THE BALLAD OF BOBBY-THE-BLADE
i just finished reading michael willis’ pretty boy: the life and times of charles arthur floyd (1992) and it got me to thinking about heroes…..my dad was named after pretty boy floyd and after I finished reading the book, I called and left a message to let him know that I thought his parents gave him the koolest name of 1935……my homepeople were hard-scrabble mountaineers and there was no way in hell that, in the midst of the great depression, that there were going to name their children after some fucking president or politician……hell, my grandfather was named after jesse james, so the concept goes back for generations……and if you don’t know your pretty boy floyd, he was a depression era bank robber who stole from the rich (the banks) and gave to the poor (his friends and family and neighbors)…..he tore up mortages and became an icon for the common man…..when he robbed his hometown bank, the boys at the barber shop yelled “give ‘em hell” and his grandfather and his buddies hung out at the railroad depot chewing tobacco, swapping stories, and waiting for the show……and after the feds bushwhacked him on a farm outside of east liverpool, ohio, that same bank chipped in money to bring pretty boy’s body back home to oklahoma……20,000 people came to his funeral as women threw themselves on his coffin and men put cemetery dirt in their pockets as makeshift souvenirs (geno’s nana was there too---she peed her pants and made a one-legged boy-from-town dry her cooch off with his only sock)…..and that was 1934 and it’s 2009 now and it seems like we’ve run out of heroes……no offense, but do you think my son would call in 2049 to thank me for naming him, obama robinson?---I don’t think so…..like if I had to name my (future) children after any politician, I’d just as soon let the stray cat escape back into the woods……my point is: 2009 freaks need heroes too---the drug dealers, stoners, cokewhores, acidheads, speed freaks, day trippers, pill poppers, lesbians, nuns, fat kids, and the big handsome all need someone to believe in……I met such a man at my friend, nootie’s wedding…..his name: BOBBY-THE-BLADE……like I had never met the dude before, but I knew that he was going to be special when someone in the wedding party organized a pool for the moment during the weekend when/where “the blade was gonna crack” (with all the proceeds going into the honeymoon kitty)….i had “on the plane,” but aside from carrying a 6-foot bong in a guitar case with him everywhere he went (and going outside to hit it during the ceremony), the blade ultimately stayed in control (I assume out of respect for the bride and groom)……and this might be a short intro, because who needs to hear my bullshit when I could be telling stories of bobby-the-blade smoking a bowl in his law school class?---it made cnn and the charlotte observer, ya know?......how about the time bobby-the-blade and jonny fairplay (who lied about his grandmother dying on survivor: asshole island) were on judge mathis arguing about who-owed-whom money for bailing drug dealer, heavy dee out of jail?.....snorting oxycontin in the break room at work in front of his boss?----it’s there along with old chestnuts like “going nuts in the smoothie shop” and “breaking out of rehab”……i must admit that I am so in awe of the-blade’s skills that when I went on booktour for fat on the vine in 2007, I pretended like bobby-the-blade was my friend just for the fucking stories (and bobby, if you’re out there, pittsburgh thought you were a god)……more to the point: bobby-the-blade’s been doing this shit since 1990 and I kinda dropped off circa 2006 (when I came to iowa)……does that mean I sold out?---yeah, I think it does…..did wred fright sell out?----yeah……nootie?---you’d have to ask him yourself.....the big handsome?----apparently so, but then again, you can never be sure with the big handsome…….and rumor has it that bobby-the-blade might be headed to jail in 2009, so I just wanted to write this as a kind of tribute to him…..no one robs banks anymore and crazycarl doesn’t really have any hobbies per se…..and all that remains is the dream that there’s one more magnificent fuck-up left in bobby-the-blade (and that he’s doing it for all of us)……like I don’t want him to go prison, but I have no doubt that bobby-the-blade could turn it into his own version of a clockwork orange (1971) meets fear and loathing in las vegas (1998) with a little bit of pineapple express (2008) thrown in for flavor…..NOTE: before I begin, you should realize that I don’t really know this dude….most of these stories are 2nd or 3rd hand, so just imagine what the urban legend would be like if I actually did….there are no pictures of bobby-the-blade either, but if you believe and are walking along the beach late one night, don’t be surprised if the naked freak who rises up out of the ditch to ask you for a light turns out to be bobby-the-blade---and before the night’s over, you might just break on through to the other side
10) BOBBY’S COLLEGE ROOMMATE: bobby-the-blade went to boston college (not too shabby, yeah?) and I believe he was pre-law…..any of you eagles remember him?---well, I bet his college roommate does…..ya see, bobby and his roommate didn’t get along, so one afternoon bobby decided to put 5 hits of lsd into his roommate’s drink----and the dude stonecold disappeared…..his roommate’s stuff stayed in their dorm room for roughly 3 more months and then one day, bobby came back to dorm and all of his roommate’s possessions were gone too…..bobby never saw his roommate again
9) BOBBY GOES TO REHAB: after smoking that bowl in his law school class (which I’ll get to later), bobby’s mother sent him to rehab in washington state……and no one heard from bobby-the-blade for about 6 months---that is until my friend, nootie got a phone call from the blade asking if he knew anyone who wanted to buy any (high dosage) methadone patches……it seems that bobby-the-blade and some heroin girl/slut that he met at rehab had broken out of the facility, but before they left, they successfully picked the lock to the hospital’s pharmacy and stole (among other things) over 30 methadone patches…..nootie never knew for sure, but he thinks bobby and the heroin girl went through all 30 patches in less than a week
8) BOBBY’S GREATEST JOB EVER: (TRAVELING) DRUG DEALER FOR THE BAND, DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
7) BOBBY’S LAST JOB (FALL 2008): I don’t know the particulars, but bobby was working as a salesman for some marketing firm that distributed brochures/videos for another company (that’s vague enough for you not to know what I’m talking about, yeah?)……anyway, bobby has a meeting scheduled with this businessman and throughout the course of their conversation, bobby keeps asking the businessman questions in stoner code (ostensibly to see if the businessman gets high)……bobby eventually decides that he does, so instead of giving the businessman a packet with promotional material from his company, bobby gives him the “other packet” (the one with the northern lights) and goes home…..the next day when bobby goes into work, there is a cop waiting in his office who wants to know where the marijuana came from----bobby feigns ignorance and tells the cop that “it must have been some kind of mix-up”……of course, bobby got fired, but as of this point, he hasn’t been charged with a crime (perhaps because the local district attorney is waiting his turn at an even bigger score)
6) THE DOMESTIC BOBBY: at one point, bobby-the-blade’s mom hooked him up with a swanky apartment at the beach (in the hope that he would turn his life around)……and after about 3 days of “exploring,” bobby discovered a secret door which lead to the roof of the apartment building (and there’s plenty of sunlight at the beach, ya know)…….anyway, bobby decides the next day to start transferring all of the plants that are in his apartment (25-30?) up to the roof…..and bobby (obviously) did this in the middle of the night, but over the course of a couple months, several of his neighbors saw him going up the stairs to the roof at 3 am with a variety of gardening supplies…..then, one day after about 3 months, bobby goes up to the roof and discovers that all his plants are gone…..and taped to the middle of the (empty) floor is a police sergeant’s business card with a note which read: “call me”…..of course, bobby never called and at this point, he hasn’t been charged with a crime (perhaps because the local district attorney is waiting his turn at an even bigger score)
5) BOBBY-THE-BLADE V. HEAVY DEE ON THE JUDGE MATHIS SHOW: did I mention that bobby-the-blade is a tv star as well?......it all started about 3 years back, when bobby-the-blade drove to virginia to bail his old high school buddy, heavy dee out of jail (and I could have just as easily done a top ten list for heavy dee who is perhaps most famous for double-crossing some (bigger) drug dealers who, after loading all of heavy dee’s furniture into a moving van, left him beaten, naked, and tied to a chair in his empty living room)……anyway, so supposedly bobby-the-blade puts up $3000 to bail heavy dee out of jail and then heavy dee refused to pay him back…..so what would your friendly, neighborhood drug dealers do in a similar situation?----they’d go on THE JUDGE MATHIS SHOW and (in the case of bobby-the-blade) bring jonny fairplay (a childhood friend) along as a character witness…..and I don’t remember the particulars, but at the end of the show, judge mathis called all of them “degenerates” and refused to make a ruling because he “didn’t believe a word that came out of any of their mouths”…..more to the point, bobby-the-blade, heavy dee, and jonny fairplay told all of their friends and family that they were gonna be on tv----they were fucking proud of it……like if you were a smalltown drug dealer, would you want everyone in your hometown to see the show?.....would you want your grandma to be watching as judge mathis called you and your friends “degenerate drug dealers” on national television?---I don’t think my grandma would have liked it at all (and she really is dead)
4)DOCTOR SHOPPING: like I’m sure most of us have considered snagging the doctor’s prescription pad during an office visit, but did you realize that there was a crime called “doctor shopping” and that it’s a felony?----bobby-the-blade does……ya see, whenever the blade has some spare time, he likes to make appointments with different doctors just to see what kind of medicine that they will prescribe for him….and over the years, bobby-the-blade has done quite well for himself---like wherever bobby-the-blade is tonight, I’m sure the adderol,>zoloft,>oxycontin>vicodin is falling like rain…..i’m not talking the (low-dosage) adderol your 8th grader sells to his friends at school either----I’m talking a strain of adderol that could mellow your 8th grader right into a coma……anyway, on bobby’s last visit to the doctor to get his meds, the temptation of snagging a couple of scripts and forging dr nick’s signature was a little too much for the blade…..and the first four forgeries worked quite well----everything was fine with the 2 mail orders and 2 local pharmacies (that bobby had never used before)……unfortunately, when bobby returned to the 3rd local pharmacy to pick up his prescription, there were 2 plainclothes detectives waiting for him with handcuffs…..and they took him down to the station for questioning and fingerprinting, but once again, the local authorities have yet to charge him with a crime (as they wait their turn for perhaps the biggest blade-related score of all)……this one’s a pretty serious felony though, so it’s a good thing bobby still has a legitimate prescriptions for zoloft (as well as for adderol, oxycontin, vicodin and cat tranquilizers) in case things don’t go as well for him in court
3) BOBBY-THE-BLADE ORDERS A SMOOTHIE: one day, bobby-the-blade was thirsty and decided that he wanted a smoothie from the local smoothie shop…..when he arrived, he noticed that the girl behind the counter gave the customer in front of him free “money” (which turned out to be a $1 coupon that was stacked beside the register)……and when the blade announced to the girl that he wanted a free smoothie as well, the (confused) chick refused…….so what did the blade do?----he hopped the counter and proceeded to grab all the $1 coupons from beside the register……so what did the smoothie chick do?---she grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen and the fight was on…….their argument spilled out into the parking lot and eventually the police were called…..when they arrived, the cops gave bobby the option of going to jail or having his cousin sign some papers authorizing them to take the blade to a mental institution…..bobby-the-blade ultimately chose the mental institution where he was held-for-his-own-safety for close to a month……surprisingly, there aren’t any good stories from bobby’s time in the mental institution, perhaps because he didn’t have access to any “really good drugs”
2) BOBBY-THE-BANKER: after bobby’s trip to the mental institution, his mom somehow managed to get him a job as a loan processor at a bank…..and, in general, bobby was on his “best behavior”----like if you were a hot chick and came in to apply for a loan, bobby would hook you up with the money if you agreed to go out with him…..then, one day, bobby made a lunchroom faux pas……bobby was sitting at the lunch table with his boss and coworkers when he realized that he’d forgotten to take his medicine…..so bobby takes a knife from counter, mashes the (prescription) oxycontin into powder, cuts it into lines with his driver’s license, and then proceeds to snort it in front of his startled boss and coworkers……and later that afternoon, bobby-the-blade’s boss called bobby into his office to fire him…..and i think the conversation went a little something like this: THE BOSS: “BOBBY, WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU SNORT DRUGS OFF THE LUNCH TABLE AT WORK IN FRONT OF ME AND ALL YOUR COWORKERS”?......BOBBY’S RESPONSE: “I’VE GOT THE PRESCRIPTION RIGHT HERE….DO YOU WANT TO SEE IT”?
1) BOBBY-THE-LAWYER: no doubt, bobby-the-blade is a smart cat…..and in his younger days, he was studying to be a lawyer at unc-chapel hill……bobby, as you can prolly tell by now, also likes to have a good time, so during the summers, bobby liked to go on the road with the band, drive-by-truckers…..and after one particularly good summer, bobby had some trouble readjusting to life at law school….and on his first day back, bobby kinda/sorta forgot where he was and PROCEEDED TO PULL OUT A BOWL AND SMOKE IT IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS LAW SCHOOL CLASS……and the lawyer-dudes around him tried to tell him to put the bowl away, but bobby wouldn’t let their “negative energy” harsh his gig……eventually some girl stepped outside and called the police who subsequently walked into the lecture hall and arrested bobby on the spot……fortunately for bobby, he had smoked all the weed before the police arrived and possession of drug paraphernalia is only a minor misdemeanor in north carolina….of course, the blade was expelled from law school and the dean personally guaranteed bobby that he would “never be allowed to practice law anywhere in the world ever again”……more importantly, bobby made the front page of all the north carolina papers that week…..and a few days later, he was named cnn’s dumbass-of-the-week (or whatever it was called at the time)……and for those of you who would talk smack about bobby-the-blade, let me just ask if you’ve ever been named cnn’s dumbass-of-the-week?---yeah, me neither……crazycarl says the drive-by truckers oughtta write a song about that dude
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
crazycarl's travel guide for "scared stiff reviews"
CRAZYCARL’S TRAVEL GUIDE:
how many of you out there have a friend who judges your hipness in relation to how often you travel?....how many of you out there have a friend who swears that the blueberries in venice are infinitely sweeter than the blueberries in indianapolis?......and maybe travel-as-money is an elitist concept to begin with, but I can’t tell you how many friends I have who sweat me with a : “dude, you’ve never been to amsterdam?----dude, you’ve gotta go to amsterdam!”……and I try to tell them that I’ve been to amsterdam-in-my-head, but they don’t believe me/just aint feeling it……and what bugs me is that these same people tend to define their respective identities thru their travels---BAM, i’m smart and rich and cultured because I went to spain last summer----BAM, I’m smart and rich and cultured because I’m going to scotland this summer…… and I know the punkrockers would say that this is a class issue because poor people don’t have the money to jet off to exotic west virginia anytime they feel like it……it could also be argued that, often times, people travel to escape their problems at home----like if your stepchildren are uglier and dumber than their father, why not spend a few weeks on the jersey shore?.....and while that certainly may be true, I think the real issue concerns our capacity to free our collective minds (in the parliament funkadelic sense of the word)…..and this scenario creates some practical problems that many of our (richer) traveling friends might not understand……for example, let’s pretend that the big handsome was traveling in spain…..how would the big handsome get drugs?.....what would happen if the big handsome tried to buy drugs on the street and got arrested or throw in jail?.....for that matter, in our post 9/11 world, should the big handsome try to sneak drugs onto the plane inside his taint?.....how long could the big handsome go without drugs?.....could the big handsome possibly have a good time overseas without drugs?----all valid questions and believe me, the answer to the last one would be a definitive: “hell no”…….the best advice I could offer the big handsome would be to go to the dentist and have a tooth pulled and then get a prescription filled for the pain…..what other options are there?.....he could maybe roll on the plane, but trust me, we all gotta come down some time……I would also recommend driving over flying…..like people on airplanes pretend to be nice to you for a while, but eventually you hit an invisible wall where they think: “ if I talk to this person much longer, he’ll wind up thinking that he’s as important as me”----and then the snooty prick in the seat next to you will let you know in no uncertain terms that they gots important biddness to take care of and can’t waste anymore of their valuable time talking to a tourist like you……more importantly, when you drive, you get to carry all your “stuff” with you…..for example, let’s pretend geno had to get to sundance for the world premiere of evil awakening (2008)----you don’t think airport security would ask what he was doing with his nana’s head-on-stick when they went thru his carry-on luggage?----you know that they damn skippy would whereas if geno were driving, he could just toss his nana’s head under some socks in the suitcase and there’s a 99.9% chance that nobody would even notice/care…..as for me (and I’m no paris hilton), I wouldn’t be caught dead “vacationing” without my: 1) “blood pressure” pills, 2) visine, 3) cough drops, 4) peanut butter, 5) skim milk, 6) cracker, 7) “cigarettes,” 8) imodium ad, 9) gum, 10) loaf bread, 11) balloons, 12) pillow, 13) lighter, 14) knife, 15) carton of water, 16) refrigerator magnets (to give to the sluts along the way), 17) sunglasses, 18) a 12-pack of toilet paper, 19) stocking cap, and 20) greer’s goo……anyway, please to enjoy crazycarl’s travel guide for 2009:
10) ALASKA: did sarah palin change what you thought of alaska?----it didn’t for me…..when I went there last summer to visit my friend, alaska dave, I had hoped that everyone would be drunk all the time (and they motherfucking were)…..like it seemed to me that if you actually made it to work on time, the boss didn’t really care if you were hammered or hungover or puking or whatever as long as you showed up…..and what’s even kooler is that you could show up drunk and BRING YOUR DOG TO WORK WITH YOU…..it was the most dog-friendly place that I have ever seen……I pictured drunken pilots flying to crab festivals where the whole town shut down and got drunk for the weekend----done and done…..i pictured bigfathairy dudes driving their motorcycles around the bar at 3am and teenagers bumming smokes off their grannies at 6am---done and well……and if you want a sweet story for the senior citizen in your life: there was only one radio station in the 300 plus miles between wasilla and denali and here’s a random sampling of what the news was like: “yeah, missy mcgahee’s dog got loose last night, so if any of ya’ll see gracie on the mountain, be a good neighbor and take her back up to the pen…..also, you all know what happened to geno last summer, so if anyone has a wood splitter and some spare time, maybe go over and help geno out with his woodpile”…..and like it says on the license plate: alaska truly is the last frontier
9) BLACKSBURG, VA: motherfucking sux…..it sucked in 1994 and it sux even more in 2009 (post-serial killer)……I went to school there, ya know (and I like to think that I’m a funny guy)----well, no one got my sense of humor at all…..it’s a party school, right?---yeah, if your idea of a party is 50 dudes and 3 girls and the 3 girls all have better boyfriends back home……and I’ll admit that I made some really good friends there, but we’d just go camping every weekend/trip thru the hills (because there really was nothing else to do)……so how is it different after post-massacre?----well, when I was there last summer, there was a fat, mustachioed cop on every street corner carrying an ak-47 assault rifle trying to make up for his lack of effort in the spring of 2007……hell, the person in front of me even got a speeding ticket for driving 22 in a 15 mph zone…..do yourself a favor: buy yourself a pint, a virginia tech hat, and watch the game on tv
8) CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA: is to the university of virginia what blacksburg is to virginia tech……and if you’re going to c-ville, might I suggest you bring a shitload of money……why?----because that beautiful, barefoot, hippie girl with the dreadlocks and the tye-dye dress that you just danced with isn’t really a hippie----she’s a poseur with a trust fund, and a porsche, and vice presidency at shell oil waiting for her as soon as she graduates from uva’s darden school of business……charlottesville is basically chocked full of “green” douchebags who’ll yell at you for an hour for flicking a cigarette out of your car, but then drive off in their $50,000 suv looking for the nearest european (bottled)beer…..and when they blame the death of all the lightning bugs on your cigarette butt, kindly inform them that you’re doing your part to save toilet paper by handling the first 2 rounds of the asswipe with your fingers (just like they do in the philippine rainforest)….. “living off the grid”---be sure and let that dude charge all the drinks to his mother’s credit card…. “backyard windmill”----yeah dude, I’ll see ya later, I gotta get up early for work tomorrow....for that matter, I think I’ll leave the charlottesville section with some of my own lyrics to the tune of phish’s “golgi apparatus”: well, I look at other peoples’ berks just to check my status/call mummy on the phone have her send more hiker apparatus/I saw you with a ticket stub in your hand/I saw you with the abercrombie and fitch man/I saw you with the price tag on your sleeve/I heard you tell the poor they had to leave./
7) HEY BIG HANDSOME, WHAT ARE PEOPLE FROM INDIANAPOLIS LIKE?.....big handsome responds: “let’s take our credit card and go to the mall and buy some shit made out of plastic…..no, wait, let’s go to another mall and max out another credit card by buying more shit made out of plastic”…….HEY BIG HANDSOME, WHAT ARE PEOPLE FROM MICHIGAN LIKE?.....big handsome responds: “where’s my gun?….where’s my hat?…..where’s my beer?…..hold on, there’s a deer: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL…..DIEDIEDIE…….hey look, there’s a squirrel: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL…..DIEDIEDIE……look out, there’s a hamster: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL….DIEDIEDIE”…….(note: these are real responses from the big handsome…..i personally know some really sweet people from indy, but I’d have to agree with him about michigan)
6) COLORADO SPRINGS, CO: while we’re on the subject of the big handsome, I might as well tell you about my trip out there to visit him in the spring of 2007…..i did some internet research before I went and was pleased to discover that all the kids are on drugs and all the adults are on jesus…..in fact, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference…..like if you wanted to wear your wife’s floral print dress down the street, colorado springs was the place to be…..if you wanted to dress like exodor from “mork & mindy,” it was ok to let your freak flag fly……to tell ya the truth, if darth vader were working the checkout line at the local quickie mart, I don’t think the good people of colorado would have even noticed……case in point: I told this (hottie) hippie chick who was hanging out in front of the big handsome’s coffee shop that her dog said something to me “about pueblo,” but that since I was from virginia, I didn’t quite understand “colorado dog”…..her (deadpan) response: “that’s freaky, ‘cause I like got him at a shelter in pueblo…..what else did he say?”
5) IOWA: I think I told you about iowa before…..every small town has 8 baseball fields, 9 graveyards, and lots of dudes with mustaches…..IN IOWA, YOU’RE 1) BORN, 2) YOU GROW A MUSTACHE, AND 3) THEN YOU DIE…..maybe somewhere along the way you grow a mullet and get thrown in over-the-limit squirrel jail, but I think you get my point…..and god bless iowa for saving what’s left of crazycarl
4) MADISON, VA: my hometown can be summed up in one phrase: “if you stand next to the stove, you’re gonna catch on fire”
3) PITTSBURGH: I was 24 the first the first time I went to a party in pittsburgh---and the police came….i was 39 the last time I went to a party in pittsburgh---and the police came……in between, my friend, nootie lived in shady side and the police should have been called every day……I think I told you before about those underground “parties” too---complete with topless, lesbian rubdowns, special k rooms, and just general debauchery inside the confines of an old paintball factory……ya know, nootie musta been pretty popular there because whenever I went into a store with him in the strip district, employees would just give me anything I wanted off the store’s shelves….you’re a friend of nootie’s?---take this tee-shirt and necklace…..you’re staying with nootie?---take a couple of subs home with you for later (and in pittsburgh, they put some interesting shit in the sandwiches, ya know?)…..in retrospect (and beyond the sphere of influence of the great gnu), I think pittsburgh has more culture/flava that its’ fellow rustbelt sister cities……I think it must be all those polish girls with the big tits and the even bigger hair singing neil diamond songs
2) POTPOURRI: 10) PHILLY: go to the germ bookstore and tell the man that you want to meet a real satanist, 9) THE QUAD CITIES: might I suggest a trip to border’s and then dinner at applebee’s?, 8) LAKEWOOD, OH: where old kent state punkrockers go to die, 7) LOUISVILLE: home of the big handsome and thousands of riverboat gambler types with get-rich-quick schemes that never seem to pan out, 6) LONDON: there was this bulldog that walked himself around the block and wouldn’t look at you even if you had a pocketful of meat, 5) RICHMOND, VA: make my funk the p-funk/I wants to get funked up/, 4) PARIS: mama was having “female troubles” that day, so I don’t think I’m really qualified to say…..i will say that the city was dirty and the people stunk though, 3) DANVILLE, VA: straight out of mad max (1979)….if you know you’re a hardass, get out…..if not, just keep driving, 2) AKRON: just keep driving…..don’t stop for gas….just keep driving, 1) ASHLAND, VA: all the really good drug dealers live in the fraternity houses…..tell them that your name is gipper and that you used to be a pika
1) YOUNGSTOWN: I know there’s that wred fright song, but don’t believe the hype…..youngstown makes akron seem like iowa……let me set the scene: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE…..the next block: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE…..the nicest neighborhood in canfield: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE……pauley walnuts didn’t get out of the car and bruce springsteen just flew over, ya know?......and the last time I was in youngstown, I went to the elks’ lodge to cover “the jim traficant victory party” for the local alternative weekly…..jim traficant happened to be in jail at the time, but that didn’t stop me from touching tish traficant on the arm and complimenting her on the mink stole that she was wearing……and every time the election results were updated on tv, I would sneak platefuls of chicken and polish sausage out to my car…..i think that brother traficant wound up with like 11% of the popular vote in that particular election, but I drove home with a carload full of kielbasas at the end of the night…..wred fright, take me out: there was a fight at the pick-wick pub/I said: smoke all the crack and then beer-belly love/y-town, yeah, it’s my favorite place/I’ll smash a beer bottle ___ __ ____/I’m going to youngstown/there’s no ____ in youngstown/wred’s mom’s from youngstown/that’s why we live in youngstown./
how many of you out there have a friend who judges your hipness in relation to how often you travel?....how many of you out there have a friend who swears that the blueberries in venice are infinitely sweeter than the blueberries in indianapolis?......and maybe travel-as-money is an elitist concept to begin with, but I can’t tell you how many friends I have who sweat me with a : “dude, you’ve never been to amsterdam?----dude, you’ve gotta go to amsterdam!”……and I try to tell them that I’ve been to amsterdam-in-my-head, but they don’t believe me/just aint feeling it……and what bugs me is that these same people tend to define their respective identities thru their travels---BAM, i’m smart and rich and cultured because I went to spain last summer----BAM, I’m smart and rich and cultured because I’m going to scotland this summer…… and I know the punkrockers would say that this is a class issue because poor people don’t have the money to jet off to exotic west virginia anytime they feel like it……it could also be argued that, often times, people travel to escape their problems at home----like if your stepchildren are uglier and dumber than their father, why not spend a few weeks on the jersey shore?.....and while that certainly may be true, I think the real issue concerns our capacity to free our collective minds (in the parliament funkadelic sense of the word)…..and this scenario creates some practical problems that many of our (richer) traveling friends might not understand……for example, let’s pretend that the big handsome was traveling in spain…..how would the big handsome get drugs?.....what would happen if the big handsome tried to buy drugs on the street and got arrested or throw in jail?.....for that matter, in our post 9/11 world, should the big handsome try to sneak drugs onto the plane inside his taint?.....how long could the big handsome go without drugs?.....could the big handsome possibly have a good time overseas without drugs?----all valid questions and believe me, the answer to the last one would be a definitive: “hell no”…….the best advice I could offer the big handsome would be to go to the dentist and have a tooth pulled and then get a prescription filled for the pain…..what other options are there?.....he could maybe roll on the plane, but trust me, we all gotta come down some time……I would also recommend driving over flying…..like people on airplanes pretend to be nice to you for a while, but eventually you hit an invisible wall where they think: “ if I talk to this person much longer, he’ll wind up thinking that he’s as important as me”----and then the snooty prick in the seat next to you will let you know in no uncertain terms that they gots important biddness to take care of and can’t waste anymore of their valuable time talking to a tourist like you……more importantly, when you drive, you get to carry all your “stuff” with you…..for example, let’s pretend geno had to get to sundance for the world premiere of evil awakening (2008)----you don’t think airport security would ask what he was doing with his nana’s head-on-stick when they went thru his carry-on luggage?----you know that they damn skippy would whereas if geno were driving, he could just toss his nana’s head under some socks in the suitcase and there’s a 99.9% chance that nobody would even notice/care…..as for me (and I’m no paris hilton), I wouldn’t be caught dead “vacationing” without my: 1) “blood pressure” pills, 2) visine, 3) cough drops, 4) peanut butter, 5) skim milk, 6) cracker, 7) “cigarettes,” 8) imodium ad, 9) gum, 10) loaf bread, 11) balloons, 12) pillow, 13) lighter, 14) knife, 15) carton of water, 16) refrigerator magnets (to give to the sluts along the way), 17) sunglasses, 18) a 12-pack of toilet paper, 19) stocking cap, and 20) greer’s goo……anyway, please to enjoy crazycarl’s travel guide for 2009:
10) ALASKA: did sarah palin change what you thought of alaska?----it didn’t for me…..when I went there last summer to visit my friend, alaska dave, I had hoped that everyone would be drunk all the time (and they motherfucking were)…..like it seemed to me that if you actually made it to work on time, the boss didn’t really care if you were hammered or hungover or puking or whatever as long as you showed up…..and what’s even kooler is that you could show up drunk and BRING YOUR DOG TO WORK WITH YOU…..it was the most dog-friendly place that I have ever seen……I pictured drunken pilots flying to crab festivals where the whole town shut down and got drunk for the weekend----done and done…..i pictured bigfathairy dudes driving their motorcycles around the bar at 3am and teenagers bumming smokes off their grannies at 6am---done and well……and if you want a sweet story for the senior citizen in your life: there was only one radio station in the 300 plus miles between wasilla and denali and here’s a random sampling of what the news was like: “yeah, missy mcgahee’s dog got loose last night, so if any of ya’ll see gracie on the mountain, be a good neighbor and take her back up to the pen…..also, you all know what happened to geno last summer, so if anyone has a wood splitter and some spare time, maybe go over and help geno out with his woodpile”…..and like it says on the license plate: alaska truly is the last frontier
9) BLACKSBURG, VA: motherfucking sux…..it sucked in 1994 and it sux even more in 2009 (post-serial killer)……I went to school there, ya know (and I like to think that I’m a funny guy)----well, no one got my sense of humor at all…..it’s a party school, right?---yeah, if your idea of a party is 50 dudes and 3 girls and the 3 girls all have better boyfriends back home……and I’ll admit that I made some really good friends there, but we’d just go camping every weekend/trip thru the hills (because there really was nothing else to do)……so how is it different after post-massacre?----well, when I was there last summer, there was a fat, mustachioed cop on every street corner carrying an ak-47 assault rifle trying to make up for his lack of effort in the spring of 2007……hell, the person in front of me even got a speeding ticket for driving 22 in a 15 mph zone…..do yourself a favor: buy yourself a pint, a virginia tech hat, and watch the game on tv
8) CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA: is to the university of virginia what blacksburg is to virginia tech……and if you’re going to c-ville, might I suggest you bring a shitload of money……why?----because that beautiful, barefoot, hippie girl with the dreadlocks and the tye-dye dress that you just danced with isn’t really a hippie----she’s a poseur with a trust fund, and a porsche, and vice presidency at shell oil waiting for her as soon as she graduates from uva’s darden school of business……charlottesville is basically chocked full of “green” douchebags who’ll yell at you for an hour for flicking a cigarette out of your car, but then drive off in their $50,000 suv looking for the nearest european (bottled)beer…..and when they blame the death of all the lightning bugs on your cigarette butt, kindly inform them that you’re doing your part to save toilet paper by handling the first 2 rounds of the asswipe with your fingers (just like they do in the philippine rainforest)….. “living off the grid”---be sure and let that dude charge all the drinks to his mother’s credit card…. “backyard windmill”----yeah dude, I’ll see ya later, I gotta get up early for work tomorrow....for that matter, I think I’ll leave the charlottesville section with some of my own lyrics to the tune of phish’s “golgi apparatus”: well, I look at other peoples’ berks just to check my status/call mummy on the phone have her send more hiker apparatus/I saw you with a ticket stub in your hand/I saw you with the abercrombie and fitch man/I saw you with the price tag on your sleeve/I heard you tell the poor they had to leave./
7) HEY BIG HANDSOME, WHAT ARE PEOPLE FROM INDIANAPOLIS LIKE?.....big handsome responds: “let’s take our credit card and go to the mall and buy some shit made out of plastic…..no, wait, let’s go to another mall and max out another credit card by buying more shit made out of plastic”…….HEY BIG HANDSOME, WHAT ARE PEOPLE FROM MICHIGAN LIKE?.....big handsome responds: “where’s my gun?….where’s my hat?…..where’s my beer?…..hold on, there’s a deer: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL…..DIEDIEDIE…….hey look, there’s a squirrel: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL…..DIEDIEDIE……look out, there’s a hamster: BAMBAMBAM…..KILLKILLKILL….DIEDIEDIE”…….(note: these are real responses from the big handsome…..i personally know some really sweet people from indy, but I’d have to agree with him about michigan)
6) COLORADO SPRINGS, CO: while we’re on the subject of the big handsome, I might as well tell you about my trip out there to visit him in the spring of 2007…..i did some internet research before I went and was pleased to discover that all the kids are on drugs and all the adults are on jesus…..in fact, sometimes it was hard to tell the difference…..like if you wanted to wear your wife’s floral print dress down the street, colorado springs was the place to be…..if you wanted to dress like exodor from “mork & mindy,” it was ok to let your freak flag fly……to tell ya the truth, if darth vader were working the checkout line at the local quickie mart, I don’t think the good people of colorado would have even noticed……case in point: I told this (hottie) hippie chick who was hanging out in front of the big handsome’s coffee shop that her dog said something to me “about pueblo,” but that since I was from virginia, I didn’t quite understand “colorado dog”…..her (deadpan) response: “that’s freaky, ‘cause I like got him at a shelter in pueblo…..what else did he say?”
5) IOWA: I think I told you about iowa before…..every small town has 8 baseball fields, 9 graveyards, and lots of dudes with mustaches…..IN IOWA, YOU’RE 1) BORN, 2) YOU GROW A MUSTACHE, AND 3) THEN YOU DIE…..maybe somewhere along the way you grow a mullet and get thrown in over-the-limit squirrel jail, but I think you get my point…..and god bless iowa for saving what’s left of crazycarl
4) MADISON, VA: my hometown can be summed up in one phrase: “if you stand next to the stove, you’re gonna catch on fire”
3) PITTSBURGH: I was 24 the first the first time I went to a party in pittsburgh---and the police came….i was 39 the last time I went to a party in pittsburgh---and the police came……in between, my friend, nootie lived in shady side and the police should have been called every day……I think I told you before about those underground “parties” too---complete with topless, lesbian rubdowns, special k rooms, and just general debauchery inside the confines of an old paintball factory……ya know, nootie musta been pretty popular there because whenever I went into a store with him in the strip district, employees would just give me anything I wanted off the store’s shelves….you’re a friend of nootie’s?---take this tee-shirt and necklace…..you’re staying with nootie?---take a couple of subs home with you for later (and in pittsburgh, they put some interesting shit in the sandwiches, ya know?)…..in retrospect (and beyond the sphere of influence of the great gnu), I think pittsburgh has more culture/flava that its’ fellow rustbelt sister cities……I think it must be all those polish girls with the big tits and the even bigger hair singing neil diamond songs
2) POTPOURRI: 10) PHILLY: go to the germ bookstore and tell the man that you want to meet a real satanist, 9) THE QUAD CITIES: might I suggest a trip to border’s and then dinner at applebee’s?, 8) LAKEWOOD, OH: where old kent state punkrockers go to die, 7) LOUISVILLE: home of the big handsome and thousands of riverboat gambler types with get-rich-quick schemes that never seem to pan out, 6) LONDON: there was this bulldog that walked himself around the block and wouldn’t look at you even if you had a pocketful of meat, 5) RICHMOND, VA: make my funk the p-funk/I wants to get funked up/, 4) PARIS: mama was having “female troubles” that day, so I don’t think I’m really qualified to say…..i will say that the city was dirty and the people stunk though, 3) DANVILLE, VA: straight out of mad max (1979)….if you know you’re a hardass, get out…..if not, just keep driving, 2) AKRON: just keep driving…..don’t stop for gas….just keep driving, 1) ASHLAND, VA: all the really good drug dealers live in the fraternity houses…..tell them that your name is gipper and that you used to be a pika
1) YOUNGSTOWN: I know there’s that wred fright song, but don’t believe the hype…..youngstown makes akron seem like iowa……let me set the scene: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE…..the next block: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE…..the nicest neighborhood in canfield: STRIP CLUB, BURNED OUT FACTORY, LIQUOR STORE……pauley walnuts didn’t get out of the car and bruce springsteen just flew over, ya know?......and the last time I was in youngstown, I went to the elks’ lodge to cover “the jim traficant victory party” for the local alternative weekly…..jim traficant happened to be in jail at the time, but that didn’t stop me from touching tish traficant on the arm and complimenting her on the mink stole that she was wearing……and every time the election results were updated on tv, I would sneak platefuls of chicken and polish sausage out to my car…..i think that brother traficant wound up with like 11% of the popular vote in that particular election, but I drove home with a carload full of kielbasas at the end of the night…..wred fright, take me out: there was a fight at the pick-wick pub/I said: smoke all the crack and then beer-belly love/y-town, yeah, it’s my favorite place/I’ll smash a beer bottle ___ __ ____/I’m going to youngstown/there’s no ____ in youngstown/wred’s mom’s from youngstown/that’s why we live in youngstown./
Sunday, January 18, 2009
crazycarl's top ten books for "scared stiff reviews"
CRAZYCARL’S TOP TEN BOOKS FOR SCARED STIFF REVIEWS
do kids still read in 2008?---nah, I don’t think so…..do I really give a shit?---uh, no…..and you won’t get any preaching me from either…..i like watching tv and searching webshots for amateur college pee pix the same as the next dude…..i like reading too, but it’s a little harder to explain……full disclosure: I’m an english professor…..and although I’ve prolly read 1000’s of books, they were all for THE MAN and I retained next-to-nothing……I was 36-years-old before I ever read a book for pleasure (and that was after I graduated with a ph.d. in english literature)……to tell ya the truth, I never felt entitled to read……like I read comic books and subscribed to pro wrestling illustrated as a kid, but I hated the 9th grade summer reading list as much as you did…..my parents currently subscribe to 3 newspapers and time, but I’ve never seen either one of them read a novel……hillbillies read newspapers and I guess that’s why I ultimately break my reading list down into: 1) books I read for THE MAN and 2) books I read for me…..so why I am about to break down my top ten fav books for you here?----I’ll give you 2 rather trifling reasons and if you still want to go search for pix of geno’s nana on the toilet, be my fucking guest……seinfeld was an excellent show, ya know…..and there was a throwaway scene in an early episode where seinfeld talks about how/why people keep books in their houses as trophies….and I know that seems like a rather minor point, but I think it’s true…..like some people keep deer heads on their walls while other people keep books on their shelves----and they taught me at kent state that everyone is special in their own right…..the 2nd reason has to do with what I tell my students on the first day of class about reading---that there’ll come a day when it will no longer be kool for them to drive around cranking young jeezy in their minivans while driving their stepkids to soccer practice……I tell them that, in the future, they’ll be required to go to border’s and drink coffee and that it’s imperative for them to look kool while doing so (and my job is to teach them that lesson)…….and if you came for random crazycarl nuggets of bookstore wisdom: 1) you can never go wrong with rockstar biographies chocked full of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, 2) the true crime section is always sexy, 3) it’s much easier to understand the book if you’ve already seen the movie, 4) chicks dig astrology---like the only pick-up line that’s ever worked for me besides: “dude, do you wanna get high” is “dude, do you want me to read your palm,” and 5) (perhaps the most important) don’t ever talk to anyone who’s hanging out in the self-help section
10) FAT ON THE VINE (because if you don’t pop for yourself, no one else will): a lot of my friends dig hunter s thompson and they seem to be disappointed when the crazy stories I tell them in person don’t seem to measure up when they read my novel……and i’ve never met hunter s thompson, but I’ve done enough drugs to know that johnny depp doesn’t always magically appear and dance shirtless with you through the blue and yellow purple hills……sometimes you get sad and sometimes you get mad and it’s almost always embarrassing the next morning……I think hunter s thompson wanted you to think he was a rockstar whereas I was just screaming into my diary…..i could have revised it too, but that was my 1997 (assblood and all)……and you can call me a dick, but I’ve never lied to you…..that book is 92% bloodreal----as close as I could come to the truth without losing my mind
9) THE SHINING: I’ve got to assume that for every 5 people that love stephen king, there are 5 others that hate him……I’ve only read 2 of king’s books: salem’s lot (which I thought dragged on a bit too long) and the shining (which I loved)…..i also loved stanley kubrick’s film, the shining (1980) as well as the 1997 tv mini-series with the dude from wings…..there’s hardly a week that goes by that I don’t make reference to tony (danny torrance’s “imaginary friend” in the novel and my only friend in iowa)…..like people will ask me what I’m doing over the labor day weekend and I’ll just curl my index finger and talk about “hanging out with my special friend”…….and maybe you wanna know whether I prefer king’s novel to kubrick’s film?----well, honestly, there’s only one example I can think of where my answer to that question would be that the film is equal to the book and the book is equal to the film….they are both excellent and would make my top ten list in both categories----the shining as king and kubrick at the height of their (respective) creative powers
8) THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST: I think this was the 1st book on the list that I read….and, as always, you can never go wrong with sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll…..you ever wonder what it would have been like to do 25 hits of acids and hang out with the grateful dead for the weekend?.....you ever wonder what it would have been like to do 100 hits of acid and drive a school bus across country with neal cassady and jack kerouac?.....you know I have……did you hear that a film adaptation of the book directed by gus van sant is scheduled to be released in 2009?....crazycarl says to bring your favorite hell’s angel
7) TOP TEN HONORABLE MENTIONS: 10) WATERSHIP DOWN: i don’t know why, but I’ve always had a thing about rabbits, 9) Little Red Riding Hood Missed the Bus: kristin abraham’s mother should fight mine in a cage match, 8) JIM MORRISON: LIFE, DEATH, LEGEND: my fav dead rockstar bio 7) The Rules of Attraction: I know the underground literary alliance is gonna hate me, but jessica biel is fucking, smokin’ hot, 6) BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE: I’m trendy like that, 5) ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST: it makes me want to get committed just for the stories 4) DISHWASHER: dishwasher pete washes dishes in all fifty states…..recommend the book to your local dishwasher and he’ll still be packing you bowls in 2018, 3) THE PORNOGRAPHIC FLABBERGASTED EMUS: opus from bloom county walks the mean streets of youngstown and emerges unscathed , 2) THE COLLECTOR: for all the budding serial killers on your list, 1) THE COMPLETE FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS: for all the stoners on your list that are too high to read
6) A CLOCKWORK ORANGE: I know the dialect is hard, but o my brothers, the rape scene from the movie would certainly be in my top ten list of the most disturbing moments in cinematic history……in fact, the seniors at my high school would make the freshman watch kubrick’s a clockwork orange (1971) just to watch us squirm (and you would have been labeled pussy-4-life if you dared to sneak out)…..i’ve debated about reading the novel in class, but obviously the kids would want to watch the movie, and invariably, someone’s mom would complain……and if you don’t think a clockwork orange deserves to be in the top ten, let me just leave you with a little blurb from wikipedia: “ The Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match was created by professional wrestler Raven during his time in TNA Wrestling. It’s a singles match for which a chain link wall is erected on one side of the ring with chains wrapped from it to various points on the ring itself with weapons hanging from them. In the first match the only way to win was to put an opponent through two tables, but afterwards it was changed to falls-count-anywhere rules.”
5) FIGHT CLUB: the first rule of crazycarl is that he’ll damn skippy read the last page of a novel first and then tell you what happened……fight club is all about the hook----and tyler durden (brad pitt) is really the narrator’s alter ego…..and if you didn’t already think that the brothers campbell were the koolest-of-all-that’s kool, did I ever tell you that they tried to organize a kent state fight club back-in the-day?…..like it was supposed to be in the backroom of a tattoo parlor, but on the night I went, it was mysteriously cancelled at the last minute (fear of 5-0?)…..they eventually re-scheduled and I think there was a broken nose and some stitches, but word-on-the-street is that real punks don’t beat the piss out of their friends just for the house’s amusement
4) A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES: jonathan swift once wrote that: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.”……the hero of the novel, ignatius j reilly is fat, perverted, slothful, over-educated, unemployed, and lives with his overbearing mother…..does that sound like anyone you used to know?---yeah, me too….john belushi was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died……john candy was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died…..chris farley was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died…..geno, I’m ready for my curtain call…..and before I forget: god bless john kennedy toole for killing himself
3) FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS: ok, so maybe I wanna believe that johnny depp is gonna cum and we’re all gonna dance shirtless in the blue and yellow purple hills too…..and one man’s gonzo is another man’s bloodreal……solace-in-excess (as a concept) works for me---you know, the counter culture ideal that prolonged drug use will allow the hero to escape the course realities of american life…..i don’t think you can stretch the rubber-band-that-is-your-brain indefinitely though…..i also like “faction” as a concept---the faulknerian notion that the best fiction comes from fact…..note: if I had written this top ten a couple years ago, fear and loathing in las vegas would have prolly come in at #10…..however, since hunter s thompson had the (celebrity) nutsack to kill himself, his novel is now #3 with a bullet
2) MISERY LOVES COMEDY: have you ever heard of ivan brunetti?.....he’s a chicago cartoonist whose commix, schizo, hee!, and haw! are included in the collection, misery loves comedy……and just in case, geno can’t get around copyright law, I’d like to describe a few of the panels which are included on comicartcollective.com (if you’re curious, they have 100 brunetti cels for sale and every single one has been sold)…..in “I bought him off a crack whore,” an 8-year-old boy is talking to an 8-year-old girl while peeing on a baby’s head….the boy says to the girl: “don’t worry, I bought him off a crack whore”……in “not a sex crime,” two parents arrive home and discover a naked man standing over their daughter in a pool of blood…..the killer says: “it’s not a sex crime because I didn’t pop a boner”……..i could go on, but I think I’ll leave “I tried to use my cock as a bong,” “did you switch my heroin with drano,” and “his dad tried to get fruity” to the readers’ imagination…..i’ve often thought of sending brunetti a copy of fat on the vine
1) HELTER SKELTER: about midway through vincent bugliosi’s account of the manson murders, he talks about how charlie required the mothers-of-the-family to fellate their own 6-month-old babies in order to “eradicate the hang-ups” of their bourgeoisie parents…….what the fuck do you want me to say after that?....it’s not a brunetti comic and it’s not from the oprah’s book club….hell, I don’t even think the censors would have allowed the oprah’s uncle to have done that to her in a brunetti cartoon…..tell me tell me tell me the answer/you may be a lover but you aint no dancer/ look out helter skelter helter skelter/helter skelter yeah/ooh!/
do kids still read in 2008?---nah, I don’t think so…..do I really give a shit?---uh, no…..and you won’t get any preaching me from either…..i like watching tv and searching webshots for amateur college pee pix the same as the next dude…..i like reading too, but it’s a little harder to explain……full disclosure: I’m an english professor…..and although I’ve prolly read 1000’s of books, they were all for THE MAN and I retained next-to-nothing……I was 36-years-old before I ever read a book for pleasure (and that was after I graduated with a ph.d. in english literature)……to tell ya the truth, I never felt entitled to read……like I read comic books and subscribed to pro wrestling illustrated as a kid, but I hated the 9th grade summer reading list as much as you did…..my parents currently subscribe to 3 newspapers and time, but I’ve never seen either one of them read a novel……hillbillies read newspapers and I guess that’s why I ultimately break my reading list down into: 1) books I read for THE MAN and 2) books I read for me…..so why I am about to break down my top ten fav books for you here?----I’ll give you 2 rather trifling reasons and if you still want to go search for pix of geno’s nana on the toilet, be my fucking guest……seinfeld was an excellent show, ya know…..and there was a throwaway scene in an early episode where seinfeld talks about how/why people keep books in their houses as trophies….and I know that seems like a rather minor point, but I think it’s true…..like some people keep deer heads on their walls while other people keep books on their shelves----and they taught me at kent state that everyone is special in their own right…..the 2nd reason has to do with what I tell my students on the first day of class about reading---that there’ll come a day when it will no longer be kool for them to drive around cranking young jeezy in their minivans while driving their stepkids to soccer practice……I tell them that, in the future, they’ll be required to go to border’s and drink coffee and that it’s imperative for them to look kool while doing so (and my job is to teach them that lesson)…….and if you came for random crazycarl nuggets of bookstore wisdom: 1) you can never go wrong with rockstar biographies chocked full of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll, 2) the true crime section is always sexy, 3) it’s much easier to understand the book if you’ve already seen the movie, 4) chicks dig astrology---like the only pick-up line that’s ever worked for me besides: “dude, do you wanna get high” is “dude, do you want me to read your palm,” and 5) (perhaps the most important) don’t ever talk to anyone who’s hanging out in the self-help section
10) FAT ON THE VINE (because if you don’t pop for yourself, no one else will): a lot of my friends dig hunter s thompson and they seem to be disappointed when the crazy stories I tell them in person don’t seem to measure up when they read my novel……and i’ve never met hunter s thompson, but I’ve done enough drugs to know that johnny depp doesn’t always magically appear and dance shirtless with you through the blue and yellow purple hills……sometimes you get sad and sometimes you get mad and it’s almost always embarrassing the next morning……I think hunter s thompson wanted you to think he was a rockstar whereas I was just screaming into my diary…..i could have revised it too, but that was my 1997 (assblood and all)……and you can call me a dick, but I’ve never lied to you…..that book is 92% bloodreal----as close as I could come to the truth without losing my mind
9) THE SHINING: I’ve got to assume that for every 5 people that love stephen king, there are 5 others that hate him……I’ve only read 2 of king’s books: salem’s lot (which I thought dragged on a bit too long) and the shining (which I loved)…..i also loved stanley kubrick’s film, the shining (1980) as well as the 1997 tv mini-series with the dude from wings…..there’s hardly a week that goes by that I don’t make reference to tony (danny torrance’s “imaginary friend” in the novel and my only friend in iowa)…..like people will ask me what I’m doing over the labor day weekend and I’ll just curl my index finger and talk about “hanging out with my special friend”…….and maybe you wanna know whether I prefer king’s novel to kubrick’s film?----well, honestly, there’s only one example I can think of where my answer to that question would be that the film is equal to the book and the book is equal to the film….they are both excellent and would make my top ten list in both categories----the shining as king and kubrick at the height of their (respective) creative powers
8) THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID ACID TEST: I think this was the 1st book on the list that I read….and, as always, you can never go wrong with sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll…..you ever wonder what it would have been like to do 25 hits of acids and hang out with the grateful dead for the weekend?.....you ever wonder what it would have been like to do 100 hits of acid and drive a school bus across country with neal cassady and jack kerouac?.....you know I have……did you hear that a film adaptation of the book directed by gus van sant is scheduled to be released in 2009?....crazycarl says to bring your favorite hell’s angel
7) TOP TEN HONORABLE MENTIONS: 10) WATERSHIP DOWN: i don’t know why, but I’ve always had a thing about rabbits, 9) Little Red Riding Hood Missed the Bus: kristin abraham’s mother should fight mine in a cage match, 8) JIM MORRISON: LIFE, DEATH, LEGEND: my fav dead rockstar bio 7) The Rules of Attraction: I know the underground literary alliance is gonna hate me, but jessica biel is fucking, smokin’ hot, 6) BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE: I’m trendy like that, 5) ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST: it makes me want to get committed just for the stories 4) DISHWASHER: dishwasher pete washes dishes in all fifty states…..recommend the book to your local dishwasher and he’ll still be packing you bowls in 2018, 3) THE PORNOGRAPHIC FLABBERGASTED EMUS: opus from bloom county walks the mean streets of youngstown and emerges unscathed , 2) THE COLLECTOR: for all the budding serial killers on your list, 1) THE COMPLETE FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS: for all the stoners on your list that are too high to read
6) A CLOCKWORK ORANGE: I know the dialect is hard, but o my brothers, the rape scene from the movie would certainly be in my top ten list of the most disturbing moments in cinematic history……in fact, the seniors at my high school would make the freshman watch kubrick’s a clockwork orange (1971) just to watch us squirm (and you would have been labeled pussy-4-life if you dared to sneak out)…..i’ve debated about reading the novel in class, but obviously the kids would want to watch the movie, and invariably, someone’s mom would complain……and if you don’t think a clockwork orange deserves to be in the top ten, let me just leave you with a little blurb from wikipedia: “ The Clockwork Orange House of Fun Match was created by professional wrestler Raven during his time in TNA Wrestling. It’s a singles match for which a chain link wall is erected on one side of the ring with chains wrapped from it to various points on the ring itself with weapons hanging from them. In the first match the only way to win was to put an opponent through two tables, but afterwards it was changed to falls-count-anywhere rules.”
5) FIGHT CLUB: the first rule of crazycarl is that he’ll damn skippy read the last page of a novel first and then tell you what happened……fight club is all about the hook----and tyler durden (brad pitt) is really the narrator’s alter ego…..and if you didn’t already think that the brothers campbell were the koolest-of-all-that’s kool, did I ever tell you that they tried to organize a kent state fight club back-in the-day?…..like it was supposed to be in the backroom of a tattoo parlor, but on the night I went, it was mysteriously cancelled at the last minute (fear of 5-0?)…..they eventually re-scheduled and I think there was a broken nose and some stitches, but word-on-the-street is that real punks don’t beat the piss out of their friends just for the house’s amusement
4) A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES: jonathan swift once wrote that: “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.”……the hero of the novel, ignatius j reilly is fat, perverted, slothful, over-educated, unemployed, and lives with his overbearing mother…..does that sound like anyone you used to know?---yeah, me too….john belushi was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died……john candy was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died…..chris farley was supposed to play ignatius in the movie, but he died…..geno, I’m ready for my curtain call…..and before I forget: god bless john kennedy toole for killing himself
3) FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS: ok, so maybe I wanna believe that johnny depp is gonna cum and we’re all gonna dance shirtless in the blue and yellow purple hills too…..and one man’s gonzo is another man’s bloodreal……solace-in-excess (as a concept) works for me---you know, the counter culture ideal that prolonged drug use will allow the hero to escape the course realities of american life…..i don’t think you can stretch the rubber-band-that-is-your-brain indefinitely though…..i also like “faction” as a concept---the faulknerian notion that the best fiction comes from fact…..note: if I had written this top ten a couple years ago, fear and loathing in las vegas would have prolly come in at #10…..however, since hunter s thompson had the (celebrity) nutsack to kill himself, his novel is now #3 with a bullet
2) MISERY LOVES COMEDY: have you ever heard of ivan brunetti?.....he’s a chicago cartoonist whose commix, schizo, hee!, and haw! are included in the collection, misery loves comedy……and just in case, geno can’t get around copyright law, I’d like to describe a few of the panels which are included on comicartcollective.com (if you’re curious, they have 100 brunetti cels for sale and every single one has been sold)…..in “I bought him off a crack whore,” an 8-year-old boy is talking to an 8-year-old girl while peeing on a baby’s head….the boy says to the girl: “don’t worry, I bought him off a crack whore”……in “not a sex crime,” two parents arrive home and discover a naked man standing over their daughter in a pool of blood…..the killer says: “it’s not a sex crime because I didn’t pop a boner”……..i could go on, but I think I’ll leave “I tried to use my cock as a bong,” “did you switch my heroin with drano,” and “his dad tried to get fruity” to the readers’ imagination…..i’ve often thought of sending brunetti a copy of fat on the vine
1) HELTER SKELTER: about midway through vincent bugliosi’s account of the manson murders, he talks about how charlie required the mothers-of-the-family to fellate their own 6-month-old babies in order to “eradicate the hang-ups” of their bourgeoisie parents…….what the fuck do you want me to say after that?....it’s not a brunetti comic and it’s not from the oprah’s book club….hell, I don’t even think the censors would have allowed the oprah’s uncle to have done that to her in a brunetti cartoon…..tell me tell me tell me the answer/you may be a lover but you aint no dancer/ look out helter skelter helter skelter/helter skelter yeah/ooh!/
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