order prescription drugs online without a doctor’s approval. That’s old news. It’s also how I’ve been rolling in oxys and the hundred dollar bills their white collar addicts trade for them. Between that business and a side thing with some pills and a local private school, I’ve been raking in the cash. You can make a killing selling meds. It’s just nuts.

What I didn’t know was that you can also buy drugs like cocaine online. Not just the coca leaves or plants, I’m talking refined and cut shit straight out of Colombia. What a crazy world! I’ve had my eye on that 15m. penthouse at the new Liberty II condos, so I thought, why they fuck not?

Some people make their $ on ebay selling antiques and shit, but my tastes are too refined to support my lifestyle doing that. I’m used to sipping Cristal in my BMW coupe. I roll with the high class. Plus if you ebay your income, need to know what you’re buying and selling. You need to develop skills and shit. I don’t have time for that. I need my cash NOW.

So that’s why I dumped half my savings into 12 kilos of Colombian coke. Everything was cool, I just shouldn’t have had it all shipped to my day job. The Fed-Ex guy was fine, but someone at work took it upon themselves to open the package. The next thing I know the FBI was dragging me out in handcuffs. I couldn’t believe it and I was pretty upset, but it looked totally cool. I like giving off that air of mystery around my colleagues.

But anyway, I can’t believe it! My business is ruined and my lawyer says I could be in a lot of trouble. I might even have to do jail time or community service. This sucks.

On my way home I realized that of my colleagues, I’m the 4th person in the last 12 months who’s vacationed on the side of a remote mountain. The mountain I visited is called Devil’s Den and I spent 1 night there. There was a small farm, some animals, an old house, some amazing food and good people. All in all, my total of 8 days in Maine were great.

Lets start with the negative and work towards the positive. The singular low-point was getting pulled over for doing 72 in a 55 zone. I thought it was ok at first. It was an experience, sort of like going to a concert or a nice restaurant. I sit there, get the ticket, pay the $50-65 and have an interesting memory and a story to tell. That was until I saw $185 written across the top of it. Whatever experience this was, it was not worth $185.

My heart sank. Without really thinking, I tore the ticket up and threw it at the highway patrolman. When he asked me to step out of the car I did so without incident. Turning slowly towards him, I gave him the finger and spit in his face. There was a struggle and then a gunshot. The bullet grazed my shoulder, but the damage was incidental.

After that it was all really a blur. I managed to throw a handful of gravel in the officer’s eyes and escape – shirtless – into the woods. They sent in bloodhounds, but I used my skills in animal mind control to benevolently subdue the dogs. I survived for 3 days on insects, tree bark and the raw meat of a rabbit that I trapped with dental floss and a pocketknife. I have no idea how I got out of there. But I’m home now. If anyone asks, don’t mention any of this.

Highlights were pretty much everything else. The trip was split pretty evenly between visiting a friend in the great little city of Portland, Maine and spending time mainly alone to write, photograph and explore the coast. I loved every second of it. I also thought of 3 new potential career paths:

1. Wildlife biologist living on a remote island with other like-minded weirdoes studying the social habits and the feces of Puffins, Murres and Arctic Terns.
2. Entrepreneur, also in Maine, probably in Bar Harbor. I don’t know exactly what the business would be, but I thought of the perfect name for it: Maine-ly Crap.
3. Drifter. I’ve always wanted to be a drifter. I’d be a creative one, writing and photographing my drifting. I just wish I could figure out how this would pay for gas and fancy food.

But until then, I’m going to have to stick to my memories and the 1200+ photos I took in the last week. In related news, watch for a lot of Maine photos on the front page of this website. That’s all for now.

The title of this post is the most intriguing search result that led a wayward web surfer to this site sometime in the last 36 hours. Most of the time I wouldn’t touch my strange search results with a 10-foot pole. The same goes for this one, but this time I’ve decided to help in another way.

Why? In many ways this is a local site, devoted in large part to all things Philadelphian. To exclude crack whores would be wrong. They’re just part of the rich tapestry that makes up this great city.

And before you go thinking something nasty, please note that there’s a word missing in that search term. Maybe they wanted to know the best place to “help” crack whores in philadelphia. In fact the missing word(s) could be almost anything. It could be meet, photograph, buy dinner for, strangle or even fall deeply in love with.

And yes it could also be “fuck.”

But anyway, I knew someone who while nearing his low point slept with dozens of Philadelphia’s rock smoking prostitutes. Because he was at this low point, it was sort of acceptable in some twisted way and I don’t judge him for it. As a result however, I’ve been instilled with a certain knowledge that I wouldn’t otherwise have. That kid has some crazy stories.

So a note to that anonymous searcher.

Where have you looked? Unfortunately, these ladies are everywhere. (I’m saying “unfortunately” in a empathic liberal way and not in an unfeeling and hate filled conservative one) So searcher, try skulking around under the el tracks anywhere north of Berks station. Hang around at an A-Plus in a neighborhood with a lot of gun violence. Hey, maybe you’ll get ‘lucky’ and meet someone right in center city. (*note if a skinny woman incessantly licking her lips asks you if you need a date, there you go)

I hope this information helps at least 1 of my readers.

Oh, remember to bring enough cash for a bottle of Yuengling at an Old City bar. That should be more than enough to gitter done.

For tomorrow I promise something more family friendly. That’s all for now.

Years ago, I wrote fake product reviews for epinions.com. Eventually I was banned from the site, but I stand by my work. This is my review for “Ropel Animal, Rodent and Bird Repellent.”

What excited me most about my new house in suburban Philadelphia was my 3½ acre yard. The yard in fact, sold me on the house. Sure it needed a little work, but it would be a calming activity to cultivate the land to my liking. The overgrown lush greenery and chaotic flowerbeds stretched across the rolling yardscape, before dropping suddenly into a small valley cut by a rushing creek full of crawdads and tiny speckled fish. In the evenings deer would emerge from the nearby woods and graze on my lawn. Occasionally a groundhog would stick his head from an underground den, or go lumbering clumsily across my yard.

The place obviously needed work. Before my new yard could be arranged to a simple state of subtle beauty I found that it would be necessary to repel nature with an abrasive chemical spray. I purchased several industrial drums of Ropel Animal, Rodent and Bird Repellent on the advice of a friend. It advertised a repellent force to nearly every creature disturbing the desired order of my yard. Pesky squirrels, groundhogs, deer, rabbits, cats, dogs, mice, moles, songbirds, doves, raccoons and possums would no longer be a problem. I immediately went to work. I sprayed the trees to repel the birds. I coated every plant and inch of lawn to deal with the larger mammals. Through a homemade siphon, I pumped the chemical liquid into the ground. I even poured some into the babbling brook which ran through my property to see if it would repel fish as well. The fish were not repelled, but instead, died.

I am an admirer of nature and had no intention of killing the local marine life. Instead of continuing with lethal water treatments, I dammed up the river with concrete blocks at the property line and salted the riverbed to rid the earth of worms and parasites. On land, the repellent worked, but was not all and entirely effective. Often I would wake to the sounds of birds in my yard. Still, a squirrel could be spotted scurrying across my lawn, or a rabbit nibbling on a length of grass. High frequency sound machines, air rifle surveillance and even chemical sprays proved only to be a “band-aid solution” to the overall problem of free-roaming nature. Taking the tactics I had learned from the “creek solution” and aesthetic sensibilities drawn from local, suburban commercial districts, I leveled the yard, flattened the land and finished it with the permanence and strength of 6-inch layer of concrete.

The concrete did the trick and I learned a valuable lesson. Nature begets nature. Particular elements of the natural world cannot be removed. To remove nature - as became my ultimate goal - nature must be conquered and obliterated; paved, fenced in and dammed off. As I said, I have nothing against the natural world, in fact I quite enjoy “getting back to nature” from time to time. Just not at home, during the work week. Nature should be allowed to thrive in an allotted space, like in our many great National Parks. Everything has its place. Nature should, like in my yard, be isolated and cordoned into a planned field of existence, while the rest of the world should be allowed to thrive as to the dictation and planning of Earth’s ultimate masters; mankind.

I love my new yard. Ropel Animal, Rodent and Bird Repellant may serve as a temporary and attractive solution, but you will learn, just as I did, that if you wish to control nature, it’s all or nothing. Nature must be obliterated.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

PHILADELPHIA - After talks broke down late Monday, Community College of Philadelphia president Stephen Curtis watched helplessly as his teachers and staff walked off their jobs and took to the picket lines. “It was awful.” Recounted Curtis. “I didn’t know what to do. I usually have all the power here and suddenly I was powerless.”

That’s when the CCP President decided to call in the Pinkertons. “I wasn’t sure if they were still around. But there they were in the Yellow Pages. I called immediately.”

Wednesday morning, as the aging, professors buckled up their sandals for another day of strikes, the Pinkertons descended on the scene. Donning dark blue suits and bowler style hats, 50 mustached men on horseback paraded up Spring Garden Avenue, yelling threats and spitting on strikers as they arrived.

“They stood between us and these scab workers that they harvested from local graduate schools.” recounted biology professor Ralph Piles. “They told me that if I intervened, they’d split my skull open.”

Violence did erupt briefly as a team of Pinkertons threw English professor Judith Adler to the ground after she refused to let a scab professor pass. In a separate incident, an administrative worker was reportedly kicked in the head by a horse. The worker – who was not named – and Adler were taken to Jefferson Hospital late Wednesday afternoon. This evening, they were both listed in critical but stable condition.

Although it was unclear who initiated the violence with Adler, the Pinkerton tactic of intimidation has been extremely effective. “What can we do?” asked a frail, flabbergasted professor.

The rest of the day passed without incident as the strike was strong-armed into virtual submission. Mayor Street could not be reached for comment.

With rumors circulating that Michael Jackson has both converted to Islam and plans to make a “guest judge” appearance on American Idol I have to wonder how this will all play out.

Now with no intention to insinuate that Islam is a violent religion made up exclusively of terrorists or that I advocate the death and destruction of innocent life, how great would it be if Jackson ended his career via suicide bombing on the set of American Idol? Be honest now…

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Also in the news:

LYNCHBURG, Va. The Reverend Jerry Falwell says global warming is “Satan’s attempt to redirect the church’s primary focus” from evangelism to environmentalism.