The following is a conversation I had with John Goodman. Though totally unverified by John and his representatives, I can assure you that this occurred IRL! It all happened one day when I was hitchhiking from New Orleans to Atlanta. John picked me up on the side of the road.
John: Hop on in.
Me: Thanks.
John: Where you headed?
Me: Atlanta.
John: You mean Black Hollywood, right?
Me: Where else?
John: Hot damn. Great fucking city.
Me: (Nodding) (Silence)
John: (Silence) (Picks donuts out of back seat and starts to eat it)
Me: So...how far can you take me?
John: (chokes on doughnut)
Me: Oh my god! Dude! Are you okay?!
(The car begins to swerve with John's increasingly violent choking. I strike his back a number of times in an attempt to dislodge the doughnut piece. John vomits all over the dashboard and expels the doughnut.)
John: (slaps his hand down on the puke covered dash) Woooooo! Now that right there is what my daddy called the old "Goodman car wash." And I ain't talking about by biological pappy either.
Me: Wait, did you just reveal to me that you are, in fact, John Goodman, the actor, and that you have some sort of daddy fetish?
John: You're darn tootin'! I like to treat the world like it's an AOL chat room. No faces, no names, and no way in hell am I going to spare you any details of my sexual depravities. So you just better buckle up and enjoy the ride, Mr....Mr. what's your name anyway?
Me: First off, I both see your face and know your name. Secondly, my name is Corey.
John: Well shoot, I meant to give you my screen name, not my real name, Corey. Give me a second here.
(John proceeds to pull out a pen and piece of paper and write his screen name down on it. He hands me the slip.)
Me: Wow. 420DogTurdSmoker69 That's a mouthful.
John: You should say that while smoking on a meaty dog turd! Hehehehehehe. But seriously, I'm proud of that screen name. You have no idea how fast the numbers 420 and 69 go.
Me: Tell me more, John Goodman.
John: Well, in this newfangled day and age when you need a username for every goddamn website you sign up for, you tend to want to get the prime real estate. You know, getting that really cool username that let's everyone else know you're top dog. Like PrimeRealEstate69 or 420Top69Dog. Problem is every Bo and Cletus worth their weight in ass pennies wants to have some permutation of CoolGuy42069. Them numbers get snatched up real quick. I'm more nervous than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs when I sign up for a new username. You ain't a man if you don't got them numbers, son.
Me: I see. So John....I mean 420DogTurdSmoker69, now that you have totally alienated me with your weird theories on internet username propriety, how about we move on to a more mundane subject?
John: Another stick in the mud. Y'all hitchhikers are as boring as cookies without Xanax.
Me: You mean, you've done this before?
John: All the time. Hell, I'm supposed to be on set right now for a new movie I'm doing called Fire Under the Magnolia Bush, a Southern Gothic, Steampunk romance set in the Reconstruction era.
Me: Isn't it a magnolia tree?
John: Listen, son, I ain't one to care much for particulars. Furthermore, anytime you can say the word "bush" you go for it. That's why I always drink Busch beer, for the puns you see.
Me: Just crackin' open a big old Busch and diving right in.
John: That's the spirit! I had hoped you turn yourself around. Most of you hitchhiking fellas aren't much for repartee when I first pick you up, but by the time I'm done with you you're greased as hog...dialogically speaking of course.
Me: Well, I do feel remarkably at ease for sitting next to a man who has confessed his sexual proclivities and spoke about greasing me up like a pig within the first 10 minutes of me meeting him.
John: Don't flatter yourself, son. This sort of colloquy is just par for the course with old 420DogTurdSmoker69. Why just last week I picked up a woman, and told her how I am physically unable to get off without someone calling my a "shoebie."
Me: Like from Rocket Power?
John: Yep. I reckon it has something to do with the seminal vesicle resonating to the precise pitch and timbre of the word "shoebie." Of course, maybe that's just a hold over from my days as a traveling sexual anatomy instructor for teens.
Me: No way! My father was once a traveling sexual anatomy instructor for teens too!
(John slows down the car to almost a halt. He turns to me and with an expression so grave that his face literally turned into a graveyard, John stares me down. Reaching out his hand I recoil in horror and press myself up against the passenger side window. John grabs the door handle and opens the door.)
John: Get the fuck out!
Me: Joh...420DogTurdSmoker69, the car is still moving I..I..
John: Boy, if you don't get out of here right now...
(Just then a station wagon pulls in front of us. Two kids are sitting in the back, staring at 420DogTurdSmoker69 and me. They stick out their tongues and make what appear to be racially charged gestures about Asian Americans. John slams the door closed furiously and grips the wheel with both hands. He revs the engine and rams into the back of the station wagon. The children are terrified as the station wagon picks up speed and begins to pull away from us. John follows in pursuit.)
Me: What the fuck is going on?!
John: Let me tell you a story, son.
(420DogTurdSmoker69's eyes are glazed over. He no longer looks at me as he speaks.)
John: Far as I know, there are only two traveling sexual anatomy for teens instructors left alive. Me and your pappy. You know why that is?!
Me: Increasing education budgets?
John: Nope, it's because your pappy sold us all out.
(John reaches into the back and produces a bag. He sits it in his lap.)
John: It was back in 78. Business was good, and teens were giggling every time I said the word penis. However, the government was trying to hunt us down, but we were always a Perineum ahead. We thought we were invincible....
(The kids in the station wagon in front of us begin to pretend to play tiny violins. John growls and slams on the gas.)
John: Then the government started taking us out one by one. I didn't know what was happening at first, but when your father called me up and asked me where my next assignment was I put it all together. Son of a bitch is lucky I never saw him again.
Me: Yeah, my dad is kind of a dick. Sorry.
John: I ain't got time for apologies.
(John reaches into the bag on his lap and pulls out a rolled up poster. He unfolds it revealing an anatomical diagram of a female vagina. He presses the poster up against the windshield facing out and rolls down his window. John slams on the gas and closes the distance between us and the station wagon. He puts his left arm out the window and points to the poster.)
John: LABIA MINORA!!!!!
(The kids begin to laugh. John smiles and crashes into the back of the station wagon causing an explosion that engulfs us and the station wagon. Blood, steel, and flame bend together. Nothing in the wreckage is recognizable except for the laminated poster of a female vagina.)
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
The Self Spin Doctor
What I had not known was that for the entirety of my life I had smelt the 26th year. It came to me in flashes or wafts, many of which I can no longer remember. Others stuck with me: In fourth grade when I hid at the bottom of the ball pit and pretended I was a sarlacc, in middle school when the girl I kissed on a dare puked, and in college every time I showed off my mangina. The smell was always the same though varying in strength. It was a bit like a well washed butt hole, not stinky per se but I knew where the hell my nose was. At least I thought I knew. The scent was not a prognostication, nor did it bear any sense of foreboding. All that I knew for sure was that this scent was somehow a part of me, kind of like a undescended third ball.
Then came my 26th birthday. I awoke alone perspiring heavily as if I had spent the night curled up beneath a sweaty titty. For a moment I did not notice it, and then it hit me. Much like the hell fire to which the damned may never become accustomed, the 26th year stench pervaded everything, unrelentingly fucking my prudish olfactory senses. The smell was garish and rather rank but not altogether unpleasant. There were notes of lavender, rosemary, and pretentious hipster foodyism. If smells could be instagrammed I would have been an internet celebrity.
At first I tried to live my life as I once had, ignoring the smell as best I could. I went to work, hung out with my friends, insulted DJs, and made lewd gestures to dogs. Yet, whenever I slowed down, the smell would catch up to me, settling into to every pour of my body. I began to ask those closest to me whether or not they could smell it; they could not. I broadened my search asking friends of friends, acquaintances, animals, and even coworkers. I eventually sought the advice of spiritual leaders. A priest told me it was merely the B.O. from the eternal embrace of Christ. A rabbi chased me out of his office proclaiming the smell to be the gaseous emanations of a vengeful dybbuk. I consulted with high school goths around the country, each giving me different interpretations ranging from the supernatural to the sexual (the most plausible being that I somehow fucked an astral projection of Stevie Nicks leaving my dick swathed in a permanent pussy stank). It got to a point where I would accost a stranger over the wrinkling of her or his nose. It was to no avail, however. It seemed that I was to be the sole proprietor of this solipsistic stench.
The funky aroma's persistence was maddening; it began to affect me in subtle and unforeseen ways. I grew increasingly isolated, anxious, and emotional. I even joined a menopause support group and was then kicked out for being too moody. Worst of all my social ineptitude grew exponentially. I lacked more empathy and social awareness than drunk Hitler at a JDate mixer. It was like going through puberty all over again, except this time I had Asperger's and a twitter account. Because of all this I lost my job and many of my friends. My mother even began sending me insulting texts like "You're a stupid shit ass" and "My humming birds think you're fat!" I was disconsolate.
Only three months into the 26 year stench and I was ready to end it all. To help me decide I joined a Japanese suicide forum, speaking with strangers at length about the relative merits of different forms of suicide. In the process I befriended a 38 year old widow who wanted to be crushed to death by thousands of copies of her favorite Manga series and a 16 year old who was home schooled by magicians. Consulting these and other sorrowful types, we determined that either fan death or suicide by cop was the most posh course of action. Thus confirmed, I set out to plan my own death.
The whole process was simple really. Equipped with a gallon jug of barbicide, some hair clippers, numerous hair gels, a bottle of talcum powder, and a fake gun, I would head to Times Square and take a bunch of hostages. Once there, I would start giving my hostages terrible hair cuts until the police arrived. At some point during the hostage negotiations I had planned to turn my gun on the cops and watch as they riddled my odoriferous body with bullets. A fitting end and one that I looked forward to with relish. However, things did not go as planned.
Walking into Times Square and decorated with the accouterments of barberity, I surveyed the crowd and anxiously picked my first victim, a 20 something yuppie woman sporting David Byrne-esque shoulder pads. All of the sudden the 26 year stench flared up beyond comprehension, swathing me in a choking miasma of heretofore unknown proportions. Reaching for my gun, I plotted which haircut to bestow upon this woman: mullet, bowl cut, devil's lock, or, if I had the time, cornrows? Only a pace or two behind the lady, she stopped abruptly and swiveled her head from side to side. I too stopped and clutched my gun. Whipping her head around she looked at me long and hard. Her nose twitched and her eyes lit up.
"I thought I smelled barbicide! You're one of those guys who give free hair cuts, right?" I nodded sullenly. "Good. Make me look like a lesbian Donald Trump with postpartum depression." Somehow I knew exactly what that meant and began to trim this woman's hair. Cutting, coiffing, and crimping, I found myself lost in the process and started up a conversation with this woman. Her name was Angelica Linares, a quick witted and ambitious Uruguayan with facial tattoos who fancied herself a "self spin doctor." Incredulous and captivated, I inquired further. Angelica explained that a self spin doctor was the middle ground between therapist and PR person, analyst and image consultant, a sort of self-marketing masseuse who gave your ego a happy ending. That's when I decided to hold off on the whole killing myself thing.
Angelica became a close friend and consultant to me, advising me in all manners of my personal and professional life. Her advice was trenchant and applicable: wear shorter short shorts, stop addressing everyone as "Dave", find me opium, get that one Black Flag tattoo, cut a whole in your fanny pack so you can put your dick through it, watch more rom coms, and, most importantly, create a popular smut tumblr. However, despite our fantastic rapport, I still withheld from her the the darkest of my secrets, the 26 year stench. The smell had become more oppressive than ever, something to which Angelica was slowly becoming attune. Perhaps it was my frequent paroxysms of choking or my constant referencing of skunk furries, but eventually Angelica forced the issue.
"Why the fuck do you keep acting like you're in the bathroom of the Crohn's disease ward at a Dallas BBQ?!" Though I had been frightened by the prospect of revealing the 26 year stench to Angelica, her acknowledgement of my behavior made me feel unaccountably well. For the first time someone had noticed the smell, though without smelling it. In blog form I confessed to her my curse. Responding via a series of images on tumblr, Angelica related that my situation reminded her of an old Uruguayan legend, "el hombre que se convirtio en pedo." According to the myth, there was once a man that was plagued by a smell which only he could recognize. After a slow and occasionally hilarious descent into insanity, the man vowed to discover the source of this smell. He wandered the earth for 30 years, a peripatetic saint to the olfactory gods. He supplicated the most sacred shrines of stench across the globe: guano caves in Nigeria, sulfur mines in New Zealand, cow farms in Texas, and even performed cunnilingus on the world's stinkiest vagina (a distinction held by a woman, Mildred MacDuff, who notoriously used tampons cut from the mud stained jersey of Aleister Crowley's occult rugby team).
Like many myths, "el hombre's" search concluded in tragedy when a vengeful spirit stripped him of his corporeal form, leaving "el hombre" nothing but his own stench to comfort him for the rest of eternity. Creepily, Angelica added that once as a child she thought she had encountered this fetid phantasm. Though interesting, the tale left me more crestfallen than ever, providing only the vague hope that I might someday torment others with my smell rather than myself.
Still, Angelica continued to analyze and spin my predicament. Bandying about such trending terms as "Spiritual Anal Bleach" and "Superego Hair Plugs," Angelica encouraged me to return to the life my stench made me abandon. However, each attempt I made only pushed me farther away from my old life and closer to the stench. I began to eat less and smoke more. I bought twenty eight smoke machines and filled my apartment with them. I lingered in smokey bars, gaseous industrial factories, and flatulent Brooklyn flats. In all things I sought vapor and smell.
It was around this time that my body began to change. Though I lost weight, my frame seemed expanded. A smokey pallor overtook my once brnzed skin. My nose grew and my lung capacity reached Michael Phelps bong hit proportions. None of this seemed alarming to me, however. In truth, I was not aware of these changes until one day when sitting with Angelica my hand passed through my coffee cup. Thrown into a fit by my (trans)apparent rarefaction, I rushed home. For hours I stood in the mirror marveling at my new form, all the while taking deeper and deeper inhalations of the 26 year stench. I closed my eyes and with every breath understood the rank fragrance was coming from somewhere inside of me, but was also enveloping me. No longer able to open my eyes or move, I waited cocooned in what felt like a breezy porta potty. After a duration of time somewhere between translating every season of Friends into Latin and the time it would take to collect every piece of ZZ Top paraphernalia, I awoke without form.
So there you have it. I am now a stinking cloud of effluvium, a sentient fart. My existence is slightly better now than when I was a corporeal being. I no longer have to take the subway or have awkward elevator conversations. Moreover, I can drape myself over someone and make them smell like a pair of Al Pacino's pussy eating dentures. It's hilarious. Of course, being unable to interact with humans can be kind of a drag. I miss Angelica. I wonder how she would spin this one?
At first I tried to live my life as I once had, ignoring the smell as best I could. I went to work, hung out with my friends, insulted DJs, and made lewd gestures to dogs. Yet, whenever I slowed down, the smell would catch up to me, settling into to every pour of my body. I began to ask those closest to me whether or not they could smell it; they could not. I broadened my search asking friends of friends, acquaintances, animals, and even coworkers. I eventually sought the advice of spiritual leaders. A priest told me it was merely the B.O. from the eternal embrace of Christ. A rabbi chased me out of his office proclaiming the smell to be the gaseous emanations of a vengeful dybbuk. I consulted with high school goths around the country, each giving me different interpretations ranging from the supernatural to the sexual (the most plausible being that I somehow fucked an astral projection of Stevie Nicks leaving my dick swathed in a permanent pussy stank). It got to a point where I would accost a stranger over the wrinkling of her or his nose. It was to no avail, however. It seemed that I was to be the sole proprietor of this solipsistic stench.
The funky aroma's persistence was maddening; it began to affect me in subtle and unforeseen ways. I grew increasingly isolated, anxious, and emotional. I even joined a menopause support group and was then kicked out for being too moody. Worst of all my social ineptitude grew exponentially. I lacked more empathy and social awareness than drunk Hitler at a JDate mixer. It was like going through puberty all over again, except this time I had Asperger's and a twitter account. Because of all this I lost my job and many of my friends. My mother even began sending me insulting texts like "You're a stupid shit ass" and "My humming birds think you're fat!" I was disconsolate.
Only three months into the 26 year stench and I was ready to end it all. To help me decide I joined a Japanese suicide forum, speaking with strangers at length about the relative merits of different forms of suicide. In the process I befriended a 38 year old widow who wanted to be crushed to death by thousands of copies of her favorite Manga series and a 16 year old who was home schooled by magicians. Consulting these and other sorrowful types, we determined that either fan death or suicide by cop was the most posh course of action. Thus confirmed, I set out to plan my own death.
The whole process was simple really. Equipped with a gallon jug of barbicide, some hair clippers, numerous hair gels, a bottle of talcum powder, and a fake gun, I would head to Times Square and take a bunch of hostages. Once there, I would start giving my hostages terrible hair cuts until the police arrived. At some point during the hostage negotiations I had planned to turn my gun on the cops and watch as they riddled my odoriferous body with bullets. A fitting end and one that I looked forward to with relish. However, things did not go as planned.
Walking into Times Square and decorated with the accouterments of barberity, I surveyed the crowd and anxiously picked my first victim, a 20 something yuppie woman sporting David Byrne-esque shoulder pads. All of the sudden the 26 year stench flared up beyond comprehension, swathing me in a choking miasma of heretofore unknown proportions. Reaching for my gun, I plotted which haircut to bestow upon this woman: mullet, bowl cut, devil's lock, or, if I had the time, cornrows? Only a pace or two behind the lady, she stopped abruptly and swiveled her head from side to side. I too stopped and clutched my gun. Whipping her head around she looked at me long and hard. Her nose twitched and her eyes lit up.
"I thought I smelled barbicide! You're one of those guys who give free hair cuts, right?" I nodded sullenly. "Good. Make me look like a lesbian Donald Trump with postpartum depression." Somehow I knew exactly what that meant and began to trim this woman's hair. Cutting, coiffing, and crimping, I found myself lost in the process and started up a conversation with this woman. Her name was Angelica Linares, a quick witted and ambitious Uruguayan with facial tattoos who fancied herself a "self spin doctor." Incredulous and captivated, I inquired further. Angelica explained that a self spin doctor was the middle ground between therapist and PR person, analyst and image consultant, a sort of self-marketing masseuse who gave your ego a happy ending. That's when I decided to hold off on the whole killing myself thing.
Angelica became a close friend and consultant to me, advising me in all manners of my personal and professional life. Her advice was trenchant and applicable: wear shorter short shorts, stop addressing everyone as "Dave", find me opium, get that one Black Flag tattoo, cut a whole in your fanny pack so you can put your dick through it, watch more rom coms, and, most importantly, create a popular smut tumblr. However, despite our fantastic rapport, I still withheld from her the the darkest of my secrets, the 26 year stench. The smell had become more oppressive than ever, something to which Angelica was slowly becoming attune. Perhaps it was my frequent paroxysms of choking or my constant referencing of skunk furries, but eventually Angelica forced the issue.
"Why the fuck do you keep acting like you're in the bathroom of the Crohn's disease ward at a Dallas BBQ?!" Though I had been frightened by the prospect of revealing the 26 year stench to Angelica, her acknowledgement of my behavior made me feel unaccountably well. For the first time someone had noticed the smell, though without smelling it. In blog form I confessed to her my curse. Responding via a series of images on tumblr, Angelica related that my situation reminded her of an old Uruguayan legend, "el hombre que se convirtio en pedo." According to the myth, there was once a man that was plagued by a smell which only he could recognize. After a slow and occasionally hilarious descent into insanity, the man vowed to discover the source of this smell. He wandered the earth for 30 years, a peripatetic saint to the olfactory gods. He supplicated the most sacred shrines of stench across the globe: guano caves in Nigeria, sulfur mines in New Zealand, cow farms in Texas, and even performed cunnilingus on the world's stinkiest vagina (a distinction held by a woman, Mildred MacDuff, who notoriously used tampons cut from the mud stained jersey of Aleister Crowley's occult rugby team).
Like many myths, "el hombre's" search concluded in tragedy when a vengeful spirit stripped him of his corporeal form, leaving "el hombre" nothing but his own stench to comfort him for the rest of eternity. Creepily, Angelica added that once as a child she thought she had encountered this fetid phantasm. Though interesting, the tale left me more crestfallen than ever, providing only the vague hope that I might someday torment others with my smell rather than myself.
Still, Angelica continued to analyze and spin my predicament. Bandying about such trending terms as "Spiritual Anal Bleach" and "Superego Hair Plugs," Angelica encouraged me to return to the life my stench made me abandon. However, each attempt I made only pushed me farther away from my old life and closer to the stench. I began to eat less and smoke more. I bought twenty eight smoke machines and filled my apartment with them. I lingered in smokey bars, gaseous industrial factories, and flatulent Brooklyn flats. In all things I sought vapor and smell.
It was around this time that my body began to change. Though I lost weight, my frame seemed expanded. A smokey pallor overtook my once brnzed skin. My nose grew and my lung capacity reached Michael Phelps bong hit proportions. None of this seemed alarming to me, however. In truth, I was not aware of these changes until one day when sitting with Angelica my hand passed through my coffee cup. Thrown into a fit by my (trans)apparent rarefaction, I rushed home. For hours I stood in the mirror marveling at my new form, all the while taking deeper and deeper inhalations of the 26 year stench. I closed my eyes and with every breath understood the rank fragrance was coming from somewhere inside of me, but was also enveloping me. No longer able to open my eyes or move, I waited cocooned in what felt like a breezy porta potty. After a duration of time somewhere between translating every season of Friends into Latin and the time it would take to collect every piece of ZZ Top paraphernalia, I awoke without form.
So there you have it. I am now a stinking cloud of effluvium, a sentient fart. My existence is slightly better now than when I was a corporeal being. I no longer have to take the subway or have awkward elevator conversations. Moreover, I can drape myself over someone and make them smell like a pair of Al Pacino's pussy eating dentures. It's hilarious. Of course, being unable to interact with humans can be kind of a drag. I miss Angelica. I wonder how she would spin this one?
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