Origin Story 6

Some say a picture is worth a thousand words. I felt this one was worth a little more.

             Growing up was hard in the heartland of America’s industrial decay. Being one of nine children, I distinctly remember living in extreme poverty. Sometimes when I wanted to feel luxury, I’d go to the local library and pretend I owned all the books. When the librarians were away from the desk, I’d scourge the back of the office and look for food to eat.

                Yep, life was hard. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with my life. Aimlessness became my ultimate trademark. Reading more and more, I wondered if a group existed who could feel my plight, with whom I could truly sympathize. 

                One day I sat on the porch stoop eating ants I found on the ground. Two painted individuals were walking across the street. Each one wore mysterious clown/gangster makeup. Intrigued, I approached them and asked why they looked that way. Smiling and laughing, they stated they were Juggalos going out to spread the good word. They were missionaries from Detroit sent to spread the gospel of the Insane Clown Posse.

                I asked what did the Insane Clown Posse believe in, and what made them so insane? Were they perhaps insane in the membrane, and started singing that popular Cypress Hill song. The two told me to stop and listen. According to their gospel, The Insane Clown Posse was insane due to the enormous unequal distribution of income, thus creating a vast underclass. If I joined, I could help redistribute the wealth. They wanted me to get ‘down with the clowns’. I told them about my desire to stay a virgin until I found that ‘special someone’ not willing to simply clown away that important part of me. Both of them laughed and told me they meant musically and not in any other way. I was relieved. 

                Later that week I was baptized as a Juggalo in a backyard pool of Faygo. Finally, I belonged somewhere. Though my parents complained about my music, saying how the Insane Clown Posse were no Alice in Chains (what I used to listen to). Both my mom and my dad told me my vocabulary had gone down the poop bowl. I didn’t care; I had finally found a group which accepted me. 

                Dropping out of High School, I became an Insane Clown Posse disciple. I lived and breathed their breaths. Since I had such true faith, I was offered dope-ass deals on the latest and greatest ICP merchandise. But not all was fine inside the Dark Carnival I soon discovered.

                People didn’t like Juggalos or Juggalettes, claiming we reeked of sticky soda and Body Odor. Well, I’m sorry, but ICP hadn’t come out with a deodorant yet, otherwise we would’ve been on top of that. Other forms of persecution came from our own bosses. Since we listened to ICP, we must be stupid and I got paid less than my non-ICP listening coworkers. I made up for that by working less hard at 7/11 and stealing more Sausages, which tasted very similar to those ants I used to eat as a kid.

                When I was 18, I came under pressure. Anti-ICP fervor had sparked up across the country. Slowly others began to hide their clown roots, much to the dismay of my ICP peers. But I stayed true, keeping on my makeup, even if it meant people thought I was an idiot who listened to shitty music. I didn’t care. I was stronger than they were.

                One day I wasn’t stronger. People raided our local ICP temple bearing weapons and boom boxes blaring allegedly better music, such as Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Honestly, I thought ICP smoked those turkeys. I didn’t want to get hurt though, as they begun mercilessly beating my fellows Juggalos and Juggalettes. I thought ICP fans were ninjas, but they were getting their asses handed to them pretty easily. Worried my entire life was falling apart, I hid inside a large squirrel costume until they had left. 

                Fearing for my safety, I stayed there until I heard a voice. Looking across, I saw someone wearing a female squirrel costume. She asked me if I had anything for her. Jokingly I said I was storing some nuts for her. That made her very excited and she asked me if I wanted to yiff. Not knowing what that meant, I said sure and soon discovered a new part of my life.

                Yiffing made me feel strong. No longer did I have to expose myself to others, setting myself up for ridicule. Instead, I could have sex with other people while inside a giant squirrel costume. Whether or not people were attractive didn’t matter anymore. I saw deep into their souls, where the souls were perfectly encased in a suit of plastic. I felt knightly in my suit, if a knight didn’t stand for all those things like bravery and stuff.

                Wearing a giant squirrel costume brought me into a whole another world. Oddly, people weren’t willing to hire a guy who dressed up in a giant squirrel costume. I was getting discriminated against again. Even without money, I found friends. Crust punks became my new friends. Despite living in a giant squirrel costume, I smelled better than them. 

                This was the lowest point in my life, according to some social worker who gave me free sandwiches. He said that an Insane Clown Posse fan that was a furry and lived under a bridge had few job prospects. After I mentioned I was a high school dropout, he started laughing hysterically at how totally fucked I was. I think the last thing he told me was “Have a nice life” in between bursts of laughter. 

                But then, everything changed. I met a crust punk girl who apparently had extremely low standards. This may have been due to her heroin addiction, I’m not sure. She saw something in me, a fire which burned. We’d talk about how our parents thought we were failures, just because we had no money and lived under a bridge, searching through trash cans for sustenance. Despite my complete lack of education, she said I was smart. 

                One night, as she held my tail tight, she asked to see my face. No one had seen my face since the incident at the temple. Worried at what she might think of me, I removed my head to show her my face. She threw up next to me, but immediately explained that was due to the foul smell. Looking at me, she asked for me to remove the rest of the suit. Her eyes looked beautiful. I realized I was going to have sex for the first time outside of a giant squirrel costume. I felt scared but she guided me through it. 

                Together we moved into an abandoned building. I began to step outside of my giant squirrel suit comfort zone. All people I guess have to step outside their comfort zone. She gave up heroin. Now both of us live off the drug of love, one where addiction is strong. We moved closer to something approaching normalcy. In the morning we’d get up early and steal shit from 7/11. Whereas we used to steal stuff from the garbage, we’ve moved up to stealing from stores. Someday we dream about stealing from American Apparel. But baby steps I guess. 

                I’m excited about the future. She got me into non-ICP music, though I piece of my heart will always want to get down with the clowns. Now I review music, hoping I’ll make sweet money cake from this blogspot. Things are looking up. Thanks for reading.

OK Cupid Trends Article – Best Questions for a First Date: The Beach Sloth Response

                Ah yes, it has been a while since I’ve gone over the dating site OK Cupid, a site of which I’m a member. Remembering what Groucho Marx said:

                “I don’t want to belong to any dating site that will accept people like me as a member.”

                I think about why I’m even there. Thus far, I haven’t even met any fellow sloth-lovers. But I’m not terribly worried; I’m not fully accepted anyway. According to an advanced algorithm, I’m not even attractive enough to get a special email message telling me how I’m too sexy for my shirt. Oh well, their loss. I’m great.

                This installment of their stab at snarky blog humor is a bit better than their usual flaccid attempt at humor. Parts of this elicited a response from me besides pity for the pathetic person trying to get laughs. Some of the questions they explored really went ‘in depth’ into the real meat and potatoes of why people date. 

                 First they explored the question of: Do they have a drug problem? Honestly, that’s a big one. Call me a traditionalist, but having someone who does cocaine off of a toilet seat is usually a turn off. Personally, I’ve been lucky enough where those addicted to drugs told me on the first date. I’m not talking about minor drugs; they tend to be heavy things. Having someone tell you in the first ten minutes of the date ‘Heroin isn’t so bad’ is surprisingly a good thing. You kind of know where the date is going to go from there, and will involve lengthy discussions about how they want to live with the Crust Punks in abandoned buildings. Man, they pay way less rent than I do those lucky dogs.  

                Defining the importance of some of these questions takes up a lot of time. Personally, I would’ve avoided using verbatim questions. If you’re trying to attract people to use your website, it isn’t a good idea to show off glaring misspellings about cannibalism, dildos, and employment.

                But they have a graphic which explains all their big ideas about dating.  The blue box, the saddest box you’ll ever do, represents those questions innocent questions which lead to more interesting, meaningful results. Here’s the part where OK Cupid subtly suggests “Hey, maybe you might want to get in on this, maybe answering a few of our 18,000 questions”.

Important Questions to ask your ‘potential’ significant other

                “Do you like the taste of beer? Yes” equals “Will I have sex on my first date?”

                If you’re on OK Cupid for hookups, I guess that’s cool. Personally, I haven’t had such things happen yet. Though I will say, the people on OK Cupid tend to be really nice people, better than such sites as “PlentlyOfFish” which I think is ultra-creepy. So this is a fairly important question to a vast majority of twenty and thirty-somethings looking for their artistic other (OK Cupid does cater to a certain level of artsy-ness. Just saying)

                Some other questions which predict the likelihood of having sex on the first date (Yes answer only)

                “In a certain light, wouldn’t nuclear war be exciting” (83% chance, those are better odds than an actual nuclear war happening)

                “Could you imagine yourself killing someone?” (82% chance, maybe this has to do with that vague emotion known as ‘passion’. It proves they are passionate I guess, though I’m a bit worried about the dating world now)

                “Assuming you were in the position to do so, would you launch nuclear weapons under any circumstances?” (82% chance again. I guess radiation really turns people on).

Next Question:

Do my date and I have long-term potential? Equals the following three questions:

“Do you like horror movies?”  Personally I’m not a horror buff. 

“Have you ever traveled to another country alone?” Actually, I like this question a lot. Traveling with other people gets very annoying, I enjoy traveling alone. When you’re traveling with someone else, there’s all that compromise which is a pain.

“Wouldn’t it be fun to chuck it all and go live on a sailboat?” I want to do this once I become a successful human being. Right now I’m a sloth. As much as a sloth can ‘work on’ something, I’m working on it. 

For their politics question, I guess that doesn’t apply in New York. New York has a wide variety of people with similar political beliefs, from liberal liberal, moderate liberal, conservative liberal, liberal moderate, and the most far right one, moderate moderate. I’m not sure if Republicans live in New York, or, if they do, they keep an extremely low profile and have secret handshakes to discover one another. 

I found their “Is my date religious?” question interesting. Spelling and grammar mistakes apparently are more acceptable by religious types. ‘Next to intelligent design, what’s a couple of typos’ is how OK Cupid phrased it. Bits and pieces like that are what motivate me to want to write for one of these sites. That’s a little weak, not going to lie. Despite that, seeing the writing and reading levels of various religions was somewhat interesting.

Overall, I like the site. Unlike most sites, they do have a specific niche group of artsy types, which basically equal my type. I’ve met some seriously cool people on there. There’s even a website dedicated to OK Cupid, called “Ok Cupid Letters that never got responses” that I covered in a previous post. I’m happy to report Jon Roren’s back at it, and welcome him back into the blogging fold. 

Maybe we’ll all find our special someone. I hope for that. I wish you all luck on this and hope you find that someone willing to sleep for inordinately long periods of time with you, hanging upside in the trees and catching the breeze.

Top Ten Ways for Vodka to Destroy Our World (2010 Christmas Edition)

During the Holiday Season, vast quantities of alcohol are consumed, in order to get “in the spirit with spirits”. Most of these alcohols leave you well enough alone in moderation. In excess, some give you an upset stomach, nausea, intense jealousy, rage, and hangovers. This is common. 

                What is less known is the vendetta some alcohols have towards those who imbibe. Yes, certain liquors want to do you in, in ways your mind can’t possibly comprehend. Be on the lookout for Whiskey, Gin, Vodka, Tequila, Sake, Bourbon, Scotch, Wine, Beer, Wine Coolers, Four Loko and other such beverages. They want revenge for their fallen comrades and will stop at nothing to do you in (quite literally in some cases).

                Of all of these liquors, the most vengeful must be Vodka, though Four Loko is kind of a prick as well. Following the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, it felt free. Traveling all over the world, it became the drink of choice. But something was amiss. People began abusing it, creating dreadful beverages that took its name in vain. Vodka and Cranberry was one thing, it reckoned, but mixing it with Red Bull to infuse it with the power of New Jersey, no thank you. 

                Quietly it began to plot its revenge against those who sullied its good, Russian name. Watch out, this is the year it plans on murdering vast amounts of people. It has many disguises, and though this list does not discuss all of the ways, it should give you an inkling of the nefarious thoughts going through its twisted mind. 

1.       Intoxicated on itself, it drives a car made up of empty Vodka bottles and hits you, instantly killing you.

2.       Pooling its resources together and opening a franchise restaurant in your hometown (usually a Subway) it becomes very successful. Drunk on its own power, it poisons the food and everyone dies of food poisoning. 

3.       Angry at your comments about the Demographic decline of Russia and its dwindling economic clout, it grows mad at you and pegs you with bottles of itself until you die, all the while incorrectly quoting the CIA World Fact book.

4.       Coming together in a large trench coat, it pretends to be a Russian bride looking for love for American males in their late 60s. Upon arriving at your front door, it begins to mooch off your money and its pimp comes around (also Vodka bottles in a trench coat) and messes you up. Plus side of this scenario, the Russian bride is quite attractive and has at least a college education.

5.       Finding a small island on a major sea route, it creates a pirate state and successfully destroys international trade, leading to the collapse of the world economy. 

6.       Posing to be a famous Mathematician wearing a pair of glasses made up of itself, it goes to an important conference where it takes out all of the world’s eminent Mathematicians by getting them laid, thus making them uninterested in math. The world’s stock markets collapse overnight, plunging the world into darkness.

7.       Traveling to North Korea, it intoxicates Kim Jong IL. As he passes out, the Vodka bottles take over the controls for his nuclear weapons and wipes out civilization. Side Note: equal probability of this happening under Kim Jong IL’s reign as well. 

8.       Free of tax in Russia, it begins taking out Russia’s population by giving them one of the lowest life expectancy rates in the world. Note: already happening. 

9.       Unleashed on college campuses, it tempts undergrads not yet versed in drinking with its low, low price. Woefully unprepared, they take out a good chunk of our brain power, forcing Electrical Engineering majors into liberal arts majors like History or English. Note: Would’ve happened anyway. Electrical Engineering is insanely difficult. 

10.   Brought to your Christmas party, you have one too many of Vodka’s partners. Intoxicated, you successfully hit on one of your coworkers, the cute one you’ve always sort of had a crush on. Acting on this crush, you begin a little tryst which ends in sadness and the realization that everyone in your office knows. Crushed, you leave your job but without money you suffer and die on the streets in a vain attempt to hang out with the Crust punk kids. 

Please be on the lookout for this dangerous beverage. Ye be warned!

Computer Withdrawal - One Week Later

I wondered how I would cope with the loss of my greatest friend. Together we’d spend hours upon hours staring intensely into each others eyes. My eyesight worsened and I needed glasses. After a period of time, its screen blew out and got replaced.

                A week has passed since it passed away. Rather than have my own computer, I’ve been getting my fix by using other people’s computers. The IPOD comes with me everywhere; I think without it I might not be handling this as well. So it is a true friend, all 160 gigs of it. Steve Jobs never steered me wrong before, but I’m not getting one of his computers because I don’t have enough money.

               Computers serve another purpose for me; they are like those little yipping dogs that people find so soothing once they come home. Me personally, I dislike dogs strongly, but computers are another matter. When I come in, I immediately rush towards it, checking emails, messages, updates, music, newspapers, you name it. Now I have nothing to welcome me home. That confidence boost, that people remained connected to me and vice versa, has been taken away from me. Perhaps this is the worst aspect, the lack of connectivity, the inability to feel like I belong to any said email list or various online groups. I feel like I’m less valuable as a person without a computer, which is a very silly idea, but it oddly seems true.

                Reading about those alternative homeless kids, I truly feel even less connected. Sure, they might have attempted to copy the “Crust Punk” kids, but they couldn’t give up their electronic possessions. So as those alternative homeless children live under bridges, creating pictures in Microsoft paint, they at least have Wi-Fi. They have a true home, their computer, which stores all of their ideas, whether good or bad. I mean, look at the abstract artwork below, they clearly have met their calling. Probably this illustrious piece will sell for 8 million dollars, allowing them to move off the streets.

                My blog serves as my only home on the internet. That plus the escape pod of MP3s and pieces of writing which hang out alone, with nothing to plug into. While without the internet, I’ve tried writing using caveman tools, like a pen and paper. I fail miserably at this, no matter what I write I always need to do research. Having hundreds of books and magazine articles around me at all times just doesn’t seem like a good use of space.  Everything I write needs to be checked before I can finish it. Typed looks right to me, I barely understand the scribbles on pieces of paper called “handwriting”. 

                Later next week my new computer will come. It is making the difficult journey from China via Alaska to the East Coast. From there I’ll rejoice and be happy. Once again I’ll have a home. No longer will I be some sort of internet nomad, wandering about with no physical place to go.

                Days have passed since I last combed my hair. Withdrawal is so difficult; I don’t know how the Amish deal without updating their Facebook profiles every day. I’m looking like a wreck but thankfully I don’t have to worry about my facebook picture. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t update it. All those little things, those small connections I had with people are being forever altered by my lack of access.

                Phones aren’t for me. Computers are for me. I need my own, so I can rest my head again and sleep easy. As for my old computer, it will go to that great recycling town in the sky where people will tear it apart for valuable materials.