June 30 - The Whale

It was a full length black leather trench coat. Probably took a family of cattle to make it, judging from the size of it. The thing was enormous. Big enough enough to be car cover for a Cadillac, and it had been hanging untouched on the rack at Giuseppe's dry cleaning shop for just over a year.
After a month had passed since he'd cleaned it, Giuseppe tried the number the guy had given him when he dropped it off, but the number was no longer in service. And so Giuseppe had held onto the leather trench coat in case he showed up again, but he never did.
Cases like that weren't unheard of. People forgot about dry cleaning all the time. Like most dry cleaners, Giuseppe held on to any unclaimed article for a year. After that, he usually just donated whatever was left behind to the Salvation Army.
But the leather trench coat was different. It was gorgeous, well worn in, imposing, comfortable, and distinctive as hell. To give it to the Salvation Army where just anyone could walk away with it was almost sacrilegious. Such was the power of the leather trench coat that Giuseppe felt it needed to go to the right person. Someone who would appreciate it. Someone who would respect it. Someone who would wear it the way it ached to be worn.
Someone like Giuseppe.
He knew it fit. After it had been on his rack for six months, he allowed himself to try it on, and it was like it had been especially made for his frame (Think: the most imposing aspects of Luciano Pavarotti, The Undertaker, and an especially large bison all crammed together into one massive ass package.). And to Giuseppe's credit, he didn't hide the coat or duck any phone calls that may have been from its owner or spare any effort to help it find its way back to its rightful owner. He was an honorable man.
But he wasn't a man that was especially up on current events. If he were, he would have known that the owner of the leather trench coat was Han Seok Park also known as Park the Whale, and formerly known as Park the Shark, thousands of helpings of kimchi ago when he still fit that nickname, as well as considerably smaller trench coats.
The Whale was an upper level boss in the Kim family, one of the largest Korean crime syndicates on the east coast, and he had been missing since about a week after he'd dropped off his leather trench coat for cleaning. News of his vanishing had been in all the papers, as had speculation on what had become of him:
He was dead.
He'd turned state's witness.
He was on the run.
He was at the bottom of the Hudson.
He was in the bulgogi in half the Korean restaurants in New York.
He was gone.
But since he never read the papers, Giuseppe wasn't aware of any of it. Nor was he aware of the tales of the Whale and how thoroughly he'd been feared. All the other families in the Korean mafia feared him like a three-legged hyena feared a lion. He walked through Little Korea like he owned the place, cutting one badass swath in his gargantuan leather trench coat. When he walked the streets, people scattered like vampires at the first hint of dawn. Even at night, there was no mistaking his frame. Nobody was as big as the Whale.
Except for Giuseppe.
And so when he started wearing his trench coat out on the streets, people couldn't believe it.
It was the whale!
It was the ghost of the Whale!
The Whale was back from the dead, back for vengeance!
They never even saw his face. They just saw that massive body and that enormous coat, and their overactive, superstitious imaginations took care of the rest. Night after night, everyone who saw him ran for their life.
Except for the Whale himself.
One night he approached Giuseppe and told him that he was the rightful owner of the coat, that he had dropped it off just before he left his life of crime and changed his identity.
Giuseppe was taken aback, so the Whale told him the story of his conversion. While sleeping, he had received a vision too deep to ignore and too profound to completely understand. But the unmistakable message of the vision was that he was to renounce crime and become a Buddhist monk. And so he set about doing just that.
Secretly.
However, as the Whale, it was impossible to just disappear, so he completely changed his appearance: liposuction, a stomach stapling procedure, plastic surgery, hair implants. Now, instead of the body of the Whale, he was built like a power forward. And with his wholly different appearance, he lived out in the open in New York City, completely anonymous in the town he once ruled with his mere presence.
He was satisfied with his transition, but troubled by the reemergence of his leather trench coat. It reminded him too much of his former life, and he wanted it back so he could destroy it and have closure.
No problem, said Giuseppe. Just give me the ticket.
But the ticket was long gone, so Giuseppe told him no deal.
However, the incident had had an impact on him. He decided that he would donate the leather trench coat to the Salvation Army after all. He told the erstwhile Whale which location he would do it at so that he could buy it the moment they put it on the floor.
And he did. And then the former Korean crime lord bought the leather trench coat and buried it in his back yard, and that was the end of the Whale.

June 29 - Dear Neighbor

Dear neighbor,

Hi. My name is Jerry. I live in the building across the street.
We haven't met yet, but I'm pretty sure you've seen me before. In fact, that's why I'm writing to you now.
Actually, I've been meaning to get in touch with you for quite some time, but after what happened this morning I don't think I can put it off any longer. I think you know what I'm talking about, right?
If you'll allow me to be blunt, I'll come straight to the point. I wasn't masturbating, at least not when (I think) you saw me.
But even if I was (and I'm not admitting anything, ha ha!) I think I could be forgiven, don't you? After all, you looked good. Like, really good. Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen someone make hanging the laundry look so sexy. It was like an Aerosmith video. I mean, do you know of anyone else who does her laundry while wearing a halter top? If you do, give me her number! Ha ha.
Sorry, maybe we (you?) aren't ready to laugh about this yet. If so, that's understandable. To be honest, I'm not sure how I would feel if I looked across the street and (thought I) saw someone masturbating to me: Shocked? Probably. Alarmed? Maybe. Curious? Possibly. But maybe also a little bit flattered, too. Am I getting close?
Judging from your reaction this morning, I'd say probably not. And if that's the case, I feel bad. It wasn't my intention to make you uncomfortable.
And by the way, I may as well come clean. OK. Yes, I was giving myself the business. There, I said it. I admit it. Of course I was. Could masturbation possibly be mistaken for anything else? I'm guilty. Guilty, I tell you! I throw myself on the mercy of the court, your honor! Ha ha!
But I wasn't doing it to you, at least not at first. Who was I doing it to, you ask? I'll give you a clue: I'd just been watching Friends. (No, it wasn't David Schwimmer! LOL!) Give up? Believe it or not, it was Phoebe. I know she's not most people's first 'wank bank' choice, but that's never made sense to me. She's quirky and fun and completely un-self-conscious. I think she would be a very gentle and giving lover. Much better than Rachel or Monica, not that I would say no to either (or both?) or them. Hubba hubba!
But yeah, I was having my usual Phoebe Fantasy or the Phoeb-fant as I call it on my blog. Sparing you the details, it usually starts off with me comforting Phoebe after an especially ill-received gig at the coffee shop and then ends up with her "comforting me", if you catch my drift, and if you don't I tell you: I'm talking about sex. You know, "boning."
Anyway, it's a great fantasy, but it was a rerun (and so was the episode of Friends that inspired it). And don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with reruns. They get us through the evening, am I right? But sometimes they make me feel like I'm settling, like I'm not getting the most out of the experience. Do you ever feel the same way?
I'm guessing no, at least judging by how often you watch Murder, She Wrote. And yes, I know you're not watching the same episode over and over again, but let's not kid ourselves. That show is pretty formulaic. You may as well be watching the same episode, especially during seasons 3 and 4. I'm not sure which season you're on, though. My telescope is good, but (unfortunately!) it ain't that good : (
Anyway, my morning Phoeb-fant was off to a wonderful start, and I was feeling especially uninhibited, and I got swept up in the moment and that's how I ended up on the balcony, full Monty style.
And then, there you were. You and your laundry.
And I forgot all about the Phoeb-fant right away. There was just something sensual about the way you were hanging up your knee-high stockings and blouses. It got to me. I've never seen an older woman move like you before. Let me tell you, girl: You may have a walker, but that walker does not have you!
Anyway, I wouldn't presume to ask your forgiveness, but I hope that this letter will help you understand that I'm not just some perv that makes a habit out of masturbating to his neighbors while they hang up their laundry. Like I said, I just got caught up in the moment. I assure you I will try not to let it happen again.
And if I was wrong and you didn't actually see me masturbating, please disregard this letter.

Best,
Jerry

June 28 - The New Arrival

I got your message, but give me the basics again. Things have been crazy around here.
Come on, I thought you guys knew everything.
Ha ha. I wish, but no. You must be thinking about the boss.
Ha ha. Yeah, I guess so.
Ha ha. So you just arrived last week, right? And as I understand it, your wife arrived--(he checks the monitor)--Wow. Quite some time ago. Is this right? 17 years?
If you say so. Sounds right, I guess, but it also sounds impossible, if that makes any sense.
Ha ha. We get that a lot.
I'll bet.
So, what's your question again?
Well, as you probably know, I remarried. Not too long after my first wife, um--
--left.
Right. Ha ha. Left, right? Sorry. But um, yeah. My second wife isn't here yet, and actually probably won't be for quite some time.
(The caseworker waits patiently for him to finish.)
So, like, how does this work? Do I pick things up again with my first wife, or do I wait around for my second wife, or, like. You know? You get what I'm asking, right?
I think so. Things get a bit complicated when there are considerably different departure dates for spouses, especially when there are remarriages involved. In general, there's no all-encompassing policy. We try to help each group through its particular situation on a case by case basis.
So, I won't have to return to my first wife.
You don't want to?
Oh, God no. Oh. Sorry.
Quite all right.
But no. I mean, it was great seeing her at my welcome reception. And by the way, WOW! That was incredible! Did you help organize that?
A bit, yeah.
Well, wow. Just. Wow. And the guy singing Hound Dog. Was that really . . . ?
Yes.
Amazing. You guys know how to make a guy feel welcome.
This is a big change for most people. We want to get you off on the right foot.
Well, mission accomplished.
Glad you enjoyed it.
I did. But yeah, like I was saying, it was great seeing my ex-wife again. But I mean, I don't really want to go down that road again. Don't get me wrong. I loved her dearly, but when she left, well, this is going to sound horrible to say, but . . .
It's best to be honest.
Well, it was kind of a relief.
Really?
Well, substitute 'relief' with 'the best thing that ever happened to me' and 'kind of' with 'unquestionably.'
Ah.
See, I'd had my eye on #2 for quite some time. And let's just say that when the position became available again, I was more than ready to fill it with her.
(Looking at the monitor) Well actually, after pulling up your ex-wife's file, it looks like that will work out great.
Oh yeah? Why's that?
Well, since arriving here, she's gotten back together with her first husband.
Oh . . . Wait! What?
Her first husband?
What are you talking about, first husband? I was her first husband.
Not according to our records.
Well, there must be a mistake.
No.
But--That--She--
I can see this comes as a shock. If it makes you feel any better, you're far from the first person this has happened to. And there are countless legitimate reasons why she might have kept that part of her life from you.
Oh yeah? Name three.
Ha ha. There will be plenty of time for that later. Besides, you're more interested in wife #2 anyway, right?
I guess so.
Come on, keep your chin up. You want an update on her?
We can do that?
We try to limit that kind of thing for a lot of reasons, but in the first few weeks it can be a comfort for new arrivals to know that everything is OK back home.
OK, yeah. Sure.
All right, then. Just give me a minute. (He looks at the monitor.) Yep, there she is . . . Ooh.
What ooh? Is everything OK?
Um, yeah. She's fine. She's fine. It's just that--
What?
(To himself) Wow, that was quick.
(Urgent look)
Sorry. Um. It looks like she's found someone else.
Are you serious?
I'm afraid so. I'm sorry. I should've known this was a bad idea.
Who? Who is it?
Really, I apologize. This was a bad idea.
Who?
I really don't think you should worry about that. It's not good for you. Besides, there's nothing you can do about it.
I could haunt him.
Ha ha. Yeah, we really don't sanction that kind of behavior. Besides, who said it was a him?
You have got to be kidding me.
I am not kidding you.
Is she good looking?
Does it matter?
I don't know. I haven't decided yet.
Ha ha. Let it go. Don't torture yourself. It's not healthy. Besides, you've got a lot going for yourself. You'll meet somebody new.
Yeah, right.
You will. It'll just take some time. And believe me, you've got all the time in the world.

June 27 - The Photographer

I'm at a gallery opening for a career retrospective of my work when a woman asks me the question.
"How does it make you feel?"
That's what everybody always asks me when they see my work, the photos I've taken in Rwanda, Haiti, Iraq, Sudan, Congo, Thailand, Russia, Gaza, etc. How does it make you feel?
But they already know what they think I should say, which is some sort of projection of how they think they would feel if their job was to take pictures of genocide, the work of death squads, the aftermath of natural disasters, and all the other stuff you see on the news every night.
Shell shocked, disturbed, depressed, words like that.
And it used to be that way, but the truth is it doesn't bother me anymore.
Sorry if that sounds blase, but it's true. I've been doing this work for almost 15 years. If I was still affected by it as much as I was when I started out, I would've killed myself years ago. And I don't know exactly when it was that I shut it all out, but I've gotten to the point where I don't even feel guilty about not caring anymore. This shit is just work to me. If I go out and I don't see something fucked up or disturbing, I'm not relieved. I'm disappointed.
It wasn't always this way, though. I still remember taking shots of child prostitutes younger than my nieces in Cambodia and laying in my bed that night crying.
Now when I see the same shit in Thailand I just scan the faces until I find a baby face that's visibly younger than the rest of them.
I remember seeing child soldiers in Congo and taking hundreds of shots and actually stressing over getting the exact right one, the one that captured the story, because it was important to me that people saw it, that people understood what was going on.
Now I just focus on the first barefoot kid I see with a machine gun and faraway eyes, snap the "loss of innocence" shot, and move on.
No matter where I go, when they see me with my camera, people always tell me in broken English to "show the world" what had happened, and it's their desperation that used to get me, and their belief that if people could just see the truth then they would have no choice but to do something real about it. And I can still remember taking it all to heart, feeling a responsibility to them.
Now I just wish they would shut the fuck up and let me do my job.
I remember shooting the aftermath of a suicide bomber in Iraq: 17 dead in a marketplace, five of them children. That was when I told my first wife I didn't want to bring a child into this world.
Now my second wife and I are expecting our third child in October.
I've shot a convicted adulterer getting stoned to death. I've shot Afghan girls with their faces scarred with acid. And I'm not going to stand here and say I'm not affected by it at all because that's not true. I'm still human. Yeah, I still get shaken sometimes. But I sleep fine every night.
And given the subject matter, it might sound strange to say this, but I enjoy what I do. Not in some disturbed morbid death-freak way. And not in some adrenaline junkie way, either. What I mean is I like getting a good shot. I feel good when I do my homework and I'm where I need to be when I need to be there and I capture the moment and I know that other people will see it.
It feels good.
For some reason, people are surprised when I make references to friends. They assume I should be a loner, but I'm not. I have plenty of friends, both in the media and otherwise.
I'm not incorrigibly cynical either. I give money to Oxfam and it's only partially out of guilt. I also think it will help in some small way, and I do want the world to be a better place. That's part of what drew me to this job. I wanted to show people the injustice and corruption and violence of the world and shake them out of their catatonia and move them to outrage and maybe even action.
But now? All this shit? It's just a job. And yeah I like it. And yeah, I do my best at it. But it doesn't really affect me. When I'm done at the end of the day, I leave it behind me.
And that's the truth. But people don't want to hear that. So I give them something that makes them feel OK and then we move on.
"A lot of what I see disturbs me, but that's part of the job."

June 26 - Chollima Returns to Glorious Nation After 2010 World Cup Triumph (as Reported by Korean Central News Agency of DPRK)

Following an exultant run of triumphant glories on the soccer fields of South Africa, Chollima, the national sporting pride of our glorious nation return to Pyongyang and the embrace of the Korean people.
Dear Leader Kim Jong-il congratulated coach Kim Jong Hun on the squad's successes in the World Cup. Its glories in South Africa surely represent a shining step forward in the advancement of excellence and unification of Korea.
Over the course of its two weeks in South Africa, Chollima continually and definitively demonstrated its unquestionable superiority over the imperialist squads of Japan, United States, and South Korea. Unlike Japan, DPRK's squad was not defeated by Holland. Similarly, in contrast to South Korea, it was thrashed neither soundly, nor at all by the rugged Argentinian squad. And the imperialist aggressors of the United States were so certain of DPRK's superiority that they dared not to face them, bringing further shame to their inferior nation.
Surely the rest of the world cannot deny the radiant splendor of Chollima and the glorious nation they represent. Innumerable teams that were once thought to represent the epitome of soccer excellence failed to score even one goal on the DPRK squad. Italy, Germany, France, England, Argentina, are among the many former champions who were unsuccessful in their attempts to outfox the impenetrable Juche-based defense of Chollima. Indeed, they failed to even enter our squad's half of the field.
In addition to the tenacious defense, which anyone who watched the glorious squad of DPRK play would surely compare to a brick wall, the Songun-inspired Chollima offense enjoyed triumphs too numerable to catalog. The most triumphant among them was surely Ji Yun Nam's scoring of the final goal of the game against a once-thought-to-be-undefeatable Brazilian squad. It cannot be doubted that this goal will go down in World Cup lore as the most glorious in history.
Because of the triumphs of the indomitable Chollima, which enjoyed boundless success and triumph because of the inspiration and guidance of our glorious leader who inspires and guides us all, it is an indisputable truth that the true champions of the 2010 World Cup are Chollima and Korea.

June 25 - The End of the Interview

So it sounds like you have a pretty good understanding of what the position entails.
Yes. Mostly client development and maintenance, particularly in the private sector. Basically almost exactly what I was doing with Boeing.
Only without the TPS reporting system.
Ha ha. Right.
Well, as I'm sure Henderson already told you, we've narrowed it down to you and another candidate, and it won't be an easy decision.
Of course.
Both of you are tailor-made for the job, you come highly recommended from people we trust in both the public and private sectors, and you clearly know the industry.
Thank you.
I hope you'll indulge me one final question. It's a bit old school, but . . .
Of course. Please.
What would you say is your biggest weakness?
(chews his lip) My biggest weakness . . .
(raises his eyebrows)
Wow, that's not easy. But I guess I'd have to say my biggest weakness is . . . CHEESECAKE!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!
Ha ha ha ha.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
Ha ha.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
(rubs under his eyes)
HA HA HA Ha Ha ha ha . . . Cheesecake . . . Whoo, ha ha.
Well, thank you for your time. We'll be in touch.

June 24 - Beefy Blows off the Stress

Music gave John "Beefy" Yonezawa more joy than anything in the world.
It had always been that way. Music made him free. Whenever he played his trumpet he closed his eyes and it was like towering mountains, crashing seas, soaring landscapes, majesty, grandiosity, monumental beauty on an epic scale.
And he was good. Solidly good. Good enough to play professionally and quit his day job and have a respectable career.
But he wasn't stellar. He was a solid B or even B+, but not an A. Not the next level. If he were a baseball player, he would be single A, maybe double A. But not Major League.
And he was OK with that, he was OK not being on the cover of Downbeat and recording on Blue Note. It wasn't that he lacked ambition; he just wanted to play. And the fact that he could actually make a living doing so was the biggest cherry imaginable on an already unbelievable cake.
Everything changed on the night when his wife was in a car accident and had to be taken to the hospital. It didn't turn out to be anything serious, the accident, but at the time it was very stressful for him. He was just about to go onstage, when the police called him from the emergency room and told him that his wife had been in an accident but that she was fine. He even talked to her and she herself insisted she was fine and that he should play. And she sounded convincing and he believed her when she said she was OK.
But he didn't know she was OK, not when he took the stage or at any point during his set, but what could he do? He had a gig and he was a professional. He played.
And the stress he felt that evening had a profound effect on his playing. It gave his playing an extra edge, an adrenalin spike, a 100-proof shot of raw emotion.
The fans noticed it and responded. The ovations he and his combo received that night were unlike anything they'd ever gotten.
His manager noticed it too.
And she also noticed its absence: A week after Beefy's wife's accident, when everything was back to normal and Beefy's wife really was fine and Beefy's combo had its next gig, his playing had lost that edge, that tension. It was still good, but it didn't pack that same urgency. The audience still liked him and his combo, though. They just weren't as enthusiastic as they had been on the night of the accident because he wasn't as good.
A few weeks later, the manager of the club they were playing in accused Beefy and his combo of arriving late to the venue, which was patently untrue. Beefy was never late. However, the manager threatened to not pay them unless they played an extra 30 minute set.
The argument was still unresolved as they took the stage, and Beefy blew the audience away. So jaw-rattling was his performance that the club's manager backed down immediately and apologized. He plied them with free drinks and told them not to worry about playing the extra set--just play again next Saturday, any Saturday. Just come back.
His mind at ease, Beefy and his combo took the stage for the second set, and it was good--but not nearly as good as it had been when his stress level was so high because of the argument.
This confirmed his manager's theory about stress being what brought about the radical improvements in his performance. And so from there, it was an easy managerial decision--and one she kept from Beefy--to keep him under as much stress as possible whenever he performed.
For his solo east coast tour, she "lost" his trumpet and gave him a shoddy replacement. She also booked him in rat-trap hotels in sketchy neighborhoods, and secretly paid his neighbors to keep him up all night long by (pretending like they were) having sex.
It worked. The more stressful the conditions she created, the better his performances (and paydays). At least at first. The problem was that stress is a relative thing. In time, he got used to the terrible travel conditions. And when it got to the point where terrible, stressful conditions were the norm, they were no longer stressful and thus didn't have the same effect on his playing. And so his manager had to raise the bar.
She told him the small label his combo was on was considering dropping them. She conspired with his combo to threaten a walkout if he didn't meet their impossible to accomodate demands. She slipped sound mixers cash to walk out in the middle of a gig.
The increasingly stressful situations she put him in continued to keep his stress level--and performance quality--high, but he also continued to get used to it. And so she had to continue cranking up the tension. Next up: Rumors of his wife having an affair with her boss, the bassist, others. Bomb threats. She got his wife on board and talked her into telling him she'd found a lump.
It quickly got to the point where each night he played, the stress he was under was almost unfathomable. Imagine a sleep-deprived air traffic controller doing his job on a tightrope while people below are shooting off Roman candles. He was fried, constantly on the edge.
And yet his playing was spectacular, and people noticed. He and his combo were booked into bigger and bigger halls. Major labels came sniffing. Audiences grew exponentially, and the money kept rolling in.
And no matter what kind of stressful scenario his manager cooked up, eventually it became normal for him. She secretly hired a former interrogator from the CIA to devise ways to keep ratcheting up the tension for him. And every situation they came up with worked great until he got used to it, and then they had to find a way to kick it up a few notches. They hired someone to mug him. They demolished his bank records, stole his identity, started a fire at his house, and kidnapped his wife.
And then finally he snapped.
For the first time ever, Beefy was late to take the stage. It happened at a headlining gig at Lincoln Center.
His manager went to his dressing room to check on him, and he was catatonic. All his vital signs were fine, but he didn't move, didn't respond to anything. He just sat still and stared at the space in front of him like he was frozen in suspended animation.
He never played again, never talked again.
He was put into a nursing home, and that's where he is to this day.
Most days he sits by himself in a corner. His fingers twitch like they're pressing trumpet keys. He spends his days with his eyes closed, thinking about majestic mountains and crashing seas, playing the music he loves in his head. Smiling.

June 23 - Race Against the Latrine

Misgivings followed by regret followed by nervousness followed by The Fear followed by Terror like the panicked feeling you get when you turn too suddenly on icy roads and lose control of your car.
That's me, that's the last three seconds of my life, give or take. I'm in the middle of a run, miles from home in Tokyo, and I have just realized that I have to shit.
Bad.
And it's going to be explosive, I can tell.
Oh, God.
Oh my dear God.
I'm--I'm in big trouble. Seriously, miles from home. And it's not rapping gently at the back door. It's pounding. It wants out now.
My instincts send me conflicting impulses: Make a desperate run for it.
NO! Stay as still as possible, contort my body and talk it back from the ledge.
I alternate between both.
I do a pathetic hunched-over run whose posture will be familiar to anyone who's ever been in the same desperate situation, and I keep this up as long as I can until it feels like the dam is moments from bursting, and then I stop, suddenly sick with terror that I've miscalculated.
I twist my body and dance a bit while paradoxically trying to remain absolutely still. I'm sweating but it's not from exercise. Concentration. Focus. If someone so much as says my name, the game is up. I look up and down the street for public restrooms, sympathetic office buildings, empty alley ways, but there's nothing. I'm on my own.
The turmoil subsides and the crisis is averted, but I know it won't last. It's like I'm the second to the last teenager alive, hiding in a closet, and Jason is checking the room next door and he'll be here soon. And the second to the last teenager doesn't always make it to the end of the movie. Sometimes, yes. But not always.
But now I feel safe enough to run again. And I know that doing so is only going to piss my bowels off. It's like my digestive tract already had an awful day at work, and now I'm flirting with his girlfriend right in front of him. What I mean is I'm seriously tempting fate by running again, but I've played this game before and won. I know what I'm doing. The key is getting my ass home as soon as possible.
I eat up the blocks and use the red lights to my advantage, taking dance and contortion breaks to keep the demons at bay, and it's working so far, but it can all fall apart at any moment. The time between contortion breaks is getting shorter.
But I'm close. I can see my building, but I won't let my guard down, hell no. That's when they get you.
OK, here we are. Just up this last hill to my apartment and--
FUCK!
I stop on a dime because Oh My God, it's coming. I clench every relevant muscle, grab my crotch, and arch my back like I just took a bullet from a sniper and I pray that the no shitter I've been riding for the past three decades plus doesn't come to an ignominious end.
It passes and I creep my way into my building, and I barely make it into the elevator before the doors close. There are two other passengers. One presses the button for the second floor, the other for the third, and I hate them, I hate them, I hate them for not taking the stairs, the miserable worthless sons of bitches, and the elevator arrives at the second floor, and they keep talking, and the one getting off holds the door open and keeps the conversation going and I know that parting is such sweet sorrow and I know there are so many things you never got the chance to say today but for the love of God and all that is holy WOULD YOU PLEASE GET THE MOTHERFUCK OFF THIS ELEVATOR!?
And we're moving again and I'm dancing now, and I don't even care anymore, and we're on the third floor, and the guy's about to say something, but quite possibly for the first time in his life he understands what's happening, he gets off quickly, he even hits the door close button, and I want to thank him but I can't because I have ever fiber of my being locked in on the task of keeping things intact just a little bit longer.
Fourth floor.
Fifth.
Sixth.
I'm here. Home. I open my door. Here it is. Sanctuary.
But no, wait. Japan. Shoes off in the house. I don't dare lean over. I kick at them, fling them off, but they're stuck, and it's not working but now they're finally off and I'm in tears, because ladies and gentlemen we have started our descent, there's no turning back now, and I can only delay the inevitable a few more seconds as I rip at the draw string on my shorts, pull everything I have down to my ankles, and hit the seat at the exact moment all gastrointestinal hell breaks lose.
I make it.

June 22 - How I Imagine My End of the Conversation Would Go If I Ever Met Pete Townsend From The Who

Hey, Pete. How's it going? It's me, Andy. First off, I want to thank you for returning all my phone calls, emails, and letters. That was really considerate of you.
Oh, sorry. Wait a minute. What I meant to say was the complete opposite of that. I know you don't know me and I'm sure you must get a lot of fan correspondences and all that, but Jesus, man. I've been writing to you since I was in high school. One quick reply would not kill you. But no, I guess you thought it might. And so that's why I had to come to your place.
OK and yeah, I know. You called the police and they're on their way. First of all, really scared. Secondly, don't flatter yourself. I'm not that kind of stalker. And thirdly, this will only take a minute. I'll long be out of your hair by the time they get here.
Since the clock is ticking, let me get to the point, because you have no idea how long this has been bothering me: Baba O'Reilly? Seriously? Baba O'Goddamned Reilly? Dude, there's no freaking way you don't call that song Teenage Wasteland. No way. Teenage Wasteland is what it should be called. Like, absolutely. It's not even fucking close. I've listened to that cocksucker about 47 bazillion times and not fucking once have I said to myself, "You know, on second thought it makes perfect sense that this song is called Baba O'Reilly even though the name Baba O'Reilly isn't mentioned once."
Tell me, Pete: When you shared that name with the rest of the band, what did you say? "Oi, lads, you know that song that's all about a teenage wasteland? I've finally found the perfect name for it. Are you sitting down? I shall call it Baba O'Reilly? Why? Because I'm a mopey-eyed, big-eared fuckwit, that's why."
Wow. That felt good. Glad I got that out of my system.
But hold on, chief. I'm not done with you yet. I want to talk to you about your boy, Tommy, you know the Pinball Wizard? At one point in the song you divulge that the guy plays pinball by sense of Goddamned smell. Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick, Pete. That is without a doubt the most jaw-droppingly inane shit I've heard in my life. Like, ever. The kid is deaf, dumb and blind. And I'm sure his other senses have been honed to greater acuity to compensate for his lack of hearing and vision, but to the point where he could play fucking pinball by sense of smell? He's deaf, dumb, and blind. Christ, does he even know he's playing pinball? I'm guessing he just stands there and hits the flippers like a motherfucker. That's what I would do. I mean, not to take anything away from him, but come on. It ain't smell that tells him when to hit the flipper. He's just hitting them. Go sell that sense of smell bullshit to someone else.
Jesus, are those sirens I hear already? Those cops are quick. I guess I'll have to run through the rest of these grievances really fast.
That voice you use on Boris the Spider? Ridiculous. Dignity: 1. You: nothing.
Mu-Mu-Mu-My Ge-Ge-Ge-Generation? Dude, I have a sister who stutters. That shit ain't funny.
"Mama's got a squeezebox she wears on her chest?" Dude, I'm sorry, but what is a fucking squeezebox? Is it a prosthesis of some sort? Some sort of respiratory aid? A slang expression for accordion? I don't know because "my generation" doesn't say that.
One more thing: Enough with the greatest hits collections, OK? Fucking hell, man. How many of those have you guys put out? Do you even know? "Hey, we haven't re-released the same bloody songs in a slightly different order in almost six weeks. Let's see what we can do about that! We can call this next one My Generation: The Ultimate All Time Absolute Best Best of the Who. We haven't used that name yet, have we?" Prick.
Crap, that's the cops. I didn't even get to your solo shit. Next time.
Oh yeah, and the best part of Won't Get Fooled Again is when Roger yells "YEAAAAHH!" after the extended instrumental interlude.
Ta ta!

June 21 - Father Knowz Bezt

Everybody knows about Tupac and Biggie, but MC Freaky Nutz was arguably more talented and visionary than both of them put together. And the fact that he remains perhaps the biggest almost was in hip-hop history owes more to timing and luck than any lack of drive or talent.
Nutz's crew, G Bomb Stank was one of the most notorious and respected posses in Memphis, Tennessee's Central Coast Collective, an underground movement that merged the G funk of West Coast rap, the militancy of East Coast rap, and the filth of the Deep South into a muggy, angry, dirty hip-hop stew.
As the biggest name in the biggest crew, MC Freaky Nutz attracted the most attention, and he milked it for all it was worth. He knew the East Coast/West Coast rap war was by far the biggest narrative--and driver of sales--in hip-hop and he wanted in on the action. And the only way he knew how was by dropping Lyrical Bombz, G Bomb Stank's '96 album, a hip-hop sucker punch aimed at the most prominent names on both coasts. On incendiary tracks like the NWA baiting Bitchez 4 Life, the Dre taunting Ain't Nothing But a G Bomb Thang, and the Tupac dissing No Eyez on You, MC Freaky Nutz and G Bomb Stank all but begged for trouble from all takers.
But Freaky Nutz was more than just an entertainer, he was also a family man, happily married to R & B diva Nefertiti. They were expecting their first child--a son--when Lyrical Bombz dropped. And for all his thug life posturing, Freaky Nutz was actually a fairly traditional father figure. The only reason for all his feud baiting was to generate enough hype and sales for Lyrical Bombz to provide for his family.
The only problem was it quickly started to work too well. In addition to respectable album sales, there were credibility enhancing but otherwise unwanted threats to him and his family: menacing lyrics directed toward him, unknown cars lingering outside their house in the middle of the night, gang signs, etc.
It wasn't long before Freaky Nutz began to genuinely fear for his life. He took out massive insurance policies, but that wasn't enough. He wanted to provide for his son spiritually as well as financially. That was the impetus behind the creation of Father Knowz Bezt, a collection of tracks he recorded especially for his son. Each song was created for a different situation, and in the event of Freaky Nutz's untimely demise, Nefertiti could cue up whichever song fit any number of occasions that were likely to present themselves during the upbringing of their son. For instance, I'm Disappointed in You could be played if their son got a speeding ticket, underperformed at school, or let his mother down. Do the Right Thing could be played when he faced a situation involving a big moral decision that would have ramifications for years to come. Get Your Ass in Bed could be played when he was up past his bedtime.
By design, Father Knowz Bezt would only ever be played if Freaky Nutz were dead. Unfortunately, this would significantly undermine the deterrent message inherent in tough love tracks like My Foot, Your Ass and This Gonna Hurt You More Than Me. After all, if Freaky Nutz weren't around to administer the punishment that was promised in those tracks, they would be meaningless--unless Nefertiti could raise their son to believe in the possibility of punishment from beyond the grave.
Toward that end, they agreed that when and if the time came Nefertiti would work with G Bomb Stank's production crew to create realistic and terrifying seances complete with smoke, flashing lights, thunder and lightening, and Freaky Nutz's voice (actually his brother's) letting their son know that even though he wasn't around he was watching his every move.
With those plans in place, everything was set. Freaky Nutz was fully insured, Lyrical Bombz was doing decent business, and all the other contingency plans in the event of Freaky Nutz's murder were in place.
And then . . . nothing happened, at least not in Memphis. Tupac was murdered. Biggie was murdered. Their cases were never solved, but both stars went on to enjoy greater posthumous success and notoriety than they ever had when they were alive.
But what about G Bomb Stank and Freaky Nutz? They did OK, but without incurring any casualties in the East Coast/West Coast rap war, interest in the entire Central Coast Collective (G Bomb Stank and Freaky Nutz included) dried up, and the rap world moved on to the next thing.
Around that time, Freaky Nutz left G Bomb Stank, and both he and Nefertiti retired from the music business to raise their son. By then, with the respectable sales of Lyrical Bombz, prudent investments, wise business decisions, and royalties from Nefertiti's R &B album sales, they'd put together a modest but ample nest egg to live off of for several years, which they did quietly and free of controversy, which is why you probably hadn't heard of them until now.
As for Father Knowz Bezt, Freaky Nutz was adamant about not releasing it, saying it was created solely for an audience of one. Even still, you can find bootleg copies of most of the tracks online if you know where to look.

June 20 - Father Seamus

Every week was a new town: Backgate, Arkansas; Ridley, Iowa; Catonsville, Michigan; Shippensburg, Minnesota. As the only son of Catholic priest turned carnival sideshow wrestler Furious Father Seamus, Homer O'Shaughnessy's home was a series of cheap hotels, campgrounds, trailers, and flophouses. And his family was an extended cast of carnival workers, sideshow attractions, and wrestlers, who loved Homer like he was their own. There was Flambino, the fire-eating Mexican midget; The Human Hammer, whose shtick was driving nails into boards with his fists, his heels, and his forehead; Bonnie the Beanpole, the lithe contortionist who also baked a mean apple betty; and Mustapha the Mysterious, the mind reading swami from the Orient. They took care of Homer while his father was in the ring doling out punishment on a nightly basis to all takers as Furious Father Seamus, the Catholic Catastrophe.
It had been that way since Homer was a toddler. He didn't have any memory of any life that wasn't on the road, just as he didn't have any memory of his mother, magician's assistant Sexy Sadie, Father Seamus's wife whose talent was disappearing from a magic coffin. A week after Homer's second birthday, she disappeared for good with the magician and they hadn't heard from her since.
Seamus was grateful for the support he got from the other wrestlers and everyone else in the carnival community after she left. In fact, they had been incredibly gracious to him ever since he'd joined the carnival all those years ago when he left the church after falling head over heels in love with Sadie while he was visiting the carnival with his nephew. It had all happened so fast. One day he was beginning life as the new parish priest in Dubuque. The next, he was leaving the church and modifying the wrestling skills that had put him through college so that they could be put to use in the ring of a traveling carnival. All so he could be with a magician's assistant he barely knew. Life was funny that way.
Because of his athleticism and his collegiate wrestling experience, Seamus took to the ring quite well. But although all the matches were fixed, the pain was real. That's why Father Seamus didn't want Homer watching his matches. As much as possible, he wanted to protect his son from that part of his life. In fact, he tried to keep him off the road altogether.
Enlisting the help of cousins in Montana, Idaho, and North Dakota to watch over Homer and keep him enrolled in school while the carnival was on the road, Father Seamus did his best to give him what most would consider to be a normal life.
But it never took. Homer wasn't a bad kid, just restless. His dad was on the road, so that's where he wanted to be, and who could blame him? If you were on a first name basis with fire eating midgets, human hammers, and mind readers, would you be satisfied with a life of TV, curfews, and the same roof every night?
Homer wasn't, and eventually Father Seamus accepted that and took him on the road as well. During the day, Homer did school work (Father Seamus described the quasi-home schooling situation as "Homer schooling" or "away-from-home schooling"), and at night Homer worked in the carnival, manning games on the midway, selling cotton candy in the concession stands, and when he was old enough, being in charge of rides.
He also worked out, bulked up, and learned the wrestling trade on the sly. Father Seamus's opponents, Driscoll the Driller (his character was a mad dentist), The Human Tornado (inspired by the Rudy Ray Moore character, even though almost nobody got the reference), and Scarecrow tutored Homer on the fine arts of faking hits and kicks, taking falls, and absorbing pain.
Meanwhile, by the time he was 16, he'd accumulated enough credits to graduate from high school. With his grades it would have been easy for him to get scholarships from several schools, but he wasn't interested in that. He wanted to wrestle.
Father Seamus was opposed to it, but he could see that wrestling was what his son wanted. And so it was with reluctance that he gave Homer his blessing to step into the ring as The Son of a Preacher Man, a fiercely loyal Catholic firebrand whose finishing move was The Bible Thumper in which he annointed his opponent with punches, "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" style, before sweeping his legs and pinning him.
In time, they joined forces as a tag team duo. For the next 10 years, Father Seamus and Homer, or "Father and Son and The Holy Ass-Whooping" as they were called, terrorized the carnival sideshow wrestling circuit, and eventually graduated to World Class Wrestling. The peak of their career came in June, 1987 at the Father's Day Massacre when they took down The Road Warriors to capture the WCW Tag Team Championship.
Father Seamus retired from pro wrestling the next year, with Homer following him two years later. Together they founded a pro wrestling school in Mason, Indiana and they still host exhibition matches every Father's Day. No charge if you bring your father.

June 19 - How It Ends

The night before the clothes drying rack she'd ordered from the catalog was schedule to arrive, Janet was like a kid on Christmas Eve who'd already "accidentally" seen the pink bicycle she would be getting the next morning. All she had to do was fall asleep and then it would be hers the next morning.
And it arrived right on schedule the next morning, right after we'd finished our coffee. I put on some clothes drying rack assembling music (a live concert by Devotchka) while Janet tore into the box and went to work.
I don't know if you're familiar with Devotchka, but if you've seen Little Miss Sunshine you've heard their music. The opening scene of the movie is a sort of introduction to the characters set to Devotchka's How it Ends--the little girl imitating the beauty pageant contestant's face at the moment she finds out she has become Miss America; the boy marking off another day on the calendar that counts down the days before he can leave home; the father giving his motivation speech in front of what we soon see is a mostly empty auditorium. It's a heart-rending scene; we see these people at their most vulnerable and yearning moments, and it's hard not to come away with the feeling that they're all headed for disappointment. Such is the power of How it Ends, the achingly beautiful elegiac Devotchka song that's playing as the scene unfolds. Any other song and the scene wouldn't have been as poignant. And that was the song that was playing as we were unloading the box and realizing that we only had two bars when we should have had three, and so we wouldn't be able to finish putting the clothes drying rack together.
And I'm not saying Janet had all her life's hopes riding on getting that clothes drying rack, of course not, but it was still heartbreaking to watch as elation gave way to uncertainty and then to disappointment, especially as that song was playing. If we'd been listening to reggae or something else, it probably wouldn't have been such a big deal.
Janet kept looking at the picture in the catalog and comparing it to our collection of parts to see if we'd gotten something wrong, but we hadn't. We were missing a bar. Meanwhile, the woman in the catalog looked so happy and capable as she put her family's laundry on the rack for it to dry. That's what Janet had been looking forward to since she came to me all smiles last week and asked me what I thought about us getting a clothes drying rack. She wanted to be like the smiling woman in the picture: Hanging up laundry looked so easy and pleasant. I teased her about it a little bit before telling her I thought it was a good idea.
Every once in a while during the week I would look over at her while she was reading or something, and she'd smile suddenly, and I'd ask her if she was thinking about the rack again, and she would just laugh.
And now here it was a sunny Saturday, just aching for laundry to be hanging in its splendor, and our rack was missing a piece.
However, a minute or so later, that song ended and the next one was the much more upbeat You Only Love Me 'Cause I'm Leaving, and as we continued putting the rack together anyway, we realized that it would still work with two bars instead of three.
Later on, Janet called the company and the third bar will come next week.
So in the span of a few hours, we had anticipation, dashed hopes, a temporary solution, and the promise of a brighter tomorrow. Nothing of the life and death variety, but that was our story for today.
And this is how it ends.

June 18 - The Other Boxes

Purple and yellow confetti rained down from the rafters and the Beautiful People of LA cheered their heroes. A game 7 victory, a 16th title. Kobe raised the Larry O'Brien Trophy triumphantly, and his teammates clamored around him, all wearing t-shirts and hats that said LA Lakers 2010 NBA Champions.
Hugs, tears, Kool & the Gang, I Love LA, Jack, Laker Girls, the Hollywood elite, and the hottest women you'll find at any sports event.
The Celtics shuffled off the court, a long flight, a long summer looming.
At the same time, in a darkened hallway in the bowels of the Staples Center, a faceless shadow of a man pushed a handtruck stacked with three boxes.
The boxes were loaded into a black van and driven to LAX where they were loaded onto a private jet bound for Boston. Upon their arrival, they were driven to a understated but gorgeous Beacon Hill property.
A man in a suit signed for the boxes, put them in the elevator and took them to the sub-basement where the owner of the house sat in darkness.
"Has it arrived?"
"Yes, sir."
"All three boxes?"
"Yes, sir."
"Thank you. You can go now. Turn on the lights on your way out."
"Yes, sir."
He stood up and went to the boxes. Opened the top one: XXL t-shirts that read Boston Celtics 2010 NBA Champions. He smiled, put one on, and opened the next box.
Boston Celtics 2010 NBA Champions hats. He put one of those on, too.
The third box had t-shirts, too. Different design but the same message. He would put one of those on later.
In the meantime, he cut three lines of coke and did them in quick succession, and then watched a tape of game 7 re-edited so that Boston had actually held on and won.
The Celtics had won!
After another couple of celebratory lines, he went to his shooting range in the next room where he had mannequins in Laker uniforms with photos of Lakers stars taped to their faces. Say hello to my little friend. He unholstered his glock and fired off round after round, blowing off limbs and sending the mannequins spinning and skidding across the floor.
More blow.
The hookers arrived around lunchtime. He cranked up Shipping up to Boston and had one of them wear a Kobe mask while he wore a Rasheed Wallace mask and did her from behind. The other two wore Laker Girl uniforms and made out. He spanked them both while watching the re-edited version of the game again, and when it was over he told them to put on Boston Celtics 2010 NBA Championship t-shirts.
The party lasted for almost 36 hours straight and ended with him sleeping all day Saturday. When he woke up he called and congratulated Jack Nicholson, burned the t-shirts and hats as promised, and turned on the Red Sox game.

June 17 - Buzz Kill

"Where did you get this information?"
"It came in a joint communique from the Department of Defense and the Department of Agriculture."
"This is a joke, right? Some idiotic prank?"
"No, sir. We have confirmation from the heads of both departments. It's for real."
"It" was a report that a swarm of killer bees that stretched for miles was heading toward Durban, South Africa's Moses Mabhida Stadium, drawn by the cacophony of tens of thousands of vuvuzelas being blown by fans at a World Cup match.
The theory was that, mistaking the buzz of the vuvuzelas for the sound made by a queen bee in distress, the swarm was closing in on the stadium, intent on protecting the queen from whatever was causing her to issue the distress signal.
The swarm was still far enough away that if everyone stopped tooting, the swarm might disperse and everyone would be OK.
The game was stopped immediately and the fans were told about the situation in English, Afrikaans, German, and several other languages, and then told to stop tooting their vuvuzelas.
The stadium was tense but quiet for a few minutes, and everything seemed fine until one fan couldn't resist anymore and tooted his vuvuzela.
Just once.
But then another fan did, too, and then another and another and within five minutes the whole stadium was so loud with the buzz of vuvuzelas that nobody could hear the desperate yelling of the stadium managers pleading with everyone to stop.
When the buzzing was at its nadir, a dark cloud of millions of killer bees enveloped the stadium and wreaked havoc on all in attendance. It was a rainstorm of bees, a blizzard.
After it was over, the stadium was in tatters and tens of thousands were injured.
A state of emergency was declared, and the remaining World Cup games in Durban were postponed indefinitely. The Red Cross and South Africa's military set up ad hoc field hospitals to handle the overflow from the hospitals.
The survivors of the swarm were put in quarantine and their conditions were closely monitored. As the days passed, the welts and blisters from their countless stings grew in size and density. This was accompanied by an increase in body temperature that the more jaded among the medical community referred to as World Cup Fever.
Within a week, the survivors were all in comas, and their blisters had grown so large that they had become connected and continued to grow until they formed a sort of blister cocoon around each survivor.
Meanwhile, South African apiologists managed to find the origin of the swarm, and were shocked to discover that they were of a species thought to have been extinct since the stone age. Their hive was inside a rock formation several miles outside of Durban. The theory was that in the absence of their queen, they had gone into what the apiologists called uber-hibernation or "ubernation." And they'd been in that state of suspended animation for several millenia until being awakened by the vuvuzelas that, as coincidence had it, perfectly replicated the tone and pitch of the queen's buzz.
Incredibly, none of what happened in Durban caused a change in the behavior of World Cup fans in Johannesburg or Capetown. Just as those in Durban had done, they blew their vuvuzelas, awakening similar swarms of prehistoric bees that also put them in sting-induced comas/cocoons.
For the next two weeks, close to two hundred thousand soccer fans from around the world lay in suspended animation within their bee sting cocoons. As much as possible, doctors monitored their status, and, aside from the fact that they were in cocoons, health-wise, everything was relatively normal.
At the next full moon, the cocoons opened suddenly, and everyone emerged, coated with thick, goopy honey. Once that was washed off, it was discovered that they were all perfectly healthy. The only difference was that each person now had a stinger on his or her backside. Not too big, not too small. Just the right size to be sheathed by the very same vuvuzelas that had gotten them into that mess in the first place. In fact, that's what they did. To prevent themselves from accidentally stinging anyone, people with stingers wore their vuvuzelas over the stingers, and held the vuvuzelas in place with belts or rock climbing harnesses. It was a bit unwieldy, but it worked.
And once everyone was satisfied that there were no other major effects of the bee attacks, and once all the remaining bees had been rounded up and placed in labs for further study, and once everyone felt reasonably sure that the bee dangers were behind them, and once the stadiums were repaired, the World Cup resumed.
And undoubtedly, the games were exciting. But without everyone tooting their vuvuzelas, the Cup just didn't generate the same buzz.

June 16 - A Few Words From a Foreigner Who is Reading the Japanese Edition of Haruki Murakami's Latest Novel in a Public Place So Everyone Can See Him

Hey everybody, look at me. I'm a non-Japanese person reading Murakami Haruki's latest novel, 1Q84, Volume 3. In Japanese. It's amazing.
And so am I.
Have you read it yet? No? Oh, you just must. I'll let you have it as soon as I'm finished, which will be very soon because I'm absolutely flying through it.
Oh, sorry. Your Japanese isn't good enough to read novels? Oh, that's too bad because this has got me riveted--just like the first two volumes, which I inhaled. God, I couldn't wait for Volume 3 to come out.
But don't worry. I'm sure it will be translated into English soon enough, and by the way, yes, English is my first language, too, but I knew I would lose my mind if I waited for the translation. Besides, have you ever actually read any of the English translations of Murakami's work? Please. They're abominations! I see other foreigners reading them all the time and it's just pathetic how hard they're trying--and failing!--to impress Japanese people by reading a translation of Norwegian Wood or Kafka on the Shore. For me, when it comes to Murakami it's either Japanese or nothing at all.
Sorry, I shouldn't be such a snob. I mean, I guess the translations are OK if you've never read the original versions and you just want to get the basic story. But if you really want to get Murakami, there's just no substitute for reading him in the original Japanese. Ask anyone--assuming your Japanese is good enough.
By the way, I don't just read novels. I also read the Yomiuri Shimbun every day. In Japanese, of course. You'll notice I didn't call it the Daily Yomiuri. That's because that's the name of the English language version, which I don't read. No. I read the Yomiuri Shimbun--in Japanese--because I'm so acculturated. It's a really incisive newspaper. So much better than the Daily Yomiuri, which, again, I don't read.
I also attend kabuki theater quite often. If you're ever interested in checking it out, do let me know. I'd be more than happy to explain what's happening for you. The translations there leave a lot out, but the productions are spectacular. We should go sometime! The same goes for noh, manzai, God, you name it. I mean, I'm not an expert by any means, but I'd be delighted to share what I know about the Japanese arts with you.
Anyway, back to my novel, which, again, is Murakami Haruki's latest, 1Q84, Volume 3. Which I'm reading in Japanese.
I'm an amazing person.

June 15 - Deer

I still remember the first time my sister and I saw a deer when we were growing up. We were in the backseat of my parents' car as we drove down a county road that cut through farmland. Dad was the one who pointed her out. There she was, a magnificent fawn on the edge of the trees. She saw our car, turned quickly, and bounded off into the woods.
Having just moved to Maryland from Chicago, the sight of a deer in the wild was otherworldly. Hell, just seeing squirrels was enough for us. But a full on deer? With antlers? Amazing.
As the years went by, and more and more developments encroached on their land, deer became more and more common to see. You had to be careful when you drove, especially at night. You never knew when a deer would decide that it needed to cross the road at the precise moment you were driving by. We came pretty close to hitting them a few times.
The first time we saw deer in our yard it was magical. There was snow on the ground. Full moon. Christmas lights. We had just gotten back from a movie, and there they were: Three deer just standing there in our front yard. As soon as they became aware of our presence, they pranced off toward the woods nearby. My sister and I were both in high school at the time, but at that moment it was like we were kids again.
From then on, every time we came home and pulled into the driveway, we got our hopes up that we would see the deer again. At first it was disappointing because we hardly ever did. But before long it was disappointing because we hardly ever didn't. It wasn't long at all before the sight of deer in our yard became really commonplace. What was more, the sight of us became really commonplace to them. After awhile, they didn't even run away unless we chased them.
The trouble really began that summer when they discovered our garden. It actually took us a couple of days to figure out what was happening to all the tomatoes and zucchini, but one night when we were letting Rusty back in from the backyard, we saw them out there eating away. Dad yelled at them and chased them off, but they didn't even seem that scared.
A couple nights later, when it happened again, one of them actually stopped midstride, turned around to look at us, and took a crap before turning back around and walking away like he was all that.
Dad put up a makeshift fence the next day, but it didn't matter. They just knocked it down. He tried it again the next day, but they just knocked it down again. After another couple of tries, he conceded defeat and let them have the garden.
But they weren't satisfied.
They started going after the garbage cans after that. Mom's flower beds, and the crab apple tree, too. At first they just ate the crab apples that were on the ground, but then they ate the ones that were hanging on the lowest branches, and then one night I looked outside and saw one of them standing on another's back, plucking crab apples with his mouth and dropping them down to the others. A couple nights later, all the crab apples were gone.
And then it got worse.
We came home from school a few days later and the deer had broken through our bay windows and eaten everything in the kitchen. The pantry was ransacked, the cupboards were trashed, and their scat was everywhere. It was a disaster.
We boarded up the window, but the next day they just broke through the boards and had their way with our living room. When we got home that day, all the cushions on the sofa had been chewed to bits, the houseplants were in ruins, and the phone was off the hook. Two of them were passed out drunk in the living room. Apparently, they'd discovered the liquor cabinet. And about an hour after we finally managed to shoo them out of the house, a guy from the local Agway delivered an order of 12 salt licks the deer had made after they realized they'd gone through everything edible in the house.
Incredibly, it didn't stop there.
The next day, they came back and went through mom's jewelry box, stole our TV and video camera, and got our bank information off the computer. And they didn't even pretend to be scared when we got home. They just took our groceries upstairs, ate them, and went to sleep in our beds.
That was when dad suggested we get a shotgun, but mom told him she thought it was too late. She felt that if we'd done that a long time ago it might have been OK, but it wasn't right to shoot them now after basically letting them do everything they'd been doing all that time. My parents argued and argued about it, but eventually mom won like she always did. We ended up selling the house at a big loss and moving back to the city.
Anyway, that's my family's experience with deer. It all happened a long time ago, but it still feels like yesterday.
A lot of people think deer are cute, and I guess we did too at first. But it didn't take us long to learn the truth: Deer are assholes.

June 14 - iMotions

"What's that one?"
"Liberator?"
"I guess. What's it like?"
"You want to try a sample? You can tell me."
"OK."
Brenda's shopper fed her a three-second dose through her iVision.
"Well?"
"Wow. It was like, I don't know, the last few minutes before the bell rings on the last day of school. Really cool."
Her shopper laughed along with her. "Should I add it to your cart?"
"Maybe. Don't I already have something like that?"
"Irresponsibliss?"
"Which one is that?"
"That's the feeling you get when you blew off your homework, wake up the next morning, and school's been cancelled because of snow."
"Ooh, I like that one."
"Yeah, I know. I can tell," her shopper laughed. "But Liberator is different. Much more anticipatory."
"Yeah, totally. Hmm. Let me think about it."
Brenda had been on a nostalgia kick at the iMotions Store lately, downloading almost all the iMotions that reminded her of high school that her shopper suggested to her. It was especially hard to resist when she'd been drinking, as she had that night. Other recently purchased iMotions: Something to Cheer About, which made her feel like she'd just made the cheer leading squad, and Noteworthy, which made her feel like a boy had secretly passed her a note in class.
"Yeah, you know what? Add that one to my cart."
Her shopper touched the Liberator icon and dragged it over to Brenda's cart. She was about to suggest some other iMotions she might like, but Brenda switched avatars before she could speak again. A 3D hologram of Joakim, Brenda's high school boyfriend (computer aged to look like he was 35 years old) replaced the hip African-American woman Brenda normally shopped with. He took over the shopper's side of the conversation like he'd been with her the whole time.
"Liberator is now in your cart."
Brenda took another drink of wine. "What's new in the Romance section?"
Joakim laughed. "You looking for PG or R?"
Brenda blushed. She knew Joakim wasn't 'real' in the same sense she was, but she still felt inhibited whenever she talked to him, worrying about what he would think about her choices. After all, he looked dead on like she imagined Joakim would look now--or maybe she just imagined Joakim would look like that because that's how the iMotions Image Projection System had imagined he would look.
And by the same token, did iMotions Joakim really have the same personality as 'real' Joakim's, as Brenda had often thought? Or had the personality of iMotions Joakim gradually rewritten Brenda's memories of him so that it just seemed that way?
It was all so confusing whenever she stopped to think about it, which was one of the reasons why she didn't anymore.
The other reason was because she had gotten to the point where she preferred iMotions to the 'real' thing. They were just easier. iMotions were available whenever she wanted them. If she woke up at 3 am and wanted to feel like an attractive guy had laughed at one of her jokes and casually touched her arm, she could experience that. If she had had a bad day at work and wanted to feel like she'd just nailed a presentation, she could do that too. Any emotion she wanted to feel was there for her any time. All she had to do was call it up from her iMotions Library. Who cared if it wasn't 100% real, because--and not to get too philosophical here--what was reality? If her brain told her something was real and her nerve endings and emotional receptors confirmed it was real and the sensory images she experienced felt real, wasn't that real enough? If the feelings felt real, who cared about the rest?
Brenda took another sip from her wine and told Joakim, "R."
"All right, now we're talking," he said. "Try Yes. It's the feeling you get the moment you realize that the possibility of sex with a new partner has just become a certainty."
He downloaded a three-second sample of it to her iVision, and she tried it out.
"Ooh yeah, definitely put that in my cart."
"Done. Strong Hands?"
"Sorry?"
"You want to try Strong Hands? Judging from your purchasing history, I think you'd like it."
He sent her a sample, and once again proved he knew her better than anyone else in the world.
By the time she finished her wine, she had the courage to add Toe Suck to her cart, and she rounded out her evening's shopping by adding Sunday Morning Cuddle, which she'd had her eye on for almost a week.
After she finished, Joakim said good night, and told her not to wait so long before she shopped with him again the next time, and Brenda promised she would do better in the future.
Then she told the iHost to plan a romantic evening's playlist for her, poured herself another glass of wine, and settled in for the evening.

June 13 - Bill's Ad for The American Fatherhood Council

Bill sat in front of his monitor and hated it for being so, so . . . blank. He'd had writer's block before, but this was ridiculous. The assignment from The American Fatherhood Council should have been a lay-up, but it was kicking his ass.
They were pretty vague when they gave him the instructions for it--produce a 30-second ad that encapsulated fatherhood--but at the time, he didn't think it would be a problem. A 30-second ad about fatherhood? Damn thing will write itself. And yet here it was the night before the deadline and he had nothing to show for it.
Well, not nothing. He had countless false starts that together comprised a sort of Greatest Hits of Fatherhood Cliches: father and son playing catch in the backyard; father and son fishing from a rowboat; father videotaping his children performing in the school play; father running alongside his child as (s)he wobbly rides a bicycle without training wheels for the first time; father shaving in the bathroom as his son looks up in admiration; father teaching his son/daughter to drive; father and son washing the car; grandfather, father, and son at the lake house; father and son working on something in the garage or basement; father teaching his son how to swing a bat (it was next to impossible to avoid baseball); father and son hugging at the son's high school/college/rehab graduation.
OK, so no images of graduating from rehab made it up onto his screen, but maybe that would take it in some sort of direction. Anything was better than nothing.
The problem was that everything he was coming up with was so damned sentimental, which shouldn't have been a big deal. After all, he had sentimental feelings about his own father, but sentiment and schmaltz weren't what he wanted the ad to focus on. It was like a ridiculously over-earnest greeting card that seemed suited only for making your father really uncomfortable.
Besides, sentiment wasn't what he thought about when he thought about his father. He thought about the first (and last, really--or at least the only one that lasted) male role model in his life. The guy that got him into watching football, but was fine when he himself didn't want to play it. The guy that got him into photography and encouraged him to keep it up, but didn't force him to do it until he hated it. The guy that always came to all his soccer games and middle school band concerts and, hell, everything else he was ever involved in because he was so unflaggingly supportive in everything he did, and OK, so maybe he did think of sentiment when he thought of his father.
But it wasn't just that. He also thought of the guy that, when he was a kid, he wanted to be like when he grew up. And that even as he became an adult he strove to be like him, too, and dammit! More sentiment. He couldn't escape it.
Back to the ad. More images: Father and son watching Airplane! together and laughing their ass off; father and son flying a kite together; father and children running in a field. Father and children running in a field? When do people do that?
OK, enough images. You know what a father is. You know what a father does. Just call the man. Hang out with him. Shoot the shit. Spend some time with the guy and have a beer with him. I promise you you'll enjoy it. Jesus, people. It's not brain surgery.
After working on it all night, that was the script he finally submitted to The American Fatherhood Council the following morning.
When they predictably balked, he came up with a second offering that was more of a father/son baseball/barbecue, families running in fields montage, and everyone was happy with that script and the resulting ad, including Bill's father who secretly thought it was a little bit too sentimental but kept that opinion to himself and told his son he loved it and that he was proud of him.

June 12 - Cap'n Bromance

Ahoy, Cap'n Bromance!

OK, so here's my deal. I'm a 31-year-old hetero living with my fiance, Jill. Everything's great on that front, work's cool, etc. A little busy, but whatever.
Anyway, every week I play pick-up basketball at an outdoor court near my office. It's a pretty regular crowd, and most of us know each other by face, if not by name.
But there's this one guy named Mark, and I guess we've kind of developed a bit of a rapport. We're into the same music and TV shows, only it's hilarious because we're both way behind on, like, everything. For example, he just finished season 3 of The Wire, and I just started season 4, so it's cool to have someone to talk to about it.
Anyway, we'd exchanged email addresses a few weeks ago because my office overlooks the court (it looks totally inner city and ghetto, but it's fine) and I usually email him when people start showing up. Basically, up until recently, that had been the extent of our correspondences and it was cool.
Well, after the game last week I had to run back to my office and finish up some work, and I saw that he'd just emailed me, like right after the game, which was something new since we usually only ever email before the game. And granted, his email wasn't anything amazing or anything, just like 'Hey dude, it was cool playing with you. See you next time.' But I don't know. I'd had had a really good game, and I was kind of on a high because it was Thursday night and Jill and I were finally going to get out of the city for the weekend, and I was thinking how Mark seemed like a cool guy, and we got along well, and now he'd emailed me at, like, 10:30, and so I replied and suggested we grab a beer sometime.
Anyway, you can probably see where this is going. No reply. And now here it is Wednesday evening, and I haven't heard anything from him. Tomorrow is our basketball night, and I don't want things to be weird, but I'm worried it might be awkward. I mean, if he doesn't want to get a beer, that's cool, whatever. And part of me feels stupid for obsessing over this, but it's like, he emailed me. At 10:30. And now he won't reply to my reply?! I guess I must have (stupidly!) misinterpreted his email, and now that invite is out there, and I feel like an asshole. What should I do?

Thanks,
Sending Out an SOS

Ahoy, SOASOS,
Aye, it furrows me brow and tingles me spine to learn of such a blimey, confounding quandary as yours. Tis a tale that brings back many an ill-conceived and ill-received entreaty to 'Take a load off, matey! Park ye your thundermaker next to mine and join me in making this bottle of rum be sorry it e'er set foot in the Mermaid and Whale.' Aye, if I had a flagon of ale for every such offer that be doused in pickle brine and thrown back in me ugly mug, I could be spending the remainder of me days sailing me blessed, rotted Canary Pearl in a sea of ale.
Aye, lad. What man can fathom the mysteries that be bringing together men o' rugged body and rancorous spirit? Tis a chasm between strangerhood and brotherhood that be seeing the demise o' many a mate who be seeking to cross it 'fore it be advisable. I understand your lot, lad. Tis a right vexing mucklehex.
But even in the face of gathering storm clouds and foreboding swirls an' eddies, I say avast ye your fretting, SOASOS. For who knows the cause of the locked jaw of your mate in wait? Tis many a possibility: The drudge and toil of chasing his daily shillings be rendering him fit solely for slumber's tender embrace. His attentions be the exclusive province of a fastidiously elusive wench. The hogshead thrumbings of yesterday's sorrows be having him in their tightfisted shackles. Tis a fool's errand to contemplate it further.
I advise ye that as the sun descends on morrow's reign, take ye to the court like it be the galley of your vessel. Stride with confidence, man! Keep a lusty disposition about ye person. Greet all brethren, aye, including that ornery, cursed Mark, with gusto and verve. And as the book be closing on the day's contests, issue a call to one and all to drink to the spirit of the game, to the spirit of the fraternity of men. Tis a chance that your Mark will heed the call. And aye, tis a chance you be spurned. But I say walk tall, SOASOS. It be Cap'n Bromance's belief that your dilemma be having a happy resolution.

Argh!
Cap't Bromance

June 11 - Perversion Conversion

Brother Elijah licked his lips and scanned the 'man seeking man' section of the personals.
SWM seeks father figure for lunchtime bonding.
Nice, but not quite what he was looking for.
DWM seeks hung partners unafraid to play dirty.
Getting closer, but still not what he was after.
18-year-old stud seeks older men to manhandle.
Pay dirt.
He circled it, contacted the guy, and set up a date.
At about the same time, a loose network of equally pious men and women made similar arrangements all across the city.
They called their movement Perversion Conversion, and the philosophy they followed was simple: If you are going to save the sinners, you have to go to where the sinners are.
It was the core mission of www.churchofthepiouslife.com, Brother Elijah's online church, which boasted a citywide congregation numbering in the hundreds. Although the church had no physical location and the members of its congregation had never actually met, it was a devoted bunch, comprising people from all walks of life who came together in the belief that the path to eternal salvation was a life free of sin, particularly sins of the flesh. This point was reinforced every week during Brother Elijah's passionate web sermons in which he told his congregation to find the sinners of the city, sit down with them, and give them the Good News.
Their targets were the legions of sex maniacs that lurked like unseen roaches in every crack and fold in the city: bondage freaks, dominatrices, homosexuals, adulterers, fetishists, prostitutes, hustlers, all of them. To the congregation of www.churchofthepiouslife.com their online personal ads were really cries for help. They, Perversion Conversion, would answer their calls and help them change their sinful ways.
Most of the time they failed miserably.
During almost every rendezvous of Perversion Conversion, the Brothers and Sisters of www.churchofthepiouslife.com found themselves on the receiving end of spectacular verbal, and sometimes even physical abuse. Almost every target demanded they pay for whatever skeezy hotel room they'd booked. Most also demanded cab fare, and many got it.
Their success rate was abysmal. Typically, for every 100 "dates" Perversion Conversion went on, fewer than five would lead to a conversation that progressed beyond angry words and threats of violence. Of those, almost none led to anyone actually joining the church. During the first six months of Perversion Conversion, only three sinners repented. Not a great success rate, especially when you consider that roughly one in 50 appointments actually ended with the Brother or Sister who'd responded to the ad willfully participating in whatever sex act had been solicited and then quietly pretending nothing had ever happened.
It continued this way for several months.
Gradually, those seeking sex got wise to the game and stopped placing those kinds of ads. Soon it got to the point where far more often than not, a Brother or Sister would show up to a hotel room only to discover they'd actually set up a date with another Brother or Sister. Once they figured out the mistake, they would laugh about it and then go hang out platonically for the rest of the evening. Almost always they would exchange contact information and become friends.
Meanwhile, those who'd been seeking sex continued to do so, but they went about it in more circumspect ways. Personal ads seeking "Bible study partners", "Bible study groups", "spiritual counselors," and "someone to give me communion" became much more common.
In time, the Perversion Conversion campaign came to an end, as did www.churchofthepiouslife.com. Their online community had been replaced by several pockets of Brothers and Sisters who met face to face rather than on the Internet to discuss matters of faith. And even though they'd managed to convert very few people, most of them looked upon Perversion Conversion as a success. Through it, in a very roundabout way, they'd managed to connect with other people who had the same values and beliefs they had. Which was really why they'd gone looking for a church to join in the first place.

June 10 - The Beginning of the End

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June 9 - Not a Hero

Listen.
It was a hectic morning. Lots going on. Careers at stake. Crisis mode. We had the Martinson briefing, the Fielding deposition, and God only knows what else. Go time. Shot clock winding down. The printer was jammed, and print jobs were backing up.
Somebody had to step up.
Somebody had to unjam the printer. Otherwise, everything was screwed.
Fortunately for you guys, that's where I thrive.
Game on the line. Down by a point. Seconds remaining. Somebody had to take the shot. Somebody had to bring this ship in from the storm.
But all this talk about saving the day? Hero? The savior of Livingstone and Associates? Honestly, I think you're being a wee bit dramatic, don't you?
I mean, imagine it's the same situation and I don't step up. What's the worst that happens? We show up late. Unprepared. Flustered. We look unprofessional. Embarrass ourselves. Maybe lose a couple mil in revenues. But life goes on, right?
Right.
But thank God it didn't come to that. Thank God I was there. Thank God I knew what needed to be done. And most of all, thank God I maintained my focus at the moment of truth, stepped in, and unjammed that printer.
Because of me, everything turned out just fine.
Thank God.
But does that really make me a hero? I don't know, man. Don't ask me. That's for history to decide.

June 8 - The Ten Monkey Derby

Dog racing has been around for decades. But why no jockeys?
Safety concerns would be most people's answer, and they would have a good point. The few attempts to outfit various breeds of dogs with saddles have all ended in humiliation at best, and maiming (and even death) at worst. The 1920s and 1930s in particular are littered with stories of midgets and children trampled by English sheepdogs and rottweilers--greyhounds were always too slender--that didn't take to their saddles.
In time, the dog racing industry accepted that riderless dogs was the way to go, and for many years that was that--until eccentric Michigan-based dog racing magnate "Doghouse" Bradford Holcomb came up with the idea of monkey jockeys in the early 1950s.
As is the case with most revolutions in dog racing, monkey jockeys were an accident. Doghouse Holcomb, owner and manager of Dexter Lake, Michigan's Dexter Downs Racetrack dressed his pet capuchin monkey Talo like a cowboy (complete with boots and spurs) and tied him to the back of a greyhound to promote the rodeo that Dexter Downs was going to be hosting in a few weeks. His plan was to lead Talo and the dog down the homestretch prior to each night's main event accompanied by various monkey-themed announcements touting the rodeo (i.e. "Quit monkeying around and get your tickets for the Dexter Downs Rodeo today!" ; "You're gonna go bananas at the Dexter Downs Rodeo!" and "The Dexter Downs Rodeo is the hottest ticket in town--and that ain't no monkey business!").
Everything was going great until Talo started shooting the cap guns they'd given him. This spooked the greyhound he was riding on, causing him to take off and tear around the track with the now panicked Talo firing off more and more caps, which only served to make the dog run faster.
Well, the crowd loved it.
So much so that the following weekend, Doghouse Holcomb secured the "temporary release" of three more monkeys from the zoo, dressed them all up like bellhops, and hosted the first ever Monkey Derby. This was followed a week later by the first ever All Monkey Steeple Chase for which Doghouse Holcomb played up the steeple theme by dressing two of the monkeys in tuxedos (aka monkey suits) and two in wedding dresses.
It was huge.
A week later, Doghouse Holcomb got his hands on six more monkeys for a total of ten that would race every Saturday night. He named the weekly monkey race the Ten Monkey Derby and made all of his employees say it so that it sounded like the Kentucky Derby.
The audiences must have liked the name because attendance grew every week.
Each Saturday there was a different theme with different costumes: Cops and robbers. Cowboys and Indians. Hobos. Clowns. One week the monkeys were decked out like outlaw bikers. Another week, at the height of the Sputnik era, two of the monkeys were dressed like Soviet cosmonauts, and the other eight in cowboy costumes. (Originally, they were going to be dressed like American astronauts, but the Dexter Downs staff couldn't tell the difference between the cosmonauts and the astronauts, so they figured cowboys was the most obviously American option after astronauts, so that's what they went with.)
To promote the weekly event, Doghouse hired Jimmy Leslie, Dexter Lake's town drunk to wear a gorilla costume and pass out monkey race flyers every Friday afternoon. Every weekend a different high school marching band from the area would play the national anthem at the beginning of the evening and Aba Daba Honeymoon before the Ten Monkey Derby.
The Detroit TV stations all did news segments on it. There was talk about the race going national.
But the deal fell through when on one rainy Saturday night there was a collision in the home stretch that sent two greyhounds and three monkeys to the vet. Many of the children in attendance that night were nearly traumatized by the sight, and their parents were mortified. Who knew monkey racing could be so dangerous?
Although the animals eventually recovered, the Ten Monkey Derby never really did, at least not legitimately. Interest in the race waned, and after a few more weeks of diminishing returns, Doghouse pulled the plug, sending the Dexter Lake monkey racing scene underground.
Now, more than 50 years later, Dexter Downs is run by Doghouse's grandson, Bradford the third. Every few years, there is talk of bringing the Ten Monkey Derby back, but that's all it is, just talk. Something like the Ten Monkey Derby could never fly now. It was a product of its era, the late 1950s, when Dexter Lake needed a hero, and a monkey on a greyhound answered the call.

June 7 - Conversation Overheard on the Way to the Slow Food Festival

Mitchell: Dude, I'm starving. Let's swing through a drive-through.
Kip: Good call, Mitchell.

June 6 - Marvin Gaye's Girlfriend Vents About How the First Four Notes of Let's Get It On Come On Any Time She Says Anything Remotely Sexual

Seriously, girl.
Every time I say anything even close to double entendre-ish, he looks at me with this sly grin. And then I have no idea where it comes from, but there's just this Wah wah wah wah music, and then it's "Let me love you" this and "Let's get it on" that, and, seriously, I apologize for complaining about my man giving me too much loving and too much attention, but girl, some nights I just want to sleep.
But it ain't easy when your boyfriend is Marvin Gaye. I swear that man takes everything I say as a signal. Like the other night, it was legitimately hot in our apartment. And as kind of a prelude to suggesting we turn on the air, I'm like, "Marvin, do you feel hot?"
Big mistake.
He gives me this Oh no you didn't look and then the Wah wah wah wah music comes on and, well, you know the rest. And I swear I'm not complaining. OK, I guess I kind of am complaining, but still. I can't say anything when he's around because he'll take it that way. Seriously, I keep a list of words I cannot say in his presence. Want to hear them? Bed, hot, wet, position, take, give, wash, enter, smooth, sleep, head, long, simmer, cook, smoke, back door--anyway, you get the idea. The man's a machine. Everything he hears, it makes him think of sex. And don't get me wrong, it was fine at first. Seriously, girl. It was fine. But now? Damn. Let a girl get some rest.
But the really weird part is the music. Girl, I have no idea where it comes from, if he has some sort of button he pushes or what. But any time I say anything that can be taken that way, it just comes out of nowhere. I'll just be like, "Can you put a little honey in my tea?" and then all of a sudden Wah wah wah wah. Or, "Could you crack a couple of eggs? I'm gonna make some bread." Wah wah wah wah. Or my favorite, "Don't go in the kitchen. I just mopped the floor." Wah wah wah wah. Girl, what on earth is sexual about mopping the floor? Nothing.
Ain't a damn thing.
Unless your man is Marvin Gaye.

June 5 - The Woman That Billy Joel Says May Be Right Effectively Tells Him That She Doesn't Think He's Crazy; She Just Thinks He's a Douche

Listen up, Billy. It is Billy, right? Not Bill or Will. Definitely not William. No self-respecting "crazy" guy would go by such an unabashedly square name. No, not you. It's Billy. Well Billy, you might want to sit down so this news doesn't kick you in the ass too hard, but you know all those times when I said you were crazy? That was sarcasm.
That was sarcasm, you dense boob.
Let me guess. You thought my calling you crazy was really just my roundabout way of telling you how cool and dangerous I thought you were. Like I couldn't openly admit how edgy and therefore hot you were, so I pretended to accuse you of being crazy and self-destructive. Is that it?
Um, no.
It wasn't attraction disguised as contempt. It was mocking disguised as nothing.
Jesus, how much more obvious could I have made it that I was mocking you? All those times when you would get that dorky cocksure smile and say, "You may be right. I may be crazy," I was like, you freaking dork. Do you have no concept of fucking sarcasm? Yeah, like I really thought you were crazy for driving your motorcycle in the rain, just like I thought the fact that you made it home alive only proved you were insane. I only said those things because you called to tell me you made it home OK and I couldn't think of anything else to say. But yeah, no, driving your motorcycle home in a light drizzle does not make you insane, especially if you wear a helmet.
Speaking of last Friday, for the last time, you didn't "crash" my party. You were invited. Jesus, everybody from work was. And yes, I know you were only having fun. And no, it wasn't hurting anyone. Nobody ever said it was. My God, where do you get your ideas? Was it because of the beer? Billy, how many times do I have to tell you? Those were for everyone. Of course, I didn't care that you had as many as you did. Hell, take them all next time for all I care. I don't even like beer.
Then there was all that bragging about walking through Bedford Stuy alone. Yeah, like walking through Bedford Stuy in the middle of the afternoon makes you such a badass. Dude, who fucking cares? My mom walks through Bedford Stuy alone. It's not that rough of a neighborhood. And by the way, no, there's nothing the matter with the clothes you're wearing. Why do you keep asking me that?
Look, you're a nice guy. At least you used to be, and I don't mean that in a "but now you're a lunatic and I need to save you" kind of way. I just mean you were a lot more charming back when you wanted us all to call you the Piano Man. This whole brooding, edgy thing, it doesn't work for you. Go back to being that guy. Go back to being the entertainer.
And for the love of God and all things holy, stop calling me your uptown girl.