A TON OF REALLY TINY BITS OF THINGS

(Because I just can't stop myself)

I wake to the sound of the ship docking and the feeling of something warm dripping down my chin. I lift my hand to feel my face. My last three teeth are gone, I have a hole in my cheek, my nose is broken and my eyepatch is missing. I open my eyes and I look around and I'm on a brigantine and there's no one near me. Someone's slipped me between two six pounders and I can smell the smoldering gunpowder of a recent battle. I look at my clothes and my clothes are ripped and dirty, just rags now, they're covered with spit, snot, urine, vomit, blood, phlem, and black and yellow bile. I reach for the rigging above me, rope connected to a mast, and I touch it and I pull it and I try to get up and a pirate sees me and he comes over.
Aaaargh. How are you?
What's going on?
You don't know?
No.
We're headed for Zanzibar, sir.
How did I get here?
Aaaargh. Doctor and two men brought you on.
They say anything?
They talked to the Captain, Sir. We were told to let you sleep.
Am I a slave?
We were not told, sir. The Captain spoke with the Doctors.
Where are we now?
Port of call. Mogadishu.
Thank you.
I hear chains and irons clank and I feel the pull of the boat sliding against the riggings. I look around for anything I might have with me, but there's nothing. No dagger, no canteen, no ventilator, no hogshead, no Pieces of Eight. I sit and I wait and I try to figure out what happened. Nothing comes. I smell the salty air of the African port and my head throbs. I try to stand and make my way to the pier. After about five steps I sit back down. Walking is out of the question. I see another pirate and I raise a hand.
Aaaargh.
Please.
Aaaaargh. What's wrong?
I can't really walk.
If you make it to the plank I can get you on a gally.
How far is the plank?
Aaaargh. Not far.
I stand. I wobble. I sit back down. I stare at the floor and take a deep breath.
You'll be all right he says.
I need glog.
He laughs and his tri-tipped hat shakes in the stiff but welcoming breeze. He holds out his hand and I take it. I stand and I list against him and he helps me toward the plank. We pass the mizzenmast, the main sheet, the lugsail. My mind races. I'm still loaded to the gunwalls and I need to get off this brig. We get to the plank.
I'll be right back.
I let go of him and I sit down and I listen to the cries of the gulls. Their shrieks echo in my head, my head, an empty canyon, a void, housing not thoughts but just simple desires. I need a nipperskin of Nelsons folly. I feel squiffy.
The pirate returns and laughs and I watch him walk away and I close my eyes. My head hurts, my mouth hurts, my eyes hurt, my hands hurt. Things without names hurt. There is a black hole in my soul and it hurts. Inside the black hole in my soul is a negative number generator generating negative numbers and all of those negative numbers hurt. Nothing hurts. Hurt has lost its meaning. Hurt is like a word in an ancient language.
I rub my stomach. I can feel it coming. Fast and strong and burning. No way to stop it, just close your eyes and let it ride. It comes, the old, rancorous salmagundi, and I recoil from the stench and the pain. It all flies into the ocean, and the gulls circle overhead.
My God. What has happened to me. I am a slave on a pirate's ship and I am sick and I need glog and I have no soul and the soul I do not have does not hurt for that word doesn't exist.
I punch myself in the face.
Just to feel alive.
Oh my God.

A FEW MORE THINGS

Oh no! My town's professional football team is not as good as your town's professional football team! Grow a pair, dickhead.

I want to watch this tonight, but boy is it long and boy does it sound depressing.

So, I just went to the mall and purchased some new shoes. A couple of thoughts: holy cow! These shoes are really incredibly comfortable! It's like I'm wearing slippers. I love my new shoes. I feel just like Carrie Bradshaw! The other thing is this: it turns out that my right foot is an entire size smaller than my left foot. Funny, right? And most importantly, it finally explains why the left side of my penis is so much bigger than the right side of my penis!

Lookoutnow!

A COUPLE OF POINTS

James Frey, the author of the fictional novel "A Million Little Pieces", has been accused of fabricating wholesale sections of his Oprah-book-club-selected "memoir". In fact, the linked article reveals that he had attempted to publish the work 17 times as a piece of fiction before an enterprising publisher decided to buy it and sell it instead as a work of non-fiction. Since Frey has a tattoo on his arm that reads FTBITTTD (which stands for "Fuck the bullshit, it's time to throw down"), does that mean he's going to have to fuck himself, or throw himself down, or do whatever it is to bullshit that the tattoo on his arm is threatening to do to bullshit? I will say this: although I haven't read Frey's novel, won't read Frey's novel, and could care less about Frey's novel, his inspiring story of riches to even more riches has prompted me to get a tattoo of my own, which reads FTMFBMFIMFTTFTTBTIWPRTD ("Fuck the motherfucking bullshit, motherfucker, it's motherfucking time to fucking throw the bullshit that I was previously referring to down").

Now that I have my awesome tattoo, I have no excuse not write stories that are real, raw, and unhinged. All I have are my addictions, my tribulations, my personal demons - and fuck them, for they are bullshit. Here's a scenario I've invented in which I have reached the proverbial bottom and I have no place to go but up.

I'm outside the clinic and the snow falls and I pick up some snow and look at all of the snowflakes. Bill stands me next to me, he says Fuck the snow. I open my pants and pull out my penis. I shove the snow down my penis hole and I say You mean Fuck the snow like this, you Cocksucker and he laughs. I ask him if he has any heroin but he doesn't and then I get mad at myself for asking. I go inside and smash my head against a wall until I can't feel anything. Just warm blood rushing down my cheek, which has a hole in it, inside my mouth and down my throat and then I cough on it and choke and I wake up in a hospital. I pull out of the wires and get up and put my clothes on. I step outside my room I see a nurse who tries to chase me down and I collapse. My body is so worn out. I haven't hit the wall, I've hit the wall and banged my head against it until I started bleeding and I've fucked the wall. Fuck the Wall. The nurse falls on top of me and starts kissing me. We fuck in a closet and I ask her to give me as many drugs as she can or I will fuck her again so we fuck again and then I threaten to kill her and she gives me a bag of the best stuff in the hospital. I step outside and drink an entire bottle of something. I flag down a taxi and punch the driver in the face I'm so fucked up. I pull him out and get in and run over him and then I drive back to the clinic and I see Bill standing outside muttering Fuck the snow to himself under his breath and I think Same old Bill. And about how I missed this place.

***

Ok, well, here's something else that is pretty fun and weird - turns out I'm not allergic to shrimp. Or so says my new allergist. In fact, according to him, I'm more allergic to potatos than fucking shrimp. This is either the greatest or worst news I've ever received.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

I haven't really set out to alter my life in any significant or precise ways this new year. However, in a more general sense, I would like to push myself to be a better, bigger man. "What's a bigger man," you ask? Well, a bigger man doesn't get mad at old people for being grumpy, pushy, hunched over, mean, and slow drivers. A bigger man doesn't mock people for being of a particular race. A bigger man doesn't kick dogs. A bigger man doesn't masturbate six times a day. And a bigger man doesn't make the easy joke when small-minded idiots say something stupid.

For instance, last year, when I wasn't such a big man, I would have tried to make fun of this. But it's a new year, I'm a bigger man and, in the end, it's just not worth it.


Pat Robertson, above, is not a person I have an opinion of, one way or the other, and whatever he says is not that important, in the grand scheme of things, so let's just ignore him.

YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE MY LUCK

But - and, again, I know that this is just insane - eHarmony has extended their New Year's offer to me for just a few more days. This is an extraordinary chance for me to try eHarmony — three months for the price of one!

Remember, eHarmony uses more than 35 years of research to match people based on what works in thousands of successful marriages.

I can use this special offer to start 2006 with a commitment to finding the love I want and deserve.

Through January 12th, they're offering me 3 months of eHarmony service for just $49.95 — that's less than $17 per month!

So, how is your all's New Years, people?