A Very Immigrant Christmas

The Little Saigon market was pandemonium this morning. My mother and the other old ladies were all cutting in front of each other at the butcher's counter, everybody was elbowing each other out of the way for the best head of lettuce, etc. Mom even shoved her way past some disabled woman (who was using crutches and who was arguably a little person) as they were rushing for the 15-items-or-less line. It was a glimpse into the decades of trauma that these war-torn people have experienced. Every aisle was a jumble of carts and Vietnamese, and I guess you were supposed to just smash your way by if you wanted to get through it. It was scary. It's really no wonder they kicked America's ass.

Now my mom keeps referring to broth as "the juice." (I keep telling her that it ain't juice unless you squeezed it out of something, but she won't listen.) She also keeps insisting that broth has the same nutritional value as the meat from which it's made. Her ignorance is astounding. Still, it's nice to hang out with Mom for the holidays.

Cheeseburger Wasteland

Why isn't there an In-N-Out between Pinole and East Oakland?! What the hell? North Oakland, West Oakland, the Lake Merritt neighborhoods, Berkeley, Emeryville, Albany...this whole fucking place is crawling with burger eaters. There's so many goddamn French fries...I'm constantly having to make my way through smushed up French fries scattered all over the goddamn sidewalks; it actually slows me down. (One could easily slip and fall on that shit...totally fuckin' dangerous.) In-N-Out'd make a fortune here! We love special sauce. Are they stupid? Or is it some sort of a Christian thing (I've heard that they're owned and operated by fundies; I've even seen scriptures cited in tiny print on the bottoms of their cups), some faith-based scruple that keeps them away because the East Bay is pig Latin for the Beast? But if that were the case then the East Oakland and San Leandro In-N-Outs wouldn't make any sense. So what the hell is going on?

Juicy Lemons

I won't know how many lemons I need until I know how juicy they are. Or less ambiguously: until I know how juicy they are I won't know how many lemons I need. Or even slightly less ambiguously: until I know how juicy the lemons are I won't know how many I need. Or least ambiguously: until I know how juicy the lemons are I won't know how many lemons I need.

Diff'rent Wipes For Diff'rent Types

When shopping for items, I tend to buy whichever product brand that happens to be on sale, and so I've tried dozens of different toilet papers over the years. And, of course, I've defecated many times in bathrooms for which someone else has provided the toilet paper, and so I've experienced even more kinds of toilet paper than I've purchased.

The various brands of toilet paper vary greatly in terms of texture, ranging from the soft and pillowy and fluffy to the coarse and stiff and dense. Public restrooms are usually supplied with the coarser, stiffer, denser paper, whereas I often encounter the softer, fluffier, and more pillowy paper in the bathrooms of friends and relatives.

I prefer the coarse, stiff, dense toilet paper. This is because I've found that the fluffy toilet paper often tatters and turns powdery when subjected to friction. I want my feces to adhere to my toilet paper, and the last thing I need is for my toilet paper to be adhering to my feces.

People have told me, "Il Vermicello, the purpose of toilet paper is not merely to faciliate adhesion but also to facilitate comfort," but I've never really understood these people. I, for one, have never used any toilet paper that was so soft or so fluffy that it made wiping myself in any way pleasant or soothing. Conversely, I've had to wipe myself plenty of times with newspapers or grocery bags or the Yellow Pages, and it really isn't all that bad.

A Call For Occupational Specifics

The occupiers need a more detailed agenda. It's hard to argue with "social justice," but "economic equality" is an entirely new ball of wax. If people were economically equal then how would we determine who's better than whom? Height? The number of pounds that one can bench press? Facial symmetry? I don't know. Is this really what democracy looks like? 'Cause it kinda sounds like eugenics to me. I mean people who are tall and strong and attractive are obviously totally awesome, but let's not forget about diversity.

Industrial Prison Complex

I'm not at all comfortable with the imposition of criminal fines. I'm a big fan of restitution, and I definitely think that the state should require criminals to make restitutionary payments to injured parties whenever money reasonably could be said to help make whole the damages inflicted by the crimes at issue. However, the purity and the integrity of [the instinct toward] retribution is compromised whenever a criminal's money goes into the state's coffers. The polity should want payback so badly that it's willing to pay for it, and the collective financial burden of incarceration keeps us all honest. In my opinion, a criminal fine smacks of blackmail: "we caught you dead to rights, but cut us a check and then we can all just forget about it and move on." It's sleazy. I think we should abolish criminal fines, and criminals who require punishment should go to jail.

The abolition of criminal fines wouldn't have much effect upon the lives of natural people with criminal inclinations and deviant personalities. Imprisonment upon conviction has always been the fate of poor criminals, and those few rich criminals who can't manage to avoid charges altogether can usually beat the rap in the end, at least on appeal. The real impact of banning fines would hit our corporate citizens.

Every state (as well as the federal government) could have a massive office building, a skyscraper of corporate corrections, and corporations whose crimes were egregious enough to warrant criminal sanction could serve out sentences in these penal offices. Each offending corporation would get a fairly sized suite of offices, rent-free. The corporation being punished could staff and equip its suite however it saw fit, but for the duration of its sentence it could not conduct business within that jurisdiction unless it did so within the confines of its suite. It would be a crime for any natural person to serve as the corporation's agent outside of the suite, and anyone caught illegally acting or transacting on the corporate convict's behalf would go to regular, human jail. (And, of course, any corporation caught illegally acting as the agent of a corporate convict would get its own rent-free suite of offices in the industrial prison complex.)

Doing away with criminal fines certainly wouldn't stimulate our precarious economy...in fact, quite the opposite. But prosperity without justice produces the wickedest of dividends, and a society must be willing to suffer for righteousness if it wants to consider itself enlightened.

Glamour Is Where You Earn It

I work in an office – 9-5, water coolers, the whole bit. I put numbers in boxes and I write reports evaluating progress. I try to encourage other people to put their numbers in their boxes and to write their reports. I give all of the reports to someone else who then uses them to ask for money. Occasionally I have to be the one to ask for the money. It's not the most exciting workplace, but just because my environment's dull doesn't mean that I'm about to settle for boring outfits. To wit:

The Foreman
[blue on blue…copier]

Blockbuster!
[blue on khaki…laptop, brochures]

Safari Jack
[gray on khaki…printer, stapler]

Captain Of The Academy
[gray on blue…spreadsheet, calendar]

Inspector General
[white on blue…fax machine, minutes binder]

A Most Civil Engineer
[white on khaki…clipboard, calculator, ruler]

Stepping Up, Taking Control

I guess this story really started last Tuesday, but I'm going to begin with Friday afternoon:

I came home from work last Friday and, as per usual, I grabbed my bong and started smoking a bunch of pot. I was sitting on my floor listening to Schubert's trout quintet when, a few bowls into it, click, click, click…my Bic was dead. Nothing unusual about that (I swear they're putting less and less fluid into Bics; I imagine the recession must be hitting the disposable lighter industry pretty hard and so it's tightening my belt), but this time my Bic's death's consequences were very different. This time I simply got up and went over to get a brand new lighter off of my kitchen counter, and then I continued on with my business.

Obviously, a new Bic didn't suddenly appear on my kitchen counter through magic. Rather, it was there waiting for me because last Tuesday I decided to pick up an extra lighter because, first, I happened to be passing the liquor store that sells them for only $1.50 and, second, it occurred to me that I'd had my current lighter for quite a while and that it was likely on its last legs. In other words, I used my noggin to predict my environment and then I used my noggin to control my environment.

Now this story is about much more than just convenient access to one lighter. On the contrary, this story is about a new way of living. It's about being proactive and taking responsibility for one's own destiny instead of being reactive and always scrambling to adapt to situations as they arise. This principle of grabbing fate by its horns and riding it in the direction that one wants it to go is a principle that can be utilized again and again. My new lighter isn't going to live forever and, since I'll be needing to face this reality eventually anyway, I might as well face it now. Bics, as far as I know, have an endless shelf life and the price of a Bic probably won't be going down any time soon, so why not pick up a new Bic right now? Why wait until I'm out of fluid to replace my lighter? Hell, why not pick up a value pack?

Life's like a farmer's field. The harvests of tomorrow may not be guaranteed, but they certainly depend much upon the seeds we sow today. We are, indeed, the husbandmen of our own futures.

The Sad Doughnut

No one ever talked to Little Ella because no one could ever get her name straight. Was it Little Mozzarella? Or Little Chinchella? Little Fineyoungfella? Who could remember? Because her name was so confusing it was easier to ignore her, and so everyone pretty much left her alone.


She lived in a cottage on the edge of the Grey Forest with her uncle, a poor carpetbagger. From before dawn until after dusk her uncle would toil, stuffing people's carpets into great burlap sacks till his palms bled with the ragged labor. Sometimes his lord would give him a few clods of dirt for the day's efforts, and sometimes his lord would give nothing. On those days when the the poor uncle came home empty-handed, he and Little Ella would have no supper but would go to bed hungry that night instead. (The poor carpetbagging uncle was actually quite wealthy (being the proud owner of one thousand and three bricks of gold), but he didn't think it right that a poor carpetbagger and his niece should enjoy supper if said poor carpetbagger hadn't earned any dirt that day.) And so it went for Little Ella: sometimes silence and supper, sometimes silence and no supper. As for Little Ella's father, he was a long lost doughnutmaker.

Then one day, right out of the blue, everyone started talking to our heroine!


While she was out watering the cactus garden at daybreak, the feather-dove and the tar-vulture, who were conjoined twins and who were in the habit of sitting and munching cactus berries with their cappuccino, both decided to say, "Good morning." Little Ella was taken aback that anyone should speak to her (and so early in the morning at that!), but she soon regained her composure and had an ever-so-friendly chat with the twins as they finished their breakfast. When they were done wiping the tips of their respective beaks with the tips of their respective napkins, they ascended as one, and before soaring away together they said in unison, "Take care and see you there, Little Faretheewella, for today you cross the Grey Forest."

A little later, as Little Ella was fetching water from the well with her bucket alongside a crowd of fellow bucketed and fetching villagers, a hot air balloon from France floated over and landed on the steps of the village hall. The villagers, having never before seen a hot air balloon, decided that the hot air balloon, being so new and so fangled, must need be a monster. In a frenzy of common cause they ran to club the monster with their buckets, leaving Little Ella alone and not a little flustered over such abrupt manners.

After the villagers had beaten the last puff from the balloon and had gone home to celebrate, a fluff-squirrel skipped out unnoticed from the passenger basket and shuffled over toward the well and behind Little Ella, who was still busy trying to get a bucket of water so that she could mop her chimney. The fluff-squirrel slapped his cheek and then another to catch Little Ella's attention and then he whispered or, rather, shouted, "No!"

"No, what?" asked Little Ella, turning to face the squirrelly fluff-squirrel.


The fluff-squirrel explained that, no, one shouldn't mop one's chimney but should, rather, sweep it as the water from a mop would turn all the ashes soupy and gooey. Little Ella countered that she might prefer cleaning up soup and goo to cleaning up ashes. The fluff-squirrel argued that a chimney was simply meant to be swept and not mopped.

"But, good sir, do you not but beg the question?" protested our heroine.

The fluff-squirrel explained frankly (i.e., in French) that sweeping one's chimney was, aside from being proper, easier because there was no mop water to be fetched. Little Ella, monolingual, asked him to repeat in English what he had said. He did so, and Little Ella eventually conceded that sweeping up one's ashes was, indeed, a much easier cleaning method than mopping up one's ashes. The fluff-squirrel then went on to explain that a bit of ashy soup-goo, if desired, could be achieved by drooling into the ashes and that such a paste proved to be an excellent dubbin for one's boots. Before bidding Little Ella adieu and scampering off into the hedges, the fluff-squirrel, his downy cheeks nearly bursting with bon vivre and his polished French accent floating in the air like fine confectioners' sugar, said, "Watch your step, Cinderboots, for in the Grey Forest one cannot see the sun!"

A little later still, as Little Ella swept the chimney, a slime-frog hopped onto the window sill and asked, "Why are you so sad and dull, Little Salmonella, when you could be lunching with the princess?"


Little Ella wondered how anyone could be eating lunch at that time of morning, and so, clearing her throat, she said, "Tell me, good Mr. Slime-frog, how could I be lunching with the princess when it's now so long till lunchtime?"

"Well, my dear," answered the slime-frog, "it's always lunchtime at the palace. And what's more, it has been prophesied that on this day Princess Fiendish, the land's beloved monarch, shall lunch with a subject. And I, for one, don't see why her dining companion shouldn't be you."

"But why, sir," asked Little Ella, "should I, among all the princess' subjects, be chosen?"

"Because you have a gold brick with which to pay homage," replied the slime-frog.

And so she did have! Little Ella got her uncle's crowbar and pried loose from the chimney one of its bricks. She put it into her backpack along with her notebook, and she made off for the palace on her scooter, kicking-'n'-going like the wind.


She scooted all morning, and by noon she found herself in the densest thicks of the Grey Forest, which lay in great sprawling gloom between her uncle's cottage and her palatial destination.

Little Ella stopped to catch her breath and tie her shoelaces, which had come undone as done things are wont to do. She could see the whish and shimmer of the forest cat moving from tree to tree. She could feel the mist of the chocolate eclairdeloons who sat atop their sylvan perches and spat at the vanilla, swiss cheese moon. She could hear the cry of the wild panika, who screamed to see the sun, and the bonking of all the harks and mollies and tanies and joms, who kept crashing into each other as they fluttered about through the wood's grim umbrage. The seething agitation of the forest made Little Ella begin to worry. How could someone so deep in the wood ever make it to lunch on time? And what were the consequences of arriving late to the palace for lunch?


Just then a burly owl swooped down and alighted at her feet, huffing and puffing, his barrel chest heaving and hoing with the strain of his weighty flight. They had a conversation, which went like this:

Burly owl: Hmmm…and who might you be?

Little Ella: Whom.

Burly owl: Hoo. Hoo.

Little Ella: Well, uh…whom wants to know? Who'd you expect, anyway? Do you have a coping saw?

Burly owl: First, I'm Commander Burly Owl. Second, I was expecting an insurgent. And, third, yes: "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." I'm on a mission, you see. Our princess is worried about a rebellion, and I'm to warn all the subjects that they cannot win.

Little Ella: Why would the subjects rebel?

Burly owl: Because they believe that they can win. Princess Fiendish has declared that rebellion is about knowing that one is losing and that if these hooligans can't rebel properly then they mustn't rebel at all.

Little Ella: And these rascals, do they dwell here in the Grey Forest?

Burly owl: I imagine so. Trouble always starts amidst the seamy simmer and just as surely longs to reach the gleamy glimmer. And such is my job, by royal appointment, to confine any undesirables to this dark wood lest they disturb the splendor of the palace. What time is it?

Little Ella: I was just going to ask you that.

Burly owl: Oh. (Burly owl looks skyward, then realizes that in the Grey Forest one cannot see the sun and, so, pulls a pocket watch out from his spotted vest.) I say, it's lunchtime!

Little Ella: And what time is it at the palace?

Burly owl: Why, my dear, it's always lunchtime at the palace. Since you seem so harmless, I'll leave you to be on your way. But if you run into any of those rapscallions of who I speak, you tell them that Commander Burly Owl says, "There's no free lunch!" Hoo. Hoo.

And, with that, the burly owl spread his august wings and lifted his rotundity up and away through the forest, huffing and puffing and heaving and hoing all the while.

Little Ella was left standing there scratching her head and thinking how funny it was that it be lunchtime there in the forest as well as at the palace and yet there be so much space between the two like times. The fairy godmother of fallacious reasoning took pity on our heroine and, lo, Little Ella found herself magically transported to the gates of the palace.

The great golden gates were pulled back for her by the royal guardsmen, and she proceeded through to the palace grounds. There were fireworks flaring and brass bands blaring, doings and dazzlings of the grandest order. A turbaned easterner was walking on hot coals while swallowing swords of flame. A stetsoned westerner was roping doggies with one hand as he tossed cow cookies with the other. A gypsy patriarch was juggling his family of eight, and all the gypsy children were juggling assorted power tools as they flew around in their respective orbits. Jesters were jesting, jousters were jousting, kebabbers were kebabbing, and a nervously gay spirit of festivity filled the air. As Little Ella approached the royal court, she marveled that life here could be so rich while life at the village by her uncle's cottage could be so poor.

She soon found herself in the magnificent hall that served as the fiendish Princess Fiendish' throne room. At the end of the hall was a dais on which sat the throne on which sat the princess, raised and resplendent in her regal raiment. To her left, also on the platform, was a considerably less impressive throne on which slept a greenish-sallowish, froggy-faced young man, and to the princess' right was hung a great, iron cauldron over a fire.


The cauldron bubbled and boiled over with tar, and, as Little Ella surveyed the scene, the royal guardsmen who'd admitted her barged past her carrying a screeching, flapping vulture. Upon reaching the edge of the dais, they tossed the bound bird up toward the princess' feet and then, lying prostrate at the foot of the dais, proclaimed, "Your Majesty, the royal huntsmen have provided us, the royal guardsmen, with this vulture to present to you, our royal Highness. May you do your stern duties and save this land from such vermin."

By the time the royal guardsmen had finished speaking these words, the princess was up off of her throne, rolling up her sleeves, and grabbing the doomed bird by its neck. She began to dunk the vulture into the hot tar. As the bird squawked and squeaked and slapped and scratched, Little Ella made her way through the courtiers and up to the princess. Little Ella curtsied low and said, "I have come, grace, to lunch with thee. I have a golden brick with which to pay homage."

The princess, preoccupied with dunking the vulture, said, "Grace is in Monaco, honey. Just call me Fiendish." And then, finishing the dunking process, she turned to her chief attendant and decreed, "Let the royal huntsmen trap another vulture that the accursed thing be dipped into the cauldron!" And with that fiat the royal guardsmen went running so that the princess' word might become fact.

After the commotion subsided, Little Ella asked, "So is this, then, where the vultures are tarred?"

"On the spot, honey," replied the princess with proud satisfaction, as if she were doing the Lord's work or some noble service.

"And is it here," asked Little Ella, "that the doves are feathered and the squirrels fluffed and the frogs slimed and the owls burled?"

"Oh, good heavens, no!" answered the princess. "We only tar here. Why, if we could tar AND feather we wouldn't be in the mess we're in with the, uh, well…riffraff. For St. Michael's sake, we'd've run everyone out of town on a rail by now if we could tar AND feather. What was it that you were saying?"

"I said I'd come to have lunch."

"No, right after that…."

"I said I had a golden brick."

"That's it. A golden brick," mused the princess distantly, rubbing her chin as she considered how appropriate it would be to appropriate this golden brick from this peasant girl. After all, the gold in the royal coffers is the glory of all the land, while the gold in the chimneys of carpetbaggers and the backpacks of young bumpkins is just capital. Then, as if returning suddenly from somewhere else, someplace far away, the princess continued, "Yes, then. Lunch it is. We should go to Reddifreddi's. Yes, I imagine that Reddifreddi's will do just fine. We'll order spaghetti. Oh, and we'll have to get appetizers. The appetizers there are simply scrumptious. They serve the most splendid Spanish spam. And the sweet Sicilian sourballs are to suffer and slay for. Afterwards, if we still have room, we should try the doughnut du jour. It's their specialty; they're famous for it! Yes, yum, then it's settled. You just leave that gold brick here and be on your way. I'll meet you there in, say, half an hour…"

"But, your highness, er, I mean Fiendish," interrupted Little Ella, "I haven't been to the capitol before and I've never lunched at Reddifreddi's and I'm afraid I'll lose my way if I go alone."

"Alright, then," snapped the princess. "I'll lend you an escort." And, turning to the napping frog-face to her left she barked, "Albert! Hey, Albert! Wake up and take this kid to Reddifreddi's. Chop, chop! Get the lead out! Scram!"

Albert woke with a start, rubbed his eyes, and muttered something about it being better to be a whipping boy than a greenish-sallowish, scaly slime-frog. As Little Ella placed her brick at the princess' feet, Albert got down off his throne, obediently took Little Ella's arm, and led her through the assembled, kneeling courtiers. As the two were exiting the royal hall, the royal guardsmen brushed past them with another wretched vulture, stolen from the sky to be tarred.

As they wove their way through the crooked, cobblestoned streets of the capitol, Albert and Little Ella introduced themselves to each other. They both had a vague sense that they'd met somewhere sometime ago, but neither could say for sure. After a while they gave up trying to remember and instead they chit-chatted as they walked.

"…Actually," Albert was saying, "I should be addressed as 'Prince Albert," seeing as I'm soon to wed my betrothed, the dearest Fiendish."

"Congratulations," said Little Ella.

"Yes, well, she may be difficult, but if she kisses you three times then you become a prince. I'd rather put up with her nasty moods than be a lowly slime-frog who hops around scheming for gold, which is what I used to be before she kissed me. I'm only partially metamorphosed now, but I'll be a full-fledged prince after just two more kisses. The word on the street's that you crossed the Grey Forest to get to the palace so promptly."

"Yes, I did," replied Little Ella. "I met the most stately burly owl there, a commander in the princess' police."

"Oh, yes, Commander Burly Owl," said Albert with disdain. "I know him well. What did he have to say?"

"He said, 'Hoo. Hoo.'"

"Typical," responded Albert. "That old fuddy-duddy. He never did bother with the big issues, like where and when. Ah, here we are now."


And there they were, at the entrance to Reddifreddi's, the poshest eatery in town. They informed the maitre d' that they were waiting for the princess, with whom they were to lunch. The maitre d' suffered to seat them, but he absolutely refused to serve any victuals until such time as the princess herself should arrive. He told them that they were free to sit and that they were free to watch others eat. And so they waited while other people ate, and then they waited more as other people ate some more.

While they sat, a mustachioed gentleman at the next table suavely introduced himself as Il Butten Gotti, a Florentine count visiting the land in order to pay respects to her Highness, Princess Fiendish. Little Ella related her adventures and, in doing so, mentioned the gold brick that she'd left with the princess, at which point the count jumped up, hastily paid his bill, and hustled out of the restaurant.

Little Ella was by now ever so hungry, and she asked Albert when he thought the princess might come. Albert replied that until only recently he had been just a sticky slime-frog and that, until the wedding, he was technically a mere subject and that a humble subject should presume to tell neither the future nor the princess' actions in that future. He did, however, add that he thought it was a good question and that time and space were all that mattered, at which point he fell asleep.

As Albert slumped in his chair and napped, Little Ella noticed that at the table across from them sat the feather-dove and the tar-vulture. Through straws they sipped lemonade from a double-necked bottle, and they chewed on opposite ends of the same licorice stick. Little Ella coughed to catch their attention and asked them if they came here often and whether they thought the princess might come to lunch soon.

"You must mean to sup, Little Parallella," said the feather-dove.

"Yes, for here at Redifreddi's it is always suppertime," added the tar-vulture.

Confused, Little Ella asked if it hadn't indeed been prophesied that Princess Fiendish would, on this day, lunch with a subject. And the feather-dove replied, "No, I think it was that a poor doughnutmaker shall, on this day, set eyes upon his long lost daughter."

"No, no, no!" cried the tar-vulture. "It was that, on this day, the princess will lunch on a gold brick."

"You've got it all wrong," said the feather-dove to the tar-vulture, and with that they fell to bickering. As the twins argued over what it was that was supposed to happen, Little Ella came to realize that she'd been hoodwinked. Forlorn, she thanked the twins and headed off up the hill, at the bottom of which stood Reddifreddi's and over which lay the Grey Forest, beyond which was her uncle's cottage. As she climbed the hill she could still hear the heated squabbling of the feather-dove and the tar-vulture:

"…and the last time you emptied the ice cube tray you forgot to fill it up again!"

"Well, you could've done it; you were right there!"

"I'm not your maid, nor am I your keeper!"

"You're a pain in the side is what you are!"

And on and on. The twins, in the ruckus of their spat, didn't even notice that Little Ella had left, but through a small kitchen window Reddifreddi's doughnutmaker watched her tramp up the hill. And he thought of the forest beyond the hill and of the land beyond the forest. He thought of all the gold waste that had to be shipped off to that distant territory to be traded for bags of carpet which in turn had to be traded for clods of earth that had to be brought back to Reddifreddi's only to be ground into sorrowdough so that he, the doughnutmaker, could make his sad, sad doughnut.

Once the twins' quarrel had deescalated, the maitre d' shook Albert awake and said, "Now that that grubby country girl is gone, I'm willing to take your order. You're Monsieur Big Al, the princess' betrothed, no?"

"Yes," answered Albert indignantly, "and that's 'Prince Albert' to you, if you don't mind."

"Yeah, sure, whatever," said the maitre d'. "Would you like to try the doughnut du jour, Monsieur Big Al?"

"That's 'Prince Albert,' already! The doughnut sounds good, and I'd like a soda as well."

"Very good, sir," said the maitre d'. "Would you prefer your soda in a bottle or in a can, Monsieur Big Al?"

"It's 'Prince Albert'! In a can."

"Well, you'd better let him out then."

"What is the doughnut du jour today, anyway?" asked Albert.

"Well," explained the maitre d', "today is a special day today, and we're serving the Doughnut of the Unfulfilled Prophecy."

"Yum," said Albert, smacking his lips. "What's that?"

"It's that twins shall, on this day, meet and break bread as one," answered the maitre d'. "And it comes with maple icing and sugar sprinkles."

"Good," said Albert, tucking his bib into his collar. "I'll take two."

By the time Albert's doughnuts were served, Little Ella had reached the top of the hill. Il Butten Gotti galloped past her, looking over his shoulder, a riding crop under one arm and a golden brick under the other. The count, you see, had managed to infiltrate the palace and steal the gold brick, and now he was escaping back to Florence with his ill-gotten booty. He planned to use the gold to set up shop as a Mafioso sourball bootlegger. The black market trade in sourballs was thriving, and Florentine gangsters were competing with the Sicilians to secure a corner on the market.

Once in the Grey Forest, Little Ella, disoriented and a little wobbly on her legs after having been nearly trampled by the count's horse, was apprehended by Commander Burly Owl and charged with being a party to subversive activities. She wound up in a forest prison camp, and she was never seen nor heard from again.

THE END

[Alternative, happy ending:

Il Butten Gotti, after having absconded with the golden brick, used his newfound wealth to patronize the starving painters and sculptors of Florence. He single-handedly fueled a rebirth of artistic endeavor that eventually spread throughout all of Italy and then continentally.

Little Ella, having been wrongly imprisoned on trumped up charges, escaped the prison camp and became the leader of a renegade band of merry insurgents. The rebels defeated the princess' police force and gained control of the Grey Forest.

The murky-dark woods, overgrown and ingrown, forbidding and foreboding, tangled and rotten, underwent some drastic landscaping. The dead wood was cleared and carted away. The weeds were pulled so that they could no longer strangle the less aggressive foliage. The trees were trimmed so that the light could stream in and smile upon all the flora equally. Roses bloomed, beans blossomed, sprouts spouted, and the forest was no longer the suffocating horror-trap it had once been. Its name was changed to the Sunny Woods of Egalitarian Goodwill.

A health plan was introduced that covered all the creatures, be they flyers or creepers or crawlers or even unemployed. Pathways were established that lead from the village to the castle, and there were caravans of acting troupes that travelled these paths, and they would entertain the bored wayfarers who would, in return, lavish the players with granola.

Back at the castle, things had changed as well. Princess Fiendish had given up her despotic ways and was now the deejay at Club Shiny Palace, which was what the palace had become. Commander Burly Owl, not entirely free of his fascist tendencies, became the club's doorman, and the throne room, once a place for kneeling, was now a floor for dancing. Also, Albert had decided that he was quite satisfied with his life as a frog, and so he had taken to leap-frogging about as the club's go-go dancer.

Every night at Club Shiny Palace there was a party to which all the subjects were invited. There was never a cover charge, and the drinks were always free. And on the dance floor each night could be seen Little Ella, her carpetbagging uncle, and her doughnutmaking father, all reunited and hip-hopping harmoniously into the wee hours of the morning.

It was true once more that no one spoke to Little Ella. But now that was because there were no trials in which to plead and no perils through which to counsel. All there was to say now was how wonderful the situation was, and that was already manifest upon their glowing, beaming faces.]

Challenging Behavior

They say that if I see any suspicious activity then I should report it, but I can't report all the suspicious activities I see. People be doin' nasty shit left and right, nine ways till Sunday. I'd be on the phone all day.

Live and let live, that's my motto.

A Meager Inheritance

Bukowski was forever calling me Thomas. I'd say, "Listen, Chuck, my name's Il Vermicello, alright? It's not Thomas. Please stop calling me Thomas" and he'd say, "Yeah, yeah, babushka. Don't get your panties in a knot" but, of course, he'd keep on calling me Thomas. He was such a mean, drunken, old fuck...a real curmudgeon. I'm glad he's dead.

If They Thank Me, Their Welcome

I don’t consider myself a lazy man, but I’d rather find a dollar than earn one. It’s not that I don’t value skill and labor. It’s that I value luck even more.

(One of my longest-running fantasies is that I’m a champion chess player, not just world-class but invincible. I literally can’t be beaten. In my fantasy I haven’t really mastered chess strategy or tactics, at least not on any conscious level, and I don’t put much effort into my matches. I know the rules and I pay some small measure of attention to my games and that’s about it. Whenever it’s my turn to move I’m guided mostly or completely by a vague hunch as to my best option. As soon as it becomes my turn I’m ready to move, and because I always make my play so quickly it often seems to spectators (and sometimes to myself) almost as though I were moving pieces randomly. My question is simply “what’s the most advantageous thing I can do right now that’s permitted by the game’s constitutive rules?” and my answer is always and immediately and infallibly provided by my intuition. (Actually, I should probably rephrase that. “Intuition” implies that my instincts are telling me distinctly that a certain move is the best play and that I’m listening to my instincts, and this is not entirely the case in my chess fantasy. It’s more like I’m on autopilot: I extend my hand and I move a piece, I wait while my opponent plays her turn, I extend my hand and I move a piece…and so on until I have won.) Being a famous chess player, a virtual rock star among the intelligentsia, I’m interviewed from time to time and I’m never ashamed to reveal that my perceived genius is but a knack for taking a phenomenal series of extremely lucky and slightly educated guesses. My apparent mastery is only serendipity repeated with unfathomable reliability, and I’m not afraid to tell the world so. Nobody ever believes me anyway. It wouldn’t matter if they did.)

It is for my love of happy flukes that I refuse to pity or scorn those benighted, semiliterate wretches who write “your welcome” when they mean “you’re welcome.”

I think that one could argue with a straight face that “your welcome” is a perfectly legitimate term with which to politely acknowledge thanks. Let’s say that you are the thanking party and I am the welcoming party. I provide you with your welcome by saying/writing “your welcome” just as greeting parties might provide greeted parties with greetings by saying/writing “greetings” (or “salutations” or “greetings and salutations”). Now, of course, I don’t really believe that the ignoramuses who write “your welcome” are ever actually contemplating the possession or ownership of the welcome that they are articulating. Rather, they have stumbled ass-backwards into the lap of good grammar. But I don’t see why I should begrudge them their good fortune.

Harassment And Discrimination In The Workplace

I hate it when someone points out a problem and says that I fucked it up and I say, “No, you fucked it up,” and then I deny having fucked it up and they don’t explicitly deny having fucked it up but they implicitly do so by continuing to insist that it was me who fucked it up and then we check it out and it turns out that we both fucked it up but I lose because I’m the only one who explicitly denied fucking it up. It’s total bullshit. They fucked it up more than I did. I didn’t even want to talk about it in the first place.

Privacy Is Still A Social Norm

True story: one of my facebook friends has a facebook friend named Desiree Butt.

I couldn’t befriend someone named Desiree Butt no matter how nice of a person she might be. It’s too much. I have nothing against her and I wish her the best, but I want no part of it. It’d be this weird, uncomfortable experience every time her name came up. At some point it would start to feel really forced to have to keep laughing at the same joke, but how else does one respond when confronted with a name like Desiree Butt? Also, not to blame the victim but one can always change one’s name, right? Once you’re 18 it’s all on you. At least spell it Butte for fuck’s sake.

Maybe in real life I could be her friend because I wouldn’t see her name printed out whenever we interacted, but a friendship on facebook definitely wouldn’t work. What would we comment on? FarmVille and shit? It’d be like hanging out in a chat room with I.P. Freely and not talking about peeing freely.

Whether or not one desires butts, whether or not one desires butts has never been a big part of polite conversation. It’s just not a subject that people want raised all the time. It’s not the taboo it once was, I guess, but it’s still pretty personal…not the best topic for semi-public discourse, even casual discourse conducted among friends. But with Desiree Butt the issue would always be there – every time, all up in your face. It would be extremely distracting, unsettlingly so, and the last thing I want from my social network is more social anxiety. I’m not a prude and I think people should be themselves, but I also think it’s important to maintain a certain level of decorum.

The Banality Of Evil Neighbors

My next-door neighbors might be witches. I don’t have proof, but there’s definitely something vaguely suspicious about them. They’re a somewhat strange couple indeed, and there’s a slightly perceptible sinister quality to their oddness. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but that’s the thing about witchcraft: it’s hard to pin down. Fiends can be remarkably subtle.

Through my kitchen window I’m able to watch them playing cards in their kitchen. They often sit there at their kitchen table and they play two-handed pinochle. They do it for hours sometimes, just sitting there in their pajamas at their kitchen table quietly playing cards. Who does that?

Actually, I’m just assuming that the woman wears pajamas. I rarely see more than her hands, which only pop into view occasionally as she plays her cards. It’s mostly a bit of the tabletop and the back of the guy’s head and shoulders that I’m looking at, and he’s usually in his pajamas. For all I know the woman’s playing naked. Or maybe she’s painted up like a snake or maybe some sort of ungodly, carnal priestess. There’s really no way of telling what’s going on in that apartment, but the facts are entirely consistent with some very squirrelly business.

I went over there once. I had to knock for like five minutes, but the guy finally answered. I asked him if he was 2WIRE027 and, if so, could I give him ten bucks a month to use his Internet? He said that it wasn’t him and so I offered him $15, but he just closed the door on me. It was as though he had something to hide. I came back home and tried “Satan” as the password, but of course that didn’t work…way too obvious.

One time I was coming out of my front door just as the woman was going into her place with a young child in tow. I only glimpsed the child, but he or she looked about three or four years tall. I never saw that kid again – not to my knowledge, at least.

One needn’t be an attorney to realize that all of this evidence is circumstantial, that it might well add up to diddly-squat legally. Prosecutors, judges, juries…the system sees what it wants to see. The cops don’t give a shit. And I’m not cut out for vigilante-style heroics, so I don’t seem to have many options (although I certainly don’t want to just sit on my hands as sorcerers and miscreants befoul my community). They say, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live [next door].” They say, “Not in my backyard.” But what am I supposed to do? This isn’t a rhetorical question. I want suggestions as to what to do.

The Olive Garden

I had dinner with the whole family last night at The Olive Garden. We always have such a great time. They’re having a special this month on some kind of double-stuffed raviolis – Tuscano Poppers I think they’re called, or something like that. It’s a wonderful place for family and friends to gather. It’s like eating at home almost, but surrounded by strangers in an extra large dining room.

Everyone was there. Aunt Sylvia and the twins were even visiting from Italy. Aunt Sylvia said the décor was just like the décor in the neighborhood restaurants that she and the twins often went to back in the old country. This was good, she said, because the twins, like most autistics, responded well to consistency.

I was hoping the twins could tell me how the pastas stacked up against the pastas of Italy, whether The Olive Garden had authentic ristorante-style pastas or not, but they ended up ordering hot dogs off the kids’ menu. When I asked the twins how they were liking their hot dogs, Aunt Sylvia reminded me that they were non-verbal. I asked Aunt Sylvia if that meant they couldn’t taste hot dogs, and she said, “Sshhh. Maybe…I don’t know…they don’t taste nothin’.”

Aunt Sylvia was going to order the lasagna, but at the last minute she changed her mind and went with the poppers. “What can I say?” she said, shrugging with conceit. “The lasagna’s probably good, but I just don’t think anyone can make a lasagna better than I do.” Aunt Sylvia does make a great lasagna, it’s true.

Pops had the all-you-can-eat salad and breadsticks. Every ten minutes he’d ask the waiter for more salad and more breadsticks (Pops is obese), and whenever the waiter would bring more breadsticks Pops would ask, “Hey, is the wine here bottomless, too?” The waiter would laugh nervously and say that it wasn’t, and then Pops’d order another wine anyway. He kept pinching the waiter on the ass and calling him “Bambino, my handsome Bambino.”

Mama glared at Pops as she does. Mama wanted a cocktail, but The Olive Garden doesn’t serve cocktails and so she went out to the car to get her bourbon. Before she left she told Pops to order her a coke but Pops forgot, and when Mama came back she was really pissed. “It’s a coke, Rico! What? You can’t manage to order a coke, you fucking buffoon?”

Grandma was in fine form – at least, at first. She told this whole story about red sauce and white sauce and how when she was a little girl a Gypsy had once told her that every mortal had a preference for either an Alfredo sauce or a marinara. “If the man he likes the red sauce then he burns with a passion,” she said, quoting the Gypsy, “but if the man he likes the white sauce then he be a wise man, like, say, a scholar or a diplomat.” We all laughed and laughed.

“What sauce are you, Grandma?” someone asked, but Grandma’s Alzheimer’s had suddenly kicked in and she just stared blankly ahead as she picked aimlessly and floppily at the cold cuts and cheeses in her antipasto. After a while, Mama pulled the antipasto platter away and out of Grandma’s reach.

“Alfredo is to marinara as New England is to Manhattan as chowder is to sauce,” said Cissy. (Cissy’s studying for her SATs.) Then she started banging on her knuckles really hard with her soupspoon and muttering, “No, that’s not right; no, that’s not right” over and over again.

Annie had brought along her boyfriend, Brando. His real name is Brandon and so his nickname makes sense to me, but the weird part is that he doesn’t know whom Marlon Brando was. He (Brandon) had never even heard of the real Brando (Marlon) until I brought him (Marlon Brando) up when he (Brandon) and Annie first started dating.

Annie and Brando are vegans. Annie said there wasn’t anything on the menu that they could eat (“I don’t know why we have to come here,” she said), and so Annie just ordered beers. She’s been 21 for several months now, but Brando's still a few weeks shy of drinking age and so he didn’t order anything. He’d occasionally sip from Annie’s beers, and between sips they’d make out until Mama told them to stop.

“Annie Marie, goddammit!” Mama would snap. “Brando, get your filthy hands above the table.”

The lovers would grudgingly (and temporarily) desist. “Geez, Ma…it ain’t church. Why’d you even make us come?” Annie’d grumble, and Brando would chuckle whenever he heard the word “come” being used in a context in which it might be a remotely viable double entendre.

I noticed that one of the twins, Stefano (or was it Giancarlo?), would stop eating and would rest his hands in his lap every time that Brando and Annie started kissing. Every few seconds he’d glance furtively at the couple, and he’d rock back and forth in his chair ever so slightly. I think he was trying to bang one out underneath the table all subtle like.

I had the chicken cacciatore. It’s my favorite; I always get the chicken cacciatore. I can’t go to The Olive Garden and not get the chicken cacciatore. It’s the best. Everybody wanted a bite.

When the waiter asked us if we’d like to see the dessert menu, Pops said that there was a Krispy Kreme right across the parking lot and that we should all just go get Krispy Kremes. But Aunt Sylvia said that she wanted to try the tiramisu and that, besides, if the twins were to set foot in a doughnut shop then there’d be pretty much no way to safely get them out. So we all had tiramisu, all of us except Annie and Brando. But then, on the way home, Pops made us go through the drive-through at Krispy Kreme anyway.

Sexual Integrity

I like to think that I wouldn’t ask anyone to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself, and I know that I certainly wouldn’t fuck me. I mean, even if I was gay and I enjoyed my own company I still wouldn’t fuck me. There’s virtually no chance.

My hair’s almost always greasy, first of all. I have a dandruff problem, it’s pretty serious, and I think shampoo just makes it worse.

Second, I assume my breath is horrible. (I smoke, I rarely brush my teeth, I never floss.)

I’ve got these red dots on my nose that don’t seem to be going away.

I don’t even have toenails anymore…I have chalky cakes of yellowish, brownish fungus that look and smell like tabs of rancid Parmesan glued to the tips of my toes. When I clip them and they crumble, the resemblance to Parmesan is uncanny. I would definitely not want those nasty things rubbing up against me in bed. I’ve often heard that toenail fungus isn’t contagious (or maybe that it’s only contagious through a virus that gets into the bloodstream, that isn’t transmitted topically or something like that), but that all sounds like total bullshit.

I’ve got eczema (or some other itchy-as-hell condition) all over my shins (shins, plural, from ankle to knee). God, how I rage against my shins’ maddening itch! It's terrible. I scratch at my shins constantly; they’re covered in scabs. I’m supposed to put a salve on them, but applying the salve always tears off all the older scabs and it hurts like a screaming bastard. It feels like I’m rubbing fresh wounds with a rough paste of sloughed off skin cells and bacon bits and salad dressing and twisted up shin hairs. Wearing long pants is aesthetically necessary, even when I’m alone, and the friction is perpetually exacerbating my problem.

I’ve been getting awfully tubby around the middle lately. I hear the term “pear-shaped body” bandied a lot by my crueler friends (even though I’m shortish and barrel-chested, and so my rotundity more resembles an apple or a plum – not a nice plum but an overripe, spotty plum that even some fruit-fucking pervert probably wouldn’t care to squeeze). Wrist fat is beginning to muffin-top out from underneath my watchstrap.

There are five or six nose hairs, prominently visible more often than not, that I simply cannot get to with my nose-hair trimmer. And you really don’t wanna use scissors to go chasing around after rogue hairs in your nostrils (or any other tight, dark spaces…just ask my scrotum). They are outlaw nose hairs, living at the edges of my jurisdiction, but I tolerate them because, a, I have to and, b, they offset the salience of my red nose dots.

I could go on for most of the day I suppose (moles, flat spots, discolorations, etc.), but suffice it to say that I am not a traditionally handsome man by any stretch of the imagination in any conceivable tradition. Basically, I’m pretty much the last guy in the world that I’d want to fuck. I would rather stay home by myself jerking off than go out and fuck me, and when that’s the case hooking up is rarely a good idea.

So how can I expect anyone else to have sex with me? I can’t – at least, not without being a complete hypocrite. The only ethical choice is abstinence. Nothing else would be reasonable.

Prostitution’s no help. It’s great theoretically…I’d fuck just about anybody or anything if you paid me enough – so yeah, sure, I’d fuck me. But it’d be so expensive that I wouldn’t be able to afford it. I like a posh trick (who doesn’t?), but I make a meager living and any escort willing to negotiate the situation down to my price range would have to be pretty desperate. I'd have me over a barrel, and it wouldn’t be right to exploit that desperation. It wouldn’t be sexy.