Actual Conversations: Traffic Court Dickery
Today I had traffic court in lovely Jackson County, NC. Without getting too far into what happened, I’d just like to say that I am innocent and will be cleared off all the charges. Also, I should be allowed near schools within the next three years. With that being said, let’s get on with the humorous anecdote that stands and my reason for finally updating my blog.
I stood in line along with every other person with minor traffic offences waiting for my chance to speak with whatever Assistant D.A. that had been assigned to handle today’s round of ticket griping, proof of registration showing, and prayer for judgment requesters. I was thirty people back in line and decided to make conversation with someone.
To my left was a guy taller than me who had at least three visable tattoos that were various company and sports team logos. He had a UNC Tar Heels logo on his neck, a BMW logo on his forearm and a Nike swoosh on his bicep. I thought for a moment that he’d been paid to place those logos upon his body, but I decided that would just be too logical. To my right was a short, rather petite pretty girl names Cassie who was a bit more wholesome than should be allowed. She had no visible tattoos and was wearing a creamsicle-colored dress with a white button up sweater over her top. She smiled and said hello, and I decided to make small talk with her.
For a few minutes, it was a dream- I was in court making small talk with someone who was delightful and witty. I imagined that if I had played by the rules and joined the square community after high school I’d have gone off to college and had tons of boring friends like Cassie. We’d sit in our yards and drink iced tea and talked about quick ways to get to work. We’d both agree that something had to be done about the way things are significantly worse than when we were children and remark about how Dave Matthews was awesome but his new stuff just has no soul. We’d laugh and then I’d tell her husband my lawn care secrets. But then, just as I was thinking about how Cassie and her husband probably made the best strawberry shortcake in the world reality (in the form of my big mouth) ruined the moment.
We both noticed at the same time the court reporter heading over to an open window in the wall of the court room. She opened the glass door that was in the window and removed a hard plastic cylinder that contained those telltale tri-folded court documents. Within moments she had removed the papers and then placed other papers in the tube, closed the glass door and pressed a button to send the cylinder off in a vacuum-swirl of air.
“Oh neat, they have those pneumatic tubes in the courthouse” she said.
“Yeah, those are neat,” I replied, “did you know that in Buncombe County and most other places they have computers that will send those files electronically?”
Cassie let out a light laugh and stared at me nervously. I continued.
“In fact, while I’m sure that it’s impressive to you that Jackson County is using 1950s-inspired technology, the year is 2010.”
Cassie turned away from me. I stood there for a minute before it dawned upon me that I am a dick. It’s like I can’t control it. I see an opportunity to point out something in the rudest way possible, and I do it. At times I don’t even realize it until the moment is long passed. I have no idea how or why this happens, but it does. I was having a pleasant conversation, learning about the admissions process of WCU from a non-student’s perspective while dreaming of garden parties with Cassie and her as-of-yet-unnamed husband and I ruined it by calling her a hick. I might be the biggest dick in Jackson County.
But on the bright side I think I can get out of the ticket.
More to come later.
Be good.
Actual Conversation: Prison Rape
(What follows is the transcript of an actual conversation. I’ve left out names to protect the good reputations of my high fallootin’ friends.)
Friend’s girlfriend: [My boyfriend] is never going to make it. He was doomed from the day that he opened those big beautiful blue eyes.
Me: Isn’t it weird that [your boyfriend] the one guy that we know who is psychotically afraid of prison rape has a job where he puts people in jail?
Friend’s girlfriend: I had no idea that he was afraid of prison rape. Is that a real fear? I am going to have to invite a bunch of big dudes over so they can shower with us.
Me: Ask him one of those “Which would you rather have happen…” questions and let prison rape be one of the options. The boy gets wide-eyed like Walt Whitman talking about the frontier.
Brent Brown: My own personal Barbara Eden
It started out with just a random attempt at being an asshole.
I am a follower of WLOS’ Facebook page. I usually go on there and tell stupid jokes and try to get the idiots riled up. Yesterday, I made a huge mistake.
I logged on at around 1 or 2 pm yesterday and saw a post about a missing kid in Brevard. Instead of posting the typical “OMG MY PRAYERS ARE WITH TEH FAMILY WRAP YOUR STRONG LOU FERIGNO LIKE ARMS AROUND HIM JESUS” post, I decided to post something pointed and innocent on the page. I posted this:
I hope he’s just hiding out somewhere nailing his girlfriend.
Not the best sentiment, but still something better than “I hope he isn’t dead”.
About five minutes later, someone posted in the thread that the guy was dead. I immediately go back and post “ouch, sorry”.
Cue the shitstorm.
People are sending me messages threatening me, calling for my head. People are telling me to find the kid’s parents and apologize to them in person.
I keep explaining that my little joke (which was made at the time that nobody knew that the kid was dead) is probably the least of the concerns of the family and friends of the dead kid right now. But these caps lock using retards are still bloodthirsty.
Normally, this is where the story ends: me being an asshole and idiots overreacting. But not this time. This time Brent Brown (who is a famous artist) stepped in and reminded us all why he’s the Henderson County Heartbreaker (well, he would be called that if he were in his 20s. And a wrestler. And looked less like Bill Murray. You get my point).
I posted the link to the Facebook page on a local message board that I post on, and titled the thread “Bugg and the ill-timed joke”. Brent replied that the thread title sounded like the latest in a long line of children’s books starring me. I laughed. Other people laughed. Then Brent DESTROYED us by posting this image:
Actual Conversations: over dinner tonight
Me: What did people do before irony?
Jessica: They probably wore wrinkled clothes.
Me: Azhol.
My girlfriend might be funnier than I think I am.
Sometimes it takes poisoning yourself…
…to cure you of your problems (and sometimes it still takes a month for the antidote to work things out).
I got tired, internet. I got tired of writing and tired of being passionate. I’m not sure of when it happened, but I know it did. Those writing assignments that I had once cherished and were thankful for ripping my body out of a soul destroying job and a loveless marriage turned into daily little pieces of annoyance. I would sit here in front of the computer and dread working, dread doing what I loved because I felt like it was work. Work, my least favorite four letter word.
A few weeks ago it all came to a head. I took a massive dose of magic mushrooms and spent almost 13 hours walking around my house being a love god. I stood naked, in love with the world. Crying at the beauty of music and falling in love with how beautiful my girlfriend’s pale skin looked in the afternoon sun with tiny dust particles floating in the air, crackling around her soft curves like little fireworks. I talked about life and how love was the most important thing that any of us can feel, because it is the first thing we feel as children, and then I looked into my office.
The room was dark and the music was pouring out. I stood there, by then in a t-shirt and shorts and stared at the the glow of the computer screen, and it’s eerie light calling me to it. This is where you create, this is where you exist. I stood there for what was an eternity not wanting to walk into that room, freaking out at the fact that I do create in here, and I do, to an extent, exist more in this room and at this keyboard than I ever have before. I stood there in that hullucinogenic state, dreading walking in here.
All of the sudden, a flash of light came from behind me, snapping me out of my hell ride into whatever dark part of my brain I had been going to before.
It was Jessica taking my picture. I lashed out at her, and she apologized and put up the camera. Later I apologized for yelling at her, and she said something that was so beautiful and profound that I didn’t immediately get what she was saying until tonight.
It was probably more beautiful in my head than it was in real life.
Something about those fourteen words really struck me tonight. What she saw wasn’t my dread, she saw the beauty of what I do. In her words, she saw a childlike figure staring off into the abyss. I’m sure none of this is as beautiful and profound to any of you as it is me, but she’s right. What I do in here, at this desk, on this keyboard, in this blog, on your screen is probably more beautiful in my head than it actually is in to you the reader, and for the first time in a long time, I’m okay with that. What I need to write this blog for is me. If you read and find some wisdom, some humor, some light or some perspective, that’s fine. But what I really want you to find are new entries. New chances for me to reach for that beauty that Jess saw, new chances to turn a new phrase, to make a cunt like Don Yelton mad, to inspire, to piss off people at the Xpress or just to have a place to put the eighty one billion pulses of light that go through my head on any given day.
So here I present a re commitment to my blog, complete with a new name. It’s a second wind. A second chance. Another place to put all of these little pieces of thoughts, these little words and blessings that come from my head. A place to wrap those big boyish emotions that I feel around a few songs and a few dirty words. This is who I am, and I’m not done yet.
Next time, remind me to tell you about the panic attack I had a few weeks ago.
In the meantime, here’s a song by The Persuasions- The Meek Shall Inherit Nothing
Until later today, be good.
Actual Conversations: Something I heard at School Today
Two guys are talking, one black and one white.
White Guy: That homework is due on Monday, right?
Black Guy: No man, on Wednesday- we don’t have class on Monday.
White Guy: Why not?
Black Guy: Monday is Martin Luther King Day.
White Guy: Oh. (Long pause) How does that work?
Black Guy: What do you mean?
White Guy: Do I need to buy you a present or something?
God I love this place. With that being said, I say we begin a new tradition: white people, buy a black person a gift on MLK Day.
Until later, be good.
Election day shenanigans.
I’ve done my part today. I volunteered. I ended up using another volunteer for the campaign’s car and a handful of hastily printed out Google Map pages to drive 4 people to the polls. It was kind of nice.
I took a single mother and her three year old son to the polls. The child’s name was Dylan. I didn’t hate him, even though I have reason to believe he was named after a certain overrated singer/songwriter. She was voting for Obama because she wanted a better future for her children. She wanted someone who thought about the future, the one that little Dylan was going to inherit.
I took an elderly lady named Doris to the polls next. She was a sweetheart and had never voted before. Her husband died in 2006 and she never thought politics were “any business of a woman” until after he died. She said that she was moved by Obama’s speeches and her disdain for McCain’s negative campaign. I asked her if she was nervous about Obama being inexperienced and she told me that “things really couldn’t get worse than they are now”.
I then picked up a guy named Roger. Roger has a DUI and can’t drive when his wife isn’t at home, but he wanted to vote. I suspect that Roger was an alcoholic because Roger asked me to stop by the Shell station and he bought a twelve pack and a little bag of powdered donuts. He did give me a donut. Roger was good people.
Then came Carrie. Carrie was 36 and had never voted before. I drove her to the polls and she told me about how much she wanted to vote for Obama because she hated Palin. I guess that’s as good a reason as any to vote.
Carrie looked a little rough around the edges, like she hadn’t slept in a while. I asked her what she did for a living and she told me she was between jobs. It began to dawn on me that Carrie was a meth addict. At first, I didn’t want to believe it. There were too many questions I had in my head, like could a meth addict be socially responsible enough to vote? What if she got all twitchy while voting and accidentally voted for McCain? Can she find me some magic mushrooms? Would it look bad if I asked her about magic mushrooms? I pushed all of these things aside and just drove on, keeping an eye on the rosaries hanging from the rear view mirror and the three CDs (Jack Johnson- Sing-a-longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George , Ani Difranco- Dilate and The Grateful Dead- American Beauty) on the console of the car. Normally I’d throw these CDs out the window, but I’m in a giving mood today.
I took Carrie to the polls and on the way home she asked me to drive her somewhere else. I said sure and she directed me to a rather sketchy little house. We pulled up and she asked me to wait five minutes for her and then to give her a ride home. I wanted to tell her to get lost, but the rascally child in my head told me to stay, that this could get wacky. I told her okay, but I couldn’t wait for too long because this wasn’t my car. She said she’d be quick, and I sat in the car and listened to the local AM station. It wasn’t bad. They played “Hold on to the Night” by Richard Marx followed by “I’m on Fire” by Bruce Springsteen, a live ad for Pizza Hut and then they had a call in contest for a free lunch buffet. I could have called in, but Pizza Hut gives me horrible gas and I didn’t have my cell phone.
Carrie came out of the house and got into the car, and she was acting different. Relaxed. Not as manic of twitchy. I asked her if she was carrying. She told me no and acted rather incredulous. I told her that she wasn’t going to get in trouble. I told her about my dad being a crack addict and that I’m cool with stuff, but I wanted to know what I was getting into. She still told me she wasn’t carrying. At this point, Carrie was getting a little angry at me, and I told her that I was cool with whatever she was doing. I even told her about me being new in this town and not knowing how to ask people if they knew where I could score some pot or magic mushrooms. She laughed at me, and Carrie and I were friends again. So I asked her again if she was carrying. I told her she owed it to me. I didn’t care, but I was driving someone else’s car. I didn’t want to get them in trouble or to make the campaign look bad. She said that she wasn’t, but she did use inside of the house.
What do you say to that? I just looked at her and said “right on”, and then I drove her home.
God I love Jackson County.
I then got home and received this email from Jessica:
I can’t wait to get home and tell you what’s happened already here. They are having a mock presidential election across the entire school (no teachers- just kids) and you wouldn’t believe the stuff these kids are saying. “If Obama gets elected he’s going to take away all the casinos and kill all the Indians. I saw it on the news!” And the kid would not believe me that it wasn’t true.
That’s absolutely insane. Something tells me that the poor kid heard that. In case you didn’t know, Jessica teaches at a school on an Indian Reservation.
By the way, this story is 90% true. I embellished a few facts (such as the number of CDs in the car) and changed the names of the people. But the events are true. Please don’t use this post to think poorly of the Obama campaign or the amazing people volunteering for the cause. If you do that, then you are an asshole. Also, I do not smoke grass. I am looking for a hookup on some magic mushrooms however, but I will not accept solicitations over the internet.
All of this has gotten me in the mood for some brotherhood music. Here’s a tune from Bobby Charles that is strangely relevant to what went down today. So Carrie, if you haven’t pawned your computer yet. Feel free to download this, get reeeeeeeeeeeaaallll fucking high, and listen to this tune.
Bobby Charles- Small Town Talk
Until later, do your part and vote. Remember to be good also.
Actual Conversations: on the phone with Brian Posehn
I interviewed Brian Posehn for Flagpole in Athens today, and we has this little exchange:
Me: What’s funnier: Richard Pryor or the video for “Last in Line” by Dio?
Brian Posehn: (short giggle) That’s a good question (long wave of laughter).
His answer was inconclusive, but the point is that I made Brian Posehn, a comedian I hold in high regard, laugh.
I’m so happy right now. I feel like a little kid who just farted in the tub.
Also, in case you were wondering, here’s the video in question.
Actual Conversations: Something Awesome My Girlfriend Just Said
Just seconds ago, Jess and I were watching a Public Service Announcement about protecting children on the internet, and she says this:
That online predator is kind of hot.
And people wonder what I see in her.
An Actual Conversation
This occurred when driving to Asheville this morning:
Me: I liked Whoopi Goldberg in “The Color Purple” and “Sister Act 2″
Jess: That movie was stressful, and the book was even more stressful.
Me: “Sister Act 2″ was a book?
More to come later.
