Parents Met. Combined Photos. Thought I would be Cute so they Googled "How to Make a Baby."

So I was at this party the other month when some lightweight vegan started getting perky off of too much tomato juice and asked the host if they could get everyone to sit down and share their conception stories. I quickly saw two ways out; tell a crafty lie or play mute. When the turn came to share the events of my conception, things got out of hand. I tried to lie and play mute, and many party-goers inconceivably walked out.

To start things off I held out my hands for something to draw on. I was handed a baby and a laser pointer. So, as I practiced laser exfoliating the baby’s belly with stirring red light, I conceived of a lie. I figured the lie would go like this; parents meet, combine their headshots, see that I will be adorable, Google how to make a baby, then make a baby.

There were several reasons this was completely false and unbelievable to me, but I figured they wouldn’t catch on. How could they know that my parents never “met” because they are actually fraternal twins, that they couldn’t combine their headshots because their heads are already attached, that they couldn’t "see" I was going to be adorable because they are both partially blind in their shared eye, and that they can’t Google anything because they only trust Baidu, the Chinese search engine?

To convey to the attendees that the first part of my story was that my Parents Met, I drew some sloppy stick figures holding hands. I should probably point out here that I can’t draw and have no concept of head-to-body ratio, so the general consensus derived from my drawing was “Ah, his parents were aliens.” I couldn’t dissuade them. Hell, I couldn’t even speak… so I moved on.

Next my parents Combined Photos and fell in love with my potential face. To convey this touching non-reality, I drew a picture of two faces smashing together with DNA strands exploding in every direction. Their only guess was “aliens combining DNA.” I was starting to get a weird crowd from the vibe. I decided to stay away from stick figures.

In my flustered state I predicted that the furthest possible thing from a stick figure would be an Emporer penguin. To show everyone that my parents Thought I would be Cute enough to bother Googling what sex was, I drew a penguin holding a headshot in one flipper and a hatching egg in the other.

“Aliens implanted the combined DNA in a penguin egg!” shouted Sigourney Weaver. 

I should have known she was behind this messy chalk outline of Pictionary murder. She was in Aliens and Avatar and she voiced over the American version of Planet Earth. She had been planting guesses the entire game, I never even had a conceivable chance of winning.

Partially because I wanted to leave but more because I wanted to hear Sigourney’s conception story, I decided to wrap up my own struggling scenario. To show that my parents Googled “How to make a Baby” I drew a comfortable looking twin bed with a computer on it, and waited. I waited impatiently for a good answer. There were many murmurings and then:

“A desk?! Is that a desk?” 

Either some wise guy in the back was completely unable to interpret what a good Serta looks like or Sigourney was off her alien kick and on to solid oak idiocy. I’d had enough. I took myself off Mute.

“A desk? A desk!!? No, it isn’t a desk. My dad HATES desks. Why? Because my dad was RAPED on a desk. BY MY MOM. And THAT’S how I was CONCEIVED!” To add insult and salt to the phrases I had bulleted into Sigourney’s hanging jaw, I told everyone that I would MUCH rather have a British man narrating my waterfall chase scenes then some washed up, crack-addled poor man’s version of Susan Sarandon. Sig looked as if she had been slapped around by an otherworldy being.

When I was done with my tirade, I handed her my keys and said, “I don’t feel like driving… can you take me home Mom?”

"How did he get three people?"

When a coworker asked me if I was shooting up people again... I wondered how he knew I had just looked at my Xbox and considered playing Halo over my lunch break. I sent him a cryptic response and waited to hear how he knew my inner thoughts so well. He responded with a link to a story in the local news and told me to Google the address.

Durham County homeowner shoots three break-in suspects

I need a new hero in my life and since some fancy homeowner is sitting around my county somewhere saving his own ass and possessions by firing a sawed-off shotgun from his La-Z-Boy, I thought I would check it out. Since possession of a "Get the hell off my lawn" attitude isn't exactly illegal, I knew this was a one way avenue I could drive down with my eyes closed. Turns out I wouldn't need to drive that far.

I do believe this is the first time in my life I've lived only a few houses down from a crime scene tape party that the Police were invited too. By the way WRAL, I was working from home all day and I was wearing my nice pants in case you wanted to do a full body interview. Top notch reporting.

Check out the names: Gary Brady Sr. must be a proud papa.

Dried Grapes

There is a zaggy road, forceful in its turns, ill-planned, that runs through Gum County and dumps out onto the kind of highway one would highlight with white signage. At the intersection, where one must decide on turning one way or the other - or just plowing into the barbed wire fence straight ahead - sits Donald Raisin.

                You could hardly call him a boy. But since no subset of women, men, peers, or queers would call him a man or a child, we can settle on boy. I guess you could call him a boy. His lower arms, glistening in the sun as he sits cross-legged juggling the chain of his 10-speed, are not vastly smaller than his upper arms. That is not to say either are entirely impressive specimens.

If you want impressive, and I’m sure you do, look closer at his eyes. The intensity is impressive. There, split diametrically by his skinny nose, flint and focus are poured together and laminated onto shining quarters, waiting to be spent.

Scattered across the path of his past are husks of former relationships. Without exception eviscerated, transparent and examinable, were anyone interested in examination. Donald slips his teeth over his lower lip without thinking. Thinking he must fix the bike to get home to get fed, he doesn’t notice the long shadow move across the passing lane behind him. Husks rustle, but Donald is too focused to allow osmosis of this information to infiltrate the forefront of his conscious thoughts.

Donald considers the issue at hand. Seven miles between himself and home. Jammed between points A and B, clumps of bike chain and oily, sequenced links. Donald moves methodically through the issue, placing force on the chain’s catch with his right hand and culling the extra chain into a manageable position with his left. Like a mechanic playing an oboe in the bassment with a cleft lip, Donald understands the importance of moving quickly through time.

Finally, all is in place. The bike stands up, as does Donald, and the shadow has taken to the sagebrush in the adjacent ditch. This is the essential precipice of the afternoon; bike, boy, shadow, enstanced and in transition between almost and ready. Donald is suddenly gone, still standing but no longer there, remembering with unequivocal alacrity the first time he ever felt fear. He is suddenly sure he needs to get home. Pumping the pedals, he flies past the Gum County sign, sure that he needs to get the hell home before Shane does.

Open

she sits him down in a swayed backed chair

reaches for still unyielding vine

and threads it through his torso

elbow across chest into pit, entwining

hands clenched tied back with wire

his desire to waken, unavailable

feet taped screwed to the legs to the floor

jaw stretched open stuffed silent

she tests the connection, push tug tilt

all is holding, secured in union

the restraints do not,

lessen, taut

world on paws, tipping in stasis, axis wrenched

she speaks and pulls flexing, waiting

he is talking, walking, her fingers flutter

he could be anyone.

it isn’t anyone. it is him,

alive with her nearly flipping

the switch on the sun

in the sky wide

Open

Hallo-Weirdos

The most frustrating point in my Halloween preparation timeline happened in a WalMart. In the shoes section. The ladies shoes section. Specifically, the boots section of the ladies shoes section. I was desperately trying to get my wide-load feet to feed into the talkative end of a pair of women's cowboy boots. Halfway in might as well been all the way, because for a good ten minutes I was unable to pull out, dancing horizontally on the tile in increasingly discouraging spirals until finally one boot flew off into the nearby jewelery department. It was time to rethink my costume: The Cowboy of Questionable Intent.

I went hunting for "boot alternatives."

Boot Alternatives 4 the Urban Cowboy

$20 later I also had a bullet sash, a pink cowboy hat, and some wranglin' gloves. I got home to find out who would be joining us for the night weekend out in Chapel Hill. The lineup and their accompanying mugshots follow:

Why Nudists Love Airports

Airports are hubs for insecurity: you have your wary mothers, jealous lovers, and sexist, unloved guard dogs. It's about to get better, because next-gen airports will be exotic palatial resorts for bare skin expression. Wear your nicest smile, because you're about to get unintentionally naked. YAY! And the TSA agents will be doing all of this without access to my immodest charm and alluring whispers.

Airport security should consider adding a lie detector portion to their invasive eye-brawling. A possible question: "Do you like being naked when fully clothed?" For a nudist, pure pleasure would be evident in their answer. Anyone else who claims they don't like it, they're probab(ly)ing. Word has it there's a genital recognition software that is in development to pair with the new UIA (Underneath It All) system.

It isn't that security will like looking at these photos (though the guard dogs certainly will). For them, this is sure to redefine terrorism - having to graze upon these normally ungazed pastures. Ask Jenn Sturger, Irv Favre, or Brett's mirror; it can be the scariest thing in the world.

It does force terrorists/nudists to start being more creative. With no chance of sneaking a fart onto a plane, let alone any weapon with physical mass, attacks will now either be somatic or psychological. Sharpened dentures and fake nails. Lengthy, annoying diatribes referencing 18th century socioeconomic theory. Bad breath. Harsh opinions. Throw in a few exalted nudists, embarrassed civilians, and thyme, and you have all the necessary ingredients for Disaster Soup.

When scanned, don't brattle anyone's brittle eardrums or revert to childhood tantrum techniques or you just might earn yourself a free physical.

Three-year-old gets pat down

I assume most TSA agents aren't doctors, so can you really trust their opinions? The most likely diagnosis: wear less metal, drink more private jet water, and wear more fashionable jeans - you have just earned yourself a spot on the Not-at-all-Fly List.

LAWL: Lemurs AdWord Love

Yesterday, I needed to catch up on Dexter. Instead of torrenting the episodes, I was lazy and streamed them online from what can only be described as an "iffy" website. 

The experience reminded me why I prefer downloading; I was confronted with countless advertisements. They ran the gauntlet from an online dress-this-Barbie game to an offline eat-my-shorts event. Some were loud. Others were silently gaudy.

Then, I was smacked in the eyes by the most beautifully crafted ad I've ever, ever peered upon. I wept in exultation. Like a pirate in love, I tearfully smiled into a crusty bowl of hard water. What was previously confusing - the appeal of mayonnaise, card-counting, astral physics, how to start a garden - was suddenly clear. Whatever a lemur scream sounds like, I want that sound to play on repeat at my wedding instead of "Here Comes the Bride." 

Thank you, Duke Lemur Center, for advertising to me. 

I won't go, because I assume I can't afford to gaze in-person upon such good looking lemurs. Not only is there the entrance fee, but I have to consider the cost of all the lost time I'll have at work reflecting on how great it was.

Seriously, a personal tour? How do the lemur tour guides traverse the language barrier? They must have some high-tech translation software over at Duke.

In Related News, Time is a Relative

Grandma,

I’m still striving to figure out what you were to me. On paper: my grandmother, a caretaker, food maker, and forsaker of conditional, traditional love. From you, like no one else, I could expect to be approached in deference, even though you were 60 years my surpasser.

Since you have left, I have learned how to write a business plan and a resume. I have learned how to bake at high altitudes and mismanage a bank account. Though clearly, as my blurry eyes can attest, I have not learned how not to cry while reflecting on your existence during a cross-country red-eye flight. This is very old-fashioned, having a notebook and pen and a few airline peanuts as complementary sidekicks. 

I have passed every test put before me with a flourish that would make you proud. I have learned the literal meaning of things you used to lean in to tell me; turns out they were just Spanish words for look, grandson, stupid, and precious. Their meaning was evident to me already and seeing them reduced to words with dictionary definitions is somehow cheapening. To me they all meant “I love you, no matter what.” Ah yes, eyes still pretending to be tributaries; go away flight attendant. 

Pause.

I haven’t stopped playing Bingo, but I doubt you would recognize it in its current form. Instead of carefully marking your Bingo sheets with bleeding tubes of color, I highlight spreadsheets one occluded cell at a time. I remember your obsession with foot comfort. Reeboks abounded like rabbits and shoe horns were as accessory to getting ready to “go out” as texting progress updates is these days.

Somehow, you could smack your lips and cause a cheek pinch. On chill, dry nights in New Mexico you talked to me of the stars. You would point with your handheld cigarette and unbridled passion at space, talking about aliens and a radio host named Art, all while humming to me The Girl from Ipanema. I would close my eyes, imagining, and then the cheek pinch sound would come. It was just a sound, but my cheek would feel sufficiently pinched.  That sound and your change in tone wrapped me up like the pig-in-the-blanket snacks that you used to make me; an intriguing association between my senses. Your quirk - the lip smack - squeezed me with such force as to create an impenetrable fortress of credulous safety. I would open my eyes, and you would still be sitting, pointing with smoke at the speeding, tiny lights in the sky.

When I want to see you, I watch my baby video with you rolling me around on a bed like tortilla dough as I smile with my mouth and eyes. I loved you because you would hold my wrist, taking risk out of my life and shouldering all responsibility for my success.

You had a better grasp on reality than gravity does. You didn’t feed me pendejada about becoming president one day or walking on the moon. You would instead predict that my compassion would act as an asset in my future relationships. I would be the best husband, the most responsible brother, the most respectful son. You believed, as many have hoped, that I could influence by being centered and honest and humble. You mistook me for a martyr.

After you died, rooms took on more significance for a good while. Suddenly, I discovered what walls were: a double-edged sword. What once acted as a container for joy and learning and your presence was now a coalition of erected hurdles in collaboration to keep you out of my sight. I was always convinced you were on the other side, waiting for me in the next room. While you moved to a more sustainable enterprise without me, I found out the ease with which freedom can invert to capture.

I can’t believe I result from you. You: a small bundle of energetic benevolence. Me – red-flagged in Kindergarten for making the 5^th grade girls cry during recess. I miss you like a 500 page metaphor misses the point.

Adios,

Wesley

ZooBorns Escape, Transition from Cute to OMG!

I'm not yet sold on 3D movies - they can be quite a headache - but I am shocked (SHOCKED!) that there have been no plans announced to shoot a 3D movie about ZooBorns.

It's blinking because it knows

how powerful hypnosis can be.

Imagine IMAX-imizing the profits of your Zooborns empire, Andrew Bleiman and Chris Eastland. Envision an ocelot pup spinning toward you, weightless; an in vitro virtual reality Inception. Leo DiCaprio could play the lab assistant, confused over his feelings for the newborn anteater, but deftly proficient at juggling petri dishes.

Obviously the ZooBorns would escape, led by the stumbling elephant calf with photographic memory. They could StumbleUpon Tent City in the arid desert state of Arizona. There, they undoubtedly work their way through an escalating plot maze of succulent social workers, multi-dimensional assaults on their base tent, and dizzying cinematography (let Lindsay Lohan work the camera as community service, everybody wins).

Finally, the pups, calves, cubs, fawns, et ceteras and the single joey could return to the Zoo as guest judges for America's Got Cute. 

You know this film would test well among mothers, their children, atheists, and Europeans. If I were you guys, I would pull the trigger on this idea before Michael Bay gets his grubby forepaws wrapped around the concept and chokes it into the ground amidst gigantic explosions.

ZooBorns is for sale on Amazon.com

Slideshow of Zooborns on Wired.com


UPDATE: Somebody at ZooBorns likes the idea. Hopefully they let me help out with the script?

Sun/Fun/Cisco

Characters: Sudip, Paz, James, Zhang it!, Candlewick, Ash

Smartphones for Smart?People – Sudip does his best mercenary work when he is unpaid and under the influence. The man is a shock to all ecosystems he enters; he floats from here to there faster than a waif on vibrate. He executed a perfect evaporation from the club scene even though no crime had been committed. Next time we saw him was three hours later; marching through the apartment building lobby with a cup from Carl's Jr. in his left hand and an excuse for his disappearing act in his left brain.

At this point in the night Paz was missing his iPhone. On the way home Paz told us he believed Sudip had the phone in his possession. We were about to find out this was not true.

“Where is my phone?” Paz asks the simplest question, expecting an answer in parity. Instead, he was informed by Sudip that his phone was probably adhering to one of the following conditional states:

• On his own person: “Check your pockets.”
• Sold into unknown realms: “The aliens took it.”
• Questioning its real owner: “It wasn’t yours in the first place.”
• Undergoing temporary dementia: “I don’t know where it is. It doesn’t know where it is.”

There are clues to its whereabouts, and I seem to be the only one in custody of the faculty to put the pieces together. First clue, the Carl’s Jr. cup. I have a certain respect for all things Carl/Karl, and deduced I should trust my instincts and approach Carl. We found three Carl’s Jr. within theoretical “waifing” distance. When asked which one he attended, Sudip first claimed none and then all and then something in between. I then called Paz’s cell #, talked to the Indian who answered, and formed a dispatch party to go rescue the phone.

As we powerwalked, Sudip and his shadow waifed by very quickly on the other side of the street. We called to him, but he was already gone; hugging curbs and shifting perspectives is his specialty. His business card probably declares him a Shortcut Specialist. Our party found a cab, and when we arrived Sudip was nowhere visible. We wondered, had we really beaten him there?

Paz engaged the man at the register, pointing to his iPhone on the counter and saying something like, “That’s my phone.”

This received a “Maybe yes. Maybe no. We’ll see.” Paz asked the man to input his unlock code, and it worked. The man simply nodded and said, “Interesting.” Paz asked for the phone, but it was at this moment that Sudip burst through the door, shouting joyously in Hindi for all to fear. The sales associate’s face lit up with exultation, and suddenly everyone was smiling. Sudip sidled up to the counter, said some rough words which I can only assume came out smooth in another language, and was handed the phone. It was around this time that I noticed the smiling Mexican in the corner.

Paz and I asked for a backstory, and to our surprise, actually got one. Apparently Sudip had fallen asleep with two iPhones stretched out across a booth’s table: his own and Paz’s. Some indiscriminant failure of a criminal strode by and grabbed Paz’s phone, making a mad dash toward the door. At this point the Mexican security guard (working at Carl’s Jr.?) calmly walked forward and choked the thief to the ground. This man, the Mexican, now failing to suppress a smile under the large grey mustache on his face, could have been no more that 5’5”. This put the thief either in dwarf territory or recently escaped critical care patient.

Needless to say, when the fiasco unwound, Sudip told the security guard and cashier that the phone was not his. He gave it away to the cashier. Case closed, like the iPhone’s locked OS.  The END.

Surfing and Climbing – I received a text from my mom while I was at the beach.

“No more surfing – a great white attack in San Bernardino, love you.”

This was a turning point in the trip, for I was unable to text back… my fingers were inoperable. I had been “surfing” for so long and in such cold conditions that my hands were not only useless but suffering from gender confusion; I felt weaker than a premature baby girl born to an American-dollar father and a shallow-gene-pool-with-no-lifeguard mother. I dropped the cell and answered the call of the wild - a call that was immediately dropped by AT&T. I could see unlinked clouds scrolling across the distant Verizon.

The sharks and I got along in that we didn’t acknowledge each other’s existence. I was especially able to overlook a possible shark attack when I found out a member of our surfing party was bleeding profusely from the foot. Ain’t no shark gonna come get me when there is bloodier food in the water, right?

To transition from wet to dry, James took me climbing. James, for those of you who don’t know, is a humble host and more active than a culture of edible bacteria. Climbing, for those of you who don’t care, is the act of elevating oneself above oneself for the sake of forearm muscle mutilation. It is a form of social suicide that requires fake rocks and dirty hands, kind of like WalMart engagement-ring shopping. To learn more, go to your local parking garage and jump off.

In actuality, climbing was a great workout and James was a gentle belayer, plus the ladies there were quite fit, like a Honda. It makes sense; it’s hard to flail up a wall if you’re carrying around extra cottages and cheese in your sweatpants.

FroYo in the City; Diggnation – The food out west proved to be as good as advertised. Not that I knew who was doing the advertising, or even who was doing the cooking, but I enjoyed the calories nonetheless.

A post-lunch ice cream craving brought about a chilly discussion on the finer points of Frozen Yogurt, a phrase expected to be shorted to “FroYo” to avoid future chastisement. A slip of the tongue into the creamy regions of the bacteria-infused treat was sure to cause concern, but not nearly as much as saying “Frisco” or “San Fran.” We were ordered by all we met: call it “SF” or “the City.”

Ash, a former North Carolinian, who let us crash without cash, took us to see DJ Solomon at Ambassador 415. To get in, the doorman had to verify Ash’s connection to the DJ by way of a Facebook message exchange. Close call avoided my remixed messages; it was a great night.

By the end of the trip, Zhang it!, Candlewick and I were so plugged in to the pulse of the City and became so good at blending in that we were correcting the Local Natives of SF on correct location pronunciation and generally just being ignominious sassholes. On our last day, we attended a live Diggnation tech talk. We had a good time meeting the hosts of the show, Alex Albrecht and Kevin Rose, and tried to convince them to swing by Raleigh sometime. They let us take their pictures and stand near them for a few seconds.

Look! Perfect height and color balance! What a priceless photo.

I was introduced last night to Paz

                Who is Raeli honest and good-natured

Last night Sudip got very truncated and

                Ended up losing Paz’s phone

What this meant to me was a haggard

                Late-night trip to Carl’s Jr.

Listening to Hindi cash-counter communications

                I was entranced by the diminutive security guard

This small man who claimed to have tackled

                The robber, stilling immediately the potential of robbery

I watched a crowd of City folk dance on stage

                In homogenous synchronization and sweat

I danced at the airport and on the sidewalk and on the dance floor

                The latina ladies appreciated my snappy gyrations

Surfed alongside blood provided from feet divided, not mine

                Caught myself enjoying the speed of waves breaking

Something inside me mended when rended board upended

                It created a gap between wrong and right, clarified the murky with authority

I looked dry in a wetsuit and it chested quite nicely

                I curled like a turbine under a crested white strip showing off my curly whites

If you haven’t heard they should sell rape kits at surf shops because

                I have white foam in every orifice, bruising on my thighs, and I feel cold inside.

                The tip of a surfboard; the instrument of delivery for fully unbuttressed penetrative accessorization

I think this unintended tender blender of dendrite detritus

Is the result of my needing sleep and this computer not providing it

Every character I type has a foible, every hero a foil, and every seed… the right soil

Nobody puts techno in the boardroom and nobody puts babies in the bathroom

Two Long Breaths

They pulled up in fronts across from each other. The hand brakes were not engaged; feet hovered above stop and go. His face was nebulous, changing in quick factoring fashion after every interaction. Her face was captured thunder in a Mason jar.

He first offered up a memory. It was a tickling electricity meant to probe everything and prove nothing. It failed on both accounts, for she was never unready and had already grasped the foreseeable path of their conversation and knew she could shuffle and deal his emotional flash cards quite easily. To her, he had never been a challenge. His nostalgic words crashed down with gravity, and then silence snuck between them like a speeding chariot – and was gone again with the next hush of winter’s unwinding exhale. It was now mutually understood that this fight was taking flight; he turned off his cart’s engine.

He crossed his fingers and legs in opposing patterns, trying to present to her a complex figure – a helix or an unsolvable proof – but she remained uninspired by his neutral advances. She launched unabashedly.

Thus spake the grey lady, each word a cube of iced, laconic invective, “Don’t will yourself to and fro, for you are not itinerant. You are static in a dynamic universe. I share this changing world with the rest of humanity, but you are not here with us. We don’t even see you. Your invisible existence creates eddies of misinformation, swirls of lost communication, and a complete loss of loquacious fidelity.”

Here she turned to pause her front.

“To put it quite simply, I am in a changed state. While once we shared a common playing pitch, I have sharpened to a fine point and you have gone flat. I can command the recent history of the near future, whereas you know nothing past your own nose. I can change the air around you before you can change that look on your face.” Remember here that he has proven repeatedly that he can change expressions faster than melted silver can reflect mere ire; that’s quick silver. She continued, “You have a penumbral instinct to crescendo in increments of unfortunate. This will be our final exchange, and this my final word.”

She sparked her cart and receded out of the shadows and into darkness. In his chest suddenly existed a steel vacuum, pulling artfully his heart into his stomach into his stainless stolen soul. Her words remained; a sculpture staring at no one in particular, certainly not him. He picked out a tool, turned it over in his mind, and began to chip off phrases. Off came static. Misinformation, he chiseled into twenty pieces. In increments of unfortunate, he slowly succumbed to despair. She was gone. He was then struck; bolted to the floor in an undistinguished seizure of indefinite length. 

Richard A.Rodriguez asks to have his name changed to Poor Rod

In a tearful postgame news conference, the University of Michigan’s head football coach - formerly known as Rich Rod - announced his intent to henceforth be referred to as Poor Rod. Citing frustration with his team’s defensive sievery, Poor claimed he now no longer deserves such a well-endowed first name.

P. Rod intends to make the designation formal at the Washtenaw County courthouse on Monday, Oct. 18^th and will keep the name until “the goddamned cicadas stop clapping their ass-cheeks together in the secondary and come up with either a tackle or at least a picture of a tackle.”

Poor is not without resources for this transformation. He has adopted Chad OchoCinco as his name-change mentor and is having his personal assistant steal a copy of Rich Dad, Poor Dad for him from a gougingly overpriced local bookstore: Ulrich’s. Poor is planning on releasing a collection of motivational locker room speeches in a podcast titled XOXO: Hugs and Kisses between the Tackles.

Poor has so obviously experienced an emotional earthquake that some close friends and family members are concerned with his mental and structural integrity. In a complete misunderstanding of the concepts of reparation and organ donation, Poor wants to begin tithing by donating 15% of his sperm to Scientology.

The name change announcement has sparked a flurry of activity in the pigskin pigpen. Tony Romo has proposed a three-way trade with Dr. House and Lil’ Romeo to become Dr. Tony Romeo. Eli Manning has changed his first name to Payton. Carl Weathers wants to get into football and then change his name to Thunderhead Weathers.

As our nation awaits the next racy sext from Brett Far<3 (sp?) to quell our current unrest, it might help us all to recall a quote from Shakespeare:

A rose by any other name… could be the vehicle by which the current mass of thorny football fans is driven to sweet release. Unfortunately, that vehicle is inevitably powered by the limited resource Winning Percentage; a resource as hard to find in Ann Arbor as a clean place to get a sex change. Just ask Poor Rod.

The Opposite of a Startup: a Dead Celebrity Mockup

I linked up with the marketing department of a nationwide Real Estate "sites of interest" site. I provided them access to my Improvised Creative Device and they lent me a company car and a documentary on Columbo. They like my style; hope they like it for awhile.


Jerry Garcia

Listed at just under $4 Million, who wouldn’t want to drifft dreamily onto this Gratefully Undead property? At 7,000 sq. feet, this mansion will have you channeling the Dead and throwing Cherry Garcia ice cream socials in no time.

The house was renovated in 1990 only one year after being built, likely due to the black hole Jerry is said to have created with his long-winded (and often misunderstood) dissertations on hair gel use.

The house is lovingly referred to as a “Gated Paradise,” just like Jerry’s privates sector used to be. Unique features include a water softener (for those who don’t think water is soft enough) and three fireplaces – one of which is a fireplace built to provide heat to another fireplace.

The expansive property boasts room enough for both a Helipad and a Bong Shelter. Running through the foothills on the south end of the property is a scorpion highway and a sparkling stream of ruggedly clad illegal immigrants. It’s the kind of place you can threaten to send your kids to… for Spring Break.

Frank Sinatra

Like many other places in the world, Frank’s former property features air, access to sunlight, square feet, and the unmistakable smell of crime swept under an ugly but expensive Persian rug.

The house’s rooms look like something a misanthropic Grandmother would weave into a 1960’s quilt while tripping on a Robotussin and Crisco lard smoothie. If you’re feeling nostalgic, throw on some cool-blue contacts, put a cancer-stick in your mouth, and look into the mirror; but please, don’t bother looking at the interior pictures of this house.

The internet is abuzz with the abundance of grass this property offers, conveniently overlooking the classless fog choking the property’s aura. The courtyard looks like a perfect host arena for a Mayan basketbrawl game, but is otherwise useless. However, the property does have hidden perks in that the ghost hookers floating through the guest quarters only charge a dime for laissez-faire treatment and a mere nickel to upgrade to the Rack Pack package.

Frank had two hobbies: cooing to doves on Sunday mornings and crooning lullabies to mob bosses during the Italian New Year. The only proof the FBI could produce on Sinatra’s mafia connection was a scratchy audio file featuring Frankie whistling “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Scarface” during an especially missle-toed celebration in 1984.

Michael Jackson

Experts contend that Michael Jackson had at least five dedicated fans. Pick a random person from this demographic and search their apartment and this is what you’d find:      

• Stuffed animals with beady eyes and duct-taped wrists
• Popped bubble packaging smeared with melted maturity and Canola oil
• A box labeled “Shower Drain Trezures”
• Actual VHS tapes

Science tells us that MJ had the brain of a tabby cat, the countenance of a middle school janitor, and the soul of a wildcat offense. Born with nine lives, Michael accidentally dropped several off a balcony in Berlin, but managed to die with at least two lives saved up in a Swiss bank account.

Unfortunately, no one who truly cared about Michael can afford his $28 million house. But between Michael’s two unspent lives and his five adoring fans – coupled with the fact that the house is owned by Hubert Guez (CEO of Ed Hardly) - a solution can surely be reached.

Target market: New Joysey’s young adults and Cuba’s fashion-unconscious Fidel Ca$tro.

Action Plan:

1. Sell a 12-month calendar picturing stuffed animals wearing Ed Hardy t-shirts.
2. Use the calendar money to bribe entrance to the mansion.
3. Set fire to the bubble packaging, Trezures, and VHS tapes, releasing mass amounts of Chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere.
4. Auction off the right to douse the fire to the Sierra Club of Hollywood..
5. Pay for the mansion.
6. Help celebrate Michael’s life by calling Ricky Martin and telling him you’re not just sure you have AIDS… you’re HIV positive. It might help infect Ricky with a little of Michael’s talent.

Ted Kennedy

From the center of America’s East Coast, the Diet Crack capitol of the U.S.A., comes this White House replica built in the likeness of God and Ted Kennedy, in reverse order. The air in the house is said to be frozen in time, iced permanently from light-hearted conversations such as:

Ted:       “Victoria, where is my whiskey?” Slap.

              Silence. Slap.

Victoria: Crying, “You’ve got it clutched under your left-wing, Ted, you faithless bird.”

ChappaQudditch was Ted’s favorite sport, but many of his friends admitted that he was apt to get rough while playing. He would sometimes get so worked up he would drive off midgame, only to later confess that he should have stayed and seen things through to the end.

Ted was as well received as the Senate Majority Whip as George W. Bush was at Kayne’s 25^th birthday sleepover. Kennedy’s Whip skills were unofficially certified by Indiana Jones because Harrison Ford was emotionally unavailable at the time.

Ted publically refused to let the butler use the house’s Butler’s Pantry. After his death, the pantry was found to be overflowing with Twizzlers and Boston Red Sox batting gloves. And confusingly, pictures of Todd Palin.

Edward’s unapologetic support for universal healthcare led to the liberalization of many aliens in urgent need of medical care, though their inability to reach Earth within the next 15 light years complicated net benefit calculations.

Jim Morrison

The realtor for Jim Morrison’s listing has an easy job. He simply had to memorize this easily ingestible historical account and rehearse it as the sales pitch for the house:

“This caramel-calm hallway is where James first learned that he looked better with his shirt off than on. Next, this majestic entrance to the living room is where the world first became entranced with the dark punctuality of Jim’s nipples.

Here then is the room where one of Jim’s many lady friends asked him to please put on a shirt. He simply cocked his head and tweeted (vocally) ‘Is this a cover up?’ and continued burning “long” words out of the dictionary.

Lastly, this mid-century example of arched architectural ambiancery is where Jim first accessorized for murder: the leather wristlet he first put on here helped him assassinate the psychological chastity of a nation’s women.”

Jim had all The Doors removed from his home as a symbolic act of emotional embolism that kept all the windows honest. He was tired of his friends saying he made a better Door than a Woman in the Window. Jim’s last words to the house, while melting his own eardrums with a recording of passive-aggressive dolphin mating calls, were:

What once was loved

and found undone

freebased assumption

jet-setting sun

eat your weedies

cock your gun

universal jail

house of fun

Truman Capote

The pictures of Truman’s former residence look like the work of an amateur surveillance officer with an inverted sense of the relationship between what is being captured and what exists in reality. We see the outside of the house from the space inside what is likely a speeding Kia Sorrento. The kitchen picture was probably captured with a purse cam and a cross-dresser’s lipstick trigger. The backyard: memorialized with a satellite snapshot reflected off the crying eyes of a homeless dog.

Truman didn’t own this house. He bought the right to rent it from Oliver Smith with wordy logic and a handful of chocolate raisins. Capote penciled Breakfast at Tiffany’s at this house despite Tiffany’s lack of interest in ever meeting before brunch. Truman also wrote two essays about the house: A House on the Heights and The Forever Running Toilet is Oliver’s Fault.

Sharing Truman’s love of Brooklyn’s broken social scene, traipsing bullet parades and expansive rug trade should hardly prequalify one to live in this house. To ensure longevity here, one must enmesh with the house’s soul. Broker a helicopter. Take a defensive driving lesson. Paint a self-portrait with invisible ink. Google yourself. It won’t be easy, but then again life never was for Truman. He learned the hard way that flambuoyancy doesn’t ensure flotation; only a true man can rise to the top.

Aaron Spelling

Aaron Spelling was a lover; a lover of candy, Candy, and mansion expansion. Aaron left the world the leftovers of a TV-dinner empire. Much of what he left us we accept as is. Tori he could’ve had back, but her return date was smudged and she forgot how to spell her last name so we couldn’t send her home.

Even in death, Aaron one-up’s the world on a consistent basis. He can’t help it. He was the 11^th-highest earner among dead celebrities last year. Only Bob Saget is more revered among deceased actors. The Holmby Hills mansion is the MOST EXPENSIVE PROPERTY IN THE WORLD. A golden goose could eat a dozen platinum Mastercards and lay golden karats on Pamela Anderson’s silicone chest, and the Spelling property would still be more expensive ounce for ounce.

Candy is considered the penultimate socialite. The meaning of socialite is nebulous, but can be loosely traced back to the concurrent emergence of chilled glasses and soft hotel towels. It can really only be defined relatively: given the choice between spending four hours at an art gallery or dedicating a national park, Candy will disregard both choices and invariably choose to eat braised baby geese and smoke somebody else’s cigarillo.

Candy is moving out because Aaron failed to provide her an alternate version of himself after checking-in to 7^th Heaven. She says the house is just too big for her alone. She wants to downgrade to a quaint little place that only has 50-foot vaulted ceilings. She is sick of having central cooling powered by an army of Emperor penguins blowing synchronously over a field of icy diamonds. She says she wants to live before she dies, but really, she just wants to be able to get to the front door without calling a cab.

Maharishi Yogi

Never has a house been so enhanced by a former inhabitant. The walls sing peaceful hymns in the silent vibrato of transcendence. Calling out from what few shadows exist are the murmured susurrations of two hundred acute angels scared of becoming enlightened. The gathered chant in unison: Yogi come home. Marharishi, come home and turn off the light in the kitchen, it’s been on for years and it’s just too bright. The house is supposedly “Neoclassical” and “prestigious” and “historic,” but Marharishi never spoke to any of these points and so such words should be replaced by “unmounted” and “soulless” and “perceptibly existing.”

Marharishi, who can be identified easiest as the man with a startled pack of river rats swimming up the side of his head, was known to be a source of abundant energy. 

The Beetles - a somewhat popular British band from sometime in the 1900’s - were said to have nibbled at Maharishi’s crumbs; his wisdom crumbs. Hiking steadily up this trail of crumbs is said to have led them to a blissful meditative state with a side effect of one Yoko O-no-get-out-of-here.

Marharishi defied age by throwing away his birth certificate and replacing it with a gift certificate for The GAP. To further supplement his boyishly old looks, he did copious amounts of yoga and was always sweaty. Followers could drink his sweat to achieve full-body paralyzation and the realization that yoga sweat can be toxic if taken in any dosage... unless ingested with a grain of salt.

Groucho Marx

The listing claims the property is “emotionally Spanish.” If is truly the case, bring a Kleenex and a spare road shoulder to cry on, because this is a house that likes to party – though it will probably end up drinking too much and sobbing about previous owners and wondering why the baroque 10-bedroom from a few years back hasn’t been returning house calls. Groucho Marx, the property’s most famously mustachioed owner, always knew he wanted a home with “the square footage of a warehouse and the ample edges of a whorehouse.” Well, Groucho always got what he wanted. Now, you too can have what Groucho always wanted.

Groucho would often invite over the Vlasic Pickle Stork to float in the pool water, and then take shots at its inability to relate to cucumbers and the young adult demographic. There are certainly stork tears in the pool, which is sure to be a draw for wildlife and nature enthusiasts.

Groucho’s puns were said to have been delivered more ruthlessly and unabashedly than bare-knuckled justice in Juvenile detention halls. However, no amount of custom puns or homespun cussing could get him out of explaining why on earth he could hold onto a beautiful house but not a beautiful wife. Each of his three women would likely agree: he was just emotionally Spanish.

Ed McMahon

Who was Ed McMahon? Johnny Carson’s excuse to practice side-kicks. What is Ed McMahon’s house? A wooden floor’s poignant essay on hotel conference rooms. What do you get when you put the two together under one roof? An excuse to kick every crappy conference room out of the first floor of every hotel in America into one house and call it “Mediterranean” style.

Everybody loved Ed, then, but Everybody loves Raymond, now. Ed went through the same foreclosure mess as the rest of the nation, which solidified his claim that he was in fact human. He succumbed to the same fallacy that we all did: four letter words are all bad; why rent when you can OWN! Or maybe he just hid his money in a subprime location and covered it with a TARP. It can happen to anybody?

Is Chinatown in San Francisco? Maybe. But no one can argue that Ed McMahon is in heaven, chasing bunnies and breathing pure oxygen. God’s modest hunting pup; The Eternal Sidekick.

Classically trained in non-classical ballroom dancinG

Life really is just a series; a killer lineup of cereal commercials all promising sugar and mother’s approval. The only difference between a Monday and a Friday is that the latter has 2% more fat and brighter lighting. Everything seems full of potential. Since days are just concepts with labels, for simplicity I just call every day a Friday and kick my socks off with a weakened state of mind.

When a friend says that corn is in everything and is the most ingrained ingredient in the gradient from Snapple to spaghetti, I tell him I could go without it for a month – and it is well understood that I will. When another asks where I derived my precise approach to invading personal space, I inform that I was classically trained in non-classical ballroom dancing. When an acquaintance asks me the dirtiest word I know, I write it in cursive. When my boss asks me what I want to be, I tell him Chief Executive Officer… and that better come with a corner office.

Zhang it! and I are studying for the GMAT and LSAT, unsure about our futures but sure that our brains could use a steady diet of punishment. A word I learned recently: perspicuity. Thought I would pass along the knowledge. Glad I could clear things up.

To thank my wrist for keeping me digitally connected all these years, I went around punching sand piles. I was hoping to find the runaway injury that had been sadly missing from my life. I finally found it in a particularly hard pile during a volleyball match, the only positive result being that xrays came back negative and the doctor told me I have “dinosaur” bones. I took this to mean that I have every excuse to snap my teeth when I am feeling hungry, so now I don’t really talk to waiters so much as I point and the menu and scissor my incisors rapidly. Of course, he might have just meant that I have hollow bones. Or a hollow soul.

I think I might get a tattoo of a snarling dog on my back and a homeless ant holding a Feed Me? sign on the web of my right hand. That way when someone pats me on the back I can look over my shoulder and scream “Don’t bite!”, and when someone shakes my hand I can warn them not to shake the hand that needs. Realistically I’ll probably just get an American flag eating an eagle holding an iPhone in his talons right over my heart.

 Nice Clothes, but don't Thread on Me

Oh! nice smooth transition, because I just got an Incredible new phone which speciates from the Android family. It was a natural selection, being that I can’t turn down an attractive, svelte, smart and hand-holdable babe that never worries about looking good in a dress. It can take pictures, but not of itself… that would be against the rules we have set up and I can’t have it advertising itself all over the internet. If you see any suspicious pics let me know: it looks like this.

I’m all moved in to my new house. I now have a pool and a dog and a ghost to take care of. A few spiders. Frogs. Wandering neighbors. Catty paperboys. And utilities.

In conclusion, synthetic cells are evil. We shouldn’t be playing God in Petri dishes - we should be playing Frisbee with our dogs with fine china dishes. We should be feeding China mission missiles, covering the country with religious pamphlets and hand-me-down oil. We should be teaching our kids to fight fair and trust clowns. Our lives are getting out of hand so we should start a breeding program for people with bigger hands. I have all the solutions, people just need to start asking better questions. It’s not that hard. That’s what ‘Sheed said.

I knew I thought I smelled you

I am getting so sick of this you spineless bastard. Yeah, that’s right you stupid invertebrate, I am going on record claiming that you were conceived out of wedlock. I’ve never had a problem with your kind before, but this has just gone too far.

I’ve given you more than one chance. Admittedly, you gave me about six months to cool off and that was quite kind of you after how things ended. I was just telling some friends last night about our encounter and how much it rattled me. If I were a cage, and you were a swift breeze or a jailed hawk, I would be rattling nonstop. That’s how deep you’ve cut.

At first you were just a bad dream; a Disconsolate Dream I mentioned to those close to me but otherwise chose to keep strapped intimately under my vest. The infectious poison of your existence was meant to be contained only in my head, and not spread from the darkness beneath your oily slithers into more natural and humane lighting.  Yes, I know you were raised in a hole in the ground and probably left to fend for yourself without parental guidance. But that is the byproduct of literally being a bastard and the topic is no longer up for debate.

You attacked me, unprovoked. I was a gentleman, enjoying an active lifestyle and good company, and I absentmindedly let the ball slip into your court. Reaching to get back what was rightfully mine, you exploded from the stacked bushels of my unconscious and into what social psychologists call my “personal space.” What you did was completely unacceptable but at least you knew your role and quickly receded to the hell from which you came. I almost blame myself more than I blame you, because a chance still stands that you are entirely of my creation; an entity of my incisive decisions.

Then, the lull. A full half year (or half full year) passed, you no doubt hibernating and planning the next public display of your sickness. Me, assuming you had been taught a lesson and dispersed of; a diluted pupil.

A huge mistake in reasoning that turned out to be. I fell enmeshed into the web you could never have spun yourself because god-forbid if you can spin webs then we are all doomed! Lying across a beautiful display of nature - showing yourself off like a sparkler on a birthday cake, seemingly winking at me with your rheumy, obsidian eyes - you waited. Weighted like the smashing end of a thrown gavel; the spinning conclusiveness of an impossible 200-year life sentence. Where you have been hidden is now of little importance. What matters now is erasing you completely from my life.